That Gormandizer Man

What If... Sleep Cycle

I use the Sleep Cycle app when I go to bed.

This is primarily because I sometimes go through bouts of insomnia. Usually I'm fine, but when work is busy, when there's big stuff going on in my private life, when I'm inspired by some great ideas I find it tough to sleep. Sleep Cycle helps me understand how well I'm sleeping on a nightly basis.

It's really good as it wakes you when it's the right time to wake you, not at a specific time. You give it a half hour window (say, from 7 - 7:30am) and it wakes you up at any point between those times when your body is ready to be woken up, and not when you're heading into a deeper sleep.

This graph here is a typical night's sleep for me:

Most nights during the week I don't really drink. Maybe a glass of wine with a meal or a cheeky ale, but not much. I find I sleep much better when I'm sober rather than when I've had a few drinks as you can see from the graph below.

Last night I had a few pints to celebrate a friend's birthday:

And you can see how different a typical night's sleep is when I'm sober compared to when I'm drunk.

But this is the rub. I've worked out that I don't sleep as well when I'm drunk, not the app.

So.

What If... I could add notes to each night's sleep to say if I've consumed any alcohol? Actually, taking it one step further, why can't Sleep Cycle link with MyFitnessPal and build up a database of the things I consume. Then it could spit out lots of useful and not so useful information. Useful: "You sleep for 1.23 hours more when you don't drink alcohol." Not useful: "You stay in deeper sleep more when you eat less than 4 carrots a day."

What If... I could build up a user profile and tell the app when I'm at a hotel and how firm the bed is, for example, and it spits out what kind of mattress I sleep better on? They could do a deal with a bed brand or a hotel brand and push relevant offers to me based on how right the beds are for me.

What If... I could program the app and give it favourite locations? "Home", "Hannah's" and "Dad's" for example, and it could tell where I was and tell me where I sleep best? Beyond that what about when I go on holiday? It could deduce where I am, what the weather's like and tell me my best sleep ever at the end of every year?

What If... It collects data throughout the different seasons and builds up a picture of how well I sleep in each, then gives me tips on new duvets with different Tog ratings? Then it could tell me what the temperature is likely to be next week and suggest the best one for me?

What If... It linked to my iPod/ Spotify/ iTunes and worked out that I listen to music when I sleep. (I do, I find it relaxing to have some ambient noise in the background.) Then it built up a profile of artists and genres that helped me sleep better than others and spat out a bespoke playlist via a 3rd party for me and then gave me a week's free play before asking me to purchase on iTunes/ Spotify?

What If... just What If...

(Of course all of these are beyond the original build of the app I'm sure, but I love thinking What If...)
(And, as my friend Katy said in response to my post on MyFitnessPal, using these apps as marketing tools would turn some people off.) 

Don't say you're good. Just be good.

I've started using a new blog writing app recently. It's called MarsEdit and it's very good.

I always get a buzz when I start using a new app. When the UX is well thought out in an app it makes using it not only painless but actually enjoyable.

I am currently using the 30 day free trial, and it eventually costs £27.99. In my mind that is not cheap for what it is. In fact, I'd be so bold as to say the product itself isn't worth that money.

(The notion of value for apps is a really interesting subject I think. With the proliferation of freeware, freemium, shareware and paid apps the whole market has been blown open. It's a far cry from when I owned my Amiga and all games were roughly the same price.)

Here are a couple of examples of improvements I would make to the product:

 - I'd improve the use of colour -

That's the list of blog topics in the main window, but you can't tell which have been posted and which are drafts.

What If... There was a simple colour coded system that showed me quickly which had been published and which were drafts on the server so I could negotiate them quicker and remind me of drafts I had yet to write.

- I'd use dynamic naming - 

When you're writing a post you can either save it locally as a draft ('Save as Draft') or you can save it remotely on your blog's server. As I use more than one mac I like to keep things in the cloud so I can access them across multiple machines. However, when you want to save as a draft remotely the 'Send to Blog' button remains the same. I have to check more than once that I am saving a draft and not actually publishing a post when it's half written. Plus, when you save your draft by clicking 'Send to Blog' it automatically closes the post.

What If... When I ticked the 'Draft' button (not pictured) the 'Send to Blog' button changed to 'Save to Server' - then I'd know I wasn't publishing it instantly, and it'd know I don't necessarily want the post closed - I may just be saving the latest changes.

So those are just two small improvements I'd make to the app, and due to those factors I don't think it's worth £27.99. And, I can probably get it online somewhere for free if I wanted to do a little searching to get around the charge and continue using the app.

But I think MarsEdit is worth every penny and I'm going to pay it.

And this is why.

When I started using the app I thought I would send the developers some feedback via Twitter:

And they responded quickly. (Read the following from the bottom up).

They answered my question quickly and they took the constructive feedback in a positive way. And their tone of voice is one of a company that is constantly improving, of wanting to improve their product.

The way companies operate, and their product/ service being at the heart of their proposition is something Katy and I were discussing a while back on Twitter:

We were discussing how lots of brands say they are something with large communications positionings, yet their core proposition - what they actually are as a product or service - is very different. Katy's very interested in this, and I am too.

And it's this business mantra, why a business does what it does, that is interesting. Because, as I said up there, great communications are nice but if they're so different from the reality of the product or service, people will be let down. (I discussed this when I recently traveled on a Virgin Holiday here.)

And, this is why I'm going to pay the £27.99 for MarsEdit. I'm going to pay it because whilst I feel their product may not be worth the price, their service is. Their service is adding enough value to warrant the cost.

They don't have huge budgets to put an ad on TV to convince me the product is worth the money. They aren't sponsoring a global sporting event to shove their logo under my nose at every opportunity. They aren't bombarding me with numerous emails talking about what turns them on that week. Because all of that is meaningless if the product/ service lets me down.

No, they aren't manufacturing any stories to provide a spurious strategy to engage with me. They're simply being good, being valuable and adding value through their service, and not through communications.

Their service is their communications.

It's a very simple thought, but one we should all revisit every time we work on a new campaign. A little question for all of us during every project:

"Is this campaign highlighting a great product/ service, or is it trying to create desire for an average product/ service?"

What If... MyFitnessPal

There are some products and services that are a joy to experience. For example, I actively enjoy using my iPhone and look forward to my apps having updates for me to install because the apps are enjoyable to use and the update process fills me with anticipation. (I know how geeky I sound, but I'm sure of you will be the same... just be honest about it!)

This isn't something we should take for granted. I can remember years ago when I was looking after the IT system for a small business and I had to install updates for Microsoft Windows XP across a dozen machines. That wasn't fun and I certainly didn't anticipate it with fondness.

In a world where products are beautifully designed and as enjoyable to use as, say, Ommwriter or Things (two of my favourites) there are bound to be a few that are less successful, yet still very useful.

Recently I've started tracking what I eat to lose a little weight but also to build up a profile of my diet data to see if anything interesting comes out. (Mother touched on this obsession with personal data in their recent SFTW newsletter).

So I  downloaded MyFitnessPal. And it's great - that's why it's got five stars.

But I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I've got a few ideas on how I think they can make it a little better.

 - (1) Separate my exercise to motivate me more -

When I exercise I input how many calories I've burned and it deducts those from my daily totals. But, they don't show up on my Weekly Totals. I work hard running but I don't even get the reward of seeing it on my main screen, I only get to see it on the daily screen.

What If... The calories I've burned off were shown below the zero to show and celebrate my efforts instead of just accruing calories. That way I get to pat myself on the back when I see all the calories I've burned off that week.

 - (2) Utilise open APIs -

When I run I use my Garmin. Lots of people use their Nike+ or their miCoach. I note down the calories burned and input them manually into MyFitnessPal. Also, my Garmin has a health section where I update my weight and I have to repeat this action too.

What If... MyFitnessPal exploited open APIs and automatically fed this data into the app for me. (As my Garmin tracks my route it could spit out all manner of interesting data: "Well done - your run around Victoria Park means you burned off your whole breakfast.")

 - (3) Make meals inspiring -

There is a section in the app for meals. I haven't used it yet, partly because I don't really know how to and because it seems a little daunting. But there's an insight here that when you're tracking your calories you don't think about what you want to eat, you think about what you can eat. And thus you don't think of ingredients from a quality and taste point of you, it's very much from a quantity and calories point of view.

What If... MyFitnessPal created a content partnership with a major mult. They could then see the kinds of foods I'm entering into it and push recipe suggests to me, with offers. Your Heston's and Delia's of this world could push out a range of meals under 500 calories, or meals that use my regular ingredients.

 - (4) Use time and place more -

So there we are and this is now. I have 216 calories left to use if I want to today. But I'm not really tempted to. The app knows what time it is, can see where I am and knows when I've exercised so why doesn't it use that data intelligently?

What If... The same content partnership from above was used to entice me and motivate me in equal measure. The app could easily push me a message telling me where my local store is and push a relevant offer. "Nearly time for bed Mark. Use this voucher at your local Tesco (123 metres away on Smith Street) to celebrate your 1kg loss this week on any of our Be Good To Yourself range and get yourself something good for breakfast. Well done!"

What If... just What if...

 

The Second Interest Layer

I've recently bought a book I used to own when I was younger.

It's this:

I used to really enjoy looking at it. It has some great illustrations in it, and highlights key moments in football to exemplify coaching techniques. Great pieces of play like the amazing save Gordon Banks makes against Pele:

(Aren't those illustrations amazing?)

When I was a kid I used to look at these illustrations in wonderment. I used to imagine how good the saves were in real life, and hope that one day I'd see them on a TV show or compilation VHS I could borrow from a friend. The Gordon Banks save is very famous, so I did get to see that at the time I think.

You see, at that time there was no YouTube. There was no internet. The only chance I had of finding those clips was by chance. There was much more chance of the content being pushed to me, as I didn't know where to ask to get the content and thus there was little chance of me pulling it toward me.

But now the world is different. And pretty much everything is at my fingertips.

The other day I remembered this book and bought it second hand on Amazon. I wanted to see the illustrations again, but more than that I wanted to make it a book for now. And add another layer to it. To add a Second Interest Layer.

(Whilst we've all got an opinion on QR codes and how good (or not) they are, it serves a purpose for this.)

I now have an exciting experience ahead of me of searching YouTube for the myriad amazing footballing moments the book covers. And with a simple QR code I can make the book a lot more interactive.

This not only adds another layer of interest for my experience, but it makes it a little more interesting for other people looking at the book for the first time.

And this got me thinking... why can't we do this with everything? Why can't we make every second hand product more interactive and add another layer of interest to it? (I touched on this here)

What If... a second hand musical instrument could tell you who owned it, where it had travelled, the venues it had played, the genres it had been used for?

What If... a second hand piece of clothing could tell you how many times it had been washed, when it was manufactured and what that stain was?

What If... a second hand book had the thoughts and comments of the previous owner sitting in the margins?

These are just some bad examples of a Second Interest Layer I'm interested in. The inherent history and emotions associated with a product. Howies looked at something similar for their Hand Me Down range.

What If... all these stories were kept in one place?

One website where I enter a code (or take a pic of my object, scan a barcode or RFID tag etc) and it explains the Second Interest Layer to me. This would depend upon the owner inputting the data for products already manufactured but any new products could have this built into them, whether it be an RFID tag or some other smart chip. As I mentioned here in Contagious, some objects like smart phones have amazing capabilities to enable clever things to happen automatically. (And we know they can, even if we don't want them to.)

What If... just What If...