Top 10 places to look for gadget ideas in your organization
- Customer Dis-satisfiers. Take a look at what generates call volume in your call center. For one company, a large driver of phone complaints was the “where’s my rebate check” query. Customers hated the rebate process. A quick and inexpensive solution was allowing users to install a gadget that gave them the current status of their rebates. There is no need for them to call – the customer knows exactly what is happening and when they can expect it. They don’t need to visit a Web site – it is right there in whatever they use for their home Web page (could be iGoogle, Facebook, MySpace, etc.). This is especially effective where the customer is waiting for multiple rebates. Not only does the gadget reduce customer service calls – it has the additional advantage that the company can advertise specials for short periods of time that can easily be seen by the customer. Here is an example of this idea:
- Information accessibility. How quickly can your customers find the most accurate, up-to-date information on your company and products? Gadgets are a great way to keep a customer up-to-date with what you have to offer. A simple example is a real estate gadget that shows the latest properties that come on the market based on user-specified criteria.
- Think enablement. Think in terms of how gadgets can enable users. An excellent way to get gadgets accepted is to find ways to help the user be successful in whatever they do. So if you are targeting landscapers for example, offer them gadgets that track fuel costs, the weather, and economic conditions. Provide information in gadgets on how to deal with winter layoffs, how to control business costs, and where to get the best deals on workman’s compensation insurance. Provide tips on how to be a more efficient business. And then adorn each gadget with ads targeted specifically at the type of person using the gadget – and the customization parameters they use for the gadget.
- Dis-aggregate content. Take the content you currently offer your users, cut it up into small fragments and gadgetize it. Users can then aggregate the pieces they want, and customize them to provide exactly what they need.
- Simplify and automate common tasks. Breaking a complex process or task into simple steps and provide a view into these simple steps via a gadget is very powerful. Gone are the days when one had to visit the stock websites to find the stock quote of individual symbols. Now quotes are available in a gadget for a portfolio of stocks, in a single and simple view, updating almost real-time. Gadgets are also very helpful to people who have to do several common tasks repetitively, while also doing other work. Create gadgets to do simple tasks “off to the side,” like creating a new user account, resetting a password, changing an address, approving a purchase requisition, etc. With gadgets, users can perform these common actions quickly, in a compact and simple interface, without interrupting the other work open on their computer. Here is an example of a quick parts order gadget:
- Train and help. Provide snippets of training material and help and create a gadget that is always available to the user whenever they need it – without them having to do any searching or navigation.
- Monitoring. Gadgets are very useful to people who need to “keep an eye on” volatile data, like currency exchange rates, or things like machine availability, today’s sales, or inventory levels. Gadgets allow you to set up small monitoring tools that watch data values while you go on with other work on the rest of your screen. Gadgets create a consistent framework for monitoring, and allow for applications like combining everything you’re monitoring into one window, setting alert thresholds when something changes too much, and easily sharing such tools with others even in different companies.
- Build Communities . Use gadgets to facilitate special communities by providing news, membership lists, contacts, profiles, group interests, etc.
- Build mashups. Use gadgets to mashup information from multiple sources. A common example is to mashup data with Google maps:
- Provide something useful (even if it has nothing directly to do with your product). This allows you to get your brand on a users site. Examples:
- Target has a gadget that counts down to Christmas.
- Wrigley’s sponsors a Winamp media player that looks like a pack of gum.
- Purina provides a weather gadget to alert pet owners about good dog-walking weather.
- Hewlett-Packard offered a downloadable March Madness scoreboard that continuously pulled down college basketball tournament results.
