Q:do you ever watch "once upon a time"?
Nope, haven’t seen it! Not having a TV at my current apartment means I miss a lot of newer shows. :/ I’ve got friends who’ve saved the second season of The Walking Dead on Tivo…they want me to come over and watch so they can free up space.
My throat hurts from sighing the hardest I’ve ever sighed in my life.
via matt sugihara
Source: wtfqrcodes
Judgin’ Pitches, Hittin’ Switches
The “startup season” in Atlanta is slowly picking up steam. Business plan competitions, demo showcases, presentation practices, drink-ups, and a ton of other entrepreneurial events are being held for investors and investees alike. The common denominator in this varied collection of biz-focused get-togethers is, of course, the pitch.
It’s been about one week since the whirlwind StartupRiot 2012 (where I was representing Kanjus) came to a spectacular close, but only one of its many moving parts really stood out in a negative way: the judges. Punctuating the event’s tweet stream were periodic complaints about the judges’ approach to evaluating pitches and the businesses behind them. Most of the kvetching was justified.
After re-reading all of these tweets, I realized, “there are a ton of guides for pitching, but almost none for judging.” I now humbly submit these points for consideration by all prospective biz plan, pitch, or presentation judges.
For the search engines out there, this is “How to Judge A Business Pitch Competition.”
1. Have clear judging criteria in mind, even if you aren’t given any
Backstage with founder and organizer Sanjay Parekh, the presenters in my cohort discussed StartupRiot’s history, the rules for the competition, and Sanjay’s views on determining what makes a “good” pitch. I was shocked when he said that there were no official judging guidelines published for fear of contestants “gaming the system” or judges having their creativity stifled…or something. There were no checklists, flowcharts, or anything similar given to judges or contestants. Kafka would be proud; there’s nothing quite like getting ready to defend against an inquisition whose nature is largely unknown.
But more to the point, judges really should prepare for this kind of scenario even when presenters can’t. As a judge, simply tweeting or blogging that you prefer the idea over the pitch (or vice versa), marketing plans instead of technology, or any other criterion can give the contestants some confidence that you aren’t totally in the pocket of the organizers. It also keeps you honest on stage and throughout the deliberation process.
2. Please, please, please don’t use logical fallacies
Perhaps the most laughable questions were those addressed to the audience for an effect, like “how many people out there would lie to their BodyBoss?” (in response to a personal fitness app that crunches self-reported workout data). Thankfully, this particular bandwagon appeal totally backfired: laughter replaced raised hands, presumably because everyone understood that it’s entirely counterproductive to lie to a fitness app that doesn’t tell others about your progress.
Failtroll was waaaay fail.
The worst part was how the judge kept pursuing this obvious non-starter to save face, and that the speaker was then forced to answer. I did get some relief from some vocal peanut gallerist’s defense: “Why would you lie to the BodyBoss?” Now that’s more like it.
3. Keep in mind that finding a hole is different than poking one
Presenters, prior to pitching at StartupRiot or elsewhere, often talk of judges and VCs mercilessly “poking holes” in an idea. I’d like to posit that, though there’s often a fine line between finding a legitimate business issue and playing up a trivial one, finding and poking really are different things.
Example: one judge said of a pitch that the business was “one Google API away” from being eclipsed by the search giant’s massive development machine. He was rightfully rebuked by TJ Muehleman of We&Co, who tweeted:
Repeatedly whipping out throwaway questions like this one (granted, such a question may be warranted sometimes) is like saying “your high school soccer team would be a darn sight better if they were coached by José Mourinho. How do you expect them to beat Arsenal otherwise?”
I mean, really, who does that?
4. I know you’re a big shot, but don’t act like one
Indeed, my time in academia has molded me a into timid and fragile creature, so I think the scary startup culture is dominated by bravado and big egos. But I get that - being a big shot mezzanine-closin’, exit-havin’, bootstrappin’ millionaire gives you certain bragging rights.
What it doesn’t endow is the license to apply your experience to every single idea.
Example: “Well, I can tell you from my time in ABC that XYZ didn’t work and still won’t work” isn’t good form for a judge - instead, try something like “we had a lot of trouble doing XYZ because it’s not that scalable. What’s your plan for overcoming this?” Humility and open-mindedness work wonders, and can even elicit richer responses from the contestants when applied properly. After all, these pitch events are about their startups, not yours.
Remember that, as competitors, presenters are charged with giving the best pitches they can and answering questions to the best of their ability. The job of the judge is to ask questions that clarify or challenge without derision.
Haters gon’ hate (QR codes) - addendum
I recently stopped into the Waffle House on 5th (you know, the one where all the other gourmand technologists discuss philosophy and cybernetics and semiotics or whatever) to get some food [sic] when I saw this
and was immediately reminded of my previous post about QR faux pas committed by over-eager marketers. In addition to the code being printed along the wavy edge in a most unscannable fashion, the bonus fail here is that it’s put on the only piece of packaging that must be destroyed in order to eat what’s inside. I still don’t know if that’s some kind of subtle brilliance on their part or if I’m missing something else major here.
Also, I feel that the subject of this video typifies those clueless QR-obsessed marketers that everyone rails against. Seriously, watch it.
THAT SHIT CRAY!!!!
I’m probably ODing…
Source: thebrownpaperbag
Haters gon’ hate (QR codes)
A few days ago, out from the Twittersphere (via retweet by the inmitable Bruce Lawson of a tweet by Daniel Knell) came this simple declaration that there exists a “brilliant guide on when and when not to use QR codes in a marketing campaign http://shouldiuseaqrcode.com/”.
Naturally, I was intrigued - a deep-seated QR compulsion drives me to scan and scan. And scan. So I clicked the link, scanned the code displayed, and was finally greeted with this:
I have to say, it hurt just a little bit.
Now in the industry, we’d call this a snipe. The page doesn’t say really say why one should or shouldn’t use QR codes, or offer alternatives, or encourage discussion. (Its artistic execution also falls a bit short of other “Is It Christmas?” and “Is Lost a Repeat?” style sites that seemed to inspire it.) Nevertheless, “Should I Use A QR Code?” does hint at the volatile nature of QR codes in marketing - but I think the issue deserves a much more thorough examination of potential pitfalls. Mastering the technology is not about if one ought use QR, but how.
Below are the main issues faced by marketers in the QR-augmented ad space and how they fit into the larger picture of technologists’ gripes with how the technology has been used lately.
Printing the wrong size
This is something you’d think companies would get right more often with all of the official and unofficial guidelines out there regarding code space and sizing. Sadly, they don’t.
Thumbing through Sky magazine I had just plucked from my seat pocket before takeoff on my way to California, I noticed a company’s ad which used an extended-length (Type 10) QR code. On close inspection, it appeared that the code’s miniscule dot size was approaching the magazine’s DPI, which made for fuzziness around some of the encoded information. Naturally, the dense cloud wasn’t scannable with my Android’s default app, so I dog-eared the page and stuffed the magazine into my carry-on (sorry about that, Delta). At home I determined that the code measured 2.2 cm square:
There’ll likely be a dozen other examples in AirTran’s equivalent periodical. I’ll have to wait until my next flight to find out.
Of course, there’s another end of this spectrum: printing a code so large that it interferes with the aesthetics of the ad. I’ll deal with this a bit in the last section.
Linking to Flash or otherwise “anti-mobile” content
This isn’t just about “not bringing users to the desktop version,” a consideration which should be obvious to any “QRious” marketer by now. Most smartphones with QR reader apps have browsers that can reflow non-mobile pages with some user effort anyway, so it isn’t a catastrophe if users are given content that is merely “mobile-unfriendly.”
Indeed, the most deliciously shortsighted of all QR gaffes is the peculiar tendency for companies to use URLs which redirect to blatantly “anti-mobile” content: for instance, YouTube profiles or other(sometimes even mobile-optimized) pages with embedded Flash videos that can’t be opened by many smartphone browsers. Same goes for linking to printable coupons. It’s as if marketers have read dozens of QR marketing articles without internalizing the key point that crap content, no matter how mobile-friendly, is still crap.
As an aside, Adobe’s recent abandonment of mobile Flash development might spur marketers to think more critically about the direction of mobile content. But perhaps that’s wishful thinking.
Using shorteners simply because “it’s the thing to do”
Many of these promotional QR codes contain encoded Bit.ly or Goo.gl addresses which are significantly shorter than the code type’s data capacity. This usually achieves a reduced amount of corruptible data (in the event that the code becomes scratched or partially obscured); increased scan speed; and/or collection of visitor statistics. A number of articles on QR-based marketing advocate this approach as a best practice.
But given that target URLs (on the companies’ sites) are often not much longer than the shortened ones, and as current free on-site analytics tools are more than sufficient for collecting the same kinds of visitor data that shorteners do, it becomes hard to justify using a tool that diminishes brand identity when users are actively seeking more information. Would it be easier after a low- or no-cell-reception scan situation for a user to remember and retype a human-readable URL or to do the same with a TinyURL address? Put differently, would a company rather have a user mistype a page name and stay on their site than mistype a base64-encoded route and wind up somewhere completely different? There’s value in maintaining in brand uniformity in all aspects of the promotion that really should be considered, and while shorteners are often useful, they aren’t magic bullets.
Poor physical placement
Determining potential location of the code with respect to the scanning party is almost a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how companies think that phone-to-code distance is the only factor…and then promptly overlook basics like not printing codes on the edges of packaging (note the keystoning on the left),
or placing codes in well-lit outdoor areas (photos taken at 6:30 AM, an off time when people frequently need to review the late-night/early morning schedules at this particular trolley stop).
Fetishizing codes over content
In the case of QR, technological novelty has some companies so giddy that they vomit codes all over everything as if to declare that “the medium is the message!” And codes which, conceptually or otherwise, dwarf the accompanying ad copy and graphics can be obnoxious. The love affair sometimes overshadows what’s really important, and many of the above listed problems are mere symptoms of this.
Marketers should note that any new technology’s mainstreaming must be watched with caution because it will inevitably bring meta-commentary, self-parody and accusations of self-parody. Kinda like this:
“Should I Use a QR Code?” falls into at least one of those three categories. It might have a point about advertisers’ infatuation with the shiny new tech that they don’t fully understand, but it’s a cheap shot instead of an attempt to educate. I contend that marketing campaigns shouldn’t stop using QR codes - they should simply use the platform more intelligently.
