Casey Cheshire

Every now and again I have an “Ah-ha” moment. It’s the personal, dramatic pause that starts you immediately contemplating life, love and the outlook of the New England Patriots.

This particular event is brought about by technology: I’m currently riding the MBTA commuter rail out of Boston and blogging on my new iPad.  Tweeting from my iPhone was big, and this seems like the next phase in the mobile evolution.

I’ve been reading “Startup” by Jerry Kaplan- it’s the fascinating story of the development of pen computers in the 90s.  These 4lb writing tablets utilized a digital pen and spurred the industry through many steps to the device, 20 years later, that I currently write this post on.  The book warrants it’s own post when I’m finished- and ironically, a keyboard to write it!

The iPad has a large keyboard, especially when turned on it’s side like I have it now.  It’s not all that easy because my fingers are used to resting lightly on the “home row.” Rest your fingers on this puppy and you get baby speak, as if a baby were slamming his fist on your laptop!

Wow! This WordPress app just crashed- thankfully it occurred *after* I just clicked save.  So with that in mind, I’ll count my blessing and end this post from the tech frontier!  

The other week I attended the 140 conference (#140conf) in Boston. It was an excellent event run by Jeff Pulver at locations around the world.  The focus is the real time web and the implications it has on the future of how we engage and utilize technology.

In their words: “The #140conf events provide a platform for the worldwide twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business.”

My favorite part of the conference was meeting many of the attendees- who all had wildly different stories but spoke the same language- @twitter, real time, now, and of course, future.  One of the people I met was Alexis (@akarlin) from Neolane (@neolane).

Neolane, in their words from the Twitter bio, “provides the only enterprise marketing software designed to manage, automate & optimize programs across channels.”  That’s a hefty mission!  I haven’t seen their stuff yet, but if Alexis Karlin is any indication as part of their crew- I’m sure they’re probably achieving it.

I was asked to speak quickly on video about what I thought a social CRM was.  Neolane is exploring the idea of bridging their mastery of email marketing with the social scene:

I’m familiar with the concept of a Social CRM thanks to another remarkable person, Margaret Donnelly (@mwdonnelly) of JitterJam (@jitterjam).  JitterJam is a quickly growing Social CRM solution that I’ve had the fortune of utilizing at my last company, Transparent Language.

The realm of social CRM is growing quickly as many vendors begin to see the importance of blending social with their other marketing efforts.  The idea is to have a single interface that allows you to manage the variety of channels that your customers are using to interact with your business.

JitterJam, from their website, “helps your consumer-facing brand or business capture relevant conversations on the real-time web and turn them into lasting and trusted customer relationships.”

Their solution is being utilized by companies large and small.  Recently I discovered that the indoor skydiving facility that I used to work at, SkyVenture New Hampshire, is using JitterJam because their Facebook activity was marked with a tiny JJ logo.  What a small world!

As social media becomes intertwined in overall marketing efforts at companies around the world, it will be fun to watch social CRM solutions evolve.  The best ones will be both easy to operate and seamless with the overall marketing campaign.

This is a first post in a new series about tuangou and the development of collective bargaining on the web.

Tuángòu (pronounced “twangoo”), which roughly translates as “group buying” in Chinese, is a shopping strategy and internet phenomenon.

The idea is simple in nature.  Multiple customers approach a store and arrange for a lower price based on the increased sale quantities involved.  If a store knows that all of it’s stock of shovels (for instance) will be purchased- it can afford to lower the price for those shovels.  Make less on more rather than charge more for less.  Adjusting the mark-up, a store would essentially make the same if not a little more by selling more items- think Walmart.  In the case of making slightly less, the store has gained more customers with the potential of future sales.

While the concept has been around for years and had been toyed with during the early part of this century, Tuangou didn’t survive the “Dot Com Bust.”  The social media infrastructure we currently enjoy, a critical factor in tuangou success, wasn’t as prominent or rapid during this first series of attempts.

It’s clear that the timing is now right for collective individual buying as exhibited by superstar internet site Groupon which was recently hailed by Forbes as the “fastest growing company, ever.”

Groupon’s mega success story is only the tip of the iceberg.  Group buying empower is the next step in empowering the customer through social media.  It started with social media providing platforms for immediate customer support and feedback.  The mystery of obtaining ROI on these efforts has been the challenge of the past few years.  Tuangou will enable social media to drive bottom line dollars, revolutionizing the value of two-way digital dialogue.

The offer-of-the-day sites are popping up everywhere, but this is not the furthest extent of where it can go.  The next step for collective or group buying is to increase transparency and ensure they’re sustainable through all-way success.

FourSquare 1.0 is doomed, but it’s not because of Facebook Locations.

For the better part of 2010 I owned Nashua, NH- well at least on FourSquare.  I was not just an early adopter, but an advocate for the location based social ‘game.’  The concept of becoming the ‘Mayor’ of a business or location by ‘Checking-In’ the most appealed to me.  It was a challenge I could win at my most frequented restaurants, shops, and even at work.

As a FourSquare advocate I explained the purpose and benefits of telling your friends where you were:

“If you’re in a coffee shop and check in, a friend of yours might be in the area, see that you checked in and join you.”

Huzzah! It’s about time your online social network joined you in real life!  Or is it? (dramatic pause)  A friend of mine, Shea Sylvia, wrote a cautionary tale on her blog about a creepy guy who saw she had checked-in to a restaurant on FourSquare.  Mr Creep actually called the restaurant asking for her- (music from TV show Lost would fit nicely here) “Ahhh!”

Okay, so FourSquare only allows your friends to see where you check-in.  Before we scold Shea for simply ‘friending’ to many creepy dudes on FourSquare, it’s important to note that you can also see who checks into locations without being their friend.

The other big controversy, this one with equal parts satire, was Rob Me Please.  The site is currently down, but their point was that people tend to ‘over-share.’  A robber could see that you’ve gone on vacation and steal your flat screen.  Technically this robber would have to know where you lived and all, but it’s not too hard to see how that could be found out.

Being a big tough guy with a relatively small flat screen, I wasn’t too concerned with the nay-sayers.  It was fun to be the Mayor of multiple locations in NH and even some highly competitive ones in Boston.

Some locations would even give you free drinks or discounts if you were the mayor.  That was the plan anyways.  Nashua certainly didn’t buy into this tech very quickly. Save for the local Starbucks (which was locked down by @KevinMic anyways), none of the 20+ locations I was the mayor of actually ever hooked me up.

Right about the same time the “Early Majority” group (from book Crossing the Chasm by Moore) of adopters started checking in around my home town, I began checking in less.  It was a slow process that had a flipping point when I stopped checking in where I work at EF Tours (@EFTours) in Cambridge.  The hotly contested building of over 850 people had about 5 regular FourSquare participants.  Maintaining your position as #1 requires consistent check-ins and frankly, is tedious.

One day I just stopped.  “Let someone else be the mayor today.”

I kept thinking about a criticism my friend and tech thought-leader, Aaron White (@AaronWhite), had made about social start-up Aadvark.  The site allows  you to ask & answer questions utilizing your social network.  Aaron’s main point of contention was that there had to be a ‘reward’ for answering questions to keep the system going.  Whether it was money, points, business referrals, or ICEEs from 7-11 some motivation was critical.  Aadvark, to their credit, replied to Aaron’s keen observation and must have added the ‘reward factor’ to their equation because they’re being acquired by Google.

It’s this same criticism that I now have of FourSquare, GoWalla, and now Facebook Places.  Why check-in? How is this going to benefit me?  Where’s the ‘reward factor?’

Good ol’ Kevin, yes the guy who is the mayor of just about every Starbucks in NH, actually swung by a PetSmart when I checked in there during a puppy training class.  He got to meet my starter-son Charlie, a wheaten terrier.  That was it though.

I’ve realized that the only thing I’ve been doing while checking in on FourSquare is missing out on the experience of real life.  It seems too, that I’m not alone.

Last week I tweeted that I was bored with FourSquare.  The responses came rolling in:

• mizkerri Yup. RT @CaseyChesh: I’m getting bored with @FourSquare – Anyone else?
• MeganLeap @CaseyChesh No, but isn’t that was Facebook Places is for?
• Private – @CaseyChesh yes. But it seems much more popular here in the west coast (I’m vacationing)
• denimroad @CaseyChesh yea its a split.. I use it because of the social networking qualities but the rest of is not fun anymore
• NathanSpencer @CaseyChesh I feel bad. I only use 4sq to let ppl know where I am and even then not much anymore.
• jennifer_el I killed my account. RT @mizkerri: Yup. RT @CaseyChesh: I’m getting bored with @FourSquare – Anyone else?
• jennifer_el @CaseyChesh Not really. I mean, I kept forgetting to check in cause I was actually busy enjoying myself, so what was the point?
• MeganLeap @CaseyChesh Maybe! However, I’m going to stick to Foursquare. I don’t need to update ALL my Facebook friends with my whereabouts.
• Private – @mizkerri @CaseyChesh Yes and no. It’s still useful and kinda fun but the novelty has worn off.
• Drantis82 @CaseyChesh yeah, I quit a few weeks ago.
• YoavShapira @CaseyChesh I quit months ago

The prosecution rests. FourSquare and it’s friends GoWalla, Facebook Places, as they’re currently offered, are doomed.  They need a reward factor for check-ins.

Will they find it? Maybe, but I see a much more interesting future for geolocation.  Checking into a location is the start, much like floppy disks were so much cooler than using index cards with holes punched on them.

We’re seeing only the tip of the location-based innovation iceberg.  Saving money more than social fun will be the driving force that helps this new tech bridge the gap from fad to phone.

I received an email from Charles Schwab (the bank, not the guy) today.

It started off with “We’re making some exciting changes that will make your online banking experience even better, We therefore request your to verify your location.”

Later it goes on to describe a “verification” that is needed, and has a link that says “Go To Verification Process” with a destination of: http://www.schwab-verification.com/public/schwab/home/welcomep.html

Here’s a screenshot of the email:

Looks relatively legit right?  A few red flags go off right away when anyone, especially a bank, asks you to “verify” something.  You’ve probably guessed already, that this email wasn’t from the bank.

What did the destination (www.schwab-verification.com) look like?  It was an exact copy of what schwab.com looked like.  How scary is THAT!?

Go Phish?

It’s called a phishing scam and it involves bad guys asking hundreds of people for their login information to online accounts such as banks.

The concept of phishing can be thought of by a big fishing net cast out to the sea.  The hope is that while most fish will escape, a few might get caught.

That fake Schwab message was sent to hundreds of thousands of email addresses.  The villain sending it realizes that a small percentage of people opening it will actually *have* an account with Schwab, and then a much smaller percent of account holders will actually fall for it.  But that’s okay because 1 big account may be all he needs to pimp out his evildoer lair for the upcoming year.

5 Phishing Scam Red Flags

1. Ask Not… This first one is key: No financial companies will ever ask you to do or confirm anything requiring login details online.  Verify, confirm, and words like these are instant flags because they’re requesting you tell the bank’s site what it already knows!
2. No Site Key.  Lots of banks (Bank of America for example) are now instituting Site Key images.  Before you log into your account, the bank will show you an image that you previously picked out.  If you go to log in and see the wrong image- or no image at all (when you know your account has one), stop!  This one helps stop phishers in their place.
3. Fake Urgency! OH NO. Our mainframe had a 409XB error at the same time your Debit card was used in Boca Raton, Florida- quickly confirm your details so we know your account hasn’t been compromised.  How about no?  If the issue at hand was *that* serious, they would call you.
   I’ve gotten calls before from a fraud team asking if I’ve been to Connecticut lately as fraudulent behavior was identified there.  Even these departments won’t ask you for vital information- if they do, ask for a number to call them back.  And remember, sending an email for something serious is like emailing all workers in a building that there is a fire and to get out.
4. Funky Destinations. Just like in the example above, the website I went to from clicking the link was not the actual website of the company that emailed me:  www.schwab-verification.com is not www.schwab.com.  This one is pretty clever, but you have to ask yourself why there would be a separate address just to verify- there won’t be!  Some URLs are a lot more blatant like: bankofamerica.verify.systemconfirm.ru   This is an example of a Russian website (.ru) with plenty of garbage thrown into the web address to confuse you- it’s definitely not a bank!
5. “English! Do you speak it?!” Samuel L Jackson says this famous movie line- of course, his version is littered with more colorful language…  If you actually take the extra 5 seconds to read a suspicious email you’ll be surprised at how often they’re poorly written.  Real companies, banks, and firms often have teams of employees who come up with multiple drafts of the same email in order to make it clear and professional.
   Here’s an example from the above email: “We’re making some exciting changes that will make your online banking experience even better, We therefore request your to verify your location.“  Seriously? You used a comma instead of a period and you THEREFORE request YOUR to verify?  Oh please!  If something like this ever left Schwab, whole departments would be getting fired as droves of investors ran for the hills.  “If you can’t write an email, how are you going to manage my money?”

Phishing scams are not new and sadly they are not going away soon.  Our best bet is to share what we know about them with friends and family.  As our world’s digital experience matures and fewer people fall prey to online scams, phishers may have to pick up real fishing nets and try a new career.