Authenticity & trust on the Internet

Authenticity and trust on the Internet Chris Heathcote @antimega anti-mega.comI realised after submitting it that this sounds like the most boring talk ever from this title

orso I’m renaming it

got to be real

if you think I’m going to be talking about things like OpenID, OAuth

well, sorry, I’m not x

not talking about technical trustI’m not talking about technical ideas of trust

identity trust authenticitythese words have been co-opted to be technical speciﬁcations

trust is rarely binarythat don’t work the same way as their equivalents in the real world

trust grows over timeyou gain trust over time

generally, we are trustingwe as humans trust others - this is a good thing

& we’re very good at smelling ratsand we’re good at judging how much we should trust each other

here’s a restaurant review comment, probably by PR - slightly too much detail, people writein a different way when they have an agenda

on the Internet we have so little to go onbut we have very little information with which to make a decision

looking for broken windowsso we look for the things that seem wrong - any little thing

I’m never an Honoured Customer...

basic craftso, there’s trust that comes from the craft of graphic design, web design and copywriting

Dopplrwhen Dopplr launched...

TripIt vs dopplrTripIt also launched, but it just felt... American - so I used Dopplr

Google in 1999 - looks pretty much the same as now

this is how Google started in 1998, reminds me of what Altavista - then the #1 - looked like

ESTAdoes this inspire conﬁdence? It looks like it was designed on paper rather than being of theweb

and this is one way of ﬁling your tax return in the US - it smells wrong, like it’s a downloadedtemplate. Even the security certiﬁcate is attributed to the generic-sounding Free File Alliance.

disclaimerA disclaimer: I am not talking on behalf of gov.uk - but I have just started working there

gov.ukIt’s a solid, modern design and at least you’ll get a consistent experience with any interactionwith the Government online - trust gets built through re-use

anti-designthere are many anti-design patterns that reduce trust

Veriﬁed by Visa looks undesigned and is at odds with the site you’re using

lockerzI’m not sure, but I think Lockerz wants me to sign up with Facebook

Facebook appsFacebook apps just don’t give enough information to judge - who made it, what will it do,what does it let me do

Yes Menon the ﬂip side, it’s attention to detail and craft that lets people like the Yes Men dupe others- there’s a facebook widget, Twitter, written in corporatese...

authenticityit’s about being authentic and genuine

authenticity increases trustwhich creates trust

authenticity can come from many things... product provenance peopleand there are many ways of proving authenticity

productproducts have an easy authenticity - they exist - but also how they’re made and what they do

BromptonBrompton make bikes. They’re designers and makers.

And they’re all still built in West London. they did look at Chinese manufacture, but it endedup being about the same price, and they’d lose all of their sales in China & Asia if they didn’thave this story and authenticity.

we love a good storypeople love stories, and love products and services with a story

Moleskine started production in 1994. It’s not an old brand. But they use a bit of slightlyweaselly copy to associate themselves with being 200 years old (fwiw, moleskine was thegeneric term used by artists to describe similar notebooks).

heritageheritage is a great story to tell

you only have a heritage if one day you start making something newbut I want to be clear: you can only have a heritage if one day you make something new

the romance of historymany stories of authenticity are a romantic view - of a product’s history

physical products have the romance of makingor the romance of making and craft: which many makers don’t realise - because it’s their dayjob and there’s little romance in the actual grind of making things day after day

provenancewhere things come from is a good, authentic story

HiutHiut Denim have a simple premise - their town is making jeans again

which is exactly what Cardigan used to do

Historytag - the provenance of your individual object - they take photos of your jeans asthey’re being made. They also embed the story directly in the product.

Nokia always wanted to be American, or Japanese. It just couldn’t understand why it could orshould be proud of a long Finnish history.

and now, all physical products now have to be completely clear about their provenance, andtheir suppliers’ provenance

http://www.enoughproject.org/conflict-mineralsall the way back to raw materials - tin, tantalum, tungsten both cause war and enslavechildren in the Congo - blood electronics. We don’t own conﬂict-free electronics.

Internet companies shy away from being from somewhereor actually, generally try to pretend to be American, or at least from somewhere in the mid-Atlantic

it doesn’t have to be complicated... an address you can look up in Google Maps

startups proud to be from Berlin?but it could be so much more

people

personalityWhat many of the original popular web sites had in common was that it was small teams withbuckets of personality

Flickr, Delicious, Upcoming ... people of the web on the weband these people were on the web, using their product, using other services

proudthey were proud of what they had made

some of Brompton’s employees

even companies making machines of war

have a human side

facelessmany start-ups and small businesses are faceless

some systems give you little to work on - Ebay added seller ratings were introduced to addelements of trust - taken together with the amount of feedback and what people have written

Kickstarter gives you the same design and format for every project... It’s hard to discern whowill be good at making and producing. It’s pretty easy to ﬁnd someone to make you aconvincing video, harder to make products.

People have really lost their sense of smell as to whether the people behind a project will beable to keep their promise.

When I ﬁrst saw pebble is sounded great but I knew how hard it would be to make.

...so to see they’d got a prototype, and that they’ve done it before, that’s when I pledged mymoney.

companies companyingI feel there’s no better advertisement than seeing that a company is doing its job

even at a base level, numbers.This says millions of people have not been ﬁred for using Basecamp.

37signalsand personal stories of users

even companies like General Electric can show their long history of making and doing on atumblr

net-a-porterbut you can go further - this shows live shopping on net-a-porter.

bookdepositoryand the same for books on thebookdepository

Things showing liveness give you conﬁdence that you’re doing the right thing

33 other people cannot be wrong.

Even constant Twitter updates on how things are going

countries countryingI love that this phenomenon has grown to promote countries, too.

IcelandIceland’s not had much luck recently. And therefore not much money to promote itself.

They’ve got a blog...

and are on Twitter...

and Facebook...

and tumblr....

and vimeo....

but they’re doing some even more interesting things. This ﬂickr group encourages locals andtourists to upload pictures from all around Iceland...

...that turns into a tumblr.

There’s every single word in Icelandic...

Icelandic bands that are not Sigur Ros...

a shop for good Icelandic music...

Single serving Internet jokes du jour...

The whole campaign is just a small group of people given the freedom to create and make apersonality that tells you more about the country than glossy brochureware.

SwedenSweden started doing something similar, but even cleverer.

They give the @sweden Twitter account to a different Swede every week.

They get to talk about whatever they want.

A mix of attitudes, politics, daily life...

Here’s Sweden talking to New Zealand on twitter.

And they’ve had all kinds of people - Internet entrepreneurs, lesbian truckdrivers... [sincethis, there’s been some controversy as the chosen curators has spoken their opinions - butinstead of shutting them down, it’s been a case of the Internet engaging in conversation (andcriticism)]

Twitter can be adifferent way to talkwith customerspeople

FGW TwitterThis started as just one customer support representative. People started having conversationswith her.

People aren’t really expecting answers to rhetorical frustration.

first directFirst Direct have a great brand, but these responses are still slightly depersonalised.

AvivaHere’s an insurance company. Look, there’s Dave & Marv, they’re who you’re talking to.

It’s a lot harder to bean arsehole when youcan picture the personyou’re talking to

Don’t depersonalise as it growsResponse times to large customer support twitter feeds is slowing to days - the same asemail or web support. People like that Twitter support feels different to standard supportchannels.

could this be takenfurther?

“Well, are you proud ofwhat’s going on insideyour company? Are youproud enough to pull upthe shades and letpeople see inside?”Douglas Rushkoffhttp://cheath.co/rushkoffquote

gov.uk github?Again a disclaimer that I’m not talking on behalf of gov.uk... but most of our code is availableon github for people to see and even help develop.

But I want to talk about an even bigger project - Ford nearly got it right in 2000, maybe just abit too early. Ford wanted to give all employees a computer & internet connection - so theycould listen to real customers and even support them. If you have a brake problem, you wantto talk to the person who design the brakes, not a CS agent.

happy employeesAnd the only way you can open up like that is to have truly happy, engaged employees.

that won’t be sacked for making mistakes- that won’t be told of for talking to customers

“Every company has a social media strategy whether they know it or not.” Douglas Rushkoff http://cheath.co/rushkoffquote“You can have your dedicated social media person chasing down consumer complaints, butyour real social media strategy is how are the people who work at your company and thepeople who buy from your company and people who supply to your company, how are theytalking about you?”

radical, personal authenticityThis is a radical, personal authenticity: the same authenticity and openness that start-ups canhave, scaled massively to the largest of companies. Hard to do but offers a genuineadvantage over your competition.

Thank you. @antimega anti-mega.comThanks.

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Authenticity & trust on the Internet

by antimega on Jul 11, 2012

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