移动颠覆科技行业

    平板电脑的核心价值是美妙的显示、富于直觉的互动操作、在旅行、工作和个人生活中游刃有余的切换能力。这使得平板电脑成为完美的创新平台。我们的许多客户都在试验平板电脑的新用途，把它推广到其它渠道中。

    从易用性和设计上看，iPad是目前唯一真正可用的平板。不过，情况可能会发生改变。三星（Samsung）、亚马逊（Amazon）和微软（Microsoft）Windows 8催生的一系列平板电脑即将上市，将与iPad展开殊死搏斗。假以时日，iPad的霸主地位或许会出现动摇。

    虽然平板电脑大卖特卖，已成为目前极具重要意义的消费性电子产品，但技术革新的步伐并没有停止。计算机界的下一个重要方向将是可佩戴设备和嵌入式计算。行业领导者对数字平台、数字设备和数字创新的热情一直有增无减。

    互联网变得日益重要后，各大公司纷纷增派人手负责互联网渠道。当移动成为最热的“必需品”时，他们又纷纷成立移动团队以应对这一最新渠道。那么，以渠道为导向的公司下一步的计划如何呢？当然，它们的目标永远是那些蓬勃发展、大有前途的渠道。平板电脑肯定必不可少。不久的将来，可佩戴设备和嵌入式计算也会登台亮相。这样一来，这些公司将变得杂乱无章并且日益复杂。人们每天都会争论某种新设备到底属于哪个渠道。

    不过，以渠道为导向将带来极大隐患，会对用户造成深刻影响。用户最终被弄得晕头转向，万事不顺。他们发现每个渠道的结果和操作方式都不大一样。鉴于最有价值的用户通常会使用多个渠道，这对于公司非常棘手。从根本上讲，终端用户应该是重中之重，而并非什么平台和渠道。商业行为应该致力于理解和倾听客户的需求和行为，特别是在移动领域。

    采用“移动优先”战略的原因远不止手机使用数量呈爆炸式增长这一点。仅举几例：

• 推动专注和卓越。成功的移动优化服务一定专注而有品位。必须确定优先次序并做出战略选择。这将有助于厘清产品、重点和战略。

• 寻找新客户。未来的客户大部份都是“移动”用户。

• 学习新技巧。过去针对个人电脑的“软件”体验与未来旨在灵活跨越平台的后个人电脑体验极为不同。专注于后者将有助于你精通现代服务设计。

• 在被人颠覆之前，主动颠覆自己。你在移动平台上进行的创新能够直接影响并有益于你其它的目标平台——不论是数字平台还是非数字平台。如果不能找到颠覆自身商业模式的方法，很可能将被其他专注于移动业务的公司颠覆。

• 永远与时俱进。移动会使你将自身服务分化，以融入用户的日常生活和工作。

• 更贴近客户。在移动领域，你可以创建更强的感情纽带，而且专注于移动将帮助你围绕用户进行组织和设计，而不是围绕软件平台或“渠道”。

• 更精于设计。个性化、丰富的移动媒体需要一流的设计，如果渴望在移动领域拥有领导地位，必须专注于设计。

    奥洛夫（@ olof_s）于2001年与人共同创立了Fjord，并从此领导该公司成为全球最成功的服务设计顾问公司之一，其客户包括英国广播公司（BBC）、花旗银行（Citibank）、ESPN、Flickr、Foursquare、哈佛医学院（Harvard Medical School）、诺基亚（Nokia）以及高通（Qualcomm）等公司。奥洛夫多年来一直与各大品牌合作，设计将复杂的系统变得简单而优雅的突破性体验。奥洛夫经常在全球性会议和活动上发表演讲，最近出席的活动包括《财富》2012年科技头脑风暴大会，GigaOm Mobilize，以及Rutberg Future: Mobile等。

    译者：项航

    The tablet's core properties -- the vibrant display, its direct interaction language, and its ability to fluidly travel across locations and across work and personal tasks -- makes it the perfect platform for pushing boundaries. Many of our clients are now experimenting and pushing boundaries on the tablet, then leveraging the learnings across other channels.

    From a service design perspective, at the moment the iPad is pretty much the only tablet game in town. But that will soon change. Samsung, Amazon (AMZN), and a range of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 8 tablets will give the iPad a good run for its money, and the iPad's dominance will lessen over time.

    While the tablet is the latest mass-market consumer electronics category of critical importance, evolution will not stop there. The next large-scale computing frontier will be about wearable devices and embedded computing. Business leaders should expect more digital platforms, fragmentation, and innovation – not less.

    When the web became important enough, companies responded by staffing up to deal with the web "channel." When mobile popped up as the latest must-have, companies responded to this digital evolution by putting in place mobile teams to deal with this latest channel. But where does the channel-driven organization lead? It definitely leads to an ever-growing range of channels. Clearly a tablet channel is needed. Soon a wearable channel is needed, then an embedded channel. The organization becomes sprawling and increasingly complex. There is bickering about which channel certain new devices belong to.

    But the most dangerous result of the channel organization will be the effect on customers. Inevitably, the organizational silos will start to confuse and frustrate customers. They will be spoken to and dealt with differently depending on which channel they use. Given that the most valuable customers tend to use multiple channels, this can become a big business problem. Fundamentally, end users should take centre stage, not platforms or channels. Businesses should focus on understanding and designing for customer needs and behavior, especially in a mobile context.

    The reasons to adopt a mobile first strategy go well beyond the exploding mobile usage numbers. To name a few:

• Drive focus and excellence. Successful mobile-optimised services must be focused and elegant. Prioritization and strategic choices have to be made. This will help you clarify your offering, focus and strategy.

• Find new customers. A large proportion of your future customers are mainly mobile.

• Learn new tricks. There's a significant difference between yesterday's "software" experiences that target PCs, and tomorrow's post-PC experiences designed to fluidly scale across platforms. Focusing on the latter will help you master modern service design.

• Disrupt yourself before others do. The innovation you do on mobile platforms can directly influence and benefit your other target platforms too – digital and non-digital. If you don't find ways to disrupt your business using mobile, it's likely that other mobile-focused companies will.

• Be relevant at all times. Mobile will make you atomize your service to fit into the daily life and tasks of users.

• Get closer to your customers. In mobile you can create a stronger emotional bond, and a mobile focus will help you organise and design around users rather than around software platforms or "channels."

• Become better at design. The personal and lush mobile medium demands first-class design, and if you aspire to have a leadership position in mobile you will have to focus on design.

    Olof (@olof_s) co-founded Fjord in 2001, and has since led the company to become one of the world's most successful service design consultancies working with clients including the BBC, Citibank, ESPN, Flickr, Foursquare, Harvard Medical School, Nokia, and Qualcomm, among others. Olof has years of experience collaborating with major brands to design breakthrough experiences that make complex systems simple and elegant. A frequent speaker at global conferences and events, recent appearances include Fortune 2012 Brainstorm Tech, GigaOm Mobilize, and Rutberg Future: Mobile.