This post is based on a presentation I gave in October at SearchLove London 2013. The full slide deck is embedded at the end of the post. Also, use this link to watch the video of the presentation for free! :)
If you're just starting to think about it, you're falling behind. And you don't need me to convince you. Instead, I want to talk about what happens next. This post will cover some big-picture trends, case studies, examples and tactics, but the overall theme is "online everywhere."
We are increasingly living in a multiscreen, device-agnostic world.
And this means that "mobile" can't just be an add-on anymore. My boss Will Critchlow likes to say "there's no such thing as mobile." I would disagree slightly: I'd suggest that instead, "there's no such thing as mobile for the user."
Mobile is not a separate channel; it's a technology. So although at this point there's "no such thing as mobile" for the user, don't be fooled: Making it easy for users is really hard. We can't be lazy. What we need to be doing is asking the right questions.
What does this look like? Let's take 3 scenarios: Companies A, B, and C.
Company A (call them the "Average Joe Corp.") are asking the question: "how do we do 'mobile'?" And this means they'll be getting answers based on what everyone else is doing, regardless of whether it's right for them or their users. For example:
a separate m. website
an app
SMS promotions
etc.
Company B ("Early Adopters Ltd.") have a slightly better question: "how do we stay ahead of the next big mobile technology trend?" They're not interested in what everyone's doing already; they want to be ahead of the curve. So they'll end up investing in things like
But Company C is different (let's call them "User-Driven Business, Inc."). They're looking at it from a different perspective: a user-centric one. They ask: "how can we take advantage of new technology to anticipate our users' needs?"
We all need to become more like "User-Driven Business, Inc.", because our customers are people, and technology is for people. Instead of asking about how to 'do' mobile, or how to stay on top of new technology, we need to have the mindset of making mobile a core part of the customers' journey, and keeping the user at the center.
So the first big trend we need to be aware of here is the need for a seamless and consistent user experience across all devices.
There are three main areas in which mobile technology impacts on the Discover phase:
website
search
social
1. Website
We've all heard the people who say that responsive design is always the answer. And responsive design is fine. But it's a basic approach. And if you don't approach it properly, you can end up with a subpar user experience.
Starbucks made a beautiful responsive website; but on the smartphone version the 'BUY NOW' button has dropped to the bottom of the page, under many many reviews, a video and other non-essential content.
Desktop version:
Mobile version:
Small Steps
Consider using dynamic serving instead of pure responsive: this allows you to serve different HTML based on user agent, while maintaining a single URL for simplicity.
Think in terms of "content everywhere:" the concept of "Create Once Publish Everywhere," discussed in more depth in the book by Sara Wachter-Boettcher. "Content Everywhere" is a system which allows you to relate different types of content using markup for a more search- and user-friendly approach, regardless of the platform used to access your content.
CASE STUDY: BBC Food used this approach for their recipes and saw an increase of more than 150,000 visitors weekly from search alone and overall traffic doubled, from around 650,000 weekly visitors to around 1.3 million. (data from Content Everywhere book)
Use long-term cookies for login: keep people logged in longer and remove the extra step of needing a sign-in each time your users visit your site
Sync user accounts across all platforms:
a great EXAMPLE of this is Amazon Kindle: if you leave off in the middle of a book on the iPhone app, and then pick it up on your Kindle, it will know where you last left off (cross-device)
Test, test, test: start by visiting your site on a mobile (or use the built-in emulator in your favorite browser).
TIP: Make sure you test for all the devices your customers use, or at least the majority (you can find out what these are from your analytics data).
Mobile CRO and user testing: there are loads of tools available for this type of testing; three that we like at Distilled are Qualaroo, CrazyEgg and Optimizely.
2. Search
The first big trend to keep in mind when it comes to search and discovery: it's the same person regardless of device. So context and user intent become more important than asking whether it's a mobile phone or a laptop.
Bravissimo used a tool called WeatherFIT to customize their PPC campaigns based on individual user context. Basically they would only show lingerie and swimwear ads to users who had sunny/hot weather in their area.
Results: 600% increase in PPC-driven sales revenue and 103% increase in conversion rate.
Example: Google
Google is huge for online personalization and context-based content:
Google Implicit Search can understand the context of a query (such as 'how tall is Justin Bieber?' followed by 'how much does he weigh?') and return the correct answer.
Google Now aims to provide you the information you need before you ask for it (such as bus times, weather, metro service information, etc) by figuring out where you are and what you are doing.
This leads us to the second big trend for discovery via search marketing: anticipating your users' needs before they themselves are even aware of them. If you can do this, you will be getting your brand in front of a whole new audience.
Small Steps
If your business has brick-and-mortar locations, consider optimizing for local search. Local can be a big vertical for mobile search.
If applicable to your audience, consider applying to get your business integrated with Google Now (although be forewarned, it's not terribly easy at this stage)
3. Social
Social is a huge channel for mobile. Four out of every five people who use Facebook (daily) and Twitter do so on a mobile device. So social marketing is mobile marketing.
But social is tricky, because brands no longer own the conversation. And the first big trend we see in social marketing is that permission's not enough anymore. There is now so much content and so much information available that we don't have time to read all the emails we sign up for. This has led to 'filter bubbles'.
You're probably all familiar with the Mark Zuckerberg quote: "A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa." This may sound extreme but the mindset it shows has a very real impact on our marketing efforts.
Between technology (like Facebook's EdgeRank, which shows more content for pages we engage with more frequently) and the people our customers follow (who only share and curate the content they find worthwhile), we need to be thinking in terms of peer-to-peer marketing if we want to have any hope of our target audience even seeing our content. One quick sense check for this is simply to ask yourself: "is it good enough to tell my friends about it?"
A final point: make sure any content you want to share via social channels is also mobile friendly. Given that 80% of these users are on mobile devices, you don't want them to be faced with this:
Small Steps
Allow your social media team to engage in a conversational (rather than a salesy or overly formal) way.
Create content which people will want to share.
Ensure that all content for social sharing is mobile-friendly.
Phase 2: Explore
Once your users have discovered your brand, that's just the beginning; they may need to explore their options a bit more before deciding to purchase from you. And you need to be aware of that whole journey from start to finish.
There are four main areas impacted by mobile in the Explore phase:
Tracking
Showrooming
Personalization
Online/offline integration
1. Tracking
Track the person, not the device. Other people (like Avinash Kaushik and Craig Bradford) can explain this much better than me, but the short version is:
Stop tracking each session as if it's a different user. Instead, track people throughout their journey from start to finish - irrespective of device.
In the image above, wouldn't it be better if we knew that:
The 3 online visits + single conversion (CID 111, 222 and 333) and the offline visit + conversion (CID 444) were actually
One person using 3 different devices plus making an in-store visit with a second conversion (UID ABC)?
Small Steps
Implement Universal Analytics: this is a great first step towards user-based tracking. Be aware of the limitations, however: users have to be logged in to track them across device.
2. Showrooming
It's easy to panic about showrooming (when people look up your products in-store on a phone and find lower prices online from your competitors).
But this sort of thing is never a good idea:
...and it's unnecessary. Instead, we should view showrooming behavior as an opportunity; to reinforce the value that our products and our store provide.
In 2012, Best Buy decided to tackle showrooming head-on: giving specially trained staff members tablets to search comparison sites for the lowest price, and allowing them to match that lowest price in order to complete the sale.
Results: It was successful - I don't have exact metrics, but in February 2013 they rolled out a permanent price matching policy based on the positive results of this pilot.
3. Personalization
Personalization is huge, and especially so on mobile devices which are much more 'personal' devices than most (think how frequently laptops are used for work/school, desktops for families or in other shared environments like libraries - but smartphones are primarily used by individuals in leisure time).
Small Steps
Implement a recommendation engine for your logged-in customers. You can also do a form of this with non-logged-in users - Medium are a good example of this.
LK Bennett recently ran a campaign using the Qubit tag management system to personalize their website content by user context. The first test was targeted at UK-based visitors who had not purchased online within nine months, but had visited the site more than three times. These users were shown a special offer for free delivery if they were about to leave again without purchasing.
Results: an 11% increase in conversions from that visitor segment. Another test offered UK visitors free 14 day returns, and this saw a 14% conversion rate increase.
4. Online/Offline Integration
Because mobile devices are portable, there are many more opportunities for integration between the online and offline worlds via mobile devices.
What does this mean? The obvious example would be something like a QR code in a print ad or on a billboard. A more sophisticated version is something like Debenham's virtual pop-up stores at famous UK landmarks, which users scanned with a special app and then were able to view and order clothing (after virtually trying it on, of course!).
My favorite example of online/offline integration is from IKEA:
IKEA created an augmented reality app for their recent catalogue, which allowed users to use their device's built-in camera to try out how different pieces of IKEA furniture would look in a given location in their home.
All of these examples - Best Buy encouraging showrooming and matching the lowest price, IKEA allowing people to 'try out' the furniture before they buy, and LK Bennett providing personalized offers about shipping and returns - play into the overall brand experience of your users, and help to determine whether they decide to buy from you or not. Basically, these are all different ways of helping potential customers past the "uncertainty" phase and giving them the extra little push to feel confident that they're making the right choices.
Ultimately, whatever examples we use, the big trend for the Explore phase is to recognize the value of every touchpoint/interaction along the customer journey. The purchase isn't the only thing that matters anymore. ...and last click attribution is the devil.
Phase 3: Buy
This is all very well, but...what about the actual conversion? Well, the big trend here is to make mobile checkout EASY.
There are two main areas we can improve in order to engage mobile users more effectively in the purchase process:
Smarter checkout paths
Online/offline integration (yes, again!)
1. Smarter checkout paths
We need smarter conversion paths for mobile. My rule of thumb for this is KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. ;)
Small Steps
Link the form fields to the correct keyboard - have you ever tried to use a form on a phone and had the wrong type of keyboard pop up? This is actually surprisingly easy to fix:
For phone number fields:
<input type="tel" />
for a numeric keyboard, use this:
<input type="text" pattern="\d*" novalidate />
for any email fields, use this:
<input type="email" />
to disable autocorrect:
<input type="text" autocorrect="off" />
Keep people logged in long-term: The fewer steps people have to take to complete a purchase, the less likely they are to abandon it. Mobile devices (smartphones in particular, tablets perhaps less so) are often only used by a single individual, so it is often much more convenient to use websites and apps which don't require a login every time. By using persistent cookies (on websites) and saving password details in the phone (for apps) you make the process easier for your users.
Don't neglect microconversions: It's all very well trying to convince people to make big purchases via mobile; but don't forget about the smaller stuff. Things like email signups and social sharing are very important and sometimes don't work well on mobile devices.
2. Online/offline integration
If you have a physical store location(s), in-store mobile payment can also add convenience to checkout.
If you accept PayPal payments, you can allow people to use the PayPal app to checkout in-store as well as online.
Phase 4: Engage
Once your customer has purchased, you may feel that you can relax. But you're not home free yet! You need to keep customers engaged with your brand and your services/products even after they purchase in order to turn them into repeat customers and, eventually, brand advocates.
There are three main areas in this phase which are important for mobile:
Apps
Email marketing
Social
1. Apps
The first question you should ask yourself if you're considering creating an app is: "are you sure you need one?"
The benefit is, of course, that it's a walled garden. The downside is that it's a saturated market: there are 900,000+ apps in the Apple Store and over 1 million on Google Play. And despite the high volume of apps, only a few rise to the top: 10% of all iPhone app store revenue in Nov 2012 came from only 7 apps. So unless you really do need one, it's not worth the extra effort and hassle.
How do you decide? Ask yourself, does my app (idea):
Add convenience?
Offer unique value?
Provide social value?
Offer incentives?
Entertain?
These are the attributes of a successful app. If it doesn't do any of these things, you shouldn't build it.
Tesco Homeplus, in South Korea, are an excellent example of how to use apps to retain customers (and this is also a great example of using online/offline integration in the Buy phase). As a mid-/large-sized supermarket brand (trying to compete against a bigger rival), they knew that their target customers were very busy, working very long hours and lacking free time to go shopping for groceries. So they created a 'virtual store' in the subway, which allowed app users to scan items they wanted to purchase and checkout on their phone. If they did this before 1pm, the groceries would be delivered to their home that evening.
Results: their sales increased 130% in three months, and their number of registered users went up by 76%
Ultimately, the key when it comes to apps is creating a unique experience and meeting a specific user need. If you can't do this with your app, you probably don't need one.
2. Email marketing
62% of emails are opened on mobile devices. So email marketing is mobile marketing. And remember, you can send push notifications via email (dependent on the user's settings) which gives them a benefit we might have associated previously only with apps or SMS promotions.
Small steps
Send emails your customers want to open
Example: Innocent Drinks are a great example of email content which is fun, full of their brand personality and regardless of whether I always have time to read the emails, I never consider unsubscribing because I don't want to miss out on it.
Example: Smythson - in a blog post on email marketing, Lucy Wilsden described how Smythson sent her the following email in September (just around the time she was thinking about purchasing a new diary for 2014). Note the individual-specific personalization - they used her initials in the product image.
TIP: If your preferred provider doesn't offer this, you can use one of these services to build your email and then export the HTML into your preferred provider's template.
Test your email campaigns: we like Litmus; there are also other options.
3. Social
Social isn't just part of the discovery process; it's also a great channel for maintaining customer loyalty.
Red Bull has an incredible social campaign called Red Bull Wings. They monitor mentions on Twitter of keywords like 'allnighters', 'midterms', etc; then contact the tweeters to mail them a care package containing a Red Bull 4-pack and a personalized note.
This is just one example; but the big trend with post-purchase social engagement is: make current customers feel appreciated - and make it individually personalized, if possible.
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Bonus example
I've covered a lot of things in this post, so now I want to share a campaign which I think pulls a lot of these together. It's a great example of how to merge the online and offline worlds...but more importantly, it's an example of one of the key takeaways from this post: the value of extreme (individual) personalization and context recognition.
BMW's MINI Salutes You (part of the #MININotNormal campaign)
I love this campaign because it keeps the (individual) customer at the center. It makes great use of personalization and context, as well as online/offline integration. And it hits the 'post-buy engagement' part beautifully by showing loyalty to current customers.
Results: As part of the online aspect, it also had great social reach (as you might expect). That video alone (part of a larger campaign) showed 1,941 offline customers were reached during that time...but there are 58,139 views (to date) of the video on Youtube. (The main campaign video has 1,661,042 views.)
So … what are the final takeaways?
Well, to "do mobile" right:
Make it a core technology
Keep the user at the center
Ask yourself: "How can I use mobile technology to anticipate and fulfill my users' needs?"
You might be thinking, "surely these are all just marketing principles, though". Well that's TRUE.
Because mobile isn't separate anymore. In some ways, it's just another "browser", and we need to test and optimize and create content for it just as we would for any other browser. This won't be easy, but it will be worth it. So let's buckle up and enjoy the ride!
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How do you think we should be approaching the rise of mobile technology in 2014? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Here are the slides from the presentation this blog post was based on:
If you'd like to watch the presentation video (for free!), head on over to our video store page using this link: http://dis.tl/1hqEyd3. With a free account (just a username and password), you'll get free access to the video to download and stream at your hearts content.
If you enjoyed this post and the presentation video, you might also be interested in our upcoming SearchLove conference in Bostonâ€"particularly in the session by Adam Melson, titled "Listening to Your Customers’ Wants to Achieve Their Needs." It's happening Apr 7-8 at the Joseph B Martin Conference Center. We'd love to see you there!
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The plumber, the roofer and the electrician sell us a cure. They come to our house, fix the problem, and leave.
The consultant, the doctor (often) and the politician sell us the narrative. They don't always change things, but they give us a story, a way to think about what's happening. Often, that story helps us fix our problems on our own.
The best parents, of course, are in the story business. Teachers and bosses, too.
A close look reveals this has little to do with "digital money" per se, but rather with monetary payments made by phone. Nonetheless, the wave is about to spread.
The mobile payment system that has revolutionised business and banking in sub-Saharan Africa is to come to Europe as Vodafone seeks to spread the popular digital currency outside emerging markets.
Vodafone has acquired an e-money licence to operate financial services in Europe, with plans to launch M-Pesa (which means mobile money in Swahili) in Romania as a first step to potential expansion in the region.
M-Pesa has become so popular in parts of Africa that it is now a virtual currency, offering a secure means of payment for people who do not have easy access to banking services. A mobile phone text message is all that is needed to pay for everything from bills and schools fees to flights and fish, and means that the mobile phone can double as an office for the continent's smaller entrepreneurs.
Vodafone now hopes to win over an estimated 7m Romanians who mainly use cash.
Michael Joseph, Vodafone director of mobile money, said that the European e-money license would allow Vodafone to operate M-Pesa in other markets, although he indicated that the focus would be on central and eastern Europe.
"There are one or two [countries] we are looking at but [these are] unlikely to be in western Europe in the next year or so," he said, adding that countries with a large migrant population such as Italy were potential markets.
In Kenya, where M-Pesa launched in 2007, the platform is so widely used that a third of the country's $44bn economy washes through the system, sold by 79,000 agents nationwide. It has since been extended to Tanzania, Egypt, Lesotho and Mozambique.
More recently, M-Pesa has been introduced in India, where Vodafone is seeing rapid growth given the large numbers of people without bank accounts. More than 1m people have registered in India, although Vodafone expects that will accelerate if revised regulations being considered by the Reserve Bank of India ease restrictions on such money platforms.
Romanian M-Pesa customers will be able to transfer as little as one new Romanian leu (0.22 euro cents) up to 30,000 lei (€6,715) per day.
"The majority of people in Romania have at least one mobile device, but more than one-third of the population do not have access to conventional banking," Mr Joseph said.
M-Pesa had about 16.8m active customers at the end of last year, generating about €900m in transactions per month. While M-Pesa was originally conceived as a means to retain customers in Kenya's mobile phone market, it is now profitable in its own right with $143m in revenues from the 18.2m M-Pesa customers in Kenya alone, or about 18 per cent of overall country sales.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
China's biggest banks more than doubled the level of bad loans they wrote off last year, in a sign that financial strains are mounting as growth in the world's second-largest economy slows.
The five biggest Chinese banks, which account for more than half of all loans in the country, removed Rmb59bn ($9.5bn) from their books in debts that could not be collected, according to their 2013 results. That was up 127 per cent from 2012, and the highest since the banks were rescued from insolvency, recapitalised and publicly listed over the past decade.
The sharp acceleration in write-offs is the latest indication of the turbulence now buffeting China's financial system. The bond market suffered its first true default in March, two high-profile shadow bank investment products were spared from collapse by last-minute bailouts earlier this year, and a small rural lender suffered a brief bank run last week.
Data also point to a deeper economic downturn in the first quarter than expected, putting China on track this year for its slowest growth since 1990.
The deterioration has fueled expectations that Beijing will act soon to shore up the economy. "Increasing downward pressure on the economy should not be neglected," Li Keqiang, China's premier, said last week. "We have policies in store to counter economic volatility."
Anecdotes from China
There was an interesting post on the Motley Fool titled Random China Observation, by "GoCanucks" who was in China for a month on family business. He talks about the property bubbles and the readily apparent stress. He concluded ...
The bubble is so obvious (admittedly it felt that way 3 years ago), but when I asked my friends "what if", the common answer is "the government won't allow it to happen". And every time I hear that phrase, I can't help thinking of the following quote from Michael Lewis's essay on Irish RE bubble: "Real-estate bubbles never end with soft landings."
Policies to Counter Economic Volatility
Yes indeed, central banks have "policies in store to counter economic volatility", and they use them. It was those policies in the wake of the dotcom bust that led to an even bigger debt bubble and subsequent housing crash.
The Bernanke Fed created the biggest equity and corporate bond bubble in history in the wake of the housing crash.
China has acted at every turn to counter the slightest unwanted slowdown, while maintaining ridiculously high growth targets. Those growth targets led to Ponzi financing of cities that are vacant, the world's largest mall (yet devoid of customers), airports and trains that go unused.
These kinds of malinvestments are the direct result of "policies to counter economic volatility", yet China's premier, the Fed, the Bank of Japan, the People's Bank of China, the ECB, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the Reserve Bank of Australia, etc, all arrogantly believe they can "counter economic volatility" without consequences.
Logic alone suggests the notion that anything can be centrally planned without huge damaging consequences is as ridiculous as it is arrogant. History proves it.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Who gets to determine how we react (or respond) to the things that happen to us?
Who chooses which media we consume?
Who gets to decide what we start, and what we quit?
Who decides what sort of learning to invest in (or not)?
Who gets to look for someone to blame?
Too much is out of our control, done to us, dealt to us, allocated unfairly. But in a culture in which more and more choice is taken away from those that identify as consumers or cogs, adults still own some of the most important responsibilities of all.
Spain's budget deficit fell from 6.84% of GDP in 2012 to 6.62% of GDP last year.
The budget goal was far less ambitious than previous, but still did not met the commitment to Brussels. The Government has published today the first official public deficit figure for the end of 2013, there will be new reviews in the coming months and a year, but Spain has deviated from the intended target.
Specifically, the government recorded a hole of 6.62% of GDP in 2013 (67.755 billion euros), one tenth of a percentage point above the limit of 6.5% agreed with the European Commission, according to Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro, in a press conference after the Council of Ministers. However, the announced figure does not include the cost of financial aid reported last year (0.46%), so that the actual deficit stood at 7.08% of GDP.
Happy and content as a lark, Montoro proudly announcing that Spain "almost" met the deficit target.
The Spanish public deficit closed at 6.62% of GDP in 2013, slightly more than a tenth above the target of 6.5% agreed with the European Commission (well the first we agreed if I remember correctly was 4.5%)
Are you telling me that this is all we get for so much pain? Well, boys and girls, something has gone badly wrong.
I can tell you this: If I focus on the cold numbers, the deficit fell only 2 billion euros with a gap of almost 68 billion (excluding aid to banks). Please fired the CEO of this company.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
One of the things I staunchly believe is that the cost of education will drop sharply. It has to. The current path of graduating student loan zombies is simply not sustainable.
Eventually, online education will be both inexpensive and accredited. In turn that will drive down costs at brick-and-mortar colleges.
Regina Herzlinger is a bit of a superstar. She was the first woman to be a tenured professor at Harvard Business School, and is now leading its march into Moocs – massive open online courses – which promise to revolutionise the world of higher education.
Professor Herzlinger, whose 11-week course on Innovating in Healthcare will start this month, is an advocate of this model of free online education. "I believe Moocs can democratise education," she says. "It's fantastic to reach so many people."
Harvard, MIT Sloan, the University of Virginia's Darden school and several other big-brand US business schools are experimenting with Moocs. The Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania has gone so far as to put 10 per cent of its MBA core courses online for free access. Like Prof Herzlinger, Wharton's vice-dean of innovation Karl Ulrich believes the social impact of these programmes is a central reason for promoting Moocs. He cites the example of one Wharton Mooc that enrolled more than 130,000 students. "There's just a huge, huge take-up."
In Europe, business schools such as IE in Spain and Warwick in the UK have taught online MBA programmes alongside their highly ranked full-time programmes.
Now, top schools in the US, such as Kenan-Flagler at the University of North Carolina with its MBA@UNC, are validating the online mode of delivery.
Prof Anandalingam, formerly dean at the Smith school at the University of Maryland, says the technology is "state of the art compared with anything I have seen in the US. Students get a rich learning environment".
Khan Academy
Reader Philip writes ...
Mish,
I discovered your blog through the Khan Academy. Sal quotes you in some of the financial videos, and I have been a loyal daily reader ever since. I think his efforts are truly revolutionary in education-and thought it might be worth your time to create a link on your site or maybe do a posting or two so folks can get involved. His financial videos are top notch and cover most aspects of monetary policy, the federal reserve, banking, etc., but the real impact will be if he can truly affect change in the world education system. Read his book for more details on his plan for education reform-great stuff.
You hold a lot of eyeballs and influence, and any help you can direct to Sal and the Khan Academy, in my opinion, would be a direct extension of the values you promote.
In 2008, Salman Khan, then a young hedge-fund analyst with a master's in computer science from M.I.T., started the Khan Academy, offering free online courses mainly in the STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Today the free electronic schoolhouse reaches more than 10 million users around the world, with more than 5,000 courses, and the approach has been widely admired and copied. I spoke with Mr. Khan, 37, for more than two hours, in person and by telephone. What follows is a condensed and edited version of our conversations.
Q. How did the Kahn Academy begin?
A. In 2004, my 12-year-old cousin Nadia visited with my wife and me in Boston. She's from New Orleans, where I grew up.
It turned out Nadia was having trouble in math. She was getting tracked into a slower math class. I don't think she or her parents realized the repercussions if she'd stayed on the slower track. I said, "I want to work with you, if you are willing." When Nadia went home, we began tutoring by telephone.
Did you have background as a math educator?
No, though I've had a passion for math my whole life. It got me to M.I.T. and enabled me to get multiple degrees in math and engineering. Long story shortened: Nadia got through what she thought she couldn't. Soon word got around the family that "free tutoring" was going on, and I found myself working on the phone with about 15 cousins.
To make it manageable, I hacked together a website where my cousins could go to practice problems and I could suggest things for them to work on. When I'd tutor them over the telephone, I'd use Yahoo Doodle, a program that was part of Yahoo Messenger, so they could visualize the calculations on their computers while we talked.
The Internet videos started two years later when a friend asked, "How are you scaling your lessons?" I said, "I'm not." He said, "Why don't you make some videos of the tutorials and post them on YouTube?" I said, "That's a horrible idea. YouTube is for cats playing piano." Continue reading the main story
Still, I gave it try. Soon my cousins said they liked me more on YouTube than in person. They were really saying that they found my explanations more valuable when they could have them on demand and where no one would judge them. And soon many people who were not my cousins were watching. By 2008, I was reaching tens of thousands every month. ....
Start Learning Now!
The mission page of the Kahn Academy says "Start learning now. Completely free, forever".
Those are words sure to soothe any deflationist's heart, while striking fear into the hearts of central bankers and misguided inflationists who think prices "need" to go up.
For further discussion of who benefits from central bank sponsored inflation, here is my own free refresher course.
In this week's address, Vice President Biden discusses the importance of raising the federal minimum wage. It's good for workers, it's good for business, and it would help close the gender pay gap, as women make up more than half of the workers who stand to benefit from a raise. And as the Vice President highlights, Congress should boost the federal minimum wage because it’s what a majority of the American people want.
While visiting Xi'an, China, First Lady Michelle Obama was greeted by local kids and students performing music, double dutch jump roping, flying kites, and more. Of course, the First Lady couldn't resist getting in on the fun and showing the kids how she moves.
President Obama spent this week across the pond, meeting with European leaders in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Vatican City, before traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Abdullah. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes took some time earlier this week to go over the President's schedule and the goals of the trip.
While in Vatican City, President Obama had an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis. Here's what the President said about their meeting, "I would say that the largest bulk of the time was discussing two central concerns of his. One is the issues of the poor, the marginalized, those without opportunity, and growing inequality. ... And then we spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of conflict and how elusive peace is around the world."
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Over six million Americans have signed up for private health insurance plans.
Are you one of the six million? If not, what are you doing? There's only TWO days left to get covered before open enrollment ends on March 31. Head over to HealthCare.gov to get covered now!
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