Today I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to a group of brilliant local leaders on how to Reclaim Your Inbox presented at the Young Presidents’ Organization Washington DC/Baltimore Chapter Retreat in Maryland on January 9, 2012.

View the full presentation: Reclaim Your Inbox by GlobalLogic CEO Peter Harrison

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Below is a list of GlobalLogic’s Communications Guidelines for Email. If you have a good email tip or two that’s missing from this list, I encourage you to share them here by adding your comments below.

GlobalLogic’s Corporate Communications Guidelines - EMAIL:

1. Only send mail TO someone when action is requested or when responding (otherwise CC).
2. If information is simply FYI then send using CC, not TO which makes it clear no response is required
3. If you use REPLY ALL, always check that only relevant people remain in TO and CC.
4. If you send TO more than one person, make sure you clearly define who is expected to do what.
5. Consider creating a filter and applying a label to separate incoming CC mail.
6. Do not store processed mail in your Inbox - once you’ve responded/completed a mail move it to another label so you know it is complete.
7. Try to always respond to or acknowledge all TO mail within 24 hrs.
8. If you are not getting a response within the timeframe you need, pick up the phone. Not getting an email response from another person is not a reason to miss your own deadlines.
9. Do not use email for potentially emotional content; use the phone or a meeting instead.
10. If mail is confidential and not to be forwarded include CONFIDENTIAL in the subject line.
11. When you need to share attachments with a group:
12. For completed documents: upload to confluence and include the link in your mail
13. For working documents: use Google docs and share with the group
14. Always use the standard e-signature for all emails. Consider adding the PR boilerplate when sending emails for the first time to any person/prospect/partner - standard signature
15. Please use only the default background provided by Google for all emails. Backgrounds full of color and graphics can make emails difficult to read on mobile devices.
16. Please consider using HTML for emails as opposed to RTF. RTF makes it difficult to find embedded attachments.
17. As of now DELETED emails in Gmail are automatically erased from your mailbox’s memory after 3 weeks. Consider using ARCHIVE instead in order to locate your old emails.

After understanding the requirement, it was learnt that the application doesn’t need to access any of the native feature of mobile device like camera, accelerometer. In other words the application was a data driven application having rich user interface. It triggered the thought!!! Why not have Mobile Web Application for this?

What is Mobile Web Application?
Mobile Web Application is web application, optimized to run in mobile device web browser. Some of the parameters under consideration are:

• Screen size
• Bandwidth
• Device orientation
• Native user interface

Present day mobile web browsers contained by smart phones like IPhone and Android can show almost every website that we can open on desktop browser.
Advantages
One of the biggest advantages of Mobile Web App is, it can be uses over the variety of smart phones. If any customization is required for specific mobile device model, then it can be done on the server side. There is no need to create ports for different mobile devices.
In case of there is any update in the application, then the web server contents only needs to be updated. The mobile client will always get the updated contents.

Conventional Mobile Web App

Conventional mobile web can be created in any web platform like PHP, ASP.NET. It essentially consists of a home page which uses HTML mark-up along with CSS and javasript. Mobile user starts the web browser and hits the home page and starts using the application. For each such page, the server sends and HTML mark-up and images to have a decent user interface. One drawback here is the look and feel. Once the user starts the web application, he/she gets an off-deck user experience. The mobile web application look and feel in most of the cases is very different from the mobile device native user interface.

Leveraging HTML 5 & CSS3

HTML 5 is fast catching up. W3C has already created the draft for HTML 5 and CSS3 standards. Popular desktop browser like Chrome, Firefox 4.0 and Opera 9 supports most of HTML5 and CSS3 standards.
Good news is, IPhone mobile safari and Android device web browser also supports most of the HTML 5 and CSS3 features. With support for CSS3 and HTML 5, the developers get extra arsenals for creating more sophisticated mobile web applications

Native Look & Feel using CSS3

With the use of CSS3 it is possible to have native look & feel for IPhone and Android devices. Some of the CSS3 features are:

• Text effects, Gradients
• 2D transformation
• 3D transformation
• Transitions
• Animations

With above feature we can add the animation and transition effect to mobile web applications similar to what IPhone and Android devices provide. Due to support for gradient and text effects in CSS3, we can minimize use of images. This also helps further to reduce the page pay load

Test Web page without any specific CSS.

Test Web page in Android emulator after applying CSS

Test Web page in IPhone emulator after applying CSS

HTML 5 features

HTML 5 provides many new features as compared to HTML 4. IPhone and Android mobile web browsers now support most of the HTML 5 features.  Some of the important HTML 5 features are:

• Local Web storage. Can be used to store the intermediate data locally and when required the data can be saved to cloud or the web server
• Access to Geolocation. Can be used to location based application
• Audio API. Can be used to control and play audio
• Video API
• Canvas support. A 2D drawing mechanism.
• Web Sockets. Real time application

Full Screen Browser Or Native application with embedded web browser (Hybrid)?

The most common way to start a Mobile Web Application on mobile device is to start the web browser and type the application URL.  We can use JavaScript to set the web browser to full screen mode. For some people still this may be dislike.
For such, we can have a native device application. This application then embeds the Web view. Of course, this device application needs to be created to all supported platform. The user downloads this native application from app store. When launched, it displays the embedded web view in full screen view and hits the application home URL. This way the user has a seamless user experience. With this hybrid one can also provide a mechanism to intercept the events in the web view. For example we can intercept click events for all hyperlinks in the view and then may call some native function using the device specific language.

Accessing phone’s native features

There are many instances, in which we may need to access the native phone features like Geo-location, accelerometer. At present not all native phone features can be accessed using JavaScript API from HTML5. Unfortunately not all native features can be access using the JavaScript API. Currently JavaScript APIs are available to access the Geolocation and Address book.
For other features like camera, accelerometer we need to use some bridge. Most common way is to use PhoneGap. It provides an interface to access the native features of mobile devices. It is available for IPhone, Android and other smart phones

Directions
Start the game by drawing or printing out a large tree with roots, branches, and leaves. Roots represent the foundation of your company, and thick limbs are designated for major areas of functionality within your system. Use the inner leaves to symbolize features in the current release, and the outer leaves show possible new features. Label what each part of the tree represents. Have your customers write their fresh ideas for potential new features on sticky notes or note cards, ideally shaped like leaves, and place them on the outer region of the tree near the branches that categorize them. Once complete, analyze the shape of your tree. How is the growth structured? What can you do to maintain a balanced formation? Does one core-feature branch get more leaves than another? Do the roots extend at least as far as the canopy, providing strong support for your product’s success?

Play Online
The goal of this online version of Prune the Product Tree is to analyze the benefits of a meeting, conference, or event. This is just one example of how you can use the game to benefit customers and yourself.

The layers and regions on the tree help attendees to think visually and provide you with a larger variety of ideas. Clicking this image will lead you to an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. You will see this image as the “game board” and three icons at the upper left corner of the site:

• Red Apples: Benefits you expected and got.
• Rotten Apples: Benefits you expected but didn’t get.
• Presents: Unexpected benefits that made the conference great.

The multi-layered regions of this tree are designed to capture a variety of information about these benefits. Where did the players receive these benefits (at the conference or at work)? What was the nature of the benefit (personal or professional)? And what about the conference infrastructure – the roots of the tree (before the conference or after the conference)? By exploring these dimensions with players, you can create better conferences in the future.

Players add the benefits to the game board by dragging an icon to the tree and describing it. For this collaborative online game, you and the players are able to view each move in real time. Use the integrated chat facility to inquire about the plays and communicate with your customers.

Bottom Line
Rather than using a complicated timeline that only shows your product’s evolution as a confusing linear road, this exercise allows you to analyze multiple aspects of your product’s future growth. With its visual organization and impactful metaphor, customers can express their desires and show where your product needs to grow or shrink in order to succeed. While you may be flowing extra energy into branches that you think are more valuable to customers, this could lead to an uneven distribution of growth, causing a function integral to the completion of the product to shrivel away. Prune the Product tree provides a fun, interactive way to get valuable customer feedback and to discover what you can do to maintain a balanced product.

Directions

Before your meeting, create an Empathy Map on a large poster or white board. Start by drawing the profile of a head with physical features such as eyes, ears, a mouth, and a nose. Then, give it specific descriptive characteristics, such as a name and an occupation. This will help players identify with the character and project themselves into it to form more accurate ideas. Divide the map into five sections, portraying what your persona sees, thinks/feels, hears, gains, and is challenged by.

For best results, center your game on a specific theme, such as consumer benefits or business partner needs. Ask your players to focus on answering a question. For instance, what would make a customer choose your product over that of a competing company? What services are most important to your business partners? By providing a central question, players will provide more specific, applicable ideas.

Throughout the game, have your players write their ideas about the character’s experiences on sticky notes, which they will then place onto the respective section of the Empathy Map. Ask them to look into the mind of the targeted persona and to think about the sensory experiences of the character. Consider what the figure is observing from your company. Is it hearing good things from external sources? What does it want to gain from your business?

This game works best when players genuinely work to uncover the impactful sensory information your stakeholders process. Project yourself into the persona and empathize with it to understand how you can improve your product or service. After the chart is complete and your players truly empathize with the character, work as a team to analyze the results and reflect on how to apply them.

Play Empathy Map Online

Now you can play Empathy Map online rather than having to wait for a meeting! Clicking on the image to the right will start an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. This image will be used as the “game board,” and you will see three different facial expressions at the upper left corner of the board, which represent the players’ ideas. The icons symbolize:

• Smiley face: what would make your persona happy
• Grim face: what would make your persona concerned
• Frown face: what would make your persona unhappy

As with the in-person version of Empathy Map, the game board is divided into five regions, portraying what your persona sees, thinks/feels, hears, gains, and is challenged by. As you project yourself into the character, determine what would make it happy, concerned, or unhappy. Throughout the game, players fill in the map by dragging icons onto the chart and describing what each represents. For example, a happy face named “Better customer service” would be dragged to the “Thinking and Feeling” region of the board, as it is important to customers and plays a large factor in determining how they think about the company.

As facilitator, you can add more regions to the map to further organize the posted ideas. Since this is a collaborative game, remember to take advantage of the integrated chat facility to communicate with your players about each move, which can be seen in real time.

Bottom Line

The Empathy Map game is applicable to any business, as it provides insight into the desires of key players who are necessary for your company’s success. Learn how to provide a better user experience by viewing the perspective of your stakeholders and identifying how to improve what they see, hear, think, gain, and are challenged by. Through the extensive collaboration and visual organization involved in this game, you are able to form a deeper understanding about what customers and business partners truly want from your company.

Directions
Before your meeting, collect sticky notes or 3×5 notecards. In a white space (a poster, whiteboard, etc.), draw four concentric circles, leaving enough room between each one to place the notes. Your game players can be your internal team taking the perspective of customers, or actual customers themselves. Tell the group what each region of the chart represents.

· Inner Circle: Generic Product – the fundamental “thing” that you are marketing

· Circle 2: Expected Product – the minimal conditions customers expect from your product

· Circle 3: Augmented Product – aspects of your product that go beyond customer expectations

· Outer Circle: Potential Product – what could be done to your product to attract and keep customers

You can add more regions to the chart to further organize the group’s ideas.

Ask members to write ideas related to each category on the notecards and to stick them on the respective circle. Remove any repetitive cards and put together similar ones with the group’s input. Once all the ideas are posted, discuss the significance of the resulting chart with your group. How can you use this information to differentiate your product? What must you do to attract more customers? Avoid “going in circles” by guiding your players and focusing on what you can do to go beyond the customers’ expectations. After all of the ideas are posted, work as a team to analyze which direction your product should move in to be one-of-a-kind. Encourage expanding on the ideas and coming up with practical ways to apply them effectively.

Don’t want to wait until the meeting? You can also play the Whole Product Game online! Clicking on this image will start an “instant game” at innovationgames.com.

As facilitator, email the game link to customers or your staff to invite them to play. In the game, this picture is used as the “game board,” and there is an icon of light bulbs at the upper left corner of the board. Each light bulb represents an idea, which players describe and drag onto the respective circle.  As with the in-person version of the game, the game board is organized into four concentric circles representing the generic, expected, augmented, and potential product. Players can edit the placement and description of each light bulb, which you can view in real time. Use the integrated chat facility and communicate with your players throughout the game to get a better understanding of each move.

The Whole Product Game is widely applicable to any product or service; while the expected product may attract customers, differentiation is necessary to keep them. The extensive collaboration involved in this activity can help your team productively come up with new ideas about what can be done to make your product distinct. The game can also be used for more concentrated aspects of your company. For example, what makes your customer service unique? What can be improved about it to appeal to customers?

This productive game involves visual organization and critical thinking to gain insight on what will make your product stand out from the competition. Expand your point of view to understand what your customers truly want from your product. Don’t wait for your competition to outshine you; get started now and differentiate your product!

]]> http://blogs.globallogic.com/whole-product-game/feed http://blogs.globallogic.com/the-tale-of-two-webs http://blogs.globallogic.com/the-tale-of-two-webs#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:11:24 +0000 Sachin Saxena http://blogs.globallogic.com/?p=796 Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0 The tale of these two Webs is best told once we understand the meaning, importance and the differences between the following key words for each of the two versions of the web:

* Communities * Content * Communication *Conversations

Communities: Humans are social creature and associating with a ‘tribe’ is a very basic instinct for most of us. We identify ourselves by the places where we were born or live, schools we attended, religious beliefs we practice, professions organization we belong to, companies we work for and a whole slew of such groupings. The groups can be professional or personal and everything in between. Web 1.0 was very informational centric and did not include the community aspect. It did not foster any sense of community, the sense of belonging. So in a sense Web 1.0 did very little to address one of the very basic human nature.

Content: Content is king. However not all kings are created equals, there are emperors, kings and chiefs. Similarly all content is not created equal. In content world, one of the biggest differentiator is content creator. In the world of Web 1.0, because of the inherent cost related to content publishing and distribution, content was locked-up to the few. For example corporate marketing defined all out bound messaging. However, within any industry, groups or company there are leaders and experts, example company CTO or somebody who is an influencer in your group. Their voice and opinions are important to a more targeted group. The third type of content is the idle chat between friends, or a water cooler talk between co-workers, think Facebook. People have various personas, and there is place for all these types of conversation in each person’s life.

Whereas Web 1.0 was mostly for the first persona of content creators, Web 2.0 covers all types of content. In the Web 2.0 world, Wikipedia replaced Encyclopedias, Corporate Wiki replaced the intranet and your LinkedIn post of “Tell your network what you are doing” and IM status replaced the Post-it notes of “Do not disturb” sign outside the cubicle.

Communication: Communication is a two way dialog. In the real world it happens top down, bottom up, and sideways. The first version of the web was top down, talk only as it had no listen capability. In a sense it allowed for a very uninteresting monolog. Web 2.0 is about two way communication, it is about a dialog.

It put people and their communities in the center of all the dialogs. In the first incarnation of the web, this interaction was left to the physical world. Communication is about collaboration and conversations. It is about linking, sharing and interacting. Web 2.0 provided a platform to do all of this.

With so much content and so many conversations and no moderator, the problem of information overload became even more acute. Web 2.0 addressed this problem with a unique ‘wisdom of the crowds’ who provide the moderation by ‘following on twitter’, rating and ranking associated with both the content providers and their content. Comments, bookmarks, ‘..also bought’ (at Amazon), thumbs-up/ down, defined the features that link between relevant content to their communities and allowed them to have a meaningful conversation.

What role has Web 2.0 played in giving rise to the era of blogging and to social networking?

Some of the key Web 2.0 technologies include

*Social Networking site

*Wikis, Blogs & Micro blog

*Mash-ups, Video and Podcast

There are five specific business objectives of most communication — to listen, to talk, to energize, to support, and to embrace. Individuals and companies are using Web 2.0 technologies to communicate with their customers, business partners, employees and their industry groups. Blogging and Social networking are two of the more widely adopted Web 2.0 technologies.

Often time, the users for these tools are viewed as outside of the company, but the audience can very likely be your employees too. Initial adoption of these technologies was done by companies trying to sell directly to the consumer, but companies that have traditionally sold to the Fortune 2000 or to SMB are also starting to adopt ways to bring these tools into their portfolio. The initial adopters of these tools were people who were in the front end of the sales and marketing, but now applications are being developed that are using these tools to support internal and backend processes. Imagine the CEO of a company who wants to engage in ‘chat dialog’ with thousands of employees. Think of the CTO who wants to communicate his product/ architecture vision to the engineers while including constructive feedback from his entire team. These tools are the enablers of these conversations.

So how has the rise of Web 2.0 affected business and changed the way people work.

Web 2.0 is still in its infancy within most organizations. However it has the prospect of changing how marketing departments engages with prospects and customers, how product managers interact with internal and external stake holders, how hiring and recruitment is done, how training is delivered, or how customer support performs their activities today. For example, it is not uncommon that marketing updates their websites once a quarter or every six months with messages that are very carefully crafted but that is totally gibberish to most. It does not have to happen that way. There is no reason why training departments should only conduct instructor led courses that are conducted at prescheduled times that are inconvenient to all and topics that are relevant to few.

Where is the web 2.0 heading

The future is hard to predict. However, some places where Web 2.0 is most like to go next could be..

•Adoption of these tools within the enterprise. Companies shall start using these constructs to reduce the friction and increase the speed in how work is done. Some have labeled this as ‘Enterprise 2.0’. Today integration of the corporate tools such as email, documents etc. is missing. Addressing issues such as security, compliance, would be important before these tools get wider acceptance within enterprise.

•Web 2.0 is very text oriented today. Video, animation, audio, mobile smart phones are some fairly unexplored areas in the web 2.0 world.

•So far Web 2.0 is mostly about free to consumers. Rise of the private club, where members pay to participate or pay for premium services, B2B services is another area that is relatively unexplored.

(For those unfamiliar with what Hype Cycle means, you may want to refer to this Wikipedia description. Coined by Gartner, the Hype Cycle hypothesizes that any emerging technology typically goes through an initial period of over-enthusiasm and popularity which in some sense results in inflated expectations from the emerging technology. After this initial period, the hype around this emerging technology typically falls possibly because of  disenchantment. Few technologies recover from this phase of disenchantment with a practicality/sanity of usage taking over.)

As the 2009 Hype curve shows below – Gartner feels that Cloud Computing has now reached the peak of the hype cycle and based on their theory it many now be entering into the depths of disenchantment.

2009 - Gartner Hype Cycle (Source: Gartner)

Personally, I usually take any of the Gartner data with lots of salt and many a times also have ended up pondering upon their validity. However in this case I would seriously like to believe (or like to pray) that they are right especially in their assumptions about Cloud Computing. Because if they are – I am betting that the real work with proper practical expectations using Cloud Computing would start now. This is the time when many of its potential users would try to cipher through the confusing hype; take baby and practical steps in its adaptation; and let the top spin to see how its application spans out for their needs.

Going forward beyond the peak of the hype, as I am looking into my crystal ball – I am predicting that the usage/adaption of Cloud Computing across products or IT infrastructure would go through the following five stages (see figure below). My assumption of these five stages are derived from what I have typically seen how many other technologies/business processes (e.g. IP Telephony, Enterprise Automation, etc.) have found their way to mass/mature adaption. Note that in the figure below, the curved blue line in the backdrop indicates the Gartner Hype Curve.

To describe these stages in more details -

1. Adaption Phase - This phase (and we are well into this phase from Cloud Computing perspective as we speak) is where organizations would start taking the initial steps in looking at the application of Cloud Computing paradigm within their products or infrastructure. Products/applications hosted on traditional infrastructure are getting moved on Public Cloud. SaaS-enablement of existing products is another example. Using Virtualization to create in-house Cloud environment is another activity which many organizations are seriously looking at or many have also started implementing.
2. Stabilization Phase - As with the adaption of any new technology, the teething problems would need to be overcomed. This is the phase where the myths/hypes/over-expectations associated with the technology would meet with the real-world realities. Various risks associated with the new adaptation would start cropping up and would need to start getting mitigated. To do this certain applications would have to be re-architected; existing business processes would need to be remodeled to find a win-win situations with the business needs and advantages which the Cloud Computing platforms would possibly bring in. I personally believe that this phase would be the most critical of all. Adaptations of many new technologies have struggled in the past in this phase for a long periods and sometimes resulting in the ball getting completely dropped altogether too. From Cloud Computing perspective, I am predicting that the concept itself is going to evolve a lot as organizations go through this phase.
3. Measurement Phase - Once the adaptation and implementation of any technology stabilizes within any product or organization – the natural next step is to start measuring the day-to-day health and throughput. This is the stage where the Service Level Agreements (SLA) definitions and its measurements is going to start becoming important (as compared to usage of SLAs in the previous stages). At this stage, the measurements associated with uptime, disaster recovery, scalability, response time, etc. would start giving an idea about how well the implementation of Cloud Computing has gone.
4. Optimization Phase - Measurements would naturally lead to optimization of the implementation – be it from an architecture perspective or simply from the basic notion of how Cloud Computing should continued to be used. It would be too presumptuous of me (or anyone else for that matter) to start predicting how the optimization would play out for Cloud Computing today. It is just too difficult to predict today. However, like all technologies, cloud computing would evolve heavily (for better) in this particular phase.
5. Management Phase – This is the final phase where success stories associated with successful Cloud Computing implementations would start becoming a regular norm. At and beyond this stage, the implementations of Cloud Computing would continue to focus on regular Management which would include activities such as coordination, reducing regular expenditure, productivity improvement, improving functional statuses and satisfaction.

Please note that I am not suggesting that the above phases are always going to sequential; however it is more from lines of trying to figure out the order of the stages of implementation or even the maturity of the implementation. For example, it certainly does not make any sense to start measuring SLAs even before the implementation has stabilized. In void of such staged approach, I have seen that many a times many false results can dampen the potential which a new technology or paradigm can possibly bring in. And as I have said it before, Cloud Computing is certainly one such powerful platform. However, as many of you would agree with me that even a powerful platform can render itself ineffective if not implemented in a proper manner.

Would love to hear your thoughts/comments.

Beyond Hype – Predictions about Cloud Computing Adaptations

REGISTER HERE
Capacity: up to 150 individuals with experience sponsoring, designing or facilitating Innovation Games,

Design Games, Serious Games or related activities.  Tag your tweets as #idsge

If you are interested in how games solve problems, you are invited to IDSGE. This event is meant for a range of practitioners – from those who have heard provocative things about games or who have experimented a little – through those who use games on a regular basis – to those who design and develop games in the physical and digital worlds.

You don’t have to be an expert to contribute something at IDSGE. Skills you bring may include: interaction design, product management, group facilitation, game design, usability evaluation, play testing, and a sense of fun.

Examples include:

* Innovation Games®: Aimed at getting authentic customer responses to questions about new product concepts, product usage, customer needs and product requirements, this group of a dozen activities help your customers tell you things you didn’t know to ask.

* Design games: Offering collaborative design activities within a game format improves idea generation and communication among stakeholders. By shifting focus to the game, power relations and other factors that might hamper idea generation, are downplayed.

* Serious games: Ranging from theater improvisation to interactive games technology within non-entertainment sectors, serious games have uses in education, government, health, military, science, corporate training, first responders, and social change

Sessions are created by participants the day the event happens, so these topics are suggestions but many like them will.

* How to apply an innovation game to product development
* What kinds of games work well in what situations
* Massive multi-player social games
* Agile software development and selecting the right game for enterprise customers

Bring a case study – something that worked as planned or something that took an unexpected turn – to share and discuss. Even if you only have one example of a game you did once, it’s worth it to share.

Learn what people are tweeting about ISDGE here!

If you want to learn more about unconferences, including how to prepare for an unconference look at http://www.unconference.net/ including the .pdf document referenced there.
This is a community-driven event: Half the costs are covered by participant registration fees, the other half by sponsors.

Organizers:
> Luke Hohmann, CEO, Enthiosys, Mountain View CA, author of Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play, lhohmann@enthiosys.com
> Nancy Frishberg, User Experience Strategist, MSB Associates, San Mateo CA, nancyf@fishbird.com, and Innovation Games Facilitator
> Kaliya Hamlin (aka Identity Woman), Process Geeks, Berkeley, CA, kaliya@mac.com, and Innovation Games Facilitator

1 ↔ 1	Local grocery store, pre-industrial era. Effective, but uneconomical
Marketing → Masses	Traditional brand, websites, emails communication
Marketing ↔ Masses	Special events
Thought leader → Customers	Blogs/ Microblogs. Feedback is via comments
Thought leaders ↔ Influencers and Customers	Communities, networks, active, rating and ranking

↔ dialog

→ one-way communication

Each of these modes/ schematics addresses different communication needs. So a more basic question to ask is what do you want to achieve from corporate communication? Some simple goals of a communication activity could be.

• Talk to them
• Market research or support
• Energies and/or educate the community
• Embrace and collaborate with your customers

Different schematics can them be chosen to fit the goals.