bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

I am a bit of a Physics buff so always keen to read up on the latest experiments taking place.

One I saw late last year was on our perception of time.

As part of fight or flight response to a stimulus our body will shut off certain functions to divert energy and focus to other vital functions.

This most commonly occurs as flow or tunnel vision, where you hold a lot of focus on a task such that you lose track of time.

This particular experiment had a guy dropped from a large height onto a big net.  On his wrist he had a watch like device that was flashing a number at a high frequency that you cannot normally view it.

As he fell the idea was to see if he could see the number.

And he could everytime.  That is during a heightened response his ability to perceive his surroundings was much better than normal.

In fact you can watch the video here: Free Fall Experiment

I thought this was pretty neat especially in how it ties into Marketing and in particular usability. 

If you can change your customers perception of time through stimulating flow or enjoyment you create a strong customer relationship with your product & service.

(Extras for experts read my research on Live Search’s inability to create a compelling experience. )

Having worked with a number of Internet Start Ups over the years I have experienced these barriers first hand.

• Marketing viewed as an expense. Start / Stop.
• Wanting full control of content. Users MUST subscribe to access content.
• Every Search Engine Ad needs my Brand in it.
• Marketing is advertising. We don’t do that.
• Voice overs are a great way to engage [scare off] users.
• Instant results are best.
• All communications must include a sales pitch.
• Marketing is a mechanism to boost the entrepreneurs ego.
• Conversations starting with “If only….”.
• Entrepreneurs afraid of success.

On the flipside to break down these barriers:

• Marketing is an investment. Treat it as such. Continual investment yields the best results. (Ever heard of compounding?).
• Marketing is in every interaction in your business. Some companies marketing is that they focus all their energy into making a great product, think Google.
• If your holding the business back maybe its time to step aside.
• Trust the Marketing firm you’ve hired. If you can’t get someone you can!
• The cost of lessons learnt from mistakes is often less than the cost of indecision.
• Barriers restrict engagement.

Note: these are a minority, the majority of start ups get it.