“A plea for geeks and fails in public services” for Brussels Regional Informatics Center

1. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
A plea for
geeks and fails
in public services.
Would this work?
Would this make a
How technology and some psychology can difference in their tips?
help us to help people better.
- a presentation for Brussels Regional Informatics Center
Conférence Annuelle/Jaarlijkse Conferentie 2011-

2. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Yep. I know I look like 18.
But I’m actually 29. Most old people
tell me I will be happy with them
when I’m 50. I doubt that.
I sooooo love Blackberry ...
... but recently switched to iPhone
(it’s not you, it’s me).
Polle de Maagt. The reason to move to Gent
The love of my life. What better
Changing companies to be reason is there?!
more about acts, less about ads.

3. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
I try to change companies and the government to
be less about ads and more about acts.
Through inspiration, strategy and coaching.

4. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
I work(ed) for companies like

5. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
I would like to talk about 3 things today.
(Don’t worry, I made them tweet-size, so you can easily remember them).

6. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Be maniacal in managing expectations.
“ Create acts, not ads.
Leo Burnett.
“
Fail. Create momentum.

7. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
1
Be maniacal in managing expectations.

8. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
I am an illegal immigrant.

9. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Over the last 8 years ...
... I have been a 30K customer.
9,1 %
was not delayed or cancelled
Over my last 11 itineraries.

10. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
The growing challenge of managing expectations.
It’s pretty basic: do more than people expect to stimulate word of mouth. However, be careful not to
over-exceed expectations, that actually creates negative conversations.
And it sets a new normal ...

11. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Beyond the standard
support mails.
Zappos does an amazing job in making
technology invisible and really understanding
consumers. Whenever you answer ‘thank you’
to a standard support mail, they will send you
a personal message back, instead of an
autoreply.

12. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
A small experiment in happiness.
“Do something with Foursquare”, that was the briefing for a pretty remarkable experiment. Over the course of
6 weeks, we surprised KLM passengers based on their social media profiles. To see how happiness spreads.
And it did.
Something to prove
KLM wanted to prove they recognize the
person behind every passenger.
More?
I will talk you through
that later :)
Foursquare
Every time a passenger told KLM
via twitter or Foursquare that
he/she was at Schiphol airport,
we tried to surprise him/her in a
most personal way.
Results?
Over 1.000.000 impressions
on twitter alone. And a
Cannes Lions Award for PR.

13. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt

14. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Honestly. Cool or freaky?

15. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
A cost-efficiency experiment.
How can we prove digital works? By showing our webcare department is more efficient than our regular call
center. Actually ... a whopping 50-75%.
A 365/7/24 team in 6 languages
Ready to help clients all over the world.
A weekly report
For all managers.
50-75%
And we’re not even
counting the social
media ripple effect.

16. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
2
“
Create acts, not ads.
Leo Burnett.
“

17. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Would this work?
Would this make a difference
in their tips?
For me, it all started with this bill.
Yep.
I should treat my nails better.

18. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Running other routes
Not the same round every day,
but a route worth running.
Running further
To run a decent figure, people
needed to run further than
they were used to.
Nike changed the way people run.
A club worth joining
Connected 24/7/365.
Results?
Over 40.000 connected runners,
behavior change amongst runners.
SpinAwards and Webby Award.

19. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt

20. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt

21. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Wouldn’t it be awesome ...
... to turn all advertising space
on Times Square into art?
That’s the idea of TimesSquare
to ArtSquare #TS2AS.
Justus Bruns
Actually, he grew up in
Belgium.
Yes you can.
When you have a great
idea, you get away with
ugly jackets.
Remember that.

22. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
3
Fail. Create momentum.

23. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Daniel Termont.
A genuinely awesome guy.
He personally answers
all emails he gets.
Approximately 250 a day.
Challenging Gent’s mayor.

24. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Unused potential
Cute animals get born from
time to time. Employees
were video amateurs.
Kai Mook
Isn’t she cute?
Capitalize on unused potential.
Results?
Over 600.000 people watched the
birth. Live. Over 33% more visitors.
A story worth sharing Nominated as product of the year.
Wouldn’t it be great if every
Belgian felt a bit pregnant too?

25. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Instruments of change.
People don’t change overnight. Nor do companies. Use a set of tools.
1 2 3 4
Unused potential of your Workshops, training and Guidelines & Smart projects.
employees. coaching. Best Practices.
Small, manageable project with
WHAT
What people already support our Knowledge, training and People need both negative and
cause? Who can help us spread structural coaching. positive stimuli. Guidelines to set clearly defined scopes and goals
the word? Build best practices? the boundaries, best practices to that help the organization learn,
Excite others? get inspired and excited. change and set next steps.
Scanning the organization for key Tailored inspiration, strategy, Clear boundaries with social Deciding on priorities based on
opinion leaders, evangelists and workshop and knowledge media guidelines and procedures. feasibility versus impact.
BY
advocates. sessions with different Defining clear roads ahead by Defining clear KPI’s in terms of
departments. sharing best practices. intrinsic goals, learning goals and
change management goals.
EXAMPLES
Advocacy programs, Open Coffee / Bar Weekly tactical meeting, inspiration Social media guidelines, branchemarking Spearhead employees to test new tools,
Camp with thought leaders, etc. workshops, content brainstorms, initiatives, etc. A/B testing channels, etc.
internal conferences, etc.

26. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Project KPIs.
To change a company, define manageable projects with clear KPIs. Intrinsic, learning and change management
KPIs. This, to challenge yourself to make the projects impactful in learning and change management, but also
to be able to make a project successful on several axes.
Intrinsic KPIs
Your ‘normal’ set of KPIs that are
easy to measure. E.g. grow 50% in
number of followers.
INTRINSIC
LEARNING CHANGE
MANAGEMENT
Learning KPIs Change management KPIs
What can we learn from these How will this project help change the
projects? E.g. learn which content organization E.g. convince manager X that
works best to convert people to fans LinkedIn is as converting as twitter,
or followers. gather a spearhead group of 50 internal
enthousiasts.

27. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
]
It works beats “it would
be cool if” every day.
Just make sure it does the job.
Maybe the best social media campaign ever.

28. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
You can forget most of the things I said
today. But please, remember 3 things.

29. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Be maniacal in managing expectations.
“ Create acts, not ads.
Leo Burnett.
“
Fail. Create momentum.

30. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
48
Help me change the government. Act yourself.
Every little act is a step closer to leveraging unused potential. Every act is a little less ads. Do something in the next 48
hours that actually makes your company or your clients more customer connected.

31. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
I try to change companies to
be less about ads and more about acts.
Through inspiration, strategy and coaching.

32. Polle de Maagt @polledemaagt
Thanks for your time.
Download the presentation at polle.me/geeksforcibg
or contact me via twitter (@polledemaagt) or email (polle@polledemaagt.com)
http://polle.me/geeksforcibg