The United States Air Force is spread out over hundreds of military bases worldwide making analysis of inventories and operational readiness challenging. Roundarch has developed a logistics dashboard that seamlessly integrates one of the world’s largest data warehouses in to one place. The Air Force Logistics dashboard allows Air Force personnel to assess for operational readiness, track progress across the entire Air Fleet, and view aircraft, vehicle, equipment, and munitions information operated by the US Air Force worldwide through one convenient and comprehensive user platform.

Historically, Air Force personnel had to access multiple systems, across different user interfaces with limited functionality, to capture a complete picture with which to make a decision and inform leadership. This process was often timely and largely ineffective as statuses were likely to change over the data collection period.  The logistics dashboard designed and developed by Roundarch provides the Air Force with a reusable RIA framework based on SOA and Web 2.0 design principles that brings together the near real-time data in an enhanced common user interface with substantially increased performance and functionality.

Air Force personnel can access information on aircraft including; the aircraft’s current status, capabilities, maintenance information, and availability. If the aircraft is not mission capable, the dashboard provides reports on current maintenance, including what parts are on order, their arrival date and current location, and provides valuable insight into when the aircraft will be mission ready.

This information is critical for operational planning and evaluating fleet and inventory status. By having all the information channeled to one easy to use dashboard, Air Force personnel are able to quickly and effectively deliver mission logistic analysis reports across the entire Air Fleet up through the chain of command for execution.

Tony Tran, vice president

For the past few years Roundarch has been partnering with Avis Budget Group to develop a consolidated digital strategy.   In June, Aman Datta, vice president of Roundarch, and Kathryn Kiritsis, director of online marketing at Avis Budget Group presented at the Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME) Travel Marketing Conference in Boston, MA.  AMTE, chaired by Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research, is a non-profit, professional association made up of experienced and innovative travel industry marketers.  We were very excited to share our strategy and the success of our partnership with Avis Budget Group at the conference.  Roundarch and Avis Budget Group have partnered to focus on a “go to where the customer is” strategy for digital marketing/commerce including a redesigned Web site, mobile apps, fully-functional booking widgets and a comprehensive optimization strategy.

The first step in this strategy was to develop personas to serve as the foundation.

After developing the personas we worked with Avis to completely redesign the car rental experience on Avis.com.  The rental process was reduced from 5 clicks on different pages to 3 clicks all on one page while displaying choices and prices dynamically to improve conversion.  Then we expanded to the mobile space with the first-to-market iPhone app for Avis.  We continue to work with Avis Budget Group to grow in the mobile space with apps on other platforms as well as site extensions that allow Avis to take their experience to affiliate sites.  This mobile strategy has resulted in a 300% increase in mobile revenues.  We have also partnered with Avis Budget Group to focus on optimization including multivariate testing and improved organic search.  The case for optimization is compelling:

• Revenue from SEO has doubled each of the 4 years since Avis upgrades its SEO efforts with a 40% decrease in SEM costs.
• Together search makes up over 25% of online revenue for both the Avis and Budget Brands.
• Budget conversion rate more than doubles for incremental SEO traffic.
• Landing page conversion from search traffic increased by 30%.

Recently, Shar VanBoskirk of Forrester Research published a case study outlining how successfully Avis has used personas to drive SEO, specifically organic search, in the past few years.

“Over the last few years, we’ve invested a considerable amount of money on this SEO project, but it’s still less than 10% of what we spend on paid search.  SEO is more cost-effective than paid search, so we need to strike the best balance.”

John Peebles, vice president of Avis Budget Group

Our partnership with Avis Budget Group has shown that a comprehensive digital strategy is essential in the market today.  We are continuing to not just plan for the future of digital marketing, but evolve with new technologies and design the future of digital marketing to best align with the customer.

Enhancing Customer Experience and Retention in the Digital Realm

In recent years, customer frustration of converting a purchased product into an actual usable experience has given rise to the concept of “unboxing,” a stage in the customer journey focused on assisting the customer in product delivery, setup and use, after the purchase. Retailers have seized this opportunity by investing greatly in unboxing offerings like Best Buy’s “Geek Squad.” By fulfilling this complete end-to-end service, customers are more likely to report a positive experience leading to increased brand loyalty. Our experiences at Roundarch with designing and developing cutting edge solutions for some of the world’s largest brands have shown to us that this same principle can be applied to online and digital experiences.

When designing and deploying new digital offerings, retailers can  follow three key unboxing principles to maximize customer retention and  brand loyalty;

• Avoiding “wrap rage”
• Choosing when and how to provide an “instruction manual”
• Assisting a customer with effective setup and configuration

Avoiding “Wrap Rage”:

Unwrapping a new product is exciting but cleaning up the shipping and packaging materials can be tedious and annoying. Similar to physical products, digital applications also come with wrapping, from legal disclaimers to complex user registration processes, splash screens, and disruptive advertising. Taking creative approaches to when, where, and even how to present users with these important and often necessary site components will help to avoid “wrap rage” and lead to a more pleasant experience.

As examples, first start by deciding if the customer needs to go through any disclaimer steps at the onset of their first visit. Some forms and registrations could be delayed, allowing the customer to quickly immerse themselves in the site first. For the necessary information, consider creating a more translucent and asynchronous panel-based approach rather than an obfuscating multi-screen experience, to allow for a simple and pleasant user experience.

Providing “Instruction Manuals”:

Most often instruction manuals are quickly glanced at then tossed aside, demonstrating the customer disregard for their need. However, simply finding the manual is critical – it tells the customer that help is available if needed, and often times it is. With the emergence of new digital technologies, some retailers are increasingly concerned that a new customer to their site will not understand how to use its various features and will require an instruction manual.

Like an instruction manual, a splash screen approach during the first use of a website can often insult the customer as to their web intelligence; they typically end up equally disregarded. However, help may still be needed, and providing an effective visual site layout and design, including imbedded “how-to” information architecture will allow for this help to be easily attained without becoming an obstacle or insulting the user.

Setup and Configuration:

Often times purchases are based on an existing product or demo, be it in the store, from a friend, in advertising, or otherwise. More often then not, the purchased product will not be exactly the same as the demo when first taken out of the box as is a certain amount of setup, configuration, and customization that went into the demo.

Many site experiences either require or benefit from customization for instance: the ability to alter the site skin, selectable pertinent content modules, change entering site preferences and personalize defaults. When designing the site, take the time to determine appropriate default configuration profiles and develop a strategy for default states and configurations such that when a customer visits for the first time, the site is already configured for use. A site that is already customized for use will yield a more positive customer experience and improve brand loyalty.

Though the physical product realm and digital offerings continue to mature as equal partners, to date, their relationship is predicated on the digital realm’s role in serving mostly as a conduit to the acquisition of the physical product. In improving our digital offerings, however, it is important to place equal emphasis on the two – the digital experience should be thought of as a product itself. As such, we can learn quite a bit from lessons in the physical realm, including the power of unboxing in improving customer experience and brand loyalty. Helping a customer more quickly, painlessly, and enjoyably experience a new digital offering by providing adequate support along the way can make all the difference as to whether or not they come back.

On June 20th, I was fortunate to be able to represent Roundarch at the 2011 Computerworld Honors Laureate Awards Dinner, held at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in the heart of Washington, DC. This auditorium has hosted some very historical events.

Me in a Tux!

At the time of its construction, the Mellon Auditorium was the largest government-owned assembly space in Washington and one of the most magnificent settings for government ceremony, and was inaugurated on February 25, 1935. On October 29, 1940, 13,000 people crowded the Auditorium to witness President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiate the Selective Service System lottery and The North Atlantic Treaty was signed here on April 4, 1949 by President Truman.

Here we are in 2011, and the room has been taken over by some of the best and brightest in the tech world – But not just “engineering” technologists; This event seemed to be a gathering of leaders, problem solvers and innovators across a large array of countries, organizations and industries.

The Honors program has been running since 1988,  giving recognition to great many minds over the over these 25+ years. Because of this, it was not only a thrill to be recognized as a 2011 Laureate in Innovation, but also quite humbling because I had learned who else had been there before myself. It was a great honor to accept an award, but even better to be the one representing the entire team at Roundarch.   We were recognized as an Honors Laureate for our work on a cross-device messaging platform and vision for the future of cross-device/cross-platform applications, which will see a huge shift in the way people consume content and use their gadgets.

Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium

There were some fantastic people representing great organizations and really compelling projects across almost every industry you can imagine. It is hard to say what I found most interesting about the event, as it was extremely diverse.  I did meet the CTO of the Giza Pyramids (did you know they had one?) who chatted with me for quite a while about how he is currently working to build out a platform for tablet-based augmented reality applications to help visualize architectural theories and the like. Very interesting stuff.

In fact, I was blown away by the diversity of the other Laureates and their projects, and applaud the “winners” in each of the defined categories. It couldn’t have been an easy decision, as every one of the case studies that was entered was terribly interesting. One thing they all had in common: They were conceived to solve a big problem and hopefully use technology to make the world a better place. Who doesn’t like that?  To get some idea of the types of projects recognized by the Honors Laureate program, take a look at the judges picks for 2011.

The 2011 winners were (by category)

In addition to the Honors Laureate program, the evening also included the presentation of the 2011 Morgan Stanley Leadership Award for Global Commerce, which was awarded to the CEO of VMware, Paul Maritz. This award recognizes individuals whose personal Leadership has made a critical contribution to the effective use of information technology throughout the world, and after hearing Paul speak and share his thoughts on the current state of “the Web” and how he is guiding the strategy at VMware, it seems natural that he’d be recognized in this manner. Paul is really an interesting guy with a unique background.

From 1986 to 2000 Paul was a primary leader at Microsoft, ending his tenure as an executive vice president of the Platforms Strategy and Developer Group and part of the 5-person executive management team. As someone who truly helped shape the Web as we know it, Paul was responsible for Microsoft’s desktop and server software, including such major initiatives as the development of Windows 95, Windows NT, and Internet Explorer. After leaving Microsoft, he founded Pi Corporation, which was acquired by EMC, and was eventually appointed the CEO of VMware.

For some additional insight into Maritz, check out this transcript of his video bio prepared for the event.

All in all, our involvement inthe Computerworld Honors Laureate program has been quite an honor and just another testament to the hard work and creative thinking found across the teams at Roundarch.

Saturday, June 25, 2011 -

On a beautiful Saturday in Chicago,  I had the opportunity of attending the Ji-V Hackathon II at Ascend Training in downtown Chicago. It was a day filled with great speakers, fantastic sponsors, and a great turnout of attendees. Roundarch was represented by Ben Bryan, Shaun Husain, Burton Podczerwinski, and me (Juan Bonfante). This is the second Ji-V Hackathon I’ve attended this year, difference being Roundarch was a silver sponsor for the hackathon this time around. This event brings together some of Chicago’s best and brightest developers, students, and entrepreneurs; although the Chicago mobile/technology community is not as large as what you would find in other cities like New York, the event was a welcome reminder that the Chicago community is growing quite rapidly and the amount of talent just keeps getting better.

Juan & Ji Kim Lucas (event organizer... The Ji in Ji-V)

Ben Bryan showcased the use of the Android NDK to access lo-level device API’s which allows him to integrate C/C++ libraries with Android; It was an extremely insightful presentation, and his demo gave us a hint at the power of the NDK, by creating a small app that did sound analysis and manipulation, while creating multiple threads to pipe the different sound streams into each thread. The real power of the demo was how easily he could use it create sound effects such as reverb in real-time.  You can check out the code here.

Juan & Ben

Shaun and Burton also did a great presentation, where they showed the use of a IOIO (pronounced YOYO) board, and the Android SDK to create an autonomous RC Car. By tying together multiple infrared sersors and a couple of servos they were able to create an RC car that for the most part can drive itself, they need to work on the breaking system a little, but what they accomplished in less than a week is quite impressive. You can head over to their YouTube Channel to see a video they put together of their creation.

I on the other hand had the pleasure of being a moderator for one of the panel discussions throughout the day, along with Uki D. Lucas who’s a Technical Architect for Sears and the founder of ChicagoAndroid.com; as well as Jason Shah who is the VP of Product Management and Engineering at Mediafly, Inc. The panel consisted of: Moshe Tamssot Founder of MonksOfInvention.com and Managing Partner at InnovationCenter.com, Brendan Kenny who works for Google on the Maps API team doing Developer Relations, Michael Labriola who is an RIA Evangelist and Adobe Community Professional working with Digital Primates, Paul Bernhardt who is an Application Development Consultant at Reasearch In Motion (RIM), and Jason Goodrich who is the founder of A Space Apart and Leasabl. The panelist answered questions regarding a wide breath of topics, including but not limited to UI/UX impact on future applications, web versus mobile applications, Near Field Communication (NFC) & RFID, and Android. The panelist all shared their ideas on these topics, and it was very interesting to see how different companies/technologies are approaching the same problems, in completely different ways; RIM for example, showed how their new OS is intended to be a developer friendly as possible by allowing Developers of various disciplines to create applications very easily. While on a more futurist topic, where they saw the mobile device market headed, Mike Labriola mentioned that what would be nice to see in the future is the disappearance of a device altogether; while purely theoretical the solution he described wouldn’t involve anyone becoming a cyborg anytime soon, but more of a device that would be closer to an article of clothing rather then a peripheral.

Panelists

At the end of the day, there was two more unexpected surprises (although they were on the schedule… These aren’t necessarily what you would expect when going to a Hackathon on a Saturday): The first was a Flamenco dance presentation, the second a demo of Wushu Martial Arts, both extremely well put together as well as exciting to watch. This was followed the awards ceremony for the Hackathon contestants; The silver prize of $500, provided by Roundarch, was awarded to the KeyLimeTie team consisting of Jennifer Wittman, Austin Palanca, Andrew C, Richie Peters, and Tim Courtney.  Congratulations to the KeyLimeTie team for all of your hard work!

Team KeyLimeTie

Overall I’d like to thank the event organizers Ji Kim Lucas and Veronica Ludwig for putting together a great event, it couldn’t be possible without them. Would also like to thank all of the attendees, and the speakers who came out for making the event a great success. Finally thanks to Ramon De Leon the marketing mind of Six Domino’s Pizza stores in Chicago, for a very tasty lunch.