Talk3

Don’t be fooled by ‘personal agent’ impostors

Author: Eric Hillerbrand

January 26, 2012

“This site is just like us”, a new employee recently claimed, pointing to a web site that advertised that consumers had their own ‘personal shopping agent’.    I am always amazed at how marketers will use ‘personal’ or ‘agent’ in their marketing materials.  ‘Ask Jeeves’, your own personal Internet concierge, was a nice graphic on top of a search engine.  It is why I am reluctant to describe our technology as enabling personal agents.

Oftentimes, ‘personalized’ is slapped onto any functionality that allows a user to select from a list of categories.  I want coupons on Outdoor Activities, Men’s Clothes, and Baby Clothes.   I hardly call that ‘personalized’.  Imagine if relationships were personalized in that way.  Match.com would limit their profile to things like size, hair color, IQ.  This is hardly a way to build a lasting relationship.

Sites that ‘personalize’ by allowing you to select from a set of categories are really profiling systems.  A profiling system captures a static profile of a user and then uses that profile to search a database.  Profiling systems and personalization are two totally different things.

So let’s look at definitions of ‘personal’ and ‘agent’.

An ‘agent’ has a very specific definition in software development.  An agent describes a software program that acts for the user, working on their behalf.

Here are the top five ways to recognize an ‘agent’.

1. Agents work for me.
2.   Agents work on behalf of me.  They are able to understand my preferences and needs, and then do the job accordingly.  Does the ‘agent’ actually allow me to indicate my preferences and alter the way work is done accordingly?
3. Agents do complex work.  Agents do more than one thing.  Software that merely searches or sets an alert isn’t smart and certainly isn’t doing anything complex.  Does the ‘agent’ perform a set of complex tasks or a simple specific function?
4. Agents reason.  Agents are able to learn and reason about the way I want the job done.  As they do the job, and as I interact with an agent, the agent is able to modify the way it approaches an objective.  Is the ‘agent’ able to change its performance on-the-fly based a new objective?
5. Agents are aware of the context.  Agents are reactive.  That means that they are able to monitor the context whether changing location, preferences or other environmental stimuli, and change accordingly. Does the ‘agent’ change its work based on changes in location, context or any other environmental input.
6. Agents operate on their own.  Agents operate outside of direct control.  They are able to select what they do, prioritize and then focus on achieving a specific goal.  Does the ‘agent’ require user control and monitoring or does it do its job on its own?

Now let’s understand personalization. 

Here are the top eight ways to recognize personalization.

1. Personalization means multi-dimensional.  I am not a single thing but a complex form that has, at any point in time, a multitude of complex motivations, problems, intentions, values and preferences.  Personalization does not force me to fit into a marketer’s segment or categorization scheme.  Can I define myself only in one static way or can I define multiple different preferences that all define who I am in a specific context?
2. Personalization is based on individual consumer expression.  Everyone has a different way of thinking about and talking about their preferences.  While there might be statistical similarities that allow a marketer to cluster me with others, that clustering is based on probabilities and a fair amount of error.  Personalization allows me to describe my preferences and organize my intentions the way I want.  Can I describe myself the way I want?
3. Personalization knows me.  Many marketers think that personalization is about “<insert namehere>.”  In our view, personalization is able to accommodate the range of digital information that constitutes who I am.  Personalization should be driven off of stated preferences, browsing history, email interactions, online profiles and transaction history.  Robust personalization occurs when all of my digital personas are integrated and a personal model of me is created.  How many ways are available to me to define who I am so that my personalization becomes better?
4. Personalization evolves with me.  Amazon’s recommendation engine is famous for continuing to recommend products that have already been purchased and will never be needed again.  I already bought the garage door opener and it is doubtful that I will need another one anytime this millennium.  People get smarter over time.  Personalization should learn and grow.  Does my personalization get better over time?  Am I able to control what and how it learns?
5. Personalization takes into account my location and context.  Personalization takes into account where I am.  Do different locations lead to different personalization?  Personalization is contextual.  My mood changes; my interests change; my perception of the problem changes.  Can I define different contexts that reflect these changes?  Do changes in context affect personalization?
6. Personalization is real-time.  A person’s preferences change as they try and solve problems.  As I interact and rethink what I am trying to do.  I should be able to change and direct how personalization occurs in real time.  How does personalization change in real time?  What control do I have over that?
7. Personalization is solutions oriented.   Personalization provides relevant resources to me when and how I need and want them.  Those resources can be vastly different.  I don’t only want deals, or products, or information.  Based on who I am and what I am doing the types of things that are done for me will be vastly different and the resources that are available will change significantly.  Personalization helps me solve my problems or meet my needs the way I want.  How does personalization help me get problems solved the way I want to?

An agent is a valuable capability to a consumer.  True personalization is incredibly powerful.  A real personal agent is a relatively new capability that will increasingly be seen in marketplace.  In the meantime, don’t be taken by impostors.

About Eric

Eric Hillerbrand is CEO of Talk3. He is a visionary thought leader in Web 3.0 technology and future marketing technologies. Eric has been at the forefront of consumer-centric marketing strategies, leveraging emerging marketing technologies to achieve the promise of one-to-one marketing, and building marketing programs that engage today's social, mobile consumer. He has been a founder of several marketing technology companies, advised several startups, early stage companies and Fortune 500 companies in making the most of these technology shifts. His focus has been semantic technologies, complex and emergent systems, and building personalization products for consumers.

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