“We don’t value free things as much as the things that we pay for” Christo says. This is why the free trial period for new users will only last one month. Even though they know that it takes users a good 2-4 months to fully benefit from the service, one month is long enough to determine whether or not the service will impact your thinking. “It does take 2-4 months for one to actually change their spending behaviour and notice the impact, however one month is long enough to be able see that this product will benefit you.”

The 22Seven money management service is now accessible through all banks, despite the initial battles. And for those of you out there who are still concerned about the security of your money when handing over your banking details, Davel reveals that there will soon be a security API in order to access the relevant information, without going through the ‘front door’. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” This is sure to ease a large number of fence-sitters who feel that this issue is holding them back from a great product.

“This product allows for our rationalities, it simply creates awareness. It is designed to be intuitive and make sense, so it is not just for techies.” Christo says. Families can now also link accounts and therefore experience a greater benefit.

Although there are many opinions on their use of Flash, their choice to stay away from HTML5 was purely because “HTML5 is still in it’s infancy.” Simon Dingle, head of product strategy and IT support, explains. However they will phase out of Flash, as time goes on. The end goal is to allow for 22Seven to be easily accessible on mobile.

“This is old school budgeting, set in a very sexy way.”

Your book entitled “Game-Based Marketing” looks at the use of gaming integration into business and life. Can you explain this concept to us?

Gamification is the use of game thinking, game mechanics, and game principles to solve problems in the real world – from education and business to healthcare and marketing. For instance, adding leaderboards and achievements to an office collaboration suite is a way to gamify the enterprise and spur productivity and engagement in employees. In marketing, it means adding feedback loops, badge systems and more to your website to make it more engaging and stickier for visitors and potential customers.

Do you think the development of games over the last decade has hindered or helped the youth, with regards to socialisation?

I think there’s some evidence on both sides of the argument about games and their effect on socialization. One reality is for certain: digital games aren’t going anywhere, so social changes we observe are likely to be long term, and eventually from the ‘new normal’.

Do you think applying games to advertising is beneficial for all brands? Or is there a specific market?

I think gamification is a powerful tool for creating engagement, regardless of the industry or focus. Because gamification doesn’t always mean making something into an actual game, we can address a wide array of business cases with the techniques.

What is the 2012 G-Summit focused on, and what were some key pointers for business owners to take away from that?

Broadly, GSummit 2012 is about helping companies use gamification as a strategy to engage customers and employees. We have exciting talks from the marketing and enterprise categories, with leading thinkers from media, loyalty, sustainability, education, venture capital, design and more. Keynote speakers include Krishnan Saranathan from United Airlines Mileage Plus, and JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist of Salesforce. They’re joined by over 40 other speakers from companies like NBC Universal, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Zynga, Ogilvy, United Healthcare, and more.

Can you give us your favourite example of gamification used brilliantly for marketing purposes?

One of the most interesting examples was T-Mobile creating a live-action Angry Birds game controlled by an android device in Barcelona. People got to actually play the popular game live and in-person. Another great example is the way Nike has used Nike Fit/Nike+ to engage runners across the world to beat their personal bests. The program has put Nike back on the map as a serious running brand.

Where do you see gamification heading in the next few years?

I think that gamification is well on its way to being the most disruptive trend in the marketing industry since social networking. With the explosive growth and amazing results of early gamification examples, the approach is going to transform a wide range of companies. In addition, gamification can be a powerful tool for transforming education, healthcare, government and our environment. Many of the most exciting examples in these categories will be featured prominently at GSummit 2012 in San Francisco.

And lastly, what is your favourite game of all time?

Civilization is the game I love the most and have played most extensively in my life. I’m also a big fan of Plants vs Zombies – probably the game I’ve played the most since Civilization.

Although Alan admits there are plenty of risks, he is willing to take them, because the worst case scenario when shooting for the moon – is landing amongst the stars.

To hear more about his fascinating story, check out this video.

Once again, a huge thank you to our phenomenal sponsors, Deloitte, Nokia, Backsberg and Channel Mobile.

In South Africa, Ecommerce is not quite as popular as in America and Europe, to some extent – due to lack the of trust with online transactions. What are your thoughts on security with regards to online shopping and the public’s trust?

We’ve all heard horror stories, no matter where on the globe we are, about identity theft and security breaches of personal information. Even highly trusted sites like Zappos have exposed their customers to these problems. Services like PayPal help to increase security, as do SSL and other encryption technologies. But safety of financial information is only one problem. Unfortunately for countries like South Africa, Brazil, Russia, Poland and many others, citizens are concerned not about the merchant being underhanded, or hackers finding their information, but customs and postal workers stealing packages. Unfortunately, it’s a reality outside the control of both merchant and buyer. Courier rates and insurance are often far more expensive than the product itself.

Online shopping carries risk for every transaction. Risk of data compromise, non-delivery, damaged goods or even a product appearing much different on-screen than in real life. Some people will never prefer shopping online given these risks, but a merchant should be aware of customer concerns and communicate well throughout the site what customer service and privacy or security measures are taken to ensure a happy shopping experience.

In your opinion, what would be the most effective way for merchants to promote their Ecommerce site?

If I had to pick just one, I would invest in organic search. Paid search and display advertising can be effective, but also very expensive. SEO is the gift that keeps on giving, but is also an ongoing activity, and carries a large time cost.

Do you think that Ecommerce sites should allow for micro-payments? Would it be beneficial?

Depending on the type of product sold – definitely. Digital products have more recurring billing opportunities such as subscriptions, virtual goods, pre-paid minutes and service credits. This can be quite profitable, even when the product itself is free, like many mobile and social games.

With sites such as Gumtree and Gumroad, where anyone can sell almost anything, how do you think this affects Ecommerce sites?

Consumer to consumer marketplaces affect retail business, but I don’t believe it cannibalizes so much that retailers should be threatened. Ecommerce sites often are more trustworthy, offer new products, and offer more variety. There are benefits to buying from a shop versus peer-to-peer. On the flipside, marketplaces can be a venue for retailers to offload clearance merchandise and otherwise promote their businesses as well.

What do you see happening with online shopping trends in the next few years?

I don’t think online shopping will grow as fast as in the past, but there will be growth in site visits and purchases from tablets. And industries that create and sell content to mobile devices, connected TVs and gaming consoles will certainly grow.

What are some examples of your favourite Ecommerce sites, and why?

For user experience, I love sites that do filtered naviagation well, like ASOS.com, Endless.com and Ebay. For innovation, sites that integrate with Facebook Timeline to create new experiences, like Fandango and Ticketmaster. For buying one-of-a-kind items, I like the Etsy marketplace. I’m a seller myself, but I tend to go there first, whether I’m looking for clothing, gifts, cosmetics, housewares and art. I like to buy from small/home business and it’s an easy one-click checkout for me. Ebay is my second favourite, for the same reasons, but there’s a much longer tail of items I can find there, often at very good prices.

Check out the Get Elastic blog, and subscribe for regular Ecommerce tips and information.

Having diverse contributors each with their own opinions, how do you manage to resolve dispute and keep a uniformed front for Smashing Mag?

Well, it’s an interesting question. We don’t try to ‘flatten out’ articles from our authors so that they express one, unified opinion. Instead we’ve chosen to embrace the richness of diversity of our authors and their views on Smashing Magazine. We encourage writers to present their own opinions and actually create discussions and heated debates in our articles. However, what is important to us is that an article always passes our high quality requirements. It shouldn’t spread bad practices nor should it express biased, respectless views.

So, for example, we have an Experts Panel in place. Essentially a large peer review group of invited experts in the various fields of the industry who review articles before they get published on Smashing Magazine. If the feedback from our experts isn’t good enough, the article doesn’t get published.

The responsive design on the Smashing Mag website is very impressive. Can you talk us through the design and build of that, and the choice of this option over a separate mobi-site?

Smashing Magazine’s recent redesign was much more than just a switch to a responsive layout. It was a general, large-scale rebranding and refinement of our strategy. Over the years, Smashing Magazine has changed a lot, both in terms of our internal structure, but also editorial work and content strategy. Our design didn’t reflect these changes. Essentially, we’ve changed everything. Business cards, email signatures, our social media branding and the design as well.

In terms of the responsive layout, the overall process was quite simple. All along the way we asked ourselves one fundamental question, ‘How can we make our ad-supported content more attractive than its ad-free counterparts?’ How can we bring people who are using Instapaper and Readability back to our site? And the answer to this question was in making sure that our articles, the core of our website, looked perfect on all devices on all screen resolutions.

We started with a careful examination of typography, built a ’sample article design’ and then built other components around it. The key attribute for our design decisions was the line length for the article. We tried to make it optimal across the plethora of screen resolutions, so we just started with the article text on mobile and then as the line length was becoming wider, we tried to figure out how we should adjust the layout to make sure that the line length always remained optimal. So essentially, columns were added accordingly.

We never actually considered building a separate mobile website and from the very beginning we actually wanted to have a unified, holistic user-experience.

What new technologies or trends do you see on the horizon?

I strongly believe that Responsive Web design is more than just a mere technique; it is a new mindset, with new challenges and new opportunities. It might actually prompt one of the biggest revolutions in Web design process in general. Eventually, we will figure out a way for efficient server-side optimization for responsive websites and will be, and are already in the process of, developing new responsive design patterns for navigation, advertising, branding and everything.

Another thing that I feel very excited about is the concept of using sophisticated storytelling techniques as we know it from cinematography or literature in Web design. Very often we underestimate the power of story that could be embedded in our websites to amplify its impact on and communication with our users. By creating holistic, cross-channel experiences with a brand we can establish a different kind of communication, and it would transcend beyond plattforms.

What are some pointers you would give to companies trying to hire capable designers?

That’s a very interesting question. I would strongly advise companies to ask the designers and developers about their workflow, and provide a detailed case-study on how they were designing or building their latest project and how exactly they were involved. I would look at their tools, their workflow, their design processes and their working environment. Also, I would advise against hiring designers who are not following recent developments in Web design or development. There is so much going on at the moment so that it’s necessary to keep learning and teaching every single day. A designer would get bonus points if he or she writes articles online, shares his or her thoughts in comments or in social streams and has contributed to open source projects in the past. Having a good GitHub-page is definitely a good sign.

Being an online publication, what are you thoughts on free information versus pay-walls, in order to keep print versions alive?

We are advocates of freely available, accessible quality content. I can understand the rationale behind pay walls but it’s not something that we’d be comfortable with on Smashing Magazine. I think it’s much better to create original, valuable printed products and sell them to your audience for a reasonable price rather than hiding content behind pay-walls.

Thank you for your time, Vitaly. We look forward to more great things from Smashing Magazine. Follow Smashing Magazine on Twitter here.

Hi Connie. Community building can be challenging for start-ups that have yet to build up trust and loyalty with consumers. What advice would you give to new brands that are trying to do this?

The proliferation of online Communities has provided start-ups with a huge opportunity that wasn’t previously available. A start-up can utilize pre-existing communities to build their brand and a following for their products. The internet also allows for competitive insight that used to be very expensive to gather. The virtual nature removes the financial barriers that used to be required for offline networking and sales opportunities.

My suggestion is that start ups make sure that they have a plan early on to integrate community building into their marketing plan. At minimum, dedicate a resource to grow an online community and considerable money can be saved on traditional marketing and PR. It will also augment sales efforts.

Online community is actually easier for start-ups because a culture shift isn’t required. The transparent culture can be formed as the start-up grows. In an established company of any size, this aspect creates many barriers that need to be overcome.

Monitoring your brand on Social Media is crucial to all businesses nowadays, and negative experiences seem to spread faster than positive ones. What top tips would you suggest to brands that are dealing with bad information being spread on Social Media?

First of all, as stated, monitoring is imperative! A brand should be the first to know that good or bad things are being said about them. If either type of news is proliferating then a proactive response will always provide a more positive result. If a brand has established an online community and built trust around their brand, then their community will rise up and defend them if warranted. They will also help slow the spread and allow the brand time to respond.

Bottom line, every brand should be listening and have a social media and PR crisis plan in place.

What are your thoughts on potential employers requesting applicant’s passwords in order to view their Facebook accounts? Do you think unlimited access to social networking accounts is a fair judgement on people seeking employment?

When I mentor people in the community management industry I talk about the importance of ensuring that expectations are aligned between employer and prospective employee. If this information is requested, I think you should ask the employer some serious questions about their expectations. What is their culture like? Will your philosophy fit in that culture? If it is a clash then you both need to agree that it’s not a fit. It wouldn’t fit with my philosophy. It also shows a lack of understanding of social networks and privacy, along with the ability to have privacy. Ironically, I see some companies using social channels for HR recruiting, but not being interactive. Again, that’s another flag. If a company requires unlimited access before one is employed, that would beg one to wonder what the standards for employment would look like.

What top tips would you give to brands that are trying to stand out among the excessive amount of noise that is present online?

Listen and be present where your prospective and customers are at. Also, be present where those of your competitors are at. This will require resources – yes, people – that can interact and build relationships, and a community, in online channels. And it’s imperative that staff are empowered and encouraged to build their own networks. They can then amplify the brand’s messages in turn. But the brand needs to realize that if the employee moves on, that they will move on. Employers need to realize that this shouldn’t be a threat and that more good will come during the time of employment from their interacting with the voice of the brand.

When trying to create seamless integration with branding across traditional offline and online platforms, what is the most important thing to consider?

Make sure to integrate URL’s for online communities into offline events and marketing handouts. Integrate Twitter into events by suggesting a hashtag for the audience to use and encourage the back channel conversation. When I speak at events I always appreciate reviewing the comments on Twitter at a later time. When I’m on panels I find that interweaving commentary from the Twitter stream for the panel is a great way to include the audience. For a long time it was vogue to put a second screen up showing the backchannel on Twitter, but now some events have done away with that because it was too disruptive.

The New York Times published your marketing predictions for 2010. What are your predictions for 2012?

2012 is the year of big data. Companies are struggling with disparate databases and wondering how to manage the wealth of information that’s being gathered through social media monitoring, CRM’s and marketing databases. How does one merge that data and find insights and actionable data?

In regard to online Communities, they will continue to be important parts of social marketing efforts. The brands that realize that it’s about relationship building and the Community needs to be focused on lifestyle affinities will be more successful. People are so time constrained that it has to matter to them. Customer-centric communities will thrive.

Thank you for your predictions for the year, Connie. We will be sure to follow this. Readers, be sure to look at Connie’s blog, and follow her on Twitter.

Being head of User Experience for kalahari.com, what are the biggest challenges you face?

In large companies, user experience tends to be an organizational challenge more than it is a design challenge. The biggest difficulty is embedding user experience thinking completely, across the company, in everyone’s minds. It’s not just the designers or developers who create the sites or apps that need to think about this, we all do.

In South Africa we still find ourselves in an environment where design is often seen as a bit of an afterthought. A varnish you put on a product before it goes live. This thinking needs to change. At its core, design is problem-solving. It’s understanding user needs and then building experiences that meet those needs in a way that makes business sense, as opposed to forcing users to fit into how we view our business.

So to come back to the original question, one of the biggest challenges for us as a User Experience team has been to show the business value of what we do. We make sure that we define clear success metrics on our projects, and that we communicate the increases in conversion rates or revenue that we see from the work that we do. That’s how we’ve been able to expand the expertise on the team and gain a voice in strategy discussions.

Do you think design is ever sacrificed for usability?

I guess that depends on your definition of design. I view design as a set of decisions about a product. And yes, this includes things like Interaction Design and Visual Design, but it’s more than that. Good design is good usability. Good design communicates the product’s core functions well, in whatever visual style the designer chooses. So it’s not about minimalism or skeuomorphism or any of the other trends we’re currently seeing. It’s about telling the product’s story well. That’s intimately linked with good usability.

If the question is whether we sometimes sacrifice aesthetics for usability, my answer would be yes. To quote Jeffrey Zeldman, “Not enough designers are working in that vast middle ground between eye candy and hardcore usability where most of the web must be built.” Design exists to serve the user. If we sometimes have to sacrifice aesthetics to do that effectively, then so be it.

What are you thoughts on Ecommerce in South Africa, in general and in relation to other emerging markets?

The data tells us we’re still a small Ecommerce market, but growing fast, particularly in mobile. I don’t want to go all ‘the future is mobile’ on you, but the reality is that many people in South Africa, and the rest of the continent, will only ever go online on their mobile phones. So we have something unique to offer to the rest of the world when it comes to mobile. For us, Mobile First isn’t just a mantra. If we don’t take it seriously, we will lose out to someone who does.

Ecommerce in South Africa is really exciting right now. We have a lot of competition and a lot of niche players entering the market, and that’s good for everyone. It forces companies to innovate faster, and consumers get more choice.

You started Elezea.com, a website aimed at reflecting on User Experience Design, Technology and Software Product Development. Explain the idea behind Elezea to us.

You know, I wish I had a good answer to that question, but I’m still figuring it out myself. I started the site because I love writing, and I wanted to get better at it. I also see the enormous value of what Wired reporter Clive Thompson calls ‘the art of public thinking‘. I’ve definitely seen how thinking out loud about technology and design challenges me on my own assumptions, and helps me build better arguments, all of which helps me grow as a designer and as a human being.

In the beginning I wrote a lot but didn’t post much, because I felt the need for every post to be long and perfect. And then I slowly realised that I’ve raised the bar too high for myself, nothing is ever perfect. So right now I see Elezea as a way to share the things I find interesting, and I hope that some of it resonates with people. Sometimes it’s original writing, but more and more it has become about pointing people to other great writing out there, with some quick added perspective. I’ve slowly relaxed the limits on what kind of stuff I’m allowed to post there, but the common thread is the intersection of design, technology, and sociology. Ok, and coffee. I think about coffee way too much.

What is the best piece of information to remember when trying to keep design user-friendly?

You are not the user. You have to talk to and observe users of your product to find out what’s wrong, and what they need. There are great design patterns and guidelines out there, and we definitely have to follow those. For example, there is no need to re-invent forms. We know what works. But every product and every situation is unique, so one of the biggest mistakes we can make is to think that we can just follow, or ignore, the rules because we are users too. Without user research, we’re flying blind.

I think the biggest epidemic in the design world right now is that we open our design software too early in the process. We have to spend time understanding the problem and user needs first, before we grab the mouse. There are so many products out there that look great, but don’t really solve a user need. The app ‘Color‘ has become a poster child for this kind of thing.

Instead, designers should raise their voices much earlier in the strategy discussion, and bring their design thinking skills to the essential practice of finding what Marc Andreesen calls product/market fit. Oh, and we need to use more paper to share those ideas. Sketches are fantastic low-fidelity prototyping tools, and it’s cheap to test and iterate on.

We hear that you will be moving on from kalahari.com soon. What will your new work involve and what challenges do you look forward to most there?

In June I’ll be joining the Cape Town office of UX consultancy Flow Interactive. I’ve known Phil, one of the co-founders of Flow in the UK, for a while and I’ve always admired his approach and methods to User Experience work. So when I decided to go out on my own and we chatted about it, the idea slowly emerged that we should team up.

My role is going to be a mixture of client work and training, and I’m really looking forward to both areas. I’m excited about being part of a small team that does methodologically sound and highly practical UX work with organizations across South Africa. It just feels like a perfect fit.

We wish you great success in your new venture. Thank you for sharing these insightful bites of information, Rian.

Be sure to visit his website, Elezea. Follow Rian on Twitter here.

Do you think it is necessary for every brand to get involved in this particular form of marketing?

Any person, organisation, company, corporate that was engaged in traditional marketing 1.0 activities in the past, needs to transition to social media marketing. The tables have turned from a company-push to a consumer-pull model. Consumers are dictating how they want to make purchase decisions and the only way that companies can gain visibility of these preferences is to engage with clients and customers, and listen to them. The short answer to your question is a resounding yes.

What is the most common mistake brands make regarding their social media marketing?

Brands rush in too quickly without doing the necessary planning first. Social media marketing, as with any business function, requires a proper strategy to be defined first. Strategy, as you know, has to be owned and driven from the top down. Social media also has to be part of a broader marketing strategy and cannot be done in isolation. Companies also need to have realistic expectations in terms of what they hope to achieve from social media marketing. As part of the strategy, companies also need to define specific criteria to measure success, and they need to measure regularly and provide feedback to stakeholders. What many companies do not realise, if you go back to the middle ages, people would congregate in a market where people would meet, develop relationships, and as part of this process, people would buy goods and services from the marketers. Nothing has changed today except we do it virtually, more quickly and involve way more people. What I am trying to say in a roundabout way is that it’s all about value networking and conversations. Companies that get this right will succeed.

How can companies best deal with stopping bad information from spreading out of control?

Bad information is shared more readily by people and travels way quicker across the Internet. The best solution is do not mess up in the first place, but that is virtually impossible. If a client has a bad experience, ensure that you make it as easy as possible for a consumer to contact your company across multiple communication channels. Secondly, ensure that you have a reputation management strategy in place to deal with incidents. If a consumer is venting on social media, attempt wherever possible to take it offline and resolve the issue. The other consideration for all organisations is to invest in software that identifies negative sentiment.

What is the best way for brands to deal with the fact that their target market is constantly changing social network platforms?

It is up to all companies participating on the various social networks to keep a constant eye on their target market to see where they are participating. They also need to conduct continual research on new trends such as Google+ and Pinterest. You cannot change consumer behaviour, but having visibility enables you to proactively move with the masses.

Thank you David. Your insight into social media marketing for brands was really insightful. You can follow David on Twitter here.

Hi Nic. How did the idea for JudgeMe come about?

The idea for the app actually came from one of the MoTeam, Mark Griffioen. We’ve been talking with Alan and the Mxit team on and off for a while and batted around a few ideas, looked at a few things out in the world, and thought that this would be something that would work for the Mxit audience. Turns out they’re actually quite into meeting new people. Who’d have thought?

What do you think were the contributing factors to its immediate success, with over 4 million photos viewed in the first month?

I think the Mxit userbase is extremely engaged and hungry for new content. They’re also looking to discover and meet new people on the platform and our app allows them to do so. Previously it’s been hard to build on the Mxit platform but recently it’s become quite easy so we took advantage of that. The key factor is definitely ease of use and a simple, clear call to action: Upload a photo and answer some questions.

A big driving factor is the vanity metrics we provide for users who have completed profiles. Users are able to see how many judgements they have and what people have been guessing about their photos. People love to know what others really think about them.

Is there a concern around online bullying with this app?

No. We don’t give users the ability to engage with one another on the app in an ad hoc manner. Users can view photos and guess questions. There is the ability to meet users through an introduction but this is a once-off choice meeting that both parties have to consent to.

Will this app be limited to Mxit, or are there plans to expand its reach?

In the near future the app will live inside of Mxit but it isn’t limited to the Mxit environment. We don’t have plans to move it anywhere but the option is there to roll out JudgeME elsewhere. We’ve seen similar things on other platforms but right now, Mxit is working so well, so there’s no reason for us to move the app anywhere.

Any tips for others wanting to build an app, but don’t know how get started?

I would say that developers building apps for the Mxit environment need to keep it as simple as possible. Don’t be intricate, don’t try and outsmart yourself or the user, keep it simple and make it scalable. I’d also suggest that developers make sure they know how to deal with a massive load of traffic in a short period of time.

Thanks for the interesting insight, Nic. Follow Nic on Twitter here.

The JudgeMe Mxit App – Statistics for the first month since launching: (Infographic courtesy of Nanna)