The Brick report helps our company track our past and current progress. Our team can easily look back at the last 78 weeks and know what we did. (Most companies would be hard pressed to do this easily.) The Brick brings us together and keeps us on the same (web)page. Its success leads to me ask: “Could we have an approach that helps us look at our future?" I’ve sometimes thought about crafting a weekly 'Horizon Report' that would share what’s next for us.
When you place a brick up high—just out of reach—that's reminiscent of the capstone one puts above the doorway or the lintel above the window. We could call it the 'Capstone Report’ or the ‘Lintel Report,’ but doesn't sound as sexy as the Horizon Report! Plus, the origin story of the Brick report involves two people walking back to the horizon to see what they’re building.
We currently have a few projects on our horizon:
Shoplocal.org marketplace site. This site may pool results from many indie stores and output them together on one site: shoplocal.org. On Amazon, a customer has one account through which it can shop 100,000s of sellers. We want to offer this same convenience and bundle our 1,000 stores under one roof for the public. The customer will be directed to the store to complete the transaction. We will seek to give customers one login, store their credit card for reuse (using a service from Authorize.net for example), and show them all their indie stores purchases in one spot. Benefit: Easier for general public customers.
Bridge APIs. We can benefit from creating APIs that help us send and receive data with other industry players. Retailers want software that communicates and reduces manual data entry. This is where APIs come in. We want to help retailers import items from their POS to their Bridge, and send orders from their Bridge to their POS. Benefit: Increase retailer satisfaction.
A Bridge app. Imagine using Facebook’s website as your primary means to load a picture or get updates? It would be cumbersome. (Gosh, can anyone remember Facebook before the app? [Embarrassed hand raise.] Apps bring convenience. We use an app everyday to bring us together: the Google Chat app. Gosh, that just made made me miss Hangouts. (Fist bump to my boy, Hangouts!) A Bridge app will get our content seen by stores owners and registrants. We won’t be making this for general public customers. The app will allow members to load pics for products and news. It will show members and registrants alerts about orders they receive. When apps like BeReal measure sign ups, they often view app downloads over website sign ups. Reason: downloading an app (and signing up) is much more valuable to a company than a person visiting its website and signing up. As a bonus, our app can also use more swipe features. For example, you can swipe read an article. Benefits: Makes using Bridge easier. Helps retailers, brands, and registrants see messages.
Amazon makes good use of horizon projects—probably too good. It often puts out press releases about moonshot services and projects. Part of the reason for this is creating excitement among employees and attracting new hires. New projects create an aura. The issue I have with Amazon is that many of its projects won’t come to fruition, and even if they do, they close them down shortly after. See: flying drones, Amazon 4-star stores, etc. Amazon's best innovations are minute, occur daily, and involve the boring sides of supply chain logistics. Amazon needs to send out semi-bogus press releases because it's publicly traded and it needs to move its stock price. Oh, and again, it’s in the boring world of supply chains.
Could Bridge make up crazy ideas about what Bridge will do and then shoot them out via PR services? Sure, but I believe that we’re more honest than that. (We also don’t have to fluff our stock prices.) I believe that chasing what we will likely do vs. a PR stunt is more constructive. I believe in the projects I’ve shared above. They’re gonna take a lot of time and effort, but we’ll get them done.
I want to hear what you think: what would you like to see in a Bridge Horizon report? Please consider what that you’d like to see Bridge accomplish in the future. Please share it with me. Please explain the project and the benefits.
Our team can be proud of what it's doing. The team is at the forefront of what is next. It's building the horizon.