WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK: How Google learned that scarcity bring clarity

Google loves to start new and exciting projects but it often falls face first with a few of them – including Google Wave.

Lars Rasmussen, the founder of Google Wave, who until recently was based in Australia until he moved to Facebook, described to StartUpSmart this week why he felt the project ultimately failed.

“I was disappointed as it was my creation and it failed. It was ambitious, and you should be ambitious, but the mistake was to rely a lot on the resources we had. We grew the team very quickly and based the idea on the resources we had and it’s not clear that it worked.”

“Sergey (Brin, co-founder of Google) always said ‘scarcity brings clarity’ and I wish I’d understood that a bit better.”

It’s a good lesson in why some projects fail and others succeed. Google Wave was too ambitious and tried to do too much. In your own business, think about your various projects and determine if you are trying to do too much with too little – in many cases, less can be more.

Track customers as often as possible

The Australian Communications and Media Authority took the telco industry to task this week as it laid down an ultimatum – shape up in five months, or face more regulation.

It’s a harsh warning, and one that’s been a long time coming as the number of complaints sent to the telecommunications industry ombudsman continues to rise.

But it also represents a warning for SMEs – make sure your customers are completely satisfied. Are you writing up and measuring customer satisfaction, and monitoring complaint levels?

One of the tasks proposed in the ACMA report is that telcos record how many times customers contact support desk within a certain period of time to determine if issues are being resolved quickly enough.

You should do this for your own customers, even if you aren’t a consumer-focused business. Keep your customers as happy as possible, and make sure they stay that way through long-term data tracking.

Keep those USB keys under control

Australian businesses were given a sharp warning this week when SophosLabs vice president Mark Harris visited the country. He warned that too many SMEs aren’t being vigilant enough with regard to security, and also made another claim – that the number of viruses transmitted through USB keys here is unusually high.

These types of viruses spread when a user connects an infected USB key to a computer, which then uses networks to spread to other computers.

This can be a big problem, particularly when trying to find the source of the virus, as the USB key isn’t a fixed part of the network.

Harris offers a solution – regulate the use of USB keys. Make sure you know what types of devices are being connected to your network.

This could mean that you only allow company-regulated USB keys instead of those employees bring from home. While this may sound like a hassle, when it comes to protecting your data, you should take as much precaution as necessary.

Pay attention to your reviews

Google made another giant acquisition last week when it bought restaurant review group Zagat, which has become famous over the past 30 years for its guidebooks.

But the move also highlights a change within the search industry that Google is helping to push along – the importance of online reviews.

Numerous studies show that users will be affected by the reviews they see online before they purchase a product, and many deliberately look at several review sites before they make a large purchase.

And with Google integrating product reviews into search results, it’s imperative that businesses start thinking about product reviews and how they work.

On your own website, do you have an area where users are able to describe their experiences, or perhaps on your Facebook page as well?

It’s a gamble because you may see negative comments, but if you are confident enough in your product, you should allow customers to put up reviews online in order to influence others.

The age of mobile has arrived

Last week A Thinking Company handed out its inaugural mobile awards to a number of developers, including some savvy Australian start-ups who have been met with success after releasing some innovative apps.

But while the awards praised some of the most innovative apps around, A Thinking Group event organiser Nick Esser told SmartCompany the awards highlight a crucial need for SMEs.

“The quality of the apps shows that mobile has well and truly arrived,” Esser said. “It is now absolutely necessary that businesses need to be mobile savvy.”

If you aren’t thinking about a mobile app for your business, you should be. Even if you determine your business doesn’t ultimately need an app, this is still something you need to consider extremely carefully.

If you do decide there is a need for an app, there are plenty of great mobile apps made by Australian businesses to give you an example of the quality you should aspire to. No longer can businesses produce lazy apps that don’t actually offer any value, there are simply too many apps on offer and yours needs to compete.

SMEs must no longer deliberate on whether they should make an app, but brainstorm on how they should go about doing so.