Tag Archive for: AQ Services
I own a smartphone, but I belong to the few people that do not have a data plan. So, during my commute, instead of staring at the screen I – rather ironically perhaps – enjoy watching other people staring at their screens.
Then I arrive at work, and I stare at a screen all day long too… For me, however, this is purely a work activity. In my spare time, it’s entirely up to me to choose to “be plugged in” or not. I have to admit, even without a data plan, I’m plugged in way too much – thank you Wi-Fi.
What is it that makes people spend so much time online?
I went online – of course – to answer this question, and found a research paper that offers some possible answers.
It’s not news, but people go online to find information, explore, research and to find advice – Just Google it! We’re also seeing more and more people go online for social interaction: to chat, share photos and videos, and to build relationships. They go online to express themselves, to seek recognition, and to be entertained. The online world also provides people with plenty of opportunities to procrastinate.
Basically, aside from looking up information, people go online to satisfy their social needs.
Needs that social media caters to.
But how does this affect society?
Whether or not social media actually connects people – or tears them apart – is an on-going debate. There is plenty of research out there that analyses social media’s effect on society.
A quick look at a few aspects of our Internet activities reveals that the boundaries between being online for work or leisure are blurred. Social media network sites have become a platform for all kind of activities, for personal and business uses. This is especially the case for younger employees today, who expect to have the freedom to interrupt work to manage their private affairs. That said, this is also the generation that answers emails and takes phone calls after official office hours.
Smartphones definitely help create and perpetuate this phenomenon. Smartphones give us the flexibility of connectivity. The downside of this flexibility is the created pressure to be available around the clock, the where, when and how work gets done is less static. Employees are mobile, thanks to digitalisation and the Internet. This, of course, can improve the work-life balance, but also runs the risk of increasing stress.
How does online connectivity affect the way people perceive and interact with information?
Back in the day – actually less than 10 years ago – people were focused on one device when consuming media, today’s digital media is absorbed using different mediums, usually simultaneously. However, while watching TV is rather a passive activity, interaction on social media platforms is alive. People share and engage with content and expect real-time management and live chat services when interacting with companies.
This development requires companies to adapt. 24/7 connectivity and access to information from the remotest corners of the globe means that consumer behaviour is more complex.
Consumers can look up information anywhere at any time, meaning they know everything – well, at least everything listed on Google’s first page. Digitalisation and social media put the consumer in the driver’s seat. They now have a stronger voice. A voice that has the power to advocate for or against a brand just by hitting the “post” button on any social media platform. Today the consumer is king – a king with the power to decide which company lives and dies.
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook
Whilst many people use reviews to express recognition for a job well done, even more, write product reviews with the aim to protect others from bad experiences. Such reviews and product rates then also are the most preferred source where people inform themselves about the quality of a product or service.
That’s also valid outside the business world:
Social media empowers people. It gives people a voice, allowing us to spread ideas and initiatives easier and faster than ever. This enhances free speech, giving people the opportunity to express their opinions about things like environmental sustainability and politics. Whilst traditional media originally had the power to choose what information is relevant to the world, often choosing to focus on particular subjects. Essentially, traditional media was the information gatekeeper. Now, digital media – in most countries – has given us the keys to global communication, revolutionising the way the world is connected.
This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Alexa V. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Alexa’s primary focus is in digital marketing.
Most people have a positive reaction when they see ‘digitalisation’ and ‘environmental sustainability’ in the same sentence. It’s the same feeling we get when encouraged to “go paperless and save trees!”
It’s true, digitising data saves trees. That’s a good thing. However, we all know that the true motivator for most corporations is the bottom line. Honestly, though, we don’t really mind whether they truly care about ‘going green’ because it’s good for the environment.
In addition, IT innovation, digitisation, digitalisation, allow us to cut down on our personal energy usage. It’s a fact that our society has moved to a cloud-based information storage and streaming system. Consider: emails instead of regular mail, conference calls instead of flying in, or online streaming of music and movies instead of taking up space on a physical hard disk, and so on. What great times we live in! All that aside, however, there is little understanding of the negative implications digital actions really have on the environment.
While opinions are divided about our society going digital, we all feel that at least it’s beneficial for the environment – namely, because we assume that digital is greener than paper. Despite the information available, we often turn a blind eye to the unintended consequences of society’s digitalisation.
One of the main points of digitalisation – aside from making our lives easier – has been about reducing our carbon footprints. However, when going digital, we actually create a “digital carbon footprint”.
People often imagine that saving data somewhere ‘on the cloud’ is purely virtually, while in reality the data is stored physically. And the carbon footprint of this physical storage location, the data centre, should not be underestimated!
These data centres can vary from a small room to huge cloud server farms bigger than a soccer field – are not too old yet. In the beginning, the main focus for operators was keeping up with demand. Being energy efficient was not a priority. Today, when setting up one of these centres, issues surrounding sustainability are taken into account more and more [Data Knowledge Centre, 2016].
Still, there is a lot of room for improvement.
The centres consume an incredible amount of energy, as they require a steady flow of electricity to run the servers, no matter the demand. Only 6 – 10% of this energy is actually used, the rest is kept in case of a surge or crash. Spikes for servers hosting data related to online shopping, for example, happen during Christmas times, when all want to buy presents.
In addition, servers need to be cooled down constantly. According to Greenpeace, 50 to 80% of energy comes from coal-generated power – the thought of this is so contradictory, using coal power to keep the digitalisation of society moving forward.
What’s more, the NY Times stated that a single data centre can use more power than a medium- size town and that worldwide data storage uses as much electricity as the output of 30 nuclear power plants.
This creates CO2 emissions. In fact, The Independent wrote that data centres are responsible for 2% of the global CO2 emissions, that’s about the same number of emissions coming from global aviation, and this number will increase! Think about the fact that 2 years ago, 90% of data did not exist! (Mallach, E., 2016).
Besides all advantages innovations such as the Internet of Things, digital supply chains and so on bring, the amount of data that will be created is huge. The Independent further stated that considering the fact that innovations in hardware allow an increased capacity to store data and assuming that a switch to renewable energy won’t happen that fast, it’s still predicted that in the next decade, data centres will use triple as much electricity as today.
So, whilst writing this article, I did not support the environment.
Our seeming to be harmless everyday actions sum up and foster global warming. Whilst sending a text message, streaming movies or music, commenting on social media, we all increase our carbon footprint.
I’m not saying that watching an old-school DVD is greener; it’s hard to compare options with so many factors in play, such as if the DVD is picked up by car and so on. I’m just personally astonished that my online activities are not as green as I believed.
To give examples:
- One Google search produces around 0.2g of CO2, that’s about the energy used to heat half a cup of water.
- Sending out 65 short emails is equal to driving an average-sized car for 1km. Even if I do not send out 65 emails a day, I certainly receive too many useless spam mails. An unopened spam mail produces 0.3g of CO2, more than a Google search. This means that the global carbon footprint for spam is equal to emissions produced by 3.1 million passenger cars that use 7.6 billion litres of gasoline yearly.
It’s not only our personal use; businesses shifted to “the cloud”. It’s easy, allows real-time online collaboration between people and gives access to real-time data worldwide. And let’s not to forget, it reduces licensing and purchasing costs for hardware, software and servers.
The good news is that social, economic, environmental and political pressure are pushing big players to publicly commit to using renewable power and reduce both their physical and digital carbon footprints. However, it’s also the countless numbers of small centres that add to the problem. Furthermore, it’s very hard to measure the global carbon footprint that digitalisation leaves behind.
If data centres continue to use coal power or will switch to renewable energy will impact on global warming. A switch to renewable energy definitely would boost investments and thus innovation for green energy.
This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Alexa V. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Alexa’s primary focus is in digital marketing.
You know, I am quite new to this term called ‘blog’. I’ve heard of it sure, but never actually wrote one. When I Googled: “how to write a blog” several things popped up, like ‘start with a topic and working title’. Ha, I already forgot that step. This is going well. I’ll be honest with you, I have no clue exactly what I’m doing right now. I studied hospitality management, and here I am, creating videos for an eLearning app for the frontline employees in the retail industry! Yeah, I hear you think: ‘How did she end up doing that?” Yes, good question. I often ask it myself actually.
The funny thing is: it’s super interesting.
It’s like I turned from a hospitality student into a screenwriter and director without any experience. Yeah, ‘just do it’ (as Nike says). It doesn’t matter if you like or if you’ve done it before; no, it’s more diving into the deep end and knowing you can swim. And hey, that is okay! I mean, this is still an internship and it comes with the opportunity to learn new things.
And let me tell you: I am learning new things.
Not sure if there is a future for me as the next ‘Steven Spielberg’ but I guess you never know where life takes you.
That’s the funny thing about life, it can go either way. But what do I know about life? I am only 21, this is hopefully not even on a quarter yet of what is still to come.
But let’s get serious here.
What’s the big deal about learning with videos?
There are many benefits in using videos in educational activities. There even have been multiple studies about this. This is not a big shocker, since there are basically studies about everything, but still. Here are some highlights:
Shepard and Cooper (1982) and Mayer and Gallini (1990) connected visual clues, memory processes, and knowledge retention. Later, Allam (2006) noticed that combining sound and imagery together to discuss a certain topic generating deeper engagement and insights. [Source]
Fascinating right? Over 20 years ago, people recognized the connection between video and learning and yet it still took years for eLearning to actually become a trend, and then a norm. Why did it take so long? But that’s a topic for another time perhaps.
The thing is, this ‘learning with videos’ thing really is happening. There are more than 1 billion active users on YouTube, every minute nearly 400 hours worth of video content is being uploaded to this platform alone. Statistics even show that per mobile session the average time spent on YouTube is 40 minutes. The learning industry has no choice but to adapt to this method of learning via videos. Enter eLearning!
So what are the benefits of using videos for learning?
First of all, videos help keep people engaged with the subject. I mean, speaking as a student, it is much more fun to watch a video than to simply turn a page in a book. Also, videos are visual, and so very demonstration-friendly. For example, explaining a tricky subject is easier with a video than with a written explanation. Try writing down the instructions to how to tie your shoelaces and tell me it’s not easier to watch a video about it instead! It also helps that videos capture attention quickly. Overall they improve the whole learning experience by inviting learners to think and analyze what they just saw, making knowledge easier to absorb and retain.
Here some more benefits:
Improved Comprehension
When you explain something in a classroom, people will nod to indicate their understanding. That means they’ve understood you completely right? Not necessarily! They may not retain the information when they leave the room, and maybe they just couldn’t be bothered to raise their hand to ask for clarification. Chances are when they get home, they may realize a gap between their retained knowledge and the homework they’ve got to do.
Increased Retention
Do you remember sitting in class with the teacher just going on and on about the same subject? And then when class finished you just went out and thought: “What did he just say?” That is an information overload. Our brains can only handle so much at a time. During such a long informative class, you do not have the time to process all the information and are likely to forget most of it.
Enter videos and eLearning. People can watch videos at their own pace, for starters. They can also choose when and where to watch them – at home for example. They can pause it and return to it later if they missed the key points. This way, they not only gain a better understanding but are better able to retain the information being thrown at them. Essentially, videos empower the learner to actually learn.
Concluding thoughts?
Well, if you really want to obtain a more meaningful, immersive and better learning experience for anything. You should definitely consider using videos to get there.
This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Paula van Staalduinen. As part of our internship programs undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Paula’s primary project focuses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.
At AQ, we’re all about improving global customer service. Our mission statement says it all: “To let people experience great service.” But what do we mean when we say that? Today, I want to break the ice, crack the fourth wall, and tell you a little about that.
When AQ was founded in 2001 by Jan-Willem Smulders and Thomas Kascha, the theme was simple: advance quality service. The goal was to help businesses improve their customers’ experiences by improving the level of service they were experiencing. Over time, AQ focused on mystery shopping. Why? Improving global customer service requires both qualitative and quantitative data. More importantly, however, is that to truly understand what goes on in a business, the human element has to be measured. That’s not something that’s done with other market research tools like surveys or external focus groups for example. By specializing in mystery shopping AQ can pinpoint the cause of a drop in sales with quality accuracy.
Taking this specialization, we partner with our clients to help them develop a better understanding of their own employees and their own systems. Sometimes all it takes to boost sales and engagement is a little bit of insight from a reliable source. AQ strives to be that reliable source. We put an emphasis on quality assurance precisely for that purpose, insights are all well and good but if the foundational data isn’t of the highest quality no one benefits.
Ultimately, our quest is to make sure that every industry around the world has the highest level of customer service possible. The trouble is, of course, that customer expectations keep evolving. Our work will never be done, but it is our hope to keep adapting to these changing concepts and demands and guide our clients along the way. We believe in continuous improvement, doing the right thing by everyone, and, above all, that everyone deserves to experience great service.
