Our board member and EMBA graduate David O’Connor shares some insight into the approach of future proofing CHOICE.
What are your thoughts on our role in a tech-driven future?
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Information may not be knowledge, but it is valuable. Assuming Choice is looking to manage increased information and find better ways to use it for the benefit of members.
The universal Choice APP.
You can get it on a low cost pay by the month plan, with basic membership, upgrade to standard membership or become a premium member for enhanced consumer services. I’m non committal as to the need for status credits or good user points as an add in. Tempt me!
How can the UCA help me as a consumer.
The APP is an easy to user consumer helper that works with IOS and Android. All your consumer questions answered at your finger tips. And for the rare occasions when you need extra help with a consumer product or service – there is the Choice Consumer Genie. (available in your preference of personality to suit the occasion – smiling when you need advice, frowning when the deal looks dodgy and sword slicing when it looks dire). There is also an online Chat support service for our premium members. Think Sirri on Steroids.
I might leave the rest to the imagination of others in Choice how to implement the weaponised version of “Consumer Genie”. No doubt it has a trademark already, and we would need to settle for something no one would have predicted – perhaps “Consumer Wombat, how could you have been so stupid!” might not work either.
Respectfully Choice is still a baby in a world of giants. If you compare it with the state level motoring organisations, by membership and turn over, or even some pseudo consumer comparison sites online. Even retailers have their own product review sites.
The APP could start with a simple narrow focus that could rapidly expand to serve other needs. You may once have needed to learn to crawl before you walk, but in the digital age you need to be born out of the starting blocks and at a canter. As the Google car knows you also need to be looking further ahead - making guesses and testing them (prediction), as the faster you go the less opportunity there is to avoid disaster or choose the less congested path.
Personally – I can see the App:
- Using AI to assist consumer decisions by bringing up relevant guides, brand or store details and product reviews, (up to date comparative pricing or even Choice member reviews might only be available for the higher level of paid membership, as they are likely more expensive to maintain)
- Perhaps offering a basic once off free version with a generalised look up function.
- Advanced AI consumer fix my problem tool. EG What state are you in, what’s the product issue, fault, warranty etc – then recommended steps of action, bit like a fault finding guide leading to a full on assault if needed with a QC and 12 barristers. Or for premium members a real Choice advocate and the state consumer affairs resolution staff. I like the notion that the Choice consumer cop can just turn up at the store you are in and issue an on the spot fine to the sales manager who is arguing warranty, but the ray gun to enforce the penalty may be a step too far? They could always do a Choice Video chat with the offender though?
- Providing dynamic review updates for key product areas – so that as new products come to market Choice is the first to review and using the same tests and assessments they get added to the data base for last years models. (Yes, that challenges the current we need all products at the same time technique. The market place moves too fast now in many product areas to rely solely on what is now a snapshot often of only a portion of the market on the day. Choice knows better than me what areas that matter move too fast to keep the old way exclusively.)
- Offering real and broad consumer support to the community – giving back
- Choice levering off the information gained through use of the app to support advocacy.
- As the App and user base grows an opportunity for Choice to engage openly with individual retailers or suppliers to change behavior or resolve consumer issues using knowledge gained from use of the App.
- And adding or responding to anything else that comes along, because it is a truly Universal Choice App. Works everywhere!
I’m also inspired by the RACQ and it’s cousins – by how they market, what they say they will do and a desperate desire to have someone hold my partners hand or mine if the 101% reliable car blows up on the Oodnadatta track. As a not for profit consumer organisation they perhaps serve other interests, avoid delivering in other key areas and are of little use personally. Although by sponsoring the big yellow choppers I may one day also benefit from their services.
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Buzzword-enabled abstract bizspeak waffle. Having read it I still have no idea what he is going to do. Perhaps if we had been told something that he has done we might be able to guess. There are some concrete things that he has done, aren’t there?
“There’s no reason why we can’t open that data up and become a platform for other organisations to work with. There’s a core technology environment and ecosystem we can build to allow us to be flexible in future, and that’s key. If we can get that right with a data-centric infrastructure, that will enable new business models.”
I think that means he might sell the database or alter access to it. If the ecology is right.
Hopefully this article does not represent the man but the journalist who wrote it.
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Interesting article. I’ve worked in organisations where the helmsperson on the bridge prescribed the number of squirts of oil on each bearing - also in organisations where they had no idea the engine existed - extremes are just that, hard to tell where this is at, except I tend to think it makes sense to disassociate technology from capability - we hire experts for a reason, why have a dog and bark yourself? There needs to be a translation layer though, and sadly this is often missing but I’m not sure trying to fill the board with technology experts in a specific sense is the answer - likewise technophobes isn’t the answer either … I can’t comment on this specific case, except to say from what I’ve seen Choice appears to be very open and engaging in the application of technology and the assessment of its efficacy. That is my perception for what ti’s worth.
So, interesting - more information might be needed … it is good the questions are being asked, and it gives me some confidence that the people running Choice are not yes-people as such …
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/sigh.
Choice is already busily developing tools for consumers. There’s the electricity thingy, the complaints thingy, the community, the other thingies… perhaps more of an issue is publicising what is already available at Choice?
While the idea of data-sharing or -selling seems reasonable at first blush, there are several risks. One is the dilution of the value of Choice’s major asset. Another is the potential loss of control of Choice data, while it is important to remember that any big enough de-identified data set can be re-identified.
I agree with @mark_m that a Choice app would be useful. Something that consolidates all of the various areas in which Choice is operating in a user-friendly manner suitable for both desktop and mobile devices. (A Progressive Web App?)
The other area in which I would like to see Choice expand is in collaboration with international partners. There are similar consumer-oriented non-profits in most developed countries, and as they often deal with the same issues there are some obvious potential (I’m gonna say it) synergies. One such area for examination is the new US CLOUD Act, which has international privacy implications.
Finally, and without meaning any disrespect to the new board member, the UTS EMBA is - at best - an MBA-lite. My MBA took four years part time, as does the standard UTS MBA, and nobody offered me a board position at the end of it 
. (Of course, I’m not a Deputy CIO at a major university - but I could be 
!)
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Interesting point @postulative made … I had already highlighted the following section from Alan Kirkland’s perspective section:
“David’s EMBA means he gets our organisational strategy, and can help us think about how technology strategy can support it.”
Back in my days of employment I had grads with doctorates, masters etc. working for me. My experience was that degrees don’t count for much when it comes to practical application in the workplace, even at the policy level.
This is not a reflection on David O’Connor, but that quote from Alan could be written better. Perhaps something like ‘having had extensive discussions with David, it is clear that he gets our organisational strategy, …’
In the same way we talk about Australian retailers falling behind due to not keeping up with overseas, the same will apply to Choice. The reality is we are becoming a data based society and Choice needs to develop a strategic path to stay relevant in the future.
(Sorry this isn’t fully developed, but I had to leave, and now I don’t have time to finish.)
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