Earlier in the week I was buying lunch from Tesco Metro and I used their self-service checkouts.
Shopping in both supermarkets over the last few days got me thinking: EPOS systems and self-service EPOS should change drastically over the next few years.

Most of us now have mobile phones that contain infrared scanners, Bluetooth,3G, Wi-Fi and Edge. These key technologies will—in the near future—change the retail experience dramatically.

Imagine if you walked into a supermarket and the branch connected to your phone via Bluetooth; you could
query all the store’s products using the built in infrared device on your mobile.

Now take it one step further. Say your mobile is then connected to your supermarket trolley and your PayPal account; you get sent payment requests via Bluetooth to your handset and as you’re about to walk out of a store with a trolley full of shopping.

Can you imagine how a concept like this could lower a single store’s operating costs and eliminate queues? I was mulling this over whilst standing in two queues, in two different supermarkets.

Maybe products could also include RFID tags in addition to barcodes to provide better security—you know like those RFID stickers they put on razor blades to prevent theft.

The technology exists and the opportunities are endless. Let’s hope that soon enough shopping will be as easy as literally walking in and out of shop. I haven’t quite worked it all out yet, I’m sure somebody will.

Funny that isn’t it?

My role in these situations often varies and I find myself turning into a management consultant as opposed to an ad/markerting-whatever bod.

Different people in different organisational departments posses different types of useful knowledge. The knowledge different individuals posses is holistically valuable to brands that are trying to utilise social media.

Think of product specialists replying to comments made about specific products within the blogosphere…you get the idea.

People need to collaborate and share knowledge internally and different people, with different types of knowledge and expertise should be taken into account when devising social strategies.

I often feel like taking clients out on team building days, giving them a chance to hold hands, sing songs around campfires and build twine rafts.

Comic courtesy of @socialsignal

Unfortunately I don’t think finance on either side would be too happy, wink. I am therefore left to consider ways in which information, assets and relevant people in businesses can collaborate more efficiently in order to utilise social media more effectivley.

I hate using jargon and buzzwords, they are toss; however, when I’m thrown into situations where I am required to get people collaborating internally, I am left to investigate “Enterprise 2” tools.

Sorry that’s the last time I use that word.

There are a myriad of paid and open source tools available, which all pretty much serve the same purpose, facilitating internal collaboration, dialogue and exchanges of information. Unfortunately tools alone do not solve internal collaboration problems and most the important things to consider are people, their attitudes and management culture. You can give a person a thousand tools and they still will not become collaborative, social individuals.

Making internal collaboration initiatives effective requires understanding people, their day to day work, and speaking to their seniors in order to ensure that they’re given ample opportunities to contribute to their brands/businesses’ social media initiatives.

Whilst there is a lot of talk about collaboration and engagement, it is increasingly important to understand organisational culture towards internal collaboration before concocting elaborate social media strategies.

Enough said, that was boring.