The Product Shop – Episode 5: Implementing Improv with Loblaws
For our fifth episode of the Product Shop we’re joined by Matt Andaloro, Product Manager at Loblaws, as we reflect on his interest in improv and how he’s applied some of those improv techniques within his own team, how COVID not only accelerated the adoption of online grocery services but also revealing a new audience that changed his product roadmap and learning how Matt combines a mix of quantitative and qualitative data to inform his product decisions.
Michael: You have a super interesting story.
Matt: I have some fun backstories in the history there.
Michael: Please elaborate on Moist Theatre.
Matt: Moist Theater is the improvisational comedy troupe that I’ve been a part of for 11 years.
It started at McMaster University. A group of friends and I ran the McMaster improv team and that was a group of 50 or 60 individuals so we’d get invited to do shows and it’s very hard to mobilize 50 or 60 individuals to show up for a coffee house at a campaign rally for the new president of the student committee.
So we picked a group of about 10 of us to start doing those smaller sets and everything and then turned it into a longstanding performance career and we dabbled in business improv workshop sessions for a while and corporate retreats, and then have just kind of settled into doing well pre-pandemic into doing like monthly improv performances at comedy bars in Toronto.
Michael: That’s awesome. How’d you get into that?
Matt: I’ve always been into theater. In high school I was more on the technical side, a little bit of acting, but really enjoyed the background of it and then got into drama at McMaster and one of my closest friends in res was like, “my brother just started this improv team, you should come out”.
So we went and checked it out and it became something that I had a lot of fun doing. It was a great way to relax or explore new things or just try something different. Over the years I’ve tried standup, sketch comedy and all that stuff, but there’s just so much with it that there doesn’t have that same sense of exploration and discovery that you get with improv. When you find the stride and you hit it, the rush you get when you come off a show is just a high that I always strive for. It’s something that I hope I can always be doing in my life.
Michael: I’ve always wanted to do Toastmasters, but it seems very intimidating.
Matt: I think you can do it. I mean, all of these things are just about improving yourself. If you’re willing to just not do well at times, you’re going to get really far with it because I think the first step is just finding what works for you.
Michael: Was that your way of de-stressing from dealing with biochemistry and organic?
Matt: Yeah, you can say that. It was also just a great social outlet because it was a way to meet new people, do new things and bring people together.
I think one of the most exciting things is that people actually wanted to see us perform. I was having fun doing it for a long time. Then when we started having shows and people were like, when’s the next show? What are you doing?
Just that element of creating a community with this thing that you absolutely love doing. Regardless of how small it was, it was a very fun feeling. So that was super cool and if you have a good show, when you come in and you’re stressed, having something where you just get to be yourself, but free of those reservations helps you take that step back and just refresh and reset.
Michael: Yeah, totally. Everyone needs that side thing to destress from all the science.
Dexter: So improv isn’t necessarily completely free form right. There are still certain structures and techniques that you have to agree upon with the people on stage. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Matt: Yeah. There are rules. I think unspoken rules go along with it, but there are also specific structures that exist within improv.
The two types that exist are short-form improv and long-form improv. Most people are familiar with short-form improv, which is the “whose line is it anyway”, style where there’s a rule, a game or a bit that you have to do of asking only questions, do only these things. Those things are usually preplanned or support the scene or kind of drive the comedy.
The other type is long-form, which is just free-flowing, you create it as you go. But even in that, there are rules and structures that exist into how to help guide the scene, how to help make sure that everyone is moving in the right direction.
It’s hard because if you go to any improv classes, they’ll tell you these are the rules, but you’re going to break them most of the time. So they’re more rules of thumb and how you get to point a to point B. A lot of it just comes from playing with other folks and just understanding what you’re good at and what they’re good at and how you can kind of grow together.
Dexter: Have you used any of those techniques or theories in work or collaborative brainstorming sessions? The reason why I ask is some companies give new hires that seminal improv text, the Keith Johnstone improv book.
I read it. I had no idea how I would ever use any of that in a real-world setting other than the concept of hierarchy, whether you’re talking down or talking up to someone and positioning yourself in relation to the other person.
Matt: If you understand how status works, you can understand how to work a room of any type of stakeholder and product management. So it doesn’t surprise me that the thing that comes to mind immediately in impro right out the gate is mirroring.
I think mirroring is a super strong thing that you can do. That is just the act of walking in accepting the offers that you’re being given and then mirroring them exactly. The example I think he gives in the book is if a guy walks up to you, he’s like, “Hey man, you got a quarter?”.
You’d be like, “oh no, sorry I don’t have change” or “oh, I forgot my wallet at home”. But mirroring in that is like, “Nah man. Do you got a quarter?”. Then that scene is super interesting of just two dudes who don’t have a quarter asking each other if they have a quarter.
That’s a hilarious example of mirroring, but even in a professional setting, you come into a meeting and you don’t know what the expectations are. You don’t know how you need to react to it. You don’t know who you’re coming into impress regardless of how much you have prepared. Mirroring to the audience with which you’re in engaging can really help you hone that room and win that crowd over of being like, this is who I have to be in this context, and this is how I create the scene that is this meeting or this stakeholder information dump or whatever the situation is.
Dexter: So what’s the next step of mirroring them? So the first person’s asks, “do you have a quarter”, person B responds with “no, do you have a quarter”. How does it evolve from there?
Matt: Mirroring is just a technique to establish your environment. The first thing you always want to do in improv is establishing that environment.
That offer of mirroring in saying, “do you have a quarter” establishes that we are both two people who don’t have a quarter we’re somewhere looking for it. Then you can build and grow in that. It gives the other person information about who you are, but to build on that you still need to grow the rest of that environment.
You need to understand what is the context with which we are here? What are we working towards and how are we growing? So those two characters may diverge and have different desires, but the goal is that you build on that incrementally with, I offer a piece of information, you accept it, you offer a piece of information. I accept it.
You don’t want the whole scene to be mirroring because that would just be parroting information back. But the use of that technique in that example really is what can help plant that seed that you can then grow by listening and moving something forward.
Dexter: A little on the Jedi mind tricks side, if you were mirroring someone who wasn’t necessarily participating in the scene, would they know you’re mirroring them and how would they react?
Matt: It could vary from situation to situation. I would say that in that example if there’s someone who you’ve seen do it before and you start mimicking them or mirroring them and presenting that. I don’t think if they see that they would take it as you are impersonating this character in that way or that you making fun of them.
It’s more of like an homage, respect, or meeting someone where they’re at and how that can help everyone realize, what is the expectation that is being set and who are you being in this moment.
I would say that another one of the unspoken rules that kind of exists in improv that you’ve probably heard before is say yes to everything. I think in life and improv that would make something very boring. If everyone was like, do you want to go here? Yes. Should we do it this way? Yes. Do you want to ride the bus? Yes. Do you want to pay for the bus? Yes. Do you want to go to a restaurant? Yes. There’s no conflict in anything and that wouldn’t be agreeable. I think the essence of saying yes to everything is just except everything that you’re being given, even if you don’t agree.
Sometimes disagreeing can create that conflict and create that spice inside the scene. I think knowing that you want to always be listening and accepting is the first step to moving something forward to progressing something.
Dexter: I feel like that spans way beyond just a scene in improv.
Matt: Yes. I would say so too. In life in general, a lot of the basic tenants of improv if you’re not at a level of performing it, it’s honestly how to have a good conversation.
It’s just what’s the next thing to say? How do you make sure you ask the right questions? What are the small choices you make to progress this conversation? Then performance improv is how do we make that conversation interesting.
Interesting at least enough, for someone to want to watch or to laugh at. It’s basically taking a conversation then understanding what is important about a conversation and then how do I make that interesting or entertaining.
Dexter: Do you feel like it’s almost like this toolbox or a repertoire of things that you can rely on to make you operate at a certain level, even if you’re not an extrovert or if you’re not someone that immediately comes in and owns the room like you have a certain level of things to fall back on and you’re confident in that.
Matt: Absolutely. I think there’s a reason why organizations and businesses encourage the reading of improv books and the taking of improv workshops because they just give you that structure. It’s essentially the structure of collaboration and creation which is a lot of the tech jobs a lot of the things that we do day in day out are all about how do you make a team work well together?
Teams that work well together are efficient teams that work well together are productive. So how do you ensure collaboration happens? And if you’re in a scene that is good and all of these kinds of unspoken rules are being followed and being guided you’re having great collaboration because that’s essentially in a comedic format what improv is. It’s just hilarious collaboration to absurd ends.
Michael: Have you implemented these techniques with your team personally at Loblaws, or have you tried to entice them to start doing a little bit more improv?
Matt: I have done a couple of shows for it and I’ve done exercises. Digitally, it’s very difficult to play these games, but I have a meeting every two weeks with the team and a lot of the time, it’s housekeeping with the team, things you want to go over agenda items, but I like to make sure that at least once a month, it’s fun.
Playing games, something like Pictionary or some of these improv games that I come up with are ways to feel silly, be different and act in ways that maybe are kind of different or outside your norm. I think they help hone skills or make choices that knit teams tighter together.
I wouldn’t say I’m ever intentionally being like here are 10 simple rules of improv team and please read along and ensure that this is what you’re doing as you come to each of your meetings. But I think you can encourage by leading and to encourage by example and just repeating let’s make sure we accept all ideas. Let’s not block that out, it may not be the thing that we move forward with, but let’s understand, let’s listen, let’s talk about it. Kind of those tenants that I would use in my improv scenes, or I would know if I’m doing it wrong are guiding things that I hope to encourage in my teammates and peers at Loblaws.
Michael: Yeah, like Codenames, we should play more Codenames.
Matt: It’s a good game. It’s like this person thinks completely different than I do and how do I think the way they’re thinking? I remember we played a game of Codenames with the guys I do improv with and one of the people gave the clue Zelda.
And the reason he gave Zelda was because there was a castle, dungeon, sword, and the assassin was Link. When he thought Zelda, he didn’t think about the fact that the main character of the game’s Zelda is named Link. So I was on the opposite I was like, well, obviously Link.
I didn’t even consult with the team at all and lost the game in the opening round. We do improv together, but we don’t think similarly. So make sure the ideas are out in the open and those offers are clear because you can’t make those assumptions with people, even if you know them inside and out for the last decade.
Dexter: Bonus points for those people who give that type of clue that’s clearly the bomb keyword, and are just completely stone-faced. I know this is completely my fault. I’ll take all the heat after when we talk about it.
Matt: Just when you own it afterward with poise and grace.
Michael: Yeah, it’s so funny cause they always have a delayed reaction. They’re looking at it for so long and they come up with a word and are like, oh shit actually, that’s probably the death card.
Matt: A hundred percent.
Dexter: We were playing a lot of Codenames earlier on when this started, but what are some good games that translate well in a digital format. Even for like collaboration or team building.
Matt: I mentioned Pictionary, which I think is a good one, but not everyone is good at drawing or feels comfortable doing that. There’s a lot of kids games that you can kind of get away with doing like Apples to Apples is a good example. I think Cards Against Humanity took that format and made it absolutely absurd, but even just like the simple format of Apples to Apples works in a digital workspace.
I also find that there’s a lot of conversation prompts, which I think in some places they’re boring or bland, but I think you’d be surprised the mileage you can get out of interesting questions that people may not have thought about before because you don’t always think a different way to diverge in something.
One of our teammates has a list of questions that is just like what was the worst concert you ever went to? And all of that will accompany a story. So with that simple question, you may only have one person answer and then that conversation spirals out of everyone being like, oh, I had this crazy example of when I broke a bottle and needed to fend off a stray cat in an alleyway. Let me tell you about that story.
So I think it’s more of how you get outside of those regular circles that you get into and break out into a totally new direction, which again, is kind of an improv thing of making that big, dumb choice or take that risky chance to make something go in a completely opposite direction and you’ll find really cool things about your teammates and learn a lot more about them than you ever thought you might learn about them.
I think anything where you build that connection. In sharing of stories, sharing of ideas, or sharing of how someone thinks about things, Apples to Apples question prompts or anything that kind of gets people taking a chance out of their shell to share a little bit or learn more, I think are the ones that we try and focus on.
Dexter: I feel like those in-person games are going to be really important just because there’s going to be so many people you’ve never met before that onboarded online. You have no idea how tall they are.
Matt: Totally. We had to meet up with my team and everyone was shocked that I was much taller than everyone else. I’ve been camera height the same as everyone they also aren’t aware that I’m clumsy Dexter.
So I tripped over a picnic table while we were at this hangout and everyone was like, “oh, Matt hurt himself”. And I thought you would appreciate that. I think when that’s interesting and works in a business setting if you can get people into it. Just the concept of trying to sell someone, something there’s a game that exists called Snake Oil and it works pretty well digitally as well.
It’s kind of a twist on Apples to Apples, where you have to choose someone you’re selling to and a random product that you’re selling and try and sell them that product as if it’s the best product, but you can just do it with everyday items in your office and thinking of new ways to sell someone on your team like a whiteboard marker, a whiteboard eraser, a piece of paper a phone that is broken or any of those things are cool ways to be like, how do I sell you on something that I’m doing? And get to know you better and get to know, what is it that will make you choose the thing that I’m telling you.
Michael: Yeah Dexter, you should try to sell your old iPhone.
Dexter: I got a new phone. Do you know what phone I had before?
Michael: You probably still had it while he was at Loblaws.
Dexter: So I’ve had three phones in my life. It was a Blackberry Bold, Samsung Galaxy S 2, and an iPhone 6. So now I’ve upgraded six versions later to the 12.
Matt: That’s a big step. You have no idea what’s going on anymore. Like your device works completely differently.
Dexter: Before if I had to play a song on Spotify, I had to force close and reopen the app three or four times to get it to go.
Matt: Oh, that’s unbelievable. You’re those people of why do we have 1% of users still using the iPhone 6? Move on, Apple has dropped support for this device.
Dexter: Actually, I couldn’t get on the iOS 13 until earlier this year when they had to go back and support iOS 13.
Matt: That’s wild.
Michael: Yeah, he’s been exposed to a lot of new features.
Dexter: I downloaded TikTok this weekend. It’s too much for me. Like all this video content hitting you at this pace.
Matt: And then you look up and like three hours have gone by and you’re like, what? Pardon? I just saw a cat video and then it was a blur for three hours.
Michael: I was telling Dexter, be careful what you like because I don’t know, the algorithm could lure you in for three hours.
Matt: A hundred percent. I don’t even think you need to like it. I feel like the number of seconds you spend on a specific tagged piece of content, you get pigeonholed real fast. So the things that you’re not realizing it it’s real quick.
Michael: And it can change quickly too.
Dexter: I’m just finding that I’m able to live like a modern person now, because before what I mean by that is I would never do anything on my phone. I would go and pick up my computer because my phone was so shit that I couldn’t do anything on it.
Even mobile web. Mobile is still not great, but it’s better when you have a bigger screen and it’s just faster and it works the way you would expect it to.
Sometimes I wouldn’t order on Uber on my phone. Cause it was so bad like it just wouldn’t work. So now I’m living the mobile experience this whole mobile-first I get it.
How has that maybe not that in particular, but just the adoption of better technology being more accessible, and more people expecting that speed responsiveness and those experiences in their hand? How has that affected your roadmap planning for grocery?
Michael: I want to expand a little bit on that. So pre COVID I feel like a lot of consumers would have preferred to go grocery shopping in person. Just based on their own personal selection, their own produce. So I feel like technology adoption was kind of a huge component. How does that tie into that?
Matt: I would say that’s completely true and one example of that. I mean, Dexter you know, when I started at Loblaw, I was working on the shop and scan program, but I would say that COVID effectively ended that program. Shop and scan was just like go in-store with your phone, scan your groceries in the store, skip the checkout.
We were working towards that and then the pandemic hit. Even though that was technology first and mobile-first, we’re getting people outside of those standard norms. It just changed that behavior altogether and accelerated the adoption of online grocery services.
We were hitting penetration goals we were dreaming of this like three years down the road and now it’s like grocery stores are shut down, you need to order your groceries online.
I would say that it greatly expanded it because I think one of the biggest pieces was accessibility because we were no longer just targeting those individuals who have the smartphone have the most cutting-edge device and want to order their groceries online. Even though we were trying to entice all Canadians to grocery shop with our services, we weren’t attracting necessarily all audiences and all types.
I think just accommodating those different needs and different devices, we’ve actually had to take it backward in technology. I think you would be a good example of a lot of people who still have their iPhone 6. So we need to come up with solutions that are going to allow people who don’t have the newest device.
How do we get them caught up? How do we bring them into the system in a way that isn’t terrible? We’ve had to think about what are ways we can utilize older technologies like QR codes which I guess are newer again. Because cameras that natively didn’t use to use them, but even also the use of SMS to like help meet everyone where they’re at, as opposed to like forcing them to have the newest and greatest feature.
On the other side of that though, I think with the way the technology is advanced in terms of like location tracking, although we’re super careful around the privacy and everything like that.
If you can get someone to opt-in and work with that, I think we have a lot of different ideas in the future of, how can we move that forward and understand some of the leaders we have in these location-based services, the McDonald’s and Starbucks who are working on bringing technology tighter to that pickup or delivery experience in terms of real-time understanding and turnaround.
I think leveraging that is where the technology growth is less around the consumer’s personal device technology growth.
Dexter: Before we get any deeper into this, I want to explicitly acknowledge the fact that I realized the irony of having an ancient phone at a startup at the time.
Back to what you were saying. Do you find that focus on technology less so on personal technology, it’s almost changing the function of the store? The experience used to be in the store. Whereas now it’s more so a distribution center where the experiences now, like closer to the user on their device or in the app itself.
Matt: I guess yes and no. See, I don’t know that that person who is going to aspirationally want to shop or want to go into the store is ever going to truly kind of move away from that. So I don’t know that I could blanket say that, but I think in terms of the way people are conceptualizing getting their food and getting their groceries and what the share of their table is. I think that’s where the change is.
I don’t know that that necessarily impacts the physical store locations, but I think just the way we engage with them. I would say as both customers and as a business of how can we leverage these stores and these storefronts to reach the next level and reach that next path of efficiency for both the online and in-store customers. I think those changes are slowly happening as we learn more about where we’re going and how many of these new concepts and structures are going to stick around.
Dexter: So what’s keeping you busy these days?
Matt: I switched teams, I’m now working on convergence on the PC express journey. So that’s bringing PC Optimum, PC Financial, PC Insiders, closer to the PC Express experience and understanding what those customers who shop with us and use PC Optimum, what they’re looking for, and how we can give them the experiences and discovery that they want that go hand in hand with the loyalty experience. Which has been quite fun, learning a lot more about the loyalty program, PC Optimum as a whole, how it works within our system, and the funding that the customers do who are involved in the program.
I think it’s just wonderful seeing the grassroots initiatives of customers and the passion with which they have for points and being like, this is super important to people. This is amazing that I get to work on something that people are so excited about, which I think is just a crazy, crazy product to be working on.
Michael: Oh, yeah. I have friends that are very serious about their PC Optimum points.
Matt: Yes, they are, it’s valuable to them. So getting it right or doing it better is exciting for me cause I get to work on something that can bring more value to people or hopefully can unlock new ways for them to do it, touch it, interact with it. At least through the grocery lens.
Dexter: PC Optimum is the largest loyalty program in Canada right. I know people who will fight to the death over their Optimum Points.
Matt: As they should, I’m a hoarder myself. I just rack them up and then at Christmas I’ll do a big spend and we’ll make a large dinner and do it entirely on PC Optimum Points because I love that idea of I spend all this money on groceries, and now I get this wonderful meal and I get to reward myself with these points. Everyone has their own unique way that they use points or use earning, or even just like the small offers insiders to like reward themselves.
So discovering that getting into customer interviews and being like holy smokes, that’s such a cool way of treating yourself or loving what you love, which is just so fun.
Michael: It was like on par with Aeroplan points. Higher frequency, I guess.
Matt: Yeah. People are earning Optimum Points on everything. I was just commenting to my partner, I now drive out of my way and waste more gas to get to the Esso to get 660 cents worth of points, but that’s the reward path for me and this is what I get excited about. So I’m a Product Manager and I fell right into that trap.
Dexter: What is that user interview cycle look like? Is there a regular cadence that you have these interviews and how does that feedback go into what you build.
Michael: Or do you use your own experience of looking for that association and saying how do I, as a consumer, think about the product.
Matt: I try not to use myself as an example. I love enjoying my own gotchas but I don’t think of myself as a consumer because I know too much. I feel like I’m behind the curtain and so as much as I want to be an ambassador for the customers, I have to make sure that I’m level setting on what the qualitative research is saying, or the quantitative research is saying because I’m so biased. I use myself to level set on like what I want to do this or what I want to not do that.
I think the most valuable thing we do is almost on every design that we do, that’s more significant than a small cosmetic or feature change is we’ll run it through I think previously we were using the user testing tool. I think we’re using something called UX Playbook now we just switched over very recently to another one and we’ll do it on most features.
Back when I was working on the mobile app, anything that was larger than an epic that would overhaul something or something that would take us several weeks to develop, we would make sure that we were grounding in qualitative research. And so getting those customer verbatims, run it through prototypes and incrementally do that.
So run it by four people then make some changes, run it by an additional people, maybe bring back one of the previous people from the test and kind of iterate in that way, but then not basing everything off that and looking at based on what we’ve discovered, can we find trends and maybe our analytics data or industry data that shows that these are prevailing themes or is this a one-off idea. I think as important as it is to put yourself in the shoes of these individual customers and really see the customer feedback verbatim at that moment, you have to make sure that you’re not blinded by that sample size of like, these could be for people who as much as they’re randomly pulled may not be representative of the whole.
So how do you tie both of those together? But I like to do that on anything larger than small cosmetic tweaks because I think that’ll only help you get further and think about the next thing you want to do or the next thing you want to build.
Dexter: Do you have a rule of thumb for that? Like do you use a points system?
Matt: Yes, we have a point system in terms of epic and t-shirt sizing. So most of the epics that are medium and above become candidates for it. But I would say if there’s already a large body of research already done in this area that we can co-op. Like go back and watch previous interviews, look at someone else’s summary so we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We’ll go back to that because we don’t want to just kind of re-up it, but if it’s old or COVID changed a lot of things because we would have research from two or three years ago. Even when you were in it eight months ago, when you were six months into COVID, it didn’t matter anymore.
So we needed to get new insights on almost everything we were doing when it shifted because volume went through the roof and everyone was changing their behaviors. So I would say that was the most frequent we were doing research of just like what do people want now cause it’s very different than what it was before.
I would say anything medium t-shirt size, which for us would be, around 36 points to 48 points is a candidate for it. If there isn’t research that has been done or isn’t research that is fresh. That’s the first thing that I want to prototype.
Also, if there’s a decision where people are arguing amongst one another inside the business that’s a prime candidate for me to go to customers because nobody who works in the business is a customer. So, although you gotta make these decisions based on rationale and feedback. A VP is just as much not a customer as you are.
If anything, they’re less because they’re keeping tabs on the whole spectrum of everything. They care about multiple brands, multiple banners, multiple pieces of information. So the context, which you could switch so frequently that they are very far departed from what our day-to-day customer is interacting with and engaging with.
You always want to just make sure that you level set these expectations with like, what do the customers actually want. Are we building a feature without a home? Because if so, you want to cut that absolutely immediately and kill that project, that epic, whatever it might be.
Michael: How are you sourcing these users to build your qualitative data?
Matt: I think I mentioned the tool, user testing was the one we were using for a while. That’s one where it’s an aggregation service where you can upload a prototype and then give a rough criteria of how many people you want, what their experience is. Have they done grocery shopping online, et cetera?
Another cool tool that we’ve been using and working with is the Fable tool, which is an accessibility test and honestly, it has been the coolest thing ever to just have people go in who are using voice assistance.
They’re using all these different accessibility tools and watching how painful and awful our experience is for someone in those shoes. You’re like, oh man, if we change these simple things, it would be better for the people who aren’t even using this, but we haven’t even thought about it in this lens.
So we also have the ability to go in and run these accessibility tests on the same thing so that we’re making sure that even if we’re building it and ensuring that customer feedback that we pull from these other places, we’re also focusing on these customers that are more kind of at the edge of our experience, but are just as important because they need to be serviced.
Dexter: Oh, yeah, definitely. Even if you’re not looking at it from we should cater to those who can’t operate our standard site not designing for accessibility is leaving money on the table.
Matt: Totally, and it just makes the whole experience better.
The number of ways that we’ve thought outside the box as a result of being like, this is no longer viable because it’s not accessible. Let’s think of a new idea and finding that new idea that is like, whoa, we never would have got here if we had not controlled for that variable of like, you can’t use a dropdown menu in this situation because the infrastructure is just inaccessible and it’ll take them too many decision points to get through it.
Rethink this flow in a new way and the end result you come out with you’re like, this is just so much better in general and I’m going to enjoy using this as someone who doesn’t use assistive technology.
Dexter: From your interviews, what was the wildest thing someone redeemed their points on?
Matt: The wildest thing, someone redeeming their points on I don’t know that there’s anything that has caught me off guard. I remember someone talking about smoothies. Everything they do is around their smoothies and all of their redemptions around their health kicks. So they had funneled everything into these points that I get are going to fuel me being healthy and my concept of healthy is smoothies.
So it was like, new fruits, acai berries, all of these protein powders and everything. That’s a very niche concept of the only thing I use my points on are health-conscious things. I’d never thought of it through a lens of that magnitude before. I think that was the one that I didn’t see coming because most people were like I got a switch or I get my groceries, I use it every single time I shop. So that I think was the strangest one. I don’t think it was wacky though
Michael: What are some products that you’re into right now?
Matt: I’ve been reading about VR and AR to no end. I think that VR and AR is just so compelling and so interesting. I’m just excited to see how it grows, the new technologies that come out of it. I was just reading about the quest two that’s coming out in terms of the combination of VR AR that they’re going to be doing.
So the cameras are able to bleed in your environment so you don’t need to feel so cut off from your world and that they’re going to start layering in new things you can interact with. The first example was a workout punching bag. Like you’re working out, but you can do it in your apartment. You don’t need to worry about tripping over your couch and all that. If you’ve ever done VR, I get super disoriented and crash into things and fall all the time. So having that extra layer, I’m like, oh man, where can we go with this? Cause the Google Glass never took off because it was just too much too fast.
So they’re just going to be like, cool. We’ll give massive VR headsets, make them smaller and smaller and smaller. And in 10 years’ time, we’ll be back to the Google Glass and everyone will be like, this is the best invention of all time. And North Glasses are going to be like, we were ahead of the curve.
Dexter: North didn’t take off because they look like glasses. No one wants to buy regular-looking glasses.
Matt: No one wants to buy regular-looking glasses. So yeah, that’s something I’ve been super into and researching a lot lately. My brother picked up a VR headset a couple of months ago and I was like, oh, this is much cooler than I thought it was.
I need to learn a heck of a lot more because I think this is going to influence things we do in our lives significantly within the next five to 10 years. And I hope so and I’m maybe wrong, but I’m very excited about it.
Dexter: I remember there was like a VR, AR kit that was really popular that everyone was like jumping on the first AR kit.
Matt: Yeah. AR kit for iOS. I remember that came out. There was such hype when the AR kit dropped and everyone’s like the capabilities are endless and absolutely wild. Then you had Pokemon Go.
Dexter: Why do you think it didn’t go further than that.
Matt: I again, just don’t feel like the people were ready or the use cases were there. I think there were a lot of really cool niche pieces of technology. I remember when they came up with the stickers that existed and when you stand over them, they would turn into different objects or turn in different things.
And restaurants wanted them to be something you can interact with. Maybe a dish would show up for like new menu hunting and it just felt very gimmicky and it just felt like a product looking for a home that like no one was asking for this and it wasn’t quite solving a problem anyone had.
It was just delivering something in a new way. And there was no reason to invest extra energy into doing it this way because the old way still worked. And I think as we find new ways that things are going to overlap or like people don’t want to be mounting TVs everywhere.
And we don’t have the ability to run power to all these locations. You can have things powered by a user’s personal devices and just turn everything into a canvas that you can kind of turn all objects into a canvas and that’s going to grow.
But at the time, no one was willing to hold up their phone and look at their whole world through the iPhone camera lens to interact with it when the menu was sitting right in front of them or play a video game that was interacting with real life. I feel like I turned AR on and Pokemon Go and I thought it was novel.
Like, oh, look, there’s a Pikachu in my apartment. And then you’re like, this is just distracting from me aiming my poke balls.
So if you don’t have that clear value that’s linked to it. It’s gimmicky and people are like, that’s fun, then it just leaves their mind because it didn’t meaningfully impact their lives in any way, or like help them the way they want to live better.
Dexter: How much do you think that has to do with an aversion to change?
Matt: A whole lot. Find my friends feature by someone came out like five years before iPhone’s find my friends came out and it was crazy in the news.
They’re tracking your location, anyone can find out where you are, this is terrible and they killed the feature that was done. In like five or six years later it just got rolled out and everyone’s like, this is such a cool feature. It just took that long for people to get used to location tracking and location settings.
So I think that it takes people a long time. I mentioned QR codes earlier and the first time I saw a QR code and I’m like, this is the smartest thing ever. We should put them on everything. When I was in university, I was like, all of our posters should have a QR code and link to the website where there’s way more information and they can link to it.
And no one was willing to download a QR code reader because they weren’t just built into the cameras of the Android and iOS phones. But now here we are like a digital menu. COVID check-ins, contact tracing. It’s here. It’s here to stay. I remember reading papers like the QR code is dead. I remember people being like stop trying to sell me on QR codes. Nobody cares. No, one’s going to use your QR code and now those people are like, yeah, no, that was the wrong take because of the turn the world took. But it just took people that long to get it and want it.
Michael: Honestly, I didn’t know how to use QR codes until COVID. I thought only Android phones could use it or like you needed a specific app.
So I was like, okay, I’m not gonna bother. Now I know you could do it through your camera, which I didn’t know. So I think that needs to learn.
Dexter: That’s totally the application and the use case. If you look at Asia, you have, Wepay and Alipay. We use QR codes for payment, maybe it’s also a cultural thing, but that’s a different difference conversation.
Michael: It’s one app for everything.
Dexter: That’s true. But, if you look at street vendors, there is no cash. They just have a sticker with the QR code. You pay on your phone.
Matt: I totally agree. I don’t think it’s necessarily the right choice. I think it’s just like people get steeped in tradition and steeped in what they are comfortable with. If there isn’t enough activation energy to get them out of that rut, they’re just going to be like, well, I don’t know why I would move to do it.
It’s something you would definitely have to combat of like as much as this might be the right idea, is it the right time? Or have I found the way to position it, that someone’s going to latch onto this and be like, holy smokes, this has changed my life.
I heard a quote the other day that was tradition is just guilt from the past and I thought that was just such a clever way of framing it and thinking about tradition. People just feel like they have to do what they need to do because they’ve always done it. And you feel like that’s a sunk cost and it’s a sunk cost fallacy of this is how we’ve always done it so we have to keep doing it this way because I’ve committed so much of my identity to do it in this way. So just being open to that and changing that’s a hard thing to do sometimes.
Michael: That was actually a perfect way to end. That’s a sweet tip for fellow product people.
Dexter: Is there anything you wanna plug?
Matt: If you’re looking for some improv and you want to have a good laugh that has nothing to do with anything work-related, one of my closest friends Abdul has a podcast called Spout Lore. It’s a live play podcast. He didn’t ask me to give this plug, but I absolutely love the podcast.
They basically play like Dungeons and Dragons of a far lighter version that doesn’t have the rules and roles and everything. It’s just a super simplistic one that’s very much based on the narrative. They’re just a bunch of comedians who play it and I find it absolutely hilarious. So if you’re interested it may be your cup of tea, it might not be, but it’s a great example of improv working in a digital podcast space.
Michael: I think our engineers would love that.
Matt: Check it out. Spout Lore. Yes. Spout Lore podcast on Twitter, Patreon, Facebook. They have discord now, so check it out.
Michael: And if the listeners want to reach out to you?
Matt: I am on LinkedIn Matt Andaloro I am also on Twitter at, @Andaloro. You can reach out to me at either of those places and we can have conversations if you’re interested in talking more about improv or talking more about AR VR, or you have some fun new theories or things that are coming up I’m always down to learn about new things and meet funny and passionate people.
So I’m down for all of you.
Michael: Awesome. Thanks Matt.
Dexter: Yeah, thanks for joining. Appreciate it.
Michael: Well, everyone that was Matt Andaloro. We hope you enjoyed this episode and if you’re looking for more stories like Matt, feel free to listen to some of our older episodes, featuring people from companies like Shopify and Top Hat. Thank you for tuning in and see you on the next episode.