• Efficiency.
• Uniformity.
• Innovation.

Efficiency

Think about the things that drive satisfaction. In a retail situation, you just want the transaction to be correct and expedient.

Uniformity

People don’t like McDonald’s for the food (do they?), they like it because they know that no matter which McDonald’s they go to, wherever the hell they are, they are going to get the exact same thing. That said, they do not have apple pies in China, they have pineapple pies! Brilliant! Surface has the power to bring that uniformity.

Innovation

Doing something new and different will generate buzz and if people adopt it, change the way things are done in the entire market.

Surface in Retail

I would like to see Surface at checkout. Instead of that stupid conveyor belt, let’s put our groceries on the surface, bar code down. Surface will put a little green glow around the item to let us know that we have succeeded. Stuff can still move down the conveyor to the bagger, but now we have a chance to do some marketing!

First, surface takes care of the checkout. Assuming the person scans in with their thumbprint, phone or loyalty card (are we really still making people carry them? How stupid is that!?) surface can link to their online profile where maybe they have already prepared a list.

If they have forgotten something on the list a message can appear on the surface that asks if the customer would like someone to bring it up for them. If they respond positively, the item is added to the bill and everyone in the store is paged to have someone bring the item to the front. In the meantime, we are capturing all kinds of great information on the customer that we can compare to others. The surface can create custom entertainment on the checkout monitor next to the conveyor belt based on the person’s preferences. It can suggest recipes based on items on the table and could offer discounts on items that other people who buy the same items as customer like. The customer could touch the recipe to put it on their phone or have it emailed. They could touch an item to have it added to their tab and have someone in the store retrieve it for them.

Surface has the power to upsell and to make sure that people optimize their trip to the store and create a uniform experience with each trip. The question now is, who will be first to try it? Shaw’s? Stop & Shop? Piggly Wiggly? Publix?

Imagine the walls of your house in Surface. You would have total control of the style of the room from the wall colors, to the artwork. There would be no need to have a television, it could exist whenever you wanted it to and then disappear as artwork, solid colors or maybe even an aquarium.

The placement of your TV would be variable. If you wanted the kids to be able to watch a small “television” in their beanbag chairs, you could drag a small TV down near the floor where they could watch. You could also drag the TV around the wall and modify the size, the shape and even segment into multiple TVs to monitor other channels. Imagine that during sporting events! Who needs picture in a picture?

In the office you could have relaxing scenery that transforms into a conference call command center, complete with charts, stats and live avatars of participants. Want your office to look like a library or a beach? Surface!

One of Surface’s powers is its ability to interact with objects and devices. The examples we see are the camera being set down on the coffee table version and the pictures spilling out. People can then put their Zunes on the table and drag photos onto the Zune. That’s pretty cool, right? It’s true social computing because the Surface does not limit the number of active interfaces, meaning I can drag photos to my Zune while you do the same, at the same time, on the same Surface.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am big on process innovation. Technology is a big enabler for me, however I try hard not to force technology into a situation just because I think it is cool. That said, if we do not start innovating with Surface, we are not going to see its benefit anywhere.

In other words, everything went exactly as planned.

Microsoft knew that one of two things would happen. People would love the approach and they would begin a long series of Bill & Jerry ads; or people would think they are terrible and people would begin a wave of criticism and disdain for the campaign, not the product.  In the process, they would tell Microsoft exactly what they really wanted the brand to be and Microsoft would react… swiftly.

The ads were released in early September. This chart shows a spike in Microsoft, Seinfeld and PC related buzz on twitter. Granted, the buzz was generally negative, but if the ads had been funny, people arguably would not have reacted so passionately.

This buzz is consistent across social media properties:

• Microsoft needed to brand themselves for the everyman.
• They needed to remind people that they are crushing Apple
• They needed to explicitly state that it’s OK to do what everyone else is doing
• and that the lion’s share of computing is running on PCs

Loren Feldman of 1938media nailed it.

Coincidence? If you believe that any PR is good PR, then Microsoft got their wish with the Seinfeld ads. They also got a load of free consulting from bloggers, nanobloggers and the media. Shortly after everyone told Microsoft what they wanted, they got it. Seinfeld and the Bill & Jerry campaign were “canned” and “I’m a PC” was born.

Ha ha suckers! Pure Genius. Oh and kudos to Wired for almost realizing that it was all part of the plan.