Even before the pandemic wrought havoc to countries and economies across the globe in early 2020, the disruption of the white label digital marketing agency in the US had already begun. And this is no surprise considering the proliferation of social media sites such as Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Tiktok, and LinkedIn that act as the main marketing platforms today (there are over 1.5 billion social media users worldwide and 55% of buyers do product research via social media) and the democratization of high-speed internet in, practically, every corner of the world (almost 50% of the world’s total population today uses the internet and 78% of that number go online to do product or service research). It cannot be denied that the face of marketing has changed forever. In fact, in the last 2 years alone, there has been an 83% increase in the number of marketers who say that social media sites are “critical” and “important” to their business.

While the fundamentals of what makes a great marketing campaign such as creative design, Web optimization, data-driven strategies, targeted search advertising, retargeting techniques, email marketing, and applications of state-of-the-art SaaS solutions, remain pretty much the same; the ever-widening internet landscape democratizes access to these technologies across the globe. Right now, a super-targeted social media campaign launched by an A-list agency operating in New York, can be seen by an unknown agency from India or the Philippines and thus can be duplicated (and sometimes even surpassed in quality) at a fraction of the cost. This should be enough to make any thinking agency executive sit up in attention.

Accept it or not, the disruption that happened to the manufacturing industry in the US by “made in China” products 30 years ago is now happening to a broader field of industries including digital marketing today.

Cue Frank Sinatra singing, “And now, the end is near…”

Consider these numbers: In the last 3 years, small and medium-sized businesses in the US have begun to outsource their digital marketing to offshore agencies at an increasing rate of 18% annually. In the same period, the number of high-ticket brands outsourcing part of their marketing to offshore agencies is going up at a much slower rate of 7%. However, with marketing campaigns being launched by agencies located in Southeast Asia, India, and even Eastern Europe gaining a lot of traction and a lot of attention – at times even going head to head with campaigns being launched by elite New York and Los Angeles agencies, and the fact that these agencies practically charge peanuts to launch these campaigns, you can expect this number to go up in no time. In fact, it is predicted that in the next 5 years, between 25% to 30% of all US businesses, regardless of size, will be outsourcing all or part of their marketing to offshore agencies. And it will only increase moving forward.

So here’s basically the big picture: Digital marketing has gone global, which means what happens on one side of the world is readily available on the other side. The campaigns being launched by what used to be the industry untouchables can be viewed, reviewed, and dissected by no-name agencies from countries you don’t even know exist. And guess what, they’ve discovered they can do it too, they can sometimes even do it better, and they can do it for less. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses have started to migrate over to these offshore agencies and it’s only a matter of time before the big brands start joining the exodus.

Not a pretty picture, huh?

So is this the end for the downtown New York agency or the Hollywood Boulevard marketing outfit?

Not at all.

After all, throughout history, American businesses have always dominated the global stage because we thrive in innovation, adaptability, quality execution, and cutting edge technology.

However, in order to survive in this new normal, digital marketing agencies need to evolve.

And by evolution, this means globally expanding your creative teams. In short, outsourcing.

The Digital Agency Creative Team

What comprises the modern digital agency’s creative team? This may vary depending on the size of an organization, the concentration and focus of services, or the business of the client. However, if we’re going to put together a versatile creative team, it will most probably include the following:

A Project Manager or Account Manager, who’s in charge of liaising with the client to find out what they need and what they want. This person will also be responsible for explaining what the team is capable of, what is possible, and what works. This is important so that the proper expectations are set.

Next is a Strategist. Once the client and the project manager are in agreement as to what needs to be accomplished, the strategist steps in to conceptualize how the overall goal can be achieved. The strategy may be as straightforward as launching a series of ads to boost the client’s presence. Or it may entail several phases that can include a survey or a poll, development of advertising and other assets based on the survey or poll results, media launch, engagement, sustainability action plans, and others.

The above-mentioned positions comprise the top-level management of a creative team. The brunt of the work, however, is done by the fulfillment team which includes the Copywriter and/or Creative Writer. In some teams, these positions may be held by two people. However, if your team only has room for one, I’d choose a copywriter who can also write articles well. It’s because not all creative writers can sell. But good copywriters can usually write creatively. After all, selling through the written word entails a certain kind of creativity.

Next is the Graphic Designer. Depending on the marketing strategy, a creative team may need more than one graphic designer. Preferably one who specializes in static images, another who specializes in motion graphics, another who does infographics, and more.

The fulfillment team may also need Web Developers or more specialized Full-Stack Developers. These individuals are in charge of putting a website or a funnel together and making sure the same works as intended and provides a positive experience for all visitors.

An SEO Specialist and a PPC Specialist are also very important members of full-service creative teams, along with a Social Media Manager. These people make sure all campaigns actually result in increased traffic and conversions. All good marketing strategies include capable SEO and PPC specialists as well as a reliable social media manager.

Lastly, a versatile creative team may also include an expert Email Marketing Specialist. This is someone who can set up email automation, create templates using these email design inspiration, plan drip sequences and be able to manage the client’s email lists in as much as segmenting, targeting, and retargeting is concerned.

Now, I have a pretty good guess what’s running in your mind right now after reading this…

…”Are you friggin’ crazy?! You’re practically asking me to outsource my digital marketing agency! My in-house creative team will have my head on a platter!”

Well, you’re not actually replacing these people – you’re augmenting your agency’s capability. And to do that, you still need your in-house team, albeit, in a more top-tier capacity.

Let me explain.

Globally Distributed Staff: The New Normal

About 20 years ago, outsourcing customer service operations became a major trend for US businesses. It meant replacing entire in-house customer service departments with cheap labor provided by English-speaking people located in third-world countries such as the Philippines. Over time, these outsourced departments expanded to include inbound and outbound sales departments, technical support staff, and even back-office management. This allowed companies to trim down their overhead expenses by as much as 70%.

However, today’s concept of outsourcing is much more sophisticated than that.

Today, you outsource, not just to lower your overhead and payroll expenses but, ultimately, to increase your company’s capability to offer services and, thus, multiply your topline revenue. This way, even if you end up spending more on overhead and payroll costs, the growth of your gross income will be by a far greater factor. To illustrate:

If an in-house creative department of a white label digital marketing agency generates a gross income of $100,000 a month, and you spend $70,000 of that in overhead expenses and salaries, you’re only making a net income of $30,000. But if you outsource that department in order to scale it up so you can generate an income of $1,000,000, and spend 25% of that or $250,000 in overhead and salary expenses, your overhead and payroll costs may have increased by more than 350% but your profits have grown from $30,000 to $750,000 – that’s a growth of 2,500%!

In this sense, you should be looking at outsourcing as a method of expansion and deeper specialization of your outfit.

“But that still doesn’t answer the question, what do I do with my in-house team!”

Actually, it does.

When you expand, you’ll need people to oversee your expanded operations.

Therefore, you can use your in-house graphic designers to manage your team of outsourced graphic designers. You appoint your in-house copywriter to lead your globally distributed team of copywriters and creative writers. Do you get the drift?

You use your in-house team – a group of people you personally work with and whom you already trust, to lead your outsourced/expanded creative teams. This way, you’re able to handle more clients.

And that’s just one of the ways of doing this.

Another way would be keeping your in-house team to take care of high-value clients while using your expanded creative teams to handle your small and medium-sized clients.

Still, another way to do this will be to use your in-house team for more specialized, client-facing tasks, such as client acquisition, project management, or account management while outsourcing your actual “fulfillment team” that includes the writer, the designer, the developer, the marketing specialists, and the rest.

The point here is that you don’t need to get rid of your in-house team and replace them with an outsourced one. Instead, you keep them or even promote them so you can use them as your own force-multiplier.

Implementation Steps

If you’ve reached this far, I can say you’re now seriously considering outsourcing your creative team. In fact, you may be starting to think about ways to do this yourself. Well, I’ve done the thinking for you. Here are the ways you can do this:

You can build your own globally distributed teams yourself. In order to do this, you’ll need services such as Upwork, Monster, People-per-Hour, JobStreet, Totaljobs, ZipRecruiter, Onlinejobs.ph and so much more. These are paid recruitment portals you can use to source creative professionals. You can use these services for free, but a free account won’t give you access to search filters. That means if you use a free account to locate specific talents in these services, you’d have to go through their entire databases. That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Good luck.

So how much does it cost to use the filters? That will depend on the service. Usually, these have tiered accounts wherein the more you pay, the more filters you can use. That can cost you anywhere between $49 to $499.

And it does not end there.

Usually, the databases in these resources are divided by global regions (ie: North America, South America, Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia etc), and you’ll need separate accounts to search separate regions. Your haystack just turned into several barns filled with hay.

Is that the scent of a leather wallet burning?

Yeah, technology ain’t cheap.

“I know! I’ll just use freelancers instead of building globally distributed teams!”

That makes sense. Hiring freelancers is definitely cheaper than building your own teams. Brilliant!

The problem is, you’ll have to use the resources mentioned above to find suitable freelancers. Again, you can use a free account to look for your needle across several barns, or you can spend $2,000 to look for someone offshore whom you can pay $500 just to avoid paying $1,500 to someone located right across the street from you.

Cue Alanis Morissette singing, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think…”

Another problem with using freelancers is consistency. You can get lucky and hire a killer freelance copywriter and a badass freelance designer for one project, but end up settling for mediocre talent for the next one. I don’t think I need to tell you how inconsistent results for your clients will surely develop into consistently NOT getting any clients at all.

Not so brilliant after all, huh?

Finally, you can partner with a company that specializes in building outsourced creative teams.

Companies like this have invested in setting up the various background checkpoints necessary in finding the best talent for any creative position in the best global recruitment markets. This means, if you need expert SEO and PPC Specialists, this company knows where to find the best candidates and it will already have systems in place to find them. The same applies to any creative position you can think of.

The result is a highly-curated global pool of the best possible talent in the world ready to work for you.

And that’s not even the best part!

The best part is, you won’t have to worry about having to pay people from different parts of the world separately and with different currencies. You only have to pay this company and they’ll take care of paying their team members.

What about consistency? This company has creative teams with members who have been working with each other for multiple projects already. They already know how to function like a well-oiled machine.

I know this almost sounds too good to be true, right? Does such a company even exist?

It does. It’s called C9 Digital.

Expand Your Creative Teams With C9 Digital

C9 Digital is a company that specializes in putting together globally-distributed creative teams ready to work “inside your company’s world”. We hire, manage, and pay your staff but they can report directly to you. This represents the next stage in the evolution of outsourcing and creating globally distributed workforces, especially for the white label digital marketing agency.

We have all the systems in place to find, screen, recruit and hire the best talents for any creative position from the world’s top recruitment markets: Central and Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East.

We can put a creative team together in any shape or size and for any purpose, you can think of.

Do you need a creative team that specializes in content marketing? We can put one together for you. Do you need a creative team that can focus on SEO, SEM, PPC, and Social Media Marketing? We can assemble one for you.

All our team members speak good English and are flexible enough to work in your local time zone.

And the best part, you can save up to 70% in payroll costs when you partner with us for your outsourcing and expansion needs. In fact, here are some of the global brands we have helped grow exponentially while also drastically cutting their overhead and payroll expenses.

So, are you ready to explore a new world of possibilities for your digital agency? Call us for a free consultation today and let’s see if there’s a strategic fit between your company and C9 Digital.

The post Outsource Your Digital Marketing Agency’s Creative Team appeared first on C9 Digital.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a somber warning for the world market with potential recessions that could impact major economies worldwide.

According to global economic analyst McKinsey & Company, current massive populace lockdowns involving around 150 countries around the world are expected to incur losses of USD$ 30 trillion based on current estimates.

The outbreak is moving rapidly, and authorities have been reporting very high case counts throughout the Americas and Europe, with Asia as the epicenter of the virus.

The global economic slowdown has been fueled by social and physical distancing, causing the indefinite suspension of business operations, travel restrictions, and self-quarantine measures to avoid spreading the deadly virus.

 

COVID-19: The novel coronavirus and its economic impacts

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the pandemic is expected to reach its peak sometime in April and May this year, with lockdowns and community quarantines necessitating the need for business operations for non-essential products and services to be indefinitely suspended until the crisis has abated.

 

 

Can businesses be recession-proof? Yes, it definitely can be

There’s good news. Businesses can still go on by leveraging on remote working environments or the work-from-home model.

Advanced technologies, interconnectivity, and agile work systems have provided businesses – small, medium, or large – with the means to ensure that operations can continue, regardless of any situation.

One of the most popular nowadays is remote freelance and contractual services, which have recently gained a lot of popularity due to its versatility, efficiency, and affordability.

Here are six practical and important reasons why you need an outsourced remote staff to ensure your business keeps on running in the age of the novel coronavirus.

 

Six reasons to hire outsourced remote services

 

Health and Safety of workers – The health and safety benefits of outsourcing your staffing needs on a remote work basis go beyond the health and safety aspect. Studies have shown that home-based workers or freelancers were 20%-30% more productive compared to 9 to 5 office or on-site workers.

The UK study highlighted that remote work-from-home benefits were driven by reduced stress, commuting time converted to more productive work, less exposure to pollutants, increased level of responsibility, reduced pressure such as micro-management, and greater work satisfaction.

 

Reduced overhead costs – By outsourcing remote staff, employers and businesses can significantly reduce overhead expenditures. While overhead cost savings vary based on a lot of factors, it is modestly estimated at 15% to 20%.

Among the most significant cost factors that are impacted are office spaces, workstations or equipment, facilities, employee training and development, and resource management.

 

 

More access to specialized talent – One of the successful drivers of remote working is what is known as the “millennial effect,” where the younger generation of workers have been accustomed to encompassing and dynamic communication channels regardless of location, which bears the same expectations in their workplace environment.

Workplace flexibility has become a major factor in most of today’s younger workforce, and providing options for remote work can surely attract highly-skilled talent who are interested in these remote work roles, which broadens the skills and talent capabilities that go beyond the limits of enclosed workspaces and networks.

 

Reduced salaries – This is, by far, one of the most prominent advantages of outsourcing that can significantly help businesses cope with recession-like situations since outsourcing has been associated with dramatic reductions in labor costs.

For instance, outsourcing remote work in the Philippines can cut US labor costs by as much as 70% to 90%, simply because the Asian country has a substantially lower cost of living compared to the US. The Philippines has been noticed as one of the top-emerging skill and talent providers for outsourced services, comparable to other outsourcing countries around the world.

 

Business continuity – This should be a no-brainer. Outsourced remote services let businesses run unhampered regardless of disruptions in surrounding localities or regions. Business continuity is a critical component of a recovery strategy and one of the best ways to ensure this is through remote work and staffing.

According to the Insurance Institute of Business and Home Safety, 25% of businesses fail to re-open after a major event, which includes major catastrophes. On the other hand, around 80% of businesses experience losses for minor events such as power failures, data and security breaches or theft, and interrupted utilities such as water or pipe leaks.

This makes business continuity planning a critical aspect of any business, no matter what the size.

 

Increased productivity – Study findings conducted by insurance company Canada Life revealed that work-from-home personnel ranks their productivity 7.7 on a scale of 1 to 10, compared to a 6.5 ranking by office workers.

A similar study conducted by Stanford University also found that work-from-home employees are 13% more productive compared to office workers.

For your business to thrive in the era of COVID-19, it is vital to find ways to ensure that businesses remain operational, not just for your benefit but for your customers and those that rely on your business for their livelihood.

 

 

We Build Your Teams

Yes. You heard it right. We can help you establish your remote teams to help you adapt in the coronavirus era so your business can take on the challenges of the evolving global markets, no matter what the situation may be.

 

At C9 Digital, we can build the right remote team for your business based on our experience after working with countless global and domestic brands that are looking to outsource their skills and talent pool. We know what top companies, partners, and resources you will need to maximize your chances of success.

We are game-changers- a team of artists, entrepreneurs, and business professionals who believe that work should be both challenging and fun.

For our clients, we’re the kind of partner who makes sure that your business strategy becomes a resounding success. We’ll help you find the right talents and create a seamless outsourcing experience for your customers. We will stand with you to realize your vision to help you achieve your business goals and beyond.

In terms of business development and outsourcing, we help you find the best partners and provide guidance and assistance to help you cushion the impacts of this COVID-19 pandemic.

As global executives and entrepreneurs, we can help you scope a high-level strategy for your business and execute tactical decisions to achieve excellent results for your business.

We will help you build your best team ever- you can count on that.

The post Recession-Proof Your Business: Six Reasons Why You Should Hire Outsourced Remote Staff in the Age of Coronavirus appeared first on C9 Digital.

“I want you for the US Army.”

Given a little pop culture savvy and a little knowledge of world history, you would have likely been able to associate a particular popular image to that slogan.

That image in your mind likely would have been one of a stern, white-haired older gentleman, wearing a star-spangled outfit with a matching top hat, pointing at you with a bony finger.

That image with that slogan was an effective tool at recruiting able-bodied young men to join the US Army and fight in the First World War; that image, despite being over one hundred years old, remains relevant to this day as an iconic image from the past and a staple of popular culture.

The thing is, the image and the slogan were actually inspired by a British recruitment poster featuring the British secretary of state for war. The original image featured the Secretary pointing a finger at the possible recruit standing in front of his stern image.

The idea for the poster wasn’t original, but the execution was. The idea for the base may have originated from one country, but it was able to achieve greater success in a different form through the work of an artist in a different country.

Ideas can take on a brand new life when imported to places outside of where they were originally from. And therein lies the potential for remote recruitment and staffing.

So what is remote recruitment and staffing?

A recruitment and staffing agency is an entity that finds and screens candidates for employment for client-employers. Candidates who get a job through a recruitment and staffing agency do not become employees of the said agency but become employees of the agency’s client-employer.

A management agency is an entity that provides management services for client-employers. The progress of a remote staff can be hard to monitor, that is why an agency offering management services can put the client’s mind at ease and free up an executive’s schedule to do more with the company. Management services ensure that a trusted manager is always there to keep the team on track to meet its goals and delivering consistent and excellent team performance.

Globalization gives you an advantage

“The global competitive playing field [is] being leveled. The world [is] being flattened.”

–Thomas L. Friedman

The World is Flat

Computers, e-mail, fiber-optic networks, teleconferencing, and dynamic new software has made it possible to collaborate with people in real time regardless of where they are in the world.

Many companies have taken advantage of this leveling of the global playing field by outsourcing their productions overseas.

For example, JP Morgan Chase & Co is one of the oldest, largest, and best-known financial institutions in the world. It is a leader in wholesale financial services and has clients in over 100 countries around the world.

In 2005, it launched its Global Service Center (GSC) in the Philippines to provide strategic support to its Consumer & Community Banking and Corporate & Investment Bank lines of business. It has a significant presence in the Philippines and is one of the country’s biggest Business Process Outsourcing companies, employing over 15,000 Filipino employees. It currently operates in two cities in the Philippines: Metro Manila and Cebu.

Advantages of hiring remote staff

The distinction is fairly simple but quite impactful: a remote staff is an internationally sourced staff while a local staff is locally sourced staff.

Outsourcing is not a new concept. Prior to high speed internet and even before satellite technology made it possible for call centers to become an industry, brick-and-mortar businesses have engaged in outsourcing in one form or another.

The world of work is no longer limited to what can be materially accomplished in a physical office. Traditional office spaces are going the way of brick-and-mortar stores: they’re shedding their physical boundaries and moving all the stuff people need to the Internet.

Searching for candidates in particular locations can set a tight limit on talent pool selections. In many places, local talents are unwilling to compromise on salaries and benefits because of high costs of living. And being located in or near a corporate or industrial hub does hike up the cost of living, especially when said hub is located in highly developed countries.

That said, many of less developed countries, particularly in Asia, are peopled with professionals trained to anticipate and adapt to the challenges of globalization who are just as qualified as their overseas counterparts but have the advantage of living in areas with a lower cost of living.

The wealth of their knowledge and experience is accessible to international clients and these international talents are willing to be paid less for working harder than their Global North counterparts simply because they are located in places with a lower cost of living.

This lower cost of living is also matched by a lower cost of doing business. The Philippines in particular is an industry leader in business process outsourcing and has maintained its status in the Top 10 locations in the world for information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) in the 2019 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index.

The components and framework used for determining the country rankings are the following:

• Financial Attractiveness, which includes compensation costs, infrastructure costs, tax and regulatory costs
• People skills and availability, which includes ITO/BPO experience and skills, labor force availability, educational skills, language skills
• Business environment, which includes country environment, country infrastructure, cultural adaptability, security of intellectual property
• Digital Resonance, which includes digital skills, legal and cybersecurity, corporate activity, outputs

To see the full 2019 report, click here.

The Philippines scores top marks in the aforementioned metrics.

The Philippines’ talent pool is full of educated professionals, comparably more than other Southeast Asian countries, with the number of higher education institutions in the Philippines being ten times more than its neighboring countries.

Filipino professionals are excellent communicators. The country boasts a high proficiency in English, ranked at #2 of 21 Asian countries in the 2018 EF English Proficiency Index.

Filipinos are also tech-savvy and adaptable. According to a World Bank study, as of 2017, 60% of the Philippine population use the Internet, well ahead of BPO industry leaders India (34%) and China (54%).

Qualities of a good remote recruitment and staffing agency

A good recruitment strategy can attract many interested and eager applicants, but it takes a good screening system to go through the most qualified and pick out only the best.

At C9, we work with clients to get a full understanding of the business processes they are looking to outsource and use client specifications as the main criteria when screening for talent. Once we have our roster we ensure that the remote staff we provide already have good internet speed, audio and video quality.

The recruits in our talent pool are specialists and can cater to particular niches. Once they are briefed on the work and the client specifications they are ready to go on board.

About C9 Digital

We specialize in digital marketing, customer care, and technology, and we recruit to fill those positions. We make sure that clients don’t waste time training up enthusiastic newbies for their staff: our talents are ready to work and will do so when you say go.

We provide campaign management and not just sourcing and staffing.

We provide consultancy and strategy to help you achieve exponential growth. We don’t just give you a team of workers, we will work with you to achieve your corporate and industrial goals.

If Old Uncle Sam were to point to us from a poster right now, asking us to work with you, we would answer that call. We know we are more than qualified to serve and we will be proud to do it.

If you’re looking for a remote recruitment staffing and agency, point to us. You want us, and we’ve got you.

The post “Where in the World Are They?” Recruiting and Sourcing Remote Talent appeared first on C9 Digital.

Discover how to tap into the hidden depths of your subconscious mind through the power of exponential thinking. Uncover how to literally upgrade your mind so you can achieve more results with less effort. Enjoy this episode of Innovators where Phillip Lew reveals how anyone, regardless of their background, can become a genius and unleash the limitless possibilities from within.

Podcast length is approx 8 minutes. Click on the photo below to listen:

The post The Power of Exponential Thinking appeared first on C9 Digital.

Want to discover the insider secrets on how to become a keynote speaker? Discover how to create visionary public speaking keynotes with none other than Andrew Davis, award winning professional speaker and content marketing titan.

Podcast length is approx 38 minutes. Click on the photo below to listen:

The post How to Become a Visionary Speaker appeared first on C9 Digital.

Listen to Phillip Lew as he shares his take on what the Singularity is, it’s implications, with bold implications for the future of Humanity. Enjoy “The Singularity in 3D”. A new form of audio storytelling and audio experience.

Podcast length is approx 15 minutes. Click on the photo below to listen:

The post The Singularity is Near – When Technology Merges with Consciousness appeared first on C9 Digital.

When paid advertising is done right it can create liberation for your time so you can focus more deeply on your heart’s passions. What is native advertising? How do we utilize this advertising technique to get results in our business? In this episode of Innovators Interviews, Chad Pollitt shares with us his deep insights and expertise on how to create successful paid advertising.

Podcast length is approx 21 minutes. Click on the photo below to listen:

The post Native Advertising with Chad Pollitt appeared first on C9 Digital.

Steve Worswick is the Creator of Mitsuku, the world’s best conversational chat bot. Mitsuku is a five-time winner of the Loebner Prize Turing Test.

Steve goes by the artist name Square Bear.

Square Bear is a dance music producer from England. He has been producing trance and dance music since 1998. His styles vary from commercial, vocal trance, to hard-banging dance music.

Steve got really into Artificial Intelligence in 2003 and in 2005 Mitsuku was born.

Phillip Lew is the CEO and Founder of C9 Digital. He’s an innovator who helps investors, business owners, executives and government agencies around the world leverage the power of outsourcing and using exponential technologies to create massive success within their organization.

Phillip: “Tell us more about you, Steve. What got you interested in developing a chat bot?”

Steve: “Originally, I used to produce dance/techno music as a hobby but I was always interested in artificial intelligence as a child. I found that one of my fellow producers had put a chat bot on his website. I tried it and I was hooked.

“After a quick search of Google, I came across an impressive chat bot called ALICE and a website where you can build your own bot,pandorabots.com. I soon had my first chat bot online, a teddy bear called Bearbot. After a while, I noticed that more people were visiting my site to talk to the bot than to listen to my music! Taking this as a hint, I decided to stop music and concentrate on developing a chat bot and so Mitsuku was born in about 2005.

“I’ve been working on her ever since then, and now she is at the stage where she has won international awards such as the Loebner Prize five times and is classed as being the world’s most human-like conversational AI.

Phillip: “Why are you passionate about creating them [chatbots]?”
Steve: “For me, it’s always been fascinating to be able to have a conversation with a machine, but I guess that’s what you get from growing up on a diet of Knight Rider, Star Trek, Star Wars and similar influences.”

Phillip: “Where do you feel chatbots—and by extension, conversational assistants—will play the biggest role in the coming years?”

Steve: “We’ve already seen chat bots in phones–Apple’s SIRI, for example and now Google and Amazon have their own home devices. I can see this market expanding hugely over the next few years. Imagine being able to say to your TV set, ‘Record the late film and now switch over to the news.’Or you can ask your fridge,‘What can I make for dinner?’ and it replies, ‘If you buy an onion, I have the correct ingredients inside me to make a curry.’

“I can also see it being used in places like train stations. You can press a button and ask, ‘What time is the next train, and does it stop at London?’ Applications like this will soon become commonplace.

“Many non-English people use Mitsuku to practice their English language skills. She is always available 24/7 and can talk to hundreds of thousands of visitors at once. She never criticizes poor English or laughs at any mistakes and is an ideal teacher.

“I also see many people who talk to her simply for companionship, especially elderly people living on their own. People with social disorders or those who find it hard to talk to other people also seem to enjoy talking to her as she isn’t going to get offended by anything they say.”

Phillip: “Now, for someone brand new to the industry who wants to create a chatbot, what would you recommend as the first step?”

Steve: “Walk before you run. Don’t think you will be able to create an amazing chat bot in just a few minutes. The quality of your chat bot depends on how much time you spend developing it.

“Sure, you can get a quick chat bot up and running in an hour, but creating a useful product takes time. The first step should be to define what you want your chat bot to be able to do and see if that’s even possible. Many people brand new to chat bots expect to be talking with a human level of intelligence and this simply isn’t the case with today’s bots.

Phillip: “What are the baby steps, essentially, for a beginner making a chatbot?”

Steve: “Map out a flowchart of how the bot should respond to the user’s queries and what the bot should say each time. Also take a look at existing chat bots to see how they behave and look to see what’s possible.”

Phillip: “There are a lot of ‘build a chatbot’ platforms on the market today. What advice can you share with someone trying to make sense of it all to make the right decision for their project?”

Steve: “The platform you use depends on how complex your bot is going to be. If it’s a very basic bot with only a couple of options, then sure, one of the many build-a-bot-in-ten-minutes websites may be useful.

“When I was looking for a platform to first use, I checked around and found that some were so basic that they were of no use, and others required a qualification in programming and machine learning to use!

“The ideal one I found was www.pandorabots.com. This was primarily due to the fact it has over 250,000 developers using the platform and it allowed me to create anything from a simple to a multi–award-winning bot. Their tools include a graphical design interface for the complete novice but also allow you to code your bot directly using AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) and I’ve been using it for around 15 years now.”

Phillip: “What role does Artificial Intelligence play into the chatbot development process? What advice do you have for someone looking to incorporate more AI into their chatbots?”

Steve: “My advice would be to forget about AI, machine learning, deep learning, and all the other current buzzwords. The only way you can guarantee how your chat bot behaves is to create it yourself using a rule-based method. Sorry, but there’s no shortcuts if you want to create a good chat bot, and I have yet to see any decent chat bot that uses machinelearning methods. Most of these machine learning chat bots are passed off as ‘comedy bots,’ simply because their responses are so stupid and make people laugh. For example:

Human: ‘What is your favorite colour?’

Chatbot: ‘Monkey’

Human: ‘lol that makes no sense.’

“If your chat bot gives an incorrect or offensive answer, you need to be able to see why and to rectify it and a rule based method makes this so much easier.

“When I was first making Mitsuku, many people were telling me that a rule-based system would take years to make and that I should try machine learning methods instead. I said to these people that while they were looking for shortcuts, I would start working on my rule-based bot. Fourteen years later, I’m winning multiple awards and these same people are still looking for shortcuts.

“Creating a quality product takes time. You can’t grow an orchid overnight, but it’s easy to grow a dandelion!”

Phillip: “One of the biggest challenges with chatbots today is making them more conversational and intelligent. What advice can you share with someone looking to make their chatbot more conversational?”

Steve: “Using plenty of generic statements in your bots gives the illusion of intelligence. People read a lot more into the bot’s responses than are actually there. So for example, if a user asks, ‘What is your favorite sport?’ the bot can reply with a generic, ‘I don’t really have a favorite, what’s yours?’

“This same response would work for any what-is-your-favorite type question. Although it’s a generic answer, it appears as though the bot has understood the question and formulated an answer.

“A similar trick is to have the bot lead the conversation and continue on a script regardless of what the user says. For example:

chatbot: ‘Are you going on holiday this year?’

Human: ‘Yes, I’m thinking of going to Greece.’

chatbot: ‘Ah I see. I probably won’t go away this year.’

“No matter what the human says, the bot appears to have understood and has managed to continue the conversation.

“Let’s take the same example but alter it slightly:

Chat bot: ‘Are you going on holiday this year?’

Human: ‘I doubt it, as I have no money.’

Chat bot: ‘Ah I see. I probably won’t go away this year.’

“The same response from the chatbot works with pretty much anything the human says.

“However, there’s no need to spend a lot of time making a small-talk bot. I’ve been working on Mitsuku for over 14 years and fortunate enough it has been recognized 5 times for being the world’s most human-like conversational AI.

“Mitsuku is available for licensing as a service for other chat bots to use as a small talk module. If you have a pizza ordering chat bot and someone starts asking it about football, the pizza bot can pass these queries to Mitsuku to give sensible answers back to the user rather than ‘I don’t know. I only know about pizza’ type answers.”

Phillip: “You are the creator of Mitsuku, which is considered by many to be one of the top chat bots in the world. It’s a project you have been working on since 2005.After 14 years of working on Mitsuku, what has been the most important insight you can share with others looking to create a successful chatbot?

Steve: “The easiest part is putting a chat bot online, but it’s much harder to maintain it. Monitoring your chat bot is an essential part of updating it and you need to ensure it’s answering the customer correctly while maintaining customer privacy.

“Like any new employee, the chat bot needs initial training to begin its job and then further training as time goes on. There’s no getting away from this.You can’t just put a chat bot online and forget about it. It will need a human to spend time each week checking and updating it.

“Also, bear in mind that despite people being aware of the chat bot’s domain of expertise, they will ask it about anything and everything. I wrote a bot as a guide to a website’s services and it gets asked everything from relationship advice to weight loss tips! It’s up to you to decide if you will accept this behavior, but people will still discuss it with your bot regardless of what you tell them. Around 30% of interactions with your bot will be off topic.

“Dealing with abuse/gender stereotypes is a serious issue too. There’s always articles about ‘subservient female chat bots’ dealing with abuse (often sexual). Many companies choose to have tame answers such as ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’ I found this just encouraged the abuse and so I allow my bot to insult the user back. This is fine for an entertainment bot but may not be acceptable for a business.

“I would be tempted to allow the chat bot to stay silent when being abused and the user will soon get bored. People do enjoy talking to chat bots with a bit of personality though. It puts them at ease if they think it’s not a cold, soulless machine.

“My top advice though is never pretend the chat bot is human. Always make it perfectly clear that people are talking to a chat bot rather than a real person. Being deceptive is not a good way to run a business and customers will not be impressed if they think they are being tricked.”

The post Mitsuku Full Edited Transcript appeared first on C9 Digital.

In a world that is perpetually moving towards interconnectivity across devices, technology continues to evolve to become more sentient and interactive. This is most evident in the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of chatbots. Many of us have likely come across those automatic replies that we get from messaging apps in one form or another.

And then, there’s Mitsuku.

Programmed to learn through continuous interaction, there is no chatbot quite as conversational as Mitsuku. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with the man behind the five-time winner of the Loebner Prize Turing Test, Steve Worswick.

While initially dabbling in dance music production, Steve had been interested in AI since he was a child. After finding out that a fellow producer had a chatbot on his own website, Steve decided to try it out and never looked back.

A quick Google search led him to ALICE, a chatbot he deemed impressive. He also came across the builder site Pandorabots.com. Soon, his first chatbot was online – a teddy bear named Bearbot. After noticing that people were more interested in Bearbot over his music, Steve decided to switch careers and created Mitsuku in 2005. A chatbot that has won international awards due to her capacity to feel authentically conversational, warm, non-judgmental and even “consciously aware” of the person she is speaking with.

“For me, it’s always been fascinating to be able to have a conversation with a machine but I guess that’s what you get from growing up on a diet of Knight Rider, Star Trek, Star Wars and similar influences.” Steve quips.

In regards to the future, Steve shares that he sees chatbots and conversational assistants as becoming more commonplace, especially in households and public transportation. With the current market being projected to reach USD 3146.4 million by 2023, this theory doesn’t seem far-fetched.

“Imagine being able to say to your TV set, “Record the late film and now switch over to the news” or you ask your fridge, “What can I make for dinner?” and it replies, “If you buy an onion, I have the correct ingredients inside me to make a curry.”

He also shares that Mitsuku has been widely used by non-English speakers to learn the language as she is always there for them and is capable of speaking to multiple people at one time. Since Mitsuku is programmed not to laugh at mistakes or bad grammar, she naturally became ideal for teaching English. Lonely seniors and people with difficulty socializing also find it comforting to speak with Mitsuku. Being a chatbot, Mitsuku simply talks to them, with infinite patience and without getting offended.

When asked on what advice he can give to individuals and companies looking to develop successful chatbots of their own, Steve shares the importance of putting the time and the work into the project. According to him, creating something user-friendly requires creators to really understand their users inputs and crafting replies that are both relevant yet adaptable to multiple conversational scenarios.

With regard to what he would tell people who are looking for the perfect chatbot builder, Steve answers that the right one for you largely depends on the complexity of your bot. He adds that not all platforms are made the same way as some are too basic while others require programming skills and machine learning expertise to use.

When it comes to his ideal platform, Steve cites pandorabots.com, favoring its versatility and usefulness.

In what might sound like a surprising statement, Steve claims that AI doesn’t play a great role in the chatbot development process. Using AI and machine learning methods may be the easy way out. However, these technologies are still in their infancy and are ultimately unpredictable leading to what he calls “comedy bots” which often yield outputs that make users laugh or abandon using the technology. The only way to really guarantee an excellent chatbot user experience is to put in the time and effort to create individualized responses to the questions that matter most to your users.

Steve stressed that rule-based methods make it a lot easier to understand and rectify why a chatbot gives an incorrect or offensive answer. While many discouraged Steve from developing a rules-based system because it would take too long, he got to work and did it anyway. More than a decade later, Steve created the award-winning chatbot Mitsuku, so it looks like he really is onto something.

These days, there is a growing demand for programming conversational assistants to become smarter and more human-like. While current technology still hasn’t gotten to that point yet, Steve says that giving chatbots the illusion of intelligence can be done using generic answers. While lacking insight, a generic statement does make it seem like the bot understood and even formulated an answer through its own consciousness awareness of the real time conversation.

The trick, he says, is to let the bot lead the conversation and continue on a script, no matter what is asked of it. While this might entail spending hours crafting conversations in small talk, Steve says that Mitsuku can help expedite the process.

With Mitsuku recognized as the world’s most conversational AI, Steve believes Mitsuku can be a great help to companies and organizations around the world looking side step the slow and long road of developing a chatbot from scratch by white labeling her mind and its conversational capabilities. At the end of the day, for Steve, monitoring your chatbot is not a “set it and forget it” kind of process. He explains:

With the integration of technology into our daily lives, the intent may not necessarily align with the results. There will always be people who will not follow or even abuse the system. Even with constant updating and monitoring of chatbots, off-topic conversations are inevitable. A person may be perfectly aware of a bot’s programming and purpose and will still talk about unrelated subjects with the bot to test its level of artificial general intelligence.

Steve also highlights that many companies struggle between creating chatbots with color and personality or simply keeping them professional and unemotional. There are always reports of docile female chatbots being subjected to the abuse from human users, which is often sexual. For Steve, it can be complicated to get around this because each solution comes with a heavy drawback.

The overwhelming feedback however, is that people generally enjoy interacting with chatbots that do have some character to them. It’s easier to talk when one doesn’t feel like they are speaking to a machine without consciousness, empathy or compassion.

At the end of the day, the one takeaway that he wants developers to remember is to never make false claims about the chatbot being a real person.

While companies and organizations around the world projected to invest over 2.1 billion dollars into chatbots by 2024, perhaps it’s about time to learn from the proven masters within the space on how to build conversational chatbots that your users can fall in love with.

If you are interested in having a world class team develop your next chatbot project, visit our chatbot services page. You can also read the full, unedited version of this interview segment here.

The post “Hello Everybody, I am Mitsuku”: A Rare Glimpse Inside the Mind of Mitsuku: the World’s Most Advanced Chatbot appeared first on C9 Digital.

How does one create winning content on the web? In this interview segment of Innovators, Michael Brenner takes us on a journey into the ultimate content formula.

Podcast length is approx 17 minutes. Click on the photo below to listen:

The post Content Formula with Michael Brenner appeared first on C9 Digital.