As we come to terms with the news that UK schools are about to close for what could be six months, I find myself reflecting on how lucky we are.
Imagine if this had happened before the mass adoption of the web?
When I was at school there was no internet. A pc was a rarity. Mobile phones unheard of.
I would not have been able to order what I needed online - and there certainly was no opportunity to experience e-learning, virtual classrooms or any of the other digital innovations education has been dancing with, but will now have to adopt on a mass and 'business-as-usual' scale. Imagine facing the next six months without any of that.
Of course, the same is true of business.
The web allows us to continue to trade, to continue to meet and do deals, to collaborate on ideas, concepts, prototypes, launch strategies and projects of all kinds.
We are exceptionally lucky that Covid19 comes at a time when we have the technology to physically self-isolate WHILE socially connecting. This is the only time in history that has been possible.
The web has given us a critical advantage vs this virus.
We can continue pretty much every aspect of trade and education. We can maintain our economic progress. We can do it while improving our relationship with our planet.
All we have to do is get over the shock and get used to a few new tools.
We can do this.
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
Planet Experience - the next business superpower
Their continuing success has built on designing to deliver great customer experiences, expanding, as they have expanded, to also deliver great employee and workplace experiences.
To deliver these require different priorities in everything from ops to marcomms. Having a 'digital' or data-led business model alone will not and does not cut it.
It's why I believe to deliver a successful digital transformation (ie a modern business) your first principle is to design (everything) around the experiences you want to create. Customers, employees and workplaces experiences have been well considered - and very effectively. Great experiences have been the start-up superpower that drove the best businesses you know.
Now it is for PX - Planet Experience - to serve as your next business superpower.
Good CX has always made customers your partners. It's the trust thing. You want your customer to believe you have their best interests at heart. To do this your business has to generate win-win benefits. A customer win is a business win.
This has driven the whole customer-centricity revolution across business - the rediscovery of the customer as less someone to exploit, more someone to partner with. It has served the winners well. They understand that winning is about serving the needs of customers in a relationship of mutual trust. ie Exploit the customer and you get one big bang pay day, build a relationship of trust with a customer and you may miss out on today's pay day, for a longer term and (here's that word) sustainable relationship generating value for both parties.
Screw your customer - lose your customer.
Love your customer - keep your customer.
Some of you will already have guessed where I am going with this:
Delivering great Planet Experience will treat the planet like we (should) treat a customer - winning is about serving the needs of the planet in a relationship of mutual benefit.
The best businesses have now learned that exploiting their customer is essentially an abuse and a recipe for a short relationship.
Now they are coming to realise that their relationship with the planet requires just as much care.
A new superpower - yes because apply PX at the core of how you change or operate is becoming essential to the total experience the customer has of your brand or product.
If you want to sustain a relationship with the customers and employees who pay your bills, you will need a relationship with the planet that they can (literally) live with. Start designing for a great PX today!
Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Beware the business bots
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| Image via: http://www.inspirefirst.com/ |
For many that future has already arrived. You know you have arrived in that future when 50.1% or more of your revenue comes via digital. You can probably draw a line on your revenue growth and decline charts to identify the point at which that becomes true for you.
In the future every business will be a technology company. Being digitally, socially connected, always on via the cloud and mobile will be an essential of even the most mom & pop business.
Yes those businesses which require your corporeal presence (those that will congregate in High Streets) may feel this effect later than most, but feel it they will. If I can choose to book a haircut via my mobile vs turn-up and hope, over time even the strongest habits and relationships will be challenged. You can be sure new habits and relationships will more likely be established via the technology route. Old habits die hard - but time kills even the oldest in the end.
So it would be sensible to prepare for your digital and technological future.
But in doing so never lose sight of what will make all this technology work for you - the scalable human relationships it empowers.
Without the human heart of your business - its purpose, your belief, your demonstration of your values through what you do (not what you say) you'll end up with a business which acts like a bot.
In a dark, bleak future there is a world of business bots all following each other and trying to sell to each other based on the faked behaviours each is demonstrating to each other- rather like twitter would become if all the humans left over night.
It's easy to imagine organisations sleep walking into this future - focused on getting technology to do everything for you and for your customer. Bots see and bots do but there is no meaning for them or those they interact with in what they do. Transaction after transaction without meaning.
In the bright, belief-filled future, businesses are using technology to enable and enhance rather than to mechanically do. Here humans are connecting with humans building trust through relationships in which each has the other's best interests at heart. They are partners. They are working together to achieve a shared purpose. They generate meaning.
The role of technology is to reduce the friction in each transaction - whether that be purchasing goods, connecting people with shared purpose, or sharing ideas. Reduce the transaction cost and you reduce the cost of action.
But we must always be careful to keep the meaning in. Industrialisation took it out. We have the opportunity to rediscover it through the human connectedness the web enables. We can take advantage - or we can build bots.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Judgment Call: Can You Be A Global Business and Idealistic?
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| The Problem |
The issue our advice was sought on was: Can you be a global business and idealistic?
This follows from the detention of Google's most senior exec in Brazil when Google refused to take down a YouTube video which allegedly insulted a local politician.
My advice, as regulars here will guess, was that not only should a global business remain idealistic - but that it must.
Here's the full (and only lightly edited for publication) response I supplied:
Organisations have to remain true to their fundamental beliefs - their purpose.
There may be a short term cost or loss from sticking to them but businesses built to succeed in today's Open Economy must take a longer view: Without consistency trust disappears; Without consistency believers stop believing; Without consistency supporters stop supporting.
Our connected world demands more than simple customer centricity, it requires customer partnership - and that is driven by belief.
My Advice: Top
Today's winners are Open Businesses - organisations which use their resources to create networks of people who care about the same things they do and who work with them to achieve shared goals.
This clearly relies on support from outside the org. It's this support, this willingness to participate, that delivers competitive advantage. They participate because they share your beliefs.
That is the bigger picture Google sees - and which no amount of local sabre-rattling is likely to make it relinquish.
This of course speaks to Principle One of the 10 Principles of Open Business - Purpose.
The outing in the FT this morning (October 3, 2012), also marks the first publication in print of the fact of our forthcoming book The 10 Principles of Open Business (see the end of my piece in the pictures accompanying this post). Though I have to say our potential publishers are suggesting that may, in the end, become a sub-heading. Will keep you posted, of course.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Video: Webciety CeBIT keynote: How the web changes the organisation of business
For those of you who weren't at Webciety at CeBIT, Hannover, Germany on Thursday March 8, or weren't able to catch the live webcast of my keynote when it was first broadcast, a recording is now available.
The video lasts almost an hour which includes introduction, my keynote and a panel discussion of the themes it outlines. In summary it explores how the future isn't digital, it is self-organised, how and why the web powers disruption based on this and explores the role of the organisation in a world in which we can organise for ourselves more cheaply and effectively than ever before. It also recognises the challenge of 3D printing in this context - how this reveals where the means of production have always resided and what this tells us about the key tasks that must be taken on by the org of the future.
I've expanded a few more thoughts, specifically in relation to 'Loose Ties and Sufficient Organisation', which are detailed in my blogpost of Saturday March 10, 2012.
I have also updated the slides on slideshare to those I finally presented. I hope you find them useful.
The video lasts almost an hour which includes introduction, my keynote and a panel discussion of the themes it outlines. In summary it explores how the future isn't digital, it is self-organised, how and why the web powers disruption based on this and explores the role of the organisation in a world in which we can organise for ourselves more cheaply and effectively than ever before. It also recognises the challenge of 3D printing in this context - how this reveals where the means of production have always resided and what this tells us about the key tasks that must be taken on by the org of the future.
I've expanded a few more thoughts, specifically in relation to 'Loose Ties and Sufficient Organisation', which are detailed in my blogpost of Saturday March 10, 2012.
I have also updated the slides on slideshare to those I finally presented. I hope you find them useful.
How the web changes the organisation of business and the business of organisation
View more presentations from david cushman.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Collaboration vs Competition
Competition is often touted as the powerhouse of successful growth. Beat the market or sink.
The battleground/adversarial approach has even worked successfully within companies. Successive Governments have tried unleashing it on the NHS.
There was little collaborative about the way emap operated in its fastest growing years for example. That publishing company (where I spent 20 years of my career) housed several motorcycle magazines within one building. All they shared (apart from healthy contempt for each other) was a desire to beat each other. Journalists on the same titles would fight against each other to claim the glory of the best stories.
If they had to share anything it was more likely to be with a foreign title from another company altogether.
Despite what the collaboration canon tells us, from Harvard Business Review to Wikinomics, it worked. Spectacularly. For many years emap's growth made it among the most admired companies on The FTSE.
And others have either adopted the model or arrived at it independently - promoting the cut-throat over the collaborator, the I over the team, keeping over sharing.
And they think it works.
But I wonder if they kid themselves?
Success is relative. They may be doing all right but could they do so much better by adopting a more collaborative approach - aggregating and distributing best practice rather than hoarding the tricks that allow some to win as others lose.
Could collaboration allow more to shine instead of the competitive approach which results in someone in the shade for every shining light?
I do think the no-share model has a place: where it is vital that the various parts of your company have distinct cultures and generate distinct outputs then there is potentially risk in sharing.
In our emap example, if the bike mags shared their exclusives, their contacts, their leads, their way of writing, their picture choices - well they'd have all shared the same character. And it was the differences which attracted readers, allowing them to label themselves through the choices they made.
So perhaps let that be your guide? Where you want to deliver a consistent outcome (if you are all part of one brand for example) collaborate internally. if you need to be different, compete internally.
But even then collaboration can help. It can help you shape the processes you can apply to reach very different and relevant outcomes. One best-practice process can result in very different outputs providing the inputs are different
And of course you can collaborate externally too.
Just make sure you don't end up collaborating with the same folk your competitors are...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The battleground/adversarial approach has even worked successfully within companies. Successive Governments have tried unleashing it on the NHS.
There was little collaborative about the way emap operated in its fastest growing years for example. That publishing company (where I spent 20 years of my career) housed several motorcycle magazines within one building. All they shared (apart from healthy contempt for each other) was a desire to beat each other. Journalists on the same titles would fight against each other to claim the glory of the best stories.
If they had to share anything it was more likely to be with a foreign title from another company altogether.
Despite what the collaboration canon tells us, from Harvard Business Review to Wikinomics, it worked. Spectacularly. For many years emap's growth made it among the most admired companies on The FTSE.
And others have either adopted the model or arrived at it independently - promoting the cut-throat over the collaborator, the I over the team, keeping over sharing.
And they think it works.
But I wonder if they kid themselves?
Success is relative. They may be doing all right but could they do so much better by adopting a more collaborative approach - aggregating and distributing best practice rather than hoarding the tricks that allow some to win as others lose.
Could collaboration allow more to shine instead of the competitive approach which results in someone in the shade for every shining light?
I do think the no-share model has a place: where it is vital that the various parts of your company have distinct cultures and generate distinct outputs then there is potentially risk in sharing.
In our emap example, if the bike mags shared their exclusives, their contacts, their leads, their way of writing, their picture choices - well they'd have all shared the same character. And it was the differences which attracted readers, allowing them to label themselves through the choices they made.
So perhaps let that be your guide? Where you want to deliver a consistent outcome (if you are all part of one brand for example) collaborate internally. if you need to be different, compete internally.
But even then collaboration can help. It can help you shape the processes you can apply to reach very different and relevant outcomes. One best-practice process can result in very different outputs providing the inputs are different
And of course you can collaborate externally too.
Just make sure you don't end up collaborating with the same folk your competitors are...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Ditch the customer if you want to transform business
At FT Innovate in Londom this week much of the conversation was about the role of social media in innovation.
Martha Lane Fox advocated business leaders get themselves involved in social media in her keynote.
But it was clear that for most the best this means is the opportunity to get an ever-better understanding of the customer.
Which sounds on the face of it a very excellent thing - a step up from social as 'earned media' or attempting to use people as your choice of broadcast channel.
But there's something missing. And the missing bit is one of the three quick indicators of the difference between what gets referred to as 'social business' and what I urge you to consider instead, Open Business.
Open Businesses are purpose-led platform-thinking organisations. They use their available resources to discover people who care about the same things the org does, bringing them together to surface their concerns and working with them to support them in resolving those concerns. It means outcomes which are a better fit with the real needs of those for whom they are intended.
There's little wrong with social business and much that is good. But it rarely inspires business leaders. In fact I know a very senior business journalist who has never even heard the term.
And when I was invited in to IBM to talk about Social Business in London last week I made the point that few CEOs will feel comfortable with turning their business into a social one. The term creates unhelpful mental blocks. IBM folk reported similar concerns.
Why make life more difficult when what we all want is change for the better?
So what's the difference between Social and Open Business?
Here's three distinctions I see:
1. It's not about the tools - it is about Behaviours:
Often social business conversations focus on implementing software. Open Business urges you to think Behaviours first. What are people doing, what can and will they do? If you are starting with tools you'll likely starting in the wrong place.
2. Think less about messages and more about products. Open Business urges you to consider ways of making things with the people for whom they are intended; for the best possible fit with real need; for efficiency; for results people care about. Messages are an outcome of this process - not its purpose. Talk 'social' and all roads will lead you back to messages.
3. Ditch the customer.
No, really. Stop thinking about customers. Customers are people you intend to do things to. Open Business urges you to think about the long-suffering customer as partners to work with instead. It pushes those people deep into the production process - right to the start, to join with and be supported by the org in delivering the things all parties want - all partners want.
Tools/Behaviours
Messages/Products
Customers/Partners
There are differences: Critical ones in transforming how business is done.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Martha Lane Fox advocated business leaders get themselves involved in social media in her keynote.
But it was clear that for most the best this means is the opportunity to get an ever-better understanding of the customer.
Which sounds on the face of it a very excellent thing - a step up from social as 'earned media' or attempting to use people as your choice of broadcast channel.
But there's something missing. And the missing bit is one of the three quick indicators of the difference between what gets referred to as 'social business' and what I urge you to consider instead, Open Business.
Open Businesses are purpose-led platform-thinking organisations. They use their available resources to discover people who care about the same things the org does, bringing them together to surface their concerns and working with them to support them in resolving those concerns. It means outcomes which are a better fit with the real needs of those for whom they are intended.
There's little wrong with social business and much that is good. But it rarely inspires business leaders. In fact I know a very senior business journalist who has never even heard the term.
And when I was invited in to IBM to talk about Social Business in London last week I made the point that few CEOs will feel comfortable with turning their business into a social one. The term creates unhelpful mental blocks. IBM folk reported similar concerns.
Why make life more difficult when what we all want is change for the better?
So what's the difference between Social and Open Business?
Here's three distinctions I see:
1. It's not about the tools - it is about Behaviours:
Often social business conversations focus on implementing software. Open Business urges you to think Behaviours first. What are people doing, what can and will they do? If you are starting with tools you'll likely starting in the wrong place.
2. Think less about messages and more about products. Open Business urges you to consider ways of making things with the people for whom they are intended; for the best possible fit with real need; for efficiency; for results people care about. Messages are an outcome of this process - not its purpose. Talk 'social' and all roads will lead you back to messages.
3. Ditch the customer.
No, really. Stop thinking about customers. Customers are people you intend to do things to. Open Business urges you to think about the long-suffering customer as partners to work with instead. It pushes those people deep into the production process - right to the start, to join with and be supported by the org in delivering the things all parties want - all partners want.
Tools/Behaviours
Messages/Products
Customers/Partners
There are differences: Critical ones in transforming how business is done.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, June 06, 2011
Thoughts on Morgan Stanley's social media strategy
I've been asked to join the Financial Times Judgment Call panel - a group of people who, on occasion, get asked to contribute their judgment/advice on burning business issues of the day.Those of you who have a subscription to the FT (and it's the one paid-for to which I do subscribe) will be able to read Judgment Call in the Business Life section of the website.
Those who don't could have read this in last Wednesday's paper. If you missed it I have scanned it below. I know - not really meant to - but I'm hoping since it's now almost a week old, and the quality of jpg ain't uber great - no one should be unduly upset (click on the pics for larger images).The article is about Morgan Stanley's toe-dipping exercise re social media.
Morgan Stanley - like all financial institutions - have quite a heavy set of responsibilities to add to all the usual ones. Their response to this is to check every staff member's tweets before allowing them to hit the web.
Which makes for a stilted 'conversation' to say the least.
But let's not be too harsh. It's a start. And every journey needs one.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Two new jobs at 90:10 Group
London-based social business consultancy 90:10 Group (UK) is seeking to recruit both an Executive and an Associate to help us change the world - niche by niche. Both roles are based in London, UK.EXECUTIVE
The Executive role is a first step on an exciting career path for someone with a passion for the tools and techniques of social media and the desire and ambition to join a vibrant, fast-growing organisation in a sector bursting with innovation and opportunity.
During your first year you'll receive exceptional training and guidance, preparing you for promotion within 12 short months. We recruit into this role with your long term development very much front of mind.
We expect the successful applicant to be capable of becoming a share-holding partner within three short years and a director of their own arm of the business within 5-6. On joining you will have a clear career development path mapped out with rewards and incentives marking the way.
Our career structure is designed to recognise and reward the work and experience our employees gain at 90:10 and give each member of the team more to inspire and aspire to.
The role:
The Executive role functions as the one-year entry point into the 90:10 Group business.
The Location:
Our London office at 88 Kingsway, Holborn.
Function: You will provide vital day-to-day support to the London office and its team while gaining an understanding of how the office / business operates. You will gain hands-on experience in community culture - the 90:10 platform approach to delivering business efficiencies through social technologies and techniques of co-creation.
You will be trained in the best online community auditing/monitoring and data processing tools and techniques with expert leadership. You will also be supported in responding to day-to-day client management issues.
You will be required from time to time (with any necessary training) to update our own web resources, take notes in meetings and support the senior team in a variety of administrative roles.
Essential: Excellent written and communication skills in English. Computer and web literacy. Business and client focus. Excellent eye for detail and accuracy. Must have the right to work in the UK (you will be based at our office in Holborn, London, right next to the tube).
Advantageous: Knowledge of/experience in social media monitoring technologies. As a multinational, multilingual business, additional languages are also clear advantage as is evidence of effective personal participation in social media. A qualification in Research or Communications OR equivalent working experience will make you stand out, too.
ASSOCIATE
THE ROLE:
The role of associate is a client-facing role which requires a year’s experience within 90:10 Group or equivalent skill sets. We expect the successful applicant to be capable of becoming a share-holding partner within two short years and a director of their own arm of the business within 4-5. On joining you will have a clear career development path mapped out with rewards and incentives marking the way.
It is a continuing development role in which you will perform the following functions and develop the following skills:
Functions: Support the Group and the London office in the following ways:
- Create report documents, coordinate meetings and provide clients day-to-day service.
- Manage the delivery of social media monitoring reports, audits and local accounts.
- Attend presentations to clients
- Interpret industry news for your local office.
- Develop hands on experience in community engagement (outreach etc)
- Perform Data processing/Social media monitoring
- Support executives in their training in data processing/social media monitoring
- Identify and share best practice both in London and throughout the group.
- Monitor development of social media activity in relevant markets
- Monitor developments in the brands and orgs we work for with specific focus on accounts you are responsible for.
- Identify and share, and where directed, pursue new business opportunities
Demonstrate and develop an interest in and understanding of :
- Managing large local and / or multi-regional accounts.
- Leading all listening and audit presentations to clients and their agencies
- Using audit and listening outcomes in marcomms planning processes, idea creation and strategic support.
- Co-creation initiatives and workshops through all their phases.
- Creating and sharing slide-decks and demonstrating strategic capability.
- Costing of projects and invoicing of clients.
Further your interest in and understanding of :
- Ninety10's approach, products and services
- The businesses, brands and organisations we work with
- Your blogging and other areas of expertise to demonstrate thought leadership in social media.
- All aspects of our social media monitoring processes - from commissioning to delivery - including technical and client-relationship aspects.
- Business transformation through social technologies
Advantageous: As a multinational, multilingual business, additional languages are a clear advantage as is evidence of effective personal participation in social media. A qualification in Research or Communications OR equivalent working experience will make you stand out, too.
We intend to appoint to these roles immediately - there is work waiting to be done! If you or anyone you know would like to discuss these rare opportunities please email me david@ninety10group.com with your CV, current salary details and availability today.
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Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Head of Research at 90:10 Group
Ninety10Group is a pioneering global business consultancy focused on using social media, its technologies and data to improve efficiency and innovation through action-orientated insights for its clients across their supply chains.
You'll find all of the below on Linkedin - where you can apply. We're looking forward to hearing from you.
The Opportunity:
We seek an experienced director of Research to join 90:10 Group's management team to help drive and shape it's research products and services across our global businesses.
The candidate will have a strong background and industry profile in pushing the boundaries of digital research practices such as Nethnography, new and emerging medias such as social media.
They should be fascinated by the opportunity this role offers to combine social media, online communities with open innovation & co-creation. They should already have a clear and thought out position on this field and its future.
Role:
-Will lead all large scale research projects (including at pitch stage) and look to constantly evolve and improve existing client work.
-They will ensure the network has clear guidelines for data visualisation
-Ongoing development of proprietary data collection and visualisation systems with partners and internal stakeholders
-Hire new teams and train existing personel in best practice qualitative and quantitative research
- Internal and external thought leadership through white-papers, blogging and speaking at industry events.
-Responsibility for the growth and profitability of their business area and its full utilisation across the network
-Must be willing to travel on occasion. Primarily EMEA based but with the possibility of North America, LAT AM and Asia travel.
Preferred Experience:
-Qualitative and quantitative marketing research and particularly online community research via the netnography method.
-Open innovation projects with focus on virtual customer integration.
-Marketing consulting or product development & management
-They will be an avid user of social media themselves. Ideally blogging for some years.
-Commercially-minded with experience of managing departments / divisions
-Proven credentials in challenging traditional wisdom in their field
-Multiple written and spoken languages is ideal with English as a must.
Possible Specialities
Open Innovation & Customer Integration, Marketing & Product Management, Marketing Research & Consulting, User experience design, User experience research, Web Monitoring, Data Visualization, Social Media Research, Nethnography, Software Development, Co-creation, Crowdsourcing
APPLY HERE
Friday, June 18, 2010
The 90:9:1 rule reveals ability, not willingness, to participate
You know the one:
1% of people create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.I suspect its assumptions are used to calculate all kinds of 'propensity of your market to join in social media estimate'. I'd hazard a guess Forrester applies it to this, for example (corrections welcome). (Image courtesy Chris Devers.)
Let me say I don't think this is a rule about willingness to participate - it is one about ability to participate.
And that is a critical, critical difference.
It means (and assumes) for example that everyone wants to participate and that it is the lowering of barriers to participation that will surface this.
The barriers could be cultural, technical, linguistic, financial, logistic
Whatever the case, don't kid yourselves participation is for a small elite. It's for whoever you are prepared to help overcome the barriers the rest of us face. It is up to you to lower those barriers.
Afterall, it's a rare human being who doesn't want to join in a conversation that matters to them. You just have to find ways to help them join in.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Discounts on Social Media In Business and Being Social
I'm speaking at a couple of London events in May. And, as is traditional, there are some discounts available for those of you who'd like to come along beyond the usual book-early stuff.
Social Media in Business - educating businesses in using social media - is on at Paypal's HQ in Richmond, London on May 21, 2010.
I'll be talking about the whole Using + Social Media = Fail thang.
Anyway. Loads of good people are lined up for it, check the agenda etc out here. Follow that link and you can also land a 15% discount if you use the code: SMIBUBNK
And then there's Being Social on May 13. Another great line up of folk - many of whom I appear to know... I'm speaking on... well that's still TBA - but favourite at the moment is What Replaces The Failed Experiment of Advertising (on a similar theme to that which we presented in Madrid).
I've got 10 25% discounts (on top of the earlybird discount) to give away. Once they've gone, they're gone. Use this link and use this code: SPEAKERS_BS10
Hope to see you at one or both.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cf253af3-c1b1-4c70-9a8f-6544cd7f4614)
Social Media in Business - educating businesses in using social media - is on at Paypal's HQ in Richmond, London on May 21, 2010.
I'll be talking about the whole Using + Social Media = Fail thang.
Anyway. Loads of good people are lined up for it, check the agenda etc out here. Follow that link and you can also land a 15% discount if you use the code: SMIBUBNK
And then there's Being Social on May 13. Another great line up of folk - many of whom I appear to know... I'm speaking on... well that's still TBA - but favourite at the moment is What Replaces The Failed Experiment of Advertising (on a similar theme to that which we presented in Madrid).
I've got 10 25% discounts (on top of the earlybird discount) to give away. Once they've gone, they're gone. Use this link and use this code: SPEAKERS_BS10
Hope to see you at one or both.
Friday, March 19, 2010
How to build a business for the networked world
Former accidental economist turned accidental technologist JP Rangaswami was at his engaging best when he gave a keynote at the first European Social Business Summit in London yesterday.
JP - on twitter as Jobsworth and blogging as Confused Of Calcutta - is a big brain behind clever stuff at BT.
Yesterday he turned his attention to what it takes to be a business in the networked world.
Economists will know that the purpose of a company is to reduce transaction costs.
Starting from that view point, JP outlined three key elements that must be designed into a business from the word go to succeed in the networked economy.
There is much resonance with the platform thinking approach I advocate:
In a nutshell, organisations should use their resources to discover and bring together people who care about solving the same issues they do and support them in resolving those issues (reducing the transaction costs for all).
This platform approach means the company (the org) doesn't end at the edge of your premises, or at the firewall... and certainly not at those listed on the payroll. It's the Ninety10 way
JP's three tips for building a business for the networked world were these:
Design for sharing: JP gave a neat example of how the ability to benefit from the value creation of sharing has to be part of the structure of the organisation: Food. (image courtesy Photo Mind)
He noted how in India he could always bring a few extra people home for dinner with him. It was never an issue. In England it is much harder to be as spontaneous because our food is structured differently. You may have four steaks ready at home to feed four people. If another three turn up, sharing becomes awkward.
Indian food is more granular, easier to redistribute. It is structured for sharing.
And it's this kind of thinking you have to embed in the structure of the networked org.
People aren't for doing stuff to, they are for doing stuff with
Design for scale through participation: The likes of wikipedia, facebook, twitter have hundreds of employees - millions of willing participants. They were designed from the off as a participatory business. If no one outside participates, they fail. Those outside aren't seen as people to do stuff to, they are seen as people to do stuff with. They are essential and integral.
To pick up on JP's food metaphor - think about a pic-nic. A pic-nic is a meal in which everyone attending contributes something. That can scale from 2 to a million or more.
Design for the Synchronous/Asynchronous:
JP says: "Things that were previously synchronous, like voice communications, can now be asynchronous, and things that were previously asynchronous [like knowing people, status, location or current work] can be synchronous."
In the industrial era people and resources had to be brought together not only physically, but also temporally, to create an outcome. In the networked world this is no longer the case. People all around the world, and at all different times, can contribute. Design this into the structure of your org.
I'm hoping that I've captured the key elements of JP's points here. And I'm sure that if I haven't he will be willing to clarify and/or expand. (UPDATE - JP has added to this in a comment below; with reference to reducing the transaction cost of information for an organisation through search - and the value of social search).
His approach gives an interesting check list for those of us building businesses, or attempting to make existing ones better adapted to the networked world.
And there isn't anyone in any business or organisation anywhere who shouldn't include themselves in that number.
After all, as JP put it: "Trying to create an industrial era firm in a network age is plain blind stupidity."
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JP - on twitter as Jobsworth and blogging as Confused Of Calcutta - is a big brain behind clever stuff at BT.
Yesterday he turned his attention to what it takes to be a business in the networked world.
Economists will know that the purpose of a company is to reduce transaction costs.
Starting from that view point, JP outlined three key elements that must be designed into a business from the word go to succeed in the networked economy.
There is much resonance with the platform thinking approach I advocate:
In a nutshell, organisations should use their resources to discover and bring together people who care about solving the same issues they do and support them in resolving those issues (reducing the transaction costs for all).
This platform approach means the company (the org) doesn't end at the edge of your premises, or at the firewall... and certainly not at those listed on the payroll. It's the Ninety10 way
JP's three tips for building a business for the networked world were these:
1. Design for sharing;
2. Design for scale through participation,
3. Design to take advantage of the synchronicity/asynchronicity the web enables.
Design for sharing: JP gave a neat example of how the ability to benefit from the value creation of sharing has to be part of the structure of the organisation: Food. (image courtesy Photo Mind)
He noted how in India he could always bring a few extra people home for dinner with him. It was never an issue. In England it is much harder to be as spontaneous because our food is structured differently. You may have four steaks ready at home to feed four people. If another three turn up, sharing becomes awkward.
Indian food is more granular, easier to redistribute. It is structured for sharing.
And it's this kind of thinking you have to embed in the structure of the networked org.
People aren't for doing stuff to, they are for doing stuff with
Design for scale through participation: The likes of wikipedia, facebook, twitter have hundreds of employees - millions of willing participants. They were designed from the off as a participatory business. If no one outside participates, they fail. Those outside aren't seen as people to do stuff to, they are seen as people to do stuff with. They are essential and integral.
To pick up on JP's food metaphor - think about a pic-nic. A pic-nic is a meal in which everyone attending contributes something. That can scale from 2 to a million or more.
Design for the Synchronous/Asynchronous:
JP says: "Things that were previously synchronous, like voice communications, can now be asynchronous, and things that were previously asynchronous [like knowing people, status, location or current work] can be synchronous."
In the industrial era people and resources had to be brought together not only physically, but also temporally, to create an outcome. In the networked world this is no longer the case. People all around the world, and at all different times, can contribute. Design this into the structure of your org.
I'm hoping that I've captured the key elements of JP's points here. And I'm sure that if I haven't he will be willing to clarify and/or expand. (UPDATE - JP has added to this in a comment below; with reference to reducing the transaction cost of information for an organisation through search - and the value of social search).
His approach gives an interesting check list for those of us building businesses, or attempting to make existing ones better adapted to the networked world.
And there isn't anyone in any business or organisation anywhere who shouldn't include themselves in that number.
After all, as JP put it: "Trying to create an industrial era firm in a network age is plain blind stupidity."
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Nominate a social business innovator
It's March. So it must be time for the next (the second!) monthly Social Business Innovation Award.And, just as last month, they can't happen without you.
Right now we need to work together on nominations; making them and attracting suggestions from others. Later in the month we'll need to join together to vote.
Last month found a worthy winner in BusinessCard2.0.
This month let's focus on businesses and organisations which have created,, or significantly improved, their products or services using digital social tools - from forums, microblogs, blogs and ideas platforms to social networks, email and SMS.
As last month, please nominate, with any relevant links, by posting a comment below.
Those that appear in the final nominees list will be entitled to display the badge you see here.
Please call on your friends to join in.
What are these awards all about?
Social business innovation: Efficiency and tranformation through the use of social tools.
We have the best set of tools in history for people to find each other and act together to create and improve on the things that matter to them.
What are we doing with them?
Some businesses and organisations are grasping them to wikifix their products and services, to deliver best-fit R&D and NPD and join in waste-free people-powered communications and marketing. The wikifixing of the world has begun.
Those engaging in the process reach new levels of efficiency thanks to an ever-better fit with the needs of their partners - those formerly known as the customer. (By way of disclosure, that's what we at 90:10 Group help organisations with).
I hope you will join with me to celebrate the best of them - and through this find a path to the communities-of-purpose-driven future of the organisation.
So each month this blog will host a Social Business Innovation of The Month award, nominated by you and voted on by you. The format is very much inspired by Neil Perkin's ThinkTank.
The awards are to recognise great work in open/social business/organisational design/innovation/tranformation/efficiency using social technologies.
The winners will enter a case-study Hall of Fame to be shared with all - and in which the winners can revel in the glory of their peers' admiration ;-). More importantly, we can all get inspiration and guidance.
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The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
