Open Business: Three-page focus in Cambridge Business Magazine

From the April 2014 issue of 

Cambridge Business Magazine

Cambridge Business Magazine published a three-page interview with me about The 10 Principles of Open Business in its April 2014 issue out now.
The print version is subscription only but anyone can view, download or save the e-magazine version here.
The article starts on p58. It's flash so no use for apple devices I'm afraid.

Customers know each other better than our data does

Yesterday I was served a 'promoted tweet' which suggested I might like to plan my own death. Today I have received an email inviting me to audition for a youth production of The Wiz.
Neither are relevant.

Listening to social and focusing on CRV closes the data gap

So - for all the advances in targeting and retargeting some are taking advantage of, it's clear that the one-size-fits-all approach is still being deployed at the bleeding edge of technology. Which is insane in 2014. Wastefully, expensively, customer-annoyingly, relationship-destroyingly insane.
The reality is that customers know each other better than our synthesis of all the data we have on them. If we don't make them, and their peer-to-peer advocacy, partners in our best relationship building efforts we will continue to fail to serve their needs accurately.
Partnership builds better relationships. Relationships are essential in building success in today's Open Economy.

The social web demands partnership with customers - and a radical rethink on content

We're... seeing a much bigger shift in how people spend their time online. 

People are spending much more time interacting with other people, and much less time consuming content from websites. This shift is not about any one particular social network. It's about people connecting to each other online.

Paul Adams, user research lead for social in the UX team at Google.

That nugget is essential information in telling the story of our shift from trusting brands and branded content, to trusting each other. It is also a revelation in telling the story I am so keen on - that the web is for us to connect with; to enable us to self-organise.

Paul adds, in his presentation  The Real Life Social Network: "The social web is not a fad, and itʼs not going away. Itʼs not an add-on to the web as we know it today. Itʼs a fundamental change, a re-architecture."

This adds to the evidence offered in The 10 Principles of Open Business that rebuilding trust between brand and customer is not the realm of ads or branded content. We are turning to each other to find the truth behind the promises made by content of this kind. Content only has value so far as social media is concerned if it proves the promise the brand is making. If the web is indeed going through a fundamental change to become the social web what that means is that ALL online content must now pass that test.

Tell me what you like, but unless I can discover the truth of your promise from the experience of my peers, I'm not going to believe you. That's our reality. How is that impacting your next web design, your next social media content strategy?

The shift suggests that now all content (that will have any value in building trust, inspiring action, at least) has to be created by people like us.

Companies must think long and hard about this shift. It demands a rethink in the role of content and in your relationship with your customer. There is no mileage in simply telling people what you are. You will have to demonstrate what you are - prove it, giving them the experience of it, which they may choose to publish to their peers.

Organisations will have to be more transparent - more ready to involve customers in open innovation, more ready to share and connect - to collaborate

Customers become partners - not dumb recipients with wallets attached.

This in itself demands a more socially focused approach to CRM than ever before, a more customer-as-partner approach. It must answer how we create, discover, reward and scale advocacy; it must back the customer's judgment when they make referrals; it must understand the difference between Lifetime Value of a customer who couldn't care less about us but has little option but to trade with us and the Customer Referral Value of someone who loves us but - right now, for whatever reason - isn't buying from us; it must understand customer intent as well as map behaviours.

Ultimately it can solve many of these challenges by turning to the same social web that is causing the rethink because there - in our digital footprints - is the reality of our referrals, the clarity of our click-paths, the negative sentiment of our disapproval.

Reading this in total (and it occurs that separating acquisition from retention, loyalty and search cannot help matters) will help us make businesses more able to respond to, learn from and be led by their customers.

By the way - Paul didn't write his presentation about the shift to the social web this week (in fact, he's no longer at Google). He presented it at the Voices That Matter Web Design Conference in San Francisco in June... 2010.

Yes. I know. It probably is about time to act.

What's your Customer Referral Value?

In a world of increasing automation relationships will have greater and greater value.
The human touch across the digital void... matters.

That's something that's recognised as customer referral value gets dialled up alongside customer lifetime value as CRM has become more and more Social CRM.

So. I thought. Surely there has to be a website where I can type in my creds and find out what my customer referral value is? And if there isn't surely there should be one? And if there was one... wouldn't that trigger new business models?

The likes of Kred and Klout seem to me built for marketing (of self and of brands). And in any event they only tell me what my value is at a very general level - a level which is of little value to companies (or ourselves).

Both the companies - and ourselves - find more value in understanding our value in a particular context - and there is no 'influence measurement tool' which has taken on that complexity yet.

My value to company x (which I love, advocate online and off, submit feedback to but purchase infrequently due to the nature of the product) is substantially higher than to company y (who I loathe, bitch about and couldn't care less if it fails, but from which I have to purchase frequently). That's the distinction from Customer Lifetime Value.

But we must also put influence in context - make it specific. My 4500 twitter followers may make me relatively influential in my small world of open business and social media strategy, but it gives me little power to turn the human tide about (for example) which black cocktail dress you should wear next Christmas.
Imagine if we could use such dimensions (value as a contributor/participant/advocate in this specific context) to generate a real-time Customer Referral Value.

Why not then have dynamic pricing online. I log in and my price (thanks to my CRV discount) is 50% what you pay; Offers to engage in co-creation projects are directed to me; I'm treated as if my participation with your company means something to you. You over deliver. You build a relationship with me.

Then I use my relationships to bring you more people like me. I select these, without waste, without spam, based on what I know about them (not what you would like to know about them, but cannot yet).
And you support my judgment by upping their CRV when I've brought them to you.

This model acknowledges that customers know each other better than companies do - and rewards them for it and supports them in using that. Customers managing each other - for their shared benefit.
So what we need is a CRV engine which genuinely balances customer and company need.

Kred and Klout may have missed a trick.

Open Business: The Podcast

Anne Hawkins and Eric Swain have been kind enough to interview me and put together a podcast on the subject of The 10 Principles of Open Business. It's published today.

It's number 57 in their series on The Social Media Show. Please go take a listen. Then let me know what you think?