90:10 Group Feed

Wann ist ein Unternehmen Social Media Ready?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:51:59 +0100

In der letzten Zeit haben wir (90:10 Group) mit unseren Kunden, diverse maßgeschneiderte Social Media Strategien entwickelt. Ein häufiger Aspekt bei unseren gemeinsamen Überlegungen ist die Frage der “Social Media Readyness”, also die faktische Reife eines Unternehmens, soziale Medien überhaupt sinnvoll und gewinnbringend (für alle Parteien) einzusetzen.

Aus der Betriebswirtschaft ist die so genannte SWOT-Analyse bekannt, die dazu eingesetzt wird, innerbetriebliche Stärken, Schwächen, Chancen und Gefahren aufzudecken und daraus Strategien, Ausrichtung von Unternehmensstrukturen und Geschäftsprozesse abzuleiten. Im Grunde ist es eine individuell erstellte Liste von Fragen, die wir zum Unternehmen, bezogen auf die oben genannten Aspekte, stellen und anschließend bewerten.

Das Ziel ist mittels SWOT den IST-Zustand des Unternehmens hinsichtlich eines vorher vereinbarten SOLL-Zustandes zu analysieren. Das Indentifizieren interner und externer “Key Issues”, erlaubt eine sorgfältige Prüfung und anschließende Einbeziehung in strategische Zielsetzungen.

Ohne eine solche Analyse ist es nahezu unmöglich, insbesondere bei großen und mittleren Unternehmen, einen effektiven, strategischen Social Media Plan und Company Guidelines zu erstellen sowie ein erfolgreiches Engagement von Unternehmen im Social Web zu realisieren.

Im folgenden nenne ich beispielhaft einige der Fragen. Die Liste ist natürlich in keiner Weise komplett hinsichtlich des Umfangs der Fragen, die für eine vollständige Analyse notwendig sind. Dazu sind diese auch für jedes Unternehmen zu individuell. Jedoch vermitteln sie eine Idee für die Art der Fragen, die gestellt werden sollten um die “Social Media Readyness” eines Unternehmens zu ermitteln.

Strengths & Weaknesses sind interne Bedingungen, Faktoren oder Attribute. Zum Beispiel wäre anerkannte Expertise innerhalb eines Marktsegments einer definitive Stärke. Kein Angebot für Mitarbeiter zur Kollaboration würde als Schwäche gewertet.

Wo liegen die Stärken und Schwächen Ihres Unternehmens?
Gibt es in Ihrem Unternehmen Mitarbeiter, die Soziale Medien bereits privat nutzen?
Gibt es Mitarbeiter in Ihrem Unternehmen, die Soziale Tools und Applikationen bereits zur Erledigung ihrer Aufgaben nutzen? Wenn ja, wurden diese Tools durch das Management eingeführt oder wurden diese eher beiläufig und formlos durch Mitarbeiter adaptiert?
Auf welche Art und Weise kommunizieren Sie derzeit mit Ihren Angestellten?
Fördert und erleichtert Ihr Unternehmen derzeit Kollaboration unter den Mitarbeitern? Wenn ja, wie?
Wie “fühlt” sich das Unternehmen mit der Bevollmächtigung von Mitarbeitern mit Kunden und Stakeholdern durch Soziale Medien zu interagieren?
Sind Ihre Mitarbeiter damit zufrieden, dass Ihr Unternehmen den Einsatz von Sozialen Tools untereinander erlaubt und fördert?
Welche Rolle spielt fortlaufende Weiterbildung in Ihrem Unternehmen? Welche Trainingsethoden nutzen Sie?
Würden Sie Ihr sagen, dass Ihre Mitarbeiter gerne in Ihrem Unternehmen arbeiten? (Hier suche ich immer noch nach etwas griffigerem. In der englischen Version unseres Fragenkatalogs steht: “Would you characterize your company as a fun place to work?”)
Würden Sie Ihr Unternehmen als kreativ charakterisieren?
Glauben Sie, dass Expertise in Ihrem Unternehmen anerkannt wird?

Opportunities & Threats sind externe Bedingungen, Faktoren oder Attribute

Was schätzen Ihre Kunden am meisten bei Ihrem Unternehmen? Woher wissen Sie das? Haben Sie Methoden dies zu messen?
Was schätzen Ihre Kunden am geringsten bei Ihrem Unternehmen? Woher wissen Sie das? Haben Sie Methoden dies zu messen?
Haben Sie Kunden, die Soziale Medien bereits privat nutzen?
Haben Sie Kunden, die Soziale Medien bereits zur Erledigung ihrer beruflichen Aufgaben nutzen?
Auf welchen Art kommunizieren Sie mit Ihren Kunden? Wie effektiv ist diese Art der Kommunikation? Haben Sie eine Methode dies zu messen?
Welche Lifestyle Trends oder Faktoren beeinflussen Ihre Kunden?
Suchen Sie Feedback Ihrer Kunden? Wenn ja, wie?
Kollaborieren Sie mit Ihren Kunden? Wenn ja, wie?
Welche Faktoren beeinflussen Ihre Kunden mit Ihnen Geschäfte zu machen?
Wie wichtig ist es Ihrer Meinung nach, Ihre Kunden aus- und weiterzubilden?
Was machen Ihre Mitbewerber besser als Sie?
Haben Sie die Socical Media Aktivitäten Ihrer Kunden identifiziert und evaluiert?
Vertrauen Ihre Kunden auf Ihre Expertise als Teil Ihrer Geschäftsbeziehung mit Ihnen?
Basiert ein Teil Ihrer Geschäftsbeziehungen auf Ihrer Fähigkeit Kunden dabei behilflich zu sein, gute und zufriedenstellende Erfahrungen mit Ihrem Produkt oder Ihrem Service zu haben?

Zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass die SWOT-Analyse eine zeitsparende Methode ist, die Social Media Readyness eines Unternehmens zu ermitteln – aber sie ist dennoch in den meisten Fällen nicht ausreichend. Um die Analyse auf ein höheres Level zu heben, führen wir parallel ein “Social Media Audit” durch, bei dem die SWOT-Analyse lediglich ein Teil ist.

Bei einem Audit stellen wir das Volumen, die Frequenz, Tonalität und Sentiment von Konversationen im Social Web, gewöhnlich über den Zeitraum von 30 Tagen, fest. Alle Konversationen werden dabei durch erfahrene Analysten gelesen, bewertet und kategorisiert Diesen Aufwand erachten wir als wichtig, da automatisierte Analysetools, die wir auch getestet haben, nicht im Ansatz so genaue Ergebnisse liefern, wie das von Herstellern solcher Systeme Glauben gemachtt wird.

Durch das Audit über 30 Tage erreichen wir trotz des sehr kurzen Zeitraums, der eigentlich lediglich einen Snapshot des Status darstellt, in der Regel ein sehr genaues Bild über die Positionierung (falls bereits vorhanden) und des aktuellen Status eines Unternehmens im Social Web.

Nachdem das Audit beendet ist, fügen wir die Teile zusammen und können dann einen Benchmark bezüglich der Marke, Kunden, Produkte und Communities erstellen. Dies ist der Ausgangspunkt für die Planung der Strategie und dient als Meßlatte für die Zukunft.

Ein Beispiel für ein solchen Benchmark Report ist “Fashion UK Social Media Landscape Audit” das kürzlich von meinen Kollegen der 90:10 Group in London durchgeführt wurde und das wir auf Slideshare in Auszügen veröffentlicht haben und zum Download anbieten.

Fashion UK Social Media Landscape Audit 9010 Group

View more presentations from 90:10 Group Ltd..

Der Artikel ist im Original bei meinem französischen 90:10 Kollegen Patrick Attallah erschienen, dessen Blog ich wärmstens empfehlen kann.

Social Media Readiness: starts with a SWOT analysis

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:50:16 +0100

Hi all. Long time no see…

I’ve been very busy lately working closely developing with our clients different social media strategy aspects. One area (at least here in Europe) of a usual concern is the company’s social media readiness!

There are plenty of factors to consider regarding the hows, dos, don’ts and understanding the possibilities and challenging implications around social media. But how do you determine your company’s Social Media readiness? Start with a SWOT analysis.

We all know the SWOT analysis used extensively in business to obtain an overview of the critical businesses issues. It is simply a series of questions asked about your business to assist in determining the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

The goal here is to audit your current organization in the context of SWOT. Identifying key internal and external issues allows you to more carefully consider and then incorporate them into strategic objectives. The list of questions below is by no means all the questions which need to be answered to complete a full analysis of your business’s Social Media readiness. It is just an indication of the types of questions you should be considering about your business’s capability to thrive in a Social Media environment. Without a SWOT analysis it will be impossible to develop an effective Social Media strategic plan, develop company guidelines and effectively engage your company on the social web.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal conditions, factors or attributes. For example, your recognized expertise in your market space would be a definite strength. Not having a method for employees to collaborate would be a weakness.

What does your company do well and does not do well?
Are there people at your company who already use social media in their personal lives
Are people at your company using social media tools and applications to do their jobs? If so, did management introduce these tools or was their adoption and use more casual and organic?
In what ways do you currently communicate with your employees?
Does your company encourage and facilitate collaboration among employees? If so, how?
Does the company feel comfortable with empowering company employees to interact with customers using Social Media?
Do you have a happy satisfied work force that your company feels comfortable allowing employee interaction using Social Media tools?
What role does continuing education and training play inside your company? What methods do you use for training?
Would you characterize your company as a fun place to work?
Would you characterize your company as a creative company?
Do you believe that expertise is understood and recognized within your company?

Opportunities and threats are external conditions, factors, or attributes.

What do your customers value most about your company? How do you know this? Do you have a way of measuring it?
What do your customers value the least about your company? How do you know this? Do you have a way of measuring it?
Do you have customers who already use social media applications in their personal lives?
Do you have customers who use social media tools and applications to do their jobs?
In what ways do you currently communicate with your customers? How effective is this communication? Do you have a way of measuring it?
What lifestyle trends or factors are affecting your customers?
Do you seek feedback from your customers? If so, how?
Do you collaborate with your customers? If so, how?
What factors influence your customers’ decisions to do business with you?
Do your customers rely on your company to educate them about things? What kind of things? How are you currently doing this?
How important do you believe it is to educate your customers?
Do you have a happy satisfied work force that your company feels comfortable allowing customer interaction using Social Media tools?
What do your competitors do better than you do?
Have you identified and evaluated the efforts if any of your competitor’s Social Media presence?
Do your customers rely upon your expertise as part of their business relationship with you?
Does any part of your business relationship with your customer depend upon your ability to help them have a good time or enjoy their experience with your product or service?

This SWOT analysis is quick way to assess your company’s social media readiness, but is often not sufficient. If you want to take your analysis to another level, I recommend you to perform a ’social media audit’ within a given period (ofthen 30 days) where we assess the volume, frequency and tone of conversations throughout the social web. We can then establish a benchmark assessing the state of your brand, products, communities and competitors. This will as well serve as a metric by which to compare your future activity on the social web.

An example of such a benchmark report is the Fasion UK Social Media Landscape Audit done by 90:10 Group, which an extract has been published on slideshare. Enjoy the reading.

Fashion UK Social Media Landscape Audit 9010 Group

The ability to develop and manage the will to change how a business does business will be a contributing factor the the overall effectiveness of any Social Media initiative.

Information or relationships?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:27:00 +0100

I was recently engaged in a piece of work aimed at transforming an organisation through the tools and techniques of social media. A big one.

Part of the process included interviews with internal stakeholders. We used a tranche of revealing qual/quan techniques to surface use and attitudes toward social within the management team.
Two questions stand out for me in revealing those attitudes.

First, I asked which was most important: information or relationships.
Later, I asked: What's the single most important thing the Internet offers?

I'm pleased to say the answer to the first question came back, consistently, without fail: Relationships.

Excellent, that tells us a lot. We humans think relationships are really important. We're super-social.

That and we know the best route to all the other stuff we need (information) is with and via other people. Team Human has been our competitive advantage since evolution began - and we haven't forgotten that.

So what of the later question (deliberately not juxtaposed)?

Consistently we got the answer 'information'.

Eh? The Internet - the engine that drives the social, sharing peer-to-peer, human connectedness we clearly think so vital, is for information first?

What's going on here?

Well, I think what we're observing is a relatively normal response in many large orgs. The intellectual argument for engaging with customers and internally with staff, is, for the most part, won.

But there is a gulf in understanding that resides on the cultural level and which must bs overcome before you can operationalise.

Choosing information over relationships suggests you think the Internet is a place you go to harvest and take from.
It suggests an attitude to the tech from the broadcast world - a place where fans somehow appear on your Facebook page and remain on passive standby until you grace them with your advertising message.

This is not a disaster. It can be fixed by engaging for yourself in the network rather than observing from planet broadcast.

And it must be fixed. Because if you plan on showing up at this party empty handed you won't be getting quite the welcome you hoped for.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so I may have to tidy it up later ;-)

Disney, Dali and Machiavelli on influence

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:25:00 +0100

Being quoted alongside Walt Disney, Salvador Dali and Nicolo Machiavelli is something of a first for me.
I very much enjoyed this deck by Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent) and hope you do to.

Conversation Agent quotes on Influence

View more presentations from Valeria Maltoni.

Participation is the new default

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:23:00 +0100

A short while ago I wrote about the 90:9:1 rule - how I felt this was less a rule about human behaviour and more one about opportunity.

The story of the Internet has been one of lowering the transaction cost of forming groups. The lower the cost the lower the motivation required so to do = the greater the opportunity for all parties to engage.

We have the best set of tools in history to connect people (and if you think our current set are cool, wait until we truly get out of the silos). And the impact of their arrival has been to reduce our reliance on organisation from the centre - for our entertainment and our news etc (from Facebook to YouTube, IM to SMS).

When given the opportunity to connect, we take it. Whether it's to move into cities to be together - or to never be out of sight of our mobile phones - such is our reliance on the connection they offer.

The internet and our ever-growing collection of digital toys have given us a new order of magnitude of self-organising behaviour, not a new behaviour.

The 1:9:90 rule suggests it is normal for people not to participate (90% being lurkers).

500m people on Facebook suggests otherwise. Each of them has had to, as a minimum price for admission, contribute their own profile. This is the age of the total community - one in which to take part you have to create part.

And through this we are reminded that as in the real world, so in the digital.
We have an innate ability to identify and punish freeloaders and all-for-themselves bores. The more we and others can express our humanity online the more we will apply those innate abilities. Brands and orgs attempting to join in will have to put down their shields and meet us as equals; face to face and in the flesh of genuine human interaction.

The cost is low, the barriers increasingly surmounted and surmountable. Does anyone still believe only 1% of us is motivated (as the 1:9:90 rule would have it)?

So let's build our new institutions, our updated organisations, with the expectation of 99% participation.
If our governments, schools, businesses etc were designed from the off with that expectation I suspect they'd look somewhat different.

Participation was the old default. And now it's back.

How to treat your best customers worst - by First Capital Connect

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:15:00 +0100

Many organisations, the UK Government included, are frantically herding us online to reduce the transaction costs of having to deal with us pesky customers.

The usual pitch to us is that it will either save us money or save us time. There are even some companies who will offer us both carrots.

Well here's a warning about the hidden sticks - direct from the commuter's friend First Capital Connect.
It's not just a warning to fellow commuters, it's also a lesson in how to treat your best customers worst.

For my sins, I commute regularly from Huntingdon to London. My options include car (way too time-consuming and costly by the time congestion charges and parking are taken into account, and not exactly good for the planet, either), cycling (er, no), coach (really, no thanks) or - there in a monopoly position; a season ticket with First Capital Connect.

I have a season ticket. I pay First Capital Connect over £4000 a year for my 4 x a week commute. I give them that money up front. The whole lot, in advance, for a year. In their bank account, not mine. For them to spend. Not me.

I could go on about how my 'gold card' as it's laughingly labelled should deliver a level of customer service that it doesn't; I mean I do get a seat most journeys so my commute is a shining beacon of joy compared to many I hear about.

I reckon my lining their pockets with silver a full year in advance makes me a very good customer indeed. I only wish 90:10 Group had customers like that. Wouldn't we all?

So, back to that being herded online thing. This year (last October) when my season ticket was due for renewal I took the bait. I think it two off-peak train journeys was the freebie on offer for ordering online. And I figured I'd save some queuing time.

So, for the princely sum of two off-peak tickets (during which times there are always seats free so the marginal cost to FCC is zero) I saved them time, cut down their admin etc etc.

And as one of their very best customers I expect some modicum of reward when I need assistance.
Today my Gold Card stopped going through the ticket barriers. May not sound much if you don't experience the rush of the commute, but boy that can be a tad inconvenient.

When it failed on my way in this morning I was advised to take it to the station I'd bought it at to get a replacement.

Foolish me, I'd forgotten I bought it online. Well, it was last October. I'd had one or two other things to think about since then.

So when I rocked up at the station this evening with my photocard and Gold Card in hand (yes, all the gubbins ready) I was surprised to find I could not get a replacement. I had to go back to 'where I bought it' - and the station staff couldn't tell me where that was.

So penny dropping, I'd bought it online, I had to go online to get a replacement (not that there was any advice on that coming from behind the counter).

That's a monumental fail. That's putting the inconvenience on the customer for whom convenience was clearly important - hence the decision to buy online.
It's a fail in the disconnectedness of First Capital Connect services. Apparently it's 'not the same company' that sells tickets online (via the FCC site, I'll have you know).

Guess what? Your very best customers don't give a damn which agency is between us and you. Every time we are dealing with a service related to you (and I don't think the ticket for the journey can be any more related) we're going to assume you should take some responsibility.

As it stands, it's down to me, your very best customer (ok, one of) who has to go back to the site, remember my log in details, log in - and print out what is effectively a begging letter to station staff - with the appropriate code - to issue me a replacement card.

Let's look at this a little closer. The station staff told me they couldn't issue tickets which didn't match codes for ones issued at their station as a fraud prevention measure.

1. That's FCC's problem not mine. No, seriously, make a better, less counterfeitable ticket - don't put the inconvenience on your very best customers.
2. On the website it says any ticket office can replace a season ticket issued by any other.

My Season Ticket doesn't work the entry or exit gates. What do I do?
Please return it to the station of issue (or any ticket office) where it will be replaced free of charge.

However, if you are one of FCC's very best customers, who both paid them in advance and saved them money in the way your bought your ticket...

If you bought your ticket online, log in to your account and click on apply to replace a damaged season ticket.

At which point you generate the begging letter I referred to above, which you have to print out (at your cost in both materials and time) and take to the station... again.

So, congratulations FCC - you have managed to disincentivize buying season tickets online with some truly crass disconnected thinking (and thank you for reminding me what an absolute nightmare process involving duplicate payments it was last October).

Miffed? Damn right - and angry that I have no choice but to return with my begging letter to get my replacement gold card tomorrow morning.

I bet the staff thank the management daily for saddling them with this kind of stress-generating stupidity. And I do hope the staff are reporting back how their very best customers are reacting.

But just in case - I'll be sending you a link to this post and awaiting your response with interest...

Stop saying you’re a great business and become one

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:03:03 +0100

I’ve been a customer with O2 (UK Mobile Operator and Broadband Provider) for over 5 years as has my partner. I travel a lot, my personal phone is my work phone, I access the Internet via it a lot too, so have spent significant money with them. I signed up to the 16 month contract to get the iPhone.

I did once have massive issues with reception, it was none existent for me in my house, but I stuck with them and now it’s fine. So I’ve been a loyal customer. Why? Well until very recently I’ve been too busy to have an issue with them. I want an easy life and have other priorities.

However I’m increasingly told by my peers they are not the best around. Three of my colleagues and friends have left to Vodaphone for a variety of reasons one even setup this group ‘O Poo’ in a stand against new data caps which is a big issue for me. I’m due an upgrade and can’t get the new iPhone 4 because none of the o2 stores, that fit into my schedule, have it in stock. But my colleague just left and immediately got one with Vodaphone. So I’m beginning to feel a schmuck.

Today I was on the tube and saw this ad:

Whilst it’s for broadband it’s still o2 in my mind, The fact that they house all related o2 stuff in the same Facebook page would imply it’s the same to them too. When I saw the ad I got excited that o2 were going to really deliver on their Advertising pledge of ‘nobbling those niggles’ and the ad was implying you can work with them to help improve their solution in a Starbucks My Idea type way.

Instead you get a game where you can kill those typical problems with broadband. GREAT. THANKS O2. For me this sums up O2 and how seriously they take their customers. I want a better O2 not a game. I am willing to help you give me a better service. Looks like below others are too.

Spend your money on making your business better by using things like your Facebook page rather than ad campaigns and crappy games to make people think you are doing something. If you are good you won’t have to make games to drum home the point. People will tell people will tell people.

Right now I have three issues with you. I am still a customer. This is the extent to which I will invest in helping you keep me. Save me the hassle of moving. It is more efficient for you to retain me than spend loads of money trying to acquire a new customer. That’s basic math.

Listen, Serve, Retain, Acquire in that order.

What happens when you hand control of a documentary to the crowd

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:15:00 +0100

What happens when you hand control of road-trip documentary making to the crowd? Well, this does.
Everything from sky-diving and bouncy castles on water to tattoos, backstage access at gigs and naked ladies painted blue - it all poured from the collective creative heads of everyone of us and spilled across Europe.
I'm glad to say Live Every Litre is a project my lot (90:10 Group) has been helping out with from its earliest inklings - for client Honda.
And now the premier is upon us. On July 21 it'll be premiered online at 15:00 in NYC, London at 20:00 and Berlin at 21:00.
There may even be a super-exclusive, behind-closed-doors screening of the final cut, by award winning director Claudio von Planta, next week in London. As and when I find out more, I'll let you know.

Media Owner Co-creation Solutions

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:16:00 +0100

I'm planning on getting part III of this week's Clay Shirky presentation at the LSE up on the blog tomorrow morning. (part II and I are already live - see links below).
In the meantime, here's a slidedeck we've put together at 90:10 Group I hope you'll find interesting.

Media Owner Co-creation Solutions

View more presentations from david cushman.

Video: Clay Shirky at the LSE, part ii

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:44:00 +0100

Here's part II of the Shirky presentation on Cognitive Surplus at the LSE on June 28, 2010.
Part one can be found here.
In this section Clay discusses some of the drivers behind behavioural economics, our intrinsic motivation towards community and how these motivations do a better job of holding us together than any amount of external rules.
He discusses what it takes to motivate people to participate - on three levels - communal (where it's mostly for each other), public (where it's for each other and those who choose to consume the outcome) and civil (where it's for the public good - where it's to make a better world/thing/outcome that really matters.

Enjoy, comment and standby for part III - in which Clay answers questions and gives brands a bit of a kicking.

Video: Clay Shirky at the LSE Part 1

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:13:00 +0100

I was lucky enough to interview Clay Shirky a couple of years back - when his first book Here Comes Everybody was hitting the shelves and causing a stir.
Now the New York professor is back with Cognitive Surplus - creativity and generosity in a connected age.
I was lucky enough to blag a press pass to his presentation at the LSE on June 28, 2010 and the video, below, is part of the result.
Over the next few days I'll be posting parts II and III - which includes an excellent Q&A section.
Clay's theme that we have in abundance the desire to connect and live out the reality of our social selves will not be unfamiliar to readers of this blog.
In this first part he discusses, with references to case studies, how the social tools of the internet enable and support the social reality of being human - and how the generosity this reveals has far-reaching cultural consequences for any and all institutions.

Salesforce Chatter ab sofort verfügbar

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:57:35 +0100

Saleforce Chatter ist ein standortunabhängiges, webbasiertes Kollaborationstool für Unternehmen zur Verbesserung der Zusammenarbeit und Steigerung der Produktivität.

Daraus, dass ich von dieser Idee ziemlich angetan war, habe ich schon letztes Jahr, seit meinem Besuch im November auf der Dreamforce in San Francisco, keinen Hehl machen können. Siehe meinen Artikel bei t3n:

Salesforce.com kündigt eine Revolution an – Bericht von der Dreamforce-Konferenz San Francisco

Nach einem Beta-test mit 5000 Kunden ist das Tool nun allgemein verfügbar. Dabei ist es ab sofort ein Bestandteil von bestehenden, kostenpflichtigen Nutzungrechten von Salesforce CRM oder Force.com, kann jedoch eine eigenständiges Nutzungsrecht für 15€ pro Monat und User erworben werden.

Im Salesforce App-Store der “AppExchange” stehen bereits 60 Chatter-spezifische Lösungen zum Kauf bzw. Test bereit. Weitere werden sicher folgen.

Hier ein kleines Demo Video (Kommentar ein bisschen nervig für deutsche Ohren) :

Ich werde es gleich mal testen

(Disclaimer: Ich war von Salesforce zur Konferenz eingeladen)

ITV to 'incorporate social media'? Meh

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:51:00 +0100

Isn't it time we got over ourselves when it comes to getting excited at yet another traditional business jumping on the social media bandwagon?

The latest 'reason to get excited' is that ITV is going to 'incorporate social media into the news'. Gee.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are busily getting on with sharing what we think about 'the news' (or more potently, that which is relevant to us and our peers) every day via - you guessed it - social media. We've self organised, you see. We aren't waiting for permission to join in from them's that used to be in control. (image courtesy Matt Hamm)

And the more we engage with each other (at the edge) the more we discover we don't need that someone in the centre setting our agenda for us.

But I've banged on about the bankruptcy of the broadcast news model more than once.

We should no longer be excited when yet another company decides its going to use social media. What we should applaud is when one commits to participating in it - understanding that the deal is not all take, and it's not to broadcast through.

What should earn our applause is an organisation participating in social media not as a means of gathering free 'user generated content' and not as a means of getting its messages distributed, but instead as a way of finding people who care about the same things it does inside and outside, and supporting them in shaping better-fit outcomes for all.

There's the return on investment. Make better things, not better messages. Together.

Better things make better messages.

The 90:9:1 rule reveals ability, not willingness, to participate

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:23:00 +0100

I hear a lot about the 90:9:1 'rule' (try working in collaborative co-creation and not hearing it dragged up from time to time.)

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.

Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM Converge towards the Collaborative Enterprise

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:36:17 +0100

At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Milan where Esteban Kolsky and I presented the “The New Era of Customer Engagement with Social CRM“, I spoke with Emanuele Quintarelli of Open Knowledge who organized the event – and he did a very good job I might add!. During our conversation Emanuele made the remark that Social CRM has now become an accepted part of the agenda in comparison with last year. Participants attending the previous edition found it strange to even mention customers when discussing E2.0 and preferred to focus on the software solutions – but this year this seems to have changed completely.
It was thus of particular interest to me to note was that the notion of the Social Customer and that we need to organise to engage is starting to gain traction from the protagonists of Enterprise 2.0 (see Bertrand Duperrin’s take on it here). For example, Emanuele Scotti’s opening speech dealt with changing needs and behaviors of the Social Customer, followed by Sameer Patel‘s excellent Keynote who continued on by talking about how companies should organize for customers that want to interact with the company (and not only be passive buyers). And as a sidenote – on the vendor side, Jive Software for example is adding “Social CRM features” and repositioning itself as as a “Social Business” platform provider.

In my opinion the discussion around Enterprise 2.0 has been too internal-facing and focused on the tools, rather than what the objectives for collaborating actually are. The market is maturing though as we see the approach evolve from innovators to early adopters. This was especially evident when looking at the agenda of the Milan edition, in contrast to the Boston edition that is still more focused on the software “solutions” (go ahead and deploy this module and you are now a “Social Business”..NOT!). Could it be that Europe is leading the way in its understanding of what it takes (culture, organisation, customer focus, employee engagement…)?

Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0

Although collaboration in customer driven organisations in not a new concepts (albeit still exceptional rather than a rule), Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM were meant for each other. a Social CRM customer engagaement programme that has no link back into the enterprise risks becoming cloistured in whichever department that decides to pick up on it first – thus risking incoherent experiences when a customer interacts with another department for whatever reason. Enterprise 2.0 on the other hand has been about collaboration, but sometimes it seems that it is just for Collaboration’s sake. What Social CRM brings to the party is a compelling business reason, namely to collaborate for, around and with the customer to better meet desired outcomes.

Social Business as the Business Model

In my opinion the next step is the “Collaborative Enterprise”, organised around understanding customer jobs and collaborating with the ecosystem (customers, employees, partners, suppliers, channels) to deliver on the desired outcomes. This is not about about implementing Web 2.0 technology to make your organisation “Social”, but rather using the means available to facilitate communication and knowledge flows to get the customer job done. Furthermore, it is about organising the enterprise on its road to becoming a customer-driven, customer-focused extended company, and facilitating systemic integration to achieve this – as described by Ranjay Gulati in his excellent book “Reorganize for Resilience“.
It is not about introducing new tools to do business in roughly the same way – only more effectively and efficiently, it is about adapting our business model to become a Social Business so as to take into account changes in the business environment, most notably the advent of the Social Customer.

The Collaborative Enterprise

The “collaborative enterprise” is one such approach of adapting the business model. The basic premise is that it serves as an interaction and reference hub through which stakeholders can collaborate to match expectations with outcomes – mainly of customers, but also all other parties – by first and foremost understanding what these are and putting the mechanisms and processes in place to gather and share insights and act upon them. The idea is not only to “collaborate” with your customers by interacting and engaging with them and thus glean actionable insights, but also extend this by collaborating with other stakeholders to combine their understanding with yours so as to provide the desired outcomes such as a satisfactory end-to-end customer experience – presale, sale and postsale, or by shaping your new offering through collaborative innovation etc.

I’d like to add here that your unique understanding of your customers and what their desired outcomes are, form the basis for your competitive advantage. The product you manufacture, I can build in China or wherever far cheaper than you can, the service package you offer I can copy very quickly, but the relation you have with your customers which allows you to meet their expectations – and which draws new customers to you – I cannot readily emulate.

I’ll look at the above in more detail in follow-up posts, let me know whether you want me to look at something in particular. Also please leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts, I’m keen to hear them!

Deploying social tech to enhance co-creation means a long-tail of outcomes

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:08:00 +0100

Making just one product as a result of a social tech-powered approach to collaborative co-creation kind of misses the point - and out on lots of the value.

It's great for making your product a better fit for the needs of the people you would have use it.
It's great for creating a marketing force for the result - the folk who joined in creating the outcome and who will therefore embrace and champion that outcome to their peers.
It's great for making people feel you are a more open, outward facing, welcoming, brand or organisation.
But if the outcome is just one product, my concern is you've missed out on everything else you've discovered on your journey to making that one product.

For example Nokia's Design By Community project, in which we are all invited to help shape a prototype phone, will end up with just one outcome.

The spec for that one phone is selected by the community each week. From a range of choices, users are invited to vote. And even if (as is likely) there is a long-tail distribution to the spread of votes, only the spec accruing the highest number of votes - the single most popular spec for that week - gets included in the final outcome.

This, like Twitter trends, tells you one thing - what is the single largest grouping.
Yet everything we know about the peer-to-peer network world of the internet tells us that there is greater value in the long tail than in the single largest 'hit'.

So while the single largest group (note, this is very far from the majority in a networked world, while it was very close to the majority in a broadcast one - see 'why hits are worth less in the networked world') may be telling you to make a phone with the largest possible touch screen, 80% or more may be telling you they want something different - be that a small touch screen, a qwerty keyboard, or whatever.

Failing to respond to that, may be missing out on what looks like the smaller prizes, but together, serving global mass niches, they result in the bigger prize.

Watch this mistake get played out again and again as old broadcast ideas get applied to the networked world - where people try to use social tools to bring people together - but deploy them against broadcast concepts.

I fear this may be exactly what our new UK government ends up with as it attempts to use technology to bring more of us into the decision-making process. They will surface and serve lowest common denominators; with the resulting disatisfaction for the majority with the single outcome.

Socialising the processes of collaborative innovation and co-creation means more than just using social tools to find people and to distribute to them. It means understanding the greater value lays in the long tail and ensuring this isn't lost in the rush for the single most popular.

Are the iPad and the iPhone leading publishers astray?

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:29:00 +0100

Despite all the excitement for publishers over the iPad (and no doubt the excitement to come over the iPhone4 - well the screen resolution should improve the reading experience) I remain sceptical about the long term benefit for publishers - particularly publishers of 'news'.

In fact you could make the case that by encouraging them not to adapt, it puts their survival at greater risk.
The issue is that news - at least what we understand as news in the current lexicon - is not a best fit with the networked world.

It's lowest common denominator - the fat end of the long tail. And we all know more value exists in the long, long, skinny end - and that the fat end seems to keep on getting smaller.

That approach to news suits a broadcast world. If you can only make one TV news show, with a limited amount of items, then you'd best try include news that appeals to as many people as you can muster.
It has always been the fact that more people weren't interested in each item than were (fact - more people won't watch the World Cup this month than will - you'd be hard pushed to believe that if your guide was traditional broadcast news and programming).

But until recent times there was no alternative to this model. They'd have had to broadcast a million versions of the TV news with a never-ending range of news items to meet the needs of all the people who weren't interested in the main agenda.

Now of course that's pretty much exactly what does happen and is possible. Say hello YouTube.

In a networked world we produce for niches (for ourselves), distribute peer-to-peer and get value from relevance rather than quality (we like both, but we'll always take relevance over quality).

News, as I have often said, is now less about when it happens and more about when it's relevant (matters) to you.

So, back to that iPad and iPhone4. Too many traditional news vendors, it seems to me, see Apple's open hand as a way of reformatting/repackaging exactly what they've already done on the assumption that the reason we have been buying less newsprint is because it wasn't available in a beautiful digital format.

That doesn't make sense to me. I don't sit on the train each morning pining for a copy of the Guardian to read. I get on with participation and interacting with other people discussing stuff that's way more relevant to me than the vast majority of stuff in ANY newspaper. At least any they've come up with yet. Yes, some of it comes from newspapers. Shotguns hit targets, too.

Even the personalised rejigging of the content they have, to respond on individual use patterns, only delivers the more relevant stuff from their pile of 'not-quite-the-right-fit-with-me'. And it's individual. We are social.

There are two options. Invest like crazy in quality rather than scale. Think less mass and more about serving a niche of people who value the specific and otherwise unattainable. There are, after all, still people who will hand illuminate a leather bound Bible for you some many centuries since the invention of the printing press.

The other is to be the filter; the curator for specific niches. Prove you are a better filter of what's valuable to me than my peers and you win that game.

That is no easy task - and one that's a million miles away from decanting your current offering into the latest digital formats.

The networked world demands new models, new approaches - not just new technologies.

An Open letter to David Cameron (with the emphasis on Open)

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:26:00 +0100

Hello David.

Long time no see. I want to catch up on one or two things and suspect it may be a while before I bump into you in Starbucks again.

You see, I love the idea of the Big Society. But in order for it to save us from a generation of savage cuts and all that goes with them, we must move it from the village hall to the heart of Government.

David, your speech in Milton Keynes yesterday paved the way for a dark future. It sounded much less 'Yes We Can' and much more 'You Just Can't'.

Where has the Big Society gone, David? Cuts imposed from the centre? Under whose guidance? Whitehall's 'experts'? When do we actually get to be in this together, rather than have this done to us?

There are more experts outside Government on any given subject than inside (witness, the digital economy act). That was the Big Society trying to act - and revealing the reality of the potential power of us being 'all in this together'.

So David, I urge you, for the sake of that deficit - and its impact on future generations - start walking the walk of The Big Society.

Make it a priority to use social tools to discover those who can make a difference to any given subject. And use your resources to bring them together.

Collaborative co-creation works. It creates best-fit policies and less waste, more efficient services. It creates engaged citizens: Ones who aren't just told we're all in this together, but actually are in the process of it rather than at the receiving end.

Using social technologies all this can be achieved so much more cheaply than through the focus groups and traditional stakeholder engagement methods of the old approach to policy making.

Government is not something you do to people, it is something you do with them. Social technologies lower the transaction costs of making that more than just a slogan.

Through social tools we can make best use of those things we DO have in abundance: our desire to do things together (as the highly social ape we are) our willingness and desire to connect one to another and to talk about what bothers us, our creativity - our desire to make a difference.

Make use of all that we have in abundance to make the best possible use of our more scarce resources.

Use real-time auditing of digitally expressed intent, and need, to target resources (there are millions of us publishing what matters to us to our peers on social networks and through social tools right now).

Use the army of experts outside Government to make policy that fits the real needs of more people - decide how to cut and where to spend.

Use the solutions of the networked world to provide a long tail fit with real need. Move away from the ill-fitting, waste-ridden application of lowest-common denominator policies (pleasing few), to niche-focused service provision to truly serve the diverse needs of all (sounds like a vote winner to me...).

Recruit a whole army of service providers, as those who contribute to the co-creation of policy find they care enough to want to make things better on the ground. This is how you will engage that army of volunteers. And how they will recruit another. If they have a hand in making policiy it becomes their policy - one they want to make work and will help to make work.

In short, David, the world has changed from mass to niche, from broadcast to network. The way it must be governed must change too.

The future is about self organisation. Government must become about enabling that self-organisation: Platform Government.

It means less power at the centre. And that's tough for those with power to accept. So it needs a new breed of politician. One which truly puts the people before their own power.

Are you one of the new breed David?

That self-organising future gets to happen with or without you.

Video: My presentation at Social Media In Business

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:56:00 +0100

Here's the presentation I made at Social Media In Business (#SMIB10) at eBay/Paypal's uk HQ late last month.
Thanks to SMIB for giving me the platform. (update - video is now available to view!)

You'll also find the slides I presented to, below.

Untitled from SMIB EVENTS on Vimeo.

And here's the slides...

Using + social media = fail (smib)

View more presentations from david cushman.

All feedback very welcome!

Live Every Litre

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:36:30 +0100

Die Dreharbeiten der Honda Crowd-Sourcing Aktion Live-Every-Litre, bei der wir als Agentur (90:10 Group) für Honda beteiligt waren, werden übermorgen nach 35 Tagen abgeschlossen sein. Dann wird mit dem Schneiden begonnen. Wir sind alle mehr als gespannt, denn die ausgewählten Reisen waren von skurril bis völlig verrückt, romantisch, nachdenklich, traurig und einfach nur schön. Das Endprodukt, ein Dokumentarfilm, wird dann bald verfügbar sein.

Die Zusammenarbeit mit Honda, Grey und dem Filmteam hat einen wirklich wahnsinnigen Spaß gemacht. Wir haben alle auf eine Art Neuland betreten, denn einen Film in diesem Rahmen, der ausschließlich auf den Ideen von Menschen produziert wurde, die zur Teilnahme aufgerufen wurden, gab es meines Wissens noch nicht.

Für das Live-Every-Litre Blog konnten wir Blogger aus ganz Europa gewinnen, welche die Aktion von den ersten Einreichungen über das Casting bis hin zur Filmdreh begleitet haben (und die für ihre Artikel auf dem Live Every Litre Blog natürlich auch bezahlt wurden). In Deutschland waren das Alex Kahl, Alexander Franz Köllner aka iFranz, Kai Müller und Robert Basic. Mein persönlicher Favorit ist Briony Matthewman, bekannt als Paperlilies auf youtube, die für das englische Blog geschrieben hat.

Robert Basic hat nun eine kleine Artikelserie gestartet, der sich ein den Hintergünden widmet. Teil 1 beschreibt in typischen “basic speak” die Hintergründe der Aktion, in Teil 2 folgt ein Interview, in dem Jason Fashade, der Projekt-Koordinator auf unsere Seite, Rede und Antwort steht. Teil 3 + 4 werden folgen. Einmal geht es hier um einen der Teilnehmer, dessen Idee realisiert wurde und dann wird es noch ein Interview mit der Projektverantwortlichen Laura Price von Honda Motors Europe geben.

Hier zwei Videos von den Teilnehmern (mehr Footage auf beim LEL-Channel auf youtube)

Adelina tanzt Flamenco:

Tom trifft Metallica

Video: My presentation at Being Social 2010

Mon, 31 May 2010 14:12:00 +0100

The Death of Advertising- and what replaces it - in 7mins! Yep, it's me doing my bit at Mashup's BeingSocial - held in London on May 13, 2010.

davidcushman 2 from Simon Grice on Vimeo.

Here's the full deck of slides I was presenting to (somewhat edited for the timeframe allowed).

View the rest of the videos from the event here.

Zappos Tony on the importance of happiness and culture

Thu, 27 May 2010 11:01:00 +0100

Tony Hsieh is a legend among the twitterati. He's built a legendary human-sized business in Zappos - designed very much on platform principles.
This video previews his forthcoming book. He's interviewed by Loic 'Le Web' Lemuer.
A great double whammy.

MARVELous

Tue, 25 May 2010 17:02:08 +0100

Wenn schon “Snail Mail”, dann bitte so:

Slides and interview from Social Media In Business

Mon, 24 May 2010 11:53:00 +0100

I presented at Social Media In Business at the eBay/paypal offices in Richmond, London, on Friday.
My favourite presentation of the day was by my good pal Eaon Pritchard. He pricked the old 'popular = influential' bubble (with dues paid to Mark Earls) giving the example of the Velvet Underground. Popular? Hardly. Influential? Hell yeah.

My own piece on how taking a 'using' approach to social media = fail' seemed to go down well - certainly if the stream at #smib10 on Twitter was anything to go by. So thank you all for your kind comments.
The slidedeck I used - which discusses the real revolution we are going through and the direction in which to seek true ROI from the meaningful application of social technologies, can be seen, downloaded and shared below:

Using + social media = fail (smib)

View more presentations from david cushman.

A video of my presentation will follow as soon as it's available.

Videos from the previous Friday's Mash-up event, 'Being Social' are also in the pipeline - I'm told due to appear tomorrow!

In the meantime, Benjamin Ellis grabbed me for a quick interview ahead of my session on Friday. It was broadcast live, but you can 'listen again' right here:

Here's the slidedeck:

Gründe für ein Social Media Audit

Thu, 20 May 2010 13:47:49 +0100

Unsere Präsentation zum warum , ROI, Zielen und dem ganzen Rest.

Reasons For A Social Media Audit

View more presentations from 90:10 Group Ltd..

Und ja – eine deutsche Version gibt es auch bald!

Why paid-for ads are incompatible with the web

Thu, 20 May 2010 09:24:00 +0100

Facebook - and social networks like it - succeed when they make it easier for people to form communities of purpose - groups. They lower the transaction cost of finding each other.

In the case of Facebook they have removed the heavy-lifting of manual discovery by using profile data and content shared by individuals to 'auto-suggest' friends you should connect with.

LinkedIn has similar functionality.

It makes sense. (image, Getty, via Zemanta).

(This paragraph updated May30, 2010 in the pursuit of clarity - on the suggestion of Jay Rosen)
Lowering the transaction cost of group forming is fundamentally what the internet is for. This becomes ever more evident, even for those who would have you believe the web is one large conduit for content/knowledge sharing, when you add consider the dawning of the ‘web of things’. In the web of things each element of content is another node capable of expressing its meta data to all other things and all other people. Both content and people find each other – forming nodes in a group; a community of purpose.

The problem for the likes of Facebook is that lowering the transaction cost of group forming is incompatible with charging for advertising.

How so? You have to attempt to create an artificial scarcity in our ability to discover each other.
ie An advertiser must pay to connect (via the brutal interruption of an ad) with a person for whom their advert is (at least they believe) relevant. The advertiser is paying a third party, a mediator, for the connection, the ability to form a group with you (he'd obviously like the group to be rather more than just you and he...)

Why can't the advertiser just go searching for people who will find their product relevant?
Ah, that'd be why the artificial scarcity gets deployed. To prevent them from doing precisely that. It is the flipside of the Facebook privacy issue.

Privacy - or who controls who gets to connect with whom - is the artificial scarcity Facebook relies upon to create value for its ads (and it is now the clear and dominant leader in display advertising online).
It's got there through artificial scarcity. But the web - and its driving group-forming purpose - equates to the imperative to go round artificial scarcity; barriers, paywalls, copyright etc

I think Facebook understands that and, in its constant push-back against privacy, is seeking to remove the artificial scarcity it has created to seek new business models ('Like', for example, or even the platform-thinking solution I have previously suggested).

But to return to my original thought, ads are always an example of one party charging another for access to connect. In the group-forming world of the web, mechanisms to limit that access (create scarcity) must always be artificial. So they can only ever enjoy a limited lifespan.

Artificial scarcity has no future on the web. And without that, online advertising has no future either.

Facebook is not a media owner - it's an enabling platform

Thu, 13 May 2010 10:29:00 +0100

Image via CrunchBase

The whole Facebook privacy thing reveals a large strategic problem Facebook has created for itself.

It has become popular precisely because people feel they can trust in the control over the level of sharing they have - and the limitations on what each individual regards as 'going public'. For most Facebook users going public means sharing with friends. And for most Facebook users friends mean friends (which is why the vast majority don't have hundreds).

It's structurally a collection of hard-edged networks - silos - self-limiting communities rather than the adhoc, fuzzy-edged self-forming communities of the kind that Twitter (and the blogosphere for that matter) enjoys. It was built for privacy - so the hard-edges are a natural outcome.

I have written about the risk Facebook has built into its model, previously: Hoarding Data Can Seriously Damage Your Wealth and How Twitter is Going to Beat Facebook

I think the guys at Facebook understand this problem more and more as they scale. And I think that's why they keep introducing the Twitter-like conversation elements. But it's also why they keep pushing what they can get away with on privacy.

While I do believe in the longer term our notions of private/public will shift over time, that's not what the vast majority of their 500m (that's a guess) users have signed up for. So when what they, very seriously, regard as their private data starts getting used for FB's own purposes - serving unwelcome ads, for example - things kick off.

The guts of the problem, it seems to me, is that Facebook is developing business models as if it's a media owner. ie we've got all this great content - let's sell ads on it. Let's flog wasteful, ineffective ads on it (remember kids, click-thru rates are somewhere down round your ankles, even in uber-targeted Facebook-land).

But Facebook isn't a media owner. All the media on it is yours. You made and shared it. It's yours not theirs.

Facebook is an enabling platform. Indeed it has the potential to be a collection of any number of enabling platforms. And if it could only start believing that (Zuckerberg and co must know it) then it could start to earn a crust in an appropriate way.

When it recognises that it'll spot its business model. And it sure as hell ain't ads.

It's much closer to this kind of thing...

Facebook needs a business model in which it is working with brands and orgs to bring together people who care about the same issues to work together to fix them - and to enable them - creating real RoI (making stuff and making stuff better - think Salesforce-style Dell IdeaStorms) rather than messaging the hell out of the harvested eyeballs (that'll be ads).

And only Facebook has the data through which it could find people who care about the same stuff across all the friend-to-friend silos, and reach out to them to bring them together to surface the wikifixes for products and surfaces the brands need. No one else could do this.

That's quite some competitive advantage.

Will I see you at Being Social?

Wed, 12 May 2010 16:28:00 +0100

I'll be attempting the equivalent of the Reduced Shakespeare Company tomorrow when I'm one of four keynotes speaking - very quickly - at Being Social.
Don't be late (we kick off at 1:45pm, registration at 1pm) - and don't blink - you may miss me. I'm talking about TheDeath of Advertising (at least a 7min summary of it).
Seriously; scheduled time for my speaky bit is 2pm. I'm then part of a panel straight after with my good friends Antony Mayfield and Chris Thorpe et al. We'll be talking about “How Social Media is changing how we communicate”.

The full slides in support of my speaky bit (in case you need to go back and fill in the blanks) are as below. Tommorrow I'll be focusing on the end section - discussing the need to change the focus of innovation.

The Death Of Advertising: Omexpo Madrid 2010

View more presentations from david cushman.

Latest Internet & Social Media stats (videos)

Thu, 06 May 2010 09:49:59 +0100

It Was Twitter Wot Won It....

Wed, 05 May 2010 09:19:00 +0100

There are many preparing to put TV back on its pedestal thanks to the perceived influence of the Leader's Debates on tomorrow's (May 6, 2010) UK general election.

But just before we get too excited by a resurging all-powerful broadcast medium, let's pause to think about what's going on here.

The leaders debates have acted as social objects. There are many more people who have been influenced by the conversations of their peers in response to the debates than can possibly have been influenced by watching the debates directly themselves. (Image courtesy Dean Terry)

Influence in isolation is a tough ask. We derive our understanding, our opinion of, our view of - our emotional response to, the leaders debates not through our direct individual experience of them, but through our social interactions with those around us.

The value of a social object is in the interactions it inspires - far beyond that first-generation direct encounter between user and object that we had broadcast at us in our lounges.

Don't believe me? Then why does one group see David Cameron 'winning' a debate while another calls it clearly for Gordon Brown? The content was the same for both sets of observers. The qualities of the social object are not intrinsic in it; they are extrinsic in our response to it (recommendation is in the eye of the receiver). The qualities of the social object are generated by our social interactions.

Which is why the biggest impact on the election result is in the interaction between peers - made so rapid and easy by the social tools at our disposal.

It is not TV wot won it - victory, if it derives from anywhere, is overwhelmingly to be found in social media's ability to connect and amplify our social selves. The ubiquity and simplicity of those tools is what has changed since previous elections.

So it was Twitter wot won it, it was Facebook wot won it. It's your friends wot won it.

We're all publishers now, My Sun.

Platform Government cuts costs AND improves services

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:48:00 +0100

Who ever wins, loses (or draws) the UK's General Election next month, we are in for a world of pain.

But that may equate to the single biggest opportunity we've ever had for fundamental, structural, governmental change (not the small c 'change' you may have heard the politicians tell you they want - theirs is the kind of change which leaves them in both command and control).

The leaders can tell you they will cut a smidgeon here to invest a little there but the reality of the burden of the UK's record breaking deficit and debt is that we must expect both a reduction in services AND an increase in the amount we all have to contribute for them.
If you had a contract between you and UK plc you would be quite within your rights to tear it up and take your business elsewhere.

Unfortunately we don't have that option (yet... the when of that 'yet' is quite another story which we must leave for another day. Suffice to say the networked world doesn't recognise geo-political borders).

Government, does however have an option which can both better target resources AND engage voluntary effort which will have the net effect of both cutting costs AND improving services.
And just as businesses require crisis to change (excellent performers, or flat-line ones like the Ad Industry tend toward head-in-the-sandism) so perhaps our crisis of cuts and tax rises will provoke just the kind of strategic shift in how we govern ourselves that we so clearly need.

I'm talking about Platform Government of course.
To reiterate: an organisation should use its available resources to discover people who care about the same issues they do, bring them together, surface what they think needs fixing and work with them (enable and join with them) to fix it.

Government - or 'resource allocation against the needs of the people' to give it its full name (ok, that's my definition) has:

Never had a better set of tools to discover the real time needs of people.
Never had a better set of tools to engage with people.
Never had a better set of tools to enable people. I'm talking about social networks, technologies and tools of course.

Government must be redesigned to meet the needs of, and take advantage of, this networked world.

Our current process of Government, like mass media, has been built to serve the lowest common denominator needs of a mass production world. It's resulted in one-size-fits-all policies, resource allocation (and, incidentally, political parties).

That world is ending.

Now we can all find people who care about the same stuff we do in real time. We can come together to discuss an issue. We can surface what needs fixing. And in engaging in the conversation we discover that we care enough about this thing that we are prepared to act to make it better (at least enough of us to make change). The Government can be a platform for exactly this kind of collaborative innovation.

Apply this to things such as policy development: Instead of a small group of Government appointed experts beavering away; share the aim.

Expect that there are more people outside of government who care about the issue than inside.
Expect that there are more people outside of government who are more expert than those inside.
Expect that will be the case with every single issue confronting the UK.

A platform government approach would open its doors to that freely given expertise and insight.

And how about that issue of resource allocation? Ongoing online listening will not only reveal where the people who care about each issue are (so you can invite them to participate), it'll also reveal what the issues that matter are, where, and in real time. And it'll reveal this in a long-tail, rather than lowest common denominator, way - ie it will reveal all the niche interests that need serving, rather than the single biggest need.

The result of this is a wikifixing approach to resource allocation - to make Government services a better fit with actual, real-time need. That equals less waste and more effective services for more of the people they are meant to serve. Real efficiency.

The flipside (other upside of this remarkable win-win) is that in engaging people in the change they want, you get an army of volunteers to make the change happen. More people willing to take responsibility instead of leaving it to 'the government' to sort out. More people willing to put their action where their conversation is.

And that means better services can be delivered at lower cost because more of us get involved in making, sharing and delivering them.

We could maintain taxes at current rates, provide better services at lower cost, and pay off that deficit.

Oh, and we'd also end up with a Government people felt part of - which is kind of a good thing, since it was meant to be ours all along.

Who knows, we may even start trusting politicians again? Ok, maybe that's an ask too far...

Foursquare and the impact of an information revolution on privacy

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:16:00 +0100

Some time ago I decided to continue my experiment with FourSquare without hitting the 'share with Facebook' or 'share with Twitter' buttons.

I didn't want to irritate those who chose to follow my tweets, for example, but hadn't opted in to be my FourSquare friend.

I also thought there was some wisdom in limiting the people with whom I was sharing such precise, personal real-time geo-location. (image courtesy Robert Couse-Baker)

So I was a bit miffed to find that if a friend of yours is in the same location and you are both checked in, and he chooses to auto-tweet his FourSquare update, then the default is that he will share in Twitter that you are with him, too. ("Y is at X with @davidcushman).

And if his tweets aren't protected, (whose are?) then your location, who you were with and when, becomes, by default, public domain - and plenty searchable.

Whether or not the unintended sharing of my real time geolocation against my preferences matters or not doesn't sound like much of an issue - until you want to do clandestine stuff. An adhoc job interview, political deal making, affairs of the heart, etc.

Now of course in those circumstances, the wise man may choose not to geolocate themselves within or without FourSquare.

The problem though is that we may be mentioned in a tweet or status update by who ever we are with.
I don't blame FourSquare for this. I don't even seek to single them out. We are still scrabbling for the social etiquette of all this. I rarely ask, for example 'do you mind if I tweet who I'm with?'

Mostly we have the good sense to know what is right and what is wrong - when to seek permission and when to just go ahead (Antony Mayfield's excellent book, Me and My Web Shadow discusses some of this - I'll be reviewing it in detail before too long - disclosure, Antony and I sit together on the board of CitizensOnline).

But we are going through an information revolution; not just in who controls publication, distribution and user experience, but also in the volume of what has hitherto been viewed as personal, private and, to anyone other than our peers, trivial information.

In revolutions it's fair to say there's plenty of stuff that needs living in and through before we start reshaping definitions of wrong and right.

Indeed in a networked, group-forming world it's perfectly reasonable to expect niches of etiquette to emerge. One man's over-sharing may be another man's under-sharing.

If etiquette is the aggregated social conventions of a society, then 'societies' (adhoc communities of purpose) will be manifold, niche and global. One size won't fit all.

Which is all well and good when what is shared about you is shared by people you know. But that's just part of the issue.
Take a look at the picture below (that's Tory leader David Cameron at Starbucks at St Pancras).

What if either party hadn't wished to be known to be in the presence of the other, or to share that they were at x location at y time (google streetview, anyone?).

This picture was taken by someone neither of us knew and published to people that we (at least I) did.

I'm not objecting (at least not on this occasion), merely pointing out the reality of concepts of privacy about geolocation in a connected world.

Privacy seeks to obscure truth. Often to an individual's personal benefit.
Perhaps we are just going to have to get used to living in a state of truth - with the wider - by necessity less personal - benefits that may offer.

Wie es die Sueddeutsche mit einem Photo-Credit hält

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:05:44 +0100

Eigentlich keine große Sache aber dennoch ärgerlich. Ich habe Markus Beckedahl ein Photo überlassen, das er bei passenden Gelegenheiten anderen ohne Honorar mit Namensnennung überlassen kann.

Das hat er auch vor der re:publica für einen Artikel von Johannes Boie (den ich wegen, meiner Meinung nach gelinde gesagt sonderbaren Ansichten, als Autor sowieso nicht besonders schätze) in der Sueddeutschen Zeitung getan.

Unter dem Foto ist mein Name falsch geschrieben. Ich wurde mal wieder zum “Frank” gemacht. Das kommt häufiger vor und ich finde es auch nicht besonders schlimm. Kann man ja korrigieren – und weil ich Fotos schon honorarfrei zur Verfügung stelle, wünsche ich mir dann wenigstens eine korrekte Schreibweise.

Aus diesem Grund habe ich der Sueddeutschen am 14. April per Mail einen Hinweis darauf geschickt und höflich darum gebeten, diese Korrektur vorzunehmen. Am 15. April hat man mir geantwortet und mit mitgeteilt, dass meine Anfrage and die richtige Stelle weitergeleitet würde.

Als sich dann am 19. April immer noch nichts getan hat, habe ich die weitere Verwendung meines Photos untersagt. Darauf habe ich weder eine Antwort erhalten, noch ist der Photo-Credit korrigiert und das Foto ist natürlich (am 22. April) immer noch online.

Eigentlich habe ich keine Lust mich weiter damit zu beschäftigen. Trotzdem erwäge ich das von meinem Anwalt mit den gatekeependen Qualtitätsjournalisten klären zu lassen. Die Ignoranz nervt mich eben.

Update 21.07: Johannes Kuhn, der das Digital-Resort von der Süddeutschen betreut, hat sich bei mir entschuldigt. Laut seiner Aussage ist ihnen die Sache irgendwie durchgerutscht. Kann passieren, Entschuldigung angenommen, Fall erledigt.

Welcome to the No-Time Web

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:21:00 +0100

Time is a construct - a way for us to make sense of a series of events. It is the way we bring clarity to what would otherwise be at risk of being a very confusing reality.
Theoretical physics tells us everything that will ever exist already exists and is at all points in space and time simultaneously.
Perhaps I'm over simplifying and or being far too generalist? What is certain is that the notions of past, present and future are cast seriously into doubt by modern physical thinking; and also that time is the fourth dimension for us three-dimensional dwellers, but that superstring theory requires TEN dimensions.

We don't need to delve much more deeply into this, you will be relieved to know, for us to have a paddle at the edges of these philosophical depths.

Loosely, there are all these additional dimensions, all things that ever happen all happen at once and at every other point in time/space... and we manage to stumble our way through this hard-to-imagine stuff by layering on the 'made in the brain' concepts of time and space. Things appear to happen in order because that's the way we make sense of 'everything'.

A small example. It's widely thought that the way we dream replicates this idea. A whole bucketful of concepts get thrown out and strewn around by our subconscious as we sleep (where time and space is not experienced and so have little value) and these concepts are hurriedly assembled into a story, complete with a linear progression and played out in spaces we can 'get our heads round' as we wake - in order for our conscious mind to make any sense/derive any value from them. The 'dream' if you like, only happens as you wake up. The raw material is generated as you sleep but the plot gets layered on as the conscious mind kicks in.

For many centuries we have supplied a linear narrative to understand the jumble of reality. This makes perfectly excellent sense to us. We plant a seed. It grows. We harvest the outcome. How could it be any other way?

But the emerging reality is a place which is a collection of events. There is no hard and fast order. No hard and fast way in which this reality must be experienced.

In the past (if you'll pardon the continued use of the term) - a mass production world required defined processes with progress contingent on the successful completion of the previous step; a mass production line.

Computers don't function like that when they are processing - Random Access Memory is very different from the indexing you'll find of books in your local library, for example.

And with the web too, we pull information we need at the point we need it. The Web is all of us using all of us as RAM.

This challenges our comfortable linear thinking. It raises doubts about the value of time and 'the right' order that things do or must happen in.

On the web being the first or being the most 'up to date' is less important than being the most relevant - being useful in a particular set of circumstances and from a particular perspective - much more than at a particular time. Hence the rise of the real time web.

In the real time web we find people, things, ideas etc which are useful to us right now. We don't need to have grown-up with the people, we don't need to understand that we must know what A and B are to know why A + B = C (we can go straight to C). We don't need to layer on time or space to make sense of this reality.

What is useful to us at 'this point' is important - not what is newest (a challenge to 'news' that media orgs must get to grips with). Relevant beats recent.

Perhaps the real-time web is in fact a misnomer. Perhaps instead we should call it the no time web. It is a place where processes of progression are less important; where we do loads of things at once - experience lots of things, all at once.

Our growing experience of this has the potential to change the way we experience every element of our reality - not just our online information gathering.

As we learn, we move from temporal order to what some would call chaos. But I wonder if this seeming chaos isn't in fact closer to the reality of our universe than we have ever allowed ourselves to experience before.

The web may be opening our eyes to a RAM reality that sits behind the time-ordered reality we have layered on until now.

Taking those blinkers off is likely to be enlightening and frightening in equal measure.

Data-Driven Social CRM

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:37:41 +0100

I have been reading some very interesting books about strategies around becoming a customer-driven organisation and also about the benefits of Customer Engagement Programs (more on that in later posts). In the discussion around Social CRM we agree that it is beneficial to business to engage the Social Customer, but what seems to be more difficult to articulate is the Business Value Proposition – why should a company invest in Customer Engagement Programs in conjunction with CRM? What value is in it for the company and what is in it for the customers? We also talk about the need to move from value-in-exchange thinking to value-in-use. What tangible benefits are there for companies to take a a customer Lifetime Value approach rather than concentrate on the sale? Or simply, how can Social CRM Strategies can provide a significant impact to the bottom line.

This is where Jim Novo’s book “Drilling Down” got me thinking – hard (and kudo’s to fellow AC-er Mike Boysen for helping me shape my thoughts). Jim Novo’s premise is that the data you have in your systems about your customers will allow you to segment them based on their behaviour and not sociodemographic characteristics and concentrate your resources on those that will bring you the highest value. It sounds kind of like inside-out thinking, but believe me, it is quite the opposite. Rather than concentrating on attrition and win-back of all your customers(which is far more expensive than customer retention), the method he proposes also allows you to pick up on deviation from expected behaviour, use these as triggers and perform what I’d describe as “just-in-time” retention activities to keep the patronage of high-potential or high-value customers.

This excerpt is taken from the free chapters of Jim’s book (you can get them here by signing up for his newsletter):

1. Past and Current customer behavior are the best predictors of Future customer behavior.

You can predict future behavior based on an understanding of past behavior, and use this knowledge to improve marketing or service programs [based on] actual behavior, not implied behavior.

2. Customers want to win at the customer game.

They like to feel they are in control and smart about choices they make, and they like to feel good about their behavior. Marketers and service providers take advantage of this attitude by offering programs and communications of various kinds to get customers to engage in a certain behavior and feel good about doing it.

3. Data-Driven programs are about allocating resources.

Data-Driven marketing and service programs are among the very few allowing you to accurately measure ROI. [It's about] reallocating capital with low return to higher return projects or programs, generating higher profits in the process.

4.Action – Reaction – Feedback – Repeat.

Data-Driven marketing and service programs are driven by creating continuous communications and interactions between the business and the customer, and analyzing these interactions for challenges or opportunities.

This is the example Jim uses to illustrate his propos:

For example, a win-back program is triggered when the customer defects. Have you switched long distance or cellular providers lately? Did you get inundated with win-back calls begging you to reconsider? “Jim, we just wanted you to know we have lowered our rates.” Yeah, well, thanks for telling me after overcharging me for the past six months! But could they have known I was about to switch by looking at my behavior?
Sure. If they had looked at the calling patterns of previously defected customers like me, they would have seen a common thread in the behavior.[...] The proper profit maximizing approach is to wait until I look like I’m going to defect, and then call me and offer a lower rate before I defect.

Too late. The customer no longer is one.

The “Drilling Down” approach is aimed at constantly improving and optimising the value of both the company whilst ensuring a satisfactory customer experience.

What I like about Jim’s approach is that they provide a concrete Business Value Proposition for implementing a Customer Retention Strategy that optimises the allocation of the company’s resources by focusing on the most profitable segments – or in Finance speak: optimize the Return On Investment. And as you probably know, the quickest way to a CFO’s heart is not though his stomach, but through the figures…The only issue is that it requires the company to move away from a quarterly quota model to a customer Lifetime value approach (see the book for more details on this last remark…)

Enter The Social Customer

In Jim’s example above he focuses on someone who leaves and moves on without looking back. What has now changed the game is that the Social Customer – through her interactions with her peers – can have an impact on the cost of new customer acquisition and as well as on retention, both in a positive and negative sense. No longer is the customer ‘an island’ because of ubiquitous opportunities for peer to peer conversation. These can influence customer behaviour patterns on a world-wide scale and thus adds a variable to the equation to the above that needs to be taken into consideration.

In a Social CRM strategy, to address the Social Customer whilst at the same time optimising the company’s resource usage and profitability, key to me will be the ability to link the conversations of your customers to the segments you have identified of high/low potential/value. This means that rather than tracking all conversations everywhere and pumping these into your database, you should be focusing on your high potential/value customers Furthermore your understanding of the customers should be aimed at identifying behaviour patterns and triggers within the channels where your customers express themselves and that you can monitor. The barrier to pick up the phone [or fill in whatever channel you like] can be high for some customers and this can deprive you of the trigger needed to track a deviation and react accordingly. The conversation the Social Customers are having through these public communication means may now provide you with this trigger that you would have missed out on before. And rather than allocate your resources to responding to every person that wants to rant, you can concentrate your efforts on those that you would like to retain (whilst remaining ‘polite’ with those that are not of direct interest of course).

Although I realize that this line of though does not address all the opportunities of Social CRM and Social Business Strategies, it is my first attempt at rationalising and articulating the Business Value Proposition. With a broad stroke of the pen I have put other elements such as peer to peer support, ideation, customer experience programs, open innovation etc. under the header of Customer Retention Strategies, and I do apologize for this. I will try to work out my ideas in further posts.

What do you think? How would you formulate the Business Value Proposition for Social CRM and Social Business.

UZ8A5PVZS5F7

Future of Advertising: a platform for Customer Insight

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:35:51 +0100

What will the future of advertising look like?

The answer could be the one painted in this viral ad promoting the upcoming FITC digital and technology festival in Toronto. The ad is set in the future and shows a narrator in a deserted office (preserved as a museum) describing the remains of the last advertising agency on earth. An ad agency which ignored the power of digital and social media.

The change we see is a cultural and structural one with high social impact on the world we live in.

It is not always understood !

dddddd

Traditional advertising no longer works. The gap (and break up) between the consumer and the advertiser is growing on a daily basis as shown in this great video.

Businesses should start seeing the web from a business-strategic point of view and understand, find and align their web-strategy with it. Companies should stop producing TV ads or banners without any call-to-action. And starting Twitter streams like “clowns” is definitely not the right way to approach the future of customer communication… says Martin Meyer-Gossner (a web business strategist).

Eric Clemons a year ago has written in TechCrunch Why the Advertising is Failing Over the Internet. Here is an extract of what he wrote:

There are three problems with advertising in any form, whether broadcast or online:
Consumers do not trust advertising. Dan Ariely has demonstrated that messages attributed to a commercial source have much lower credibility and much lower impact on the perception of product quality than the same message attributed to a rating service. Forrester Research has completed studies that show that advertising and company sponsored blogs are the least-trusted source of information on products and services, while recommendations from friends and online reviews from customers are the highest.
Consumers do not want to view advertising. Think of watching network TV news and remember that the commercials on all the major networks are as closely synchronized as possible. Why? If network executives believed we all wanted to see the ads they would be staggered, so that users could channel surf to view the ads; ads are synchronized so that users cannot channel surf to avoid the ads.
And mostly consumers do not need advertising. My own research suggests that consumers behave as if they get much of their information about product offerings from the internet, through independent professional rating sites like dpreview.com or community content rating services like Ratebeer.com or TripAdvisor.

It is time for media owners to innovate – ditch advertising and become a platform.

View more presentations from 90:10 Group Ltd..

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Who gets my vote? We do

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:47:00 +0100

I have a first and easy step I'd like to suggest the UK Parliament takes in its pursuit of more open government.

It'll put its members in touch with the people who elect them - with the views of the nation. And it'll do that without requiring them to move out of their first class rail carriages. Can't expect too much all in one go, can we?
I recently asked David Cameron to tell us what he thought, rather than tell us what he thought he ought to tell us.
It seems politicians - with some rare exceptions - see this as a step too far.

Well, us lot, Joe Public, the electorate, this army of self-publishers, have no such qualms.
We are quite happy to say what we think. We don't even mind being proven wrong on occasion.

And, unlike the man who would be our Prime Minister, we do publish what we think. A lot. Particularly about things we care about. (image courtesy kberberi)

Things we care about include parliamentary bills. The Digital Economy Bill this week amply demonstrated how a community of purpose can discover one another and act rapidly around the social object of a piece of parliamenary legislation.

Similar communities of purpose exist around any issue - on or off the statute book.

So I wonder how the debate may have shaped had the pitiful number of MPs in the commons for the second reading of the #DEBill been able to see for themselves the thousands of comments that were being made, the excellent points raised by thousands of people on Twitter; the crowd-sourced brilliance of the nation our MPs are there to serve?

So let's see a big screen - the twitterfall (all the comments about a certain, usually hashtagged, subject - collated and shown in real-time) for each debate - installed in The Commons, The Lords and - where appropriate - committee rooms, too.

Listening is the first step to open government. And this could be a first small step to listening.
Note: this is already happening on a handful of MPs mobile phones - trust me on this - so please let's not get into arguments about 'distraction'.

Listening, open government, shouldn't be done for some kind of altruistic, touchy-feely reason (though none of that is bad). It should be done because it will improve MPs' decision making processes. It will improve our legislation.

How so? Because MPs are generalists. They have to be. And for whatever given subject there is a community of purpose ready to come together to offer expertise and real-world experience far in advance of anything the House can muster on its own.

We now have the social tools for communities of purpose to self-organise in rapid, adhoc ways. The #debill campaign, 20,000 letters to MPs in 7 days etc, shows it is happening and will continue to happen. Exponentially.

It is easier now than at any time in history for people to discover other people who care about the same issue they do and to organise to make change.

Government can join in if it wishes. If it doesn't, it just might find itself out of a job.

Community Manager vs. Conversation Manager

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:43:54 +0100

As the use of social technologies begins to climb the maturity curve, new skills (until now not widely understood) such as community & conversation management have begun to move to the forefront of discussions within businesses. Most are starting to realize that they have a missing job function in their team. But which job function: a Community Manager, a Social Media Manager, a Traffic Manager or a Conversation Manager.

Considering what Nestlé’s Facebook Fan Page went through a few days ago, it is becoming important for most brands to start having dedicated resources to manage their conversations. But businesses need to understand whether they need primarily a content-oriented person or a relationship-oriented person.

John Bell in a recent blog post described both functions of Community and Conversation Managers as follows:

Community Manager
So, do they need a community Manager? Here’s how I see the main responsibilities of a community manager:
Steward a community conversation amongst a group of people who have come together to interact together presumably over some shared affinity (they all love Dancing With The Stars TV show; they are all moms with grade school-age children; they drive the same car)
Help keep order with a soft touch
Remain responsible to the community first
Their job is really to nurture and often grow a community of people. Now, the affinity that brings them together may be the brand. That gives the community manager license to participate in the community but certainly not at the expense of the other community participants.
Conversation Manager
A Conversation Manager is a bit different especially as we think about how Twitter and Facebook work. Even with the threaded comments available now in the Facebook Wall posts, These are streams of utterances and brief conversations. More importantly, brands are hosting their own handles and pages which feel more personal and involved. A Conversation Manager’s responsibilities include:
Offering fans and followers a steady stream of valuable content and experiences
Responding to visitors who want to engage with the brand or need some help
Offering a pov as a brand or subject matter expert

Steven Van Belleghem believes (so do we at 90:10 Group) that ‘traditional advertising no longer works. Advertisers need to change their day-to-day working methods. The gap between the contemporary consumer and the traditional advertiser is growing on a daily basis. This era is not the end of the advertising market, though it is the end of the advertiser!‘. He explains to us this change of trajectory from advertiser to Conversation Manager in his recently published book titled The Conversation Manager and following presentation.

What about the Social Media Manager?

Rachel Happe has taken a stab at articulating the primary responsibilities of both Social Media and Community Managers. Here is how she defines the responsibilities of the Social Media Manager:

Social Media Manager:
Content Creation (Blogging/vlogging/podcasting) designed to spur conversation/viral sharing
Responding to conversations about the brand and the content
Ensuring input/feedback gets channeled to the appropriate internal functional group
Curating and promoting UGC
Managing tools – mostly social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and blogs
Reporting/measurement

So what do you think? Do you agree that there is a difference in these three roles? and if so, do you agree with how they have differentiated them? If you happen to be a ‘community manager’ or a ‘conversation manager’ or a ’social media manager’ reading this post, please do share with us your views on your job function and the challenges you are facing every day

Co-Creation is more than just a philosophy!

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:59:55 +0100

Co-creation is a powerful trend in product development that has been around for quite some time. But as I have written in an earlier blog post (Brand 2.0: when crowdsourcing becomes a must…) co-creation has recently started to gain more traction with social media bringing communities together.

Most companies have innovation as one of their top priorities. But many face challenges in innovation management – be it ability to co-create with customers, or utilizing employee talent. To address this challenge, enterprises have to embrace open innovation, co-creation and collaborative innovation.

John Windsor’s recent blog post about his friend who runs a business in the outdoor sports market is very relevant:

He described the paradigm shift we’re experiencing really well.
My friend says that he’s at a crossroads. He currently has his agency produce TV spots to run on targeted cable channels. All in, he’s spending a few hundred grand to reach a similar number of viewers.
It’s all good.
Until he starts looking at what his fans are doing on YouTube. People, who love his brand, are making their own spots by the hundreds. And, they’re popular. A half dozen of the videos have been viewed by over 1.5 million people.
At the end of the day, it comes down to math. It’s either creating TV spots and buying the media for them for a lot of money or getting 9,000,000 viewers at the cost of $0. The decision seems easier than it really is. While the cost of the 9,000,000 viewers is 0, my friend has lost some of the control he had over his brand when he used his agency. The trick is moving from a creation mindset of controlling the message and broadcasting it to a curation mindset of inspiring and guiding the people who are creating and sharing the digital videos.

While most companies understand the power of collaborative innovation, the means to achieve it is not always available. They need an alternative to current ad agencies and crowdsourcing platforms. At 90:10, we have been working on a whole series of products that offer companies the strategic direction, engagement, connectivity, relationship management and ROI.

The following slidedeck gives you more details about our approach.

If you’re interested in the products themselves and how they can create value for your company – let me know.

A definition of co-creation

What the heck is co-creation?

Enterprise 2.0 Boston Bait and Switch

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:11:05 +0100

Enterprise 2.0 concepts and tools are gaining more and more traction in “mainstream” Business Practices as this is seen as a good way to captialize on the human assets of organisations. To reflect this trend, and to spread awareness and understanding and also to provide a platform for exchange of expriences, a conference is being organised at the Westin Boston Waterfront on June 14-17, 2010.

Apparently it was felt that the base premise of the subject was not enough to attract attention that the organisers had to resort to Switch and Bait practices to generate Buzz and use Command & Control decision making (how very Enterprise 1.0…). I commented on the announcement to draw attention to the dichotomy between their message of “letting the audience decide” and their actions.

Apparently, my opinion did not go in the sense they wanted so I guess they decided against publishing it. Or they’re not monitoring and thus didn’t get round to moderating yet – in that case, why provide a comments area?

Let me elaborate on the dichotomy through the use ofPrem Kumar’s Context, Content, and Intent -at least in my opinion…

Context

For this edition the organisers decided to be innovative by enlisting the “wisdom of the crowds” to source Papers to be presented at the conference. They relied on the Spigit – which in my opinion is ideally suited for the task at hand (disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with them). The expectation that was set was that the all Conference Topics would be chosen through the principle of ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ as stated in the ‘How Things Work’ section, with the Conference Management just making sure that the tracks were balanced. Proposals with the most votes would be part of the E2 Boston 2010 Conference.

Content

The Call for Papers had potential speakers expose the their subjects of predeliction in a short summary and supporting documents in attachments (UGC). They were then actively encouraged to get people to vote for their subject (WOM), directing traffic to the site and generating buzz. The target audience was asked to add comments to the entries to instaur a dialogue – level 4 in Mitch Liebermann’s Social Interactions post

Intent

The original intent was to get a Conference Agenda that reflected the subjects the participants would be interested in and that would be rich and varied in teachings and facilitate the exchange of experience to propulse Enterprise 2.0 concepts and usage into organisations.

Although the programme put up is actually a very interesting one - the original context, content and intent were not respected. Out of the 30-odd sessions, only 8 are community-sourced - less than a third. The Conference Management or Advisory Board decided to disregard their own selection process and make their decisions in a completely opaque manner. To my knowledge, none of them interacted with the potential speakers at any time to get details, or a better understanding, either through comments on the community site or even through other means at their disposal such as blogging about the subjects put forward by the candidates, sending twitter messages, or sending email. Voting was started in January, and the speakers were informed on March 30 – with a long zone of no communication in between.

The Top Two community-voted Papers did not get in, the third speaker did, but just one of his subjects. Of the top 10, maybe 2 actually made the grade according to the Board. People put a lot of effort into coming up with interesting Papers, and their peers thought they were interesting enough to merit reading through, understanding, commenting and voting for (full disclosure - we had put in a Paper up concerning bridging scrm & e20). By neglecting the votes, the Board is showing an extreme disregard and disrespect for the candidates and more especially their audience - their customers.

The voting process turned into a popularity contests, with people actively asking to be shown ‘Twitter Love’ by their followers to get more votes – followers who potentially would not be interested in attending the event because their interests lie elsewhere. This all turned into a real buzz machine, driving a lot of traffic and awareness that this event would take place. While this is all fine and understandable and a good way to build interest for Enterprise 2.0, it was done with the wrong Intent and thus under false pretenses. Trust has been squandered.

Through their actions, the organisers have also seem to think that:

collaboration and ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is not a valid way of selecting Papers
conversation is good between the clients of their ‘product’ but decisions should be made by a ‘Management’
feedback and management participation is absolutely not necessary

Now what was the Enterprise 2.0 way of working supposed to promote again..?

I am not saying that the ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ is the most suited way for selecting interesting presentation subjects, but using the Switch and Bait technique is a deceptive Business Practice and reflects badly on the event as well as the validity of the Enterprise 2.0 Business Case. Although this is not at the scale and will not have the impact of the Nestlé debacle, the organisers are showing a there is a disconnect between their actions and the expectations they have set for the consumers of their product. It is kind of like saying ‘What is good enough for the customers of the tools we sell, is not good enough for us - we still manage our business as usual!’. The Advisory Board reached out to the consumers of the E20 Conference product to engage with them through ideation, but has done only half-heartedly. You need to go whole full nine yards! Moreover, in the public arena there is no hierarchy or HR to put a muzzle on the people that voice their opinions.

Transparency and authenticity can generate a lot of Goodwill and potentially a high level of participant engagement, but can just as easily backfire. You can’t only just ‘pretend’ to be transparent by putting in a tool and not following through with actions – or ‘living the culture’, especially if you expect to be trusted in return. Changing the rules and not informing people about that when the result does not meet your goals is just Bad Practice. And thinking that people would not notice is just silly. I already know of some that will not bother with putting in a Paper for the Fall edition of the #e20conf…

It would have been so much easier to have been transparent in the selection rules, once the expectations set you can then meet them – the math is easy. This would have avoided the Bait and Switch and would have allowed the Trust Relationship to be continued. This is actually turning into a case study in Social Business; the need to coordinate Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 Strategies - thank you #e20conf!

When you Talk the Talk, you should also Walk the Walk!

I hope this is seen as Food for Thought. What do you think, am I right to bring this up in this manner?

Facebook: your Marketing Powerhouse

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:26:25 +0000

As Facebook has become an incredible online community (more than 120 million users in Europe) and has shifted from being not only a social network for personal use but also as a key platform and medium for brands online, businesses have started to look into spending more time hanging out and engaging with their fans and users, in a legit way.

The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds on teaching staff how to use Facebook.

PBS’s new 102-minute documentary will debut on Facebook before being broadcast on PBS.

Amy Porterfield in her last post says:

When you hear that Facebook is yanking Yahoo from its ranks and inching up on Google’s traffic throne, you can’t help but pay attention.

She shares with us 5 studies, that show how Facebook is undoubtedly a leading online social contender and a key tool that is continually changing the landscape of online engagement and fan loyalty.

To know more about how to promote your business using Facebook Fan Pages, I recommend one of my older blog post and if you want to know how to customize, optimize and monetize your Facebook Fan Page, watch Amy Porterfield’s video.

Another interesting article: How to setup Google Analytics on your Facebook fan pages.

Praktikant für Filmproduktion in London gesucht

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:53:01 +0000

Wir, die 90:10 Group, sind an der Produktion eines europäischen Roadmovies für Honda beteiligt. Dabei kann jeder einen Roadtrip, den er immer schon mal machen wollte, auf der Projektseite Live-Every-Litre (hier gibt es auch mehr Information) einreichen. Diese Reisen können dann dort von anderen bewertet werden. Die Reisen mit den meisten Bewertungen werden dann einer Jury, die aus dem preisgekrönten Regisseur Claudio von Planta und fünf europäischen Bloggern, vorgelegt. Aus diesen Reisen werden dann diejenigen ausgesucht, welche die spannendsten, schönsten, traurigsten, leidenschaftlichsten Geschichten erzählen möchten.

Honda stellt das Auto für die Reisen, den neuen CR-Z, einen Hybrid Sportwagen. Im Film stehen dann aber die Reisen absolut imVordergrund. Es geht um die Stories, die erzählt werden sollen, nicht um das Auto. Dazu Claudio von Planta:

Jobbeschreibung:

Um das Produktionsteam bei der Planung und beim Dreh zu unterstützen, wird ein Praktikant gesucht. Einsatzort ist London – jedoch sollte auch die Bereitschaft vorhanden sein, das Team beim Drehen zu begleiten. Das Praktikum läuft 8 Wochen, vom 19. April bis zum 11. Juni.

Kosten für Reisen nach und von London und eine Unterkunft für 8 Wochen werden übernommen. Darüber hinaus gibt es für die Tätigkeit eine Vergütung von 1500 GBP (was ca. 1650 € entspricht). Englisch als Sprache ist Voraussetzung, zusätzliche Sprachen sind hilfreich, besonders Deutsch, Italienisch, Französisch und Spanisch. Jeder Europäer kann sich bewerben, Arbeitserlaubnis in Großbritannien voraussgesetzt (was für EU-Bürger, meines Wissens nach, ohne Visum zutrifft.)

Wer bei diesem spannenden Projekt dabei sein möchte, kann seine Bewerbung, in der er/sie erklärt warum er die perfekte Wahl für den Job ist zusammen mit einen Lebenslauf bis zum 26. März and folgende E-Mail Adresse senden: intern@liveeverylitre.com

Die Benachrichtigung an dejnjenigen, der den Job ergattert hat, folgt bis zum 9. April.

Wir würden uns freuen, wenn ihr das Angebot für das Praktikum weiterverbreiten würdet. Danke! (Das gleiche noch mal auf englisch und auf französisch)

Links:

PS: Wer noch gerne selbst eine Reise einreichen möchte, kann das noch bis zum 19. März tun!

Social Engagement = Cultivating Customers Demands

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:02:05 +0000

Businesses are increasingly adopting customer-focused processes to gain competitive advantage. But for building a business around customers, companies need to understand them. They need to engage in regular dialogue and conversations.

Research has shown strong evidence that Social Media Engagement correlates to Financial Performance (see report on world’s most valuable brands – Who’s most engaged?). This study emphasizes quality of customer engagement through social media by concluding:

It pays to engage meaningfully in social media. Emphasize quality, not just quantity.
Engagement is more than just setting up a blog or Facebook profile and letting viewers post comments, it’s keeping your content fresh and replying to comments; it’s building your friends network and updating your profile status.
Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest.
To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. You must do something, else risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.

This clearly illustrates the importance of Social Engagement, i.e. engaging customers via Social Media for building trust and loyalty towards companies’ products, services and brand.

Businesses have to shift from marketing products to cultivating customers demands.

But many companies are still reluctant to invest in social media initiatives and programs. This has recently been confirmed by findings of a recent study conducted by Burson-Marsteller: Global Social Media Checkup.

If you prefer, Flowtown has summarised their findings in this graphic.

So what are the arguments for businesses to make it happen. Henning Hansen CEO of Conformit in an article from CRM-Buyer says:

- Cement Your Customer Relationships
- Involve the Crew
- Rebuild Your Processes
- Check Your Measurements
- Share Responsibility and Construct a Common Goal

he adds:

Changing a corporate culture cannot and should not be an immediate process, and neither can it be a half-hearted one. Businesses that truly dedicate themselves to building a customer-focused culture can be stronger competitively — and provide better places to work.

We at 90:10 Group, help businesses connect with global communities to discover and engage advocates. We empower those advocates through tried and tested processes, tools and creatives. We believe that the sooner businesses adopt and start using Social Media for engaging their customers, the better for them, else performance of their business will suffer.

Being the CEO of a Platform Business

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:58:28 +0000

In a long-tail world it’s becoming increasingly impossible for any single organisation to deal with the fragmentation of demand. Apple’s solution – with its iPhone – was to become the platform for others to service demand they identified. Those closest to their own niche could deliver products and services which were a better fit than Apple could ever had hoped to meet alone.

The Iphone came with a range of universally one-size-fits-all apps – weather, maps, clock, and calculator all so ubiquitous as to have become productised. But to reach genuine scale they had to see themselves as a platform organisation. 10 per cent effort from inside the org, the remaining 90 per cent from outside.

Apple provided an actual platform (the iphone itself), enabling technology (open API) and even a way to monetise (app store) which provided win-win innovation for all parties. The result has been hundreds of millions of downloads and a very successful couple of financial years for Apple. If you look at their advertising you can see what they feel their USP is..

In a world where teenagers in a bedroom can disrupt established markets over night the ability to innovate can’t be slow or expensive. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em or better invite them in to co-create.

To us at 90:10 every business not just those in the tech game should become a platform business. The role of the platform is to light the spark, find and manage the crowd to shape the outcome.

Why wouldn’t you want to grow your workforce by 1000% without the contracts, legal fees and salaries to care for? Nimble and lean yet scalable and flexible. Changing the course of a platform business does not mean crippling redundancies just new focus and partnerships. The strength of a platform business is that it can and should disrupt its own model by seeking to innovate at the edge of markets not fight it out in ‘me too’. Blue Ocean over Red Ocean (Red Ocean being bloody).

90:10 is setup as just that. Currently we use our collective knowledge of the networked world and the application of social technologies to help other’s existing businesses adapt primarily as a service company. But we also are a platform for our employees and partners to innovate making the most of what we know. When the world has adapted to this cultural shift and nobody needs our consulting services we will already have our own network of businesses profiting from our collective knowledge, experience and eye for future disruptions.

This is the spirit of 90:10 Enterprise. We are a group of entrepreneurs backed up by a dedicated and skilled team (platform) of marketers, developers and project managers. We are the only consultants in this space who are thought leaders but also businessmen out there doing. Our greatest single value as a service provider is we know the realities of doing business and in doing so avoid the kind of naiveties that would frustrate business leaders.

90:10 Group is in a sense an experiment of doing business wholly in the principle of the platform business model. We can be as puritanical in this as we like because we are starting from scratch. We are the end result of what I propose all my current clients become. So I’ve decided not to talk through the usual thought leadership of the various disciplines that 90:10 Group offers on this blog anymore, I will leave that to folk like David Cushman . Instead I’m going to focus on the successes and strains of being CEO of a 90:10 Platform business. The implications to resourcing, product /service development and innovation. There will be mistakes along the way. I aim to make them before my clients do. We are small enough to get away with it.

So welcome to ‘Being a Platform Business’.

Scintillation

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:30:31 +0000

This is an experimental film made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques.

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

Ich empfehle Fullscreen, wenn es der Rechner hergibt!

Free

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:48:29 +0000

Zum wiederholten mal startet gerade eine Diskussion über Monetarisierung von Blogs, ausgehend diesmal von Basic Thinking, das nach Roberts Verkauf von einem kleinen Team von Redakteuren betreut wird – und das sehr professionell und erfolgreich. Man kann den Content dort mögen oder nicht – das spielt in diesem Zusammenhang keine Rolle.

Dort hat man beschlossen, den Feed zu kürzen, damit mehr Leser diekt auf die Seite kommen und dort dann für Klicks auf Werbung sorgen sollen. Versuche Werbung im Feed zu schalten erwiesen sich als nicht ausreichend (10€ am Tag). Obgleich ich die Lösung eines gekürzten Feeds auch für suboptimal halte, kann ich die Entscheidung nachvollziehen.

Liest man sich allerdings die Kommentare durch, wollen gleich wieder eine ganze Menge Leser der Seite den Rücken kehren. Die Reaktionen finde ich beschämend. Guter Content ist scheinbar nichts wert. Allerdings frage ich mich dann auch, warum er gelesen wird.

Ich kann mit zum Glück leisten, mein Blog ohne jegliche Werbung zu finanzieren. Das ist eine bewusste Entscheidung, besonders auch weil ich dadurch anderen freien bzw. Creative Commons lizensierten Content zu nutzen und auch mal ein paar Wochen nichts zu schreiben, wenn ich gerade was anderes zu tun habe. Mein Blog ist alles andere als professionell und ich liebe die Unabhängigkeit von irgendwas und irgendwem.

Trotzdem denke ich, dass Blogs, die professionell betrieben werden auch eine Einahmequelle haben sollen, wie das bei anderen Medien auch der Fall ist. Wer nicht bereit ist Werbung über sich ergehen zu lassen, könnte aber auch mit sozialer Währung bezahlen. Mir schwebt da z.B so etwas wie anonymisierte Teilnahme an Umfragen vor. Wer mitmacht, bekommt den vollen Feed zu lesen. Die Daten lassen sich wunderbar verkaufen. In diese Richtung sollte man mal weiterspinnen und vielleicht könnte man das in einem größeren Zusammenhang sehen, in einem Verbund mehrerer Blogs und/oder Seiten. So kämen Interessierte an Daten und der User hätte die für die Leistung anonym eine Gegenleistung erbracht. So wäre allen gedient.

Diejenigen die keine Gegenleistung erbringen wollen, sollen sich eben trollen.

Siehe auch YuccatreePost und André Vatter

Photo: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ cc-by-sa

Social Media in the Middle East: more at ARABNET March 25th & 26th

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:44:02 +0000

A common feature across the Middle East region is that young people make up a relatively high percentage of the population (in some over 50% are less than 21 years old). In most countries the “net generation”, regardless of its geographic location or cultural background, tends to be comfortable with online technologies and prefer the speed and variety of content delivered through the web and mobile channels.

Next 25th and 26th of March will be held for the first time in the region (in Beirut Lebanon), ArabNet 2010, the first international conference for the Arab web industry, bringing together leaders from across the MENA, Europe and Silicon Valley to discuss cutting-edge trends and emerging opportunities.

I’ve been invited (and am very pleased) as a guest speaker (representing 90:10 Group) at the ‘Social Media’ panel, featuring among others, Ghassan Haddad, Director of Internationalization at Facebook and Timothy Bataillie, the MENA Biz Dev Manager of Netlog, the region’s largest social network for youths (14-24). Full program here.

But where does the Internet stands today in the Arab world (source: startuparabia).

At present there are roughly around 56 million Arab internet users in the Arab world, representing only 17% of the 337 million population.
More people are getting online in the Arab world, and are relying more and more on the Internet for their news, videos, social interactions and more, but only 1% of all content online is in Arabic, not offering them much choice.
Online news consumption is gaining ground with 22% to 34% of the people using internet at least as much as print media to read news.
On average, 70% of the people in the four main Arab markets researched use social networks in some capacity and about 15% use social networking sites at least once a day.
About 6 million internet users in the Middle East – or about 12% of the total online population in the region – have access to broadband networks.
People in the Arab world are spending about three hours per day on the internet on average, which is already on par with the amount of time spent on TV.
About $56 million or 1% of the total media advertising spend is online in the Middle East.
8.3% of active Facebook users come from the Middle East & North Africa, representing a 7.9% penetration. The number of users under 25 years of age represent 60% of active Facebook users in the region. Fastest growth in user adoption in the region is in the 55+ age group.
Among the Arab countries, the top 7 countries in active Facebook user numbers are: Egypt (1,820,000), Saudi Arabia (920,000), Morocco (860,000), UAE (840,000), Tunisia (690,000), Lebanon (680,000), Jordan (490,000).

Last November in Paris, at LeWeb, Joi Ito moderated a panel on the Middle East with Rabea Ataya, Chairman & CEO of Bayt.com and Habib Haddad, Founder of Yamli. Their shared with us (video below) their view and vision of the future growth of the web in the region.

The Arab Media Outlook latest report (PDF) summarizes the region’s opportunity:

Our analysis points to significant opportunities for media companies in the region to use the power of web 2.0 to develop new revenue streams and to maximize the value of both new and existing premium content. Distribution to mobile broadband devices including mobile television will play an important part in this. Another priority area is the development of audience measurement processes for both print and broadcast media. The absence of reliable audience figures makes it difficult for advertisers to target their advertising and to assess its effectiveness, which reduces their willingness to spend.

As far as Twitter is concerned, it is difficult to have any precise figures. Last July, the region counted less than 15,000 users (source SpotOnPR). Since, the growth has been phenomenal, but still difficult to measure precisely its impact on media and brands. Hopefully, I will learn more about the region’s adoption of social media and new web 2.0 start-ups at coming Arabnet conference (25th and 26th of March in Beirut). Promise you to tweet from there and blog as I return to Paris.

Pitching a BarCamp Sponsor

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:53:52 +0000

The movie explains what usually happens if a barcamp organizer pitches a new barcamp sponsor.

Wenn ich jemals ein Déjà-vu hatte, dann ist es das. Ein Gespräch, das ich schon hunderte mal geführt habe – im gleichen Wortlaut. Jeder der schon mal auf Sponsorensuche für ein BarCamp war, wird jetzt unter dem Tisch liegen.

Gefunden bei Alex und Florian, den Kassenzonis.

The Death of Advertising – Media owners time to innovate

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:57:09 +0000

David Cushman and I recently attended OMEXPO in Madrid to present ‘The Death of Advertising’ to the Spanish digital industry (Powerpoint below). What we are getting at is that we believe all the energy put into making the way ads are delivered online better hasn’t led to much value for either the user, the advertiser or the media owner. This is because the Mass Marketing method that followed us from Broadcast Media simply doesn’t work in a networked world. So why continue to flog a dead horse, as we say in the UK.

Put the energy into finding a new ways to use the greatest tools we have ever had to connect with one another. Put simply it is our belief media owners should act as platforms to connect business and consumer to make better stuff. Stuff that actually people want. You don’t have to spend millions convincing them it’s what they want when you have involved them in making it.

Rather brilliantly we are actually in dialogue with 3 large global media owners about how to do just this. Only once we have fixed the media issue can we expect organisations to make best use of it.

The Death Of Advertising Omexpo 2010

View more presentations from 90:10 Group Ltd.

For Your Social Communities to Work, Fish Where the Fish Are

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:43:44 +0000

There is a great opportunity for businesses to use social media to enable conversations and to create communities that extend their capabilities and engage their constituents in richer ways that results in higher retention, lower risk, increased ROI, and faster operational capacity.

Businesses entering the social media space must first figure out where their audience is (isn’t it the beginning of any type of strategy?). Working with communities of any kind, whether it’s a forum, a fan page on Facebook, or a bunch of people on Twitter discussing a particular subject every week, takes care and time. It involves developing true relationships with the audience by helping community members with information they need or solving their problems. A lot more goes into developing the type of respect, authority, and relationships in communities that generate successful strategies and attained goals for companies.

Chris Pirillo, last November at LeWeb, gave us his ‘original’ thoughts about the essence of ‘community’. Community …

…lives inside us. Where I go, community goes. We create it based on our preferences, like dislikes and the people we link up with.
…is becoming increasingly distributed, as we distribute our ideas and thoughts across social networks.
…requires tools that can’t be built (so don’t try), ie if its us, we can’t scale ourselves.
…is a commodity, but people aren’t. It’s easy to set up a website or blog, but the people and voices behind it are what makes it unique, special.
…cannot be controlled, but can be “guided”.
…is no longer defined by physical boundaries. You probably have more in common with a geek living on another continent than your next door neighbor.
…grows its own leaders. the best leaders come organically out of a community, and is not an appointed one. It’s crucial that communities grow it’s own leaders for credibility and respect reasons.
…is the antithesis of ego. Community is myself and everyone else, not just me or my Twitter stream.
… is everywhere, inside you. It’s what you share, your passions — and it’s this that will spell success.

If there is one company who recognizes the vital importance of communities is Coca-Cola, who has developed an Online Social Media Principles and has put its fans (consumers) at the heart of its (online) strategy. This presentation by Michael Donnelly, Group Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing for Coca-Cola, is a great example of how companies should embrace social media and build social communities.

How Foursquare helps Consumers and Businesses

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:06:12 +0000

Since last quarter of 2009, we’ve seen companies like FourSquare and Gowalla – companies allowing customers to check into physical locations and earn badges or points, discounts and share/show nearby contacts where they are – gaining heavy traction (more than 1 million FourSquare checkin per week).

So why many thinks that 2010 will be dominated by one theme: location-based social networking companies.

Reasons to Leverage Location

Immediacy. Location inherently breeds immediacy and action. If a consumer is at a location, close to a location, or close to a contact, they’re more likely to purchase (if they’re there), travel to purchase (if they’re close), or meet up to share (close to a contact). Immediacy enables actionable behavior, and actionable behavior is valuable because it provides measureable results.
Measurable results. Using location and proximity to measure effects is easier than measuring what happens when eyeballs read a tweet. Retailers can use the location-based technologies to further understand their consumers. When consumers check into a location, data such as when consumers visit, how often they visit, and their behavior before and after they visit becomes valuable. With added incentives from brick and mortar stores partnering with these technologies, it is valuable through the information they can receive.
Laser pointer theory. Think of the world as your company’s target – with no map, you’ll fire all over the globe and hit a fraction of your targets. This happens in business too- intentional or unintentional displaced messaging is the result of mis-firing and ill-placement. With location, companies can laser pinpoint and succeed. Misguided marketing and advertising no longer need to be the standard. Marketing and advertising are sometimes described as an art. In 2010, they become a science.
(source: Social Media 2010: The Year of Location)

And I think there’s a further two potentials likely to emerge. The first is for a wikifixing of venues and locations.
says David Cushman in his recent post.
The second is an extraordinary potential to redraw the WHOLE map niche by niche (by each niche and for each niche) wresting control from the centre to the edge. It’s our world, we should map it.

So how Foursquare can help consumers and businesses (by @christuff):

Interesting articles:

Beyond the Badge: Big Media Brands Strike Foursquare Deals (by AdAge)
As the Deals Roll In, so Does Some Revenue for Foursquare (TechCrunch)

Social CRM and Social Business

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:56:25 +0000

Last week had the privilege of attending the CRM Seminar on “Social CRM for Business” organised by BPT Partners, where Paul Greenberg managed to attract a large number the world’s thought leaders on Social CRM and market players during a two-day event in a snowed-in Westin Hotel in Washington DC. To the members of the #SCRM Accidental Community it felt like the culmination point (hence the term #scrmsummit ) after many, many months of tweet conversation, blogging and commenting, skype chatting that have helped us shape our ideas of what a Social CRM Strategy could look like as well as the promise it holds concerning how business can be changed for the benefit of all parties involved. It was great to meet in person finally!

I won’t go and repeat the ideas that have already been put forward by other participants (you can find the links below), but I’ll cut through the chase and give you my takeaway.

The Social Customer is now a given (even though I believe the degree of which she is may vary per country…), and basically always has been around. Contrary to the past, these customers now have the ability to find, reach out and converse with like-minded souls from around the globe, it has exploded. They’re abe to join and leave such tribes and communities provides them with great flexibility to create firm or loose ties as they so please. They are starting to become more and more aware of their power they can bring to bear when they act as a group and are able to bear more pressure as a group, leaving many companies in disarray.

Rather than turn to your company for their information needs about your product or services, they now turn to their peers who they overwhelmingly trust more than they do you. It is the End of Business As Usual (cf The Cluetrain), no more only Outbound Marketing (some would say “shouting”…), you now have to pay closer attention to what is being said about you, where it is being said, why it being said and strive to anticipate where the conversation is going: The new Marketing Logic is Customer centricity through engagement and collaboration, but on the customers’ terms. Authenticity and trust is what matters – more than even the “consistency” of the message.

What really stuck with me was the idea about the Collaborative Value Chain which extends the Enterprise Value Chain of Company, partners/channel, vendors/suppliers, external agencies to include the Customers. The Customer Experience is central, and the whole ecosystem contributes to providing one that is superb, and that includes “knowing what the customer thinks and involving her in your thinking on a systematic, ongoing basis”.

The main question for me following Paul’s seminar is how to organise our companies for Social CRM. As I’ve stated in my Twitter bio since I opened the account, I am excited about Social CRM as an organisational change agent. I believe it is the compelling reason for Enterprise 2.0 implementation whose mantra is to get people to collaborate across the width and breadth of the company. But all to often I get the feeling that the pitch has been about the tools and that people are asked to collaborate for the mantra’s sake (I will follow up on this in a later post).

Social CRM makes Enterprise 2.0 a necessity for “responding to the customer’s control of the conversation” (P.Greenberg) and extends it to include the whole Collaborative Value Chain. This brings me to Social Business, on which Esteban Kolsky tried to explain in this post on The Social Customer I commented that my idea is as follows : “Social Business is the optimisation of the Collaborative Value Chain for customer-centric business.”. Esteban said that there were too many fancy words, so we settled on it being when Customers, Organizations, Suppliers, and Partners work together to optimize the value of doing business together”.

This leads me to the last bit, the why of going down the Social CRM / Social Business Strategy route. If there is only compelling reason it is to ultimately to run your business more efficiently, leverage the customer experience to increase your customer base and ensuring that everyone involved is able to optimize the value they extract and exchange so they will continue to want to collaborate.

Products can be built in the World’s Factory at short notice. Services are easily imitated. Your competitive advantage will be your Customer Base and their ability to advocate your company and persuade their peers to do business with you.

So what do you think, is the idea of Social Business disruptive on the organisation, or a natural evolution?

Once again, thank you to Paul Greenberg for providing us with a platform that has finally allowed us to meet and exchange. It really felt like it was a defining moment for Social CRM as a Practice. Merci!

If you would like some additional points of view on the event, I suggest you take a look at the posts byattendees Mitch Lieberman, Michael Krigsman, Brent Leary, Kevin Paschuck, Mike Fauscette, Dr Natalie Petouhoff, Prem Kumar, Brian Vellmure, Kathy Herrmann, Mike Boysen

Living with Robots

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:54:11 +0000

Honda hat ein nettes Video über Entwicklung von Robotern gestellt, mit ein paar interessanten Einsichten. Ich bin ja ausgemachter ASIMO Fan Ich hoffe, dass ich die Marktreife dieser Dinger noch erlebe!

Weitere Kurzdokumentationen zu verschiedenen anderen Themen gibt es hier: http://dreams.honda.com/

(Disclaimer: Honda ist unser Kunde bei 90:10 Group)

Rethinking Sales in a SCRM Strategy

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:48:38 +0000

Before you start thinking “where the heck is he going to go with this, does he want us to ditch our Sales people?”, let me reassure you – it won’t happen so I won’t try to argue in that sense. All I’ll be talking about here is that we could take the opportunity that a Social CRM Strategy can offer to change the approach we have been taking to organizing for Sales activities. In this post I will concentrate on B2B Sales as this is what I am most familiar with (see Mitch Lieberman’s “Is B2B the new B2C” for more thoughts on the subject).

To condense something that very complex, Marketing has been about getting the attention of potential customers to turn them into lead that Sales can then work with. Sales is about building a relationship with these leads and turning them into prospects and then into clients. To simplify again, Sales – especially in B2B - has come to mean an entity that is specialized in building the relationship between your company and its clients. Note here that I say “building” and not “building and maintaining”… The primary role of Sales Managers is to go out and generate revenue from these relationships. And, unless they have a stake in generating recurrent revenue, they will concentrate their efforts on building new relationships to fill their pipeline. Also, if the fish is not big enough, it may not be fed enough to grow…

Trusted Advisor

So what Sales people actually do? Some cynics would say “press the flesh and cash the check”…but hey! if it was that simple, everyone would be doing it, right? In my point of view, their main role is to establish a trust relationship so that when their prospect decides to invest their time, resources, effort and money, they can be fairly sure that it will not be in vain. The Salesperson serves as a proxy or go-between between the prospect and the company and she takes ownership of that relation (and will be held accountable when things go awry) as a Trusted Advisor, and it is for this that they get their commissions.

Educating the Customer

The way I see it (at least for in the ‘traditional’ sense of Sales Management), the role is mainly about educating the customer about the benefits of the product or service that the company has to offer. Marketing activities will have generated initial curiosity and an interest to go out and obtain a better understanding to see whether the offer is likely to meet up to its promise, and that it corresponds to the Customer Job it pretends to solve. In Sales Management a there are a number of methods such as SPIN or Xerox’s Customer-Centered Selling and derivates are commonly employed to (try to?) manage the Sales Cycle. The Salesperson acts as an educator, but also as a gatekeeper to feed information and other supporting material into the prosepct’s Learning Curve according to what she believes is the right timing to do so. The Salesperson also serves as a coordinator between internal resources to come up with deliverables such as RFP responses, Presales demonstrations, references, organisation of visits to existing clients etc etc. Prospects rely heavily on the Salesperson, as she is the main touchpoint to get the understanding they need to build their purchase decision on.

The Social Customer

Then came along an itsy bitsy spider that spun its web…the ‘Social Customer’ as described by Paul Greenberg (see here for a nice writeup by Esteban Kolsky). The Social Customer will turn to her peers to exchange on what their impressions, experiences, disappointments and whatnot are. Their buying behaviour is now influenced by what what some call ‘Social Shopping’, so that rather than asking your immediate circle of friends and acquaintances, you now have access to the opinions to help you decide of a virtually unlimited number of ‘people like you’ through the use of ‘social tools’.

Just as it has been the case for consumers that now look on multiple Social Media channels (customer communities, blogs, article, WOM, twitter, shop personnel etc.) to learn about the merits of a product they wish to acquire before going out and actually doing so, your B2B clients will increasingly look to the same tools to evaluate what the value proposition is of your company and, lo-and-behold, engage with other prospects to seek the knowledge they need! These same tools could change the way companies source their suppliers.

Rather than go through their assigned Salesperson for their knowledge needs, they can now meet online and have these same conversations about the supplier’s offer. Sage’s Act! forum is a good example of giving clients a platform on which the Act! product can be discussed transparently. Good ideas as well as shortcomings are available for all to see, thus potential client can actually get a good understanding that will help them in their purchase decision-making process. Furthermore, through the integrated monitoring system (as they are managing this forum themselves, Sage has the ability to extract valuable insights), the company can feed information into the forum by encouraging its employees to partcipate, and in general facilitate the conversations and the e2.0 tools now make this possible. And once you recognize that that this has an influence on the Sales cycle, you can start getting creative by giving recognition to those that contribute to these conversations (such as through an e-reputation system with points that can be redeemed for vouchers, gifts, or even holidays). As an added benefit you maybe catching fish that would have fallen through the net initially and your employees will feel more engaged with your company…

Becoming a Facilitator

To summarize, the Salesperson has less and less control over the prospect’s learning process and has been taken an inside-out approach. Now that the prospects are starting lose their dependence on the Salesperson for their knowledge needs, her role will change in order to provide the same amount of added value. The challenge will be shift from being an Educator to a Connector/Facilitator - taking and outside-in approach, understanding what is going on in the ecosystem and feeding it with relevant knowledge on which others can build - in a transparent manner and for all to see. And the role will not only be about connecting to the prospects and customers and facilitating customer interaction, it will also be about connecting these customers to Marketing, R&D, (Consulting…), Partners and Suppliers.

By understanding that prospects now have other options for finding knowledge about what you offer (including your post-sales performance…), you should be looking at adapting your Sales methods to incorporate this shift in balance in my opinion. What are your thoughts on the subject?

Merry Christmas … I don’t

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:59:37 +0000

want to fight tonight …

What I’ve discovered about Twitter

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:55:44 +0000

Twitter has become quite centtral in the way that I go out and research subjects that interest me, and to exchange with people that have knowledge and insight about these. Before I used to turn to Google, but it was very difficult to find the nuggets of knowledge you’re looking for when you get 36 million search results (most of them irrelevant). Twitter has turned out to be an extremely effective tool as a community-based knowledge transfer tool.

I used to be a sceptic – proudly saying I did not tweet – as I did not see the value of telling the whole world that I was having double-twisted latté macchiato cappucino coffee or whatever at a Starbuck’s. Boy was I wrong! Twitter has been the most effective tool that I have found yet. I set up Tweetdeck and did one column that filters on the #scrm hashtag (my main interest), and another on #e20 (these are linked as Social Business, hopefully Esteban Kolsky and I can tell you more about it during the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Paris and Boston). Soon I found out who the most interesting tweeters to follow were (or is it twits? lol) and reached out.

Visually I represent Twitter to myself as a hub. People come together in the center to exchange bite-sized nuggets, links, comments of whatever, and provide links to information that allows you to dig deeper. Follow the spoke to the rim of the wheel (usually blogposts) where someone provides their point of view and relies on others to comment in more detail to deepen collective knowledge even further.

Twitter is also a great way of arranging face to face meetings (tweetups), as there is so much more information that is passed as visual and behavioural cues, tones and variations in tones that you just cannot fit into 140 characters. Content is there, but context and intent can be missing (read Prem Kumar’s post on the Triumvirate). So far I’ve been lucky and honoured to meet Paul Greenberg, Wim Rampen, Bertrand Duperrin, Ian Hendry, Nigel Walsh, Yadu Tekale in person, and in order to cross the divide I’ve been skyping with many others such as Mitch Liebermann, Kathy Hermann. Great people from whom I learn every day that I would have never known without tools such as Twitter!

Like for Wim, Twitter has brought me new friends, connections, thoughts, insights and ideas at a pace I could not have thought possible as little as one year ago, and I hope to meet with even more people in 2010. I feel like a whole new world has opened up to me

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