Jun 18, 2013 | Change, Governance, Leadership, Personal Rant
As this excruciating election campaign continues, the trivial, irrelevent, personal, short term crap we have come to expect is getting laid on with a spade. Nothing substantive is being considered by the pollies, and whilst it is easy to say the media is blowing it all up, from personal experience, the Canberra “officials” who implement, are also sitting on their hands, waiting, and wondering.
If you add up the cost of our political system, and all its accoutrements, Local , state and federal, it is billions, and billions. We pay so much, 32% of GDP, surely this should qualify us to get a bit of value for our money, but we accept what is being doled out like cattle to the slaughter, with nary a whimper.
When will the real debate, on real issues, real ideas, and questions of the future of the country, and that of our children, be taken seriously?
Perhaps it is time for us to dismiss the nonsense we are being fed, and demand what we are paying for.
Lawrence Lessig’s TED presentation is one we should all a watch as the current federal parliament goes through its death throes. It should also be compolsary viewing in Canberra, all union HQ’s and offices of every walley empowered to make up regulations.
Our system worked well for many years, and is still better than alternatives, but it is grossly unsuited for continuing prosperity and social harmony the 21st century. We need to be forcing an evolution to accommodate our new circumstances, not be wedded to a model of the 19th century.
Jun 17, 2013 | Customers, Marketing, Sales, Social Media
Look at all the verbiage on the net about content marketing, having a personal brand, being a substantial presence on social media, and all the rest of the stuff. Really it is all about one simple idea, making yourself easy to find, then engaging the finder in a conversation that leads to a relationship. With good marketing comes the opportunity to turn that relationship from a casual one into a commercial one.
The days of putting a few advertisements out there, and making yourself available, are over. Everything has been commoditised, supply chains disintermediated, information ubiquitous, and terms and prices transparent.
Those in the market for something now do their research on line, sometimes “road-test” the product (weather it be a car of pair of jeans) in a bricks and mortar retailer, come to a decision and purchase, all in a set of discrete actions over which the seller has no control, and often is totally unaware of it going on. It is this loss of control of the process that makes the huge difference between now and just 15 years ago, when the retailer had the control of the information, and the location.
The initiative is in the hands of the buyer, so the game as a seller is not to have the product the buyer wants available when they want it, in the specifications required, but firstly to be found, all the rest comes later.
Buyers move through a cycle, from recognising the need, setting themselves a budget, doing research, creating a short list, and making the final choice. The earlier in the process a seller can be a part of the consideration, the greater the chance they will be there at the end.
It is in this new process of “engagement” with potential as well as current customers that is the value of content.
Jun 14, 2013 | Branding, Marketing, retail, Sales, Social Media
What will happen when facial recognition is good enough to recognise a person walking into a retail shop, and convey to a device that persons purchase history, returns, sizes, social media mentions and links, and all the rich data that can be collected. The opportunities to use this sort of marketing data integration are limited only by your imagination.
This is just a step away, probably closer even than that, the speed of development of software applications has been amazing.
Next time you walk into a shop, the assistant just may greet you with asking how the function you bought the blue dress for 2 months ago went, or inform you that they have just one left of a belt that would be a great match to the shoes you bought in February, and on it can go……
The real human challenge will be engaging your customers using all this information without being stilted or “creepy”, not a good outcome.
George Orwell is alive and well.
P.S. August 20, 2013.
Tom Fishburne, a favourite commentator on marketing who uses incisive cartoons to make his point posted this cartoon this morning, with the link to the Minority report clip that makes my point above way better than I did. Great stuff Tom.
Jun 13, 2013 | Collaboration, Governance, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
One of the most famous photos ever taken, above, is of the 29 Participants in the 1927 Solvay Physics conference. The astonishing thing is that of the 29, 17 were Nobel prize winners, lauded busy people, so how did they get them all together at the same time?
Relatively easy, as at the time the photo was taken, only 3 had already won the Nobel prize, the other 14 won in the years after the conference, so were mostly unknown outside their research domain. (One of those who had already won was Marie Curie, who is also the only person in the photo to have won the prize twice, in different disciplines)
The point is that assembling this group, the organisers were not looking backwards, they were looking forward, to those who would make, rather than had already made a huge contribution to the topic.
Next time you are considering the personnel to go onto a project team, seeking to define your role into the future, or just operating a day to day activity, exercise the same forethought, and open the opportunity for great things.
Jun 12, 2013 | Change, Customers, Lean, Operations, Sales
The sorts of customers you have play a significant role in defining who you are.
A former client had a customer base that valued the hands on, custom design, and short supply chain they offered on their packaging component items. That group of clients were not buying the high volume, commoditized products, but far smaller volumes for more specialised and bespoke products.
However, promises of large volumes can be seductive, so in the face of squeezed margins and a flat industry, they broadened their product base to include the low margin high volume items required by the large commodity product suppliers.
The equation was changed, no longer did they enjoy an intimate relationship with their largest customers, being engaged in their businesses at a detailed, technical and developmental level, they were just suppliers who could be replaced with product from China or the US.
The result is a flat revenue line over the last 5 years, with fragile margins despite great success in increasing the productivity of their asset base and employees, and a significant lowering of overheads.
It takes guts and vision to turn a customer away, but it often pays.
