Jul 9, 2013 | Branding, Change, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
To talk to consumers, you used to stick an ad on TV, in one of the main mags, on maybe a few radio stations, a shotgun effort informed by some pretty rudimentary demographic data.
Then we migrated to the web, in the late 90’s, and advertisers transferred the techniques of mass marketing to this new medium. The cost of banner ads, in the early days calculated on a similar reach basis as mass advertising, has plummeted to perhaps 1% of that cost, and much better targeted, as we realised they simply did not work. Mass media consumption necessitated being interrupted by ads, we expected it as the price to be paid, but the web, we do not need to be interrupted, as we have the option to ignore. Increasingly, advertising became about direct response, as we can now count it.
Now the next shift is on, to mobile, where the “rules of engagement” have dramatically moved again, and we are figuring out how best to leverage the move. Customers need to be wooed, as shouting at them no longer works, you have access to mountains of data (using it is another whole challenge) that enable targeting at behavior rather than simple demographics, and you can count the effectiveness of tactics, one by one, person by person, directly.
Not only is the practice of marketing radically shifted to accommodate these moves by consumers and the tools to hand, but the organisation of the marketing function needs to have changed to reflect the immediacy of direct response, and the disconnect that has existed between the strategy held in the minds of the senior group, and those who by default spend the marketing dollars, often without any real authority beyond budget expenditure with little accountability for the outcomes.
It seems to me as I poke around that organisational inertia that is the greatest impediment to the potential productivity gains from this explosion of accountability of marketing investments that is now possible.
Jul 5, 2013 | Change, Leadership, Personal Rant
Very few people have heard of Douglas Engelbart, who died on July 4, but it was he that thought up much of the stuff we accept as normal, every day tools and devices.
His relative obscurity is in stark contrast to the billionaires who brought commercial success to many of his ideas, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Elllison, et al.
This presentation, now called the “mother of all presentations” given in December 1968 is almost the public unveiling of computing as we now know it.
Vale Doug, and those who like him beaver away to make all our lives better, without accumulating the celebrity and bling that seems to be expected these days with every idea that sounds good to its urger.
Jun 29, 2013 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Small business
We have a Department of Innovation in Canberra, and similar departments or at least functions in every state jurisdiction, and piles of industry bodies and associations, all mouthing clichés about Innovation being the savior of the economy, and the way of the future. “Innovation leads to new industries, and more jobs” type of windbaggery. Whilst it is absolutely true as a headline, without the substance of an answer to the question: “How” it remains just a press release, and worse, a consumer of public resources with little real potential to add value, and ther promised jobs.
If innovation is step one, and jobs is step three, there must be something in the middle, a step two that enables the creation, growth and commercial sustainability of the enterprises that create the jobs.
This video of Steve Blank, one of the motivators of the Lean Start-up movement likens the efforts of government to innovate to the South Park episode where gnomes are collecting underpants in the expectation of profit.
I see this so often, a leap of faith which is really a failure of logic. To get to phase three, and profitability takes more than a good idea, available resources, and fast talking, you also have to have a process to deliver value to customers superior to their existing service or product.
Jun 26, 2013 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
Across all my activities, I hear management talking about the “next big thing”, the importance of innovation, of being different, creating new product platforms, and striving to be disruptive, but settling for a change of colour, flavour or pack size.
After a long time at this, it seems there are a small number of very consistent reasons that show up, usually in multiples.
1. Incremental is easy. It is easy to be incremental, but true innovation is really, really hard. Not only do you have to come up with the ideas, but you have to sell them internally before you get a chance to take ideas to the market. Taking yourself, and the enterprise outside its comfort zone is a major exercise in leadership, and there simply is not enough of it. On top of that, it is hard to get a budget for stuff you have little idea about, the discounted cash flow analyses, even if they are at the push of a spreadsheet button, carry way more corporate weight.
2. Human beings are risk averse. We like the stable, familiar, and predictable, and shy away risk. Daniel Kahneman co-authored a 1979 article which won him the Nobel prize, that put numbers around the notion of risk reward. When offered the choice of $1000, or a 50% chance of $2,500, a majority take the money and run.
3. It really is so easy to say No. Finding reasons not to take a punt is really easy, there are usually many on offer. By contrast, it is difficult, risky, potentially personally expensive, to say yes, and you have to keep on saying it, confirming and reconfirming the project in the face of the naysayers. Corporations of any size larger than 7 people are hierarchies, and consequences of decision making are social as well as commercial. Few people are prepared to be seen to make a mistake, and most will avoid the possibility like the plague.
Every organization needs some sort of balance, a discipline of culture that regulates the manner in which they behave. It is in the way the balance is struck, and the behavior that is favored where the innovative enterprises have the edge. Everybody has the same(or similar) access to the market for ideas, good people, technology, and all the other inputs necessary apart from the fundamentally important one that is internal, the culture of the place.
Safe nowadays is the new risky, so get off the fence!
Jun 25, 2013 | Change, Governance, Management, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Governments and their regulation centric thought processes always lag the digital developments that are accelerating in our world. Typically, they are regulating to close the barn door well after the horse is across the paddock, and failing to consult those who understand the processes, so do a lousy job. Just look at the failed supermarket and petrol price “initiatives”, web site filtering, and utter failure to communicate the case supporting the NBN in anything other than clichés, amongst other failures.
Well, there is another revolution on our doorsteps, one that governments must be salivating about, if they recognise the opportunity to rope us in, as the Prism revelations in the US have demonstrated.
It is pretty obvious that recognition software is about to be a general reality, as it gets rolled out in various forms on mobile platforms. Voice, face, and biometric recognition are all technologies that are in existence, and when Apple, or Samsung stick it on a mobile platform, whooppee, off it will go, and with it, the opportunity to collect huge amounts of personal data beyond that which is collectable now. Facial recognition and digital trickery combined will enable every face (just double click anywhere in the linked photo) in a photo to be identified, by simply tying to a social media database.
Bingo!
What will be done with this capability?
The old “I have nothing to hide” argument is looking limp in the face of such absolute ability to identify the where, who, who with and when capabilities being delivered to just about anyone with a camera and computer. Where are the new barriers of “personal information”?
Clearly commercial uses abound, as do those for the administrative and legal tracking of individuals, but it is the nefarious uses this degree of identification can be put to that are scary.
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.
