Sep 16, 2010 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Communication
Social networks have boomed, tools to enable the networks abound, MySpace, twitter, face book et al being the most well known, but many more fail than succeed, and they do so based on the degree of mutuality that exists.
Bear with me here.
Imagine 2 people who have $10 to distribute between them, one has the power to divide the money any way he likes, the other has just one thing, the right to accept or veto the deal for them both.
Rational economics would suggest that the holder of the veto would accept any deal that has him better off beyond the inconvenience of saying yes or no, say 2 cents, as both parties will be better off with a yes. However, experiments consistently demonstrate that the second person will veto any offer he sees as unfair, resulting in both parties losing, and this “fairness” point kicks in around a 70/30 split.
This implies there is a deep willingness to punish unfairness, even at personal cost, and that there is a strong emotional dimension to decision making, something very hard for economists to take account of in their models.
This emotional dimension underpinning behavior has profound implications for the way we should be thinking about the development of networks, irrespective of weather they are social, commercial or political ones.
Social networking works because there is an unspoken deal in place, which promises mutuality, Wikipedia being a shining example, there appears to be no control and there isn’t, control is exercised by the “wiki community” by virtue of their ability to remove any incorrect, irrelevant, or corruptive content, the access to the edit key which is easier to exercise than the effort required to post something, keeps things on track. Wikipedia in its earliest incarnation was a failure, as it left control with a small group of expert editors and contributors, with nothing left for the community which then failed to show up, as the “mutuality deal” was not in place.
Much of my work is with farmer groups, and the greatest challenge in the formative stages of getting a group “over the line” is the notion of mutuality, and how the group coalesces around a source of that mutuality, then finds ways to self regulate, if it is to be successful.
Sep 13, 2010 | Collaboration, Communication, Leadership
It occurred to me that during the recent election campaign, and subsequent “Phony Government” that both sides over-used the term “Social Capital“, as well as mis-using it. Whilst it was not one of the hollow slogans of the campaign, it got a pretty fair run as each side tried to give their “policies” substance.
Social capital is created when a person contributes without any expectation of reward, it is just the right thing to do for the group, and for that sense of well being that individuals feel but do not often articulate. This giving creates a sense of mutual obligation, which is the glue that holds social groups together.
The same dynamic is at work in collaborative systems, if you put in, the sense of obligation is created, and others join the effort. Commercial collaboration has at its heart making a bob, but the social aspects of the collaboration process are ignored or under-estimated at the peril of the collaborative project.
For a number of years I have looked after the grass courts at my local tennis club. It takes some time, it is entirely voluntary, and I do it simply because I enjoy playing the game on grass, the costs of professional maintenance are way beyond the capacity of a small club to fund, and once the grass is replaced or let go to become a cow paddock, it will never come back, and few would want that to happen. In this case, perhaps the mutual bit comes in when other club members are still prepared to play with me in my tennis dotage, which is sometimes a bit closer than I would like.
Sep 12, 2010 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
Product optimisation is not product discovery, the techniques to get the best results differ, usually markedly, as the challenge to collect data to mitigate risk for entirely new products is substantially more difficult than collecting the same data for what is effectively a range extension .
However, in a web environment, experimentation is becoming easier and easier with the Google analytic tools now freely available, so product optimisation is easier and quicker than ever, to the extent that there is no excuse not to use them. The same tools also make collecting data on new products, almost as easy, so long as an “experiment” can be set up.
However, outside the web environment, where the results are not so immediate or transparent, a bit of creative thought will open up ways to use the tools of the web to track test markets, early adopter customer feedback and reactions, service difficulties, unexpected uses that evolve, and the myriad of other factors at play in a genuinely new product, it just takes a bit more effort to dream up and implement the experiment.
Sep 8, 2010 | Branding, Marketing, Small business
Many companies face the challenge of commercial sustainability in mature markets, with declining patronage, increasing costs, and often a fatalistic view of the future.
Last year, I went with a couple of my kids to a performance of ‘A midsummer nights dream” in the Sydney Domain. Wonderful!.
This performance recognises there is an untapped market for these wonderful plays amongst people who would be unlikely to be theatre goers in the “normal” sense, i.e., they do not subscribe to a theatre season, or frequent Shakespeare performances, but the less formal, relatively cheap experience of seeing a classic comedy play under the stars, enjoying a picnic on a summer evening is irresistible to some of those missed by traditional theatre marketing.
What a great way to introduce new customers to Sir Bill, and perhaps convert them to regulars, opening new avenues for exploration, a lesson for others in mature markets?.
Sep 5, 2010 | Change, Communication, Social Media
In a generation, electronic communication has grown from initial inception to ubiquitous, the fastest adoption of any technology and supporting behavior change ever.
I have heard all sorts of babble about why this is, but it seems to me that there is one simple reason, the removal of the transaction costs in earlier forms of communication.
It now costs virtually nothing to send a message via email, and no more to broadcast that same message to hundreds, often thousands of geographically spread recipients.
The downside of course is that our in-boxes have become clogged by stuff we do not want, and did not ask for, but the delete button is pretty effective.
Sep 2, 2010 | Change, Customers, Marketing, Operations, Sales
We spend lots of time dreaming up new stuff, but there are almost always things that we take as given, things that we do not question, usually because they are so basic, that we never think to do otherwise.
Many years ago, a part of my responsibilities was for the marketing of Ski yoghurt in Australia. At that time, all 1kg yoghurt came in round tubs, it was easy, cheap, all the filling equipment was designed for round tubs, as it was the cheapest shape to produce and print, anything else was a dumb idea, and would cost a motzza. I changed Ski to a rectangular tub, and sales tripled overnight, and the market was changed. Consumers for a number of simple, practical, but to then unspoken reasons, preferred a rectangular tub
The whole industry had been dependent on the manufacturers of the filling equipment, who supplied machinery designed to deliver the least cost option, nobody was silly enough to even consider an added cost alternative, so round tubs were the standard, all operational equipment was optimised for round tubs, and the suggestion that you should retool a factory for an alternative was never considered. It’s just that consumers when given the choice abandoned the round tub overnight, and retailers, reaslising a rectangulat tub offered better shelf utilisation, were happy to put them on shelf.
When looking for opportunities, consider the things that are just “there” that are part of the fabric, and are as a result taken for granted, and find one to change.
