Nov 24, 2010 | Change, Communication, Management, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
The power in commercial relationships has shifted dramatically since the net. It has removed the power previously held by companies and institutions and handed it to individuals who choose to use it.
No more can an enterprise afford to ignore or annoy an individual without cause, or even with cause, as the individual now has the capacity to publicly respond with twitter, facebook, linked-in, et al, and have an impact inconceivable just a few years ago.
This is not evolution, it is revolution, as the constraints on the ability to communicate and coalesce around an issue is unprecedented, and represents a fundamental re-ordering of the balance of power. The changes in the external environment are changing much, much quicker than the average organisation is able to change in anticipation, creating a significant short term risk for many of them.
Nov 21, 2010 | Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
As the marginal cost of transactions on the web approaches zero, more and more stuff is “free” . When something is given, the act of giving usually sets up a dynamic of “obligation” on the part of the receiver.
This blog is published on WordPress, for free, the cost to WordPress of hosting my blog, and supplying me with the software is approaching zero.
At some point, I will probably want some features not offered for free. At that time, it is highly unlikely I will go anywhere but the upgrade button on the Blog dashboard, and then Wordpress will generate some revenue, and I will feel I have offered some return for the free use of the software and hosting to this point, as well as not having to climb the barriers to exit.
This dynamic is being repeated everywhere on the web, almost to the point of “free” being the generic price of many services, Wikipedia being the classic.
For marketers, the question is “what is better than free?”, how can we attract customers when free is no longer sufficiently distinctive to be attractive? This goes to the heart of how publishers, of all types, reconstruct their business model to extract a living as their consumer base gets increasingly used to getting their “product” for free.
Nov 18, 2010 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Innovation, OE, Strategy
Only in physics, in personal relationships we seek common ground, people who under stand instinctively what we are saying and thinking, and who work the way we do.
Collaborative teams and alliances of many types often fail from the start because those who join, or are “volunteered” are similar, whereas in a collaborative team with a problem to solve, you need all types, and the processes to assist the management of the group need to be a part of the consideration.
You need at least one of each of the four behavioral extremes;
- Someone who is creative, out there, not too concerned with convention and how it has been done before
- Someone who is numbers and data driven, analytical, who seeks quantitative foundations for hypotheses and ideas
- Someone who just has to complete, they like to plan, and then work the plan to the end
- Someone who builds bridges, and can assist the relationships, both internally and with outsiders
These four types will not often come together without assistance, as they are very different, they see thing in conflicting ways, but to solve a problem, or make an alliance really work and create value for all, that’s just what you need, it is just harder to manage.
Nov 17, 2010 | Change, Strategy
The reluctance of the Federal Government to be transparent about the assumptions underpinning the investment in the NBN would fail the tests of due diligence most boards undertake when making a major commercial allocation of resources.
As a cynical shareholder in “Australia Inc” my suspicion is that the hard work has not been done, and that the underpinning assumptions that have been made are emotionally driven, and short term in nature, rather than by a long term view of the best way to spend shareholders money for the long term competiveness of the enterprise, in this case, the country.
I would resign from any of the commercial boards I contribute to in the event that it determined to make a “bet the farm” investment in a manner that removed flexibility in manner in which the investment was made in the face of a highly ambiguous and rapidly evolving commercial, technical and competitive environment. The only thing we know for sure about investments made under these circumstances is that nothing ever goes completely according to plan, so flexibility and technical agility in the execution of the plan to achieve the desired outcome is essential.
The role of the opposition in this debate is crucial, an optimist would be hopeful that their motives and views are formed by the long term financial and social return that will come from being “competitively connected” in a global world. Malcolm Turnbull appears to be making a good start, hopefully the politics of the thing do not overcome the increasing opportunities to just kick the Government for the sake of the political equivalent of the rush a mugger must get when they stick the boot in.
Nov 16, 2010 | Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
Peter Drucker once said that innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage, and most who have thought about it would agree.
However, in most situations, this commitment to innovation tends to result in more and more potential products and technical solutions, adding complication and cost to every business process.
By contrast, Apple does the opposite, led by Steve Jobs, Apple ruthlessly eliminates all but a very few, and then ensures that the products left on the list are done remarkably well, and remarkably differently.
In 1998 Jobs reduced the products in Apples inventory from 350 to 10, tough love that has resulted in the resources to redevelop the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, rather than spreading themselves thinly across the many products that they already had, and that beckoned.
To be remarkable, (remarkable is Seth Godin’s term, it works!) Apple has removed features, no buttons on a phone, no dials on an iPod, taking seriously the designers mantra that perfection in design is achieved when there is nothing superfluous to the functionality left to remove, rather than all that can be added has been.
Nov 14, 2010 | Innovation, Strategy
Innovation breakthroughs are rare, but the innovation that rewrites the rules of an industry is the focus of most management attention.
Most innovation activity, and the source of most value from innovation, comes in small steps, one day at a time, along a path whose outcome is improvement.
Toytota’s continuous improvement DNA is an enterprise wide innovation effort, now partially understood and codified as the TPS is the best known example, and concentrates on taking small steps, every day, that add up to a huge change over a period of time.
And as we can now see from the quality stumbles of Toyota over the last couple of years, if you take your eye off the long term, and take the short term prize, it can ruin the hard-won momentum.
Look for the trends in your industry, make them visible to the entire enterprise, and tie every activity (not just of employees, but importantly suppliers as well) to the target of achieving an improvement
