Mar 12, 2014 | Collaboration, Communication
“You complete me” a really cheesy line, made famous by the Jerry Maguire movie, but relevant elsewhere.
Communication devices have exploded over the last decade, most of us now have multiple tools by which to communicate, but just how well are we doing it?
Pretty poorly by my count.
We spew stuff out, and sometimes some of it comes back on us, good and bad, but are we actually communicating?
Isn’t communication supposed to be a two way process, something that engages the parties, grows, informs, adds value ?
Tools are only useful when well used, communication devices by themselves are just objects, they need people, stories, and emotion to be of any value.
Communication tools need people to complete them.
Mar 11, 2014 | Change, Governance, Innovation, Personal Rant
Comment on possible changes to the cross media ownership laws is emerging, again. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull reopened the conversation in an interview with Sky, reflecting that the media landscape had changed dramatically, so it makes sense to change the rules that govern the ownership that were set up before the changes occurred. It seems pretty sensible to me.
However, here is the paradox.
The traditional media is commercially stuffed, as the advertising has been drained away by the “new media” of the internet, but never have they been so powerful. Just look at the role the Murdoch press, and the so called “news” programs on commercial TV at prime time in the evening, played in the recent federal election.
“New media” outlets are popping up all over the place, previously unpublishable individuals (like yours truly) can have their say, amongst comment and analysis by serious groups like the Guardian , and new collaborations like that represented by the Conversation . However, the agenda is still being shaped by the newspapers and evening TV “news” programs.
Occupying a core place in the system is the ABC, seemingly reviled by both political persuasions when in Government, so they must be doing something right. However, the future of the ABC is consistently under question, and the economic argument is a solid one. The demographics of the ABC are heavily skewed towards the top half of the population, 70% of the population never engage with the ABC over the course of a year, and yet we all pay equally, effectively a regressive tax. As the argument goes, those who want the ABC can generally afford to pay for it, or have their viewing/listening interrupted by ads which pay for it, and those who do not ever listen/view it should not be expected to pay.
The media landscape has changed beyond recognition in the last decade, and the rules that govern that landscape should evolve as well to better ensure a competitively and commercially healthy system, as we are all best served by diversity, competition and innovation. Just what that evolved regulatory framework means is under debate, and some pretty smart people are putting their views, amongst them Marc Andreesen, an investor who gets it right more often than he gets it wrong, with this terrific post on the future of news.
Any change will impact all of us. How we obtain information, analysis, and opinion, wrapped up as “news” in my humble view, is crucial to the way we interact with the world, and we should all be engaged in the debate about the changes.
Mar 7, 2014 | Governance, Leadership
Everyone knows the optimist sees the glass half full, and the pessimist sees it as half empty, but few see the other options.
The technologist sees the shape as sub-optimal
The engineer sees the variation of material in the glass as an affront to his efficiency
The designer sees the glass as twice the size it needs to be
The production manager wants more glasses
The marketer thinks the glass just needs to be bigger, with a better name
The innovator is keen to find another way to introduce liquid into the glass
The accountant just bitches about the costs.
The entrepreneur sees a great opportunity in glasses
The salesman points out that people buy less glasses when it rains, which is why his sales are down
Leaders find ways to bridge the gaps between these perspectives, and have everyone working to a common goal.
Mar 5, 2014 | Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Recently I have been talking to SME’s about their engagement with digital tools, and getting some pretty disturbing responses.
Many when asked will say they are engaged, because their phone is connected to google maps so they can find their way home at 3am. Not setting out to mislead me asking the question, it is just that they do not know what they do not know.
Several pieces of research around suggest that around 40% of Australian SME’s do not have a website, and a large proportion of those who do are not using them as much beyond an electronic brochure. The “last updated” box is the giveaway, even if from the content it is obvious.
At the other end of the scale, there are a few who have just so much data and options at their disposal, and often so much conflicting advice coming in, that they are paralysed with indecision.
Somewhere along the line I recall a comment, probably by Avinash Kaushik where he said something like “given me an extra hundred dollars to spend any way I like on data, and I would choose to spend $10 on the data, the other $90 on people who could understand and use it”.
Sorting the quality insights and ideas from the tsunami of stuff coming at us is the marketing challenge of the century. Automating it is only half the task, the GIGO effect takes over very quickly, you have to really understand it.
For the beginners at this stuff I advise just two measures:
- Bounce rate,
- Conversion rate.
All the other metrics that you can develop and that are now freely available can be hugely valuable, but knowing these two is a bit like knowing where the brakes and accelerator are in your car, essential for productive progress.
Quality of visitors beats quantity every time, and these two measures together give you that insight.
Feb 25, 2014 | Branding, Change, Collaboration, Demand chains, Marketing, retail
A pilot program I have been recently involved with, setting out to assist the evolution of a” Sydney Harvest” brand of local produce has not delivered the results hoped for.
After years of agitation by produce growers in the Sydney basin, beset as they are by aggressive competition from the chain stores, lack of scale and high operating costs as a result of being in semi urban areas, governed by urban concerns, the pilot was created. It was a collaboration between a small number of Sydney basin growers, and specialist retailers aimed at delivering the freshest and best possible produce to those discerning and demanding customers who choose to shop at the specialist produce outlets.
The value proposition was simple : “You know it is fresh, because it come from down the road, you know the retailer, and here is the grower, guaranteeing product provenance and farming practice sustainability”.
In considering the reporting of the exercise, part of the shortcoming of the pilot was that there was little commitment beyond the verbal from the participants, even though the verbal commitment was strong. This is very common in the early stages of collaborative exercises, everyone says “yes” and waits for others to do the lifting. The emergence or otherwise of a “champion” someone who takes on the challenges at a visceral level, can be the main bellwether of success.
Watching a presentation by Seth Godin last night, he articulated just the situation we had.
There was no “connection” between the participants beyond the superficial, the human connection was not there.
Godin calls Connection “The asset of the future” and in a connected world, it would be hard to argue against this proposition. He further identified 4 pre-conditions of connection occurring.
- Co-Ordination. There was co-ordination in this pilot, but it was managed from the outside, by me, there was little skin in the co-ordination part of the game by participants.
- Trust. Trust evolves over time as a result of behaviour, it is never given, it has to be earned. In this case, we underestimated hugely the role to be played by trust, and the preconditions necessary for its evolution.
- Permission. Seth is talking about permission being given by the subject of a marketing effort, so this pilot is a different set of circumstances, nevertheless, whilst” permission” was given in the sense that all signed up to the pilot knowing exactly what was going to happen, and the role they were expected to play, when it went away, nobody missed it. The “permission” whilst given was nothing more than a superficial “OK”
- Exchange of ideas. In this case, whilst there was superficial buy in, the subsequent behaviour did not include interaction amongst the participants. They were too busy and pre-occupied with the normal business to put the time aside to exchange ideas, and get to know on a human level the other participants ,exchange ideas and experiences, and learn from each other.
This stuff is really, really, hard, and the only way we learn is by jumping in and having a go.
