Tid for endring for store og små

Verdensøkonomien er usikker. Trygt den ene uken, krise den neste, i følge verdens «ekspertise». Norske myndigheter advarer mot å tenke «om» vi blir påvirket, men ber oss snarere om å tenke «når» vi får konsekvensene av hva som skjer i verdensøkonomien. Det er som et «økonomi- ekstremværvarsel»

Disse ukene og de kommende månedene sitter (forhåpentlig) ledere i de aller fleste virksomheter, innenfor de aller fleste bransjer og vurderer hva de skal gjøre. Budsjetter gjennomgås, risiko minimeres. Tradisjonelt sett utsettes da investeringer, man vurderer kostnadskutt, kort sagt man forsøker å få oversikt over trusler og man er relativt engstelig for fremtiden. Det  er svært klokt å tenke seg om nå.

På den andre siden tror jeg det er farlig å gjemme seg inne i en hule og vente på at stormen kommer, og tenke seg at man skal forbli der til «uværet» har gått over.

Jeg har tidligere skrevet om at vi trenger «endringspakker» snarere enn «krisepakker». Det mener jeg fortsatt. Jeg mener altså at digitalisering av større eller mindre deler av virksomheten er et område hvor virksomheter kan hente relativt stor gevinst, på kort tid, med relativt små kostnader.

Utfordringer
Det er også forskjell på hvilke utfordringer forskjellige bransjer står overfor. Staten vår sier den vil stå der som en garantist – for landet vårt. Den vil ikke kunne løse den enkelte bedrift sine problemer. Offentlig virksomhet står nå overfor store utfordringer og må selv levere forbedrede tjenester og økt effektivitet på en rekke områder. Både lokalt og nasjonalt. Tilnærmingen jeg beskriver i denne bloggposten er også effektiv for dem.

I privat sektor er det forskjellige utfordringer i forskjellige bransjer, noen nevner jeg her:

• Olje- og gassnæringen, samt alle som leverer produkter og tjenester til offshore vil kunne få andre utfordringer enn resten av næringslivet, avhengig av internasjonale priser på nettopp olje og gass. Bransjen er ikke unntatt fra risiko. Resten av energi- og industribransjen igjen har andre utfordringer.
• Telecombransjen er inne i store strukturelle endringer. Her står mye av «spillet» om Asia som vekstmarked, men digitaliseringstakten i vesten endrer også forutsetningene deres. Dette igjen påvirker både mobilbransjen, mediabransjen og leverandørkjedene omkring disse.
• Alle må ha mat, men man kan regne med endringer i forbruksmønstre og kostnader også her. Kostbare varer kan hende ikke er like lett omsettelige de neste årene. Dette vil påvirke både produksjonsledd, distribusjon og salgsleddene. Spesielt fiskeindustri og fiskeeksport vil merke dette tydelig. Transportnæringen vil måtte forholde seg til også slike endringer.
• Boligmarkedet er høyst usikkert og dersom det er en boble som sprekker vil det påvirke husholdningene kraftig, noe som igjen vil forverre forbruksevne, gi problem for banker og også øvrig finansbransje. Byggebransjen vil kunne oppleve forskjellige scenarioer i Norge som følge av hva staten evt. kan gjøre for å demme opp mot negative konsekvenser av boligmangel/ gjeldsproblemer
• Hele reiselivs- turist- og hotell/restaurantbransjene vil åpenbart merke endringer.

Tiltak
Både store og små virksomheter i privat sektor må selv gjøre alt de kan for å løse utfordringene, det er det ingen tvil om. De neste årene vil vi se at noen vil ha gjort de riktige grepene og være morgendagens «vinnere». Om noen år, tror jeg at det har skjedd mange strukturelle endringer i næringslivet, og det er mange ting vi vil se tilbake på som radikale endringer. Både lokalt og globalt.

Spesielt bedrifter i Norge som eksporterer,- nesten alt annet enn olje og gass, står overfor tøffe tider.

Det vil kunne være noen fundamentale elementer ved ens virksomhet man ikke rekker å endre, men det vil kunne være mange elementer man kan sikre dersom man gjør grep nå. Overordnet sett tror jeg at både SMB markedet og store selskaper må rette fokus på fire områder samtidig for å sikre seg så godt som mulig. En metodisk tilnærming er:

• Å skaffe seg grundig kundeinnsikt, oversikt over scenarioer for egen bedrift og arbeide intensivt med å finne løsninger for kundene sine som kundene kan ha råd til. Å nå vurdere nye målgrupper (eks. innlandsmarkedet i stedet for eksportmarkedet) kan være et godt forberedende tiltak.
• Å evaluere egne tjeneste-/ produktspekter, for å se om kundene i kommende tider vil få løst sine problemer eller dekket sine behov bedre ved å endre på selve produktene, eller tjenestene kan nå vise seg å være avgjørende for om virksomheten lykkes. Det er imidlertid viktig å ha tilstrekkelig innsikt om kundene og deres ønsker OG evner, før en endrer selve produkt/tjenestespekteret. Imidlertid kan endring i / og / eller å benytte andre forretningsmodeller være et fornuftig trekk for å være parat til konsekvenser av den globale økonomikrisen vi ser utvikler seg i stadig negativ retning.
• Å endre arbeidsmåte, implementere ny teknologi, ta i bruk mer effektive salg/ markedsføringsmetoder når dette er kostnadsbesparende er en bedre ide, enn å vente til det er for sent og måtte si opp folk og slutte å bruke penger på salgsaktiviteter. Det vil bare føre til ytterligere forverring. Her står implementering av ny digitalstrategi frem som et fornuftig tiltak.
• Å kommunisere hvordan virksomheten kan bidra til å løse kundenes problemer og dekke behov i de tider som vi står oppe i, og de vi er på vei inn i på en måte som gjør at de får minst mulig negative konsekvenser for egen situasjon. M.a.o. å formidle tydelig hvilke fordeler forbruker har av å få løst sine problemer (og eller dekket sine behov) innenfor områder nettopp din virksomhet kan levere. Her tror jeg på kommunikasjonsløsninger som bygger tette relasjoner til kundene, på å kommunisere tett, nært og profesjonelt i relevante kanaler og på å knytte kommunikasjon veldig tett opp mot service og ekstremt god kundebehandling.

Medan bokbransjen leitar etter vegen, går andre på den.

Nokre gonger skal ein sjå etter andre stader enn der ein fyrst tenkjer at ein vil finne det ein ser etter. Forlag- og bokbransjen leitar etter ein veg å gå frå papir, til også å finne dei lønsame digitale løysingane.

Det er litt som då eg ein gong for lenge sidan vart kjend med Helge Torvund.

Fyrst såg eg føtene hans. Då eg var gut var eg titt på besøk hjå kameraten min og no og då hende det at dei vaksne hadde fest. Då låg me borna under stuebordet, slik at dei ikkje såg oss og me slapp å gå å leggje oss. Der under bordet høyrde me dei vaksne skåle, synge og spele gitar. Dei snakka om kunst, om litteratur, om keramikk og Japanarar. Eit av para med føter var Helge Torvund sine. Slik vart eg kjend med han. Han hadde utgjeve diktsamling alt då, trur eg. Han var diktar.

Dette var på syttitalet ein gong, og åra gjekk, eg vart vaksen og brått var eg på internett og no seinare på Twitter.

Der, ein dag dukka @2rvund (Helge Torvund) opp, ein morgon, nett då sola lagar slikt lys som gjer at ein ser etter. Det gjorde eg med dei fyrste Twittermeldingane hans òg, såg etter. 140 teikn, tankeskisser og klår poesi. Mest kvar morgon kom dei orda som fekk mange av oss til å tenkje tankane våre betre.

Og slik har det vore sidan. Så kom ein twittersamtale mellom han og @eidsvag (Bjørn Eidsvåg) og etterkvart vart det den hiten me alle trudde det ville verte. «Oppe for show,nede for telling» Mykje kan kome ut av dialog i digitale univers.

Så kom Alabama? Lite visste eg at det ikkje berre var eit artig påfunn og seinkveldstwitterhumor om ein stad i Amerika. Men etterkvart skjøna eg at det var ei diktsamling. Ei bok. Ei bok som vart snakka om på Twitter, som det vart laga biletblogg av om kor denne boka har vore.

No har diktsamlinga Alabama? vandra frå kjøkkenbenken til han Helge, ut i verda, heile verda. Ho har vandra frå hendene til Helge, fått hans signatur og helsing, vorten sendt til alle som har bedt om det – på Twitter. Helge Torvund har fylt Litteraturhuset, Rogaland teatersal og utallege bibliotek, kor han har lese frå boka si, til dei som vil verta betre kjende med Helge sine setningar, lest av han. Slik merksemd fortel @2rvund meg at han ikkje har fått før. Diktsamlingar plar ikkje få det. Fulle hus.

No kjem ei anna bok, Vivaldi, den ser ut til å få same lagnaden, frå kjøkkenbenken, via hendene og fyllepennen til Helge med signatur til alle på Twitter som finn verdi i å lese gode setningar og bli betre kjend med forfattaren bak orda.

Kva har dette med bokbransjen å gjere? Ikkje så mykje, og det er nett det som er poenget.

Forlag og bokhandlar har ikkje leita etter digitalvegen på rette stadane. Dei har ikkje gjort noko i digitale univers som har gjort at døme eg har brukt her; Alabama? er seld fire, kan hende fem gonger så mykje som andre diktsamlingar. Det har Helge gjort sjølv, blant anna på Twitter.

Samstundes har Helge vist noko svært vesentleg. Det vesentlege i det nære, det å kjenne, det å være tilstades hjå og med sine lesarar. Den digitale dialogen har forsterka det personlege og det fysiske møte mellom litteratur, tilhøyrar og forfattar.

Her kan forlag og bokbransjen verkeleg lære noko; denne gongen kom det frå noko av det smalaste, minst kommersielle innan litteraturen. Det er forfatterane og dikterane som sjølv les frå bøkene sine, skriv på Twitter og sjølv finn vegen mellom den tradisjonelle rolla og den nye tida.

Er forlag- og bokbransjen rusta for å ta spranget saman med dei (eg vonar det), eller vil fleire og fleire forfattarar og diktarar i framtida velje å gå vegen utan dei?

Kåring «vinner» av 2011 Julekalender

Midnatt 02.01.2011 gikk fristen ut for å foreslå hvem som bør vinne premien, som er «Heder & ære for godt digitalt arbeid 2011» OG premien: 1 dags workshop basert på forbedringspotensial fra  Julekalenderen 2011.

Det har vært interessant å skrive disse små daglige rådene og jeg har fått svært mange tilbakemeldinger og bloggen har vært besøkt mer daglig gjennom dette, enn noen av årets foregående bloggposter. Slik sett har det vært en suksess.

Imidlertid har jeg også mer å lære, fordi det har vært minimalt med kommentarer og debatt på kommentarfeltet og veldig få som har fremmet forslag gjennom twitter, facebook og linkedin. Imidlertid har jeg fått mange kommentarer og «tommelen opp» gjennom twittermeldinger og samtaler i møte med folk. På grunn av få forslag blir det ikke riktig at «twitter» bestemmer. En hurtigarbeidende Jury ble derfor nedsatt (meg selv)

Kåringen av premien: 1 dags workshop 2011
Denne premien handler om at det er kommet forslag til virksomheter som noen mener fortjener en heldags workshop sammen med meg (ubeskjeden som jeg er) for å se på hvordan virksomheten kan forbedre sine digitale aktiviteter.

Måten workshopen vil foregå på er beskrevet HER. Verdien av premien er på om lag 15.000.- i arbeidstimer. (forberedelse, gjennomføring og etterarbeid) *eventuelle andre kostnader ikke inkludert.

Tanken er at den som allerede gjør et svært godt arbeid i digitale kanaler ikke trenger å «få» en workshop gratis. De har allerede vunnet gode resultater. Denne vinneren (som får heder og ære) ble Stormberg og begrunnelsen er lengre ned i denne bloggposten. Vi snakker altså om 2 verdige vinnere!

Virksomheten som vinner 1/1 dags workshop har en leder som har tidligere har vist at det går å slå de virkelig store aktørene ved å være liten, tenke annerledes, kreativ og hardt arbeidende for så å bli en betydelig aktør i sin bransje. Lederen er en typisk gründer og står nå bak en relativt ny satsning.

Virksomheten er ikke veldig gammel, men har allerede vist resultater. Internasjonal satsning er en del av strategien og jeg mener det er et spennende selskap vi står overfor. Dette på tross av at noen altså mener at selskapet fortsatt har mye å gå på i forhold til sin digitale satsning. Når jeg (som selvutnevnt Jury) har sett på virksomheten, ser jeg at det gjøres veldig mye bra, at det er mange aktiviteter digitalt og at det skjer mye spennende. Mitt inntrykk, sett utenfra, er også at det kan tenkes at det «spriker» litt i flere retninger og at jeg ikke helt ser sammenhengen i hva virksomheten vil oppnå (hensikt), for hvem og hvilke fordeler som egentlig tilbys. Jeg kan selvfølgelig ta feil og jeg gleder meg virkelig til å få jobbe sammen med virksomheten gjennom en hel dag for å se hvilke tiltak som enklest kan iverksettes og som gir hurtige forbedringer i deres digitalsatsning.

Min holdning er at menneskene i en virksomhet sannsynligvis sitter på alle svarene selv. Min jobb er som oftest å fasilitere workshoper, prosesser og få frem spørsmål som tydeliggjør kjernen av utfordringer og hva som skal til for å lykkes. Jeg kan utfordre, sortere og tydeliggjøre, men samme hva konsulenter og rådgivere påstår, er det sjelden de vet mer om en virksomhet og hva som skal til enn de som allerede jobber der!

Det jeg er sikker på er at virksomheten har svært gode forutsetninger for å klare å nå målene det ser ut som de har, spesielt i tider som vi er inne i nå også fordi strategien er å vokse internasjonalt. Dette kan høres paradoksalt ut, men det er velkjent at de som kan ta markedsandeler i dårlige tider er de som ofte blir morgendagens vinnere. En siste begrunnelse for valget er at denne virksomheten (av de få foreslåtte) er at jeg anser at denne virksomheten kan flytte seg lengst på kortest tid.(relativt sett). Jeg vil gjerne peke på at det var andre virksomheter som jeg mener «sliter» mye mer i sin digitale tilstedeværelse, men hvor jeg anser at det ikke er realistisk at 1 dags workshop er tilstrekkelig for å kunne skape konkrete resultater.

Jeg velger derfor å gi LUDO family premien 1 dags workshop, også rett og slett fordi jeg har lyst å jobbe med dem en dag og se hvor mye vi kan få til sammen på så kort tid.

Heder & ære premien
Virksomheten som «vinner» er faktisk foreslått muntlig, altså ikke gjennom sosiale medier o.l. noe som i seg er morsomt og typisk for godt digitalt arbeid synes «juryen» (altså meg selv), fordi det analoge (personlige) og digitale går hånd i hånd – også i virksomheten som er valgt.

Virksomheten har gjennom lang tid vist at de evner å følge mange av de rådene jeg har gitt – i praksis over tid. De er tydelige på hva deres kjernevirksomhet er, hvilke fordeler de tilbyr markedet sitt, hvordan man får tak i produktene, hva det koster, kontaktmuligheter gjennom mange kanaler osv. Dvs. de «elementære» digitale elementene er på plass.

Hvilke «backofficeløsninger» de har kjenner jeg ikke til og i hvor stor grad de har klart å bruke digitale løsninger for å effektivisere driften vet jeg heller ikke. Jeg ser at omdømmet  er bra, at leveranser skjer tilstrekkelig hurtig og at kunderelasjonene er gode. Virksomheten evner også å ta tilbakemeldinger og gjøre dette om til forbedrede leveranser og produkter.  Om jeg skal trekke frem et forbedringspunkt, tror jeg at virksomheten vil tjene på å bruke noe mer tid på sitt visuelle språk.

Jeg ser at virksomheten har en innarbeidet (og avansert) forståelse av deres virksomhets «hensikt» er, i og med at de har funnet en konkret måte å drive forretning på som strekker seg ut langt over egen profitt. Dette er et punkt jeg mener virksomheten virkelig skal ta til seg som en anerkjennelse. Av andre mer «avanserte» grep er å ha funnet sin egen måte å bruke «crowdsourcing» og nyttiggjort seg dette på en pragmatisk måte.

Mye er sagt om denne virksomheten fra før og utallige konsulenter har fremhevet dem fra før. Jeg vil gjerne minne om at virksomheten er dyktig digitalt på mer en Sosiale medier. Jeg synes at det er svært positivt at andre enn kun daglig leder er synlig og aktiv i markedet, selv om fortsatt mange fortsatt assosierer bedriften med lederen. En annen viktig grunn til at jeg vil velge dem som vinner av gstenes weblogs Julekalender 2011 er at virksomheten startet tidlig, har vært aktiv lenge og evner å stadig utvikle seg.

Jeg gratulerer Stormberg og alle ansatte med seieren!
Stormberg vinner derved årets «Heder & ære pris for godt digitalt arbeid 2011»

Digitalstrategi Julekalender

Hvem fortjener heder & ære og hvem fortjener 1/1 dg. Workshop av meg. 

Vinner kåres bl.a. gjennom Twitter, facebook og LinkedIn; du kan påvirke resultatet!

Vinner er den virksomhet (offentlig, eller privat) som av Twitterfolk, facebook, linkedIn ( kommentarfelt her eller e post går også bra) har fått flest stemmer/anbefalinger i forhold til å ha fulgt flest av de råd tips som er gitt i Julekalenderen frem t.o.m. Julaften. Siden Vinneren allerede er god,vinner denne heder og ære!

Den virksomheten som du mener trenger å følge flere av mine råd får i “trøste” PREMIE en dags rådgivning av meg. Verdi omlag 15.000kr. eks. mva. Workshopen følger “Quick Win” metodikken som er beskrevet i blogginnlegget “Digitalstrategi kan være så mangt“

* Små skrift: Gjelder kun Norske selskaper.  Jeg har ikke råd til å dekke evt. reisekostnader eller andre konkrete utgifter. Workshop kan holdes i Oslo eller kostnader dekkes av den som får premien. Jeg forbeholder meg retten til å ta egne valg, dersom det kommer inn for få forslag.

Altså twitterfolk (og kommentarfeltet gjelder) deres beskrivelse av:
Hvilken virksomhet er best til å følge mine råd vinner heder og ære (samt markedet) hvem mener dere det er ?
Hvilken virksomhet er dårligst og får en heldags workshop som Premie og muligheten til å bli bedre?

Innkomne forslag hittil :

Forslag til Best til å følge råd (kan vinne heder og ære):
Trondheim Kommune
Norwegian
Stormberg
AHO
Ventelo.no
Komplett.no
elkjøp.no

Forslag til Dårligst til å følge råd (Premie en dags workshop for å kunne bli bedre):
Google.no
Bokskya
NAV
RiksTV
Deal.no
Redmedia.no
eSea.tv
Ludo / Ludo

___________________________________________________

24.12

Folk trenger ritualer, skap dine!
Det er Julaften. La meg starte med å få ønske dere alle en fin og fredfull Jul! Ritualer har vært med mennesker til alle tider, i alle kulturer og i alle religioner. Har din virksomhet innarbeidede ritualer? Sannsynligvis har dere det, kanskje uten å tenke over at det er det det er.
Kanskje dere kaller det Kampanjer? Markedstiltak? DM, salgsaktiviteter? De fleste av disse har rituelle mekanismer som kjerne når de fungerer.
I dag har du kanskje ikke lyst eller tid, men en annen dag kan det hende at det å tenke over hva det er ved ritualer som gjør at det fungerer så bra, kan komme til nytte når du er tilbake på jobb.
Er det ikke noe med gjentakelse? Noe med at det er samlende? Noe med at det har glede, ettertanke eller et bestemt tema som vi samles om å gjøre? Noen ritualer handler også om å ønske å oppnå noe fremover.
På hvilken måte kan din virksomhet forsterke rituelle egenskaper som dine målgrupper vil ønske seg?

God Jul og Godt Nyttår !

___________________________________________________

23.12

Multikanalstrategi er ikke flerkanalstrategi
Begrepet multikanal stammer fra varehandelen (Retail) og handler om at forskjellige datasystemer utveksler informasjon og «status» i forskjellige prosesser. Fra før en kunde bestiller et produkt og gjennom hele produktets levetid er samtlige systemer oppdatert, slik at de forskjellige involverte har tilgang på oppdatert informasjon om hvor i kjøps- og «livsløpsprosessen» kunden er.
Om vi bruker bil som eksempel, vil leverandøren kunne tilpasse sine tjenester og yte service som er relevant for det stadiet kunden er på. Eks. kunden har prøvekjørt og kan få informasjon om spesialtilbud på ekstrautstyr,få informasjon om rabatter, lånemuligheter osv. Når bilen er bestilt, kan man via logistikksystemet få gitt salgsavdelingen beskjed om at det er oppstått problemer og leveransen vil bli forsinket, de kan da sende ut melding til kunden om dette og samtidig tilby leiebil i perioden fra lovet leveranse, til bilen faktisk blir levert. Det samme vil gjelde å avtale service på bilen til rett tid, tilbud på ekstrautstyr osv. (har kunden kjøpt skiboks, behøver man ikke sende ut reklametilbud om dette til denne kunden).
Markedsfolk har noen ganger ikke helt skjønt forskjellen mellom flerkanal og multikanal. Flerkanal betyr ganske enkelt at man etablerer en strategi hvor man benytter forskjellige reklamekanaler i optimal rekkefølge. Eks. DM og Nyhetsbrev aller først, Kinoreklame, før TV reklame, avisannonsering og boards samtidig. Reklame i uke- fagpresse sist.
Multikanalstrategi er først og fremst et effektiviseringstiltak både for leverandøren av tjenester og produkter og for kunden som kan få relevant informasjon på riktige tidspunkter. Det er svært nyttig i offentlig virksomhet, hvor saksbehandling og informasjonsutveksling etc. oppnår effektivisering og er vesentlig for å yte god støtte til oss som borgere hvor vi bl.a. slipper å gjenta oss selv til det kjedsommelige.

«Rett informasjon til rett tid er gull verd»

___________________________________________________

22.12

Kontekst, behov, adferdsstyrte tjenester og Geo- lokasjonstjenester.
Vi blir «bombardert av budskap.» Det sies at vi mottar mer en 3500 informasjonselementer hver dag. Ingen klarer å huske alle disse og vi filtrerer bort langt over 90%. Reklame er en av de formene for informasjon vi raskest filtrerer bort. Likevel er det ingenting som er så irriterende som akkurat når man trenger noe, at man ikke husker at det var noen som hadde en reklame om noe et sted, men hvor var det knalltilbudet når man trenger det?
I vår digitale verden blir det mer og mer mulig å formulere budskap rettet mot kun de som har et behov der og da. Amazon.com begynte tidlig å levere denne typen kommersielle budskap, men det er fortsatt kun i sin spede begynnelse. Google og Facebook arbeider også med dette- og det er ikke tilfeldig at reklamene på facebook er tilpasset hvilke søk du har gjort i Google, og at reklamene er tilpasset din sideprofil.  De baserer seg på hvem du er, hvem dine venner er, dine interesser og hva du har gjort på din PC, eller mobil.
Når din virksomhet skal ut med informasjon bør man i større grad plassere budskap i riktig kontekst, vurdere løsninger som er mer tilpasset målgruppeprofiler slik at en lettere kan treffe folk som har et behov og er i en situasjon hvor de aktivt etterspør og ønsker å motta nettopp ditt gode tilbud. Ved å systematisere den informasjonen du har om eksisterende kunder (CRM systemet ditt og dialogverktøyene bl.a. sosiale medier) og utnytte denne kan du levere dine budskap til de som ønsker det, til de som er i en konkret situasjon eller på et gitt geografisk sted. Virksomheter bør stille sterkere krav til sammenkobling av informasjon fra de man kjøper IKT og reklametjenester av (mediebyråer, reklamebyråer, digitale leverandører osv.)
Det er også viktig å tenke på at det ikke bare gjelder kommersielle budskap, spesielt innen nettbrett og mobil vil behov og adferdsbaserte tjenester og Geo- lokasjonstjenester være attraktive tjenester. Ett eksempel er meg selv som seiler om sommeren. – Jeg ville likt å få meldinger om vær, havneinformasjon, mulighet til å bestille havneplass, bestille bord på restauranten ved bryggekanten osv. rett fra mobilen. Om jeg seiler forbi Moss, og noen i Moss kan sende meg relevante tilbud og fortelle meg at jeg burde stikke innom der, i stedet for en av nabohavnene, kan det godt tenkes at jeg faktisk ville satt pris på nyttige tjenester og til og med reklamen derfra, litt før jeg seiler forbi. Om det er mulig? Visst er det det, jeg har nautisk karttjeneste på min mobil allerede og jeg kan selv «tagge» informasjon der. Koblingen er enkel og jeg som bruker kan skru tjenesten «ekstra informasjon»  av og på.

«Vær på rett sted med rett tilbud til rett person»

  ___________________________________________________

21.12

« Safe and sound? »
Jeg skal ikke si så mye om sikkerhet, det er det mange som kan mye mer om en meg. Men. Sikkerhet er flere ting – og jeg har merket meg at svært mange ikke helt forholder seg til de forskjellige typene « sikkerhet » og at for mange virksomheter overvurderer risikoen for «hacking»  uten å tenke på at  «hacking» langt fra er bare en ting.

• Fysisk sikkerhet- handler om å sikre sitt datautstyr, harware, software, programvare, applikasjoner etc. mot brann, vannskader, elektriske problemer, elektromagnetiske problermer ( solstorm) osv. Har din virksomhet gjort dette skikkelig? En anektode: En av norges viktige aktører håndterer vesentlige dokumenter og trenger et historisk arkiv. De hadde etablert et elektronisk fjernarkiv. Men glemte at hardisker trenger å bevege seg. De oppdaget for sent at all historisk informasjon var visket ut, fordi harddiskene ikke hadde beveget seg på mange år. (heldigvis hadde de fortsatt mikrofilm og måtte digitalisere alt dette materialet omigjen)
•  Systemsikkerhet- handler om å sikre at de løsningene man har anskaffet seg kan erstattes, at de fungerer som de skal, at programvare, konfigurasjoner etc. er dokumentert og kan gjenopprettes av andre enn de som en gang arbeidet med det.
• Innholdssikkerhet- handler om at ditt innhold er lagret slik at om det blir borte (eks. ved at tredjepart går konkurs) ett sted har du en reservekopi ett annet sted, slik at du kan gjennopprette innhold som er blitt borte.
• Informasjonssikkerhet – handler om at den informasjonen du håndterer og den informasjonen du er ansvarlig for å publisere er korrekt, lovlig og etterettelig. Det handler også om at løsningene dine er sikret mot at sensitiv informasjon du eier, ikke kommer på avveie som følge av at andre utilsiktet får innsyn ( eks. at bruker/passord løsninger fungerer, eller at noen utilsiktet publiserer informasjon eksternt, som ikke skulle vært publisert)
• Sikring mot hacking – handler om flere ting. Noen ønsker å  «prestere»  å bryte seg gjennom din virksomhet for å bevise sin evne. Andre ønsker å ødelegge dine løsninger, ennå en gruppe ønsker å spionere og finne ut hva dere gjør og misbruke informasjonen til egen vinning, uten at virksomheten oppdager det.

Når det gjelder siste punkt, mener jeg at det ofte fokuseres for mye på å sikre seg mot hacking. For det første, er  store deler av din virksomhets informasjon allmennkunnskap, dvs. den er ikke verd å bruke penger på å sikre. I store selskaper har man sett at over 80% av all informasjon og kompetanse, er allmenn. For det andre er deler av «resten» uegnet for de som forsøker å få tak i din virksomhets kritiske informasjon. Det tredje elementet er at den virkelig kritiske informasjonen og kompetanse din virksomhet besitter, som virkelig ikke bør komme på avveie (eks. Coca Colas hemmelige oppskrift) kanskje er langt billigere og enklere å få tak i på andre måter en datahacking. Tradisjonell spionasje, å betale ansatte, å “ansette seg”, å benytte trusler, lure folk i feller for så å bedrive utpressing vil i mange tilfeller være langt rimeligere løsninger rent økonomisk. Dvs. Når man skal tenke sikkerhet, er det langt flere enn IT avdelingen som må involveres!

 «Vannet tar alltid minste motstands vei, slik er det også med utro tjenere »  

___________________________________________________

20.12

Intet varer evig, heller ikke i «skya»
Når din virksomhet bruker Facebook, andre sosiale medier eller for den del andre skytjenester, er det svært viktig å huske på at ingenting varer evig. Det er uhyre viktig å opprettholde eierskap til eget innhold og egne tjenestetilbud. Husk også at ingenting er «gratis» det du gjør på eks. Facebook bidrar til at den virksomheten tjener penger på ditt bidrag, vei fordeler mot ulemper
Forsvinner en løsning, må du sikre deg muligheten til fortsatt å kunne drive virksomheten videre uforstyrret. Jeg gruer meg til å se meldingen: «You are not longer able to make use of this service». En dag vil WordPress, blogg.no, eller Google, Facebook og Twitter ikke lengre være blant oss, tro det eller la vær. Allerede i dag spekuleres det om «det frie internett» og indekseringssøk må «ofres» til fordel for nye løsninger og mer «lukkede markedstilganger».  Ikke gjør deg sårbar og uten kontroll over egen virksomhet.
Samtidig er noen av disse tjenestene så egnet til å effektivisere/ møte/øke/sikre markedsandeler at du bør slettes ikke la vær å benytte mulighetene.

 «Evig eies kun det tapte» Ibsen

  ___________________________________________________

19.12

Mobile first strategy
Det er fryktelig mye engelsk ute og går i den digitale verden, noe tittelen i dag viser. Det er rapporter som viser at mobilbruken (og bruk av smarttelefoner) øker så radikalt at svært mange virksomheter må revurdere sine strategier.
Lap top og web er ikke lengre førstevalget for mange, og mange ønsker å utføre handlinger/ fullføre kjøp via mobil. Mobiltelefonen er også blitt et redskap som brukes til mange ting, og den er først og fremst et svært «personlig» redskap. Man kan gjerne låne bort lap toppen ett øyeblikk, men låner ugjerne ut mobilen sin. Mobile first handler ikke bare om mobiltelefoner, det handler også om nettbrett. Dette er to forskjellige «dingser», det er også to forskjellige kanaler. Alle er blitt kjent med «apps», det er spissede tjenester som løser et spesifikt problem og ikke mer enn det. Det vil også komme flere mer generiske tilbud til forbrukerne, som betalingsløsninger osv.
Uansett vil mobilløsninger største fordeler være at de er rettet mot individets behov. De behovene er situasjonsbetinget. Jeg velger «dings» og kanal, basert på i hvilken situasjon jeg er. Der det er lettere å bruke mobil, eller nettbrett, vil jeg velge det foran å dra opp laptoppen min og utføre en handling der. Det bør man tenke på når man utformer løsninger for mobil og nettbrett.

« Møt meg der jeg er, med en løsning på det problemet jeg har her og nå»

___________________________________________________

18.12

Webben vil ikke løse alle dine problemer
Ofte når vi snakker om digitalstrategi tenker vi på internett og web. Front-end og ” overflaten” får mye oppmerksomhet. Det er litt som å bedømme en bil etter karosseriet alene. Det er teknologien som skaper fremdriften og sjåføren som bestemmer retningen når vi snakker om en bil. Digitale løsninger er likedan.
Bak suksessfull digitalstrategi ligger det vesentlige forutsetninger i forretningsdrift, organisasjon og teknologi. Når offentlige tjenester tilbyr selvbetjeningsløsninger og søknadsportaler, består det også av bakenforliggende teknologiløsninger og organisasjonsendringer. Med godt brukergrensesnitt og godt design på toppen lettes borgernes kontakt med byråkrati. Staten oppnår bruk av offentlige midler effektivt. Når eksempelvis telecomselskaper investerer i tung infrastruktur bygges samfunnet i en retning som gir oss alle likeverdige muligheter til å kommunisere, drive forretning og få tilgang til informasjon og kompetanseutveksling.
Ved å bruke de digitale mulighetene optimalt kan virksomheter tilby ansatte fleksible arbeidsmåter og tiltrekke seg kompetansemiljøer som tidligere ikke var mulig. Har din virksomhet lagt til rette for at du som arbeidstaker kan samhandle effektivt og få tilgang på interne dataverktøy og informasjon nødvendig for å kunne løse dine arbeidsoppgaver effektivt?
«Ingen ville finne på å putte en strikkmotor i en Ferrari! »

  ___________________________________________________

17.12

Når alt er blitt «Commodity» trengs du ikke lengre da?
Det engelske ordet oversettes med «handelsvare». Det brukes ofte i sammenheng med at man ikke lengre har et konkurransefortrinn; det er blitt «commodity» altså noe alle har, eller kan skaffe seg lett. Når mye av din virksomhets kjerneaktiviteter kan gjøres av hvemsomhelst, hva skal sikre at din virksomhet har livets rett da?
Problemstillingen er aktualisert i en digital verden fordi alt blir lett svært lett tilgjengelig. Da gjelder det å finne noe som ikke kan erstatte din virksomhet. Det «unike» snakkes det ofte om. Dersom dine produkter eller dine tjenester lett kan gjøres av andre, må du finne ut hva andre ikke lett kan kopiere i din måte å gjøre det på.
- Det er kun Bob Dylan som kan levere sitt innhold på sin måte, det er ikke lett å kopiere. Man kan laste ned hans musikk, men man kan ikke laste ned hans konsertopplevelse.
Slike ting bør man lete etter. Kanskje det er kundeopplevelsen du kan skille deg ut med og være mye bedre på enn alle andre?

«Lever topp kvalitet og etabler tette relasjoner» 

  ___________________________________________________

16.12

Har du vært på Workshop? – eller var det et fordekt «møte»?
Var den «workshopen» egentlig et møte? Hva er forskjellen på et møte og en Workshop? Spissformulert kan man si at en workshop er en lengre arbeidsøkt mellom flere, når man ikke vet hva man bør gjøre, mens et møte er mest effektivt når en skal diskutere hvilke valg man bør ta og hvordan iverksette beslutninger.
Workshop betyr ikke kun å henge opp «gule lapper» på tavla. Det er ikke noe galt med gule lapper, men det finnes mange flere egnede teknikker for å drive en workshop og få fram kreative ideer og mulige løsninger på problemstillinger. Her nevnes noen workshopmetoder/teknikker/øvelser jeg har erfaring med (Med noen stikkord på hva jeg har opplevd som fordeler ved de enkelte. På langt nær utfyllende, men til inspirasjon for noen av dere?):

• Ut av boksen tenkning – flytte synsvinkel, oppdage nye muligheter
• Brainstorming workshop – få frem mangfold av ideer
• Business process reengenering – finne alternative veier å levere merverdi på
• Kaizen – bygge varige endringer over tid
• Seks tenkehatter – utfordre fastlagte tankemønstre
• SWOT – Analytisk tilnærming på en problemstilling
• Benchmarking – sammenligninger og valg av plassering i et «landskap»
• Scenarioworkshop – konsekvensvurderinger
• «War room» workshop – skape kunstige kriser for å fremme nye beslutningsmuligheter
• Incentive workshop – positiv involvering og «gullerot» prinsipp for å få frem løsninger
• Lego Serious Play – dybdeforståelse og kompleks problemløsning

Å ta et kurs i workshopledelse er en veldig god ide, fordi det ikke er en mekanisk øvelse å fasilitere workshoper. Det krever pedagogiske evner, det krever at man er glad i å hjelpe grupper og forskjelligartede personligheter. Det krever å redusere sitt eget ego og styrke andres.

Kunnskap om workshopmetoder og kompetanse på fasilitering av slike er viktig sett i sammenheng med digitalstrategi fordi digitalisering for de fleste virksomheter handler om endring.

«flere hoder tenker bedre sammen-  enn ett og ett»

___________________________________________________

15.12

Skap en kontinuerlig innovasjonsprosess
Før kunne man slå seg til ro med at man hadde funnet en formel for sin virksomhet. Man kunne hugge den ut i sten og beholde den i noen tiår. I dag er verden så omskiftelig at det er en farlig holdning. Innovasjonsevne kan med den digitale utviklingen være et «vinn eller forsvinn» for din virksomhet.  Minimum hvert halvår vil sannsynligvis forutsetninger ha endret seg også for din virksomhet. Følger dere med internt og eksternt kan dere utnytte dette, til beste for kundene deres. «Innovasjon» er blitt et moteord. Ikke fall for «billig hype», gjør et skikkelig arbeid.
Finn ut hva slags innovasjon dere trenger: Kontinuerlige forbedringsprosesser, eller radikale endringer, produkt eller tjenesteinnovasjon? Med stor sannsynlighet besitter egen organisasjon all kompetansen, evnen og viljen til å skape resultater av innovasjonsprosesser. Ekstern støtte kan bidra til å utnytte potensialet. Synliggjør og nyttiggjør ledelsen i din virksomhet dette?

Innovasjon er ikke et prosjekt man setter i gang og så avslutter etter et par workshoper. Det er en kontinuerlig prosess. Rekk opp handa; hvem av dere har systematisert innovasjonsprosesser i egen virksomhet?  Noen få har, men det er ikke mange. Det gir dere muligheter til markedsforsprang!
Les gjerne regjeringen.no sin veileder om medarbeiderdrevet innovasjon!

«Innovasjon handler ikke om å finne opp kruttet, det handler om å bruke det på rett måte, rett sted og til rett tid»

14.12

Pass deg for hva du måler!
Det er et digitalt målehysteri der ute. Alt kan jo måles. Mange kobler feil i hodet sitt når målinger skal styre hva som er «suksess» Det heter SEO, SEM, Målstyring, Scorecard, Konverteringsrate og jeg vet ikke hva! Måling har mange navn. Det verste er at det er viktig!, men…
Eksempelvis kan man måle hvor lenge en bruker er på et nettsted. Men er det nødvendigvis bra å være lenge på et nettsted? Hva om brukeren får løst sitt problem/ dekket sitt behov hurtig, er det da negativt at det tok kort tid? Hva om brukeren er der kort tid – uten å få løst det de kom for, er det bra? Antall treff, konverteringsrate etc. gir bare bra målinger om man vet hva man skal bruke svaret til. Vet du hva du måler?

«Hvis du ikke vet hva du skal bruke svaret til – ikke spør! »

___________________________________________________

13.12

Hva kan du gjøre med «Crowdsourcing»?
Nok et ‘hipt’ ord, men hva er det og fungerer det? Det er masse litteratur, foredrag og meninger om hva fordelene er. Det kommer ikke av seg selv og er det noe folk oppdager fort, er å bli utsatt for å ha blitt «brukt» – så mitt råd er å gjøre hjemmeleksen før man kaster seg ut i det.
Å få tilbakemeldinger, hjelp til å forbedre tjenester og produkter er noe folk gjerne vil hjelpe deg med – men bare om du er etterrettelig og skikkelig.  Jeg har hørt næringslivsledere uttale (ja- i 2011! om bruk av sosiale medier): « Det er ikke dere som bruker meg, det er jeg som utnytter dere!»  - Det er lett å tolke kynisme inn i dette og folk flest vil ikke bli utsatt for den slags kynisme.
Crowdsourcing kan gi enorm effekt, fordi man har tilgang på potensielt svært mange, veldig motiverte og dyktige mennesker samtidig. Idemyldring og konkrete forslag kan komme i stort antall og veldig hurtig. Problemer kan løses fort og man har større treffsikkerhet mht. å treffe reelle (markeds)behov – om det er gjort riktig. Innovasjonsmiljøer, forskningsmiljøer, gründerbedrifter er bare noen få eksempler på hvem/hvordan bruke Crowdsourcing.
Ett konkret-  og ikke komplekst eksempel er -Stormberg- som har spurt folk om input til produkter de ønsker seg, forbedringer ved produktene og designforslag. Husk endelig å gi skikkelig tilbakemelding til alle som bidrar, det er ikke gjort riktig før du leverer mer til de som hjalp deg, enn den innsatsen de ga deg!

«Desto mer du gir, desto mer får du tilbake»

___________________________________________________

12.12

Hva skal virksomheten din leve av i fremtiden?
I en digital verden finnes det ingen praktiske grenser for å levere et uendelig antall av eksempelvis innhold. Nå blir stadig større deler av tilbudene i digitale universer «gratis» eller sagt på en annen måte; kostnadene ved produksjon og kopiering blir tilnærmet gratis for en stadig økende del av produkter og tjenester. Tenk bare på fotoalbumet: Skulle noen få en kopi av familiebildet ditt, måtte du kjøpe hver kopi. I dag sender du en e post, eller har lastet opp bildet på Flickr som kan lastes ned i det uendelige.
Det blir en stadig større utfordring å få betalt og det å kunne skape et overskudd på samme måte som før.
- Når Facebook gir bort tilgangen til deres enorme (og utviklingsmessig kostbare) nettverksplattform til alle som vil være der, Google gir bort tjenesten søk og det at vi kan finne mer informasjon på noen tidelssekund enn det ville ta oss å lete frem i all verdens biblioteker, da er det fordi de tjener penger på det som er «bortenfor gratis». De har funnet andre måter å tjene pengene på, og det er slettes ikke bare annonseinntekter, som mange synes å tro.
Det vil for mange virksomheter være helt avgjørende å finne måter å levere merverdier, utover det du kan (måtte) gi bort (til)nærmet gratis i relativt nær fremtid.

«Pass på at dine verdier, bortenfor «gratis» ikke kan kopieres»

___________________________________________________

11.12

Ingen tror på sjefen!
Hopp over sjefen som vises frem og forteller om hva bedriften gjør og hvor flinke dere er. Folk tror mer på fagfolkene i virksomheten enn lederne. La de som kan faget i bedriften formidle kunnskapen om metodikk, produkter og tjenester. Undersøkelser underbygger dette. Ledere bør derimot fortelle om virksomhetens mål, kultur marked og ledelse.

« Den digitale virkelighet er transparent, stol på dine ansatte»

___________________________________________________

10.12

Folk er lei «Corporate design»
Det er millioner av nettsteder med de samme typer bilder og «striglet» kjedelig visuelt design. Det visuelle språket er viktigere enn teksten!  Still krav til fagfolkene som hjelper dere og lag løsninger som overrasker. Webløsningen din er et godt utgangspunkt, men «mobile first» er begrepet som blir dagligdags i løpet av 2012. Mobile løsninger og nettbrett har ubrukte muligheter, bruk dem, lek og utforsk – ikke lag «brosjyrer» på nett. Nettbrett har muligheter til multimediale fortellinger som ennå ikke er fortalt. Men husk, vær relevant! Ikke fjern folk fra fokus, ikke dra oppmerksomheten vekk fra kjernevirksomheten.

«Et bilde forteller mer en tusen ord, vær nøye med ditt visuelle språk og kvaliteten på de nonverbale opplevelsene du gir!»

___________________________________________________

9.12

Ingen er interessert i «nyheter» om virksomheten din.
Mediebransjen er mye bedre til nyheter enn din virksomhet. Dropp nyheter med mindre du driver i mediebransjen. Fokuser på å formidle kjernevirksomheten og de andre tipsene jeg har vist her. Det er langt bedre at andre skryter av deg, enn at du skryter av deg selv. Om det skulle være viktig å ha med «nyeste kunder» plasser det et sted hvor folk som virkelig vil vite det kan oppsøke det. Hvorfor ikke linke til andre som omtaler din virksomhet?  Aktiviteter folk kan tjene på å delta på, sammen med deg derimot, det er mye bedre. Skap engasjement om din virksomhet, ved å gi de som er interessert i hva dere kan noe de kan dra fordeler av.

« Det er bare dere som ser dere selv innenfra, alle andre ser dere utenfra»

______________________________________________________

8.12

De enkle ting er ofte best
Det er vanskelig å si komplekse ting kort og lett. Gjør det likevel.

Keep It Simple Stupid! K.I.S.S.

______________________________________________________

7.12

Hva i *** gjør du på facebook?
Sosiale medier er «hot» men vet du hva du gjør der? Eller er du der bare fordi sånne som meg har sagt det? I sosiale medier må man følge spillereglene, mange av dem uskrevne. Det er relasjoner, det er dialog, det er å ta samtaler på alvor. Forskjellige sosiale medier er bra på forskjellige ting. Velg steder å delta med omhu. Husk også at vi er i ferd med å bli vant til å være deltakere i sosiale medier, det er snart en «attributt» og ikke noe i seg selv. Samstem aktivitetene med kjerneaktivitetene i virksomheten. Samtidig er det viktig å være integer, åpen og by på seg selv, akkurat som i alle andre relasjoner.

Lytt gjerne til erfarne ‘digitalfolk’, ikke bare konsulenter og leverandører, men også andre som driver virksomheter. De har gjort feil din virksomhet ikke behøver å gjenta. De har skapt suksesser du kan lære av. Se eksempelvis hva Stjørdal kommune har gjort på facebook og hvordan de har tenkt.

«Vær ikke ett i dag, i går, og noe annet om et år. Det som du er, vær fullt og helt, og ikke stykkevis og delt.» Ibsen

______________________________________________________

6.12

Våg å endre premissene for hvordan dere produserer og leverer
Det er slettes ikke sikkert at den forretningsmodellen dere har hatt, er den som nå passer best for folk som vil handle med dere. Kanskje folk ønsker å handle med dere på nett, eller betale via mobil? Markedet modnes raskt. Sjekk om dere kan gjøre noe annerledes hvert halvår. Ja, hvert halvår – for mange av dere!
Business modelling canvas er et redskap for å gjennomgå og finne forbedringspotensial. Utviklingen i nettverksøkonomien i (digitaløkonomi) er så rask at det kan være helt avgjørende for å være attraktiv i markedet.
Offentlig virksomhet er ikke unntatt, vokabularet er kanskje forskjellig men sluttsummen den samme: Å være mest mulig effektive internt og tilby størst mulig verdi for brukere/ kunder eksternt. I de nedgangstidene vi har foran oss vil vårt samfunn være avhengig av en offentlig forvaltning som gjør oss effektive.
Kanskje er det lurt å levere forskjellige produkter og tjenester i forskjellige kanaler? Kanskje kan dere spare på å distribuere annerledes? Kanskje kan dere tjene mer på å ta betalt på andre måter? Tjener dere på å senke prisene og øke volum? Hva med å utvide produkt/tjenestespekter? Inngå samarbeid med andre som leverer tilstøtende produkter/ tjenester?

«Det gjelder å tenke seg om fort to ganger – og agere enda fortere! »

______________________________________________________

5.12

Lar du folk fortelle deg hva de mener?
Det kan være sårt å høre fra kunder som mener din bedrift ikke gjør en god nok jobb. Men er det egentlig det? Tilbakemeldinger er egentlig av stor verdi for virksomheten din. Lar du den verdien gå til spille?
Du kan snu negativ tilbakemeldinger til: Nye og bedre produkter/ tjenester, forbedret kundeservice, bedret kommunikasjon, bedre synlighet på nett, hjelp til å være i rette kanaler osv. Alt dette er veldig komplisert og kostbart for din virksomhet å finne ut av på andre måter. Når dine kunder klager, er de engasjerte og vil egentlig gjerne hjelpe deg – om du lar dem!
Inviter til dialog i alle de digitale kanalene du treffer din målgruppe i.
Ta vare på alt du lærer og etabler et internt system som fanger det opp, foredler kunnskapen og iverksetter tiltak.

Takk for kritikk og vær takknemlig for hjelpen du får.

______________________________________________________

4.12

Det er bare du som selger / formidler noe, alle vi andre kjøper / ettersøker noe

Folk er ikke særlig interessert i hva du vil. De er interessert i hva de selv vil. Forstår du hva din målgruppe ønsker hos deg? De som forstår dette bedre enn deg har flere kjøpere en du har. For å finne ut av dette må du ha innsikt i hva folk anser som fordeler. Det får du ikke kun ved å analysere besøksstatistikk, SEO aktiviteter eller konverteringsmålinger, men ved også å benytte kvalitative undersøkelsesmetoder (som etnografiske, sosialantropologiske og sosiologiske metoder) – spørre og observere hva folk gjør og tenker med andre ord.

På den måten kan vi si at produkter og tjenester kun er «bærere av fordeler». Det er først når du har innsikt i forbrukernes ønsker og behov at det gir reell verdi å vurdere om du skal endre på selve produktene eller tjenestene du tilbyr. De fleste «Innovasjonsprosesser» som går feil har hoppet over å forstå kundene og forsøkt å endre produkt/ tjenester for tidlig i prosessen.

Det tredje vesentlige elementet i å nå frem til dine målgrupper er kommunikasjon. Dersom du ikke kommuniserer de fordelene dine produkter/tjenester er bærere av, vil ikke folk forstå hvorfor de skal vurdere om det vil løse deres problem / behov. Disse tre elementene er like viktige for å kunne tilby verdi til din målgruppe.

«Det er bare jeg som tenker på meg, alle de andre tenker bare på seg»

______________________________________________________

3.12 a)

Hva Koster det?
Fortell målgruppen hva dine produkt/ tjenester koster. Det kan være pris, tid eller innsats. Det er ikke alltid man tilbyr noe som har en (fast) pris. Poenget er at den som har et problem og eller et behov som din bedrift kan bidra til å løse/dekke, trenger å vite noe om hva som skal til. Igjen – si det som det er, enkelt.

Vis folk at det er viktigere å se på hva man tjener / sparer ved å kjøpe, enn å se på utgiften for å oppnå det.

______________________________________________________

3.12 b)

Hvordan får jeg tak i det?
Fortell målgruppen: Hvordan finne produkt/ bestille tjeneste/ egen ‘apps’/ kontakte for mer informasjon. Har du kart til butikken/ kontoret ditt, åpningstidene,  adressen, , telefon og e post, (til salg-/produktansvarlig) kontakt til twitter/ facebooksider osv. synlig på forsiden/ landingssider?

Dersom det du tilbyr kan selges over nett eller enda bedre – via lesebrett eller mobilen – gjør det!
Og du? Det er selgerne som har ansvar for salg – også i digitale kanaler, er det ikke? (Webredaktører bør få utøve yrket sitt som er kommunikasjon og kompetanse på digitale løsninger og ha ansvaret for dette, ikke alt mulig annet!)

Gi mange alternativer til å kjøpe og mange alternativer til å bestille, betale og kontakte. Folk som kan velge hvordan, velger lettere din virksomhet.

______________________________________________________

2.12

Hva driver dere egentlig med? 
Fortell først målgruppen hvilke problem dere kan løse for dem og hvilke behov dere kan dekke. Fortell dette i korte og enkle setninger. Det er overraskende å se så mange nettsider anno 2011 (daglig) som ikke besvarer dette først. Husk også å si det i et språk de som besøker dere forstår. Nina Furus eksempel: «Ilsted» er feil, «peis» er det folk søker etter.
Fortell hvilke fordeler kjøper/mottaker/samfunn har.

Folk liker bedre et selskap som ikke bare er opptatt av å øke egen profitt, men som vil gjøre noe godt for deg/andre/samfunnet.

______________________________________________________

1.12

Det er ikke alltid du kan snakke deg ut av et dårlig omdømme
Man kan si at «du er hva du gjør- ikke hva du sier.» I en digital verden hvor kommunikasjon er relasjonell betyr det at folk snakker om din virksomhet, enten du liker det eller ikke. Omdømmet forsterkes hurtig, både positivt og negativt ladede dialoger.
Ofte må ord følges opp med (mulighet til) handling. Kan dine tjenester/produkter kjøpes, bestilles, lastes ned, melde seg på aktiviteter osv. i en eller flere av din virksomhets digitale kanaler? – eller er det enklere for dine kunder/brukere å kritisere dine løsninger på twitter og heller handle hos dine konkurrenter?
Sosiale medier er en stadig viktigere arena å delta på. Det er viktig å være klar over hva samtalen om din virksomhet er, for å kunne rette opp negative inntrykk med faktaopplysninger.

«Det er ikke nok å rope hallelulja, man må gjøre det!»

______________________________________________________

« Digitalstrategi » betyr så mangt,del 3

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”  fra “The Art of War” av Sun Tzu

I Norge har for få virksomheter en digitalstrategi som først og fremst er fundert på forretningspremisser innenfor det digitale, dernest har for mange virksomheter ingen taktisk oppfølgingsplan. – Den gode nyheten er at det er få virksomheter som kun har en digital taktisk plan.

I del 1 av dette lange blogginnlegget viser jeg hvordan små virksomheter kan gjøre enkle grep, i del 2 følger jeg opp med to modeller man kan arbeide ut fra og som fungerer for større virksomheter og når man har behov for mer gjennomgripende tiltak. I begge modellene peker jeg på at et sterkt sluttkundefokus er viktig for å lykkes. I denne siste delen peker jeg på noen «knagger»: Hva kunder er villige til å betale for i digitale kanaler og hvilke betalings/ forretningsmodeller fungerer bra i digitale univers.

«One size – fit all»?
Når jeg er ute og snakker om disse temaene får jeg ofte tilbakemeldinger om at digitalstrategi er for abstrakt og at man savner en konkretisering og ønsker å høre om konkrete tiltak man kan gjøre, tips og råd. Til det er å si at de rådene som gir effekt kan ingen gi på generell basis. Man må faktisk gjennomgå prosessen og komme fram til de konkrete løsningene som fungerer for den enkelte virksomhet. Det er dessverre ikke noen «One size – fit all» Og det er mange ting å tenke på samtidig. INMAs internettrapport2010 er pensum å ha lest for å kunne avgjøre hvor ens egen virksomhet må fokusere fremover.

Jeg vil forsøke å peke på noen velfungerende digitale forretningsmodeller og «generiske behov/ problemløsninger» Jeg peker på ett par(anonymiserte) av caser jeg har jobbet med opp gjennom årene for å belyse konkret hva digitalstrategi er kan føre til av «effekt»

Hva er kunder villige til å betale for i digitale kanaler?

Betalingsvilligheten er til stede når kunden opplever en form for merverdi. Denne modellen er mer eller mindre hentet fra Instituttet for Fremtidsforskning i Danmark

Ett case
Jeg jobbet for endel år siden med en av de kjente norske merkevarene innenfor retail. De ville ha nye «hjemmesider». Vi, i selskapet jeg jobbet for, anbefalte dem heller å etablere en nettbutikk. De syntes investeringskostnadene ble for høye.(dette var tidlig i norsk internetthistorie) Vi ba dem da om å lage en webtjeneste som profilerte produktene deres og så ut som en nettbutikk. Det er kanskje unødig å si at de i dag (nesten ikke har forandret på designet), er en av Nordens fremste nettbutikker, hvor backofficesystemer er integrert, slik at kjøper vet hvor mange enheter av produkt X er på lager og hvor lang tid det vil ta før varen er levert. De er ikke revolusjonære i sitt design, eller med «fancy»funksjonalitet, men de er relevante og har løst samtlige generiske elementer ovenfor og ikke minst du har garantert besøkt sidene deres, og ikke utenkelig at du har handlet der også. Denne virksomheten har skjønt at det rette fokuset ikke er hvor dyrt det er å investere, men hvor mye mer man tjener, eller sparer på investeringen som gjelder.

Lønnsomhet
Det er ikke alltid at det å skulle tjene penger i digitale kanaler er den mest lønnsomme strategien. Noen ganger er det mer lønnsomt å se på hva man kan spare! Jeg vil gjerne fremheve bankvesenet i så måte. For det første skal de ha ros for å ha vært tidlig ute med å digitalisere sin virksomhet og for det annet skal de få sin del av æren for å få den godt voksne/ eldre til å bruke PC og internett. I dag finnes det knapt et menneske som ikke bruker internettbank og stadig flere velger mobilbank. En annen ting å legge merke til er at bank og retailmennesker er vant til å «knuse tall» og det er blant de mest forretningsmessig fokuserte innen digitale løsninger. Kanskje de har regnet seg frem til noe smart?

Ett annet case, innen det offentlige
En offentlig  virksomhet hadde mange tusen årlige innkommende søknader. Alt foregikk manuelt, innsending og kopier kom på papir. Ved å innføre en elektronisk søknadsportal, integrere denne med elektronisk saksbehandling og arkiv reduserte virksomheten årlige kostnader ved redusert tidsbruk på registrering, kopiering, utsendelse, saksbehandling, referatføring og utsendelse av svar. Kvaliteten på faglige vurderinger gikk opp. Konkrete kostnader til kopimaskiner og papir, porto etc. ble kraftig redusert. I dette tilfelle var det slik at portokostnadene alene forsvarte investeringskostnadene. Resten var ren gevinst. Første hele driftsåret var innsparingene like i underkant av 20% av virksomhetens totale budsjett. Internettdelen av denne digitalstrategien var ganske liten. «kundetilfredsheten» økte kraftig og internettløsningen fikk «æren» for suksessen. Gevinsten lå egentlig i å innføre digitale løsninger «backoffice» i stedet for de manuelle. Også her er mange av punktene ovenfor innfridd.

Ett annet vanlig spørsmål er «Hvordan selge/ tjene penger i digitale kanaler?»
Det er jo et voldsomt stort spørsmål som kan ha mange svar, alt avhengig av om man er et mediekonsern, selger møbler, reiser eller pizza. Noen tror at det fortsatt er slik at betalingsmodeller må «finnes opp» på internett. Dette stemmer selvfølgelig ikke. Allerede fra starten av har man hatt annonsering, og salg av tjenester og produkter. Om man ser på noen generiske modeller for inntektsgenerering kan de se slik ut:

Mange vil kjenne igjen de fleste av disse inntektsmodellene, også fra den tradisjonelle forretningsverden.  Det er ikke alltid gitt hvilken modell som er «best» for den enkelte virksomhet, flere typer løsninger kan egne seg. Det er viktig å legge merke til at det slettes ikke er sikkert at betalingsmodeller i virksomhetens tradisjonelle kanaler ( «fysisk verden»)er overførbare, eller de mest optimale i en digital business. I digitale kanaler benyttes svært ofte kombinasjoner av forretningsmodeller.  Et annet aspekt er at i den digitale forretningsverden er det svært utbredt å «dele» på verdikjeden.(kanskje enda mer en vi er vant til i tradisjonell forstand)  Dvs. at aktører går sammen og yter sin del av merverdiskapingen, setter sammen helhetlige tilbud til kundene og deler på inntektene.

Jeg tror at vi vil se mye mer til inntektsmodeller og tilbud til kundene som er basert på: Hvem de er, Hva de gjør, og Hvor de befinner seg når de har behov for tjenester og produkter. Vi vil også se mer avanserte løsninger som baserer seg på det som kalles viral markedsføring («SoMe markedsføring»)

Innovasjon?
Det er også slik at produkt/ tjenestetilbudet kanskje bør vurderes. Bør en kleskjede selge de samme klærne i butikk som i nettbutikk? Bør de selge noe digitalt som de ikke har vært vant til å selge? (for å illustrere: hva med å selge abonnement på vask/rens?) I digitale kanaler har man en stor frihet til å tenke utradisjonelt og det å kunne dekke kundebehov på helt nye måter.

Digitalstrategi
Meningen med denne serien om digitalstrategi i tre deler har ikke vært å nedvurdere alle de andre vesentlige fagfeltene innen digitale universer og digitalstrategi som brukervennlighet, design, markedsføring, kommunikasjon, omdømmebygging, søkemotoroptimalisering, teknologi, sikkerhet, infrastruktur osv.

Meningen har vært å formidle at de forretningsmessige aspektene i digitalstrategi har for lite fokus og at man stoler for mye på at den overordnede forretningsstrategien i en virksomhet er dekkende for digitale kanaler. Ledere og ledergrupper har i for stor grad ansett digitalaktivitetene i virksomheten kun som et kommunikasjon og  markedsføringstema, uten at de forretningsmessige aspektene er grundig nok fundert.

Jeg minner (igjen) om SSB’s IKT undersøkelse som bør leses og kort kommentere: Det er fortsatt langt igjen før både privat og offentlig sektor har gjort hjemmeleksen sin!

« Digitalstrategi » betyr så mangt,del 2

I del 1 skrev jeg om at begrepet «digitalstrategi» brukes ukritisk og at ledelse/ toppledelse bør involvere seg mer i utviklingen av slik strategi, for å få mest mulig ut av investeringer i digitale kanaler.

Del 1 bør leses før denne delen leses, for å få en full forståelse for hva som beskrives her.

Virksomheter kan tjene mer og/eller spare mer ved å digitalisere deler eller hele virksomhetens kjerneaktiviteter. SSB har avdekket at kun 25% av norske bedrifter benytter digitale kanaler forretningskritisk. (IKT undersøkelsen 2009).

I all virksomhet er det er viktig med et sterkt sluttkundefokus, fordi det gir virksomheten størst effekt. I digitale kanaler blir dette svært tydelig og «effekt» vil kunne måles lettere, enn i mange andre sammenhenger.

Digitale løsninger omfavner mange fagfelt som bidrar til å nå virksomheters overordnede mål. Foruten de essensielle forretningsmessige aspekter inneholder digitalstrategi selvsagt strategier for hvordan utnytte bakenforliggende IT systemer (Lagerstyring/ bestillingsløsninger, Dokument og saksbehandlingssystemer, kundebehandlingssystemer, timeregistrering, økonomisystemer osv.) og forskjellige front-end løsninger (som bankautomater, GPS systemer, e post, samhandling, internettbaserte løsninger, som web, lesebrett og mobile løsninger) tilhører alle områder og kanaler som hører inn under «det digitale» og vil da være strategisk viktig for alle virksomheter. Ofte får det å etablere et sterkt sluttkundefokus (positive) konsekvenser for organisasjonen og måten en arbeider for å oppnå de ønskede målene. Mange ganger er produkt/ tjenesteinnovasjon også et sentralt tema.

Min anbefaling er først å fokusere på forretningsmessige sider ved en satsning i digitale univers/ kanaler med sluttkunden i fokus. Dernest mener jeg at det er viktig å arbeide «S.M.A.R.T». *  Jeg pleier å anbefale å skaffe et overordnet perspektiv først, bruke dette til å iverksette tiltak som er åpenbare, enkle og gir forbedringer. Det er lurt å prioritere de tiltakene som gavner sluttbruker mest, som innfrir virksomhetens mål best og som tar kortest tid å implementere til en lavest mulig kostnad. Etter dette kan man arbeide strategisk med å innføre mer gjennomgripende endringer / forbedringer som gir resultater på lengre sikt.

En arbeidsmodell kan da se slik ut:

1.  Hurtig implementering – Finn «Quick wins»

Tilnærmingen er å starte med å finne de åpenbare forbedringene og fokusere på de som kan iverksettes straks. Det kreves ikke alltid lange forprosjekter, men fokus, evne til å hurtig omsette ord til handling, og å skape rask gevinstrealisering.

Forbedringer på 1 dag.
For å få til dette trengs vanligvis kun èn heldags workshop, hvor man straks kan implementere og måle effekten av de tiltak som er besluttet. Metodikken er enkel, velprøvd og tar utgangspunkt i å imøtekomme sluttkundenes opplevelse:

• Hva som er fordeler for sluttkunde? (løsning på problem/ dekning av behov)
• Hvilke tjenester eller produkter de har behov for?
• Hvordan fordeler og produkter/ tjenester kommuniser mest mulig effektivt?

Om nødvendig støttes implementering opp med prosjektledelse og annen bistand på de aktiviteter som er besluttet.

Denne type workshop tar utgangspunkt i  Hamish Taylors tankegods og er tilpasset det å oppnå digitale forbedringer på kort tid. Se mer på videoen her

2  Prioriterte forbedringsprosjekter

Først etter at virksomheten har avdekket de åpenbare mulighetene og funnet løsninger på dem, startes mer omgripende prosjekter. Erfaringer fra de første aktivitetene (”Quick wins”) danner grunnlaget og videreutvikles i et helhetsperspektiv. Digitalstrategi følges opp med handlingsplaner og gjennomføring av endringer prioriteres etter hva som gir størst verdi.

Noen ganger vil fokus være forretningsaspekter eller teknologi-implementeringer, andre ganger vil brukeropplevelse, markedsføring og/eller kommunikasjon stå i sentrum. Ofte vil slike prosjekter/ prosesser kreve arbeid med organisasjonen og etablere nye arbeidsmåter. Noen ganger vil arbeidet medføre at man iverksetter innovasjonsprosjekter/ prosesser hvor produkt/ tjenestespekter justeres, eller nye kommer til.

For å lykkes er det viktig at de riktige menneskene i organisasjonen deltar. Erfaring tilsier at endring fordrer mennesker som vil være med, har myndighet og er deltakende i prosessene.

I denne type prosjekter kan jeg anbefale at arbeides med utgangspunkt i Alexander Osterwalds ”Business modeling Canvas” men da tilpasset det å flytte kjerneaktiviteter over i digitale kanaler.

3.  Optimaliseringsaktiviteter

Avsluttede prosjekter har en tendens til å forvitre og man får ikke ut verdien av de investeringene man har gjort, med mindre man har en plan for forvaltning og kontinuerlig arbeide med forbedringer og justeringer. Allerede fra starten av bør man ta hensyn til helhetsbehov og tidsperspektiver og passe på at alle aktiviteter som iverksettes har effektmåling som basis.

I del3 (siste del) vil jeg beskrive noen forretningselementer, konsepter og eksempler på caser som har vist seg å fungere i digitale kanaler.

* (S.M.A.R.T )=
S: Specific, Significant, Stretching & Simple
M: Measurable & Manageable
A: Attainable, Attitude, Appropriate, Achievable, Assignable & Ambitious
R: Relevant, Results, Results-focused, Results-oriented
T: Time-bound,  Time framed,  Time-Specific,  Trackable

Digital strategi kan være så mangt

For ett par år siden snakket folk i internettverden om webstrategi og «kommunikasjonsstrategi» osv. Nå snakker alle om «Digitalstrategi». Men snakker de egentlig om hva digitalstrategi er?

Del 1. Etter å ha bidratt til å innføre digitalstrategi som begrep, i stedet for det mer avgrensede begrepet webstrategi eller internettstrategi, er det forunderlig å se at mange kun har byttet navn på «dyret» og ikke endret innholdet i hva de leverer.

Jeg mener begrepet «digitalstrategi» misbrukes grovt og våger påstanden om at de fleste som i dag sier de kan bidra til å utvikle en digitalstrategi ikke gjør det.

Det er ærlig talt ikke underlig at toppledelsen ikke helt engasjerer seg i samtalen. Men det burde de gjøre!

Strategi (i forretningsmessig kontekst) og realisering av strategi er nettopp det toppledelsen i virksomheter arbeider med. Digital strategi handler først og fremst om forretningsaspektene i en virksomhet og da avgrenset til de elementene i en virksomhet som kan eller bør løses gjennom digitale virkemidler.

Digitalstrategi handler om verdikjeder og forretningsdrift og forretningsmodeller som realiseres gjennom digitale løsninger. Digitalstrategi omfatter altså alle elementer som kan føre til at virksomheten kan redusere kostnadsnivå og/ eller øke inntektspotensialet. Kanskje det er på tide å fjerne «Digital» fra begrepet fordi det er kunstig å opprettholde et skille mellom «analog» og «digital» forretningsverden?

Det betyr ikke at det å utvikle en digitalstrategi nødvendigvis er en uendelig stor oppgave. Det kommer an på virksomhetens kompleksitet og det kommer an på om en velger å utvikle en digitalstrategi «up front» eller som en pågående prosess.

Siden det ofte er lurt å starte med seg selv kommer først en beskrivelse av min egen virksomhet:

Min egen virksomhet er et godt eksempel på at det kan gjøres enkelt. Jeg leverer rådgivning om digitale aktiviteter til kunder som kan tjene eller spare penger på å gjennomføre endringer med hjelp av bedre utnyttelse av digitale løsninger i deres virksomhet.

Mine kunder har enten erkjente, eller ukjente problem eller behov jeg kan bidra til å løse. Mine kunder velger meg, fordi jeg gir dem merverdi: Jeg koster ganske enkelt mindre enn det de sparer og/ eller tjener på de rådene jeg gir.

Jeg kan oppnå dette på flere måter:

• Jeg kan arbeide som ansatt i en virksomhet som trenger digital forretningskompetanse.
• Jeg kan arbeide for et selskap som er kjent for å levere slike tjenester til virksomheter.
• Jeg kan etablere selskap sammen med andre som leverer tilsvarende tjenester, eller supplerende tjenester (til min kompetanse).
• Jeg kan velge å arbeide som selvstendig og arbeide sammen med kunder og andre i en mer fragmentert «nettverksøkonomi».

Mitt arbeid realiseres gjennom behovsavklaringsmøter med kunder, research, workshops, foredrag, kurs og ved å levere dokumenter og handlingsplaner som kundene kan gjennomføre. Jeg leder gjennomføringsprosesser og bidrar til å følge opp, måle og evaluere iverksatte tiltak.

I forhold til min egen digitale strategi er spørsmålet hvilke digitale virkemidler er mest hensiktsmessige for min virksomhet?

• Jeg skriver blogg, for å kunne synliggjøre min kompetanse for mange på en gang. Det  er kompetanse jeg lever av å bidra med for mine kunder. Bloggen bidrar til å kunne nå lengre ut i markedet og det bidrar til å bygge mitt personlige og faglige omdømme. Jeg blogger altså fordi kostnadene ved å synliggjøre min kompetanse og leveranser er lavere enn andre vurderte virkemidler.

• Jeg er aktiv på sosiale medier, for å synliggjøre og bidra med min kompetanse, holde meg orientert om hva som skjer på mitt fagfelt (og få økt kompetanse) og for å bygge nettverket sterkere og større. Jeg bruker også disse kanalene for å trekke oppmerksomhet til min blogg.
• Jeg kommenterer på andres blogger, eller artikler i digitale medier, for å synliggjøre kompetanse og mitt «brand» (intigritet)
• Jeg bruker e post for å ta imot henvendelser, oversende tilbud, følge opp prosjekter og prosesser jeg er inne i.
• Jeg bruker mobiltelefon (ja den er digital) for å være i dialog og følge opp de andre kanalene når jeg er på farten.
• På PC og mobil har jeg løsninger for å ivareta kundeoversikt, aktiviteter, oppdrag osv. Mine «backofficeløsninger» er altså på plass.

Foruten digitale aktiviteter deltar jeg på utvalgte seminar, sitter i juryer, holder foredrag. Jeg arbeider selvfølgelig med kunder, løser deres problemer og finner måter å dekke deres behov på innenfor mitt fagfelt.

For å være attraktiv for kunder er det en vesentlig forutsetning at jeg er faglig oppdatert og at jeg har et nettverk hvor andres kompetanse kan benyttes der min ikke strekker til.

Jeg har god oversikt over hva markedet er villig til å betale for å tjene mer og/ eller spare mer enn jeg koster dem. Jeg har et «business case» og «ROI» kalkuleringer. De er naturlig nok svært oversiktlige og enkle.

Jeg evaluerer ukentlig effekter av hva jeg gjør og setter i gang tiltak der jeg ønsker forbedringer.

• Hvor mange ser på min profil på Linkedin ? Har det økt, eller blitt reduksjon siste uke?
• Hvor mange besøker og leser hva på Bloggen min? økning eller reduksjon?
• Hvor mange leser presentasjoner lagt ut på Slideshare?
• Hvor mange konkrete henvendelser og oppdrag får jeg i etterkant av en satsning på en eller flere av aktivitetene jeg har satt i gang? – og om jeg kan skille det ad, fra hvilken kanal kommer effekten fra?
• I hvilken grad, og i hvilke kanaler oppnår jeg dialog med andre i nettverk, kunder osv.

Jeg gjør mer av det som fungerer bra og mindre av det som ikke fungerer så bra.

For en hel del mindre og mellomstore virksomheter er det ikke særlig mer komplisert enn dette. For andre virksomheter kan det å hente ut gevinst (kostnadsbesparelse /skape økt inntjening), gjennom forbedret bruk av digitale løsninger være mer komplekst og man må se på mange forskjellige løsninger både forretningsmessig, organisatorisk og teknologisk.

Det skal jeg beskrive i neste blogginnlegg; Del 2 av «Digitalstrategi betyr så mangt» Hva tenker du om dette temaet? Har du kommentarer, spørsmål eller forslag til forbedringer?

“Endringspakker” ikke “krisepakker” !

Urolige finansmarkeder vil påvirke Norge. ”Alle” forteller oss dette. Her forskjellige eksempler: DN, E24, Dagbladet, Aftenposten, NRK, New York Times, osv.

Noen lukker øynene og håper at vi ikke får en ny krise, andre sier at den allerede er her. Krisepakkene som ble delt ut i forrige runde var ikke tilstrekkelige og man er nå redd for at det ikke finnes flere løsninger og vi bare må ta det som nå kommer.

For å møte finansuroen må både offentlig og privat sektor mobilisere. Det er mye kunnskap og kompetanse å hente fra IT og internettbransjen. Økt digitaliseringstakt vil gi kostnadsreduksjoner, effektiviseringsgevinster og mulighet til å organisere seg mer fornuftig. Bruk den kompetansen.

IKT bransjen har også mye kompetanse og erfaring innenfor innovasjon, endringsprosesser, nye tjenester, produkter og betalingsmodeller osv. Her kan IKT bransjen tilføre mye, hurtig. Politikere og økonomer må finne raske og hensiktsmessige grep som kan dempe de problemer som vil komme i kjølvannet av krisen. Da må det offentlige tydelig vise hva det er vi vil, hvor vi skal, slik at tiltakene blir målrettet.

Vil vi forsøke å opprettholde dagens system og ”redde” bank og finansinstitusjonene og sende regningen til befolkningen som sist? Vil man restrukturere måten vi organiserer og kontrollerer økonomi, slik at vi ikke ender opp i finanskriser hvor de ansvarlige ”slipper unna”? Peter Warren beskriver hvordan han mener ting henger sammen i sin blog.

Det er på tide at staten legger mye bedre til rette for at næringsliv og offentlige etater gis mulighet til endring. Vi kan ikke flikke på systemene. Nå vi må tilrettelegge for omveltninger og radikale forbedringer.

Vi trenger ikke ”krisepakker”! – Vi trenger ”endringspakker”!
Etater og næringsliv må gjøre de grepene de kan lokalt i egne virksomhet. Mye av dette vil selvsagt handle om å spare, redusere og å effektivisere. Samtidig vet vi at de som vil være styrket i etterkant av en krise, er de som våget å endre seg og våget å bygge for fremtiden. Det vil si de som våget å innovere.

Det snakkes mye om kundefokus, dialog med kunder og brukere, involvering, utnyttelse av sosiale medier osv. og ikke minst nytenkning. Dette kan IKT bransjen og digitale forretningsutviklere mye om: Hvordan digitale kanaler kan utnyttes for å oppnå kostnadseffektivitet og gi aksess til større markeder enn ellers. Hva som er realistisk? Hva markedene trenger? Hvilke satsningsområder er viktigst? Hvilke tiltak gir raskest gevinst?

Dersom vi kan levere tjenester og produkter som gir større fordeler for kjøperne vinner vi. Aktørene i markedet, dvs. kjøpere velger alltid de produktene og de tjenestene som gir dem størst fordeler. Dette gjelder for kjøpmannen på hjørnet, så vel som for store internasjonale aktører.

Trygghet og stabilitet er en fordel i urolige tider. Tilgang er en fordel, fordelaktig pris, kvalitet er en fordel. Dette er egenskaper ved tjenester og produkter vi må prioritere.

Dersom vi i Norge kan tilføre oss selv og også i andre deler av verden tjenester og produkter som hever folks levestandard, helsetilstand osv. vil vi bidra til en forbedret verden hvor risikoen for nye økonomiske kriser reduseres.

Derimot: Om staten velger ”redningspakker” og finansakrobatene slipper unna enda en gang ( se dette omdiskuterte intervjuet med en trader fra BBC ) forsterkes krisen ved at samtlige av oss mister troen på det politiske system og kapitalkreftene .

Dersom staten våger å gi tydelige signaler om at det er ”endringspakker” som er et av de viktigste virkemidlene, vil hver og en av oss med ideer samle oss og utvikle nye små og store løsninger som gir oss trygghet og leveranseevne gjennom og etter krisen.

Staten har nå en unik mulighet til å invitere hele Norge og internasjonale miljøer til den største ”Crowd- sourcing”  og ”Social Business” happeningen i historien. Grip den!

Oppdatert (link over): “BBC intervjuet mulig bløff?“

Tradisjonelle medieinstitusjoner er de “lost” ?

Jeg har skrevet om media  og hva som skal til for at medie- institusjonene har en funksjon inn i fremtiden tidligere. Nå skriver jeg om det en gang til. Samtlige medieinstitusjoner står midt oppe i radikale forandringer. Og ingen av dem synes å ville være med på det.

Robert G. Picard, en av de mest anerkjente økonomiekspertene innenfor mediebransjen gir relativt kraftig kritikk i forhold til mediebransjens økonomiske evner. De er riktignok farget av  at han er amerikaner, likevel har han  noen poeng.

Massemediene, som vi kjenner dem, hevder han, har hatt ett par hundre år, hvor man i bransjen ikke   har måttet beskjeftige seg med forretningsmodeller, eller å fundere på hvor inntektene skal komme fra.  Som et etablert ”massemedium” var det slik at publikum kjøpte avisene for å være opplyst og ingen stilte nevneverdige spørsmål videre. Tilhørigheten til hvilke medier man kjøpte av handlet mest om politisk tilhørighet. Denne ideen har levd så lenge at jeg har selv har snakket med folk  som ”savner ”Dagbladet som kulturpolitisk avis”. Det er faktisk lenge siden den har vært det!. Men ”vi” venter altså fortsatt., – snakk om god branding! Lars Helle hvor er du?

Forleden dag snakket jeg med en annen konserndirektør innenfor norsk medieverden. Vi var ”ukomfortabelt” enige. Det er behov for strukturelle endringer. Store. Alle journalister jeg har snakket med er engstelige for den slags snakk fra konsern, eller eierstrukturer. Jeg forstår ikke dette. Fremtiden eies kun av en eneste ting: Publikums opplevelse av å ha en fordel: Hvilken kunnskap kan dere medier gi meg, som jeg ikke kan fremskaffe selv? Slik tenker vi, vi utenfor journalistikken, utenfor medieverden.   Hva har dere å tilby? – om du vil. Det journalistiske faget står under ekstremt press, men det er ikke det verste, for kunnskapen (om enn fattigslig) kan publikum finne ved å ”Google” er enorm, men hvilken kunnskap gir google? Journalistikk er enda viktigere enn noen gang før, hva kan ikke ”Googles”? etter min mening : Kunnskap, erkjennelse. Når jeg leser tabloid og løssalgsavisene i Norge, eller majoriteten i  verden, savner jeg å tro på journalistisk kunnskapsformidling. Det er som om jeg selv kunne ”Googlet” meg til resultatet, hvorfor betale for å ikke å bli klokere da? Jeg “vet alt” men jeg forstår lite…

For å snakke om mediene – dvs. plateselskapene (husker dere?) filmselskapene( merker dere hva de hindrer oss i?) avishusene( ser dere hva de hindrer oss i?) magasinene( hvilken glede de ga oss) forlagene (hva holder dere egentlig på med?) – og hvor blir det av Donald Duck? Samtlige kjemper for en utdøende ide…

Det er en enorm kamp der ute – og vi som bare har lyst på de gode historiene, hvem spør oss? – Ingen. Og i den fasen av utviklingen er dette litt forenklet sagt ikke klokt. Vi – dvs. lesere, forbrukere, publikum vi vil ha noen som hjelper oss og gjør oss klokere. Vi har, som mennesker villet ha – og vist at vi vil ha -noen som hjelper oss til å bli klokere i minst 28.000 år. Og vi vil gjerne betale for det. Betalingsviljen er ikke et problem. Problemet er ca. 200 års vanetenkning innen (enveis) massekommunikasjon om hvordan ta betalt for innholdsproduksjon. Nå er dette endret, systemene for hvordan ta betalt,-  ikke viljen til å betale for seg-  er i endring. Kun det. Så hvorfor stritte i mot? De neste 28.000 år vil folk gjerne ha god faglig journalististikk, stor fortellerevne og kunstneriske utrykk og er villig til å betale for det, på den ene, eller den andre måten. Jeg ber dere ganske enkelt om å la være å stritte i mot fremtiden, for det er ikke så vanskelig som det kan se ut som.

Plateselskaper, kommer ikke til å være en suksesshistorie i fremtiden. Ikke tenk ideen om å lage et plateselskap! Det er smartere å tenke at man skal være et musikkselskap. Film. Ja hva skal man si, makten fra Hollywoodsystemet er ennå stor. Eies av sånne som Sony etc. Men hvor lenge holder det? Hvem eier gleden av fortellingene på Youtube? Hvor er den gode historien? Kapitalkrefter er ikke et godt måleparameter.  Kinofiilmen vil leve, den vil leve godt, jeg er usikker på hvordan de neste femti år. Men den har kvaliteter som ikke kan erstattes. Kan hende at det krever ett glass vin, ett event, en filmpersonlighet tilstede osv. (men slik var jo opprinnelsen til filmkjendisene. -Tilstedeværelse. Kjære journalister, vær tilstede med dere selv, dyrk faget!

Som sagt med mange ord: Massemediene blir ikke borte, med mindre dere – fagfolkene flykter. Om dere flykter er det fordi dere ikke skjønner elementære økonomiske prinisipp: Lever verdi til deres “kunder”/ lesere – som oppleves – for dem større en det de opplever at de betaler for.

Næringslivet kan forbedre verdiskapingen ved bruk av digitale kanaler.

Norsk næringsliv har mye å hente på å øke digitaliseringstakten, men jeg er usikker på om ledere i norske virksomheter er fullt ut klar over at de egentlig vet mye om hva og hvordan ting skal gjøres også i digitale kanaler.

IKT undersøkelsen fra SSB viser, om man leser den litt grundig, at det er kun 25% av norske virksomheter som bruker digitale kanaler virksomhetskritisk. Det vil si bruker internett og lignende som sentrale virkemidler for å oppnå forbedret forretningsdrift. Tallene er riktignok fra 2010 men noe radikalt er neppe endret siden i fjor.

Det blir fort veldig abstrakt å snakke om disse tingene. Konsulentbransjen gjør det ikke enklere med alle sine tre-bokstavsforkortelser. ”Internettfolk” har etter min mening ikke fokusert særlig på de forretningsmessige aspektene, eller kanskje det er mangel på forretningsmessig kunnskap eller vilje til å snakke om det som egentlig betyr noe for virksomhetene?

I Norge burde vi være spesielt interessert i dette temaet. Vi er et høykostland. Kronen er for tiden veldig sterk (les dyr). Vi er et lite land som trenger økte eksportmuligheter av varer og tjenester. Og samfunnsmessig er det viktig å være bevisst at oljen ikke varer evig. Folk er ”overmodne” og etterspør digitale tjenester og digitale muligheter for å forenkle deres liv. Vi er i verdens toppsjikt i bruk av PC, lesebrett og mobil.

Likevel er det slik, om vi skal tro SSB at 75% av norske bedrifter ennå ikke benytter internett, eller andre digitale muligheter til å forbedre effektivitet eller øke sine markedsmuligheter, enda det da er åpenbart enkelt å oppnå forbedringer.

Spørsmålene som først må besvares for å sikre en hensiktsmessig bruk av internett og andre digitale kanaler er i retning av dette:
• Hva er din kjernevirksomhet og hvor mye av den er reflektert i din bedrifts digitale aktiviteter? (Aktivitet? Omsetning? Kostnadsbesparende tiltak?)
• Av dine kostnader, hvilke kan en enklest redusere ved å erstatte med digitale løsninger? (Printkostnader? Utsendelse av brev, digitale bestillingsmuligheter for å redusere lagerkostnader, Manuelle prosesser i organisasjonen som kan automatiseres ved selvbetjeningsløsninger og derved spare tidsbruk osv. osv.)
• Av din virksomhets inntekter, hvilke kan økes ved å nå markedet lettere, og ved å nå nye markeder? (Hvilke elementer i din virksomhet kan gi dine kunder forbedret aksess til dine produkter og tjenester? Hvilke elementer i din virksomhet kan tilbys i nye markeder? osv. osv.)
• Hvilke ubenyttede muligheter kan gi økte inntekter? (Har dine produkter og tjenester tilgrensende produkter og tjenester som burde være en del av kundetilbudet og hvilke bør man tilby? Kan man endre egenskaper ved produktene og tjenestene slik at de er mer markedstilpasset og lettere kan tilbys direkte eller indirekte gjennom digitale kanaler? Vil man kunne øke markedsaksessen ved å inngå allianser med andre suksessfulle aktører i digitale kanaler? osv. osv.)
• Hvordan kan man bruke digitale kanaler som salgskanaler innenfor ditt virksomhetsfelt?
• Hvilke markedsaktiviteter benyttes i dag? (Hvilke markedsføringstiltak fungerer best i digitale kanaler? Hvor mye gjøres i dag? Hvilke effekt kan man oppnå ved strukturert flerkanal og multikanaltiltak? osv.)
• Hvordan beregner man gevinsten av bedriftens omdømmebygging? (I hvilke digitale kanaler er dere og hvorfor? Hva kan forbedres? Hvordan vil man måle effekten? osv.)
• Kan organisasjonen arbeide mer effektivt ved bruk av digitale kanaler? (lønnskostnader er ofte en av de største kostnadene i virksomheter, besparelser her vil kunne gi stor effekt på årsresultatet. Redusert tidsbruk for å finne informasjon for å løse oppgaver, forenklede prosedyrer og administrasjonsoppgaver, automatiseringer av rutiner, redusert reisetid, møtetid osv. er typiske forbedringspunkter. Et sentralt spørsmål er: Har resultatansvarlige i virksomheten ansvar for aktiviteter i digitale kanaler, eller er dette overlatt til kommunikasjonsansvarlige i virksomheten?)
• Ved å endre forretningsmodeller, vil man da kunne øke inntektene?

Dersom man som næringsdrivende ikke er villig til å gjøre endringer og besvare spørsmål som de ovenfor, tror jeg rett og slett ikke at man er næringsdrivende om relativt få år.

Det er egentlig ikke stor forskjell på tradisjonell forretningsdrift og digital forretningsdrift. Digitalisering handler om å flytte elementer av kjernevirksomheten eller endre dens innhold fra den måten man har pleid å gjøre ting på til en ny måte å gjøre ting på slik at man oppnå ønsket effekt. Det er noen forskjeller som handler om virkemidler og utøvelse men la nå ikke det stå i veien for å gjøre det viktigste grepet riktig:

- Skaff deg hjelp til å få sortert det du allerede kan og få orden på forretningen din!

Network economy and digital economy are inseparable

The concept of a digital economy emerged in the late nineties. Nicholas Negroponte (1995)  used a metaphor of shifting from moving  atoms to moving bits.

With the globalization, increased mobilization, decreasing economies in the western world and the position the Internet  a digital economy have emerged. A network economy in combination with a digital economy is not limited to business trading and services only. It encompasses every aspect of life from health to education, from business to social awareness and geopolitical changes.  We have all become eCitizens.

How does this influence how we do business? The customer base is the company’s you are able to connect to and provide value for. -No connections, no values.- We are moving from an industrial economy (now fading out) into a network- /Internet- /digital economy. (That has started to fade in). Stewart Brand points out that commerce is being accelerated by the digital and network revolutions and that the role of commerce is to both exploit and absorb these shocks.

Open economy
This means that there are a lot of things that need to change, rapidly if one want to take part in, and conduct business into the near future. In network economies one party doesn’t control the value chain, property- and copy rights are under pressure, the drop of production and distribution costs reduces the prices one can charge and put profit creation under stress. Information and knowledge, products and services aren’t scares resources anymore. “Everything has become commodity”. You need to know how to provide added value for something that’s free and you need to know what is considered value for your customers.

Relations / networks are pairs of the main assets for enabling added value for customers. Knowing how to create added value for customers creates an economic flow where we have the opportunity for a fair share of the value created.

Decentralized organization
In a network economy it’s vital that the decisions are made as far out in the organization as possible. One important reason for this is the “need for speed”, if we aren’t able to decide quickly enough, our customer have no need for us. Their need is to be dynamic, and rapid towards their markets, and shifts in them. We cannot afford to report “to base, await a decision and act when we finally have a go – no-go from HQ. Not only is the network and relations we build our selves the sum of our network economy, also our customers network and relations are of value for us, since we have the possibility to take part in their networks. The relations our customers have between themselves are added values for us and increase the opportunities we have.

The elements of network economy
So what are the parts these kinds of networks consist of?  First it’s the customer which is the core of all business. It shouldn’t be necessary to name it, but surprisingly often a firm forgets this simple fact. Secondly it’s your partners. Partners are other companies that contribute to add value for the customer, either directly with you, or indirectly in some manner. In any event, you should look upon these entities as partnerships. Thirdly you will need “Node Management”. A node is the connection points where the network/ relations are interconnected. The last, but most important element in the chain of a network economy is the services and products delivered, implemented and maintained. This is typically consultants, experts and solution implementers.

Node Management
The Node manager’s task is to develop and grow relations and networks relevant for the customers and the firm the Node Manager is working for. The needed skills for a Node manager is, beside having excellent social skills, to have deep and real insight in the challenges the customers are facing and providing the correct means to convert those challenges into added value for the customer. A Node Manager needs to have a profound understanding of how network economies and digital economies work because this are fundamentals for solving customers challenges in the present and the future.

Do we need the firm?
The connection to the firm needs to be strong and have clear objectives to benefit from the creation of value and accumulate the gained knowledge from the ongoing processes at the customers. This is where the economic flow is ensured for the firm.

The “Hub”
The focal point for the firm is to establish itself as a “Hub”. On the one side the “Hub” need to “depersonalize” relations and networks in order to “secure” the value of the network and make it independent from a singular person.  On the other hand the “Hub” needs to provide Node Mangers, consultants, experts and solution implementers with added value. Employees need to see the benefits for them otherwise they could might as well be self employed.

The “Hub” needs to be able to provide day to day assistance, have all the assets a given project needs and can direct partners, skilled people, information, know-how and administrative support, easily to the one with a need in order to solve a customer project rapidly.

The elements for the firm are to offer added value for the employees: Excellent collaboration options, extended networks and partnerships, collective awareness of customer needs and collective insights in customer’s challenges. In addition the “Hub” needs to create and maintain a brand that is attractive, that signalize a culture where working for a better environment and a better world is the essence. In short this is the replacement of what was defined as “the production apparatus” (“means”) in the industry economy era.

UPDATE : Read what Capgemini Consulting says here

The Norwegian e-book database is able to challenge Apple and Amazon.com!

The Norwegian ebook database “Bokskyen” (“Book cloud”) is capable of challenging both Apple and Amazon.com. I just wonder if they are aware of the value they have at hand?

In an article in Aftenposten today I read that the technology used and the set up they have made in the platform created they may avoid becoming dependent on Apple’s and Amazon.com walled garden ebook strategy. I knew this two years ago, when the ebook platform was presented in “Web dagene 2009”, based upon the way they explained the technology.

Since then the owners of the platform ( CapplenDamm, Gyldendal and Aschehoug ) have focused on a strategy where the political fight concerning VAT and governmental regulative agreements have been the focus. Also keeping the “old publishing hegemony” have been a important strategy of the publishing houses in Norway, as in many parts of the world. Meanwhile the Norwegian bookreaders have become eager customers of both Apples ibook and of course Amazon.com for purchasing their e books. I’m not at all sure that the publishing companies have had the best strategy up till now, training their market to use the main (and world leading) competitors.

As for now it seems like the positive news, that they now seem confident and happy to be able to avoid Apple and Amazon.com and by that being able to keep a larger part of the profit, is the benefit they see. They are happy for the “deals” made with the government and for being able to keep a pricing model they feel they can live by, mainly continuing their business in traditional ways. This is not a great strategy for the future. In best case it’s an OK short term tactics that have worked out well – for now.

I believe that they don’t see other than only a very small part of the real business value that’s embedded in the platform they have at hand. Both Apple and amazon.com should be looking out. Google should have a closer look at what is really going on. Not to mention, the owners of the platform themselves should ask themselves if they haven’t overlooked something of importance. What that is? – Well they are welcome to define where they want to be the next decade and come and ask me how to get there.

Wikileaks is a test of our democracies in the digital era

It’s disturbing what happens with Wikileaks and how governments worldwide react. Lately it’s Twitter that’s “under attach”, as these two articles from the Guardian and Telegraph points out.

To me it seems like politicians, governments and bureaucrats worldwide are seriously perplexed and mislead by their own fear.

Can leaks be stopped?
Politicians and governments does everything in their power to stop Wikileaks, including putting pressure on Twitter and also major private corporations, such as Visa, PayPal, Apple, Bank of America, Amazon.com and other companies running server parks around the world.

It’s like they haven’t realized that the Internet is here. There are no ways to stop the digital era and the spread of information such as misuse of power,  except for one thing: Act within the national and international laws, be transparent, embrace the ethic and moral standards we are so proud of in the western societies. Then there will be no need for fear of scandals.

Why attack Wikileaks?
The central question is really this: If Wikileaks didn’t exist, would confidential material still have been published? My bet is – yes it would, and I may add – it should! All material that has a public interest should be published.

Wikileaks is nothing but a mediator. The leaks have come, as it always has, from whistle-blowers with access and motifs, not all of them noble. The only new is the amount of revealed documents and secrets. More than 250 000 documents is said to be in the hands of Wikileaks, only a few thousand documents have been revealed to the public, and most likely even fewer published in the news till now.

Why refuse to comment on the leaks?
What is a radical trend is that governments in several cases refuse to comment on revealed information because it’s a leak via Wikileaks (mark: Wikileaks is NOT a source- it’s a mediator) this statement from the Norwegian foreign affairs is an example:

“- We are generally reluctant to comment on internal reports that are published by WikiLeaks and believe that such leaks are unfortunate. Confidential communications and contacts are a vital and necessary part of diplomacy,”“said Imerslund.”

Even the United Nations officials refuses to comment on Wikileaks revealed news:

“The United Nations says it will not comment on documents leaked by the whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks.” The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, also declined to comment on the documents.

The real problem
This is not only clumsy; it’s a democratic problem of dimensions! Shouldn’t we not take leaks like the killings of journalists in Iraq, the leaks concerning the Israeli Government and their strategy towards Gaza and a lot of other dramatic facts seriously  because it came from the mediator Wikileaks?  And shouldn’t we all worry when the US department of justice issued a subpoena against Twitter to obtain personal details of five individuals connected to Wikileaks? (Including a member of the parliament of Iceland!) – And even worse, have tried to keep it all secret! People are now starting to question whether Facebook, Google or others have been ordered the same kind of subpoenas.

This article by Jon Wessel Aas in the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen explains excellently a wide range of reasons why Wikileaks have to be defended. Of course we should get worried, and we should embrace that we have a very powerful information flow via the Internet, that we still have a well functioning critical media that dares to reveal what goes on behind the curtains of power.

A dilemma
On the other hand there is a dilemma with Wikileaks. They seem to want to control the publishing of the leaks. Sarah Ellison wrote an article in the Vanity fair about Julian Assanges meeting with the Guardian concerning who is to control publishing of secrets from the Wikileak files. To me it’s the amount of secret content, unclear motifs and that one small organization have the control of what, where and when to publish that represent a major democratic problem. I think that media organizations have spent very little time, up till recently, discussing this aspect. This seems to have been resolved by the ironic fact that Wikileaks themselves had a leak – according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. Another aspect is that other whistle- blowing sites are popping up according to Wall Street Journal. This makes the dilemma with Wikileaks less troublesome.

” The spirit is out of the oil lamp”
Politician’s and governments have no choice anymore.. Refusing to comment on allegations is not the answer. Whistle- blower websites aren’t going to go away. It has become radically more difficult to keep secrets. The Internet is a part of the digital era. It is great news for the democracy and terrifying for those who act behind the scenes with hidden agendas and “ugly motifs”. This new global transparency and speed of sharing information will hopefully help reducing corruption, genocide, global governmental mismanagement and a lot of other kinds of abuse of power from people, organizations and nations with substantial power. My advice to politicians, governments and officials is to act pro- actively, answer openly and willingly to allegations and to take serious and swift actions to correct faults made. Otherwise it’s our democracy that’s at stake, and the one to blame will in fact be our own politicians and governments.

Its iPad day, what to do?

For those of you reading my blog for some time you know my opinions. It’s complicated! During the next weeks we will have ‘euphoria – of some kind; the iPad will be released in Norway. The dilemma is that we all “love” the:  The ipod, the iphone and now the iPad. On the other hand we don’t. Nobody wants to be situated inside the pocket of someone, being without control.

This is happening on many levels now, for the end user and for unwilling ‘partners’ of the ‘Apple Empire’. Look Here for an article of the journalists “dilemma” when the iPad is on its way to Norway.

Apple has become too much, for those of us watching what they do. The Brand of being an underdog, a fighting power – is lost. This is not what  people seem to think of Apple anymore. What we see of Apple now is too much wealth, too much arrogance, and that they are acting out of what is reckoned to be accepted behavior.

Norwegians still loves the product, despite the fact that we have been neglected for more than a half year; Norwegians have bought their iPads abroad (50.000  purchased items is a guess – and the total population of the whole of Norway is only 5 mill people). It’s not only the product, the reading list, it’s the concept we love. We love the freedom, to be on the move, the simplicity, the ability to read, listen, watch and act, write, communicate in the one and same device. Norwegians loves Apple, Apple might not show the same affection toward Norwegians?

This creates a dilemma; should we embrace Apple once more, or should we react on the fact that Apple controls the freedom of speech? – by controlling whom, what, and how an editorial product should look, and what it may contain. Should we become angry of the cost of the device, the profit Apple have decided that it will collect from the content providers of the world?( Apple demand 30% of the brto. Sales price, hardly without any costs.)

You and I, as citizens, want freedom, content producers want to be capable of living from their trade, and media houses want to continue playing their role. The acts of Apple over the last years shows me just one thing; They want to become even more filthy rich (it seems), and shows no interests for the world at all, beside enriching their stock holders even more. This is not a sustainable business model into the future. Providing consumers and partners with nothing thing else than what will end up being seen as a rip off, aren’t. This is not what the people of the world wanted from Apple in the first place. This is not what the people in the world would like Apple to be – for the world.

Nevertheless, under the Christmas trees in the western world, and in Norway, there will be a huge amount of iPads, for fathers, for mothers and for teenagers. The content we can purchase, there will be a bitter ( but still) purchased order put to the Apple system. I just don’t think it will last for long. Very soon the boomerang will hit Apple. My hope is that the structure of the free Internet didn’t die along the route of greed. (take a look on this related blog posting of the possible death of the free Internet )

What’s the value of you in the digital universe?

We all know the ordinary business models on-line. You buy something, and then you pay. We all know about Amazon, and that we tend to buy a book with high rankings. Suggestions from friends have the same effect; we tend to buy a suggested book, before looking for something else ourselves. We know of “freemium”/ premium services, like Spotify.

Of course we know that corporations pay for advertisements. (That’s when you and I are “sold” to someone). Google, Facebook, YouTube and also Twitter are cleverer than just selling banner ads based upon amount of clicks on pages or clicks on ads.

The value of algorithms.
We know that Google made some algorithms, to sort out what search results show up and not. It’s complicated and it’s secret. New lines of work came due to this Search Engine Optimizing (SEO) and also Search Engine Marketing (SEM)..

The other day, we got some insight about Facebooks way of sorting out the flow of our newsfeed (you can read an interesting article HERE ). In short it claims that if you are popular, interactive and have a lot of followers, shares videos and images – you rank higher than others. Where is the value? Well you get less “noise” and facebook can sell you at a higher rate, based on the segment (“high social profile” assuming you have higher influence on people around you)

Beyond old fashioned segmentation there is behavioral and contextual marketing.
The segmentation (Nation, gender, age, education, income, etc.) governs what ads you are likely to be exposed to and this is as old as marketing itself. Online the possibilities to get far better data because people might be willing to provide a lot more information about them. Facebook take this a step further and cooperation with third parties, such as Google, has become common. This makes it possible to share information so that the segment information from Facebook includes knowledge about your actions on Google and your search pattern. The sum of this knowledge is assumed to provide advertisers with “better” audiences, and you with “targeted” ads. All of this has lead to yet new professions: “Behavioral and contextual” advertisers.

If I know where you are, I know what to sell you! “Geo- tagging”
Location based knowledge is great. And it has become “trendy” to talk about. “Everyone” want to jump on this train. And it’s amazing. One thing is to add a commercial message at the map – you know the map on your cell phone, web site, iPad or the GPS in your car. It gets more sophisticated with the “chip” in in your training shoes, together with a GPS and a USB. Your training sessions will never be the same.  Your running patterns is transferred to your community, your cell phone tells you when other training friends are out in the same park as you. My guess is that location based marketing is going to be huge, and then commodity, something just being there as a new marketing / sales technique.

Internet in all things.
Not only geo- tagging is out there. As syndicating system, services are offered via different business partners that never used to be combined is on its way. Devices; like the cell phone goes into the banking, credit card and insurance business. The car computer syndicates with gas stations, car repair work shops and mapping services. The result is on your GPS in your car – and/ or cell phone. If I know where you are, how much gas is on your tank, for how long you have been driving? I can offer you a solution to problems you have, before you thought of them – before they even happened!

Now, combine this with semantic technologies. In the article I linked to, it’s only used to monitor, and moderate comments in an online newspaper. That’s still a very primitive usage of a very powerful business concept. Semantics and semiotics are language disciplines where meaning of communication is decoded See the Wikipedia article about semantics and about the semantic web HERE. This enable the option to provide relevant content to anyone. It enable to port relevant content based upon my interaction with “Internet” and others on Internet that I interact with. E.g. Twitter may run my flow of feed via their semantic engine, and deliver me relevant content, dependent on the meanings of my flow of statement. Twitters business model is starting to take form; look HERE. Provide me with relevant topic, and relevant followers. Provide knowledge about brand, topics and monitoring services(that let them know I have a need, an opinion worth while interacting with towards a business market. Using semantic technologies will surely help Twitter, streamlining their business models.

None of the above is future or science fiction, its existing services. Still the concepts aren’t advanced, but they will, and in a speed we have hardly seen. You see, all the technology is in place. All business models are already tested and working. We, the market, have started embracing the new possibilities and have purchased the devices already.

Is privacy corrupted?
Yes, but not by governments, police or military. Not by nosy journalists, but by you and I. And I’ve seen the reactions (amongst others) against facebook. But to be sincere I don’t think that regulations will help. The phenomena are spreading, and the business cases are too great to back off. The benefits for us as users are too big as well. Not long ago, communities were criticized for interrupting privacy merely because people shared information about themselves, in manners we hadn’t seen up till then. Photos of their loved ones, information on which restaurant they were dining, all kind of “silly” information, that could, if misused interrupt our privacy and be misused ( just think of dating services where people put images of themselves – no newspaper would ever print)  People still do this, and continue to want to share, to interact in every possible way.

Will the governments stop this, and is it all bad?
If one government wants to regulate what is legal, the servers are moved to another country, where no such rules apply. It’s these companies that will win the race, grab the market shares. Internet is not a ‘ cosy café ‘. It’s a hard core business environment that is changing the way we live our lives. Another reason I believe that protests won’t help this time, is that in the western world unions have been a driving force, to regulate what the finance world may do or not. Unions have lost a lot of their power in western societies. After the financial crisis in 2008, politicians are scared of a new breakdown and will not be motivated to stop initiatives for finding business models, creating new types of jobs – keeping the wheels running.

I’m not sure if this is all bad. It’s a dramatic change, and it can surely be misused for a whole range of reasons. On the other hand, it simplify our lives, we get better services and offerings we want, not a mass media cacophony of commercial messages thrown at us at all times. The standard TV commercials, interrupting our film experiences will vanish. “Shouting” primitive messages, attempting to have us remembering a hair shampoo brand will be a lousy business. “Offer me what I want, when I need it and leave me alone if you don’t know me, and my preferences!” -  This just might be the next decades slogan for the marketing business – online.

The digital revolution involve you

We are in the midst of a revolution. Surely there are no digital armies, not riots on the streets, people  shouting “Digital – digital- digital now!”

There isn’t a digital bloodshed nor any ‘analogue heads’ chopped off. Nevertheless it’s a revolution going on, and it’s affecting us all in fundamentally ways.

 

I’m not sure what started it, maybe the introduction of the Internet is a starting point, and maybe it isn’t? In any event, the ways we use Internet have changed the basics of how we publicly communicate, conduct business and relationships with friends and our communities. It’s changed the definition of what a ‘public‘ is.

We used to have systems and technologies of: One – to one communications (like a letter or a telephone conversation) and we used to have one-to many communications (like the radio and newspapers).

The Internet represents a continuous communication between the masses and at the same time all the communication forms mentioned above. It influences all aspects of society: Politics, commerce, media, warfare and even the private sphere.

What is going on?
We are discussing all kinds of topics at the same time, and it becomes a myriad where it is difficult to apart the subjects. Some subjects are interwoven; some subjects are wrongly mixed together and are just creating confusion. We are discussing changes of the democracy (for those nations having that established) changes of how to conduct business, changes in the medias and even changes in the way our minds function.

There is no consensus if this is good or bad. Not really. Some are arguing that our capitalistic system is breaking down, and there is a need of a new one. Some uses the opportunity to crave for stronger control over the population and the digital flow of information. Some celebrate it and call it liberation, a kind of anarchism that will “save” us. Whom to believe?

Other questions are: Will this ever end? How long does it take until the dust settles? What’s next? Some says that they have all the answers, others that there are none. Its surely an exciting time to live in. All rules seems to be rewritten, or are they?

Some facts:

• No civilization has been there since the beginning of time.
• No civilization has stayed static.
• Every revolution (from the Latin Revolutio, “a turnaround” is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time…” – Wikipedia) alter what was before, with an uncertain future while being in the midst of it.
• The basic behavioral patterns in humans changes very slowly.
• People are highly adaptive to change in living conditions.

This means that, as humans, we have been exposed to change at all times. We adapt very well to changes in the surrounding circumstances and we keep some very typical behavioral patterns, such as being social and relational, striving for a safe life and a mind expanding lifestyle where cultural activities keep being some fundamentals we haven’t “given up”

Business
The way we organize work, provide and exchange values (goods, services) may change in structure, but we will still need each other to make everything we need, wish for and desire.

In a digital business the most obvious up till now is exactly this: Shared value chains, shared services, split revenue sharing. The way digital economics works is based on very old ideas: “The market place”(e.g. Kelkoo) “Community sales” (e.g. home parties like Tupperware, musicnodes.no ) one of the most effective marketing techniques are Direct mailing and social spread of opinions (word of mouth, rating)

How to organize work? Well the industrialism didn’t last very long, did it? We got that system in the 18th to the 19th century and it may take some years yet, but if you ask a blue collar worker in the western hemisphere (a shipyard worker in Norway, an automaker in the USA) you will be told loud and clearly that it’s going downhill. We don’t need the factory bells anymore, and we don’t need to clock- in anymore. Nowadays lots of us have’ mobile office’, and a cell phone where customers call, mail, Skype us at all times. Another reality; our clients might be in any time zones around the world. It’s not only consultants and ‘men in business suits’, it might as well be artists, poets, dancers, small family businesses and farmers. Does this resemble the way work was organized before the industrial revolution?

Communications
Never before have so many been able to consume, and take part in producing so much content. We read, watch, listen to all kinds of content, and to an extent that nobody could predict only 100 years ago. It’s said that an average teen, nowadays have more knowledge than Isaac Newton. The teen nowadays might not be as curious, but still.  The institutional structures are falling, and we do not know the outcome. Gutenberg never anticipated the outcome of the print press either.

But there is no need to be naive and to think that finally “the power came to the people”. The propaganda machinery in China, North Korea, Iran, USA and also Norway has an easy match these days. I’m not talking about the governments and military only. Corporations, criminals and political groups also know how to manipulate, and they do.

The private sphere
Kevin Kelly has said it better than anyone. He said something like that the Internet is not something out there, it’s surrounding us, it’s everywhere, it’s in everything. That makes our former idea of private and public irrelevant. At the moment we are confused by what role we have at work, and when we are private. We are concerned about privacy, and that government shouldn’t be able to conduct mass surveillance. At the same time we are freely giving out the most personal information to a wide range of Internet offerings, like Google, facebook, Amazon, YouTube and  iTunes to name a few. We gladly provide information on our name, gender, age, civil status, hobbies, purchases and locations. I don’t think this is necessarily bad for us, but there is no, or very little control mechanisms in place. The best example of how to make sense is to look to Visa. Visa has established a promise toward us. -They keep the secrecy about our credit card usage, and take responsibility to prevent us from fraud. They exclude businesses trying to cheat us, or misuse credit card information they have.  They have built a trusted relationship with all parties involved to let business on Internet happen.

The future
The digital revolution is like a wave at the ocean, you cannot stop the movement once started, but you can find ways to ride the wave.  Some people react at change with fear, and become insecure. Some people let their arms fall down passively and let the changes happen, feeling out of control. None of them will influence and participate in creating how the future will evolve.

I believe that every action taken now, by each and every one of us, will influence how the future will look like. If we embrace large global corporations uncritical, they will surely set the rules of the game. If we let governments grasp the opportunity to take control over our lives, they will – all over the world, whatever they call it. But if we, each one of us discuss, take part in our way, locally, by our blogs, our statements on facebook or twitter. If we address corporations and tell them how we want them to act, in order to conduct relational business with them, if we persistently demand our politicians to act on our behalf to protect the democratic ideas and demand that ethics should be incorporated in their every action. I think the digital revolution is worth it, and that it will lead to a constructive evolution; if we do our part of shaping the future.

Does Media businesses want to survive?

Reality is harsh for the media business, and has been so for the last decade. Is there any chance for the business to survive? It depends on what is the definition of what a media business is, and it depends on the media companies of today.

Ivar Trondsmo wrote about this in the Norwegian Aftenposten today. You can read it HERE The head of information in the Norwegian publishing house Gyldendal presented what they think is “six myths about the e-book”  HERE, what do you think represent the most relevant arguments for the future?

Why not ask the important question? What do we need the media production for? In my opinion, if we know the purpose, the business models and organization of it will evolve. The question is if the media institutions of today are willing to change, in order to be a future participant in the business.

I have a suggestion that I’d like to invite you to evolve and improve.

Using the press as a category for all news activities in TV, Radio, magazine, papers, web sites and so forth, and Publishing as another category for all production of “story telling” factual and fictional, in film, TV, books and so forth I hope to have made a simple viewpoint to discuss the core of what we as society want from media production, or – production of meaning. I don’t know if it’s sufficient, but hopefully you help evolve the perspective with me.

The press: We need the press to watch out and protect the democracy. This requires skills, quality, and guts.

Publishing: We need publishing to engage and tell us about life and what society is all about. It helps us understand ourselves and the relations we have towards other, as individuals and as communities. Publishing keeps us from falling out of culture and into barbary.

How to best ensure a system that provides these goals? As of today, the traditional media institutions are using their energy to preserve the power of yesterday, and aren’t able to realize that the fact is that this power structure is lost already. My problem of the ongoing development is that neither Apple, Amazon, Google,(or the like)  with their Apps stores, you tube sites iPad, Kindles and so forth have given an answer to what their purpose is, -  not a purpose we as a global, national society or for that matter individuals needs and wants.

Content production and products. I don’t think that it’s fruitful to fear the digital revolution, nor to be afraid of the “announced death of print”.  The printed newspaper, magazine, book have a glorious future in my opinion. They will surely evolve in quality and the prices change (as the volume of sold units will decrease, and most likely the profit increase). The digital business models are there, in place already. The Press and Publishing businesses needs to align their products, work-flows, processes, organizations and business models to a digital environment.All to be a part of the future. If they don’t want to, it’s not a real problem, others are already here to take their positions. I only hope it will be players in the business that are fulfilling our needs and wishes;  of a free press and an enlightening publishing system.

Publishing as the monks? In an internet world?

I could seem like Publishers have the same faith as the monks of the Catholic Church had in 1439 when the Print press came around and put the monks out of the labor of copying the Bible; they never thought it possible to replace the handwritten Holy book.

But a week ago one of the major Norwegian Publishing houses Gyldendal published posting at their blog an argumentation that reassemble the attitude of the old  monks and I simply cannot understand that it’s possible.

The blog posting is HERE (in Norwegian. The ingress states: “What’s the cost of publishing an e book?” Further readings on the subject be found at Eirik Newths blog (remember google translator can be used if not able to read Norwegian)

Why is it I have spent a full week thinking, before commenting on this? Simply because it’s difficult to believe the argumentation behind the figures presented. I’ve been speechless for a week on this subject. Now I’m able to speak again, – somewhat.

Gyldendal as a Norwegian Publishing house is not alone in this. This is NOT an attack on one singular Publisher, not in Norway, nor elsewhere. My comments aren’t even limited to Publishing houses providing books to the market. My comments are related to the whole of the industry of media productions including the press, publishing, music, broadcasting and so forth. There’s something happening within the media organizations, which are troublesome. -  It might be fear.

In short, the argumentation in the blog posting from Gyldendal shows how the industry has, for long,  wanted reality to be. Publishing houses are in problems, and still – in Norway – they doesn’t want to publish e books in Norwegian language ?!?  It all started approximately 10 years ago (The Internet was not something that would go away easily )and has evolved in several steps: (seen from a  publishing house perspective)

1) “No-  the decreasing revenues have no structural reasons – it will pass.”  (denial)
2) “There is a shift in media consumption, and we don’t fully understand it.” (still denial)
3) “Something is happening, nobody knows what it is.” (confusion)
4) “Internet is to blame, and we were stupid to give away content for free.”  (anger)
5) “Governments has to protect us” (grief)
6)” We have to get paid for the expenses we have.” (start of acceptance)

Anyone present able to see the flaw in this thinking? At the same time period Internet have evolved:

1) Internet is used for the web to present content, mostly for free
2) Advertisement is established as a revenue stream
3) Retail starts offering products via the Internet
4) Banking and travel businesses goes digital
5) The public sector goes digital and start offering digital self service solutions
6) Internet starts getting semantic, and long ago the knowledge of business on the Internet is established by understanding that the main value is knowledge about the users and how to syndicated services and offers towards them.

Anyone now getting the picture of how far off the media industry has been?

Fortunately the large picture isn’t as bad as it seems. Today I read the Schibsted ( one of the major players in the media industry in Norway have done a clever move. They have established a company that’s going to invest in start ups, to develop and grow great ideas for content and storytelling in a digital future. Look HERE , (and use google translator if you don’t’ know the minority language Norwegian) Most media houses have employed digital expertise, and established digital departments within their organizations. This is great steps in the right direction. Still it’s unclear what direction this is. That’s still a problem! If you do not know where you are heading – it’s not easy to get there. Schibsteds action seems clever, because it lets development happen outside of the traditional media organization (remember the comment I made in the start of this posting about the Catholic monks?) I believe that the people working in a organization with a 250 year history of backing and defining what they are, and what a “Public audience is” most likely aren’t able – as an organization- to do the actions needed to survive – not alone!  An important speech by Jay Rosen (Inaugural Lecture at Sciences Po école du journalisme in Paris sept 2010) explains some very important aspects of the rise and fall of the “audience” as we have known it.

Back to Gyldendals published figures of the cost of a print book and an e book. They may add up, but they have no relevance. The figures represent a need /wish to maintain the “old model”, to ensure the people continuing doing what they always did, to ensure that the publishers (heavily invested in book stores) get their investments back. And none of this has anything to do with the market, (the people/ audience) -  now able to decide not to join the ideas of what a piece of literature should cost.

The market offer books, e books, told stories in other manners than what a “Publisher” wants. (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple – and the Norwegian bookstore Haugen bok are more than ready to grasp the market, excluding the publishing houses – but without any other motifs than profit) By that, the publishers have forgotten what Gutenberg had to offer: A cheaper, more democratic, simpler way to add value for everyone able to read. The added value was Knowledge, without dependency. – This used to be the pride of media houses, content producers of any kind. It looks like someone forgot this, and it seems like the conservative and protecting mode may very well scare away some of the most valuable assets the media industry have to offer to the population of the world – protection of the democracy on the altar of their misunderstood job security.

A pop song born on twitter “ Nede for telling ”

It’s just great when events happen and it’s clear what made the difference. The age of transformations are here, and it’s not always to easy to find examples of direct impact. Yesterday we got one.

Quite some time ago, one of Norway’s popular and dear artists Bjørn Eidsvåg;  @eidsvag,  came across a tweet from another twitter user;  Helge Torvund; @2rvund. He is also well known in Norway, he’s an author and publish amongst others: Excellent poetry and children’s books.

The twitter message was a short (twitter ) poem by Helge. Bjørn Eidsvåg states that he saw the tweet as a chorus, and asked @2rvund if he wanted to expand the text .-  As most things on twitter; people join into the conversations, and ideas tend to expand. This event could have ended there,with a statement;  “nice text Helge” and a pat on the shoulder. But this twitter message ended up as a great single, released yesterday. You can listen to it here: Nede for telling More of the single @Oslopuls HERE

As a “happening” @eidsvag and @2rvund had a “Tweet conference” to honor the origin of the idea / birth of the text/ song in addition to traditional interviews and “press conference” when this single was released yesterday.

In my opinion it’s an example of how the media transformation takes place in real life; not in sudden dramatic shifts, but in concrete steps along a path that slowly grows wider until it’s the common way of “doing things” in a digital world. Nevertheless it’s the small concrete steps that counts. And as @2rvund states in a twitter message ” It’s odd to think about , but this text wouldn’t be born without  twitter.”
 

Social Media in a [business] perspective

Social Media is such a new term, that I reject the possibility that there already could exist something that could be said to be a “Social Media guru. “ There is no such thing!  You have to sort it out for yourself, and for your business

If you are a manager, or need to get your manager or customers to understand why one should get involved with Social Media activities, this blog posting might come handy. (a PPT presentation HERE) Maybe the buzz word itself might stand in the way to understand how to make business in Social Media? Social Media have had a sound to it that gives the associations towards the social aspect, as if that is a waste of time in a business context, yet another “cocktail party?” Another way of phrasing it might help to give a different immediate association: How to benefit from making the most out of “Relational Business” – is this going to improve the revenue streams, it this something the executive board would like to listen to?

We are all online. There’s a huge amount of statistics showing the mass of people being occupied in these Social Media, and I’ll not bore you with too much statistics. (if you want more THIS youtube video should be ‘it’ ) The important bit is to understand that in order to reach out to your audience, to the market you needed to be where they are and communicate in the language they are speaking. In Norway almost 2/3 of all Internet users (a penetration that’s approximately 85% of the population) are visiting and engaging in the popular community Facebook, weekly. That gives a huge market reach in the small nation of Norway. (Facebook has  2.262.820 registered members in Norway!  Youtube (1.637.178), Wikipedia (1.508.333) and Twitter (228.444) to name a few. (source TNS Gallup, Interbuss Q2, 2010)

The Native Internet generation is going offline? Another research from Germany is very interesting (Spiegel.de).  The research tells us that “The Native Internet generation” is logging off! What? Logging off the internet?  – Well not quite so, but it shows that young people that have never lived without the Internet aren’t interested in it at all; It’s become; just a part of life – nothing to talk about. The time spent in digital media is still high and it’s very clear where their interests are. It’s to be involved with friends and their network, on- or offline. Being “online or offline” is an absurd term for them. Being in contact with their friends isn’t. The youth have Internet internalized, that means that it’s taken for granted. It also means that social relations and entertainment are more relevant terms for them. At the same time youngsters aren’t as digital competent as we might believe. How to gather information, or increase their level of knowledge, filter or evaluate, isn’t something they neither are competent nor interested in.  From a business perspective, this is valuable information, indeed. It means that services, and offerings toward people that want to relate, that want to have easy answers without having to struggle, not to have to interpret the possible values, most likely will be the kind of offerings that will be preferred – internalized,” invisible” services.

Does this mean that Social Media have changed the rules of business – forever? I think yes, and no at the same time. I’ll give you a couple of concepts that are typical for what we will see a lot of the next months and coming years.  - All new cars got an installed GPS these days, to help us navigate. We all have cell phones, some even synchronized with a cell phone device in the car. This means I have knowledge of who you are, and where you are. In other words I know the demographics, and I know your location. Furthermore, the new cars have a car computer, to help the service and maintenance of the car. This means that I know the state of your car, how much gas there is on your gas tank, and for how long the car has been moving. By this I can assume some desires you as a driver might have, even before you think of it yourself. (Remember what I said about the native internet generation? Their internalized relation to the internet, make them expect to be connected and that they are in touch and have their needs fulfilled without having to search and actively find out things by themselves) By combining the information I have ( in this example) I can provide syndicated solutions, options to solve unmet, and sometimes unconscious needs. In this example; to give you (on the screen of your GPS, or voice) the information of how little gas you have left, and suggest that you stop at “your” gas station (since I know what relation you – or rather your membership gasoline company card – have to which gasoline company). At the same time, I know that you have been on the road for almost four hours, and could benefit of some food. What I just set up is a Relational Business concept by syndicating existing solutions, providing target advertisement, Contextual and behavioral marketing. Another example could be “The internet connected running shoes.” No- it’s not science fiction, it’s there, ready to implement. – With a GSM, GPS and USB / wireless in your running shoes Nike/ Addidas or competitors easily can provide added value to their existing communities. By the way, it’s more likely that it would be marketed as: “The shoe with the chip that connects you”. In addition to being connected to an online training club, you can let your shoe “find” people to run along with, in the park (more fun to run with someone, than alone) The shoe can give you a hint, when it’s time to replace them with a new pair. Most likely you can subscribe to a rescue / insurance service that will find you if you go missing, while hiking. To be able to adjust the shoes sole pressure, depending on which surface you are running on to ensure that you don’t harm your feet, and also this set of connected shoes will be able to transfer the information  about your running sessions to the Nike/ Addidas training club.

New value chains, or reorganizing the ones we have? What does this Relational Business, or Social Media as we have labeled it till now, do to other parts of the larger value chain? Newspapers used to be a distribution channel for advertisements. Newspapers experience a decreasing market of maybe as much as 10 – 20% drops in annual subscription revenues, 10- 30% in annual advertisement revenues. In the digital environment news organizations have only been able to “take back” this by approximately 5%.  Along the value chain this also effect the companies dealing with advertisement, commercials and public relation, due to the fact that they have kept the traditional concepts of marketing and tried to “transfer” print advertisement business models into the digital environment.( read more about future advertisement, by Helge Tennø, HERE) about marketing in the digital environment) In the end this have resulted in corporations lost opportunities; reduced sales opportunities, and marketing effects. Everyone sees this and is trying to find solutions, and answers to the fact that the world have moved from a mass communication form to a communication form between the masses.

Show me the money? Surprisingly few are talking about, or explaining how to build the business cases for Social Media – or Relational Business as I prefer to define it. Everyone seems to think that it’s something “new”, we have to find – or “New economy” as the buzz word was back in the Dot.com years. Other people are sitting still, hoping this is yet another Hype, and that everything will come back to “normal” again. As I mentioned, I believe it’s a – yes, and no.  Establishing sustainable business models and business cases for Social Media (– sorry –): Relational Business is like building any other business case where you have to follow the rules of the game you are in. And the rules of Relational Business are those of the internet!

ROI of Social Media The participants (customers) on Social Media channels, communities and the internet itself have stated (from the Cone 2008 Business in Social Media study fact sheet) that they would like companies to provide problem solving options (virtual customer services), they want to be able to give solicit feedback (fan pages, branded sites) and they want new ways to interact with brands. Nothing comes for free, Peter Kim / Business communication group. LLC, 2010, puts it this way: “while Social Media technologies seem to scale ok, “the programs – especially those with a labor-intensive component – don’t.” “There’s no real shortcut when it comes to holding authentic personal dialogues. That’s the point.” It will require a shift in how to use human resources in order to benefit from a Relational Business focus. In corporations, sales, marketing, support and call centre functions, Business intelligence, analytic personnel and so forth will have to act differently and get different work tasks done in their everyday life, much of it will be online activities. Advertisement companies, the news and broadcasting industry also will have to change in accordance to this, due to the fact that all are part of the same larger value chain, where the market have moved toward new arenas. Depending on what you want to achieve, each separate area /goal of business needs will demand their specific business cases. Some will follow the set up for a sales business case, others for increasing efficiency along the value chain.  To show how radical the organizational change might have to be this might give you an idea:

Some of the activities you want to establish, might not have enough material, knowledge “best practice” and so forth, to enable you to build a “classical business case”;  in that case – don’t! I would suggest that you make an audit of the situation today. This status is going to be used to evaluate success/ no result/ negative result in accordance to the goals you set up. Then take the three, four best “guestimates” of ideas and concept that you want to test. Measure effects during your test period, frequently. And stop the project if you start becoming sure that it won’t lead to the desired result. This effective, rapid development method, ensure that you quickly adapt to facts gathered during a testing phase. Keep in mind, some concepts doesn’t give positive results as quickly as you might wish for. Be realistic, and give your “babies” a fair chance! When doing something new – testing and failing is essential and every “failure” is of value – it help you from continuously doing the wrong thing. Another tip, ensure you have someone outside your organization watching what you are doing. It could be a mentor, a coach, a consultancy firm, just anybody you prefer, if they are able to help you “kill your darlings”, ask you the uncomfortable questions, and give you positive feedback along the road. Organizations have a tendency to look at everything from inside ( and not the point of view your customers have),keep to “old habits”, and by that being less able to act differently,  staff also have a tendency to provide uncritical answers, due to the fact that their job and success factors depend on the managements thoughts of them and so forth.  

Is there really anything new here? As I’ve said before; people haven’t changed much the past 28.000 years. It’s really not likely that people will do so the next coming few years either. The marketplace, such as the Farmers market has been around, most likely since we started farming. There is nobody arguing that the old marketplaces weren’t a Relational Businesses, where bargaining, split revenue models and so forth was in the core of how to conduct business those days. Furthermore the concept of Tupperware and home parties are more “modern” versions of Relational Business, and we are very much familiar with the effect they have had and revenues over the years. I’ve written a blog posting about www.musicnodes.no before and that is in essence a “Tupperware” concept – or as we would like to put a buzz word on it nowadays: “Viral marketing”.  It’s “new” because it isn’t done this way before, but there is in reality no “New economy” in it. In other words, my statement is: “There is no Social Media – Internet is social and business on the Internet is social too!” (To be more accurate, Social Media Channels are one of many channels in a digital environment, frequently being a part of a larger digital value chain)

But the challenges aren’t over by this. There’s always a “But” isn’t there? The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies have stated: ”Everything that can be digitalized will be digitalized – and the value goes toward 0.- $”. – How to make business when the value is cero? Well if the cost of producing products and services are approximately cero, then there is a low risk in the cost aspects too? To provide a profit it has to come from “elsewhere”? Furthermore there is a promising statement by Kevin Kerry, the editor of Wired magazine: “The value is beyond free”. This means that we need to create added values for the customers in other manners than via the product/ service itself, doesn’t it? A few generic key words where “value beyond free” might be created from, is maybe worthwhile contemplating over:

People would like to pay for:

• Accessibility
• Navigation
• Security and consistency
• From “Good enough” (free) – to High quality (paid)
• Exclusivity (added by me) (Source: The Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies)

The benefit of sharing. This very blog posting is an example of what I’m talking about. I share this information, my viewpoints, free of charge, free for all to use, and to benefit from. Where’s the value for me, and the company I work for by doing so? Well information itself isn’t of great value, the ability to transform this to added value for my customers, requires something that is a scarce recourse; me and my colleagues network, competence, experience and our personality. This shouldn’t be confused with giving away strategies, the differentiators or business secrets; it doesn’t mean to give away any confidential customer information, of course. It means to share the information and common knowledge, and open up for conversations and discussions we all can learn from. The real value we offer our customers is what we learn, at work from our discussions and by that develop a mindset suitable to enable customers to create real value for their customers. (note: all of a sudden I went from “I” till “We” in my sentences, that’s because sharing means that Relational communication cannot be a individual process – it’s a social process shared between those involved)  We have the tools at hand to enter a given scenario at our customers, coach and help them with all aspects of the transformational process that’s needed. We are at the moment working on a handful projects with customers, none of them with identical challenges, where our competence is stretched to the maximum. Sharing our knowledge as  above, with as many as possible, will give us valuable discussions and we will gain more knowledge about other people’s / consultants achievements and will bring us as well forward into new projects and challenges providing our customers with real added value for their businesses.

Funding of public service broadcasting in the future?

The other day I commented on Twitter that a Norwegian party AP (Arbeiderpartiet) and their media committee had a suggestion that I mean was a  sidetrack and a bad idea.

The idea was that AP’s media committee suggested that the license model we have in Norway  today (paying a separate tax for NRK broadcaster, and also paying a tax when buying  a TV set ) should be replaced/added with a similar tax for PC’s and Cell phones.

The feedback of my statement was immediate. Why did I have that opinion? And why didn’t I argue for my statement? Why isn’t this a great idea? The twitter nick @fenilsen gave me a challenge: Argue for my statements. And that’s fair.  Well Twitter isn’t a great channel for discussing complex subjects, and to be fair towards the complexity I didn’t want to go there – in that format. Instead I suggested to meet and debate it – and that I just might write a blog posting about it.

So here goes: Broadcasting in Norway used to be a monopoly public service company (from 1945) – first established in 1925 (became the brand “NRK” in 1933) and had(from the beginning) the main financing model by commercials. It was the Nazi Germans that introduced censorship and prohibited commercials in Broadcasting in Norway (1940). NRK continued the policy of not financing their broadcasting by commercials and established the public service broadcasting model more or less identical to the model BBC had established. Norwegian public service broadcasting became as we know it such after the Second World War. This gave the legitimacy for the funding models and enabled the Norwegians to get a high quality and free broadcasting system (first Radio, later TV) with a sustainable financing model from the government and by the separate broadcasting tax. There were no commercials in radio, and later TV, and the focus was to inform and educate the population.

NRK had a monopoly up till the 80’ies. Further reading on this can be found HERE. Since then, we have gotten competition from cable TV and wide range of Norwegian commercial broadcasters (radio and also TV) and since then the license model has been under debate. Nevertheless the idea and political decisions have been to protect the system with a public service broadcaster, due to the value of having a commercial independent voice in our country. The legitimacy gets under attach as the development of Internet itself, and the digitalization of content becomes the standard and the infrastructure of transporting content such as TV programs just as well are via IP and the internet. The models legacy was in short: Independent broadcaster and producer of content, responsible (together with our governmental Telecom company – Televerket) distributor of broadcasting signals (read infrastructure) – these arguments are about to disappear for the future.

The question is: How do we want to finance TV and Radio in the future? One of the suggestions are, as mentioned above to start taxing PC’s and Cell phones instead (or in addition to) TV and Radio sets. I believe that this is a bad idea and a sidetrack since it doesn’t answer the challenges broadcasting is facing, nor do I believe that the consumers will understand or accept that a PC, a cell phone or the Internet as a broadcasting / TV equipment where our public service broadcaster has infrastructural responsibilities worth paying tax for. In addition there are lots of practical aspects of this equipment tax idea that makes it impossible as well. Buying a TV set abroad is far more complicated (heavy) than buying a lap top or a cell phone. Is a Kindle e-reader subject for such tax? And how to make sure that people register their electronic equipment (bought on travels abroad) just to be able to pay a tax to our public service broadcaster. It’s hassle, and if most people don’t understand why – they won’t do it. An even more interesting question is – what is broadcasting and TV into the future? As we know broadcasting is evolving and changing so much these days that everything we grew up with of what TV -is in dramatic change.

The Norwegian media politic is as well. In Norway we are discussing, and no doubt the government’s media support (funding) will change. It will change because the world is changing from an analogue world to a digital world – where the Internet will be one of the major infrastructures, -not paper,- not separate broadcasting transmitting systems.

I believe that it’s not sufficient  to define a public service broadcaster as we have done up till now for the future; it has to be a wider definition, maybe a “public service content provider” is a better definition? A “public service content provider” will be able to serve somewhat other objectives than today, in other platforms and in other manners. Trying to finance that via separate taxes on equipment seems like an absurd idea, and I don’t think the government will get support from their population by this approach.

I believe it serves us better to go to the core of; why is it we would like to have a governmental funding of communication (text, audio, visual) in the future? How do we want to organize that? What kind of participants do we want to support? Should NRK be in a special situation, or should we let several companies be able to apply for funding for public service broadcasting funding? The answers aren’t given for any choice our government has to make for some sustainable models for the future. What is certain is that any model will need support from the population in order to be implemented.

As a conclusion: I believe it’s better to answer these core questions and challenges before jumping into a “quick fix” idea of taxing the PC’s and cell phones.

Click HERE to read an older blog posting on the future of broadcasting

A ”dogfight” between giants have started. Will Apple.inc have someone taking big bites of their apple?

Apple launched iPhone 4.0 in Norway today. I have to say the show isn’t what it used to be. Yes people sat in line till midnight to get their hands on the very first ones.

But also an increasing number of people on twitter was shaking their heads over Apple’s attempt to create yet another mass hysteria, without anything else new to show, but a new model of a cell phone. Speaking of branding problems, Apple recently lost a lawsuit concerning their policy to stop ‘apps’, they’ve met resistance about their censorship policy, and there’s a wide range of lawsuits concerning patents going on between the giants.

All of this is hurting Apple in a different way than back at the days where Microsoft was the “enemy” and Apple was the underdog. This is a new situation where Apple seems to have become more arrogant towards their customers and partners. But something is about to happen, customers and partners aren’t going to be as dependent on Apple and their iStore anymore. Get me right, I like Apple, I like Google too. I like Facebook, and the good old IBM as well. I like Twitter and I like Amazon.com. In short; I like the new world we got with the Internet. But I don’t like that the giants all seem to have become greedy and all have tried to lock in their customers in their own one-stop-shops. It’s like trying to maintain old school business models into the future.

The “dog fight” isn’t on behalf of us as consumers; it’s a battle of big bucks and control! Google, IBM, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HP, Facebook, Apple, Amazon.com and the like all want to make sure that the competitors doesn’t grow to strong. This is a sad, unnecessary fight that seems inevitable. The threat for Apple isn’t only the battle of market shares.

The media industry is undergoing a dramatic age of transformation. None of the media industry participant can stand by the side passively and have Apple, Amazon, Youtube or other players control their ability to renew their business and business models.TV, Film, News corporations, publishing houses can’t afford it and have to go into the battle too. It’s really an easy calculation to make: Can some of the existing content platforms (iStore, Amazon, youtube) provide a solution that’s cheaper than if the corporations in the media industry cooperate and produce their own open content platform? In Norway some of the major publishing houses have done parts of this already and are in serious negotiations with the “giants” of how to get access to their marketplaces.

There is no way the worlds publishing houses will accept that Apple conduct censorships, like they did with the book Ulysses – or determine the cost of an e-book. Yesterday I read that Apple has denied Times.inc to sell subscriptions in their store, I’m not sure if this is true, it seems too unbelievable.

What I’m saying is that there’s an upcoming “dogfight” between giants of the internet AND amongst content providers. And it seems like Apple sits in a spot where they are far too easy to attack – from all angles, and I can’t see how they possible can win this – without doing the obvious: Open up for all to place their content in their store, let anyone buy it (whatever device, hardware or software) and let the market decide what business models that works. Make it easy and smooth to be a partner and to be a customer. It’s really not so complicated.

Update: Eirik Newth and I was interviewed by E24 conserning Apples censorship policy. You can read the article Here

Sustainable business models in a digital environment

People have been telling stories at least for the last 28.000 years, it’s not likely that the demand for great stories will vanish at any time soon. Professionals are more likely to be great to tell stories that  people would prefere to listen to. Journalism is in no way in danger – BUT, the mindset of newspaper people seems to still burden online media activities.

Even in this article  the word “circulation” pops up. When did an internet professional use that word? When speaking of how to generate revenue, the term subscriber, and advertisement is the only two ideas that is mentioned. This is sad, and leaves very little hope for the media houses as participants into the future if the mind set isn’t turned upside down in a hurry.
There are a lot of alternative ways to provide content in a digital world, but to be dependent of traditional media houses. There are lots of experiences of business models that work in a digital environment. The The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies’ 1 report and 2 report have published two interesting papers on business models. One comment is needed. CIF is supposed to study the future, these papers have the ‘problem’ that the future have met the present! The development is so rapid that the future is already here. One important statement from CIF is “Everything that can be digitalized will be digitalized – and the value goes toward 0$. Kevin Kerry, the editor of Wired magazine have stated “The value is beyond free” in order to explain how to make money in a digital environment, where the cost of content production is close to 0$, due to the free reproduction costs.

In order to defind value (a necessity if you want to build sustainable business models) it’s kind of clever to look for what is reconed to be a scarce resource, or in other words, what cannot be reproduced. An example is the music industry. The revenues in the world of distributing music have increased, not decreased. Surprised? The “stealing” sharingand waste downloading on the net have increased the sale of music – it’s true, whatever the record companies try to tell us. The only one loosing on this have been:  - The record companies. Content creators, have increased their share of the profit. In addition they have earned more money on something that cannot be reproduced by any other then themselves; Live concerts. A live concert is a scarce recourse, and cannot be reproduced. What can we learn from this?
1) The value is NOT the news/ content itself (ok, some times it might be, but often not). Rather try to look at the user/participant as your real value
2) Providing your user/ participant with real time/ location/ technology, content and advertisement with relevance is a must. In addition to that, content have to be contextual to the user/ partisipant. (segment/time/ location/ channel/device)
3) Generate revenues from the knowledge you have about your users / participants

How to start changing the mind set to enable innovation and transformation concerning establishing sustainable business models and revenues? It’s maybe worthwhile contemplating over this: (Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies) People would like to pay for :

• Accessibility
• Navigation
• Security and consistency
• “Good enough” – to High quality
• Exclusivity (added by me)

Gone mobile?

There are lots of discussions of how the digital environment will look like the next coming years. Hardly anyone argue against the trend of the “mobile revolution”. But what is really going on as we all are equipped with smart phones and have we really become mobile?

Mobile services for the business market.
We already have a huge business- to- consumer market, where ring tones, games, and applications are growing in a tremendous speed. If we look at the corporate environment, what has happened? Till now, not much has happened for most of the corporate world. And nothing will happen until we make it happen, so it’s time to integrate your core IT/ information/ workflow/ business systems, and make important functionalities available for your employees’ cell phones.

OK, quite a few of us have our cell phones connected to our e mail, and calendar. Some are able to connect to the Internet. Fewer have established a presence management system, where the cell phone is included. Collaboration and Unified communications are areas where “mobile” make sense and enable a streamlined workflow and also rapid problem solving between employees.

Connect mobility to our value chains
We have to start thinking out of the traditional “IT” box, when discussing what “mobile” is all about. Our companies core systems needs to be able to reach out to the mobile devices. That’s the only way to make use of the mobility in an efficient way for the corporate world.  We need to be able to interact and to be connected with the value chain and core IT solutions of our business. This way we become more available, effective and have results requested once, and delivered at once.

Seamless integrations
What this means is that your company’s core systems, like BI, ECM, search, CRM and so forth needs to get connected with the employees cell phones, and other mobile devices. Connections aren’t enough; we need seamless interaction and automated workflows. To enable this we will need an architecture where the web and e mail activities are included. All online digital solutions need to be connected to make benefit and provide added value for the company’s employee, for partners and of course for the company’s customers. In short it’s needed to develop Multi channel structures. Imagine that you can send requests directly from you cell phone and into your company’s database, get a feedback – and the required information automatically delivered on your PC / your collaboration web portal and so forth.

Public sector
Public services have started becoming more effective, and will have to get eve n more so in the coming years. Self service systems will be a keyword in order to get there. Imagine what the possibilities there is in the European public sector for refining their systems, from the core backend IT solutions, via a well functioning web interface and a set of mobile services that simplifies people’s everyday life. For the public sector, the benefits are great. It saves time and costs for the employees in their public contact, and it makes citizens far happier, by getting their services automated, quicker and more convenient. You can imagine solutions where citizens can apply online, and get recites, confirmation codes, appointment reminders on their cell phone, to name a few very obvious concepts.

It’s very clear for me that something is wrong in the media industry. Don’t know what, but it’s clear that the confusion is huge. Or is it? Well anyway, too many subjects are talked about at the same time. It’s a mess! Why it is that clever journalist doesn’t see this, after all this is what journalists are trained to see.

Let’s reduse what we are talking about. We are not talking about the film- , music- or the gaming industry, let’s do that another time.

 Business or journalism?
We are talking about the newspaper houses today. That is, we are talking aout the owners of newspapers, and the newspaper organizations. But this is also a far too wide discussion. Think of it; that would have been to mix a discussion about the new dramaturgy of a story, because that has changed in the new age of news. And mix that with the topic of business models of news? It’s impossible, isn’t it?

So what to discuss? As long as there is money in the market – the owners of the media houses will remain in the business. Still there are lessons to learn – how to make sure you have sustainable incomes in that business. And as long there is an urge for stories, someone to tell us a “truth” Why do journalists AND media house owners argue that there is a problem? That’s maybe because of the introduction of the internet fifteen years ago, that have lead to new business models, and to new markets. Yes the so called “Social media” is a new marketplace. You see – it’s moved! – And that is the problem, a change that isn’t welcome.

The market It used to be down the street – let’s call it “Mass Media Street”. That was the largest marketplace I’ve ever seen. It was bigger than the camel market in Marrakesh, Bigger than the bazaars in New Dehli and bigger than the cattle auctions in Texas Forth worth! But now Mass Media Street is getting emptier by the hour. They’ve all moved down to the Social Media Quarter. You know it’s really not one market any more. It’s more like small cozy jazz clubs, blues joints and dark night clubs in New Orleans, Stockholm and Casablanca. Smoke is coming out of the door openings. Its dark inside and a very different environment. People are either up- beat or laid back. If you want to shout at them, and tell them the truth, they might choose to listen to you, or not – and continue their conversation with the friends they just met. It’s not like on Mass Media Street anymore. Some find it sad, and some don’t.

 The new journalist
No one can adapt the old business models of Mass Media Street any more, and it’s silly to try to pretend to. The owner of media houses knows this, but of various reasons some of them seem to want to hide it. Journalists seem to be the naive ones, since they are buying into this odd idea that they no longer can conduct their trade anymore. A journalist’s trade is to do what they are good at and that is not in danger. The problem is really the business model, and who is going to “own it” And journalists need to accept this fact quickly, or else they will be running the errand of the owner of the media houses. In short Journalists need to focus; The value of their trade is not in danger, if they accept that they will have to adopt to a new reality, where building a storyline is different than before. Now, and into a future a journalists work will have to look at the fact that it’s in a close relationship with everyone. A story develops rapidly and it needs to be published at once, and from there developed, by hours and days, until the story is told. Not as before, where the gathering of a strong story, before publishing was the success criteria. Social media has made that impossible, the competition is not your other clever journalist out there in the dark night club anymore, everyone is clubbing nowadays, so you need to publish while being out there, you need to develop your story online.

A new business line
For the owners of a media house it’s also a new game. They have to realize that their business has changed. The revenue streams have changed and the journalism have changed. The workflow is changed. That means that the way a newsroom is organized have to change. That ends up in a more cost effective production line. Still this will not be enough. The revenue stream will have to be ensured, in an effective way. The business models are available, and the owners, stock holders have to re- think how they believe that their added value will emerge. It’s really not that difficult, they just need to let go of old ideas of how it used to be. We have to remember that any owner of any concept of business have one aim; Earning money, provide a sustainable business model. I believe that from a profit motif the future world is wonderful, but it requires that the stakeholders starts leaving an old environment, and accept a new one. Acceptance for both journalism and business ideas in the media business Mostly it will require accepting what already function. In my eyes a key is the term multi channel thinking. It’s not “old” nor “new” is it a combination. Understanding the “new” is not so difficult, it exist already in the digital environment, so it’s not all that new. Remember what I said, the internet is 15 years old, how to conduct business in a digital environment is well known. Make your business aligned with both the analogue and the digital environment, make sure that your companies focus on added value for the end customer and make sure that you have established a business model that support this. To give a hint –for the business level of things; divide content, and product! There is no such thing as a content of things and product of things that aren’t separated!
For the journalists; There is no such thing as a product, the onlynthing that count in any sense is to be able to tell a story that change someone’s life, no less, no more. My point is that journalism and media house owners might have different objectives. That’s an old model. It’s older that the T-ford, it’s silly , so why keep the differences? Non of us standing out side of it cares, all we want is a well told story , and we have shown for decades that we would like to pay for the value it has – so show me the value, and I’ll show you the money…

A new digital business model that works

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We all just love to be helpful and share. In social media today people are sharing everything and feel great about it. We tend to share knowledge, ideas and emotional experiences.  I found something very interesting that’s going on in Norway these days. I got to know this, by “accident”, some weeks ago, and I’ve thought about it, looked at it and wondered if this is just another idea, or if it is an idea that could move business models in the digital area one step further. And I think it might!

It’s called musicnodes.com . Still in an early stage of developement and it looks very promising. To get to the point of what this is: It’s a embedded player, where you can listen to a tune. There’s nothing new in that.
You can buy the tune as well and you can share the tune with your friends and network, nothing new in that either. 
The new is that the content is placed contextual. Another aspect is that it’s not a website, where you go to and find your music and then buy what you want. 
Musicnodes is a play bar that can be located on any website with relevant content. Since this is music, the daily news article, about music is a great place, the online music sites is also a great place to share music. The spread happens when people start sharing the play bar in their respective networks.(e mail, Twitter, Facebook and so on)

Business model
The business model is very interesting. As we know; creators of content holds copyrights. As far as I know all countries have organizations that take care of the business aspect of using someone’s music. Radio/TV, film and others are using music produced by others and have to pay for the usage. On the internet this is also the case, but has become very difficult to manage, since people love to share.  This have created a problem for musicians, for record companies and so on.  Revenues are dropping dramatically in the business as a consequence. 
Musicnodes have set up a model where the musician gets a large part of the revenue created. The publisher also gets a large part. The least part of the income goes to musicnodes. Furthermore when people listen to the tune, and want to share it, the embedded tune is sent by e.g. e-mail, “share on Facebook” and so on – the revenues split follow the tune and the all involved continue to earn on the sale of this tune, each time!
Online publishers will just love this model, and so will the musicians, and other copyright holders. This might provide the music business with a sustainable business model that take care of all involved parties in a manner no one have done up till now.

Contextual advertisement
When is it most likely that you will be the most interested in listening to a tune? Isn’t that when you are in the mindset, like when you’re  reading an editorial story about the genre, the artist or a news article about the music you love? And then, there it is.
For the publisher, it’s not even an advert, it’s just added value for the reader. The best part is that the publishers earn money sharing this added value. For the reader it’s not a “banner ad up in the face”, it’s a neat way to get the tune there and then, no hassle finding a music store (down town, or online), searching for the right tune. It’s right there, easy accessible.
The motivation for the reader, to convert into a buyer is very high, just in that moment. This is in fact a real and functioning example of the semantic web, and behavioral advertisement!  A very strong concept indeed. I’ve written about this in a former posting; HERE.

Network sharing
We are social, this idea appeals to our pattern of behavior. To give someone something makes us feel well and sharing makes us connected with others. Creating a business that “run” by the natural rules of human behavior is very likely to be a strong business model. I believe that this is the case with musicnodes.com .
It’s the same principles that’s behind “six degrees of separation”, viral marketing and whom we trust the most. Social media and networking arenas has grown immensely the last few years and there is no doubt that conducting business are about to get new rules to play by.
I’m looking very much forward to see what happens next, and in which ways this innovative concept will spread. The concept, is as lot’s of you already have started thinking is that it’s not limited to music. There is a whole range of products and services where this will apply.

While waiting for the script (to embedd on my blog) to be approved by www.wordpress.com you may have a look at the new concept HERE 
The tune is by Ingrid Olava, won’t be silenced – catchy title?

Update: I did some statistics: in one hour I had 51 unique visitors on my page. That created 90 Clicks on the node, and 62 that downloaded the tune for free (payed by sponsor) Ingrid Olava earned cash on this, and so did I. Amazing, the network sharing effect really works. Remember this test is with no player (just a primitive link) and I’m not running a music blog, nor is the content relevant for the player/tune

What’s to do for the media business in turbulent times?

 The media business has struggled greatly, worldwide. Advertising and circulation revenue have dropped greatly. Throughout 2009 we heard weekly about the problems, cutbacks, reductions and layoffs. Are we looking at a dying industry, or at best, a sharp change of the industry? 

 

 

There is an ongoing change, a paradigm shift between print media/ digital media. Traditional media houses have still not managed to sort out how to transform themselves, which last year’s poor results confirms. 

The real challenge is to manage the existing business model, and at the same time to build sustainable business models for the digital markets. 

It is important to be realistic, but realism has to be based on future expectations, not the history of a great past. Organizations that manage through tough times do not focus only on the problems they have with the existing business model. Successful businesses are able to focus on innovation and re-structuring as well. The winners are those who are able to position themselves in a favorable spot – quickly. 

Increased demand and a lack of willingness to pay at the same time?
There is no evidence to suggest that that the demand for knowledge and stories will drop – - in fact, we need easier access to more information.  At the same time media companies do not get paid for content in the digital world. Isn’t that a paradox? 

To answer this we must look at what customers traditionally feel that they have already paid for. Is it the content itself, or is it a combination of delivery media (paper), the transport of the content (to the news stand or at the door) and the trust of the supplier (that you can trust that the content is of quality) In the traditional business models, where these elements have been “inseparable”, the question has merely been of academic interest. On the other hand, digital consumers experience that they have already paid for digital services such as the news online by having paid for the PC, software, Internet subscriptions, etc. At the same time consumers are willing to pay for the ability to send SMS, to download “apps”, games and music to their PC and mobile. The point is that the willingness to pay for services online is there, consumers just don’t want to pay for the content itself. 

But in the digital world well functioning business models already exist — just look at what Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have established. What scale of users they have gathered and the value this represents in ad revenue alone. If we look at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kelkoo, Restplass.no to name a few, we notice that the business models are based on interaction, behavior analysis, profiles and user statistics in order to maximize sales. The business models vary, but one common feature is often “split revenue models”, where several players sharing knowledge and parts of the value chain.

Our recommendation would be learn from this, and evaluate what is the real value of the media business at hand. We believe that it is essential to connect traditional instruments with new ways to manage content. There are great opportunities to establish commercial services and products towards both advertisers and users.  

Perhaps content isn’t the future value for the media business. Perhaps the real value is the knowledge and management of users / participants and their behavior.  We believe the media industry as a whole has already been subjected to “Disruptive Innovation” and the only way to survive in the industry is to adapt very quickly. The main point is to create added value for the sum of buyers in the digital universe, through business models that also provide revenue to media houses. The most important prerequisite for success in this is to have the right combination of business strategy, organization, competence, and not least technology platforms, that can realize the goals 

Technology is part of the product
 Products like Apple’s new iPad will be a very important force to change the way we use PCs, Internet and handheld devices. When the major players (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Sony, etc.) facilitate easy deployment and use of digital content, it is obvious that the demand is increasing dramatically – and fast. 

Technology is the most visible instrument of the business model that until now has succeeded. Pervasive and holistic thinking assumes that the technological platform is part of the product being sold, and includes suppliers, distributors and consumer’s own infrastructure. The most important change is that technology is no longer just a tool to produce the goods, but an important part of the product itself. The development of consumer technology has both driven and been a part of the new successful business strategies, and has – in our opinion – matured the digital media market. At the core the major players have a complete set of technology platforms that implement the business model’s financial structure, production and distribution lines in a holistic strategy. 

The development of mobile phone and laptop computers are the consumer technologies that have contributed the most visible for the consumer for this development. Now, these devices meld together, and become smart-phones and reading lists that give users a unique experience. At the same time the digital distribution channel – the Internet – both increases their availability and opens the opportunity to deliver better quality, and ease of access, to the consumer. The development of broadband and mobile broadband will continue to contribute to increased quality of the services. 

The digital distribution has created many questions about the copyrights that both the business and organizations have tried to answer. Due to the fact that the internet characteristics are ‘open and free’, this will be a continuous discussion that will ultimately lead to answers. 

Our conclusion is that the willingness to invest in technology and include technology in hardware/ software/ infrastructure as a part of the business model is an important success factor in the development of new media products and services.  

Change Management
When the technology and framework conditions change, when value chains change and new players arrive and threaten the industry’s traditional players the only way to survive will be to defend their position by being willing to change the way the organization works, the processes of workflow and the perspective of how the market functions. The digital world is in its nature interactive. “Readers”, “listeners” and “viewers” are descriptions of users who will vanish from our vocabulary in a digital environment. We see a huge, rapid growth in use of social media that turn “users” into “participants” and “co-producers” of content and discourse. 

By this, the media businesses have gotten a new set of challenges in terms of how content is established, produced, presented and managed. In addition to completely new ways of defining products and services, media organizations have to change the production lines and workflow. As the manufacturing process to produce a book, news story or a magazine, has become irrelevant in the future digital media world it will affect, workflow and requirements of professional competences and organizational conditions. It will also be necessary to break down the strict distinctions (silos) that have been in different companies within a media group. 

It’s needed to establish a close relationship between the various divisions, products and services, in order to cultivate and manage the knowledge about user patterns, and transform that into added value towards the market of advertisement, subscriptions and services provided. 

Next step
We believe that quite a few media houses will need external expertise in business strategy, change management and technology. We know that coming from the outside of the organization and facilitating processes that help media corporations discover new perspectives will enable them to create profitable solutions. To make the move from “traditional” to “new” reality is a mission where a holistic perspective is one of the needed assets to ensure a strong strategic foundation to make such a transformational step. Media houses must implement innovation processes, replace business models, develop new concepts for products and services, invest in appropriate technology, ensure smooth organizational processes and implementation, and simultaneously develop criteria for success and value propositions. Establishment of  new, digital value chains and multi-channel strategies are essential elements in future business models for all media houses. Some newspaper has taken some steps along the road, while parts of the publishing industry (book / textbook / magazine) still have some distance to go before the necessary technological elements are in place

There must be a sharp distinction between content on the one hand, and the products and services on the other. This is the only way to profit by what structured data provides in the way of opportunities. There is no other way to take advantages of the semantic options in the triangle of editorial content, profile and participant’s content and commercial content.  A key point is to “Produce once- and deliver it on as many surfaces and channels possible”. This will be eReading lists, mobile devices, web, PC desktop applications, etc. It includes the ability to integrate content of various formats merged into a total user experience of text, sound, image and video.

Some tips concerning the mix of business models we would be able to help establish:

•           Behavioral & profile targeted advertising
•           Contextual marketing
•           Product/ service and contextual advertisement
•           Classified/ Community/ social media advertisement
•           Demographic, Geo – demographic, Techno graphic
•           Subscriptions mobile/ desktop/ ’apps’ prod and services
•           Traditional DM activities, banner ads, campaigns, branding
•           Multichannel & SCRM  action
•           SEO & SEM, Conversion rates

In combination with the knowledge of these business models the media industry needs to keep a strong focus on where they come from, and what is valuable in today’s experience. They need new sets of competence in new areas, such as change processes, digital value chains and multi-channel strategy.

By Geir Stene, Bjørn Hole
This article is written on our own initiative.

Connectivity, collaboration and innovation; how will it change us?

Collaboration used to be”hype”. Nowadays it’s social media and the iPad/ Kindle e-readers. The speed of innovation is increasing.  It’s getting harder and harder to divide these topics. In my eyes they are interconnected, and will become even more woven together. How will this change us?

We have moved from a closed in collaboration (software for use only within the organization, document sharing and workflow) towards a more open and including form of collaboration, where Twitter now seems to be in the forefront of the development. The best forms of collaborative activities are those who appear from nowhere, that aren’t planned, in short are anarchistic in their form. That doesn’t mean that they are purposeless, it means that the collaborative need develops from an individual (or small group) that has a motif for finding answers and solutions quickly. The most effective way to get there is to search for other people that might have the answer,a part of an answer or/ and a benefit from participating with you to solve a topic. Because of the relational interaction, collaboration starts to develop. The blending of collaboration and community (social media) happened in the process, because it’s the most effective way to get to the goal.

What we see is that this kind of mindsets can be used generic. It will enable far better ways of knowledge management, collaboration, innovation, product development, project management and so forth. Furthermore it will be put into effect within all kinds of businesses, from education, media business, commercials and nonprofit organizations, production of renewable energy, car production and so forth, all will very soon see the connective collaboration and community as one arena of relational co- existence, where things aren’t as pre- planned as we used to do things. New technology, new tools and the semantic web will be forces that drive this development, or is it the other way around? I don’t think it matters, but I do think that it is what’s happening around us is as we speak.

I’ve spoken of Charles Leadbeater before. I won’t stop doing so, because what he’s been speaking about (innovation and mass creativity) is one of the things we see happens around us in an increasing speed. So I’d advise you to have a look at his homepage HERE. Seen from a different perspective I would highly advise you to look at Kevin Kelly from Wired magazine, a very interesting speech he had in 2008 that can be found at Youtube HERE. Kevin Kelly explains what the web really is in a philosophical way, and where it’s heading (web 3.0). In my eyes both are speaking of something that is going on, not about some distant future, which might happen. We are afraid, afraid of the value that disappeared; now everything is “free” on the web, how to make revenue? Newspaper people are asking this several times a day. Publishers fight the development of “free” Educational institutions are, and corporations are afraid that their competitive advantage is gone if you share all knowledge. I think it’s wrong, I think it’s missing the point of what this leads to.  I do like the postulate Kevin make in the speech “the value is beyond “free” Kevin Kelly argues that the web is, and will even more become something – not “out there” but something that embody us, that we are inside of. What is of value change, and I believe that holding on to what used to be “of value” no longer is a good idea. The change is, as you might guess – tremendous for all of us.

I found the blog of Umar Haque (Director of the Havas Media Lab and founder of  Bubblegeneration) and the posting in Harward Business review  “Twitter’s Ten Rules For Radical Innovators”  and discover that it seems to be a guideline worth while reading for all of us. It just migt give us some hints of how to focus of finding value, and making a living by changing what, why and how we do business into the future.  I suggest you read it for yourself, but here are the bullet points:

• Ideals beat strategies
• Open beats closed
• Connection beats transaction
• Simplicity beats complexity
• Neighborhoods beat networks
• Circuits beat channels
• Laziness beats business
• Public beats private
• Messy beats clean
• Good beats evil

E – Readers will not only invade us – but will innovate us as well

Amazon.com reports that they sold more e – titles than paper titles for this Christmas. That’s amazing!  The American Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) predicted the good times will continue in 2010 as e-reader sales double again according to Yahoo news

There are many E – readers out there in the market, and Apple is doing it again; We are all waiting, holding our breath, being excited, and hoping for the device Apple will release the 27^th of January. They better show of something that gives the “Wow effect” once again!

Skiff and telecom giant Sprint said they will team up to provide newspapers, magazines and e-books over 3G networks for the Skiff Reader. And HERE are some predictions from @martinlangeveld (and others) how the Media owners will do in 2010.

And the E reader isn’t just some electronic paper. It will contribute to speed up the changes I’ve been writing about for quite some time. Just have a look at that Time inc.  is working on in this video HERE

I would hope that we now could skip the cycle of competition of owning the market in terms of hard ware (devise, software, content battle) and jump directly to what’s matter, but it seems like our capitalism isn’t quite ready for that yet. It’s a pity and now we consumers will have to mess around with this for yet some years, until everyone understands that it’s not the device – it’s the added value that counts.

All in all it’s good news in my eyes; these enable content producers of all kind to integrate various kinds of content into one experience. It provides the market to find various revenue streams, easier. This will change brodcasting, news, publishing, music and film industries completely. And as everyone has predicted – We are getting Mobile in 2010!

My question is: How long will it take until we have a completely integrated interactive reading/ participating solution that includes what is now called “social media” ?

Think green IT and data center location

It’s said that Google owns 2% of all data servers in the world. They’ve been working on energy saving programs for a long time, with success. ICT Norway has suggested that Norway could be a perfect location for large server localizations for large enterprises. I couldn’t agree more!

Why would Norway be a “perfect” place to locate e.g. Google’s large server centers? Well there are a lot of good reasons for that.

Norway has a pleasant temperature in summer, and has cold – long winters. That alone reduces the need of cooling of hardware. As we know – cooling needs energy, lot’s of energy. We all know that energy is expensive, and it’s a source of pollution in most areas of the world. Not so in Norway where 99% of all energy is produced by hydro power. It’s hard to find a place with such stable and sustainable source of energy anywhere else in the world.

Norway is a safe and stable country politically. This is important, since nobody as large as Google, IBM, HP and so forth would like to risk placing their core business equipment in a country that is politically unstable area. The same goes for geographical threats, such as earth quakes, flooding, hurricanes, that would threat the supply of energy and the infrastructure of data flow

In Norway we have the knowhow in all areas needed. We have a well developed infrastructure, and Telenor as the fifth largest Telecom company in the world,  the technology aspects are well covered. We have the knowhow within the areas of running large data centers, to maintain and support such facilities. And we have crucial knowhow within all aspects of security. This includes the terror threats that is of great importance. Our military defense has the very best possibility to protect our interests also in this manner.

At last, but not least we have plenty of space. Norway is a waste country with mountains halls ready to be used for the purpose. The need as HP has expressed it is that the location of their data parks shouldn’t be public information, due to the risk that could represent isn’t a problem. “Hiding” a server center in Norway, just have a look at the map!

Social chaos or social mash up?

What is going on?  I have a Facebook profile, a Linkedin profile, a Twitter account, a Slideshare account. I have a Blog (as you might notice since you are here) Yammer, MSN. I should have been active at YouTube, Flickr and a dozen more places to be “up to date”;

I’m apparently not “trendy enough” but then again I also have a job to do. But how to manage it all? And why should I be all over? And what am I to do all these places?

People seems to have the opinion that Facebook is all about maintaining your more private network, whereas Linkedin is for your professional life . On Slideshare we share our professional presentations. Twitter isn’t micro blogging at all it is to share know-how and get information from a trusted network, (and I must add some leisure time where you get unexpected input as I used to do in the old fashioned encyclopedia – reading about stuff, or people I never knew existed – and even better; now I can get to know them on a “#Tweetup” !  The various social media applications seem to become parts of different aspects of my life.

But it gets increasingly more complicated to maintain it all. I want to produce once, and automatically spread the info on various platforms, and vice versa. I want a dashboard that can handle my digital networking life. I want to sort what’s relevant and not, for various parts of life.

It seems like corporations are heading in the same direction. Today I got the news I’ve been waiting for and it’s just the start. Linkedin and Twitter establish a partnership. This is clever! How it will look like I’m not sure of, but I’m sure that it’s clever for both parties. Who is next and what “pairs” are we going to see? I guess we will see a lot of changes and a need for all to stay flexible. I also believe that how we all act now is the shaping force of what will become.

The fall and rise of the media industry

The fall and rise of the media industry is happening in front of our eyes, just watch. The speed this is happening in is surprising for all of us. And we have only seen the start of it, so buckle up people, this will hurt. It’s 40 years since it all began and we know the famous message is sent and lit up on a screen to test if the system works: “Hello World” I’m sure some people nowadays just hate those two small words.

The reports are coming from everywhere, decreasing in the daily newspaper circulation and subscriptions, decreasing revenues from advertisements, and in many opinion; decreasing quality. The drop in the last six months of 10,6% , we now have a circulation lower than before Wold War II according the blog Reflections of a Newsosaur, and the blog posting;  Newspapers, the mass-less mass medium  Another  great report “The big Thaw” is worth a deep study.

The media industry isn’t one thing, there are diverse challenges for the film, music and broadcast industry, the publishing industry and the news industry, but the writings on the wall are the same; “transform or vanish!”

Professionals are scared for their jobs, for the future and for their profession. I’m more concerned for the managers and owners. Why? Well we have never spent more time and craved news, knowledge, entertainment in the history of man, and it’s not likely that we will stop now. The profession provides quality to all of this, and we will need people who are able to tell us histories, to teach us stuff also after the fall of mass media as we know it. But the TV producer, the radioman, the journalist could very well end up better than before, more free to do what she wants and reaching out to an audience more interested not only to listen, watch and read, but also participating in the discourse. But she might not work for a paper or TV channel. She might work as a freelancer, at an internet company, at a worldwide dominating search engine company, she might work at a company providing a browser and so  forth.

The media owners and managers are the one that now have started to feel the impact, and where should they go, since nobody need them anymore, and as it seems they refuse to change? That path leads only to one destination R.I.P. on their way it seems like panic, quarrels, politics and a dream of old dead ideas is haunting to many of them.

How will the creation of art, news, entertainment, TV, radio, music and so forth find business models that support sustainable revenue streams? I don’t know, most likely nobody really do, but I have some ideas.

Look for what works today, at the internet and telecom industries. The multitude of revenue streams and the combination of concepts out there today will support also revenuestreams for content production. Just remember that we have seen the end of mass media as we know it. What we are seeing is the mass interaction, the mass creativity and the masses interacting between themselves. My advice for the time being would be to produce once, deliver at as many places and to as many devices you are able to. Make a very clear split between content production and products! Make sure you collect and culture as much knowledge about users, participants and their behavior as you can, that’s your real value. Make a mix of revenue streams, share knowledge in-house and brake any silo thinking in-house you possibly can. And be ready for further change, this is not over, it’s barely began. Take a look at the  at C3 for further understanding of a new media house set up, I’ve been blogging and discussing with the CEO Chuck Peters for quite some time now, and they have done some great work.

I think it’s high time we look at that screen again with the, maybe most important two words in our lifetime; ”Hello World”  and interact with the message and answer back “Hi, Wasup”

Media business revenues are dropping so might your Company’s!

The challenges are huge and concern all of us. Rapid changes are hard to handle. I put an image of a car with this blog posting. What does that have to do with the media industry? Henry Ford’s introduction of the automated assembly line changed the car industry.

In short, his actions forced the whole of the car industry to adapt. It took years for them, and at a point it seemed that a Ford was the synonym for a car. In just a few years the market had changed. “Everyone” could afford a car, and not only the wealthy.  Only twenty years later the Ford Company got  problems. Competitors start to offer cars in all kind of fancy colors. Henry Ford didn’t realize the change; he still lived by his “old winning strategy” and the famous quote:  ”The customer can have any color as long as it is black”. This looks a bit like how the media industry meets their challenges nowadays.

The audiences are moving away from traditional media arenas, toward social media arenas. We know the news papers are in trouble with dropping readers. Also in the online news business descent revenues are hard to achive. www.vg.no has to let 10% of their online staff leave. The 4^th largest commercial TV station in Norway www.tvn.no closed down their TV news this week. What happens when media revenues drop as they do so for the time being? Advertising companies also get into trouble, and so are businesses trying to market their products and services.

There’s been a lot of focus on social media the last year, and a lot of confusion. It does not seem like businesses, nor the media industry, is as eager to embrace the phenomena social media as the users of internet are. Strategy Analytics inc. reports that 628 million users today are active users of social media. That is 60% of all broadband users.( Businesswire.com) Within the next five years it’s expected that Social Media Applications, such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr, will attract over one billion broadband user.

The media industry seems like they would rather that social media didn’t exist. Companies and businesses seems like they think; it’s a “hype” and of no real relevance to their marketing and sales strategies. If one look at the point of the Gartners “Hype curve” is that it starts off as a “Hype”, and develops into mainstream. Social media have become mass market phenomena, whereas the media and advertisement business, yet haven’t understood it. Advertising companies seems like they don’t know quite what to do about it, but are trying to figure out what’s going on. In this perspective we do have “power to the people”. Except that it’s a downward spiral. From somewhere and somehow revenue streams have to be involved. Content and news won’t continue to exist without it. Advertisement requires a belief of a return of investments from a business perspective. If the media industry looses their audiences, advertisement will lose businesses interest, but what to do then?

The confusion is great. Businesses search for some to answer the question, what to do? Media doesn’t seem to have the answer, advertisement companies seems to go by the media industry and would probably have liked things to continue as before. But people have embraced the “hype” social media to an extent that cannot be overlooked.

Few business developers in the media and advertisement business seems to have looked closely at how do the revenue streams in the internet business function as is? What kind of activities are at the internet, and how are they providing added value to the customers and the market? The media and news industry will need to adapt to the environment they have their audience in. Advertising companies will have to change in order to provide their customers with product that meet audiences in totally different manners than we are used to.

Companies will need to market their products, in order to do so they will need to go where the audiences are, and meet the customers in manners of which the customers can engage in. It amazes me that Management in companies today seems to not understand the importance of social media and what business changes are required to be able to meet their customers in a rapid changing world.  Avande reports that 75% of management admits that social media is important 60% doesn’t have social media on the agenda, and only  18% have some kind of strategy. I expect to see some huge surprises the coming years, where established businesses will lose their market shares, and even disappear all together, whereas unknown companies will grow huge in a very short time. It’s time to watch out and be proactively present to avoid being left behind.

I’ve written several blog postings (below) about this what, and how I believe that business models and revenue streams will be created. My point of view is shared by many and the key point are like Strategy Analytics report in their latest  report, “The People’s Revolution: Implications of Web 2.0 and Social Media Applications,” notes that media companies must view social media both as a tremendous opportunity and a competitive threat. The report also concludes that the ability to develop successful targeted advertising techniques will be the key to long term financial viability for social media sites.

Should we be cloning the marketing directors?

To me it seems like we first took advertisement into the web ‘as is’, then we discovered that the web have som neat add-on’s, like measuring what’s going on.

Rapidly someone found out that retail is a business that works on the net. And then, classified, or was that the other way around? In any event, not much changed. Maybe Social media will ?

I’m not going into traditional Campaigns, commercials, ads, banners and so forth. What they all have in common is that they are “old style push advertisements” and function as such. I’m not sure what effect they have (less, similar or better than in the traditional advertisement world of radio, TV and print media) but I would expect that traditional measurements would tell. The “new” in the digital world is that you can measure “exact” by web statistics, click rates and so forth. And we got SEO, SEM and more…

I’m not going into online retail-, travel- /booking- or various sorts of classified of solutions either. There are many well proven concepts of how to bring products to market and make revenues. Amazon.com is one of the oldest “best practice”. The gain these businesses have had “going digital” is mainly in the speed up of decision making  and transaction solution enabling a sale there and then, with less hassle than having to get the customer from an advert to the shop. Further developments have been to interact with the customer by polls, evaluations, suggestions and recommendations. We have also seen new businesses comparing products and prices and offered customers a “product search” and businesses traffic.

The usage of interactivity in marketing isn’t new, but the options provided by new digital tools and/or channels/ media are interesting.

Some have taken the campaign strategies a step further by establishing communities like Libresse or Nike. The interactivity, discussions and so forth help building a stronger relationship between the brand and the customers. It’s a kind of concept that also is used for product development, support improvements and so forth. Some others have gone into the gaming business and used campaign where virtual /role-play games are combined with introducing a product e.g. a new film, book and so forth

Usage of YouTube is interesting because anyone can post a video promoting, in some manner, products or services. So far this is a pure Push commercial, nevertheless we have seen viral activity, where people start making their response by own versions, as an ironic (or sarcastic), comical or plain commenting  videos. Some companies have understood this and taken advantages of it and used it in their overall campaigns.

There are a lot of other examples that mostly have made concepts that are more or less the same as always (read print and push mechanisms) with some digital add on functionality. Some of the “new” thoughts have been: “Don’t try to attract the audience to you – go to where your customers are” And now companies are pouring into Facebook, Twitter and so forth, and what happens? Too much push mentality, to little new concepts or too little reflection on what to do in these social media.

A marketing strategy in the digital world will have to look into all of these options and make use of the, in order to reduce cost and/or increase sales. More important in the coming years will be to implement multichannel strategies that includes the real world, and make some work flows of; where, what, how, why and when the company and their customers are interacting and conducting the purchase process.

Another aspect is that it seems absent for the moment that I believe will become very central is not to have everyone in your company going into social media by “cloning” them into many” small marketing directors” doing the same as usual; spamming the audiences with commercial messages in every channel possible. I believe that a key to success is to listen and engage within the frame of the profession and tasks people have in their organization and use the gained knowledge to develop the company, its products and services. That means that product development dep. Listen to trends, engage in how a great product should be. Designers looks into design and discuss function and aesthetics, the support division listen to what people have of trouble and provide answers and so forth.

And I’d like to see more of Business intelligence, structured data, tagging and semantic web strategies put into effect and combined with solutions of providing the motivated customer with the wanted offers. This will enable a whole new way of not doing factual measuring by looking backwards, but rather forward. If you know what your audience/ customer wants you can give it to them, instead of looking at history and try to figure what you did wrong.

If you want you can look at a PPT presentation about this subject at slideshare.net

I’m not angry at google.com and the NAA, just very, very disappointed!

I should have charged 5 $ in cash,- but what the heck I’ll do it for free!
It’s just amazing, and I’m not sure if I’m reading what I do. Google.com wants to establish a micro payment system for content? Google.com wants to use their “Checkout” system and they are about to finishing their new platform.

It was Andreas Wiese in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.no that told me he wrote an article (print only)about it and I went out and bought the “old style” print paper (Print and coffee has a certain fragrance that’s so delicious!)

Please Google.com; correct me if I’m wrong. Why should Google provide this micro payment service only for one kind of business (Online newspapers)? To me it’s obvious that Google want everyone on the planet to “check-in” at Google in the morning, before you go to work, and that you should start give away some of your hard earned money before coffee; to Google, and why? Because Google want you to? Could you imagine a better reason? “Oh – if Google want me to pay, then it must be OK.”

It took me less than two minutes research to find that Nieman Journalism Lab, by Zachary M Seward published the story the ninth of September 2009.(at their page you can download the actual memo sent from Google.com to The News Association of America. NAA had sent out a request for paid-content proposals.)   The Wall Street Journal, blogs, Reuter blogs and a lot of media around the world followed up and states their skepticism.

Looking closer into this I can’t see that any newspaper would want this, less accepts it. It’s NOT Visa (or the like) providing a micro payment system to content producers!  It’s NOT someone independent from the content! It’s Google.com. Google.com is a “content collector” of huge dimensions, with an established power structure, in reality without competitors, which should make lots of us very uncomfortable as is. Enabling Google with yet another angle of attack to the market would be highly dangerous. Media- Publishing houses, news organizations and a lot of other businesses should really think twice. How to be able to conduct business in an independent manner? If Google controls access (via their search results), a huge amount of knowledge about users and content and also (with this idea) be in charge of, and control every possible entrance point to access content itself, and by that get an economic advantage for free? Why should the media- news and publishing industry ever think of this? It’s selling out their value for a cup of a beggar coins, when google really should pay them for making such a pleseant living out of presenting news organizations (and all others) content!

This idea of Google threatens the free enterprise and in reality represents a wish to create a monopoly that very few gouvernments, competitors, enterprises and end users around the world should accept.

Looking into Goggle.com’s business idea itself, I really can’t see how Google dares to go there. This is challenging everything users of the Internet know about the Internet and wants it to be. It’s like arguing that the democracy shouldn’t have elections anymore. It could possibly ruin Google as a company, not only damaging the brand.

Furthermore; micro transactions as a revenue stream for Google and  for content producers is a very primitive business model. And I really don’t understand how Google.com, which sits on the options to develop lots of far more lucrative business models, can even think of this. I just don’t get it. For the news- media and Publishing business it’s equally a primitive business model in a digital environment. In my opinion it will onlybe an obstacle and reduce the speed of innovation and leave businesses (including Google.com) with far less revenues than they can with alternative models. We know this because telecom-, community-advertising and  e- commerce businesses (to name a few) have far more advanced and lucrative models installed already. And the developments of those will become far more prosperous in the near future.

So why? Why at all Google? The risks involved, the critics, the oppositions Google will meet, from competitors, governments, and the world wide public may very well put Google in a very unpleasant situation.  To Google and the media industry; neither of the two parties are in such bad state as the woman in the classic Mad TV skit, so I say as the therapist  – Stop it!

Seven” right things” to do in digital business today

As I’ve seen around the world, in blogs, whitepapers and  in discussions with clients everyone realize that we are in a transformational age. But the transformations aren’t isolated to the area of internet and computing business. The world is interconnected!

Seemingly everyone want to be prepared for the ongoing changes, but too many doesn’t know what to do.  Quite a few know what they need to do, but doesn’t know how, and some know what and how, but haven’t found the means or the business models ensuring that it will work. It’s essential to understand that your digital involvement isn’t detached from the rest of the world. There is no “virtual” OR “real life” it’s both virtual AND real life at once.

Your business might be in a situation where there isn’t a choice; it’s either change now or vanish? Your business might be in a situation where the challenge is if you should wait or not?  History shows that those who doesn’t act in times of recession have lost market shares when times are great again. The winners are those who act in times of ressession.

What windows of opportunities do you have in your surroundings? There’s always an option that can be taken advantages of. As readers of my blog would know there are some hints that could guide you to do “the right thing” and find your window of opportunity.

Seven “right things”to do in the transforming world:

1)      Clarify your purpose of the business!
Ensure that your business has a purpose beyond just providing profit for the stockholders. Ensure that the benefits for your customers, and also the society as such, are clearly understood. If your business has an ethical perspective on their activities it’s more likely that you will have a strong position in a transformed society.

2)      Be social!
We are all social beings. That means that your business needs to be social too. We would rather like to identify, connect and interact with a company that has an interest in their partners, customers and their wellbeing. If your partners, customers have a great dialogue and experiences with your company and services/products, they will tell their network and do very effective marketing for you. Old marketing solutions doesn’t work as well as it used to.

3)      Embrace freedom!
Don’t try to control others, including your staff. If you do the right thing, everyone else will. Give your staff, partners and customers freedom and options to involve in your business. They will all help steer your company in accordance with the purpose of your business anyway. (this doesn’t mean that you don’t put up clear expectations and goals)

4)      Be focused!
Make sure that what ever you involve your business with, that it correspond with your purpose. Do not spread out and partisipate with whatever comes along. This will save you e.g. marketing costs that doesn’t support and enhance the purpose of your business.

5)      Be adaptive!
The challenges in the world, in societies and in business haven’t changed much, but the solution and ways of solving a challenge changes rapidly in transformational times. Make sure that you can change in pace with your surroundings.

6)      Be realistic!
You can’t do everything, everywhere at all times. Start with what you can do today, and go from there, but go as fast as you can, remember things have a tendency to change fast in transformational times. Investments (you can afford) done today are the increased income tomorrow.

7)      Be bold, surprise everyone!
Do things that surprise yourself, your partners and your customers, do something above expectations. There is nothing as wonderful for us than seeing someone doing more that what was expected.

I’ve listed sevengreat examples of companies that have done most of the 7 bulletpoints above, and you can read, research and figure out if there are elements you can make your own, that you can adapt or simply get ideas from. (this is just a very brief list as examples)

Virgin and Richard Branson.
It seems like there is no limit to what this brand can hold. Richards drive and determination makes tings happen.
Choice hotels in Norway and Petter Stordalen
Look at his engagement in the global heating and how he implements this in the chains of hotels he owns.
Sun, Microsystems and CEO Jonathan Schwartz blog – look at how he’s able to connect with the market, by being honest about what he wants
Tesla motors
Look at how they managed to get a year long waiting list of people that wanted to actually buy a electric care, long before the car was produced. (And the quality of the web page compared with other car manufacturers)
Gazette Communications and CEO Chuck Peters
Look at how they are really prepared to transform their news and media companies.
Stormberg and Steinar J Olsen
Look at how they are able to incorporate a purpose that goes beyond only profit for themselves.
Englegård and Celine Thommesen
Look at what happens if your purpose and heart is alligned. You don’t need to be big to be sucessful, but you do need to want to do it right, and put a lot of hard work into it.

What’s the business in news nowadays?

There’s an ongoing discussion in- and  outside Norway. The invention of  Internet has challenged how to run a newspaper, media- and publishing  house.
Sales of papers are dropping, so  is the advertiser’s budgets. The  willingness to pay for news on the net  seems like zero. The profit in the business is decreasing. And everyone is wondering what to do?

UPDATE: PPT presentation of this posting at Slideshare.net
Rupert Murdock wants to let people pay for news online. I don’t think he will be successful. Others want to keep news online short, superficial and written”for web” whereas the analogue paper should develop into more “deep digging journalism”. Some believe that the internet isn’t suited for “real critical journalism” This is proven wrong as well.

So the question remains; where is the business in news nowadays? News (in any channel and/or media) has had its basis in ownership to the content. Internet challenges this because the sharing of content is so rapid, and so fluid that you can’t have a story for yourself anymore. The monopoly is gone.

The “old triangle”

The news content and the creation of it, enabled a news organisation to gather a crowd of readers/listeners/ viewers. This gave the business model of selling the paper, subscriptions, classified and not to forget – ads.  But remember the core value has always been the ownership of the content. The connections between content, readers and advertisement has never been strong, because it has never been necessary to develop strong connections between the elements in this triangle.

A“new triangle”?

What if the content isn’t the real value for a media house anymore? Well it isn’t! That’s why media and news organisations now have the decreasing income both in the analogue and the digital environment. Some suggestions have been “go hyper local” become “niche news” I think both are great ideas, but it’s not enough, due to the fact that the idea of what is the core “ownership” haven’t changed into something of real value.

The business needs to have a foundation in a real, functional business model. On the internet there is one business model that is established, and that remarkably enough already is at work also with in the area of journalism, and media, but without the news organisations taking advantage of it – not yet. By deciding that content is no longer the core value, but the sum of participants (and their activities) in the environment is! Social media gather people; their participation creates content and feed journalism in totally new manners, and the connections are already shown to be able to be close, and strong.

Businesses like My space, Facebook, Twitter and so forth has it’s value in the amount of active members. The value of the knowledge about users has barely started to be explored, and for the news and media business this is a unique opportunity to dig deeper into this.

What if the real value for the news and media industry is seen to be the knowledge about the interactive and action oriented behaviour of Participants (readers/users)? I believe that one can connect participants, content and advertisement in far better ways that clarify and justify: what’s in it for me for all involved parties. Or, in other words “what’s the purpose?” can be better answered for all involved parties. (see also the blog posting below)

An approach to a new digital strategy?

I’ve started writing on a white paper, where I look at methodologies for creating  improved  digital strategies.

I feel that business strategies focus to little on the digital conditions where the business will have to operate.

I also see clearly that marketing strategies, sales strategies and web strategies doesn’t fill the needs in a highly interactive and action oriented digital world.

Putting together a digital strategy will, by its nature be an iterative process, where the overall business idea may have to be changed in order to achieve an optimal digital environment, that in its turn benefit the business idea. Where the overall business strategy will be the main steering document for the business, the digital strategy document will determine what to be the focus in the digital environment to achieve the overall business strategy. Next step in a development will be that the business-, and the digital strategy will merge and become one. Since the digital environment is so complex and interconnected I suggest a very holistic approach. Since the business world have moved direction and become so dependent on the digital environment, I suggest you take the digital strategy very seriously and what you learn by making your digital strategy should reflect back on your overall business strategy.

I’ve started to investigate if  terms like  “Purpose”, “Participation” and “Conditions” as some alternative angles to “vision”, “mission”, “values” and “goals” will improve the final result on a  development of a digital strategy. One reason for this is that operating in a digital environment is very action oriented and interactive,  and I believe that some of the “standard phrases” in a business strategy often becomes a bit to “vishy washy” and not as action oriented and measurable as you would like it to be.
I’m thinking along the lines: What if your business doesn’t have a purpose people understand? Why should someone bother buying it? How can people help you? Have you given people an opening to involve? And if you haven’t looked into the conditions the purpose will live, and how someone can participate, why should it succeed?
Take a look at your business, what is really the purpose? who is (or could) participate and in what way? Does it have optional conditions?

Purpose
What’s the purpose for what you are doing? What is your motivation, the owners and the staff working in your organization? What’s the purpose of what you have to offer? What is the purpose for the digital engagements you have or wants?  What’s the purpose for those who buy your message/service/products? My thesis is by investigating this thoroughly you might find that, your purpose isn’t all that well anchored in the actual business you are running or the market you want to reach? Then it’s no wonder if your business isn’t running smoothly!

Participants
The participants in making your purpose come to live is also a perspective that has to do with having a  dualistic perspective toward what you are doing, and the dependencies you have in others inside, and outside of your business. Because both you and your staff, partners, co-dependents and customers participate in making your purpose happen. In other words everyone that has a part in making your purpose real are participants. One are frequently speaking of stakeholders in the business world. We shouldn’t stop doing so, but still – if anyone would want me to buy a product, idea, service or whatever I’d like it to be of benefit for me and the surrounding world, with no, or as little, risk as possible.  Defining the customer/ client / partner and you as participants enable us to better find out how to fulfill the purpose and get our business better connected with the core of how we all participate in the digital world. Since the digital environment is highly action oriented, you will see that participants act. And in your work with the digital strategy you will discover that enabling action and interactions will be one of the essential elements in a successful digital strategy.

Discover Conditions
Under which conditions is your purpose and participants existing? By investigating the actual conditions the methods to implement the purpose and the way participants will engage is discovered. The structures of power in your digital business world, defining condition in the value chain, business models  and so forth. Evaluating limitations and options in infrastructure, hardware, software and in  the Internet business environment will be important analytic tasks to conduct during your work with the digital strategy. Correlatives between existing relevant purposes (others), participants and conditions can be taken advantages of to fulfill the purpose, with the right participants under the right conditions. The idea is to broaden up the more narrow common approach, that often is using tools like a SWOT analysis and so forth in business strategies. I believe that investigating how to get the best conditions to function together, you will end up changing your overall business strategy. Maybe you discover that what you believed was the core of your business, what drives your business, just maybe isn’t the same into the next decade ?

Changes in Social media or changes because of it ?

It’s reported that the Twitter people will become disappointed and that the Hype is over. (Gartner) My Space is losing popularity. Facebook is looking for ways of not getting stuck, by developing Facebook Light?

I believe that the future of social media hasn’t really began, and that the coming years will look very different from what it is now.

Maybe, just maybe “social media” will disappear as a separate “label”? In my view we are only in the beginning of a huge shift in the history of internet.

The businesses of collaboration,(synchronic and a- synchronic) e- learning, internet, intranet,extranet and social media applications might just merge into the business core IT (ICT) systems seamlessly and only those who are able to create added value for different organizations, businesses and societies.

Another huge area of change is the complete area of media.  Internet already have changed most of the media industry in film, TV, radio and print media. Journalism, entertainment and the industries surrounding all of this such as my profession: communication advisor. And the changes aren’t over, they just began! An couple of interesting blog posts on the failure of newspapers can be read here: conversationagent, by Valeria Maltoni, and  at splicetoday by  Bill Wyman

I believe that the keyword will be the same: seamless integrations. The channel and carrier of  TV/ Radio media has no real function in the future, and the IP will easily replace it, and this is about to happen with the film industry that’s going digital. Internet as a carrier (tecnological and communication wise) already have become the core of all other activities.

I believe that any enterprise without a digital centered business- it, and communication strategy will fail. Collaborative and social aspects of conducting business will be incorporated in the business itself. Interaction between the corporation and the market / audience will grow rapidly.

But I’m sorry to say; I don’t believe in the ever so popular naive statement: “Social media has given power to the people” I do say that the winners of today and tomorrows business world are those who are able to adapt and take advantages in these times of change. I do hope that ethic and environmental trade will be seen as an competitive advantage and will be incoporated as well, that will make a better world for all of us!

What have you done for me lately?

When did any web page answer this for you – lately? Long time ago? Never happened? – you don’t say…

It’s amazing. Just take a look around on the world wide web. So few web sites seem to be able to really offer their visitors what the visitors wants. It is as everyone wants to TELL you something – SELL you something. The “news” about the web 2.0 or social web doesn’t seem to have had an impact at all. What have you done for me lately?

Web 2.0, Social web or what label it has seems  to be the rebellion of the users, trying hard to find other ways to help each other out. Forums, chats, communities, dating services, Sharing sites,  Facebook, Twitter and so on,  all have huge amounts of users finding ways to connect, interact and communicate. This is great.

On the other hand; Public services, companies, PR,  advertising companies, IT providers, retailers, health care institutions and so on – what have they done for me lately? – Mostly nothing in the digital universe. Still shouting  in a confusing language, very unclear about what they are, and what they want to be there for. This is NOT great.

What have you done for me lately? As a user I want to know what your organization, your company can do for me.  I don’t want to know your business idea or who manages the company ( I might want to know that – when I do NOT get what you have to offer me) And you know what? I am, as a user, very helpful, I would love to help you get better – if you only gave me an opportunity. So why is it still hard to find “contact” on more than half of the web pages I visit during a day? Or:  How did you like our services? What could we improve? What is your idea of what else we could have offered you?

As a professional organization, corporation I really expect you to know what you are doing, and how to do it. I expect you to have a goal for your presence in the digital universe, and you know what? I’d rather join you, buy from you, return to you – if you do. What did I do for you lately?