Archive for the innovation Category

The digital battle is getting serious but who is fighting and why?

Posted in collaboration, Community, Digital business, digital collaboration, Digital media, Digital news, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on April 5, 2013 by Geir Stene

Painting_Liberty Leading the PeopleIt’s the giants leading on the battle; it amazes me that the rest of us let them rule the ground alone.

It is all about power, owning the value chain and keeping / achieving profits. Who owns the production line ? Who have control over the infrastructure (path of delivery) and who has the strongest grip of the customers?

For some; helping people to improve their lives and decrease their sufferings and problems seems to be a necessary (but undesirable) cost aspect. No wonder people distrust whole countries, corporations and those who want to sell us yet another vacant argument.

Facebook is coming up with a mobile solution, but do not launch a cell phone. IPhone got behind in the innovation race. Kodak is bankrupt. Sony is losing money all over. Many newspapers tries to generate sufficient revenues by hiding behind firewalls. AT&T (and of course Telenor in Norway) are fighting too, they want the free ride of earning on others production of content. Media moguls are on the ground too, armed to their teeth with copyright arguments. North Korea and other nations are accused for running a cyber war. Most nations want some sort of control over the Internet, they say it’s due to fighting crime.

Confused? No need to be embarrassed. Most people are.

The digital revolution is really about who is producing value in the digital era and are able to deliver solutions to people’s problems and fulfilling their desires in the most benefitual way. It can be a revolution FOR the people, but then the people have to wake up.

The question is not about copyrights, VAT, or that the artists will not survive when everything becomes free. It is not about journalism or literature, storytelling, pictures and film as dying crafts. It is really about a new level of democracy, where the value is in delivering real value to people – the market.

For the media industry  it is important to understand this, and at the same time to understand that the real producers of added value (the artists, the storytellers, the journalists and so forth) need to get the fair share of the value produced!

Behind Facebooks new ”Graph search”

Posted in Community, Digital business, Digital media, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on January 16, 2013 by Geir Stene

TVscreen_wall_imageIt seems like people aren’t looking under the hood of what this new direction of Facebook really is all about.

What I’ve seen of reactions so far is concerned about the benefit for people searching (and the lack of benefit outside Facebook environment)Forbes is concerned about privacy in their article: “Facebook’s New Social Search”. [ ]

Forget privacy!
I believe that they aren’t looking closely enough. There is no battle of privacy. In fact that battle was lost before it started. Our governments (all over the world) have ensured that in all their new laws “against terrorism”. Forget privacy in the way we used to think about it.

Rather think transparency. And avoid using companies, and internet portals that refuses to be transparent about what they do.

What are they doing?
Google and Facebook are not trying to provide you with a more humane way of finding what you are looking for. They are not fighting over how personalization as the future of search should work.

They are battling to own your “social data”! They want to have as much knowledge about you, your friends and network, and your actions and interactions in any digital way you interact. They want this to profit from it. They want this in order to sell that social information about you to corporations. That enable them to present desired and needed commercial content to as where you are, when you need anything. None of them wants to be transparent!

Good or evil?
On the one hand this is great news, isn’t it? We finally get rid of spam, of disturbing and irritating commercials in our face. No more stupid “news letters”!

It’s a great idea to be presented by the great offer of a healthy lunch, just when you are hungry, and it’s right around the corner from where you stand. Isn’t it?

It’s great when your car breaks down on the highway, that the rescue car & the rental car is on its way, before you have to reach for your cell phone and start searching for the phone number to your insurance company, the rescue car and the rental company. You don’t have to call work and explain the delay or your spouse to complain to her, what shitty life you have.
That is already information delivered e.g. via Facebook status. Your friends and network knows, those who want to offer you help knows. That’s good – isn’t it?

The “evil enemy country” in the world has hacked into all systems and they also know what you think, what your actions are and what perfume you use, and more important, the credit card number and where/when used. Oh that’s maybe not so good, or is it?

The collective flow of money is in crowd funding!

Posted in collaboration, Community, Digital business, digital collaboration, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on December 16, 2012 by Geir Stene

16.dec_imageCrowd funding is still ‘hype’ for most industries, but you will hear lots about it next year, experts around the world tells us.

It started out with the music industry and according to this article from Wikipedia  it dates back to ca.1997. I’ll remind you that typical “donate option” at free software websites has been common for years and is also a kind of “retro perspective crowd funding

Till now crowd funding has been used mostly for creative projects (music, independent film, fine arts). We see that “new journalism / citizen journalism project have stated using this kind of funding.

Internet start-ups and other entrepreneurs are increasingly using crowd funding as a financial source. Even the US President Barack Obama embrace crowd funding by the “JOBS Act” that allows accredited investors to invest in equity crowd funding campaigns.

The skeptics will also tell us that crowd sourcing is risky, as criminals will use this phenomenon for creating frauds. I’m certain that is correct. Criminals have always used every possible way to cheat. Read THIS  from TIME magazine about the subject.

Not all kinds of project are suitable for crowd funding. The most obvious areas is project that is non-profit (charity), or where the profit motif is absence (arts) or that the project is somehow perceived as great for mankind.

That means that e.g. environmental- , citizen rights movements, job creating projects and so forth will be able to meet a collective support where crowd funding is a great opportunity to fund a project.

I believe that also more traditional businesses will attract  crowds for financial support, maybe even as a contra- reaction against  what is perceived as “cynical and greedy finance acrobats”.

“Look out for the crowd – there is power in the voice of the masses!”

Innovation: A stunt or a process?

Posted in Digital business, innovation, Web 2.0 on December 14, 2012 by Geir Stene

Bilde1A few years ago a business could develop a business strategy, print it and live by it for a decade? That is not an option in today’s world.

During our ongoing digital revolution the ability to innovate may be a “win or get lost” scenario. Yet, few businesses in Norway have established a structured innovative environment within their organization. Yes, “Innovation” has become a buzzword, but that is not enough.

However Innovation is not one thing! You should ask what kind of innovation and by that methodology you need to implement: Do you need a system that embraces continuous improvements, or does your business demand radical changes to survive the future? Is it in the product line or is it service innovation you need the most?

Most likely your organization  possess the skills, the ability and the will to produce the desired results of innovation processes. External expertise, support and coaching may help to exploit and fulfill the maximal potential.

“Innovation is not about to reinvent the wheel, it’s about using it in the right way, the right place and the right time”

Mobile first strategies

Posted in Digital business, Digital media, innovation, Web 2.0 on December 8, 2012 by Geir Stene

8 dec_imageTrend reports have told us for a couple of years now that the use of smart phones increases so dramatically that many businesses need to rethink their strategies.

I believe that the lap top and the web is no longer the first choice. We want to perform actions and do shopping via our phones. The mobile phone has become a multi- tool used for many things, and it is first and foremost a very “personal” tool.

Think about it, I can happily lend the lap top for a moment; but let other people handle my phone? Hummm…

Mobile first is not just about mobile phones, it’s also about tablets. These are two different “gadgets”. Even if both are handy and you can bring them with you – they have different patterns of usage.

However, the mobile solutions greatest advantages are that they are geared towards individual needs. The needs are situational. I choose widget and channel, based on situation – it’s mostly not a shared experience.

“Meet me where I am, in the tool I’m using,  with a solution to the problem I have! »

What is the purpose of your business?

Posted in Community, innovation on September 7, 2012 by Geir Stene

I posted this question on twitter the other day. And I got answers! Great answers, quite a few answers too.

People were curious. The reason for asking was to better understand what motivates people for running and/ or being in the business they are. Is it the cash, or is there something more to it ?

My followers asked me if I would give them some feedback on what I learned. I’ll summarize in this article.

First: I would like to thank every one of you. I’m humble and very grateful for the honesty and engagement you showed me! Thanks!

Your feedback
The ones that first answered came from small businesses and entrepreneurs.  “The purpose of my business is to get people out”, (with a hashtag #health included) one said. I didn’t quite get it, until I understood that he’s working with outdoor life professionally. Then it all became very clear.

“Your idea is value for us – and helps us provide better health care for you” another said, working with innovation in the public health care.

Also people from large companies and organization answered. One said: “We will create enduring value and leave clear footprints” this statement became a short discussion between twitters, where the CEO clarified by explaining:  “footprints is not meant as monuments, but businesses, systems, environments, management teams who are self-motivated and value-added”.

“Our business is to make people richer on knowledge”, “The purpose of our organization is to provide equal opportunities to unequal (unique) individuals”. I got many other great answers. I have to include this one from one of Norways Police chiefs: “The purpose of my business is to ensure that you and your family feel secure. This way you can spend your energy on making the most out of your business.”

Yes. I also got the obvious answers from several, one said: “If you run a commercial business, it is a lie if one states a different purpose than to create profits for the owners, in my eyes.”

As a consultant I would love to have you all as my customers! This is great answers, and not as vague as most “Vision, mission, vishy- washy statements” I have had to read, not getting anything out of it, over the years!

Lately I’ve noticed that a lot of companies have purposes that go beyond themselves and the “race for profit”. Some companies have purposes that leads to, in some or the other manner; improve something beside their own revenue stream. For some the focus is on a large scale, like improving society. For others it’s about improving or ease individuals life. I’ve also noticed that many of these companies are very successful.

This makes sense to me.
I watched the TED talk  by Simon Sinek where he states:

“People doesn’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it!”

He continues and says something that (you who answered my little questionnaire on twitter) should make you proud of yourselves:

 “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” 

We can say the same thing about organizations. A company that is focused only on providing their owners with a profit, I believe is more likely not to take their customers unsolved problems as serious. The “reward” will be unfaithful customers, and declining market shares. “People doesn’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it!”

How to do this?
Well, companies need to clarify why they are in business, then they need to know how to do this in a manner that make a difference to people. Some companies are obsessed with growth, and have forgotten to see the real purpose they have in society and that the only thing worthwhile is to help improving life. We can listen to Umair Haque. In one word he points out how to make a difference:

Singularity. 

He says: “Scale is a solved problem. We know how to do stuff at very, very large scale, if by stuff you mean “churning out the same widget, a billion times over”. What we don’t know how to do is the opposite of scaling up: scaling down an institution, to make a difference to a human life. Lives are singular; and for institutions to truly matter in human terms, they must go beyond the homogeneous, to the singular.”  (read the article in  Harvard Business  Review,  Umair Haque is Director of Havas Media Labs)

I believe that from most of the answers I got from twitter, there is a lot of people out there, that are doing just this every day; some of you have gone beyond homogeneous, to the singular in the way you act and how you do your work!

What is your opinion? I would be happy for any comments, just hit “comment”below.

Social responsibility in business

Posted in collaboration, Community, Digital business, Digital news, innovation, Web 2.0 on August 21, 2012 by Geir Stene

Social responsibility has become a “hot topic” over the last years. I’ll present some viewpoints to the subject, but first three examples from my network:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ferd (@FerdCEO)
Why is it that a “hard core” industrial-and financial company like Ferd spends 20 mill NOK a year on supporting Social entrepreneurship?

In order to learn more I visited Ferd before the summer and had a long talk with Øyvind Sandvold (@oyvind_sandvold ) about the work Ferd is doing. What they support and what is outside their scope. You can read more about it HERE

I think the short answer is because they can! They have the assets and also valuable knowledge to share. Of course the element of charity is there.

But to my surprise Øyvind told me about another aspect: That there is a great “return of investment” for the Ferd company and the employees. Every project they support includes that one of the investments consultants (from the other investment funds) take part in the project as a board member, consult the Social entrepreneur and ensure that strategy, business plans and company start up secure the social business and its objective, and also has a growth plan. Øyvind tells me that these projects have become some of the most attractive assignment the employees can get involved in. They learn a lot, make great friends with people in the projects and experience that it’s very meaningful to provide their knowledge and to support social change. The most important part however is that Ferd as a company gets valuable knowledge in return.

Interesting enough: The Ferd social entrepreneurs has yet not received one application for a digital project!

Kavli (@KavliFoundation)
Most people in Norway know of the company Kavli. The Kavli Group is one of Norway’s largest and most international food groups, with some 800 employees creating a turnover of about NOK 2 billion. The companies produce goods for more than 20 countries. Maybe fewer people are aware of the fact that the profit from all Kavli products is channeled back to society, via the the Kavli Trust? They mainly donate money and focus on advanced science research, cultural activities and humanitarian work both in Norway and international.

Kavli has supported a great range of projects since 1962 and it’s interesting to note this project: Barnevakten.no  (Kids and Media). The organization has acquired a global reach with backing from the Kavli Trust. It is now a big operation with various web-based activities in the USA, the UK, Australia and Denmark as well as in Norway.

Bien Bank (@BienSparebank)
Bien bank is a small bank and the only local bank in Oslo. It used to be a savings bank owned by the customers, and is now owned by a trust. In the same manner as Kavli, Bien banks profit is channeled back to the population of Oslo by supporting informational and educational activities towards children and youth, art and cultural projects and community initiatives.
Bien tells me that they are looking into digital projects as we speak.

In addition to these few examples, we all know of the wide range of classical charity organizations, aid organizations and government’s engagements of all sorts.

As we see social responsibility is not at all a new idea. Our western democracies are built upon such ideas. What I believe we will se in the coming years (and why I write about it) is new and innovative initiatives, more and more of them will be digital. And more and more of them will have elements of what Ferd has implemented: In short – funding and expert help towards Self supported and sustainable social entrepreneurs.  

We will se “niche” projects from groups that want to take part in changing a business, like  Spot.us that says this about themselves: “Spot.Us is an open source project to pioneer community powered reporting.”… (spot.us red) “provides a new opportunity to expand the impact of public media journalism by making it more responsive and responsible to the public, while deploying new ways to support freelance reporters and the newsrooms that depend on them.”

As a warning: We will also see fraud! Solutions created only to enrich criminals, like the warning states in this article in e24 concerning the risk of scandals and fraud in crowdfunding

But should we let the risk of criminal acts from a few, stop the actions from millions of people and thousands of companies around the world that genuinely want  to help and improve the world we live in?

” Bill mrk. Enslig konsulent søker selskap “

Posted in Digital business, Digital media, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on April 9, 2012 by Geir Stene

 Etter ganske mange år i konsulent- og rådgiverbransjen, har jeg funnet ut to ting: Jeg er god på det jeg driver på med, og jeg trives best når jeg jobber sammen med andre.

Det siste er en ganske nyvunnet erfaring, etter et års tid som selvstendig næringsdrivende. Det første er min nøkterne (om en u-jærsk ubeskjedne) vurdering av egen kompetanse etter ganske mange år som konsulent og rådgiver.

Du har sikkert skjønt tegningen allerede: Jeg har veldig lyst på nye kollegaer – altså en jobb hvor jeg igjen skaper noe bra sammen med noen, heller enn å jobbe alene for en kunde.

Prosjekter er også interessant, fordi da kan jeg gjøre det jeg elsker, mens jeg finner den rette stillingen i den virksomheten som virkelig trenger det jeg er god på.

Noen av dere kjenner meg, eller kjenner til meg og vet hva jeg kan, og er god på. Dere andre trenger kanskje noen knagger å henge ting på? Jeg har jobbet med og kan mye om:

Jeg kan forbedre virksomheters digitale løsninger:

  • Som rådgiver.
  • Som Strateg
  • Som Forretningsutvikler
  • Som Konseptualist
  • Som Kommunikasjonsansvarlig/ rådgiver
  • Som Prosjekt- prosess- og forhandlingsleder

Bransjer? Det er mange bransjer som vil tjene mye på å øke fokus på digitael aktiviteter.

For meg betyr det å kunne forstå brukere/ kunder, forretningsaspekter, teknologi og organisasjoner. – De mest fornuftige forbedringene kommer av et samspill mellom dette.

Jeg er god på å gjøre andre gode. Jeg liker å lede og å drive prosjekt- og prosesser fremover.

Jeg liker blandingen mellom å tenke «de store tankene» og å ta ansvar for å løse dem, med hjelp av å sikre at de små detaljene også er på plass. I tillegg kan jeg mye om relasjonssalg, det å kjøpe tjenester, forhandlinger og kontrakter innenfor digitale løsninger.

Det som «driver meg» er å se at jeg bidrar med å skape forbedringer.

Hvor kan det tenkes at dere, eller noen dere kjenner til har nytte av min kompetanse?

  • I et en virksomhet der man trenger det jeg kan?
  • I et selskap hvor man løser slike oppgaver for sine kunder?

Jeg ville setter veldig stor pris på tips, anbefaling, eller rett og slett et tilbud. Ta kontakt på e post stenegeir@gmail.com , twitter : @gstene, eller telefon 902 76 450

Bloggen min fant dere jo (siden dere leser dette) og kan scrolle nedover og se hva jeg har skrevet om.

Vil dere vite mer om CV, ta en titt på LinkedIn

Tid for endring for store og små

Posted in Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on January 16, 2012 by Geir Stene

Image_wether_chart_board_1980Verdensøkonomien 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.

Posted in Digital business, Digital media, e book, innovation, Publishing, Web 2.0 on January 10, 2012 by Geir Stene

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

Posted in Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on January 3, 2012 by Geir Stene

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

Posted in Community, Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on November 30, 2011 by Geir Stene

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

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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 !

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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»

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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 »  

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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»

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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! »

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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» 

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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»

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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! »

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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»

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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»

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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»

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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!»

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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»

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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.

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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

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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! »

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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.

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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»

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!»

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“Endringspakker” ikke “krisepakker” !

Posted in 1, Digital business, innovation on September 27, 2011 by Geir Stene

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” ?

Posted in Digital business, Digital media, Digital news, innovation on September 19, 2011 by Geir Stene

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.

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

Posted in Digital business, Digital media, Digital news, e book, innovation, IT and communication, Publishing, Web 2.0 on February 26, 2011 by Geir Stene

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.

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

Posted in Digital business, innovation, Web 2.0 on October 26, 2010 by Geir Stene

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

Posted in Community, Digital business, Digital media, innovation on October 19, 2010 by Geir Stene

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?

Posted in Community, Digital business, Digital media, Digital news, innovation, Web 2.0 on October 9, 2010 by Geir Stene

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?

Posted in Community, Digital business, Digital media, Digital news, innovation, Web 2.0 on September 27, 2010 by Geir Stene

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.

Sustainable business models in a digital environment

Posted in Digital business, Digital media, Digital news, innovation, Web 2.0 on June 9, 2010 by Geir Stene

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)

A new digital business model that works

Posted in 1, Community, Digital business, Digital media, innovation, Web 2.0 on February 26, 2010 by Geir Stene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
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?

Posted in 1, Digital business, Digital media, Digital news, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 with tags , on February 7, 2010 by Geir Stene

 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?

Posted in collaboration, Community, Digital business, digital collaboration, innovation, Web 2.0 with tags , on January 31, 2010 by Geir Stene

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

Posted in Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 with tags on January 9, 2010 by Geir Stene

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 27th 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

Posted in Basic, Digital business, innovation, IT and communication with tags on January 7, 2010 by Geir Stene

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?

Posted in Community, Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on November 10, 2009 by Geir Stene

Network_mapWhat 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.

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

Posted in Community, Digital business, innovation, Web 2.0 on September 29, 2009 by Geir Stene

T-Ford business modelThe 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 4th 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.

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

Posted in Digital business, innovation, IT and communication on September 13, 2009 by Geir Stene

Beggar_cup_coinsI 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

Posted in 1, Community, Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on September 11, 2009 by Geir Stene

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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.

Changes in Social media or changes because of it ?

Posted in collaboration, Community, Digital business, digital collaboration, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on August 16, 2009 by Geir Stene

Digital cityIt’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?

Posted in 1, collaboration, Community, Digital business, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on August 6, 2009 by Geir Stene

ServiceWhen 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?

Iran and Twitter or social media?

Posted in 1, Community, innovation, IT and communication on June 20, 2009 by Geir Stene

Just now, there are very important events in Iran. This isn’t a social media event going on , it’s real life. People are dying in Iran.That is also a fact in  Africa, Europe, Asia, the US and Australia without twitter peoples being occupied with it, people are dying daily due to various forms of injustice. What  this has to do with social media? could be a very arbitrary connection, only interesting for the very few in the world?

I cannot help myself but  thinking that  what the work of social entrepreneurs like Charles Leadbeater discuss  is very important in the discussion of what social media is about. In the subject of Iran these days, it’s just damn important to be awake.  That doesn’t make any other unjust topic in the world less. It’s just another example of how we people are, we are social, we interact. The ways in which we do so is irregular, it simply doesn’t make sense. Logically we should have been as concerned with any other conflict, deaths and problematic aspects in the world, but we don’t. The murders in Darfour didn’t get as much attentions as the Palestine / Israel conflict.

What does this has to do with my blog topic? Internet, innovations and so forth? Quite a lot. There’s no reason for having a industry, like internet, unless it’s connected to “the world” internet as itself have no value. Social media, has no value in itself.  It’s said that (just these recent days) Twitter has an impact on the Iranian news topic. And it just might have on the result but there is some “but’s” . I believe there will be written long white papers on the subject, and I might be one of them doing so. The social engagement is of importance, twitter itself  isn’t.  

This is not a blog posting on pro/con either the one , nor the other one topic, the examples above shows that very important topics find their way into “social media” a last example is terrifying, in Norway ;a young girl had  a horrifying traffic accident these  days, she might live after this, as we know from the media at this date. At facebook it emerge “hate groups”  that attack the drivers involved.(for now, no-one kan know the facts, nevertheless as “social individuals” we tend to “want” a conclution fast)  Social media can also be used to create a mob. Just mind you, yourself and what’s going on. Social media, seen from an innovation standpoint, and IT viewpoint isn’t  all that easy. It’s social, in all it’s effect, that means it also creates e-g- a mob.

In the topic of ongoing serious politics, Iran it’s great , some of ous are able to speak out – on (what ever) now shown by twitter ,  by the way, twitter didn’t know, nor wish for this effect, facebook didn’t expect their community used for creating a mob. The very reason for all of this is that the focus seems to have been on the “media” part of social media – not the “social” part of social media, such as facebook or twitter. Again i’de like all of you wanting to understand what sicial media is about to read the basics; Bordieu, Facault and so fort

Did I make myself clear or not? (knowing that there’s a pile of topics in this one posting…)

How to drive business in social media?

Posted in 1, innovation, Web 2.0 on April 29, 2009 by Geir Stene

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There’s an ongoing discussion about how to drive business in social medias. And as you might have guessed I have an opinion on the subject.

It’s like beginning with the end of a story to ask the question how to drive business in social medias. It’s better, I believe, to start asking what you sell. “How to” will  depend on what your business is all about. What is your business model? What is it you produce and sell? And foremost “social media” isn’t one thing, it’s a wide range of arenas. Did that sound complex? It is. Neither of the elements can be forced to function in contradiction to itself, so to try to force a non fitting business model into a social media where it doesn’t belong – won’t work.

Let’s forget about social media for a little. My thesis is that humans haven’t changed much lately(last mill years or so) , the new digital media enable communication between the masses, in a speed and spread we haven’t seen before, but little else have changed. (when I was a teenager it was a sport for the young boys to look thru the keyhole into the girl dressing room at school, now young boys can look it up on the internet, but it’s the same phenomena?)

Is there anything around that has been sold for a long time, where the social aspect is involved? Do I need to say more than the brand of Tupperware? The memberships of cooperative chains? Benefit programs as a member (car, travel clubs, airline mileage programs) and so forth. A VIP access to a nightclub contain the essence of a “social sale”. You get a certain treatment, because you belong to a certain group. To be able to sell something in a social media, you have to blend your business model into the group, code and motifs for the group we are speaking of. In other words it’s more of using the right (and fitted) sales strategy, and then find the channels and arenas to conduct you sales, than “forcing” any sale into a social media.

It’s even interesting to ask the question why? Why sell anything in a social media? Why not give something to the users? With the strategy to build a strong brand, and build a loyalty towards your brand?  Libresse is doing such a thing. Nike too. Or, why not do as 3M have done for years, using the customers complaints as their best innovational input, for producing better products, new products and customers support?  NextGenTel is using twitter actively to look for negative comments on their products, and reply them directly and offer them a solution, before the one complaining even got to make the phone call to them asking for support. That’s giving value to their customer, building loyalty and an ambassador for their brand and products.

In my opinion there are a big stack of available tools, techniques to sell, promote, build brand and get new ideas from your customers in the social media environment.

 

Fun or real value?

Posted in Community, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on March 8, 2009 by Geir Stene

image_crowd_of_eccentric_japaneese_teens1

Frequently I see in the discussions of web 2.0 that it’s enough to participate. That it’s amazing what’s going on. Networking, possibilities, a “brand new world” is out there and we all have to join in. Any one asked the question why?


What’s “new? ”Where are the differences between the old fashioned fan clubs, Amcar or sailing clubs? Beside that you now can be in touch via the web. Don’t get me wrong. I’m there, not all over the place, but as you can see I do blog. I do have a facebook profile. LinkedIn is a definite must for a professional as me. I’m at Slideshare and I do twitter. I comment on articles about stuff I have some knowledge, and things that pisses me off. (By the way “Twitter” – us not native English spoken, might not know – twitter means something like bird sounds/singing)

But why? Why am I there, what’s in it for me? I will avoid boring you all with my reasons, they are no different from yours. A real question is if it at all is an important question why we individuals are there – more important would it be to look at the possible effects. Heard of the “Obama effect”? Was that you and I that made him president?  – not me; I can’t vote – or? Did our participation in social media influence the opinion? Maybe it’s wrong questions – why did Obama focus on social media? Maybe it’s his campaign that got the benefits – and not you and I? I can imagine lots of arguments coming up here now – and you are very welcome to bring them on.  One thing is for sure. The owners of the virtual locations ( Facebook, my space, twitter and so on) They got huge benefits out of it, as they do every time one of us consultants praise web.2.0, social media, the “new and brave future” I don’t want to be a parrot marketing the owners of these places –without getting real value back.

Another , maybe the most important thing to understand is the shifts in how our societies act. Long ago we got “trained” in democracy and that we should join our “crowd” and by being many have the influence we wanted to achieve what we all wanted. We needed a party or a fix organization to fight for all of what we wanted. Now we act far more in a way that’s : “I want to make this XX matter change/ happen” – and then find someone around that are up to the same as me – when we made this “something happen” we don’t need to be a part of that group anymore – we find new groups for new topics we want to change.

This is why a lot of activities from businesses, organizations, individuals will not gain on being active in social media. The reasons why participating, and the level of how to act (and knowledge about it) in this environment is simply not developed by far too many companies OR their advisors. It’s just not enough to participate. You need to know where you are going to be, and why. You need to know what to do there, and have knowledge of how to do it.

The most simple way to put it: It’s like any other activity you involve in, you need to know your environment, and understand it’s rules. This goes for you and me as individuals – or companies or the public sector for that matter.

Competing about peoples time

Posted in collaboration, Community, digital collaboration, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on February 8, 2009 by Geir Stene

time_clockIt seems like the competiton in real time collaboration isn’t between the companies delivering solutions, but a competition of getting people to spend time with them, rather than somewhere else – like travelling.

I’m readig in the Norwegian IT section of DN that Gartner (Sydney conference) announced that their estimates for 2009 is a loss of 2,1 million business travels, and that those “seats” will be replaced with telepresence, video and webconferencing meetings instead. This is of course great news for companies delivering such solutions and bad news for airliners and travel agencies.

This should make Cisco, Polycom, Tandberg and the small Norwegian company meetcon happy friends. But Gartner continues: Something new is evolving rapidly: an example is – Immersive workspaces. This is integrated solutions that builds on top of communities like second life. Web based, and with the ability, not only to “meet” (Video & audio) but also share presentations, your desktop and so forth. Gartner advices companies to get rid of old ideas of video conferensing, and adapt to more flexible collaborative integrated ideas of how to conduct work via the web.  (BKK in Norway just did and bought a solution from meetcon.no by the way) This might not be the best of news for the larger enerprices mentioned above, but rather gives smaller and more flexible web based solutions a competitive benefit?

As you may kow I’ve been writing about this for quite a while (just scroll and see former postings) and it’s fun notising that Gartner predict such a rapid developement.

Using Buzz ords such as multichannel strategies

Posted in 1, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on February 3, 2009 by Geir Stene

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Lesson one: Do not use a buzz word unless you can explain what it means!
Lesson two: Listen to what has become a common meaning of a buzz word.
Lesson three: Be willing to learn more, and adjust what you state.

Multichannel what is it ? what does it mean ?
Multichannel is NOT only using several channels…  if it is  some message (advert, campaign, branding – or whatever) is used in some sort of inter- chained way it’s still NOT Multichannel – it might be, and could easily NOT be.

Mostly the term is used to describe  retail- or e-commerce strategies where several channels are put in effect to reach – and connect with their target groups.
The idea is to let the consumer be more in charge of the transaction process, than before, and to let the consumer be exposed to an opportunity to become aware, interact and finally buy a service or product via several channels. In order to make this happen the various channels has to be coordinated, influenced by each other and provide a flow (memory between them) so that the customer experience a seamless connection with the sender of the messages. It’s sort of a artificial intelligence experience for the customer, where one message is followed up toward the customer in other channels, that give an opportunity to act, start a process and finalize it via several channels used.

But these principles could also be put in use for other areas?  
Like delivering our tax declarations, – getting information of car registrations, depths owners registered on a specific car is only some examples.
It should involve several channels, interconnected in some sort, have interaction with the “customer” of some kind and give a desired result fo the end user – like a service provided, and so on.

Still – A commercial – or public campaign- or branding activites using several channels is not a multi- channel strategy – it’s still an old fashioned Channel mix.

What about facebook?

Posted in Community, innovation, Web 2.0 on January 13, 2009 by Geir Stene

meIt seems like facebook has become everybodys public “phonebook” Being there is like having one of those old Phone sentrals, but now I operate it myself. Is that all we want to use Facebook for ?

 
Of course it isn’t. You can make a great impression of yourself on facebook, and you can flirt, You can act silly and come with fun remarks. You can throw sheep’s, answer hilarious quizzes and give friends a virtual plant to grow, but can you do what you would like to do on facebook? Is it useful and functional for you? Is it developing you yourself or/and our society?

The profile, and stating who we are is for sure one aspect. That’s very nice to do. Or is it? Well we might forget that we are different people in different situations. Amongst friends we might want to show some aspects of ourselves, we wouldn’t show our boss, or clients. But you can be sure that your future employer will search your digital tracks and try to find out. (maybe the photos from your last party wasn’t such a great idea that your so called friends (hurmpf) posted, showing you with your head far down into a – toilette. On the other side we can let people know what we love to do, private or work wise, and meet up with people who also love to do the same. Any one up for Tango tonight?

Finding our “tribe” is another. We all want to belong to, at least one group. The “better” the group, the “better” we feel. It’s great to connect – or should I say re-connect with old friends and schoolmates and former co-workers, and at the same time everyone else can see who you are, valued by your friends. Do you have some semi celebrities on your friend list – or not? You can make an interest or support group. Obama did, with success, and plenty of him, supporting everything you can imagine, literally.

Facebook is like a huge eves dropping arena. Like running the telephone central, make a call to someone when you like, and listen into others interesting conversations.

It’s web 2.0. It’s community. And then I remembered what I learned (and believe to be right) what Valery Maltoni said: “Collaboration leads to Community, and Community needs Contribution.” To me it seems like we most likely will see the triangle coming together soon. I wonder what facebook are capable of as a brand – can they adapt, or will we see new players on the scene soon ?

Collaboration, Community and Contribution are interconnected

Posted in collaboration, Community, innovation, Web 2.0 on January 8, 2009 by Geir Stene

prism_imageI read a blog article today that made me think (again). Valeria Maltoni’s blog article about “Real collaboration” address something very important happening right now. She formulated something I wrote about earlier, but she put it so neatly and short: – Collaboration leads to Community, and Community needs Contribution.

Well this is a concrete example of what mass creativity might lead to, new thoughts, that might create better ideas as the interactions flows.

We have seen communities on the internet growing, like facebook, myspace, dating services and so forth, not at all dull, but still many have thought – Community, So?

As we are speaking we see communities with a  new twist emerging. Addidas , using community to build and develop their brand and offer products that has evolved via their own community. Even more interesting is the growing communities of politicians (just think of Barack Obama’s support group on facebook) and  nongovernmental organizations, like Amnesty international.

This starts to look like somethings that makes a difference in the world and have serious impact worldwide. Social engagement! I can’t imagine how many postings politicians have gotten on their community based internet activities the last days from people all over the world being concerned of all the civilians killed or hurt in the ongoing Gaza conflict. This is real change!

As Valery Maltoni point out : Collaboration, Community and Contribution are interconnected and works together. I think that there is great hope for our near future, where the collective consciousness gets connected very effectively. I think I like it!

Digital collaboration in three steps

Posted in 1, collaboration, digital collaboration, innovation, IT and communication, Web 2.0 on January 3, 2009 by Geir Stene

reduce-travel

To get where you want, you need to know where you are heading

The three most important steps are,  to define your needs, what is it you want to achieve? and how to implement it? Does this sound easy? Well it is – sort of, then again this is where most organizations fail.  If you want to get a deeper understanding of my viewpoint you can look at my presentation at Slideshare : Here

The main point in my presentation is that we have collaborated as long as we have been around, but now more than ever. There have been collaborative tools around for a long time, but now we have new possibillities as the web have developed, the introduction of broadband, web 2.0 and so forth.

Integrating what we know already will make digital collaboration more effective, and very soon a commen way of conducting any work tasks as we know them.  There are three levels of digital collaboration:

1 – Digital collaboration fitted to meet internal challenges is an improvement from the situation today
2 – Digital collaboration that involve the organization with partners and customers is an even better idea.
3 – Integrated digital collaboration with social media enables organizations to achieve an optimal environment where you, your organization and the market itself are so woven together that you might not be sure about who came up with an idea, innovation, service or product you can put in effect. Was it you, or your market?