I’ve been following Ricardo Semler for many years now.
In 1993, in a fit of madness I slipped a copy of Maverick into the hands of Riley Bechtel – thinking as I did at the time, that this is the only way to get Bechtel to re-engineer itself. Of course I was a little too naive…
Today I don’t think I could work at Semco because I’d rather work for myself. But if I had to get a corporate job again (heaven forbid) I’d choose Semco.
Question: when are they opening a “Semco-proper” office in the US? You can check Semco’s company history here.
Anyway, the revolution has happened and it was televised. Here’s what to expect:
And definitely check this out >> (Journeyman Pictures doesn’t understand YouTube – hence the “Embedding disabled by request”)
Open-capitalism is thriving at Semco, and one of these days, it will show up in your industry. What strikes me though is the fact that this model can be used in non-profits, in government (are you listening, Barack Obama?) and even in the fields without hope – like education. Apparently Bill Gates’ foundation is keeping close tabs on Semler’s schooling experiment.
Online Brand Monitoring: A survey of marketspace analytics vendors and why they fall short
From GE to Target, from IBM to Best Buy, companies of all stripes and sizes are struggling to quantify the effects of Web 2.0 on their companies. What are the blogs saying? Are they positive or negative? What’s happening on Second Life? Where are our customers congregating? Who are the influencers in the marketspace?
The result of this anxiety is a new booming business in “marketspace analytics”—companies that profess to track your brand over time and alert you to news (bad or good) in real time.
Given some of the new findings about buzz in the blogosphere (positive online buzz for cars and trucks doesn’t necessarily translate to volume sales) you have to ask, are they wasting their time?
My take on this is somewhat biased. I view all of these brand monitoring products as the online equivalent of the traditional press-clipping tracking function the PR companies used to cling to as a way to justify their existence.
That said, online brand building is a critical competence for today’s marketer. What matters is not online buzz which is a temporary spike in attention, but what that buzz does to your position in your online ecosystem.
Your competitive position in your ecosystem determines your destiny:
• How do you and your competitors compare in terms of return on marketing investments and relative share of the ecosystem?
• How are the leaders making money, and what is their approach in the ecosystem?
• What is the full potential of your business position in the ecosystem?
• How big is your marketspace—the size of the ecosystem you want to compete in?
• Which parts of the ecosystem are growing fastest?
• Where are you gaining or losing share in the ecosystem or sub-ecosystems you compete in?
• What capabilities are creating a competitive advantage for you in the ecosystem?
• Which capabilities need to be strengthened or acquired to help you compete in the ecosystem?
Because we couldn’t find anything to help us with these questions, we decided to build it ourselves. That’s how our Ecosystem Intelligence™ service came into existence:
(i) to help measure a company’s position in the ecosystem(s) it competes in, and
(ii) to help improve that position in the marketspace over time
Now let’s check out some of the competing brand monitoring vendors:
Biz360: provides customer opinion measurement from thousands of expert and consumer product review websites, shopping sites, blogs and message boards
Cymfony: rated highly by the tech analysts, they claim to “quantify your amount of coverage as well as get expert qualitative interpretation of how effectively your message is being picked up in traditional and social media.”
Skygrid: a search tool that sifts through hundreds of web and mainstream media to show you just one thing: whether the balance of the news on a public company is good or bad, and how the “mood” is changing.
BrandIntel: collects, processes and analyzes online consumer content and applies human analysis to the results in context.
Factiva: monitors your competitors, customers, and industry, with in-depth research and company financial data reports.
MotiveQuest: “sees” the “peaks of passion” in online conversations to understand customer motivations. Again, a combination of proprietary software and human analysts to explore what drives customer behavior.
Nielsen Buzzmetrics: measures consumer-generated media to help companies understand consumer needs, reactions and issues. They use a data-warehouse approach to index customer sentiment.
Scout Labs: allows users to track brands and reactions to those brands. In essence, the company helps companies make sense of positive and negative brand sentiment in blogs, user generated videos, and images.
Umbria: analyzes social media—including blogs, message boards, Usenet, and product review sites. Umbria also adds human insights to their data reports.
And there you have it, all variations on the press-clipping theme.
And unfortunately most companies (including the ones above) don’t get it.
It’s not about tracking buzz, it’s about starting a conversation.
Seth Godin gets it.
Bill Clinton Endorses Obama!
Hat tip to Steel Pulse!
Online Buzz Bubble-Popper: Positive reviews don’t necessarily mean more sales
Positive online buzz for cars and trucks doesn’t necessarily translate to volume sales, period.
Here’s the story in AdAge: “What Web Buzz Does for Car Sales: Not Much”
Turns out that BrandIntel has been monitoring 450,000 comments over the past year. Comments made by “enthusiasts” in consumer discussion forums on auto-information sites such as Edmunds.com, newspaper and magazine sites, and blogs.
Let’s look at the print/paper analogy. This is the equivalent counting the number of press-clippings in the trade mags. As a measure of PR efficacy of getting stories published, it worked great. As an indicator of sales, it didn’t.
What matters in print and online is the credibility of the messenger and the size of the audience. A story in Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ or the NY Times may have a dramatic impact compared to the same story in your local rag.
Online, credibility and audience-size still matter, but so does findability. How easy is the story to find? Does it come up high in Google and to a lesser extent Yahoo? If there is buzz, is the buzz on a hub or a backwater site? Is it getting attention or play through links from other noteworthy sites?
How does one measure that? There is a way – ecosystem relevance – which measures the position and rank of a site within its industry/category ecosystem.
C. K. Prahalad: Democratizing Opportunity
A viable, sustainable economic model is crucial for the future of the planet. Tell ’em, C.K.!
Marketing in a Downturn
Seth Godin writes about “marketing in a recession” :
The challenge for marketers is to figure out how to change the story they are living so that their customers can change the story they tell themselves. What you make, where you make it, who makes it, how it’s priced and sold and … it all adds up to a perception. If you change these elements the story will change too.
His point is that Starbucks becomes the indulgence of someone who has just traded down to a small rental apartment. Gone are the days of $4.00 coffee just for the heck of it.
I think Starbucks is busy changing their story. They’re trying to be a new, upscale McDonald’s – rapidly working to add in a “drive-in have a happy meal” component to their business model. The trouble is in the demographics. Bill Tancer at TIME tells us that “the Big Mac customer base has remained relatively stable, while Starbucks’ coffee-drinkers have diversified. It used to be that Starbucks attracted customers from a small, elite segment of the country; now, its visitors pervade many more segments across America.”
From my own observations at the local Target, I see far more customer buying ICEEs rather than Starbucks coffees. This is the “threat of substitution” that is always around the corner, no matter how good your product is. Seems like the days of mass-luxury are over.
So where does retail find its consumer, er, citizen? Turns out they’re not citizens at all – you’ve got to sell overseas. India and China are experiencing a huge boom in luxury, thanks to an explosion in middle class prosperity. The fortune is in the middle and the bottom of the pyramid.
And if you can’t reach those consumers? I wrote about that in an earlier post about advertising in a recession.
Jeffrey Immelt: India versus China – Trust is a Global Issue for GE
I was talking to Bill Dunk this morning, and we got to the topic of trust as an issue in global business.
I told him I’d seen a video in which Jeff Immelt said something to the effect that in China the concept of win-win is an issue, whereas India is much better at partnerships.
Immediately, Bill dug up this article for me – an interview with Nani Beccalli-Falco, GE International’s chief executive.
From the article:
This is a difficult challenge and it is one that Beccalli-Falco speaks of with surprising candour. He talks of the problems of striking deals in China, where, he says, the values of equity and fairness implied in the West’s ‘win/win’ approach to business are replaced by a more naked self-interest. “In China, they have a tendency to think ‘win for China, OK for you’,” he says. “It makes forming partnerships difficult.”
If you want to get a global perspective on business, you must subscribe (for free) to Bill Dunk’s Global Province >>
And yes, I finally dug up the video:
Watch Immelt’s interview with Rajat Gupta, and listen carefully as Immelt talks about India versus China – right at the very end of the video:
“China has a hard time with win-win. That’s a problem over the long term.India’s much better. There’s a much better sense that India can be a real ally…”
Wow.
China’s got the Olympics this summer… wonder if they’ll let anyone else win a medal…
Interview: Stephen M. R. Covey on “The Speed of Trust”
We did this interview a year ago, but he’s finally (and deservedly) hitting the best-seller lists – thanks to a strong internet-based campaign. The book
Why do you claim that “Trust” is the key leadership competency of the new global economy?
Covey: If you look at the nature of the world today, a foundational condition in Thomas Friedman’s flat world is the presence of trust. Put simply, today’s increasingly global marketplace puts a premium on true collaboration, teaming, relationships and partnering, and all these interdependencies require trust. In the book I point out that partnerships based on trust outperform partnerships based on contracts. Compliance does not foster innovation, trust does. You can’t sustain long-term innovation, for example, in a climate of distrust.
In issue after issue, the data is clear: high trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations. Total return to shareholders in high trust organizations is almost three times higher than the return in low trust organizations.
So we assert that trust is clearly a key competency. A competency or skill that can be learned, taught, and improved and one that talent can be screened for.
Trust is the one thing that affects everything else you’re doing. It’s a performance multiplier which takes your trajectory upwards, for every activity you engage in, from strategy to execution.
How do you identify a high-trust or low-trust organizations?
Covey: Trust is a powerful accelerator to performance and when trust goes up, speed also goes up while cost comes down — producing what we call a trust dividend. How do you know if you have a high trust culture? By observing the behavior of your people. In high trust, high performance companies, we observe the following behaviors:
• Information is shared openly
• Mistakes are tolerated and encouraged as a way of learning
• The culture is innovative and creative
• People are loyal to those who are absent
• People talk straight and confront real issues
• There is real communication and real collaboration
• People share credit abundantly and openly celebrate each others’ success
• There are few “meetings after the meetings”
• Transparency is a practiced value
• People are candid and authentic
• There is a high degree of accountability
• There is palpable vitality and energy–people can feel the positive momentum
Another very visible indicator is the behavior of your customers and suppliers. What is your customer churn rate? Do you have a history of long-term customer and supplier relationships? What is your reputation or brand equity in your marketplace?
Conversely, when the trust is low, there’s a trust tax which changes your trajectory downwards. In our work with organizations, we find that low-trust, low-performance organizations typically exhibit cultural behaviors like:
• Facts are manipulated or distorted
• Information and knowledge are withheld and hoarded
• People spin the truth to their advantage
• Getting the credit is very important
• New ideas are openly resisted and stifled
• Mistakes are covered up or covered over
• Most people are involved in a blame game, badmouthing others
• There is an abundance of “water cooler” talk
• There are numerous “meetings after the meetings”
• There are many “undiscussables”
• People tend to over-promise and under-deliver
• There are a lot of violated expectations for which people make many excuses
• People pretend bad things aren’t happening or are in denial
• The energy level is low
• People often feel unproductive tension–sometimes even fear
These behaviors are all taxes on performance.
The work we do is to establish trust as your organizational operating system. That’s a high-tech metaphor, but it’s appropriate. We know how trust works, how to measure it, how to establish it, grow it, extend it, and sustain it – with all stakeholders.
Why is trust such a hidden variable to many otherwise competent managers?
Covey: Unfortunately, too many executives believe the myths about trust. Myths like how trust is soft and is merely a social virtue. The reality is that trust is hard-edged and is an economic driver.
For instance, strategy is important, but trust is the hidden variable. On paper you can have clarity around your objectives, but in a low-trust environment, your strategy won’t be executed. We find the trust tax shows up in a variety of ways including fraud, bureaucracy, politics, turnover, and disengagement, where people quit mentally, but stay physically. The trust tax is real.
There are many myths about trust, and in my book I present them in a table your readers may find helpful:
So trust is measurable? quantifiable?
Covey: Absolutely, trust is measurable. Smart organizations measure trust in three key ways: 1) actual trust “levels”; 2) the “components” or dimensions that comprise trust; and 3) the “effects”, or impact, of trust.
We have found that one very simple way to measure trust levels is to ask one direct question and roll it up and down throughout the organization. For internal stakeholders ask: “Do you trust your boss?” to employees at all levels of an organization. For external stakeholders, like customers or suppliers, you might ask them: “Do you trust our sales representative or account manager?” These are simple, direct questions that tell us more about our culture than perhaps any other question we might ask.
Now, wouldn’t it be great if “trust” showed up on the financial statements as either a ‘tax’ or a ‘dividend’? Organizations would then use resources to eliminate the tax or create a larger dividend! Although a high trust or low trust culture doesn’t literally show up on financial statements, it does show up in the following ways, which are measurable, observable and economically relevant – all of which make a strong “business case for trust”:
What are the competencies, the behaviors that build trust?
Covey: Trust too often has been pigeonholed as based on character and integrity alone. There’s nothing wrong with that, and that is clearly the foundation, but it’s insufficient.
Trust is a function of both character and competence. Of course you can’t trust someone who lacks integrity, but hear this: if someone is honest but they can’t perform, you’re not going to trust them either. You won’t trust them to get the job done.
That’s one reason why trust has a soft image- because it has been severed from competence and results.
So how does one apply trust to branding?
Covey: When I look at a brand, a brand is nothing more or less than trust with the customer, trust with the marketplace. The principle behind a brand is reputation. The brand stands for a promise and the ability to deliver on that promise. And in that promise is a company’s character and competence, its reputation.
From the character side you start with integrity–honesty, congruence, humility and courage. The courage to be open, to stand for something, to make and keep commitments. Then there’s intent–is there a genuine concern for people, purposes and society as a whole or is profit your sole motive? What’s the company’s agenda? And how does it behave? Sometimes poor behavior is simply bad execution of good intent.
On the competence side, you start with your capabilities–talents, skills, the ability to deliver. Is your company staying relevant, are you continually improving, do you have the right technologies to stay ahead of your competition? Brands need to reinvent themselves from time to time to stay relevant. Finally, look at your results. Your company and your brands are constantly measured based on past performance, present performance and anticipated future performance.
These four dimensions–integrity, intent, capabilities and results–make up the credibility and reputation of your brand. When the trust is high, you get the trust dividend. Investors invest in brands people trust. Consumers buy more from companies they trust, they spend more with companies they trust, they recommend companies they trust, and they give companies they trust the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. The list goes on and on. On the Internet, a trusted brand versus an untrusted brand–the differences could not be clearer, you only give your credit card number to those you trust. And look what happens when a brand gets diluted or polluted or compromised, we see how fast consumers, and investors, turn away. They quit buying.
These same principles apply equally to companies and individuals.
What about the social responsibility of business? Is this part of the trust equation?
Covey: Initially many companies may move into this arena for PR purposes. More out of fear of not being in the arena, than really participating with their souls. But there are huge benefits that flow from this – the difference it makes with your employees first, then your customers, your suppliers, your distributors, your investors.
The distrust we see all around is suspicion, a response to the corporate scandals and vicious downward cycles of cynicism. But when a company focuses on the principle of contribution for all stakeholders, that becomes good business. Executives need to understand the economic benefits of this trust dividend, especially when the behavior is real, not artificially or superficially created as PR to manipulate trust. We will see more and more companies moving in this direction because it makes economic sense, period.
Trust varies by geography, as you’ve pointed out in your book. How do companies build trust globally?
Covey: There’s no question that trust issues are global issues. There’s also a country tax. The Edelman Trust Barometer tells us, for example, that trust is often based on country of origin. US companies are being taxed in Europe, in Germany, France and England, for example. How can companies like UPS improve their trust rankings?
Trust can be rebuilt. So how do you build trust? By your behavior. We’ve identified 13 behaviors which build trust:
1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust
Companies need to have a strong promise, because the promise builds hope. Keeping the promise is what builds trust.
My father has an expression: “You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you behaved yourself into.” So it is with trust.
Sometimes it takes a little time, but you can accelerate the process by declaring your intent and signaling your behavior, so others can see it.
People and companies can learn these behaviors. It’s not a simple process which happens overnight. But it is a systemic, cultural process which can happen one leader at a time, one division at a time, one company at a time, and you can see the behavior shifting toward authentic, real trust-building behaviors as opposed to the more common counterfeit behavior of spin and hidden agendas and the like which tend to dissipate and diminish trust.
Is there a danger in being too trusting or even gullible? <
/div>
Covey: One thing about trust is that everyone’s for it.
However, there are three big objections which come up. The first one is that trust is a social virtue, to which I say no, it’s much more than that; it’s a hard-edged economic driver. Secondly, and we hear this all the time: “we can’t do anything about trust, it’s either there or it’s not there.” This too is a fallacy. Trust is a competency. It’s something you can get good at. It’s a strength you personally, and your team and your company can master. Being good at it will elevate every other strength you have.
The third complaint goes along these lines: “We’ve been burned before. We can’t trust everyone. Are you suggesting we trust everybody?” That’s where I suggest you exercise what I call “SmartTrust.” Most leaders have been burned before, so they become distrusting. Our society is that way. After Enron and WorldCom, we pass legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley to force compliance, raising the “tax” on all businesses. The question is, “is there a third alternative?” An alternative where you combine a high propensity to trust with good analysis and judgment, so we can really assess the circumstances, the risk, the credibility of the people involved, so we can extend trust, and build into that trust a stewardship or responsibility.
If you’re not trusted, you tend to reciprocate with distrust. That’s how the vicious cycle of mistrust starts and spirals downward.
There is a risk in trusting people, but the greater risk is not trusting people.
SmartTrust says you look at the opportunity, the risk and the credibility of the people involved. And you add to that verification and analysis. So you trust and verify. As opposed to verify, then trust!
Let’s look at Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffet. I mention them in the book as an example of a high-trust company, about the acquisition they made based on a hand shake without due diligence.
But did you know that’s how the entire company operates?
They have a 192,000 employees with 42 different wholly-owned companies. How many people do you think work at corporate headquarters? ‘
Seventeen!
Why? Because they choose to operate in a “seamless web of deserved trust” as Charlie Munger calls it.
This is real. It’s not blind trust, but smart trust.
Thanks so much.
Seth Godin on Being Remarkable
Seth Godin helps you wake up… you can’t be average anymore.
– Design…
– Don’t be safe…
– Don’t be boring…
– Skip the BMW ad…
– it’s Otaku time!
Kevin Coyne’s 21 Questions for Developing New Products
The December 2007 HBR had an interesting article by Kevin Coyne called Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box. There’s far more to this article than just the 21 questions, so I urge you to go grab it here!
The approach Coyne and friends describe supposedly works better than brainstorming or strict quantitative analysis >>
“De-average” buyers and users
Which customers use or purchase our product in the most unusual way?
Do any customers need vastly more or less sales and service attention than most?
For which customers are the support costs (order entry, tracking, customer-specific design) either unusually high or unusually low?
Could we still meet the needs of a significant subset of customers if we stripped 25% of the hard or soft costs out of our product?
Who spends at least 50% of what our product costs to adapt it to their specific needs?
Explore unexpected successes
Who uses our product in ways we never expected or intended?
Who uses our product in surprisingly large quantities?
Look beyond the boundaries of our business
Who else is dealing with the same generic problem as we are but for an entirely different reason? How have they addressed it?
What major breakthroughs in efficiency or effectiveness have we made in our business that could be applied in another industry?
What information about customers and product use is created as a by-product of our business that could be the key to radically improving the economics of another business?
Examine binding constraints
What is the biggest hassle of purchasing or using our product?
What are some examples of ad hoc modifications that customers have made to our product?
For which current customers is our product least suited?
For what particular usage occasions is our product least suited?
Which customers does the industry prefer not to serve, and why?
Which customers could be major users, if only we could remove one specific barrier we’ve never previously considered?
Imagine perfection
How would we do things differently if we had perfect information about our buyers, usage, distribution channels, and so on?
How would our product change if it were tailored for every customer?
Revisit the premises underlying our processes and products
Which technologies embedded in our product have changed the most since the product was last redesigned?
Which technologies underlying our production processes have changed the most since we last rebuilt our manufacturing and distribution systems?
Which customers’ needs are shifting most rapidly? What will they be in five years?
Finally, if you want to hire Kevin Coyne, he’s available here >>
Dominic Basulto’s Endless Innovation Blog
Dominic used to run FORTUNE’s blog called The Business Innovation Insider, but they decided, in their infinite wisdom, to kill it.
Brilliant. What stupidity!
Thank goodness he started his own blog. I have to say Dominic Basulto’s blog is quite simply a great gift for all of us! Thank you Dominic.
Advertising in a Recession: Bye-Bye Magazines and TV?
The Economist tells us that Hyundai almost yanked its Super Bowl advertising due to economic concerns. At the last minute, they decided to stay put.
Yank it, I say. And spend the money advertising on the Internet!
The article goes on to tell us that: “Marketing spending is one of the first things companies decide to cut when faced with slowing sales.”
This is true, but only when companies don’t understand marketing. Which means despite what Maurice Lévy at Publicis Groupe and Sir Martin Sorrell at WPP are saying, look for a crash in marketing spend.
The NY Times tells us “Forecasters Say Madison Avenue Will Escape a Recession, Just Barely.”
I say they’re wrong.
We know that the research tells us that recessions clearly reward aggressive advertisers and destroy timid ones.
In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies covering 16 different SIC industries from 1980 through 1985. Results showed [hat tip to MacTech] that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising.
Sales for the companies studied were relatively even before the recession, but varied sharply during and after. Companies that cut advertising during both of the recessionary years maintained flat sales during the period and only modest sales growth in the following two years. In contrast, the companies that maintained their advertising experienced significant sales growth throughout the four-year period.
According to the study and contrary to popular belief, cuts in advertising during a recession decrease net income over the long haul. Companies that maintained advertising during the recession enjoyed measurably higher net income gains not only during the recession, but even more so, two years after the recession. This in stark contrast to those companies those companies that cut advertising both years and significantly reduced their profits during the recession, and for years following.
On top of that, my friend Sundar Bharadwaj insists that “the impact of branding on firm performance outweighs both the impact of the competitive environment and resource allocation.”
But that, ladies and gents, was before the Internets.
Now, we’re going to see something we’ve never seen before. The end of advertising as we know it. If the Olympics go south, as they just might especially given the lame coverage we’ve seen in the past, I expect that TV will be hit hardest, followed by print – magazines and periodicals.
Radio will stay flat, and the biggest (and only) gainer will be online advertising.
I’m convinced we’re going to see a boom in marketspace analytics.
Smart money will focus on ecosystems. They’ll know exactly where to advertise to get the best response to drive quarterly results.
Ask yourself:
– Are we in the right ecosystem to begin with?
– Who are we competing against really? (versus who we believe we are competing against)
– Where do we stand vis-à-vis our competitors?
– Who else is in our ecosystem? Are they neutral, friends, or enemies?
– What are the microtrends? Are we gaining or losing on the competition?
– What are the keywords being used to dominate our ecosystem?
– Are there any potential partners in the ecosystem we want to compete in?
– Is our target demographic well represented in our actual ecosystem?
– Do we need an offensive or defensive strategy to challenge the competition? Can we do both?
– Where does the traffic for our ecosystem come from? Is it global?
– What must we do in the short-term to compete? What about the long-term?
– Where should we be advertising?
– Can we dominate our industry ecosystem?
Welcome to ecosystem marketing.
PR Nightmare? The World Bank chops down the Amazon rainforest
Here we go again.
The World Bank is busy funding the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, alleges this article in The Independent.
The World Bank has emerged as one of the key backers behind an explosion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which new research has identified as the greatest threat to the survival of the rainforest.
Nice. I wonder if this story will be picked up by the “corporate media” in this country. Not if Britney Spears has another nervous breakdown…
Now let’s see… who was the bright guy in charge of the World Bank when this policy was put into place?
Why, none other than our good friend Paul D. Wolfowitz – the mastermind who took us into Iraq.
Good luck going green Mr. Zoellick!
Make Us a Nation: Barack Obama meets Steel Pulse
Here’s what happens when combine my favorite band (Steel Pulse) and my favorite politician (lyrics below). In a corny sort of way, this actually explains Obama’s appeal in a way the pundits cannot.
Make Us a Nation
by Steel Pulse
Chorus:
Yes we are, we gonna make us a nation
That’s based on truth and rights over one groundation
Yes we are, we gonna make us a nation
Of equality and justice and one iration
Wake up from your sleep and slumber
Let’s rise up in numbers
Time for liberation
No time for segregation
You know and I know war is not the way to go
Got to be wise and be civilised and let love flow
Let’s go, oh yes
Chorus
Its greed and jealousy
Separating you and me
And all this tribal war
Zapping all our energy
Cause I’ve got a plan and I’m sure that we can
make it work
Unity is strength, solidarity is all its worth I yearn
Chorus
Equality and justice no more fuss & fight
Gonna make us a nation, gonna make us a nation
Gonna make us a nation oooh!
Gonna make us a nation, gonna make us a nation
Gonna make us a nation oooh!
Chorus
Equality and justice no more fuss & fight
We can make it work for what its worth
Right here on earth its red alert yeah!
A little bit of love coming from the heart
A little bit of love coming from the heart
A little bit of love coming from the heart
A little bit of love coming from the heart
Yeah heh! heh!
Cause all I want is to uplift my nation
To make them walk with pride among creation
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Easy, easy, easy, easy
Yeah
No more fuss and fight
No more fuss – no more fight
No more fuss and fight
P.S. – Check out Bill Dunk’s view on the Obama phenomenon>>
Foreign Affairs: It’s Judgement, Not Experience!
For those of us who say that Obama doesn’t have the experience to lead us in foreign affairs, let me just remind everyone that it’s not experience that counts but judgment. Unlike Dubya, Rumsfeld, Cheney and gang had plenty of experience, but they lacked judgment.
And it was this lack of judgment which led us into Iraq, diverted our attention and resources from Al-Qaeda, and ultimately caused severe damage to our relationships with allies like Germany, France, and yes, England (just ask Tony Blair). And that doesn’t take into account that we’ve dropped the ball on nuclear non-proliferation, Pakistan, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
So how does a President reach out to mend fences?
It helps if they are liked.
Remember JFK’s “ich bin ein Berliner” line? Well, now the Germans have taken a liking to Obama. Check out these headlines:
– Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama Frankfurter Rundschau
– Der neue Kennedy Berliner Morgenpost
– Dieser schwarze Amerikaner wird der neue Kennedy! Bild
Even the French are into it:
– Obama Superstar Le Monde
In Spain:
Barack Obama: “El cambio ha llegado esta noche a América” El Pais
And how about the UK?
– The first caucus of the revolution Financial Times
– Groundswell for Obama leaves Clinton campaign on the rack Guardian
– The White House? Political earthquake propels Obama towards presidency Independent
– Hope and experience gave Obama the edge Telegraph
– Iowa voters hail ‘turning point’ BBC
Finally, in India, of course the Indians are taking credit for Obama’s victory:
– South Asian organisation a factor in Obama’s success in Iowa Times of India
So much for experience. It’s change, stupid.
Obama Fever: The Tipping Point for Politics 2.0?
The video evidence tells us a new America is dawning:
Are we seeing the end of smash-mouth politics? I hope so.
Brand Destruction 101: How ABC News shot itself in the foot, and how you can watch the latest New Hampshire presidential debate in its entirety
What does it say for ABC when you can download the entire season of full-length episodes of “Desperate Housewives” but not the latest presidential debate held in New Hampshire?
I guarantee you this hurts the ABC brand. What were they thinking? Is this a deliberate “mainstream corporate media” black-out strategy or is this just plain incompetence? Probably both.
ABC News does a great disservice to the American people. Do they think anyone is going to trust Charles Gibson now?
What a joke.
Luckily there are alternatives >>
Score another “win” for YouTube.
8 Business Tech Trends to Watch in 2008
The McKinsey nerds have been doing their homework. In particular they seem to be paying attention to the ideas of McKinsey alumnus John Hagel who foretold almost every single one of these “trends” a decade ago.
In Eight business technology trends to watch they tell us that “Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business.”
Here are the eight technology-enabled business trends they’ve identified:
1. Distributing cocreation
“Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders—cocreation—in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks.”
2. Using consumers as innovators
“As the Internet has evolved—an evolution prompted in part by new Web 2.0 technologies—it has become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Consumers increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organizations of all kinds. Companies can tap this new mood of customer engagement for their economic benefit.”
3. Tapping into a world of talent
“Top talent for a range of activities—from finance to marketing and IT to operations—can be found anywhere. The best person for a task may be a free agent in India or an employee of a small company in Italy rather than someone who works for a global business services provider. Software and Internet technologies are making it easier and less costly for companies to integrate and manage the work of an expanding number of outsiders, and this development opens up many contracting options for managers of corporate functions.”
4. Extracting more value from interactions
“The application of technology has reduced differences among the productivity of transformational and transactional employees, but huge inconsistencies persist in the productivity of high-value tacit ones. Improving it is more about increasing their effectiveness—for instance, by focusing them on interactions that create value and ensuring that they have the right information and context—than about efficiency. Technology tools that promote tacit interactions, such as wikis, virtual team environments, and videoconferencing, may become no less ubiquitous than computers are now. As companies learn to use these tools, they will develop managerial innovations—smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactions—that will be difficult for their rivals to replicate. Companies in sectors such as health care and banking are already moving down this road.”
5. Expanding the frontiers of automation
“Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and HR; product and customer databases; and Web sites. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What’s more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.”
6. Unbundling production from delivery
“Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently by disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components, measuring and metering the use of each, and billing for that use in ever-smaller increments cost effectively. Information and communications technologies handle the tracking and metering critical to the new models and make it possible to have effective allocation and capacity-planning systems.”
7. Putting more science into management
“Just as the Internet and productivity tools extend the reach of and provide leverage to desk-based workers, technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From “ideagoras” (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches, ubiquitous standards-based technologies promote aggregation, processing, and decision making based on the use of growing pools of rich data.”
BTW, this “trend” is owned by one Tom Davenport.
8. Making businesses from information
“Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities.”
Take for example, ecosystema >>
So what have they left out? What business-tech trends have they overlooked?
Here are a few I came up with:
a. Internal Branding
The use of technology to improve internal communications and encourage employee engagement. Read up on Tammy Erickson!
b. The Return of Online Communities
An old idea, but with Web 2.0, companies must learn to engage their partners, suppliers, customers, and yes their competition. This does overlap trend # 4 (extracting value from interactions) but it’s far more than that. More about this from John Hagel >>
c. Greenwashing
Every business, even in the technology world, must learn how to become sustainable in this age of environmental activism. Companies that do so half-heartedly will pay the price.
d. Authentic Marketing
Using technology to drive a company’s message to capture attention using techniques that are authentic and reflect the core values of the company. The key to this will be ecosystem management.
What else?
Management Secrets of Chairman Mao
Years ago, I read an article in the McKinsey Quarterly about the totalitarian structure of corporate governance. Why is it, asked Rajat Gupta (this was before he became the head of McKinsey), that in a democracy like the US, our corporate institutions are so undemocratic?
The Economist reminded me of that article a few days ago when they published an article titled “Mao and the art of management.”
Here are some “best practices” –
1. A powerful, mendacious slogan (in Mao’s case “Serve the People”…)
2. Ruthless media manipulation
3. Sacrifice of friends and colleagues
4. Activity substituting for achievement
Who does that remind you of? Exxon Mobil? The Republican Party? Cheney & W? All of the above?
By the way, here’s the answer to Rajat’s question = $$$.
Back in the US of A
After spending some time in Europe over the last few months I have to say I’m glad to be back in the good ol’ USA.
Yes, we have our issues – bad government, dismal healthcare, guns everywhere, corporate greed, etc. etc., but at least we Americans do seem to question authority – far more, it seems to me, than the Europeans.
I was amazed at how fatalistic the European view of the world is. It reminded me of the old Indian view of life – you can’t do anything to change anything, so don’t do anything. It’s all kismet, so let it go.
The conservatives paint it this way. But they’re wrong. It’s not a culture war. It’s a war for individual rights. The right of individuals to decide their own destiny. The irony is that the conservatives focus on freedom, and use groupthink to enforce their views.
In their own blind way, the conservatives have destroyed our Bill of Rights, the very thing they claim they are protecting. It doesn’t have to be us versus them. It’s time to stop the Assault on Reason
The absence of US political leadership has hurt us (and the world) over the past eight years. But what’s amazing to me is that Europe can’t lead at all, period. Maybe it has something to do with not rocking the boat, but European bureaucrats will never stick their necks out to change anything. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Sarkozy. Have any of them made a difference? Will they?
As for customer service, forget it. In some ways European customer service is almost as bad as India. (More about this in future posts.) The sheep-like character of the European consumer doesn’t improve matter either (more fodder for future posts). The European consumer is trapped – in a marketplace without alternatives.
On the positive side, Europe does have some nice monuments and museums, but again, many of them exist because they were saved, er, underwritten by Americans.
Also their healthcare system does work, despite claims to the contrary. In the US, we’re owned by the drug companies. In Europe the drug companies have been kept in their place.
I expected the Europeans to be more green and care more about the environment. No such luck. Businesses are more sophisticated at pretending to be green, but the general populace – from Italy to Austria, France to England fall way short.
Has anyone seen the dismal condition of the Bern bears in Switzerland? It’s just another PR nightmare waiting to happen for the “enlightened” Swiss.
Whoever said the Swiss care about the environment got it wrong. The Alps were so polluted with a gray haze that you couldn’t even see across Interlaken. And the smog lasted for weeks.
Finally, I tell you this: I’ll never forget Omaha beach. Or Utah. God bless the USA and the good men who gave their lives on those beaches.
And may God help us elect a real president this time around. Not just to lead America, but to lead the world. It’s about time. Time for some hope. And some good old fashioned reason.
Cool Company: Verdier Light Caravaning
This is what happens when green-design meets the automobile industry >>
What’s holding up production? I need one of these right now!
And why can’t regular car companies do this?
Chindogu anyone?
Being stalked? Just go ahead and camouflage yourself as a Coke machine.
Martin Fackler’s NYTimes article Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place gives us a look at the peculiar world of Japanese innovation.
Writes Fackler:
[Japan is] home to a prolific subculture of individual inventors, whose ideas range from practical to bizarre. Inventors say a tradition of tinkering and building has made Japan welcoming to experimental ideas, no matter how eccentric.
“Japanese society won’t just laugh, so inventors are not afraid to try new things,” said Takumi Hirai, chairman of Japan’s largest association of individual inventors, the 10,000-member Hatsumeigakkai.
In fact, Japan produces so many unusual inventions that it even has a word for them: chindogu, or “queer tools.”
A chindogu manifesto is available online for all you budding inventors. The ten tenets are:
1. A Chindogu cannot be for real use.
2. A Chindogu must exist.
3. Inherent in every Chindogu is the spirit of anarchy.
4. Chindogu are tools for everyday life.
5. Chindogu are not for sale.
6. Humor must not be the sole reason for creating Chindogu.
7. Chindogu are not propaganda.
8. Chindogu are never taboo.
9. Chindogu cannot be patented.
10. Chindogu are without prejudice.
And here are a few examples of chindogu from the King of Chindogu – Kenji Kawakami.
Finally, here’s more from the International Chindogu Society. Check out the “portable zebra crossing” >>
Pankaj Ghemawat on Globaloney!
Why do so many global strategies fail—despite companies’ powerful brands and other border-crossing advantages?
Seduced by market size, the illusion of a borderless, “flat” world, and the allure of similarities, firms launch one-size-fits-all strategies.
But cross-border differences are larger than we often assume, explains Pankaj Ghemawat in his new book: Redefining Global Strategy
Here’s Ghemawat’s take on globaloney >>
Here’s his globaloney quiz:
Do you basically agree or disagree with the following statements:
1. Competing the same way everywhere is the purest form of global strategy (Uniformity)
2. The truly global company has no home base (Statelessness)
3. Globalization tends to make industries become more concentrated (Consolidation)
4. Globalization offers virtually limitless growth opportunities (Endless Growth)
5. Global expansion is an imperative rather than an option to be evaluated (Act of Faith)
Give yourself—or your colleagues—1 point for each yes answer, and add them up to get to the total score. Zero implies an absence of globaloney. A score of 1 or 2, while indicating some globaloney, is still better than average. A score of 3 puts you at the average for several hundred managers who responded to an online survey—see below—but note that the average is pretty unhealthy given the number of problems it can lead to (think Coke). And a score of 4 or 5 rises beyond globaloney to the level of globalmania.
One wonders whether Tom Friedman will read this book…
Run, Al Run!
This is not a politician’s desk… Now will he take on Exxon and their paid goons?
Cool Companies: Germany’s Q-Cells AG
John Hagel reminds us that most businesses are in fact a combination of three very different kinds of models:
Infrastructure management businesses (IMB) – high volume, routine processing businesses – think of contract manufacturers, logistics providers and call center operators as relatively pure play examples of these businesses
Customer relationship businesses (CRB) – businesses that get to know individual customers extremely well and, based on that understanding, help to access relevant resources for these customers – relatively pure play examples of these businesses include large advisory firms that help large enterprise customers decide what form of IT outsourcing to pursue and help these large enterprises to evaluate and negotiate with the right mix of outsourcing service providers.
Product innovation and commercialization businesses (PIC) – businesses that focus on developing innovative new products and services, getting them into market quickly and accelerating adoption of the products – think of semiconductor firms operating without their own fab facilities as relatively pure play examples of these businesses.
I love product innovation businesses – in some ways they are the best hope for the creative individual because they are by very nature more entrepreneurial and performance-based.
Which brings me to one of these companies…
Take a look at Germany’s Q-Cells AG.
Their focus is simple: develop, produce and sell high-performance solar cells. The goal? To drive the photo-voltaic industry to competitiveness.
Don’t forget to check out the Solar Taxi!
Country Branding: China’s Olympic Nightmare
I always warn my clients that taking a half-baked product to market will actually do more damage than good. Now let’s see if the same applies to nation-branding.
The Olympics will focus the media spotlight on China. But will China actually enjoy the focus? Will the Olympics help or hurt brand China?
The hurt has already begun.
In a recent New York Times article “As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes”, Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley tell us that “Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party.”
Apparently the government has banned publication of data on the subject for “fear of inciting social unrest.”
But the Kahn and Yardley give us some data nevertheless:
– An internal, unpublicized report by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning in 2003 estimated that 300,000 people die each year from ambient air pollution, mostly of heart disease and lung cancer. An additional 110,000 deaths could be attributed to indoor air pollution caused by poorly ventilated coal and wood stoves or toxic fumes from shoddy construction materials, said a person involved in that study.
– Another report, prepared in 2005 by Chinese environmental experts, estimated that annual premature deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution were likely to reach 380,000 in 2010 and 550,000 in 2020.
and:
– A World Bank study done with SEPA, the national environmental agency, concluded that outdoor air pollution was already causing 350,000 to 400,000 premature deaths a year. Indoor pollution contributed to the deaths of an additional 300,000 people, while 60,000 died from diarrhea, bladder and stomach cancer and other diseases that can be caused by water-borne pollution.
Wait, there’s more.
An official study to estimate the environmental cost of China’s runaway economic growth was shut down prematurely.
Greenwashing, apparently, is in. Here’s an absurd story which drives the point home: “Villagers in southwestern China are scratching their heads after an estimated more than $60,000 was spent to paint an entire barren mountainside green.”
Whoo-hoo.
Smog from China is contributing to bad air quality and possibly even affecting the climate in parts of the western United States. The Telegraph also reports: “Almost a third of the air over Los Angeles and San Francisco can be traced directly to Asia…”
And now, to make things worse, they’re probably going to beat up the Chinese enviromentalists who dare to speak up. Again from NYTimes:
“At least two leading environmental organizers have been prosecuted in recent weeks, and several others have received sharp warnings to tone down their criticism of local officials. One reason the authorities have cited: the need for social stability before the 2008 Olympics, once viewed as an opportunity for China to improve the environment.”
Ouch.
Nation Branding 101: Embrace reality.
Maybe we can just cheer everyone up by watching a movie:
Beyond Chatter: Monitoring Online Ecosystems
There’s a flutter of activity in the ad-agency world around the subject of tracking online conversations.
WAPO reports on a tool call Buzz Manager, “a Web-based research tool that trolls sports blogs, message boards, podcasts, YouTube and similar sources, capturing relevant chatter on behalf of a client” — whether a racecar driver, corporate sponsor or sports league. That information is analyzed for content and impact and then translated into a Buzz Rating — a single number on a scale of 1 to 10.
In my view, this is just an online version of the old “press-clipping” service that PR companies would go use in the old days of Web.0!
What they’re missing is a map of the entire ecosystem. How does traffic (and attention) flow through the ecosystem? How many people are in the ecosystem? Which sites are positioned as hubs in the ecosystem? Are they friends or foes?
Wait a minute. That’s why we developed our Ecosystem Intelligence™ Services.
Japanese Whalers vs. Greenpeace
How ironic is this?
“Imagine you’re the skipper of the mother ship of a Japanese whaling fleet. A massive fire disables the ship’s engines in the frigid waters off Antarctica, and one of your crew goes missing. Who would you least like to hear from right now? That’s right — Greenpeace.”
Read all about it>>
So why are these Greenpeacers so upset at the Japanese? The answer may be here >> [Warning: this is not kid friendly stuff!]
In my eyes, this whaling junk is going to hurt all of Brand Japan. Sort of like our misadventure in Iraq has hurt Brand USA…
Surely Japan can do better.
Fred Reichheld: “Drop Lengthy Customer Surveys”
Your next customer survey needs to ask one question, just one:
“How likely would you be to recommend our company to a friend?”
That’s what Mr. Loyalty has been saying for some time now.
And:
“Our research indicates that customer-satisfaction numbers fail to show a consistent correlation with actual customer behavior and growth. Many companies have benefited from measuring customer retention, which provides a vital link to profits. Yet, measuring what we call “net promoters”-the percentage of customers who are promoters minus the percentage who are detractors-is even more accurate and makes the economics of retention more practical and achievable.”
I’ve been asked many times by clients what I think about net promoter scoring when it comes to online business. To which I say, net promoter scores are important online, because people trust their peers, more than they trust Gartner and Forrester for example. So start by make this one question the only question you ask in your online survey!
Snorkeling in a Red Ocean: Yahoo’s ‘Peanut Butter Manifesto’
Read John Hagel’s post “Internet Strategy – Red Ocean or Blue Ocean?” then take a look at this >>
[From the WSJ]
An internal document by Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president, says Yahoo is spreading its resources too thinly, like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Full text of the document is below.
Three and half years ago, I enthusiastically joined Yahoo! The magnitude of the opportunity was only matched by the magnitude of the assets. And an amazing team has been responsible for rebuilding Yahoo!
It has been a profound experience. I am fortunate to have been a part of dramatic change for the Company. And our successes speak for themselves. More users than ever, more engaging than ever and more profitable than ever!
I proudly bleed purple and yellow everyday! And like so many people here, I love this company
But all is not well. Last Thursday’s NY Times article was a blessing in the disguise of a painful public flogging. While it lacked accurate details, its conclusions rang true, and thus was a much needed wake up call. But also a call to action. A clear statement with which I, and far too many Yahoo’s, agreed. And thankfully a reminder. A reminder that the measure of any person is not in how many times he or she falls down – but rather the spirit and resolve used to get back up. The same is now true of our Company.
It’s time for us to get back up.
I believe we must embrace our problems and challenges and that we must take decisive action. We have the opportunity – in fact the invitation – to send a strong, clear and powerful message to our shareholders and Wall Street, to our advertisers and our partners, to our employees (both current and future), and to our users. They are all begging for a signal that we recognize and understand our problems, and that we are charting a course for fundamental change. Our current course and speed simply will not get us there. Short-term band-aids will not get us there.
It’s time for us to get back up and seize this invitation.
I imagine there’s much discussion amongst the Company’s senior most leadership around the challenges we face. At the risk of being redundant, I wanted to share my take on our current situation and offer a recommended path forward, an attempt to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Recognizing Our Problems
We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything — to everyone. We’ve known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course. We are separated into silos that far too frequently don’t talk to each other. And when we do talk, it isn’t to collaborate on a clearly focused strategy, but rather to argue and fight about ownership, strategies and tactics.
Our inclination and proclivity to repeatedly hire leaders from outside the company results in disparate visions of what winning looks like — rather than a leadership team rallying around a single cohesive strategy.
I’ve heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular.
I hate peanut butter. We all should.
We lack clarity of ownership and accountability. The most painful manifestation of this is the massive redundancy that exists throughout the organization. We now operate in an organizational structure — admittedly created with the best of intentions — that has become overly bureaucratic. For far too many employees, there is another person with dramatically similar and overlapping responsibilities. This slows us down and burdens the company with unnecessary costs.
Equally problematic, at what point in the organization does someone really OWN the success of their product or service or feature? Product, marketing, engineering, corporate strategy, financial operations… there are so many people in charge (or believe that they are in charge) that it’s not clear if anyone is in charge. This forces decisions to be pushed up – rather than down. It forces decisions by committee or consensus and discourages the innovators from breaking the mold… thinking outside the box.
There’s a reason why a centerfielder and a left fielder have clear areas of ownership. Pursuing the same ball repeatedly results in either collisions or dropped balls. Knowing that someone else is pursuing the ball and hoping to avoid that collision – we have become timid in our pursuit. Again, the ball drops.
We lack decisiveness. Combine a lack of focus with unclear ownership, and the result is that decisions are either not made or are made when it is already too late. Without a clear and focused vision, and without complete clarity of ownership, we lack a macro perspective to guide our decisions and visibility into who should make those decisions. We are repeatedly stymied by challenging and hairy decisions. We are held hostage by our analysis paralysis.
We end up with competing (or redundant) initiatives and synergistic opportunities living in the different silos of our company.
• YME vs. Musicmatch
• Flickr vs. Photos
• YMG video vs. Search video
• Deli.cio.us vs. myweb
• Messenger and plug-ins vs. Sidebar and widgets
• Social media vs. 360 and Groups
• Front page vs. YMG
• Global strategy from BU’vs. Global strategy from Int’l
We have lost our passion to win. Far too many employees are “phoning” it in, lacking the passion and commitment to be a part of the solution. We sit idly by while — at all levels — employees are enabled to “hang around”. Where is the accountability? Moreover, our compensation systems don’t align to our overall success. Weak performers that have been around for years are rewarded. And many of our top performers aren’t adequately recognized for their efforts.
As a result, the employees that we really need to stay (leaders, risk-takers, innovators, passionate) become discouraged and leave. Unfortunately many who opt to stay are not the ones who will lead us through the dramatic change that is needed.
Solving our Problems
We have awesome assets. Nearly every media and communications company is painfully jealous of our position. We have the largest audience, they are highly engaged and our brand is synonymous with the Internet.
If we get back up, embrace dramatic change, we will win.
I don’t pretend there is only one path forward available to us. However, at a minimum, I want to be part of the solution and thus have outlined a plan here that I believe can work. It is my strong belief that we need to act very quickly or risk going further down a slippery slope, The plan here is not perfect; it is, however, FAR better than no action at all.
There are three pillars to my plan:
1. Focus the vision.
2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership.
3. Execute a radical reorganization.
1. Focus the vision
a) We need to boldly and definitively declare what we are and what we are not.
b) We need to exit (sell?) non core businesses and eliminate duplicative projects and businesses.
My belief is that the smoothly spread peanut butter needs to turn into a deliberately sculpted strategy — that is narrowly focused.
We can’t simply ask each BU to figure out what they should stop doing. The result will continue to be a non-cohesive strategy. The direction needs to come decisively from the top. We need to place our bets and not second guess. If we believe Media will maximize our ROI — then let’s not be bashful about reducing our investment in other areas. We need to make the tough decisions, articulate them and stick with them — acknowledging that some people (users / partners / employees) will not like it. Change is hard.
2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership
a) Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today — heads must roll,
b) We must thoughtfully create senior roles that have holistic accountability for a particular line of business (a variant of a GM structure that will work with Yahoo!’s new focus)
c) We must redesign our performance and incentive systems.
I believe there are too many BU leaders who have gotten away with unacceptable results and worse — unacceptable leadership. Too often they (we!) are the worst offenders of the problems outlined here. We must signal to both the employees and to our shareholders that we will hold these leaders (ourselves) accountable and implement change.
By building around a strong and unequivocal GM structure, we will not only empower those leaders, we will eliminate significant overhead throughout our multi-headed matrix. It must be very clear to everyone in the organization who is empowered to make a decision and ownership must be transparent. With that empowerment comes increased accountability — leaders make decisions, the rest of the company supports those decisions, and the leaders ultimately live/die by the results of those decisions.
My view is that far too often our compensation and rewards are just spreading more peanut butter. We need to be much more aggressive about performance based compensation. This will only help accelerate our ability to weed out our lowest performers and better reward our hungry, motivated and productive employees.
3. Execute a radical reorganization
a) The current business unit structure must go away.
b) We must dramatically decentralize and eliminate as much of the matrix as possible.
c) We must reduce our headcount by 15-20%.
I emphatically believe we simply must eliminate the redundancies we have created and the first step in doing this is by restructuring our organization. We can be more efficient with fewer people and we can get more done, more quickly. We need to return more decision making to a new set of business units and their leadership. But we can’t achieve this with baby step changes, We need to fundamentally rethink how we organize to win.
Independent of specific proposals of what this reorganization should look like, two key principles must be represented:
Blow up the matrix. Empower a new generation and model of General Managers to be true general managers. Product, marketing, user experience & design, engineering, business development & operations all report into a small number of focused General Managers. Leave no doubt as to where accountability lies.
Kill the redundancies. Align a set of new BU’s so that they are not competing against each other. Search focuses on search. Social media aligns with community and communications. No competing owners for Video, Photos, etc. And Front Page becomes Switzerland. This will be a delicate exercise — decentralization can create inefficiencies, but I believe we can find the right balance.
I love Yahoo! I’m proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow. I’m proud to admit that I shaved a Y in the back of my head.
My motivation for this memo is the adamant belief that, as before, we have a tremendous opportunity ahead. I don’t pretend that I have the only available answers, but we need to get the discussion going; change is needed and it is needed soon. We can be a stronger and faster company – a company with a clearer vision and clearer ownership and clearer accountability.
We may have fallen down, but the race is a marathon and not a sprint. I don’t pretend that this will be easy. It will take courage, conviction, insight and tremendous commitment. I very much look forward to the challenge.
So let’s get back up.
Catch the balls.
And stop eating peanut butter.
What Happened to Design?
1958 ain’t coming back. The nearest thing we got is the iPod which was designed in Taiwan.
The $40 Entree: Restaurants & Dynamic Pricing
From the NYTimes, an article on pricing in the restaurant and hospitality industry.
“Forty is the new 30,” says Richard Coraine, the chief operating officer of Union Square Hospitality Group, which recently began charging $42 for a 1¾-ounce appetizer portion of lobster at lunchtime at the Modern in New York. Ten percent of its lunch patrons order the dish, it says.
Apparently the $40 entree is migrating from high-end NY restaurant menus to your average restaurant chain across the nation.
Here’s the real story – the use of analytics to increase profit margins:
But what makes the rise of the $40 entree so significant is not just the price creep, it’s the sophisticated calculation behind it. A new breed of menu “engineers” have proved that highly priced entrees increase revenue even if no one orders them. A $43 entree makes a $36 one look like a deal.
“Just putting one high price on the menu will take your average check up,” said Gregg Rapp, one such consultant. “My mom taught me to never order the most expensive thing on the menu, but you’ll order the second.”
With just a few keystrokes, restaurateurs can now digitally view the entire history of a dish: how the lamb sold around this time last year, whether it did better when paired with squash or risotto, and how orders rose or fell when the price went from $39 to $41.
With a few more clicks and a new stack of paper in the office printer, the menu can be revised to test new prices.
Meanwhile the obesity problem just keeps growing. Wonder if that would end if McDonald’s switched to $40 dollar entrees…?!
Speaking of analytics, to learn more about “Competing on Analytics” check out Tom Davenport’s free webinar on the subject – October 31, 2006.
Carr: Top-Down Disruptive Innovation
Our friend Nicholas “IT Doesn’t Matter” Carr has written a wonderful essay on top-down innovation – the anti-thesis to Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma.
Carr tells us that top-down disruptive innovations actually outperform existing products when they’re introduced, and they sell for a premium price rather than at a discount.
Exhibit A: Apple’s iPod. Writes Carr: “The iPod upped the performance stakes immensely. By using a tiny hard drive to store music, it allowed people to carry hundreds, even thousands, of songs with them at all times. Its price, starting at $399, was equally eye-opening — the price of a mid-range component stereo system.”
Good point.
The article definitely make you think that there is some benefit (profit) to providing high-end products. So why are so few companies doing it?
Because to compete on quality is much more difficult than competing on cost. For one, it takes imagination. And even more important, it takes execution. And that takes good leadership. Would Apple be succeeding without Jobs? Look what happened to Apple when they had that guy from Pepsi running it. Almost destoyed the company.
So it’s not that easy. But top-down innovation can be done. The question is: can it be sustained?
REWIND: Remember The Cluetrain?
Some of my clients (both B2B and B2C) need to go back in time and read The Cluetrain Manifesto.
Here are the classic “95 Theses” (try substituting the word “market” with “customers” or “friends”):
95 Theses
————————————————-
1. Markets are conversations.
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.
6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
8. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.
9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
13. What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.
14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman. ‘
15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.
16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.
17. Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.
18. Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.
19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.
20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.
21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.
22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.
23. Companies attempting to “position” themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.
24. Bombastic boasts—”We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ”—do not constitute a position.
25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.
26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.
27. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.
28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on inside the company.
29. Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”
30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable—and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.
31. Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own “downsizing initiatives” taught us to ask the question: “Loyalty? What’s that?”
32. Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language.
33. Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can’t be “picked up” at some tony conference.
34. To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.
35. But first, they must belong to a community.
36. Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end.
37. If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.
38. Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.
39. The community of discourse is the market.
40. Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.
41. Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.
42. As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company—and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.
43. Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.
44. Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.
45. Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.
46. A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.
47. While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to “improve” or control these networked conversations.
48. When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.
49. Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high.
50. Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.
51. Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.
52. Paranoia kills conversation. That’s its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.
53. There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market.
54. In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.
55. As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust in internetworked markets.
56. These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other’s voices.
57. Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.
58. If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up.
59. However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.
60. This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.
61. Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false—and often is.
62. Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.
63. De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.
64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.
65. We’re also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.
66. As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?
67. As markets, as workers, we wonder why you’re not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.
68. The inflated self-important jargon you sling around—in the press, at your conferences—what’s that got to do with us?
69. Maybe you’re impressing your investors. Maybe you’re impressing Wall Street. You’re not impressing us.
70. If you don’t impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don’t they understand this? If they did, they wouldn’t let you talk that way.
71. Your tired notions of “the market” make our eyes glaze over. We don’t recognize ourselves in your projections—perhaps because we know we’re already elsewhere.
72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.
73. You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!
74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.
75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.
76. We’ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we’d be willing to pay for. Got a minute?
77. You’re too busy “doing business” to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.
78. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.
79. We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.
80. Don’t worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it’s not the only thing on your mind.
81. Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?
82. Your product broke. Why? We’d like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We’d like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she’s not in?
83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.
84. We know some people from your company. They’re pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you’re hiding? Can they come out and play?
85. When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn’t have such a tight rein on “your people” maybe they’d be among the people we’d turn to.
86. When we’re not busy being your “target market,” many of us are your people. We’d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing’s job.
87. We’d like it if you got what’s going on here. That’d be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we’re holding our breath.
88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you’ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?
89. We have real power and we know it. If you don’t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.
90. Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we’ve been seeing.
91. Our allegiance is to ourselves—our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.
92. Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can’t they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.
93. We’re both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they’re really just an annoyance. We know they’re coming down. We’re going to work from both sides to take them down.
94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.
95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.
Special thanks to Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger. And John Hagel before them.
Christian Double Loop Marketing™
I always knew that Double Loop Marketing™ facilitates “putting butts in seats” as one of my clients likes to say, but this is just too funny:
“Themed Web sites create buzz, drive attendance swell for two churches”
Exhibit A: mylamesexlife.com
Result: attendance up 70 percent
Exhibit B: mymarriagesucks.info
Result: attendance up 68 percent
Note the use of TV ads and billboards to get attention for the websites.
Although this is not full-fledged Double Loop Marketing™, it is a start. In some ways, this is identical to the microsites the pharma companies keep pitching on TV.
The one problem I see is that these are not sustainable “thought-leadership” based campaigns.
Customer Driven Innovation
In strategy + business, Michael Schrage writes about how involving customers in the innovation process can add value to new product designs:
“In industry after industry, a shared model for innovation adoption is emerging. The most valuable “platforms” — the tools and technologies used internally to discover, design, and test new products and services — can be creatively and cost-effectively sold or lent to customers, clients, and prospects. Customers get a chance to “try before they buy.” They can adopt and test new ideas and technologies before investing in them. And the purveyors of new technologies rapidly gain insights into the potential value of their wares — insights that might otherwise take years to gather.”
His examples: Cisco, P&G, and Goldman Sachs.
Cisco: “Cisco had several highly sophisticated customers who weren’t satisfied with “solutions”; they wanted to see and understand the thought process behind the company’s proposals. Were these architectures really the best or most cost-effective that Cisco had to offer? So Cisco began showing these customers its in-house simulations. And the customers, in turn, expressed a desire to adapt these design, configuration, and optimization models for their own use.”
P&G: “Procter & Gamble has begun to share some of its computer modeling and market research techniques with Wal-Mart, Tesco, and other distribution channels. This includes the celebrated P&G “moment of truth” research, which tracks consumer attitudes at two critical times: when the product is chosen and when it is used. To be sure, many of P&G’s biggest distributors are also rivals that offer their own private labels, so there are risks to sharing this type of proprietary innovation platform with them. But the rewards are even greater: They include ongoing close ties with retailers, who often share their own innovative tools for analyzing (for example) how store layout, shelf space, and signage influence purchase decisions. Together, these manufacturers and retailers can develop a relationship that transcends any particular innovation tool or technique.”
Goldman Sachs: “In the early days, we would run simulation after simulation demonstrating that our instruments would help them better hedge their risks,” acknowledges one former Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers executive. “But, frankly, they didn’t fully trust either us or our simulations. It wasn’t until we started giving them the simulation tools we used ourselves that they took us seriously.” … These free simulators proved to be the most profitable innovation that the Goldman Sachs derivatives group launched. Soon, clients began asking for custom derivatives and other tailored instruments. “Without the simulators, customers would never have known what to ask for, and we would never have thought to ask,” recalls the bank executive. Yet, despite its success, this innovation appeared nowhere in the bank’s R&D budget or prospectus. It was only a tacit, not an explicit, locus of value creation.
But not everyone is so keen to share their knowledge. The article tells us about Eric von Hippel’s hypothesis that internal innovators frequently view customer innovators as rivals who might undermine their creative role.
Ultimately, we’re talking about demand innovation. A double loop model enables you to learn how to extend your offerings into your customers’ internal value chain, creating a platform for profitable growth. It’s also about identifying unmet customer needs – by going upstream or downstream as dictated by your industry’s value configuration…
The Marketing Survey Rebellion
So many U.S. residents refuse to participate in marketing-research surveys that it has become increasingly difficult to get reasonably reliable consumer data — a problem of potentially catastropic implications for the big marketers who spend tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars for such research each year. “This is a problem of stunning scope,” explains reporter Jack Neff of Advertising Age.
Great news for Double Loop Marketing™ marketers like me. Why? Because marketers can test their new ideas, products, and services on a double loop site in a far more efficient and effective way than traditional surveys.
Listen to the audio interview here >>
I disagree with their take on online surveys – because they’re doing the same old junk.
What needs to happen is this: market researchers need to get off their cushions and start observing people in the marketplace and marketspace. Digital anthropology: the observation of online behavior. That’s it.
The market research community needs to get into Web 2.0, period.
Video: Chad and Steve from YouTube
I love it. The geeks at Google give the geeks at YouTube 1.6 billion dollars – and this is how they announce it. Brilliant!
Now let’s see if they can find a business model. [I think they will – will they go beyond Adwords and Adsense?]
Ethanol versus Exxon: Wake Up!
Biofuels: Think Outside The Barrel
Vinod Khosla is a venture capitalist considered one of the most successful and influential personalities in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986. In 2004 he formed Khosla Ventures.
Listen to his presentation to the nerds at Google, and you start getting mad at our politicians and oil-businesses.
Why can’t we do this? Because Exxon doesn’t want to. Listen, even the CIA wants to do this. I don’t often agree with those guys, but the facts are simple. Watch the video and call your congresswoman.
In Brazil, VW is debating whether they even need to manufacture “gas-only” cars anymore. Wake up, America. We can create some real wealth in the Mid-West instead of funding the Saudis.