Trends in the Living Networks

Designing and running executive offsites and retreats in Asia

2010-03-10T01:32:21Z

I am just back from Phuket in Thailand where I facilitated the offsite session of the top 120 executives of a major professional services firm in Asia. This is staple work for me. My role at these kind of events ranges from delivering a keynote presentation that brings forcibly home the key themes of the event, for example change or innovation, to in some cases designing and facilitating the entire event, particularly when it is focused on strategy development.

While executive offsite sessions are common to business around the world, there are a few specific dynamics to take into account for organizers of retreats in Asia.

Diversity
Asian countries, economies, and cultures are far more diverse than those, for example, in Europe. There are often different priority strategic issues across country operations, and management structures need to vary between operations. Offsite objectives and structure should reflect that.

]]> Language
Even in multinationals managers do not always speak flawless English. In some cases it can be valuable to have interpreters for presentations. While the intent should always be to maximize interaction between managers from different offices, occasionally break-out teams can be grouped by language, in which case they can discuss local issues.

Interaction
While most Asian cultures are not as reticent as many Westerners seem to think, language barriers and different work cultures can result in participatory sessions typical of a US corporate group falling flat. Adjustments need to be made in how interactive sessions are designed.

Travel
There are many extraordinary locations and resorts across Asia to host offsites, however travel time and the sometimes limited range of flight options mean that - unfortunately - sometimes major cities will be selected.

Having lived in Japan for several years with Asia-wide responsibilities, speaking Japanese, and travelled and worked extensively throughout East and South Asia, I have an abiding love of the Asian region. I also think I have a good feel for the cultural dynamics of bringing groups together across the region. It’s certainly very enjoyable and rewarding working with diverse executive teams in the most exciting economic region in the world.

Hope to see you at your next retreat!

Five key characteristics of great pilot team members

2010-03-09T10:48:03Z

I recently posted an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 titled 8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0.

To follow up, here is an additional excerpt from Chapter 17 on pilots.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT PILOT TEAM MEMBERS

The selection of pilot team members is a major factor not just in the success of the pilots, but also whether useful lessons are learned and the successful migration of the pilots into other parts of the business.

The reality is that there is usually limited choice in selecting pilot team members. However since it is such an important driver of success, it is important to understand the characteristics of great pilot team members, and to apply this to the degree possible in bringing the right people on board.

There are five key aspects to a great pilot team member.

1. Enthusiasm
There is no substitute for enthusiasm in a pilot. As such, in most cases the best pilot team members are those who are clamoring to try something because they think it will make them more effective in their work.

Enthusiastic team members will:
• Want to be involved in the pilot!
• Think there are better ways to do things than current approaches
• Be happy to try new things
• Put up with immature systems
• Put in extra time and energy now for the potential of worthwhile results later
• Actively suggest and try new ideas to make the pilot work better

]]> 2. Roles and functions
The organizational role and activities of the pilot members are important in what they contribute, their understanding of the value created, and their ability to apply the lessons learned to other parts of the organization.

In most cases pilots are best run in operating parts of the business, where the final implementation will happen and business benefits will be achieved. However some organizations have found it useful to pilot Enterprise 2.0 tools within the IT function, as staff are usually enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and willing to try new technology systems. It can be particularly useful when these pilots are visible more broadly across the organization, for example for IT support issues.

Considerations for the range of roles you will want represented in pilots include:
• A team leader/ champion who is respected and energetic
• Include team members from multiple functions or departments
• Get senior management participation (if possible)
• Find teams that work over multiple locations or are frequently remote
• For some pilots an HR representative can help identify and address key issues
• Staff who already work on multiple projects or functions
• Have experience in product development or innovation
• Do not currently have intense and time-critical tasks so can afford some short-term inefficiency

3. Skills
Skills that are particularly useful in a pilot team include:
• Aptitude in learning and using new technologies
• Good communicators, including the ability to write well
• Have already used similar Web 2.0 tools (either inside the organization or on the open web)
• It an be useful to include people who do not have significant technology skills though are willing to try, as they will identify flaws that may not be apparent to experts

4. Personality
Personality characteristics that assist the success of a pilot project include:
• Think in terms of possibilities rather than problems
• Prefer trying new things to the status quo
• Critical of current business processes while having alternative ideas to propose
• It can also be useful to have a “nit-picker” on the team to identify problems and issues, though you don’t want to many of these.

5. Network
The primary way in which pilots projects will become visible to other people the organization and adapted to new issues is through the personal networks of the pilot team members. Strong personal networks within organizations emerge through both personality, organizational role, and work history (e.g. having worked in multiple divisions or locations). In most organizations networks are fairly strongly correlated to longevity in the organization, meaning that recent recruits are unlikely to have strong personal networks.

As such, it is particularly valuable to have team members who are:
• Social and gregarious
• Boundary spanners, in communicating frequently with people outside their core team
• Credible and respected in the organization
• Fairly long-term employees, particularly who have been exposed to a number of parts of the organization

The Evolution and Key Success Factors of Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

2010-03-03T09:51:05Z

This morning I did the opening keynote at IBM's Collective Intelligence BusinessSphere conference in Melbourne. It was designed as a brief and punchy opener to provide a big-picture context to what collective intelligence means for organizations and the key success factors.

Below are the slides. As always the slides are intended to provide visual support to my presentation, not to be useful by themselves. However there are a few visuals there that may be of interest even to those who didn't attend.

Keynote: The Evolution and Key Success Factors of Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

View more presentations from rossdawson.

Media Revenue Models Framework: 12 categories of income sources for media companies

2010-03-01T22:20:55Z

As the world of media moves beyond its traditional boundaries, media operators need to broaden their thinking about potential revenue sources. In a connected world, the possibilities transcend the classic advertising, sales and subscription models.

In my recent article Creating the Future of Media: 4 Driving Forces, 4 Strategic Issues, 4 Essential Capabilities in Media Titles magazine I wanted to point to some of the possibilities. I brought together some of what we had been working on with clients to create a Media Revenue Models framework to show some of what is possible.

Of course a key aspect of potential revenue streams is the value creation that merits payment. While the general categories of value added by media have not changed, their relative importance definitely has. To understand potential revenue models, you must also be clear on the distinctive value add of your media offering.

A few things to note. First, this is a draft, and while I haven't had time to update it yet I've already been given some additional ideas to complement this. I'd love to hear any other perspectives or ideas that would add to this. Second, this only looks at revenue, not at business models, which look at how resources are brought together to create value. We're in the process of developing a media business models framework. And third, the primary purpose of this is to help executives to think in new ways about their own business. I have already found it very valuable in strategy sessions with clients in generating new strategic options and ideas.

Here is the content in text form:

]]> Value added (in no particular order)
Reputation
Timeliness
Validation
Format
Visualization
Analysis
Ease of use
Design
Relevance
Synthesis
Tangibility
Filtering
Sense of community
Customization

Advertising
Brand creative
Pay per click
Pay per action / sale
List rental
Product placement

Content
Subscription
Pay per view
Pay for format
Customized content

Distribution
Syndication
Licensing
Custom feeds
API fees

Community
Membership
Pay for voting
Pay for messaging / SMS
Sales of community research

Events
Conferences
Roundtables
Showcases
Access to buyers

Partnerships
Revenue share
Profit share
Share of revenue increase

Brand
Brand licensing
Sponsor fees
Branded products
Branded content

Platform
Sell distribution platform
License platform
Distribution fees
Serve advertising

Merchandising
Books / research
Music / video
Clothing
Other

Affiliate
Pay per sale
Pay per registration
Pay per download

Classifieds
Listing fees
Transaction fees
Contextual advertising

Leads
Lead generation
Registration for content
Offers
Enquiry matching

The future IS gaming

2010-02-28T21:22:23Z

I recently finished reading the techno-thriller Daemon by Daniel Suarez. It is certainly not literature, but it is a fast-paced thriller that I found hard to put down. It posits a world in which a genius who creates online games builds a systems that makes the entire world into what is effectively a game, with an augmented reality interface, and in which individuals earn points for tasks that give them higher ranking.

I have long thought it is inevitable that much of our work and play will take place in what are effectively game environments.

In Jesse Schell's presentation at DICE (hattip: Kevin Kelly/The Technium) he gives an array of fantastic ideas about the intersection of reality and gaming. After covering how many games such as Wii, Guitar Hero and Webkinz are bring the real world into games, he goes off (from around 18:00) on a rapid-fire string of suggestions about how every aspect of the world can be made into a game.

Xbox 360 Games - E3 2010 - Guitar Hero 5

It is intriguing that mobile social networking, which I have written about since its early days in 2002, has only taken off when Foursquare made it into a game. As people become more familiar with gaming environments and concepts, it seems natural to bring in gaming aspects to more parts of our life. Dangerous things that way lie, but it is inevitable that games and what we think of as reality will be merged to an extraordinary degree.

[UPDATE:] Tom Foremski says why he thinks this is a scary future.

Keynote on Web 2.0 in the enterprise at IBM Collective Intelligence

2010-02-25T04:09:28Z

IBM's annual Lotusphere conference is held each January, bringing together customers of IBM's enterprise collaboration suite. While many associate Lotus with its long-established product Notes, since the launch of Lotus Connections in 2007 Lotus is centered on Web 2.0 tools such as social networks, mash-ups and micro-blogging. After Lotussphere local events are run in countries around the world, usually dubbed Lotusphere Comes To You.

This year IBM Australia is calling its enterprise collaboration conference Collective Intelligence, running this in 9 cities around the country. In Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra they are dividing the program into technology and business streams. I will be doing the opening keynote for the BusinessSphere stream as below in Sydney and Melbourne, though I will be in Asia at the time of the Canberra event next week.

The event is free to attend for "IBM customers and prospects" - you can register at the website. Maybe see you there!

The evolution and future of Social Networking and Web 2.0 technologies

Web and social technologies, having already had a massive social impact, are now being applied extensively in business and government. Many of the most successful organisations globally are implementing social software and web tools to increase productivity, tap expertise, improve staff engagement and streamline processes.

]]> However tapping the extraordinary potential of social computing to create value is as much about strategy and people as it is about technology. Key steps to success include creating a clear vision, building effective governance, establishing guidelines and tapping energy in the organisation.

Join Ross Dawson - globally recognised expert and author on business strategy - as he reviews the global state of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies, and the key factors in driving successful implementation.

Australia is becoming a global hub for crowdsourcing platforms: Freelancer.com, 99designs, DesignCrowd

2010-02-24T10:10:10Z

Crowdsourcing in the broadest sense will be one of the fundamental platforms of the emerging network economy. As such it’s pleasing to see that Australia is becoming a hub for a number of the most significant crowdsourcing platforms globally.

I caught up with Alec Lynch of DesignCrowd yesterday for an interesting conversation about the crowdsourcing space and thought it was worth giving a quick pointer to the three main platforms run out of Australia (though all are global in scope).

Freelancer.com, was founded in Sweden as getafreelancer.com in 2004. I first wrote about it in 2005 in an overview of the space. For many years it was the dominant online services exchange in Europe, and one of the top three globally. In May 2009 it was bought by Australian company Ignition Networks, which also acquired the domain Freelancer.com. The company is run by veteran tech entrepreneur Matt Barrie, who most recently founded and ran specialty processor firm Sensory Networks Inc. ]]> The other two major crowdsourcing sites in Australia have been the global leaders in prize-driven design sites.

99designs has clients set a design brief and budget, and then provide feedback to designers during the design phase, ultimately selecting a winner who is awarded the full budget. It has been very successful though its model has many detractors in the design community. I wrote a post titled 9 practical steps to getting great outsourced design on 99designs reflecting on my experiences using the site.

DesignCrowd began life as DesignBay, using a similar prize-driven model to 99designs. Late last year it acquired the US company DesignCrowd and adopted its name. DesignCrowd is using more nuanced approaches to awarding prizes, including giving second place prizes and participation payments.

An interesting recent article in the Age titled Outsourcing on Steroids mentions 99designs and DesignBay and also quotes me on how companies can use crowdsourcing services.

Crowdsourcing is an extremely dynamic space. It will be interesting to see whether these and other Australian companies will grow their presence in the market. Certainly let me know if there are other companies I should be aware of.

I will be sharing more perspectives on crowdsourcing over the next little while, including an overview and taxonomy of the global crowdsourcing space.

The promise of distributed power: the Bloom Box and more

2010-02-22T21:39:56Z

At Future Exploration Network, one of our roles is to help clients understand the technologies that have the potential to dramatically disrupt existing industries and structures.

Distributed technologies which bring power and manufacturing to the local level, or even the home, definitely fall into that category. Modern economies are largely based on centralized power generation on an enormous scale, combined with power distribution networks taking that to the home.

For decades people have looked at the possibilities of fuel cells which allow homes or neighborhoods to generate their own power. Fuel cell manufacturer Bloom Energy , despite being largely in stealth mode, was named in the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers 2010 list. Last night CBS News ran a 13 minute segment (embedded below) devoted to Bloom Energy, suggesting it has the potential to transform how we use energy.

]]> It is possible that Bloom Energy's technology will prove the breakthrough required to make distributed energy possible. It may not fulfil its promise, either in the technology itself, the ability to scale, or being able to drive prices down sufficiently. However the progress made, together with the global attention, is certainly providing a major push to the widespread commercialization of fuel cells.

The implications of distributed power impact not just the power industry, but also automotive and transport, construction, and in particular urban planning. Companies in these sectors need to fully understand what rapid uptake of fuel cells could mean for them and how they should respond.

Another element of what I call 'Distributed Everything' is distributed manufacturing, potentially down to the home level. More on that another post.

8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0

2010-02-22T10:01:37Z

In my Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report I put Iterate and Refine at the center of the Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework.

One of the most critical elements of this principle is the ability to establish and run effective pilot programs.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 on Pilots, which describes 8 guiding principles for pilot programs.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR PILOTS
While there are no hard and fast rules for establishing successful pilots, eight guiding principles that should be kept in mind are:

“It is reasonably cheap and easy to get a pilot up and running to evaluate how successful a new Technology will be. Fail fast, fail cheap. Set things up as pilots and pick up the lessons.”
CIO, large property developer

1. Select fertile ground.
Pilots often establish the tone for how broader initiatives are received across the organization. Stories – both positive and negative – about the success of pilots often filter out very widely. A successful pilot can easily take a life of its own as others hear about the benefits and actively want to apply them in their own work. Failures can often be referred to across the organization as reasons why related initiatives will not succeed. While you can never expect all pilots to be successful, maximize chances of success by selecting the most promising projects and the best team, and make it easy for them to identify value.

]]> 2. The pilot team is critical.
Perhaps the single most important success factor in Enterprise 2.0 pilots is the people involved. While there are a number of criteria in selecting a pilot team (for more details see below), the single most important attribute is enthusiasm. Given that these technologies require new approaches to working and communicating, uptake and resultant benefits will depend substantially on the degree of use and experimentation during the pilot.

3. Design around business applications or benefits NOT tools.
Far too often organizations decide to trial specific tools such as wikis and blogs without having a clear idea of why they are doing so. In the majority of these cases pilots fail to gain traction or result in clear benefits. Pilots should be designed either to create specific benefits such as streamlined processes and faster outcomes (which will provide clear measures for the pilot’s success), or an application such as project management or creating better sales forecasts.

4. Define scope but encourage experimentation.
In establishing pilot projects, a balance needs to be struck between having clarity on the intentions and scope of the pilot, and allowing experimentation that may uncover even more valuable uses and applications. A definition of pilot scope includes the immediate objectives, participants, and timeline for review. However if variations on the intended activity, or even entirely different approaches, seem to offer potential business value, these should be encouraged. Remember that experimentation is often the source of much of the value of Enterprise 2.0 implementations.

5. Design the pilot to learn useful lessons and expand.
Pilots are established with the primary intention of demonstrating value so that they can be applied more broadly across the organization. However even if the pilot is very successful, it should not necessarily be implemented in the same way for future roll-outs. And if the pilot is not seen to be successful, there may be even more useful lessons on how to improve or refine subsequent initiatives. As such, there need to be specific systems to capture lessons during and at the conclusion of the pilot.

6. Provide training and guidance.
If no training is provided on the use of a new tool, it should not be surprising if it is not used or used well. This can be done in many formats, including brief online learning sessions. It is possible to setup pilots so that usage guidelines and recommendations are provided at first login, and regularly during the process of the trial.

7. Create visibility.
In many cases you will want pilots to be visible outside the pilot group, in order to attract participation, generate demand in the rest of the organization, and stimulate ideas for other applications. For example providing reference materials on IT support or HR policies creates broad visibility for new approaches. However in some cases you may choose to keep pilots less visible if there are greater risks of failure or active experimentation by a small team.

“The earlier you determine when something should be killed, the better.”
Charlie Beaver, vice-president, Booz Allen Hamilton

8. Monitor progress and cut or expand.
It is a mistake to set up a series of pilots without subsequently assessing progress. That can be easier with Enterprise 2.0 tools than with some other technologies, given the very low costs of the tools. The mantra of “fail fast, fail cheap” is immensely relevant here. Specific timeframes – usually measured in months – for the pilots need to be established at the outset. Success needs to be assessed both in terms of the initial objectives and/or any other value that has been created in the process of the project (see principle 5 above). Decisions must be made on whether to continue, expand, discontinue, or change the pilot.

Media2010: Notes from Frédéric Filloux and Russ Fradin

2010-02-19T04:46:35Z

Continuing my notes from the Media 2010 conference on the presentations by Jack Matthews, Richard Titus and Marc Frons, here are the notes I took from the presentations by Frederic Filloux and Russ Fradin.

I will be digesting what I've heard today and pulling into some upcoming content on the future of media.

FRÉDÉRIC FILLOUX, EDITOR - INTERNATIONAL, SCHIBSTED

1. Failure of ad model
- CPM lower than ever
- Clickthrough rate never took off
- endless inventories pushing prices down – ad networks are bottom feeders

]]> 2. Facebook/ Google sucking
People are spending far more time on social media (latest +82% globally), impacting their time on traditional media

3. Information break-up
- ‘commodity’ news – ubiquitous, difficult to monetize
- ‘participatory mashup’ – buzz driven, can be monetized
- quality niche – small, people willing to pay

ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is a very relevant measure today.
There is revenue depletion on both print on online
Over the last four years for every $1 gained on digital $55 have been lost on print
ARPUs:
New York Times - $7-10
Huffington Post - $1.50
TechCrunch $0.85
Facebook - $1.50
Skype - $15

Need hybrid approach: combination of free and paid

Paid-for options
1. Target heaviest users
2. Focus on type of user
3. Better user experience
4. Friction-free payment

RUSS FRADIN, CEO, ADIFY
Optimize for networks
OR
Sell premium branded content

Increased time spent on mid/long-tail sites
Ad spend outpacing traffic growth

Where are you most likely to pay attention to advertising? Nielsen
TV 80%
Newspapers 61%
Major online sites 60%
Niche online sites 59%

Publisher’s options
Optimize your site for ad networks and manage yield between them
Sell premium products directly

If you choose premium:
- exit ad network and data contracts
- prepare your management
- structure sales and products for premium experiences
- extend your own reach

Premium ad products – integrated ad experiences

Build, buy or aggregate reach
- Building is time consuming and risky
- Buying is expensive and risky
- Aggregating is fast but competitive

Vertical ad network
- vehicle for efficient, brand safe buying on mid and long tail sites
- editorially selected, topically related, independent web sites
- anchored by the publishers key destination site
- visited by passionate, engaged audience

Sell more to existing advertisers
- Linking
- Content Syndication
- Immersive branding across segment of long tail

The polarization of film budgets

2010-02-19T03:25:47Z

When I walked out from seeing Avatar 3D in December, I tweeted: "$300 million very well spent!"

Movie theaters can create extraordinary experiences, but the cost of production is ever greater.

On the other hand, movies can be made for extremely low cost, using HD cameras, digital editing, and volunteer labor.

At Media 2010 Suzanne Stefanac pointed to Escape to City 17, a machinima movie that had been made with a budget of less than $500, mainly for the costumes. It looks pretty good considering how little was spent.

Expect both increasing film budgets at the top end, and lowering film budgets at the bottom end.

Media2010: Notes from Jack Matthews, Richard Titus, Mark Frons

2010-02-19T00:36:55Z

I am at the Media 2010 conference in Sydney, where there is an extraordinary line-up of speakers through the day. I am here to get my head back into gear on future of media strategy, which will be a major theme for me through this year.

Below are my notes taken on-the-fly from the first few speakers. Hopefully I will get hold of some laptop power to be able to continue after this.

JACK MATTHEWS, CEO, FAIRFAX DIGITAL
We are at the point of singularity – beyond which we cannot see.

Highly recommend Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks.

]]> Scarcity of content and control of distribution are gone.

Independent journalism at the core is still the same. The monetization models are changing.

Smartphones are growing faster than any technology in history.

I believe transaction models are the new rivers of gold.

The new environment offers far more potential and opportunity than risk.

RICHARD TITUS, CEO, &AND
It’s now about delivering information and services that delight customers. Who are the customers?

Used to be difficult to distribute content, which enabled many ways to package and monetize.

PR is the most effective means of marketing digital properties, because the content and links last forever, whereas advertising is of limited duration.

There are 170,000 different kinds of digital devices in the UK.

Two spaces: mobile and fixed

Mobile
Personal – rarely shared
Customized
Intermittent connectivity
Social
Primarily Pull

Fixed
Shared
Immersive
Always connected
Furniture
Primarily Push

The enterprise is dead. There are no barriers between enterprise and consumer tech.

The tech layer has gone away because of standards.

So where is the value?

Metadata is more valuable than the content.
- Data about behavior
- Ability to mash up the data to create new, rich, bespoke and highly relevant experiences.
- Across different platforms, networks
- Knowledge and for the benefit of all customers.

&AND is looking to create a single customer view across all digital properties

Classifieds is about inventory. However Google has commoditized that.

Attention is the greatest scarcity.

8 billion links clicked on search engines. 6 billion links clicked on social media.

Blurring:
- Passive and active
- Different media on multi-purpose devices
- One-demand and live
- Time shifting and place shifting

Still three ways to make money
- Subscription
- Transaction
- Indirect (Advertising etc.)

Want to create the most frictionless way for people to give you money

Classifieds revenue is going down (it will gradually disappear), data and display are going up.
The AnyMedia Network

The reality is you cannot monetize all your inventory, but you can increase it. Across networks you can scale the size of your audience.

Biggest pet peeve is cookie integrity. Sites delete others’ cookies. Need to share cookies with other publishers to maximize revenue.

Need new sources of scarcity and defensible advantage.

MARC FRONS, CTO, DIGITAL, NEW YORK TIMES
Rates and demand have rebounded in 2010

The future of quality journalism depends on achieving a balance between charging for content and advertising-supported models.

Will launch HTML5 version of NYT on iPad. Will have offline reading capabilities. Haven’t decided on content or model but expect it to be paid.

Have over 100 software developers and designers.

Own social network, Times People, has over 600K members. Shows recommended content.
Over 200 Twitter feeds.
NYT is most citied by bloggers, more than double next (CNN)
NYT Developer Network – 11,000 users, 10,000 API keys issued

Examined rationales for free and paid models.

Considered models:
- Subscription
- Purchase
- Micropayments
Rejected micropayments.

Key questions:
- How big is addressable market?
- How many people will encounter pay wall?
- How many people will convert at given price point?
- At a given conversation rate, what is the impact on traffic?
- Given traffic impact, what is advertising impact?

Will launch paywall in early 2011
Free access monthly article limit (not yet determined)
Bundled with mobile news readers
Free for paper subscribers

Why?
- Develop end-user revenue stream
- Preserve advertising
- Maintain scale and influence
- Most flexible of any approach that looked at – can adjust walls

Don’t’ think it’s a model for all newspapers. But believe will be success because of quality and engagement.

Interactive scenarios for 2030: provocation for long-term strategy

2010-02-18T20:19:58Z

Last year I kicked off a strategy session of a major infrastructure company with a presentation to the executive team on the world in 2030. This used a set of four scenarios to provoke new thinking about the world moving forward.

I wrote about these in The World in 2030: Four scenarios for long-term planning and strategy, providing some of the background to the scenarios and presentation.

We've now created a flash piece to make it easier to navigate and interact with the scenarios. Please play with the interactive piece.

The battlefield for mobile platforms and mobile applications becomes clear: fragmentation, innovation, and dead-ends

2010-02-17T00:17:32Z

I was just interviewed on Sky Business this morning about the news coming out from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

In the plethora of announcements, what stands out for me is the increasing clarity of the emerging platforms battle, which is happening on two levels: mobile operating system and applications.

Mobile operating system
The launch of the iPhone 3G redefined how people thought about mobile devices. Now we are finally getting a range of serious and comparable alternatives.

The most visible of these is of course Android. Eric Schmidt said yesterday that there now 60,000 Android phones sold every day, and there appear to be new mobile models launched almost daily.

]]> Symbian until recently has held 45% of the smartphone OS market, though mainly on lower-end devices. The open-sourcing of Symbian earlier this month and the announcement this week of Symbian ^3, which offers a very rich interactive platform.

Perhaps the biggest announcement at Mobile World Congress was Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series, which looks outstanding, though will not be available until the end of the year, which will give it a lot of catching up to do on its competitors.

In addition Intel and Nokia are merging their Linux mobile platforms to create MeeGo, which will run across almost any kind of connected device.

On the one hand this wide range of high-powered mobile platforms will transform how mobiles are used far beyond the early-adopter crowd. However the fragmentation of platforms is a serious problem, particularly given that there are now a number of very solid alternatives. Which takes us to the issue of applications.

Mobile applications

Last year $4.2 billion was spent on mobile applications, almost all on the iPhone. It is mobile applications that are changing what were previously phones into multi-functional mobile device with ever-expanding capabilities.

It will take some time for critical mass to develop in the other app stores. The Android Market is building momentum at a very solid pace. Even though many complain about the opaque approval processes in the iTunes store, it is possible that the lack of filtering in the Android Market will in fact hold it back as people lack confidence in the applications.

The critical role of mobiles apps is obvious enough that every platform has an apps strategy, with Vodafone, Nokia, Amdocs, Sony Ericsson and many others launching apps markets.

One of the more interesting announcements this week has been the Wholesale Applications Consortium, a group of 24 telcos who are seeking to build a common apps platform. It is bold, though as some have suggested, unlikely to succeed on the scale of its ambitions.

Across these initiatives is Adobe’s bid to run AIR-based applications across all mobile platforms. This has the potential to transcend the multiple platforms and app stores, though it will be harder to build in mechanisms to charge for the apps than it will be for platform-specific applications.

The rapid development of multiple mobile platforms will inevitably result in winners and losers, though for now it is largely fragmenting consumer choices and application developer energy.

Personal computers consolidated into two primary operating systems – Windows and Mac – by the mid to late 1980s. The mobile space looks unlikely to consolidate to anything like this degree for the foreseeable future. The upside is innovation at a far greater pace than we ever experienced in the PC space. The downside is massive lost energy going into what will eventually turn out to be dead-ends.

Research: how journalists use social media (and PR professionals)

2010-02-15T22:33:57Z

George Washington University and media relations software firm Cision have released a very interesting study of how journalists use social media and online tools.

The headline news is that 56% of journalists consider social media to be important to some degree. This figure pushed up to 69% of journalists writing for online outlets, while just 48% of magazine writers found social media to be important.

Journalists on the importance of social media for reporting and producing their stories
Source: Cision

Social media is used extensively by journalists to publish and promote what they have written, with just 14% saying they don’t use social media at all for spreading word on their work. Almost two-thirds say they use blogs (presumably usually not their own), and 57% use Twitter or other microblogging sites to point to their articles.

Journalists on the social media tools they use to publish, promote and distribute what they write
Source: Cision

]]> Both of these statistics reinforce what I wrote in 2006 describing our Future of Media Strategic Framework about the symbiosis of mainstream media and social media:

The symbiosis of mainstream and social media
A symbiotic relationship is emerging between mainstream media (such as newspapers and broadcast), and social media (such as blogs, podcasts, and online social networks). Mainstream media and social media feed off each other. Blogs provide a vast public forum for discussion of content provided by major media. Leading blog search engine, Technorati, has enabled every online piece on The Washington Post, Newsweek and Associated Press newspapers to display the complete blog discussion about that article, turning an article into a conversation visible to all. At the same time, it has become common for mainstream media to quote blogs and bloggers, sometimes exclusively, and the conversations between bloggers often provide the ideas for media stories. Together, mainstream and social media create a single media landscape in which we can all participate.

Not surprisingly, 85% of journalists said that social media was less reliable than traditional media, however 13% said it was about the same and 2% thought it was slightly more reliable.

The study also covered what services journalists could get from PR professionals that they couldn’t get from social media, with access to sources, answers to questions, perspective on news, and not far behind high-res graphics at the top of the list.

Journalists on the service or information that PR professionals offer that a web search or social media cannot
Source: Cision

It’s pretty disappointing that the stand-out value journalists perceive from PR professionals is access to sources, something which comes with the gatekeeper role.

There is no question that PR professionals will continue to be valuable to journalists. However the rise of social media and online information is in fact superseding part of what journalists look to them for. This is just one of the challenges that PR professional must face, building on the issues covered a while back in my article on Six Facets of the Future of PR, still after all these years ranks #1 on Google for ‘future of pr’.