Joseph Jaffe is one person who does a great job of building collaborative projects. After his successful book Life after the 30 Sec Spot, he has started to write a new book - Join the conversation and has invited people to contribute. I have tried to contribute my thoughts in Chapter 10 - Why are you so afraid of conversation? Here's my take:
It is a good idea to trace this to the history and growth of organizations in the industrial age. This was the age where efficiency was the focus. Organizations were built around driving productivity. People were trained to do things over and over again - faster and quicker. For over a century, people worked in an era of mass production. Hence, they forgot the ability to develop conversations. They worked in large organizations that told them what to do rather than get them to explore what to do.
We therefore moved from
- an era of 'inventory of goods' to an era of 'inventory of ideas'.
- an era of 'scarcity' to an era of ' insatiable choices'
- an era of ' information poverty' to an era of 'information overload'
Imagine the kind of shift they would have to make for this new eco-system. They had to express, share and collaborate to get prepared for such an environment. This is a new work culture altogether for them. Also, one-size-fits-all product strategy became irrelevant.
Conversation at the end of the day is two-way. Conversations require
- A capability to accept reality as it were because that's how consumers talk amongst themselves
- Ability to listen and respond in an unbiased manner
- Skills to experiment,learn and develop
- Ability to change the course of one's action swiftly, even if the decision was wrong
Hence, they were not ready for a conversation era. An environment where one has to express, empathize, engage, enable and empower. The mindset a marketer must have is not to 'inform at any cost' but 'spread at no cost'. This is a new marketing paradigm that demands new thinking, new rules and new ideas.
Procter & Gamble is making its first foray into consumer-generated content with two new Web sites.
The company's P&G Productions unit said Monday that it has launched Capessa.yahoo.com. an "online community" where women can share information, practical advice and inspirational stories.
P&G Productions also said Monday that it will launch the People's Choice Community, an online forum that will feature voting for the People's Choice Awards, as well as blogging and chatting.
The site will go live Tuesday night, at www.pcavote.com, with programming and online activities to continue year-round.
Walmart has come-up with an innovative worker shift system. Shifts will be based on customer flows and employees will know it 3 weeks before!
I think this is an interesting evolution where shoppers, customer service and optimization of costs are at the central focus of this decision. As we move from a "mass manufacturing" era to "mass customization" era, new management principles and methods have to be invented for the companies of the future. We are yet to see some innovations in this area. If Alfred Sloan changed the auto manufacturing thinking for GM or if Henry Ford brought-in the mass manufacturing methods during early 1920s, the new service economy will have to dump the old economy rules and transition to new ones. Because, 24x7 businesses need to find innovative ways of developing superior customer service while balancing it with fair HR policies.
MSNBC reports:
Wal-Mart said the new system ensures that stores are fully staffed at peak shopping times and it takes into account the hours employees prefer to work.
“It is much friendlier and more predictable than the previous system in that it actually asks for our associates preferences of when they prefer to work,” Clark said.
She said under the old system, store managers drew up schedules based on the level of sales in a store. Now, increased staffing will coincide with times when customer traffic surges, she said.
Seattle times has a great article on how some libraries have adapted to changing consumer lifestyles and technology innovations that have been happening around them. The web has literally changed the way information has become available and shared by consumers. Some libraries have therefore morphed to become
- Community Hubs
- A place for new experiences - study rooms, a place to meet & socialize, little eating area etc.
- A place for multimedia experiences - check emails, watch videos, DVDs & CD entertainment
The article reports:
Those who can't afford the Internet at home come to the Bellevue Library to use one of the 108 computers available. "In a society where we're worried about the digital divide, libraries can level the playing field," Eisenberg said. "There's a shift from academics to the library being a form of entertainment," said Barbra Barkus, who has worked at the Bellevue Library for more than 27 years.
There are some great lessons here for brands and marketers!
Toyota has come with an interesting design concept to stop drunken driving.According to news reports:
Toyota Motor Corp. is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption.
Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun.
The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt, the report said.
The world's No. 2 automaker hopes to fit cars with the system by the end of 2009, according to the report.
Imagine a day when 120 million Indians( and expected to reach 400 million in 2010) can have their own personal TVs on their mobile. The day does not seem to be far off.
Modeo has launched a beta of their version of mobile TV in the US. Services like Modeo can be soon expected to be launched in India.
Modeo is a digital television broadcast live to the one device you're never without—your mobile phone. Modeo is transparently high-tech, making mobile TV as familiar as the coffee table clicker. Modeo's content is provided by most distinguished entertainment brands in the business, airing today's hits and TV classics. One can watch top-rated sitcoms, dramas, news and sports. Also one can tune-in to music and talk radio. You could also download video podcasts, bite-sized episodes of your favorite shows and exclusive made-for-mobile content.
No wonder, London School of Economics has written that the future of TV is personal.
MobileTV has the potential to unleash a new revolution in the country. The telecom revolution has created a new wave of growth in India and if TV goes mobile, it can just mutiply the benefits of telecom revolution.
New marketing opportunities will surface:
- 5-sec TV Spots
- Interactive programming - Voting, Personalized programs, Channesl etc.
- User generated content
- May be one can start trading entertainment time with air time!
- M-wallets
- Product purchase requests from mobile etc.
It can also create new development opportunities like:
- e-learning can just become easy to implement
- The rural-urban information divide can be bridged very quickly
I can't wait to see TV go personal!
Alex Iskold has a great post on Read/Write web on how search needs to get a lot more customer-focussed. The key take-out for me from the post is :
- The 'simplicity of thinking' one needs to have when developing products or services.
- It's about analysing 'customer interactions' and customer behaviour' first and then applying them to products or technologies.
- It's the easy usability of the product or service that will determine acceptance and adoption.
Alex writes:
What is perfect search?
It is interesting to ask: What do we expect when we enter a term into a search box? Ideally, we'd like to get the perfect answer right away. Often, we have an idea what that perfect answer should be, and when computer does not get it for us we are disappointed. But are we being reasonable? Can we expect the "perfect" answer all the time?
Consider for example, our interactions with an Information clerk at the mall. When we ask for a location of a store, she may or may not give us the "perfect" answer. She might not know where this store is, she might not understand us or we may not understand what she said. So for many reasons we may not get the "perfect" answer right away.
What is qualitatively different between our experience with the Information clerk vs. a search engine is that with the clerk we have a dialog. When she does not understand what we asked, she has a chance, to say Excuse me, what do you mean?. Google does not do that, it just gives us the results. If we do not like the answer we have to start from scratch.
The problem is that human interactions are fundamentally iterative, while our interactions with computers are mostly stateless. Perhaps we could get to the perfect search results if we could have a dialog with the computer? Clustering technologies, particularly the one offered by Clusty, give computer a chance to clarify: Excuse me, when you searched for Alex Iskold, did you mean to look for Read/Write Web or AdaptiveBlue or perhaps you where looking for static analysis tools that Alex worked on while at IBM?.