I have written before about the great approach to strategy taken by the folks at Zeus Jones (learning to fail – and learning from failure – while often flippantly discussed is much more difficult in practice). But strategy is one thing – what happens when you want to actually transform a situation? What happens if the brief is to change behaviours for the long term? And how do you apply disciplined thinking, creativity and social technologies to large-scale problems – like sustainability?
This presentation by Zeus Jones won the PhizzPop final at the recent SXSW conference. The brief was simple: “Help the citizens of Austin live more sustainably using currently-available technologies.” (I won’t go into details around their response to the brief – you can read about the approach taken here.)
There are some great lessons for planners and creatives alike here:
Reframe: rather than offer-up a me-too solution around the issue of sustainability, the fundamental human issues were reconsidered and addressed. This insight-focused approach helped the team to re-think and reframe their approach not around consuming less, but consuming more wisely
Thinkbig, not big idea: aim to build or exploit the weak ties between social groups but don’t hammer communities with “the message”. The solution suggested that local, community and city resources could be meshed together to create change that would transform the functions and role of all involved.
Transform: Aim your efforts towards transforming BEHAVIOURS so that your messaging, your activation and applications focus on a tangible human action that can (or needs to be) changed for the better.
But perhaps the most exciting thing about this, is that the Zeus Jones folks are thinking about actually APPLYING this approach in their own community. Now, that is awesome.
A couple of months ago I was surprised to see a name appear on my Twitter timeline. It was Stephen Fry. He was, in fact, the first celebrity that I would be interested in following.
Then a short time later, another celebrity name started people buzzing. The questions were asked “is @mchammer the REAL MC Hammer”? And as this appearance on Mike Volpe’s Hubspot TV shows, @MCHammer certainly uses Twitter personally – listening, interacting and promoting his new project, DanceJam.
But as Twitter starts to mainstream and the user base grows, it becomes ever more difficult to manage those who you listen to and interact with – which of course, depends on your stage of Twitter Commitment. If you are starting out, you can learn much from Amber Naslund’s excellent guide. But imagine that you are MC Hammer who has about 125,000 followers and is following over 25,000 people in return. How do you cope with the torrent of digital information that streams past you at an astonishing rate? How do you interact, engage or dare I say it, converse? As Cath points out, Twitter is not a gateway drug – you only get out what you put in – and clearly, MC Hammer is deriving value from Twitter not only as a broadcast tool, but as a way of interacting with people. How does he do it and still see value?
I have a much smaller volume of data, links and followers to contend with – and yet it can appear, at first blush, overwhelming. With around 2700 followers, I also follow-back 2300 or so people – this generates thousands of messages each day. To cope with this, I have an iterative strategy – process->tool+process. This is how it works.
Process
As I have mentioned to Iain McDonald previously, I have what Anne Zelenka calls a bursty process. I work very well with the flat knowledge networks afforded by twitter and other online tools at my disposal and have found a way of making discontinuous productivity work in my favour:
We used to talk about two steps forward and three steps back, and so on, but today it’s more like 50 steps sideways and 2000 steps forward. Networked, social-based opportunities are so explosive today than when we pursue them we’re flung forward at pace.
Tool+process
For sometime I have been using TweetDeck. It provides the functionality that Twitter itself does not yet provide. But I use TweetDeck in a particular way.
The far left column contains the messages from all 2300 people that I follow. It refreshes approximately every four minutes; so as you may imagine it flies by at quite a pace.
The second column is labelled “smart folks”. These are the people that I know and/or whose judgement I trust. These people help filter the twitterstream for me. This column refreshes more slowly.
The third column captures all instances of my twitter handle – servantofchaos. So I see when someone replies to me, or mentions me. It only refreshes every 10-12 minutes.
The fourth column is for direct messages and it refreshes every 15 minutes or so. And additional columns carry particular search terms that are important to my work. They change from time to time, but are an incredibly useful way of monitoring any mention of your product or service.
With my bursty work ethic, I take notice of direct messages as they arrive. This normally works out to be once an hour or so. I quickly also check replies and the smart folks for topics that may be useful or important for me. Once an hour, usually at the top of the hour (or when I need a break from a task), I scan the first column. I look for trending topics and repeated retweets and also scan my search terms. If while scanning I notice that someone asks a question that I can answer, then I do so. Sometimes I retweet a message or respond.
That’s It!
By working in this way, I am able to effectively manage a relatively large network (by my personal standards). I also am able to derive significant value from my interactions with this community. But does this touch what MC Hammer has to deal with? I doubt it. But I hope it helps you @TransformerMan.
Often when I tell people the name of my blog, Servant of Chaos, they take a step back. It seems that the word “chaos” carries with it connotations of danger or disruption. And yet, this is not the case – the “chaos” of which I speak is not anarchy. It is more aligned to chaos theory which is, in reality, about “finding the underlying order in apparently random data”.
By recognising the patterns within data – whether that data is demographic, technological, individual or corporate – we are able to bring sense to what we see. We can do so, because the interconnected patterns of data provide direction – allowing us to anticipate trends and potential outcomes. And this approach can be applied to understanding changes in individual or group behaviour, society or even global economies undergoing significant change or crisis.
In this fascinating article, How to Bring the Edge to the Core, John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, explain how this works:
We believe there is a sense-making pattern that can help us understand how change takes place in the economy. This pattern is "edge transforms the core."
Applying this thinking to marketing and social media, there are clear parallels. When we look across the marketing landscape, we can see disruption occurring on a number of levels:
Content production – user generated content is challenging the might of established publishers for relevance
Content filtering – with trust evaporating, populations are exercising social judgement, turning to networks of loosely connected individuals for trust-based decisionmaking (eg purchasing, recommendation, trial etc)
Distribution – peer-to-peer, digital and a plethora of user instigated distribution channels have invalidated the modes of distribution that have held sway over the last 50 years
Context – our view of the world is increasingly framed and reframed by the networks and communities in which we have invested trust and social capital.
These changes are occurring most profoundly in areas that can be loosely called “social media” – right on the edge of marketing practice. And what we understand instinctively, but are yet to adequately process, is that this social media edge offers a transformative opportunity for brands. Edges really are important:
They represent fertile seedbeds for innovation as unmet needs and unexploited capabilities tend to surface first on the edge. Edges also tend to be filled with people who are risk takers. Edge participants tend to connect more readily with each other because they all confront significant challenges in addressing the growth opportunities. Since there is so much growth potential for everyone, they are more willing to share insights and learning. Edges also have limited inertia since most of the large institutions, installed base and current sources of profitability are in the core.
The opportunity on the edge is, however, what attracts the core. Those established, core brands see the volatile and seemingly chaotic communities building via social networks as marketing’s holy grail. However, not ALL of these edges offer growth – they have uneven potential for growth. What is the difference between a “promising edge and a dead-end fringe” – and how do you tell? Apparently there are tell-tale characteristics:
… significant headroom for performance improvement and a large potential user base. Ideally, they also require modest investment for participation at the outset and offer the prospect of significant short-term returns …
In practical terms, this means that an INTEGRATED strategy is required. It means bringing “the core to the edge” – taking 10-20% of your MEDIA budget and investing it in “edge” activities. It means participating – not just with money, but with time, creativity and enthusiasm (or as Todd Defren suggests – holding an extended block party).
Social media will transform marketing, because we are seeing these shifts now (think of the recent announcements that advertising spend will drop in 2009, but digital/social related investments will rise). We are seeing new ways of producing, filtering, distributing and contextualising content. We are seeing real maturity in practices accelerating from the edge towards the core with the daily emergence of case studies, practical suggestions, innovation and leadership. (And if you are in any doubt, take a look at Todd Defren’s new eBook which goes a long way towards explaining exactly what is social media and how it can be used effectively – all in about 40 pages.)
The emerging patterns are no longer unclear. It is the edges that will deliver the innovation craved by markets – but perhaps most importantly – it may change the very nature of “marketing”. For the edge takes on new meaning:
Not only in their ability to help us recognize new ideas but, perhaps more importantly, in the power they give us to escape the old ones.
The words leap from your mouth. Eyes widen. Smiles broaden and the room comes alive. And as the heartbeats quicken and the enthusiasm begins to mount, you know that THIS project is going to rock. A love affair is beginning, and yet you don’t even notice it.
When we turn our attention away from strategy and planning and take a deep dive into implementation, the challenge is to maintain a focus and direction – to guide and channel the creative energies of your team. After all, we all have ideas; and we all like to “contribute”.
And when it comes to digital projects – whether you are considering a web based advertising campaign, a social media activation of some kind, or even building your own community – you will never find yourself bereft of ideas. But if you want to drive success for your project (and I am sure you do), you need to focus on simplicity – and the best way to do so is to focus on your market. Think about the PEOPLE who you will invite into your campaign or project. Think about the value that they will find, be surprised by, and share. And one of the best ways of doing this, is by STOPPING a focus on functions and functionality.
Ashley Ringrose shares these 15 tips for growing a community courtesy of Ben Huh from I Can Has Cheeseburger. And while the focus of the article is on taking communities to a new level, the same applies to almost any team-based endeavour. Think particularly about your next digital creative project or any Enterprise 2.0 efforts that you are considering (or engaged in), and then read item 5:
5. Stop Engineering and Start Thinking About the Market People who work in the technology industry tend to over engineer things. Don’t complicate your problems, simplify them. If you need to add a commenting system to your site don’t build it from scratch, download one. Whatever you do, do it quickly.
To an extent, we all fall in love with the projects we work on. Just make sure you don’t overcomplicate it. Keep it simple. Let it connect. Because in the end, true love isn’t about you, it’s about someone who loves you back.
Years ago I had to have everything “perfect” before I would release my work for review. I would check and double check. I would have it reviewed by my team and by stakeholders. I would gather feedback, make changes and then feel ready.
In almost every instance there would be some small thing that was missed. It may have been a word, an image, an apostrophe. Of course, it would only take me a moment to see it – I would look at a page, an advertisement, a website or book and the mistake would glare at me. I was mortified. And I would wait for other to notice.
But there was nothing. Not a word. Except congratulations. I would be called over for a “chat” about my “work” … expecting to be hauled over the coals, only to get a pat on the back.
It seemed incongruous. I was receiving great feedback on work that was simply substandard. But what I learned was this – I had to learn to be happy to be incomplete.
As I was preparing this post (a week or two ago), I was chatting on Twitter with Zac Martin and Stan Johnston about my blogging process. I had also talked about it with Heather Snodgrass at our Sydney coffee morning … I basically have a series of unfinished posts sitting in my Typepad account. I also have a handful available as drafts offline – and at any one point in time, there could well be over 20 posts in various states of readiness (I even have one that’s around three years old and still not quite “done”). But it’s not like I procrastinate … or is it?
Drew McLellan asks, is this approach really necessary – or are we overthinking everything? After spending an afternoon with a 25 year old entrepreneur, Drew was invigorated by the ease with which ideas were quickly moved to actions.
Interestingly, John Moore has an annual tradition of linking to Bruce’s manifesto at new year. He sees it as a reminder to himself and to his readers. I am thinking that I will be applying it myself, for the rest of the year. Here it is:
Allow events to change you.You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
Forget about good.Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
Process is more important than outcome.When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
Go deep.The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
Capture accidents.The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
Study.A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
Begin anywhere.John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
Everyone is a leader.Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
Harvest ideas.Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
Keep moving.The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
Slow down.Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
Don’t be cool.Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
Ask stupid questions.Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
Collaborate.The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
____________________.Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
Stay up late.Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
Work the metaphor.Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
Be careful to take risks.Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
Repeat yourself.If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
Make your own tools.Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
Stand on someone’s shoulders.You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
Avoid software.The problem with software is that everyone has it.
Don’t clean your desk.You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
Don’t enter awards competitions.Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
Read only left-hand pages.Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
Make new words.Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
Think with your mind.Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
Organization = Liberty.Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
Don’t borrow money.Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
Listen carefully.Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
Take field trips.The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
Make mistakes faster.This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
Imitate.Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
Scat.When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.
Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
Explore the other edge.Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
Avoid fields.Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
Laugh.People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
Remember.Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
Power to the people.Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.
When I first began blogging over three years ago, it was completely new to me. There was etiquette to learn, tools to master and people to reach out and connect with.
To be honest, I was sceptical about blogging. I had tracked it as a type of communication for years – reading and being inspired by Seth Godin and the group of expert bloggers at Fast Company – but I could not quite see how it would work, say, at a corporate level.
On a personal level, however, the WordPress and Typepad blogging platforms provided a simple way of publishing regular material on the web – and they were a perfect fit for my objectives – to build a discipline around writing every day.
And so it began.
I started with poetry, but within days, had shifted my focus to websites and storytelling. It was not intentional. My subject matter simply overwhelmed me. I would begin to write creative work and find, instead, that there was something else on my mind. After a month of blogging I asked, Does Anyone Read a Blog. If I remember rightly, I would have had about FIVE readers – and like many bloggers, I became obsessed with web analytics. However, I was already thinking about the nature of blogging and influence, suggesting that not all audiences are created equal:
It reminds me of a quote by Howard Barker (the great British playwright) – "Because you cannot address everybody, you may as well address the impatient" (49 Asides for a Tragic Theatre). This is what sets the web apart from other revolutionary communications platforms – it is both a catalyst for change and the method of transformation.
The idea of transformation is important in social media … and it is something that we easily forget. What I have learned over the last few years is that I must resist the easy options with blogging. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking of blogging as publishing … of seeking readers rather than conversation – dreaming of reach over influence. It is important to stimulate, engage and challenge myself and my readers … after all, there is PLENTY of great content available on the web.
So while measurement is great, reader figures are gratifying and even humbling, the real opportunity is impact. How does YOUR blog change or inspire the people who read it? What do they take away into their worlds as a consequence? As Richard Huntington eloquently explained:
So long as the digital community clings to its obsession with accountability over effectiveness it will remain in the unedifying position of creating engaging brand fluff on the one hand and highly measurable but largely pointless direct response advertising on the other.
It’s important to “get started” with social media – but remember, we are always in a process of getting started – there is always something new to learn. And as this great list of social media case studies shows – while there is some fantastic work being done, there are also plenty of social media mistakes. If in doubt, remember, “change” and “transform”.
After MyFutureBank’s a well publicised “experiment” and withdrawal from social media and the surreal and poorly contextualised Truthpod (courtesy of Westpac), it would be easy to suggest that finance marketers had had their fill of the social media space. Or perhaps, had bitten off more than they could chew.
Yet it seems this is not the case.
Clearly, with Forrester research indicating that 75% of Australians participating in some form of social media, consumer brands have LITTLE CHOICE other than begin to engage with their customers in this way. After all, it is where we are CHOOSING to spend our time and precious attention.
But what happens when a finance brand escapes into the wild? What happens when a business truly asks for the input of its community? Companion Credit Union decided to find out. The Financial Brand blog has some great coverage of this rebranding campaign here.
With a new theme of “We’re Listening”, Companion put their brand on the line and asked their members to vote on a new logo. As the CEO, Ray O’Brien said, “The credit union is really owned by the members and therefore we decided we should invite them to actively participate in helping us decide”.
Over 1000 votes were received (from a member base of about 12,000) … and a new blog has been setup to help the credit union really “get back to it’s roots”. They are even supporting Movember. So what does a customer selected logo look like?
The real opportunities for brands and social media are for those looking to transform their relationships with their customers … so it is encouraging to see brands from a relatively conservative market capitalising on these opportunities. And in a tight market (well, really, in any market), a social media strategy can not only help you stand apart from your competitors, it can also drive value back to your community – which is a great fit for credit unions and other member-based businesses.
Companion is certainly one financial service brand to watch – and as their ongoing marketing and social media strategy evolves, I expect there will be some real insight and proof points around the way that brands can grow and extend their reach and engagement via the micro-interactions that we take for granted. And this is one of the core values of social media for brands – that the difference between what your customers INTEND and the way they BEHAVE disappears – and you are left with a sentiment that contributes to (or detracts from) your brand promise. More power to the community!
UPDATE: Companion Credit Union and Community CPS Australia have now become Beyond Bank – you can find their new site here. Let’s hope they continue the innovation!
There are many lessons that marketers can “borrow” from the IT industry. “Open source”, for example, has changed the way that many of us conceive of ideas – they are no longer considered the proprietary property of one company/business (or they aren’t in most cases) – after all, ideas are the easy part, execution where it gets difficult. (In fact, we can really wonder whether ideas EVER were owned or whether this was just a convenient illusion.)
Most recently, I have been pondering the concept of “failing fast” – see the wikipedia entry here. It is a systemic approach to programming that aims to identify and report on failures – or events that are likely to cause failures. The focus of the programmer is on passing the message “FAIL” up to a system that is built to respond. There are two important aspects (that I can see):
The program escalates the issue or failure to another level of responsibility
The program also halts before the failure replicates, spreads or becomes embedded in other systems
From a marketing point of view, there is much to learn from this. And in light of the debacles around Motrim Moms and MyFutureBank more locally, the lessons could and should be absorbed by marketers very quickly:
Listen. As Amber Naslund points out, there are plenty of free tools that can be used to begin monitoring what is being said about your brand, products and services. Start with Google alerts. But please, start.
Step-in. If you are not listening to the online conversations, the echo chamber tends to get louder and louder. As this escalates and draws more voices into the conversation, the absence of an “official voice” means that there is no way to diffuse the conversation. This leads, as Alan Wolk suggests, to overreaction. Once you are at that point, there is no return.
Participate. When you start actually participating you will make mistakes – you may need to slay some sacred cows. But that’s ok … it’s the way we learn. By building relationships you are also creating a community/network. These are the folks who will let you know if someone else it talking about your brand.
Learn. There is much to learn by following the first three steps. Take this information and share it with your product development and customer service teams. Use this to transform what you deliver to your markets and how you treat your customers.
Despite the benefits of the fail-fast approach, however, the brave brand manager may want to take a more tangible, proactive and accelerated path – to FAIL FIRST.
Under a fail first strategy, you already accept that there will be mis-steps. You acknowledge that issues will arise that you won’t be able to control. In fact, the approach means taking a POSITION that people can buy into or work against. It is drawing a line in the sand.
Then, once the controversy starts or the conversation begins, you work them both equally using the same four steps above. Those who like what you are doing will converse. Those who don’t will cause chaos. Engage with both and use them to cross-pollinate ideas. Learn from the nay-sayers how and where you can improve your products. Activate and empower your evangelists to tell their stories.
Now, I don’t advocate such a strategy for all brands. But there are some who could do it. And for those who can stand the heat, there are great benefits to flow from failing first and learning. But remember, you need to PLAN a fail first strategy. You need the systems and fall-back strategies in place that can help you overcome the failure. You need the management support to hold course.
The Motrim debacle could have been turned around. Many similar “crises” could. What would you do differently? Would you dare to fail first? What do you think it takes to create the most successful failure in marketing history?
Understanding the aspirations and expectations of the emerging “millennial consumer” can no longer be considered a peripheral concern. The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was accelerated by the tremendous energy and commitment of a new generation of voters. Exit polls indicate that Obama received 66% of the youth vote and 68% of the new voter vote.
And while the Obama campaign has successfully employed a wide range of communication devices and technologies, the political party machines are streets ahead of the majority of social institutions. Government departments across the world still largely struggle with technology and integration, businesses outlaw the use of social networks in the workplace and education institutions offer courses that are outdated by the knowledge and skills that students can obtain online.
This fascinating post by Alana Taylor, an NYU journalism student and blogger clearly demonstrates the gap and the sense of frustration:
What is so fascinating about the move from print to digital is the freedom to be your own publisher, editor, marketer, and brand. But, surprisingly, NYU doesnot offer the kinds of classes I want.
Where once innovation occurred mostly from within the walls of the enterprise, consumers are now iteratively experimenting with technologies and applying them to their real world problems. This means that businesses and brands are struggling to keep pace with the changes that are occurring within their marketplaces. It also means that there has been a role reversal in the dynamic in what marketers traditionally call “B2C”. The same applies to other “institutions” such as universities, colleges and government departments.
Despite the economic slowdown, it is clear that behavioural patterns have shifted. Institutions will continue to struggle in the face of this widespread change and the gaps will widen between brands, consumers and the “promise” that should bridge the two. There are very interesting times ahead of us all.
One of the best forms of innovation is to transplant a practice from one knowledge domain to another. What this provides is a proven method — but one uprooted from its original context. However, it is in this re-planting where the real opportunities for innovation can be found.
For some time I have been convinced that there is much that marketers can learn from the technology community. From the "promiscuity of ideas" and open collaboration offered by "open source" through to the benefit of systems thinking captured in development lifecycles, there are ripe fields that will prove fertile ground for marketers coping with changes sweeping the industry. A great case in point is the overlap between information architects and planners. Matthew Milan shares a great presentation on the subject and reminds us "a planner is not their brief".
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