Category: Videos

Marketers as Innovators – Join the DisrupTV Live Stream

B2B Marketing, Digital Disruption, Disruptive Technology, Marketing, Videos, Web/Tech

This weekend – at 5am Australian daylight time – I will be joining the hosts of DisrupTV, R “Ray” Wang and Valar Afshar to talk marketing-led innovation, and provide a snapshot of the Australian innovation landscape. This weekly web series is streamed live on Blab.im and is focused on leadership, innovation and disruption in the enterprise and brings together A-list guests, the latest enterprise news, hot startups, insight from influencers, and much more. And when I say “A-list guests”, I’m not talking about celebrities. I’m talking about business and technology leaders who are changing the way that we do, think about and create value in business.

The show has featured:

The discussion with Alex Osterwalder is eye opening and full of insight for those seeking to change the way businesses organise themselves, create value and operate in the world. It’s well worth tuning in (embedded below).

This week’s interview features GE’s Chief Digital Officer, Ganesh Bell. He leads digital innovation and transformation, and is responsible for the digital solutions business and digital engagement to drive business growth. I will be discussing the nature of corporate innovation, how a market-product fit wins over a product-market fit in the enterprise, and will touch on some of the initiatives arising from the Australian Government’s #IdeasBoom. We’ll also be joined in the “Influencer’s Corner” by Guy Courtin, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.

Be sure to tune in at 11 a.m. PT/ 2 p.m. ET and remember to tweet your questions using the #DisrupTV hashtag.

Forget Data. Let’s Talk Revelation

Big Data, Strategy, Videos

I love data. I love the way that it can be collected, crushed, crunched and reported. I love its beautiful, malleable nature and the way that it sticks incongruously to information.

I particularly love the way that data can be wrestled into shape to yield an answer. Years ago, I was able to accurately predict a corporate takeover through the harvesting of different types of web data, analytics and a spot of digital snooping. But what I found was not data – or even a series of data points. What I found was a revelation.

These days I am constantly reminded of the gulf that exists between data and analysis, analysis and insight and insight and revelation. We have “fact checking” websites, big data repositories and infographics proclaiming the best practices for everything from walking dogs to the time to send emails. We are swimming in a sea of data without an insight to save us.

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We think – as marketers, or business people more generally – that data will give us the answers. But this is incorrect. It will only point us towards more questions that need to be asked. This is why switched on marketers are adapting the techniques of “growth hackers” from the startup world. Growth hackers have learned that you can use data to test, experiment and improve your marketing – and that this is a never ending cycle. A constant irritation and challenge. It’s also a necessary part of proving value to your customers.

Growth hacking puts data in its proper place. As yet another point to consider when trying to deliver commercial or social outcomes for a brand. But it’s not the only one. It’s not even the most important one.

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This great video featuring Richard Huntington, Director of Strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi makes the point that what we are seeking is not data. It’s revelation. And in too many instances we stop at data. Or thread-bare insight. Falling short of revelation. And that is doing no one any favours.

As Richard says at the end of the presentation – we have to remember which business we are in. I will leave him to remind you which that is.

When Your Dev is the Centre of Your Universe

B2B Marketing, MarketingTech, Videos, Web/Tech

I like to think that when I ran a digital agency that my team loved me. I like to think that my demands were, for the most part, not unreasonable. Or that my scoping and project planning came close enough to achievable. But I also know that my expectations would sometimes be unreasonable. Or that “going above and beyond” really did mean going to the CEO’s house.

The thing is, marketing without IT is almost impossible now. Imagine if you had to revert to faxes (what are they?). Or hand drawn mock-ups. Or “camera ready art”.

This is why marketers and technical teams need to work on better relations. We need better ways to communicate. And even just respect some professional boundaries.

Will it happen? It can. And it needs to. Because your dev is the centre of your universe.

MediaScope Blab: Australian Ad and Media Industry Round-Up

Videos

The rise of streaming social media continues to produce surprising results. We have Meerkat and Periscope putting powerful, real time streaming capabilities into our hands at the touch of a button, we have Facebook Live Video in selected release – and now, one of my new favourites, Blab.im offering a virtual, live streaming app for panel and group discussions.

But if you have tuned into a Meerkat or Periscope stream, you’re likely to find them largely one dimensional. To host and hold a stream of people, you really do need to have a level of comfort in front of the camera. Add to this the difficulty with storage and replay, then the utility value of the stream can be quite minimal.

The group format of Blab, however, has a number of benefits over the single live stream offered by Meerkat and Periscope:

  • The panel format means that the performance pressure is shared by three other participants
  • Real time discussion can take place directly rather than via text/messaging
  • Discussions can be opened out through the platform, via Twitter or messaging.

But the best thing to do is to watch a Blab in action. Here, MediaScope’s Denise Shrivell does a wrap-up of the Australian Ad and Media Industry with Jules Lund, Charlotte Valente and Seb Rennie – along with contributions from others. Usually this kind of production would take coordination, equipment, scheduling and so on – but with Blab, participants beamed in (and out) without leaving their offices. It’s fantastic to see where this may go.

Watch live conversations about topics that matter most to you

How to Make a Privacy Complaint

Privacy, Videos

When Disruptor’s Handbook and Constellation Research hosted an evening meetup recently for the Australian launch of Ray Wang’s Disrupting Digital Business book, we were hoping to get some conversation going amongst the audience. We talked all manner of disruption – from innovation to technology, big data to marketing – and everywhere in between. But it wasn’t until we hit the topic of Privacy that debate really kicked off.

It was all in. Twenty or thirty of Australia’s leading business innovators held forth in open debate. And after an hour or so, we realised we’d only scratched the surface. There was plenty more work to be done.

And while there were contrasting views and concerns, one thing was clear. We are all now subject to much greater openness – and therefore at risk of some part of our privacy being compromised. So what are we to do?

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has created a great video to explain.

Live a Rewarding Life – Pay it Forward with Annie Parker

Life, Videos

“We rise by lifting others”

Do you ever wonder what you want to be when you grow up? Have you asked this at age 20? 30? 40? 50? Beyond?

Do you look at your career, your choices and your reflection in the mirror and wonder how you have arrived where you have found yourself?

Too often we find that our choices are made for us and that we find ourselves swept along on the path of someone else’s life. How do we change this? Regain our sense of purpose? Annie Parker, co-founder of Telstra incubator, Muru-D shares her story of what it takes to live a rewarding life. It’s a talk given as part of the Do Lectures and she suggests there are four things you can do:

  1. Say no to something as a catalysing decision for a new awesome beginning
  2. …
  3. Pay it forward by helping others
  4. …

You’ll need to watch the video to learn the other two insights. It’s 16 minutes well spent on changing your life.

Mean Tweets–The Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young Tweets Back

Creativity, Customer Experience, Politics, Videos

Public figures attract a lot of bile on social media. But there is a special kind of hatred that seems to be reserved for politicians – especially female politicians. The very public campaigning against Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will certainly be remembered for the dog whistling and sexism that passed for public debate. It marked a low point in political discourse – one from which we have scarcely recovered.

It certainly seems that many in the Australian population still struggle with successful women on the public stage.

So what is a politician to to? Resort to the broadcast media? Or create their own?

South Australian Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young has taken a leaf out of US Talk Show Host, Jimmy Kimmel’s book, and has started sharing some of the more colourful – and downright rude – messages that she receives via her YouTube channel. Introducing “Pleasantries with Sarah Hanson-Young”, the senator explains:

As a federal senator, I receive a lot of correspondence. Today, I am going to share with you some of the more heartwarming messages.

What I like about this forthright approach is that, where possible, Twitter identities are shared. It’s great to see some of this kind of “feedback” get the ridicule it deserves.

But even better than that, it’s great to see some of our politicians giving some creative thought to the way that they engage with the public. If only more of them actually engaged with technology they might not pass such ill-informed legislation as the Data Retention laws – and we’d all be better off for it.

Celebrate the Stuff You Already Own

Storytelling, Videos

I never wanted to be a businessman. All I wanted was to do my craft … and climb mountains.
— Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia

Origin stories are vitally important for your business. They are vital for the way that your customers perceive and engage with you and they are vital for your employees. But the reason they are important is because they provide us all with a narrative that speaks to our sense of purpose.

Often when we think of purpose, we think of our “mission” statements – or our “vision”. But purpose goes beyond these often banal statements. Purpose speaks to our hearts not to our heads. If it is not a driving energy, then it’s only words on a page.

The challenge is that our “purpose” is hard to define.

And in many ways, this is why it is so important. It is what marks us out as unique or worthy of attention. It’s both an energy that propels us and a sense of gravity that attracts others.

Watching this video was an interesting experience. It’s not really a documentary about the clothing brand, Patagonia. It’s the story of the business’ owners and customers. It is brand storytelling at its finest. As Mitch Joel explains, this is how your brand should tell a beautiful story. And one of the things the video does well is that it shares Patagonia’s purpose. In doing so, it not only attracts an audience, it brings them into the experience of the story.

And while not all of us have the kind of budget that allows us to produce a 30 minute case study of this quality, every single business has an origin story. And telling that story can transform your business and the relationships you create around it. So I wonder, how are you telling your origin story today?

Candy Everybody Wants–Even Accountants

Smart Bloggers, Videos

Let me start with a confession.

Many years ago – a time lost in the mists – my first job was as an accountant. Actually, it was as a “trainee accountant” – I studied at night at worked by day. It was a hard slog – and it wasn’t a job that I loved. Eventually I ditched that work/study combo for the much more lucrative opportunity to make theatre and write under the auspices of a degree in the Arts (ahem). But I have always had a grudging affinity with accountants.

But I will be honest – it’s a conservative profession. So when it comes to social media and branding, accounting and accounting-related professions are behind the 8-ball. After all, we trust them with our money, our taxes and what we would consider our financial future – so we rightly expect a degree of decorum. Risk aversion. Security.

So when accounting software business, MYOB comes out with a sassy promo like this, you have to sit up and take notice.

What do you think? Are you loving your job this much?