It’s been a long time between drinks, but this video from comedian, Rob Bukey necessitated a return. It is a rap song/video about Newcastle, Australia – and captures many of its aspects (location, economy, local government, leisure) beautifully. Great fun.
Light Up Someone’s Life This Holiday with Moore’s Cloud
Admit it. You’re more than a little geeky. There is a drawer somewhere in your house with old mobile phones, cameras, and pieces of technology. For all I know, you probably have a Newton gathering dust under your desk.
If this sounds like you, then you may just want to add Light to your Holiday wishlist this year. The Kickstarter project turns a stylish 52 LED light into a Linux powered, web-connected device that can be controlled by your iPhone or iPad or from the other side of the world via the web interface.
It’s “illumination as a service” – or the “internet of things” come to life. There’s only 15 days in the Kickstarter campaign to go – and it needs your support. Choose a pledge package and get behind this innovative startup. It’s even been named CNET’s Kickstarter project of the week. Sign up for a package – you’ll be glad you did.
https://vimeo.com/moorescloud/colorwheel
And while I like this video, I reckon they should have gone with a different soundtrack. More like this one!
Dell Launches Social Business Services
Much lauded for its own social business transformation, Dell is now taking its social media expertise to market, launching a new range of offerings through a collaboration between its marketing and services teams.
Targeting enterprise and medium sized business customers, the first offerings provide:
- Education – best practice seminars for a range of industries
- Advisory – strategy and optimisation
- Listening and insights – social media monitoring and reporting
- Listening Command Center – on-premise build out of a social media listening command center
Responding to the chaotic social media space, Maribel Sierra, Director Social Media Services at Dell explained that Dell’s customers are struggling to go beyond Facebook and Twitter. Customers are asking for Dell’s expertise in choosing tools, building training and scaling social media within the enterprise.
But it is not all about social media maturity. Customers are also wanting to understand how and where to get started with enterprise social media and how to gain executive support for social programs.
Pilot customers like Kraft Foods, Clemson University and Aetna have helped prove out the Dell model over the last year – and the range of services are expected to grow with demand. Right now, there are over 20 courses available through the Dell Social Media University – and they’re delivered either face to face or virtually.
These new offerings mark a decisive shift for Dell, providing a strategic services offering at the pointy end of customer experience for their customers. Working in this trusted space will keep Dell top of mind across their customers executive ranks. This will bring Dell into direct competition with organisations like IBM, Salesforce and the big consulting firms.
As 2013 begins to take shape, the future of social media innovation looks set to play out within the enterprise. On the customer side, expect more services firms to flood in as enterprises begin to transform social engagement into business value.
Reduce Marketing Risk with ADMA’s Compliance Hub
With recent changes to Australia’s privacy legislation, marketers now face a slew of regulatory responsibilities or risk significant fines of up to $1.1 million. Marketers and advertisers have been given 15 months to comply with the recent changes – and the Association for data-driven marketing and advertising (ADMA) has launched the ADMA Compliance Hub to assist in the process.
Part of the ADMA Knowledge Lab, the site contains:
- News and updates
- Video and whitepapers
- Categorised forms, best practices
- Webinars and guides
Covering a broad range of marketing compliance topics, the Compliance Hub is a welcome resource for time poor marketers. A quick review of the Online, Mobile & Social section revealed checklists for cloud computing, a group buying code of conduct and a model social media policy. And while the data and privacy section is top of mind for Australian marketers at present, sections on competitions, voice and email will come in handy as 2013 marketing activity shifts into high gear.
For companies new to the Australian marketplace, the Compliance Hub will be a welcome resource. Access is available to all advertisers and marketers until February 2013 – and then it will be closed off and available only to ADMA members.
The Many Colours of Digital Disruption
From almost any angle, businesses are under pressure. Connected customers are out-flanking business efforts to control the flow of goods and services and manage relationships in an increasingly connected economy. The global economy continues to struggle under the weight of misguided policies, sovereign debt and an entitled corporatocracy that aims to “maximize the status quo” . As Seth Godin points out, this industrial focus on our economy has a limited future:
Today’s industrialists define our economy, but they offer very little promise for tomorrow. They’ve long bought ads to polish their image, but mostly work to alter the culture in ways that will ensure they’ll get just a little bit more yield out of each of us.
But as Mary Meeker’s 2012 recap on the state of the internet suggests, disruption is the new normal. And when it comes to digital, disruption comes in many colours.
Five Impacts of Digital Media
Writing on the invention of the printing press, Elizabeth Eisenstein suggested there were five impacts that transformed society of the time. In 2012, we too can see these impacts playing out in our personal and professional lives (and all the spaces in-between):
- Experts coming under pressure from new voices who are early adopters of new technology
- New organisations emerging to deal with the social, cultural and political changes
- There is a struggle to revise the social and legal norms — especially in relation to intellectual property
- The concepts of identity and community are transformed
- New forms of language come into being
- Educators are pressured to prepare their students for the newly emerging world
Nielsen Social Media Report 2012 signals the end to the industrial age of marketing
Showcasing each of these five impacts, the Nielsen Social Media Report for 2012 signals not only that “social media has come of age”, but that digital has truly arrived as a force that can no longer be ignored. Once, the staunchest defender of an analogue ratings system, Nielsen’s own transformation confirms that the industrial age of marketing is closing and that a new era has arrived.
Marketers are not only under pressure to respond to the mega trends outlined above – they must also address the five pillars of enterprise disruption which are playing havoc with business strategy and engagement tactics. These days marketers must consider:
- A strategy of mobile only, not mobile first: Not only are mobile technologies different in form and shape. They are taking over our patterns of adoption and consumption. With mobile devices already outselling PCs in India and China, it is expected that this change will impact Australia, the US and Europe in 2014. With long lead times and a dearth of digital skills within organisations, marketers will need to move now to serve their connected consumers who prowl the digital landscape. And rather than thinking mobile first, marketers need to think mobile only
- Social is mobile: Mobility is not only an issue for interruption – or even permission based marketing. It is an issue for social engagement platforms. App usage now accounts for more than a third of social networking time. There is still significant space for growth – and marketers will need to understand how this mobile+social dimension impacts the customer experience
- Social TV is disrupting broadcast: While the focus is currently on Twitter as a social TV enablement platform, this is an area ripe for disruption. Just as publishers were slow to respond to digital and are now facing significant business model challenges, broadcast networks have also been slow to invest, experiment and learn from social technologies. This has opened the door to innovative startup who will continue to outpace the industrial age broadcasters
- The buyer’s journey has changed forever: The marketing funnel as a concept is over 100 years old. In a digital world, its linear process is also a mark of the industrial marketing era. It’s time for marketers to re-cast the marketing funnel for consumer engagement.
Download the Nielsen report and let me know what you think. Will it change the way you plan and execute your marketing efforts in 2013?
Disruption is the New Normal – The Internet @ December 2012
There are few trend reports that generate the kind of excitement that Mary Meeker is able to elicit. The well known partner at VC group Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers has just released a year-end update to her 2012 internet trends presentation. It is an 88 slide information overload that will provide plenty to ponder during your holiday break.
There are, however, some key meta trends that can be expanded upon:
- Mobile computing adoption is accelerating. As previously noted, the use of mobile phones to consume internet services and content is accelerating – with western countries lagging the kind of adoption levels seen across Asia Pacific. While mobile computing has surpassed desktop computing in countries like India and China, the US is playing catchup – with 29% of US adults now owning a tablet or eReader
- Disruption is the new normal. Almost every industry, product category and service is under threat. The shift to digital as characterised by the five pillars of enterprise disruption are highlighted throughout the report. Formerly dominant players are struggling to adapt as new entrants sweep through, claiming markets and customers with imaginative solutions to old problems. Fuelled by “fearless and connected” entrepreneurs and consumers, the magnitude of disruption will be unprecedented
- Capital chases opportunity. In the rush to re-imagine this connected future, capital will flow – and flow quickly – towards those businesses exhibiting business model innovation. And where capital flows, expertise follows. Look to Asia Pacific and to South America for emerging and fast moving opportunities.
Is Mobile Working For You?
At the beginning of the year, digital traffic on mobile devices was sitting at about 5%. This was a small but important segment – but very few websites were optimised for mobile devices. And those that were offered slimmed down functionality. Even Facebook was slow to deliver on a mobile experience.
But through the year, mobile web usage continued to grow. Even on the ServantofChaos.com blog, we are seeing about 25% of our traffic coming via mobile devices (almost exclusively iPhone and iPad). These statistics appear to be consistent for other websites and represents a significant challenge for brands who continue to struggle with managing their digital presence. Indeed, Cisco’s Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2011-2016 indicates that Australian mobile data traffic will almost double in 2013. And by way of comparison, look at the rates for fixed IP traffic (ie non-mobile).
Respond now to the challenge of digital engagement
How do we respond to the challenges of digital content? While this rapid change in web behaviour and usage has taken many by surprise, we do not need to navigate these changes on our own. My recent report on digital disruption outlines some of the trends and the lessons that we can take away from the burgeoning digital and mobile revolution that has already taken place in Asia Pacific. This disruption is two-fold:
- Businesses must embrace and engage with their connected consumers via social channels. A significant proportion of mobile traffic is generated via social media. From “checkins” to product reviews, price validation or even basic product research, connected consumers are transforming the customer relationship. To understand this transformation, brands must understand the 5 Ds of Consumer Engagement.
- Rather than thinking “mobile first”, businesses need to think “mobile only”. The shift to mobile is a mega trend that is linked not to business per se, but to patterns of human behaviour. Our patterns of consumption are shifting from a single, stationary device like a desktop PC, to a second or third screen device that is always on, always connected. Business leaders must begin this transformation now or open the door to more agile competitors.
Lessons for the small business and independents
In many ways, a blog operates like a small, independent business. It has its own audiences – its own focus and a charter of engagement. When I moved ServantofChaos.com to a new design and platform, a key part of the decision making process was to address the trends that I was seeing. And while continuing analytics information combined with the trends and statistics reported reinforce this decision, I’m interested in individual points of view.
What do YOU think?
Are you a mobile device user?
Have you considered mobile as part of your digital strategy? If not, why?
Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week
By now you will have seen a bunch of prediction articles for 2013 and trend documents looking back over the last year (or at least the last 11 months). I will endeavour to avoid these and focus on must-read articles that will kick start your thinking and not make you wonder off into future space or revisionism. Read on!
- When we are hard at work delivering on our business as usual targets, it can sometimes be hard to view your brand from the outside-in. While many turn to focus groups for this type of activity, sometimes an alternative approach is more fruitful. Drew McLellan suggests that your marketing strategy could do with an outside audit.
- And speaking of delivering on your day job, Scott Monty asks what happens when the pressure of content creation becomes too much. If content marketing is accelerating, then it is going to get a whole lot more serious.
- Craig Davis is pumping out some great posts on his new blog. Here he asks do you know what an idea is?
- Following this theme. Eaon Pritchard challenges us to think about what happens when an idea is strong, the creative is good but the strategy fails?
- And finally, something a little more introspective. Alex Lickerman investigates our sense of autonomy and its link to happiness. A great lunchtime read!
From Big Data Science to Big Data Action
From the dawn of civilisation through to the year 2003, Google calculates that humans have produced 5 exabytes of data. That’s a lot of stone tablets. But with the explosion of mobile devices, 3G and 4G networks and social networks, we now produce 5 exabytes of data every two days. That means that every photo you upload to Flickr or Facebook, every video you share with friends on YouTube or Vimeo and every one of the billions of tweets broadcast on Twitter is contributing to the avalanche of data.
But add to this the fact that each of these items comes with contextual data. At the same time that you update your profile or publish a photo, you may also be sharing your geolocation, your likes and preferences, your upstream and downstream behaviours, and your attitude to topics (based on sentiment). You may also be sharing your trust network of on and offline friends.
And this is just the tip of the big data iceberg.
The rise of big data is a blessing and a curse for CMOs
While analytics have been available to businesses for decades, but it has largely been the domain of business analysts and researchers. The rise of big data now places analytics firmly in the marketers court. Earlier in the year, a CMO Council and SAS report indicated that only 26% of marketers leverage customer data and analytics to improve decisions, targeting and personalisation.
The blessing of big data is that it is readily available to most organisations in the form of structured business data and the publicly available unstructured data coming from social networks. The curse is that in-house skills and experience with big data is scarce – with a number of marketers now looking to bolster their teams with big data scientists and data analysts.
Marketers don’t need data they need action
It’s not data scientists that marketers need, however. Already we are seeing software vendors emerging who are able to tap structured and unstructured data sources to produce business-ready dashboards. Mapped to best practice business processes, these dashboards and analytic tools promise to release marketers from the fear-inducing data tsunami that looms on the horizon.
Platform players such as Anametrix, for example, transform the science of data into actionable business knowledge for key business processes. This means you can spend less time and resources understanding the data and its various relationships, and focus instead on making decisions that impact the top and bottom lines of your business.
A great example of what can be achieved is the BrandWatch US Electoral Compass. Drawing on Twitter data and press discussion generated since July 2012, the compass matches structured information (location, policies and dates) with unstructured information (tweets, sentiment etc) to reveal the topics that are important to American voters. Now, this is not data from focus groups – it’s stated intention as revealed via status updates, commentary and attitude.
And as business analytics packages get better at mapping business flows, these reporting systems will become ever more granular. They promise to revolutionise the way that businesses engage with their customers – and that will bring another set of challenges for CMOs. The question is – are you ready for this new form of customer engagement?
Hey Sexy Lady – It’s Servant of Chaos Style
It’s that time of year … projects are being finalised for the holiday rush, colleagues are moving on to new roles or new employers and everyone is about ready to let off a little steam. But what happens when a christmas party gets a little out of hand? I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing plenty of real life Gangnam Style videos emerging over the coming weeks.
But if you can’t wait to see what the Twitterverse serves up, you can go ahead and make your own. Thanks to the JibJab folks, you can star in your very own Gangnam Style video.
Of course, that video can also star your friends, your boss or even your partner. Share it around, sexy lady.
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!