Communities Dominate Brands

For all you blog sceptics out there

Adriana at the Big Blog Company found this great quote for all you blog sceptics out there. C'mon YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE - I even met one or two last night at the ICA where I was speaking on a panel about trends.

So here goes

We had counted Sun out, assuming that by now they would be dead or irrelevant. They’re back. I think it’s their [expletive] blogs. - a Sun Microsystem’s competitor

Background to on Sun - Red Couch says

blogging hasn’t just moved the needle for Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO told us, it’s moved the whole damned compass. The company as of April 2005 had well over 1000 blogging employees, out of 32000 employees worldwide. Sun, he points out, has always "been about leveraging networks to successfully compete with competitors like HP and IBM, which are 10 times its size".

COO Jonathan Schwartz says "It’s a community of communities". Tomi and I say yay to that.

Thanks Adriana and to Red Couch

7 mile high

From Just an online minute

AMERICA ONLINE BEGAN BETA TESTING an overhaul of its instant messaging system. The online media company hopes to add new features to its popular IM product including PC-to-PC voice and streaming video messaging capabilities, and file transfers. AOL's IM beta will eventually allow users to access real-time video, swap files, images, and other content, as well as play games. The client also features something called "IM Catcher," which groups messages into a single interface, allowing users to organize IM chats.

Dubbed "Triton," the new IM client is available through AOL's public beta test site. AOL expects to make the official version available later this year; it will replace earlier IM versions. AOL boasts 20 million users of its IM product.

Whilst at 36,000 feet Peter Bloom writes:

Subject: amazing paradigm shift at 36,000 feet... the world really is getting smaller!

I am currently 7 miles above the earth on an SAS flight somewhere over the North Sea. I am writing this email from one of the first planes to have a high speed continuous connection to the Internet. I am connected using standard wireless access an in addition to email I have 3 IM sessions running with instantaneous response and also juust executed a trade on NASDAQ (I plan to make a VoIP call later.)

Truly awesome implementation of technology ....but sadly the last haven from "the connected world" has now been obliterated. Someday we'll all take emails like this for granted but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to send one of the first ones.

Coming up Greenland!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, my dad would have said to me as a kid.

I don't smoke a pipe anymore, so I thought I would share this with you instead.

What does it all mean - this connectivity? Well I am going to mow the lawn and have a ponder on that one.

BBC Creative archive - Social Media

John Naughton writing in last weeks Observer (I know I know - I have been a little low profile this week - so I am just catching up after an avalanche of work), published an article Priceless thinking at the BBC

Essentially the BBC is going to produce a Creative Archive

The BBC describes it thus a "pioneering new approach to public access rights in digital age"

Naughton writes

The BBC - the world's greatest creator of high-quality multimedia products - has finally launched its Creative Archive. The project - first announced by former director-general Greg Dyke in August 2003, and much delayed as BBC staff grappled with the rights issues implicit in it - will allow British residents to download clips of BBC factual programmes from bbc.co.uk for non-commercial use, keep them on their PCs, manipulate and share them, thereby making the BBC archives more accessible to licence-fee payers.

The content is not available yet but the licences under which it will be provided have now been published. In the next, pilot, phase of the project the Creative Archive will make 100 hours of BBC content available.

Naughton touches the complex issues around IP and rights - but also what struck me was the BBC understanding that content - films whatever can be used and consumed in so many more interesting and peronalised ways.

That connectivity and technology enables us to do and think about doing things in ways we could not in the past. Equally the concept of access is key here.

In a recent Morgan Stanley report, The age of engagement I came across a term called social media. I think what the BBC is doing with their creative archive is very much what I would describe as social media

The BBC understands that it has to repond to the widest community to keep making itself relevant as a Public Service Broadcaster in the 21st Century.

Naughton sums up

Some years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blew the nascent educational-content business out of the water by making its courseware available for free on the web. Who would pay for content from Mickey Mouse universities when MIT's was free? By challenging the IP mania that threatens to engulf us, the Creative Archive project is doing something similar. And in the process showing us what public-service broadcasting is for.

Penetrating Penetration: phone, mobile, internet, broadband

I am growing increasingly frustrated by the misconceptions in the mainstream businesss media about penetration rates. This week again give two glaring examples by the global thought leaders, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, both with full-page stories. Let me start with how they reported.

On Monday April 25, 2005, the Financial Times ran a story "Revolution that has yet to live up tot its promise" on 3G telecoms. The FT included a graphic of "Availability and national coverage versus penetration of digital services" on UK households Q1, 2004. It stated UK mobile (2G/2.5G) phone penetration was about 86%, satellite TV about 28%, broadband about 16% and so on until 3G was about 2-3%. The FT quotes "Ofcom, and companies" as its source.

These numbers seem to be very much in line with what the other global business daily, the Wall Street Journal Europe reported today, April 29, on its full-page story "Whos going to win the living room wars?" Here the WSJ said on a table entitled "The devices we own" with the subheading Percentage of consumers in seven major Western European markets who have these devices. It says that a fixed telephone line is with 94%, any type of TV 93%, VCR 84%, mobile phone 82%, desktop PC 61%, and so on down. The WSJ quotes Forrester Research.

Both of these reports clearly talk about household penetration rates. In the case of a broadband connection or that of having a TV set, this is a valid statistic. But the numbers they mix in for mobile phones are the correct "numerical numbers" but the "definition" is wrong. Yes, UK mobile phone penetration level for mobile phones was about 84% a year ago in Q1 2004, and the European mobile phone average penetration some time early last year was 82%. But those penetration rates are based on the whole human population of those countries, not households !  The UK has about 25 million households. If you count the number of mobile phones per household, it is not 85%, it is more like 230% !!!!!  The same error is in the Western European penetration levels. It is not that mobile phones outnumber desktop PCs at a rate of 8:6, no in Western Europe mobile phones already outnumber PC:s at more than 4:1 !!

This level of inaccuracy is not nit-picking at some decimal points and tiny fractions. The error is nearly a whole order of magnitude in size !  I recognise the converging digital industries are changing fast. But those whose job it is to report on these trends should know the big picture. The world's most widely spread digital technology is not the DVD player, is not the PC or the PDA or the i-Pod; the most widely adopted technology is not an automobile, not even the TV set. The world's most predominant technology is the mobile phone, with 1.7 Billion phones in use or over 20% of the total global population already having one. In March of 2005 the UK became the 10th European country to reach 100% human penetration for mobile phones (Italy was first in Europe, Taiwan first in the world, and currently Hong Kong is the leader with 120%).

100% is not among "all households." 100% is not "among adult population". 100% penetration means there is one mobile phone for everyone, including the 6 month old baby and the 102 year old great-grandma who has lost her speech and memory. Yes, a phone for everyone. Why so many? Because the young employed have started to carry 2 phones. In the UK already 25% of the population pays for two mobile phone subscriptions. These stats and trends follow exactly the same pattern first identified in Finland back in 1998 when Finland's mobile phone penetration first shot past the fixed wireline telephone penetration rate.

We need to be clear about these numbers.

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Admen failing to engage

Published in the media section of the Guardian yesterday

Jim Hytner's article on how difficult it is for marketeers to reach consumers raises several interesting points (When the message doesn't get through, April 18) but could go further. While it is undoubtedly true that the British public are being bombarded with too much marketing information, particuarly through TV, the answer is not just to project more loudly and more clearly. It is to change the relationship between company and customer.

The real problem is that all of this marketing is "interruptive" in its nature, with the marketer trying to impose their brand on the customer and coerce a sale. This is most apparent in TV advertising, which pushes out its own idea of what brand is without engaging the potential customer. No wonder that even Andrew Robertson , chief executive of of BBDO advertising, acknoledges that TV advertising is losing its potency, fast. The reason why Apple and Tesco are doing so well, as Hytner acknoledges, is that they have learn't bbetter than most how to change this relationship. They are replacing the passive "customer base" with the active "customer community".

Alan and Tomi

Tomi Interview by Mobile Technoloy Weblog

In mobile technology weblog

Q. If you had to summarise the key message in your new book, Communities Dominate Brands, what would it be?

A. The digitally connected and empowered customer-community is a very recent phenomenon, that is now radically altering how businesses can function. Communities from bloggers to mobile phone smart mobs can turn against a brand or support its activities.

Putting in context of the other huge business impacts of such radical changes over the past 100 years as TV, credit cards, the internet etc., communities are the single biggest change in a hundred years. Only the advent of electricity had as big an effect.

But this change is very recent, the first signs became visible only two-three years ago, and the very first case studies can now be made in 2005, from which we can start to form general trends.

That is what this book is about. It is the first practical business book on how to capitalise on community power. Don't become a victim of communities by accidentally arousing them against you. Don't be left in the dustbin of history by ignoring communities. But learn now how to embrace and engage communities to your advantage. Winners in all industries over the next five years will be those who were among the first to grasp this change.

Your're such a rock star Tomi

There is a global conversation going on out there

We at SMLXL HQ like the web. In fact we love it. Especially for me, as I spent years travelling the world to Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the United States. In fact for over 4 years I spent 150 days a year on an areoplane.

Its some relief that I don't have to do that anymore. The world comes pretty much to me.

So last week in my inbox arrives a fantastic piece of research from Trendwatching. Don't subscribe? I suggest you do. These guys deliver great value. This blog is about the expansion of our thinking of the book 'Communities Dominate Brands'. And Trendwatching delivered some valuable insights into our work.

This is what they have to say

Marketing has finally become a conversation. Not, in most cases, as was intended, BETWEEN corporations and consumers (that would make too much sense), but rather a global conversation involving millions of consumers ABOUT corporations. On sites like Planetfeedback.com , thecomplaintstation.com , Epinions , About.com , on hundreds of thousands of blogs, community sites, forums, viral emails, bulletin boards, and what have you, consumers relentlessly exchange views, complaints, opinions and comments about products and services, about brands, about companies, about YOUR company.

Why now? Because they finally can. For decades, consumers have been saving up their insights and rants about the stuff they consume, simply because there were no adequate means to interact with companies, or with other consumers for that matter. No longer. These fickle, wired, empowered, informed, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC (Master in Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have a direct influence on what companies develop and produce for them.

Then if you are talking co-creation of advertising communications then have a look at Coors light , Mercedes , Mazda and Conde Nast

These companies are clearly aware that tapping into the collective intellectual capital of their customers yields great creative and 'real' content. However, let's not make the mistake to think that in the end these conversations will all be about communications and branding: how about extending this cooperation with consumers to virtually everything a corporation does, by making the customer an integral part of ALL creative and creational processes?

The there is LEGO which is allowing programmers to interact with its toy robot and develop it as a community at Mindstorm or get over to the TiVo community Where

65,000 members of the self-organized TiVo Community forum have traded ideas on 'how to convince friends and family to buy a TiVo'

On to gaming where communities modify games and are

entire new games upon themselves. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, modes, textures, levels, and story lines. They also usually take place in unique locations

Try out Desert Combat

Trend watching suggest

So, to get started, what's stopping you from setting up your own ipodlounge.com, hiltonlobby.com, virgincabin.com, ingcounter.com, saabbackseat.com, safewaysaisles.com or vodafoneconnection.com, and inviting your customers to engage in CUSTOMER-MADE goods, services and experiences? Are you ready to open up (even as an experiment) one strategy meeting, one design process, one brainstorming session to the millions of consumers who may have an expert opinion, suggestion, new business idea and so on, simply because they're your avid users, and, in the best case, true fans?

As we would argue the only number you need to grow is customer advocacy.

Now the flood gates are open

These fickle, wired, empowered, informed, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC (Master of Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have direct influence on what companies develop and produce for them.

You could always hang out at the Coverse gallery where the public make 24 second films about their sneakers.

we argue in the book that co-creation is very much part of the future, its more organic, more real, more contextual as trendwatching argue that this means

co-created goods, co-created services, co-created experiences! So, waking up to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of experts, innovators, inventors and so on outside company walls, research labs and innovation units at large corporations are increasingly NOT going it alone.

Now talking car companies there is Peugeot with its concours design project and BMW with its Customer innovation Lab

Jam to together some brands and services to get a better service this is what Paul Rademacher did by marrying data from CraigsList and Google to match house prices to specific geographic areas.

But lets cultural

Tate Britain is running a programme where people can submit the titles of works of Art hung in the galleries. You win, your title goes up next to that work of art. Its called Write your own label

The website says

Would you like to see your ideas about art on the walls of Tate Britain? We're asking visitors to write about any work of art on display at Tate Britain which especially interests them.

We'd particularly like to hear from visitors who have a special interest in the subject matter of some of Tate's paintings. Are you interested in music, fashion, botany, theology or engineering? Have you visited, or do you live near, a place shown in one of the landscapes? Have you experienced an event shown in one of the paintings?

We have all heard of Oh My News in Korea, an online citizen newspaper, well now there is a magazine JPG with a similar format

And travel, IgoUgo

And to prove that user generated content is fast trumping any kind of traditional guide, listing, or other limited overview, look no further than IgoUgo. The online travel community's 350,000 members offer what traditional guidebooks can't: hundreds of thousands of opinions on more than 4,000 destinations across the globe, plus suggestions and photos for everything from cheap eats and luxury accommodations, to must-see attractions and worthwhile day trips.

So you see, this is not theory. Its happening all around you. Our book is a small toe in the ocean of evidence out there.

Thanks to Trendwatching for doing such a great job.

Mobile phone code of conduct: 8 simple rules from Korea

Korean mobile operator KTF has published its 8 simple rules for mobile phone etiquette. They were featured in the English language web periodical Telecoms Korea in an article on April 20. Note that the "manner mode" that they talk about means turning off the ringing of the phone, we could call it "silent mode". The 8 rules are:

1. Switch to manner mode in public places.

2. Make your conversation quiet and simple.

3. Switch to manner mode in a class or meeting room

4. Ask the person you call if he or she can answer the phone at the moment before you start conversation

5. Don’t start conversation with someone who is driving. Call back later.

6. Refrain from using mobile devices around medical equipment or during a flight

7. Identify yourself when you send a text message

8. Care about others’ rights and privacy before you use camera phone. Never take pictures of others without their consent.

These are very good simple rules that we can warmly endorse

Amazon USA now has book, Amazon UK shows description

The book is starting to become available in major outlets. Amazon.co.uk now has the full description and front cover image of the book, and promises 1-2 week delivery.

Meanwhile Amazon.com the main website in the USA shows the book as hard to find, and with a very funny little typo, they show the publication date as 1930. I know Alan and I may be a bit older, but didn't notice we were quite that old ha-ha..

Of course for all who visit this blogsite, remember that the fastest delivery is directly from our publisher's website - use the link here on the top left corner of this page to order - or link via this   www.futuretext.com