Why now, why us, why in the UK.. Every Single One Of Us

The Roman philosopher Seneca said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

I have heard that thought many times in my life, expressed in perhaps slightly different ways, I remember reading it in Benjamin Disraeli's words "The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes." And somehow that kind of preparedness - being an old boy scout, be prepared and all that - and also a healthy "opportunitistic streak" have guided my life.

So, now we have this Every Single One of Us initiative (to create a new way to communicate) driven by our friend jMac Jonathan MacDonald, who read our book and was energized by it..  Wonderful. And yes, he is collecting a wonderful group of talented people to support his initiative (including obviously both Alan and me).

WHY HERE WHY NOW AND WHY US IN THE UK?

But there are many skeptics who think, why now? Why here? Why us? Perhaps this has been tried a million times and failed. Or perhaps this is not the right place and this should be born in Silicon Valley - as a natural outgrowth of the internet revolution? Or perhaps, as it is so strongly a mobile related matter, it should be discovered in Finland and Sweden? Or then, some more astute readers of our blog will know that the current digital leadership is in South Korea and mobile telecoms leadership is in Japan - so should this not be invented and launched in that part of Asia, on the Japan-Korea axis?

Good points. Well, first - remember what Thomas Carlysle said (this is turning out to be another of Tomi's collections of fave quotations apparently) - "Every new opinion, at its starting, is by definition a minority of one." If there is a genuine invention - then yes, every genuine invention starts off as an absolute minority of one. You start to talk about it, and convince others (or not). I've gone through that process many times too, and have had many friends go through that, and the initial bewilderment, both in "can this really be my invention" and then "hasn't everybody already thought of this" and then, inevitably "why can't everybody see that it is so" - when meeting resistance to the new idea.

So regardless of where it might happen, and who might do it, this kind of thought - like jMac's Every Single One Of Us - was bound to be discovered, invented, created. Think of young people today. Alan's son Joseph knew how to Google before he even knew how to write. Our friend Ajit Jaokar's 5 year old son is already planning a company to build robots. Kids today, they love their phones and they will communicate in different ways. If it was not for someone like jMac, certainly someone would look at the current way of communicating - and how absurd current advertising is - and invent a better way.

So someone was bound to do it, and sooner rather than later. Its a new mass media, mobile is, and that has enabled fresh thinking in this space, to think outside of the box..

But yes, why here (as in the UK, obviously, not Hong Kong..)

Good question. Very good question. First, we are looking at a merger point of three very distinct disciplines or artforms or sciences or industries, however you want to consider them. On the one hand there is advertising. Then there is mobile telecoms. And then there is communication. I think the advertising and mobile industries are rather obvious to all, but if jMac wants to use the Every Single One Of Us movement to invent a better way of communication, then lets briefly also look at communication.

COMMUNICATION

Communication is far more than advertising, it is far more than mobile telecoms. Telecoms is short for telecommunications, ie communications over a (long) distance. But there is more to communications than telecoms. We can communicate via written postcard or letter, it is communciations, but not telecoms (that is obviously when we exclude email ha-ha). We communicate in the school classroom, we communicate every day privately at home, at our job, in the playground, etc. Not just with words, but also with our gestures. So communication very legitimately includes teaching, the theater, individual human interaction etc, not just that done by technical means using a mobile phone. And not only communicatoin for commercial purposes like advertising. And Every Single One Of Us wants to create a new way to communicate.

Yes, it is looking at commercial communications (advertising) and focuses on the mobile opportunity (as the 7th mass media channel) but also understand, this goes to the roots of how we communicate. Like Alan Moore says, engagemnet marketing goes beyond advertising. It can be so much more, like interactive multiplayer gaming to involve a community like we discussed with the Tohato campaign in Japan, or an enhanced reality experience like the current Ford Ka campaign in Europe. And that's just engagement marketing (as being a more broad term than advertising). But now we are seeking to discover something even more broad (perhaps). A new way to communicate.

So communications involves a very broad area of disciplines and sciences and arts, from pop music to the theatre to television to the internet to the classroom teacher to parliamentary debates to postal letters and postcards to telegraphs, carrier pidgeons, morse code, the aldis lamp and semaphore (flag communications) and smoke signals. Obviously some of those are a bit archaic by now, ha-ha..

I really am not a deep expert on this broad a topic, as communications. So please forgive me for perhaps over-simplifications on this part, but I'd argue that for the leadership and pinnacle of education, there is plenty of great university tradition in many of the old European countries. Yes, there is Oxford and Cambridge in the UK but plenty of historic and respected universities in France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain etc. And especially during the second half of the last decade, the USA higher education system has become a leader in this field. More recently several Asian universities have also joined the elite class. On this score (of communication) there is plenty of leadership around the world.

If we take it to parliamentary (or governmental) debate and discussion, then certainly the British Parliament has been at the forefront for this, not only in bringing more democratic discussion (communciation) but also televising it and letting the nation observe the democratic process. But again, democracy is not in any way uniquely British (nor even invented by them, ha-ha, we gotta thank the Greeks for starting this process a couple of millenia ago). But certainly the UK has been a leader in developing this form of communication and has a rich heritage for example of academic debate at University. The USA has a vibrant academic debate environment to train future politicians, attorneys and television personalities but not that many countries actually have a heritage of academic debate. Canada has it, and I think most countries of the former British Empire have it, but for example in my home country, Finland, we didn't have any organized inter-collegiate (or high school level) debate activity when I was growing up. There is a leadership level here that goes deeper into the meaning of communication, of argument, of persuasion, of evidence, of cross-examination, of analysis, of conclusions; of debate. A refined form of disciplined communications.

Again, I don't mean this is exclusively British, I remember debating a Japanese team when I myself was a college level debater at Clarion University in Pennsylvania, so yes, there is academic debate in other countries too, but this is by no means a universal phenomenon. Yet it is a powerful environment to refine communications.

There is a history of public speaking. Yes, we have orators in every country, of course, but who practise this in school and do it in public? We all know of Hyde Park and its Speaker' Corner. How many countries have a public space, that invites anyone to come and speak to the public? Or at least one, that is reasonably known (not to mention, so famous that tourists show up to see it).

Again, this is not exclusively British. But it gives a strong foundation for another form of communciation. I tend to think, when I see conference speakers, that the American, Canadian, British and Irish speakers tend to outshine the other nationalities, not because they speak English natively, but because they tend to have the technique of speaking so much more refined. Start with an engaging opening, a joke, an anecdote, a statistic, a personal story; keep repeating your theme, end on something that ties it back to your opening, etc. They tend to be far more comfortable speaking in public, stepping beyond the podium, etc. It is not that other nationalities cannot speak well - but that especially the Americans, Canadians, British and Irish, tend to shine in public speaking. They have that heritage and training, all through their school years, speech class and speaking assignments.

I could go on and on. But I'll try to keep this short. Then there is theatre. Here we now do have to start to narrow it down. There is Broadway yes, there is the London West End yes, but how many other major global centers for staging plays. Where dozens of major plays run every day. And where do the major stars appear when the play tours the world. In London and New York. That is it. Clearly if its theatre, we have two main centers for the world, in this type of communication.

How about pop music? Now its even more obviously only the UK and USA. Yes, there are occasional surprise global pop artists from any country, but the consistent countries whose stars appear on essentially every pop chart in every reasonably open market - they are the USA and the UK.

Same for TV, the two dominant countries of global television content are the USA and UK. Movies, heavily USA-centric, but there is the James Bond franchise and several UK based global movie hits every year. Bollywood and the Hong Kong movie industries, which make more movies than Hollywood, do not produce global hits on a regular basis.

If we want to go through history, we'll find that the UK (and the USA) had very major contributions to most of the inventions and innovations in communciation technologies - going back to Robert Hooke, who first described a Semaphore Line of optical communcation towers (a pre-cursor to the telegraph) in 1684 to the use of Semaphore flags in naval warfare (one of the keys to the British victory at Trafalgar), to the invention of the Aldis lamp by yes, Authur Aldis, another Brit. Television was invented by the Scot John Logie Baird. Obviously the USA has contributed to the technical inventions in communications from Samuel Morse's telegraph to Alexander Graham Bell (disputed) invention of the telephone to Motorola's Dr Martin Cooper, attributed with inventing (or leading the team that created) the modern mobile phone.

My very superficial survey of communication leadership does place global communication excellence - when considered broadly in many areas of communcation - in two countries, USA and the UK.

If you want to invent a new way to communicate, it is probably more likely to happen in one of the countries that has the current global leadership, where the global talent tends to collect.

ADVERTISING

But then there is the advertising angle. This is a lot easier. The global leadership (sorry to all my UK friends) tends to be "Madison Avenue" ie the offices of the giant advertising agencies in New York. But the next most powerful and influential center for advertising is undeniably London. And these two are miles ahead of all other advertising centers in the world. If you have a career in advertising, you want to work in London or New York, that is your ticket to success. Again we have the USA and UK in the global established lead in this area.

MOBILE

And here is the clincher. If we want to invent a new way to communicate, and include the areas of advertising and use a mobile phone, then we do need to also include leadership in mobile telecoms.

And here comes the killer argument of why now, why us, and why in the UK. My consultancy TomiAhonen Consulting tracks the maturity of mobile telecoms markets. We have the new numbers for the end of 2008.

While the USA did move up on the index, from 24th to (tied for) 21st, the USA still lags in mobile telecoms while the UK is one of the leaders. Not the leader, obviously (Japan is). And not even the European leader in mobile (which is currently Italy). But the UK is the sixth most advanced mobile telecoms market in the world. And the USA is ranked for a tied 21st. The lag between the UK and USA is more than a year and a half. In other words, the US mobile telecoms market, is about as mature today December 2008, as the UK market was in June of 2007 (note that was before the iPhone launched..). (And Japan is slightly more than a year ahead of the UK in mobile telecoms, nearly three years ahead of the USA).

First, who are the countries ahead of the UK in mobile maturity? Japan, South Korea, Italy, Austria and Taiwan. Japan is a major centre for advertising yes, but not that powerful country for a wide range of communciation skills. South Korea is recently growing strongly in areas of their universities and their pop culture, but still, they are not a global center for leadership in advertising and neither really for communication. Italy, Austria, are yes, cultural and historical major European countries with rich heritage in communication arts and skills. But in the advertising space, not nearly on par with UK and USA. Taiwan falls seriously behind the other four in areas of leadership in advertising and communications.

The UK had the best happenstance, an accident in timing, of the right elements coming together, at the right time. Yes, the USA has most of it, but very critically, they are still experimenting with mobile. Look at their fascination with the iPhone and the amazing use of SMS by Obama. Nothing new there for Europeans and Asians, and certainly not amazing to the UK public. The previous British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, used occasions of interacting with the public using SMS text messages. This is nothing new to the UK market.

YES IT IS HAPPENING

So yes, this was bound to happen anyway. The kids today, Generation C, the "digital natives" would have invented new ways to communicate anyway. It just happens, that some youthful enthusiasts, ha-ha, led by the most youthful and energetic Jonathan MacDonald, have discovered that here is an opportunity.

There is sound reason why this idea did not grow out of Finland or Sweden. Not out of South Korea or Japan. And even yes, not out of Silicon valley or the USA. The right elements, in the right mix, came together now, in the UK.

And where do we see evidence of that? Look at Blyk. The first fully advertising-funded "engagement marketing" company. Founded by a pair of Finns (Pekka Ala-Pietila and Antti Ohrling) - they came to Britain to launch it. And they were helped in that journey to create an engagement marketing based company, by two Brits, our Alan Moore and yes, obviously Jonathan jMac MacDonald. It makes sense that this insight and inspiration and innovation is now happening here, right now.

So yes, its real. Every Single One Of Us is happening. It will (at least initially) find a lot of inspiration and leadership from those who are very close to the action, ie many UK based mobilists, advertisers, communicators. But it is a global phenomenon. I'm here in Hong Kong preaching the story. It will spread and it will evolve. Alan supports it in Britain and many of our friends are already on board. And you can be part of it. This is not a fantasy, this is not an illusion. It is not inconceivable that a new way of communication is now being invented "by us" right now, and being led by Britain. It is because the foundations need a strong heritage in communciation leadership, in advertising excellence, and in mobile maturity. Those came together in the UK, now. It is no accident, it is not luck. As Seneca said "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

PS - the Every Single One Of Us movement is extremely dynamic, reflecting jMac's personality. So there is already an event in London on 15 January so you might be interested in that.