lead/marke | ralf schwartz

A Client's Great Question: "What's more important? Innovation, Engagement, Agility?"

On other occasions I have already said that my answer to an or-question is almost always 'both'. (This has also been stated here lately: "When given a choice... take both!".)

Based on my portfolio definitions of Business Innovation

"The development of distinctive business models, market, brand, product and service innovations - based on the lead/marke Informal Markets Matrix."

and Brand Engagement

"Brand experiences & involvements, inspiring individuals that passionately the classic campaign ideally becomes redundant."

those two are dependant upon each other.

Via true Innovation you create great engagements and via inspiring Engagement you (ideally) co-create your next Innovation.

Some still try to mask adaptation and incremental innovation with above average brand engagements - and then blame their creative agencies for below average successes. This may work for a few months, a campaign life cycle, a quarterly report, but not in the long run.

People are able to judge the difference between true innovation, and engagements derived from that, versus the superficial advertising, contact and reach driven trials of traditional industries, agencies, and thinking.

To become truly engaging you must re-invent, if not innovate, the product and the brand, respectively. That you may - by the way - call authenticity.

How to launch engaging solutions if they are not grounded in the product or brand itself? How to launch relevant innovation if they are not born out of a dialog with the individuals out on the streets or in the web?

Agility? Same! Innovation is Engagement is Communication:

"First of all the brand inspires the corporation. Communication is a solution, not a distraction. The brand is content provider and curator."

How to tear them apart? You cannot. You should not. First of all the brand inspires the corporation - not the audience, or target groups, or consumer.

The corporation must live the brand. Every employee, every touchpoint must live the brand. "Notably the interpersonal brand experiences are the most impressive ones". And 'living the brand' means 'acting like the brand as a personality, as a character would act'.

Perhaps the most simple answer to the client's above question is:
Brand's Key to the Top Spot in the Individual's Mind is Masterly Balancing the Tripod of Innovation, Engagement, and Agility!

Note: All quotes are taken from the lead/marke presentation.

Mobile Engagement: "How the iPhone Could End Up In Second Place"

"Here are the US mobile web traffic figures for iPhone OS and Android, getting ready to collide: Android, on its way up; iPhone, on its way down. So when will Android overtake the iPhone? Try next month."

Via Marcus Bösch. Via gizmodo.com.

If in doubt, do not think about the 2 and who wins - think about the guys at the bottom of the graph!

lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "This Little Piggy"

(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

As Jerry Garcia once said, "You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best. You want to be the only ones who do what you do." That quote was part of Rule #24 in Alan Webber's inspiring Rules of Thumb book, and partly inspired this cartoon (except I played with toes, not thumbs). 

The vast majority of innovations launched each year are "me too's". It's very tempting to drive by the rear view mirror, with your eyes on the competition rather than on the consumer. I blogged a few months ago that companies can be classified either as Rule Makers, Rule Followers, or Rule Breakers. Most companies duke it out amongst themselves as Followers, trying to gain share against the market leader by playing the rules of the market leader. 

When I worked at Nestle ice cream, we acted as Rule Maker in launching a new "Slow Churned" technology that dramatically improved the taste of low fat ice cream. Unilever followed quickly with "Double Churned", based on the same technology. Because Unilever didn't have the same R&D investment, the Unilever launch was more efficient, even though they weren't first. Both strategies have their pros and cons. 

However, the worst position is to be a timid number three or four. Yet many companies jump on the bandwagon of a new idea only when the presense of competition has endorsed the idea. The thinking is that is must be a good idea because everyone else is doing it. 

A few companies like Unilever excel at fast following (they call it "stealing with pride"), but most companies that consider themselves fast followers are actually slow and timid followers. 

The real opportunity is to be the Rule Breaker and change the game entirely. Skinny Cow took the challenger brand approach, launching tasty lowfat ice cream sandwiches that attracted a cult following. Skinny Cow fanatics identified themselves, not with the lowfat ice cream category, but with Skinny Cow. Skinny Cow generated so much value that Nestle ultimately paid a premium to acquire them. Rule makers recognize the value that rule breakers create. The slow followers rarely create value at all. 

Instead of obsessing about market share, think market creation. Become "the only ones who do what you do".

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Business Innovation: 'The More You Know' > Creativity, Design, and Design Thinking

Via youmightfindyourself.

Innovation & Engagement: Creating Time for Consumers, not Stealing it

Having spent some time in a waiting loop lately, I recognized how much time we waste as doctor's patients, in airport and cinema waiting lines, car repair shops, in waiting lines before cash decks, in banks, post offices, and bakery shops.

We all got acquainted to that, or? But why? Why do we accept that - more or less?

Why do all those service providers (in the broadest sense) do not think about that? Why do all those service providers do steal our time?
We all know how glad we are if we find an exception to the rule. How glad we stay there and become very loyal. And spent more time, consume more, buy more, talk about it more positive.

Why do we do not get more services around saving - or even creating - time for us? Why do they all keep stealing it? It would be so easy.

All they would have to do is to Plug.Play.Win-Win! with us.

lead/marke NET: Adrian Ho > "Gates for Modern Brands"

(lead/marke NET proudly features Adrian's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

One of the most important strategies that brands use to create desire is to erect “gates;” barriers that its customers must pass through in order to gain access to its products or services. In the past, these gates were things that required “traditional status” in order to pass. For example, your birth or the family that you were born into has long been a gate for admission to Oxbridge which in turn is a gate for a job at places like the BBC. Wealth is a gate for many brands whose products are simply out of reach for regular people. Other traditional gates are your social circle, which ASW plays upon, your taste or discernment and your intelligence (Mensa).

By and large, traditional gates are things that you can’t change. They’re things that you either have or you don’t, they can’t be earned or achieved very easily, and therefore don’t require effort or achievement on your part.

However, the gates of today are quite different. These tend to be things that almost anyone can acquire and achieve, as long as you’re prepared to put in the effort. H&M has a gate of physical fitness. It’s extremely hard to wear their clothes if you aren’t slim. Video games have gates of dexterity. ATI, the video card manufacturer, has created (possibly unwittingly) a gate of knowledge through having a completely incomprehensible numbering system for its various models, and web companies often create gates of skill through closed betas available only to power users.

I think there are a couple of interesting themes here for me. The first is that our collective fascination with all things social and digital, generally leads us towards advocating open systems and open brands. We try to make our brands as transparent and accessible as possible, yet by doing so we could actually be damaging their overall appeal.

The second is that the democratization of gates feels like an area ripe for creativity. Because a gate has the dual role of keeping you out as well as keeping you in, gates that require effort but which are symbols of achievement can be very powerful. (The Boston Marathon is a great example of a brand that has a gate that operates this way.) Erecting gates that enable people to accomplish things that they never thought possible could be an extremely powerful strategy for some brands.

Adrian is founding partner of Zeus Jones a branding company believing actions speak louder than words and that modern brands are defined by what they do not what they say. He speaks (and writes) regularly about non-communications based models for marketing & branding. @adrianho

Q: Should I Listen or Not Listen to Consumers? A: Both!

As almost always in (business) life the answer to an or-question is 'both'. Listening has always been at the heart of the brand. That brands didn't really do it for the last 50 years does not prove it wrong.

You just have to decide, if you want to be an average brand, corporation, manager - or if you want to lead the pack - with potential to become the next Apple. Okay, let us be realistic.

Listen

Listening is one of businesses' core competencies. In the old days you listened via market research, via elaborate studies, via the marketing director's wife and kids, via huge temporal distances (every month, every 6 months). You wanted to collect enough people saying you are right.
(These processes are one reason for our existing problems in the car industry, in telecommunications, banking, nuclear and other powers. Not listening, but pretending to have understood.)

Today you are able to listen in real-time. You are able to listen to every single individual talking to or about you on the net.
Listening ain't difficult any more. You just have to do it. Now!

Understand

But while listening you will face the next challenge: understanding what people are talking about! Understanding what they are talking about - and what they want to tell you.

They are talking about their new independence, their individuality, their impatience. They are talking about networking, collaboration, cocreation, sharing, playing. They are talking about dialog and conversations. They are talking about and at eye level.

And they want to tell you, that you have to adapt to their world, to their time, their needs and wants. That you have to adopt their behaviour, their way of communicating, their way of outgrowing themselves.

Act

They want you to act! Stop talking. Stop making sense! Embrace change. Embrace the future. Change the Game.

Don't Listen

But do it because you want to. Don't do it, because they tell you.

They want to be surprised by you. They want to be inspired. This will only work, if you are ahead of them. If you do not listen to them, do not wait for them - but lead them.

They want to follow you - if you are truly you, if they believe you are authentic. If they believe you share their beliefs, their wants and needs.

Both

To become distinctive you must listen more.
To become disruptive you must listen less.
To be loved you need to do both.

lead/marke NET: Helge Tenno > "Product Relationship and Marketing Relationship"

(lead/marke NET proudly features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

Products have always been important in peoples lives. Most of the stuff we own and talk about is stuff we have purchased. There is a deep and profound relationship between people and a lot of their stuff.

Unfortunately it’s easy to get the impression that this relationship hasn’t been the focus of marketing, which has spent most of its energy on positioning, availability and sales promotion. To some extent one can suggest that marketing has ignored the existing relationship between people and their products, and instead built it’s own marketing relationship, different from the product’s and built on a different set of values.

This has led marketing and products apart, and often created a cleft between them. This cleft has been further forced by the traditional media mindset where it has been impossible for companies to connect with their audience and participants, where media has become an obstacle, a superfluous middle man, where the marketing and the advertising has become messages – not exchanges.

(And one might also suggest that where the product relationship is based on personal and individual narratives, the marketing relationship is based on a generic and artificial narrative)

There are two negatives here, the first one is that marketing is set on creating its own relationship – ignoring the really valuable one already in place between people and products. The other is the traditional communications landscape, which is increasing this distance between the marketing relationship and the product relationship.

Luckily the shift that has been going on for the last four years aims at correcting this. Where marketing changes from focusing on its own agenda to enforcing the values set by the product. Where we are seeing focus moving away from messages and to exchanges and relationships. Which brings marketing and products back together again. Creating a better environment for products, people, companies and the relationship between them.

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. @congbo

Brand Engagement: Die Marke und ihr Fan - Freund oder Feind?

Ein Beitrag für den werbeblogger, bei dem ich Mitglied der Redaktion bin:

"Schon in meiner Jugend hatte ich Probleme mit dem Konzept 'Fan'. Mir kam es seitens des Fans extrem übertrieben (im Negativen wie im Positiven) vor, was man so veranstaltete, wenn man sich als 'Fan' von etwas oder jemandem outete, engagierte, gerierte. Entsprechend ging man mir seitens der Unternehmen, Marken, Stars und C-Lebrities zu gleichgültig oder zu euphemistisch mit dem 'Fandom' um.

In den letzten Monaten und Jahren nun stolpert man auf der Social Media Autobahn allerorten über Friends, Fans, Follower, Badges und so weiter (es ist andernorts bereits genug zu Definition und Abgrenzung gesagt).
Dies vor allem im Zusammenhang mit der manchmal an Verzeiflung grenzenden Fan-Sammelleidenschaft mancher twitternden oder facebookenden Person oder Unternehmung.

Oft entwickelt sich eine Akribie, die an die frühen Jahre der Bruttoreichweitenkumulations- und Outspending-Competition-Orgien traditionell agierender Unternehmen erinnert.
Berater, Agenturen und Unternehmen machen einen Wettstreit daraus - niemand aber denkt an den einzelnen Fan, das Individuum, die/der ebenso individuell behandelt werden will, wie sie/er sich fühlt. Schließlich hat sie/er individuelle Vorlieben, Sehnsüchte, Zukunftssorgen (sollte die Marke mal nicht verfügbar sein).

Der einzelne Fan ist meist nur eine Nummer, eine kleine Zahl, die im Ozean der größeren Zahl (der Gesamtheit aller Fans) untergeht. Ernstgenommen wird er nur, wenn er sich, zu Massen kumuliert, auf der Facebook-Seite der Marke versammelt und ihr huldigt. Ernstgenommen wird er nur, wenn man mit ihm angeben möchte, mit seiner schieren Zahl. Die Zeiten aber als noch galt 'die Masse wird es schon richten' sind vorbei.

In Zeiten von Social Networking ist die Qualität des einzelnen Fans das entscheidende Kriterium, nicht seine absolute Zahl. Die Zusammensetzung der Fan-Base ist spannend, nicht ihre absolute Zahl." ...

... bitte beim werbeblogger weiterlesen ...

Engagement: Brands must treat People like they themselves would like to be treated

What I challenged brands and corporations with on Saturday ("Brands and corporations must become human personalities, distinctive characters, they must respect people, must treat people like they themselves would like to be treated!") David Hieatt framed as a success strategy for smaller companies in their quest to win against big corporations:

"Big corporations dominate.
They have more money.
They have more people.
They have distribution tied up.
So how can a small company stand out?
You can’t outspend them, that’s for sure.
But you can out-truth them.
So use honesty as your marketing tool.
It’s cheap.
It’s unusual. (Most big companies avoid it)
And perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to make it up."

Why not try it for a change!?

(... and due to the new openness and transparency in combination with NGO's and consumers' new powers - thanks to the web - you will be forced to become honest anyway!)

UPDATE

March, 22nd

15:55 hrs > "Nestle Learns an Important Lesson in Social Media Management", fastcompany.

March, 25th

11:21 hrs > "Greenpeace Attacks Nestle via Facebook. Some Tips If It Happens to You", marketingvox.

Change the Game: Michael Lebowitz > "Brands are Adapting at the Pace Imposed by their Existing Infrastructure"

In my blog mediaclinique ('Distinctive Leadership for Media & Agencies') I wrote (in German) about the 'beautifully' orchestrated Nestlé/Greenpeace 'case study' on social media pitfalls - explaining that this is no problem of social media at all but of old school corporate thinking. See also "Loser, Inc. - Past, Present & Future" (English) a few days ago here at lead/marke.

Now I just stumbled upon a 'great' quote from the Nestlé fb page (found by Michael Lebowitz, founder & ceo of bigspaceship):

"To repeat: we welcome your comments, but please don't post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic - they will be deleted."

Fortunately they already 'understood' their mistake and apologized (as above): "This (deleting logos) was one in a series of mistakes for which I would like to apologise. And for being rude. We've stopped deleting posts, and I have stopped being rude."

Please feel free to read in the original comments, what happened after that. Or get a summary from Advertising Age: "Nestle to Facebook Fans: Consider Yourself Embraced".

Brands and corporations must desperately strive to become faster than their existing infrastructure and current consultancy allows.
They must quantum leap ahead in understanding the new independence, individuality and impatience of consumers, citizens or the man in the (online) street.

Brands and corporations must 'stop making sense', they must find shortcuts to where the consumer already is. They must outgrow themselves.

This - and I know this sounds counter-intuitive at the moment - this has never been easier than today. But - and that is a great but - that (outgrowing yourself) does not compute with traditional thinking about communication, marketing, and business models.
(And it sounds counter-intuitive because your intuition is still stuck in the traditional worlds!)

Brands and corporations must become human personalities, distinctive characters, they must respect people, must treat people like they themselves would like to be treated!

This must start in the brains of the corporation and at the heart of the brand.
Call it intuition, call it wisdom. But think about it - and do it.
And forget everything you have 'learned' before. Old school is dead!

(Headline quote from Michael's "Maybe this shouldn't shock me, but it does".)

UPDATE

March, 22nd

09:36hrs > "Your Kit Kat campaigns", Greenpeace. "The Two-Year Lag from Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0", Business Innovation.

Brand Engagement: IKEA invades Paris Metro Stations

"Paris’ St. Lazare, Champs-Elysées Clémenceau, Concorde, and Opéra subway stations have been “invaded,” or so says the brand. The concept behind the campaign is akin to a test drive. Passengers in transit can, via the “bum test,” experiment with the comfort and durability of IKEA’s Ektorp and Kalstad couches and Brasa floor lamps. Agence 14 Septembre, a communications group that specializes in architecture and design, collaborated with IKEA on the experiential initiative."

Via cyanatrendland (pictures & quote). Click for more pictures.

Loser, Inc. - Past, Present & Future

© Scott Keidong 2009

Scott's picture shows what it takes to become - or stay - a loser these days:

- High Walls made of brick & mortar around loser's property.
- No trespassing possible.
- No windows. Employees are deprived of a view.
- New Horizons or curiosity are not an option.
- No windows. Visitors and fans are not welcome.
- Conversation and dialogue are not an option.
- No (not even revolving) doors. Nothing gets out, nothing gets in. No exchange.
- No company member seen outside, much less in the field, or in the market.
- PR hedges make us believe the company is alive, eco-friendly and caring.
- Every employee is inside, working his butt off - to become an even bigger loser.
- Nobody outside is even trying to get an inside view!
- Nobody outside is aware or interested. Nobody cares.

Is YOUR company an innovative, engaging and agile winner?

UPDATE

March, 18th, 13:07hrs > "Ten Reasons Your Corporate Social Network Should be an Innovation Social Network", BloggingInnovation.

lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "sxsw talk: innovation lessons from cartooning"

(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring blog posts on a regular basis.)

I’m returning now from a few thought-stirring days in Austin at SXSW. On Friday, I gave a talk on what you can learn about innovation from cartoonists. This is a topic I’ve been evolving since I spoke at conferences in San Francisco and London last year. 

SXSW created this short video montage (it’s four minutes out of an hour, so there are a few things out of context, like my “bloodsucking corporate parasite” comment which referenced a Bill Watterson quote I gave earlier). Still, it was really cool to see it picked up by Huffington Post and PR Week this morning: 

I hope to have a full-length version to share soon. Until then, I’ve been asked to share some context on my blog, along with some of the lessons I shared with the group. 

I started with the story of Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes, arguably one of the most successful cartoonists of all time (and a major reason I started drawing cartoons in the first place). After ten years, Bill quit the strip and largely disappeared from the public eye. I was struck by this quote he gave around that time at a commencement address at Kenyon College: 

“It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions.”

Since Bill quit, traditional newspaper cartooning has only gotten worse. If it was difficult then to break through the clutter on the shrinking newspaper page and allow your material to thrive, it’s even more difficult today. Traditional cartooning is one of the most savage markets around. Launching a new cartoon successfully has far lower odds than launching any other kind of innovation. 

Yet there are cartoonists who are bucking the odds and making it work today. In the talk, I described these modern cartoonists as “lead users” that any of us who work in innovation can study. Any market where we launch innovation has similarities to the traditional newspaper cartooning path, in that both are cluttered and dominated by entrenched players. Launching something mediocre that tries to appeal to everyone simply won’t break through the clutter. 

As one of the lessons, I shared the story of xkcd cartoonist Randall Munroe, who thrives because he is deliberately exclusive. Unless you’re a Unix programmer, you wouldn’t get the following cartoon because you wouldn’t know that “sudo” is a superuser-level command in Unix programming. This cartoon is not funny to most, but it’s screamingly funny to a few. In fact, when I gave this talk in London, someone in the audience stood up wearing a t-shirt with this cartoon on his chest. 

I think that being deliberately exclusive is one of the ingredients to successful innovation. Who will wear your innovation on their chest?

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Brand Engagement: 'Social Media' is "Most Annoying Buzzword"

"But even though marketers are on board with the idea that social is key to their overall strategy, many are sick of hearing about it. In addition to being one of the most important buzzwords, social media was considered the most annoying, with nearly 30% of executives tired of it. Twitter, specifically, got on the nerves of nearly 15% of respondents, and social networking rounded out the top three trends marketers were most tired of hearing about."

Quote and picture via stefan63's posterous.

Too many self-proclaimed 'gurus' are on the roads to rip off potential clients. Too many 'consultants' - coming from pr, design, and digital agencies - claim to have understood social media, but try to answer its challenges in their traditional ways of thinking. No wonder clients are pissed of. They do not get real answers to their oh so real questions and problems.

Social media incorporates a paradigm shift. The times of brand monologues are over. The times of distracting advertising are over. The product must become a solution. The marketing must become a service. The brand must become a medium. All communication must become a dialogue. Nobody is allowed between the brand and the individual any longer.

But who wants to explain that to the client? The consultants? "Don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut”

lead/marke NET: Helge Tenno > "Design and Identity - Part 1: Organic"

(lead/marke NET proudly features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

This post is the first of three arguments presenting a perspective on what will be important and interesting in regards to identity and design the coming two to three years: Which is how identity and design transforms as the artificial barriers of technology disappears and people change their behaviors.

And how this affects the natural, constant and unstoppable evolution of what it takes to remain valuable as a company.

—

Part one: Organic

“Digital” as a term is obsolete and unhelpful, because it invites us into a mindset where the technology defines the purpose of the product.

Technology historically, in regards to design, is a consequence of our conceptual process, not the purpose of it.

“Digital” is just a reference to a form of technology on which the surface is supported, equal to paper, plastic or metal.

“Digital” does not reference any specific use or motivation, such as; business card, packaging or book would in regards to paper technology. It only references some abilities in regards to its structural compound.

Why is it then that “digital” as a term – no matter how misleading it is, no matter how little insight and understanding it invites us to take with us into a process, stands as this beacon on top of a desperate range of stuff?

In the words of Steve Taylor and Christian Ruland from their brilliant new book “The Case Against Ideas”:

Take ‘digital’ for instance: an amorphous catch-all term that fails to distinguish between dozens of distinct new forms of communication, each requiring a distinct approach.”

Where on the one side, defining stuff as digital is as unhelpful as defining design for other surfaces as “paper” or “rubber”, we are by over using the term “digital” removing or failing to see the motivation behind the design – which is the essential insight.

When all this is said; stuff designed on surfaces supported by digital technology have some abilities which are not unique for this technology, but descriptive of a lot of the stuff that is there:

Organic – the surface itself responds to environmental influence. This can be interaction, updates, monitor size etc. But the process has to include the idea that an important product ability is to adapt and/or morph – while still preserving the designed identity.

Activities – digital technology opens the door much wider in regards to how design can help build better products and services. How identity, visual language and designed activities can make companies and their efforts more valuable, appreciated and sought after through adding valuable services around their existing products or activities.

The goal is to start looking for a more useful terminology, to identify motivation, not generic labels, and to see how new technology opens up new opportunities – while not ignoring, but enhancing existing crafts.

An example from Berg, Bonnier and Mag+:

Read the second post: Visual and experiential language"
Read the third post: "Identities"

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. @congbo

I love the Bauknecht Kundendienst-Hotline

(Ein Beitrag von mir im werbeblogger)

"In Zeiten, in denen Telekommunikations-Dienstleister nichtmal jene Disziplin beherrschen, die sie in ihrer Vision/Jobdescription führen, ist man für jedes Licht am dunklen Service-Horizont dankbar.

Von solch einem Licht möchte ich heute berichten:

Bereits im Mai '09 hatte ich einen Bauknecht-Kundendienst-Kontakt, der mich derart beeindruckte, daß ich daraus formulierte:

"Liebe Markenartikler, investiert in den direkten Kundenkontakt, den qualitativen, nicht den quantitativen!
Investiert in den Austausch, in Kompetenz und Markenerfahrungen im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes und aus erster Hand!
Versetzt Euch in die Menschen in diesen Situationen und überlegt Euch, wie Ihr dann behandelt werden wollt! Werdet empathisch, dann wird Eure Marke menschlicher."

Der Kontakt vom vorigen Montag konnte das Erlebnis des letzten Mai sogar noch toppen:" ...

... bitte beim werbeblogger weiterlesen ...

lead/marke NET: Helge Tenno > "Future Media - No More Middle Men"

(lead/marke NET proudly features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

A presentation on the future opportunities in media, turning threats into insights into opportunities.

The presentation future media – no more middle men, is an accumulation of a range of relevant thoughts from this blog, put into system.

It’s built as a master slide set (to pick and sort from), but I tried to add some structure to it by identifying six major “forces” affecting media, and then a short final chapter summarizing a suggested future mindset.

I’ve also chosen to ad a lot of the explanatory text – not just the headlines – into the slides this time, hopefully this will create more context for the people reading the thing online.

Find individual slides available for download under a CC license on my flickr account everything new is dangerous.

Find the presentation below, or on my slideshare account slideshare.net/helgetenno.

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. @congbo

Congratulations, tumblr! Great Success!

"Has it been three years already?! February was a month of big milestones for us, possibly the most exciting of which was that you guys viewed Tumblr more than a BILLION times. That’s 36 million times a day, 25,000 times a minute, and more than 400 times a second! To say thank you, we have some beautiful, free, and awesome features we’ll be pushing this week. And follow us on Twitter for some special news. Thank you!!"

Via Jacob Bijani, tumblr's creative director.

A little bit more about tumblr: "Tumblr Hits Major Milestones, Plans to Start Generating Revenue" at mashable. Or just have a look at my tumblr page: "this message is too wide to fit your screen".

For me tumblr is playful publishing without the hassle of blogging. It's art, design, fashion, people, celebrities, wisdom, fun, comics, videos, and mangas, all last decades, and the early warning on trends and topics of public and popular concern.

It is the best part of participation, sharing, communication (mostly without words), free speech, transparency, and tolerance. It is the future of blogging.

Take away:

tumblr is the best proof that most brands do not really matter. Brands in general are almost irrelevant in tumblr, or in the minds of these independent and impatient individualists there. Most brands do not compute, they do not communicate, and they do not amaze.

Brands will have to think about that situation. If they want to be part of the youth's lifes, they must become part of the youth's world, needs, and wants. Youth today has other ideals than the classic brand.

Business Innovation: "The disruptive power of the mobile knows no end"

"The march of the mobile goes on and on but it is now taking off in a new direction with goodness knows what consequences.

Until recently, the mobile phone's distinguishing feature was its ability to gobble up competing products in a way that no other consumer product ever has. I used to keep a tally of all the products that could have been sold separately but which have been cannibalised by the mobile: cameras, calculators, books, video cameras, music players, satellite navigation and so on.

When the list reached 60, I gave up, because the arrival of the iPhone and iPod Touch made the list of extra products grow exponentially." (Victor Keegan)

Read Victor's great Guardian article "Mobiles move from cannibal to creator".

Forget everything you thought and heard about mobile phones and apps and stuff. This article gives you a realistic idea where phones - becoming smarter and smarter - are truly heading.

Understand the consequences for your product and add answers and solutions to your yearly strategy meetings (you are dead already), your continuously rolling micro-strategy-process (you may survive successfully) developing Informal Markets to stay ahead of consumers' new independence, individuality, and impatience.