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Filed under: innovation, leadership | Tags: change, checks, Christian Science Monitor, Clarke American, Harland Clarke, newspapers
At the end of October venerable publication The Christian Science Monitor dropped its century long tradition of daily publications to move nearly completely online.
A few years ago, I attended a marketing course that was also attended by a large contingent of Clarke American managers who were trying to find a way to save their dying check printing business. They wouldn’t accept that their entire industry was dying. At least not in it’s present form.
Now they no longer exist. Not as Clarke American anyway.
But it looks like the The Christian Science Monitor will.
Filed under: community, innovation | Tags: beta culture, communities, early adopters, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Nicholas Carr, product cycle, Vista
Lifehacker quotes a Gizmodo rant against the “beta culture”:
We have surrendered in the name of progress and marketing and product cycles and consumerism. Maybe those are good reasons, I don’t know, but looking at the past, it feels like we are being conned. Deceived because the manufacturers of electronic products have taken our desire to progress faster and even embrace the web beta culture as an excuse to rush things to market, to blatantly admit bugs and the rushed features sets and sell the patches as upgrades.
Of course, comments centered around the notion that beta releases are usually free, but, as “tamoriel” points out, if companies are releasing beta quality as final—that is where the problem lies.
That last clarification is easy to agree with, but the earlier premise doesn’t seem accurate. Sure, there are some offerings where beta quality is treated as final (*cough Vista*), but typically, the beta culture is actually better for us than the alternative.
Early adopters have always had to face bugs, it is a part of being in that group. Things just don’t always break like they should in a test environment. But when an organization can embrace this stage, and, in so doing, they create a relationship with their top users in which the users can benefit (free service, having voice, etc) and reciprocally can help form the product or service into a better design, you have a true positive user-provider exchange. It just needs to be done well (see a 2006 “Beta Culture” piece by Nicholas Carr for a deeper look into this qualification).
Instead of hiding the offering until launch, and then give consumers a guesswork-led design, the secret is to get your end-users to truly design with you. That’s why the “beta culture” works.
Filed under: design, innovation, online media, politics | Tags: Audience, Chris O'Shea, democrats, design, Good Guide, memes, New Mexico Sun News, Nicholas Carr, obama, Obama Wins, politics, rAndom International, Royal Opera House, transparency, words that end in gry, xkcd
There were a few things I ran across over the last few days that are worth sharing but need not much by way on commentary.
1: A little cartoon that I, disturbingly, agree with.
source: xkcd words that end in gry
2: A newspaper in New Mexico “seizes the day” with their proclamation that “Obama Wins”. They also noted:
the newspaper has a goal of reaching one million readers with each edition, but prints just 10,000 copies of each of its issues.
So, “each copy must be read by 100 different and distinct people. This places an enormous burden on our intrepid readers. However, it is a burden that we must insist you carry. So, please, read quickly, care for the physical condition of the paper and pass it on to your next chosen reader.”
The liberal leaning alternative newspaper ended by imploring its readers to get out and vote, “even if we did spoil the ending for you.”
3: Well designed transparency—Good Guide gives more visibility into corporate political leanings.
4: Speaking of good design; a cool visual metaphor for memes (make your own interpretation).
Filed under: community, innovation | Tags: 37signals, communities, Quiet Innovations, reciprocity, T-Shirts, Threadless
Since first featuring Threadless, as one of my “quiet innovators”, they seem to have been less “quiet.” This probably has much more to do with a cognitive bias on my part than anything else, but it is obvious that people love them. And for good reason. They are awesome.
The concept is simple:
*translation, you design it, the treadless community votes on it, and if your design is liked, you get paid.
Matt at 37signals writes about their “Community…no, really.”
A lot of sites pay lip service to the notion of building a community. Threadless actually does it. And it’s not just having a blog or a forum (though the site has those too). Check out the site’s navigation where “Shop” and “Participate” are given equal treatment
[...]
It’s no accident. Threadless isn’t just a place to buy stuff. It’s a place where people do stuff too.
And I love the comments to Matt’s post. They give us great insights in the pathway to Treadless’s success.
Threadless sends out the only newsletter that stops me in my tracks during work. While every other newsletter gets a ‘junk’ click, I can’t wait to see what is new from them.
Threadless personif[ies] everything that’s great about the web.
Threadless is an example of an actual real community online.
Their transfer of work to users is a brilliant strategy in not only sharing design cost, but also in creating and maintaining a community. There is a give and take factor that underpins the entire organization.
And so we come to reciprocity again. It is a key factor to community-building (if not the key). If you can figure out how to do that, you create one pretty strong and hard to assail position.
Filed under: innovation | Tags: change, first mover advantage, knowledge, Lord of the Rings, Sean Connery, Seth Godin, tribes, understanding
We read today that Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy because he “didn’t understand the script.” The impact of this decision is impressive:
In return for playing the role, New Line Cinema offered the Scottish actor up to 15 percent of worldwide box office receipts, which would have earned Connery more than any actor had ever been paid for a single role—as much as $400 million.
Not understanding something is a scary thing. Conservative practitioners trumpet the idiom “look before you leap” as a measure of their solidity. This lack of total understanding puts off the leaping until it appears that risk has been mitigated (whether they are correct in viewing that mitigation is often debatable).
Notwithstanding my tepid recommendation for Godin’s Tribes yesterday, I rather enjoyed his section on “Not Now, Not Yet”—
The largest enemy of change and leadership isn’t a “no.” It’s a “not yet.” “Not yet” is the safest, easiest way to forestall change. “Not yet” gives the status quo a chance to regroup and put off the inevitable for just a little while longer.
Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.
I’m not quite sold that the first mover advantage is the best strategy (in the glaring light of the legion case studies, I know, but there are many contrarian examples as well). Nevertheless, I am convinced some of the greatest pathways to sucess comes much more from doing rather than completely knowing.
Filed under: innovation, online media | Tags: communities, innovation, power, service innovation
First of all, let me respond to questions about the previous posting. I am not a PC. That said, I’m not really a Mac either. This is not some condescending piece on how I am above being just some “label”—which I am not at all; I like to be defined by one or two words—rather, I am simply not a Mac or PC. As polemic as the world is, we need not be defined by just those measures being the either-or (as noted by my Linux-loving workspace neighbor Steven).
The posting was about the “I’m a PC” ads. That’s it.
As I have written before, there is a co-worker here that describes himself as our Chief Awesome Officer. I don’t necessarily think that it is because he is awesome (strictly speaking), but rather having a Chief Awesome Officer would be pretty neat, and being that he came up with the concept, he gets the name.
I, on the other hand, would like to go by Batman.
As our CAO was leaving today, he gave me some homework to do tonight. I am not usually inclined to listen to him too much as he is an older brother that has not managed to really keep his brothers under his thumb as he’d like, so he tries to pull in others as a sort of proxy. That said, this one intrigued me a little, so here I am fulfilling it.
It was a simple question to be answered: what makes us (Zions Direct—specifically the auctions) remarkable.
Remarkable is a very simple concept, it means that something is worth talking about (you are able to remark). That means two things:
- Something about the subject matter is uncommonly interesting—not necessarily ultra-rare or amazingly ingenious, but noteworthy enough that you wish to share it, rather than just note it.
- The subject matter is easy-to-share. For example, the fact that Stephen Hawking has bet against the discovery of the Higgs boson in the Large Hadron Collider is certainly newsworthy, but pretty hard to share.
Now, the purpose of this exercise is more than just academic. If I rode a horse through the nearby State Capitol, that would be remarkable: uncommon and interesting to some + easily shared. But that doesn’t do much for me besides getting some attention.
So with Zions Direct Auctions; the focus here is on what makes this approach remarkable in a way that benefits user and provider.
The fact that we use auctions is not necessarily interesting. It is a process for selling CDs and other securities. Not really something that most people are bursting to let out. If that was all we did, it would simply be an unusual way to deposit money.
Also, selling CDs and other securities isn’t too remarkable. It’s just what financial institutions do. It’s like a fast food restaurant advertising they offer fast food.
But something does make us different. It’s what excites me about the business. It’s what makes me spill out my visions of disruption and innovation. It’s what makes this the focus of the future, as long as we can make sure we ease the process of access.
It’s about democratization.
That’s it. Unlike other financial sites and organizations, consumers are given access and power in ways they have never before been able to experience. It starts with FDIC-insured certificates of deposit. This is the most vanilla of securities, but pretty simple to understand. Customers come in, they bid, and they win or they lose—that’s how auctions work—but it is their collective decision that sets the price; it’s not us.
It’s not so much the how (the auction), but the purpose behind it. Instead of “auctioning” off rates that banks determine you should get, we actually leave it open. You decide. You want a higher yield, bid it. If that’s where the price should go, then that’s where it should go.
And then there are Senior Notes and Preferred Stock that we been offering. These are direct-to-consumer offerings sold in such a way that every self-directed investor can come in to help set the price as they bid to win. And this is without brokerage fees or middlemen taking cuts.
For years, the real power in the financial community had been in the deals that powerful institutions could take and slowly filter down until it eventually reached the common man in manner diluted by the profits taken by the handling organizations.
We disrupt that—we give that power to the everyman.
Sure we offer securities—lot’s of people do that. But we have actually given ordinary people greater power to influence and access to choice than any have ever before. That’s worth talking about.
Disclosure:
You may see that I like Zions Direct Auctions. I also work in marketing on that product, which means I may be a bit biased (but it also means I do something that I believe in).
Filed under: community, innovation | Tags: Apple, communities, Nicholas Carr, Nike
I can identify the time period that I became a fan of Nicholas Carr. It was the summer of 2005 that I read an article by him in strategy + business that really got me, for the first time, thinking about disruption and creation. I also like Clayton Christensen, so it interests me when Carr picks at Christensen’s work. These viewpoints give me a nice dyadic understanding of innovation.
It is worthwhile to read Carr’s blog, www.roughtype.com. Today he wrote about Nike + and Apple in which he castigated Apple’s approach to DRM in this space, finalizing with these words:
It used to be cool to be an Apple fanboy. Now it’s starting to be embarrassing.
Carr has spent a fair bit of time standing up for Apple, but now, after mistake after mistake and misstep after misstep, it is interesting to note that an advocate is starting to abdicate.
The same thing happened today as we met with our ad agency. One of our associates there mentioned the problems that he continues to have with the new iPhone, saying that he doesn’t know anyone that has had a good experience. This is during the same time that I gleefully and annoyingly point to the ability of my $50 mobile phone to send multimedia texts while they (the iPhone contingent) continue to be without that capability.
Apple’s community has been legendary. But, as they continue to put off and underwhelm their user base, they will quickly see that it is the community that has the power, not the brand.
Filed under: innovation, marketing | Tags: Apple, execution, Flickr, Google, marketing, Microsoft, perceptions, PhotoSynth
Yesterday Microsoft Live Labs did a consumer release for PhotoSynth, a cool photo, combining software. If you haven’t heard of it, it “stitches” images together
allowing users to create their own virtual scene from a series of 20 to 300 pictures (source: Wired).
As I started to try it out, I thought, “Is this really Microsoft?” I mean, this sort of innovation seems more like Apple, Flickr, or Google. I was pretty impressed with the concept, especially that Microsoft had come out with it.
And then I actually used it. I gave it an easy task: put three pictures of adjacent areas in a park near my home together.After crashing my application twice so far, and now still “in process” with my “synth”, I saw that Microsoft’s personality has come through; I am unsure if my project is in process or just stuck (there is no status bar).
Fair enough that they are probably overwhelmed (they have mentioned that a few times today), and I should give them some more time to work out the bugs. The concept is very cool, they simply weren’t ready for people to really try. It’s too bad; it really has lowered Microsoft’s chance to become a more creative company in consumers’ eyes. First impressions are important but not absolute—confirmations of previous perceptions are much more dangerous.
As much as we talk about mindshare and positioning and other high level strategies, proper execution is tantamount to success.
Filed under: community, innovation | Tags: Annie Reed, CAPTCHA, certificates of deposit, Chris Anderson, communities, FDIC-insured, Firefox, hybrid vehicles, Otis, Wolff Olins
When David Arthurs created the first hybrid vehicle, one of his steps to success was understanding that the power lost in braking could be regenerated to run the vehicle. It was simply wasted energy that ought to be used. Boring old Otis elevators (which, incidentally, is one of my favorite brands) uses the same concept in their newer elevators.
It was just a matter of time when we figured out how to make people to use their energy more effectively, whether by the cancer fighting screensaver from years ago to the more recent CAPTCHA method for digitizing old texts.
Chris Anderson (yes, that Chris Anderson) explained earlier this year that part of the new “Free!” economy has to do with labor exchange: having users do part of the work for an organization so that the end value benefits both user and provider with no monetary cost to the user. Further research indicates that this area of co-production represents a strong area for future organizational growth, an area that has been harnessed by progressive organizations throughout industry, whether it is a popular web browser, an up-and-coming brokerage, or a small dress shop.
The questions that are necessary to answer before embarking are:
- Is this work-sharing approach the proper approach for your brand and offering (it might not be), and
- If number one is a “Yes”—is this good for the community in which your brand lives?
Think hard if you said “No” on number two; you may be surprised.
Disclosure:
You may see that I like Zions Direct Auctions. I also work in marketing on that product, which means I may be a bit biased (but it also means I do something that I believe in).
