Transforming Business Weblog

Open letter to Sony's Howard Stringer ...

2008-07-18T16:07:00.013+01:00

... and a fitting closure to this blog!

Two things I've been wanting to do for some time is to make a final post to this blog now that I am no longer posting here. I also wanted to finally publish a few letters (e-mails) that I sent while working at Sony a few years back, now that I can do so with relative impunity. They encapsulate the beliefs and values behind the entire endeavour that was this blog and they make for a fitting subject matter with which to close this little exercise of mine!

The e-mails were sent while I was still working at Sony around three years ago. I left soon afterwards. They capture the essential thinking that I had recorded in this blog from its inception in 2002 but had in fact already started when I first joined Sony in 2000.

The first e-mail was sent to Sir Howard Stringer just as he had been made CEO and Sony was going through a very rocky patch that had started some time prior to that and was the very reason he was brought in. It was purely speculative and proactive - read on below:

NOTE: The slide deck referred to in both mails can be found here on SlideShare (they are slightly more refined than the original but essentially the same).

-----Original Message-----
From: Danelutti, Stephen
Sent: 01 June 2005 09:46
To: Stringer, Howard
Subject: 70% of new Innovation and Change efforts fail!

Dear Sir Howard,

Considering the imperative of the subject at Sony right now, I'd like to propose a solution.

The problem: Company transformation efforts are largely failing because innovation and change efforts are too often a top-down approach that do not sufficiently consider and involve the constituent most responsible for effective change efforts and within which great ideas most often reside - the workforce!

The solution: Technological tools, cultural alignment and process engineering that facilitate bottom-up involvement so employees can drive change efforts in the most suitable way and bring marketable ideas to the attention of top management with a high rate of buy-in followed by a high success rate in the marketplace.

Attached is a summary slide with a slightly more detailed overview of my proposed solution (with relevant online links). I would really appreciate your feedback!

From someone passionate about Sony, innovation and change but exceedingly frustrated by an inability to be more effective due to organisational constraints!

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Danelutti

Needless to say, I received no reply but then this was sent very soon after Sir Howard was appointed CEO so obviously he was a little busy. I remained undeterred and my second opportunity came up soon afterwards. In response to an idea gathering initiative that was started soon after I sent my first mail I fired off my second attempt. The initiative was communicated via e-mail by the way and responses were to be given by e-mail and supposedly Sir Howard Stringer and Dr Chubachi (COO at the time if I recall correctly) were going to personally review every idea, or some such nonsense. E-mail, can you "Adam and Eve" it...

-----Original Message-----
From: Danelutti, Stephen
Sent: 13 June 2005 12:05
To: Sony Ideas
Subject: An idea about successful idea creation and management!

Dear Sir Howard and Dr. Chubachi

I would like to commence with my e-mail/idea by saying that the Sony Ideas initiative is a very good one and a great start. However, in my humble and frank opinion, it is not enough! This e-mail (an introduction of my thinking) and the attached presentation (a more detailed, generic overview of a programme surrounding the idea) are all about my alternatives!

One additional point of clarification I'd like to make is that I use the term innovation synonymously with ideas throughout. Finally, about the idea itself! Hopefully it addresses at least two of the issues that your initiative raises: a uniform, efficient and continuous way of evaluating all ideas; a way of ensuring that you get much more than just 5 ideas, that are successful. But I hope it goes much further! Thank you for your consideration!

Why is managing ideas properly so important?

Because so many new ideas fail! Fail to reach the market or fail to be profitable! Improving the odds is critical!
Because ideas are the lifeblood of Sony and the engine of growth, managing them should be given higher priority. I believe in providing for and involving employees in a programme for continuously creating and managing new ideas efficiently that exceed the one-off, electronic suggestion box - with all due respect. This is critical for Sony's future success and effectively makes innovation management a core competence.
Ideas cannot be copied so easily in this world of commoditisation, or at least can be protected, sufficient to wring large profits from them!

What else is important?

Change is closely linked to ideas. Microsoft turned their whole company around when they discovered how big an idea the Internet was going to be and realised that they had not yet properly capitalised on it! So too Apple when they saw the potential in MP3 players. The most successful way of innovating (as you will see from my presentation) is to capitalise on opportunities as they arise - this requires being as flexible to change as Microsoft and Apple were. Also, considering that change is the only constant today, that managing it is imperative and that many programmes fail, making change management a core competence becomes critical too!
If you accept the link, you could conclude as I have, that innovation + change = transformation and that this needs to be done continuously and effectively in order for it to become a competitive advantage ad infinitum. More about this in my presentation.
As James Surowiecki so brilliantly researches and shows in his book: The Wisdom of Crowds; good ideas and actions are not the preserve of a few experts and more often than not, large groups of people have better and more successful ideas/solutions - so involve the whole workforce! Also, with regard to both innovation and change programmes, if they are handed down from management without sufficient engagement of employees, they are not as effective! A mechanism for involvement, buy-in and measurement is critical, beyond broadcast communication and a feedback channel like a suggestion box. Ideally though, it is more than just involvement, it is engagement of passion! Finally, successful ideas and change agents can come from anywhere, not just the engineering or R&D department and innovation can go beyond just products to cover business processes (like DELL) and business concepts as well (like eBay).
With engagement in mind but beyond "morale boosting" comes accountability, which I know ranks high on your agenda. For example, linking critical activities with success and performance goals like GE's CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is doing. One of the ways in which he is trying to shift the current mindset at GE is with pay - linking bonuses to new ideas. Out of interest, he is also doing it with customer satisfaction and sales growth, with less emphasis on bottom-line results. Further focus areas are with risk - Spending billions to fund "Imagination Breakthrough" projects that extend the boundaries of GE and with experts - Rotating executives less often, and bringing in more outsiders to create industry experts instead of professional managers.

What are the bases for my observations?

Other than my past experience, interests and areas of study I would like specifically to speak of my experience at Sony, to raise some issues by way of example and to provide a sample voice so to speak, if nothing else!

Past communication/efforts. This is not my first attempt to bring my idea forward as you can see from the mails preceding this one. My last e-mail to you Sir Howard is very recent and you no doubt have been too busy to consider it but what is important is that I am using a very rudimentary channel - email - because there is no alternative. Why didn't I go to my current manager you might ask? Fairly clear evidence that this would fail based on past experience and a focus on current operations that made it impossible and irrelevant - a common problem with generic corporate ideas!
Isolating change management and innovation - generally accepted as a failure point. For example, one of the reasons my idea was rejected in the first round (in Europe) was because a Change Management department had just been created in Brussels and my ideas/effort (although supposedly valued) were seen to be in potential conflict with those. The other classic example at Sony concerning innovation, that has become legend, is that of Ken Kutaragi succeeding with PlayStation despite the system not because of it and with its support!
I was involved in the Eurostar project to move European Business Units to the UK from The Netherlands. A good example of a badly managed change programme - sorry to say and I'm sure I need not say more! The fact remains though that Sony is not the best company in managing change.
I was deeply involved in a due diligence exercise to evaluate a business that had been longer than a year in preparation. It had resided in this time at the B2B division of Sony Europe, PSE. It was for a business that, in partnership with Publicis the Communications group, was to provide and earn revenue for management of a digital content management and distribution system for flat display signage in major malls across Europe. Network Services Europe, of which I am a part, was asked to conduct the exercise with a view to taking the business over. Notwithstanding the confusing and long drawn out decision to hand it back to PSE as a final conclusion (with no end in sight for this business opportunity), I observed a complete lack of a unified process of submission and evaluation of the idea itself - with all due respect.
Generally, I have seen first hand many other examples of people who have had ideas about innovation or change but have been frustrated in their efforts. Brilliant, passionate people without a clear way of progressing or with very little support/encouragement by management. So they leave for other companies or like me they become independent, in order to carry the flame onwards. On this last point I would like to clearly state that just because I am independent (last year in my 5 years at Sony), does not mean I am not committed.

Why should you consider my idea?

Although I really do want to keep the focus of this mail on my "idea about idea management", I feel I would not do it credit or myself without pointing out my value to Sony beyond the idea itself and competence to propose/manage/support it, but also in terms of my other relevant skill sets. Without wanting to send a CV or make a large issue of it I have summarised salient points below:

Succesfully set-up a CRM programme for Digital Imaging Europe across Europe - key future focus for Sony is customer focus. Past experience and study has focused on this area too!
Successfully set-up and managed a professional services group steering European software development activities - key future focus for Sony!
Bridged the gap from device to content by working on a mobile entertainment project (full track download and streaming to mobile phone - StreamMan) as part of a largely content driven group, DADC in Salzburg - key future focus for Sony!

What am I asking for?

My idea requires refinement and validation! The validation could be either theoretical with the support of a reputable research body or practical by implementing at a relevant department. Ideally both occur and this could be concurrent or linear with practice following theory.
Sony is currently undergoing a massive transformation. I am deeply passionate about the company and its products, would really like to see a success story but better still, be a part of it and I have in-depth knowledge about the company and its future focus areas. Finally, considering that change and innovation are critical factors in the success of the transformation effort at Sony, then I would make a very able agent, if I may say!
Bottom line: Let me implement or support the implementation of my idea (or a modification of it where necessary) at Sony or at the very least let me take a part in Sony's transformation efforts where I will in any event carry out my research independently and can contribute learning accordingly.

Many thanks once again for your time, attention and consideration!

Yours sincerely

Stephen Danelutti

No reply from above either - no surprises there. I left soon afterwards to start up netoCiety to do for companies the very things I wanted to for Sony but couldn't. I'm still doing it and will be for a long time to come :)

So apart from trying to achieve closure on one of my blog journeys so far what can I glean from this little trip down memory lane?

1. Sony still have a long way to go in transforming themselves
2. My views are still spot on and Sony should hire netoCiety :)
3. The living embodiment of my thinking has finally been realised with a prototype we at netoCiety have just released and called netoVation (or networked innovation) - check it out
4. I now have closure on a certain period of my life and can move forward with wild abandon

Toodeloo

Innovation UK - A nation on the edge

2008-05-23T10:15:00.001+01:00

Attended a conference hosted by Nesta (.co.uk) the other day and other than the prominence it was given by speakers like the Prime Minister Gordon Brown (see pic) and Sir Bob Geldof who gave an excellent keynote, I did not really get the impression this event covered the cutting edge of innovation in the UK. In the area I cover especially (use of social networking/software to facilitate innovation - check out netovation.netociety.com) there was a pronounced lack of depth and coverage, even in the supposedly related session covered by Charles Leadbetter on social networking. See Nesta site for videos, podcasts, etc.

Start them young ...

2008-02-27T18:21:00.001Z

My 4 1/2 year old daughter at the helm and perfectly comfortable with it - brilliant!

This is also a test of www.shozu.com from my Nokia N95

Back...sort of!

2007-11-26T18:17:00.000Z

This long overdue post is just to a testament to my existence, for me if no one else...

I've been a busy bee! I've switched to Mac - yyyeeehhhhaaaaaaa! Everything it was cracked up to be although some don't agree (read the full post - it's definitely not pro regardless of what you might infer briefly from the title - as well as a brilliant follow up which sheds some light on the dark side of an Apple obsession). Despite the ease of the switch there is some work to do. Amazingly (although not surprisingly), the problems that remain are still with Windows which I'm running on the seriously nifty piece of software from Parallels.

I've been really busy at my company with new clients, a new site which is not live yet and working on some events (a Confluence user event coming up in London). I've barely written on the company blog but anything I have managed to do has been there.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog and my company blog and how I need to integrate them or find a better way of maintaining two blogs essentially. I might try this one for a while as a microblog of sorts with snippets of info, pics, videos, etc. I'll try it with the new Sony Ericsson K850i I might get, if I don't go for the iPhone that is :)

Crossing the Chasm Redux

2007-08-07T20:22:00.000+01:00

A refreshing piece over at Read/Write Web by Alex Iskold on a time-tested but potentially worn strategy that could do with some updating. Also, an interesting analogy of Apple's use of the strategy but I think it is missing some points and this impacts on the overall analysis. I commented there. Here is the gist:

Unlike its competitors who were in the market first with MP3 players (the likes of iRiver, Rio, etc.), Apple had a compelling service that matched the product - iTunes.

The service was as compelling as the product (the emphasis of the analogy) and allowed an active user base to migrate to a legal platform from the then illegal Napster, at least those fearful of the RIAA's increasing threats and actions. As part of the service, Steve Jobs had managed to convince a hugely sceptical music industry to allow tracks to be sold digitally. Not that they had much choice in the face of ever increasing declines due to ever increasing piracy but a huge feat nonetheless.

The point is that Steve Jobs managed to tap into demand that already existed (MP3 players were already selling and digital downloads had already started, albeit illegally), very innovatively and very quickly and he threw all his might at it. He took advantage of an opportunity and according to research into Innovation success rates that I recently read about, this is the greatest determinant to Innovation success.

The key points of my very long winded comment (:-)) is that matching demand with innovation is a key ingredient for crossing the chasm, ingredients very often missing from many a start-ups portfolio in their quest to "cross the chasm". Of course as you pointed out, money and brand are important, but these points I've just mentioned are too. Hope this contributes to a worthy topic...

I'm just back from a little break and after reading two interesting articles in the latest print edition of Newsweek (yes I still do some of my reading offline :)), I thought I'd share links to the online versions here which might go to show that enterprises have finally "crossed the chasm", if any evidence was still required:

Power In Numbers How wiki software is reforming bloated bureaucracies and changing the face of communication
A 'Free-Form Attitude' As corporations, nonprofits and even governments make use of the free-form technology that is the wiki, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales weighs in on the power of collaboration.

Networked Enterprise, Innovation and Competition

2007-07-20T18:23:00.000+01:00

Just spreading some good news! My company netoCiety is part of a consortium which I cannot say much about now but we (the consortium) have been selected to go through to the next stage in the UK Technology Strategy Board's Spring 2007 Competition. There is a two stage application process for funding, an outline application followed by a full application for projects successful at the outline stage.

Full deets here

Knowledge / Digital / Network Age tipping point?

2007-07-13T15:26:00.001+01:00

In my view we are currently undergoing a transformation as fundamental as the one between the Agricultural Age and the Industrial Age in the early part of the last century. We are now being supplanted by the Knowledge/Digital/Network (add own sobriquet here) Age.

Merely wanted to link to some great posts/occurrences that might show this and most importantly, get to the heart of this post which is: Have we reached a tipping point yet?

My last post (Latest on the transformation debate) covers two big pieces of commentary (one a book) which, whilst both are disparaging of the changes currently taking place, at the same time give credibility to the argument that we are undergoing a fundamental transformation. Links to the pieces as well as controversy they have stirred are included - check it out.
From the normally sceptical Nicholas Carr of Does IT Matter comes the announcement of his new book that will be published early 2008: The Big Switch - Our new Digital Destiny. The title itself implies we are at a tipping point (same must apply to Nick because this seems like a complete reversal of his views in Does IT Matter?). NOTE: the topic is not so much about the transformation in and off itself but specifically about a form it will take - utility computing. But relevant excerpts from the blurb are telling:
A hundred years ago, businesses began dismantling their waterwheels, steam engines, and generators. After producing their own mechanical power for centuries, they suddenly had an alternative. They could plug into the newly built electric grid and get all the electricity they needed from central stations. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities didn't just transform how businesses operate. It set off a chain reaction of economic, social, and cultural changes that brought the modern world into existence.
Today, a new technological revolution is under way, and it's following a similar course. Companies are beginning to dismantle their private computer systems and tap into rich services delivered over the Internet. This time, it’s computing that’s turning into a utility. The shift is already remaking the computer industry, bringing new competitors like Google and Salesforce.com to the fore and threatening stalwarts like Microsoft, SAP, and Dell. But the effects will reach much further. Cheap, utility-supplied computing will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did.
The arrival and battle amongst the so-called DIY social networks (great article from Richard McManus over at Read/WriteWeb): services that allow you to create a custom social network for any topic. These services can be either hosted or based on your own server. In many ways, these services represent the second generation of social networks, after Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. You could argue virtual worlds are 'next generation' too, but in any case custom social networks are certainly a step up from proprietary SNS like MySpace and Facebook. I believe this is a new iteration of the social network that will be much more powerful than the sometimes "closed" social networks like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. As such they represent to my mind, a tipping point. Services analysed are: Ning, vibEngine and PeopleAggregator.
Interesting post over at Communities Dominate brands which tries to collate various data sources on spending on social networking related activities globally, and as of end of 2006 (in what has to be seen as a very nascent market), the aggregate is a whopping $ 6.5 Billion.

I'm going to try and gather more evidence of this in some way or other, this was just a hurried start to an important direction for this blog...

Latest on the transformation debate

2007-06-22T11:20:00.001+01:00

There are two views currently doing the rounds (with much associated controversy) that touch on the effects that Web 2.0, social computing/networking, etc. are having (or not) on society as a whole and will continue to have in future. They are both decidedly sceptical in their outlook and with many good reasons to be but they still miss the point as I see it.

First, the views are those expressed by Michael Gorman in his articles on the Encyclopaedia Brittanica Blog entitled WEB 2.0: The Sleep of Reason. The second is from the book by Andrew Keen entitled The cult of the amateur: How today's internet is killing our culture. You wont have to go too far to get an idea of the debate these views have stirred up, mostly pitting the sceptics against the utopians and so the arguments are largely skewed.

A balanced contribution is from a normally sceptical voice and although he retains a useful sense of scepticism, he comes close to making the point. I'm talking about Nicholas Carr of Why IT doesn't matter fame. A quote from his article on the Brittanica Blog on the subject:

So while I’m happy to line up on Gorman’s side in battling the hive mind fabulists, I’m not going to kid myself that it’s anything more than a sideshow. We’re not going to see the rise of a superior collective intelligence – those awaiting a higher consciousness will end up, as always, either disappointed or deluded – but neither are we going to see the survival of a way of thinking shaped by the careful arrangement of words on printed pages.

The point? I've made it before or rather I've borrowed someone else's view to make it in this post :) In essence it is this:

Global connectivity, real-time information, and the other usual suspects of visionary business books won't change the business world, they already are changing it, they have changed it in the past, and they've been on their way to changing it for more than three decades, ever since the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency first successfully tested the ARPANET, the forerunner of today's Internet.

This can apply equally to society as a whole. An important aspect (as Spinoza the great Dutch philosopher once said) is to "view passing events under the aspect of eternity". When you view things in the context of very long time horizons as Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor did (quote in previous paragraph), then you see the real impact of the internet and how it has changed things and will continue to change things moving forward. Some positive and some not so positive as Andrew Keen points out. Change and ultimately transformation is inevitable and we should think about how we can harness it effectively - not harp on and debate endlessly about its merits and demerits.

"Just do it" I say (in the immortal words of that great shoe manufacturer). Here endeth today's lesson...

Blending of social software components for best performance

2007-06-20T11:19:00.000+01:00

This as an unashamed punt of a post I have just made covering the topic on my company blog. To be honest, I am a little ashamed although I'm not sure I should be, i.e. should I or should I not avoid this crass commercial up-selling of my company on a supposedly unbiased personal and professional blog? Any thoughts???

My other dilemma is that I am currently contributing to two blogs and this is time consuming so I am considering a merger of sorts but the problem and headache is integration of my archive. Also, the company blog is built into the platform we use for the site itself (Atlassian's Confluence Enterprise wiki) which as the post suggests, scores highly as a platform that blends social software components, but as I conclude in the post, I'm not sure the end-to-end solution in this case works, i.e. is Confluence's blogging function an adequate replacement for this blog. Currently it isn't but I am working on something. Any ideas/suggestions in this area would also be welcome!

Delicious gadget loveliness and wikimania

2007-06-15T12:11:00.000+01:00

To boost an already great Friday I thought I'd cover two areas of passion and get the weekend party started - hope I'm not the only one that this benefits :)

The first was prompted by some news I picked up of new handsets that have just been launched by a manufacturer (I'll leave it to you to find out who but won't be difficult). I have written about mobile phones before, you may have noticed. They are a passion, they are the future and they are generally from companies I admire or at least phones I admire. This time was no different but I was struck at how unmoved I actually was on seeing the new devices which is not an altogether new occurrence of late and was especially marked since the are really nice devices. On examining further, I realised it was because of Apple's new iPhone which I have written about before. They have raised the bar so high it makes it difficult to get excited about anything else. I've not posted pics to drool over before so here is a great one:

The other topic/passion is about wikis and I recently came across a brilliant piece of research being conducted on the use of wikis within Enterprise (a subject close to my heart as well as business). Penny Edwards is working on the study as part of her MBA Technology Management research with the Open University Business School, UK. She's conducting the survey to gather data on wiki management practices as well as the relationship between wiki management and organisational learning. If appropriate or interested I urge you to take the survey which is published on her wiki. It takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

It would tie in very nicely with the research programme I am currently exploring with a client and prominent UK univeristy and I will be hoping to coincide as far as possible with Penny's efforts.

Social Networking gives rise to Networked Society

2007-06-08T19:09:00.001+01:00

Just posted this over on my company blog but thought it might be useful here too:

I've long thought this - the reason why I helped create netoCiety in the first place (netoCiety is a combination of the words Networked Society which I in turn first read about in Howard Castells, The Rise of the Network Society). Pretty obvious stuff you would say and I'd agree but that is not the point of this post.

I was reminded of my long-standing beliefs by this excellent post from Stuart Brown over at Wisdump entitled The Ebb and Flow of Social Networking. It observes the phenomenon of "countless communities online that have grown, peaked, and slowly faded into obscurity. Like a roving band of wildebeest, it seems communities arrive en masse, graze for a while, and move on to pastures anew."

He plots a graph, not unlike Gartner's Technology Hype Cycle series that has a peak and a plateau but unlike Gartner, it has a decline. This might lead one to believe that this cycle of birth, death and rebirth has no cumulative effects. I'm not saying that is what is being said but my point is that the cumulative effects of all this luvvly jubbly web 2.0, social networking, community and Enterprise 2.0 stuff on the Internet is giving rise to something in the long term, as fundamental as what was postulated in the book by Howard Castells. That is, aside from the ebb and flow we see in the present time. I've tried clumsily to represent my simple point below:

Something revolutionary is happening! Now let me get off my cloud and start some serious weekend partying :)

Last.fm / CBS deal observations

2007-06-08T10:30:00.001+01:00

Couple of observations on the Last.fm (popular social music site) sale to CBS Corp (US media giant), picked up first by me here.

A commenter in this article (covering the fallout from users baulking at the possibilities of interference) is possibly right that all CBS wants is a better pulse on GenX/Y audiences but they wont interfere and in the name of research, they'll run at a loss. This is a sensible citizen research source strategy but is it sensible business strategy. Why buy just to be able to tap into a research base (blogosphere is just as good and free) in order to then build elsewhere based on the knowledge (as suggested by commenter)? All the value is in the acquired service brand and with its users and not doing anything to influence enhancements sensibly in line with CBS strategy does not make sense.
Price ($280m/£140m) is steep for 15 million "active" users considering the above and ROI is going to be a long time coming unless they get their act together on a sensible revenue stream.
On the last point, I have it from various sources that mobile is hot on the Last.fm agenda, either directly from Last.fm management or from CBS or both. Sensible considering mobile music is hot, hot, hot! I only have to look at the latest acquisition in this space (my erstwhile employer - Sony NetServices, purchased by Real Networks). Nice take on that deal by GigaOM here. Of course there's Apple's strategy with iPhone to consider as well which I wrote about here.

As an avid Last.fm user myself (see playlist at right), I'm not holding my breathe that this deal will have any positive impact on the service, certainly not in the short term while the integration work proceeds. I'll be watching...

Published from ScribeFire

External Collaboration - Indispensable for Innovation

2007-05-25T10:32:00.000+01:00

From a recently conducted Global CEO Study by IBM who took a comprehensive look at a topic that is increasingly important to leaders worldwide: innovation. Based on in-person interviews with more than 750 of the world's top CEOs, the study included views of business and public sector leaders from 20 different industries and 11 geographic regions, representing both mature markets and developing markets such as China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Participants were remarkably frank, sharing their deep insights on innovation. We learned for example, that two-thirds of them expect to drive fundamental changes within their organisations in the next two years. Surprisingly undaunted by this challenge, they see innovation as a means to seize opportunities.

One key finding was that 76 per cent of CEOs thought that external collaboration, primarily with business partners and customers, is key to innovation. This contrasts greatly with their view of internal R&D, which was cited by only 17 per cent of CEOs as a major source of innovation and new ideas.

In terms of most significant sources of innovative ideas, see figure below which details the results:

Amongst the most interesting conclusions for me was:
Ignite innovation thorough business and technology integration. Use technology as an innovation catalyst by combining it with business and market insights. Technology can be a catalyst - both to drive innovation and to enable it. It can play a vital part in new products, services, channels, market-entry strategies, operational transformation and industry -altering business models. Technology can even enable other innovation enablers such as collaboration.

Full article here

Transformation - Changing ahead of the curve

2007-05-25T10:01:00.000+01:00

"Many companies wait too long to attempt transformations, doing so only when the signs of trouble have become obvious. But that's almost inevitably too late. High performers, by contrast, change before they must, knowing that the best way to transform is from a position of strength."

Accenture research into high-performance business has found that successful companies are able to change ahead of the curve by embracing four critical goals:
1. Increase the company's capacity for early change by deliberately fostering continuous renewal as part of its everyday operations.
2. Generate confidence in early change by sharpening the company's business acuity through the development of comprehensive market sensing and responding capabilities.
3. Overcome management resistance to early change by carefully and continuously evolving top management teams.
4. Accelerate the behavior changes needed to start and sustain transformation by using leading-edge tools and techniques for sensing and responding to organizational change barriers and opportunities.

On the last point in particular comes this emphasis:
"Social network analysis is another recent technology-enabled technique that allows managers and executives to track the effects of strategic initiatives on employee behaviors. It enables management to identify the effect change initiatives are having on the patterns of communications and influence occurring within the farthest reaches of the organization. In particular, social network analysis helps companies identify "energizers" who can be further leveraged as well as "de-energizers" who must be dealt with."

Full article here

Motorola's new toys!

2007-05-16T13:15:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I attended Motorola's European (London) leg of their global new product launch. New York happened the night before and Bangkok just after London.

The RAZR², which will debut around the world in July 2007, features a slimmer exterior than its RAZR predecessor, along with some new features. Other new products announced were the MOTO Z8, MOTO Q9 and ROKR Z6 which begin shipping in Europe and Asia within the next month. The ROKR brand will be synonymous with Motorola’s music-optimised handsets and headsets as the company addresses the importance of music for today’s mobile consumer. Here they are in all their glory:

For standard bumph on the products, here's a good place to start. My input is derived from highlights from the three speakers (Allen Burnes, VP EMEA and India; Neil Stewart, Marketing Director and Ignacio Germade, Design Director) and the experience I had with the luvvly jubbly gadgets.

From an overall strategic point of view two points were made and stood out. One was that although "talk on the move" was an initial imperative in the industry (and still is to do well), now it was important to additionally facilitate "work, navigation, pay and play on the move". I liked those phrases :) Another interesting take was more like a product segmentation breakdown that on a functional level assigned phones to three categories (everyday communications, feature phones and multimedia and messaging) and on a more psychological basis to three categories: behavioural; emotional and performance. Quite useful I thought.

Ignacio the design head spoke of the importance of creating synergies between software and hardware and the fact that for the first time Symbian was running on one of their phones (the MOTO Z8). Being a Symbian fan this pleased me. I wondered though, considering the last set of stats I saw for Symbian adoption (very high), if this was a recourse of their own choosing or down to market pressure?

On the MOTO Q9 front (mobile work since this is a smart phone) some interesting stats were bandied about. Apparently messaging growth (predominantly of the e-mail variety I assume) has grown immensely from enterprise users (predominantly Blackberry users) to now encompass many more consumers or prosumers. Also, many are using Blackberry alternatives that are now available with the Q9 amongst the most popular. An interesting tidbit was about a model sold exclusively in China (Ming) which runs Linux for mobile and can scan biz cards - sales are rocketing. Likewise with the Q (not sure which version) in China! Over here in Europe we'll have to see how things go since their Q9 is only available, as of today, in Italy with other countries following shortly. A final stat which is obvious to me - 70% of Blackberry users have another device whereas 80% of Q users have only one device - way to go :)

On the phone itself I have to say that by comparison to what I have been using for a while now (the Symbian based Sony Ericcson range of smart phones - P8/900 series and now the M600i) it stacked up. Solid, easy to use QWERTY keyboard and the Q9 comes with HSDPA capability (great as long as your operator supports this). Compared to the M600i I currently have it is much slimmer although broader. Having said all that, the latest and greatest in this area from SonyEricsson (P1i - see below) looks to be no slouch so we'll have to see.

The 3G HSDPA MOTO Z8 (so called Multi-media monster by one of the speakers) is quite an impressive piece of equipment I have to say. In particular, what stood out for me was the kick slider which when extended, does so at an angle so that it conforms to the contours of your face - very neat. It also has Sky TV accesible and preinstalled (I believe) on the phone with the possibility to control the programming on your set-top box at home, remotely via the phone. But even more exciting was a small mention of the possibility to upload media to your favourite site (YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, etc.) very simply and in an integrated way. Not much more mentioned than that in the presentations but when I asked one of the very helpful guys at the products stand, he mentioned that Shozu in the UK was helping them create the different interfaces needed with these various services. For the user it was merely necessary to specify service and users settings and the upload would then be automatically arranged in the background. Something like this was done by SonyEricsson with Blogger (I video logged and wrote about this here and here). But this seems to go much further - will be very interesting to see how it pans out! Phone out in June.

The other phone covered was the ROKR Z6. It uses the slim slider design and has dedicated music keys and a navigation wheel for instant access to the music library. The one interesting point was that a partnership with Napster was in place but apparently only in the USA for now. To be honest, for me this does not cut the mustard considering the iPhone juggernaut that this way heads. I saw nothing of the iPhone killer that will be needed to head Apple off. Apparently, from the same helpful guy, a music srvice is planned but again, considering iTunes, its hard to see how this can help. I'm hoping to get some more deets on that later and I'll update this post accordingly.

Finally there was the RAZR successor - RAZR². I'm not big on slim phones, or clamshells but this is one beautiful phone. Like all the phones it was solid but for something so slim, all the more impressive. The two other things that impressed me were the "Haptics" function which on the front screen created a buzzing senation on touch so that you were given the impression almost of raised keyboards - interesting. The other was something spoken about only - Crystal Talk is a voice improvement feature that, if it works as intended will greatly improve call quality.

All in all, a solid set of products.

Weighing in on the Enterprise 2.0 Transformation debate!

2007-05-09T10:07:00.000+01:00

As I should considering that this lies at the heart of this blog's purpose :)

This is merely the recording of a serendipitous conclusion I had that came about as I read a passage in the book I am currently busy reading and when I remembered the context of an article over at the FASTforward blog.

The book I am currently reading is the The Visionary's Handbook (Nine Paradoxes that will Shape the Future of your Business) by Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor. The passage is:
The key to a false vision is that, in the face of knowing for sure that the world is going to change, a company or an organisation or an individual aspires to stay the same. The key to a true vision is that, in the face of knowing for sure that the world is going to change, a company or an organisation or an individual aspires to change with it and stay the same simultaneously . And the reality of a true vision is that, unlike a false one, pursuing it is such difficult work.

The excerpt out of the FASTforward post which is about the contrasting views of two of information technology’s greatest thinkers — Harvard’s Andrew McAfee and Babson’s Tom Davenport, over the scale of the impact of Enterprise 2.0:
Davenport questions whether E2.0 technologies and services “will empower employees, decentralize decisions, free up knowledge, and generally make for better places to work,” as McAfee and many of us here at this blogsite believe. Davenport explains his skepticism: “Such a utopian vision can hardly be achieved through new technology alone. The absence of participative technologies in the past is not the only reason that organizations and expertise are hierarchical. Enterprise 2.0 software and the Internet won’t make organizational hierarchy and politics go away. They won’t make the ideas of the front-line worker in corporations as influential as those of the CEO.”

McAfee responded that he “couldn’t agree more” with Davenport, arguing that he, too, argues against the “techno-determinism and -utopianism that I’ve sensed in some E2.0 enthusiasts.” Rather, McAfee predicts “spotty deployment of E2.0 technologies, not broad or deep adoption. My pessimism comes from exactly the factors that Tom describes.” McAfee, however, admits he is far more optimistic about E2.0, putting it this way: “My optimism, and my interest in the component technologies of E2.0, comes not (solely) from my inherent geekiness, but from the fact that these technologies really are something new under the sun. They’re not extensions or enhancements to previous generations of corporate tools for collaboration and knowledge management; instead, they’re radical departures from them.”

The conclusion actually comes out of the Visionaries Handbook:
Most "visionary" books (apply equally to McAfee/Davenport's visions of the future - SD) are failures of imagination and the more they ring of "truth", the greater the failure they are. Why? Because that is the first paradox of the visionary: the closer your vision gets to a provable "truth", the more you are simply describing the present in the future tense. Global connectivity, real-time information, and the other usual suspects of visionary business books won't change the business world, they already are changing it, they have changed it in the past, and they've been on their way to changing it for more than three decades, ever since the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency first successfully tested the ARPANET, the forerunner of today's Internet.

To me however, it looks like the conclusion favours Andrew McAfee's arguments but ultimately, YOU decide.

And I believe I just succeeded in creating a Mashup :)

Publishing 2.0 question?

2007-04-27T10:37:00.000+01:00

I've been hectic working with a publishing client who is going to take their web presence to the next level with the development of some very interesting functionality, possibly through the integration of some off-the-shelf components in the blogging domain. This space is moving really quickly though, just noted NBC's future plans which seem to go way beyond publishing/blogging into communities and social networking!

My question in this whole space though is when I get everything I need from the blogosphere in terms of a cosy ecosystem within which to exist, with many like minded blogs or communities with whom I can easily link/connect and with very little control being exerted (for now), why should I tie myself into an ecosystem created by the MSM with the restrictions that it will no doubt have to impose?

Enterprise 2.0 Round-Up

2007-04-27T10:09:00.000+01:00

I've been meaning to do a follow-up post to my earlier one with the meme map which consolidates the very kind and constructive commentary I've received from some other inspiring thinkers in the field:

Thanks to Susan Scrupski who posted the meme map on her blog, I picked up on Prakash Muralidharan's Services 2.0 Meme Map. The services 2.0 map seems perfectly plausible to me but then I wouldn't now exactly since I am not very familiar the services meme and it would require further investigation. Which brings me to the next point!
Paul Miller over at Nodalities makes the point that my Enterprise 2.0 Meme Map is all good and well but that it is superficial and requires deeper explanation and more importantly implementation in order to judge its relevance! Good point on the latter, implementation side. On the former, well I think that is pretty obvious, as was done by Tim O'Reilly in his seminal piece on Web 2.0 and indeed what I intend to do with the research which I am currently working on (more later).
Sandy Kemsley over at ebiz points out some really interesting new tools in the Space and to an article by Dion Hinchcliffe, in particular a piece from his 10 predictions for Enterprise 2.0 in 2007. It highlights the importance of processes for enterprise which in many cases, when consumer Web 2.0 apps are used in the enterprise, are missing. I will be including this important aspect in my Enterprise 2.0 research and meme map (or rather visualisation, for Dennis McDonald's benefit) as I progress.
A good friend Bruce Lewin only created a link but I'm not just giving him some link love in return but also, as an aside, because he has some excellent other links alongside mine (well worth checking out) :)
Dan Farber at ZDNet also very kindly posted my visual. He rightly points out: It's a good place to get the discussion started on the obvious trends impacting business models, the workplace, customer engagement and technology. Turning the discussion into a day-to-day, steady embrace of enterprise 2.0 concepts and strategic initiatives that cascade through an organization is the challenge. Some other very good links on his post too worth checking out!
Ramesh Loganathan also posts my visual and makes some great comments, especially: Now, what is more topical for me is the preposition: can we take this participatory enterprise to the next level. Instead of employees collaborating using intranet tools, can they collaborate using personal productivity tools running on their desktop. The same wikis, blogs, info tagging et al, more closer to the source. Instead of managing the collective knowledge base (intranet wikis/blogs, I have a personal wiki to manage "my info". And still expose to anyone as needed. Now imagine, these tools going a step further and helping "mine" info from the individual instances. Harvest all tags on the wikis and blogs and other info-apps running on each employees' desktops. Really interesting point especially considering the case I have at a particular client where the issue and difficultly is getting so much off of what is on employees desktops onto a shared environment (in this case an enterprise wiki - Atlassian's Confluence) without too much hard work and replication being required. Some way to automate this would be excellent. Ramesh, if you read this, check out this excellent post from Web Worker Daily that covers some other great tools (in addition to those you mentioned) that start marrying personal productivity tools with the desktop and the web simultaneously.

That's all in the line of consolidation from the excellent input this far - huge thanks to all those that took the time and effort. Now onto the research mentioned and any further input at this level would be much appreciated. All I have at present is an outline (in the form of questions mostly) and this does not include the methodologies and tools that will be used. This will be done together with a client's input but anything you can provide on this in terms of approach and what needs to be covered, please do let me know by comment (for now - as mentioned previously, at some point I may create a wiki space to collaborate further on this if interest is high enough).

Enterprise 2.0 Research Outline V1:

NOTE: The first part, up to the end of section 4, will attempt to gather evidence and data from research that already exists and has been carried out (desktop research). The remaining sections will focus on identifying gaps and then conducting bespoke research with a client using appropriate tools in order to make up the knowledge/evidence gap.

Proposed Title: Enterprise 2.0 - Challenges and impacts from adoption of Web 2.0 technologies on business performance

1. Introduction
a. Abstract
b. Purpose and Approach, including:
i. a description of the instruments used and why chosen
ii. a description of what the research covers and what it does not, i.e. its limitations

2. Enterprise 2.0 Terms & Definitions
a. What is Web 2.0?
b. What is Enterprise 2.0?
c. What is Collaboration?
d. What is Social Software and the technologies/tools that this encompasses?
e. What role does process play?
f. What are social networks and communities of practice?
g. What is the social capital of a company and what role does culture play?
h. Where does it make sense to adopt Enterprise 2.0 technologies and practices and will there always be a competitive advantage/benefit?

3. Enterprise 2.0's context
a. Does it work in every industry?
b. Does it work in every organisation?
c. What role does the following play:
i. Existing vision, aims, culture, processes, practices and business model
ii. Physical vs. virtual
iii. External: Company vs. customers & suppliers
iv. Internal: Management vs. employers)
v. Size: Lean and small vs. hierarchical and large
d. Does it work in every business area or function and what could be or is its impact, in particular:
i. Innovation?
ii. Change Management?
iii. Marketing?
iv. Overall Productivity?
v. R&D?
vi. Others?
e. What application range of social networking tools makes sense for different companies to adopt?
f. What are the opportunities and threats or risks of adoption vs. non adoption
g. What opportunities (e.g. improved market research) and risks (e.g. security issues) are there?
h. What is the impact on the bottom line in the company, in particular:
i. ROI?
ii. Social capital?
iii. Future investment costs vs. saved costs from not implementing Enterprise 2.0
iv. Improved performance: profitability, profit growth, sales growth

4. How to adopt Enterprise 2.0
a. Identifying Key Success Factors:
i. The ideal technology infrastructure to facilitate effective collaboration
ii. Nature and extent of collaboration possible based on an organization's culture and processes that encourage people to work together as teams
iii. The changing role of IT
iv. Policies and Security in place (e.g. governance, identity management, etc.)
v. Acceptance of unknown or unused technology
b. Change Management’s role
i. What challenges exist?
ii. How can we overcome them?
c. Financial Investment Plan - How much money is needed?
d. Risk Management & Escalation Planning
e. Action Planning & Timetables

5. Gaps and Tools/Methodologies for gathering additional evidence required
To be defined

6. Case Study (carried out on actual project with client)
a. Summary
b. Background
c. Aims/Objectives
d. Participants and Roles
e. The Approach Taken
f. Benefits to date
g. Issues experienced
h. Things that immediately could be thought of to be done differently
i. Model Documents
j. Conclusions & Recommendations
k. What companies should do moving forward, i.e. the ideal implementation model

7. Appendix
a. List of References
b. List of Figures

Rewarding Enterprise 2.0 behaviour

2007-04-19T09:14:00.001+01:00

"People who horde information are the problem. People who share information are rewarded,"

Matthew Glotzbach, business product manager at Google from this article.

Couldn't agree more and would go one step further and suggest this is institutionalised in performance measurement and reward parameters at work.

More about this in a long overdue follow-up to my Enterprise 2.0 Meme Map post with news on some research in the area I'm plotting - soon...

Sony / PS3 - Successful innovation/ers?

2007-03-27T09:30:00.000+01:00

Howard Stringer, the Welsh-born chief executive of the Japanese company, heralded the PS3 as the key to his strategy for reviving Sony's performance against its main rivals such as Microsoft and Apple.

Do I think the PS3 is the basis for even a successful product innovation, let alone a successful company transformation - NO!

My view on the basic formula for innovation success: be first, best, or different! Do you think the PS3 is anywhere close to being any of these in the next generation console wars? If these two articles from The Guardian are anything to go by (and I have read many more) then it is certainly not the case. They reflect accurately what has happened on the ground, pre and post launch here in Europe. I don't think it is much better across the pond.

Based on some innovation research that I have been exposed to over the years I thought I'd do an exercise pitting the PS3 work (and indeed Sony as a company) against what is generally understood to be best practice in terms of successfully innovating. Results below (without really pitting them against competitors at this stage):

Innovation 2.0 post - see table reference above!

Feedback much appreciated!

UPDATE: I may have jumped the gun there a little judging by latest reports following the European launch day disappointment. However, this report does only cover the UK and the game is far from over (if you'll excuse the pun). I'm still sticking with my original prognosis - let's see how things pan out in the long term...

UPDATE 2: It sees my prognostications may be vindicated after all (3 months after I first posted this). See these two articles which talk about Wii's fantastic success rate, at the expense of Sony's PS3...

Enterprise 2.0 Meme Map

2007-03-13T15:32:00.000Z

This is an experiment!

I tried finding an Enterprise 2.0 Meme Map the other day and had no joy from the limited search I carried out. So I thought let me start with something, borrowing liberally from Tim O'Reillys WEB 2.0 Meme Map and also from my good friend Ros Cannell's view and then see if I can get any other input on my Blog. So here it is:

Any feedback welcome! If there is enough interest, I'll create a wiki Space to make collaboration and progress more flexible.

Playing Catch-up: PS v XBox

2007-03-08T21:03:00.001Z

Xbox Live has now exceeded 6 million members worldwide, 4 months ahead of schedule. Announced at E3 last year was the expectation to double the Live audience from 3 million to 6 million members by the end of June – the speed of adoption shows just how much Xbox Live is offering its growing community. From great game downloads to movie and music videos, not to mention community features like text and video chat, Xbox Live is changing the way we play and communicate.

Enter Sony who unveiled its new 3D universe called Home. Sony described Home as a 3D social networking service and is hoping to replicate the success of social networks and Second Life."It's about community, collaboration and customisation," said Sony's Phil Harrison at the Game Developers Conference, in San Francisco.

Nice ideas from Sony but oh so not new. Will be interesting to see how the numbers stack up over time. I'll be watching this space - anyone care to hazard a guess on outcome?

Shift Happens

2007-03-01T09:30:00.000Z

This video segment was sent to me by e-mail from a post at www.boreme.com. I took the liberty of spreading this fascinating video via YouTube because it is seemingly sans copyright.

It is nothing more than an animated slideshow presenting a collection of facts and figures about current and projected changes in the global economy. I cannot at all say whether they are correct (facts and figures) but they sound right and even if the are out by a mile, they still confront you with some fascinating possibilities (if you're a glass half-full person like me). It was made by an American and is slightly biased but still encompasses global perspectives and covers, amongst others:

- Population growth
- Economic growth
- Innovation and Change
- Technological Progress
- Education

Also, great Irish ditty in background - enjoy!

LinkFest - A months worth...

2007-02-28T11:16:00.000Z

Been a really busy month so little time to post. I've collected a worthwhile list of posts and commentary though, from the little reading I managed.

First up is a good list published in an article (old now) on WebProNews on the ways that businesses, associations and organizations can use social networking in the professional sphere. Some of these are ways to use social networking to connect with customers and members, some focus on internal organizational communication, others still on the network as the way to find knowledge within the organization. Below are the headings and the full article with descriptions is here:

Customer and Member Relationship Development
Customer Support (Connecting The Customer With The Right Resource)
Use The Network To Find An Expert Or Locate Implicit Knowledge
Ease Post-Acquisition Integration
Provide The "Whole Product"
Understand And Visualize The Actual Communication Paths Within The Organization
Supercharge Meeting Facilitation And Preparation
Increasing The Value And Extend The "Shelf Life" Of Conferences
Pull Together The "All-Star Team" That's Right For This Customer
Share Knowledge
Differentiate Your Service With Brand You
Prepare For Coming Demographic Changes In Business

I compiled something similar, specifically on the use of wikis in the enterprise and the benefits derived here.

Speaking of Wikis, this article talks about how Wiki technology adds a new dimension to local government communications, changing the way information can be gathered, communicated and approved and making it more democratic. I posted before about others "getting Wiki with it" so it seems the world is slowly starting to get wise to Wiki's. Now there's even a book and new site out on Wikinomics - excellent to see!

Finally, here is a summary of links to some good articles - all I can manage for now :)

5 Tips for Enterprise 2.0 Adoption
WEB 2.0: Can mashups match up to business needs. Transcribed from an FT.com subscription only article
The New Frontier of Experience Innovation. Sorry, link to MIT Sloan Management Review article that you have to pay for, but do read the intriguing abstract and then buy, I have and it's a great piece from one of the major proponents of the Co-Creation principle.
Is Enterprise 2.0 for hippies? Good laugh but mostly serious and insightful stuff.

Web 2.0 101

2007-02-08T10:43:00.000Z

Excellent video by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, with a 101 on Web 2.0:

Sony Ericsson - New Products Launch

2007-02-06T12:10:00.000Z

I've just left an event hosted by Sony Ericsson (in London) where they announced a slew of new phones, summarised below with main deets, a few comments and a few choice pics to satisfy any GadgetLust that may exist out there:

MUSIC

W880i
- 9.4mm thin (CD case is 10mm), 1Gb capacity, 3G phone
- 2.0 megapixel camera
- 18 hours playback
- Available in-store this month (Feb 07)
Comments: Really difficult to find the all important volume button intuitively (tab denoted by zoom icon also used by camera so baffled me). Otherwise a really elegant device that looked similar to the Samsung YP-Z5 music player to me apart from the keypad and the fact that it is even thinner and a camera phone to boot (Samsung is 12.3mm for the 4Gb , 11.4 for 2Gb devices) . A very good addition to the stable and a welcome entry to the slim phone category. Here it is in all its glory:

W610i
- Fusion of music and photography (dual front) - EDGE
- Comes with 512Mb in storage (MemoryStick Micro M2)
- TrackID (trademarked) music recognition application
- 2.0 megapixel camera with auto focus
- Due out Q2 07

IMAGING

K810i Cyber-shot (trademarked)
- Sleek, 3.2 megapixel camera including auto focus and Xenon flash - 3G and GPRS
- High speed picture blogging (integrated with Google's Blogger - check my video here and post here)
- Innovative applications such as Photo fix for photo editing on device
- Due out Q2 07
Comments: Slightly bulkier than the K800i that I've played with (if I recall correctly) and not sure what has been improved without detailed analysis so I question the perceived value of this new addition. Otherwise, as with its predecessor, great camera phone and I especially like the integration with Blogger. Here it is:

K550i
- 14mm thin - GPRS and iMode version available
- 2.0 megapixel camera with auto focus plus LED photo light and active lens cover
- PictBridge technology - print directly via USB to compatible printer, no need for a computer
- Integration with Blogger
- Due out Q1 07

ENTRY LEVEL / SIMPLE PHONES

K200i
- One button click to activate VGA camera
- Slideshow view and will store up to 40 images
- Simple, clear navigation

K220i
- One button click to activate VGA camera
- Integrated FM radio with RDS - store up to 10 radio stations as pre-sets
- Radio Alarm Clock

J110i
- Striking looks with large, legible keys and easy navigation
- 9hrs talk time with storage of up to 200 phone numbers
- Central navigation key with clear icons gives one-click access to commonly used features

J120i
- FM Radio - store up to 10 radio stations as pre-sets
- Loudspeaker through which radio can be played
- Comes with stereo headset

INTERESTING ACCESSORIES

PC300
- Mobile Broadband PC Card
- Supports HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS, CSD, SMS
- Download speed of up to 3.6 Mbps

Stereo Portable Handsfree HPM-75
- Delivers excellent sound with stylish metallic finish
- Supplied with spare ear buds of different sizes to get the perfect fit
- Microphone and call answer button on the cord, where a 3.5 mm jack allows different ear phones to be used

Music Remote Control MRC-60
- Allows phone to be docked for charging while continuing
- Use remote control to continue hi-fi sound quality music playback
- Remote control can be used to select tracks on the phone, adjust the music playback volume and even handle calls via the speakerphone

GENERAL

Steve Walker, Head of Product Marketing (Global) mentioned in his intro that although the emphasis of the new handsets was imaging and music, SE would still focus overall on phone functionality. Some interesting stats he mentioned on the imaging side was that a total of 4.5 million CyberShot handsets had been sold worldwide to date and on the music side, 20 million Walkman handsets - very impressive.
In the Q&A at the end the two interesting questions and answers were:

What is the main difference between your music phones and the new iPhone that Apple recently announced and how will you fend them off? The main answer offered up was Walkman's established base which is a good point but I'm not sure that it will stand up to the Apple juggernaut - remember what Apple did to the established MP3 players like iRiver and Creative when they launched iPod.
I asked, in line with the question above, if SE intended to make more of their music offering on the service side (like Apple do with iTunes), other than what they have done on a limited basis with M-Buzz (see my post here). The answer was that it was not an SE strategy to emphasise and substantially develop music services other than for stimulating demand and experimenting with. Rather, they would seek to cooperate and where necessary integrate with existing service providers as well as with mobile operators who had their own plans or services.

On a final note, I am so pleased I got my prognosis on the launch of the iPhone correct (written about in my previous post here) - I can now continue to walk tall and trust further in the power of intuition :)

Apple, CES and Enterprise 2.0

2007-01-05T17:17:00.000Z

I'm back - been a good Christmas and New Year but time for some work now :)

Contributed to a bulletin on Apple yesterday and what we can expected from them in the run up to Macworld and for the year 2007 (published for TransMission and in reference to this article from Jason O'Grady).

My bold predictions herewith:

I write this as a non-Apple fan! Not that I have anything against Apple – I admire them as much as the next person does. It's just that I have never become entrenched in their world of products and services. So my view could be taken to represent a mainstream view, at least in terms of computer use - since most people still don’t use Macs. When it comes to music, that is another matter - but this could all change in 2007 and beyond.

As pointed out, the alleged iPhone - I mean Apple phone (sorry Apple, but the name iPhone is already taken in a case of unfortunate branding one-upmanship by Cisco) - faces many obstacles. But I’m not sure Apple can afford not to cross that bridge, so I think there will be a phone announcement and eventual release of an Apple phone - because the mobile phone will become the device of choice for mobile music consumption eventually. This does not mean to say it will happen any time soon, or that this trajectory does not have its own barriers to overcome (like storage capacity and battery life). Or indeed that users will purchase via OTA downloads or streams. However, by virtue of actual numbers (music-capable phones already outnumber iPods, by all indications) and the high interest that this report indicates, it seems to me to be inevitable.

Jason O’Grady thinks all the Apple phone talk is about vaporware and therefore it's grist for the rumor mill. However, considering the iPod is the basis for the comeback of the century by Apple, anything deemed to endanger this franchise will be taken seriously. So this is another reason I think Apple will announce something regarding phones. Actually it will not be their first announcement in that regard - remember their unforgettable effort with Motorola? Except this time it has to be far better than those initial forays, which were of course an early attempt at crossing the bridge. Whether it is an announcement for a device or service, remains to be seen. But I predict that Steve Jobs will at least provide some indications at Macworld, finally.

As for the other areas of anticipated attention at Macworld, the iTV is the other very important one. It's something that clearly needs some clarification, considering the confusion that exists about it. The home entertainment space is (at least as far as a single Hub to serve it is concerned) is still relatively open - and one that Apple has a good chance at making inroads into. But they are far from alone - with Microsoft, Sony and Intel (amongst many others) all eyeing it closely and with some impressive pieces to the puzzle already in place. So whatever Apple does, it will need to be exciting. My view is that it has to go far beyond what Jason O’Grady thinks it is in this piece - which is a glorified beaming device for streaming content from a hard drive to a TV.

Great intro at the BBC to CES and how its major Rivals battle for connected world. One telling point quoted of Mr Wargo, director of industry analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association, the organiser of CES, was: "We are seeing two fronts maturing - the hardware and operating system that will control this system and the content that will feed it. There's also a story of how the online community is emerging as a potential competitor to the cable, satellite and packaged media industry. " Nice synopsis of the battlefront :)

Finally, this is a latest post from the "father" of the term Enterprise 2.0 (Andrew McAfee). It provides a good overview of activities, references, case studies, etc. from the last year and a prognosis for 2007 on Enterprise 2.o activities. Note especially the piece at the bottom entitled "Looking Ahead" to see where you might fit in as a company!

2007 and beyond!

2006-12-20T09:28:00.000Z

My mascot for 2007 and beyond!

I don't believe I need to add anything to explain!

Anyone thinking about doing something new in 2007 - just do it!!!

Sign of the Times

2006-12-18T21:05:00.000Z

Sorry about the bad pun but isn't this just an awesome cherry on top of what has been a wopper of a cake for 2006 (a 2.0 cake that is). I know, it's going from bad to worse but I am rather excited so please forgive me...

Above is the cover of Time's most recent issue which covers the Person of the Year for 2006. And it is...

You - Yes, You - Are TIME's Person of the Year

"In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter"

If that does not prove that the Social Revolution has arrived then perhaps this little photo montage of what has preceded this cover story in 2006 on other illustrious titles might do it for you (in no order of priority):

Online Information Conference - Day 3

2006-12-01T14:47:00.000Z

Track 1 - Collaboration & Communities

Social Networking

Moderator: David Gurteen, Gurteen Knowledge
Keynote speaker: Dave Pollard, Founder & Principal, Meeting of Minds
Former CKO & Global Knowledge Innovation Director, Ernst & Young LLP, Canada
Other Speakers:
Bonnie Cheuk, Head of Knowledge & Information, Environmental Resources Management (ERM), UK
Isabella Peters, Dept. of Information Science, Heinrich Heine University, Germany

In Dave Pollard's view the critical application and greatest challenge of social networking is finding people.
Bonnie gave some interesting insights into the work she had done with two companies using social network mapping and analysis to drive business performance. She asked senior executives in both companies to identify who they needed to connect with to achieve their objectives, based on the job types and perceived value of each target. Seeing the patterns that emerged and the reasons for them was made simple and were very revealing.
Isabella spoke about the importance if indexing in the form of folksonomies and tagging as well as topic detection and tracking (TDT) as a way of finding, searching for and discovering new and appropriate content. She pointed out that based on research she had carried out, open tagging was critical for success and auto (suggestion) tagging made it even better. TDT was a way of creating automatic summaries of content with similar topics and this worked very well. An example given was Google News. She mostly covered blogs and podcasts and I thought this was a pity since wikis are much better at resolving some of the problems she identified.

The value of communities

Covering:
Online communities: the supportive environment
Supporting mixed physical and virtual knowledge communities: when and how to effectively change modes
Working together on a common approach for internal communications: a case study from the united nations on the development of its intranet

Moderator: Hazel Hall, Senior Lecturer, Napier University, UK
Speakers:
Dan Dixon, Social Software Consultant, UK
Karen Eden, Knowledge Development Director, Oracle Corporation, UK
Ed Mitchell, Former Editor, Knowledgeboard, UK
Linda Stoddart, Head, United Nations Library, USA

Some of the more important benefits Oracle was trying to reap from their community based activities was rapid formation; aggregating resources; facilitating global collaboration and local execution and developing knowledge and competence
Critical in order to create effective communities at Oracle was the following:

Planning communication: understanding comms tools; planning; predictability and quality count; frequent short physical status meetings are important and communication for purpose
Trust as a condition: Explore safe topics to kick-start sharing and provide user cases
Obtaining commitment: have a leader; empower; coach and develop understanding

Lessons learned at Oracle in trying to develop communities were:

Cross lines of business drives governance down the chain
Start small
Don't force - let demand pull need
Buddying is good
Self-assessment and peer assist are better than direct training

Dan provided some good themes that should be followed for effective community building:

Governance
Shared identity
Ownership
Trust
Right mode for right problem (on/off-line)
Touch points are necessary

I missed most of the last session (Collaboration in Action) since I left early but the what I did see was the presentation by Ben Chan (Information Services, Library Channel Editor, Ministry of Defence, UK). He took us through their adoption of Microsoft Sharepoint and a demo of what they had created. No offence to Ben but what I saw left me deeply suspicious of any value that Sharepoint might provide as a simple and effective collaboration and community platform. It had its benefits (mostly information indexing) but just seemed too clunky to me, compared to the liteweight Confluence that I'm used to (but then I am biased :-)).

That's all from the conference - hope this information was useful!

Online Information Conference - Day 2

2006-11-29T15:15:00.000Z

Sessions I attended this second day were all in the track, The Light Web - Social Tools and Technologies. Emphasis was mostly on enterprise use.

How can Social Software Deliver Value
Moderator: Adriana Cronin-Lukas from BigBlog Company UK
Speakers:
Alex Bellinger, Director, Audacious Communications, UK
Ben Edwards, Head, IBM New Media Communications, USA
Ewan McIntosh, New Technologies Research Practitioner, Learning & Teaching Scotland, UK
Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist, Blogger and Author, PodTech

ROI only one measure, difficult to measure at present and should not be emphasised at expense of qualitative aspects. Possibilities for successful ROI analysis were alluded to (the conclusions are mine):

Marketing cost savings
Improved customer service
Improved productivity, especially in communication (avoiding e-mail clutter) and up to date information (especially using wikis)
Improved Innovation and Change efforts
Disintermediation of various filters and bureaucracy

Use of social software in an enterprise can be distinguished between specific and one off-use such as using a wiki to manage documents and systemic use where their use in all forms or shapes become pervasive.
Robert Scoble made a good point that word of mouth, which has traditionally been rather effective for companies, is now made visible and effectiveness is improved immeasurably with the advent of social technologies. Inside companies it is collaboration that is facilitated with the possibility to allow this to emerge outside of the company and start impacting on customer and supplier relationships.
Ben from IBM made the point that overcoming resistance was critical and that they had done fairly well with the following numbers attesting to that:

IBM have 15000 internally active bloggers
70 000 active wiki users (Confluence from Atlassian)
More than 1 million pod/vod/screencasts generated thus far
3-4 interventions per year on average, on inappropriate use of these tools

Ben also noted that IBM was currently undergoing an organisational and transformational process supported by social software tool adoption and that this was actively encouraged by their CEO. The ultimate goal was to encourage decentralisation and the breakdown of formal boundaries. Another worthwhile note was that companies embarking on the path should look to and collaborate with companies that have taken the step, discovered and succeeded.
There was joint commentary about the liberation of ideas and blurring of users and producers that social software enabled and I wrote about some time ago under the title Innovation 2.0.
Robert covered some key elements for successful social software: Ease of use, Discover-ability; Real-time capability; Permalinking and Syndication possibilities.
Productivity versus politicisation was an obvious contrast covered, i.e. how to manage the upsides of improved productivity in different areas versus the potential for management revolt against the democratic forces unleashed by social software. No satisfactory conclusion in my view. Ben from IBM said that formulating a policy for social software use was effective in placating possibly nervous managers
In terms of supporting adoption of social software in the enterprise, authenticity was seen as key as well as to encourage emergent behaviour (duh).

The risk and reward of social software wikis and the lightweight software revolution
Moderator: Lloyd Davis, Perfect Path Consulting, UK
Speakers:
Alex Bellinger, Director, Audacious Communications, UK
John Hobday, Knowledge Manager, The Linde Group, UK
Jeffrey Walker, President, Atlassian Software, USA

Jeffrey spoke about the various clients they have that use Confluence and the ones I did not know about and found interesting were Accenture (where apparently 10 000 odd members use it) and Pixar.
John from Linde (53k employees; €12B turnover) had some really useful insights from the implementation and adoption strategy they followed to install and get users up and running with the MediaWiki they use. Following most relevant:

Objectives were facilitating knowledge capture and transfer and the creation of a knowledge base
Their strategy was also to connect people to people but also people to documents
The reason a wiki was chosen was because of its speed, openness, the fact that it was not static and because of its participatory capabilities

The main stats behind Linde's implementation and adoption programme are as follows:

Sept 04 to March 05 - selection process (pilot in November and guides and help material created thereafter)
March 05 - MediaWiki selected
May 05 - Serious use begins
April 05 to current - 1500 users active
Adoption facilitated by pilot process, encouraging experimentation and evaluation amongst core user base then building wider interest, getting business sponsorship and promoting the wiki through viral techniques (nothing blatant) and logging of use cases

The future of social software and WEB 2.0
Moderator:Phil Bradley, Internet Consultant, UK
Speakers:
Adriana Cronin-Lukas, Partner, BigBlog Company, UK
Ben Edwards, Head, IBM New Media Communications, USA
Matt Locke, Head of Innovation, BBC New Media, UK
Ewan McIntosh, New Technologies Research Practitioner, Learning & Teaching Scotland, UK
Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist, Blogger and Author, PodTech

Again a definition was requested by the moderator as a base from which to view future developments (much groaning). Matt Locke (actually a colleague of his) and Robert Scoble had the most valuable:

Matt: Simple, functional, gregarious (encourages sociability), open (in terms of technology) and Evolving (having a feedback loop into user behaviour)
Robert: Interactive (versus static) and improving the more people used it

Matt pointed out that social software allowed for critical mass to be achieved in Open Innovation efforts (see Innovation 2.o above), the theory and to some degree practice of which, has been around for a while. At the BBC a major objective for the Corporation at present was to increase innovation output by bringing in ideas from outside, through users.
The future of work was discussed and the point made that social software allowed for a merging of formal and informal roles at work - nice point!

That was pretty much all of value for day two. Hopefully I'll be able to do something for day three since I will be leaving early.

Online Information Conference - Day 1

2006-11-27T17:10:00.000Z

I'm attending the Online Information Conference in London and will be here for the next three days. I'll be blogging this event with summaries and key understandings of what I believe merits it. So here goes with Day 1.

KEYNOTE: IDEAS, CREATIVITY AND KNOWLEDGE ARE CAPITAL: EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST MONEY NOW Thomas A. Stewart, Editor, Harvard Business Review, USA

Very interesting man and by far the best speaker of the day which I guess is as it should be for the keynote speaker. He covered the pillars of the knowledge economy, turning knowledge into products and services, increasing intellectual capital, knowledge efficiencies and key future challenges.

Within the last decade, he highlighted the fact that from a management point of view, within the first 5 years there was an emphasis on new idea generation, innovation and creativity. Post the internet bust to the present time there has generally been an emphasis on execution. The point is that now the pendulum is turning and management thinking is once again preoccupied with innovation, ideas and creativity.

Increasing the span to cover the last 100 years of management thinking and attention in the context of sources of competitive advantage, he suggested there had been an emphasis on assets, financial stability, risk management, efficiency and continuity. In the next 100 years however, the emphasis will be on people, skills, innovation, change and disruption. He added that organisational design was being radically transformed by geographies (globalisation) but also by technological shifts (social software being foremost amongst them).

Touching specifically on knowledge management, he exhorted us to follow Peter Drucker's advice to clearly establish what you would like to do with knowledge and asking first what the job is then finding the knowledge base to do it. He also covered well the "marketplace of ideas" (or selling what you know) and suggested three knowledge strategies that could be followed:

Instilled Knowledge (smart products like smart mobile phones)
Distilled Knowledge (knowledge as a product like decision support systems)
Black-box Strategies (knowledge services)

He then presented the following Intellectual Capital Model with social software squarely fitting into the structural capital part of intangible assets.

He ended off with an overview of of some of the key challenges facing companies in future: speed; customer power; low cost competition and decision making under uncertainty and management without supervision

The only other presentation of the day worth noting was from someone from the BBC called Nic Newman who focused on the importance of search (or find as it is termed by the BBC), within the context of Information Search, Discovery and Exploitation in a WEB 2.0 world. Within the BBC's new WEB 2.0 focused strategy to enable Finding, Playing with and Sharing content, search, tagging and indexing was seen as key. Social search in particular seemed to be focused on and a demo of some new applications they are experimenting with was shown - looked really good.

A raspberry goes to the CEO of Accoona who gave a terrible presentation trying to define WEB 2.o business models and generally made everyone cringe.

I spent the rest of the day with Jeffrey Walker of Atlassian talking about their upcoming release of Confluence (2.3 - some sneak previews on there site), of which my company is a reseller. It was radical and there are some excellent new bits of functionality coming along that I can't wait to get my hands on and my clients will feel the same once they get a glimpse. He also showed me some really interesting reference sites using Confluence and the most impressive were: SAP; Constitution Centre and JavaPolis.

That's all for today...

Zune - A (less than) grand day out!

2006-11-14T08:59:00.000Z

Engadget's view on release:

When it comes to the hardware, we're pretty much set; we all now know the Zune inside and out. But how it interacts with the software, the marketplace, etc. -- that's where the magic happens. Or doesn't. We really wanted to give the Zune the benefit of the doubt. We hoped installing the Zune software and getting our player running would be as seamless and painless as getting iTunes and an iPod running on your machine, since that is, after all, what it's up against. (Granted, not even iTunes is bereft of major problems on major releases.) Unfortunately, the reality of our experience with the first version of the Zune software this afternoon is much like that of many version 1 software experiences. It sucks.

My view pre-release:

I think that to evaluate the potential presented by Zune as an “iPod killer”, one first has to understand the basis for competition in the space and the context within which Zune will operate. iPod does not stand alone and is complimented by easy to use software, a well-integrated service and access to a comprehensive library of content - spanning increasingly diverse and attractive media types. The business model is another component in which Apple has set a standard, in terms of customer adoption. Currently it is a la carte, possibly moving to subscription with movies - but the former still accounts for the most prevalent form of consumption from the masses (of digital music at least). Another element of their business model to date is its proprietary nature - and this has served Apple well, because it has offered a well integrated solution, but that may soon change.

The iPod has become the style icon of the 21st century thus far and it is on the back of this and through the iPod that Apple makes most of their money. This suggests that hardware is seen as a very important component; at least this is where comparisons against Microsoft’s offering might begin. However, considering the design nous that Apple has cultivated and the current style indications for Zune doing the rounds, it’s unlikely this is where Microsoft will win. Coupled with a crowded and hugely competitive DAP market, it is also unlikely Zune will come anywhere close by adding features which are easily imitated - the rumoured wi-fi capabilities being one of them.

I believe it is in the convergence space, where the whole stands or falls based on the degree of integration amongst increasing parts, that the battle will be won. Convergence as a concept in practice has arrived late, but most would agree that it has arrived now - with the past year seeing a blitz of convergence-related launches. From full-track wireless music downloads and IPTV rollouts, to next-generation mobile video-gaming and digital home consoles. Some have had very credible success rates, but most would agree that Apple has achieved the pinnacle of the convergence ideal amongst all of its peers. Accenture has just published their Media Content Study 2006, where senior executives in related industries were asked for their views. Content is seen as critical to the growth strategies of telecoms and technology companies. Also the mastery of new distribution channels is a strategic priority for media companies – effectively converged services. Of the various distribution channels, online (89%) and mobile/wireless (73%) are expected to provide the highest growth opportunities in the next five years.

So Microsoft has a pretty tough act to follow with Jobs at the helm, masterminding media tie-ups at an unrelenting pace and steering the convergence ship forward steadily (just ask Sony). Microsoft has Urge, a tie-up with MTV Networks, but the challenge there will be to offer a well-integrated service with a partner - difficult at best. Rumour has it the upcoming device will not be part of the standard PlaysForSure programme - and this is either a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. They do have the Xbox platform, a good springboard and arguably their best bet at creating a differentiated offering - with its promise of integrating the living room. It's also where wi-fi capabilities would help. Also, Xbox has already integrated personal music into the games and purchase for their DAP could easily be added on.

Additionally considering that Windows Live already constitutes a substantial social network, this could be a component that, if properly leveraged, might constitute one of the final nails in iPod’s coffin. Just to make sure, an additional consideration might be to pursue and incorporate the mobile aspect (important, as noted in Accenture’s study). Not that Apple is lagging in their preparations, but with their fear of cannibalizing the iPod franchise and their failures so far with Motorola, Microsoft (with a relatively successful Windows Mobile platform) might very well have a leg up.

Above view published by me in a TransMission bulletin on the 26/7/2006

Insight and Inspiration

2006-11-02T09:42:00.000Z

The latter normally follows the former (i.e. inspiration normally comes after having delved deeper into a subject or a truth), at least that is what I find. However, that's not what this post is about - I've just considered it and it's worth exploring further but I'll leave that for another post :)

I really just wanted to first record an inspirational note that I came across and thought it might serve to inspire others as it did me (it comes from the handy little book called Zen Soup):

For every worthwhile goal, “perseverance furthers”.

Opportunities for the greatest practical and spiritual breakthroughs come when we have reached the absolute limits of our energies and abilities and somehow manage to push through. Perseverance requires equal parts commitment to purpose and detachment from results. Commitment to purpose keeps us moving forward into the attitudes and activities that serve to fulfil it. Detachment from results keeps us from becoming frustrated and discouraged when things don’t immediately work out as we had hoped. Perseverance then, is a balance of masculine and feminine energies, an aggressive forward thrust into activity and a patient, steady endurance.

Exhorting the value of consistent daily application, my Zen teacher would often say, “One by one, day by day.” Whether it is our spiritual training or the requirements of the creative process of doing and making, the temptation is always there to give up too easily or too soon. We tend to be greedy for results, overeager to arrive at our desired destination. It helps to remind ourselves that the means are the ends; the journey, the destination. As often as not, success comes to those who ignore their setbacks and simply refuse to give up.

Getting wiki with it…

On the insight front, I picked up from Steve Rubel that Stanford University was tearing a page out of Wikipedia - literally. They are launching a wiki that allows students to share campus information and and much more. The project is open to the general public to view, not just the University community. However, if you want to edit it, then you need to be a student.

Now I've just discovered that the U.S. intelligence is unveiling a spy version of Wikipedia. The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia, which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like its more famous namesake on the World Wide Web.

A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000 pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but unclassified" material.

The system is also available to the Transportation Security Administration and national laboratories.

The world is slowly starting to get wise to wiki's - excellent to see...

Who owns the music?

2006-10-24T08:30:00.000+01:00

This is a direct cut and paste out of a bulletin from TransMission: a unique subscription resource managed by the Rights-Marketing Company in London that provides exclusive access to Web & Media 2.0 thought leaders. I contribute to some of the bulletins. This is not one of them but I thought it covered perfectly a topic I recently touched upon in this weblog covering artists and how they were "doing it for themselves" or more importantly, how social networking sites were allowing them to do so. The format is designed around commenting on or analysing recent trends, topics of discussion raised by other prominent bloggers, company announcements or prominent events.

Musician Billy Bragg recently wrote a guest article for The Guardian, in which he questioned the role of record companies in the age of social networking websites and the mp3:

"Will they [social networking sites] usher in a revolution in the music industry by allowing self-promoted artists to circumvent the major record companies who have stood as gatekeepers of public taste for so long? Or will they simply be the means by which the industry keeps its monopoly on copyright ownership and earnings through the silent harvesting of intellectual property rights?"

In this bulletin the Micro Media bloggers try to answer Bragg's questions.

Steve O'Hear

In a recent interview, Paul Graham - whose company Y Combinator is an early investor in technology startups - was quoted as saying:

"One startup I dream of funding is the one that kills the record companies. You know your business model is broken when you're suing your customers. The new business model must be out there somewhere, and my guess is that the way to beat the bad guys is not through political action (or at least, not only that), but by inventing whatever replaces them."

For as long as I care to remember, commentators have been predicting that the Internet will spell the end of the traditional music industry. It's certainly true that the net has had a disruptive influence - sending the records companies into a frenzy over the rise of peer-to-peer networks and illegal file sharing - and that this has led to a very public debate about what value (if any) record companies actually bring to the business of releasing music. In the Internet age, there is no longer a scarcity of distribution channels, and the cost of distribution (and marketing) has also lowered considerably.

As Billy Bragg wrote, this is very different from the previous era:

"In the past, if they wanted to sell records, artists were obliged to sign to a big label. Only they had the muscle to ensure that your record got into all the shops and, crucially, that you got paid. Even the independent labels, who made a great show of standing apart from the majors, often relied on them for distribution and revenue collection."

While the Internet does seem to offer artists the chance to bypass record companies and traditional distribution - in favour of going it alone - for the majority it hasn't quite happened yet. However, the signs are promising.

Last week MySpace announced that it was partnering with Snocap (a company started by Napster founder Shawn Fanning), to allow the nearly 3 million unsigned bands who have set-up shop on the social network to start selling music downloads. MySpace (and other social software and media services), have already gone some way to creating a level playing field when it comes to gaining exposure, but what was still missing was a simple and low-cost way for artists to turn that exposure into revenue. As it's not currently possible for an unsigned band to get their music into iTunes (the most popular legal music download service), it's been left to MySpace to try and become that record company killing 'startup' that Paul Graham has been dreaming about.

And of course Billy Bragg is right to argue that if the record label's role has been negated, there is now no need for artists to sign over their IP rights to anybody. Even better, the same tools (social software and media) which are allowing artists to end years of exploitation, are also being used to expose any attempts by new media companies to have it any other way. Billy Bragg was successful in outing the previous unethical terms and conditionals of MySpace and he is currently using the service to host a video blog entry which is attempting to do the same to MTV.

The Internet doesn't just spell the end of the music industry as we know it, but also provides the level of transparency needed to ensure that whatever replaces it, will actually be better.

Taewoo Danny Kim

The "unmedia" phenomenon, which has been predicted since the dawn of the Web, is finally being realized in large scale. The fundamental shift is happening: across all media sectors, media is becoming more decentralized, unmediated, micro-fragmented, and edge-driven. For a great number of artists who simply could never get over the hurdle of signing with a "major record label" in the past, now they can finally pursue their music career by directly reaching listeners via the Web.

While many traditional media companies are slowly adapting to the social nature of the Web, they always seem to be a step behind at every phase. The customers today are not only consumers, but also are producers of goods and services FOR the media companies. That means that if media companies turn off their customers, they're not only going to lose their revenue stream - but also actually reduce their competency to create content. Customers and their creative activities are part of who media companies are today.

Acknowledging such an aspect about customers is extremely important, as more and more competition is building up in the digital music industry. Of course, Apple is the king. We've already covered Microsoft's move with Zune (though it didn't get too many positive reviews from Micro Media bloggers). MySpace recently announced that it's going to be the digital music platform for many niche musicians, which is an extremely smart move given the fact that indie music bands completely get what MySpace is about. SpiralFrog, an advertising-based music service to be launched in December, is building excitement because it will enable you to legally listen to music for free.

As this space gets more crowded, the switching cost is only going to get lower for customers. In the 2.0 world, because it's easy to start a business and viral effects take place typically in an exponential fashion, things happen very quickly. It was only months ago that MySpace's traffic passed that of AOL, which had been built over a decade. However, it only took another few months for YouTube's traffic to pass that of MySpace. More competition with lower switching costs will definitely make you want to keep your customers happy. Imposing strict music ownership rights is not a good way to do that.

Take the example of Google. Google does not "own" the Web, it only helps users navigate the Web - and as a result it has built the largest value in the entire Internet industry. The same principles should be applied to social networking services, music services, or any other platform service for that matter. Platforms are only meant to aid whatever happens on top of them; they weren't meant to swallow what happens in the upper layer. Once that kind of "bundling" happens, it's more likely to destroy value than create value - because that's how much flexibility networks and platforms ought to possess nowadays. Customers move with better agility than companies can, so shackling is the worst strategy today.

Cale D. Hollingsworth

This is a subject that has been tossed around since the early days of Napster, and the question remains - where are the artists and why haven't they been more vocal about the sorry state of music distribution? It is obvious that the RIAA needs the artists to continue to generate new content, but do the artists need the RIAA to protect their content? With today's powerful "Social communities" to spread the word about a new break-out band, one has to wonder how effective the traditional models of promotion (and their huge budgets) will be over time.

The RIAA must spend a massive amount of money keeping their tribe of lawyers busy tracking down and making examples of "pirates" (who are usually also "consumers" of their product). Perhaps a better investment of this money would be to promote a very liberal "Open DRM" model at a very attractive price point. This would enable artists to DRM their own content and allow the democratic nature of the Internet to determine hits and busts. If MySpace did this, it might be an intermediate step to allowing artists true "self publishing" ability. But at what cost, both financially and in terms of intellectual property/copyright?

Of course Best Buy, Wal-Mart and other "big box" stores will throw tantrums and resist such changes. Losing these channels would certainly hurt the industry's short-term profits, as the market adjusts to the new mechanisms of distribution. However, the result would be a much leaner distribution model and give the artists far more control over their labors of love. Bands will still need to tour and promote their albums, however instead of the 90/10 (or far worse) split that exists now, they would be in a far more equitable position.

Marginal and Indie bands have already begin to see the "self publishing" light and it is only a matter of time before a major act rejects the traditional distribution model (a la Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster in the 1990's) and succeeds. This has to be the RIAA's biggest fear. Not increased consumer downloading and/or trading of content, but the loss of their main suppliers over time. This would erode their funding and power to a point of irrelevance - and they know it. One day, the artists will figure this out also.

As the current iPod generation ages into being the prime purchasing demographic, what distribution method are they going to choose? Traditional media - be it 8-tracks, vinyl, cassettes, CD's, DVD's or even BluRay/DVD-HD - are all doomed to obsolescence. Traditional promotion and marketing won't reach the "iGeneration" nearly as effectively as it has in the past. What will happen to the traditional models of distribution? Simple, they need to evolve or die.

Karl Long

In the music business, record companies solved two specific problems for artists - namely distribution and promotion. The role of the big label was to promote an artist through various mass marketing channels and distribute that artist's recordings through physical outlets. Napsterization has been a partial disruption in the music industry, setting distribution and replication costs at near zero and changing the fundamental structure of the industry.

The role of MTV has always been one of a promotional channel/filter, sometimes in the 80's and 90's a record company shill. Now through the promise of MTV Flux and its television channel tie ins, MTV is casting itself again in the role of hitmaker for unsigned, independent bands. On one side of the coin it looks like MTV is happily contributing to the continuing decline of record company power, by vertically integrating and becoming the direct hitmaker for artists. On the other side of the coin, it looks like MTV is the bad guy by getting free content for its station through exploitation of artists and their content.

As Wired noted in an article called The Pitchfork Effect:

"Though the music industry has seen drastic changes in recent years, what has remained constant is the fact that most listeners still find their music with the assistance of a filter: a reliable source that sifts through millions of tracks to help them choose what they do (and don't) want to hear."

Clearly MTV Flux (a TV channel comprising solely user-generated content) will only be successful though the participation of talented artists - and the quality of the talent will be largely influenced by the contractual terms and conditions. The more equitable the terms and conditions, the better quality artist that will participate. Surely only the artists with the lowest self esteem will be willing to give away their rights entirely for a given work, based on the slim possibility it becomes popular on MTV Flux?

In the end the promise of social media for artists is only half complete - the distribution problem is solved, but (with the proliferation of bands) discovery is a growing problem for the artists and the fans. MTV Flux is a discovery solution based on an old model of mass-popularity, a kind of consumer generated American Idol. Other solutions in music discovery that align much more closely with the rise of the niche, are services like pandora.com, last.fm, or even the podsafe music network.

Conclusion

Steve begins by detailing how musicians rights are being improved by Internet technologies, noting in particular that it provides much more transparency than in the past. Danny explains how becoming a media platform is crucial for music companies going forward, which will lead to better rights management for artists. Cale wants major music artists to take more of a role in moving the music industry into the Internet age (as Billy Bragg seems to be doing). Karl finishes by noting that discovery of their music is still a problem for artists. He says MTV is exploiting this with its Flux initiative, even though at the same time they are supporting unsigned, independent bands.

The difference between Failure and Success...

2006-10-16T17:05:00.000+01:00

...is ACTION!!!

I truly believe this is one of the most important determinants of success. I was prompted to voice this opinion after reading a similar sentiment Seth Godin published in this post under the title Make Something Happen.

It is also captured in this line which has always succeeded in spurring me on when I needed it most and it just tickles me like crazy:
The only difference between a rut and a grave is six foot.

So to all aspiring entrepreneurs, budding artists and change agents everywhere I say:

Take action! Make decision's quickly and then move on
Don't let too much CRAP (Criticism, Rejection, Arseholes, Prejudice) stand in your way
Don't be afraid of mistakes in fact make as many as possible (a sign of action) but just learn from them
Build first then correct, i.e. don't wait for the perfect version of whatever before taking the plunge

Now that I'm all fired up I think I'll go find something to act on and then award myself...

Social Networks, Innovation and Corporate Blogging

2006-10-13T10:00:00.000+01:00

This is an attempt at synthesising some thought streams from various blog posts that I've read in the last few days and that I have had, concerning the topics mentioned in this post title.

Corporate Blogging:

Intel has just got in on the Corporate Blogging trend, launching an officially sanctioned blog that supposedly represents Intel's IT Leaders. This useful site (an open wiki) lists all of the other Fortune 500 companies that have blogs (it still needs to be updated to link to this latest, formally sanctioned blog from Intel). Taking it even further, Sun Microsystems' new chief executive wants to be able to announce the $11bn company's results on his blog. Jonathan Schwarz has written to the chairman of US financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission to request a rule change (story here). Corporate Blogging is slowly growing and expanding in use and this is very good news indeed.

Social Networks and Innovation:

Found on the Intel blog mentioned above is a good primer (Social Networks 101) covering basic new ideas about the power (laws) of social networks and how they apply across many application areas. It starts with how these ideas can catch on and accelerate current practices for generating innovation. Most interesting points below:

Geniuses may exist at the far edges of the network, but without the context of network connections for diffusion, and especially social network hubs for broader diffusion, their ideas may not go far. One of the examples I used was from the Social Sciences Research Council, provided by Diana Rhoten. It showed that if you take the interdisciplinary people out of the network, which heretofore was end-to-end (i.e. everyone a few steps away from everyone else), you get a fragmented thing that you can’t really call a network, but rather islands of information. Experts and hubs are both important as Malcolm Gladwell and Duncan Watts have described in their respective books, Tipping Point and Six Degrees.

Internal to Intel, a very inventive colleague who works in validation has created maps that show that if five hubs are removed from a social network in his work area, about 70% of innovation (and its diffusion) falls away. Academic studies, (references to follow, but my main source here is David Obstfeld) have shown the same thing: that without “bridges” across dense islands of highly connected individuals, you don’t get innovation. This was a key point of Watts’ book Six Degrees, and of Mark Granovetter’s work on Getting a Job. In a small dense network, knowledge is uniform. Until you get the chance to compare contexts across dense small networks, you can’t rise above the local problem and therefore you have limited solutions.

What I am very interested in is the role that social software plays in facilitiating various activities in a firm, amongst them innovation. Hence the Poll I set up on this blog, near the top on the right. Please take part if you are also interested, spread the word (always link to the home page of this blog since the Poll is part of the blog, not this post) and come back from time to time so that we can all understand what the collective view is. Comments on the poll would be useful too! Last point on this: Internet Explorer users might have a problem seeing the Poll (an embedded widget) as with so many other things :-( I suggest you rediscover the web and get Firefox.

In Booz Allen Hamilton's strategy + business, a recent article entitled My Customer, My Co-Innovator covers a topic I have covered before on Innovation 2.0. Examples quoted are from Cisco, P&G, and Goldman Sachs.

Cisco: "Cisco had several highly sophisticated customers who weren’t satisfied with “solutions”; they wanted to see and understand the thought process behind the company’s proposals. Were these architectures really the best or most cost-effective that Cisco had to offer? So Cisco began showing these customers its in-house simulations. And the customers, in turn, expressed a desire to adapt these design, configuration, and optimization models for their own use."

P&G: "Procter & Gamble has begun to share some of its computer modeling and market research techniques with Wal-Mart, Tesco, and other distribution channels. This includes the celebrated P&G “moment of truth” research, which tracks consumer attitudes at two critical times: when the product is chosen and when it is used. To be sure, many of P&G’s biggest distributors are also rivals that offer their own private labels, so there are risks to sharing this type of proprietary innovation platform with them. But the rewards are even greater: They include ongoing close ties with retailers, who often share their own innovative tools for analyzing (for example) how store layout, shelf space, and signage influence purchase decisions. Together, these manufacturers and retailers can develop a relationship that transcends any particular innovation tool or technique."

Goldman Sachs: “In the early days, we would run simulation after simulation demonstrating that our instruments would help them better hedge their risks,” acknowledges one former Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers executive. “But, frankly, they didn’t fully trust either us or our simulations. It wasn’t until we started giving them the simulation tools we used ourselves that they took us seriously.” ... These free simulators proved to be the most profitable innovation that the Goldman Sachs derivatives group launched. Soon, clients began asking for custom derivatives and other tailored instruments. “Without the simulators, customers would never have known what to ask for, and we would never have thought to ask,” recalls the bank executive. Yet, despite its success, this innovation appeared nowhere in the bank’s R&D budget or prospectus. It was only a tacit, not an explicit, locus of value creation.

Finally, here is a post which covers an interesting debate contrasting older technologies for supporting collaboration and in turn innovation (in this case Lotus Notes specifically) versus newer forms of social software such as Blogs, Wikis and WEB 2.0 App Tools. This is also covered well by Dion Hinchcliffe on a post at ZDNet which contrasts Enterprise WEB 2.0 versus Tradional Software.

YouTube / Google Round-up!

2006-10-10T20:33:00.000+01:00

I'm not going to try and add to the flurry of analysis/observations since the news broke but rather add a few links to the best that I've read. I'm sure it's far from exhaustive (there's so much out there):

The usual suspects:

Goobed - Om Malik who eats some humble pie after misreading the cards! His blog is among the top 50 blogs as ranked by Technorati, and part of C/Net's 100 Most Influential Blogs.
Google has acquired YouTube - Michael Arrington of Techcrunch who first broke the rumours, smugly reports on a conference call and webcast he was privvy to where Google discusses the deal.
I still think Google is crazy :) - From Mark Cuban, another heavy hitter in the blogosphere and also someone who called it incorrectly.

The Mainstream Media:

BBC News who also have an interesting review on a raft of recent deals in which they speculate on whether the dotcom boom has returned. Conclusion - probably not, "the internet has finally come of age."
Similarly, the New York Times reflects that the Dotcom boom is echoed in the deal to buy YouTube (registration required) but sums up nicely by quoting Benjamin Schachter, a UBS analyst, who wrote in a note to investors. “The price tag of about $1.6 billion is difficult to justify on a spreadsheet and may be somewhat of a throwback to the days of paying for eyeballs and page views, but this is a strategic bet that Google would be placing for a long-term objective: to be the technology and distribution partner for content owners and publishers.”

The best for last:

Check out this link or the next post which is a video on YouTube from the founders talking about the deal - classic!

2006-10-10T20:32:00.000+01:00

YouTube's founders on Google deal!

Jumping on the bandwagon!

2006-10-04T09:57:00.000+01:00

According to Digital Music News:
"Coca-Cola has recently started pushing unsigned artist features, podcasts, and downloads, part of a collaboration with Paste Magazine. The action, taking place on coca-cola.com/music and geared towards the Americas, will deliver a fresh slate of artists every month. Current podcasts cover North American, Latin American, and European artists, and each is curated by various Paste staffers. Additionally, music fans are being offered a long list of downloads, each accessible free-of-charge. The initiative is taking a somewhat different color in Europe, where bands are being encouraged to upload their own music. "

There are a couple of others that I recall reading mention of but don't come to mind right now and together with what I covered in my previous post it seems we are on to a trend! I just hope that for the big brands getting in on the act (all puns in this post fully intended :-)), this is not just a marketing exercise because I believe it is truly a worthwhile endeavour and will increasingly become the modus operandi for new music marketing!

Sony Ericsson's new music service targets new talent!

2006-10-02T09:03:00.000+01:00

Just picked up Sony Ericsson's announcement of a partnership with Sony/ATV Music Publishing to showcase the very latest new music talent on a brand new webspace, M-Buzz.

Key points below:

Users will be able to download music by upcoming talent and unsigned bands from M-BUZZ
Focus is to enable music fans to spot the next Arctic Monkeys before anyone else (be a music know-it-all)
Artists on M-BUZZ at launch (October 2 2006) will include Kish Mauve, Embassy, Dirty Perfect, FKLV, Iggy, The Head Set, Bobby Kray, Anjulie, Lights and Monte*Rosa.
M-BUZZ will also include biographies, images and tour information
The first phones offering M-BUZZ will be the W850i and W950i Walkman® phones

Good direction emphasising social aspects as well as new/unsigned talent (or the creator/artist). This is where the smart money is going in my opinion, from a service provider as well as customer point of view. Two other services I have recently come across, which are not affiliated to any large manufacturer/operator/label and are both doing an excellent job in this important area are Artists First and Carbon Logic.

Cross the Line - and Learn

2006-09-29T13:48:00.000+01:00

This was the theme of a forum I attended on the 28th of September, focusing on how companies and their people can learn through community engagement, from communities and about society. Essentially it concerned the responsibility business has to society (CSR in short). The majority of the delegates representing many of the large corporates, had this focus within their companies. It was arranged by Three Hands, hosted by Kids Company and chaired by Mark Wade, formerly Head of Sustainable Development Policy, Strategy and Reporting at SHELL. Below is the agenda for the day, with a list of all the speakers and my distillation of the one major theme or point that I took out of their presentations as well as from the break-out sessions that were held in-between:

Reuters and Community Engagement - Have we crossed the line?: Julia Fuller, Corporate Responsibility Manager, Reuters

My overriding impression was that for all of the good that was shown to have been done by Reuters over many years and the gains that had especially been made in recent years, it was still a HUGE struggle for someone in Julia's position (including her team) to get more than a small percentage of involvement/endorsement from the company as a whole. This was across employees and managers although disappointingly, it was the latter that lagged. Seems a pity it has to be such a task!!!

Twelve reasons why your employees need to cross the line!: John Williams, Chairman, Tomor row's Company

There were certainly twelve very good reasons. The one that stood out for me was: "If you don't invest in society, it won't invest in you." In line with this thought a challenge thrown down was to determine, as a company, what side of the line you were on: Compliance or Conviction. In other words are you acting, in respect of your social responsibilities, out of a deep founded conviction or because you feel you must, or as part of a clever marketing exercise? Good question!

Social exclusion - What's it got to do with me?: Camila Batmanghelidjh, Founder and Chief Executive, Kids Company

What Camila clearly illustrated for me, through vivid examples, was the reality that she and indeed the children in her charge had to face on a daily basis. The point she tried to make, and it brought the reality home to me with breathtaking effect, was the difference between the haves and the have-nots. She confronted us, in our wonderfully cushioned isolation, to consider the differences that existed between our privileged children and those she dealt with every day. The challenge was to break down the barriers that make us immune to suffering and leave us poorer for it and engage more with society, not just with some financial balm, but with our hearts and minds.

Living Values: David Robinson, Founder, Community Links

David first illustrated his main point, as I saw it, by revealing the reality behind the ENRON story that I have heard before. The fact is that they espoused many high minded values, to the extent that they even produced a manual that each senior manager was exhorted to manage by (and indeed they often claimed to) but in the final analysis they were discovered to be lacking in the values department. His second harder hitting point was made by challenging companies to understand value in the context of communities and ultimately, their social responsibilities. His practical suggestion was to consider the way a community organisation such as his worked and the role it played. Then if this was valued, whether companies should not consider adopting at least some of these same values and principles, but most of all, practices.

Break out sessions!

Passion tempered by frustration! Without going into details (probably lost you already) my overriding impression from the many great ideas proposed, spoke of great passion and enthusiasm but I also observed undercurrents of frustration which shows that there is much work still to do and it is an uphill slog!

What was missing!

Sufficient emphasis on solutions! I especially asked about one area (my area of interest) in which I observed a notable absence of discussion. That is the use of technology, specifically social software, as a way of solving some of the problems through facilitation of community building by developing social networks that build knowledge and collaborate online. Some companies do get it as testified in this article: Can Web 2.0 change the world? Nonprofits embracing technology that built MySpace and YouTube. But much more can and should be done to harness the powers of participation.

All I have left to say, actually to ask, is that if you feel in any way moved to do something, do it with the organisations that need it most. Start with Community Links and Kids Company (click on logo's below). Next, go to charityWiki, find other organisations and see if you can support them. Upload information about favourite charities that you support or companies or organisations who you know of that are doing good work. It's free and easy but for any technophobes out there that might struggle, let me know and I'll try help!

MicroBroadcasting - The New Frontier

2006-09-27T12:53:00.000+01:00

I picked up the MicroBroadcasting moniker from Seth Godin over at his blog (see blogroll) and the link to this video. I think he is definitely onto something, i.e. people will increasingly use Google Video, YouTube and the like to communicate with video. It can be sent as a mail link, blogged, etc. and for personal (greeting card for instance) as well as business purposes, as in the case of this video which is a kind of infomercial. The fact that it is not perfectly shot and crafted stands in its favour. It makes it gritty but real, definitely the trend in movies, TV, etc. So the first netoCiety campaign will have to adopt this form (not least because it costs nothing :-)) Watch this space...

By the way, this video clip is about prefab home design/build firm Hive Modular and landscape design/build firm rosenlof/lucas. At the end of this video is an invitation to a party. The project was the focus of an episode of an HGTV program.

The Future of the Internet

2006-09-25T10:11:00.000+01:00

The Pew Internet and American Life report canvassed opinions from experts on scenarios about the future internet, based on developments in the technology in recent years. Covered well by the BBC here!

Interesting for me was the reasons put forward for preventing some of the Utopian ideals proposed. Ian Peter, Australian leader of the Internet Mark II Project, wrote: "The problem of the digital divide is too complex and the power of legacy telco regulatory regimes too powerful to achieve this utopian dream globally within 15 years." Author and social commentator Douglas Rushkoff agreed: "Real interoperability will be contingent on replacing our bias for competition with one for collaboration. Until then, economics do not permit universal networking capability."

The emphasis in these comments is on the validity of a "networked nirvana" (other areas covered touch on the prominence of the Mobile Internet).

I think the objections run parallel to those found in the current Social Software/Networking trends (WEB 2.0) debate, covered well by Nicholas Carr who tries to put Social Software in Perspective. The problem with Carr, et al, is that they look at the issue within the narrow confines of present time (the Pew study looks 15 years ahead) and they focus only on the user and not the regulatory, cultural or commercial environment. I think the latter lie at the heart of the potential barriers to a networked nirvana, as mentioned by Rushkoff and Peter above.

However, I believe in mankind's ablity to transform to new models of operation and indeed cooperation and by "replacing our bias for competition with one for collaboration" there will be success. Technology will play a leading role and we will discover new and better ways of making it work for us, but never forget, "it's about the people stupid"...

Round-up: Companies that get Social Networking!

2006-09-19T13:36:00.000+01:00

This is a collection of links and references, not all the very latest, which I have collected and used of late in my communication with clients and potential clients.

This old article (with an update), “Amazon's customer collaboration”, explains how one of the biggest retailers in the world opened the door to citizen marketing in a big way. Amazon supposedly launched ProductWiki, a route for "customer editable product information" to appear alongside most, if not all, of the items the company sells. Supposedly because it seems difficult to find and so it may be that initial sightings were in Beta. However, Ebay has very visibly done the same here and so too has HTC here.

A case study from Swedish/US communication consultants and training firm Gronstedt Group describes the role social software plays in helping the sales team at US educational publisher Prentice-Hall improve their sales performance.

Below is a general list of some good overviews:

Blogs, Wikis, Forums Sway Consumer Opinion, Research Shows

Collaboration Is a Key Driver of Business Performance

CEO Guide to Social Networks

Gartner's New 2006 Tech Report Headlines the Importance of Web 2.0 for Business

Can Web 2.0 change the world? Nonprofits embracing technology that built MySpace and YouTube

Companies wake up to blogs' barking

Hanging with the in-crowd: Big media firms and investors are cosying up to social-networking websites

2006-09-08T15:10:00.000+01:00

Sony Ericsson K800i publishing to Blogger

A little demo following on from the previous post. Shows how you can take pictures on Sony Ericsson's K800i camera phone and publish to Blogger directly from phone, with a nifty little integrated service they have jointly set-up (Sony Ericsson and Blogger)

Sony Ericsson K800i in the field!

2006-09-04T09:05:00.000+01:00

This is a picture taken on the Sony Ericsson K800i at the place my family and I are spending a weeks holiday (Barnsdale Country Hall, Barnsdale in the East Midlands, UK). Lovely place, great phone!

This phone (otherwise known as the Cyber-Shot phone), has a 3.2 Mega Pixel camera. The picture you see has been automatically resized for this post so you are not seeing it in all its glory. I've also not had a chance to look at it on a bigger screen in full resolution so I'm not sure about its original quality?

Another important note and the reason the picture was automatically resized is this is part of a function that comes with the phone allowing for direct publishing of pictures (with text) to a weblog. Sony Ericsson have teamed up with Blogger in order to achieve this seamless functionality. Seamless and well thought through especially if you are an existing Blogger user. That's because from the initial blog account that is set up for you in your first post, you can easily transfer publishing to your existing account. The process on the phone is also very simple.

The downside has more to do with the limitations of writing a long post using the key pad of a phone. So details will have to remain short. One thing that could have been done by Sony Ericsson is allow for saving of blog posts for later editing. This is not possible which makes completing a post in one sitting imperative - highly inconvenient at times.

That's all for now! I'll add a few more notes over the coming days. Any comments on pic or functionality or want to know anything else about this phone, just let me know???

Observing the birth of the Ideal Digital Music Service

2006-08-09T22:47:00.000+01:00

Mind you, I'm not sure it is the ideal Digital Music service as I had envisaged it back in July 2005 nor that the vision itself is all it was cracked up to be but then a lot of time has passed with many new developments inbetween and so I would be allowed to diverge in my views. Having said that, I'm still talking about a fairly compelling service!

What am I talking about? In 2004/5 I worked on setting-up a mobile music service at Sony which has just recently gone live in the UK with Vodafone as well as several other European countries in the preceeding months (all Vodafone, the service being exclusive to them). I stopped working at Sony to set up netoCiety but my interest remains and I have done work in the space subsequently.

Last week I managed to get my hands on the Vodafone dedicated Sony Ericsson V630i to play (with much anticipation), with the service called Vodafone RadioDJ. I thought it best to demonstrate the functionalities/capabilities via a video demo on YouTube which you can catch in the next post. Note that the service is dual play (they have a web based counterpart) but I am focusing on the mobile part here.

All I would like to say (briefly) in addition, for and against and concerning the phone and service, is:

FOR
1. Great mobile phone for the most part, especially the camera (2 MP), the music function buttons are handy, its lightweight and I like the RSS feature.
2. The RadioDJ application has been slimmed down since I last saw/worked on it and this is a big improvement. Creating personalised channels is simpler (based on only three categories), rating songs is simple, you only view two songs at a time (current in detail and preceeding with less detail) and there are no other extraneous features like news, wallpaper, etc.
3. Streamed music quality (48 kbps I think) is good and speed of access to initial song and information and transition between songs is fast.
4. All in all a good way of discovering new music on the go with a balanced set of features for a mobile phone and a usable application interface.

AGAINST
1. The keypad and scroll wheel on the phone are difficult for big hands but this is not too problematic.
2. With RadioDJ, there were glitches with creating channels and then downloading initial information to the phone (whilst stationary). When I tried it on the train into London the other day it became far worse and the problem extended to most functions.
3. Having to exit the application and go to the Vodafone Live portal to buy songs (including those in my wishlist) is not user friendly at all.
4. I dont understand the difference between channels (not the user defined channels but the service-provider defined channels - see demo) and compilations - I just dont get it (annoying).
5. The biggest "against" is that the ratings which in principle are good (allowing further refinement of the channel beyond the initially set criteria/categories), are made by the user and not by peers and this is an introspective pursuit which imho is not as effective. See this article/research for proof of my thesis (it postulates that musical taste is swayed by peers). So it lacks the social aspect that is evident in Last FM for instance, which has made it so successful.

INDIFFERENT
1. The price is a £7.50 per month subscription, unlimited streaming (phone and PC) and you have to pay additionally to download songs (£ 0.99) for which you get a copy for your phone as well as your PC.

2006-08-09T22:35:00.000+01:00

Sony Ericsson V630i and RadioDJ Demo

WEB 2.0 and the Gartner Hype Cycle

2006-08-08T17:22:00.000+01:00

I've just viewed Web 2.0: The 24 Minute Documentary over at TechCrunch which details the views on the subject held by various WEB 2.o luminaries and CEO's.

The topics discussed included:

What is Web 2.0?
Are we in a bubble?
What are the business models that will work on the web today?
What is the role of publishers in a user generated world?
How important and how big is the early adopter crowd?

I tried to address the first two questions and simplify the answer using Gartner's Hype Cycle thus:

I think the Hype Cycle is a useful tool through which to view technology adoption and progress in general and specifically against which to map the advent of the Web!

2006-08-04T17:02:00.000+01:00

The Power of Us 2

Or "The Day of the Long Tail", to give this video segment its correct title. It was created in coordination with the publication of Chris Anderson's new book The Long Tail. Ultimately it chronicles the rise of consumer activism/participation and follows on nicely from my last post and my first "Power of Us" post that I mentioned there.

Enjoy!

More proof - Blogosphere Influences Business

2006-08-03T10:55:00.000+01:00

I covered this topic recently in my "Power of Us" post. This article about Sony and what is thought to be its losing battle in the new console war illustrates just as much the power of the Blogosphere to influence opinion and destroy credibility. Further proof if ever it was needed...

Image courtesey CNS News and Paul Nowak

Benefits of Wikis

2006-08-02T22:32:00.000+01:00

This post starts a new posting strategy: Integrate normal work output into my blogging (as permitted, relevant and appropriate from time to time) instead of creating only completely new output or linkages.

So without further ado, a list of Wiki benefits as they pertain to a client I have recently been dealing with:

A. Advanced document and content management/development through open and simple editing access that encourages participation by many parties
1. Added possibility to control access to content by groups of users (permissioning)
2. Includes easy to manage versioning control and comparison
3. Easy self-publishing by contributors (obviating administrative bottlenecks)

B. Facilitating collaboration and communication between people in networks and enhancing knowledge building, sharing and searching
1. Easily include knowledge from outside sources through document upload, email integration and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) content feeds from other web sites or Blogs
2. Includes simple “alert” systems (RSS, favourites, dashboard and email integration) to monitor all changes to Wiki content

C. Easy building of directories, mapping of social networks and simple profile management

D. Simplicity and ease of use compared to the older collaboration tools such as SharePoint, Lotus Notes, etc.

E. The recommended Wiki (Confluence by Atlassian in this case), allows for Wikis within a Wiki (Spaces) so that multiple entities such as teams, departments or organizations can be served within one Wiki with collaboration amongst the entities still possible

Digital Realism

2006-06-26T11:50:00.000+01:00

In the form of "Top Ten Truths About the Digital Ecosystem" by Geoffrey Moore. Very timely in the wake of my previous to last post on some Digital Delusions I've observed and which I think are still very much prevalent amongst "1.0 media businesses"!

Makes you want to kick some butt along the lines reported on at the wrap up of BloggerCon IV, Day 1 when Doc Searls led a discussion asking people "how we're changing the world".

Here's some visual imagery that pretty much captures the essence of above!!! Doesn't it just make you want to take a long, measured wind-up and ...

More Innovation 2.0

2006-06-21T09:05:00.000+01:00

Open Innovation was covered in my previous to last post but here is a nice take by Kathy Sierra of the Creating Passionate Users blog suggesting that open source creativity should be an important component of any company's innovation model. Great links to other very good articles too and a brilliant view on Old (Closed) versus New (Open) perspectives that organisations (especially those covered in my last post) might do well to observe!!

Digital delusions and delights

2006-06-16T18:34:00.000+01:00

Observations - nothing coherent (no time) just snippets that indicate certain changes or resistance to changes, observed over the last few weeks and worth noting... and some gadget lust:

Digital Delusion 1 - The RIAA believe they have overcome the challenge they and the entire music industry have faced in the last 5 years in the advance of digitised content, specifically music. Digital music sale increases are supposedly compensating for losses in physical sales. This article discusses research showing that the increases of digital music sales are decreasing implying an impending plateau. Conclusion: "Unlike the transition from albums to CDs or video tapes to DVD, 'going digital' is not a simple format media transition. The use of digital technologies and the Internet has and will continue to fundamentally change how entertainment is created, stored, distributed, and consumed. Technology has undermined the entertainment industry's pretense of control despite its best efforts." This is what the industry has still not recognised and their strategy for dealing with the opportunities the digital world present is flawed. "The transition to digital is not a panacea for what ails the music industry - the disease runs much deeper."

Digital Delusion 2 - Expanding on the last point, here is captured the essence of why the industry's approach is flawed, specifically in relation to control: RIAA challenges YouTube and GoogleVideo over video distribution. "The recent trend of amateur dancers hamming it up to popular songs on video and then playing them for the world to see has piqued the interest of the RIAA. Obviously, most of these videos didn't secure proper clearances ahead of time, and that is starting to ruffle some feathers. Once again trouble is brewing between a technology, the old rules, and a market that moves quickly around an industry that moves slowly."

Digital Delusion 3 - This refers to the myopia of the mobile operators in particular and specifically focuses on their aversion to providing open access for customers to mobile content outside of their "Walled Gardens". It also refers to the telcos who are denying content providers a decent revenue share. An article by Danah Boyd touches on this, specifically in relation to Mobile Social Technologies and the potential opportunities therein were in not for the mobile operators and their myopia (amongst other issues). I touched on this in a previous post. Another article by Victor Keegan from The Guardian captures another angle. My next point might show a way out...

Digital Delight - Besides this being a fairly decent looking gadget it also incorporates some elements that might possible be termed "killer". MusicGremlin has gone where Apple has yet to tread, releasing the first Wi-Fi equipped MP3 player for downloading tunes independently of a PC. Covered well in this TechDigest article. This is killer in the sense that it it might possibly circumvent the many problems faced by mobile digital content companies with providing wireless access without having to go through mobile operators. Some other very handy benefits are the fact that the database is stored on the device itself, which means you can queue songs for download, then download when you get within a hotspot.

Innovation 2.0

2006-05-15T12:50:00.000+01:00

Is applying the 2.0 tag to Innovation appropriate (implying a next iteration of something, particularly as it pertains to WEB 2.0 practice or technologies)? It has been applied to the entire Enterprise space in the recent article "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration" by Andrew P. McAfee in the MITSloan Management Review, so why not Innovation?

It's not too difficult to find evidence (some unfortunately by subscription only). The most robust:

The McKinsey Quarterly has just published "Creation Nets: Getting the Most from Open Innovation", an article that John Seely Brown and John Hagel wrote. It covers well, in my opinion, the practices of WEB 2.0, but it neglects the technologies. They started their tack with this article "From Push to Pull: the next frontier of Innovation", also from the McKinsey Quarterly.
Forrester's Navi Radjou, back in June of 2004, covered the technology aspect well in the article "Innovation Networks: A New Market Structure Will Revitalize Invention-To-Innovation Cycles".
Eric Von Hippel, arguably the Grandfather of Open Innovation and a Professor and Head of the Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at MIT Sloan School of Management has just published an article at ChangeThis entitled Citizen Innovator.

A standard Google search under Innovation 2.0 results in a relative dearth of anything particularly trustworthy! Ditto Google's Blog Search results. However, two new articles covering current company efforts are one about an open innovation initiative underway at Kraft and another one about Lego!

Idea: I think it is well worth examining a new dimension to Innovation that is largely unexplored. Especially if you consider the current standards being used for judging innovative companies. Take the results from a Boston Consulting Group study published in BusinessWeek which provides a ranking of the Top 100 Most Innovative Companies. The results are based on a survey of more than 1,000 executives at the biggest companies around the world. Aside from the methodology (peer review), I agree with Christian Sarkar's view that it is flawed. Christian states that smaller companies are almost entirely ignored and thus their innovations and innovation capabilities too and this is correct and probably due to the fact that the rankings are based on a survey amongst "dinosaurs", as he calls them.

New info to act upon: How do you put SONY at 13th when all Sony has managed to achieve in the last few years is not achieve, in the critical domain of Innovation. The creator of the category has so far lost out to Apple in the personal audio space. It nearly derailed in Televisions against Samsung and others with the new models beyond CRT (Plasma, LCD, etc.). It's best play so far, PlayStation (excuse the pun) is not being particularly well managed for the future if recent indications are anything to go by. This is just one company on the list and I'm sure many of them deserve to be there but what about other smaller company's and parameters of success at Innovation?

Take for example the company referred to in the article on Creation Nets mentioned above: "Executives stand in awe of Apple Computer's brilliant design for the iPod, for example, but overlook the important role that another company, PortalPlayer, performed behind the scenes. Before being approached by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, PortalPlayer had already mobilised a broad network of specialised technology providers to solve the challenging problems of delivering high quality audio in relatively inexpensive small devices." To quote further: "Creation Nets work by mobilising hundreds or thousands of independent entities in the pursuit of distributed, collaborative and cumulative innovation."

So the point is to look at other companies (smaller ones and sometimes the ones behind the bigger company's) but most importantly other parameters. I think WEB 2.0 as a standard bearer applied to Innovation is appropriate. "Open Innovation" seems to me to be a fine start and I am pursuing it ardently at netoCiety.

Recognising strategic shifts in an industry V2 - The Mobile Operators

2006-03-28T17:11:00.000+01:00

Interesting article (if a little self serving) speculates that the mobile industry will soon, if they are not already, go through a fundamental paradigm shift in their business models from a business class model to cost leader / price leader model with the latter being the clear winner.

The basic difference is in the latter to outsource operations and functions to best in class suppliers (in many cases, the entire network) and in the former to retain it all in-house. The core benefit is a cost based one. The end result of not moving to the latter is not being able to cope with declining margins which has become rather endemic in the industry. Interesting observations in line with the downward trends of margins and some major sell-offs by the big operators (focus of the article is the Vodafone sell-off of its Japanese arm).

Idea: My view is that this area of competition highlighted in the article (cost or operational excellence) is only one of three possible sources for advantage or differentiation. The other two, as identified by Treacy/Wiersema in their book - The Discipline of Market Leaders, can be seen in the diagram below:

New info to act upon: I think there is a dearth of innovation from the mobile operators and they would do well to focus on improving their success rate in this area and entrench advantage in difficult to copy innovations. My view is that this would be specifically appropriate in the area of social networking (SN). They could take a page out of Google and Nike's book with their new SN iniative covered well here. They have the subscribers, the key ingredient in a SN play and they shouldn't leave it all to third party independents, covered well by Mobilecrunch.

Recognising strategic shifts in an industry...

2006-03-08T21:30:00.000Z

...is a very satisfying pastime and even more so when ones original thinking is upheld by observing that encumbents recognise it. Such a point has been reached by "old media" and is ruminated on by the CEO of Reuters.

Idea - The problem highlighted by the CEO of Reuters is that of the rise of amateur content creators and publishers, in the form of bloggers mostly, and how this is taking attention away from "old media". There is also the fact that consumers have more flexibility in deciding how and when to consume their content of choice. There is a hint at being open to this, embracing it. I suggest going even further and facilitating it. Build platforms that enable self-publishing. Offer expertise to guide and steer the new content creators. Don't try to control it all. As observed by the venerable sage Lao Tzu: That the yielding conquers the resistant and the soft conquers the hard, is a fact known by all but utilised by none. Herein lies the opportunity, I believe.

New info to act upon - A powerful approach that seems to be bearing fruit comes from a related industry - book publishing, which is being revolutionised by Lulu. Nice article here tells the tale!

European institute 'to rival MIT'

2006-02-22T17:30:00.000Z

Covered in an article by the Guardian here. The one sentiment I agree with in particular about the way this is being tackled is: "This is a strange way of approaching things. The notion of top down innovation is an oxymoron", Professor Ian Leslie, the pro-vice chancellor for research at Cambridge University

Idea - Rather than another European Institute which will face a huge challenge in getting the countries working together and will face an issue similar to the one mentioned above (with possible resistance), should and could not private enterprise play a more meaningful role?

New info to act upon - Such an organisation seems to exist already for the European Digital Technology Industry - EICTA

Worth Quoting: Dave Pollard on the Future of Media

2006-02-21T21:15:00.000Z

In particular and in reference to just one of the topics he covers in this post (information media, as opposed to entertainment media), Dave concludes that most of the current alternatives are short on useful ideas and new information you can act on. This being what will be required in future to be of any value or stand any chance of success vis-à-vis information media.

I like this! As it could relate to my blogging, it might stand as a mantra for future efforts, i.e. have a post include not just a link or quote but an idea of my own plus added information that can be acted on. Tall order but its where I started with this blog. It seems time and busyness took their toll and I end up merely linking - might as well leave that to del.icio.us

So here goes (unrelated) :
Idea - The best ideas often come to us not when we are consciously making the effort to have them but on the spur of the moment. A better way to log them and then act upon them has to exist beyond Outlook Notes and should be location-based (wherever we have the idea). A mobile solution would probably help since we always have one to hand.
New info to act upon - Checked out a few options and came up with this and this

Just not getting the message about consumers!

2006-02-17T12:10:00.000Z

This scathing article on engadget about Sony's UMDs and the fact that they are not selling well, mostly because Sony is not listening to what consumers want or dont want, really confirms for me that fact that most companies still don't "geddit".

THE ECONOMICS OF BUSINESS HAVE CHANGED: CUSTOMERS ARE NOW TRULY KING!!!

This article is indicative, but as I suggested in a previous post, there are an increasing number of such reports/instances and many more companies than just Sony.

All roads lead to Rome they say...

Worth Quoting: Mitch Kapor on Wikipedia

2006-02-15T10:43:00.000Z

It can't possibly work. When I describe it to people as an online encyclopedia that is free and open and written by volunteers, people don't believe it. But it does. One of the top 20 websites in the world. Everyone in the room knows it, visits it, maybe 10% of the audience raises their hand to say they have written in it. The English version is bigger than the Brittanica. Random person off the street will say something, vaugely, about the Seigenthaler affair when asked about Wikipedia. If you use it, you must find it useful. Most people find it more useful than conventional reference sources. Becoming a reference source of choice.

Zen masters give you something to meditate on, like the sound of one hand clapping, for you to muse over for years in a cave. As long as you think in conventional terms, you are saddled with thinking that keeps you from understanding. There is an essential fact, that anyone can edit any article at any time. Most people start to freak out at this. How could you trust that? Isn't there vandalism, there is no quality control? Isn't it not to be trusted? The fact that anyone can is what attracted people to begin with. As a chronic social outsider from my youth, I love inviting social systems.

Myths include someone has to be in charge. Mainstream media sieze on this idea that it is problematic that nobody is in charge, the stories correspond to and reinforce our prejudices. I discovered even in myself that I find this to be true. Was talking with Jimmy Wales about how they do SysAdmin. A complex system with volunteer SysAdmins. I had assumed that since they need it to be up 24/7 they had a schedule where people sign up for coverage. Turns out that's not the case. They have 100 qualified people, so statistically there are always enough people around. If found that remarkable. I didn't have the faith. Writing content, sure, but maintaining system integrity?
Without experts, how can you trust the information? Deep seated assumptions that experts actually count. I grew up in the 60s and learned about trust in experts, VietNam. Now it's WMDs. Its a cultural thing where we are wired to not accept things.

Anyone can edit any article at any time -- the very openess that leads perpetually for opportunities for improvement. If there is a problem, it can be spotted and fixed by anyone. MSM failed to notice that after the Siegenthaler affair, the Nature article showed a comparison in favor for the quality of Scientific articles over the Brittanica. The quality was roughly equivalent for Wikipedia and fact, not statistically different. But in the Brittanica article were poor. But after the article came out, the quality of those very articles improved.

I became convinced that Wikipedia was going to be the next big thing. And things like it. I have some history here. Next big things I have gotten right before:

1978 the Apple II
1982 Lotus 1-2-3
1992 UUNET, one of the first ISPs.
1995 Real Networks
2005 Mozilla/Firefox

I like these weird things just before they hit. So why am I talking about wikis? I made a study of it, here are the learnings:

Community. Genuine community of people behind the wiki. Not an anthill or marketplace where each does their own thing and it magically aggregates. People are really tied together, Wikipedians. They are in relationship to one another and that is the glue that holds it together. You are not suprised about this

Vision. Promulgated by Jimmy Wales: create a free encyclopedia of the worlds knowledge for all the worlds people. Jimmy started as a commodities trader. Thought about what he really wanted to do. Started a mailing list, hired someone, created Nupedia with a complex process. Then went to the mailing list and called for help. Lots of people talking about vision started making progress in two to three weeks to launch Wikipedia.

Mission. Community of peer production, not abstract. People who do things all see their activity as being related to a larger goal.

Wikipedians. I went to Hamberg for the Wikimania conference, their first gathering in person. People come from all walks all over the world, a little different than the software world of open source. Writing good code is hard. Making contributions from lots of people work together is even harder. Wikipedia is very modular, everyone can work on what they want. Every article also has a talk page to discuss that article, and every user has a talk page for talking about themselves, some of the best aspects of virtual communities. People are strangers, but others cluster together.

Leadership. The leader has to serve the community. They are volunteers, a different paradigm, not a business paradigm where somewhere under the surface there is a heirarchy. Leadership in a voluntary inspiration, moral leadership, empowering and recognizing people. Jimmy calls himself a Libertarian, which makes sense in some context, but there is something about empowering a community that can be an unruly bunch that can be difficult.

Values. They talk about values openly, not a dirty word.

Be nice: matters in the community, gets rewarded, people expect it, expect respect in a kindly fashion that expects the best of people. Holds the community together. If someone comes in to slash and burn, they say, well that's not really how we do things around here. And it works. Treating people as people, not objectsx to be moved around for your own goals.
NPOV: neutral point of view. valuing relevant facts people can agree on. Discourages editorializing or slanted presentation of the evidence. The anti-spin doctrine. I was skeptical about this, don't believe there is an objective truth waiting to be discovered, people bring their stuff with them. There is a saying that in the early days there were more articles about Middle Earth than Africa. If the goal is to be accurately capturing the knowledge of the world, but you have Hobbits over Africa, do you not have an obligation to recruit people who know about Africa? Jimmy said I was right and there has been outreach initatives.
Practices:
- Don't criticize, improve!
- Real-time peer review. Users have a watchlist to notify of changes to changes you have made. Recent Changes junkies as a volunteer activity, to monitor things like new postings from anonymous contributors. Helps keep the quality up. As it gets more popular, there is more motivation for people who do not share the values of the community to change articles for their point of view. Latest issue of congressional staffers systematically buffing the articles, a hit story in the media. This came out because there is a record of every single edit made. But the net net is that real tiem peer review doesn't keep up with changes, better to catch it earlier than later, so there has been some tightening on editing process ofr these articles
- Dispute resolution. Don't have time to get into it right now. You can loose hours looking at transcripts. As if everything in our government was made out in the open. Tim O'Reilly shouts, wouldn't that be cool!

It's a big thing, but kind of a secret how it all really happens. I dont think the Silicon Valley understands the power of it yet. Most entrepreneurs see this opportunity space (ahem).

The challenge of alien invaders. Maybe the ecosystem is fragile. Wikipedians are not that fond of technology, they almost do the thing by writing things down on paper and passing them around. There will be more technology leverage. There is an enormous amount of hard to get knowledge, because there is no machine executed way of getting it. Suppose you had an API for all the world's knowledge. There will be discontinous innovation.

Business Opportunities. Ross Mayfield reminded me before the talk about how Socialtext is building Wikipedias inside of companies. Wikipedia as a genre isn't limited to encyclopedia. Makes perfect sense, a no brainer. Don't want to say too much about it or I would create competition Ross doesn't want.

Wikipedia hasn't monetized their traffic, a possibility for other communities. A guide to the web with collaboratively edited content about what are interesting website. Tons of interesting types of collaborative filtering, like Digg, is TiVo like, indicating individual preferences, with some algorythm logic. Valid and interesting, but people are not connecting. Different from a bunch of people focusing on creating something. That is higher value than collaborative filtering, my thesis, if you can get people to work together. Look at health information, broadly speaking, why are doctors not collaborating to build such a resource -- the lack of information, locked up in a database that Harvard publishes, kills people. I can feel the opportunity.

Business Models. There isn't a formula, if there was the world would be different. The Firefox experience taught me something, they have 60 million people use it every week, if you can command a lot of attention, attention is what is valuable. Google stepped up and said if you default the seach to us, we will revenue share with you, a $50M per year business. A long line of partners want a piece of it. One route is some kind of Wikipedia application will on a global basis be attracting people. There will be dozens or hundreds of Wikipedias. I was pointing someone now for what was going to be a big thing, it would be doing something where you harness the efforts of a community, one that is truly empowered. People here, basing their business on Linux, having a widespread community is what makes it goes. The community should own the underlying resource, the knowledge base created, because they will contribute if they know it is a commons, not owned by the business organization which commands attention of people who come in. A different kind of business, we see it in the software world, and it will be a good thing for business with jobs and innovation and value being created. A form of business that will be more responsible to the larger society to which it is indebted, a very good thing. I hope this inspires some thoughts within you, and, thank you.

Courtesy Ross Mayfield

Sony Ericsson M600 + 4GB = W950 vs Nokia N91

2006-02-14T13:57:00.000Z

Confused? Simple really: Sony Ericsson have just announced at 3GSM, a new phone that effectively replaces my latest object of desire which I posted about a few entries back (the M600). The W950 is very similar to the M600 with one notable enhancement being a 4GB hard drive. This now puts it squarely in competition with Nokia's N91 (also has 4GB capacity), at least in the music phone space.

Juicy...

Worth Quoting: Jimmy Wales on Social Software

2006-02-13T09:58:00.000Z

Particularly as it pertains to the dangers of taking social software too seriously and forgetting its rightful role:

“I think, partly because of the personality types who become programmers… I don’t know what it is exactly… a lot of programmers, seem to me to think that the whole point of social software is to replace the social with the software.
Which is not really what you want to do, right? Social Software should
exist to empower us to be human… to interact… in all the normal ways
that humans do.”

Choices, choices, choices...

2006-02-06T17:25:00.000Z

They really do make it difficult over at Sony Ericsson, their new models have been coming fast and furious. They've just announced the M600i 3G phone when I was all set on the P990i. Neither of them are yet available in the UK - both look like very able 3G Smart phones and both feature the Symbian 9.1 OS!!!

I tend to agree with Anu Gupta's summation over at scale|free that less is more and that we are currently tyrannised by choice but a little bit of a good thing is also not all bad...

Social Glue

2006-02-05T15:55:00.000Z

Referring to the Internet, a new survey by US-based Pew Internet think-tank has validated the claims many proponents of WEB 2.0 have been making for some time.

Barry Wellman, co-author of the report, identifies what he terms as the rise of networked individualism - where users of modern technology are less tied to local groups and increasingly part of more geographically scattered networks.

Good overview in this article!

Bingo!

Proprietary no longer works!

2006-01-18T20:06:00.000Z

Several compelling reasons why I think so:

Clayton Christensen (author of the groundbreaking The Innovator's Dilemma) makes a compelling arguement in a BusinessWeek article why Apple will fail if it continues to support a proprietary strategy, although he does point out that in certain cases (in the early stages of a new industry), it might be appropriate.
The success of the open source movement and the current acceptance of more open and participative approaches to almost anything.
My first-hand experience of it at SONY with insistence on standards like ATRAC.

Another transformation well on its way! We'll have to see how long it lasts and how successful it is.

Test of new Performancing Weblog editor in Firefox

2006-01-16T21:31:00.000Z

This extension to Firefox from Performancing is amazing. You open up the editor as you browse the web and it pops up and allows you to continue browsing and posting to your weblog at the same time once you've set up an interface to one of various blogging tool options - I use blogger.

Lovely jubbly bubbly...

The Unorthodoxy of Modern Management

2006-01-13T15:49:00.000Z

Was thinking about the new era of participation that social software ushers in, specifically in an enterprise environment. Then wondered if this had any link to what I think is generally a consensus on the view that the traditional Command and Control style of management is no longer effective. And if there is a link, what came first? I then thought back about someone's comment viewing "participation" as management by consensus or commitee, which was also not effective. I agreed and then wondered if a "third way" existed, was necessary or indeed possible???

Then I read this article on the phenomena that is Craigslist and in particular, Craig Newmark himself. He is the very antithesis of the traditional manager - not commanding, not controlling, positively shying away from the function of management. Not that there is much to command or control by way of people (he only has 19 staffers) but the success of Craigslist is unquestioned and he got there some how. It is pointed out in the article that this is so because of the way he is and that he is not the only one from a successful organisation to manage in this way. Participation seems to play a role!

Craig also seems to scorn the traditional business practice of making a profit (as an obejctive) yet he does turn over a tidy sum every year.

Interesting...

And now Apple's turn...

2006-01-13T13:07:00.000Z

No sooner has the Sony saga been put to rest than another intrepid blogger unearths some dodgey goings on with Apple's new iTunes software.

Read all about it!!!

Apple has been criticised over a new version of its iTunes program that can keep track of a user's listening habits and this is what all the brouhaha is about.

Will it be 2:0 for the customer??? Wait and see!

US judge approves Sony settlement

2006-01-12T20:28:00.000Z

I've been waiting for some time to put this story to rest - this is its final nail. I covered it first in the post before last.

All about "The Power of Us" and how collective activism, using the Web predominantly, has forced SONY to radically change their whole approach to content protection.

Very interesting to observe...

The soft side of collaboration!

2006-01-11T16:47:00.000Z

Culture basically and very often overlooked in companies, in favour of technology or processes. A really good overview by Mike Gotta is more definitive than prescriptive.

Point is to look out for how this is treated in companies - it will very often determine success or failure outcomes of technology or process related initiatives - more than is planned for at any rate.

The Power of Us

2005-11-08T09:27:00.000Z

The term expressed in the title was first coined, as far as I'm aware, in a cover story by BusinessWeek on mass collaboration and social networking software. It neatly describes the increasing power of consumers, amongst others, to influence the direction of company offerings as well as to activate against unsatisfactory offerings.

This is probably best illustrated by the recent series of unfortunate events for Sony in the case of Sony BMG's use of a controversial anti-piracy programme and the release of a software patch after much criticism that has nonetheless failed to stem it. This article covers the history and latest status well.

Bill Thompson of BBC News concludes that it is all for nought and consumers will ultimately end up losing as companies collaborate amongst themselves, become stronger and are ultimately able to override consumer preferences. I'm not quite as pessimistic!

I would even go further! I think that for companies that embrace the approach to interact openly and proactively with customers, it will prove to be a source of competitive advantage for them before very long, as consumers become co-creators of products and services. I thought this about 10 years ago when my masters thesis on the very subject came to the same conclusion after extensive research (post a comment if you'd like a report on the research)!

What is Web 2.0

2005-10-27T15:47:00.000+01:00

Seemingly the catch-all phrase for all things social and networking related, but also much more.

Defining just what Web 2.0 means (the term was first coined at a conference brainstorming session between Tim O'Reilly and MediaLive International), still engenders much disagreement. Some decry it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, while others have accepted it as the new conventional wisdom. Tim O'Reilly attempts to clarify just what was meant by Web 2.0, digging into what it means to view the Web as a platform and which applications fall squarely under its purview, and which do not.

Well worth reading - enjoy!

whyCharity - A new endeavour!

2005-10-20T20:55:00.000+01:00

Been a busy bee of late with little time to blog! Just completed a whirlwind of activity to go live with a new, not for profit endeavour incorporating some of the social networking elements mentioned in my last blog and dedicated to changing the world!!!

whyCharity is what it is called and to find out more, visit the site! More importantly, sign the declaration and then get stuck into the task of changing the world with the charityWiki.

Gotta go - have a world to save - and the some. Watch this space for new endeavours soon to be announced!!!

Social Networking

2005-10-03T13:28:00.000+01:00

The new, new thing that will be featuring prominently on this blog from now on! A trend destined for greatness, supposedly leading to the overthrow of Google in terms of impact and use!

What is meant by social networking? Technologies and practices that faciliate collaboration and knowledge sharing in order to achieve social or commercial aims! That's my very brief, off-the-cuff attempt to start with!

Here is Dave Pollard's view (in the context of business):
It's all about the people, stupid. Forget the hierarchy and the cult of leadership. Forget about 'organizational knowledge' and 'organizational learning'. Everyone in today's organization knows how to do their job better than their 'leader'. The modern organization is the sum of the capabilities and actions of its people, and modern management must be about setting clear, prioritized, achievable goals, providing effective processes and technologies, getting rid of organizational roadblocks, and then staying out of the way. Drucker says it's the greatest management challenge of our century. Social network technologies (including weblogs and simple virtual presence), personalized productivity coaching, stories, and self-management processes like Open Space are the new tools of this trade.

Here are two other great pieces covering this trend by BusinessWeek and FT!

Tomorrow's Global Company

2005-09-21T18:12:00.000+01:00

This subject was the theme of a conference I attended on the 12th-14th of September hosted by Wilton Park in conjunction with the non-profit thinktank of which I am a member, Tomorrow's Company.

The purpose was to explore the expanded role of business in a future society, if indeed it had any! A role was envisaged, emphatically, but its exact nature seemed to elude all of the deligates including me. However, the fact that I had to leave early meant I missed the summation which in all likelihood revealed something. The report should clarify this!

Anyway, the main points I took out of the event were:
- A global framework was required for effectively managing the activities of the main constituent bodies involved in socially responsible efforts, i.e. government, NGO's and businesses
- Companies could and should play a role in society but this role needs to progress beyond its current level which under the CSR banner is self-serving, inneffective and little more than a sideshow!
- This expanded role could serve as a beacon for employees in providing a purpose to their working lives that enhances a purely existential or commercial role.
- Individuals and their role seemed largely ignored. I raised the point, particularly in light of technology that allows for effective collaboration and community building. This seemed to strike a cord!

All in all a brilliant conference! More insights to follow when I receive the report. The key for trans4m.biz now is how to incorporate the principles into its biz model. Watch this space!

(Innovation + Change = Transformation) = Competitive Advantage

2005-08-22T15:22:00.000+01:00

This 2nd newsletter from trans4m.biz sets-out to describe the theory behind the trans4m.biz business philosophy, as encapsulated by the above “formula” :

Managing ideas properly and why this is so important?

Because so many new ideas fail! Fail to reach the market or fail to be profitable! Improving the odds is critical!
Ideas cannot be copied so easily in this world of commoditisation, or at least can be protected, sufficient to wring large profits from them!
Because ideas are the lifeblood of companies and the engines of growth, managing them should be given high priority. Continuously creating and managing new ideas efficiently (through to successful implementation) are critical to a company’s future success and effectively makes innovation management a core competence.

Managing change properly and why this is so important?

Change is closely linked to ideas! Microsoft turned their whole company around when they discovered how big an idea the Internet was going to be and realised that they had not yet properly capitalised on it! So too Apple, when they saw the potential in MP3 players.
The most successful way of innovating (based on research) is to capitalise on opportunities as they arise - this requires being as flexible to change as Microsoft and Apple were.
Also, considering that change is the only constant today, that managing it is imperative and that many programmes fail, making change management a core competence becomes critical too!

If you accept the link, you could conclude as trans4m.biz has, that innovation + change = transformation and that this needs to be done continuously and effectively in order for it to become a competitive advantage, ad infinitum.

What else is important?

As James Surowiecki so brilliantly researches and shows in his book: The Wisdom of Crowds; good ideas and actions are not the preserve of a few experts and more often than not, large groups of people have better and more successful ideas/solutions – so involve the whole workforce! Innovation and change programmes handed down from management without sufficiently engaging employees, are not as effective! A mechanism for involvement, buy-in and measurement is critical, beyond broadcast communication and rudimentary channels like a suggestion box! Finally, successful ideas and change agents can come from anywhere, not just engineering and innovation can go beyond just products to cover business processes (like at DELL) and business concepts as well (like at eBay).
Beyond engagement comes accountability, linking critical activities with success and performance goals like GE's CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is doing. He’s trying to shift current mindsets with pay, linking bonuses to new ideas, customer satisfaction and sales growth, with less emphasis on bottom-line results. Further focus areas are with risk, funding “Imagination Breakthrough” projects that extend the boundaries of GE and with experts, rotating executives less often and bringing in more outsiders to create industry experts.
Isolating change management and innovation - generally accepted as a failure point! Make your entire company a catalyst for innovation, change and transformation today!

The ideal Digital Music Service...

2005-07-13T12:40:00.000+01:00

...Wireless and Subscription based???

With growing speculation on the validity of the a-la-carte model of digital music consumption and bold assumptions on the rise of mobile music, dare it be suggested that there is a new ideal for digital music services?

In one camp we have the subscription evangelists: Napster, Yahoo and Rhapsody “to go”, all of whom have or will launch their unlimited streaming and download models on a subscription basis. In the other we have the handset manufacturers: Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – all have announced new hard-disc based phones with built in music players. Joining them we have the mobile operators, too numerous to mention - all have either launched or are soon to launch their own mobile music service. They all seem to be betting the farm on their respective perspectives and that they will be the eventual iPod/iTunes killers – accepting that this is the incumbent model to beat! So what are these perspectives?

Mobile
- A billing relationship already exists with operator subscribers making billing for content services a cinch
- Mobile subscribers are already used to paying for content and by subscription
- Anytime, anywhere access to content at high speed – the Utopia promised by 3G, long and sometimes dismally awaited, now finally shows promise
- The ubiquitous mobile phone! With a good music player, high capacity storage and battery life, why carry an additional MP3 player
- Ringtone downloads (a profitable success) have already set the scene for a seamless transition to pure content

Subscriptions
- Buying tracks in a subscription model on an “all you can eat” basis is less costly and more efficient than the a-la-carte model if you consider having to fill a high capacity music player with individually purchased tracks at current prices
- Ownership with digital music, essentially of data products whose physical attributes become irrelevant for the purpose of consumption, is transcended and is no longer necessary when you are always able to access a huge library of music, anywhere, anytime

Then there is the dark horse of podcasting with the ever growing hype about its popularity. Potentially, this provides a fairly nifty work-a-round and is especially attractive to those loath to pay fortunes to music labels, network operators, etc. but who would like to stay legal (for now...)!

You decide!

Solidarity and Hope!

2005-07-08T10:46:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to express my heartfelt solidarity with and sympathy for all those touched by the devastating events in London yesterday, in line with the whole world!

My only hope is that this tragic event does something to further stimulate the major transformation I see going on in the world currently, to ever greater heights. The transformation I refer to is partly the reactions to these despicable acts that are so rapidly picked up in the ether by blogs, web sites, etc. and the heartfelt outpourings of sympathy and resolve that they allow for connecting with. It proves we are all better connected in spirit and that the network is a wonderful tool for sharing this spirit!

Strength to London and all the people in it!

First trans4m.biz Newsletter!

2005-06-09T16:08:00.000+01:00

This first newsletter serves to introduce the new site from trans4m.biz, founded and recently launched by Stephen Danelutti (www.trans4m.biz). On it you will find out more about the services and solutions that are available from trans4m.biz, as well as its competencies. Furthermore, this newsletter will introduce the first of its monthly topics that will hopefully be of interest to you and impart some insight into the business of transforming business.

Now that innovation has taken top slot on CEO’s agendas and reached critical mass supposedly, here is a good topic to start off with and lets make it controversial shall we…

Outsourcing Innovation

Covered by BusinessWeek in an article a while ago, this is an intriguing story indeed. The verdict is still out! Is it possible to outsource innovation? Innovation is a central element in the transformation equation (innovation + change = transformation) posited by trans4m.biz, which might seem to imply that retention in-house of such a distinctive capability is a necessity. Although it is not yet clear whether this is a function that can be outsourced successfully, there are already some good views that point in this direction and trans4m.biz, in line with its innovative roots, is open to all possibilities!

Logic tells us that it is not a function that can be outsourced, like manufacturing for instance. But more than one sacred cow has been destroyed in the last two decades. Still there’ll be those companies willing to consider the alternative and those that feel the function of innovation is too strategic and needs to be cosseted and kept in-house, close to other operations. Apple is a good example of the latter point-of-view!

The concept of outsourcing innovation is already partly embraced by trans4m.biz as it is central to its service offering in that it offers the function of innovation coordination. In line with attempts to discover the final truth of where and how the function should reside (in or outside a company) for best results, a doctoral study in the area is currently “under construction” – any supporters or interested parties to “apply within” !

Another factor to consider in the outsourcing question, i.e. to outsource innovation or not, is that differences in innovation effort/focus exist, such as: business process innovation; business concept innovation, product or service innovation; design innovation; and good old R&D where the source of all innovation has traditionally been based. The question is, which of these types of innovation can be outsourced and which ones can not, or should not?

A great example of where innovation is clearly seen as critical and necessary to retain in-house as a distinctive capability is at GE by current CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt, where he is currently undertaking a bold company transformation exercise hinged on innovation. See this article in a recent BusinessWeek edition. Just some of the ways in which he is trying to shift the current mindset at GE are: PAY - Link bonuses to new ideas, customer satisfaction and sales growth, with less emphasis on bottom-line results; RISK – Spend billions to fund “Imagination Breakthrough” projects that extend the boundaries of GE; EXPERTS – Rotate executives less often, and bring in more outsiders to create industry experts instead of professional managers.

Conclusion: It is very difficult to outsource Innovation where it is not product or service or design related. Also, where it is the lifeblood of business (and is there any business where it should not be these days) it should be retained in-house and made a distinctive capability.

What's in a name?

2005-06-02T19:37:00.000+01:00

that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Perhaps a better, if less poetic alternative might be "calling a spade a spade". I'm referring to a new book from John Hagel III, a former McKinsey consultant, and John Seely Brown, former chief scientist of Xerox called The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization. In my humble opinion, they are referring to nothing less than the phenomenon of change+ innovation=transformation (espoused in a previous post on this blog) and the need for company's to build resilience/capability in managing these factors as a source of competitive adavantage. Preceeded by many years, by no less illustrious authors as Gary Hamel of Competing for the Future fame and Tom Peters in his book Circle of Innovation.

Useful synopsis of their book here.

Ingredients of Innovation!

2005-05-25T22:16:00.000+01:00

Hot off the press from the FT's Business Life series, in particular its piece from todays paper focused on Entrepreneurship: Start-up Secrets Part 1 - Innovation.

Noteworthy points are the 4 key ingredients to high growth start-ups: an innovation, a good team, the right market opportunity and the right financing strategy.

With regard to innovation, it is key to note that innovation is not merely invention. It can be a new drug, toy or widget but also a new service or new way of operating an old business e.g. Dell, Amazon and eBay and what they did to PC, book and used goods selling, respectively.

What is also key is that they each asked: What is the problem I am solving?

In the case of trans4m.biz, the problem I am solving with trans4mmybiz (more on later) is as follows:
Given the trans4m.biz view that Innovation+Change=Transformation, company transformation efforts are largely failing because innovation and change efforts are too often a top-down approach that does not sufficiently consider and involve the constituent most responsible for effective change efforts and within which great ideas most often reside - employees!

The solution: Technological tools, cultural alignment and process engineering that facilitate bottom-up involvement so employees can drive change efforts in the most suitable way and bring marketable ideas to the attention of top management with a high rate of buy-in followed by a high success rate in the marketplace.

Sent from Milan, via trusty mobile, the Sony Ericsson P900

2005-03-25T10:34:00.000Z

From the democratisation of rights, to profits...

A really good overview here of a theory on how the internet is changing the entertainment business from one that is driven by hits to one that will make most of its money from misses, or the non-mainstream, e.g. a music label's back catalogue.

The theory was popularised by Wired magazine's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, who started the ball rolling last year with a series of talks, a long article called The Long Tail and now a blog on the way to a book. It stems from the type of power law curve you get when you plot the sales of CDs, computer games and other products, or the popularity of websites, or the frequency of word use in a language. This is where George Kingsley Zipf, professor of linguistics at Harvard, observed it.

One area of democratisation I could speak about as well covers human rights (as opposed to rights of intellectual property covered in preceeding posts) as supposedly is taking place in the Middle East, but let's not go down that controverisal route...

2005-03-25T08:42:00.000Z

Staying with customers and music and the democratisation of rights with regard to fair use of music purchased legally, I agree with the view of Bill Thompson, the BBC's Go Digital commentator.

In the latest twist on the battle to liberate tracks from Apple's iTunes store, the customer is again given the benefit of doubt as to how he can copy and use the music he has purchased by a programme called PyMusique which was released to sidestep the protection on songs bought from Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Funny that rights have to be democratised once again following the advent of current legal digital music download options. Bottom line, customers still have the power of choice and hopefully this will guide the market. More power to the people I say and let the music play on...

2005-03-24T15:05:00.000Z

Staying with the subject of mobile music and onto the latest speculative buzz surrounding the no-show of the new iPod phone from Motorola at CeBit.

Real point in this article covering the story is the complete lack of attention given to the end consumer and what will or wont be accepted ultimately.

Seems incoming President of Sony has a point...

2005-03-06T12:14:00.000Z

It really is a sign of the times when you see a reference to the iPod Age and that it might be challenged by mobile music, scarcely two years after the start of the phenomena! It shows how speedily changes are happening. That they are being characterised as eras in so short a time is like Moore's Law being applied to change in general...

2005-03-04T12:18:00.000Z

It's really funny to to be able to observe first hand, the brouhaha in the marketplace, at the first sign that a new technology, development or innovation shows some promise. It's wonderful to watch the herd move in unison and see the jackals preying on the side (the new gurus and experts that spring up to offer their "services").

What is really wonderful though is to note the real innovations and disruptive or transformative technologies that spring up from that first one that showed the way. Actually, they are few and far between. Mostly it is a landscape of "me too's" and one-upmanship!

The digital music landscape is a great example! Napster was the original, but they have now (even in their transformed, reincarnated and legal state) been way overshadowed by Apple. Bottom line is that there are very few that have managed to come close, not that you could tell this from the media reports on events and from press releases. Rhapsody deserves a mention and should receive some kudo's for near perfecting the subscrition model.

What I mean is that from the core of the above two (or three) services, one can assume that the core strategic battlefield is drawn. That is, these services create the benchmarks for what a good digital music service should do (notwithstanding that Napsters current incarnation in the form of a "To Go" subscription service is a far cry from its original P2P model). From this base, expansion (indeed innovation) can come in the form of added distribution channels such as mobile/wireless networks, added functionality such as personalisation, expanded device options such as the mobile phone, etc. What eludes most though, is that in expanding, they forget about the principles or elements of what made the original service/product great and accepted by customers - a critical factor also missed by most. Things like making a great selection of music available without too many restrictions on how the key offering, music, can be enjoyed and finally, flexibility in payment terms.

Back to the starting point! Mobile networks and devices have now been identified as an added and attractive strategic dimension for digital music. Unfortunately, the brouhaha has been amplified tenfold. Good luck spotting the innovation diamonds in the rough!

No links in this entry (there'd be too many and some might get personal...), just a huge expulsion of commentary since it has been a while!!! More soon on the mobile music landscape, et al!

2005-01-18T12:14:00.000Z

Dublin's hi-tech research laboratory, Media Labs Europe, is to shut down. The research centre, which was started by the Irish government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a hotbed for technology concepts.

However, interesting thing is that one big point of failure reported was that many of the ideas generated where not able to be commercialised. Goes somewhere in the direction of my belief about innovation not being possible in isolation similar to how it is sometimes handled in organisations, i.e. departments are created to "manage" innovation for the company.

2005-01-16T21:45:00.000Z

Interesting take on the transformation about to hit us although not new, to me at least, having just completed The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy where he predicted similar trends back in the early 90's and which in fact are already happening.

Mostly they cover the way we work and the trend to flatter, networked organisations and teleworking.

If ever there was any doubt, surely here is the perspective that will convince...

2004-12-05T10:48:00.000Z

This blogging thing really doing well and becoming increasingly popular. Another really useful application can be observed here and this would be of great interest to company revolutionaries vis a vis trans4mmybiz activities.

Period

2004-06-15T11:57:00.000+01:00

Just trying my hand at this new interface - compliments to the Blogger team are in order - definite improvements are evident!!! Also, considering my extended absence on Bloggerdom, I thought I would take a dump as proof of my existence in the event that anyone was reading (ha, bleedin' ha).

The big excuse? The current transformation consuming my life - moving myself and my family to UK from The Netherlands, starting a new business (trans4m.biz will get its own site soon so watch this space) and tackling new work endeavours at Sony!

Dont expect word until after move date - 16 July 2004.

:-)

2004-02-24T12:15:00.000Z

Another really interesting view propounded in a book reviewed here by Richard Horton of the New York Review of Books, is a strongly argued polemic against the commercial conditions in which scientific research currently operates and shows how universities have become little more than instruments of wealth. In the book, Sheldon Krimsky the author feels that Universities have sacrificed their larger social responsibilities to accommodate a new purpose—the privatization of knowledge—by engaging in multimillion-dollar contracts with industries that demand the rights to negotiate licenses from any subsequent discovery.

A quote in the book from a letter to the apostolic nuncio in Poland on March 2002 by John Paul II really endorses the view very well:
"the pre-eminence of the profit motive in conducting scientific research ultimately means that science is deprived of its epistemological character, according to which its primary goal is discovery of the truth. The risk is that when research takes a utilitarian turn, its speculative dimension, which is the inner dynamic of man's intellectual journey, will be diminished or stifled."

For me the polemic could quite equally be applied to "big business" in general. At the risk of sounding like Naomi Klein of No Logo fame (mentioned earlier in this blog), I feel that in pursuing the profit motive, most often to the exclusion of all else, some fundamental basis for the existence of an enterprise is often overlooked by most big companies. One that has a more altruistic intent, at least where part of the enterprises output can be said to benefit core needs (as opposed to frivolous wants). Without getting into an economics debate, just wanted to note that my belief may be more widespread, as evidenced by the organisations which are starting to spring up like Spirit in Business. No Logo is another good example and I'm sure there are many more.

Definitely worth keeping an eye on...

2004-02-24T11:03:00.000Z

Came across this really good essay by David Goodhart which negotiates the tension between solidarity and diversity at the heart of politics and shows up some of the social and political transformations currently taking place, especially in Britain, but evident in all parts of the world I think.

It is obvious to me that there is a global struggle to reconcile actions intended to being more open and accepting towards others against those that sometimes inherently tend to be more egocentric and seemingly uncaring.

My view, not quiet like those of the author is that the middle way can and should be found. The author tends to veer to the right somewhat, challenging liberals to rethink their attitudes to diversity and the welfare state and has provoked a bitter debate among progressive thinkers.

You decide...

2004-01-26T09:02:00.000Z

Its really interesting to observe how an industry "in transformation", like the music industry, responds to changes in the field. From the ludicrous (the RIAA suing its own customers), to the predictable (gearing up with a slew of techies and lawyers).

This is definitely the most interesting industry transformation to have happened in my living (working) memory. It has featured prominantly on this blog and will begin to do even more from now! Nice example to learn from.

Predictions as to where it will end are coming fast and furious - its difficult to keep up. Here's one from arguably one the more knowledgable observers out there - Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst.

2004-01-13T14:03:00.000Z

Just a quickie in order to record my first blog of the year and maintain my impressive rate of submission which at this stage is averaging one a month :-(

One goal that I hope to achieve as part of my new year resolution roster is to at least double my submission rate and ideally quadruple it. As long as quality is increased at the same time though (from aimless rambling like this to something a little more substantial), the final number is not too important.

Thats all folks!!!

2003-12-03T10:15:00.000Z

Heres another snapshot of the ongoing debate of an industry in a state of transformation. It is about the supposed turnaround of electronic music distribution models as evidenced by the success of iTunes - a legal alternative.

What this article shows is that the dilemmas of free choice (to listen to music purchased when, where and how you want to) have still not been solved and it is reduced to "on one side, the P2P file swappers, on the other, the pigopolists (read RIAA) who want to lock down your music forever".

Very neatly shows that this tranasformation is far from over...

2003-11-25T15:06:00.000Z

Been a really long time and my much neglected blog needs a kick start even if only for the sake of it! Was reminded of the art and its value by this interesting blog recording what seems to be some very transformative new developments in the mobile space.

Been rather occupied with actual transformations in the field than the recording thereof. With this entry, I hereby recommit to the art...

2003-09-22T20:55:00.000+01:00

You might have a point there, old friend. I found this article on the New York Times web site. It's title "Turn On. Tune In. Download".

It offers an interesting perspective on "movements".

Firstly a little history (my version of it) lesson ... about the behaviour of the younger generation ...
In the 60's it was LOVE/WEED (Compare that to what the oldies were doing then)
In the 70's it was the Vietman War and it was PEACE/LCD (Radical alternative to killing people)
In the 80's it was the punk area with SEX/DRUGS/ROCK&ROLL (Well Ronald and Maggie was not amused)
In the 90's it was the start of the bubble - MONEY/COCAIN (Big business was big business)
Now it's the 00' and we have FREE MUSIC/XTC (Privacy and all that)

Kids will always rebel. They always know better. That's just the way "we" are ...

Note : How to capitalize on the latest youth movement. There has to be a million in there somewhere ...