Sterling Performance

Spring is in the air, or there’s no explaining my inbox contents, full of ebullience and releases about music festivals (we’re talking work email here).

Not surprisingly, other people are in ‘going for growth’ mood (to steal the OECD’s report title) so I’ve read a lot of inspiring posts today. Here are six:

1. Stickybits — founders Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein have created an easy way to stick videos and pdfs and other goodies to ‘real-world’ objects. So you can include a mountain of information on a stickybits barcode that sticks to your, say, business card. A ’stickywiki’ includes some of less obvious ways businesses or individuals can use it, too — like putting warnings on medical instruments that a nurse can access. Or a Barcode Art Exhibition where visitors read the barcodes that will reveal the artworks to them.

2. 37Signals’ 13 Simple Rules for Success in Business — with illustrations by Mark Rohde. Abide by these and you shouldn’t go too far wrong in leading others.

3. BNETUK blogger Yann Gourvennec’s interview at the recent LikeMinds 2010 gathering in Exeter and his change management tips

4. A free e-book from The Social Customer to help you learn how to make more of tools such as Twitter and Facebook, and how to engage with customers rather than just push information at them. UK readers, it’s US-centric, but plenty of little ideas that are universal. Here’s one: Cisco’s Linksys cut back on around 120,000 calls because its online community stepped in to solve caller problems faster.

5. Seven ideas for securing stellar advisors or board members for your start-up from Mashable’s Ben Parr. A sample: bring on people who will challenge your strategic plans, because it’s unlikely that your employees will have the nerve to question the emperor’s new clothes.

6. Reuben Power’s global ambition. UK companies are often accused of thinking too small, but founder Reuben Vurdien’s company was set up with the aim of becoming “a world leader in electric vehicle charging” and making the UK the electric car capital of Europe.

I recently re-watched a December 2009 interview of Paul Argenti (corporate communications professor at Tuck University) following the release of his book dedicated to Web 2.0’s effect on communications.

I’ve pulled out some points from the interview. A lot of what Argenti describes here is similar to what I have written in these columns and elsewhere:

1. Most execs are out of sync. It’s easy to dismiss what you don’t know as being a fad or meaningless.
   
2. Yet a true revolution in corporate communications is unfolding with regard to how our corporate relationships are impacted in all areas: press and public relations, investors, analysts, partners and clients, employees and job seekers etc. What is funny, Argenti says, is that despite point one, none of the interviewed execs denies this fact.
3. This revolution has less to do with tools than strategy.
   
4. Video and vlogging (video blogging) are transforming everything we do in corporate communications.
5. Web 2.0 enables active vs. reactive communications.
6. Negative feedback is definitely what execs are afraid of, but it is already broadly available beyond social media. Social media is not the cause of negative feedback or brand disloyalty and cannot be held responsible for the quality of a product or the fact that a service hasn’t been rendered properly.

I would also add some advice for PRs on getting a better grasp of how to use social media.

Don’t:

• Misjudge the importance of a sentence or a comment. Even more than in the printed press, every word counts in social media.
• Misunderstand the human factor behind crisis management in social media. Some believe that fiddling with comments is enough, whereas human conversations will work wonders.
• Think being present on social media is enough. You need to engage.
• Talk digital vs. do digital — you need to understand what the Web makes available to all.
• Ignore positive feedback including that which can be generated by internal blogging communities and partnerships,
• Forget to implement the right processes and spell them out clearly, including disclosure practices.

I’m just back from Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, and I’m feeling a little self-important.

MWC is a huge telecoms tradeshow where the great, the good and the proflagate debate the future of the industry. I went along because I’ve recently launched a tech-startup in the mobile technology space. This year there was change in the air, a power-shift from the giganta-networks like AT&T, Vodafone et al, towards the nimble and powerful web-based players such as Google and Skype. Even better, those upstarts are falling over themselves to work with little players, like me.

Of course some things never change. Tech giants are still building exhibition stands with more space and better décor than my own apartment. Eastern European companies continue to fluff their stands with under-dressed pretty girls like it’s 1977. Best of all are the national stereotypes, from the sports-jacketed US executives to the buttoned-up, terrified looking Japanese ladies. When all of those are gone I’ll know times have really changed.

You probably already know that some Big Stuff happened. Samsung screamed about a new phone called Wave, based on an operating system called Bada. Microsoft (the ‘Bing’ people, there’s a joke in there somewhere) released Windows Phone 7, replacing the antiquated Windows Mobile operating system. All this is happening because these companies have Big Problems with iPhone (and its App Store) Google (and it’s Android operating system) and the fact that mobile innovation now resides with the global army of app developers. I’m one of those people, though I claim no special credit - there were thousands of us in Barcelona.

I didn’t see these big launches. I was too busy, and knew I could check them out online later. Instead I spent my time briefing journalists on our latest exploits while keeping my business running from hotel hotspots and quiet corners. I think I managed it, though I’ll know if I’m bankrupt when my mobile roaming charges become clear.

This year, the new kids were given their own playground - A hall at the top of the hill named App Planet. This was my favourite spot and was never less than packed to the rafters. Here the suits gave way to t-shirts, Blackberries became iPhones and exhibitors appeared a decade younger than those in other halls. Sensing the mood, Skype were there offering free phone calls, while beaming developers carried around their free Nexus One phones from Google. Sadly I arrived too late for the giveaway and am still kicking myself.

My company is into mobile augmented reality, and the organizers invited us onto a panel to debate this emerging industry. With 300 people packed into the hall, three start-ups flanked a nervous Nokia executive on the stage. A sense of humility is required. After all, Nokia’s event budget probably exceeds the combined revenue of all the other companies on the stage, but the point is that we belonged there. Later, I took part in an augmented reality demonstration event - Essentially technology speed-dating. It had been billed as a press event, but in truth most of the demos were given to the big exhibitors who were all keen to know “where are you going with this? How many downloads have you had? What is your business model?”

Perhaps I’m getting a little carried away, I’m sure my mother would say I’m over-tired, but there really was something different this year, a palpable changing of the guard. Now though, I’m planning on sleeping for the whole weekend.

(Pic: James Nash cc2.0)

Portsmouth University is one of a number of colleges kicking off an initiative to boost graduate recruitment amongst small and medium businesses (SMBs) in their area with a government funded internship subsidy.

Earlier this year, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announced £13.6m for a graduate internship scheme designed to give new entrants a way into the job market and at the same time, provide support for local businesses by giving them access to educated interns for a limited time.

The scheme in Portsmouth has enough funding for 90 graduate internships. Employers will receive £1,200 towards the intern’s salary, provided they match that with a further £2,400. Internships have to last for at least 12 weeks. That’s a wage of around £8.50 per hour — more than the £5.80 per hour national minimum wage.

So far, 54 other colleges have received funding for between 20 and 700 placements in their area.

In total, just under 7,000 placements have been created, but there is still funding available for a further 1,500 internships to be created by colleges not yet applied to the scheme.

Although this won’t solve the problem of the chronic shortage of vacancies for the 22,000 graduates on Job Seekers Allowance, it will go some way to taking the heat off those who have just finished or are about to leave university.

Alice Hickman, recruitment manager at Purple Door Recruitment, the in-house recruitment agency at Portsmouth University explained how involved she was in the selection and ongoing development of the graduates she places. (more…)

During Apple’s recent iPad launch, the comment that made me really stop and listen was when Steve Jobs said that Apple were now the world’s largest player in the mobile devices market.

It struck me that Apple’s perception of its market has changed significantly over time. No longer is the company in the personal computer business; it is in a far more dynamic, amorphous and wide-ranging market called mobile devices, covering laptops, phones, cameras, music and entertainment systems and more.

To my mind, this is part of Steve Jobs’s genius. He recognises that companies shouldn’t define themselves by a narrow view of the products they have historically made, but by a broader view of the customer experiences they help create.

Kodak is struggling because, for too long, it continued to believe it was in the film processing market, not the mobile devices or picture sharing market. Olivetti made the mistake of believing it was in the typewriter market, not the word processing or document sharing market. (more…)

Three years ago, I was contacted by a marketing representative of a large European company to write a white paper describing my vision for social media within businesses. Now that the social media boom is looming, I have decided to revise and update my recommendations:

1. Communities are important, but not every brand has one. Communities are built around a common interest and the need for people to help each other. Just because some people are merely buying products doesn’t mean that they are part of a community. Companies need to foster community feelings before thinking of orchestrating a community. For detailed tips on how to foster communities refer to Hagel and Armstrong’s “Net Gain“.
2. Don’t confuse comments with collaboration. Collaboration is about working together and from the bottom up. This includes encouraging people from the shopfloor to come forward and letting clients talk to one another. Not all companies are prepared for this, and it may take a while before they are. (more…)
   Yann Gourvennec is head of internet and digital media at Orange Business Services. He is also one of the few European members of the blog council.

   Share your tips with Yann.

With the UK domestic market unlikely to bounce back in any significant way for a while, it may be worth looking overseas for growth over the next year. One of the biggest growth markets is China, but it’s outside some companies’ comfort zones.

The scale of the market, corporate regulations and business etiquette are very different from what entrepreneurs may be familiar with when breaking into western Europe and the US.

Geoff Mills is on the supervisory board of SIP Project Management, a company that specialises in advising businesses intending to set up in China. He has about 25 years’ experience in dealing with the Chinese corporate landscape.

He says in the early days, commercial enterprise in the country was still evolving, but now it has established norms and navigating them is a lot more straightforward and predictable. Companies that are only now thinking about moving there don’t have to be pioneers any more.

Here are some of his insights on what to consider if you are thinking about taking advantage of the biggest and fastest growing market in the world: (more…)

Recruitment agencies, beware. You may be losing your customers to social media sites. Michelle Flynn, recruitment manager at technology consultancy EMC Consulting was tasked with moving the company’s recruitment away from agencies and take the process in-house in 2006.

She now recruits all EMC employees through social media sites. In doing so, she saved the company £2.7m in agency fees, not to mention the time saved by consultants in toiling through mountains of CVs.

The basic theme running through the company’s recruitment policy is applicants become part of its online community long before they actually join, significantly enhancing the chances of a new joiner fitting in well with the existing workforce and corporate culture.

Specialising in technology services, EMC Consulting’s applicants are naturally more attuned to social media, but Flynn insists that using these sites to recruit staff is something any company can do.

Here’s her advice on how to do it: (more…)

2010 is going to be the year of social media and those who know how to use it will really start to see it becoming a central part of their strategy to reach out to customers online. Those who don’t will start regretting it.

Here are my top 10 tips for you to prepare for the Social Media tsunami to come this year:

1. Hold on to your code of conduct: As social media moves into the mainstream, there is going to be a temptation for traditional marketing managers to try to recycle old recipes which already stopped working a long time ago. At best, these traditional methods will be seen as failures to adapt to social media; at worst, there will be seen as attempts at infiltrating social media. More than ever, it is time to remind people of the fundamental rules of disclosure, of which Andy Sernovitz and SMBC are so fond. (more…)
   Yann Gourvennec is head of internet and digital media at Orange Business Services. He is also one of the few European members of the blog council.

   Share your tips with Yann.

In the three years since I left the corporate world and started my own consulting business, the biggest single lesson I’ve learned is the need to accept and embrace failure.

I don’t mean failing at my everyday operations – my clients wouldn’t pay for that and I wouldn’t last too long – I mean being willing to fail when I develop and try something new.

To be honest, it’s a lesson I’m still learning, but the demands of selling my services have shown me:

• If I demand 100 per cent success then I’m very unlikely to do anything interesting or worthwhile.
• if I put the pressure on myself to ‘get it right first time, every time’, I end up planning and planning, rather than taking action.

In fact, failure is at the heart of all progress. As Woody Allen once said, “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”

Yet many large corporations detest failure. In the minds of large company executives it’s a word that brings to mind images of a P45 and a black bin bag of hastily collected office belongings. For many, the desire to protect current business overwhelms any wish to radically change their customer offer or business model.

Most breakthrough innovations are, instead, driven by new entrants and upstarts with nothing to lose. Ryanair and EasyJet, not BA or Lufthansa, for example, transformed the European airline market. Similarly, Google rather than Microsoft has transformed the way we use the web, and, going back 30 years, it was Microsoft that acted as the catalyst for the explosion in our use of PCs.

Becoming better at failing should be at the top of many senior executives’ list of objectives for 2010. So how can they better take on the risk-seeking attitudes and approaches of start-ups?

Earlier this year I hosted and facilitated a roundtable discussion of strategy officers from some of the UK’s leading companies. Our collective view was that the key for large companies to innovate better was for them to be willing and able to fail more quickly and cheaply than they currently do.

Instead of relying on detailed analysis and research, in a vain and futile attempt for the initial version to be perfect, it is faster and more effective to create and test a simple prototype for your idea. It shouldn’t cost a lot of money –- in fact, the cheaper the better, usually -– and although it won’t be perfect, it will help you quickly learn whether you have something of interest or a dog on your hands.

In other words, by starting to behave more like a cash-strapped new-start company, focusing on creating a series of straightforward but ever-improving prototypes rather than an ideal one-off solution, large companies can become faster, more agile and, ultimately, more innovative.

(Pic: tibchris cc2.0)