The Collector Customer: from customer feed to customer needs…

The customer is still king. And even more. Complicated, inflexible, more informed than ever and genuine expert, he asks for more ongoing accuracy, kind of non stop learning. Ubiquity and always on stimulations have now, no limits. Traditional process for decision-making, from information to buying act never stops. Running for “always more”, faked in beliefs for “better”, endlessly with “never enough”.
We can closely say that there’s no goal anymore, no search for consumption but a path to trips, experiences and collection. Filling desires could be infinite through collection welfare, replacing uses, erasing the object, service and message.

The consumption flow

Consumption goes with life and maturity. From observer, fed by parents but more and more stimulated, and so earlier too. Big machine prepares our brains and our emotions. Desires are not natural anymore, but tricky and made of artificial and disguised lies to get stay aware. Marketing magic machine is here, to raise the envy, desire and stimuli, through real campaigns, enforcing our race for consumption. Build an artificial demand with unreasonable growth through a running consumption, blinded and fooling us. In the middle, the customer under the influence, actor of a movie he can’t handle, exploited by a dark architect: the brand.

From life cycle to live cycle…

We already heard about customer life cycle, drawing the raising level of customer, considering the value, for a brand. From profiled, to suspect to prospect and so long to old customer or real ambassador. A kind of clue track, between experiences, meetings and seduction phases. That life cycle describes the way a customer is valued for a brand, in economic terms, and so is precious to stick some resources and investments, balancing the global goals. This drives to a handsome ROI, at each phase of growth. But beyond economics, there’s another description on how customer grows with the brand: intensity. Intensity of desire, describing the physics of attention, awareness and needs, confronting the stimulation mecanism.

Modern profiling and data crunching identify potential customers even before they know themselves reveal their desire and match with the brand. Through affinity behaviors and algorithm buildind a « match » with a success rate. And that desire is often transformed in buying action. But, isn’t it the role of Marketing to build a story and trigger a need we don’t really have? The collector customer himself isn’t he fascinated by his own collection and then, by his desires, beyond all?

 

Every step needs a particular attention and specific means to optimize success to get through the next step. And each step contains everything from the former one and grows the desire in a tricky way, stimulating with relevant messages and methods. First in conception, the brand hopes for reaction to get stimulation and tease until please or disappoint. At that point, we can see limits as:

• no match between message and tools with desire step : the brand in rush goes too fast or disorganized, that creates a disappointment for the customer. No synchronisation in time, wastes effort
• is previous step understood? Any check to be sure that stimuli and emotion has been revealed?
• promotionnal urgency and sales can mix many emotions at the same time and burn the steps before they are assimilated, and then shake the needs ranking and rational process
• each customer is different: in his buying process and desire growth. The results on ROI go with it, and are various too. Get a fair appreciation from it makes efficient the next step and completes the fine-tuning
• don’t forget that we live in an “experiential” time, not obviously transactional. Patience is a wise weapon to get through to pass the hurdles. There’s so steps without reaction, not that it’s not working but there’s a mechanic inside in progress. Desire’s culture steps lead a relevant nursing…which trigger smart reactions and thenvalue the results. But the path is far more important than the result in itself, according to be reproduced and industrialized.

What about after collection?

…is so a delicate step: while collection is over, we can feel sometimes a kind of “blues” and sharp decrease of desire. Any collector is excited until he gets the last piece of his collection but then a whole “emptiness” perception is there throwing away desire. Excites, Thrills, Joy, Bliss…and nothing. The brand must go on, stimulating more and more any collector for his next collections. If not, brand will deceive and will get off collector’s mind. All the efforts for obsession’s pressure will be lost. That means a lot of money, programs and relation that will vanish in a snap. That’s why all the desire’s steps must be unveiled as an ongoing process. Anytime “sales” aren’t they a concrete way to sustain addiction and demand, even for needs we don’t have? Unfortunately, they’re only based on “price” with strong decrease of economic value for companies. And yes, there’s still many tricks to stimulate envy but price, if we just take the effort to listen, customize and invent them. A kind of sales innovation more scarce but terribly exciting. But also more differentiated and related, so less opened to copycat. Where you play on senses and emotions, you get attention and trustiness. And where there’s trust is where you succeed to set a balanced relation.

Well, having said and considered the attraction games between brands and customers, which role do we have to play where more and more consumers pay attention to decay or a more sense of growth? How will Brands will react to that slow motion, where everything is to reinvent?

Less is better (no « more », anymore…) ?

Porter and Uber: what’s up in town?

Michael Porter has obviously white hairs. But not because of his age, even if it’s been years since his “Porter’s forces theory”, but probably because of #Uber. His former theories with his famous “forces” theory matrix haunted lots of universities, students, consultants and companies, made a classic model to explain, draw and shape the main forces and links through modern strategy. I think every people, far from close, one day has been in trouble with this matrix, trying to adapt it to his personal business case. I mean in trouble, while searching clues and tips for his own industry, sector or product. This was a wise approach to put the things right, since the beginning. I never understood that since then, there was a scarcity of ambitious models that could tumble down the historic fundations built by M. Porter. Even since the run of digital revolution, in the mass effects, it seems the old rules could play again their guiding role in strategic planning. Even on Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation concept, Porter’s forces could function to describe a whole environment, a whole playground where different actors could grow or die, but still go on their economic destiny. Then there was Uber…

“Über alles”

We can at this point consider Uber as a perfect example of “disruptive” phenomena (I prefer not to use the term of innovation, as for me, the real innovation is in the “UX”). They re-invented an existing service, better (some say “far more”), at lower prices (and then at lower cost, forcing the whole chain through lower margins). We’re fed up with the “middle”: middle-class, middle management, middle-price, middle quality…middle of the value chain and intermediaries. High class or low cost seem to resume the economics. “Stuck in the middle” is so far the worst strategic planning situation for many reasons. The increasing and forced run for innovation creates and destroys, each day and the speed of cycles gears up. Time is up and now to “re-arrange” and update the old models to include disruptive brutal behaviours. While there’s still much competition, all we can say is that the customer centric era has begun and let himself as a king of the game. I tried here to start a reflexion of where and why, Porter’s forces may change on the impact of collaborative society.

The uber-matrix (from Porter’s forces)

How’s competition so far? Fair, intense, rough or beginners’ field? As it’s the starting point of any strategic analysis, we may spend a while on this.

“The Competition, the customer and the supplier”

There’s no big innovation, I mean on the technology plan, in transforming the supply of transportation, like Uber did. They simply used the new principles of digital: always-on, connected things and people, lowering waste and waiting lines and optimizing the transportation offer. Less lose time, empty cars and…angry consumers. The big picture is in optimization, optimizing time and resources. And that means, a lot of money indeed! The next steps will simply optimize again: using transportation time and devices to transport anything: meats, packages, mail, services and so on. Optimizing again. The application will cover many versions, until you’re so much profiled, that they will be able to monetize your datas.
On the market plan, a very balanced market, with no dominant actor: drivers need consumers who need drivers and everybody needs Uber to get in contact and stay in touch. The very big star is the “platform”. We just entered in a world of platforms, which capture essential of the value chain and kill many intermediate actors. Here we go, like the web goes…Progress destroys at a speed that even Schumpeter could not imagine. We call it “uberization” of economy, a kind of “new born” of relations, interactions and business models. Anyone can be catched with no tomorrow. Anyone can  get stuck in a dead end. Something thrilling or fearing, depends on your risk attention.

“Where playground gets a new shape”

Uber now seeds a new way of doing business, and draws many actors with him. Under the influence of digitalization, customer experience grows up frankly to a new standard that calls for excellence. Nothing will ever be like before. The extreme focus on operation, delivery and accuracy calls for a new standard for customers. Where there seems to be no entry barriers, the ability to build a copycat is a longtime run. Not in technical aspects but in the delivering experience. Even the substitutes field must be a tough job to get the same level of result. The “platformization” of economy used to be the way of doing business, throwing away all useless midlevel actors. And even if it’s the sense of history with progress bulk modifications, legal watchover is live like never before: strikes, hard negociations, realtime bad influence on PR…While we lived many revolutions, the one that goes is far violent, quick and uncompromising. Any sector is concerned, soon or later and you’d better think of it and organize the answer, or other new comers or opportunist actors may do it without you.

“Schrödinger’s cat dilemma: yes it’s technology, no it’s not”

The easy-to-use plenty offer of digital tools gets bigger every day so there’s some foolish feed of the whole ecosystem with techs. But technology wise speaking, nothing really complicated: localization, customization, smart UX, realtime traffic management, rating panel…A complete thinking of just “what it needs” to create a blue ocean, out of the box and disrupt the well ordered old world…Until then, it’s been a tipping point: using these new features opened an ocean for many industries to get closer and more efficient with their customers and value proposition.

“Innovation for change”

It changed the business model for a flat well known price, fixed cost with no surprise, flat prices for usual travels or recurrent ones. It changed for a more trusty model, trusty relation between industry and customers. It opened to many other solutions, in parallel markets, services or goods. It created many jobs, pushing the need beyond the natural demand. It played in a “winner takes it all” market, where speed is the key, to eliminate competition. The only limit (and mistake) for uber was no exit barriers, so competition could flurish, one time they understand the main principles and spread the word. The diverse moves to complete their main job, was to create and use transportation capabilities to transport anything else: “eats”, medecine, etc.

It changed the way it usually changes. Brutal and unexpected, many didn’t see the wave, nor the huge potential for many business. Who can say it as well from one’s own business? Who can say “well, I’m not concerned, it’s for others”? One day, soon or later, you’ll meet the beast, the wall of doubt, of uncertainty which may paralyze your brain and your usual skills, trained for mainstream. “Forewarned is forearmed”. Unfortunately, it may be not enough…

“Time for change, time for reboot”

We never knew anything so quick that this new “kind of thinking”, of doing business, and oftenly refer to “digital wave”. Not as a mean, but a way of setting new behaviors, in front of massive and settled competition. No recipe, no warning, like bootlegs invading the old world. Just a necessary reboot, from A to Z, bottom and up. A concrete and real disruption, where incremental innovation dressing doesn’t work anymore.

You can’t say not being warned until now…

Digital Experiences for Automotive

Humanity in movement

Since many centuries, man found in movement a way to live, discover the world and conquest territories. Filling life with its imagination, he invented methods, process in search of pleasure, easiness, lowering its tireness. With hope and inventions, through science enhancement and progress, he makes his own way to understand, get operational, pushing the limits away. By the way, often in despite of basic security needs in the common sense.

Man then, structures machine and mechanics, to serve him. Dealing with materials properties and combination of ambitious research and motivation, he gets all he can from innovation to master the machine.

Human, mastering the world …

First riding animals, then things and machines, human stands on skills, know-how and judgment to manage different ways of moving he has. Testing, accident experimenting, learning lessons from failures, human manages with his own appreciation good behaviours on the long roads and infrastructures available. These ones shows adaptability features, through quick evolutions and needs of powered automotive.

All along education, training and science improvement, man manages machines. He’s the master decider, collects information and drives using all the machine’s capabilities, to experience his own personal trip. Let’s think about all different ways were found in history and in his time: animals, boats, carriers, cycles, coaches then more recently planes, motorbikes and automobile and finally spatial engines. Everything is piloted, monitored, and always driven with human judgments and evaluations. Yes technology helps a lot…But even in automatic piloting (trains, planes, subways…), machine executes human binary orders, through algorithms developed by human teams, in search of best optimization.

Hybriding relation with digital revolution

Digital wave explosion changed life. Daily life. Everybody’s life. But it’s only a mean, not the end. Transformation in the deepest moments of our lives, with tech, tools, apps, datas, in every snap of life. While we want to search information, data, decision making, behave, digital set takes a major role to solve any demand. Speediness and easiness of machines will give us comfort and many “friends” to rely on. This environment modifies even the way we learn and we keep information: while search navigators can find any information in one second, why could we go on learning like in the past? What for? Machine does it tireless, faster and more reliable than us. Fortunately, we still have intuition and emotion…where machine does not. But is it enjoyable in situations that can’t stand failure or approximate judgements?

Soon, human will learn to equal machine through hybrid way: mid human, mid machine with “augmented human”, the one who will never die. With “artificial intelligence”, which is by the way, everything but not really intelligent…powerful yes, intelligent not yet. This “AI” has been built by human, coded with human minds and used to execute orders initially created by…humans.

And human in this new linked ecosystem would become a failure variable, built on emotions and intuitions, probably on the way to “planned death”. And in transportation and huge world of datas and decision making, human limits will soon be dangerous: unability to get global supervision, tired and too human centred…These intuition-and-emotion centric decision system will become really dangerous for global security indeed. And the main difficulty will take place in transition: mixing human emotions with binary and digital machines decisions will soon burn the bridge!

Let’s remember that the only failures in autonomous cars until now, have been caused by human mistakes…But how can we manage that transition? The only autonomous live solutions, are coached with real pilots (planes, trains, boats), and are reliable because there is a patented and experimented pilot on board, caring about the machine. The next switchover in the total digital era is then completely scary. A necessary transition phase is to be built, where automotive actors will rebuild their relation with their customer. It will reinvent the complete experience in which useful services will blossom to the next driver experience…

Customer Relationship in Automotive sector

Until now, the simple “relation” is reduced and included in the…product, the car. We chose a car, a model, a brand, under ads pressure, loyalty or technical features. The whole combination of model + brand. After the sale, there is few relation but after sale and care relation. The customer is “in” the product every day, and the sole daily use, is enough to stand him, close to the brand. With no contact and no follow up. But automotive brands must keep an eye on their customers, beyond the sale and make sure they will be loyal, in the future.

Attention is then more and more on the “driver”, who will live in many transportation experiences, through his travels, alone or with passengers. It’s what we can call “the driver experience management”, a whole and complete ecosystem, with interactive and safe relations, easing the navigation and learning. While we go to the next big picture, the autonomous cars, human must give the power to machines, trust and let them drive safely. Each experience is unique, clever and is an opportunity to offer many services on board. Time to create the interactive assistant, kind of digital steward, who can guide you, give you advise and push services through “in the distance” services. A concrete way to raise value to consumer, from automotive brands, real time.

At what price and how?

Which services for that « personal assistant »?

What we see, is that new market is exponential. “Sky is the limit” could be a relevant quote to describe what we face in terms of potential services and revenues expectations. We found some figures about it, with Oliver Wyman consultant services here. Every actor, all along the value chain may win a part, playing its own skills with a potential use.

All these services will grow perfectly, accuracy, security and easiness, for all tomorrow transportation ways. But beyond the service, connected cars will keep safe, insured and will call lots of partners in the gameplay. What we could list, at a glance could be:

• Drive assistant help
• Remote piloting, guiding
• Virtual agent (screening communications, chats, audio, twits, text…)
• Database navigation implement: weather, traffic, roads and ways, risks, easy travel guide…
• Personal assistant / connected concierge flowing services like:
  • Leasure booking (restaurant, clubs, bars, hotels, fly, trips, trains, theatre, concerts,…)
  • Shopping: customized shopping, private sales, gifting services…
  • Babysitting, household, house caring, supermarket lists, fixing and emergency…
  • Dating, meeting and matching
  • Parking, shared car use, carpooling, shared travels …
• Media et broadcasting: Television, VOD, news, ebooks, music, video games, audio books…
• “Button” for:
  • Insurance help and emergency
  • Car fixing places and brand after sale
  • Automotive experts
  • Security (Police, Fire, Medical…)

Of course, we just started a reflection that is growing day to day and no doubt it will become an awesome subject for years to come. By starting a concrete future right now, services will organize themselves through ongoing demand from customers, who will starve for practical devices, services and assistance. As soon as they will grow and offer a “easy-to-use” experience, imagination will take place and invent new services. From freemium to added packages, the story is just beginning. How do actors will react and know to catch this tremendous trend, future will tell…

We just see that this is just the beginning for an orbit-shifting story, with a rare opportunity to speed up values, market and experience so far…

The “Yes-No” dead-end

Facing a tricky situation? Having a choice or confronting a delicate solution to ride…? Don’t mess with a “yes/no” issue. Why?

• the simple “two simple choices” solution is in fact a lazy way: you won’t take the chance to really discover the subject and fade into easiness
• the yes option means you want to see after, and won’t take time to mesure the real impact of any kind of option
• the no option makes you a coward, who doesn’t want to take a chance to improve the whole problem
• there’s no questioning about what you do and what you could do more and better

In fact, only many iterates with a word like “why” will lead you further frontiers. It forces you to innovate in your mindset thinking, your process design and your search for disruptive orbit-shifting innovation.

Can you imagine stay in a consensus, a straight line where everybody fights in a red ocean? Can you figure out how many disruptions started with a complete interrogation: resources, capabilities, know-how, following stratégies…?
Only those who face real gravity and fight against it, can imagine the next designed solutions, according to principles:

• detect a positive inflexion point in your business and analyze it
• always imagine solutions for extreme conditions, not business as usual
• be in the fear, with a threaten for your business
• try to make exception the rule for usual business
• recovering pride: to win, to recover podium and first class matters
• refuse the consensus or medium solutions: stuck in gravity, you’re in comfort zone that blocks your brain
• stare at adjacency causes of your business to fuel ordinary thoughts
• study the theorical best instead of “best possible”: push you to borderlines will confront you to unknown and survivance tips
• transform the input-output equation to a next level

You can  find some of these elements, largelly commented and challenged in the “good to great” book by Collins here. The non questioning on deepest elements drives you to a lazy dead-end answer. And your customers worth more, if you want to keep them by your side, before they leave you.

And you, as a manager or a CEO, will you dare the complete review or will you stay in your comfort zone?

This time, I will answer “I hope no”…

WWW: World Wide Worst?

Only 20 years from now, WWW was a bulk disruption on how we live, consume, search, think and act. As cycles gear up, it may be the deepest change since…the birth of printing, the “renaissance” era, or more recently, industrialisation. The Internet has created new values, new debates, new democracies, new wealth, new scarcities, new information sharing and above all, a kind of new economy. And the story could stop, steadily hold a strange balance between users and infrastructures/sites builders. In fact, the sleepiness effect of this large revolution shows us, in a short term, the worst faces of Schumpeter’s doom of innovation. The best disruption effects mean to cut off any kind of intermediation, throwing away millions of jobs, and by the way, millions of lives. If WWW brings us, technology speaking, the best of information, education and equality in the world, that efficient technology erases more than it helps us, in the short term. Do many tasks for free, sharp and straight, instead on holding man assistance.
Oh.
You probably mean that machines and technology need more and more jobs to build them. True, but probably not the same profiles than the ones fired in this giganteous turnaround. Training and recovering another job? Too old, not flexible, not relevant could you be answered.

But over all, if we stare at the revenue sharing of that economy, we could see a scarce race of “winner take it all” actors, who share their revenue with stocks’ holder more than with you. Nothing else to take a look at GAFAM’s world to see the market cap is perfectly valued with the network and the content. Me. You. Everybody who posts something, someday. The whole value of these networks is nothing else than content, freely and daily published by you an me. Former days were journalists, photographers, editors, producers, distributors, who, in their way, were doing their part of the job, truly paied for that. Now that content is free, posted, twitted, re-twitted in seconds all around the world, who pays for that? Brands. But revenues never come to your pocket, but in the digital oligarchy’s one. Charming period where some “jobs” or tasks always exist, but now are unpaid. The Free economy is obviously interesting as a citizen or a consumer, but we are also employees or economic agent, driven to work to live. And that “freeness” may be our death idol. Is Internet really the answer?

It’s no doubt that the global balance between creation and destruction is far worst than we think. And there’s still no real “huge implementation” of #AI yet…Let’s figure out when many boring tasks will be realized by bots, coding minds, automatic processes like drive, care, produce, publish, deliver…Build bots? But when bots will build bots, what’s next?

This disruption fever may drive us to schizophrenic behavior, with a global rejection of progress, protecting us from…disablation. Switch on, swith off. Someday a robot will push the button for us, to unplug us. Bye. It’s no sense leading to such issue, wasting the best of technology for humankind economic survival. We’ll be “un-revealed”, in an “un” society: unstores, unusual, unhierarchic and holacratic world. Where winner-take-it-all pleases themselve, inventing a mirror world where fashion leads to an “un-anything”. This status is now so true than ever. Value is in the “un-face” of things to unfold deepest desires and hold privacy, scarcity and exclusive vision on things (and people). They know how to cope with it, and we pay it by our blindness and trustiness.

If GAFAM make a lot of money on contents they never create, why don’t they pay the real price for this new kind of (free) suppliers that are friends, members and so long? They push more free tools than ever, to slave us, collect data and make money wherever but our side. That’s the game it seems, hard game, sometimes and in the end, mortal one. Not funny in fact, and the worst is that few have this global awareness of it. We, as human give a lot of energy to dig our own economic grave.

Is it a whole sustainable situation, till when?

Reboot yourself with Jugaad Innovation!

In fact, there’s a growing revolution inside. The most weird thing is that it comes from where raw materials are scarce, the opposant scary and no means. The initial innovation, consuming and wasting capital and buried in pyramidal and lone structures could play its last chance. “Jugaad”, that means “breakthrough growth” or “coping with innovation” in Hindi plays a new role for innovation. More flexible, open and simple. Something to reboot ourselves and renew true mindset, to give hope to despair mass and create a ongoing movement to new creation.
Jugaad Innovation is defined around 6 principles, where collaborative thinking and acting are king:

• Search for opportunities in adversity: most of the times, any company gives up facing adversity or difficulty, because of wasting time, money or fearing of failure. We all prefer comfort zones to risk. Then comes Juggad that draws energy and interest from adversity and resistance. Jugaad brings pride, energy and passion to overcome the obstacle. Learn to deal with adversity is one of the keys of Jugaad Innovators, like a new innovation mindset.
• Do more with less: we may soon live with less. Less raw materials, less growth, less employment, less time…It’s now time to do more with less, re-use things designing them differently. Reinvent different uses and reinvent ourselves. Think for example to use wastes for others capabilities, without being obliged to recycle them. When you live all days with adversity and obstacles, you quickly find solutions with simple existant stuffs. We use to rethink many ways we do and reprocess simply. When tough times are, we must find economic solutions, and the Jugaad method may be relevant and sustainable…to stay ahead of competition
• Think and act in a more flexible way: big companies organize themselves with hard and complex structures of R&D in long term process that don’t faciltate short term and simple reactions. They don’t (can’t) think flexible way. They keep things complex because they forgot how to think simple. they ignore low cost solutions because they think high value, with large margins. They simply forget customer centric solutions offering complex R&D outputs, outputs that customer don’t want anymore. Cycles get longer, heavy processing, heavier than ever. Capital and resources expenses explode and innovation is not obvious but struggled into secrecy, keeping the cover on patents. This is outpast in the collaborative mindset we live in now. With Jugaad and its ongoing and lean process. that can’t work anymore. Innovation must catch all the few opportunities with few and simple attitudes. The mindset centric thinking and action are mixed into a twirling process, that evolves simply with the single needs of consumer. What has to be created is only what has to be consumed.

(c) from the cover of book “Jugaad Innovation”.

• Target simplicity: never forget “keep it shortly simple”. It seems so obvious for Jugaad mindset, even if make simple is in fact complex. The hardline is that rebuild something from a complex base is really hard, so when you think Jugaad, you start from nothing. You can be light, efficient and straight to the point. Something that big companies forgot, while they keep secrecy on their R&D and innovatios plans. It’s the art of secret and the obsession for technologies or complex buildings with over engineering. Focus on the pure need, focus on value for customer not for company is the only true way to simplicity. The Jugaad process allows the direct thinking to direct needs. Meeting with daily problems, finding daily solutions, directly useful. The direct response for smart innovation.
• Inclusive innovation: Through structure itself, because of resources consumption and innovation heaviness, the mainstream innovation is mainly for “mass market”, simply because companies couldn’t balance huge R&D expenses with poor markets. Innovation is rarely for disabled people while it could change their life and build a whole story for them. Bringing innovation in middle-class draws wastes and add only a marginal output. It’s a shamy situation where digital fence exists and all efforts might be to reduce it and build a fair world for all. Next to this, the experimentations from “bottom of the pyramid” ou BOP, showed interesting outputs but underlined the limits of “poor segments”: double sentence. As they already have “nothing” the price paid for each single unit is far more expensive than in normal markets. That’s where Jugaad is really different is that solutions are not built by huge companies but by and for local and isolated people. A kind of ABC for exclusion and the ability to include them. The inclusive innovation.

 

 

• Follow heart power and tuition: the notion I prefer far from all others, put some passion and heart in process thinking, doing only what people need and not what he desires. This is one of the great lessons for example, leading to extreme simplification for use and not for engineers’ pride. Focus on needs, engage with local communities, friend with them, learn their daily life is more efficient than any business process or school. Spending time on few essentials lead to main outputs. Don’t forget Steve Jobs who never ever asked anything to a customer, no need to inspire and build what he did. Only his tuitions and faith in design, experience and simplification seemed to draw his whole life. Heart and passion nurture the whole fuel for action, leadong to Jugaad inspire. We may all take the path…

A true and strong revolution, I’m convinced. The one in centuries, beyond fashion and cycles. Maybe there’s already a Jugaad innovator close to you. Neighbour. Travel encountering. Someone valuable for sure. Someone to meet, share and learn from. Respect, Recycle and Reboot. Time to (re)use what we have and (re)invent everything we have, differently. It’s a matter of inclusion, hope and innovation.

Jugaad, our inclusive future, shared with passion.

See: “Jugaad Innovation”. “Passion with no, limit” and THE book. Enlighting the subject with pics ; Reena Jana’s thoughts about it

TV as a social playground: where is TV right now?

I don’t know what’s your actual behavior and consumption of TV, but we can all say there’s probably the biggest revolution since Internet. We used to consider TV as « a whole set, environment of entertainment, emotion and information for the family.

Despite different revolutions like new consumption (VOD, OTT, catchup TV…), new wirings (DSL, DTH, DTT…), new quality (HD, 3D), TV remains a matter of contents. Believe me, as I worked for more than 10 years, in pay TV environments.

And, yes, it is still a question of content. To inform, entertain or turn upside down. It’s always contents that drive audience and make the money business. But since users started to generate contents (UGC) with social tools, the power between broadcasters, content producers and audience has been completely blended, from a steady flow, one at a time, to multi-producing anytime, anywhere, any device. And guess where we focus most of our time now?

Not on old TV formats, but the web. Web audience boosted since few years now, and consumption of any contents on mobile screens overtook the old devices.

The next big thing is this incredible second screen concept that shapes the exact new relation between:

• audience, e.g. who becomes active/reactive and participating
• content producers, e.g. who try to produce high potential contents and sustainable rights to engage in a longer lifetime, that is, more revenues
• advertisers and brands (here there’s no change but the increasing need to hold revenues and efficiency, anytime!
• broadcasters, e.g. whose job is keeping the light on overnight and increase revenue due to more audience from advertisers.

Fair game isn’t it? I’m probably writing a piece of this article on my laptop, while watching TV, sending twits
to engage with the actual TV show. And it’s not a question of the Y generation or being a millennial, as I’m neither.

 

 

The fact is that, socialize relations, sectors, or industries, means tumble down the easy flow of former
relations because:

• You won’t be able to know how many times and how long, the former viewer is now, while he can zap, play, change the content – with one finger
• You won’t be able to value advertising and the guarantee for brands to invest in big channels, another effect of the long tail, created with the web
• You probably will be obliged to change, quick and dirty, programming because of twitter #attacks, ongoing, throwing away all your programming strategy
• The whole investments you do in long term programs is turned into a short formats of videos, soaps, viewed, reviewed, cached, and screened wherever but the TV

Think about how it’s changing the whole chain: skills, training, actors, eye-catching snaps, promotion, the relevance of a whole programming guide.

Where the web brought freedom and creativity, television lost traction moreover in youngest generation who nearly were born, without TV addiction. Many years ago, most of us believed that social TV was nothing more than bringing the web on TV screens and bloomed many connected TVs with new interfaces and web browsing.

Social means individualism because the essence of participating is the collaboration and the addition of multiple individual shares, talks, and debates. Soon (or already now?), you’ll be able to have an individual end for your favorite soap. The one you’ll choose, the one you’ll have, your end.

In some way, where technologies brought us the ubiquity of TV everywhere (DTH, Cable, xG Mobile, DTT, etc.), social brought us our network that awakes us more, engages us to participate, and allows us to be more aware of what’s going on.

In some way, we’re more actors than we think. We create the new content experience we finally want to see. What is more important in marketing than to have the choice to buy something we REALLY want?

Social TV is our choice, our experience, our chance to be more engaged than ever and keep the little flame for creation. Let’s light on.

The Digital Network takes off, but not with you…

Seems Bitstrips raised a lot of money recently and I must admit at first was very sceptical. Let’s say it’s a funny tale and another social story, gamed with cartoons and a “do-it-yourself” use of drawings through several opportunities. Fair enough. If the “cartoonisation” gives clever scenes and enhances our “gamability”, I’m still wondering what kind of value is behind these large valuation and viral expanding. Guess what? The value is in you. As digital networks invade the world, the real value is built, day after day, with the increasing datas and profiles, users. You. Me. Friends. Fans. No one missed the last Facebook starving price with this astronomic deal with Whatsapp.

What’s incredible in the “digital network” is that few people now concentrate value, revenue and growth. Where millions of employees had to participate in industrial era, smart teams (eg 13 for Instagram, and 55 for Whatsapp for example) do the job for billions of stocks valuation. If indeed they created and built something relevant, the most part of the value comes now from the network and the potential of its members/profiles. What they do, post, discuss, members who do anything for free, anytime, anywhere, filling timelines with pictures, text messages and conversations. And the contents blooming in these platforms bring value to the whole project. Ask yourself how these companies’ stocks are valued: from the users they drew to the network (eg value of a user between 20 to 100$, according to returning and activity rates x number of members). Why do we value these networks with members figures without sharing any revenue with these members?!

But this value is not distributed (eg for example in jobs raising, revenue sharing or anything else) to third part anymore. We’re facing the worst side of digital revolution, destructing value: no more jobs needed – lean companies -, value created for free by users…who are the next unemployed. I must admit, being an early adopter of digital wave, this theory that we can find in Janier’s book “who owns the future” made my day and the real danger zone is already there: the more you’re opt-in, the more you’ll have free information. Your “Opt-Inness” make you more valuable but the question is: for who? Finally, more free information makes the world poorer because in the long term, there’s a massive destruction of employment, directly from the fact that industry now needs far less people to work. We all, using and consuming free and low cost services, participate to this slow and steady destruction of middle class. The one that holds the global edifice and raises children. The bulky one that create the motion for mass markets. It’s time for revenue sharing between, friendly users and startup aces, and rebuild another model for digital economy. Sustainable, fair and collaborative centric. Kind of we could be proud, without fear of being smashed up from the system.

Think of it before your next content feed. It may worth much money, but not for you…

#social “good” things: from now for the future?

Between 22th and 24^th of 2013, September was organized the “socialgood event”, by @mashable and other partners, to share and plan about how digital and social could help building a better future (#2030now).

It’s been years from now that many conferences bloomed (TED, Ignite, SXSW…) rising talents, needs and desire for social features. Panels, keynotes, witnessing…so many opportunities to learn and share this new awesome passion for collaboration spaces. I like these moments. They remind me some fantastic steps like:

1)   I meet there the “social chance…”

…to challenge my opinions and my environment. I like listening to an expert, solving or preventing a new challenge, these events allow to get straight to the point. In a single event, I can learn many things and meet many experts and can network with them. I live in what I call “the human-linked network”

2)   I’m a link like you: a huge network to play…

…where my incredible passion for human contacts calls for more: it engages me to a challenging posture and a more interactive life, with more transparency and trust.. “This is not a matter of quantity but more a mindset of creativity, passion and engagement”. I did it my quote, because that really changed my mind.

3)   I dream like you to invent the future

…what’s more beautiful to overtake results, expectations and outputs. The digital posture makes us more interactive and creative people, who are more concerned in creating the future. I became “addict” of this on going relation where I share insights anytime and anywhere. “the trend is there, and the long tail is wide…”

4)   I create with many folks, things that are built to stay…

…hey wait a minute? There’s nothing more “valuable” than creating together, in a same team. This new vision is settled for a long time. The increasing need to be listened and the signs of working together call for a whole participation, in the new “crowd innovation”. Innovation  “from people, for people” , a complete new framework that redefines relations, power and working circles. The ones that companies break to implement in structures and project management, where decision has nothing to see with hierarchy or power. Widen against top-bottom reactions, to engage and become more social.

5)   I believe that social graph attracts social…

…the incredible passion for collaborative calls for many initiatives and draws talents.  Youngest or oldest, everybody is involved, crossing frontiers, cultures and generations. Technology forced us to overcome our fears and do what was impossible: communicate and share the next big pictures. “The more you pratice, the more you like”. This is now finally my lifestyle.

Are you already part of it? In which way, actions, outputs? Please share and tell your social life, as an incredible window for us to learn more…

21st century leadership w @BCG and @HECParis

Being involved once more in a particular piece of survey, built by The Boston Consulting Group for its customers, and tested on different panels from HEC Business School. Always searching to shape the future, engaged since 50 years now, the famous consulting group conceived and held a great framework with different layers to grow a relevant model for new guidelines for leadership…We can, by the way, just imagine that leadership was in the past more dedicated to a specific “person” and then shifts to a collective movement, on the influence of collaborative sessions everywhere. Even is the spread has been done many years from now, on the Anglosaxon world, the dynamics from digital and tools ahead draw another picture of “work” and project building. The resume that was enlighted was “Why will leadership be different in the 21st century and what will it take to be a 21st century leader?” (if it’s still an individual matter more than a collective one). So?

The framework was built around a “navigation row”, with 4 poles like: Navigate, Empathize, Self-Correction and Win-Win. While past models celebrate things like “integrity, vision, intelligence, judgment, courage and drive”, it’s not enough for the next big pictures…The way we see risks is not the same we did, and the global uncertainty growing in the world, lead us to more flexibility. But that doesn’t mean not to be clear, because leadership is still a kind of example, that shows the way, with a clear course to follow.

The social arena leads us to more “social” relations, and in the working environment that means to influence more than “manage” or use authority. Charism, experience or conviction are our best weapons to deal with negotiation and motivation. It supplies us more ability to forecast and embrace global uncertainty, through troubled periods. The shift from pyramid to project management leads us to rethink way of driving the change, with teams, empowering talents and guiding them more than ordering. We then develop a win-win method that grows the whole organization. It requires some underlined competences like: vision, intelligence but courage and judgment to be flexible and self-correcting, ongoing. Integrity, drive and tenacity will complete the panel of skills for success and garantee a strong footprint, mindset and influence for modern leaders.

A very interesting study/survey or tool to evaluate and frame the “how-to” for next generations, HR compliance and driving change with talents.

For more, see:

• Roselinde Torres form BCG interview: http://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/podcasts/leadership_roselinde_torres_how_to_cultivate_next_generation_leaders
• The adaptive leadership: http://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/leadership_engagement_culture_adaptive_leadership
• Leading the change: http://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/leadership_transformation_leading_transformation