Archive for May 2010
The Safety Net Of Control Is Broken
There is this feeling that nothing is going to change much, that business as we know it is going to carry on, and the online commerce world will just be like someone who sits on the bench. Someone who comes in adds a few extra dollars during the low points in the game of business. The truth is, the opposite is happening, advancements and innovation is growing faster than any one person can keep up with. Online commerce is and has become the de facto standard for generating revenue, the ugly works still needs to be done, but it’s more likely to be automated for the most part.
Business owners are struggling big time with letting the customer have some of the control, letting the customer tell the business owner what they want and they had better deliver. If they don’t deliver, people will look for what they want elsewhere. Gerd Leonhard coined it, “Proudly Found Elsewhere”. The safety net of control is broken, you see it everywhere, but big business is fighting tooth and nail to maintain that control. The future of doing business online is about reducing control, we will have to reduce control to get more share in the marketplace. Those who resist will find themselves wondering what happened and how did they miss it, people will get fired for not seeing the shift.
The music industry is not willing to reduce control, major TV networks don’t want to reduce control, and the Net Neutrality movement is all about controlling what you can do and what you watch. As brilliant as man is, we are very short-sighted when it comes to money and people.
The message of an Open & Free Business Model where I believe everyone wins, needs to be embraced. There is a need for more people like Gerd Leonhard, Glen Hiemstra and the extreme futurists like Ray Kurzweil to help you embrace the future of an ever changing world. To help you see something bigger than yourself, something bigger than your business, it’s happening all around you whether you like it or not. There is a tidal wave of people coming, and most business owners (small to medium sized business mostly) are looking the other way.
The world is more connected than it has ever been before, a connected and networked audience is dramatically different from what you’re used to. You cannot control a connected audience. They re-group on the fly, they will go someplace else if it’s too hard to get what they want from you, they will find it elsewhere. The experience this connected world has with you, determines your worth, you’ll either gain there trust or you won’t, but making things as easy as possible to do business with you will take you a long way to gaining that trust. The world is EPIC, Experiential, Participatory, Image Driven and Connected.
Resist the notion that being in control will make money,embrace a more open & free business model and turn your attraction into transactions. Create new ways of doing business, make the paradigm shift to an open business model and build a new safety net,by trusting your customers. If you don’t accept the new world of business online, you will learn very quickly, that your safety net of control is broken.
The New Search – Google Goggles
Search as we know it is toast, Google Goggles takes search to a new fun level. No more going to Google and typing in a few keywords to find what your looking for, now you can use your mobile device (if you have a camera in it) to automatically do the search for you.
Watch this video on Google Goggles, the new search:
What Content Should Be Free?
I wrestled with this question for some time, I mean the whole idea of charging for my content was foreign to me when I started running my first site. In studying the trends of online commerce, and the Open & Free Business Model, it was clear that many people were asking the same question, what should I be writing about and what content should I be charging for.
In working with local business owners, they aren’t even paying attention to what’s really going on, online commerce is just a nice to have rather than a strong component of their business. Meaning, they think it won’t get much bigger than another advertising medium or to just make a few extra dollars. They still practice the price & item approach, the control business model is what they know and trust. My goal is to help as many local businesses understand a different way, and to see the tidal wave that is coming, to pay attention and change the way they think.
A simple exercise is to walk through following:
1.) What is your CORE business about? The first question I usually ask is, what does your business do? Normally, the answer coming back is a description of what the person does or a very high level answer. I would say I am a Technology Strategist, that really doesn’t tell you much does it? You have to ask that question differently two or three times before you get to an answer that gives you a much better understanding. Keeping asking yourself until you get to the real thing that you do.
Knowing what your CORE business is about, helps you with your content, it will help you focus on what the free part might be over the paid part. This seems overly simplistic but it’s not, working through this is much tougher than I’m writing it.
2.) What’s your vision? This is the WHY, why are you doing what your doing and where are you going. That’s pretty simple isn’t it, not really, there is a process to working through what your vision might be.
3.) What is your Mission? Again, something that seems simple but really isn’t. What’s your mantra, your war cry? You want everyone to know it and to be shouting it throughout your organization, even if it’s just you.
You might ask these questions in reverse, whatever makes sense to you. Someone once said recently, keep it simple, simple is hard enough, I try to keep it simple by asking simple questions to tough problems.
These three questions can help you, and it can help you determine what will be free and what will be paid. Keep in mind, there are only three ways to get paid…I pay, you pay, they pay.
This is one way of figuring out what should be free, if you are a writer, write! But write about the thing you are passionate about. Write short stories for free and offer paid for lessons on how to write short stories properly, or writing construct, get creative. Hold writing workshops that are paid for and offer writing tips for free on your blog or newsletter, help your community get what they want, and they will help you get what you want.
This is just one small part of the Open & Free Business Model, the framework is actually straight forward but the details are much harder to figure out. The sooner you start, the better your Blogging experience, and knowing what content should be free makes your blogging life alittle easier.
The Future of Technology is Integration
All you have to do is look around and almost everyone has a device in their ear, they’re either taking, texting, surfing or writing email. It’s not rocket science really, we are a mobile society, and we are getting more mobile by the minute. One of the challenges as I see it, how to get all this mobile technology into our natural way of living, to integrate it with everything we wear and everything we use. Ray Kurzweil is convinced that we will merge with technology someday, it will be in us rather than something we have to hold in our hands. Blue-tooth was supposed to be the beginning of the merge, but it’s cumbersome and still for the most part, FAILWHALE!
The traditional way we search has changed, you just have to run Google Goggles, point your mobile device video camera, take a picture, and it will auto-search for you. With the advancement of GEO Location you know longer need to carry a whack of tourist books to read about all the hot spots to visit on your vacation. Just run WikiTude and point your mobile device camera and read, here’s a demo:
Soon these technologies will be embedded in eye care, Bionic Contact Lenses, in the next 20 – 30 years or earlier, we will merge and become wireless devices. Ray Kurzweil has been predicting this for years, and we are now closer than ever to seeing the first generation.
Technology is changing very quickly, and much is being done to bring us closer to the Singularity, nanotechnology and stem cell research is already delivering low level experiments that prove we can merge and accept the technology within us.
The future of technology is integration, integration into everything, including humans. Someday in the not to far off future we will see the first Android, no not the phone, the artificial human. The next generation?
I’ll keep watching and sharing, but it raises many questions that can’t be answered. I keep wondering when these technologies are going to actually save us time, and make our lifes richer.
Until then, we still have to come together, collaborate and develop great new ideas on how to make technology solve problems like seamless commerce, simple toll booths, and an experiences that makes us come back for more. Sounds simple, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe when we actually do merge or integrate with technology will we find the technological Utopia.
In the mean time, let’s help one another and let’s solve the problems that need solving, while working on these integration projects at the same time.
Change is hard – Not Changing will be Much Harder
The world we live in is always changing, as much as we try, it keeps on changing and shifting whether we like it or not. The truth is we can’t control change, we hang on to it with all our strength but still the change takes place. The world of commerce and how we interact changed years ago but we keep trying to hold it back, keep trying to stay in our comfort zones, it feels better that way. I am change agent for the most part, but if someone moves the forks in my silverware tray I get this disturbed feeling like I was just violated. That shows just how easy it is to get stuck in a rut, there is a saying, the difference between a rut and a grave is the dirt on your face. Are you stuck? Do you like change or does it make uneasy?
I talk frequently about the future and the change we have yet to experience, technology is growing at an exponential rate that we can’t prevent or control. If you look close enough and you are being completely honest with yourself, we are in for a very painful shift in the next 3 – 5 years. How we do business, how we interact with each other, how connected everything is and will be, is going to turn our comfort zones upside down.
Change is hard, change to an Open Business is even harder. Open is scary because it will feel like we are all out of control, it means KAOS! The part that scares most business owners is, the customer is taking some of the control away from them, the customer is now making decisions differently and that makes the world of commerce a very different environment. People are re-grouping on the fly, they are swarming into Tribes, they are reshaping what it means to be a trusted brand, and business is struggling with this shift.
Being open means you as a business owner have to talk to your customers, you must give them more access than you are currently comfortable with today. The world is coming, no the world is not here yet, but when they do arrive they will force you to do business in a very uncomfortable way.
The world is broken up into many many incubators that communicate and act in a way that is acceptable for each incubator. These incubators eventually will all be connected and will reshape how they act and communicate, bringing about change and innovation. This can’t be stopped or prevented, because you can’t stop a connected audience, they move to quickly and resist control, especially on the Internet.
The Internet is THE Platform that has changed the way we think, the way we communicate, and it is allowing for the reshaping of commerce, not too mention bring new meaning to Copyright and Sharing. Social Media is a bad name for the future we are entering, today we think having an account on Twitter makes us an authority on Social Media. The fact is, Media goes much deeper than using these Social Networks, they are tools, they allow us to connect and share, but that’s primarily it. The Media part is what we need to pay attention to, how we get paid for what we do through being in media, is a shift that is still unclear.
We are all becoming the Media, we are going more and more mobile, getting paid will be based on getting Attention, bringing value, and making your value feel like free, that is the secret. How you view the world matters in this new paradigm shift called Open & Free, where you put the toll booth will be even more important. Pay attention to what’s happening to the world of business, what technology is allowing us to do, and pay special attention to who is connecting with you and your business.
Change is hard, the change or shift to an open & free marketplace is coming, and not changing will be much harder in the future.