Tag: business

Building a digital hub – and why governments shouldn’t try.

The experience of the Sydney Digital Hub shows why Australian governments struggle to create industrial centres.

“I’m not sure what to do with this,” frowned the public service executive to a group of blank faced departmental staffers. “I’ll take it,” I said to break the silence.

With that, I was on a journey into exactly what Sydney’s startup and digital media communities looked like and learning why governments struggle to build technology hubs.

I’d been working for the state government for two months after a specularly unsuccessful exit from a business and in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis getting a public service job seemed like a good idea.

Vague ideas

The project being discussed by Bob, my then director, was a single line in the recommendations from the then Premier’s Jobs Summit which was convened in the panicky dark days of the 2008 global financial crisis – “A digital hub will be setup around the Australian Technology Park.”

Bob, and the management of the New South Wales Department of Trade and Investment had little idea of what a ‘digital hub’ was and my position of ‘Manager, Creative Industries” – with a staff of precisely zero – was vague given the state’s support to the creative industries was, and remains, based on throwing big buckets of money at the Hollywood movie studios.

So the Sydney Digital Hub was born and the quest to find out exactly was was needed, or at least would keep the Premier’s office happy, was on.

It immediately became apparent the Australian Technology Park wasn’t going to be the centre of anything as far as Sydney’s startup community was concerned. The complex was too far away from the city and too expensive for most of the businesses.

Replacing what’s existing

“We already have a digital hub,” was the other response. “It’s Surry Hills.” Which was a far call as a large part of the Sydney startup and digital media communities were based in the suburb on the edge of the city’s centre.

This actually worked well as the exact wording of the committee’s recommendation was “create a digital hub around the Australian Technology Park.” In this case, Surry Hills was ‘around’ the ATP.

Eventually the project became Digital Sydney and by the time it was launched, the state had gone through two Premiers, elected another party into government and I was long gone from the department, having lasted just 19 months.

Before leaving, I had managed to steer through a million dollars in funding for the project from the then Labor minister – since caught up on corruption charges surrounding coal mine leases – which, to their credit, was honoured by the incoming Liberal government that took power shortly after.

Dying a slow, unfunded death

That funding was renewed and the project died a slow death, which didn’t really matter as Sydney’s startup and digital media communities had developed despite of, not because of, any government policies. Indeed, the New South Wales’ government’s economic development policies were, and remain, focused on property development and coal mining.

Which brings us to the present day, where the Sydney startup community is upset at the Sydstart conference being poached by the Victorian government and moving to Melbourne on the promise of a million dollars in support as part of the state’s startup program.

The promoters of the now relocated and renamed conference are adamant it matters, but the truth is it doesn’t. In fact the biggest ticket item of NSW government support to the IT sector is the annual CeBIT conference that in truth has added little to the state’s technology industry and many similar initiatives in Victoria have had a similar lack success.

A lack of long term vision

Part of the reason for that lack of success is a lack of consistency and long term strategies, in fact the Australian Technology Park itself is under threat as the state government looks at selling the site to apartment developers despite the protests of the tech community.

Another aspect is state sponsored conferences, hubs and initiatives are not enough to create an industrial centre. There has to be an organic, or business, reason for a hub to develop.

For industry hubs, be they tech startups or anything else, the core need is a critical mass of investors and skilled workers with easy access to markets. For internet based businesses, the latter isn’t an issue which is why Wellington in New Zealand has done better than either Sydney or Melbourne in recent years.

Providing stable frameworks

The role of governments in this is to provide a stable framework for businesses to work within, something that hasn’t been a feature of state or Federal Australian politics in recent years with leadership instability and the increasing prevalence of policy by thought bubble, a good example being the latest scheme to create a new technology hub even further out of downtown Sydney on the site of disused power station.

While the talk of government sponsored initiatives is nice and keeps my former colleagues at the state government occupied writing ministerial briefings on pink paper, building the tech hubs of the future needs motivated entrepreneurs, investors and skilled workers. The best thing governments can do is make sure they encourage all three groups and leave the community building to the community.

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Data and the art of Public Relations

The PR industry needs to better understand and use data analytics to stay relevant says AirPR’s Rebekah Iliff

The Public Relations industry has been mismeasured and undervalued, believes Rebekah Iliff, the Chief Strategy Officer of PR analytics company AirPR.

San Francisco based AirPR is an analytics company founded in 2011 on technology tracking the performance of PR campaigns. Despite being relatively young, the business counts among its customers Fortune 1000 companies such as Rackspace, Experian and the New York Stock Exchange.

Analysing stories

The idea behind AirPR is by analysing the responses to stories, be they articles in mainstream media sites, social media posts or the client’s own content, PR people are able to get a much better insight into what is working in the marketplace.

“You can no longer just throw out a PR campaign and say ‘oh, we got 200 million impressions.’ No CEO is going to buy that,” says Iliff. “You’re going to have to have deep data that you can dive into and then report the things that are going to work.”

Part of the reason PR is failing, Iliff believes, is because practitioners are only making decisions on ten to twenty per cent of the data they have. To make the most of the information they have available involves a rethink on how companies get their message out to the community.

Shifting PR thinking

“We’re trying to shift people from thinking about PR in a linear fashion to get into thinking about it in a networked fashion. A really good PR strategy or narrative looks like a spider web, there’s all these things connected to each other.”

Making those connections is creating a new set of demands on the PR industry as new tools and communications methods evolve.

“The PR professionals of the future who are be best placed to be successful will be the ones who take an interest in the analytics, who understand how to talk about so they can improve the storytelling.”

Stopping the pitching

In Iliff’s view part of the PR industry’s problems lie with how new entrants are taught is how to pitch to journalists, rather than to evaluate what works for their clients. “The second someone comes into an agency on a green level they should be bought into the analytics conversation and be taught how to measure it.”

“Instead they are taught ‘your job is to create storylines and pitch to journalists’, which by the way ninety percent of what you pitch no-one’s going to return because it’s irrelevant.” She says.

“Journalists give you credibility and they’re a third party endorsement but they can’t tell the story the way you want to tell it. There’s a disconnect between the role of journalist is, the role of the journalist is not to sell to your customers, the role of the journalist is to tell the story from an objective viewpoint that puts you in the context of where you fit in the industry. I don’t think people get that.”

“You should be writing the story, following it through and understanding the metrics around it so you can go back and create a better story. It’s like that connective tissue between parts of PR instead of siloing.”

Breaking the data silos

The siloing of the analytics functions of PR and marketing remains a problem for the industry as well, Iliff stays and her advice to communications professionals entering the fields is to understand the data aspects.

“Get a Google Analytics certification, it’s very simple to do,” she states. “Take a couple of Coursera courses on basic statistics and how to analyse data – what’s the difference between prescriptive, descriptive and predictive data – very simple things that if you know how to talk about so you can have a discussion with the engineers.”

As the media industry evolves as it becomes even harder to pitch to fewer journalists working for a shrinking number of traditional outlets, Iliff thinks the future for the PR industry is with making its own content.

Focusing on owned media

“I think in the next five years a lot of things will change because of a couple of things, one is that we have access to data so owned media programs will become stronger for the people who are focusing on it and it will become a huge component in driving leads and sales. So people will stop spending so much time pitching.”

“Things like owned media will be used in a more comprehensive and compelling manner to offset a lot of the things that aren’t working on the earned marketing side.”

“My hope is that brands just hire an internal storyteller like Dell has done and Adobe has done and HP to tell you the story and connect with their customers. That’s the closest point between A and B.”

Taking PR seriously

Ultimately Iliff believes PRs will be taken more seriously in business is if they show they can use the data they have to show companies how to more effectively communicate.

“The only way you’re going to get a seat at the table, the only way you’re going to be taken seriously, is if you have data and you have the most relevant data.”

With data analytics reshaping most industries, it’s hard to see how the PR sector can resist those fundamental changes. How public relations practitioners apply that knowledge to their work is going to be key to their relevance in the business of the future.

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Crowdfunding future businesses

The SECs rules on crowdfunding are welcome, but more needs to be done to spark investment in the businesses of the future.

Three years after the Jobs Act was signed into law by President Obama, the US Securities and Investment commission has proposed the rules for crowdfunding business capital.

Behind the Jobs Act was the idea that new ways of funding businesses are needed in an era when banks, thanks to the flawed Basel Accords, have stepped away from what could be argued is one of the key functions of a financial systems – funding the wheels of commerce.

So the new regulations are needed and the idea that funding can be raised quickly from crowds of supporters is one that ties well with the current ideas of crowdfunding products.

Crowdfunding a business, particularly where equity is involved, is a very different matter than asking supporters for a few hundred dollars to manufacture a smartwatch, produce a music album or write a book. Modern securities law is based upon three centuries of charlatans defrauding investors.

The SEC’s caution is clear in the guidelines that restrict crowdfunding to a small group of businesses seeking funding through Federally approved services and drastically limit the amounts that can be raised.

  • A company can raise a total of $1 million through crowdfunding in a 12-month period
  • In any 12-month period, individual cannot stake more than $100,000.
  • Individuals earning less than $100,00o per year can invest either $2,000 or 5% of their annual income.
  • People with greater than $100,0000 can stake 10 percent of the lesser of their annual income or net worth

For companies the eligibility for crowdfunding even tighter with the following prohibited;

  • non-U.S. companies
  • securities trading companies registered under the Exchange Act
  • certain investment companies
  • companies the SEC has disqualified
  • companies that have failed to comply submit annual reporting requirements
  • companies that have no specific business plan
  • Companies that have indicated that their business plan is to engage in a merger or acquisition with an unidentified company or companies.

That latter provision presents a problem for the tech startup based upon the current Silicon Valley ‘greater fool’ business plan however luckily for them, crowdfunding equity won’t be countered for companies worth under $25 million for other securities reporting requirements.

What will be interesting is how savvy startup founders can use these rules – perhaps use this system to create a company structure and then use product specific crowdfunding projects to raise working capital.

Just like project based crowdfunding, it’s likely these schemes will be used as a market test to measure community interest in a business. This may well also be a way to attract investors hungry for hot new startups to invest it.

What is likely though is the current insider driven model of startup funding will remain. While there’ll be many worthy businesses seeking capital through crowdfunding, we can be sure the bulk of startup money will come through the insular world of VCs and tech investors.

The main criticism though of these proposals are the low limits. This will make crowdfunding unworkable for all but the earliest and smallest of new ventures. The money will be handy for those who qualify, but more needs to be done to spark investment in the businesses of the future.

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Killing the business of complexity

A simpler business environment means lower margins. If you profit from complexity you have a problem

“The cardinal sin of the computing industry is the creation of complexity,” is quote attributed to Oracle founder Larry Ellison and often repeated at the company’s Open World forum which I’m attending at the moment in San Francisco.

For the computer industry that complexity has been a very profitable profitable business with everything from the local computer shop through to the big technology vendors and integrators.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of that complexity were the salespeople, big complex enterprise deals meant big commissions.

With the shift to cloud services and apps, those fat margins and commissions have evaporated, leaving the lucrative old models of business stranded. IBM are probably the greatest victim of this while Microsoft are, once again, showing the company’s ability to evolve in the face of a fundamental market change.

For the salespeople the days of fat commissions are over, with thinner margins it’s not possible to pay big lump sums for winning contracts.

The simplification of the computer industry is changing the fortunes of many IT businesses, but that change isn’t limited to the tech sector or their salespeople as those fundamental changes are rippling into other sectors.

A constant claim by Internet of Things evangelists is that the IoT will squeeze inefficiencies out of businesses and this is exactly what we’re seeing with cloud and mobile based services like Uber and AirBnB.

If you’re in a business that profits from market inefficiencies then it might be time to figure out how to survive in a low margin environment. The challenge facing companies like Oracle is one whole industries are now having to face.

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Rethinking business IT

How is business being reinvented in a world of cloud computing.

Last week at the AWS:Reinvent conference in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to interview the company’s Global Head of Enterprise Strategy, Stephen Orban about where he and Amazon see the direction of the cloud computing market and how business practices are being reinvented.

Among the things we discussed was Orban’s seven best practices for a company’s journey to the cloud, gleaned from his own experiences in his AWS role of advising clients on adopting and his previous experiences as a technology officer at Dow Jones and Bloomberg.

Orban laid out what he thinks are the keys to success in a company heading to the cloud in his own blog post and during our conversation he expanded on his ideas which also very much reflect the changing role of the CIO or IT manager.

Supporting the C-suite

The first point is the IT department has to understand the business and align technology with the organisation’s objectives.

“Somebody who understands technology who can merge technology with the business needs” will be better able to win the confidence of management says Orban.

Doing that is the key to winning support from the executive suite Orban believes. Once CIOs have that trust from senior management it gives their teams the space to experiment with new ways of delivering value to their companies.

Education 

“The second thing is to provide training and education,” Orban says. “People tend to get a bit anxious of what they don’t know, particularly when it affects their jobs.”

In Orban’s experience, having informed staff makes them more open to change within the business, “with the transformation I went through at Dow Jones, most of what we accomplished was because of the people who’d been there a long term. They had the institutional memory but they were very open minded.”

Foster a Culture of Experimentation

One of the great benefits of cloud computing is how it lowers the costs of experimentation and development, “gone are the days when it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, to try something.” Orban says.

Learning what works and fails is essential, he believes. But as long as there is executive support then a tolerance towards unsuccessful experiments will develop in the organisation.

Working with partners

Outside parties are essential to most organisation’s IT systems and Orban believes partner ecosystems have changed with the advent of cloud computing. “There’s a whole new breed of partners that have been going through this,” he says in citing ‘born in the cloud’ software developers and systems integrators who are changing how projects are being delivered.

Build a Center of Excellence

“Creating a center of excellence is, I think, one of the key practices any organisation should invest in. You want a body of people who can institutionalise best practice within an organisation,” observes Orban.

As cloud services take away the complexity of computer systems it becomes an opportunity for organizations to rethink boundaries between the IT department and business operations.

Move to the cloud

Given Orban’s employer it’s not surprising he sees cloud computing as key to a company’s transformation however he admits that few organisations will make the jump straight into cloud services.

“Hybrid will be a part of every enterprise’s journey. Any company who’s been doing IT for any period of time will have existing investments,” he says. “Our view is that we will make it as easy as possible to create that bridge.”

“We do believe in the long run that enterprises will find they become so much more effective over here (in the cloud) they will move in that direction.

A Cloud-First Policy

Once an organisation has its cloud strategy and experimentation culture in place then having a ‘cloud first’ policy, “it reverses the burden of proof away from ‘why would you use the cloud?’ to ‘why wouldn’t you?'”

While Orban is emphasising the Amazon Web Services view of the world where ultimately all business computing will be done on the cloud – preferably their cloud – his views illustrates the change facing businesses as they implement online technologies.

For most, the availability of easily accessible cloud computing services is an opportunity to rethink their business processes and how organisations can deliver the best products quickly to their customers.

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Rethinking customer service in the connected age

Businesses would be wise to stop telling people what they should want and let customers tell them what want says Shel Israel in his book Lethal Generosity.

Businesses would be wise to stop telling people what they should want and let customers tell them what want says Shel Israel in his latest book, Lethal Generosity.

In this book, Israel’s previous works include Naked Conversations and Age of Context which were both written in collaboration with Robert Scoble, he looks at the technological and social changes affecting business and how they can adapt to a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Key to that evolving marketplace is the explosion of data offering businesses deep insight into their customers. as Scoble describes in Lethal Generosity’s introduction in talking about social analytics service Vintank;

VinTank was acquired by a big PR agency that wants VinTank to do for all sorts of industries what it has done for the wine industry. Are you a restaurant or a winery ignoring that data? Go ahead and keep doing that for a decade. Your competition won’t.

Israel illustrates the need to watch the marketplace in citing a campaign where Canadian brewer Molsons completely wrong footed an oblivious competitor, something similar to how one bank discovered a rival’s successful marketing campaign through real time bank deposits data described  at the recent Splunk conference.

Focusing on the customers

A customer centric outlook, not looking at competitors but focusing on what consumers want is key to success in the new economy, Israel believes. This is enhanced by technologies that allow both products and marketing to be personalised as shown in the chapter detailing how retailers and airports are using beacons and data analytics in their operations.

One good example is AirBnB, while Israel trots out the ‘biggest hotel chain’ in the world fallacy that’s pervasive among commentators, its effects on the established industry has been profound and have forced hospitality operators around the world to re-evaluate their business models.

Israel suggests the best response for businesses affected by the ‘Uberization’ of their industries is to adopt the social and analytic tools and strategies being used the upstart businesses and he provides a wealth of examples.

Seamless sales

Tapingo, the food ordering service for US college students, illustrates the seamless experience that consumers are increasingly demanding in their shopping, business and leisure activities. Israel cites how Tapingo’s merchant partners are seeing an in-store traffic boost of 7 percent and a gross profit rise of 11 percent as a result of using the service.

Shel also illustrates some of the failures in deploying new technologies, specifically London’s Regent Street Alliance that failed due to poor execution and a failure to engage the marketplace.

One of the weakness in the book – which Israel acknowledges – is its focus on US, and specifically Bay Area, case studies. While there are some non-North American examples such as Australia’s Telstra and China’s Alipay, most of the examples cited are of companies based in or around San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Focus on Millennials

Another weakness of the book is the over-focus on Millennials or Digital Natives. While this group is important that obsession risks Israel’s message being pigeonholed amongst the noise of poorly thought out pop demographics and poor analysis that marks much of the discussion around changing tastes and habits between generations.

Israel’s point that the post 1982 generation will soon outnumber older cohorts in both the workforce and the marketplace in the near future though is an important aspect for businesses to keep in mind with the safe certainties and predictable customer behaviour of the baby boom era being long gone.

However the shift in consumer and workplace behaviour is just as pronounced among all the post World War II generations as technology and the economy evolves in the early 21st Century. Focusing on the younger groups risks missing similar shifts among older members of the community.

The value of customer service

Ultimately though, Israel’s message is about customer service. Shel himself flags this is not new, in describing the competition between hiking goods suppliers The North Face and Sierra Designs in 1970s Berkeley.

What is different between today’s businesses and those of forty years ago is technology now allows companies to deeply understand their customers and provide customised marketing, products and experiences to the connected consumer.

For the business owner, manager or entrepreneur, Lethal Generosity is a good starting point to understand the forces changing today’s marketplace. The case studies alone are worth considering for how an organisation can adapt to a rapidly evolving world with radically shifting customer behaviour.

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Opportunities in broken systems

Uber shows how opportunities arise when systems are broken

“Taxi drivers are good people, they are just treated badly”, Uber founder Travis Kalanick told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at Dreamforce last week.

Kalanick flagged how in most cities around the world the taxi industry is broken. Nowhere is that more true than in Australia and a piece I wrote for Business Spectator about the disruption to the nation’s taxi industry illustrates that well.

The success of Uber in disrupting those markets – although it should be noted the company is far from becoming profitable – shows the real opportunities lie where existing markets are broken or distorted.

If you’re benefiting from a broken market then this is a risk to your business. For outsiders, it’s an opportunity.

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