Decoding the new economy

The coffee revolution

One of the great misconceptions about the internet is how it isolates people from society. The truth is the net is a window on the real word that allows you to discover the networks that can help your business.

A good example of this are the “coffee mornings” springing up in our cities and towns where business people are using internet channels like Twitter and web forums to organise meet ups at cafes, which in turn develop into new business and social networks.

Because the coffee mornings are informal and have no organisers, obligations or rules, beyond making sure you pay for your coffee and eggs benedict, people feel free to come and go. They are perfect for time poor or isolated business owners, particularly those working from home or trying to juggle their family and business commitments.

The great thing with these coffee mornings is how they help develop useful business networks. People who otherwise would have never met are now becoming friends, mentors, clients and business partners.

There are always some losers from new opportunities and in this case it’s the structured business networking organisations, as there are no stiff membership fees or obligations to network and get referrals.

Unlike many traditional chambers of commerce the coffee mornings lack committees and officials, so they aren’t dominated by the small cliques you often find in formal business groups.

A whole way of doing business is changing from something as simple as groups of people deciding they have enough in common online to get together for coffee.

While this is bad news for those who’ve paid for networking type franchises, it’s a wonderful opportunity for business owners to connect with fellow entrepreneurs they otherwise wouldn’t have connected with – particularly those in regional areas.

If you want to organise a coffee morning in your suburb or town, get on the internet. You’ll be surprised at the like-minded business owners, customers and supporters who are on services like Twitter and Facebook.

Should you find there is already one happening in your neighbourhood, go along. The lively, intelligent people you meet might help you see some of the opportunities, and threats, on your doorstep.

The new economy

The final slide of Steve Jobs’ iPad launch sums up where the new economy is going. The tech and creative industries have come together and the results will be the great drivers of economic growth for the next 50 years.

The final slide of Steve Jobs’ iPad launch shows how the tech and creative industries are coming together. The results will be the great economic drivers of the 21st Century.

Steve Jobs’ launch of the iPad was the classic succesful Apple product launch before adoring fans however the bigger picture from the show is identifying where the world is heading as technology and arts come together.

With Apple and Jobs this is nothing new. Apple’s great success has been from incorporating well designed and Engineered product in markets where their competitors have been more on price points and often poorly implemented features.

Releasing products that work well with inuitive interfaces has allowed Apple to sell their products at a premium while their competitors in the computer and mobile phone markets have found themselves dealing with declining margins.

Regardless of wether the iPad itself succeeds or fails it shows though is how powerful the combination of good design and clever Engineering are in the new economy.

Why online listings are an essential business tool

Online listings with the major search sites are free and effective. Even more importantly, those listings form the basis for many of the location based services that are springing up on Smart Phones. You need to list your business on these sites to make sure they are appearing in the searches customers increasingly rely upon.

Online listings with the major search sites are free and effective. Even more importantly, those listings form the basis for many of the location based services that are springing up on Smart Phones. This article originally appeared on the 19 January Smart Company Business Tech Talk column.

Since Global Positioning System (GPS) equipped smartphones arrived on the market, we’re seeing all kinds of location based phone applications springing up.

Recently I’ve been playing with two of these services – Foursquare and Urban Spoon to find there are some lessons for businesses in how these products work.

These services are terrific at telling you where the nearest cafes, service stations or places of interest are, although at the same time I’ve noticed how inaccurate some of the business locations can be.

Often, particularly in the case of Foursquare, the wrong spot has found its way into the system because customers have taken a guess at the address, added the details while on the way to or from the business or just simply got the location wrong. Which can be awkward, particularly if your competitors are closer to the incorrect location.

So it’s worthwhile getting your businesses address correct on these services. Fortunately, it isn’t as hard as having to track down every single one of these new services and spend hours plugging your details into them.

The most important single service is the Google Local Business Centre, as many of these location based services use Google Maps. Every business should be on this already as the listing is free and the information also feeds into Google search results. If your organisation is correctly listed here, it will appear in all Google searches for your product in your neighbourhood.

Microsoft are in this market too with their Local Listing service which feeds into Bing results in a similar way to Google’s service. Like Google Maps, it’s free and listing only takes a few minutes.

The traditional advertising medium for most Australian small businesses has been in the Yellow Pages. Sensis also offer a free listing which will get you in their maps and directories (although to get a priority listing you’ll need to pay more).

So check your details are correct on all these services, it only takes a few minutes and given most customers, particularly in the business-to-business markets, use the web to research potential suppliers you’ll probably pick up a few customers just by having the right details online.

With mobile internet usage expected to overtake desktop surfing in the next few years, it’s critical your details are correct on these phone applications which customers are going to increasingly rely upon.

Twitter is like CB radio and this isn’t a bad thing

Of all the predictions we can make for 2010 one good bet is social networking is approaching, if not past, the fashionable peak of the hype cycle. Particularly Twitter which we’ve seen pronounced dead by various writers over the break.

Last week’s Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show illustrates the Hype Cycle we discussed just before the Christmas break. If there’s one thing for sure, we can say tablet computers, 3D televisions and Google phone are racing to see which will be the first to the “peak of inflated expectations”.

Funnily, we’ve been here before with mobile phones, tablet PCs and 3D entertainment so it will be interesting to see where these are in 18 months or so.

While it’s entertaining looking at the new gadgets, the interesting action is happening on the other side of the peak where real uses for technology and gizmos are found after the hype moves on to something newer and prettier. When the bored fashionistas move on from a product that’s no longer the newest and shiniest we see if something is genuinely useful or just a pointless fad.

My favourite comment was from an weekend newspaper entertainment columnist stating the Twitter hype was driven by “Boring Old Farts Suddenly Discovering Technology” and the whole thing is now dead because an MTV host declared she was over Twitter. The Luddites are crowing that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the entire Internet thingummybob can join CB radios in history’s discount bin of overhyped technology.

Citizens Band radio is a good lesson of what happens as a product moves through the hype cycle. In the mid 1970s peak, songs were being written about it and the media was awash with spookily similar stories of how CB radio was ushering in a new era of participatory democracy. Within a couple of years, the hype had passed and those who had a use for it, such as truckies, farmers and service people, got on with their work without the kids and newbies hogging their radio channels.

Exactly that process is happening now with the various online networking tools. The naysayers will crow they were right all along about a fad for boring old farts while unknown to them entrepreneurs will be figuring out ways to make money from these tools and smart businesses will be using them to stay ahead of their slower competitors.

As well as the trendies moving on, the social media snake oil sellers who’ve traded on the social media hype over the last two years will also move on to the Next Big Thing or go back to selling multi level marketing schemes. The honest consultants and genuine experts who survive the shakeout will be able to genuinely add value and help their clients achieve more with the tools.

So a product or technology passing the peak of the hype cycle is an excellent opportunity to use it do great things for your business without the fashionistas and snake oil merchants distracting you. Don’t be afraid to experiment just because the PR machines and fashion victims have moved on.

2010: The year ahead

With the new year underway, it’s time to stick one’s neck out and make a few predictions for 2010. Smartphones and cloud computing will continue their rise, publishing empires will fall and the smart nimble businesses will thrive.

With the new year underway, it’s time to stick one’s neck out and make a few predictions for 2010.

Some predictions are easy, describing a trend that’s already underway. Others though are fraught with danger as it isn’t clear just how far media proprietors, telcos and other industries are prepared to go in protecting their old, threatened business models.

The big factor for 2010 is the world economy. If the green shoots of recovery continue through 2010 then the year will be very different from the one where the recovery is overwhelmed by another wave of bad news. Although for the technology sectors, either alternative may just accelerate trends that would happen regardless.

Each of these predictions are just a few short thoughts on each sector, over the next few weeks I’ll expand on most of these ideas, starting with the fast changing sectors such as cloud computing, social media and mobile telephony.

Smartphones continue their march
The proportion of smartphones sold will steadily increase as prices fall and consumers recognise the advantages. This will also drive development of mobile phone applications.

Telcos will struggle
As smartphone use increases, Telcos will struggle with the demand on their networks as we’ve seen with AT&T in the US. It may even be possible to see data prices increase as Telcos attempt to reduce traffic on overloaded systems.

Hardware prices will continue to fall
It’s a rare year we see technology hardware prices rise, but 2010 will be a particularly tough year for manufacturers as the world wide demand for computers stays subdued. We may even see some East Asian governments bail out struggling manufacturers because of these industries’ perceived strategic importance.

Social Media Hype Peaks
This is an easy prediction as for some months we’ve been seeing breathless reports on how Twitter is dead, Facebook’s growth is slowing and the whole social media thing was a passing fad for teenagers and technology dazzled forty somethings. We’ll see more of those stories through the year and probably see “what happened to Twitter mania” stories at the end of the year.

For smart workers and business this is a wonderful opportunity to experiment and grow using these tools while the luddites think they have won the war against pointless tech toys.

The death of the social media expert
As the hype exits the market, so too will the SEO and social media snake oil sellers. That’s not to say the entire SEO, social media training and consulting industries will fold; honest providers who add genuine value will survive, although some will find 2010 to be a tough year.

Things get worse for traditional media
As audiences continue to fragment and the advertisers cast their nets wider, things are going to go from bad to worse for the traditional media outlets. Reality is going to bite as once reliable cash cows go completely on line leaving publishers to deal with dwindling revenues and massive losses.

Paywalls work (kind of)
Newspaper proprietors will find Pay for View and paywalls can work, but the product has to be worth paying for. The realisation that readers aren’t prepared to pay for recycled agency stories, rewritten press releases and celebrity gossip will probably be the final straw for many magazines and newspapers.

Content wars are won and lost
As the most of the paywalls will fail, so too will the content farms. Early signs are these aggregators who either steal or publish cheap content are hurting bloggers and traditional media outlets, but over time this business model will collapse as thousands of identically worded rip off sites compete for search engine rankings. Expect Google’s, Bing’s and other search engines’ algorithms to get better at spotting these sites, further hastening their demise.

The cloud grows
As equipment and other Internet costs fall, the attraction of cloud computing and web2.0 will grow. Increasingly businesses, both big and small, will be finding the cost and utility benefits will make cloud computing an opportunity they can’t afford to miss.

The big question is where the world economy is going in 2010. The challenge for political and business leaders is to use the opportunity presented by the massive stimulus packages to put in place the reforms taming the excesses of the last decade which caused the Global Financial Crisis. Whether they are up to that challenge, or whether they get swamped by other wave of economic trouble, will be what 2010 is remembered for.

Regardless of where the economy goes in the short term, the continuing rise of cloud computing and smart phones means there are massive opportunities to be had. Fortune is going to favour the brave and those who can adapt quickly to a rapidly changing business world.

The social media goldrush

A few months back I started a #socialmediaexperts meme this was partly in jest, but there was a serious undertone as I couldn’t see how all of these gurus were getting paying clients.

A few months back I started a #socialmediaexperts meme with a slanderous tweet about those who arrive at the North Shore Coffee Mornings after 9.30.

This was partly in jest, but there was a serious undertone as it seemed to me I was bumping into social media experts on every street corner and I just couldn’t see how all of these gurus were getting paying clients.

So it wasn’t surprising to read that blogger B.L. Ochman found 15,740 social media experts on Twitter, a number which has more than trebled from 4,487 when she last looked six months ago.

Almost certainly the numbers are higher than that, as those are only the experts who’ve listed themselves as such on Twitter. I’m sure there’s a heap more who haven’t yet discovered Tweeting.

I also wonder how many of today’s social media experts were the SEO gurus of two years ago.

To be fair, I’m sure most of these folk are hard working, well intentioned people but I can’t escape the idea that the current wave of experts is simply another gold rush and, like the gold rushes of the 19th Century, most of those flocking to dig this ground aren’t going to find much success.

I wish them luck but of the 15,740 social media gurus on the planet, it’s probably ten thousand too many.

Perhaps it might be better finding out who is selling these gold diggers their shovels and investing time and money there?

Postscript: I did a search on LinkedIn for those with the position of “social media experts” and only 193 results came back, the scary thing is I’m indirectly connected with almost all of them.

How marketing and business are interwined

Entrepreneur magazine discusses changing your definition of marketing. While Dan Kennedy has some good examples of businesses that have used tools such as membership and market positioning to grow, I’m not sure they can be treated as marketing.

Entrepreneur magazine discusses changing your definition of marketing. Dan Kennedy has some good examples of businesses that have used tools such as membership and market positioning to grow, but I’m not sure they can be treated as marketing.

All of the examples; Starbucks, Disney, Florida timeshares, barbers and gourmet pizza shops illustrate some great business models which is exactly what they are; ways of doing business that engage the customer and sell a better product.

The marketing aspect is simply telling the story of why the business is better, unique or why it does something so well.

One of the problems with marketing is it’s often about telling porkies, not about describing the product or why the business is unique. This type of marketing fails when the customer finds they’ve been sucked in.

In the past, big brands have been able to get around this by using mass media to shout it louder and stronger on the idea that if you repeat the lie often enough, people will believe it.

Marketing is part of your business DNA, you have to tell your story to get business. The key is to be telling a true story based on your product’s strengths.

Author: Paul Wallbank

The coffee revolution

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