A question of innovation

Is Apple the world’s most innovative company and what lessons does Apple offer for other businesses.

Since the iPad was announced there’s been much talk about how Apple is the world’s most innovative company. Is that true and if so, what lessons does that have for other businesses?

There’s two schools of thought about what innovation is;  the big, new invention that changes industries, like the light bulb or the Hills hoist, or incremental improvements like the stump jump plow and the wave piercing catamaran. The latter, building a better mousetrap, is what Apple do best.

When the Apple Mac was released there were hundreds of personal computers, at the time of the iPod’s launch there were thousands of MP3 players in the shops and Apple’s iPad enters a tablet PC market that has been around for a decade. With all of these products, and most notably the iPhone, Apple redefined the market by releasing a better mousetrap.

The good news is most business don’t need Apple’s fat margins to test ideas. Cheap computers, pervasive broadband, rapid prototyping and social media tools allow you to design and develop new solutions while monitoring how your staff and customers respond to the changes.

We’re living in a time of great technological change — new products and business methods are overwhelming or about to overwhelm most industries. It’s going to be the innovative companies that survive and prosper in this new era.

It’s time to start experimenting.

Why I won’t be buying an iPad for now

iPad hysteria is in the air. But the smart buyers are waiting for the next version.

This week the Internet is alive with tech journalists and Apple fans breathlessly describing how the iPad is going to change business and the world. All of their predictions may well be true, but it’s best holding off buying an iPad until the hype cycle runs its course.

Right now, iPad users are in classic bleeding edge territory as the early adopters explore the neat features and the disappointing drawbacks of the new device. There will be joy and tears as they make their journey.

It’s great they are making those discoveries as this knowledge will make life easier for the later adopters and Apple will address many of the disappointments in their next version, which is the main reason for holding off buying the first version.

We saw this with the iPhone — the early adopters rushed into buying it even though it wasn’t a particularly well featured device. A year after the original iPhone release, the new 3G model addressed most of the dissatisfaction with the original model. It was a better, cheaper product.

Exactly the same thing will happen with the iPad, and that’s why you should save your pennies. Almost certainly the next version of the iPad will include multitasking, without which you can’t be talking on Skype while editing your LinkedIn profile and will probably prove the biggest headache to iPad users.

Where the iPad may really change things is in the retail, logistics and medical industries. All of these sectors have seen some adoption of tablet computers, but the clunky, overpriced Windows based tablets have held the market back. The cheaper, lighter and better designed Apple device will probably accelerate the take up of tablet devices and the business methods that work with them.

The retail angle shouldn’t be understated. We recently looked at how iPhone products like Redlazer are changing the retail industry and Smart Company’s Craig Reardon recently described how Australian retailers are being left behind by the net.

It’s no coincidence one of the first business applications for the iPad is a point of sale application. Should the next iPad version be released with a rear mounted camera, it will be more than a glorified cash register and deliver some serious power to smaller retailers.

The iPad further illustrates just how pervasive computing and the internet is capable of challenging established business models. If you’re ignoring how tools like the iPad, mobile Internet, cloud computing and social media are changing your business then your company probably isn’t going to be around in a few years time.

While it’s best to hold off buying an iPad right now, you can’t ignore the changes it presents to business. By waiting you make sure you get the best return on your technology investment.

Is your business dying?

the Internet is more than a marketing tool. Like the motor car and electricity, it is changing business fundamentally.

At the release of a report into technological change and the accounting profession last week, Melbourne University’s Professor Colin Ferguson said “I could see as many as 25% of companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) disappearing in the next decade because of the proposed National Broadband Network (NBN) roll out and other rapid technological change.”.

Professor Ferguson could be optimistic. The Internet today is where the automobile, telephone and mains electricity were eighty years ago — all were established technologies that had been around for a while, but the society wide benefits only began to be felt in the 1930s.

Many industries failed as motor vehicles became common and communities were connected to electricity grids and phone networks. Businesses who didn’t recognise those changes simply ceased to exist while those who survived embraced and adapted to the new technologies.

The best example of why more that a quarter of enterprises will probably fail this decade is that 44% of businesses still haven’t bothered to get a website despite three quarters of consumers and almost all business now researching their purchases online. These businesses without websites are invisible to those customers.

The tragedy is business websites are free with both Sensis and Google offering free Local Business Centre and Yellow Pages online listings. While these websites aren’t flashy, they give the basic information about your business that prospective customers are looking for and filling in the forms only takes a few minutes.

Business Internet though is far more than just a bit of brochure ware on the web, a few weeks ago we discussed location based services like Foursquare and bar code readers like Red Laser. These are small examples of how technology is changing entire business processes and models, not just the marketing.

Like the car, telephone and mains electricity, the Internet fundamentally changes business methods and the markets they sell to. If you aren’t adapting to those changes then your business won’t be around to talk about it in three years time.

The truth is Australia’s National Broadband Network has little do with it. These changes are happening now as pervasive broadband is being rolled out across major population centres. The role of initiatives like the NBN and Google’s US Fibre network is to make sure those benefits are being applied equally across nations and not just in downtown Melbourne, New York or Beijing.

Regardless of where your business is, it’s almost certain your industry is being radically changed right now. Is your business aware, prepared and flexible enough to adapt to those changes?

ABC Weekend Computers, March 28 2010

Join Paul Wallbank and Simon Marnie to discuss why 25% of business will go broke because of the Internet.

Join Paul Wallbank and Simon Marnie for the March ABC Weekends computer spot.  We’ll be discussing why 25% of businesses will go broke because of the Internet.

Join us from 10am, March 28 on ABC 702 Sydney or online at www.abc.net.au/sydney. We love listeners’ comments so call in on 1-800-800-702 if you have a question or would like to add to the discussion.

Are adverts right for your website?

Taking advertising on your website can make a few additional dollars for your business, but as an Australian online retailer found there are costs when being an advertiser.

Yesterday’s Smart Company article on Deals Direct being blocked by Google shows why it’s important to understand the purpose of running a business or private website and whether showing adverts on your site is appropriate.

Deals Direct’s problem allegedly arose because an advertiser placed some suspicious code on the Deals Direct site. Malicious web code is designed to infect computer using what’s known as ‘drive by downloads’

Drive by downloads happen through web pages designed to infect visitors’ computers when the page is opened. Thankfully rare these days thanks to improved security in XP and later versions of Windows, they are still taken seriously when they appear.

The real question though is why Deals Direct, a discount online retailer, chooses to run third party adverts. One of the strange things on the Internet is why many websites run Google Adwords at all.

Google Adwords and other contextual advertising looks at a web page’s content to determine the adverts the site will show.

So a website on plumbing will show tend to show adverts for plumbers and plumbers supplies.

That’s great if you are running a site featuring tips on plumbing or bathroom renovations with the aim of making some money from advertising but if you’re the local plumber, having Adwords on the site may result in your competitors ads  appearing.

Now there are features in the advertising programs to block the ads of competitors and products you don’t want on your page but these take up time which often isn’t worthwhile given the returns most sites have from Adwords.

Even if you are happy to show competitors adverts, there’s also the question of your brand. Do you really want low rent and tacky ads offering teeth whitening and weight loss messing appearing on a web site that tells the world about your professionalism and great products?

For many businesses running ads on their websites isn’t worthwhile given the advertising returns aren’t worth the management time and potential reputation risk raised by the programs.

Like much in the technology field, whether you run adverts on your site depends upon your business and objectives. Although if your business isn’t an advertising driven model like Smart Company’s, it’s probably best to leave third party ads off your websites as Deals Direct have found.

The cloud of capitalism

A simple bar code reader shows how the business world is changing.

Red Laser is one of over a hundred iPhone barcode readers available in the iTunes store. This seemingly ordinary application shows how freely available information over the Internet is changing markets and the way we do business.

We discussed location based services a few week back and Red Laser is a good example of one of these products. Making the application even more powerful are the other services it plugs into — Worldcat is a world wide database of library catalogues and Google Inventory list stock levels in nearby stores, although the Google service is yet to be launched in Australia.

Just those two services show how booksellers are even more at risk, if you see an interesting book your mobile phone can tell you if it’s at the local library and which bookshops near you have it in stock and at what price.

Booksellers, along with travel agents, are used to the effects of Internet driven competition and now almost every retail and wholesale business is feeling the change. The days of hiding your stock levels, prices and product information now gone.

Much of the Twentieth Century saw businesses hoarding information. In most industries, particularly in the business to business sector, price lists were closely guarded secrets and it took hours if not days of messing around with salespeople to get a quote.

Today, if you mess shoppers around they will find competitors who are open with their prices and products. In most cases time poor customers won’t even be bothered calling you as they will find the opposition’s prices  on web and in their mobile phone.

In many respects this is a return to a purer, more honest form of capitalism where traders have to prove their wares on price, availability and quality, not by controlling information in the marketplace.

For the close to fifty percent of businesses who don’t have a website, you have to decide if you still want to be in business as your options are running out.

If you do have a website, a piece of brochure ware asking you to email, call or fax the office no longer cuts it. Technology is overtaking you and the with customer it.

Have a play with services like Red Laser and the various local business products, see how they work and what your competitors are doing because you can be sure your customers are.

ABC Nightlife Computers, 18 March 2010; is it time to upgrade your computer?

Do you need to upgrade your computer? This Thursday at 10pm on the Nightlife we look at YouTube’s dropping support for older browsers.

Title: ABC Nightlife Computers
Location: Across Australia on ABC Local Radio
Link out: Click here
Description: Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife computers this March 18 from 10pm to look at why YouTube is not supporting older web browsers and does this mean you’ll have to upgrade your older computers.

We’ll be answering these and many more questions on the show so tune in your local ABC station or listen online at Nightlife’s website.

We love listeners comments, questions and opinions so please feel free to call in on 1300 800 222 if you’d like to add to the conversation.
Start Time: 22.10
Date: 2010-03-18
End Time: 23.00

Ten tips for event organisers

Some ideas to make your conference more compelling in a crowded and difficult market

The events industry is a sector in trouble from Internet driven change— the effects of the Global Financial Crisis coupled with people’s desire to conserve their valuable time make it essential that a conference or event offers something unique and compelling.

Here’s ten ideas to respect your audience and make the next conference one they won’t want to miss;

Know your audience
Understand who you are pitching to. A recent conference I attended had been pitched to small business owners when the content and speakers were more relevant to public relations and media people. As a consequence half the room were disgruntled with the content. I doubt they’d come to another similar event from that organiser.

Get relevant speakers
The biggest turn off for a conference are speakers who have nothing new to say or aren’t relevant to the topic or the industry. Take some time to choose the right presenters. If you have trouble finding appropriate speakers for a session, it’s better to can the session rather than plonk in a participant who adds little or nothing to the topic.

Proper descriptions of speakers
A one paragraph biography and a ten year old photo is not enough. Where is this person’s website and some video clips of previous presentations? If the speaker really adds value, then you shouldn’t be hiding their talents.

Have a proper website and domain
Setting up a domain name for the event is essential if you are charging substantial fees. If your event is free or there’s a nominal charge to cover costs then a WordPress, Facebook or Eventbrite site is fine but if you are charging $2,500 then then a proper domain with a half  decent website is essential. Cutting costs here is a big warning sign to potential attendees, particularly in the tech and media sectors.

Maintain a blog
On your site you need to have a blog and it has to be kept up to date. As well as a useful marketing tool it’s a great way to have a dialogue with attendees. You will get questions and comments on your blog and you will be rewarded if you listen to those comments and communicate with your audience.

Create a Twitter hashtag
Rather than let your audience guess a hashtag and risk having four different streams running concurrently, publish the hashtag early on your website. This also creates a pre event buzz and gives you the opportunity to gauge the markets view of the event.

Think twice about a Twitter wall
Feeding the Twitter stream to a screen behind the speakers can be a great idea but it has the opportunity to be a train wreck. If the presenters don’t have experience in dealing with live comments or you have a room full of mischievous Tweeters intent on hijacking various sessions then you should think twice before doing it

Wireless networking is essential
Audiences need wireless networks and even high cost events often fail to provide them. If you are charging serious money for an event then buy some routers or, better still, choice a venue that’s realised the it 1980s are over. Also, don’t mess people around with complex logins, the odd leech sitting outside stealing your Intenets is better than irritating a room full of paying customers.

Post your presentations
We’re bound to have missed something so follow up with posting the presentations online. Depending on the event you may choose to lock them behind a paywall accessible only to conference attendees and supporters and that’s your call. However the lesson from TED is if your event was truly valuable, having the videos free to the public is going to help your conference in future years.

Allow discussion
Your audience is smarter than you and your presenters. By giving them ample microphone time to comment or question the speakers you add value to the event and maybe even find smart people for your next conference. Lecturing the audience only works if the presenter is an unchallengeable leader in their field. This factor is even more important if you are running a social media function where the speakers have spent the last hour proclaiming the importance of dialogue.

Giving the audience the stage is about respecting their intelligence, and we all want smart people to attend our events. Respect cuts even deeper, event organisers need to respect the technology and the economic changes that are challenging the events industry.

Those who do remember their job is to add value to smart, motivated folk will be those who prosper in a crowded, challenged market.

The lost generation of computers and Microsoft’s new opportunity

Will Google help Microsoft capture the lost generation of computers. Google’s dropping of support for Internet Explorer 6 is a great opportunity for Microsoft

From March 13 Google will cease supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6. This presents a great opportunity for Microsoft to grab the lost generation of computer users.

The lost generation are the computer users who’ve skipped the last few five year cycles of computer upgrades. There’s two reasons for this; Windows Vista’s well deserved poor reputation and the concept of Good Enough Computing.

While Vista has a lot to answer for, good enough computing iss the main villain — for most household and business users, a Pentium IV running Windows 98 or XP with Internet Explorer 6 was good enough for their daily computer needs.

So Google’s move to abandon older browsers is going to force many of that lost generation to upgrade. This means those running computers more than six years old will probably be looking at new systems rather than the expense and compromises of upgrading.

A year ago, the smart money would have been on many of those new machines being netbooks running Linux with a good proportion of Apple Macs, however Microsoft’s release of Windows 7 has turned the tables and it’s fairly safe to say most upgraders will be sticking with Windows.

Which is a great opportunity for Microsoft to claw back market share and revenue although this doesn’t come without its challenges.

Microsoft’s challenge lies in convincing buyers to upgrade their other software. Many of these people will baulk at spending several hundred dollars on new office, photo editing or entertainment software and given much of it is available as cloud based systems the asking price will be steep.

For home and business computer owners the next month will be the time to consider if your older computers are due for an upgrade. If you find they stop doing the things you want or are are slow and unreliable then it might be time to consider your upgrade options.

The elephant in the room; why online publishing is very sick

Depending on cheap or free labour is a doomed business model and this is a problem for online publishers

Media 140’s Sydney meetup last week attempted to discuss the future of journalism. While it wasn’t really successful, it did expose the fundamental flaw in the online publishing model and the other crowdsourcing business ideas that rely on cheap or free labour.

All three panellists agreed that as publishers “The sustainability of our business is very much linked to the quality of content.”  because with several million online voices a site needs compelling and relevant content to attract and retain readers.

Yet every panel participant agreed the cost of content is falling and in many cases is now free.

There lies the paradox; if content is so valuable, why is it so cheap or even worthless?

The model for online publishers is the same as it was in the days of every city having three evening newspapers or when the six o’clock TV news was the most watched show on television. Compelling content attracted readers and viewers which in turned attracted eager advertisers.

In the days of metro evening newspapers and the six o’clock news there were substantial barriers to competition with printing presses, broadcast licenses and distribution networks required. Today anyone who can afford $10 a month for website hosting can be a publisher.

Worse, the rates for online advertising are plummeting and with the site owners only making a few dollars there’s little for publishers, let alone the content creators.

Which brings us back to the fundamental problem, if there isn’t any money for those who create the content then there’s little point in the middle men distributing it.

Many of today’s online publishers are like the loom weavers of the early 18th Century who derived a short term benefit from the change that eventually destroyed them. The same forces that make journalists work for nothing are the same ones that will render the bulk of publishers insolvent.

And that could be where the future of journalism, writing and publishing really lies — the bulk of the industry eking out an existance providing commoditised, generic pap and a few niche publications with readerships that attract  good incomes that in turn can pay a small number of  writers.

That’s certainly the model the panel at Media 140 are betting on and I hope they all do well.

The Future of Journalism

Many occupations are faced with free or cheap labour swamping their marketplace. Journalism is one of those trades. Media140 met in Sydney to discuss exactly where the future of journalism lies.

Last week’s Media 140 meeting in Sydney looked at the future of journalism and how publishers are paying, or rather not paying, contributors to their online publications.

The evening was well documented by Martin Cahill and the message was clear — publishers are not going to pay for content because even if they want to they can’t afford it.

The prevailing view was journalists will have to learn how to multi task; but given YouTube is even more poorly rewarded than online journalism, it’s unlikely sites will be any more generous to video or audio contributions than they are to text contributors. Which only suggests a future of journalists doing more work for no money.

Valerio Veo, Head of SBS News and Current Affairs Online pointed out SBS is paying a 19 year a $1000 per contribution for covering Obama’s visit to Indonesia.

Ignoring this is pocket money in terms of sending a camera crew and traditional reporter, the fact SBS are one of the few Australian organisations paying online contributors suggests ABC Managing Director, Mark Scott’s, view at a previous Media140 that only government supported organisations will be able to afford to pay journalists is part of the future is correct.

So what is the future of professional journalism? Will it be restricted to a few subsidised outlets? Is it the gifted amateur contributing for their love of the masthead? Or is it that of the professional pushing their own or their employer’s agenda?

Maybe journalists will become editors cleaning up the shoddy contributions of not so gifted writers that have the only benefit of being free. Could it be that curating other people’s content will be the role of future journalists?

Or perhaps journalists are the new poets, starving in garrets and working in desperate jobs while waiting for the phone call from the ABC, BBC or PBS, penning great works that will lie undiscovered on obscure blogs which will only be found after their passing?

We didn’t really glimpse the answers at Media140 and this is an important discussion to have as the rise of the digital sharecropper isn’t confined to journalism.

Many professional and white collar occupations are going the same way and we need to understand what this means for large parts of our economy. Even if we choose not to discuss it, it’s the reality we face.

The company you keep

What you do on the Internet has real ramifications for your reputation. Take care with the people you meet and the groups you join online.

It’s an old but true saying that you’re judged by the company you keep and this applies online as much anywhere else in personal and professional life. Last week I was reminded of this three times.

Early in the week I was asked if connecting with someone on LinkedIn was an endorsement. I thought that was an odd question as LinkedIn has a separate function for recommendations and so I didn’t pay it much attention.

A few days later an industry group leader told me she’d assumed an individual was legitimate because I was a member of their LinkedIn group. While it was a compliment to think my opinion meant that much, it worried me as I didn’t really know the group’s founder and I certainly wasn’t endorsing his business.

Finally, at the Media140 Conference in Perth last Thursday, employment branding specialist Jared Woods gave an interesting overview of how an Engineering firm deals with social media issues in the workplace.

Jared described the company’s  basic rule was if you state that you work for the organisation then you have to act professionally and in a way that doesn’t discredit yourself or the company. Which means no more drunken photos posted on Facebook or joining bad taste causes and online groups. By all means post silly pictures, but forget mentioning who you work for.

The killer line from Jared was social media gaffes can not only damage a business but they can also damage employee’s professional reputations. Just as the employee is part of the brand, staff have their own personal brands.

This isn’t new, there’s dozens of true stories of how people have lost jobs through inappropriate blog or Facebook postings and ten years ago the infamous Claire Swire incident nearly cost a group of young London lawyers their jobs .

All of these examples show just how important it is take care with everything you do online. You are not anonymous and most things you say and do on the Internet will be stored somewhere.

So play nice and remember not to post anything you wouldn’t like to see next to your name on the six o’clock news.