Tag Archives: Now Not New

Rethinking Social (without the Media).

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My college mentor once noted that the technology of television could’ve been used to educate around the illiteracy barrier. But the first movers successfully promoting a marketplace for TV were the news, entertainment and advertising industries. Not surprisingly they largely defined how television emerged culturally. It’s used for education, a little, but mostly for news, entertainment and advertising.

As is well know by geeks the world around, the original purpose of the Internet was not news proliferation, entertainment or advertising either. Yet, as with TV, the media and marketing industries were first movers in leveraging these new technologies to their industries’ needs (and profit). Though ham-fisted in their efforts at times, by and large the influence of the marketing/media industry can be felt as far down as the development of code standards for display (would engineers or researchers have created a need for CSS or AJAX)?

Today, the influence of the media industry (under which I bucket news, entertainment and marketing) on the dialogue over Web 2.0 technologies can be felt right in the name ‘Social Media‘. The technology itself is not media, per se, it is in its usage that the media piece comes into play*. But what if the ‘media’ piece went away? What if some other industries had been the first movers? How might social-interaction-enabling technologies (a better, if wonkier, term in my mind) be used if we ignore the tendency to leap into thinking like an entertainment or marketing person when the topic comes up.

(* if you’re about to argue ‘everything is media’ hold your breath, I get it, but that too is a media-centric world view.)

Dream a little with me now…

You’ve just been employed by ACME corporation. On your first day at work you show up and your computer’s homepage is your personal page on the company social network (think of it as Intranet 2.0). Sitting down with your coffee you’re able to see images from the company softball team’s latest game. There’s a new video of the CEO’s keynote speech at her alma mater. You notice a new employees forum where you see advice on where to find the office supply closet, how to call a car service and where the best place is for burritos.

This isn’t all touchy-feely though. There’s serious business to be done.  Further into the site you notice new product designs are available for viewing. In fact the company wants everyone’s input, via a poll, on the best color combination for the new widget. Better yet, there’s a small reward for doing the poll. Accrue enough points in the reward system and there are some prizes to be had – MP3s, a free lunch at the great burrito joint, a Q&A session with the CEO.

R&D has also posted requests for insights from people who participate in Medieval Maypole Dancing (humor me, at least it makes for an interesting read, right?). These insights will be used in developing a product extension to meet the growing needs of this fertile market segment. R&D has also invited current customers of the company to participate in the company’s ‘innovation lab’. In exchange for their ideas, and some person-to-person interaction with the scientists in product development, outside members of the lab will be in a drawing to receive a free new widget when the next version is released.

While you’re pondering who you might refer this Innovation Lab to, HR contacts you through the network to discuss your benefits package and to let you know that there’s a new employee cocktail hour happening up the road tomorrow night. Already you see that the company is using the network to post internal job openings and to allow managers to provide feedback and even recommendations for employees within the company.

During your first day at work, you note that all interoffice messages route directly through the system as does calendaring, sales leads and follow-ups, meeting notes, etc. This, in turn is easily synched with your smartphone. And without ever leaving your desk you’re already beginning to meet the people in the company as they chime in with instant messages through the network. In fact, a simple search of the network returns three people on your floor that grew up in the same area you did.

But perhaps the nicest part of this interoffice system is how easily integrated it is with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube. Through the company network you can open or close gateways to your personal profiles and content online. And your friends on LinkedIn looking for work can jump right in through connection invites you make with them and HR (saving the company headhunting fees in the process). Even the suppliers you’re going to work with can build (or import) profiles on the Company network making business transactions easier and keeping all the traffic, memos, notes, invoices, and messages streaming through a single pipeline.

…this is, of course, a dream but it doesn’t have to be. Individually the technologies do exist. What is needed is an embrace at the operational level of the type of transformation these technologies can make in a business. R&D, product development, HR, sales, customer service, operations… almost any facet of a company could benefit by integrating social-enabling technologies into the very fabric of the organization. And it need not be in the full Eutopian sense of the dream above, it could be in small, simple, inexpensive but nevertheless meaningful ways.

My point is, freed from the seemingly defacto association with applying these technologies to media/entertainment/marketing problems, there is much fertile ground to leverage them across an enterprise. Connecting people, opening dialogue and harnessing the cumulative knowledge of a group can improve the outcome of many, many endeavors.

In a plug for my own company, taking a holistic look at a business (we use a construct called Enterprise DNA) and seeing how the technologies of today can help it today (something I refer to as looking at Now Not New) often leads to some interesting ideas.

I continue to hear rumblings in meetings, and see evidence online of an early-stage backlash against social media from a marketing standpoint. Personally, I believe it is too early to tell for sure whether or not, and how, social applications will influence customer acquisition. While I think its foolish to dismiss social media in marketing outright, the more tentative, measured and reasoned thinking going on now is probably appropriate. As with anything, I’m guessing the truth sits someplace between the hype and the cynicism. In the meantime though, it might be worth opening up some new avenues of thought on how to leverage all the incredibly powerful technologies we have today toward other aspects of enterprise value creation. Start by walking down the hall and asking the company accountant.

Mistakes, Change, Trial & Error

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I have been reading a great book on the neuroscience behind decision making. I was reading that the brain likes to be right. It wants to predict outcomes. Dopamine secretion happens when events work according to the brain’s expectation (i.e. dopamine is a reward). The secretions stop or change when things don’t work as planned. This abrupt reduction in dopamine is experienced as a jarring change by the body. Here, the brain modifies its expectations to try and be right the next time (and to keep the dopamine flowing).

So it seems that the brain’s use of dopamine is tied to learning via trial and error. Mistakes, to the brain, are useful (and necessary) learning tools provided we choose to learn from them. In fact, this type of learning often gives rise to the ‘instinctual’ reactions well-experience professionals make in athletics, combat, or emergencies.

In thinking about this idea of learning from mistakes, I couldn’t help being reminded of the ‘Now Not New‘ concept I organize many of my own business perspectives on.

In business terms, ‘Now Not New’ is a revenue-centric outlook that leverages the trials and errors of those focusing on ‘new’ to provide real solutions ‘now’. By my way of thinking, pioneers take big risks, probe the unknown, and most often fail. For some people the high-risk excitment of being on the bleeding edge is a great motivator.  Certainly our culture’s willingness to reward those people with hype and praise adds to the appeal.

For businesses, these pioneers provide great learning that can be refined and redirected with a higher probability of tangible success (see my earlier bit on inventions). In this sense, businesses focused on ‘Now Not New’ may not get the first wave of buzz that pioneers attract, but they tend to make the money and build new business categories. Hulu is doing it now against YouTube. YouTube you’ll recall got a lot of hype and market valuation but still isn’t making anyone much money. Conversely, because it is making money Hulu is getting plenty of hype. Which, as an executive would you prefer?

Related, it seems that neurologically speaking unpredictable outcomes – either from mistakes or change beyond our control – are jarring. It’s no surprise then that human beings tend to dislike making mistakes or coping with change despite lip service otherwise.

Companies, by extension, also seem to prefer homeostasis. Yes, there are plenty of people and books and seminars preaching the embrace of change and the positive benefit of mistake making. But between the lines, what they’re selling is a means of ‘expecting the unexpected’ which is in fact fighting the jarring feeling of mistakes and change and attempting to make it predictable.

Switching gears for a moment, in stories about wilderness survival, most tragedies stem from the endangered person’s refusal to acknowledge the change in their circumstances or to learn from a mistake once they’ve made it. They can’t let go of what was supposed to happen and won’t accept what is now happening. In this state of denial they become disoriented to the reality around them, make poor choices, and often pay the ultimate price.

Transferring this knowledge from the wilderness frontier to the business frontier: On the topic of expertise, it might make sense to be wary of anyone claiming to be an expert in an industry that hasn’t been around long. Expertise comes with experience which is an accumulation of a lot of trial and error. In businesses (and I’m thinking social media) that haven’t been around very long, it’s simply impossible to have made enough mistakes to be considered an expert at this nacent stage.

Second, we should admit when we’re lost, confused or uncomfortable. Denial in business leads to paying its own ultimate price. Once we acknowledge being lost, we can start looking for a way out.

Third, we should build mechanisms into our organizations that allow us to learn from mistakes.

Lastly, acknowledge and behave according to the fact that nothing is consistently predictable. This means setting up operational mechanisms to observe and asses at regular intervals. It also means thinking hard about how to adapt to change knowing that everyone in the company will be uncomfortable with it.

In mistakes, change and trial and error lie opportunities for business poised to see and solve for the problems of now which in turn will lead to growth and revenue (the dopamine of industry).

The Thing Itself

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Thomas Friedman has a nice piece in the Sunday Times today. What struck me most, aside from some very sound thinking into three of our President-Elect’s most pressing challenges, is the continued use of the phrase ‘the thing itself.’

Being involved in the martial arts (specifically Aikido and Iaido) for the past two decades, I first encountered this phrase in translations of the Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Mushashi – often considered the ‘patron saint’ of swordsmanship in Japan.

In Mushashi’s text ‘the thing itself’ is the essence of something seen without delusion. This is exactly the way Friedman used it and it tickled me to no end.

‘The thing itself,’ is now not new – my current mantra for business. It’s also ‘Beneath the Surface and Above The Hype’ one of my favorite headlines from back in my advertising days.

‘The thing itself,’ also reminded me of a coffee mug I have which I just now retrieved from the cupboard where I’ve sadly allowed it to gather dust. On the side of this plain black cup is the following inscription.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

The passage is over a thousand years old. Yet I think it incredibly appropriate to business, politics, and personal well-being in this day and age.

I think I’ll take this mug and bring it to my office tomorrow. Not to drink from, but rather to keep it empty. This leads to a second useful concept, also very, very old.

Google an empty cup and you can discover that one for yourself.