Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond

Crowd ready to disrupt the law

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 01 May 2013 09:36:00 +0000

In the Autumn of last year I got my first look at a project called Lawbit. In fact I spent a few days consulting to founder Clive Rich on how best to social market it.

I'm delighted to say Clive has turned to Open Capital (crowd funding) to accelerate the project now.

To my mind its one of the most effective ways of marketing a start-up. Everyone who contributes becomes an advocate. Everyone becomes a part of Clive's team.

I'll let Clive make the pitch himself. He's excellent at the art of persuasion. In fact he's just published The Yes Book (you'll find it on Amazon)...

As you may know, I recently launched LawBit - http://www.lawbit.co.uk/ - an online legal service which provides "simple contracts for small companies". On its launch date in December it was identified by David Cameron as an up and coming service to watch in London’s Tech City. You can read more about LawBit and watch a short introduction video here; http://cliverich.com/services/lawbit/.

There are 4.5 million small companies in the UK alone, spending £10 billion per year on legal services, so this is not a small target. LawBit is also scalable internationally. Although there are other online legal offerings, none has LawBit's combination of plain English documents, affordability and functionality.

LawBit has currently raised £210,000 for the development of marketing and additional client features and is seeking a further £150,000 on crowd funding platform “Crowdcube” to close this round - http://www.crowdcube.com/. Crowdcube is a very successful fully regulated investment platform which enables non-professional investors to invest in companies in return for shares. Investments range from a few hundred pounds to some thousands – no amount is too small or too big.

LawBit’s pitch is now available on Crowdcube here;

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/lawbit-ltd-12638 and I wanted to ask if you would be prepared to pass this note on to anybody who you think might be interested in investing. Of course if you are interested in investing yourself via Crowdcube I would be absolutely delighted for you to be a shareholder and please let me know if you want to discuss the proposition.

You may also be interested in trying out our initial offering to the first 2,000 customers – access to all LawBit contracts and tools for a year for a subscription of just £79. You can find out more about that here; http://www.lawbit.co.uk/offers.

If you are interested in signing up for this offer, it would help our marketing endeavours and reporting if you followed the link here http://tinyurl.com/cb2k5hs.

Concepts Are King

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:37:00 +0000

The phrase 'Content is King' has a long history. Its origination is usually ascribed to one Bill Gates from a 1996 article. Smart dude.

But I suspect it goes back rather longer. Those of us with a traditional media background always new it was the content people bought our stuff for, for example.

Then there was the build - that not Content, but Conversation is King. Cory Doctorow memorably put it that "Conversation is King... Content is just something to talk about."

Content is pointless without conversation. Conversation needs 'something to talk about'.
Neither is king. It's the interaction of people and ideas that drives us to action. The web has lowered the barrier for millions to interact with ideas.

And no one is describing what they are interacting with as 'content'. In fact 'content' has some rather unhelpful connotations in the context of what the web is best at enabling - ie adhoc self-forming groups of purpose.

Content implies constraint; An idea boxed and kept within - a thing inside with limitations.
This isn't how people behave with ideas. We take, shape, add, delete, remodel - hack ideas in our every interaction. And the web is a splendid evolutionary environment for them.

So I'm going to suggest Concepts Are King is a better 'catch-all' for what is really important in connecting folk. I can take your boxed up piece of content and share it, of course. That's old-style viral. Pass it on unmolestered. Don't expect evolution.

Or I can connect with and play with a concept. We can.

And in so doing we add value - not mere distribution.

Image attribution: By Enoch Lau (Own work (photo)) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Thatcher's legacy? Getting away with it is not a strategy

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:30:00 +0000

Had the Labour Government that preceded Margaret Thatcher’s first election win had access to accurate data they would never have needed to go cap in hand to the IMF, to devalue the pound and accept swingeing cuts demanded of them for getting the loan. They were operating on a false premise – that the economy was in a far more parlous state than it actually was. This miscalculation changed the way Britain was governed.

Mrs Thatcher was lucky. She got away with it.

Had a few more Argentine bombs been correctly fused, a few more Exocet missiles supplied, a few less brave men acted a little less heroicly, The US been less generous with its clandestine support, Britain would have slumped to ignoble defeat in The Falklands. It was very touch and go.

Mrs Thatcher was lucky. She got away with it.

Had the technology and the will to access and surface Britain’s biggest ever bag of gold – black gold from the North Sea – not coincided with her Premiership she would not have been able to tilt the electoral playing field with the massive privatisation share price give-away that the oil funded, or the cut-price transfer of council housing to private ownership that followed.

Many got lucky, cashed in, took the money and ran. And thought they’d got away with it.

But far from her dream of giving more people a stake in a capitalist economy, she’d succeeded only in creating a society ever more fixated on and dominated by consumerism. Mrs T thought we aspired to prudent stewardship through ownership - but what she actually created were the conditions for rampant consumerism.

Still she believed she was right – and kept ploughing on with unpopular cut after unpopular policy because..? She kept on getting away with it.

What did we learn? Belief is important. But in the end it won’t out run the truth.

Getting away with it is not a strategy. Lucky generals don’t always win.

Gather the evidence. Act on the data.

Make a better fit with reality.

I'm a big believer in belief - but never at the cost of reality.

BT holds its hands up and pays out credits

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:23:00 +0000

In my previous post I shared how I felt BT had got their CRM badly wrong - making an offer to current customers it then appeared reneged on. You can read the whole sorry saga here.

The very encouraging news is that after making my feelings known via twitter and blog, BT admitted it had got it wrong, said sorry, and has been brilliant at putting things right.

And for this we should heap praise. I publish this today to thank them for that - and to make sure others who received the same misleading mail-shot are empowered to benefit as I have.

Here's what BT had to say:

Having now looked into this matter in detail, I can confirm that we had two different direct mailings (DM) for Essential Extra [The extra channels and HD deal the letters promoted]. One of which was aimed at customers on our “free Vision Essential for one year” offer, and the other at customer paying the standard £5 a month for their Vision Essential subscription.
We had an error on our mailing system that meant the latter group of customers were incorrectly sent the DM containing the claims “from just £2 more a month” and “£2 extra on top of your current TV subscription”.
We appreciate that the overall impression of this mailing was therefore misleading for customers who are not currently paying for their Vision subscription. Please accept this letter as a sincere apology for our mistake.
It is of the upmost importance to BT that we are clear and honest with our customers and to ensure that they are not misled by either marketing or customer service communications. We are in the process of reviewing how we target marketing communications to ensure that errors like this don’t happen again.
We will of course honour this price point and arrange a bill credit of £60 should you sign up for Essential Extra (this being the difference of £5 per month, over the 12 month minimum term). You will therefore pay just £2 more a month, as was stated in the mailing you received.
If you would like to go ahead with Essential Extra please let me know and I can place the order and arrange the credit for you. I hope you find this satisfactory but if you require any more help or information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

And I have done - and the customer service team have been excellent at making sure everything has happened as it should have done.

Neil O'Shea and Colleen McElhatton from the BT Social Media Team deserve particular praise.So well done BT - it's great to hear you are reviewing how you target.

Other companies would do well to take note - getting your CRM wrong can not only annoy customers - it can end up adding hefty costs.

I've no idea how many more people will now be able to claim a £60 credit - but I'm guessing it'll be rather more than a handful.

Hello BT! The cost of decent CRM versus the CPA of customers

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:47:00 +0000

As requested by @BTCare via twitter... I've used their email contact form to expand on the complaint I've made via phone and tweets.

I had to resort to my PC to do this because the link supplied by BTCare for me to detail all of this didn't open properly on an iPad or iPhone. Think about that for a moment BT. If it had, I wouldn't have written the following on a PC - so almost certainly wouldn't have bothered blogging it. Oh dear. Lesson learned?

Anyway - quick bit of background. I upgraded my broadband to 30+ meg last year and, as part of the deal, got a BT Vision Box. My Freeview recorder had just packed up so I thought, why not? Even though it didn't deliver Freeview HD (which the receiver on my TV does, it's an internet TV with IPlayer and all that good stuff). BT Vision was included in the deal. Services (usually £5 a month) free for year one.

I was told HD was coming soon. Fair enough... I'd sit it out. Then I got a letter offering me a load of new channels... and HD - for an extra £2. I liked the look of the extra channels so rang and tried to get the deal.

Not available for me (so why send it to me?) - I'd have to take out a new contract and pay £7 a month more than I currently do.

Eh?

So... Here's what I sent them. (I like to blog these things for the record since I absolutely hate email 'forms' which have an alarming tendency to crash and leave the consumer with no record of the email being sent)

I'm annoyed.
I received a letter offering to upgrade my BT Vision service (which is part of a broadband deal I changed to in the latter part of last year).
The letter offered new channels + upgrading terrestrial channels to HD (which I can get free through my TV's freeview receiver anyway).
I was told when taking out the contract HD would be following soon (I could therefore bear losing it via your box in the meantime). As you will be aware, running additional receivers through the same tv is complex so it's an either or decision.
Now it appears that my 'free' year one provision of BT Vision must terminate if I want HD and a new contract at £7 a month begun.
Issues 1: Either my first year was free or it wasn't.
Issue 2: Either the upgrade is £2 or it isn't.
Issue 3. I don't believe your CRM is so poor that you can't differentiate between your offerings to customers.
I called BT Vision and have now initiated a complaint.
This is your error, you shouldn't contact consumers on a one year free intro deal with an offer of a £2 upgrade if it actually isn't available.
You also shouldn't be charging for HD for terrestrial channels with a straight face - since that is available via freeview and similar set set boxes at no charge.
My expectations: Now you've got yourselves into this mess you should honour the offer you have made - I find the package (including HD) reasonable at £2 a month and will pay that.
And you should do so not just for me, you should do so for everyone you have made the offer to who is in a similar position. Your error - you fix it.
Failing this I will happily go back to freeview, acquire my broadband at exactly the same speed through rival suppliers and consider terminating my lengthy and costly and almost never used landline service.

I hope you will regard my long and valuable custom (MUST BE 25 YEAR PLUS BTW) somewhat higher than the continued (no change to your budgets) £5 a month discount you include in our current contract.

What exactly is your cost per acquisition of a customer?

I look forward to hearing your response within 48 hours.
My enquiry reference number: 130323-006027

Seeking interview subjects for our next book

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Do you know of a business or organisation benefiting from the application of one or more of the 10 Principles of Open Business?
I'm looking for interview subjects to include in the book Jamie Burke and I are co-authoring on those principles (we have a delivery date of July 31 with publication early 2014).
To take part, please download, complete and return the questionnaire you'll find here ( or embedded below). Given our deadlines we're looking for responses as soon as you are able. A huge thank you to every one of you giving up your time to help in this - together we can change businesses and organisations for the better.

The questionnaire includes both a synopsis of the book and more definitions of the Principles.

As a reminder The 10 Principles are:

1. Purpose:

2. Open Capital

3. Networked Organisation

4. Sharability

5. Connectedness

6. Open Innovation

7. Open Data

8. Transparency

9. Member-Led

10. Trust

Interview Questionnaire for the 10 Principles of Open Business by

Tesco must trust us if they want us to trust them

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:19:00 +0000

Tesco is right to start the communications rolling in the aftermath of Britain's horsemeat-in-beef-products scandal. Emails to every customer (that they have emails for - which is a lot, thanks to Clubcard) about the value of trust, promises made about rigorous testing (the stuff we had trusted they were doing anyway) and a commitment to a new website to share progress and outcomes is all great.

But the more exciting, and both business changing and business winning, idea contained in Tesco's new commitments is in the pledge to 'open up our supply chain'.

This not only brings them the benefits of applying some of the 10 Principles of Open Business, it also goes some way to enabling customers to get closer to the wizard, rather than the curtain - in other words, the source of the brand.

And IF they are wise and consistent in the application of Open Business, if they truly wish to become customer-led, then co-creating the fix to this problem with those for whom it is intended will become second nature.

That's the part I see missing from the Tesco plan right now. It feels like the customer is being treated as a receiver of outcome rather than a key stakeholder in the decision making process. CEO Phillip Clarke has told us what he is doing for us, but he hasn't asked us what we think the solutions are, what we think will rebuild trust.

Getting closer to the source is a critical part of that. Being part of steering how that is done is another.

Tesco must first learn to trust us if it wants us to trust it.

Customers want to get closer to the wizard, not the curtain

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 11:54:00 +0000

Image via www.joelafferty.com

The kerfufle over horse meat being passed off as beef in a variety of processed foods in the UK will prove yet another driver towards market authenticity for consumers whose trust in the centre (media, politics, show biz heroes) is being eroded on a daily basis.
While brands try every trick to get closer to their customers (who doesn't want to be 'customer-centric'?), customers are demanding a closer relationship with the wizard behind the curtain of the brand.
They want to get ever closer to the source and are finding ways around the middle men to have their own more direct relationship with that source. I recently suggested the decline of the High Street could be traced to this, at least in part.

A brand is an illusion created by the source, the interpretation of the receiver and the interaction between the two and other receivers.

So what happens when you take the authenticity of the source away? It looks like Findus is about to find out. Because it has revealed it uses third party suppliers in a buck-passing exercise which I doubt will find favour with the British public. They've pulled back the curtain and revealed... nothing is there. The source is long gone.

Some brands exist as arbiters of quality - curators. M&S is a good example. Distributed source - in which the curtain is everything.
But most brand illusions are at risk of disappearing as consumers become more and more savvy about pulling back the curtain and more and more demanding about having a direct relationship with what is behind.

Which takes us back to horse meat. Worries about what enters your food chain should have been quoshed by brands we can rely on (alongside governance regimes we expect to protect us). Both have failed us.
Fixing this requires radical action. As radical as the action that saw the beginnings of the co-operative movement in the dark days of the industrial revolution.

The co-op was founded, fundamentally, to give the working people of Britain a source of food they could rely upon to be unadulterated. In these times flour was often cut with chalk, for example - beer watered down., and much worse that would make horse meat in your lasagne look heaven sent. Yes there were political motivations - but food safety was paramount.

You could trust your co-operative for this as much because the customers were often the same people who grew the food, who processed the food and sold the food. At the very least they would have known people involved. They were local.

Today the co-op owns more farm land in the UK than anyone else. One simple (but big) way to reconnect and to rebuild that trust would be to place its 'out of town' stores on those farms and build farming and processing experiences around them.

It would be one clear example of a brand lifting the curtain, allowing its customers to get closer to its source.

Our trust in one another needs to be rebuilt. And that starts at the source.

Farewell 90:10 hello The Social Partners

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 07:30:00 +0000

I've never learned so much as I have learned in the last four years of my life. When Jamie Burke and I founded 90:10 Group we made it our business to drive transformation in organisations with the power of the new connectedness the social web had revealed.

We had to develop the market, create new terms of reference and rules of engagement, new job roles, new products and services, new ways of pitching for business, new ways of delivering the results.

And not just once. Constant reinvention and adaptation was the only response to a fast shifting landscape.

We grew fast. From 2 to 50+ employees in three years. Offices in the UK (we had to move three times in less than three years as the business expanded), France, Germany, Spain, Holland - and eventually into the Middle East in three cities. We were able to do so because we attracted £3.5m of revenue in consulting fees with clients from Tesco to Bupa, First Capital Connect to Citrix, Honda to Mastercard.

For more about the story of the business and Jamie's learnings from it, see Jamie's post here.

After a spectacular journey - more of the mission to the moon, than the roller coaster variety - I decided in September last year it was time for me to consider new roles. My tenure as Co-Founder and MD had lasted longer than any single role I have held as far as I can recall - a testament to the regular but inspiring challenges we faced and the continued stimulation that delivered.

I took a series of consulting gigs, developing social media strategy for two start-ups and one blue chip (I'm still working with the blue chip) between then and mid January this year. This gave me the space to think about what I value and the kind of people I want to work with.

That process ended when I reconnected with Ivan Palmer (who I have known for some many years), at The Social Partners. I'm settling in there now as Strategy Partner in Hatton Garden, London and the more I learn about the team and the scale of their ambition the more I am sure I have made the right decision.

Of course, we face daily challenges - but we do so armed with a collective wealth of experience and range of skills to which I can now add. If you'd like to add yours we do currently have vacancies.

The spirit of 90:10 continues through Open Business.

Jamie and I (with contributions from many other 90:10 colleagues) developed The 10 Principles of Open Business through working at the chalk face of the social business and marketing space. We have codified and made this available to share. Read Jamie's blog for more on how we are making the IP available for all. Palgrave-Macmillan will be publishing our co-authored book on the subject in early 2014 (I have a July 2013 deadline for delivery). If your company has been an exemplar of any of the principles, I'd like to interview you for the book. Perhaps you can suggest someone I should speak to?

Finally, Jamie is continuing with 90:10 but taking it in a new direction. Rather than consulting to other businesses, his focus is shifting to creating start-ups based on The 10 Principles. Of course I wish him and the board every success with that. We remain very good friends.

I still believe there is much good and valuable work to be done with existing organisations, helping them learn from the world as it it to make them a better fit with it and a greater success in it. That's what's led me to The Social Partners.

And if you'd like to contact me there the easiest way is by email: david.cushman@thesocialpartners.com

The web disintermediates. Retail is mediation.

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:25:00 +0000

Image courtesy The Drum

Retail is mediation.
Where-ever there is mediation there will be disruption. This is not just the lesson of an economic downturn - it is the structural reality of the networked world - of an Open Economy.
I write as I hear about Blockbuster hitting the great DVD eject button, just a day after HMV called in the receivers. Comet came crashing down just before Christmas, Jessops last week.
The analysts tell similar stories about HMV and Blockbuster - what they both trade in was more easily and cheaply available online.
The same is true of Comet and Jessops. Just because you can't download a washing machine (give it time as 3D printing ramps up) doesn't mean the web doesn't offer an easier trading environment.
So. The High Street is full of fail.
Except it isn't. Apple has the highest value retail floorspace in the world.
Reasons: 1 Products people really want.
We will happily swop good product for ease of trading. Think of Marks & Spencers in its heyday. It was incredibly difficult to trade with. Out of stock in the food stores by a Saturday lunch time and refusing to take credit cards. The products made this acceptable.
Reasons 2 An understanding that the experience is as important as the product.
Apple's stores re-invented the shopping experience. Or perhaps they just learned from a quality car show room. They elevated the products, put them in their best light and let you test drive them (ask a car dealer how much more likely someone is to buy if you can get their butt on the drivers' seat).

If you have products worth celebrating and provide the setting for experiencing those products then you have an opportunity. You have earned the right to be the mediator.

If you don't then expect users to find ways around you, to go more and more directly.
If you are in the middle, unless you are adding value, they want you out of the way.

They are on a journey in pursuit of connection with the makers - something the blandness of the supermarket experience makes attempts to layer on (pictures of farmers on packaging spring to mind) but would much rather massage out. The web disintermediates - and retail is mediation.

Welcome to the Open Business mission

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:10:00 +0000

I was delighted to discover that Luis Suarez (@elsua on twitter) long time social blogger, famed for his attempts to banish email and for his KM work with IBM, has committed 100% to the Open Business cause.
His blogpost yesterday comes at the end of a series on social business/enterprise and concludes that it's time to move on, to lose the 'social' and to celebrate the Open.

Luis Suarez: Inspiring Open Business

I remember when back in the day, nearly 10 years ago, when I first started blogging, both internally and externally (Nearly 8 years ago for the latter), one of the themes I decided to go for as its own category was Social Computing, then Social Networking. From there onwards Enterprise 2.0, followed by the Social Enterprise and, lately, Social Business. That was all part of what I felt was the evolution of social networking in a corporate environment. Well, as of today, and while I move on shifting my focus into that where to next … I have created a couple of new categories. One of them is just a renaming activity from a previous one. The other is an entirely new category that I will be using to post articles on that particular topic from here onwards. It will also mean how, after 6 years, I’m starting to sense it’s time to move on from those fully loaded monikers of Social Enterprise or Social Business, since, you know, they eventually mean something completely different altogether and it’s probably a good thing to move on anyway.

That’s why Social Enterprise / Social Business from here onwards, for yours truly, are going to beOpen Business, following further up the superb piece of work that David Cushman did in setting up the stage of what Open Business is all about during the course of last few months. You may want to go ahead and start reading “The 10 Principles of Open Business“, or “Introducing Open Business“, or perhaps check out the Open Business Council to find out more about it and you will see how for a good number of years this blog has been permeating through plenty of the vision David shared across with that new concept of how businesses should operate. I know it’s not new, for sure, I mean, openness has been there all along, but if you read further into the principles that David shared across about this topic you would see how we still need to do plenty of work about it. And that’s essentially what I am planning on doing from here onwards.

I'm flattered that my work on Open Business (with Jamie Burke) has inspired you Luis. Inspiring Open is core to how I work.

If anyone would like to catch up on the 10 Principles of Open Business (a book on which is coming soon), start here.

But please also go and take a look at Luis' blogpost, and those leading up to it - join in shaping what Open Business can become.

I wonder if he can inspire IBM to make the leap from social to open business, too...

The dash from convergence and how the web can save us if we choose

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:12:00 +0000

I wonder if the proliferation of devices we are experiencing give us a hint about what will happen to the web?

A few years back – when the first smart phones were making inroads, when the first all-you-can-eat mobile data deals were laid before a hungry audience, then it seemed to make perfect sense that convergence would arrive via the device.

Hell, I have a phone that can take picture, tell the time, calculate, run my diary... open documents, access my email, access the internet, play games and music, play video, show broadcast tv etc etc. Why wouldn’t we think one device could do it all?

And here I am packing a few items for some days away on business and finding it essential that I load up with a laptop, ipad, kindle fire AND iphone (4S)...

Little sign of convergence here. And I’ve never given up on wearing a watch either.

But platforms? Despite the vast variety of opportunity, there are only ever a handful of giants. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, for example

All start off with relatively focused aims. But over time they bloat – copying the ideas of others, assuming that the battle is on for the one social home we will become and remain loyal to.

But the more they bloat, the more we see the value in the specific, the more we spill out into those with greater focus on specific needs – the Pinterests, Instagrams, 4Squares of this world – and the thousands more behind them in the long tail.

I wonder if, given just a little more bloating from the big boys, we may rediscover the self-forming-group value of the web – that we need less direction and guidelines from those who would be our internet, and more purpose from ourselves to make our connectedness count.

The dash from convergence in devices may be yet another indicator that we are more comfortable with complexity than the reductionists would have us believe, that we value niche over lowest common denominator in a very powerful way.

And that’s a good thing – because it’s a much better match with the infinite variety of adhoc self-forming groups the web is built to enable.

The web is our salvation from the bland, from the mass, from the uniform. If we want it to be.

The five posts you liked most in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 21:33:00 +0000

I've been slack on the blogging front for a couple of months - for which I apologise.
I'd like to take the opportunity of wishing you all the Season's best for you and yours.
Here, in a lowest common denominator way, are the five most viewed posts I've published this year.
As the office parties kick in - take another look.

1. Google;s Skyscraper -
In which we consider the give-away signs of a business reaching its peak.
2. Create Value as If the World Exists -
In which we ask if any business can sustain if it isn't a fit with the best interests of the world it exists in
3. The 10 Principles of Open Business -
A summary of what we learned at 90:10 Group - and which is now the basis of a business book from a major publisher due in 2013.
4. The Distraction Web Fades as the Distruption Web Rises -
A discussion on our shift from entertaining ourselves with the web to making change with it
5. Facebook's journey to monopoly or bust -
The fear that Facebook is now such a big beast it can buy anything that challenges it

2 years and 7 months that persuaded the PM to join Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 07:31:00 +0000

The picture I took at Starbucks. And tweeted

Two years and seven months after I collared Prime Minister David Cameron on the subject of his position on Twitter ("Too Many Tweets Make a Twat, to quote from his Absolute Radio interview before the last election) he has finally taken the plunge and started his own account.

His opening tweet - for those who have lost the connection in the mists of time - is a reference to that very "Twat" faux pas.

"I'm starting Conference with this new Twitter feed about my role as Conservative Leader. I promise there won't be "too many tweets..."

When I bumped into Cameron in a London Starbucks he took the view that politicians should think before they speak - which makes Twitter risky.

Politicians, he said, needed to think about what they said, before they said it.

He worried that those who tweeted all the time were sharing a stream of consciousness.

I said politicians ought not think too hard before they speak, they should tweet their stream of consciousness. I'd prefer the direct honesty.

For the rest of the original post, (and some interesting issues about the realities of privacy in today's connected world), go here.

By co-incidence I was retelling the story of my chance encounter with the PM at one of the panel sessions of London Social Media Week a couple of week's back. Which has led to some confusion:

While it is perfectly possible that I set a small flame burning in Cameron's mind back in 2010 (the power of John Prescott's ability to disintermediate the media may have had growing resonance post the whole Murdoch melt-down) I cannot claim to be behind this latest sorte into social media. If I had been he'd be following more folk back than a handful of echo-chamber Tory MPs. And he wouldn't have an underscore in his Twitter handle (it's @david_cameron). I mean, have folk there never used an iPhone???

Also I'd have been making his move on to Twitter part of a much larger shift from centre to edge.

Inspired by my new connection, I wrote an Open Letter (with the emphasis on Open) to Mr Cameron after our meeting (and after he'd come to power). Given the 2 year 7 month delay between our Starbucks enounter and his Twitter account, it would be wonderful to think that he'll be acting on the contents of the Open Letter by Christmas... Here's hoping!

The fifth Principle of Open Business: Connectedness

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:30:00 +0000

Today - over at 90:10 Group - we've published the sixth post in our series on The 10 Principles of Open Business.

Principle Five is Connectedness.

Again, this is not a tactic - it's a design principle:

Connecting all employees internally to one another and externally through open social media

We've learned through experience that simply buying tools is not enough. Ever heard the expression: All The Gear But No Idea? That's where so many organisations find themselves having been sold on the tech - convinced by slick sales folk that there really is a button you can click to make you 'social'.

Sure, you need the gear. But first, get the idea. I guarantee you'll make better selections of the gear as a result.

Here's an excerpt. For the full post visit 9010Group.com.

"Rather than working against connectedness (usually out of fear), work with it. You’ll be working in the same direction as your teams.
Without our daily connectedness to others our ideas remain un-nurtured and un-tested, our understanding of the realities of the eco-system within which we all live, severely limited.

This eco-system, this market, is not something you can take a snapshot of once a year, it is ever changing, something you are part of and which must be listened and responded to in as close to real time as possible if you are to maintain a best possible fit with its needs.
Connectedness is an essential part of this. Connectedness scales the organisation’s ability to listen, respond and adapt to the market.

Connectedness provides an early warning system for changing need, for rising dissatisfaction, for new competitors.

But beyond all of this, connectedness humanises a businesses. It allows your customers and other stakeholders to interact with the living, breathing, passionate, caring people on whom your business depends. It takes down the walls."

Judgment Call: Can You Be A Global Business and Idealistic?

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000

The Problem

Once again I've been asked to contribute to The Financial Times' Judgment Call panel - alongside Harvard Business School's Sebastien S Kresge professor of marketing Rohit Deshpande and the CEO of Polar Mobile Kunal Gupta.
The issue our advice was sought on was: Can you be a global business and idealistic?
This follows from the detention of Google's most senior exec in Brazil when Google refused to take down a YouTube video which allegedly insulted a local politician.

My advice, as regulars here will guess, was that not only should a global business remain idealistic - but that it must.
Here's the full (and only lightly edited for publication) response I supplied:

Organisations have to remain true to their fundamental beliefs - their purpose.

There may be a short term cost or loss from sticking to them but businesses built to succeed in today's Open Economy must take a longer view: Without consistency trust disappears; Without consistency believers stop believing; Without consistency supporters stop supporting.

My Advice: Top

Our connected world demands more than simple customer centricity, it requires customer partnership - and that is driven by belief.

Today's winners are Open Businesses - organisations which use their resources to create networks of people who care about the same things they do and who work with them to achieve shared goals.

This clearly relies on support from outside the org. It's this support, this willingness to participate, that delivers competitive advantage. They participate because they share your beliefs.

That is the bigger picture Google sees - and which no amount of local sabre-rattling is likely to make it relinquish.

This of course speaks to Principle One of the 10 Principles of Open Business - Purpose.
The outing in the FT this morning (October 3, 2012), also marks the first publication in print of the fact of our forthcoming book The 10 Principles of Open Business (see the end of my piece in the pictures accompanying this post). Though I have to say our potential publishers are suggesting that may, in the end, become a sub-heading. Will keep you posted, of course.

Panel reports from Social Media Week London

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:04:00 +0000

Thanks to everyone who attended, tweeted, retweeted, blogged, liveblogged and storified the two panels I sat on in Social Media Week London for LikeMinds last week.

I opened up introducing the Truth & Trust event on Monday morning and closed by joining the Future of Being Social.

Both were very well attended and shared beyond the room.

The Live Blogs are as follows:

...and there is a Storify here: http://storify.com/gabriellenyc/truth-and-trust-likeminds-smwldn from the Truth and Trust event.

I'm indebted to Andrew Gerrard of Like Minds for pointing all this out to me.

Truth and Trust in Social Media - report from the SMWLDN panel

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:41:00 +0000

Social Media Week London kicked off (for me at least) at 8:30am on Monday morning. That's when I joined with fellow panelists Jenny Afia – Schillings, Guy Stephens – CapGemini , Euan Semple and Benjamin Ellis - Redcatco / Socialoptics at Like Minds opening event.
The topic at hand (to which I was afforded the luxury of providing the introductory scene and context setter) was Truth and Trust and why what you do matters in social media.
Thanks to all those who joined in from outside the room via the #smwldn or #likeminds hashtags on twitter.
I'm back at the same venue (Adam Street Club - just off the Strand in London) on Friday at 4pm for the final Like Minds event of the week on the future of being social.
In the meantime it's good to see Monday's early morning session was covered by way of a live blog - so if you missed it you can catch the summary here.

Social Media Week London: Truth, trust and the future of being social

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 07:52:00 +0000

I'm delighted to have been invited to take part in just about the best two panels of Social Media Week London (next week). Organisers Like Minds and myself would be delighted to see you there.

The first is on Monday the 24th at 9am Truth, Trust and Why What You Do Matters in Social Media. I'm doing the intro on that one and themes I aim to raise include the value and impact of sousveillance, purpose, the challenge of truth versus privacy and the benefits for sustainability that our open economy not only delivers but demands.

The second is on the Friday 28th at 4pm and is on the subject of The Future of Being Social. As you can imagine I have a thing or two to say about that - particularly around how the web changes the way we organise and what that means for society.

Both events are at The Adam St Club, just off The Strand. (more details in links)

Fellow panelists include Kred CEO Andrew Grill, authors Mark Earls (Herd), Alan Moore (No Straight Lines) and Euan Semple (Organisations Don't Tweet, People Do) and Dachis Group Europe MD Lee Bryant.

Full details of other Like Minds events and registration are here:http://ow.ly/dACZB

I hope you can join us?

Open Business Principle 4: Sharability

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 11:00:00 +0000

As I add each new blogpost in the series on the 10 Principles of Open Business at the 90:10 Group site, I'm sharing the essence, a link, and a little background here on my personal blog.

Our fourth Principle of Open Business is one which would be easy to mistake for a simply tactical implementation: Sharability.

Packaging knowledge for easy and open sharing both internally and externally

Here's an excerpt:

...Sharability is as much an organisational design principle as Networked Organisation since there must be a cultural/philosophical recognition of the value of sharing over hoarding.

The antithesis of an organisation built on the principle of Sharability is one which is built on the principle of Secrecy.
It’s likely there will be one or two things about the way your organisation does or makes something which is unique, or at the very least so special that it gives you a perceived competitive advantage over rivals.
But, if you are honest, these very few special things are worthy only of pockets of secrecy – rather than the cultures of secrecy they are too often allowed to generate.
In such cultures the belief is that the competitive advantage is not in the best fit with the needs of the market, but in the delivery of the fastest first approximation.

Cultures driven by the principle of Sharability are more likely to value best fit over first approximation.

At the turn of the last decade I wrote a post called 2020 Vision in which I conclude: "By 2020 a person's worth will be valued by what they share, not what they keep. That may be the most significant shift of all."

Being able to value sharing over hoarding is hard for many. It challenges long-cherished and assumed value centres such as 'ownership' tests the true value of 'intellectual property' and the often ingrained culture of 'not-invented-here'.

In Western business culture this aligns with a macho approach: I hunted it, I killed it, I eat it. But we know that isn't how we ever lived - and perhaps that tells us that its how we never should.

Open Business - Principle 3: The Networked Organisation

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:19:00 +0000

I've just published the third of our 10 Principles of Open Business over at 90:10 Group.

The third Principle is the one that defines the structure of an Open Business. It is that it should be a Networked Organisation.
Networked Organisation (or as McKinsey is labelling them, Networked Enterprises) will be familiar territory to anyone who has read this blog for a number of years. They go by the alternative name of Platform Organisations. An excerpt:

“The organisation functions as a platform connecting internal networks to external ones for a common Purpose.” (see Principle 1: Purpose).
This speaks to and supports our primary definition of an Open Business: One which uses its resources to bring people together to achieve a shared Purpose – designed from the outset to scale through participation making partners of customers.

You can read the full blogpost here.

I've been thinking and writing about the shift from traditional to networked (or platform) organisations since I began this blog. As more tech gets deployed, the clearer the requirement to connect inside and out reveals itself.
And, as I previously discussed, with the arrival of 3D printing the veil lifts on the true role of the organisation - suggesting a platform (or networked) approach has been the natural state to which organisations were always going to return when our view became clear:

When we talk about means of production, we often think about the machinery to produce. But that does not mean the device.
In a mass production world the connection between the machinery and the process is clearer. Traditionally a newspaper owner needed to own a printing press. They also needed to employ a team or writers, photographers, editors etc to produce the content. Which was the means of production? The printing press or the producers of the content? The two were so tightly connected it didn't matter.

On the web the owner of the means of production of content is the person who creates the content. In reality this was always so. In the past the owner of the means or production of content had no access to the printing press. Now they have (or at least to its equivalent in the form of the web - where of course everyone is a publisher).

The same is true of factories; where the production line is the equivalent of the printing press. In a world in which everyone has access to their own production line ( a home 3D printer) the real means of production is revealed as those coming up with the ideas, process and required designs.

What is clear is that 3D printing throws into sharp relief the need for organisations to think of themselves far less as the makers of, and far more the supporters of the makers of, 'their' products.

From 'The Challenge of 3D Printing to the role of the organisation'

Introducing the Open Business Program

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:09:00 +0000

Here's how I'm thinking right now...

Organisations must adapt to the needs of a rapidly changing world; one which demands ever greater connectedness, openness and meaningful relationships with customers.

Too often the seismic shift we are experiencing is being dealt with on an issue-by-issue basis. Reactive piece-meal tactics create a permanent state of panic-ridden catch-up. Learnings are lost in silos, failures are swept under carpets.

I believe there is an holistic strategic solution which provides a framework for change, leap-frogging the tick-box exercise of simple implementation of social technologies. It makes organisations future-ready like never before. That solution is Open Business.

Introducing the Open Business Program from david cushman

Open Business Principle 2: Open Capital

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 10:04:00 +0000

I've just published the third in 90:10 Group's series of blog posts on the 10 Principles of Open Business.
Those familiar with this blog will find some familiar themes.

A portion of it is very close in spirit to a post I published here early in June 2012 - Create Value As If The World Exists.

Here's an excerpt from Principle 2: Open Capital.

"In line with the needs of the industrial age, Capital was organised on the principles of mass and centralised control; Big blocks of cash held by small groups of decision-makers fitted that world.

"But the networked world requires something new, something which delivers faster decisions together with wider distribution of both risk and reward, something which moves the role of the customer from ‘end user’ to participant and partner; something which is a better fit with networks.

"We call this Open Capital: Using crowd-funding platforms or principles to raise capital through micro-investments... today’s entrepreneurs opt for Open Capital knowing that the advantages go far beyond a new route to capital... Open Capital shares the costs and risks and therefore the ownership and the passion. It democratises innovation."

Read it in full.

Open Business: Principle 1 - Purpose

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:23:00 +0000

I've just published the second in the series of blog posts on the Principles of Open Business over on 9010group.com.
Here's an excerpt:

Most organisations are good at ‘What’ they do and ‘How’ they do it. But ask them Why? And things get trickier...
Most when asked about Purpose will point to Mission Statements. Unfortunately in the majority of cases a Mission Statement begs a further question: Why?
Many are written along the lines of “To be No1 in our chosen markets and sectors returning maximum value to shareholders”.
Why?
That Why is important. It is what brings people together, motivates them, inspires them to support your cause. In a connected world in which the organisation’s role is to act as a platform to help others achieve a collective shared Purpose, it is essential. It is how you succeed.

Read the full post on 9010group.com

The 10 Principles of Open Business

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:13:00 +0000

10 Principles of Open Business - 9010 group from 90:10 Group

Regular readers know my day job at 90:10 Group focuses on delivering Open Business. After 3 years of doing so with large organisations across EMEA, co-founder Jamie Burke and I have concluded there are 10 Principles of Open Business.

An Open Business is one which uses its available resources to discover people who care about the same Purpose it does, brings those people together and joins with them to achieve that Purpose.
It is designed from the outset to scale through participation. It makes partners of customers.

Over the next few weeks we'll build on this to define the 10 Principles of Open Business and share case studies demonstrating the success of each Principle in practice. We’ll set a ‘Goal State’ as the ideal outcome and describe the ‘Worst Case’ position – to enable you to benchmark your organisation’s progress towards each Goal States.

To read the first post in the series visit 9010Group.com.

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