Ecosystem Marketing Lesson #1: Open Language Builds Open Cultures

Do any of these things look familiar to you?

Customers now control your brand
Social media should be owned by corporate communications and marketing
HR depts don't have the bandwidth to police social presence
All companies should have full time community managers
We need to build communities not campaigns

All pretty innocuous sounding. But look closer. There are some words that I think are part of a much bigger problem that we need to start to shift.

CONTROL
OWN
POLICE
MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING OF COMMUNITIES

Our usage of language has always been at the heart of how we cultivate culture. If we agree that marketing has to change to a more open approach, (what i talk about in my ecosystem approach to marketing), one of the easiest things you can shift is what language you use in your every day life.

Consumers can become people.
We can focus on proactively empowering positive decision making vs. policing negative actions
We should cultivate and guide communities vs. control or manage them.

The list can go on and on. It's time to start a change. Start that change with the language you use in your organization. It will be one small step for you and one larger step overtime for your new way of marketing.

(feel free to add any other phrases to the comments and i'll add them to my list :)

Viral Video, Propagation & The Role Of Agile Marketing

I wrote a post a in 2007 that has been getting more and more traffic in the past six months. Agile Marketing. Basic Premise - the speed of change and networked ecosystem has demanded that we change the way we market.

And you know, it's really bugging me because social media type people keep using the ecosystem word, but sometimes I wonder if they really get what that means.

We aren't just sitting here creating stuff in a box.

It's interactions (not conversations).
It's a system we are part of (not one we create or control).
It can't be predicted (the only means of prediction is simulation).

Gareth Kay has a most awesome post (that everyone should read right now) on a new study by Millward Brown on how less than 15% of TD ads are 'viral hits'. Gareth takes issue with the entire premise behind the study and how they have even defined viral (for the best bits make sure you read the comments where Millward responds and then so too does Gareth).

But it's not really their fault. All that they've really done is taken how traditional agencies and companies have defined viral. And should we be surprised? Most of them have used traditional media measurement models and applied them to online video.

How many people have seen my video (aka TV commercial that I put online)?
How many people have shared my video (aka turned it into free media)?

Humph. So much for the medium is the message. So much for who we are reaching vs. how many.

The truth is that if we continue to apply traditional advertising models onto mediums that have completely different dynamics we will continue to be disappointed with the results.

It means Agencies have to change but it means clients have to as well.

In the comments Gareth talks about some emerging research by Mark Earls and frankly an entire school of thought that is looking to changing behviour through action (and active media) vs. persuasion via watching (passive media).

Because if it is "less what we do and more about what people do to what we do" - shouldn't we be putting our Agile marketing beliefs to the test?

Peter had a great quote that he first used in a Tao of Internet marketing presentation in 1998 for magazines Canada (too bad we didn't have slideshare back then):

Emergent systems are those in which perfect knowledge and understanding may give us no predictive information.... the optimal means of prediction is simulation.

A big fancy way to say:

We cannot create viral videos.

We cannot predict what will propagate (why or even how).

We cannot create community.

We cannot apply mass marketing thinking and models to a networked medium.

What we can do is discover a pattern, observe the underlying dynamics, create something (a utility, a story) and put it out there - see what happens and repeat.

And until we do that, the only thing we will continue to repeat is our own mistakes.


Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31608675@N00/463506749/

Story Ecosystems (A Thought In Progress)

Been struggling with the entire story telling metaphor. Partially it's because I've always seen the dynamics of online spaces mirror closer to ecosystems (being networks and all) than linear models.


Maybe there are some ways to merge the two. The truth is as marketers we do create the nucleus of stories (whether that be the creation of a brand, expanded brand, actual communications or even capitalizing on a story that exists and extending that to our brand). The key is to allow for emergence and focus not on managing that story but understanding that we are actually alongside everyone else, we are part of it.


Anyhoodle, don't know where it's going but any thoughts anyone else has would love to hear 'em. :)

Cluetrainplus 10: Thesis #95

Thoughts on old school management:


- Top down management with the belief that knowledge is a tool for domination
- Belief that the system can be engineered
- That marketing efforts can be predetermined and have desirous effects
- The notion that they must negate value that can’t be directly quantified
- Belief that traditional linear levers of control can be applied to a networked ecosystem

But we know that the power of networks has changed people's behaviour. It has altered purchase paths and processes. Technology has become biology and our standard path for doing business has become less and less effective.

Traditional constructs do not change quickly or easily. Resistance is everywhere. The belief in centralized control mechanisms reigns supreme. It's at the core of our systems. It's at the centre of our belief.

Why? It's core to our DNA - our eduction, our finacial systems regardless of the fact that those very systems haven't been able to keep pace with the new networks speed of evolutionary change.

Old models need to be replaced by new ones. Networks necessitate that we change. Whether we like it or not. This is a radical cultural shift that goes to the core of our beliefs and values. It's a new world view that embraces connections big and small, weak and strong. It's a focus not on ourselves as individual businesses but understands our role within the context of the larger whole. The centre of our success is intertwined and connected to the collective.

How should we translate this? Some initial thoughts:

- Corporations will need to increasingly accept that they are part of the system and not outside of it. They are one node. Some bigger than others. But nodes nevertheless.
- As such, hierarchy as we have understood it, no longer applies and therefore neither does top down approaches
- The networked ecosystem cannot be controlled or managed and therefore strategies need to embrace the notion of "*KNOW" control (reference Mitch Joel)
- We must embrace the idea of open and understand that there are no boundaries
- We must accept that this is an ecosystem and as such, this system is alive and constantly evolving - change emerges rather than is prescribed
- We need to embrace and understands that as the system changes, we all must change


What does this mean for what we do day in and day out? Hum..not sure if I know for sure. I'm continually trying to figure it out. Some thoughts I've had and picked up from others along the way include:

-Your customers are your creative team
-Everything is a beta
-Open source your brand, products and services
-Change your processes to embrace agile planning models
-Set your content free
-Understand that there are no rules there are rather consequences for actions
-To evolve together, you need to get closer and figure out for yourself and your business, what closer means
-Figure out what you are good at and embrace your contribution in the context of the larger ecosystem
-View our success and measure ourselves not only by what we take out of the system, but what value we give
-Focus on co-operation and co-creation vs. competition

Of course you don't have to. You can continue instead with the status quo. But that's when it's not a bad time to remember Cluetrain thesis #95 which was the inspiration for this post:

We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

________________

This blog post is an ode to "Cluetrainplus10 is a project to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the manifesto. On Tuesday April 28, 95 bloggers around the world will each write a blog post on one of the 95 theses."

photo credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rveldwijk/355290507/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/2108978128/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gustavog/2493250897/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2203097420/

Open or Die: The Value Of Robust Ecosystems

From a philosophical place sometimes it's hard beat how Google approaches product development. Let's take Android as a great example. For those of you unfamiliar, "Android...[is] the first complete, open, and free mobile platform."

Why is this so significant? As I discussed in a post long ago "Closed Ecosystems Die, Shouldn't Someone Let The Cell Phone Companies Know?", most mobile companies and handset providers have created closed ecosystems. Breaking in a new product such as Android in such a tightly controlled environment seems somewhat doomed to fail unless of course, you go in the opposite direction.

In Androids own words, "The concept is simple: leverage Google's expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers" which will be released in the Beta Android Marketplace...for what they are calling a user driven content distribution system.

Will Android and Android driven handsets be able to compete? The value of robust ecosystems and connecting with the developer community particularly in the difficult mobile market place will absolutely blow the doors wide open. Already hand sets with more robust browsers like the iPhone and the Bold are changing the way that people extend their desktop experiences to the mobile work force and economy.

And what will happen to the mainstream players who have up to now kept their ecosystems closed? Open or die will soon become the motto and that's not just what i believe. That's just an ecological fact.

Edge Economy & Value Creation

Umair says if there is one lesson you should apply at the edge, it’s that
“Business models happen” He goes on to say that:

“We don't "monetize" resources. We co-create and co-produce value….Monetization is ugly because it blinds us to the truth that value must flow in many directions.”

I love when someone who writes a blog on HBR starts crystallizing for me why I don't regret not going to business school and instead having my degree in environmental resource management...

Let’s take a look at one of the basic business tools, value chain analysis created by Michael Porter way back in 1985. Let’s go to our friend Wikipedia for a definition:

“A value chain is a chain of activities. Products pass through all activities of the chain in order and at each activity the product gains some value. The chain of activities gives the products more added value than the sum of added values of all activities."

But we no longer create products and services for customers. To Umair’s point, we co-create and co-produce. It’s not linear any more and therefore cannot be prescribed nor predicted. It in fact, must emerge over time.

And yet where are the tools to understand emergent value? And if profit margins traditionally depend on our ability to manage the linkages between activities in the value chain, then what happens when we no longer have that management ability in a chaotic networked world?

We have been working on ways of trying to harness emergence. In large organizations this won’t simply happen without some structure that helps facilitate it and yet, the traditional tools are antithetical to solving the problem. Constructs while not the solutions in of themselves are key. A smart group of people sitting around in a room simply won’t solve this one.

photo credit

Value Creation & The Business Of Innovation

It seems to me that there is a sea of change going on in the business world. More and more companies are recognizing the seismic shifts in the customer market place are looking to innovate from the inside out.

But can they be successful? This got me thinking of a post by Fred Wilson on Twitters business model.

He pointed to the fact that "some of the best web companies of our time; Google, YouTube, Skype, and Facebook all launched without a business model and too their sweet time getting to one."

and that

"You can't monetize web services very well until you have an audience of scale."

What are large corporations tolerance for sweet time? Part of the problem of being a mass organization is that you have a mass audience and therefore generally speaking, a mass media approach to product development and marketing. With customer data bases as your starting point, and a larger than start up marketing budget, it's difficult to not think big.

Emergence is an often spoken about phenomena, and yet having the foresight to truly understand the value that is being created (and co-created) with your customers takes not only patience but bravery. Companies obviously want to reduce their risk, however, in a desire to speed to mass market there are also risks. Determining too much too soon could mean missing key opportunities and defining too much from a top down approach versus the focus on the ecosystem and allowing the network to co-create the product and/or service alongside you. Sometimes to think big long term, you have to focus on the small in the short. It may seem obvious but as they say, common sense isn't as common as it should be.

Of course, there are success stories already in market and no doubt we are going to see a tidal wave coming soon of many more. And I hope that both the successes and failures are going to be interesting to watch and learn from (I'm thinking maybe some sort of widget score board??)....

An Ecosystem Approach To Marketing In The Digital Age

Cross-posted from One Degree.

As an environmental planner, I studied the impacts of technologies (waste treatment plants, large dams, road work projects etc.) on communities. Technology has always had an impact on how we live, how we work and how we interrelate with the environment around us.

Similarly, working in interactive communications since 1996, I have seen the growth of digital networks and their communities.

While at first glance, it may seem that environmental and digital ecosystems have little in common, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. There are many parallels between natural ecosystems and their networked counterparts and therefore many lessons to be learned.

‘GreenMan marketing part I’ attempts to formalize this strategic approach and lay down a foundation, a philosophy and a way of thinking.

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Zuckerberg Shrugged: Man Vs. Ecosystem

It's in the Webs DNA to go around obstructions. We've seen it in the past with things like P2P, online music downloading.

There's something to DNA and Umair's posting on the subject got me thinking. So let's talk about what's wrong with the DNA of Facebook and how they let this whole Beacon issue get completely out of control.

Firstly, we could blame Harvard of course. Old school business models that have at their core a specific type of elitism (a friend of mine who did his degree there called "The H Bomb"). But it appears that the arrogance of Facebook has begun to mirror Zuckerberg himself as he stands of the PR stages of the world commanding his people from high upon the hills. With the ever expanding belief that his opinions and contributions should supersede those of the Facebook members themselves.

He built the company so there must be something to this. He's the one who refused to sell at a billion dollars and as it turns out, he was right. But the real question becomes, is his type of thinking 'sustainable' in the digitally connected ecosystem of the Web?

Missing The Forest For The Trees

Zuckerberg seems to take a classic command and control approach to his ecosystem management. Why do I say this? Command and control models have these characteristics:

- Model of master and servant
- Knowledge as a tool for domination
- Top down system of management and control
- Belief that ecosystems are static
- Belief that what happens outside the ecosystem does not impact what goes on inside it

Hum...sound familiar? Think of it this way, if Zuckerberg were in charge of a forest, he would end up cutting down the entire thing, leaving a barren landscape at the end of it. So much for the forest ecosystem.

And, in the end, will that be good for business? Well, one might suggest in the short term it probably brings in a lot of revenue and might appear to be successful. But similar to what has happened in the logging industry, in the end, you just end up with a wasteland and a lot of really pissed off community members on both sides of the fence.

And Zuckerberg? I think he should consider forgetting about business for a while and consider taking an ecology and environmental planning course or two (or three). Otherwise as Zuckerberg shrugs, he'll end up missing the forest for the trees.

The Ecosystem Approach to Social Networks

In his novel 'Linked', Albert-Laszlo Barabasi states:

"The Internet, often viewed as entirely human invention in its creation, has become more akin to an organism or an ecosystem"

It is becoming more apparent that technology as biology is no longer a debate and is becoming an important school of thought that drives the way we think about networks.

Having worked as an environmental planner myself in a past life, I think there are many lessons to be learned from the environmental movement and in particular from environmental management theories.

Those theories saw enviornmental and social planners moving from traditional command and control models, to resource management approaches to more recently in the past 10 years, a theory they call the ecosystem approach .

I believe that we can apply the ecosystem approach to how we think about social networks. I am working on a presentation about this for a conference as we speak and when I finish it I’ll post it up here.