The presentation dealt with this idea: That mobile communications does not have to be a tactical endeavor, it can be a deep strategic one enabling companies to run leaner, to reach audiences in new and novel ways, to redefine a company organizationally, and create new markets with new revenues. In ‘creating assets and access in the intention economy’ I challenged our thinking in how mobile communications plays the key role in this rapidly evolving story.

Brian writes,

For several years now, it has been ‘the year of mobile’. And yet despite everyone’s best efforts, it hasn’t really happened yet, has it? Why might that be? There were several opinions expressed at MediaTel’s recent ‘Come on Mobile..Stand Up and Deliver’ event.

Potentially mobile offers commercial users a truly unique integrated channel.

First, mobile is personal; much more personal than any other channel. This is a benefit and a problem. A benefit in that if consumers are prepared to accept messages, and if they’re prepared to participate in a dialogue with a brand then the result is a truly engaged consumer. On the other hand if consumers just tolerate irrelevant messages from advertisers they care little about, then the result is…well, at best an irritated customer, and at worst a customer for whom hell will freeze over before he or she ever buys anything from your client ever again.

An illustration – a while ago I received a text from an insurance company asking me if I would be interested in a quote for business insurance. I don’t remember giving this company permission to contact me; and I don’t know who to be most irritated with – the company or Vodafone. Yes I run a small business, and yes I have business insurance. Does that make me a likely member of the target market? I would say no – because at no point did I knowingly give permission for anyone to contact me. I suspect my operator would say yes – I’m in the target market, as I opted in (or failed to opt out), even if unknowingly.
It seems to me that simply assuming that consumers are prepared to be contacted if they’ve opted in, or not opted out is incorrect. Certainly they may have consciously agreed to receive messages, but we all know that the opt-in process generally works passively, rather than actively. This is not right – and furthermore raises a huge question: who controls what is done with data about me? I think that when it comes to the most personal channel – my mobile phone – then I should. I want to be in control; I want to decide who I hear from.

Our mobile marketing channel Qustodian (www.qustodian.com) launching in the UK later this year following a successful launch in Spain puts consumers in control. They decide who they hear from; they control their data; they benefit (in cash) from the use to which their data is put; and they decide whether to stay with us, or cancel their involvement with us – something they can do at any time.

But Qustodian is a very small player compared to the major operators. For this medium to really take off it needs the big guys to start applying certain principles around active opt-in and active consumer participation, as opposed to believing that passively collected eyeballs, maybe modified by a broad discriminator such as a location in any way equals engaged consumers.

I believe that mobile can deliver engaged consumers. It can be used for messages in virtually any format – including film, text, static images. It can be used to guide consumers through multiple materials on multiple screens within one campaign. It can offer promotions. It can transact. It can measure effect. Every click is collected and can be used to measure the effect of any activity.

So why aren’t advertisers queuing up to use this new medium? Why aren’t the agencies recommending it? Is it, as one speaker at the MediaTel event suggested because everyone is still obsessed with TV (an odd remark coming from an organisation that itself spends tens of millions on television, presumably because it works for them)? Of course not.

Is it (as was also suggested) because the measurement is imperfect? But as we’ve seen, it’s potentially superior to anything from a 5,000 homes panel, or from an online system that doesn’t identify individuals. Can’t be.

Or is it because agencies can’t make money from mobile? But what about agencies’ vaunted ability to offer media neutral thinking? Surely not.

I think the real reason is that mobile isn’t really an advertising medium at all; it’s a complete marketing channel with everything that that implies. I’m not sure that we are yet able to think of mobile as anything other than an advertising vehicle. And, until we are, until we learn to think in a different way about communicating with customers, until we turn all the talk about integrated thinking into integrated action, mobile won’t fulfill its huge potential.

SMLXL posts on mobile commerce

#camerjam #mobileculture

I don’t think you need to be a community purist – to see the flawed thinking. Reading through the article, of the usual players and companies lining up to bid for local TV franchises, with the same old, same old business models I found myself, making observations and asking all sorts of questions:

• When we are connected up to and across each other, when we can get what we need for each other, why do we need more of what we don’t need?
• A people will only be free when THEY control their own communications – Frantz Fanon
• Markets are conversations, and markets thrive through, commercial trading, knowledge and information exchange and entertainment, hence the role of the creation of a thriving market place is not about shoving stuff down tubes. Its not one way, and reality of the role of producer and consumer has collapsed.
• Those companies that use revenue sharing to open up, stimulate, motivate and create a rich diverse eco-system are those that are commercially thriving: GrowVC, Qustodian, Android, NTTDoCoMo, Threadless,  are but 5 examples. So why is local TV any different?
• Ask who uses a search engine = 99%? and what are we searching for? Knowledge and information. And we judge the quality of that knowledge and information by its ability for us to take and make decisions and transactions, right now, in 5mins time, this afternoon, tomorrow – we live in the intention economy.
• Where is mobile in all this – because when we have a mobile penetration of 120%+ in the UK but millions cant get in online, surely local commercial communications, must be supported by mobile services? Qustodian certainly believes so, hence their growing relationship with Atletico Madrid. Because local is community – community is local. But this truth does not serve the needs of national media players.

So how on earth do media companies believe they can fund their business models out of the institutional failure of paid for push advertising? The article quotes Pat Loughrey, former BBC director of nations and regions, says: “It’s arse about face. It would be a pity and perverse if what is created a just another metropolitan-dominated TV service, in which the UK is only viewed through national perspective and serving national advertisers.”

Related articles

• Channel 6 bidders explain why Local TV will work (newstatesman.com)
• Two more join bidders for national TV channel (guardian.co.uk)
• DMGT chief voices doubts over Jeremy Hunt’s local TV plans (guardian.co.uk)
• Dyke outlines plan for 80 local TV stations in UK (newstatesman.com)
• How impartial is Jeremy Hunt? (newstatesman.com)
• Ofcom delivers local TV report to Department for Culture, Media and Sport (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

Lars writes in Japan’s super advanced mobile-web

The entire approach from key players in the value chain is focused on the direct benefit of the industry as a whole, ultimately via the satisfaction of their customers. A perfect example would be the generous – from day one – 90/10 revenue share to content providers. By the vary nature of building an open sales channel platform and offering an acceptable merchant billing fee the operators primed the data pump with plenty of interesting content rushing into their pipeline. Another key move from the operators was their decision in 2004 to make Flash-Lite a mandated pre-install on all devices. While of course their menus looked even more compelling, the move also allowed content players a common code platform with less concern about specific handset rendering parameters. The golden triangle of open web access combined with flat-rate data plans and ubiquitous 3G speed has lead to a server-side model driving ever greater adoption of content and services. Of course the telcos are happily counting their flat-rate data subscriber revenues as a result of even more great contents on offer and the satisfied mobile web surfers keep on clicking.. the win-win-win scenerio.

Alan Moore mobile/enterprise keynote video

Related articles

• The DoCoMo-Baccarat Phone: Smart in Another Way (blogs.wsj.com)

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-in-the-telecoms-trade/

Data source

Related articles

• Nokia-Microsoft Alliance Could End Patent War with Apple (pcworld.com)
• Nokia-Microsoft tie-up could shift mobile patent wars (news.cnet.com)
• More iPhones, More iAds. But What Else? (marketingvox.com)
• LG looks to ban Sony PS3, more in US in patent fight (electronista.com)
• The Death of (Analogue) Patents (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)

Here is the presentation that I gave.

Rethinking Personal Data – is a brief outline of the initial stages of that investigation. in a post published by Telco 2.0 (also part of The Futures Agency), they write,

Given the speed at which technology and online user behaviour is developing and the slowness of regulators in keeping up, the project looks as much at legal/governance issues as commercial, technical and user acceptibilty issues.

In an event organised by the WEF the top 7 issues were:

1.) To create a global ‘trust framework’ for customer data and digital identities.
2.) To re-define the fundamental telco business model and the methods for industry commercial innovation.
3.) To define how to partner better with adjacent industries
4.) To develop more appropriate regulation for cross-border, cross-industry collaboration.
5.) To create a more compelling business case for (fixed/mobile broadband) infrastructure investment.
6.) To clarify the opportunity for Telco Cloud infrastructure.

Telco2.0 point out that, this is the sort of list that existing telco trade bodies can’t really conceive of, and which WEF is uniquely placed to support. But, the striking thing for the Telco 2.0 representative was how important customer data and business model innovation ranked in order of strategic priorities for the telecoms industry (as opportunities and challenges).

For two months this year, I travelled through Latin America on a speaking tour with Blackberry called, The Blackberry Collaboration Forum.

My topic, was how mobile communications could enable businesses to be more effective, more engaged, to work smarter and leaner. I was asked to share my insights, and perspectives on how organisations could adapt to a networked world and what that meant to them. Read the To Do List at the bottom of this post

The events took place in Sao Paulo, Santiago, Mexico City, Buenos Aries, Caracas and Bogota. The total audience was something like 9000 people, the biggest single audience was 2600 people in Mexico City. And even the Canadian Ambassador turned up. In Mexico I also had the pleasure of being invited by the British Consulate to talk about the No Straight Lines project, how we can build a more sustainable world by thinking how we go about designing solutions that are more lightweight, and consequently more humane. And I was invited to meet the Minister for education in Colombia to discuss hand-held learning.

To the entire RIM team, I want to thank you for giving me such a great opportunity and also I would like to say what an amazing team of people you are. As my friend Gerd would say “you totally rocked”. And what I took away from my travels was this… mobile communications, its platform, its eco-system is transformative, and Blackberry has developed for enterprise large and small capabilities that every organisation should look seriously at. From inter-organisational communications, inventory management, in-field training, as but a few examples, Blackberry provides a robust eco-system. Any organisation that does not take mobile seriously, that does not learn how to embed mobility into its day-to-day operations is simply not part of the 21st Century. Further whilst google is a highly adaptive platform it is a media company, and Apple has staked its claim to the consumer market. Education, Healthcare, Local government services, Enterprise – who is going to look after these industries? I think I saw a credible answer to that working with Blackberry.

I also got to meet some great people in each and every city. In Buenos Aries I met Antonio Pena of Altergaia, and Juan Ramiro Fernandez Senior Director; Digital Media MTV Networks. The lunch was fabulous as was the conversation. And also I met Frederico Mikaelian and his lovely girlfriend, via a friend in Amsterdam who saw my tweet and made the intro. We went to an amazing restaurant recommended by Matt Garlick of Vostu, The Cafe San Juan.

In Caracas, I had the good fortune to meet Nidal Barake Awar and his team at Tedexis and La Causa. Again great conversation, and great food, and finally in Bogota I hooked up with Carlos Sierra of Inalambria. These are contacts that will develop into lasting friendships, enabled initially by my friend Lars Cosh-Ishii in Japan as is the way of this networked world.

What else happened to me? Well you can feel Brazil’s economic heartbeat, and perhaps more importantly immersing myself for 2 months in Latin America, I realised that I was able to see the world and its context from a very different perspective – and that was very useful.

So the To Do List – my challenges to enterprise was

To Do List:

[1] Adapt to thinking like a network – a collaborative ecosystem = (strategic opportunity)

[2] Offer value to customers from day #1 (the Bill Bailey principle) Bill Bailey is a comedian and he is asked how he comes up with his jokes, he says, “I start with a laugh and Iwork backwards, what do I need to do to create that amount of laughter”. The point of where we start to imagine possible scenarios is not always that place that it should be.

[3] Start with basic things and increase complexity only step by step. Speed before perfection, you succeed quicker by failing faster and learning from those mistakes – but I also made the point Blackberry already has some potent tools avaialable for enterprise

[4] Organisational: where does mobile sit in your organisation? A silo in a silo or integrated into management and marketing. This is a key point to the life and death, success or failure of truly adapting mobile into the fabric of an organisation.

[5] Payment via mobile – a strategic opportunity – enabling payment mechanisms on the mobile is significant

[6] Identity protection – data / services / marketing = trust = $$ – and protection of data / peoples privacy whilst providing truly life enabling services is vital

[7] True Engagement in mobile – changing from an interruptive “PUSH” to a model of attraction and “PULL” is imperative

And lastly I pointed out that we had only just begun – therefore we needed to upgrade ourselves constantly in a process of evolution.