A week ago I had the honour to be invited as key note speaker at the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam (OBA) for the Unbound Book summit. The theme was the future of (e)books and its’ distribution chain. A huge topic that incorporates radical changes. It endangers the ‘old thinkers’ and provides room for new players and new paradigms.

Keeping and protecting knowledge has always been the leading principle for book industry business models. Nonetheless, with emerging technologies and changing reading & studying behaviour knowledge has never been easier to access and acquire. Online booksellers (BOL.com, ebook.nl, Ebay) deliver at home and even package the present. In addition E-books provide easy reading of everything, everywhere at every time. Due to rising demand for e-books technology content can be ordered from bookstores in the cloud. Great! No hassle, little time consumption and competitive pricing. For the free riders amongst us we can even opt for Torrent downloads… why buy an old fashioned folio format from the bookstore in your nearby shopping outlet when an online version is available for little money which can be ordered online?

Obviously a pre-historic reading or studying book has irresistible charms and remains an excellent means to consume & enjoy content but something is changing out there… and it is unstoppable.

Companies and managers working in the traditional book business often demonstrate denying behaviour, escapism or overemphasised protectionism to resist or overcome change but the harder they try to keep the sand in the palm of their hands the less sand will remain. Therefore, the credo is to embrace change and work around it sensibly.  Hence, being the first to embrace the paradigm shift provides great perspectives for obtaining first mover advantages, becoming thought leader and setting the pace.

Off course the latter is easier said than done. Favela Fabric consultants have witnessed quite a rich pool of client cases where managing change was a (major) issue and eventually acceptance provided an open window to dilemma and solution exploration.

Now, which are the underpinning dilemma’s in books industry? WOW, where should we get started…? Themes are abundantly available varying from distribution rationalisation, self-publishing, user generated content, consumer=producer, pricing, online buying behaviour, app-stores, co-studying tooling , peer2peer sharing, streaming content and cross-channel book selling (where physical bookstores function as shopping window for e-tailers).

Now the million$ question for authors,  publishers, distributors, universities, bookstores, libraries and consumers is to share insights in an organised, result-oriented manner. It is not easy but cherishing your weak ties (your far away and sometimes critical influencers), listening to your audience and entering into dialogue might provide valuable insights and new propositions.  Obviously fostering a climate of openness and making rigorous and disciplined decisions at the same time can be challenging but if you ensure that that results can be followed up, resources can be allocated and input can be commercialised the result will be encouraging.

For me it became clear that book industry has never experienced such challenging and vibrant times as nowadays.  Understandably things might look somewhat unpredictable but  as long the players in the industry  foster dialogues, interact and dare to initiate ‘deep dives’ the industry might face some great innovations and future business models.

I hope the industry picks up the glove and embarks on the inspirational exploration of  business models of 2017 through SOCIAL COLLABORATION.

While reading this, my first thought was to immediately put more effort in my online presence and collect as many followers on twitter, Facebook and Google+ as I could.  Because, if this would be the future and all companies would want to reward me for my large online network, I could buy my products much cheaper and maybe I could even earn money with it. I could become rich!

But on second thought, how credible would my message be to my virtual friends and followers if they find out I am not really interested in the brand, but instead it is all about money? And how much will that lower the value of my online network? What if this is NOT the future?

Social media will take a large role in futures’ marketing communication, but not as described above. The Californian brand presents its campaign as revolutionary, but in fact it is a normal (say classic) social media marketing campaign aiming at exposure using a classical incentive: Discount. Influencers post a message of somebody else because of discount, not because of being a fan or because it is relevant to their audience. This is not social business in which companies connect with the right and relevant influencers, listen to them and get them involved with the brand and the product; a relationship in which the company co-creates the message with the influencer to become relevant for him and his audiences.

Let’s see how this campaign could be more social business-like.

Starting with targeting the right influencers. In the campaign, anybody with a lot of friends or followers gets a large discount, even if they don’t care about what they wear or have no sense of fashion at all. Finding influencers that talk online about fashion, have a specific style and are respected for it is more valuable. So don’t let them come to you, talk to them in their social media comfort zone.

Second, setup the dialogue in which you can get to know them better and try to co-create the message and preferably also the product with them. Make your story his or hers and vice versa.

Third and last, offer more than only discount. Other motivations are more powerful.

Considering all this, I decided NOT to collect as many as possible friends and followers for my discount. I’d rather promote brands and products I really believe in.  I will be authentic and real in my message to my own audience.

Reference: http://www.volgaverdi.com/exchange.htm

Of course a network is not social by nature. What’s a network anyway? A network is a set of actors connected by a set of ties. The actors can be persons, teams, organizations, computers, etc. Ties connect pairs of actors. A network of computers is nothing more then machines that are connected to each other, and can exchange data guided by standard protocols. A network can become social if the network consists of social beings rather than computers or other artificial objects. Networks where social beings like people are involved can be social networks. The type of ties give meaning to the network. Is it a network of friends, enemies, students that work together, or employees that share knowledge to each other? Is a tie directed, undirected, dichotomous, valued? It all attributes to the social network.

So when a network of people can be considered as social, networks that have existed for ages, why would you bother analyzing these networks? We’ve started with this activity only some decades ago. Even in the field of social sciences, SNA research has lagged behind, but is now gaining in with rapid pace. One reason for analyzing social networks is to discover what’s going on. Discover patterns. In a company for example, it can be very useful to know whom is sharing knowledge with whom. Usually, companies have a formal structure. For many managers, the formal structure is how the company works, but this a oversimplified version of the reality. It tells something about who should report to who, not about what’s really going on. That alone makes an analysis very useful.

A second reason to analyse a social network, is to measure changes in the network. Changes as the effect of interventions, or changes that have occurred for different reasons. Given the purposes within organizations, some networks would probably function better than others. And given these purposes, some networks need targeted nurturing (which can be difficult because of privacy issues). Developing metrics to quantify the potential value of the network, or the level of optimization are key research areas right now. These are examples of what we as Favela Fabric are doing research on.

To come back to the original question posed in this post, a network is more than social alone. It is social because the nodes are human, and the relations in between that connect them. The network also contains value, and depending on the purpose it can be heavily underutilised, with nobody really knowing. The real social capital is not clear is many cases. Making (minor) changes in the network can harness more of the potential. What a promise, what a potential. To be continued.

So was it a simple coincidence or not? In any case it got me thinking.

What makes organizations believe that they need to “sort out their brand” before engaging in a conversation with the outside world?
Having worked for over ten years in the traditional branding industry myself, I understand, and in fact respect their hesitance and the need to address the (potential) brand issues. Back then I also used to earn a living on preaching about consistency, produced endless brand bibles and insisted that the brand police abided by every single rule in the book. Structure, coherency and apply rules & regulations to everything you do – did I mention I am German by the way?

So I used to be old school. Very branding 1.0. and now?

Around three years ago I wrote my MBA thesis on the notion of ‘co-­creation’ as a challenge to traditional brand management’. It was obvious to me that the branding world had changed. Consequently, I looked for a way to practice what I preached and I found it here in Favela Fabric’s approach of two-­way interaction and transparency, enabling meaningful conversations and collaboration. It was refreshing and challenging to see that there really is another approach to address some of the fundamental issues organizations today are faced with.

Here’s the bad news:
Believe me, your brand will never be “sorted out”, especially if you do not move with the times.

In the new era of empowered customers, you as a company are in the driving seat and it’s up to you to invite your external audience to help “sort the brand out together”. Your customers know more about your brand than any brand consultant ever will, so engaging in a large-­scale dialogue with them seems the most logical way to build and maintain relevant and appealing brands.

So go for it: Tear down the walls of them and us, allow for ambiguity and start building your brand with the only true branding experts you need – your customers.
Consider me new school now.

Just wait for Very branding 3.0 – to be continued…

Frequent changing relationships in networks is a threat to harnessing the value in these networks. In that perspective, organizations can need some help. In this post I will elaborate some more about the concept of social capital, which is in fact not so obvious at all. The assumption however is quite obvious, that there is underutilized potential in these networks.

What is this potential? Do we have to see social capital as a resource? As a possible value? If so, in what appearances? If we, like myself, see social capital as the value of networks, what do these networks look like? And what social characteristics are needed to increase or maximize their value? And how can all that be influenced for the better? These are questions that pop into my head when thinking about it. Answering some would probably make the concept and the usefulness easier to understand.

In a network there is a certain structure. This structure can be seen as who is connected to who, for what purpose, what information flows between the nodes of the network, under what circumstances, how often, and so on. Without any guidance or practice, this structure just emerges by forces that are present intrinsically. Social relationships, at least in organizations, are normally shaped and strengthened by opportunism and trust. In terms of business these relationships can proof extremely valuable, but chances are that this value is far from maximized. Some nodes in the network are probably overutilized, causing inefficiencies and can lead to too much central persons. When these persons leave the network, you can understand what happens with the flow of knowledge and information.

Professional relationships between some people or groups of people have enormous potential in terms of innovative capacity, exchange of knowledge and best practices, and so on. Too really capture the value of the network, or to harness the social capital, it can help to make use of a social network analysis. That makes it easier to evaluate the value of the network, and identify (potential) problematic areas to increase the value of the network or the social capital.

Harnessing social capital in organizations is possible as well by embedding other enabling tools in the organization. Tools that help designing some aspects of the business, relational aspects, the social network in (and between) organizations. Tools that lower transaction costs and barriers to form valuable relationships, making the formation of social networks more likely. Depending of the goals and end-products of the organization (often the customer is very important here), the business needs to be designed accordingly. Bringing the right structure between strategy and operations is where the opportunities are. A social network analysis is a good starting point.

Opposite to the many gurus who proclaim the Internet to be of force of Enlightenment, there are some influential voices claiming that the digital revolution is making us more stupid rather than less. The verdict is still out, but that should not stop one from reading the thought-provoking articles of Nicholas Carr.

We don’t know yet whether the Internet is making each of us smarter. What we do know is that the Internet is excellent at creating transparency. What we could hide from public scrutiny is now remorselessly exposed. Snippets of private life casually tossed on the web do not disintegrate in the digital ocean, but remain easily traceable. Whether we like or not, we live in a shop window with spotlights accentuating our less flattering sides.

Companies have called transparency either a necessity or a virtue. The constant scrutinizing by stakeholders, the calls for accountability on behalf of customers have forced companies to open up. Most often, a communications office would ‘manage’ openness by spinning the press and framing encounters with representatives of various constituencies. Transparency did not entail any spontaneity and therefore did not represent any substantial risk. Now the web has opened the door to a superior and far less accommodating kind of transparency.

Visionary executives embrace transparency 2.0 as a wedge to change an inward corporate culture oblivious to outside impulses. They enthusiastically launch forums, blogs and platforms to boost openness among employees and outside audiences. To their grief, they often encounter passive resistance from many corners. Apparently many people do no hail social technology as a boon for corporate prosperity. Why? The reasons often stated are a management system driven by hierarchy and information monopoly, a low-trust culture, deeply ingrained habits defying deviation and experimentation and simply the lack of time.

These are all true. We encounter these obstacles in every project and some prove to be very tenacious to overcome. But there is one obstacle that often remains unmentioned. Mediocrity. Let’s face it. Many companies have been able to thrive thanks to their sheer size and distribution and marketing power. In fact their performance standards barely made the mark, but they were able to stumble along because customers did not see any strong competitive difference or felt dissuaded to explore these. As long as companies kept reaping huge profits, there was little incentive to change.

As companies turn the spotlights on their own organization, the weak spots will surface. Company veterans have learnt how to distract attention and create fog around their under-performing projects. With thousands of eyeballs, escaping scrutiny becomes much harder. Transparency 2.0 turns mediocre performance from a nagging suspicion into a public fact. A legacy of mediocrity will spawn tactical behavior by those expecting to be held accountable. They participate sporadically in the social discourse, air their skepticism about open engagement (“we are not ready for this”) and drag their feet when asked to help implement suggestions for improvement (“we are already choked with stuff that needs to be done”). You might expect others to publicly reproach these renegades, but in a culture characterized by face-saving and conformity, this does not happen.

I am not passing judgment on the supposed laxity of the human character. Mediocrity may arise for numerous reasons, some of which are related to the social context, some of which have to do with personal drive and skills. Be it as it may, the result is the same: The objective of transparency as a lever for flexibility and cross-fertilization runs up against a collective fear of being exposed as the weak link in the chain.

Massive adoption of social tech can make us collectively smarter. There is no doubt about that. But before we can tap into our collective wisdom, we need to weed out the seeds of mediocrity. Technology in itself will not solve this. This is not a call for massive skimming of your workforce, but for a sensible, integral approach to bolster both open accountability and open trust. Meanwhile, expect to see many cases of mediocrity 2.0….

Here in the Netherlands we could vote for a new parliament, yesterday on June 9th. Our parliament is a classic example of consensus decision making, also known as the “polder model”. A key element is that the interest of the whole is more important than the individual interest. The interests are so diverse, but consensus is needed to make decisions. Otherwise the process of decision making would be unnecessary inefficient. That is exactly what is needed. People must negotiate, they must give some and take some, in order to come to a collective agreement. In the case of our new parliament, it will be a difficult task when you consider the result and the differences between the parties.

It happens all the time in the airline industry. CDM (Collective Decision Making) is even a known and accepted term there. It is based on a common situational awareness, a shared view of the constraints of the “system”. Some points that have to be agreed upon (from Center for Collaborative Planning), and are useful in many other situations:

• everyone knows how – and agrees to how – decisions are made
• ensure all members have an opportunity to participate in decision-making
• choose the right decision making tool
• understand the benefits of using consensus
• use data to make informed decisions

Then there is this threat, also known as “Groupthink”. This is a phenomenon that comes to surface when many like-minded come together. Instead of finding the best possible outcome, people focus on the consensus and strive for unanimity. This often overrides their motivation to focus on realistic outcomes, they tend to ignore important signals that should be considered in the decision making process. This is a threat for creativity and critical thinking, both needed ingredients to strive for a good outcome. Groupthink will not be a threat in the coming coalition discussions to form the new parliament…

People from many disciplines are needed in order to have a fruitful creative process. Creative processes can lead to many possible implementations or solutions for a given situation. So how do we create a situation where the best possible outcome for the whole will be realized? You can ask yourself questions like: Do we need the same people that contributed to the possible outcomes when making decisions? And how many people do we need? Do we need people that haven’t contributed before, some experts from outside, or just people with the authority to make decisions, or are empowered? Important considerations.

Collective decision making is not just possible, a diverse group of people from many disciplines is even a prerequisite to fuel the decision making process. Without that fuel, this process can not be run through optimally. In other words, to make good decisions, we need a collective. Without a diverse collective there is no good decision making. Decisions need to be accepted and internalized by all the people that are affected by it. These people should be involved when making the decisions.