Open comms; an admirable world of voices to listen to and to watch wind blowing data!

When we think about communications for business, were is the wind blowing? Optimists can point to the introduction of new areas powered by social technologies that somehow open business towards a relation and interaction with customers, new structures of defining strategies and change management that opens a lot of new enterprise oportunities. Pessimists can point to the continuing deluge of all negative spam attention, ever-more sophisticated phishing techniques, and of course the burdens of increased regulatory compliance, legal and difficulty to reach an audience, target customers in the right way, listen to the voices around you or your business and analyse its data and analytics.

Open Communications – Open Comms are the Next generation for collaboration

Open Communications – Open Comms – is the next generation of human communications and collaboration in any organisation leading the field in delivering new ways of communicating and creating co-creation process and synergies. I am one of the positive ones looking at it. Open Comms can and is indeed shifting the way business, organisations and contries deal with their communications. And let me tell you this is hard, difficult and new, but amazing.

Some recent stats show that 57% of businesses currently monitor online conversations about the brand, products or services, according to a recent study by Capgemini. But the reality is that 20% do not listen at all and another 23% of respondents weren’t sure whether or not the company is listening to online conversations in the same study.

This reveals the importantce of a proper communication strategy and a lot about the importance and the necessity to invest in an open communications strategy.

Why am I a defender of Open Comms?

Because I believe in creating value and listening to different voices, even when sometimes we might hear things that we don’t want to hear and that are different from our own perspectives or ideas. I believe that the only way to deliver successful strategy is challenging certainty, especially our own. When you or your business might think you’re undeniably right, ask yourself “What might I be missing here in this communication?”. And when you start listening to your clients, users, customers you might want to adpat, change or evolve. (Although I must underline this does not mean forget your core values of principles).

In a world with a huge increasing variety of principles, cultures and lack of clear hegemonies things are flowing. It is rather difficult to understand everything form one’s own perspective.And social media fast adopting technologies and tools just created a world without barries: economic, politic, financial where change and continous change and evoltion has been radical.

The market of communications has been through a revolution with an entire new industry for listening services rapidly maturing with vendors such as Radian6, Spiral16, Crimson Hexagon, Research.ly, Lithium, Sysomos, Marketing Sentinel (Skyttle) and many others improving businesses communications and monitoring consumer conversations and experiences. Nevertheless the wide array of these new communications tools and capabilities are nothing less than baffling. They somehow require proper stratgey open mind set for business and expert analysis prior to committing any significant investment of finances or organizational resources now and over time.

Some perspectives for the future of Communications = Open Communications:

– The need for an Unified Communication: from internal to external, from traditional to social;
– Open IT-Based Communications, make sure software is fast in execution
– Powerful set up in a content and SEO friendly way;
– Fixed Mobile Convenience and convergence with the advent of the mobile tablets and smartphones;
– Agile Business Process Integration towards the concept of a Open Business;
– Rich User Experience and knowledge how to navigate in the data and analytics;
– Deployment of Choices, clear transparent management capable of communicate internally and externally;

– Business Continuity and Integrity, key for a good communications, the importance of a good continuity story telling.

Maria Fonseca

Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.

The post Open comms and the future of communications? appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Ethics in Social Media Research – the privacy debate

In the market research community the discussion about data privacy and guidelines for social media research (mainly focused on listening) is peaking right now as ESOMAR, CASRO, MRS and other Market research associations have published their guidelines recently. This debate is crucial as behaviors like that of Nielsen Buzzmetrics scrapping data from patienslikeme.com, a closed Online Community on health issues, can create distrust against a whole industry. I think a discussion of ethics in Social Media Research is crucial. But that doesn’t mean I agree with everything written in the recent guidelines. And I am not the only one. A rising number of market research authorities reject and question these guidelines. For example Ray Pointer states in a recent blog post that “in several areas, ‘new’ market research is at odds with the traditional guidelines. Examples of where NewMR is at odds with the traditional ethics includes: the brand-related incentives for members of communities, the brand advocacy of community members, the changes wrought by deliberative research, and most of social media monitoring research.

Other areas where research is drifting away from the classic model of anonymity include a growing amount of customer satisfaction and most of enterprise feedback systems.” So Ray is making the point that “If market research companies abide by the old ethics, in particular anonymity and informed consent, they will not be able to compete for business in most areas where market research is growing. This is because there will be no commercial benefits that will accrue to sticking to rules and ideas that nobody else does.”

While I am really curious to see where the debate is going, I don’t want to concentrate on the privacy debate in this post. For everyone interest in the discussion I recommend to follow the public forum debate on Monday, August 22 at 12:00 EST, hosted on the MRGA 365 Virtual Event Platform http://www.marketplace365.com/registration/mrga365/

Ethics in Co-Creation – the exploitation debate

I want to share my thoughts and start a discussion about another important area of ethics in Social Media, which I think is the way we integrate and reward people in co-creation and crowdsourcing projects. There is hardly a debate on this yet from an ethical point of view, as “Co-Creators” seem to be willing to share their ideas for free or relatively low money without real commitment from the company running the initiative. But in the long-term this might change! Here is why.

#1 Co-Creators will become more selective and demanding

Happily consumers seem to love the new way of participation with companies. Last year Forrester Research asked US online adults if they want to co-create with companies. Here are some results:

• 61 percent of US online adults would consider providing input to help companies design and build new products or improve existing products (“Willing Co-Creators”).
• A majority of these “Willing Co-Creators” would participate in a co-creation engagement regardless of the product, brand, or service involved.
• 30% of “Willing Co-Creators” would only participate in co-creation efforts with their favorite products and brands.
• In 12 of the 17 industries that were included, more than half of the “Willing Co-Creators” expressed interest in co-creation engagements.

So there seems to be a reasonable number of “Willing Co-Creators”. But as the number of companies that involve consumers in the development of new products will continue to grow – as I am convinced that Co-Creation is here to stay – Co-Creators will become more selective and demanding in choosing the initiatives they want to take part in. Thus attracting Co-Creators will become harder for companies. A “War for Co-Creators” – similar to the “War for Talent” might start. Attracting the most creative and/or skilled “Co-Creators” or Lead Users (see the Lead User Method) for co-creation initiatives aimed at creating breakthroughs will become the most competitive area.

The competition will force companies to spend more effort on co-creation advertising/recruiting as well as to increase the co-creation value they offer in terms of outcomes and interaction/co-creation experience. According to social exchange theory, consumers would only participate in co-creation activities because they expect that doing so will be rewarding. But For individuals, tangibles such as goods or money, as well as intangibles such as social amenities or friendship, are rewarding. Further, not only the outcomes, but also the interaction experience itself may offer a benefit.  Thus, to make participation in Co-Creation a more rewarding experience companies need to really understand consumers’ motivations to co-create and incorporate this into their campaign design, the interaction/co-creation experience, the reward system and last but not least the company’s commitment to a co-creation initiative.

Implications:

• Be strategic today to succeed in the coming “War for Co-Creators”
• Increase co-creation value to attract Co-Creators
• Understand Co-Creators’ motivations and expectations in terms of outcomes and interaction/co-creation experience

#2 Monetary rewards as necessary condition and signal for ethics and commitment

So if the competition for Co-Creators will be more intense and we will have to increase the rewards to attract the most talented Co-Creators, how should we do that? Of course increasing rewards should include more than simply increasing monetary prices. As stated above it is about increasing the value of co-creation for the participants in terms of outcomes and interaction/co-creation experience.

But I think monetary rewards are a very important aspect of co-creation in that case as it attracts extrinsically motivated people AND it shows the company’s attitude, recognition and commitment towards collaboration with external stakeholders. Attractive rewards signal that the company doesn’t want to exploit consumers but appreciates the effort that participants invest and the (potential) value that their submissions can create. Furthermore you could argue that a company that spends a reasonable amount of money on a co-creation project is serious about it and really wants to act upon your input.

Non-cash prices, brand-or ideally project-related ones are at least as important as money. Project-related rewards, like for example a visit of the headquarters and a meeting with the team behind the project can even help to build stronger relationships with Co-Creators.

Giving Co-Creators a platform to get feedback, recognition and visibility can be very rewarding for Co-Creators. Companies making their Co-Creators famous and involving them in their communication activities offer an additional value dimension to Co-creators and profit from authentic storytelling and increased advocacy and word of mouth activities.

Mc Donald’s “Mein Burger” campaign involved the winners in TV commercials:

Tchibo Ideas give co-created products that come to market a face by also showing the Co-Creator in their catalogues:

Implications:

• Monetary rewards attract extrinsically motivated co-creators
• Monetary and non-cash prices will signal ethics and commitment
• Non-cash, ideally project-related, prices can build relationships
• Recognition and visibility of Co-Creators ads value for Co-Creators and Companies

#3 No long-term engagement without real commitment

I think that in the long-term a company’s commitment for a co-creation project makes a big difference in the “War for Co-Creators”. I want to elaborate a bit on what I mean by that. I deal with open innovation, co-creation and crowdsourcing for more than 4 years and I think I know most of the prominent crowdsourcing and co-creation cases. But I only know a few products on the market that have been co-created and marketed as such (e.g. Vitaminwaters, Dewmocracy, Walkers chips, Tchibo Ideas, Quirky). There might be a number of reasons for that like ideas that weren’t technically feasible or the estimated market potential and/or profitability didn’t fit internal criteria. But I think one major problem is that companies struggle to open up and to change culture and processes. They still experiment and often have no commitment and no defined follow-up process to bring co-created ideas to market. This might become critical in at least three aspects:

• Image: Opening up without real commitment and follow-up processes that result in commercialization will lead to a sour taste of co-creation. Consumers might start to call co-creation or crowdsourcing campaigns without commitment “crowdwashing“, meaning that companies proclaim to be open but don’t act on consumers’ ideas. More demanding Co-Creators that can choose between different co-creation initiatives probably won’t choose a “crowdwashing” one (and in case they do, they won’t do it more than once).
• Reward: The most rewarding experience is going to the supermarket and buying “your product”.  Co-Creation and crowdsourcing activities that offer this potential reward will especially attract potential lead users. Lead users have very high requirements that are not served by existing products. Thus the chance to actually use a product that solves a current problem is very rewarding for them.
• Advocacy: The Dewmocracy campaign or Mc Donald’s “Mein Burger” initiative shows impressively the energy and activation power a committed crowdsourcing campaign can generate in terms of storytelling and word of mouth activity.

Attracting co-creators and building Long-term relationships can only work if companies move away from “crowdwashing” and show commitment to their co-creation activities. Especially to build ongoing relationships with the most valuable Co-Creators and Lead users requires commitment, as they won’t continue to invest their time and passion if there is no real commitment by the company and if they think their product will never be on the market.

Implications:

• Company’s commitment drives Co-Creator’s engagement
• Crowdwashing has negative impact on image and long-term relationships
• Commitment attracts Lead Users
• Commercialisation drives advocacy

Conclusion: Being successful in the “War for Co-Creators” by “sharing rewards and risks/efforts”

When thinking about Co-Creation in the long-term I think involving hundreds or thousands of consumers and paying three of them relatively low monetary prices might not be a sustainable business model, or at least not the most promising one. I prefer to think of Co-Creators as partners. That’s why I like Roland Hardwood’s simple definition of open innovation, which is: “Innovating with partners by sharing the risks and the rewards.”

Keeping this in mind you might argue that the risk and effort of consumers participating in crowdsourcing or co-creation projects is very low, so the rewards are also rather low. BUT if the war for co-creators starts companies will need to increase rewards to attract them. By increasing monetary and non-monetary rewards, showing commitment and giving Co-Creators recognition and visibility the effort and commitment they bring into the co-creation process can be increased as well. Making co-creators part-time, co-creation partners will give you more valuable input (= insights, ideas, feedback) and drive advocacy (=awareness and sales effect through word of mouth) throughout the innovation and commercialization phase.

I see huge potential in a co-creation approach, where rewards are shared to a certain extent, based on the risk/effort and potential value of the contributors. A committed co-creation project with a reward system that lets Co-Creators earn points for all the contributions they make, based on the related effort and value, allows not only to reward innovation activities but to reward advocacy and word of mouth activities of the community even during and after launch. The rewards might even be based on a percentage of sales in the first year after launch. This is already done by Quirky, a social product development company and one of my favorite cases for a co-creation business model. The UK-based Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) GiffGaff takes a similar approach and rewards their community members’ support and advocacy activities. But even more traditional companies like Walkers, which business model is not based on their community, rewarded the winner of their crowdsourcing campaign with 50k and 1% of future sales.

To sum it up, I think Co-Creation has to be fair for both parties and should avoid to be perceived as doing crowdwashing or exploiting consumers. Companies should design their co-creation initiatives as sharing rewards and risks/efforts. Companies signaling that they are fair, by offering attractive rewards, showing commitment and giving recognition and rewards to Co-Creators’ contributions will do pretty god in the coming “War for Co-Creators”.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Be prepared for the coming ”War for Co-Creators” appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Online Activism interview with Greenpeace Social Media Team

The organisations that will succeed will use their available resources to discover people who care about the same things they do and bring them together to achieve shared goals. Charities demonstrate the model. The cause-related enterprise, the belief-driven business – an organisational model which places the customer at the heart rather than at the end of the line. Belief delivers life-long and inter-generational affinity, passionate activism harnessed for common goals. Open Business Council interviews Laura Kenyon from Greenpeace and goes through these topics.

Interviewed with Greenpeace’s Laura Kenyon

Laura Kenyonis the Digital Communications Specialist at Greenpeace, whose use of social media has caused some of the largest companies to reverse their policies whilst knocking size-able figures off their share-value. If you haven’t seen any of their work check it out. I’ve listed some in the ppt above.

openbusinesscouncil.org: What you think the consequences of social media are to corporations today?
Greenpeace’s Laura Kenyon: Just as corporates are establishing large social media presences, activists are also establishing online spaces to hold them to account. Social media empowers people and amplifies their voices – this can take the form of demanding change from corporations whose business practices or policies are environmentally destructive. Corporations need to be accountable to society and their customers, and therefore they need to listen, respond and engage with people’s desire for a green and peaceful future – both online and offline.

openbusinesscouncil.org: How do you see your role and that of Greenpeace in this context? 
Greenpeace’s Laura Kenyon: Greenpeace aims to be an agent of change, we want to enable people to demand a better world and social media helps us do that. Millions of people have been able to participate in our campaigns online, and the personal actions of a motivated online supporter base were vital to successes such as Nestle’s commitment to changing its palm oil sourcing policies, or Apple’s agreement to remove toxic substances from its products.

openbusinesscouncil.org: What conclusions do you make for the future?
Greenpeace’s Laura Kenyon: Greenpeace will maintain a strong presence in social media – using the latest tools and communication channels where it is effective to challenge those who are involved in environmental destruction. We hope to empower more people to have civil courage and to amplify their voices when they speak out against injustice or for a better world. We are facing huge challenges in the environmental movement and will need every person and every tool available to us to keep moving forwards. Social media will no doubt continue to have an important role to play.

Many companies will and should be worried by this language. It may cause them to shift more spend into social media to combat it. But there is no company with enough money to beat the voice of the Internet just like there is no Government powerful enough.

So this is the new reality large companies are facing. But its clear the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. This is no longer about spending your way to a better reputation. It’s about building a better company – with your customers.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Open business: Online Activism interview with Greenpeace Social Media Team appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Research is critical for business. The systematic investigation about what is necessary for a given business, product, audience is something that any organisation needs to bear in mind, namely in a social media world. This can also be done though a concept of Open Research: a study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach the necessary conclusions about business.

Open Business Council in the ever increasing competitive landscapes, blurring and with bigger consumer demands is working and defends an open business approach with focus in agility. This is the only way for business’ capability to adapt rapidly and cost-efficient to that landscape and its target audiences. This is a critical area where the enablers – social media and co-creation – fuel business agility through continual innovation.

Social media as a doorway for opening up business

y using social media as a doorway and opening up business, entities that actually force/create the changes in demands are involved, to swiftly act and react with them and their intelligence. This applies to any supply- and value chain. When speaking about intelligence, this can be consumer insights (their needs and current experiences, market intelligence and competitive intelligence.

As resources spend in digital peer-to-peer environments rise, it is necessary a rapid and consequential change in the digital and social marketing way of management for organizations. Business needs to be open and to take control – to get serious with his propositions and efficient. The organization as a whole: infrastructure, work flows, stakeholders, technologies and so on, needs to be reconfigured and enhanced where needed for cost-efficient and effective social media usage. As soon as as the groundwork has been laid, it’s time to bring in the continual innovation process.

Continual innovation as the driver for business

Continual innovation “may be the most powerful of any competitive advantage for a business. It creates game-changing breakthroughs. Along parallel lines, bit by bit, it also tweaks improvements in existing products, chips away at costs and debugs processes — in every corner of the company, all non-stop. In a turbulent business environment like today’s, it’s essential for helping a business move from playing defense to playing an aggressive, and winning, offense.” Take this and overlay it with social media and co-creation, real-time consumer insights that can be extracted, molded and poured back into the right supply chain.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Open Research: consumer demand and business agility appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

What makes an effective Digital Strategy and Planning?

Open Planning comes associated with the concept of a solid Digital strategy in a social business environment. Being the definition of Digital associated to the idea from strategy: the process of specifying an organization’s vision, goals, opportunities and initiatives in order to maximize the business benefits for its digital investments.

In the fields of strategic management, marketing strategy and operational strategy Open Planning is a new concept we want to present as a way of preparing an effective planning of digital efforts for a given business. These efforts can range from an enterprise or organisation focus, which considers the broader opportunities and risks that digital strategies potentially creates. A solid digital strategy and planning has to include a solid insight into customer intelligence, collaboration processes, new product/market exploration, sales and service optimization, the right enterprise technology architectures, a clear and open innovation and governance. Having this in consideration can augment the results of Planning.

Open Planning some areas to highlight in a Digital Strategy

In order to have a strong digital strategy and aim towards the concept of Open Planning some areas to highlight:

1. Be focused to a given audience, network: Identify and find its key influencers and map it;
2. Understand the interactive DNA of web and social networks as a basis for planning;
3. Understand how to match the design of a given message with the perception and network of its audience;
4. Focus in creation, evaluation and implementation of ideas which delivers results;
5. Measure analytics, data, its value and what it is exactly worth;
6. Work in the long term engagement loop and how to exploit it;
7. Develop a regular calendar and programme for continuous activity and its improvement;
8. Evaluate clear KPIs and the way to ROI and ROA achievement.

A good Planning for a Digital strategy seeks to bridge the gaps between technology, the creative idea, in order to reach the right user. This has to be done with well-defined business objectives and a clear undertansing of the brand story telling.

In the present digital realm, individuals, brands, corporations, governments all participate. Social Media technology is converting viewers into active users. Thus any user is a potential advocate. Though advocacy doesn’t come with risk and responsibility, and it is not free. The creation of value comes associated with a compelling evangelism. Ultimately a digital strategy is planning the best way on how to reach an audience and have them stand to a given purpose.

The objective of Open Planning

Failling on planning a process is a problem that stops building a brand and its business. Failling in planning will not enable effective participation and utility to consumers. So the objective of Open Planning for a strong digital strategy is to create an order to unlock the value for brands. This process has to define the creating of a generous interactions for brands, businesses and their products and services.

So planning an effective Media needs to be driven by the language of actions and demands clear input on what is being required to people to do with the brand and its ideas. This in an open way that the social media graph ultimately highlights.

Identifying the digital strategy for a business and its engagement is a powerful opportunity thus it requires:

1. Understanding the business purpose that the digital planning can help solve
2. Be open and listen to consumers who talk about and use brands
3. Identify consumer needs in a given category/brand and define the role it wants people to play in its ideas, and the role of digital within the mix
4. Find the best solutions to the business problem, focusing on end user value and participation.
5. Listen, listen! to the consumer needs and reaction(s), and analyze previously defined participation paterns and metrics

Open Planning is about creating the best digital strategy for the right empowerment of a given industry, its customers and do it though the open business DNA that engages employees, the consumerization of technology, and grass-roots-based, tech-enabled innovation and solutions.

Maria Fonseca

Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.

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