When I saw this CNET article today I was reminded of the blinding pace in which business transformation now occurs. Another powerful, once ubiquitous brand faces extinction because of the continuing evolution of technology. When Netflix first launched I had no fear for Blockbuster, I am an impulsive person and I just was not going to wait three days to get a movie or plan ahead to make sure I had one for the weekend, they would always have the impulse market, right? The advent of on-demand video, streaming services and of course the ubiquitous i-Tunes video offering has made the whole concept of destination based content trips, well, quaint.
It makes you wonder what will be next? Do we need printed maps anymore in the era of Google Maps and the GPS? Obviously the Kindle and I-Pad are betting heavily in the digital distribution of novels, textbooks and magazines and do you every wonder if the guys at My Space look at Facebook and wonder how “did we screw that up”? The fact of that matter is that market leaders can rapidly by caught and passed in this era of rapid technical development. Furthermore the content and community categories are incredibly susceptible to changes in user behavior and digital distribution. It is incumbent upon market leaders to “stay paranoid” as former Intel CEO, Andy Grove used to say. Complacency is the forbearer of failure and the key ingredient to the demise of market leadership. I really admire companies like GE that make reinvention and challenging of the status quo critical elements of their corporate culture. I often wonder as a consultancy how we continue to encourage our clients to follow that path….. Would love to hear your thoughts. Sal
This recent post to the BBC Blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2010/08/bbc-online—putting-quality-f.shtml is great look into building product strategies for web media companies. Because so many media sites are for profit or publicly traded you would never see their product strategy posted publicly. The BBC being a public “service” is forced to get approval for key strategic moves and must publicly account for their decisions. I think you will find their focus on efficiencies and quality interesting and quite different in a world where “demand media economics” are dominating the discussion. Now granted they do not have the pressure of share holder return and valuation, but it is a thoughtful strategy and worthy of discussion.
Would love to hear your thoughts
I was really encouraged after reading about Nomad Editions in a recent New York Times article. The company intends to create digital magazines tailored to users specific interests. For less than 50 cents a week the user receives a “digital edition” with video, audio and two or three features. What I love about the model is that it goes beyond the generic RSS subscription experience and provides great editorial content customized for the new pad/mobile centric user.
Too many media companies refuse to let go of the old delivery paradigms and financial models. In trying to use mobile as nothing more than an audience hook to their traditional models, they are missing the fact that mobile is the new marketplace and competing in the arena will be a competitive imperative in a very short amount of time. I am anxious to see how this progresses.
Would love to hear your thoughts….
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
I usually don’t comment on technology platforms but the situation between Adobe and Apple is going to affect the entire landscape of web, mobile and pad device development. If you click on the link above you will find a open letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs that makes his case for not running Flash based products on his mobile devices. I will let him explain his position but what it means to Decision Counsel and many of our clients is that as we continue to develop products for mobile users and devices; the Apple platforms will require unique and separate development efforts. This is significant because the iPhone continues to build on its significant market share and the iPad platform has received an enthusiastic reaction from its users. In short, Apple is too big to be ignored.
The reason this presents such a pressing concern to our community is that 70% of the rich media used on the web is flash based. Additionally Adobe tools are used to produce a significant amount of the worlds web sites. While I believe PC based web browsing will not be affected by this battle, mobile device development surely will. To that end Decision Counsel has launched a mobile development initiative that will focus entirely on touch screen, mobile device and pad/tablet computing. We are going to focus primarily on i-Phone, Blackberry and Android Environments with some consideration of Windows and Symbian if they begin to gain market share. It’s time we put our money where our rhetorical mouth has been.
Whether you are just starting your mobile applications development or looking to evolve existing products, I would recommend examining this battle between Adobe and Apple, it will be a strategic issues for all of us. The silver lining to all of this is that the mobile media content market is still nascent and evolving. It would have been great if there was one master development platform that allowed us to “write once, publish to all” but it does not exist. (perhaps HTML 5 tools will evolve to that point) I hope you find the article as compelling as I did. Steve Jobs has clearly decided to challenge the industry to consider mobile a separate animal in the same way the web was considered in 1995. I remember back then we would always say “but its still just content right” we discovered it was a lot more than that back then and I think we will again.
Best Sal
Update from the Rhine River: Unless you have unlimited budget, using your U.S. based carrier is really not a long term option. We have calculated that if we used AT&T for all of our data communications on this trip we would spend between 2000 and 3000 a month and that is based on the discounted plan. The key to operating a remote office Europe is really a story in buying local communication resources. Our GSM data and telephone coverage has been phenomenal and has saved us when the satellite internet connection and land based broadband networks failed.
We are working with our hosts to figure out the monthly costs of an unlimited data and mobile plan that would take you throughout Europe and we are going to post later today.
More to come………
Update from the Rhine River: Unless you have unlimited budget, using your U.S. based carrier is really not a long term option. We have calculated that if we used AT&T for all of our data communications on this trip we would spend between 2000 and 3000 a month and that is based on the discounted plan. The key to operating a remote office Europe is really a story in buying local communication resources. Our GSM data and telephone coverage has been phenomenal and has saved us when the satellite internet connection and land based broadband networks failed.
We are working with our hosts to figure out the monthly costs of an unlimited data and mobile plan that would take you throughout Europe and we are going to post later today.
More to come………
This week, our EVP Brad Gerstein and I will be on a client trip to Europe. We arrived in Amsterdam yesterday and had a well connected day since we both use GSM phones and our hotel had very fast wifi. We are going to use this week to test numerous connectivity devices and the prospect of the globally connected enterprise. We are scheduling video conferences, creative meetings and strategy sessions this week to push the envelope on global collaboration. If you have suggestions for our “connectivity lab” let us know. More to come……
If you did not see the news Palm once again took a fall It what is proving to be a very familiar pattern, Palm introduced a innovative and useful product, failed to to get developer and carrier support and lost at the point of sale. Blackberry owns corporate, Apple owns the consumer and Nokia owns Europe, bottom line they can’t compete. Now Microsoft is coming back with the latest version of their mobile platform and it is time to see if they can play the game. Now lets start with a reality check, Microsoft has billions to invest, a desktop installed based to leverage and tons of large corporations standardized on their platform, so they have more than enough resources to weather the battle.
The problem? Microsoft can’t seem to build a system that really leverages the best of what mobile can be. If you are one of the top 5 software companies in the world you should be able to seamlessly integrate the best entertainment products, (iTunes for Windows Mobile?) best business email technologies and social media platforms. Leverage your competitors mistakes (anyone know why Apple still hates flash on mobile devices?) and utilize your expertise in gaming that you have gained form your XBox community.
Palm never did three critical things and it killed their chance for success. A. They never moved beyond Sprint with their product line and by the time they got Verizon signed up, Droid arrived and killed them. B. They never had a developer strategy that provided solid distribution for their partners and C. They could never make inroads into the corporate market. These are mistakes Microsoft does not have to repeat. Redmond has enough money to get all the carriers attention and they have a huge corporate installed base they should be able to leverage for growth. Of course they need to come up with a great alternative to the AppStore.
Google, Apple, Blackberry and Nokia are all ahead of Microsoft right now and Mr. Balmer need to catch up fast. He need only look to Sunnyvale to see the price of failure. Tell me what you think, Sal
MINSONLINE reported today that Meredith had just become the agency of record for Chrysler. While every media pundit and their grandmother has been predicting that media companies and agencies would start vying for the strategic lead with major clients; this is the best illustration that it has become a serious reality. The truth is that ‘agencies’ have lost their strategic footing. Media companies have great strategic knowledge of markets and customers segments, usually have great research and have huge databases of customers. Add creative and strategic services and you have a recipe for success. Because so many of our clients are media companies, DC started to build a partnership model 2 years ago that enables us to ‘private label’ our services to B2B media firms. It made no sense for us to invest money and resources trying to be experts in every market segment. I think many agencies are going to face the same decision we did, do you invest in the databases, content and research resources required to compete with segmented media firms or do you partner? I believe the most successful will merge or be acquired by a complimentary partner. Check out the article for yourself, I would love to hear your comments. Sal
http://www.minonline.com/news/Meredith-Takes-the-Keys-Marketing-Unit-Lands-Chrysler_12951.html
I was saddened this week as I read the coverage of Motorola’s line of Android based smart phones. As many of you know I left Motorola in the mid 90’s at the height of its cell phone and pager dominance because (and I swear this is true) the President of Motorola told our product team that “nobody will ever want to watch choppy video in 3 inch windows on their computers”. I was very bitter when Real Networks went public and pretty much “Apocalyptic” when Google bought YouTube. (So much for not carrying grudges.) Yet, I have great fondness for Motorola, they had excellent management philosophies, a love of smart technical minds and a fraternal culture that made you proud to work there. I never pursued an MBA because Motorola all but gave me a degree with extensive training, implemented best practices and access to great minds.
This week reminded me what happens to market leaders when they are unwilling to cannibalize their own products and force product evolution. I remember having brutal disagreements with Motorola senior executives as they dismissed RIM and Nokia as serious competitors and took a Henry Ford approach to selection, options and feature development. So this week they introduced a very strong line of smart phones into the market they once dominated with little fanfare, poor distribution and some earned skepticism. Blackberry has a huge installed base of North American business users, Apple has the finest consumer experience for entertainment and the best application store in mobile and Nokia has a huge global installed base of smart phone devices but struggles in the U.S., plus Palm has quadrupled their stock price with the high expectations for the Pre devices and new software platform.
So how do we prevent making the same mistakes that lead Motorola to lose leadership positions in not 1 but 2 multi-billion dollar categories?
1. Understand the competition completely. True competitive analysis is a culture not an exercise with a deliverable. Examine the new product pipeline weekly, include small market share players (Sidekick anyone?) and constantly ping users for unbiased opinions. (I recommend customer panels to all of our clients, BtoB or BtoC)
2. Don’t be afraid to shorten a product lifecycle even if you leave money on the table. Bill Walsh the famous 49er coach let Joe Montana, Todd Rathman and Ronnie Lott leave the team even though they had a couple of good years left. He felt it was better to let go of a great player too soon instead of too late. The same is true of products and services. Many publishers are facing the question of when to close print publications and transfer all of their sales efforts to online and digital programs. In some cases it means significant revenue loss that cannot be replaced for a couple of years. I would argue that if print is not making money and is not directly related to supporting ancillary revenue streams, it is better to begin the painful transaction earlier than later.
3. Don’t leave major gaps in your product line. Look at the recent success of the Flip portable video cameras. Canon, Kodak, Sony and Casio all have great products but in comes a small nice player who captures a sub $200.00 price point for video and the competition is caught flat footed. The major players kept trying to maintain higher price points with additional features instead of embracing a large segment of the market who just wanted something “good enough”.
4. Rapidly replace bad products. For all the flack that Microsoft takes for lack of innovation and bully tactics, they do recognize mistakes and rapidly respond to product failures. Windows Vista has been a big disappointment but Microsoft has rapidly accelerated the introduction of Windows 7 in an effort to minimize the damage. They did the same thing with the dreadful Windows Me and will be killing the clunky Entourage in the next version of Office for the Mac.
5. Have customers handle the testing and QA process. Some of the best QA data and features feedback we have ever received has been directly from front line users of our web sites. This was also true of our product development teams at Acer. Having customers serve as “official” development team members usually guarantees that your offerings have a better chance of gaining traction.
Tell me your thoughts…….
