Internet Changes Everything

iPod fans 'shunning iTunes store'

BBC NEWS | Technology | iPod fans 'shunning iTunes store'

Despite the success of Apple iTunes, few people stock their iPod with tracks from the online store, reports a study.

The Jupiter Research report reveals that, on average, only 20 of the tracks on a iPod will be from the iTunes shop.

Far more important to iPod owners, said the study, was free music ripped from CDs someone already owned or acquired from file-sharing sites.

The report's authors claimed their findings had profound implications for the future of the online music market.

Ripped disks

They estimate that during 2006 Europeans will spend more than 385m euros (£260m) on digital music - the majority of this spending will be on tracks from Apple's iTunes store.

However, the report into the habits of iPod users reveals that 83% of iPod owners do not buy digital music regularly. The minority, 17%, buy and download music, usually single tracks, at least once per month.

On average, the study reports, only 5% of the music on an iPod will be bought from online music stores. The rest will be from CDs the owner of an MP3 player already has or tracks they have downloaded from file-sharing sites.

The report warned against simple characterisations of the music-buying public that divide people into those that pay and those that pirate.

"It is not instructive to think of portable media player owners, nor iPod owners specifically, as homogenous groups," warned the report.

It said: "Digital music buyers do not necessarily stop file-sharing upon buying legally."

The importance of "free" to digital music fans should not be underestimated, warned the report, and should be a factor for newer digital music firms, such as Spiral Frog, which use an ad-supported model.

Perhaps the only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music - especially CDs.

"Digital music purchasing has not yet fundamentally changed the way in which digital music customers buy music," read the report.

September 16, 2006 at 01:33 PM in Cluetrain | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Deconstructing the Conversation Part 0

Ok, this, from Horsepigcow is something I will need to spend more time on. I appreciated this book enough to make it a category, and now its being "de-contructed"!

Dave Rogers has published 'Deconstructing the Conversation Part 0' as a follow-up to his original, discussed by both Dave Weinberger and Doc Searls (and me).

September 20, 2005 at 01:10 AM in Cluetrain | Permalink | TrackBack (37) | Top of page | Blog Home

Rumsfelds Cluetrain Memo

Strathlachlan: Rumsfeld's Cluetrain Memo

I loved the the Rumsfeld memo the other day, and being a "Rummy" fan I thought he was completely misunderstood.

Now thanks to Strathlachlan I understand why I liked the memo. Cluetrain has stuck with me since it was written, and especially the "markets are conversations" piece. Strathlachlan articulates well here that all Rummy is trying to do is start a conversation.

He has been trying to change the DoD for decades, and most recently in the period right before the Afganistan war. However the war got in the way, and the diehard military are too busy "doing to job" to consider that they might be a better more effective way to win the war, with greater emphasis on special forces, and intel and less on brute force. intel is why they always fail in the aftermath ... they don't understand the mindset of the locals, and in todays war you have to be able to work with them post war. Rumsfeld understands that, and thats all he is asking.

The bad news is that it appears no-one wants to talk, and this is typical of organisations, who only want good news, and few want to here the good, bad and ugly, and debate it.

USATODAY.com - The Rumsfeld memo

Below is the full text of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memo on the war on terror:

October 16, 2003

TO: Gen. Dick Myers
Paul Wolfowitz
Gen. Pete Pace
Doug Feith

FROM: Donald Rumsfeld

SUBJECT: Global War on Terrorism

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

With respect to global terrorism, the record since Septermber 11th seems to be:

We are having mixed results with Al Qaida, although we have put considerable pressure on them — nonetheless, a great many remain at large.

USG has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis.

USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban — Omar, Hekmatyar, etc.

With respect to the Ansar Al-Islam, we are just getting started.

Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection and confidence in the US?

Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global war on terror?

Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

Do we need a new organization?

How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?

Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder we get"?

It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.

Does CIA need a new finding?

Should we create a private foundation to entice radical madradssas to a more moderate course?

What else should we be considering?

Please be prepared to discuss this at our meeting on Saturday or Monday.

Thanks.

October 25, 2003 at 10:15 PM in Blogging & feeds, Cluetrain, Corporate Blogging | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

cluetrain manifesto

cluetrain manifesto

One of my favourite books because a) it was so revolutionary few "got it" and b) the magic phrase "markets are conversations".

"That's how I discovered PR doesn't work and that markets are conversations"

Markets are conversations stuck with me since 99, but its taken me a while (4 years) to figure out what to do with it. Where are the tools? We could have used usenet, but we really don't need a Microsoft whine line.

Blogs are a start and the tools which support blogs are definetly a start. I am still not clear on how this crazy thing will evolve but I am firmly on the side that says it will evolve and those who get it will succeed.

More to come on this.

Markets Are Conversations by Christopher Locke
GURTEEN - Story: Markets Are Conversations by Christopher Locke

Author(s)
Christopher Locke

Source
The ClueTrain Manifesto

First Published
2000

Copyright
© 2000 Christoper Locke

Categories
Dialogue

Country
United States

All you marketeers. If you have not discovered The ClueTrain Manifesto by now. Buy it and read it today. Do not delay! The following short story is taken from the opening chapter. It spells the slow but inevitable death of marketing as we know it! Note - the words and phrases that I've bolded.
Communication is a powerful tool. And like any other powerful tool, it has been pressed into the service of business-as-usual. A few years after my stint in Japan, I ended up back in the United States, hired by an AI software outfit to be their director of corporate communications. Cool, I thought. That sounded important. I had no idea what it meant. Only later did I discover I'd become their PR guy. Bummer.

I was pretty naive back then, but I quickly figured out that public relations was perceived by the press — the people I was supposed to be talking to — as little more than thinly disguised hucksterism. I tried playing the high-tech huckster role precisely once and came away from the experience feeling dirty, phony. I couldn't bring myself to do it again, which was a big problem. It was my job. And I needed the money. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

The "key messages" of any AI software company back then involved head-bangingly abstruse concepts like "heuristics," "backward chaining," and "nonmonotonic logic." Very deep. And very boring. I barely understood this jargon myself. How was I supposed to get on the phone with some total stranger and enthuse about The Product? The truth was, I didn't give a damn about the product. What I cared about was knowledge, how people acquired and used it, how organizations suddenly seemed to need a lot more of it, and why. What I cared about was how technology applied — or didn't — to the world of business and the actual people who worked there.

So instead of pitching the product, I started talking to journalists about stuff like that. I figured I'd just pretend to be working until I got fired for goofing off. But something amazing happened. As soon as I stopped strategizing how to "get ink" for the company that was paying my salary, as soon as I stopped seeing journalists as a source of free advertising for my employer, I started having genuine conversations with genuinely interesting people.

I'd call up editors and reporters without a thought in my head — no agenda, no objective — and we'd talk. We talked about manufacturing and how it evolved, about shop rats and managers, command and control. We talked about language and literature, about literacy. We talked about software too of course — what it could and couldn't do. We talked about the foibles of the industry itself, laughed about empty buzzwords and pompous posturing, swapped war stories about trade shows and writing on deadline. We talked about our own work. But these conversations weren't work. They were interesting and engaging. They were exciting. They were fun. I couldn't wait to get back to work on Monday morning.

Then something even more amazing happened. The company started "getting ink." Lots of it. And not in the lowly trade rags it had been used to, but in places like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. One day the CEO called the VP of Marketing into my office.

"What has Chris been doing for you lately?" the CEO asked him.

"I'm glad you brought that up," said the marketing veep. "In the whole time he's been here, he hasn't done a single thing I've asked him to."

"Well..." said the CEO looking down at his shoes — here it comes, I thought, this is what it feels like to get sacked — "whatever it is he's doing, leave him alone. From now on, he reports to me."

That's how I discovered PR doesn't work and that markets are conversations.

October 25, 2003 at 10:05 PM in Cluetrain | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Innovate or die

MIS | Magazine > Innovate or die

There is an unseen and misunderstood power within internet which was quite well captured in the Cluetrain Manifesto when they said "markets are conversations". It was an obtuse statement at the time, but blogs are starting to bring home the truth in it now.

Companies like AMP are starting small things which will begin to create payback if they do it right.

Some of the highlights of their efforts:
- CIO as champion of the innovation practice
- Close tie in with Employee Communication and Knowledge Sharing function
- Internal "Intrapreneurs" who mentor/champion change in business
- An internally developed intranet-based capture and tracking tool, as a forum for ideas and suggestions
- ‘conversation cafes’ to act as brainstorming forums to generate new ideas
- A Reward program focusing on intrinsic (public praise, exposure to new opportunities, career growth), rather than extrinsic (ie cash) rewards

Innovate or die
MIS | Magazine > Innovate or die

By Helene Zampetakis

Troubled AMP finds the pursuit of innovation pays dividends in improved staff engagement. Unleash the ‘intrapreneur’ and boot up the ‘conversation cafes’.

There has been precious little good news for embattled Aussie icon AMP of late. Its share price plummeted from a high of more than A$19 in March 2001 to now hover around the A$5 mark.

AMP’s story is not unique. Rather, it has joined a long list of Australian corporations undone by failed global growth strategies. The company is now de-merging from its under performing UK operations, now called Henderson, aiming to raise A$2 billion and write down A$2.6b in assets in the process. But earnings outlooks from CEO Andrew Mohl remain bleak.

While these corporate strategies are being played out in boardrooms and regulators’ offices in the UK and Australia, at the coalface here, AMP is following through on an innovation initiative instigated by former CEO Paul Batchelor.

Sparks of genius are random and unpredictable, yet many organisations seek a formula for innovation to help them stand out from their competitors. For most, applying a formula is as far as they go but while many companies pay lip service to innovation, a few have gone a step further to create a culture of innovation. They include Carter Holt Harvey in New Zealand, Hydro Tasmania, TAFE in the Hunter Valley and AMP Financial Services (AMP).

Early last year, AMP began putting together the ingredients for creative thinking in a move that has already demonstrated some promising results. Among them is an estimated 100 per cent return on investment, a staff engagement of 25 per cent and a coveted finalist’s position in the MIS Innovations Awards 2003.

Considering the payback, AMP’s move to become more innovative was timely. The company’s innovation program has injected an upbeat mood during a period of unsurpassed anxiety in the workplace.

Head of innovation Annalie Killian says the project had a slow beginning because of this.
“There was a lot of fear and worry around that created a lot of noise, so it was hard to engage people often,” she says, although she adds that change is hard to implement even in boom times.

“Getting the innovation wheel cranking is damn hard. Many organisations run this only as part of research and development,” says Killian. “Here we are trying to get it as part of the organisational culture – and this is fairly new in Australia.”

CIO as champion
The project began when former chief executive Paul Batchelor asked a team of senior executives to examine best practice in innovation around the world. AMP’s CIO Lee Barnett was one of the team and became its champion.

“I decided innovation was important – not just the ideas but what it does to enhance a culture and foster collaboration and staff engagement, especially when that culture is risk averse,” she says.

As a result, Barnett set up a small unit to spearhead innovation within the IT department, with the blessing of AMP’s managing director, Craig Dunn. It is seen as a test-bed for other departments, although Barnett says AMP is unlikely to consider expanding the initiative before early next year.

Although it was simply fortuitous that the innovation program was seeded in the IT department, Barnett says it offers a great value proposition for technology.

“In AMP, IT has been through an enormous amount of change in the past few years,” she says. “The IT investment bubble has burst so people have to be smarter and cleverer about the way you work at the front end, to manage with a lower budget.”
AMP has also experienced significant headcount reduction due to reduced project spend in IT.

Tight unit
Against this background, Barnett set up the unit with a budget of just A$50,000 and a staff of two – head of the unit, Annalie Killian, and a full-time engagement officer. Killian was appointed to the role alongside her responsibility for employee communication and also recently inherited the Knowledge Sharing function.

“There is a logical fit and overlap among these functions – they are complementary,” she says. “It’s really about how we return greater value from our intellectual assets, both people and systems.”

Despite the financial constraints, working on the smell of an oily rag had some benefits. Killian says if she had been allocated a “fat” budget she would have taken a different route that may not have been sustainable during lean times.

“It has been constraining but it has forced us to think differently,” says Killian. “Because we didn’t have a huge budget, we were forced to be innovative to get more mileage and that resulted in us being more sustainable.

“I’ve worked before in organisations that employed in-house consultants for special projects and as soon as the business contracted, the whole project imploded,” she says. “What we really needed was to drive this through people’s normal day jobs.”

Essentially, Killian aimed to engender a culture that was by nature innovative so that it didn’t have to be shored up by costly coaches and other third parties.

“I saw my brief as making innovation top of mind and systemic for AMP to the point that it penetrates the consciousness of everyone and gives them an opportunity to innovate in their everyday jobs in a way that’s woven into their daily activities.”

She took suggestions from a report put out initially by the executive team that identified common traits and drivers for innovation around the world, with pointers to how it may be implemented in AMP.

A key recommendation was ‘intrapreneurship’ or the creation of mentors who would champion change in the business. These are volunteers who offer to undertake the role of mentor on top of their normal jobs.

Most are selected from middle management because they have the benefit of both practical skills and a big picture view of the business, says Killian.

Volunteers are given special training in creativity once a fortnight that includes programs from thinking skills specialists such as Edward de Bono, Mind Mapping and Zing.

Innovation evolution
Aside from this, the program has evolved rather than followed a roadmap, according to Barnett. “It has been something of a journey – there is no instant answer,” she says.
Killian began the evolution by turning the wheel of ideas.

“Innovation is very random and unpredictable. You can’t bottle it or create a recipe for it,” she says. “But one of the ways of letting innovation happen organically is to get people from different disciplines to spark one another off. A logical starting point is to create mechanisms for ideas to be heard and acted upon.”

A critical aspect for success is the forums should provide a safe environment to air new ideas.

“Trust is fundamental because there is a huge element of personal risk taking and failure involved,” says Killian.

To start with, AMP’s Web development team created an intranet-based capture and tracking tool, which was called Circul8, as a forum for ideas and suggestions.

Killian then stipulated a proviso for posting ideas: each suggestion must be accompanied by a quick one-page business case and the author has to take responsibility for pushing it through to its conclusion. “That focuses people on thinking the idea through,” she says.

Once accepted, the author is assigned an intrapreneur because, says Killian, “we recognise it is hard to implement new ideas and cut across bureaucracy”.

AMP also set up ‘conversation cafes’ to act as brainstorming forums to generate new ideas. This is how they work: the unit advertises discussion of a particular topic on the intranet. On the assigned day, interested people from across the business form groups of four to six around a table to discuss the topic and record their ideas on paper tablecloths or butchers’ paper.

After 10 to 15 minutes, they rotate, leaving one person as an anchor to provide continuity, and the new group drills down further on the topic. Outcomes are published on the intranet. “This has spread like wildfire,” says Killian.

Both these forums have generated a slew of good initiatives. Some are simple but smart – such as the idea to reduce the font on printed-paper so that two screens can fit into a single page, thus saving paper costs.

Others need to be taken further, such as to reduce the default calendar time on Lotus Notes from 60 minutes to 30 minutes in order to reduce time spent in meetings.

Although they spring from the IT department, some initiatives cut across the entire organisation, such as the no-email day, which was designed to remind people of other forms of communicating internally.

Ideas with far reaching implications must be endorsed at top level: the author of the idea presents a five-minute business case to directors at AMP’s executive meetings and it is ratified or rejected on the spot. Line managers then fund the new initiatives. Killian says the value proposition is usually clear to them.

Another key advance has been to introduce a mechanism to monitor and reduce the IT infrastructure expenditure.

The initiative, which cut costs by 10 per cent in 2002, saw AMP gain a finalist position in the Outsourcing category at the MIS Innovation Awards 2003.

As well as generating new ideas, the unit seeks ways to look at problems as opportunities through a newly launched initiative called Program Unexpected Value.

Rewarding system
An important aspect of fostering an innovative culture is to reward innovative behaviour. Given its tight budget, the Innovation Program does not offer material rewards for participation but instead it celebrates innovators and the group of intrapreneurs who act as innovation evangelists across the teams.

“For example, these people were all publicly praised at an all-employee event last week and they are getting exposure to many other opportunities, which supports their career growth,” says Killian.

The effort has started to pay off, but only just recently. During the past three months, the pace of ideas has accelerated. “We now have about 25 per cent of our IT employees involved. We’re now averaging an idea per day on Circul8 and it’s increasing.”

So much so that Killian now wonders whether the model she created can support current growth.
By the end of this year, Killian plans to have undertaken a cost benefit on the unit’s ROI, although she believes the cost of the unit has already been “more than twice” returned.

Nevertheless, she stresses cost savings are not the only drivers of the program.

“Operational results overall are improving and innovation will play a big role but to make a linear connection would be difficult,” she says.
CIO Barnett adds it’s too early to declare the initiative an unqualified success although, she says, “it is certainly looking healthy”.

“We have just about got our momentum,” she says.

September 23, 2003 at 02:11 PM in Business Models, Cluetrain | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home