From Tech to Disney to Obama: Theory on Leveraging the Organization

I am fascinated by the evolving interplay of entities, and how this interplay is enabling more productivity (often mirroring natural patterns). In this vein, I see parallels between the emerging methods of improving effectiveness of web-based software, Bob Iger's strategy that is driving recent successes at Disney, and Obama's "West Wing on steroids". Each is leveraging organizational structure in new and different ways in order to improve overall productivity.

Today web-based software must employ resources for others to build upon, enhance, tweak, and/or embed to allow the collective intelligence to grow the idea beyond what one person or one compay can do. I have written about this idea before.

In a story in the most recent Fortune (not yet online), Bob Iger's strategy at Disney to invest in brands that span across Disney's many businesses is chronicled. Take movies - family films under the Disney banner have a strong likelyhood of transferring from film to tv to merchandising and so on. However, even the larger hits fromDisney's Miramax and Touchstone production houses rarely grow revenue outside the division. Thus, he focuses on opportunities that can be amplified throughout the business. He is driving execution across the organization, greatly enhancing the profitability of single ideas / brands.

Obama seeks to enable strong leaders to manage issues that span across the various agencies of the Executive branch. "(P)roblems like global warming sprawl across several agencies, often requiring a sort of uber-Cabinet member – a czar – to confront them." Similar to Iger, he expects to tackle issues by attacking them head-on and across various agencies, holistically, instead of piece-by-piece.

Time will tell if Obama's efforts will be successful. But, given natural references, recent tech trends and Iger's success at Disney, the model has legs...

Bureaucracy Kills Innovation: WH Friends, Fight the Process!

Anne Kornblut's article on what the Obama staff is encountering as they arrive to work is a little too kitchy, and misses a critical fundamental problem with our government bureaucracy - it is not designed to keep up with technological innovation.

David Almacy, former Internet Director under Bush laments:

"The White House itself is an institution that transitions regardless of who the president is," he said. "The White House is not starting from scratch. Processes are already in place."

With all due respect to David, it is precisely these processes that must be killed. This type of bureaucracy is in direct conflict with the continued expedience of technological innovation. As the speed with which innovations arise increases, more pressure is placed upon this conflict. Either the innovation will be stifled, or the bureaucracy must fall.

White House staff members must be able to use Facebook, as 80 million constiuents are there. They must be able to use their personal email accounts, as the personal continues to intertwine with the professional. And they must remain mobile and not be tied to desktop PCs.

Allowing this institutional b.s. to bar White House staff from the tools that have become the mainstay of the young urban professional will undoubtedly stifle the innovation and enthusiasm the campaign generated, and reduce the Executive Office of the President to little more than a democratic version of the Bush administration - surely not what the country needs right now...

NYT Misses the Ball: Brand Advertising in SocNets

In yesterday's NYTimes, an article was published specifically about Procter & Gamble's use of Facebook advertising, but more generally about how traditional brand advertising is failing within social networking. Duh.

P & G is arguably one of the most sophisticated marketing operations out there, and yet their attempts thus far to advertise their brands within social networks are still rooted in traditional impression-based brand advertising.

And when they try to take advantage of new “social advertising,” extending their commercial message to a member’s friends, their ads will be noticed, all right, but not necessarily favorably. Members are understandably reluctant to become shills. IDC, the technology research firm, published a study last month that reported that just 3 percent of Internet users in the United States would willingly let publishers use their friends for advertising. The report described social advertising as “stillborn.”

The opportunity is not about "shilling", its about creating a relationship with the customer. In the previous world, attention could be attained by simply getting your logo in front of the user. Over the years, more channels were offered, but the strategy was still the same - the more impressions the more attention. However, as attention continues to fragment and channels proliferate, this "impression-based" approach is losing its effectiveness, especially within a social networking environment.

The opportunity of cultivating a brand within social networking lies in fostering an emotional relationship with your customer. This has long been a powerful yet overlooked strategy available to the average marketer. Creating an emotional bond is difficult, and can be costly given the few tactics available to drive such a strategy (prior to social networks). The power and effectiveness of impression-based advertising coupled with the high cost of generating this emotional bond pushed a relationship-based strategy off the budget. However, with the connected nature of social networks, such a strategy has become much less costly, once a chord is struck. Given the diminishing power of impression-based advertising, striving for an emotional relationship with the customer is how brands of the future must connect.

To illustrate this point, let's look at a couple brands that arguably have done a great job of creating an emotional bond with their customer, and what has happened specifically within their Facebook Page presence.

• Apple has roughly 180,000+ fans throughout various Pages within Facebook, most of which appear to be fan-created (i.e. free to Apple, or rather a result of their other relationship-driven marketing tactics).
• Five Guys Burgers, a Mid-Atlantic "fast casual" burger joint, the 300-location chain, garnered over 16,000 fans to date, presumably at no cost to the company.

Don't just show yourself to your customer, connect with them...

Update: It appears the Wall Street Journal made my argument in today's paper, albeit in a much more eloquent, in-depth manner...

What If...

What if the conversation among the Pakistani people turned in support of a thorough investigation and strong government response to the Mumbai attacks?

What if Pakistani Americans urged their friends and family still living in Pakistan to enter the conversation?

What if the Obama folks cut a list of Pakistani-Americans from their 11 million-strong supporter list, and asked them to reach out to their friends and family, and provided them a few resources to pass along to help seed the conversation?

New media can drive more than just a money and vote machine....

The New CTO: Fostering Innovation

One of the many discussions going on about President-Elect Obama's transition is that of his promise to designate a new cabinet-level CTO. While the "beltway" is focused on Secretary of State and the like, Silicon Valley and the rest of the internet / technology crowd is curious to see if Obama makes good on his promise, and what the agenda of this new entity might develop. My hope is that this new era of unconstrained innovation (led by Facebook's application platform, Apples iPhone Application environment, among others) is brought to government.

President Obama has a tremendous opportunity to tap the grassroots energy developed throughout his campaign to foster innovation within government by leveraging technology. Activate the community to innovate. Provide APIs to government data and information to enable interested parties to create applications, gadgets, etc., that improve transparency and enhance the citizens' experience with government.

If you wonder what could happen with such openness, so do I. But recent examples prove such a model unleashes a cornucopia of innovation that is beyond what a single mind can fathom. Just take the new iPhone application, Ocarina. Launched just over a week ago, the application allows you to create a flute-like melody by blowing into the iPhone microphone. You can also listen to the melodies created by others. Silly, yes. Valuable? Maybe not. But already, users have listened to over 3 million melodies.

An open innovation platform provides the opportunity for the people to go beyond their vote, in influencing government. They can have a direct hand in precisely how government executes its mision and services.

Obselete Advance Tactics

I did advance for President Clinton (event logistics management). One of the first keys you learn is to make sure the space was smaller than your crowd. If it wasn't smaller, make it at least look smaller by funneling the crowd to where the press is aiming their cameras.

All sorts of tactics can be used to help "shrink" a room, from riser placement to blocking empty areas with large flags, etc. Unfortunately, now that every attendee has a camera and the ability to post their photo on Flickr or worse, many of those tactics are not quite as effective.

Case in point: Marc Ambinder just posted this photo from a McCain rally today:


Ouch.

Social Media and the Butterfly Effect

I came across this article in the New York Times - another example of the paradigm shift in the fundamentals of communication. Johnny Lee posted a video on YouTube of his ideas on how to bring a virtual reality feel to consumers, using existing technology available via Nintendo's Wii console.

That video, together with others that Mr. Lee, now 28, posted on YouTube, have drawn people to the innovator as well as his innovations. Video game companies have contacted him and, in September, M.I.T.’s Technology Review named him as one of its top innovators under 35...

Contrast this with what might have followed from other options Mr. Lee considered for communicating his ideas. He might have published a paper that only a few dozen specialists would have read. A talk at a conference would have brought a slightly larger audience. In either case, it would have taken months for his ideas to reach others.

We are just now seeing few, isolated examples of how social media is radically changing the manner in which communication is conducted. Bring to this the Butterfly Effect, and just think how such a paradigm shift is radically changing our world...