Even without claiming to be the mayor of Amsterdam, I had the honour to take part in the extraordinary TEDxAmsterdam ‘09. I am still recovering from the overwhelming combination of inspiration (450 talented ‘parents of promising mind childen’) and location (the impressive Royal Tropical Institute).
What happened that day? I have been touched by passionate ‘game changers’- struggling to ’sell’ their sustainable solutions - and I empathized with their persistent drive to realize their ideas.
Every TEDxAmsterdam ‘coffee break’ meant energetic interaction with fascinating people, having three things in common:
A common sense of urgency: Things need to change in a fundamental way to transform from the era of extracting value to the era of genuine value exchange;
A common passionate attitude: Enough spirit, creativity, ideas and energy to ’reset’ our society; to create sustainable ‘eco systems’;
A common belief: The impossible is possible. "If you think you are too small to make a difference...try sleeping in a room with a mosquito"(African proverb).
Making the impossible possible can only happen if every individual acts. I would like to thank Jim Stolze, Marian Spier, Monique van Dusseldorp, Paul Rispens and the team of volunteers for acting; for realizing the TEDxAmsterdam idea.
Let it be a starting point for a new era; an era in which we exchange value instead of extract value. An era in which we have the ability, and should take the opportunity, to optimize our (eco) systems, technology and currency to humans, rather than optimizing humans to them.
Transscript TEDtalk Frans Timmermans: I want to talk to you today about fear. Because you know, fear can be fun! Look at the way captain Jack Sparrow steps in and out of death. And makes a better future for himself. Look at the way the two hyenas in the Lion King enjoy the shivers they along their spines when they pronounce the word ‘Muphasa’. And look at the way your children react when they’re told bedtime stories written by the brothers Grimm with all the horrible elements: They love it! H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Steven King, and even the rather less inspired makers of Evil Dead I to X. They all know that fear can be very, very exciting. Fear is also - potentially – a strong political force. If fear is combined with the knowledge that there is a way out, that there is a solution, it can unleash forces unknown to man itself. A beautiful example of this is President Kennedy’s ‘moon speech’. When he knew that the Soviets had an advantage on the US they were afraid that this would lead to military dominance of the Soviet Union. Kennedy said: “We’ll put a man on the moon.” And this unleashed an incredible force in American society. And he said: “We’re not doing this because it’s easy; we’re doing this because it’s hard. And when you do things that are hard, you can show what your worth. You can show how much force, how much imagination, how much creativity you can unleash in your own society. At the same time, there is another side to fear. Fear can also suffocate. It can paralyse. It can make you stay in the same spot and not want to move again. Fear is - if it is turned into a political commodity – also something that can paralyse whole societies. You often hear that European culture - European values - could dissolve like a lump of sugar in a cup of tea. Because a foreign element introduced into our society is lost. Today, people like Christopher Caldwell, Mark Stein, Bruce Bauer, they all argue that Europe will disappear, our values will go under. And they only have one solution for this: ‘the Other’ should disappear. Physically, leave. Or should disappear by becoming exactly like us. Those are the only two solutions they see for Europe to survive. I think that is incredible. Because in Europe we are with so many. Our ideas are so powerful. Our diversity is such a source of strength that one wonders how it is possible that these writings can lead to such a low level of self-confidence. That you would think that a minutely small minority of people who want to impose their ideas on you could do so successfully. But that is what their fear, what the negative side of fear can do to you. In our times, on our continent, we face a huge choice. Because of what fear does. The fear of those who think there’s no way out. The fear of those who think we will disappear. Jonesy. Do you know who Jonesy is? Lance-Corporal Jack Jones is a great character in a series called Dad’s army. He was a First World War veteran. He was the only true soldier in the band of Dad’s army. He always portrayed himself as a First World War hero. But as soon as something happened that was scary, he would start running around frantically and say: “Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” And this is what we are doing today. This is what the bad fear is doing to our society. The choice we face in our society in our time is whether we want to be Captain Jack Sparrow or Lance-Corporal Jack Jones. A pretty clear choice. Why? Because we face a daunting challenge. Perhaps the biggest challenge humanity ever faced. We need to redefine the relationship between man and his natural environment. For the first time in humanity, the presence of the earth and its resources is no longer self-evident and determined. We have to be more careful with how we deal with the earth. We have to take into account an ever-increasing population. A population we need to feed. We need to provide stability. Prosperity and peace. And this is a daunting challenge. The bad news is: we will have to rethink everything we do, on a very personal level. How we live our lives. But we also have to rethink politics, rethink governance, and rethink our organisational structures. The nation-state can no longer solve all these problems. And governance is needed on continental level, on global level. This means we have to go back to the drawing board and convince people that things need to change in a fundamental way. That’s the bad news. The good news though, is that it can be done. It is not a scientific challenge. It is not a technological problem. The technology is out there, science has invented the solutions. It is a political problem! Do we have the guts to face this and do the right thing? To apply the knowledge that has been invented to improve. And to make sure that this earth can feed nine billion people. That this earth can create stability and prosperity for all. It is pretty obvious that if we don’t apply the existing technology, if we fail, if we drop the ball, what happens is that humanity will face natural and man-made disasters. And all our efforts, all our efforts, will be directed at managing disasters rather than creating opportunities. Do you know the Cracken? Jack Sparrow’s enemy, the beast in the sea with all his tentacles. This Cracken has far more than just one tentacle. Our society is affected by the speed of developments worldwide which are brought into your living room instantly. There is no avoiding that. The speed of change also comes to your country very quickly. As societies change rapidly. Far more rapid than ever before in human history. And the speed of this change, the proximity of the problems, the proximity of ‘the Other’, of difference, is another driving force of fear. Sometimes paralysing fear. One can see it all through European history. Fear of the other. Every time we face change Europeans look at the other. Every time we go back to the drawing board and relations are changed, either in society or between groups or between countries or maps are redrawn, Europeans look at the other, without comprehension. Is he a friend or is he foe? Is he out there - to put it in modern terms – to take away my values? To impose his views? To push me out of my own position? And have we been abandoned by the elites? Where are they? Why don’t they come and help us? Have we seen the threat of different people coming to our society who want to move in a different direction, without the liberty and freedom that has been cherished in this city since the 17th century? And what about the fear-mongers. Politicians have found that fear is a great political commodity. Perhaps the most successful political commodity in Europe today. These fear-mongers will answer these questions with: “Yes! Yes, this is what’s going to happen” What they will do is to tell people bed-time stories - after locking their doors and chasing the neighbour away from their backyards - tell them bed-time stories about a past that never was, to seduce them to believe in a future that will never be. That is what is happening a lot in Europe today. We politicians - but also those people who are dismissed as the elite - we have such an incredibly weak response to this challenge. What you see is that people react by dismissing the fears as irrational, as nonsensical. Which is a force. People see that the threats are real. People know – or feel intuitively – that their position is under threat, that it is not a done deal that we will always prosper. That our wealth will always stay. It is not a done deal that we will have a better future than today’s present. It is not a done deal that we will have peace and prosperity in our society. Look at the dimension of the threats, of the challenges. It is idiotic to dismiss these fears people feel as irrational. Because they’re true, they’re real, be honest about this: it could happen if we don’t act. The second response is to mimic the fear-mongers. To say: “Okay, they’re popular with the electorate, let’s just adopt their agenda, in part, let’s be ‘fear-mongers light’. That doesn’t work either. The third response - and frankly that is what I see a lot in your circles - is a sort of come together and hold hands and say: “We’re the ones who are right, we’re the ones who understood, they’re all wrong. Yippiyayee.” That doesn’t help either. That does not help. We need to face realities in society. We need to look the Cracken in the eye. We need to do what Jack Sparrow does and say: “Hello beasty!” Because look at society today and what is the challenge of politics? People have become very eclectic in their choices. They become eclectic in their personal choices. Their fashion is no longer the same all over, is no longer determined by their social group. Their taste in culture is different. And even in certain cities like Amsterdam and other urban areas, you can be eclectic about your identity. You can choose different elements of different identities and construct your own. That’s a wonderful thing! It’s a wonderful element of our liberty. And people become eclectic in politics as well. They pick and choose from different ideologies and ideas. And they construct their own set of values, set of political ideas. Politics has a problem with that, because political parties - certainly in the Netherlands - are still organised along the lines of the society that was, but is gone. Politicians are still thinking that we have this complete set of values that cater to one group in society or people with one belief. The end of the European divide had also an enormous influence on this. The end of the European divide meant an end to the ideological dichotomy in the world. It was so easy to have these two poles - capitalism and communism. Groups of people and individuals in political parties could position themselves somewhere is between those two poles. And say, this is our spot. Closer to this, a bit away from that, and so be recognisable. The ideological dichotomy is gone and it has been replaced not by ideological confrontation but a confrontation based on identity. The foe is he or she with another identity. Because people need something to lean against or to set a difference with. And this is dangerous in society as I described before. With all its rapid changes etc. And we as politicians need to be far more aware of this, especially on the left side of the political spectrum that I represent. Conservatives have always been eclectic; hanging on to power is the main reason. Then you can be eclectic about values, eclectic about positions. Because you construct a set of values that caters to the time. And to the left, ideology has always been less important. But the left needs to reinvent its ideology. Based on a good analysis of society and the voters. To get rid of this attitude: “Here we are. This is where we stand. The voters are somewhere out there. Let’s wait until they’ll come and see us.” No, we need to go out there; we need to be with people, talk to people, and confront them with their fears. Politicians have turned into providers of goods and services: ‘I have an itch, please come and scratch’. We are something like the service-provider of a phone company. You call them when something is wrong. You rather expect them not to respond. Or to respond very briefly. And perhaps to provide you with a small service and slight discomfort. And you put the phone on the hook and you forget all about them. We have as a people in Europe outsourced governance and politics to a cast of - perhaps clever and able – people, but it is a fundamental flaw in our political system. We need to go back to the situation where there is one question we ask every individual citizen: What are you going to do about it? And we need to make sure that there is one response we cannot accept: ‘call my MP’. We need to make choices in our lives on individual basis, on societal basis. Even on a global basis. And this is going to be difficult. Because only global governance can solve the problems. Only the acceptance that there is one issue that we can solve together as humanity. Or we go under together as humanity. If we seek to solve it in confrontation and dominance over others. We will have to take action. And diversity is key to this. When Jack Sparrow jumps into the beastie’s mouth goes against the grain of your intuition. And what politics needs to do today is counter-intuitive to people. When we say to people ‘the Other is your salvation, is your rescue, to look through the eyes of the Other will make you a better person’, it is counter-intuitive. Because people find ‘the Other’ scary, I want to stay with my own group. If we say to people: ‘governance can only be organised on a continental level or a global level’, people say no, no, no! I don’t know all this. I want to organise on a national level. It is counter intuitive. If we say to people: Change! Because we need to change. To redefine our relation with natural environment is fun! Is great! Its successful! People will say, no, no, no! It costs money; it makes my life more uncomfortable. I can’t drive my hummer anymore. So we need to have the guts and strength as politicians to face fear. Change can only happen if every individual acts. As Teddy Roosevelt said: “Success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues.” If we do that with passion we will prevail as a society. Thank you very much.
The marketing eco system unfolds. Evidence that this transformation is already in full swing is clear. When you consider how this unfolding marketing eco system might look, with, among other things, digitally augmented realities, contextual branding, and the growth of emotional profiling, it is time to determine a strategy to capitalise on these opportunities.
Or better, it WAS time to determine a strategy. Media firms need to act now if they are to survive and prosper as the marketing eco system unfolds. Falling advertising revenues and the widespread availability of free content are eroding the value of traditional value chain based business models.
Understanding of what the unfolding marketing eco system looks like may be uncertain, but a number of priorities can be identified in navigating the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Priority 1. The importance of building and maintaining trust. Trust is seen as the key to gaining access to more profitable relationships with B2C individuals and competitive differentiation. B2C individuals have to feel comfortable enough to open up their privacy walls, needed to deepen their relationship for personal - contextualised - experiences;
Priority 2. Preparing for a more complex network of B2B partnerships. In the long run, digitization will be characterised by alliances between specialist providers;
Priority 3. Learn how to be able to - realtime - personalize your branded content to be personal relevant enough to activate the specific targeted B2C individual;
Priority 4. Learn how to be able to - realtime - calculate and apply the most - contextualised - optimal combination of business models for each specific generated consumer touch point, while continuously generating a stream of 1.000.000 consumer touchpoints per second.
Media firms have to do what they've always done (but in a completely different way, in a completely different mindset): build their B2C relationships based on trust, deliver engaging content and ensure they get paid for it.
These 4 priorities are steps that mediamarketleaders need to take today. It is a question of having in place the systems to support these new ways of working. Media firms need to ask themselves whether their current capabilities are suited for the work that is going to be needed.
Customer management strategies are the foundation for developing deeper relationships with B2C and B2B customers and building this - needed - trust. The supporting systems however need to go beyond the simple retention of customer data. In the unfolding marketing eco system, B2C customers will expect a seamless experience across all of their devices and media firms will have to support this expectation, able to track and manage B2C consumer activity irrespective of the channel. Systems need to provide intelligence on the B2C customer bases' habits, preferences and the different segments that exist within it. Only with this intelligence and analysis will the players in the marketing eco system be in a position to begin making the personalised recommendations and offers that build trust and foster deeper B2C customer relationships.
Extending communities of B2B partners brings a whole new level of complexity to operations. Ensuring that the media company and its B2B partners are quickly rewarded for their 'offerings' could mean supporting the transactions of millions of B2C customers and allocating money instantly to the right pots. Media companies will need the control and flexibility to be able to charge for any service or event according to payment type, network or geography.
As flat fee broadband capacity increases and high-end mobile devices become ever smarter and enter the mainstream, the trends identified are only likely to accelerate. Media firms need to decide today where they see their place (their SmartSweetSpot) in the digital future and what they have to do to get there.
The cause of Monaco Media Forum's most essential discussion: Media Value Chain-thinking (as was: value chain/CEO Axel Springer) versus Marketing Eco System-thinking (to be: value constellation/ CEO Huffington Post).
Increasing fluidity of the unfolding Marketing Eco System asks for value constellation based business models instead of traditional value chain based business models:
1. Digitization is damaging the traditional value chain based business model, which worked for advertisers, agencies and publishers
2. Increasing fluidity of the unfolding Marketing Eco System drives development of value constellation business models
3. The tradional value chain business models (which worked for advertisers, agencies and publishers) are not future proof
4. Central question: Which value constellation based business models are future proof in the unfolding Marketing Eco System? Answer: learning by doing
Value Chain thinking versus Value Constellation thinking (Marketing Eco System) is now THE essential mindset-difference which is causing a lot of ' lost in translation' situations in the boardrooms of media firms.
David de Boer, Head of Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma
Speaking at TEDxKC, John Gerzema identifies four major cultural shifts driving new consumer behavior (moving from mindless to mindful consumption) and shows how businesses can best evolve to succesfully connect with thoughtful spending.
1.Facebook replaces personal email 2. Open source software starts making proper money, thanks to the cloud 3. Mobile commerce -- The promise that has never delivered, yet 4. Fewer registrations -- one sign-in fits all 5. Disruption vs. continuity -- alternatives to the "big idea" 6. The continuing evolution of web-driven, open source DIY culture 7. Info-art 8. Crowdsourcing 9. More Flash, not less
The fusion of sociology and technology in the Media Eco System has literally transformed the monologue of communication into the instantaneous dialog of a linked community. This linked community quickly and effectively shares profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself.
Last 80 years, marketeers were are all into getting attention. You can buy attention (advertising), beg for attention or earn attention.
Last 3 years, the succesfull marketeers are not merely to gain the attention of their (potential) clients, but to gain trust; to create interactive one-on-one trusted relationships with the public at large.
Advertising campaigns can literally succeed or die in the momentous pressing of "send". Two major ad campaigns met their fate in the fall of 2008: Twitter users attacked and killed the new J&J Motrin Mom`s Campaign; and bloggers bombed and destroyed Germany`s Pepsi Max Campaign. Both were squashed immediately: one the first weekend, the other after the first issue of the ad.
Today`s businesses have a real challenge on their hands:
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations more than traditional advertising.
80% of Twitter usage takes place on mobile devices, providing consumers the ability to broadcast news anywhere, anytime. As the number of "followers" and "friends" increases exponentially, it is likely that a business can plummet for poor customer service before the customer pays the bill.
But if a business uses it responsibly and effectively, the media eco system network can catapult a business ahead of its competition.
The media eco system network has the potential of accomplishing what no other medium has in the past: in numbers, message and network-effect. Utilize this potential, not so much for advertising, but to develop trusted relationships within your public niche.
Be not interested in advertising on platforms in the media eco system; be interested in getting in there and interacting with people; within the media eco system. Effective commercial communication is not a campaign, but a commitment. Businesses can, and should, use the media eco system networks in order to grow an active and interactive audience.
Companies need to participate in the media eco system networks, or they will be left behind. In a recent survey of 880 marketeers, nearly 81% admitted that their dialog efforts - their active participation in the media eco system networks - generated business exposure and more than half claimed that their tactics generated leads.
Three reasons why the benefits of online networking seem to hold even greater promise than face-to-face social networking, or conventional marketing: 1. It costs businesses primarily time instead of money. 2. Businesses can reach beyond the limitations of geography in gaining awareness and generating leads. 3. The potential for online referrals is huge.
Online socializing may be a radically different method of marketing-but in the near future, it could very well be the preferred method of marketing, one-on-one, throughout the world.
You earn trust customer by customer. Sanoma aims to construct an environment in which eco systems of trust will emerce; an environment in which privacy will be less important for many, more important voor some.
Why privacy is less important for many:
Mindset: to share is to gain
You have to be open, to have your data shared
More open means less privacy, but more personalization
More personalization means more relevance
Total personalization means total transparancy
If you want total personalization, you have to be total transparent
Trend: Convergence of atoms and digital Result: One media platform, with the same laws of media shared in common:
Copies have no value
Value is in the uncopyable
Personalization
Media want to be liquid
Network effects-rule
Attention is a currency (trust is a currency?)
The 4 stages of the internet:
stage 1: link computers
stage 2: link pages, sharing links
stage 3: link data, sharing an idea somewhere on a page/sharing ideas (XML, RSS, API, RDF, OWL)
As the number of applications available for download through Apple’s App Store continue to swell, the need has grown for a more efficient way to filter through the 100,000+ options across the multitude of categories.
As a result, app discovery tools have become a flourishing segment of the iPhone app market: Chorus, Yappler, AppsFire and Sidebar. In addition, Apple recently unveiled a feature called App Genius that makes recommendations based on past purchases.
Chorus, which is free, allows you to see which apps that your friends have downloaded and rated highly. It then uses algorithms to make recommendations based on those preferences.
The businessmodel of Chorus: the company gets a small kickback each time it sends a purchase request for a paid application to Apple.
1. Social media begins to look less social 2. Corporations look to scale 3. Social business becomes serious play 4. Companies will have a social media policy (might be enforced) 5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline 6. Sharing no longer means e-mail
1: Mass collaboration is powering upcoming business models in the media eco system and - in a broader perspective - the (new) economy 2: Constant (mobile) connectivity in an on-demand world 3: Globalization: Making the world a smaller place 4: Pervasive distrust in big corporations 5: A global sense of urgency to fix the problems of a modern world
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