The current technology is able to make the next better by itself. That is new.

Augmented reality is not changing what you see, but how you see it; new ways to see, not new things to look at. Reality is not augmented by adding a layer, but by adding augmented sensors. Connectivity of people with data should not happen solely via the eye, but also via other senses.



The morality of objects from anonymous to highly disruptive to your personal space. Demolishing the public space.



Every generation threatens the generation before. The current technology is able to make the next better by itself. That is new. The people who are in charge now hardly know how things work in the new marketing eco system, the grown ups are the next ones down the list. The grown ups could not be disruptive anymore....the grown ups have work to do. Proving that networks are stronger than hierarchies.

How to achieve results beyond your imagination

Sanoma is a collective mind of over 20.000 individual employees. Until recently, the combined intelligence of a group has been inversely proportional to group size. Why? Because it was just to inefficient to share knowledge, to access what other colleagues were doing, thinking or sensing. Until recently, it has been hard to think and act as one ‘Sanoma-organism’. Caused by disconnection in space and time.

Today, open source, webbased wiki-technology beats these (former) limitations and empowers Sanoma colleagues to form dynamic networks, generating ’smart’ results to compete more effectively and to adapt faster to a changing world.

The Sanoma Wiki facilitates 20.000 individuals to generate valuable group output as a byproduct, without regard of institutional models. Wiki-technology enables the company to coordinate all activities of individual Sanoma employees. Colleagues have - by working together - made the first steps in achieving a positive relationship between group size and the combined intelligence & productivity of the group. Our game-changing objective: Turn a former weakness - Sanoma's group size - into a strength.

The 'only' limitation left in this disruptive process innovation is a widespread, fundamental mindset change....Changing from a 'span of control' to a 'span of support'-mindset....Change an institutional way of organizing into a business culture of working together in true collaboration to achieve common outstanding results....beyond what we have done before.

There are three basic 'working together cultures'. Only one of which is a truly collaborative 'working together culture'.*

The first 'working together culture' is labelled a 'Compliance Culture'. This is when each team member independently responds to the challenge by taking action in her own area. In other words, everyone on the team complies with the need to do something, but avoids working together. For example, A divisional leadership team that was required to reduce overall headcount by 10% to meet the corporation's goals. With very little discussion, each person agreed to cut 10% of the people from their own function and report the numbers back to the divisional controller. While this "spread the pain evenly" approach indeed met the corporate requirement, there was probably a better way.

The second 'working together culture' is labelled a 'Cooperation Culture'. Here again each person develops and implements his own plans, but in this case shares what he is doing with the group. While there is some amount of joint discussion, the focus is still on individual actions rather than a collective strategy. For example, when one technology company needed to increase its sales performance, the districts were all given significantly higher targets. The district managers then went about achieving these targets in different ways. Some increased individual sales quotas across the board; others reallocated resources to higher-potential customers; and still others focused on closing the gap with services contracts. The managers shared these approaches on their weekly calls, and gave each other feedback. But they never created a joint strategy to leverage their combined resources, ideas, and talents. In the end, while some districts hit their targets, the overall numbers were disappointing.

The third 'working together culture' is labelled a 'True Collaboration Culture'. In both of the cases described above, a 'True Collaboration Culture' might have led to a more robust and effective outcome. In the headcount example, the leadership team might have identified specific areas where headcount could be reduced by more than 10%, considered ways of consolidating similar activities into shared service centers, or any number of other possibilities. In the sales example, the district managers might have reallocated resources across districts, created joint campaigns for particular products, or brainstormed many other ideas that could have been quickly tested and possibly scaled.

What's interesting is that neither team consciously decided not to collaborate. Instead they did what came naturally, which is to work either completely or partially on their own.

The reality is that reaching a 'working together culture' of true collaboration is difficult. It requires subordinating individual goals to collective achievement; it means engaging in tough, emotional give-and-take discussions with colleagues about strategies and ideas; and it often leads to working in new ways that may not be comfortable or easy. So given these difficulties, most teams find it easier to talk about collaboration rather than do it.

It doesn't have to be this way. Teams can address their challenges through true collaboration, and by doing so can achieve outstanding results. The starting point however is to make a conscious — and collective — decision to go beyond compliance and cooperation.

Within Sanoma we have succeeded to overcome the - understandable - resistance to this disruptive way of true collaborative dynamic-network-organizing and reached the tipping point. I am confident that the network effect will continue, building valuable group output and achieving results that were once only available in our imagination.

* Source: Harvard Business Review, Teams That Only Think They Collaborate, by Ron Ashkenas, 2011

Intersection Day One: business models agnostic to unfolding solutions for complex systems

When disruptive innovations occur, people keep behaving in the same way.....still driven by outdated assumptions. When society adopts new tools, it takes a while before 'the mainstream' adopts mindset, culture and new behaviours to align themselves with what is possible. (f.i. Monks continued to handdraw illustrations on books printed by Guttenberg's press; behaviours driven by outdated assumptions). Nowadays, together (in collaborative networks of individuals) everything is possible, but 'the mainstream' still has to align themselves mentally and culturally.

We know how to change with the new tools, products, processes or services, we just don't do it, because we still don't think in a way that is aligned with these new possibilities.
Invention is creating stuff, innovation is creating value.
Innovation = Idea (product/service/proces/new way of thinking/new way of doing) + Impact
Innovation = Impactfull leverage of ideas. Creating impact. Imagination made count.
Incremental innovation
Three layers to find the breakthrough of disruptive innovation: The space (the meanings of the space, the culture) , the system (how the systems works within that space, the subjects (the indidual value proposition, the individual players).
Disruptive innovation example: Netbook took in 1 year 10% of the global market. Before no one thought about it.

Hierarchies maintain the status quo. Hierarchies fix our mental models. Hierarchies ensure people think the same.
Hierarchies are being dissolved in a networked globalised participatory society.
Innnovation in hierarchies (Apple company): One size fits all, determined by the authority (Steve Jobbs)
Innovation in networks (Google): Groups form around interest and solve problems themselves.
The law of unexpected win, win, wins

The challenging journey of holistic, networked, disruptive innovation.
Re-designing the future of business. How to (business re-)design for openness?
Belief 1 - Valueing diversity: value being created at the intersection of disciplines
Belief 2 - Look to extremes: will give you a glimpse of the future
Belief 3 - A 'designing systems approach': Unit of analysis can sometimes be meta-level, sometimes be a business model. Scalable approaches. solutions for complex systems can be combinations of a product, process, brand or service. Business models agnostic to unfolding solutions for complex systems..

Learnings with open models:
A. Conscious contributions (Wikipedia) versus unconscious contributions (Google, Last fm)
B. Yesterday: scale is good, because it makes it cheaper. Tomorrow: scale is good because it makes the whole Marketing Eco System better. B1: Makes the product/service/brand better). B2: Improves the personal relevance. B3. Makes the concept smarter. .

Data is the new oil & soil. Discover hidden patterns in data by visualization.
.

.

.

.

Intersections Day Two: Josephine Green from Dott Cornwall on Vimeo.

Transmedia: The art of unbundled (commercial) conversations

The 'advertising' and 'branded content' of tomorrow will contain distributed links of those who pay to be there. Technology will work on our behalf to bring those 'offerings' our way, because we've asked for them.

Doc Searls' Project VRM, where consumers signal businesses about wants and needs instead of the other way around, will be a form of distributed media with links.

With classifieds like Marktplaats, each item has a link, and those could be aggregated elsewhere and passed around, depending on the need specified in a user's 'signal.' Whoever pays the most gets first in line. The money will be made for matching consumer needs/signals with 'offerings' (business goods and services). This real-time match-making is something the digital Marketing Eco System can handle very efficiently.




Commerce-generating applications will make it all happen, whether it's via a closed system like Twitter or an API at the application layer of the digital Marketing Eco System itself.

That's just one possibility of moving 'commercial conversation' into the digital Marketing Eco System and the stream. Other commercial formats will certainly be developed, but the possibilities of unbundled 'advertising' are limitless, all made possible by the portable link.

Media companies framing their added value for 'companies, formerly known as advertisers' into bundled advertising concepts limit their range of possible solutions. And, thus, limit their potential added value while exploring new business models.

Enough spirit, creativity and energy to 'reset' our society; things need to change in a fundamental way

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.

Media Eco System transformation changes the way of doing business

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)
• stage 4: the internet of things
  

The next 5000 days, the web will be:

• Smarter
• More Personalized
• More Ubiquitous

Affiliate marketing in the App store: Combination of Kieskeurig and Restaurant.nl

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.

Source: New York Times, November 03, 2009

Six Social Media Trends for 2010

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

Source: David Armano, Harvard Business Publishing, November 02, 2009

Clay Shirky with fresh perspectives on media eco system: culture of participation

Watch Clay Shirky's keynote video from #OpenHackNYC

Fresh perspectives on culture of participation versus management of media organizations; professional hubs used to make professional publishing decisions.

Real change in Media Eco System: low cost of publication fosters intrinsic motivation, lowers barriers to act, without the need of making professional publishing decisions.

Sanoma's 'value constellation strategy' in the post-assembly-line media eco system

The media company Sanoma is a collective mind of a large group of over 20.000 individuals.

Strategy is the art of creating value. It provides the intellectual frameworks (conceptual models) and governing ideas that allow Sanoma to identify opportunities for bringing value to B2C and B2B customers and for delivering that value at a profit. In this respect, strategy is the way Sanoma defines its business and links together (by mediating human relations) the only two resources that really matter in today’s media economy:

1. 'knowledge' (technologies, specialised expertise and business processes; Sanoma's collective mind that is accumulated over time and packaged in our offerings). But knowledge is not enough. Sanoma's knowledge/competencies are worthless without B2C/B2B customers willing to pay for them.
2. Thus, the other key asset for Sanoma is 'relationships'; our establisched B2C/B2B customer base

Our traditional thinking about value is grounded in the assumptions of an industrial economy. According to this view, Sanoma occupies a position on a value chain. Upstream, suppliers provide inputs. Sanoma then adds value to these inputs, before passing them downstream to the next actor in the chain. Seen from this perspective, strategy is primarily the art of positioning Sanoma in the right place on the value chain -- the right business, the right products and market segments, the right value adding activities.

Today, however, this understanding of value is as outmoded as the old assembly line that it resembles and so is the view of strategy that goes with it. Please, forget Micheal Porter's Value Chain concept. The fluidity-trend (changing mediamarkets, changing roles of relevant actors, changing business models, changing technology) and global competition are opening up new ways of creating value.

Two important challenges:

1. Of course, more opportunities also mean more uncertainty and greater risk. Forecasts based on projections from the past become unreliable. Factors that have always seemed peripheral turn out to be key drivers of change in Sanoma’s key markets. New competitors, from previously unrelated sectors, with radically different business-models, change the rules of our game.
2. Sanoma exists in value networks where the actors have similar metrics, margins and motivations. Moving from one value network to another is very challenging (source: The innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Chistensen)

Due to the insight that strategy is no longer a matter of positioning a fixed set of activities along a value chain, Sanoma transforms its strategy from 'adding value' to 'reinventing value'.

• Sanoma's focus of strategic analysis transforms from 'the company' or 'the industry' to 'the value-creating system' itself, within which different actors (suppliers, B2B customers, B2C customers, Sanoma employees and other business partners) work together in a constellation of different business models to co-produce value.
• Sanoma's key strategic task is becoming: the reconfiguration of roles and relationships among this constellation of actors in order to mobilise the creation of value in new forms.
• Sanoma's underlying strategic goal is becoming: creating an ever-improving fit between 'Sanoma's competencies' and 'B2C/B2B customers'.

Sanoma’s value constellation strategy is made possible by a fundamental transformation in the way that value is created. But what is this new logic of value, and what are its strategic implications for Sanoma?

To answer these questions, begin with the simple observation that any product or service is really the result of a complicated set of activities: economic transactions and institutional arrangements among actors (suppliers, B2C customers, B2B customers, Sanoma employees and other business partners). In fact, what we usually think of as products or services (magazines, websites, events) are really frozen activities, concrete manifestations of the relationships among actors in a value-creating system. To emphasise the way all our 'products and services' are grounded in activity, let's call them 'co-produced offerings'.

Second observation: The distinction between physical products and intangible services is breaking down. Does Sanoma offer a product or a service? The answer is neither -- and both. Very few of our 'co-produced offerings' can be clearly defined as one or the other anymore. Increasingly, they involve some complex combination of the two roles.

Today, under the impact of information technology and the resulting globalisation of markets and production, new methods of combining activities into 'co-produced offerings' are producing new opportunities for creating value.

The reconfiguration of activities can offer Sanoma's B2C and B2B customers a qualitatively new kind of value. For example, engaging Sanoma's B2B customers in a self-service activity (for example: our recently launched content portal which enables self-supported uploading of their magazine-ads for our B2B customers) can eliminate traditional constraints of space and time. No longer do our B2B customers have to go to their fysical appointment during business hours. They can act at any time and with the proliferation of digital networks, pretty much anywhere. In our view, the vast majority our B2B customers will flock to Sanoma's online 'communications solutions services' and adapt to them quickly and easily.

This is not merely a change in technology or even in the transaction itself. It is a change in the entire value-creating system. The scene, the script, the roles of the relevant actors are all transforming. For example, a great deal of Sanoma's attention, expertise, and activity is now devoted to the design, building, and maintenance of self-service support tools for our B2B customers (for example: the launch of a content portal for self-supported uploading of ads, or last week's launch of the new B2B site of Sanoma Netherlands).

The new logic of value presents Sanoma with three strategic implications:

1. The goal of Sanoma is not to create value for B2C/B2B customers, but to mobilise B2C/B2C customers to create value for themselves from Sanoma's various offerings. Sanoma does not profit from B2C/B2B customers. Sanoma profits from B2C/B2B customers value-creating activities. The 'company' Sanoma does not really compete with other media companies anymore. Rather, it is our 'offerings' that compete for the time and attention and money of B2C/B2B customers.
2. What is true for individual offerings is also true for entire value-creating systems. As potential offerings become more complex and varied, so do the relationships necessary to produce them. A single company rarely provides everything anymore. Instead, the most attractive offerings involve B2C customers, suppliers and B2B customers, in new combinations, in new roles, in new business models. As a result, Sanoma’s principal strategy task is the reconfiguration of its relationships and business systems.
3. If the key to creating value is 'co-produced offerings that mobilise B2C/B2B customers', then the only true source of competitive advantage is the ability to conceive the entire value-creating system and make it work; the reshuffling of activities among actors so that actor and activity are better matched.

To win, Sanoma must write the script, mobilise and train the relevant players and make the B2C customers and B2B customers the final arbiter of success or failure. To go on winning, Sanoma must create a dialogue with our B2C customers and B2B customers in order to repeat our performance over and over again and keep our co-produced offerings competitive.

• Always keep the following equation in mind: (Perceived value [Sanoma] - Price [Sanoma]) > (Perceive value [alternative] - Price [alternative]). Perceived value is the worth in monetary terms of the benefits our customer receives in exchange for the price it pays for our market offering. Raising of lowering the price of our market offering does not change the value that our offering provides to our customer. The equation conveys that our customer's incentive to purchase an offering of Sanoma must exceed its incentive to buy the next best alternative.

The economics in the post-assembly-line media economy presents Sanoma with a stark choice: either re-configure our business system to take advantage of these trends or be reconfigured by more dynamic competitors.

To exploit these trends, Sanoma takes three steps:

1. Reconsidering the business potential of our chief assets: Sanoma’s knowledge base and Sanoma's B2C/B2B customer base.
2. Repositioning or reinventing our co-produced offerings to create a better fit between Sanoma's competencies and the value creating activities of our B2B/B2C customers.
3. Making new business arrangements and sometimes new social and political alliances to make these offerings feasible and efficient.

As been said, in an economy founded on the new logic of value, only two assets really matter: 'knowledge' and 'relationships' or 'Sanoma's competencies' and 'our customers'.

• Competencies are the technologies, specialised expertise, business processes and techniques; the collective mind of 20.000 experts that Sanoma has accumulated over time and packaged in its offerings. But knowledge alone is not enough. Obviously, Sanoma’s competencies are worthless without customers willing to pay for them.
• Thus the other key asset for Sanoma is its established customer base. Sanoma's relationship with a B2C customer and with a B2B customer is really an access channel to the B2C/B2B customer’s ongoing value-creating activities. Any B2C/B2B customer, whether another business or an individual, uses a wide range of inputs in order to create value. Sanoma’s offerings have value to the degree that B2C/B2B customers can use them as inputs to leverage their own value creation.

Sanoma needs to enlarge its knowledge base continuously. Sanoma must invest in an ever broadening range of knowledge resources and combine ever expanding kinds of knowledge into Sanoma's offerings. What is more, these investments in new knowledge can become so large that Sanoma’s own offerings to its existing B2C/B2B customer base are no longer adequate to recoup its investment. So the new knowledge tends to drive Sanoma into new businesses in search of new relationships with new B2C/B2B customers. And the cycle repeats.

The secret of value creation is building a better and better fit between relationships and knowledge. Currently, Sanoma accountmanagers are trained in our Sales Academy:

1. To master the design and management of interconnected, co-productive offerings.
2. How to mobilize value creation in their B2B customers businesses by reconfiguring roles, relationships, and structures.
3. To perpetually reinventing value in a dialogue between competencies and their B2B customers.

These are the skills that a winning network of Sanoma experts will have to acquire in the post-assembly-line media economy that is now emerging.

David de Boer, Head of B2B Marketing, Sanoma Uitgevers, The Netherlands

Sanoma SalesWiki: Power of co-operation

"We must be able to create an atmosphere and corporate culture where we can utilize the know-how of over 20.000 experts in 20 countries in the best possible manner" (Hannu Syrjänen, CEO Sanoma)

The media company Sanoma is a collective mind of a large group of over 20.000 individuals. Unfortunately, the combined intelligence of a group has always been inversely proportional to group size. That means the larger the group, the stupider the group. Larger groups have always been inefficient and stupid. Most large organisations are still very stupid collective minds.

Why is that? Because the limitation has always been that it is just to inefficient to share knowledge, to access what other people are doing, thinking or sensing. And because we have always been disconnected, because of space and time, it has always been hard to think as one ‘Sanoma-organism’.

New wiki-technology beats these (former) limitations and empowers Sanoma Account Managers to form dynamic networks, generating ’smart’ results to compete more effectively and to respond better to a changing world.

Last year, open source, webbased wiki-technology enabled us to coordinate the activities of individual Sanoma Account Managers so that the group output is of lasting value, gains competitive edge and increases productivity

Last year, we have proved to generate this valuable group output as a byproduct, without regard of institutional models, to coordinate the activities of the group. In fact, the Sanoma SalesWiki was not a product innovation, but a process innovation.

The impact of this result: Group size is not a weakness any more, but a strength.

We have succeeded to create a positive relationship between the group size and the combined intelligence & productivity of this group.

The 'only' limitation left is a widespread, fundamental business culture/mindset change in our institutional way of organizing. After getting used to 'user-generated-content' (for example Youtube), we have to get used to 'employee-generated-organization' (for example Company-groups @Linkedin).

Within the Ad Sales group we have succeeded to overcome the - understandable - resistance to this disruptive way of dynamic-network-organizing and reached the tipping point. I am confident that the network effect will continue in 2009, building valuable group output what was once only available in our imagination.

David de Boer, Head of B2B Marketing, Sanoma Uitgevers, The Netherlands



Sanoma SalesWiki from SanomaCrossing on Vimeo.

Howard Rheingold

Howard Rheingold gaat lessen geven via de video-widget Sproutbuilder.

Paul Wouters

Paul Wouters, bijzonder hoogleraar Kennisdynamica aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam en programmaleider Virtual Knowledge Studio (KNAW-instituut), ziet een nieuwe manier ontstaan om wetenschap te bedrijven. Niet alleen in de media-sector, ook in de wetenschap - de kern van het denken - zorgt Collaboration Economics voor een fundamental change. Paul heeft een disruptive view over de toekomst van de wetenschap, die vooral draait om nieuwe ICT-toepassingen.

Naast (1) het massieve computationele geweld dat bijvoorbeeld nodig is om ons genetisch materiaal in kaart te brengen en (2) collaboratories; het efficiënter samenwerken via internet, kan ICT ook andere rollen spelen. Onderzoekers zouden bijvoorbeeld veel meer kunnen doen met simulaties, facebook-achtige dingen en wiki's. We kunnen andere stadia van het onderzoek laten zien, het werk in uitvoering, de ruwe data en de laatste, zeer recente, observaties. Zodat ook anderen daar direct hun eigen analyses en interpretaties aan kunnen koppelen.

Denk ook aan wetenschappers die weblogs bijhouden tijdens het onderzoek, waarbij ze hun observaties al prijsgeven. Antropologen kunnen zo hun ervaringen in het veld al in een vroeg stadium delen met de wereld. Dat betekent wel dat de interactie met de mensen die je bestudeert (bijvoorbeeld Games) intensiever wordt, want de onderzoeksobjecten, de gamers, kunnen zo'n blog lezen en blijven zo dicht bij de antropoloog. Dat leidt tot veranderingen in de methodologie en de ethiek, want in feite wordt het blog onderdeel van het veldwerk. De onderzoeker wordt veel zichtbaarder.

Blogs vormen het begin van het onderzoeks-traject. Wetenschappers kunnen daarna nog steeds boeken en artikelen schrijven, maar die vormen het eindpunt. Simulaties, nog steeds niet geaccepteerd als wetenschappelijk materiaal, gaan steeds belangrijker worden.


Op vrijdag 27 juni hield hij zijn oratie: Dolend dromen van een wereldbrein. Tegelijkertijd lanceerde hij http://www.researchdreams.nl/; een platform voor wetenschappelijke toekomstdromen. Doel is om dit platform te laten uitmonden in een actieve communitie van wetenschappers die over de lange en middellange termijn van hun vak willen nadenken. Na registratie kan iedereen verhalen op de site zetten, want wetenschap is een verhaal. Vervolgens worden die verhalen op trefwoord geordend.

Al eerder begon Paul de Virtual Knowledge studio, waarin nieuwe vormen van onderzoek worden geprobeerd in constellaties met sociologen, fysici, politicologen, bijbelwetenschappers.