10 strategic technologies to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency

Gartner highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2011.

A strategic technology

• Is one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
• May be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. As such, these technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2011 are:

1. Cloud Computing. Cloud computing services exist along a spectrum from open public to closed private. The next three years will see the delivery of a range of cloud service approaches that fall between these two extremes. Vendors will offer packaged private cloud implementations that deliver the vendor's public cloud service technologies (software and/or hardware) and methodologies (i.e., best practices to build and run the service) in a form that can be implemented inside the consumer's enterprise. Many will also offer management services to remotely manage the cloud service implementation. Gartner expects large enterprises to have a dynamic sourcing team in place by 2012 that is responsible for ongoing cloudsourcing decisions and management.
2. Mobile Applications and Media Tablets. Gartner estimates that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing an ideal environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. Mobile devices are becoming computers in their own right, with an astounding amount of processing ability and bandwidth. There are already hundreds of thousands of applications for platforms like the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market (only for the one platform) and need for unique coding. The quality of the experience of applications on these devices, which can apply location, motion and other context in their behavior, is leading customers to interact with companies preferentially through mobile devices. This has lead to a race to push out applications as a competitive tool to improve relationships and gain advantage over competitors whose interfaces are purely browser-based.
3. Social Communications and Collaboration. Social media can be divided into: (1) Social networking —social profile management products, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster as well as social networking analysis (SNA) technologies that employ algorithms to understand and utilize human relationships for the discovery of people and expertise. (2) Social collaboration —technologies, such as wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowdsourcing. (3)Social publishing —technologies that assist communities in pooling individual content into a usable and community accessible content repository such as YouTube and flickr. (4) Social feedback - gaining feedback and opinion from the community on specific items as witnessed on YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon. Gartner predicts that by 2016, social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Companies should bring together their social CRM, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.
4. Video. Video is not a new media form, but its use as a standard media type used in non-media companies is expanding rapidly. Technology trends in digital photography, consumer electronics, the web, social software, unified communications, digital and Internet-based television and mobile computing are all reaching critical tipping points that bring video into the mainstream. Over the next three years Gartner believes that video will become a commonplace content type and interaction model for most users, and by 2013, more than 25 percent of the content that workers see in a day will be dominated by pictures, video or audio.
5. Next Generation Analytics. Increasing compute capabilities of computers including mobile devices along with improving connectivity are enabling a shift in how businesses support operational decisions. It is becoming possible to run simulations or models to predict the future outcome, rather than to simply provide backward looking data about past interactions, and to do these predictions in real-time to support each individual business action. While this may require significant changes to existing operational and business intelligence infrastructure, the potential exists to unlock significant improvements in business results and other success rates.
6. Social Analytics. Social analytics describes the process of measuring, analyzing and nterpreting the results of interactions and associations among people, topics and ideas. These interactions may occur on social software applications used in the workplace, in internally or externally facing communities or on the social web. Social analytics is an umbrella term that includes a number of specialized analysis techniques such as social filtering, social-network analysis, sentiment analysis and social-media analytics. Social network analysis tools are useful for examining social structure and interdependencies as well as the work patterns of individuals, groups or organizations. Social network analysis involves collecting data from multiple sources, identifying relationships, and evaluating the impact, quality or effectiveness of a relationship.
7. Context-Aware Computing. Context-aware computing centers on the concept of using information about an end user or object’s environment, activities connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end user. The end user may be a customer, business partner or employee. A contextually aware system anticipates the user's needs and proactively serves up the most appropriate and customized content, product or service. Gartner predicts that by 2013, more than half of Fortune 500 companies will have context-aware computing initiatives and by 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.
8. Storage Class Memory. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. It also offers a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Unlike RAM, the main memory in servers and PCs, flash memory is persistent even when power is removed. In that way, it looks more like disk drives where information is placed and must survive power-downs and reboots. Given the cost premium, simply building solid state disk drives from flash will tie up that valuable space on all the data in a file or entire volume, while a new explicitly addressed layer, not part of the file system, permits targeted placement of only the high-leverage items of information that need to experience the mix of performance and persistence available with flash memory.
9. Ubiquitous Computing. The work of Mark Weiser and other researchers at Xerox's PARC paints a picture of the coming third wave of computing where computers are invisibly embedded into the world. As computers proliferate and as everyday objects are given the ability to communicate with RFID tags and their successors, networks will approach and surpass the scale that can be managed in traditional centralized ways. This leads to the important trend of imbuing computing systems into operational technology, whether done as calming technology or explicitly managed and integrated with IT. In addition, it gives us important guidance on what to expect with proliferating personal devices, the effect of consumerization on IT decisions, and the necessary capabilities that will be driven by the pressure of rapid inflation in the number of computers for each person.
10. Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers. A fabric-based computer is a modular form of computing where a system can be aggregated from separate building-block modules connected over a fabric or switched backplane. In its basic form, a fabric-based computer comprises a separate processor, memory, I/O, and offload modules (GPU, NPU, etc.) that are connected to a switched interconnect and, importantly, the software required to configure and manage the resulting system(s). The fabric-based infrastructure (FBI) model abstracts physical resources — processor cores, network bandwidth and links and storage — into pools of resources that are managed by the Fabric Resource Pool Manager (FRPM), software functionality. The FRPM in turn is driven by the Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) Service Governor software component. An FBI can be supplied by a single vendor or by a group of vendors working closely together, or by an integrator — internal or external.

Compared to a touch, clicking is boring

A keynote of Joris van Heukelom at Immovator, sharing Sanoma Digital's first 9 iPad learnings:

1. Compared to a touch, clicking is boring;
2. A magazine is not a book;
3. Do not repack the old medium;
4. A 'magazine' on a tablet is more than a private journey;
5. Provide plenty of starting points;
6. Sound is an option, never default;
7. As in magazines, the rule of the inverted pyramid...start with the conclusion;
8. Don't overestimate current mediabrands;
9. Succes doesn't equal 'read all' spend time does...

Interested in more iPad learnings of Sanoma Digital? Click here and here

David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

The new Brand Management: Transmedia (branded content) storymaking in combination with 'game dynamics'

After finishing building a social layer, a next layer - the game layar - is unfolding: a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape commerce.

By now, we are used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web; building a 'social layer' on top of the real world. At TEDxBoston, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the 'game layer', a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape the marketing eco system (marketing, communication and commerce).




At TEDxTransmedia, Dan Hon - a senior member of the Wieden + Kennedy London creative department, specialized in games, play and new ways of storytelling - gives more insight into 'game dynamics'.




We are bringing 'game dymanics' into more aspects of our lives, spending countless hours - and real money - exploring virtual worlds for imaginary treasures. Why? Because games are perfectly tuned to dole out rewards that engage the brain and keep us questing for more.









We are entering the Transmedia era (I define transmedia as "a mashup of 'reality'+'social layer'+ 'game dynamics'") in which:

1. The unfolding Marketing Eco System brings us new formats and business models of commerce;
2. Brand Management (control, scripted dialogue, periodic feedback) transforms into Brand Stewardship (open, transmedia conversation, 24/7 feedback);
3. Brand Stewardship is in perpetual beta. Companies that shorten the learning loop c.q. the feedback loop, that iterate faster, will do better.
   
   
   
   
   
   Culture Mapping, managing brands in a social economy

   View more presentations from Tim Stock.
   
   
   David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

Customer orientation is a choice one makes over the course of a lifetime (part 1)

Customer orientation: of the 462 goals that Amazon has set for itself in 2010, 360 of them will directly effect the customer experience, while the word revenue is only used in 8 occasions.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos spoke in may 2010 at Princeton University about the difference between choices and gifts. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard.

One's character, he suggested, is reflected not in the gifts one is endowed with at birth but rather by the choices one makes over the course of a lifetime. "It's harder to be kind than clever"

• How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
• Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
• Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?
• Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
• Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
• Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?
• Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
• Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
• When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?
• Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
• Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
  

When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Good luck!

The value of online video versus TV to improve your marketing ROI

Gian Fulgoni posted an article on Comscore with an important lesson for online advertising:

"in a branding world, advertising creative is critical. As Internet advertising seeks to increase its currently meager 6% share of marketers’ spending for branding advertising and to move beyond a reliance on direct response marketing, using the right creative will become critical. This will be compounded by the move to the use of more expensive ad formats such as rich media and video. The cost of being wrong becomes substantial. It will be vital for the Internet to take a page out of television’s playbook and focus more of its research dollars on getting the online ad message right."

It is an interesting article (but - in my opinion - not the complete story), triggering some related questions:

Trend: The end of advertising as we know it

• -> What about the impact of the growing importance of branded content on the value of online video versus TV to improve the marketing ROI ?

Trend: Changing consumer purchase behaviour

• -> What about the impact of the changing consumer purchase behavior on the value of online video versus TV to improve the marketing ROI ?

Trend: 'moment of purchase'-shift from bricks to clicks

• -> What about the impact of growing popularity of multi touch tablets - in combination with the impuls-buying-strength-of-online-video - on the value of online video versus TV to improve the marketing ROI ?

In the unfolding marketing eco system, what will become the value of online video versus TV to improve your marketing ROI? What will be the complete story? Time will tell.

David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

The journey of mediabrand NU.nl: figuring out optimal formats and business models

On July, 22th 2010, Sanoma's Dutch mediabrand NU.nl has launched its iPad app. A logical next step in a businessmodel-journey, based on an omnipresence strategy.

The first results:
A. Loads of positive feedback
B. Impressive growth
C. Promising figures

The first iPad-facts of NU.nl, compared to the other formats of NU.nl:

From social media to social operating systems

The web is not a destination, its an social operating system. Within a couple of years there will be no social media but social operating systems. We are already seeing the growing popularity of services like Facebook Connect, connecting 60 million people to Facebook outside destination site Facebook.com.

Another example of this trend: half of all Twitter activity is already taking place outside destination site Twitter.com.



The digital world will transform from a set of silos into a marketing eco system of solutions and ideas.

(Source: Helge Tenno / @congbo )

8 ways in which the Marketing Eco System has changed since 2000

Morgan Stanley: Digital trends 2010

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9 iPad learnings gathered on Sanoma's journey

The year 2010 is the year of Touch & Tablets.... and the year of the unfolding Marketing Eco System. Although the ultimate media-format has not been invented yet, Sanoma gathered some learnings on the 'multitouch'-journey.

But first two beliefs:
1. There are no magazine-apps, but mediabrand-apps;
2. In the end there won't be 1 perfect universal Autoweek-app, but many perfect Autoweek-apps.

In this unfolding Marketing Eco System all content goes digital AND goes mobile. New media-formats will emerge. Everything gets tagged and walled gardens open up. Lot's of (formerly) bundled content breaks free of old trapped business models and will be further atomized online.

Atomized mobile digital content drive micro-payments, which move from niche to mainstream payment models.

Don't build pay walls for your readers around the bundle, but activate people to give permission for a micro-payment for each atom that engages them to see, or read, or play, or listen a bit more of it. Monetize the instant gratification need.

Conclusion: Find out how to activate people to give as many micropayment-permissions as possible from the moment they jump into the real-time river of emerging media-formats; formats 'stuffed' with branded content & affiliate marketing deals.



David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

Moving beyond the business model of pushing ads; the art of commercial conversations

The effort and attention of marketing has always been focused on one aspect of marketing (pushing ads). We have to get used to leave this one dimensional view behind us, when one begins to realize that pushing ads is not a future proof business model. A more data-driven approach can transform - push-driven - advertising into more relevant - pull driven - sparkling (commercial) conversations.

As your mobile device becomes more and more the remote control for your daily live, you provide Sanoma - with your approval - the necessary data to improve our competence to serve you relevant and useful content, services, answers, solutions or utilities at the right time and the right place.

Do you belief in what we - Sanoma - belief in? Will you allow us to master the art of sparkling (commercial) conversations?

David de Boer, Head of Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

Aggregate content for individuals in ways that matter to them

How do I keep up with all the new sources of information?
How do I find the right file?
How do you integrate data?

The powers in the unfolding Marketing Eco System; building the internet Operation System

The internet is becoming an operating system that manages access by mobile devices to cloud subsystems ranging from computation, storage, and communications to location, identity, social graph, search, and payment. There are five main competing contenders: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Those 'big five' all have credible platforms with strong developer eco systems.

In the unfolding marketing eco system, the key question is

Will a single company put together a single, vertically-integrated platform? Or will we see services from multiple providers horizontally integrated via open standards?

In the short term, we'll see heightened competition, shifting alliances, and a wave of innovation, as companies fight for advantage in delivering next generation applications, and then use those applications to drive adoption of their respective platforms.

How long will it take before the big five (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook) will realize that it is in their interest to work together.....and make a start to adopt the horizontal, open strategy? And, last but not least, what will be the unique 'added value role' of the 'other' media companies, on top of the building blocks of the big five?'




David de Boer, Head of Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma


(Source: Tim O'Reilly, State of the internet Operating System, part 1 and part 2)

Building brands while improving marketing ROI

Today's mass marketing model needs to evolve or marketeers will erode their ability to build brands, which is critical to avoid commodization. Today's media measurement systems needs to evolve to facilitate the marketer building brands while improving the marketing ROI.

Improving the marketing ROI starts with understanding how to improve the personal relevance at receptive key touch points with the consumer; at the moments that most influence their decisions.
(Source: Future of Advertising Project, Y. Wind)
Which moments most influence purchase decisions?
Digital technology is fundamentally transforming (1) consumer purchase behaviour and (2) media consumption habits. Gaining superior insights on media consumption behaviour - from a better understanding of the relationship between changing shopping and media usage - is necessary to improve the marketing ROI.

New technologies are changing consumer purchase behavior
Consumers are increasingly adopting new behaviours when it comes to researching and buying products. Traditionally, marketers' view of the purchase process has been based on a "funnel" with five successive stages:

1. awareness
2. familiarity
3. consideration
4. purchase
5. loyalty
   

This model is becoming increasingly outdated, as consumers much more activily reach out to the recommendations of their (online) peers to understand their options. "The real new medium is the voice of the consumer"(Peter ter Kulve, CEO Unilever Benelux).

New technologies are changing media consumption habits
Truly understanding the increasingly complex media consumption behavior of consumers allows marketers to more accurately anticipate on the impact and synergistic effects of media; to reach (or better, touch) their target consumers more effectively and efficiently at receptive moments, via relevant content that serves consumers' interests.



Media & Marketing measurement systems must leave their single media silo approaches and accomodate multi-media measurement. Unduplicated reach across different media will become a necessity, engagement and relevance will need to be researched too....to make the next step in improving the marketing ROI.



David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

Managing Media Companies • time to shift from Advertising Sales to a true B2B Marketing approach

Only a few TV channels apply sophisticated yield management techniques for the sales of scarce time-slots, similar to the techniques used by airlines when selling airline seats. Most advertising sales forces are managed traditionally, that is they are often organized by B2B customer size and region and selling only one type of media. The sales approach is mostly push, that is sell the available products, with little room left for the advertiser to shape the proposition.

Revision of advertising sales
The digital transition will foster traditional media companies to fundamentally revise their approach to advertising sales and implement sophisticated B2B marketing strategies. An aggressive sales force on its own will not suffice. The advertising sales process should be transformed into B2B marketing with a focus on targetability and measurability. For this, media companies will have to develop a much deeper understanding of their B2B customers' needs. With these deeper B2B customer insights, a value-added proposition has to be developed, based not only on strategically designed (crossmedia) advertising products, but also on a service offering along the whole advertising value chain.

(Source: Future of Advertising Project, Y. Wind)
Media companies have the unique chance to interact with advertisers in the concept phase, based on their understanding of target groups and storytelling abilities; in the media selection phase, based on their knowledge of media-usage patterns; and finally in the measurement phase, by providing consumer-usage data.

Tying this all together into a coherent approach will make the media company a strategic partner for advertisers/brand marketeers.....rather than suppliers of ad inventory.

Integrating sales forces
In many media companies the sales forces for offline and online are still separated. With the growth of online media and the increased need for integrated offerings, this approach will have to be revised.

Traditional media companies will have to manage the transition from price-based to value-based competition in advertising sales. This will entail a fundamental shift in mindset and innovative approaches in creating value for customers. Managing the complexity of more differentiated offerings, ensuring an effective use of resources and securing a constructive cooperation with the media agencies will be the main challenge in implementing this strategy.

David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

(Source 1: Managing Media Companies, A. Aris and J. Bughin)

(Source 2: The basics of B2B sales succes, McKinsey)