eCommunications for global organisations

This is a cross post from Ideaplants.org.
I just read an article on China Daily in which Marcos Fava Neves, professor of strategic planning and food chains at the School of Economics and Business, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, proposes to add another dimension to the model of sustainabiltiy. Normally we consider the economic, social and environmental perspective when assessing sustainability. Marcos Fava Neves proposes to add in the context of organizations that struggle to implement this concept as part of their planning and operations pro-activeness as an additional measure.


When reading the article I started wondering whether pro-activeness is really what we are missing. Companies do most of the time act in different ways. In my eyes the issue is rather a lack of ownership and leadership in the space of sustainability. In a traditional company structure sustainability is not assigned to any specific department and therefore it is unclear who should be taking the lead on this.


It’s not just about what you do but also about how you link individual activites. Ideally an organization has an overall sustainability strategy and links activites to this strategy with the aim to create one real and coherent sustainability story. Transparency and involvement of internal and external stakeholders is key here. This involves HR, marketing, business development, and many other divisions.

Getting everyone on board requires not just pro-activeness but also smart leadership.

This is a cross post from ideaplants.org:


When was the last time you made a rational choice in a complex decision?
Thinking about it seriously, I’m not even sure that I’ve ever made one.
How is it possible to consider all possible factors and anticipate what option might be best with our little brain that has a limited amount of knowledge?


The choice for the right study programme, the most promising job, the least polluting car, the relationship that will last forever or simply the greenest energy provider often bring us to the edge of our capabilities of making a rational decision.


James G. March wrote in his book ‘A Primer on Decision Making’ about the limitations of rationality. He identifies four factors that limit us in the way we make decisions while also considering challenges for organizations:


1. Problems of attention: Limitations in the time we can spend on considering all factors
2. Problems of memory: Capabilities to capture and process all the information we gather
3. Problems of comprehension: Capacity to grasp complex issues and interpret them correctly - this is especially difficult in complex situations that cover a wide field of knowledge areas
4. Problems of communication: Problems with sharing and communicating crucial information, factors that are not presented clearly and other limiting issues e.g. due to language and cultural differences.


All these issues make it quiet difficult for someone to make a decision that is solely based on rationality - this is probably not a good excuse for individuals and businesses, but it might explain certain behaviors and put off pressure of people that think they should always make rational and fair decisions.


Especially in organizations that have been around for a while decision making processes are extremely long and complex. In todays fast changing world, this limits and blocks the organization in making the right choices.


In today’s environment the biggest challenge is not anymore to make the right choice, but to adapt to the changing environment.


A lot of flexibility is demanded from individuals and organizations. It’s not a surprise that young organizations with less structure and processes seem to cope with this much better than multinationals that are following a model which is already many years old.

What’s cradle to cradle? - I’m reading the book ‘cradle to cradle’ by Michael Braungart & William McDonough. Which is questioning some of the simple concepts that I have so far always taken for granted.

Cradle to cradle is giving the word ‘design’ a deeper meaning. Rather than looking at a visual aspect, it is about designing a product by keeping in mind the entire product life cycle.

We live in a system that is designed based on common values we had back in times of the industrial revolution. Times where people thought environmental resources would last forever and people would only benefit from the improved production models… It only makes sense that environment was not a priority back then.

Looking at products & services that were designed following the very same model today we should ask ourselves the question: What is the point in improving a product that is not good in the first place?

The point is not necessarily that we need to stop completely what we are doing right now. It’s more about rethinking the things we are right now and adapting it to a new model that keeps in mind all aspects of sustainability.

Rather than putting economic impact in the centre of discussion, William McDonough is putting a slightly different aspect in the middle of the thinking he does with every product he designs:
How do we love all the children of all species for all time?

The best introduction to this topic (besides the book of course) is the documentary called ‘Waste = Food’ that even won Winner the Silver Dragon at the Beijing International Science Film Festival.

Your thoughts are more than welcome.

After months of hard work, editing and designing, we have just gone live with our latest eBook, “Your Online Journey Starts Now - A Survival Guide for Corporate Marketers”. Writing an eBook takes time and perseverance and I hope that the outcome is worth it. I am sure a great deal can still be improved, and I look forward to your feedback in order to update it.

It is written for the corporate marketers who want to take advantage of the current crisis to shift their communication to a web based model.

Read it, share it and enjoy!

Looking forward to your feedback.

We had a coaching session last week on developing the right attitude to work together as a team. Earlier in the morning, I come accross this nice video called Smile and Move, I wanted to share this because it is something that might brighten you day. Also nice web production, using the same style as the ‘girl effect’ but with a different angle. It shows how a simple production can deliver a powerful message.

I just finished reading ‘Leadership In the Era of Economic Uncertainty’ by Ram Charan and I found it a very practical guide for senior executives during the downturn we are currently facing.  It provides useful advice and gives a down to earth approach and shows how being prepared, facing reality and communicating clearly with your team and suppliers your current situation and approach.   Ram Charan also does a very good job at showing what priorities need to change in this context and how it affects every key parts (and roles) of the business.  I feel that he doesn’t overplay the downturn and the ‘worst thing since the 1930s’ panic angle that journalists seem to be relishing and but he also avoids the cliché this is a great opportunity for everyone.  He is realistic when he says that most companies will face negative growth and need to prepare for keeping focus on cash and coming through what could be a prolonged situation (one to three years in his estimates).

His advice his summarized in the amazon editorial review page:

• Protect cash flow vigilantly, even daily, and use cash more efficiently
• Use ground intelligence to survive the storm and position your business to thrive in the aftermath
• Develop a better understanding of your customers
• Reevaluate your pricing strategy and capital expenditures.
• Use cost cutting strategically

All of these are explained in a clear and concise way and give concerned executives a framework in which to approach the recession and plan ahead.

Perhaps insufficient attention is paid to the opportunities that this environment creates for corporations, such as making much needed changes to the communication approach and rethinking certain aspects of the corporate structure that have been shielded from changes by the ‘good times’.  In my mind, this period is a time to challenge, rethink and review what didn’t work as well as it should.  However Ram Charan identifies the key fundamentals and I am sure senior executives will find a very useful read.

The web continues its progress as becoming the main source of news gradually replacing alternatives for the ultimate place where information is found.  According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press the percentage of people getting their news online jumped from 24 percent a year ago to 40 percent.  During the same period newspapers have remained around 35 percent.

I picked up this story in this blog post then latter in Media Post.  The findings don’t surprise me, as it confirms the trend I have been following that the internet is becoming the ultimate source of information for any kind of activity we might have.  What is fascinating is how the internet continues it’s progress and regardless of hype is becoming a permanent feature of our everyday lives.

Over the past decade we have been observing how the internet has become increasingly core to any fact finding activty, increasingly being the start, if not the end of any research process that we understake to form an opinion on any given subject.

Whether the print media will actually disappear altogether is not the real question.  The key is what role the internet plays in influencing people in making a decision on a political subject, medical question or purchasing of a product.   The real question is not whether the internet will be the single most important part of this process, but when…

From time to time a strange discussion takes place with one of our clients, prospects or someone I meet at a party.  In the later case I was discussing what a viral marketing campaign was and whether it could actually be commissioned by a client.  The scary answer by inexperienced (or dishonest?) marketing agencies is horribly consistent: let’s do a one minute video - it will be funny and maybe a bit outrageous and as a result we will have ourselves a viral marketing campaign.

This kind of answer makes me sad and a little angry.  I must also admit that I was once involved in a project like this and had to fight with the ‘advertising people’ about the fact that a funny video alone simply would not do it.

Recently Seth Godin, the man who ‘owns’ the concept of viral marketing (calling it ‘ideavirus) has revisited the subject on his blog.  He wrote a post entitled ‘what is viral marketing’ which is a great recap of the meaning of the concept.

He summed up my feelings better than I could:

The reason for this post is that viral marketing is getting a bad name, largely from clueless marketing agencies and clueless marketers. Here’s what they do: they get a lame product, or a semi-lame product, and they don’t have enough time or money to run a nationwide ad campaign. So, instead, they slap some goofy viral thing on top of it and wait for it to spread. And if it doesn’t spread, they create a faux controversy or engage a PR firm or some bloggers and then it still doesn’t work.

My word of advice next time the topic comes up:

1) You can never predict whether a campaign or video will go viral

2) The real question is why do you want something to go viral and what you are trying to accomplish: the answer to this is often that you want to get your message out and get a discussion going on a topic or raise awareness of some issue.  Instead of trying to create a viral marketing video, why don’t you concentrate on doing just that?

3) Stop using the word ‘viral’ - if you want traffic, say you want traffic, if you want people to forward the message, say that too.  Nobody wants viral marketing for its own sake - and the most successful viral marketing video were accidental (ask the Star Wars kid).

I want to end this with another quote from Seth Godin’s post:

Something being viral is not, in an of itself, viral marketing. Who cares that 32,000,000 people saw your stupid video? It didn’t market you or your business in a tangible, useful way.

Marketers are obsessed with free media, and, as is often the case, we blow it in our rush to get our share. We create content that is hampered or selfish or boring. Or we create something completely viral that doesn’t do any marketing at all.

If you want to start looking at the predictions being for made for 2009 in emarketing, check out this compilation made by Zazoo.

It’s time to start working on those plans, make those assumptions and figure how to prepare for a year that will be a year of change, unpredictable events and plenty of surprise (wait a minute, that was 2008!).

One of my favourites is from Integrated campaign metrics - “The holy grail of marketing will get one step closer as technology starts to allow a more integrated metrics reporting of campaign media.” - but then again we having been getting closer to this every year for the past ten years…

And also from ClickZ comes the predictable prediction: “The coming year in advertising is predicted to be, if nothing else, unpredictable.”

Watch this space and you will see my own predictions for 09.

http://www.zazoo.com.au/2008/12/18/and-this-is-the-year-that-will-be/

For most Communication professionals, it is now clear (I hope) that the web and new technologies have proven that communication as we used to see it is no longer, and is changing at an incredible speed. The fun when you are working in communication and open to new changes is to figure out whether and/or how a new technology is going to change the way we communicate. My bet today is on print interactive advertising / magazine. I am not talking about so-called ‘e-paper’ - the flat-panel screen technology displaying newspaper. Now I am talking about real paper, real print opening up to the virtual world: the ‘augmented reality’!

I was watching a ‘reportage’ on Euronews the other day (click on the video button to view it here). They describe the ‘augmented reality’. If you were impressed in your young age by putting on your 3D binoculars and watching the images come to life in 3D, then watch out! Here it is the same but with the fantastic addition of actually interacting with the 3D images that forms once you put on your enhanced binoculars. You can give command to the 3D element, see it moving around (even going out of the border of the magazine and moving on the table you put your magazine on!) and if you have captors on your hands you can even feel it! Ok this is nothing new and cinema and some hi-tech museums have been using it. What is new is the cost of it - it is now affordable…so it is going to come very soon into our daily lives.

Watching this I was already dreaming about my future paper magazine (sorry but I actually love the feeling of paper in my hand) or my book with not only flat images but with elements and ads that are moving around, coming to life and with which I can interact and learn so much more.

For more info about this just Wikipedia it or Google it or YouTube it…and watch out for the first to actually use it for a print communication campaign!!

[youtube]ZKw_Mp5YkaE&hl=en[/youtube]