Cebit Interview – Über die Zukunft der Arbeitswelt

Die Arbeitswelt verändert sich. Die Menschheit fägt sich, ob Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking oder Web 2.0 harte Arbeit ist, oder die Produktivität der Businesswelt an den Abgrund treibt. Geht es nur um die Erhöhung des persönliche Reputationsindex, des Personal Scoring Index, oder ergibt sich nachhaltige Lead Generierung -erst kürzlich als Salestainability umschrieben- und neues Business einfach selbstständig aus Gesprächen?

Wenn man zum Interview auf der Cebit von IBM eingeladen wird, kann man in ein paar Minuten nicht alles sagen, was man gerne sagen würde. Man kann auch keine 3-Säulen-Strategie im Detail erläutern, die man in der Zukunft als essentiell für den erfolgreichen Einsatz des Social Web für die Webstrategie eines Unternehmens ansieht.

Ich wollte im Interview so verständlich wie nur möglich auf die wichtigen Trends und erfolgversprechenden Taktiken eingehen, die sich abzeichnen und teilweise heute schon gelebt werden in der Businesswelt. Hoffen wir, mir ist es gelungen…

Die Idee der Visualisierung meiner Gedanken von Anna Lena Schiller während des Interviews finde ich sehr gelungen. Sie greifen den Gedanken des Personal Web Managers auf (links oben), sowie die zukünftige zentrale Herausforderung für den Einzelnen, einen 24 Stunden Tag so effizient mittels Social Software zu nutzen wie einen 36 Stunden Tag.

Der IBM Social Business Channel gibt im übrigen noch weitere Einsichten diverser Vordenker im Social Web. Ich empfehle sich auch die Meinungen mal anzuhören bzw. anzusehen.

Nun interessiert mich eure Sichtweise der Zukunft der Arbeitswelt. Wie stellt ihr euch den Arbeitstag von morgen vor? Was fehlt euch heute, was wünscht ihr euch morgen? Bin gespannt, auf eure Gedanken…

Real-time-bidding: How publishers and advertisers leverage online ads (a Michael Barrett interview)

One-on-one interview with Michael Barrett.

Michael Barrett joined Admeld from Fox Interactive Media, where he was Executive Vice President, Chief Revenue Officer and oversaw worldwide revenue for all properties, including MySpace, IGN, FoxSports.com, Fox.com, AmericanIdol.com and Scout.com. Before Fox, Mr. Barrett held senior sales positions at interactive leaders AOL Media Networks, GeoCities/Yahoo! and Disney Online.

The Strategy Web spoke briefly with Mr. Barrett about Real-Time-Bidding (RTB) and the benefit that Admeld can offer to publishers… and advertisers.

What is a private Ad Exchange and which role does Admeld play in this context?

The private exchange is built on Admeld’s core technology, it is an invite only marketplace. First, it leverages our yield optimisation engine, which connects to every major programmatic buyer. Second, it has an audience analytics module which enables the publisher to identify their most valuable users. And third, it has the analytics and controls necessary to help them stay aware of buying trends, price effectively and sell only to those they want.

Do you think, this model is right for every publisher?

The model makes sense for many large European publishers, but the solution isn’t right for every publisher. It’s meant for those that have the scale and brand equity to attract advertisers into their own marketplace. The private exchange is customized to a publisher’s needs, and delivers cutting-edge control over how you sell your inventory, to whom, and for how much.

Can you still put inventory through RTB on private exchange?

Yes, Admeld’s private exchange platform has been developed to primarily handle RTB and gives the publisher unprecedented, direct access to Admeld’s audience analysis and optimisation technology. The exchange platform works in concert with a publisher’s ad server and demand flows from the trading desks, DSP’s, and direct sold deals. This methodology gives the publisher truly informative access, control (including the ability to set price floors), and insights on their inventory, regardless of demand source.

Spot On!
The RTB technology approach is still quite new to the advertising industry. Admeld just recently launched a RTB network with quadrantOne on premium local audiences. sociomantic entered the European market last week – just some weeks after my company IDG signed a global agreement with Admeld to start their own RTB system called Techmediaexchange which will be going live soon. One of the latest studies by Forrester claims that RTB is accounting for 8% of the online display ad market in 2011. An interesting market for clients and publishers in the future…

News Update – Best of the Day

The mobile breakthrough was first named probably about six6 years ago, if not earlier. John Bell now hints to 4 killer slides that demonstrate why 2011 could be the year of the mobile revolution, and tells us how to align your mobile strategy. He based his reasons on the growing use of social networks in combination with mobile, the evolution of the mobile device which could be a tablets or car technology, and the evolution of location-based shopping.

Some companies think about getting rid of email at the workplace. While the younger generation merges their private emails with business emails… The email management company Mimecast released a survey showing that “85% of what Mimecast dubs “Generation Gmail” – employees 25 years old and younger – have used personal email accounts to send work-related documents”. And the reason is nothing new… size limits of their official work email accounts.

Many companies are asking me how to create content for their YouTube channels. SapientNitro shows in an interesting video how old school journalism moves into modern journalism 2.0. Just go to the streets, interview people about social media usage and consumers relationships with socially-conscious companies. Generate different voices from offline to go online. Radio stations have done this the audio way, companies now can do it in audio-video quality easily. Make others and yourself heard in an intelligent way…

How Cisco’s SocialMiner helps improve the conversation with customers (a John Hernandez interview)

One-on-one interview with John Hernandez

John Hernandez is General Manager of the Customer Collaboration Business Unit (CCBU) at Cisco, which provides contact center and interactive voice applications to enterprises and service providers. In this capacity he oversees product and market development, and is closely involved in the business with the Cisco sales force and partners.

The Strategy Web spoke with him about the launch and benefits of their new customer care product SocialMiner.

What were Cisco’s most successful social medias tactics in the last 2 years? How did Cisco came across the new solution SocialMiner? Why is social media monitoring so important from a strategic point of view for businesses?

Cisco is very active in social media. Our employees were some of the earliest adopters of Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social sites. We have tens of thousands of active social media users in our company, as well as a robust and vibrant corporate presence on the social web.

Social media monitoring can become a key strategic advantage for businesses. From a contact center perspective, social media could be treated as “just another channel” in a multichannel approach. However, the public nature of social media, along with the sheer volume of social media postings, makes social media as much a business intelligence tool as a new way to engage with customers. Cisco believes that proactive social media customer care will have a transformative impact on how companies engage and serve their customers.

The concept of the SocialMiner product came from our observation of the changing communication habits and Internet usage of consumers. As consumers have adopted social media channels for their individual communications on an ever-increasing basis over the past couple years, it is only natural that they would consider interacting with a business via social media. This concept of social impacting customer relationships is a very active topic within the emerging “Social CRM” community.

Is SocialMiner just a Customer Service product? Bearing in mind that social conversations on the web affects the whole business…

Cisco SocialMiner is an engagement product, not a “listening product.” SocialMiner is designed to scale the quality and quantity of social media interactions performed by a business. SocialMiner can be used for a variety of business functions such as Support or Sales, but we believe the customers that derive the most value from social media will also use these engagements to drive business process change. For example, an organization could use SocialMiner as a source of business intelligence to provide real-time customer appreciation or criticism of a product or service (or of a competitors’ product/service). Social media can direct their business strategy. Cisco believes that companies that learn from social media will become closer to meeting their customers’ expectations and this will drive overall business success.

Which three benefits do business users have using SocialMiner compared to other tools in the market (Radian6, Alterian, etc.)

1. Cisco SocialMiner is complementary to brand monitoring dashboard solutions. It is designed to support scaling social media by leveraging the best practices from contact center type operational models: Queuing, Service Level Metrics (Average Speed of Answer), and productivity metrics for users. By contrast, many of the brand monitoring dashboards have pieces of workflow capability, but these capabilities are either relatively limited or recently introduced functions.

2. Cisco SocialMiner is a component of the Cisco contact center portfolio which currently includes an installed base of over 10,000 customers. SocialMiner is packaged, priced, and delivered along with Cisco Unified Contact Center Express and Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise solutions, and therefore it supports the same installation, deployment, serviceability, and user experience as these other Cisco collaboration solutions.

3. Cisco SocialMiner is a very easy to install and operate software appliance. It runs on premise or in a customer controlled data-center hosting facility and offers unlimited capture capability. Cisco SocialMiner is an API-first product with 100% of functionality available via REST API’s and all user interface delivered as OpenSocial gadgets with documented source that can be modified by Cisco channel or customers. This model supports the preferred consumption model of most enterprise organizations along with a broad customization capability.

Can it be used as a stand-alone product or only in combination with other Cisco products for customer service? Do you have any case studies of success?

Cisco SocialMiner can be used as a stand-alone solution. We have several case studies that illustrate SocialMiner’s success. Zone Labs is one of them. The small wellness company was looking to accelerate revenues & grow 1000% in next 3 years, implemented Cisco SocialMiner to increase customer engagement, customer satisfaction and sales. Zone Labs started developing social communities on their own website as well as Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets. They used Cisco SocialMiner to route and queue contacts to experts within their organization.

Using SocialMiner, experts were able to proactively answer health and wellness questions via Twitter, providing encouragement to consumers on the Zone Diet, customer service and expert advice on questions such as vitamins and healthy recipes. Zone Labs saw improved agent productivity by automating capturing and responding to social media posts (currently estimated at ~10x). They gained greater customer satisfaction & brand mind-share from faster first inquiry resolution on the web, and were able to compete on comparable scale with larger companies. Their social media activity reduced their customer acquisition cost and created a larger funnel with more leads, that were converted more easily and more quickly than before.

Within 4 months of using SocialMiner, Zone Labs saw tremendous results:
- Web site transactions up 189%
- Revenue up 203%
- 202% increase in total visitors to www.zonediet.com

Thank you for your time, John. And by the way: I like your commercial for the product…

Studie: B2B Entscheider handeln emotionaler als angenommen

Es ist eine Frage, die Marketingleute seit Jahren beschäftigt. Handeln Business-To-Business Entscheider rein rational, oder sind bei der Entscheidungsfindung im Kaufprozess durchaus mehr Emotionen im Spiel als bisher angenommen?

Über Jahre hätten wir vermutlich geantwortet, dass -gerade in Deutschland- Fakten zählen, wie uns nicht zuletzt Herr Markwort jahrelang in seinem Fokus TV-Spot selbst im B2C Umfeld weis gemacht hat. Die B2B Agentur RTS Rieger Team und forum! Marktforschung haben mir nun Auszüge einer von den beiden Unternehmen durchgeführten Studie zur Verfügung gestellt, die die Mär des rational-agierenden homo oeconomicus in Frage stellt.

In 300 Telefoninterviews hat man die erste und zweite Führungsebene aus unterschiedlichen Industriezweigen (Anlagen- und Maschinenbau, Elektronik und Automatisierung) nach ihren Beweggründen bei Kaufentscheidungen befragt. Das Ergebnis verblüfft. Obwohl 77% der Befragten angeben, dass sie Emotionen in Kaufprozessen ausblenden, lassen 54% einen Deal platzen, nur weil sie ein ungutes Gefühl haben. Und sogar 31% vertrauen ihrem Instinkt, was nicht gerade für eine rationale Entscheidung spricht.

Auf die Frage, ob Produkte oder Preise nicht vorwiegend zählen, gibt es dennoch eine schwierige Faktenlage. Für 88% zählt vorerst mal das Vertrauen in den Anbieter. Doch wer oder was bildet das Vertrauen? Fakten, Emotionen, Menschen oder Marken? Für 85% kommen gute Beratung und Betreuung bei der Kaufentscheidung gleich an zweiter Stelle. 39% haben angegeben, daß ein angenehmer Kontakt zum Mitarbeiter entscheidend war und 30% nennen die die Nähe des Anbieters als kaufentscheidendes Kriterium. Menschen kaufen eben von Menschen. Je schneller der Zugriff möglich ist, umso wohler fühlt sich der Mensch offensichtlich bei der B2B Kaufentscheidung.

Für die Fakten spricht, daß der qualitativ beste Anbieter bei 72% der Schlüssel zur Kaufentscheidung ist. Doch wenn für 67% hohe Anbieterreputation und für 64% hohe Produktreputation wichtig sind, ist das dann ein Votum für die Fakten- oder Emotionsentscheidung? Und wie lässt sich interpretieren, dass nur 13% die Marke bei der Produktauswahl wichtiger sehen als den Preis?

“Marken brauchen Emotion, weil Sie jeden Tag emotionalen Entscheidern gegenüberstehen, dies beweist unsere Studie BtoB Insight.” Meint zumindest Tim Bögelein, Geschäftsführer, RTS Team.

Ob die Studie das wirklich beweist, mag man mal im Raum stehen lassen. Zumindest liefert sie einen Ansatz, den emotionalen Wirkungsgrad bei einer Business-Kaufentscheidung mal genauer unter die Lupe zu nehmen.

Spot On!
Dass Emotionen in der Businesswelt keine Rolle spielen, haben wohl nur die wenigsten angezweifelt. Offensichtlich zieht der alte Spruch “Qualität hat seinen Preis” im B2B Umfeld immernoch. Denn nur 26% lassen den günstigsten Preis entscheiden. Sicherlich kann man davon ausgehen, dass der Mensch bei der Kaufentscheidung einem hybriden Prozessansatz folgt: Die Kombination aus persönlichem Kontakt (Emotion) und vernünftigem Preisangebot (Ratio) sind bei einer B2B Kaufentscheidung eminent wichtig – und gerade bei Produktgleichheit das Zünglein an der Waage Kaufentscheidung.

Aber das ist meine Meinung. Andere Meinungen sind mehr als willkommen…

Absatzwirtschaft über “führende Werbeblogger” in Deutschland

Das Marketing-Magazin Absatzwirtschaft, eines der deutschen Top Marketingblätter, hat vor ein paar Wochen für seine Printausgabe die “führenden Werbeblogger” Deutschlands interviewt. Für mich war die Tatsache eine Ehre, das man neben “Indiskretion Ehrensache” und “Off the Record” auch The Strategy Web zu einem der “führenden Werbeblogs” in Deutschland zählt, sowie zum Interview bittet.

Natürlich hätte ich gerne mehr über die Bloggosphäre gesagt, aber eine grundsätzlich diskussionwürdige Stellungsnahme ist sicherlich das Zitat:
“Es ist ziemlich verworren, was zurzeit im Bereich der Webstrategien abgeht! Markenverantwortliche träumen von Bloggern und Followern in ihren Diensten, doch die modernen Socialmedians verhalten sich anders.” Es verdeutlicht, was derzeit die Marketiers wollen, aber die Bloggosphäre meiner Ansicht nach, oft noch nicht bereit ist zu vollfüllen.

In den nächsten Tagen werde ich das ein wenig mehr ausführen, wenn ich meine dreiteiligen Reihe “Insights 2010″ veröffentliche. Der Beitrag “Spaßgetrieben” kann im PDF-Format nachgelesen werden…

Study: Web 2.0 increase market share, gain benefit

The latest research by McKinsey & Company states that companies embracing Web 2.0 opportunities have more chances to gain market leadership and step ahead of their competitors than companies that are less Web 2.0-savvy. The research was interviewing 3.249 companies as part of its annual Web 2.0 survey.

The study concluded that “networked enterprises” are more likely to be market leaders and winning market share. The study’s authors, Jacques Bughin and Michael Chui said that the Web 2.0 companies “also use management practices that lead to margins higher than those of companies using the Web in more limited ways.” They found that 27% of companies overall gained market share against their competitors and could succeed with higher profit margins.

The success curve of the “networked companies” is exponential. Those companies that are “highly networked enterprises”, defined as companies using Web 2.0 inside and outside their business in innovative ways, “were 50 percent more likely to fall in this high-performance group than other organizations were,” the authors state.

The authors prediction is that that in many industries, “new competitive battle lines may form between companies that use the Web in sophisticated ways and companies that feel uncomfortable with new Web-inspired management styles or simply can’t execute at a sufficiently high level.”

Companies that have embraced Web 2.0 philosophy continue to report that they are receiving measurable business benefits. 90% are reporting at least one benefit. The benefits were increasing speed of access to knowledge – 77% of respodents with internal Web 2.0 efforts and 57% using Web 2.0 to engage external partners. Obviously cost saving is a big topic: 60% of internal and 53% of external users mention that communication costs could be reduced. And travel costs decreased as well said 44% internal users and 38% external users.

LeWeb10 – Learnings & Review

Before I came to Paris to participate in the LeWeb10, I was quite amazed how excited everyboody was about the event. Tweets went to and fro about what we can expect as revolutionary input (comparable to Cebit in the 90′s when companies were launching their most important technology inventions). On Facebook people were awaiting the great party with DJ Bob Sinclair. And people did their networking via Presdo which was used as the “official social network” for participants.

So, what was my impression of LeWeb10? Of an event where 2500 devices got connected, 300 Gigabytes of data were going in and out…

Obviously, the networking part is the most important topic of all events in this business. And so I was networking with many people from interesting people (like Jeremiah – interview follows…) and companies like Pearltrees which introduced new technology or business opportunities. As some could not make it, we will have to evaluate Presdo’s real social networking after-event benefit in some days. So far, so good…

They keynote by Carlos Ghosn, Chairman & CEO, Renault S.A. & Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. was impressive and honest. It showed how much the automotive industry and the IT are coming together, although the former cannot keep up with the speed of innovation the later embraces. The New Megane will have as much IT build in as the first Airbus 300 about 20 years ago. Global warming (also air polution), oil price and the future of mobility will be challenges the car industry will neeed to tackle, Ghosn said, facing the fact that there will be 2 billion cars globally by 2020. A topic I have actuall picked as a futuristic project for me and IDG…

The plenary hall talks were the usual PR outlooks (most not much enlightening…). Interstingly enough, for the first time I saw somebody praising openly the quality of their competitor’s device. Marko Ahtisaari, Director of Design Strategy at Nokia, mentioned the “beautiful elegant” and “easy to learn” of the Apple UI. Obviously, these words were to underline that their new Meego-based platform will kind of “revolutionize” UIs in the future (launch in 2011). He also mentioned that Nokia has 1.5 billion mobile handset users a day and 3.5 million app downloads a day in their Ovi store. Seeing this under the findings of the latest Handmark Mobile Media Consumption Report that mobile replace desktops for breaking news and events consumption, Nokia does well to make their devices more user friendly. Most of my friends don’t have Nokias anymore. Apple and Androids are their choices. So, the competition will be interesting…

For some months, we have been discussing internally the value of MySpace. Or if their market has gone already. Mike Jones, the CEO of MySpace, reaffirmed (or redefined?) their new positioning to the world. MySpace does not want to be a social network anymore but a social entertainment platform (which explains the mayor partnership with Facebook). MySpace is reinventing itself. User shall get recommendations for music, TV and other entertainment content, in some way similar Facebook’s social graph approach (250 mio. peoplle use Facebook Connect button). Music seems to be the focus for them in the future.

“My goal is you come to MySpace, you listen to some new bands and connect to those bands. I don’t wanna be the place that replaces iTunes. I wanna be the place where you learn about music and then take that to wherever your music consumption happens. If we connect you to curators who bring you the best content, your repeat visits go dramatically up,” concluded Jones.

Some of the Ignite speeches were mentionable and thought-provoking (Fumi Yamazaki about the Japanese Geek culture of openness and collaboration).

Side notes… Finally I saw the first Promoted Tweet activity appear in my Tweetdeck account pop up. And I agree with the findings of a study by TWRTCON and oneforty about promoted tweets: Yes, it is was a positive experience (as long as it comes up like this… see picture) and No, it did not target me, so I did not click…

The food was really good – THX to the founders Geraldine & Loïc Le Meur! Maybe work on the registration process. Standing in the rain for an hour is “sub-perfect”… ;-)

Spot On!
The funny thing in the last two weeks was that wherever I was going (Munich, Paris and London) the world collapsed as of serious snow conditions. Two hours waiting on a plane, getting stuck in Heathrow for another day, and no cabs available in Paris for hours were my learings on how much we depend on nature. No matter how clever our technology is. And then you realize how much you use modeern technology. You pick up the iPad and watch TV (live or on-demand) and participate in webinars or conferences. Conversations continue consistently. And sometimes you ask yourself: Do we really need to fly to these countries to join these events anymore? Especially, when these events can be viewed on a live stream? And then you think about Bob Sinclair and listen to his fantastic party tune “World hold on!“…

You answer this question or add thoughts to the future of mobility and events if you may… Much appreciated!

Die 3-Säulen-Strategie lebt weiter…

Vor einigen Wochen haben wir, Heike Bedrich und ich, unsere 3-Säulen-Strategie veröffentlicht. Hätten wir gewusst, dass es schon zahlreiche solcher 3-Säulen-Strategien gibt, ich weiß nicht, ob wir dann unsere Strategie mit den 3-Säulen manifestiert hätten. Was meinst Du, Heike?

Damals haben wir uns wenig Gedanken darum gemacht, ob es eine solche 3-Säulen-Strategie auch in der Politik, der Medizin, der Energiewirtschaft, der Umwelttechnik oder der Unternehmensstrategie wie bei der Firma Seidensticker gibt.

Es war eine Idee, eine Vision oder ein Gedankenansatz, der Unternehmen und Unternehmern Social Media als strategische Change Management Vision nahelegt. Die 3-Säulen-Strategie soll aber auch verdeutlichen, welche Chancen, Notwendigkeiten und Prozesse notwendig sind, wenn sich diese Strategie erfolgreich auf die Unternehmensstrategie auswirken soll.

Die oben angesprochenen Beispiele waren vor unserer 3-Säulen-Strategie erdacht, ins Leben gerufen und wurden womöglich schon gelebt. Ob unsere Strategie schon gelebt wird? Wir wissen es nicht. Wir werden weiter diskutieren, wie man als Marke oder Unternehmen Social Media strategisch sinnvoll und effizient verankern kann. Das letzte Beispiel der obigen kommt unserem Gedanken aber wohl am nächsten.

Auf der dmexco haben wir unsere 3-Säulen-Strategie noch ein wenig ausführlicher in einem Interview mit media-Treff erläutert…

Wir sind immer noch davon überzeugt, einen wirkungsvollen Ansatz für die strategische Implementierung und Verankerung von Social Media im Unternehmen erdacht zu haben. Es liegt an Unternehmens- und Abteilungsleitern diese Strategie umzusetzen und vielleicht lasst ihr uns dann wissen, wie, was und warum diese erfolgsversprechend ist.

News Update – Best of the Day

How will the future of the workplace look like? I have my views: flexible working hours, mobile offices and driving busness by networking outside of the office. Generally speaking, I love to share ideas and thoughts that I come across like these work displacements. Now that Porsche and VW (partly) banned access to social networking sites, it is interesting to see the other side of the medal. Maybe social networking becomes the main corporate sales strategy in the future. This example shows why the use of Salesforce Chatter could become an optimization of the future workplace.

The good thing about Social Media? People blog about events you could not take part in as they took place when you had meetings, where not in the country, etc. They share their new knowledge and some good case studies of social media campaigns like Juan Martinez who took part in the Social Ad Summit ’10. He tells us about the 5 Dos and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing, he learned from Aaron Shapiro, partner at Huge, Inc..#

One of the succesful modern virals was the Old Spice campaign. AdNews interviewed Isaiah Mustafa on the future of media and on becoming an internet sensation.

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