The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Daniel Burrus, technology forecaster, business strategist, and author.

In his latest book, Flash Foresight, Dan outlines the blueprint he has been using for years to help his clients predict trends and build solid strategies to take advantage of the changes on the horizon. Given the changes in how the work I do has evolved, this book has become a timely resource that has helped shape the way I approach planning and strategy.

In this interview with Dan, we touch on some of the core themes and principles from the book and what they mean for brands that are struggling to reinvent themselves in this ever-changing, fast-paced world we live in.

In contrast to the typical written interviews that I’ve produced for Post2Post tours in the past, I tried something a little different this time around and recorded an audio interview with Dan. Be sure and let me know in the comments which you prefer.

—–

Download the interview with Dan Burrus

—

Find out more about the book and Dan at the Flash Foresight website. Also, when you buy your book, Daniel is offering $20,000 in Bonus Resources. Go to the site and click on the Bonus Resource Login button to get access to these resources.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Post2Post schedule:

If I described to you a country, that in recent years, has taken huge leaps forward in their adoption of mobile technology, and are doing things with mobile that most countries haven’t begun to, what country comes to mind?

You might think of China. And considering the large number of conversations and stories out there on the country’s growing economy, like Washington Posts’ analysis I shared on the Freshly Peeled, that would be a logical connection. But that’s not the country I’m talking about.

My guess is that an African country wouldn’t be the first country that pops into your head. But it’s true. African countries are adopting the mobile web at a blistering pace and are using it in ways that other countries haven’t.

Much of their emerging habits comes out of utility. Quite frankly, they don’t have any other option. In general, most Africans don’t have access to the internet through a desktop computer or laptop. In fact, there isn’t any infrastructure to support the type of internet many of us utilize at home and work. This has pushed Africa to evolve and adapt finding different ways to get the information they need.

In their monthly Monthly State of the Web report, Opera shows the growth of mobile browsing in some African nations up 365 percent compared to just one year ago. Other studies show similar growth trends. According to a study by On Device Research, many African countries are leading the way when it comes to accessing the internet via a mobile device.

Africa’s lack of standard infrastructure has pushed them to the head of the pack, where as other nations like the United States that and the UK that have been much slower to tap into the mobile web because of the large investments that have been made on legacy systems.

Dan Burrus, author of Flash Foresight, says that emerging nations “have the advantage of necessity.” He also describes the problem facing many established entities this way, “…it works to well to throw it away, but not well enough to move forward, and it’d growing more dilapidated and more handicap with every passing day. It is an anchor, holding us back as we strive to drag our way into the twenty-first century.

Dan calls this “the curse of what works,” and it’s not just something global nations are struggling with, but something that brands are facing as well as they battle between the legacy got them where they are today, and the pressure to be constantly reinventing the brand in order to stay relevant to consumers.

It’s can be a real challenge for established brands to see opportunities on the horizon. They can get so caught up in dealing with the issues of today (part of a legacy system), that they fail to see what’s next in their industry. A few easy examples come to mind: Kodak, EMI, Borders. You get the idea.

This is a topic that I plan to discuss in more depth with Dan in the coming weeks as a part of the Post2Post Tour, so I will leave it at that for now.

Photo credit: IICD

“We’ve got to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in!” – Axel Chaldecott, JWT

The idea of branded utility is nothing new. In fact, it’s an idea that has cycled in and out of popular conversations for almost a decade, and yet there is still debate on exactly what it means and whether or not brands can truly provide branded utility in a way that makes a relevant connection to the brand.

(Slide from my Micro-Pulse presentation)

I roughly define branded utility as any way that a brand can truly make the lives of consumers better. Branded utility is something that brands can create in different ways, which are often overlapping. I suggest that there are 6 key ways that brands can look to provide a branded utility:

• be creative – something new, unexpected and original
• be helpful – make something easier for consumers
• be relational – be in a convenient location
• be interesting – arouse curiosity and hold attention
• be relevant – do something that makes sense given the context
• be useful – serve a practical purpose

To make it simple, look for ways to provide value. That’s the key. Instead of looking for ways to shout a marketing message, create situations that add value to consumers so that they desire to engage with the brand.

For many this is the ending point in the discussion on branded utility. The thought is that if a brand can provide value in anyway and connect it to the brand, then they call it a win. I’m not so sure about that, in fact, I believe the Holy Grail of branded utility is found in when the solution is both utilitarian and (most importantly) on strategy. In my mind, you’re wasting your money if you can’t connect your efforts to the brand in a way that makes sense.

So what does on strategy branded utility look like?

This year at SXSW, Chevy brought some fine examples of how brands can provide value and stay on strategy.

(Disclosure: My employer, Fleishman-Hillard, was the agency for record for Chevy at SXSW 2010.)

Gowalla Airport Shuttle

Chevy partnered with the location-based travel game, Gowalla to provide a pop-up to randomly selected people checking in at the airport, offering them a free ride to downtown Austin. It was a fun way to experiment with emerging technologies, provide a helpful service to people (saving them a $50 cab ride) and give them an opportunity to experience riding in a Chevy vehicle first hand.

Read how Mike Schneider, one of the first to find and redeem a free Chevy ride, describes his experience.

Volt Recharge Lounge

During the Interactive portion of SXSW, the Volt Recharge Lounge was like finding a oasis in the desert for attendees desperately needing to charge their smartphones and laptops. SXSW can be draining, on both your body and on your devices. The Volt Lounge provided a great place to relax, recharge and even try some refreshing Sobe.

This made the lounge a great spot to meet new people and power-up community at SXSW. On a recent episode of JaffeJuiceTV, Joseph Jaffe called the lounge both “rescuing and rewarding.”

Catch a Chevy

At SXSW, a majority of the people in attendance have no choice but to walk. Most don’t have cars and if they do, parking fees can quickly add up when moving from one venue another that most choose to walk it. That all changed this year. Chevy provided attendees free rides to strategic stops around downtown Austin, helping them get to their destinations faster and save the souls of their shoes, all while experiencing a 2010 Chevy vehicle.

—

Do you have any good examples of branded utility?

Where you at SXSW 2010? What do you think of the examples I’ve written about here?

I haven’t really been a fan when it comes to listing trends and predictions for the new year. After all, shouldn’t we always be looking forward? Especially with the rate of change that currently exists?

That’s not to say that I haven’t contributed my thoughts as to what 2010 holds. Check out the 100 Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions for 2010, where I along with 60+ other marketing minds made our predictions.

I find a lot of value in being able to see future through so many different lenses this time of the year. I can see what topics are repeating and if there are any irregular gems that catch my eye as something to keep a close eye on in the coming months.

So with that goal in mind I’ve listed 46 different 2010 trends and predictions posts, that I’ve organized (as much as I can) by topic.

Please let me know I missed your predictions post. Go ahead and leave a link in the comments. I welcome different perspectives on what 2010 holds.

—-

Digital

• 100 Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions for 2010, by Various Authors

• 2010: Year of Digital Distraction?, by Pete Cashmore

• Twitter at a Crossroads: Audience Growth Won’t Be Enough in 2010, by Josh Bernoff

• Social Media 2010: it’s time to get boring, by Jackie Huba

• Top Digital Trends for 2010, by Brian Morrissey

• What’s the Twitter of 2010?, by Mark Evans

• 5 Social Media Implications for Brands in 2010, by Sienna Farris

• 2010 Social Media Influencers – Trend Predictions in 140 Characters, by TrendsSpotting

• ReadWriteWeb 2010 Predictions, by ReadWriteWeb

• The 10 TENsions That Will Define 2010, by Ross Dawson

• Top 5 Predictions for the Next 5 Years in Business Social Media, by Tac Anderson

• 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010, by Ravit Lichtenberg

• 6 Social Media Predictions for 2010, by Amy Porterfield

• 9 digital trends to watch in 2010, by Nuri Djavit

• Nick Law on 2010 Trends, by MediaBeat

• (Social Media) Trends to Watch in 2010, by Mike Sansone

• 2010 Trends: Social Media & Paid Content, by Debra Aho Williamson

• 10 Web trends to watch in 2010, by Pete Cashmore

• 100 Things to Watch in 2010, by JWT

Mobile

• How Carrier Evolution will Affect Mobile in 2010, by Vince Lesch

• What will be the major trends in mobile marketing in 2010?, by Giselle Tsirulnik

• 9 unpredictions: What’s not going to happen with mobile in 2010, by Vanessa Horwell

• 10 Trends to Watch in 2010, by David Stutts

• Six Social Media Trends for 2010, by David Armano

• Top ten digital trends for 2010, by Drew Neisser

• 8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010, by Sarah Perez

Marketing

• 10 Internet Online Trends for 2010, by John Arnold

• Trends That Will Shape Market Research In 2010, by Reineke Reitsma

• 2010: The Year Marketing Dies…, by Augie Ray

• 2010 Marketing Predictions, by Matt Granfield

• Three Words to Sing in 2010, by Pete Blackshaw

• 5 Trends That Will Shape Small Business in 2010, by John Jantsch

• Four Email Marketing Predictions for 2010, by Chad White

• Top 10 Brand and Marketing Trends for 2010, by Robert Passikoff

• 11 Smart Marketers Shared Their 2010 Predictions, by Various Authors

Public Relations

• What to Look Out For in 2010, by PRSA

• PR Trends in 2010: The Future of PR, by Sally Falkow

• Jeremiah Owyang: Public relations will be impacted by ’social CRM’ in 2010, by Dave Armon

• Envisioning Media Relations: 2010 Predictions, by BurrellesLuce

• Public Relations Measurement 2010: Five Things to Forget & Five Things to Learn, by Don Bartholomew

Customer Service

• 10 Customer Service Trends for 2010, by Barry Moltz

Journalism

• 8 News Media Business Trends for 2010, by Vadim Lavrusik

• 10 Reasons Media Relations Will Get Easier in 2010, by Jeremy Porter

Nonprofits/Social Good

• 3 Powerful Social Good Trends in 2010, by Ben Rattray

• Five Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2010, by Beth Kanter

Music

• 5 Predictions for the Music Industry in 2010, by Nick Crocker

Finally, to put all of these predictions into perspective, Iain Tait from Crackunit has some mockingly humorous Trend Predictions for 2010.

–

What did I miss? Let us know what you think 2010 holds in the comments, or leave a link to your trends and predictions post.

Download the Brand Touch Cycle pdf

A discipline that I consistently see organizations struggling with is in fully understanding the importance of touchpoints of their brand.

Yes they understand the basic idea of a touchpoint—that interactions with their brand is a touchpoint that influences the overall perception of their brand. And yes they know that it is to their advantage to integrate the touchpoints of their brand as much as possible.

The disconnects start to happen when we start to dig a little deeper into the organization and really start to identify all the ways in which consumers experience the brand. You then start to see areas where the brand experience doesn’t flow quite as smoothly as it should.

This typically happens because of lack of clarity in three areas:

1. Identifying all the touchpoints of a brand—large and small.
2. Understanding how consumers tend to move from one touchpoint to the next.
3. Recognizing that all touch have an impact the brand experience.

While working with clients to help them continually improve and grow their brands, I’ve developed a framework to help them fully grasp the depth and complexity of the many ways that consumers experience their brand, and also help them improve this experience over time.

I call it the Touch Cycle. Here are the steps:

1. Choreograph Touches
Map out as many different paths that a consumer might take with your brand, from start to finish. Think about all the interactions that consumers have with your brand, large and small.

Don’t forget the small touches here. We have a tendency to let all the big things our brands do overshadow the small things that slowly chip away at our brands.

How do they fit together? How do consumers move from one step to the next?

Play out these scenerios in your head. Do they flow together well?

2. Listen and Watch
At each of these touchpoints listen and watch what consumers say and do. What are they telling you through their actions, or what they tell others?

Take note of any confusion or frustrations that consumers might have at a specific touchpoint.

3. Reinforce Behaviors
Support the positive reactions and actions happening around with the touchpoints of your brand. Strengthen those touchpoints by encouraging good behaviors.

For example, if someone refers a friend to your product or brand, at the very least thank them. Or better yet, reward them in some way.

This is especially important when it comes to your brands online touchpoints. When someone says something good about your brand, engage with them. Thank them and encourage them to continue being advocates for your brand.

4. Evaluate and Expand

Take a look back at all the work you’ve done in steps 1, 2, and 3. Evaluate the effectiveness of the touchpoints you identified in step 1. Determine what’s working and what’s not.

Are there touchpoints that we should eliminate? Are there areas what we should expand into and add new touchpoints to the brand experience?

Download the Brand Touch Cycle pdf

—

It’s at this point that the cycle starts over and begins again. Obviously this is something that needs to be worked into a larger brand strategy, but I’ve found it to be a great tool to help organizations start to think of their brands in a more holistic way.

Thoughts? What say you?

A few months back I was approached by Leslie Scott’s publicist about setting up an interview with Leslie regarding her book About Jenga. At the time I had no idea who Leslie Scott was or why I would be interested in a book about that I assumed to be a history book for a board game.

But, luckily for Leslie, her publicist had clearly done her homework and was on target with her pitch. I kept reading and found out that Leslie was the creator of the popular household game, Jenga, and her book is packed full of stories and lessons learned on her lifelong journey with the game. Leslie’s extraordinary experiences fit nicely with unique approach to content I try to provide here at The Fresh Peel.

Jenga is a game that has always intrigued me because of it’s simple complexity. It’s such a simple game to understand, but a complex game and somewhat stressful game to master. And Leslie’s story has taken many twists and turns, with many great lessons learned along the way. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of About Jenga from the publisher.)

In this interview, I quiz Leslie on a variety of topics that she touches in the book, everything from her experience working at Intel to her intuitive understanding of the need to maintain the Jenga brand.

—-

Also, Leslie’s publicist sent me a signed holiday edition of Jenga that is signed by Leslie herself. I’ll be randomly giving this away to anyone that comments at the the end of this post. You have until Friday, November 20th to leave your comment for a chance to win!

—–

Q: Where did the idea for the game Jenga come from?

Leslie: Jenga was based on a game that my family devised in the mid-1970s using my then five-year-old brother’s wooden building blocks. We played this game within the family, and with friends, for several years before I decided to modify it, name it, manufacture it and take it to market in 1982.

Q: What triggered Jenga’s rise to its iconic status in the world of household games?

Leslie: This is a difficult question to answer in just one sentence as it begs further questions, such as what makes a good game in the first place, and even why do we play games at all? But in brief, I think Jenga satisfies all the basic requirements we have of a game. It demands skill, involves interaction with other players, provides suspense, and takes place within a finite period of time.

Q: In the book you stated that you were, “convinced that once buyers saw it, they would tumble over each other in their eagerness to put Jenga on the shelves in their shops.” That wasn’t exactly how things played out. What additional steps would you have taken in the beginning if you knew what you know now?

Leslie: I started a company with the sole purpose of taking Jenga to market. This meant that when I launched Jenga at the ’83 London Toy Fair, neither my company (Leslie Scott Associates) nor the product I was trying to sell had any name recognition in the business whatsoever. With hindsight I now know that it is exceedingly difficult for an unknown business to break into any market with an entirely novel product. At the time, I had naively assumed that the toy and gift business thrived on novelty. If I had been aware that this was not the case, I may have tried to license the game to an established company, one that had traction in the toy trade. But would they have been interested in this unknown game? Probably not.

Q: I was surprised to read that you worked for Intel for quite a long stint early on in your career. This was before Intel was the chip inside the world’s computers. How did this experience prepare you to become the creator of Jenga?

Leslie: Whether this was deliberate policy or not, in the early days, Intel fostered a culture of entrepreneurship within the company. By this I mean, employees were encouraged to take risks, and make their jobs their own. I discovered that I thrived in this environment. As Intel expanded and my job became (by comparison) a little more structured and lot more routine, I found I wanted to recreate the excitement of those early years, and did so by starting my own business; to put Jenga on the market.

Q: What lessons can we learn from games and gameplay that can be applied to the world of business?

Leslie: Games can provide an environment in which we can test ideas, or carry out thought experiments without risk of causing any real harm. There are lessons that one can learn from playing games that might be applied to the world of business, providing great care is taken never to fall into the trap of considering business as ‘ just a game.’ It is not. Business is real life, with real life consequences.

Q: How did you come up with the name Jenga? How important do you think the name has been to the games success?

Leslie: I wanted to give the game a name that would not mean anything, at least not in English, so that in due course, the definition of the word Jenga would be my game. I was born and raised in East Africa, speaking Swahili, from which I ‘borrowed’ the word Jenga. Jenga means ‘build!’ in Swahili. The fact that Jenga is now synonymous with the game (to the extent even that the word is frequently used as a metaphor for a certain type of instability), is certainly very important to the continuing success of the game.

Q: You have had some interesting experiences with trademarks and patents throughout the course of your career. What advice would you give to those interested in legally protecting their work?

Leslie: If you have invented a new device (for example, a new kind of randomizer); then patent it, if you can afford to do so. I filed a patent pending on Jenga, but could not afford to take it any further. If the word(s) you have chosen to name your product are not descriptive of the product; then trademark the name. And always copyright your rules.

Q: When it comes to branding Jenga, you said that there were, “two key moments in the history of the game, that were decisions as a result of an intuitive understanding of the art of branding.” Can you tell us about those two key moments?

Leslie: The first ‘key moment’ came when I refused to allow either Irwin Toy or Hasbro Corporation to drop Jenga as the name of the game. Both companies wished to acquire the rights to the game (Irwin for Canada, Hasbro for the rest of the world) at a time when I was up to my ears in debt from having published and marketed the game for three years entirely on my own. Both companies loved the game, but both ‘hated the name because it didn’t mean anything’. It was a potential deal breaker, but I stuck to my guns.

The second moment came when I begged Hasbro not to publish a range of ‘Jenga wooden puzzles and games’. I was certain that this would be entirely missing the point that Jenga was known as a very specific game.

—

Thanks Leslie!

Now leave those comments.

Jeff Brenman, of Apollo Ideas, adds his thoughts in a presentation about the future of work and they are a nice continuation to the future of work discussion.

Here are a few key points from Jeff’s deck.

The future of work is…

• Transparent – Your activities will be tracked, measured and tied to the bottom line.
• Flat – Location won’t matter.
• Competitive – No one is going to pay you for a degree. Performance matters.
• On Demand – There is no guarantee of a lifetime career.
• YOU.

–
Also, check out why Cubes are Evil.

The Post2Post bus has returned!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Jeremy Gutsche, founder of the wildly popular TrendHunter.com and author of Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change, which is the featured book for October’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

Not only is Jeremy one of the founders at TrendHunter, but he is also a highly sought after speaker. He was one of Capital One’s youngest Business Directors and innovation leads. Prior to Capital One, Jeremy advised top-level strategy to Fortune 50 and government clients as a Management Consultant at the Monitor Group.

In this interview, I picked Jeremy’s brain on everything from finding innovation out of chaos to what his response is to opponents of trend spotting.

—–

Q: Is chaos a necessary ingredient for innovation?

Jeremy: It’s not required, but during periods of chaos, consumer needs change. This presents an opportunity for companies who are able to identify these needs.

Q: What are some things that history teaches us about chaos and crisis?


Jeremy: People get caught up in the downsides of the depression, but history teaches us that these times consistently provide us with new opportunities. In fact, some of the most iconic companies were founded during chaotic periods of economic downturns, including: Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, Amgen, Hyatt, HP, EA, and Fortune Magazine.

Fortune Magazine, for instance, was founded just four months AFTER the 1929 Wall Street crash. It was a dollar an issue (the price of a wool sweater), but it thrived. DURING the Great Depression, a subscriber base of 500,000 was grown, and the magazine made seven million dollars in modern day profit. The reason Fortune was successful was not because it was a luxury publication, but rather, because consumer needs had evolved. When people lost their jobs and saw the world changed by the decisions made by NYC based corporations, they wanted to know what was happening behind boardroom doors. Fortune was an answer; an answer to a new consumer need.

Q: You introduce a new wave of management theory which you call “The Exploiting Chaos Framework.” Give us a brief description of each of the four tactics and how they work in the framework.



Jeremy: Culture of Revolution – Culture is more important than strategy because it underlies your organization’s ability to adapt. During times of dramatic change, the importance of an aligned organization becomes even more important

Trend Hunting – Innovation and strategic advantage hinge on the ability to anticipate new trends and identify the next big thing. The book outlines our TrendHunter.com approach to filtering through chaos and identify clusters of opportunity to focus your innovation.

Adaptive Innovation – Engineers, designers, and scientists have invested billions of dollars to perfect human creativity. By applying the best of their proven practices to your own field, you can think big while acting small. You can rapidly identify and evaluate new opportunities.

Infectious Messaging – The Internet has created a world cluttered with chaos, but it has also created the world’s first viral platform for ideas. Well-packaged stories travel faster than ever before. Unfortunately, most marketers are stuck in a world dominated by traditional advertising and cliché. By cultivating infection, your ideas will resonate, helping you to leapfrog ahead of the competition.

Q: What’s different about the framework that you present from current and past management models? Why do organizations need a new model?




Jeremy: The EXPLOITING CHAOS framework teaches readers about reinventing SPECIFICALLY during times of chaos and change, whether in an area of growth and bubbling opportunity or periods of downturn.

Q: In the book, you say, “if you want to change the course of your organization’s future, you need to spark a revolution.” Where in the organization does this spark take place and who makes it happen?





Jeremy: The revolution is in the mindset of the entire organization. It becomes part of the culture. It takes place when the leaders of the company are able to articulate a mantra. An alignment towards a common mantra helps the company to evolve in the same direction.

Q: Your framework includes trend hunting, which is what you and your team does on a daily basis at TrendHunter.com. Is the trend hunting a part of the framework that an organization could outsource? Possibly to an company like TrendHunter.


Jeremy: We provide premium research and help facilitate workshops for companies… but ultimately, trend hunting involves looking for ideas that spark interest based on YOUR consumer’s needs… So truly breakthrough organization has to have origins within one’s own company. Accordingly, we like to help companies by providing them with a toolkit and trends in other industries that might be relevant for their own problems.

Q: What would your response be to someone that says, “you can’t spot trends because by the time you recognize a trend it’s already here, and thus no longer a trend?”



Jeremy: In the book (and our professional research), we use the term clusters… The theory being that you need to find groups of meaningful and inspiring ideas. If these ideas are relevant to your consumer’s needs, and they aren’t incredibly broad, then you’re going to have a good basis for creating remarkable products that solve a consumer need.

Q: What’s your biggest challenge as a professional trend hunter?


Jeremy: Balancing my time… I do about 5-10 speaking gigs a month, and all that travel keeps me away from the Trend Hunter team, who is diligently programming new functionality and hunting new trends as we do this interview…

Q: What do organizations tend to struggle with more? Trend Hunting (recognizing trends) or Adaptive Innovation (Finding ways to apply those trends)?


Jeremy: It’s so easy to get caught up with routine daily tasks and the status quo, that I think organizations struggle most with Culture. However… I won’t avoid your question that easily… I think organizations struggle with Trend Hunting because it is too easy to jump to the closest answer or to make the same decision that was made the day before…

Q: Everyone wants to be noticed. How can we make our messages better and more infectious?


Jeremy: At Trend Hunter, our Rule #1 is to RELENTLESSLY OBSESS ABOUT YOUR STORY! Careful word choice can have an astounding impact on the viral potential of your message. At Trend Hunter, we have the luxury of being able to test our word choice and see a measured view count for each test. For most products, the goal is immeasurable buzz and word of mouth. Here’s a sample of how I break it down in the book:

The framework we use at Trend Hunter includes three components: an article must be simple, direct, and supercharged.

Simple: As Jack Welch of GE put it, “Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster, and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.” Similarly, author Seth Godin notes that simple messages “supercharge word of mouth.”

Direct: An outsider should understand your value proposition from your 7 words. Your value proposition is your advantage. It’s the unique attribute that explains why I should choose you.

Supercharged: Your seven words should pass the “I-have-to-tell-someone-test.” If they don’t, why will someone else care? You can’t expect your message to drive word-of-mouth exposure if you don’t give people a supercharged story.

In traditional marketing, there is an emphasis on cliché, clever wording, and invented words. At Trend Hunter, we pursue viral, and that means we place our emphasis is on simplicity.
Rule #1: RELENTLESSLY OBSESS ABOUT YOUR STORY

—

Thanks Jeremy!

1. Creating yet another outlet for brands to monitor
2. Further fragmenting conversation
3. Overwhelming potential for spam

And that’s just to name a few.

I don’t deny that these are issues that Sidewiki will have to deal with, but I see this as just another inevitable phase in the evolution of the web and the world, with life continuing to become more and connected and more social. (Social business design anyone?)

Let’s look at Google’s explaination of Sidewiki:

“Sidewiki enables users who have installed Google Toolbar to contribute information alongside any page on the web, inside of a simple sidebar UI. This information, which can include text entries, links, and embedded videos, will be ranked by quality and community ratings. For instance, on a site about a specific beach town, a user could add a relevant YouTube video showing local attractions. Once users opt in to the feature, they’ll be able to view annotations contributed by other users within a browser sidebar, and can choose to hide the sidebar at any time. Google Sidewiki also won’t change the appearance of any web page – all Sidewiki entries will be displayed only in the sidebar.”

The game changer here is that Side Wiki gives users the ability a comment or add more information to any page on the web. It allows comments to go where no comments have gone before. While some may see this as Google unleashing a tool that can’t be controlled in place, I think we should be grateful that Google has started experimenting in this space before other, possibly less accountable, companies have a chance to gain significant ground.

Something else to note: Sidewiki requires that users have a Google account before they comment. This ensures the users identity. And with the introduction of Google profiles, identities can potentially be extended even further by giving the contributor a point of reference to everyone else. This doesn’t eliminate the potential for spam, but I would think lessens that potential.

Augmented Reality: Sidewiki for the World

If you’re having some trouble swallowing Google Sidewiki, then you’re in for a rough ride. This is just a glimpse of how the world will continue to become more connected and more social.

Now imagine that consumers are given the ability to comment on every aspect of your organization — everything — the bathrooms, the waiting area, the parking lot, and even the performance of employees. And the comments wouldn’t be on some obscure site, they would be right next to the item or desk of the person being discussed.

If the things happening with mobile augmented reality are any indication, this scenario isn’t far from being a reality. Just look at what Yelp has done with their iphone app. The app contains an augmented reality component that provides users with an overlaid view of how far away a business is, user reviews and ratings, all in real-time within walking distance of the company. It’s a good demonstration of how a brand’s ability to control and manage is further slipping away.

You can probably see how this could evolve into the situation that I described above, where every choice that a company makes becomes a whiteboard for comments that all can see.

What if my friends that work at the Dell office in Oklahoma City were able to leave comments on what floor has the best vending machine, or what people to avoid in the company. Better yet what if another one of my friends, who was laid off from Dell a few years ago, was able to comment in the same way? He might have some very revealing things to say.

Learn to Adapt

The point I’m trying to make here is that things are going to continue to change. Walls will be broken down. The internet is going to evolve in ways that will continue to make us feel like we are losing control of our brands.

We can’t fight it. Our only choice is to continue to adapt and stay connected to the ways that consumers are communicating, no matter where that may be, or how hard that is to swallow.

I’m a believer in the idea that the way we work – the freedoms or restraints we put on ourselves when we work – has a large impact on the results that we produce, or in some cases, the results that we fail to produce. This is a topic I’ve explored this topic before with The Future of Work: Interview Series.

As our world shifts in the way that information is shared and how we are connected to one another, the way organizations function internally and externally is being forced to adapt as well. Organizations that have been quick to embrace new methodologies are reaping the benefits. You don’t have to look any further than companies like Google or Best Buy to see that there are other ways to get things done than the typical 9 to 5 cube format.

Mollie Partesotti and Ben Alter are two communications strategists that are tackling the problems in how we work for their master’s thesis project at the VCU Brandcenter. The project is a video series called Cubes Are Evil. They explain:

“We as a society need to reconsider what contributes towards and takes away from productivity.”

So far they have done just that. There are two videos in the series so far, with more to come. Watch below.

—

Mollie and Ben’s work on Cubes Are Evil has me contemplating bringing back the Future of Work Interviews for a second round.

If I did that who should I interview this time?

What aspects of work should we focus on?

The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Marty Neumeier, brand consultant author of a number of the popular whiteboard overview business books, The Brand Gap, Zag, and now The Designful Company, which is the featured book for April’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

It’s been very exciting for me to interview Marty because his work has done a lot to shape my own thoughts and methods when working with clients. Not only that, one quick search for on this blog for “Marty Neumeier” will show you how often ideas from his books and from content produced by his company, Neutron, inspires and shapes my thoughts here.

In this interview with Marty, we touch on a few of concepts from The Designful Company.

—–

Q: You open up The Designful Company with the idea that, “We’ve been getting better and better at a management model that’s getting wronger and wronger.” What’s wrong with the way companies are managed?

Marty: The management model we’ve been using is based on the cold mechanics of the assembly line. The assembly line was successful partly because it turned a blind eye to morality, emotions, and human aspiration—all the better to make your competitors and customers lose, so you can win. We’ve spent the last century making minor tweaks to this same narrow idea of success.

But now we’re finding that innovation without emotion is uninteresting, products without aesthetics are uncompelling, brands without meaning are undesirable, and companies without ethics are unsustainable. We need a new management model that replaces the win-lose nature of the assembly line with the win-win nature of the network. I call the new model “the designful company.” It harnesses broad-based creativity to build a culture of nonstop innovation.

Q: How must the traditional views of design and designer be redefined in order for a company to build a culture of nonstop innovation?

Marty: We need to get past our view of the designer as a shaper of objects. The dictionary defines a designer as someone who plans an artifact or system of artifacts—in other words, the “posters and toasters” of the 20th century. This is too narrow. I prefer Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon’s definition: “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” In this definition, design is a way of thinking, and anyone in the company can be a designer, including the CEO.

Design thinking is about refusing to accept the easy answer. It’s about imagining new possibilities that weren’t on the table before, and prototyping those possibilities so they can be tested. It’s the difference between “deciding” the way forward and “designing” the way forward. Deciding only works in a stable market where innovation is a low priority.

Q:  In what areas of business can design thinking be leveraged?

Marty: Well, of course, communications and products—the aforementioned posters and toasters—are still important, and can be designed a lot better. But we can move design thinking up the ladder to more important levels, such as brand strategy, end-to-end customer experience, organizational design, decision-making, business models, and corporate vision. When we apply design thinking to these questions, we get even more bang for the buck.

 Q: How does design thinking lead to a culture of innovation?

Marty: Design thinking creates the process and vocabulary for a designful company. It runs on human qualities such as empathy, intuition, imagination, and idealism, which in turn lead to customer focus, holistic problem solving, innovative ideas, and extraordinary quality. The overall advantage that a culture of innovation gives you is enterprise agility. It allows the company to maneuver as a single entity.

Q: Looking at Interbrand’s Best Global Brands list, are there any that standout as designful, innovative companies?

Marty: Not as many as there should be. I would say IBM, Disney, Google, BMW, Apple, Nike, and IKEA are designful companies. But Coca-Cola, Microsoft, GE, and Cisco are not so designful.

Interbrand’s formula seems to be a rear-view assessment of brand value. I’d like to see a formula that gives more weight to the momentum of a brand, which would offer a better predictor for a brand’s future value. Y&R, for example, has a formula called the Brand Asset Valuator, which takes into consideration a brand’s “energy.” Designful companies are full of energy.

Q: What will the fate be for brands that fail to fully embrace design thinking?

Marty: Generally speaking, they’ll find their products and services will become increasingly commoditized and even obsolete as their competitors race ahead.

Q: You discuss the importance of collaboration within companies, but what opportunities do you see for companies to collaborate with groups (i.e., consumers) outside the company walls? What about online collaboration?

Marty: The web is actually the technology that unleashed collaboration. I’ve always said that we don’t live in the Information Age—we live in the Collaboration Age. The web has allowed people to work together across distances in real time for almost no money.

This new connectedness has also made it necessary to work together, because there’s no place to hide in a network. Customers now know things about brands and companies that even their employees don’t know. Customers are literally running the show. So it makes sense to enlist them as a functioning part of the brand machinery. I love how Skittles has turned their website into a forum for customer opinion. What they get in return for their transparency is a direct view into their customers’ brains, plus extra credit for having confidence in their brand.

Q: In a designful company what is the attitude towards failure?

Marty: Designful companies embrace failure as a learning step. Companies with a traditional “deciding” mindset are uncomfortable with failure, since they expect to be successful immediately. The only way be successful immediately, however, is to make small, safe moves.

Q: Please explain the stage-gate innovation model and its purpose.

Marty: Stage-gate innovation allows you to make big, bold moves by turning innovation into a journey. It was pioneered years ago by oil-drilling companies to minimize investment risk. Later it was adopted by venture capitalists for the same reason. The concept is that you start with a large crop of bold ideas, then invest increasing amounts at each stage for the ones that pass muster. Only one or two ideas make it through the funnel, but they’ve been de-risked without having to compromise their boldness.

(Click to view a larger version)

Q: When it comes to measuring a potentially innovative project as it moves through the stage-gate process, what metrics should we use to determine if it should move to the next stage?

Marty: It depends on whether it’s a product, a business model, a strategy, and whatever. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s a product. In the first stage, you might create a prototype and measure customer excitement. At the next stage you could measure usability. At the next stage you could test various price points. And so on, until you’re satisfied that you have a winner.

The beauty of the design process is that you can test assumptions quickly and cheaply, so that you never have to play it safe. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do in a time of fast-moving markets and leap-frogging innovation.

Going forward, the bottom line is this: If you want to innovate, you’ve got to design.

Thanks Marty!

The Post2Post Virtual Book Tour returns to the Fresh Peel Tuesday with Marty Neumeier, the brains behind The Brand Gap, Zag and now The Designful Company.

Marty is the president of Neutron, a San Francisco firm that consults organizations on how to build brands from the inside out, through “culture-change programs that spur innovation, build charismatic brands, and unleash organizational creativity.” He has experience in wide variety of roles, from developing brand icons as an identity designer to brand consultant, putting him in the perfect position to lead the growing conversation about bridging the gap between business strategy and customer experience.

Tune in Tuesday for an interview with Marty, but for now I’ll leave you with a few pull out quotes:

• We’ve been getting better and better at a management model that’s getting wronger and wronger.
• There are really only two main components for business success: brands and their delivery.
• The best design thinkers tend to be empathetic, intuitive, imaginative and idealistic.
  

Here is the full Post2Post schedule:

But, there is one problem with both of these predictions.

They provide no clear advice on what brands should be doing now. Sure most people can accept that digital, social media, and technology, as well as other parts of our lives, are going to mesh and blur together in the future. And most agree that brands are going to have to adjust and find ways to create new touchpoints in these spaces in order to survive this future.

But the ultimate question is how?

I hope to provide some answers this question in the coming weeks, but for now take a look at some ideas Mike Arauz has on where brands fit into our digital lives. (View the Desire Paths slideshow)

(Via: CrapHammer)

Piers Fawkes is the founder of PSFK – trends-led publishing, events and consultancy business with offices and representatives in London, Hamburg, New York, Shanghai and Sao Paulo. Each month, over 300,000 people from around the world read PSFK’s websites and newsletters for inspiration.

Here’s what Piers has to say about the future of work along with some advice for Gen Yers entering the workforce.

—-

1. Explain to readers what PSFK does.

Piers Fawkes: We’re a trends and innovation company. We publish a daily news site and books; we hold events around the world – big and small; and we offer consultancy to companies that include Apple and Target. Our job is to inspire our readers, audience and clients to make things better.

2. How many people make up PSFK? And how do you communicate and collaborate together? What tools do you use?

PF: We have a small team in New York and representatives in London, Hamburg, Sao Paulo. Shanghai and Singapore. But I’d like to think that we have a team of 400,000 – the number of people who visit the site each month. We often ask our audience to help us across the three business functions: readers comment, suggest speakers, promote events and even do research for us.

3. How have the rules of collaboration changed for businesses?

PF: Probably what has happened is transparency and speed. Through digital tools, we can be very open about what we’re doing, our process, how we’re getting paid and our collaborators can do the same. And, we can get help from across the world very quickly by the click of ‘send’, ‘submit’ or ‘publish’.

4. PSFK seems to cover a lot of ground throughout the year blogging, planning and hosting events, consulting and much more. What is it about the way PSFK operates that leads to continuous results?

PF: All three aspects of our business feed each other. For example, the publishing allows us to keep our fingers on the pulse, our events help us meet tastemakers who we could interview on PSFK or use for research, the consultancy helps us travel which means more content for PSFK.com

5. What affect, if any, do you see the rise of social media and social networks having on the future of work?

PF: I think we will all eventually be guns for hire. Social Media helps people find other people to hire and/or collaborate.

6. You recently had some blunt words for all the Gen Y’s who will soon be entering the work force. Give us some highlights.

PF: I think there’s a naivety about how Gen Y perceives the workplace. It’s changing drastically and I recently reacted to some very old fashioned career advice on (the great) YPulse. You can read my thoughts and people’s reaction here – but basically the wake-up news is that companies are trying to get leaner, have flexible staff, use more perma and freelance staff who train themselves. When I entered the workforce there was talk about the fact that there won’t be any jobs for life anymore and that people will have 5 or 6. Twenty years later and I have had over a dozen jobs. Gen Yers are going to work for scores of companies and they need to remember that companies aren’t there to give you a job, they’re there to make a profit in constantly changing times. They seek a relationship with staff based on flexibility and delivery. They’re not going to have the bandwidth to help people with developing what is an antiquated perception of what it ‘career’. I think that there will be very few full time jobs by the time Gen Y retire.

——

This post is part of the Future of Work interview series, discussing the future of work with leading experts from some of the world’s most progressive marketing, advertising and strategy organizations.

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, as well as the home of the New Marketing Summit conferences and New Marketing Bootcamp educational events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

Chris is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations and individuals. Most of you will know him from his blog at ChrisBrogan.com or his his almost constant Twitterstream.

As a digital nomad that’s always on the go, Chris and his company definitely operate outside of many of the restraints posed on traditional business frameworks.

Here’s Chris’ take on the future of work.

—– 

1. Explain what your new business venture, New Marketing Labs, does.

Chris Brogan: My company, New Marketing Labs, LLC, is a sister organization to CrossTech Media, and we do education and execution in the online marketing and social media space. We run conferences, bootcamps, and executive briefings on the one hand, and we work directly with clients to fulfill business communications strategy execution on the other.

2. How many people make up the team at New Marketing Labs? And how do you communicate and collaborate together? What tools do you use?

CB: There are 3 direct employees at New Marketing Labs. We use CrossTech Media’s backoffice support team for billing, legal, and event operations, and we have a trusted network of social media agents who can do some work as needed.

For collaboration, we use Twitter more than any other tool. It’s fast. It’s simple. It’s multi-modal (we can use it on a desk or a phone or anyone’s browser). We use cell phones instead of desktops. We don’t have a central “base” platform yet, but we haven’t needed it. Well, I take that back. We use PipelineDeals.com for our sales funnel. That’s proving to be really useful.

3. How have the rules of collaboration changed for businesses?

CB: Collaboration requires mobile technology these days. Every tool we use has a mobile element. We’re using iPhones because we can use the location-based applications ,the simple interface, and the ability to work wherever to our advantage. We are atomized in our ability to gather, disperse, and re-form wherever we’re needed.

4. What affect, if any, do you see the rise of social media and social networks having on the future of work?

CB: Social tools are the ultimate in capturing unstructured human data. As a reformed project manager, tools like Microsoft Project just aren’t the human equivalent to how we communicate around business projects. We need different forms. Social platforms give us MANY modes of communication. We’re learning how to integrate those to enterprise platforms internally, and how to use them professionally externally. It’s how business is done in the coming years.

5. Do you think social media could be a bridge that leads more companies to operate virtually?

CB: Absolutely. With everyone in 2009 being extremely price conscious, I can trade a $39/month EVDO card from Verizon plus a $130/mo phone bill from AT&T for an iPhone for a $6500/cubicle expense. I don’t need an office. When you think about it, what business ever really gets done in an office? People need workspaces that fit their needs, but the form they take shouldn’t be relegated by tradition. There are opportunities abound with the new tools for presence.

6. How do you see methods of working like coworking, crowdsourcing and telecommuting impacting the way that organizations operate?

CB: I think co-working is interesting. It seems more suited for people who might want more collaboration. When I work in my coffeeshops, I want the opposite of collaboration. I need a place to put my face down and not be interrupted. I see co-working as having the potential to recreate the “office meerkat” environment, with lots of loose conversations. Again, in a creative and interactive setting? Perfect.

Crowdsourcing will work for lots of future projects. We use it all the time via Twitter. I ask Twitter for most everything these days. It’s a lot more responsive than Google. Telecommuting is an old term. Web commuting might be the new name, yes?

7. Can corporate giants exist in a world where coworking is the the norm?

CB: Size is a mixed bag. It means you have lots more time to die. It means you have more resources to bring to bear on specific points. But at the same time, let’s look at the US Armed Forces. Shortly into our engagement in Afghanistan, we realized that building more and more aircraft carriers, tanks, and missiles wasn’t really going to cut it. Look at today’s engagements: small forces, small arms, small vehicles. It’s a lot more tricky to have a big impact, but then, the targets are diffusing.

I think this is similar to the business environment.

8. Are physical face-to-face meetings still necessary? Will they be in the future?

CB: Yes, they are. I think what happens is like this:  60 /30 / 10.  The first sixty percent of work can be done online. The next 30 percent should be in person and should cement relationships, and build on what’s come before. The last 10 is the wrap-up. That’s how we like to operate.

9. What are the skills and education of the future marketer?

CB: Information arbitrage. Content packaging. Communications management. And curation.

10. In terms of the future, what are you most excited about? What do you see as the biggest threat?

CB: I’m excited about the opportunity for more interactions to come back to the cafe-shaped scale. That means that I’m looking forward to a return to people knowing each other’s names, and I’m eager to see what happens when business gets back into conversations instead of pat answers, cold advertising, and endless remixes of the old stuff.

 

——

This post is part of the Future of Work interview series, discussing the future of work with leading experts from some of the world’s most progressive marketing, advertising and strategy organizations.

Joseph Jaffe is President and Chief Interruptor of Crayon, a strategic consultancy that helps its clients achieve positive change and impact by joining the conversation. Crayon is organized and operates as a mashup of sorts, bringing together the best in consulting, agency, advisory, thought leadership and educational worlds, no matter where they might be physically located.

Joseph is the author of two books, Life After the 30-Second Spot and more recently Join the Conversation. He also hosts and authors the Jaffe Juice podcast and blog.

Joseph submitted his responses via audio recording, so here’s your chance to listen to some of his thoughts on the future of work.

—-

——

This post is part of the Future of Work interview series, discussing the future of work with leading experts from some of the world’s most progressive marketing, advertising and strategy organizations.

James Ware is a co-founder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work program. He has over 30 years experience in research, executive education, consulting, and management, including five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School.

Dr. Charles Grantham is a co-founder and Executive Producer of the Work Design Collaborative (WDC) and the Future of Work program. Charlie leads a number of WDC’s applied research and development projects, focusing on emerging forms of work and commerce.

He has been active in this area for over 25 years and is recognized as an international expert on the design of information and organizational systems that support these new forms of work. Currently he is focused on the design and development of community-based business centers that serve as a link between “talent” in local communities and the global Internet-based economy.

James and Charlie co-authored Corporate Agility with Cory Williamson, which addresses the need for organizations to coordinate and integrate HR, IT, and CRE/facilities to develop new business capabilities for competing in a flat, global economy.

Here’s what James and Charlie had to say about the future of work.

—-

1. How important is it to employees that they have some level of control over their work environment?

James Ware: It’s essential. The most important factor in motivation and engagement is a sense of personal self-control. While employees understand and accept the idea that a “boss” has some legitimate influence over what they do, the biggest source of frustration and anger in the business world is the belief that your boss doesn’t understand or care about your needs or situation. And the biggest source of resistance to change is the fear of losing control over one’s actions and performance.

Charles Grantham: Very important. The more you involve them in the design of the work environment, the more they are ‘engaged’ with the company. Further it is extremely important that they perceive they have significant input to changes in the environment.

2. How important is it to the overall function of a company that employees be given this control?

JW: Critical – see above. Subject, of course, to basic agreement over what is expected of the employee. I am a big believer in “management by results only.” In other words, tell me what you need me to get done, and when, and then turn me loose. Otherwise I might as well be a robot.

CG: It goes directly to retention of top talent. If you want to keep them they have to be given this control in today’s work world.

3. Is there any connection between the small number of companies that offer employees this control and the steady rise in the number of people who are choosing to take the path of self-employment?

JW: Absolutely. Other than forced layoffs and involuntary terminations the biggest reason people are leaving large organizations is their frustration with being treated like robots or children (or both). Self-employment carries all kinds of business risks but there’s no one who can tell you what to do.

CG: In our opinion yes. This shift to self-employment may be slowed by current economic conditions—but everyone who is getting laid off is a potential self-employed person in the future. I’d venture to say that a large number of those being laid off will never return to full-time corporate employment. When IBM did their massive layoffs only about 50% eventually returned to the corporate world—the rest began new careers as self employed entrepreneurs and never looked back.

4. Explain what the “Third Place” is for readers who aren’t familiar with the term.

JW: The term was invented by Ray Oldenburg to refer to coffee houses and other public places where rich conversations take place (public parks, forums, restaurants, other gathering places). We use it to describe the places people work other than a corporate office (“the first place”) and their home office (“second place”). There is an increasing number of shared workplaces – some like Starbucks are “accidental” while others are designed as workplaces where the space, equipment, and costs are shared by the users (or members in most cases).

CG: The “first place” is the traditional assigned company office; the “second place” is the home office. The “third place” is everywhere else you work. Think of a Starbucks on steroids.

5. Can corporate giants exist in a world where coworking is the norm?

JW: Of course. We’re not going to see the end of large organizations. Some industries and technologies still require scale – and make sense only at large scale (eg, power companies, telecoms, automobile and airplane manufacturing), On the other hand, many “large” organizations are increasingly really conglomerations of many smaller subcontractors – even cars and planes are “produced” by thousands of companies and the big names (GM, Ford, Boeing) are really assemblers. Thus we’re going to see many large organizations setting up their own “co-working” facilities to house both their own employees and their many vendors, service providers, and subcontractors.

CG: They have no choice. Do it or go away. The global economy will no longer support organizations who are only 60% effective in terms of its use of real estate, technology and people.

6. What is corporate agility?

JW: It’s basically the ability to move quickly in any direction – to respond to competitor moves, to shift operations from one location to another, to grow in one place and shrink in another at the same time. Agility comes from having few fixed costs, and from not trying to build a giant firm that “does it all.” When firms use outsourcing and subcontractors they can switch talent or facilities or technology much more easily than when they have made long-term commitments. It means “rent, don’t buy” in the broadest sense. Agility also means a state of mind that takes nothing for granted and assumes from the get-go that the world is dynamic and ever-changing.

CG: It’s the ability of an organization to change and change quickly as dictated by external pressures and events. The degree to which you can change your products/services, location, methods of production and distribution and talent pool is directly related to your ability to sustain yourself-in short the agile will succeed. Those that aren’t agile will disappear.

7. Why have so many organizations lost their corporate agility in recent years?

JW: I think many of them are still operating on industrial-age assumptions about stability, certain environments, and a slow pace of change. In addition, too many organizations have invested in large, hard-to-change IT systems that have locked their business processes into “electronic concrete” so it’s harder than ever to change business processes. Finally, I also believe that many executives have responded to all these business challenges by “hunkering down” and staying with what they know instead of opening up to change and recognizing it can’t be business as usual.

CG: Three reasons: Executives can’t hold a vision of company purpose larger than quarterly profit growth; they lose focus on the basic value proposition their customers see; and they can’t overcome obstacles to change inside their companies.

8. Strategically what should companies do to regain, enhance, and retain their corporate agility?

JW: Cut their fixed costs as close to zero as possible. Spend time with their customers to understand what they really need and how to add value. Keep it simple, stupid. Pay more attention to the outside world. Spend a lot of time in conversation with peers (inside and outside the company), employees, customers, service providers, and public officials. See the world as they do and as it is, not as they want it to be. In others, listen and learn.

CG: First understand what value they bring to their customers. Then strip down to that core value and get rid of everything else. Build an infrastructure (real estate, it and people) that is variable cost in nature—not fixed cost. Lastly, hire leaders who embrace change, even encourage it.

9. How much of a factor has technology played in changing the way companies operate?

JW: Very dramatic. IT has clearly changed the paradigm of what people can do, where it can be done, and how much it costs. While it sometimes locks companies in to old processes, when done right it can create incredible agility. It empowers individuals – and changes the role of management itself.

CG: Increasingly a larger factor. it started as a way to do old stuff more efficiently. Now it allows companies to do new things—especially in extending and managing networks of suppliers, customers, partners and employees.

10. What affect, if any, do you see the rise of social media and social networks having on the future of work?

JW: Very powerful. The essence of knowledge work (which is what creates value today) is conversation – creating and exchanging information. Social networking applications extend the reach – they are global – and they accelerate the processes of information exchange. The business world depends on two things – ideas and relationships – and social networking enhances both. And the new apps are so much more “natural” than the old stuff. The world really is becoming a “global village.”

CG: A tremendous effect. The core organizing principle of businesses in the next decade will be consciously built and ever changing networks. Networks of people, ideas and resources. Nothing will be static and time horizons will collapse. Think of how the movie industry works. Its always organizing and reorganizing.

11. In terms of the future, what are you most excited about? What do you see as the biggest threat?

JW: I’m excited about the opportunities for new knowledge creation – out of the diversity of multiple cultures and personal experiences, brought together by social media of all kinds. And I’m particularly excited about how IT empowers individuals and small businesses. We may actually one day see the end of arbitrary authority – we may finally see the rise of organizations that reward merit and ability and are more collegial and much less hierarchical.

For me the most exciting prospect surrounding the future of work is the fact that individuals have so many more options for expressing themselves and benefiting from the value of their ideas and efforts. I’m personally convinced that most large organizations make horribly poor use of human talent – and IT is creating a “new economy” that really – finally – rewards talent.

In terms of threats, I think the biggest challenge is the power that senior executives still wield and don’t want to relinquish. In other words, they will become the biggest resistors to change. I believe ultimately the “people” will win, but as we’ve seen in the political world, those who have power don’t give it up readily or without a fight.

CG: The most exciting thing is people realizing they are in charge of their destiny. They get to make choices. Do what they want. Go where they want and on more and more on their own terms of engagement.

The biggest threat to social stability is the possibility that governments can’t provide the basic infrastructure to allow people this freedom.

Final Thoughts

JW: I think the most important question is why these changes have taken so long to be realized. And the answer is resistance to change – from those who hold power and benefit from the status quo (by the way, I don’t believe the anyone basically resists change – they just resist being changed by forces beyond their control – back to my original point in Question 1). Ultimately I believe technology is incredibly revolutionary, and I’m thrilled to see it becoming so much more widespread.

——

This post is part of the Future of Work interview series, discussing the future of work with leading experts from some of the world’s most progressive marketing, advertising and strategy organizations.

Steve Woodruff asked me to host his Five in the Morning series and give it the Fresh Peel treatment. So here’s 5 juicy reads for today!

First, start your day off right with the music mix of your choice. Mashable shows you the top 5 sites to build a playlist.

Tim Stock from Brand Noise takes an in-depth look at how trends spread through culture networks.

Mark Ritson at the Branding Strategy Insider explores the fluid nature of consumers expectations versus what we as marketers expect.

There is one particular quote from Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail that continues to stand out in my mind as I filter through and consume large amounts of information everyday,

In a world of infinite choice, context not content is king.

John Bell from Digital Influence Mapping Project drives this point home as he adds some context to The Most Social Brands List. (Also a great study for advocating the importance of reputation management.)

Finally, a avid fan of Trader Joe’s has created an Ode to Trader Joe’s commercial (spotted on PSFK), which is starting to make it’s rounds in the blogosphere. David Armano from Logic + Emotion wonders how the store will respond since they typically aren’t a fan of customers taking video footage or photos inside their stores, and makes his recommendations for Trader Joe’s and other brands watching.

Thanks Steve!

—– 

Subscribe to Steve Woodruff’s StickyFigure blog

Follow Steve on Twitter: @SWoodruff

If you’re new to The Fresh Peel, please subscribe to my feed and be sure to follow me on Twitter where I share juicy links like this.

Andy is the founder and Worldwide Chairman of the Law Firm, which is a global company that operates through twenty-one nodal hub locations.

He is also the author of the book, Creative Company, which at the time of it’s release (1999) offered up a rogue set of challenges to the working model of the advertising world. I first read Creative Company after Seth Godin recommended it in All Marketers are Liars and I quickly understood why Godin liked the book. Andy has a never ending inquisitive nature about him, and isn’t afraid to question the most time-tested of systems (In this case, Business).

It’s 10 years later and I had the chance to catch up with Andy to pick his brain again about the future of work and to find out if he has any thoughts about what is on the horizon.

—-

1. What happened at St. Lukes? Why did you decide to part ways with the company?

Andy Law: I was the wrong guy to lead the next stage of St. Luke’s life. There were co-owners there with a different take on the future. It was about their future, not mine.

2. You are now the founder and Worldwide Chairman of the Law Firm. Could you give us quick synopsis of what the Law Firm is?

AL: My second book, Experiment At Work, outlined how you could see a company as a social network. The interlinking of everything we know needed a new model.  Anita and Gordon Roddick sat down with me and we thrashed out what a future looking organization might look and feel like. In spirit with my past activities I wanted a network that took the best of the world’s thinking without the onerous management structure that so often goes with global organizations. So The Law Firm is a franchise operation, offering creative communications around the globe.

3. How much if any of the theology at the Law Firm can be traced back to St. Lukes?

AL: Well St. Luke’s was about Liberation Management and fair return on sweat equity. The Law Firm has these times 10.

4. What’s different about the Law Firm versus St. Lukes?

AL: The Law Firm is global. But beyond that I feel it unfair to make comment because I don’t really know what is happening at St. Luke’s. It is, rightfully, a different company now.

5. What role does technology play at the Law Firm?

AL: The operational protocol at The Law Firm is based on internet protocol. With Open Source Creativity we have a proprietary internet tool to help us work together. The company is totally reliant on technology.

6. In recent years, concepts such as ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment), working from home, and Telecommuting have begun to gain some traction in the business world. How do you see this fitting into the future of work? And does this reduce the Law Firm’s need for Nodal (satellite) locations?

AL: We are working towards a totally new way of working. By September we will be using the city as our workplace. There has been so much private/public investment in city architecture and spaces, we will be using the entire city as our workspace. More on this nearer the time……………….

7. I pulled a quote from the Law Firm website which says, “It takes an honest ad agency to say advertising won’t always work for you.” With the fragmentation of the media industry, are you having to say this to clients more often?

AL: O yes!

8. With the changes in the way that people communicate and collaborate online, marketing and advertising companies are needing to reach out and work with a new type of creative team. What do these “creatives” look like. What are their skills?

AL: Younger, and more generalist in outlook.

9. In your book Creative Company, you talked a lot about the possibilities for the future of work. It has been 9 years (correct?) since Creative Company was published. What does the future of work look like to you today?

AL: Ever more exciting. Economic downturns provide opportunity. Necessity is the mother of invention, but Dissatisfaction is its father. There will be even more organisations created and linked by the internet.  Overhead will be reduced and imagination increased as people uses the fabulous resources at hand to create new things. Marx was nearly right. The means of production is now in the minds of the people.

10. In terms of that future, what are you most excited about? What do you see as the biggest threat?

AL: See 9 for what is exciting. Biggest threat is that government does not see and support the new emerging economy of inventive SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises).

——

This post is part of the Future of Work interview series, discussing the future of work with leading experts from some of the world’s most progressive marketing, advertising and strategy organizations.

Where do you work?

Does your work travel with you when you’re on the go? What tools do you use? How do you collaborate over long distances?

Could you improve the way you work?

What does the future of work look like in marketing and advertising?

What does the future of work look like?

—

Keep an eye on the Future of Work Interview Series to see what some of the industries leading thinkers have to say about these topics and more. (Bookmark this page because I will be updating the links below as the interviews are posted.)

1. Interview with Andy Law, author of Creative Company
   
2. Interview with Charles Grantham & James Ware, founders of the Future of Work program
   
3. Interview with Joseph Jaffe, President of Crayon
   
4. Interview with Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs
   
5. Interview with Piers Fawkes, CEO of PSFK

—

Future of Work Glossary

Coworking – the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space. Learn More at Wikipedia.

Crowdsourcing – a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. Learn More at Wikipedia.

ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) – a management strategy where employees are paid for results (output) rather than the number hours worked. The goal is to keep workers who deliver results while firing those who are not productive. Learn More at Wikipedia.

The Third Place – a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Learn More at Wikipedia.

Telecommuting (also known as e-commuting or telework) – a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links. Learn More at Wikipedia.