Just thought I’d share some thoughts on how the eBook “Hang On” is doing after its recent launch. I’m conscious that lots of people are thinking about a doing a similar thing as part of their freemium model. Claire Marshall at www.RokkInternet.com suggested I do this at the launch. A promise I made and am about to keep.

I’ll not go into the too much detail, I’ll just point out a few facts that may help those of you thinking about making the commitment. I’m going to be honest, would I be anything else! During the production phase, think about these aspects:

1. Budget for it through opportunity cost. What ever time you think its going to take, double it. It cost my company £12k to write this eBook!
2. Do the research and always add your bibliography. Little tip, as you read stuff, write it down then, don’t spend two days at the end immersed in your bookshelf! Even Seth Godin’s started to include one!
3. Prepare for ‘bugger factors.” They always happen. I’d just started the book was on a very creative roll and my Grandmother passed away. Two weeks side tracked by more important things!
4. Get it designed properly by someone who knows how to do something that can be read on mobile, tablets and can be easily converted into an Apple app if so required.
5. Involve people. I’m not saying by reading the content. I personally prefer just to write it and then get the feedback once its done. But ask people to participate in the debate. I crowdsourced the words but would have liked to bring in Linkedin discussions etc if I had had time. Or made it part of my company’s ThinkLAB’s.
6. Its bloomin’ obvious but get it professionally proof read and get a creative comms license.

The aftermath has been fabulous. The launch party ridiculously successful. People networked, connected and have done new business. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps just the atmosphere in the room, but everyone has fed back what a great evening it was. Many said they had made new friends! More specifically, there have been some fascinating insights:

1. It may be the design but most people are consuming it slowly. One reader said “Its not a McDonald’s , you don’t consume it in one sitting in 15 minutes. It’s more like a seven course evening dinner you spend hours on whilst washing down a particularly good merlot.” Fabulous. Main reason from several readers; apparently the content and the need to digest each ‘word’ as it’s so thought provoking. Thank you thats very kind.
2. No one is printing it. Just my intention!
3. I’ve been surprised by the number of people reading it on their mobiles and, in the last few weeks, the iPad. This perhaps indicates a trend for future eBooks.
4. There have been over 1000 downloads so far. We haven’t even rolled out the full marketing campaign for it so far. Just a launch party (highly recommended) and a little PR.
5. Since the launch, my Twitter account has gone haywire with the increase in the number of followers.

You don’t need to push me too much for me to say it was worth it and as any high end designer will tell you, your main piece of work, sometimes isn’t commercial. I’ve loved the process and learnt so much about myself. It is still early days yet, and I’ll give you a further update in six months! It’s not perfect but then thats just subjective anyway. What it is though, is it’s mine and you haven’t seen anything yet!!

Word provided by Scott Gould – www.scottgould.me

If you help, what I contribute will be better. Value, in the future for a lot of people, will be whether and how they participate in the businesses we run. They will be particularly motivated by group effort. Participation has almost become risk free because the cost of failure has dropped so we can mass innovate. The tools are there and the hierarchy removed to allow us to all to really take part.

Humans have always had a desire to make meaningful contributions. We lost that. Businesses deliberately organised themselves to control the participating. However, the case studies of Wikipedia and Linux have altered how close the horizon is. Participation is changing the way companies use resources and it’s bridged the gap between the amateur and professional. Amateurs are collecting data on behalf of wildlife trusts, we can transmit news items to the media, and astronomers are listening for other life forms for governments.

The passive consumer is evaporating. We want to participate in the generation of new products and services. We no longer want to just wait for it down the line to be delivered. Charles Leadbeater talks about “mass production to mass innovation.” He has missed a process or two out of the equation. It’s more like this:

Mass production – Mass participation – Mass collaboration – Mass innovation

It’s just a thought. As companies we have misunderstood that it’s the non-financial, intrinsic factors that motivate people like participation more than the financial ones. We are always talking about the difficulties of getting customers and employees to understand what we do and the advantages of our product. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts “Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I might remember, involve me and I will understand.” Powerful stuff. Maybe participation gets rid of that communication problem we have been having?

We have no excuses anymore. All business can allow its customers and employees to participate. I’m not talking about amateurs doing brain surgery, not a great idea, I agree. But I am talking about using the social tools we have now to enable the impossible to be achieved. If we involve people in the process, they take ownership. From that they will easily become part of our community, which is where we need them to be in the future.

There have been a lot of kind words said to me this last week. A huge thank you. I called the book “Hang On” because thats what a lot of people are doing right now along the whole continuum of business. At the one end, you’ve got people who have stalled, are confused and lost. Some look like ‘bunnies in headlights.’ They are struggling with this new way of doing business. They either deny it or ignore it, in an attempt to bide some time to work out what really is going on.

Then at the other end, you have people who do understand it as best we can. They are moving the majority of their communications from broadcast to social both with customers and employees. They are engaging and connecting in a dynamic fashion that, frankly, is a breath of fresh air.

Most of the words from the book were crowdsourced. They are words already finding comfortable slots in the business language thats evolving. There are some, even a few months after its completion, that I would love to include; obsessive, connection, excess, ecosystem, trouble and many more.

As we approach the launch party, well a few glasses of wine and a little networking, it would be great to hear your views on the eBook both good and well, not so good. Its fine I can take it. I’m going to be talking a lot about business community, relationship, connections, authenticity, co-creation and collaboration over the next couple of years. Its important to start that process here.

So if you have any comments, please share with me, what words were most inspiring, which ones I really could have left out. What arguments I should have included and generally lets start the discussion. It would be just fabulous to get some viewpoints. Go on comment below…..

Thanks

Word supplied by Andrew Farmer – www.myoxygen.co.uk

Thankfully and not before time we have new networks, they’re the vibrant ones, they’re the life changing ones. Lets be honest if we are going to spend our precious time in one, they had better be full of intellectual, artistic, radical, maverick, engaging people! Encouraging debates around “what’s new?” not “What I have to sell?”

Open minded, open sourced minds that upturn the conventional, unlock what seems difficult and create a level playing field. The ‘grey suit’ networks, if they aren’t dead yet, soon will be. These myopic, ego driven, inert, mundane environments of the past can no longer survive. A huge disappointment to those professional service firms that used them as a reason to not go home.

Most networks are average. Survival will require a great shift to raising the game. And we wonder why social networking has taken off? It’s led to the abandonment of those traditional congregations, simply because the culture, the atmosphere was as stifling as being in a lift with your worst nightmare for 24 hours.

The new networks, and they do meet face to face are the ones to join. The ones that use imagination, let us connect, enable us to influence its evolvement, allow collaboration, shares new ideas and help us work across disciplines. They even expand our minds and, of course, they do lead to real business too. Before anyone says it, most of the physical ones do not!

Next time anyone walks into a room full of people speed networking (what the hell is that about?) and it’s not full of buzz and you can’t feel the excitement in the room, turn around and get out of there. Join me at the bar, that’s where I’ll be sitting! I just got there before you!

Word provided by Robert Pickstone - www.robertpickstone.com

The only reason we need to be adaptable is because we are moving to mass innovation. It’s critical because no two clients, projects or people are alike. As change perpetually gains momentum and things happen quicker, we will need business models and people that adapt seamlessly to new environments.

We now as individuals, organisations’ and communities have to display chameleon like qualities. Perhaps we will need to change our attitude to business significantly in order to become more adaptive? Adaptability will demand that we understand how our business is going to transform itself from a current to future state as we try to build specific things under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

It will specifically involve solving problems creatively and adapting to dynamic changing environments. Dealing with uncertain work conditions where people have to adapt to novel situations. From that we must continuously learn so we can keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancement and cultural changes this will bring. We are going to have to attain interpersonal adaptability, being able to produce incredible outcomes in fluid work environments with a project led business. Whether we like it or not cultural adaptability, we live and work in a globalised world. We will become one tribe and we will have to learn how to perform well in different cultures, surrounded by people who do things different to us.

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative. “ HG Wells. Some of us will have to be able to work well in uncomfortable and strange climates. Adaptability is no longer an emphasis on just technology and processes but about people and processes coming together through technology.

Our lives have been invaded by technology, that’s not a bad thing! However, it does present a paradox; we can work anywhere, anytime. Conversely, it means little escape from work. We tweet, blog, email and talk all the time. Next time you go for dinner, count the number of people who pick up during one of the courses!

We live in a world of interruption. First, it was advertising agencies intruding into our homes, now it’s via a little device that’s in our pockets. We must restore order over our time. Time has lost its boundaries which makes it even more excruciating to manage as we have little of it. We have ultimately lost control! It means that we are not often ‘there’ when we have conversations. We concentrate on several tasks at once rather than one or two that we do truly well. We answer our mobiles, become distracted by emails and faff about far too much. We have given technology permission to control our time not the other way round. For some it gives a sense of being important, but all we are doing is ‘biting off more than we can chew.’ It results in us living fast when actually being able to chill is far more appropriate and conducive to results.

We all need to find ways to control our time. Only opening emails three times a day, switching our phones off when we are at a dinner party, focusing on the people we are having a drink with and finding a little balance. You are dodging the issue if you think other people are controlling your time. It’s about learning to say no constructively. Controlling our time is not just about being more effective, it’s actually more about enriching our lives, enhancing our relationships and adding true value to what we do.

Controlling interruption gives us the opportunity to intensely focus on important, meaningful activity not the sheer volume. Time isn’t to be messed with; we let it pass us by far too easily without feeling it and enjoying it. We only get one shot at that moment in time, that day, that meeting, that client, that dinner party. Rushing through it, slightly dictated by interruption doesn’t add anything, it just really takes away.

The second word from the forthcoming eBook “Hang On.”

It’s about taking the conversation beyond price. Conversation is no longer a distraction at work, it is central to its existence and a leader’s job now is to start those conversations and invite people to take part. Conversation initiates new rules, new ways of engaging. They spring up everywhere. We can’t stop someone from being part of the conversation. Our people are talking to customers, our customers are talking to US and most importantly, our customers SHOULD be talking to each other. We can’t beat them so we’ had better find a way of joining them.

David Weinberger in the book ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ states “We treasure our conversations most of all because they are ours, the way marketing speak never was.” The conversations we are having right now are so important. They can spread ideas, solve problems, gain agreement, build trust, remove barriers, encourage laughter and promote enjoyment. In the future, the conversations people are having in and around companies will be the essence of success. That means allowing it, encouraging it and facilitating it.

Most managers are terrible at conversation, they are too busy directing, making decisions, controlling budgets and keeping order. If you have ever walked onto the proverbial shop floor and killed the conversation you know what I mean!

Conversations are intimate, they are free, and they are open. They flourish when there is trust and a common commitment. Conversation is equal, it’s diverse, it generates the unexpected, and it’s participative and informal. They are actually quite liberating whilst at the same time conversation gives people a voice.

Conversations though do take control and power away from us control freaks and puts it right back where it precisely belongs with our customers, our community and our people. Charlene Li succinctly puts it this way “Campaigns begin and end, but conversations go on forever.” It’s interesting to sit down for a few moments and reflect on what conversations we are having right now……

The first Word from ‘Hang On’ the new eBook provided by Phil Rees @ www.defacethis.com

Being distinctive defines us. Distinctive is about people (there is that word again) having a distinct idea of us in their mind. For a lot of companies, it’s easier to remain indistinctive than to become distinctive! Our product, even service is probably not as distinctive as it used to be. It’s possible its competitive edge has been backed into a corner by the plethora of new products in the market place, or, the bad ones just caught up.

Tom Peters said years ago “Ask yourself what on your turf (local and global), is clearly unusual about the services you offer.” For me, if we can’t answer that in five bullet points, we’ve lost the right to be a great business. Look at the worst bit of your sector, even your closest competitors and change the customer experience; it at least gives you a stab at the five points of distinction.

We need to almost forget about our product. It’s great isn’t it? Cheaper certainly is distinctive but how is being mediocre? Being distinctive now is about how we use design to differentiate, by building a community from our clients, being recognized for meaningful work, the passion we inspire in people, how we engage and build relationships. Get used to it. Don’t get me wrong it is about developing a sense of currency and curiosity in parallel, however, the biggest barrier to us identifying what makes us distinctive is internal not external.

Little question; is your business more like a circus or the waiting room at your doctors? We really can’t afford to be ignored by the masses and silent to the few. Don’t be known for everything but something! Distinguish by identifying your tangibility.

There is an abundance of information on the web about social media that could take a lifetime to read and be all consuming. For some of us it is! However, there is a scarcity at the moment to how to weave this into an integrated marketing campaign.

Some would have us believe that its the only way forward and its the only thing you need to reach new and existing customers. Thats far too one dimensional and we’ll all fall into the trap of traditional marketing if we take that road.

As Olivier Blanchard said at www.wearelikeminds.com in February “Your business doesn’t plug into social media, social media plugs into your business.” He is right. It’s not an attachment, neither is it the only solution. We must not miss the opportunity to really get to the route cause of why we embark on social media campaigns. We can’t also ignore that its just as important to be gregarious offline as well as online.

Before embarking on any social media activity, we all need to go back to the beginning and think about how it is going to fundamentally change, for the better, the relationships we have with customers and employees. The fact is that social media is creating new vulnerabilities and opportunities for business. That can’t be ignored. There are some big questions to ask before setting a blog up such as; how will social media define what is being delivered to the customer.

We have to remember that, even now, most of our customers and users of social media read content but don’t necessarily post it. What that means, for now, is that social media is in a state of mass consumption, not mass creation. We have a long way to go to create meaningful experiences and that, in essence, is our first task!

Just a thought provoker and I’m interested in your thoughts. If you give away stuff for free, at some point, you need to see that go beyond an increase in followers or traffic to your website/blog and turn into at least some currency, don’t you?

Whether you are posting images to flickr, publishing an eBook or participating in a collaborative software development project, you have to get past the potential position of feeling a little downbeat or worse exploited.

This culture of generosity and reciprocation built the web. The notion of sharing and obliging in participation like the Wikipedia case study is at the heart of the web’s recent success. But its also evolving. We need to see that return and perhaps thats where social media is heading. We can’t watch the founders of flickr and other organisations all profit quite nicely from something built by essentially a set of volunteers or by us spending time with someone who never returns a favour. The stakeholders need rewarding too.

If you build a community around your brand who regularly participate in developing innovative ways of doing business, that your company benefits from for free, you need to reward. The winning companies of the future will be those that build incentive frameworks around innovation that adequately ‘pay back’ those contributors whether its financial or non-financial.

Some are doing it already, Ebay, Microsoft and Amazon. But we need to develop this further and get past the less imaginative prizes and competitions structure. Royalty payments, recognition or a bit of free stuff back will be the successful models of the future.

Creating and leading a community is all very well, encouraging people to collaborate on a level playing field exciting, finding an infrastructure that supports innovation and rewards time and effort another thing. Free isn’t free at all, it comes with expectations, time lines and limitations too.