If you didn’t already know, The Times is planning to be one of the first of the national newspapers to charge for their content. They’ve launched a swanky new website here, which – in future – requires you to pay a subscription for its key content. Their audience looks like they are split. Some supporting the move, some being outspoken about it. You only have to monitor the social media channels to see that it’s a bold move, a real moment in time when someone has taken the decision to go for it and asked the ranks to “hold steady.”
This had to happen at some stage, as newspapers battle to protect income. If you sit in the shoes of the CEO for a moment, you have this enormous overhead of reporters to pay for aswell as the usual costs of buildings etc, seems to make financial sense, “we need to find new ways to earn revenue”, – “yes boss”. No one would disagree with that, if you’re in business, money matters and the bills need to be paid. However, competition is strong out there and the FREEMIUM business model might be a challenge in the news industry as new communication competitors have emerged, such as anyone with a mobile device! Another consideration is the era of what I call the SAT-sumer (individuals who are Short on Attention and Time). These individuals don’t acutally want in-depth articles, they just want the headlines and they are being satisfied by micro-blogging services such as Twitter.
There is a growing army of bloggers and micro-bloggers out there, who are continuing to break news faster than any of the conventional news platforms and becoming more and more influential. Only yesterday I was reading about a cycling blogger who was invited to ride in the Radioshack team car and given exclusive access to pro-riders such as Lance Armstrong and behind the scenes access to what was going on, moment by moment, as a key race – the Tour of California – developed. He was breaking stories real-time on Twitter, writing and posting exclusive pictures that any cycling journalist would have given their right arm for. That is a shift in the balance of power, the blogger concerned is transcending conventional media and clearly has a sphere of influence, as with many bloggers in other industries, sectors or sports.
It’s a brave move by The Times for sure. I guess they are gambling that all the other broadsheets will follow suit and that people will continue to value their news curation and in-depth reporting. I hope it works out for them. Not everything in life should be free, some things should be paid for and businesses need to monetise themselves. The challenge for The Times is will their audience go with them or will they just look in new places, or perhaps curate their own news. Time will tell.
I recently was interviewed by top tech journalist and blogger – Gordon Kelly - about the future of printing (you can follow Gordon on Twitter here). Here’s what I had to say: -
There are so many truly fantastic small and medium entrepreneurs out there, you can’t fail to be impressed by the leaps they made as individuals, the opportunities they create, the risks they take. Tonights overall winner was Highland Wi-Fi, a really interesting business, which delivers Wi-Fi access to many remote villages and other destinations – such as caravan parks – for a really affordable price.
Spotting a gap in the market – and acting upon it – they were deserving winners. Chatting with their incredibly nice MD – Calum – later in the evening (who had incidentally travelled all the way down to London from the Isle of Skye), I took away a steely determination to be successful, driven by his entrepreneurial father, who sadly has now passed away. It was obvious that this was a very proud moment for him and I’m pretty sure there was a proud Dad looking down on his son who has made such a success of the business. Well done Calum and the team at Highland Wi-Fi.
During the evening I also spent time with the MD of this business, Sport Stars, who provide outsourced lessons to schools. I met their MD – James Taylor – a few years back at a business awards and the business has gone from strength to strength subsequently, it’s so rewarding to see these young entrepreneurs really making a go of their businesses.
Talking of which, I also spent time with the two founders of asuitthatfits.com, an on-line tailoring business, I’ve used them to make some made to measure suits and shirts in the past. Again, their business is going from strength to strength, how these two guys have grown since I’ve seen them last, more mature, more world wise and with a real sense of clarity about where they want to take the business. Awesome.
Running a big and established business, it’s really inspirational to see how younger businesses are starting and growing, we rely on them to be successful, for our succcess, it’s not rocket science. The key lesson I took away is that they are all still keen to learn, to search for that next breakthrough, to learn from experience, from others around them.
It always gives me a huge burst of energy when I get to meet them and hear from them, it’s lovely to pass on knowledge, to debate, to listen and to share success. Everyone in the room was a winner last night, so a big hurrah from me to everyone in the Smarta 100. A particular well done to Shaa Wasmund and her editorial team for putting it all together.
When you’re a leader, practically every piece of advice you’ll ever read says “delegate, delegate, delegate.” Fair enough, delegation is very empowering for those working in organisations (assuming of course it isn’t always horrid uninteresting work). There is an opposite side of the coin, particularly on complex issues, when you really need to dig the detail and you have to do this as a leader to really get inside a problem.
My personality type lends itself more to creativity, thinking on my feet, solving things and being big picture. I enjoy detail, but tend to do it myself – only if I can ensure it can be done with speed. One of my confessed faults is to lose interest quickly, I’m the man you want to come up with the big idea, the broad scope and vision, someone else needs to do the nitty gritty details. Saying that, there are times when you just have to breathe in, get started and immerse yourself in something. I often find that I benefit greatly when I do it, particularly on complex pricing or market issues, however I try and keep this to a minimum by having good processes to prevent it, in order that I can focus on my strong points.
But, there are times when digging the detail brings up that nugget of gold. A Eureka moment where a small error can compound an an incorrect answer, an insight can breathe new life into a project or spark off an innovative idea. It’s all about getting the balance right. Sometimes, you just need to get the answers yourself, other times you just want to be told. The trick here is to get your reporting and processes in check, so that you use your personal resources effectively. Detail matters, particularly in the big picture, the question is are you the right person to be doing it?
I was very fortunate to spend five days in this wonderful resort last week. Nestled in between an Omani mountain peninsular, it’s a beautiful hotel retreat (well worth a visit if you are able to). Whilst staying in the resort, I e-mailed their CEO – Sonu Shivdasani – (that’s what you get if you put your e-mail address in your hotel information) asI had observed a near perfect alignment of his companies vision, purpose and values, relative to the service experience I had received. If there’s one thing, many founders are passionate about it’s alignment!
It’s also one of the hardest things to get right. Leaders devote bucketloads of time within their businesses, explaining the vision, living the values and encouraging others to live them too. It’s a difficult thing to get right. Managing people can be as complicated as rocket science at times, a customer experience can go wrong so quickly, it only takes a moments lapse. Asking further questions of some of the staff within the resort, it became clear to me that the reason that felt passionate about the business, is that they were being treated very fairly and honestly by the business and the local leadership team. “Open door” policy was mentioned more than once and the overall living conditions were of a high level compared to many hotels, quite the opposite of many a hotel chains business model!
There is a lesson to be learned here. In this business, the guest experience is everything. If it’s not, they don’t come back. By ensuring that the staff within the resort felt valued by providing them with a high quality working and living environment, the overall company values were aligned, there is no inconsistency. As a result, the staff working there felt motivated to go that extra mile and the guest experience is delivered.
As a business highly focussed on sustainabilty too, it is attracting lot’s of “eco-tourists” aswell as international staff who want to work for a chain with a shared vision to their personal values, a clear and defined business model. You can find out more about Six Senses here, I for one, was not only impressed by the place (you’d be hard not too) but also by the alignment of the vision, purpose and values by the local leadership, it was great to see and experience.
Last week I reached a bit of a milestone, I’d posted over 300 articles on this blog. Speaking at a social media workshop I delivered later in the week, I devoted a specific section to blogging and how it can really help with your authority, help to drive organic search and drive customers to you.
It all sounds very easy doesn’t it? The most common problem with people starting blogs is keeping it up, I started once and stopped after two or three posts, I just couldn’t think of things to say. I had a six month or so blogiday and came back to it after some encouragement from someone. I’m really glad I did as -since then – it’s become a really enjoyable hobby, has increased my personal reputation and drives lots of speaking opportunities (ve previously posted my top tips for new bloggers and these all still ring true).
It can be hard at times, the words or topics don’t always come easy, you have to work at it. Sometimes, time is at a premium, so write two or three posts when you are in the mood and save a couple to drafts to just publish when you are time strapped. One tip I do have though is to always keep your antenna up. Whenever I now see a headline, hear a speech, observe something or do something, I’m always thinking about how that could be turned into a blog by adding my own opinion or observation to it, that is by far and away, the easiest way to get stimulation for your words.
If you can get over the 100 day hump, that is if you can stick at it and keep posting after three months, you’ll make it as a blogger and begin to see the advantages that your words can bring to your business. I wrote another short post here to back up the point, give it a go!
Business talks a lot about creativity and often gets creativity mixed up with innovation. Attending the Drum Roses awards in Manchester last night, I was really impressed to see some of the amazing work being generated by advertising agencies from the North West of England. Advertising agencies rely on talent to generate the next big idea. One particular piece of work which picked up a raft of awards last night was this. Following the harrowing death of teenager Sophie Lancaster, her mother – Sylvia – set up a foundation in her name to educate people to be tolerant and understanding of sub-cultures.
It is a tragic story. If there is one small sembelance of good to come from this, it is that, this wonderful piece of work was created. The agency concerned, deserved their awards (which ran into four of five gongs, for this one piece of animation on its own). It inspires me to really further believe in the power of creative thinking and to also continue to challenge yourself to do new things and think differently. We can’t all be talented creative directors in an advertising agency, however we can push the limits of our own individual creativity to stay fresh and leave a mark.
I guess it was just a matter of time before someone at Microsoft had the brilliant idea, that to catch up with Google, they need to be offering more cloud based applications. With 500 million global users, the licensing business is a big business, however you can’t fight big trends and the business model is coming under pressure, particularly in the home and small business environment with free products from Google apps and the world seemingly being a mobile office nowadays.
This month sees the launch of their business based MS Office cloud application and next month it rolls out to consumers. Not before time I hasten to add. We can’t ignore the role that Microsoft still plays in our lives, they still dominate the spreadsheeting and presenting spaces with MS Excel and MS Powerpoint, less so, the document side. Big enterprise relies on Microsoft for its integration with e-mail servers, connecting businesses globally in multiple languages using the same protocols. You have to admire what they ‘ve achieved in their product development, however they are still way behind the eight ball with their social media integration. Google is still an irritant, grabbing the headlines, making new innovation, stealing a march, launching cool stuff that everyone wants to talk about. You can’t ignore some of the recent Microsoft security hacks and patches either, things haven’t been too great of late.
It’s turning into a “David vs. Googleiath” battle of epic proportions. This latest launch is designed to try and catch up, Google dominate the cloud at the moment, their timing is/and was impeccable. With $58bn a year of revenue at stake, Microsoft need to find an answer to them. Let’s see if this latest step, will be welcomed by users and give Google a run for their money.
