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: -

Second Life, Openism, Blue Mars, 3D Explorer.  If these mean nothing to you today, they certainly will in future.  They are all example of Virtual Worlds and this evening in Manchester I had the job of Chairing a really interesting mixed reality debate called The Death of Distance.  Around 800M people alredy have virtual world accounts, around 2/3 of these are under 16.  Before you roll your eyes and tut and say “it’s not for business”, give me a minute to explain.

So, firstly picture the scene.   Room with about 40 people in it and projector.  On screen, a virtual world, designed by the clever folk from Corporation Pop.  A specially designed virtual world avatar of me (which looked slimmer and younger with no bags under the eyes – yippee), avatars of four other people attending virtually (x1 in Australia, x2 in America, x1 in London), two people piped in via video conference on a screen in the virtual world, a laptop running Twitter with the event hashtag #DofD.  Got your head round that?

The central theme of the discussion was to examine the role of distance in a world which seems to be getting smaller, due to digital technology and the role that virtual worlds can play.  Topics we probed and talked about included the return on investment, how to overcome global cultural barriers, how to establish authenticity and trust and how to break convention.  I cited videoconferencing as one of things that is in the same league as the paperless office, it’s talked about a lot, yet global paper production continues to grow, in the same way that videoconferencing never really became mainstream.   The recent Icelandic volcano might give us the wake up call we need on this stuff.  An estimated 7M people were stranded globally when planes were grounded, so will this change our behaviour?

According to Gartner, they estimated that 70% of businesses would be using some sort of virtual world application by 2012.  The panel disagreed.  There seems to be a lot of barriers to entry right now, mostly technical.  I.T. departments want a policy for everything, opening up network bandwidth is a real issue.  Yet, so much can be gained.  We heard from IBM and BP about the tremendous cost savings they implemented by switching conferences from real world to virtual world, up to 75% reduction in costs, yet similar outputs.  The figures speak for themselves.  This does however take, time, resources and senior management buy in!  Big companies have these.

We also heard from some smaller businesses who had really embraced video-conferencing.  They cited “triple-shifts,” sometimes also knows as “chasing the sun,” where they baton passed projects from time zone to time zone to give them competitive advantage.  Linden labs cited the “war for talent” and that businesses need to embrace new things to attract the brightest stars of the future, I have to agree, this is something businesses can’t ignore.  Linden already have over 1400 business globally using virtual worlds to give you some perspective.

It’s great to see Manchester pushing the boundaries of communication technology.  I enjoyed chairing it as I’d never experienced such a multi-layered discussion before, it challenged me and gave me a new experience to learn from.  I can now really see how virtual worlds could be used in business, I had an open mind before the event, however was struggling to see the exact application.  Collaboration is the name of the game, linking up disparate people to maximum effect.  Before you all cut up your airmiles cards, my final thought is this, human interactions are still key.  Some relationships are developed in a bar or restaurant at night, when the work of the day is done, particularly in far eastern cultures where it can take more time to cultivate relationships.  The Western world is more open to social networks, meeting people on-line and doing things quickly.

So, like anything it’s a balance.  Humans still need to meet, it’s just the frequency may change and we may use different platforms to collaborate.  As a result of this little project, I discovered Basecamp where all the prep was done virtually, I’m already using it for other things, it solves a problem.  With a dispersed global workforce, I can see why IBM and BP use virtual worlds, it may take a little longer for other businesses to catch up.  To give you some flavour of what IBM achieved with Linden Lab, have a read of this case study.  Distance may not be dead yet, however it is certainly starting to sound poorly.

Panel Participants

1. Adam Nelson, Executive Director of Business Operations, Linden Lab, San Francisco.
2. Joe Little - Senior Technology Consultant, BP International
3. Neil Katz – Distinguished Engineer, IBM.
4. Stuart Smith – CEO, Woodholmes
5. Professor Justin O’Connor – Queensland University of Technology, Australia
6. Donna Davidson, BRC Imagination Arts

Case Study

Here’s one tablet that may not go down so well for book publishers. The Apple i-Slate, i-Pad, i-Tablet (official name yet to be revealed) is making its worldwide debut on Wednesday and with it comes the promise to potentially disrupt the paper based book model.

2010 has been an interesting year so far with Google launching its Nexus One phone and now Apple taking on the Amazon Kindle in the e-book market (amongst lots of other things). So, is this the nail in the coffin for the traditional book market? Depending on where you sit on the fence, yes and no.

The traditional book market is going to undergo some big changes for three key reasons.

1. Technology and the convenience it brings.
2. Carbon footprinting.
3. The business model of publishers.

Technology. Access is the new Oxygen. Amazon Kindle sales have rocketed from £3M PA in 2007 to a whopping £610M by the end of 2010. They have proved that the switch to digital is merely a matter of pricing, choice and ease of purchase. Generation Y are leading the charge, however, Generation X are well and truly in the market too, particularly people that travel a lot. It’s estimated that 50% of all book sales will be e-books by 2020 (Source Sunday Times 24/1/2010).

Carbon Footprint. However attached we are to books, they do have an environmental footprint. Every piece of paper used has an embedded carbon footprint through production and distribution processes. Digital downloads are not zero carbon, however they cut a significant amount of journey carbon. As we become more focussed on Carbon, everything will matter.

Distruption of Business Model. Here’s one of the key drivers that really interests me. You may now know, but the average author earns 8-10% royalties on their books via publishers. E-books can earn them up to 25% royalty, so a real financial incentive to prioritise electronic distribution. As a result, you’ll see more and more authors do their launches on-line before shops because they can earn considerably more. Now think about this. Apple and Amazon have the platforms to take e-books direct to market through their e-commerce sites. Two of the most visited sites on the planet. As a result, they can afford to pay up to 70% royalty to any author that publishes directly with them and cuts out the traditional business model of publisher in between. If I were a book publisher I’d be worried as there is a sudden real motivation for authors to go down the e-book route and cut them out of the chain. You can suddenly now see why the predictions are so huge as authors will no doubt want to cash in on the huge rewards.
Personally, I love books.

I like to read in bed, holding an electronic device just won’t feel right. However, on the move, it’s a different story. When I’m travelling, on a plane or in a hotel, I don’t want to lug books around with me, having thousands of books on instant recall is a big plus and will give me a large variety of things to read, to suit my mood.

So, back to the “core” issue (ahem). The Apple table product is much more than an e-reader of course, it will web browse, play music, host clever apps and all the other cool things that Apple will load it up with to justify its $1000 price tag. In time, the price will come down as Apple realise the real money in the content business, however you do have to admire their ability to keep their prices high through their design and functionality. The combination of cool tech, accessibility and a disruptive business model for authors, guarantees that the launch towards a more digitally focussed book market will be taking a giant leap forward and Apple look determined to take a big bite of it. Paper based books aren’t going to become extinct, however the mix of paper vs. electronic will undergo huge change over the coming decade, that’s for sure.

Website for start ups and growing businesses Smarta have just launched a great e-book called “The Smartest Brains in Business: 2010 and beyond.” You can download it here. It features short and snappy insights from 30 people about how they see the immediate future. What I like about this is how quick it is to read and how interesting it is to see the contrasting views and perspectives from a diverse group of people (you might recognise the guy on page eight). It’s a fanastic example of how much quality information is available on the web nowadays and not everything has to be a massive thought leadership paper to cut through. I really enjoyed reading (and contributing to) it.

One of the lines I’ve used recently in presentations is that the “Customer is no longer King, they are King Kong“. What I mean by this is that your business reputation is now almost entirely in the hands of your customers as they have the capabilitity to rampage through your communication strategy using social media tools. Wanting higher levels of transparency and authenticity, they aren’t there to be manipulated with a clever PR campaign or shallow words. I’m constantly surprised by the number of businesspeople I meet who don’t get this. Seeing social media (still) as some plaything for Gen Y. They couldn’t be more wrong. A shift in convention has happened. User Generated Content (UGC) is the most powerful weapon that customers have in their armoury to reject bad service, inconsistencies in Corporate values or to tell the world how great you are (more powerful than any advert you can place). So many businesses shy away from feedback, only wanting to hear (or publish) the good stuff. By listening to their customers using social networks, invaluable interactions can be made, potential crises averted or wonderful new brand evangelists can be discovered. Get on, get listening, join the conversation and get learning.

Speaking at an industry conference this week I asked the audience for anyone born after 1985 to raise their hands. Not surpisingly not one hand went up. My point was relating to Generation Y, that is, the generation born from 1980 onwards. The children of the information age. They think differently and run their lives differently to Generation X (people from the Generation before). So, if a whole industry is being run by Generation X‘s, then is there a risk that Generation X thinking is being applied to Generation Y potential customers (a potential disconnect). An example. In the 80′s, information was power. The Encyclopedia Brittanica was your display of status of knowledge. A full set in your living room said “we’re loaded and considerably cleverer than you”. Today, information is but a micro-second away, with almost all information known to man openly available via search engines. Such information is now free, accessible to all, a great neutraliser of society. Generation Y have an expectation that many things in life (particularly digitally based) should be free, leading to the concept of the FREEmium business model, a scary proposition for Generation X who believe that everything has a value. The point is that a generational shift is occuring. If an industry is to survive it must adapt. It must challenge its conventions. It must think differently. It must not assume. Reaching out to new social groups requires new thinking, new strategies and new business models. I finished my speech yesterday with the line, “It’s not business as usual, it’s business as unusual”, to mark the moment and really give people a sense of the change. Be interesting to look back in a few years and see if change occurs.

Continuing on with the B2B marketing theme following on from yesterday’s blogpost. Today I posted at Tweet that said “Lines between Home and Work are blurring”. What I meant by that is that working hours are getting longer, 5pm – 9pm is the new 9am to 5pm goes a recent saying.

Hours are so long now that people are catching up work, post work. It begs the question, When is the optimum to catch them? Your B2B proposition is now hitting your potential prospect potentially outside of their working day in their domestic environment. So, how should your approach change?

Well for starters you should think about when you are sending your communications, moment to moment marketing is what it’s all about. Choosing the right moment, when your prospect has cleared their work and is more open, is what it’s all about. 10pm at night is a good time. Interruptive marketing is as good as a “no” vote from your potential customers if it ram raids itself into their “maxed out” lives. Appreciate that, be concise, be clear, make it easy for them to act.

My next point is about B2ME. Personalised communication gives you the highest propensity for action. B2B marketing is often highly prescriptive, using Corporate language with a general theme of “we know what you want”. The more personal the better. Broadcast marketing has huge wastage. Personalised marketing takes longer, but is more effective.

Here’s a social media tip. Follow your potential contacts on Linkedin or Twitter. See when their travelling or out of the office. They may have potential deadtime or flatspots in airport lounges, train stations or hotels. Use that time to start a conversation. That’s what I mean about B2ME, it’s highly personal, relevant and interesting as you are talking about the most important person in your prospects lives – them!