Artificial Intelligence for the Perplexed Executive (Stanford Business)
AI can transform almost every industry. The biggest uncertainty may be the humans behind it.
So you’re the CEO of a clothing retailer, a rental car agency, or a payroll processing company, and you hear that artificial intelligence is changing the world. What are you supposed to do?
The short answer, says Paul Oyer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, is to start learning fast.
“Artificial intelligence will affect every industry, whether it’s clothing or shipping,” says Oyer, a professor of economics and the codirector of a new multidisciplinary course on AI for senior executives. “We need to find a complementary relationship between those who deal with the technology of AI and the managers who understand what drives their companies. Managers don’t need to learn all the technical details, but they do need to understand the implications for their business.”
It’s a tall order. AI has powered major advances in self-driving cars, robotics, image recognition, medical diagnostics, and big-data analysis. But each industry has its own needs, and non-technical executives are usually the ones who have to set strategic direction.
Oyer and Mykel Kochenderfer, director of the Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory and the course’s other codirector, say that humans and AI systems both need to understand each other better.
In a recent interview, the two outlined several issues for managers.
AI Isn’t Just for “Tech” Firms
Like personal computing back in the 1980s, artificial intelligence is a tool that can transform even seemingly old-school industries. A clothing retailer, for example, can use pattern recognition to better target particular kinds of customers. A trucking company can use AI to plan loads efficiently, optimize routes, anticipate maintenance issues, and identify drivers who may need more training.
On the other hand …
AI Is Not a Magic Wand
“Managers need to separate the hype from the reality,” says Kochenderfer. “For most executives, their understanding of AI comes from what they learn in the media. They learn the buzzwords, but they need to understand the core fundamental insights. It will be years, for example, before we have robotic flight attendants.”
Oyer does not believe that AI and robots will cause mass unemployment, any more than the mechanization of farming did a century ago. Indeed, robotics could be helpful in countries with older populations and shortages of working age humans. However, Oyer warns, AI is likely to disrupt many current job categories. Autonomous vehicles will dramatically affect jobs based on driving. In the warehouse sector, a big growth area in recent years, robots are likely to replace many human packers and pickers.
Because lower-skilled jobs tend to be easier to automate, the pay gap between low-skilled and high-skilled workers is likely to keep widening.
“I’m not worried about there being enough jobs,” Oyer says. “But I am worried that a lot of people will have a very rough time making the transition after automation wipes out their old jobs. As a society, we’ve been terrible at retraining those people.”
AI Poses Major Safety Issues
Autonomous vehicles have made amazing advances at driving under normal conditions, but Kochenderfer cautions that they haven’t come close to eliminating the risks — in particular, the unpredictability of how humans or other machines will react to a decision in complicated situations.
There are many, many “edge cases” — low probability situations with serious consequences. Kochenderfer says edge cases arise in many fields, from expert systems that diagnose medical images to collision avoidance systems that decide what kind of evasive action an airplane should take. Mistakes can be fatal. “The issue,” Kochenderfer says, “is how do we certify that AI systems are truly safe and worthy of our trust?”
AI Systems Can Be as Plagued as Humans by Biases
Kochenderfer cites Amazon’s ill-fated attempt to use an expert system to review and rank job applications. To its chagrin, the company discovered that the system was biased against women and quietly shut it down. Why? Because most of the tech people hired in previous years had been male. The tech industry’s well-documented history of “bro” bias had subtly infected the AI system as it “learned” from previous hiring patterns.
“This goes to a core theme of the course,” says Kochenderfer. “To build successful systems, we need to account for human behavior. Much of uncertainty in the world is due to human influence.”
Full article here
Synchron kicks off clinical trial for brain-machine interface – without drilling skulls (FierceBiotech)
It was 2012, and research into brain-machine interfaces was stuck. The technology, which links brain waves to devices such as computers or robotic arms, promised to open the world back up for paralyzed people—but it was held up by a fundamental issue. The surgery to implant a sensor involved drilling into people’s skulls.
Several companies have sprung up around this technology, including BrainGate and Elon Musk’s recent entry, Neuralink. But the high bar around approaches that require open-brain surgery means the journey to commercialization is long and tough.
“That’s part of the reason we got to human trials first,” said Thomas Oxley, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Synchron, a company that puts its sensor into the brain through blood vessels using a catheter. Oxley pitched the idea to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the company, then called SmartStent, was born.
The company has implanted its Stentrode device into the first patient of a clinical trial in Synchro’s native Melbourne, Australia. The study will assess the technology’s ability to restore communication in people with severe paralysis caused by various conditions, including stroke, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
The Stentrode, along with a transmitter implanted in the chest and a set of “cross-platform” apps, form a brain-machine interface that captures brain signals and translates them into actions.
Like its name suggests, the Stentrode looks like a stent—the thin devices used for decades to treat cardiovascular diseases—but with sensors on it. It is delivered through the jugular vein up into the brain and is deposited in the motor cortex. Although this part of the brain is often called the “command center” that controls the body’s movement, Synchron thinks of it more as a “volition center.”
“Not movement, but the control of movement. We want to take the thoughts or the free will of a person who wants to attempt to move something and turn it into a digital output,” Oxley said.
During the implantation procedure, the physician runs a wire down from the brain under the skin to the chest. Captured brain signals travel down this lead to a second implant, called BrainPort, which transmits the data wirelessly to a smart device that processes it and interacts with other devices running Synchron’s software.
All of this takes place through a 2-mm incision in the neck, Oxley said.
Synchron thinks about overcoming paralysis in three ways: “failure of talking, failure of your hands and failure of your legs,” Oxley said. “We want to test the apps we are building in a trial to demonstrate that patients can control an app that overcomes paralysis, starting with speech.”
Most people think of speech as talking out loud, with Stephen Hawking’s talking machine coming to mind. In contrast, Synchron is focusing on the digital word, in Oxley’s words: texting.
“We are essentially building a UX that enables people to deliver text messages completely hands-free—that’s what we consider digital speech. We are generating key presses that a patient learns to control through our UX that we’ve recorded through the motor cortex,” he said. The study will look at how fast and how accurately patients write text messages using the interface.
Synchron’s system uses electrocorticography, or ECoG, to measure electrical activity in the brain. It then uses machine-learning algorithms to break the brain signal down into different frequencies and connect particular thoughts with spikes in different frequencies.
“The algorithm knows when a user is attempting to do something and watches for the spikes in frequency changes and map that to an output. The patient learns to control the process,” Oxley said. “We’re taking a part of the brain that previously controlled muscle and, now the patient is paralyzed, we are repurposing that part of the brain to control a digital output.”
Synchron is in talks with the FDA over its regulatory strategy and plans to use data gleaned from this first study to design a pivotal study for U.S. approval.
Full article here:
Thanks for the memories, Vietnam
There’s nothing better than a fantastically productive week of business travel.
This week I managed to onboard Tickled Media’s new Country Manager, have dinner with the team (where we laughes a lot!), meet multiple partners, have drinks with several interesting industry folk from media agencies through to finance, and even lunch with a competitor.
And I even managed to fit in a birthday drink with an old friend too, yay!
#tickledmedia #lifeasatickler #flightnumber60in2019
And… This flight to Vietnam is #60 in 2019!
As the sun rises on a sleepy Singapore this morning, I’m excited to be travelling back to Vietnam today to finally meet our new country manager in person, see the wider team again, and have the opportunity to meet our partners and share growth plans for theAsianparent in Vietnam!
Although… I’ve just realised this is officially flight number SIXTY in 2019😱
#lifeasatickler #tickledmedia #seeyousoonhcmc #theasianparent #60flightsin2019 #ishouldjustrentaroomatchangi
Are companies about to have a Gen X retention problem? (HBR)
As a result of the attention paid to Baby Boomers and Millennials, Gen X often gets short shrift, a trend that has continued over time.
Generation X, represented by cultural icons such as Molly Ringwald, Kurt Cobain, and Alanis Morrissette, was long ago written off as the “slacker generation” — apathetic, cynical, and anti-establishment.
Like other generations before them, most Gen Xers have adopted a stronger affiliation for stability and tradition as they’ve aged and had children. But their unambitious reputation may be holding them back in the workplace as new data reveals Gen X as the “leapfrog” generation, overlooked for promotions at higher rates than their counterparts in other generations.
In late 2018, we analyzed data that we collected from more than 25,000 leaders across industries and regions with The Conference Board and Ernst & Young (EY) to examine leadership advancement by generation. We were surprised to see that in the past five years, the majority of Gen X leaders (66%) had received only one promotion or none at all — significantly fewer than their younger millennial counterparts (52%) and more senior baby boomers (58%) who were more likely to have received two or more promotions during the same period of time.
The finding is unexpected, as Generation X — now ranging in age between their late 30s and early 50s — should currently be in the peak stage of their careers, and advancing rapidly. However, many Baby Boomers are deciding to stay in the workforce much longer than previous generations, which may be affecting Gen X’s advancement. More than half of Baby Boomers are reportedly delaying retirement, many until 70 or later, because of financial insecurity and rising healthcare costs. As a result, older workers are not only holding on to their jobs for longer, but are in fact still investing in trying to advance themselves into higher-paying roles.
At the same time, Millennials have spent the last several years at the center of media attention. After a sluggish start to their careers during the financial crisis, many are now rapidly looking to make up for lost time and earn more money, especially in the face of high student loan debt. Furthermore, as the first generation to come of age in the digital era, companies have focused a lot of effort into how to nurture Millennial talent in the face of changing work habits and values.
As a result of the attention paid to Baby Boomers and Millennials, Gen X often gets short shrift, a trend that has continued over time. Looking back at our past global leadership surveys, we found that Gen X’s promotion rate has consistently been 20%-30% slower than Millennials. However, we also discovered that Gen X is playing a critical, but often underappreciated role, in the workforce.
While Gen X leaders aren’t being rewarded with promotions as often as their Millennial and Baby Boomer counterparts, they are bearing the brunt of the workload. Gen X leaders in both first- and mid-level positions manage seven direct reports on average, in comparison to only five direct reports for Millennials holding a management role at the same level.
In addition, Gen X leaders are loyal to their employers, playing a crucial role in helping to retain organizational knowledge. Only 37% said they are contemplating leaving their current role to advance their careers — five percentage points lower than millennial leaders. The difference among these two generations is even more pronounced in early management — with only 34% of Gen X frontline leaders saying that they are contemplating leaving to advance their careers, in comparison to 43% of Millennials at the same level.
Perhaps most importantly, Gen X is playing a critical but overlooked role in bridging the digital divide. While Millennials are often thought of as the most digitally-savvy, Gen X leaders were just as confident in their digital leadership capability. Meanwhile, Gen X also excels in traditional leadership skills that are more critical than ever, showing empathy and driving for execution similar to their Baby Boomer counterparts.
As companies increasingly rely on Gen X without rewarding them with advancement, Gen X is beginning to get frustrated. Currently, only 58% of Gen X feels that they are advancing within their organization at an acceptable rate, in comparison to 65% of Millennials. While Gen X has been loyal up until now, this frustration is burgeoning to a breaking point for Gen X leaders who have advanced to higher-level management roles, with 40% saying that they are contemplating leaving to advance their careers elsewhere. Additionally, nearly one in five Gen X leaders at this level (18%) indicated that their intentions to leave have increased in the last year, a significantly higher proportion than both other generations.
As Millennials and Gen X leaders begin to compete for the same mid-level and even senior-level roles, companies risk losing many of their highest performing leaders if they don’t work harder to retain them. Here are three things organizations can do to retain and develop their Gen X leaders.
Personalize learning and development. The most preferred mode of learning for leaders from all generations is via personalized activities, selected based on their role and development goals. Personalization is essential in a multi-generational workforce, because even within each generation, individual skills and development needs will vary widely. It’s critical to identify what works for each individual’s development.
Provide Gen X leaders with more external guidance. While Gen X leaders generally want to stay with their current companies, they said loud and clear that they are craving more insight and knowledge from mentors outside of their organizations. In fact, 67% of Gen X leaders said that they would like more external coaching, and 57% wanted external development. Employers should invest in helping Gen X leaders participate in outside professional organizations, industry conferences, and other groups to foster relationships with external peers and mentors who can provide coaching and re-instill passion for their careers.
Use data to add objectivity in hiring and promotion practices. Many organizations make hiring and promotion decisions based on managers’ gut feelings about whether the candidate is a good fit for the job, which introduces unconscious bias. For example, a manager may feel that a Millennial will be a better fit for a digital marketing manager, without considering a Gen X leader. Assessments that measure leadership capability and potential can help organizations objectively spot people who have the right skills for the job rather than trusting managers’ instincts alone.
Continuing to challenge generational stereotypes, and fostering development and mentorship among multiple generations of leaders will ensure a longer, healthier pipeline of talent for organizations. Those that do this successfully will be even better prepared as the balance of attention in the workplace inevitably shifts towards the new kid on the block as more of Gen Z moves into the workforce.
Full article at HBR
Cashflow is King. The importance of positive cash flow (Shao-Ning)
Cashflow is King. The importance of positive cash flow.
I was moderately surprised when Professor Warren McFarlan said at our first Accounting class at the HBS GMP program,”if there is one thing that I would like you to remember from my class, it’s that cash flow is king.” Then he showed us the short clip of Cuba Gooding dancing “Show me the money” in Jerry McGuire.
I remembered watching my dad struggled with his business cashflow when I was young. So I was always mindful of this when running our first business. But the modern day startups don’t seem to care too much about it. When I asked how their AR is doing, some seemed nonchalant about their >1 year old receivables.
Sometime back, I met up with an IoT start up. The founder asked for feedback on his go to market. After we covered that, I asked about his pricing thoughts, and any payment policy he intended to have. (Numbers modified for privacy reasons)
“We need to make it easy for customers to commit, so the pricing can’t be too high. We will do a subscription model, then we will also be seen as a SAAS model, with ready recurring revenue, and command a SAAS multiplier for our valuation.”
“We will have tiered pricing, to cater to different usage requirements. We will have a dashboard for users to monitor usage, so that will be the basis for the subscription pricing. Each system will cost us about $150 to manufacture in bulk via OEM, we need to commit 1000 for our first order.”
“So we will charge entry tier customers $40 monthly subscription, and minimum commitment period of 12 months. We will make back our cost by month 4 per device with a bit of margin.”
“We need to fund raise to get the 80K upfront deposit to the OEM, and need money for salary and overhead. So we need to raise at least half a mil for next 6 month operation.”
“No, we can’t ask for an upfront deposits as it would make it hard for our customers to commit. They have to buy at least 20-30 units to start off. I firmly believe a monthly plan is a good way to bring customers on board fast.”
This is usually how such conversations go. A pure software SAAS play could do with a low subscription pricing model as the cost is spread out and the outlay is mostly for overhead and headcount. Not too crazy. But when you have a bill of materials and got to pay for deposits for molds and materials, it’s very silly to totally bank on VCs to finance your cash needs. Even if you have to, try to shorten it to reduce your reliance. You will be a lot less stressed and a much happier founder when you rely on both customer funding and VC for cash flow.
A few thoughts/ observations to share:
1) subsidizing your customers’ cashflow with VC money (which directly translates into your equity and dilution eventually) – is that really the smartest option for you?
2) It’s perfectly common and understandable to ask for deposits or upfront (partial) payments especially when you need to buy materials. Fact is, you have to pay upfront to your supplier to buy materials right? (Oh, one fella argued that’s cos the manufacturer is a brick and mortar business so they could get away with upfront deposits?? Last I checked, startups are also businesses!
3) At times, when startups tell me the customers refused to pay upfront for hardware plays, I really wondered if they got the right type of customers… is Mr Customer having cash flow problem or plain making use of you? Or maybe it just means your overall value proposition is not strong enough yet?
4) Adopting a pricing model / strategy that’s not exactly ideal for your space/ industry, but for the sake of getting a higher valuation from VC, is that really sound? Again I repeat: the definition of a startup success does not come from getting a high valuation or getting funded. Success comes when you have customers buying your product/services over and over again and you make profits off it.
5) Be practical. For the first few deals, if customers find the product useful and want to “buy” instead of “subscribe” for goodness sake pls say yes! I had met one startup that said no as it violated his long term business intention… well, there is no long term intention if you have no short term survival. That company is gone now from what I know.
6) Not all but quite a handful of founders I have met didn’t count overhead and manpower as “costs”… even for software companies. Investors will not be here to pay salaries and utilities for ever.
Some other cashflow related thoughts:
1) Many startups do not watch their AR as they feel getting the sales done or product deployed are more important. I would like to emphasize managing AR /cashflow is equally important. Without the payment from your customers, you will be forever running business on credit terms.
2) Do not over extend the credits to customers. A customer who cannot pay is not really the type of customer you want, no matter how big the brand.
3) Managing cashflow is not the job for just the finance team. It’s important to balance the sales team and finance team objectives.
4) If you can afford to pay your suppliers on time, please do so. It’s a cascading nightmare when one company doesn’t pay on time. Many companies go into receivership due to cashflow problems even when they have a positive margin.
For more excellent insights please visit Shao-Ning's blog.
Apple Introduces More Privacy Controls (Campaign Asia)
At Apple we believe privacy is a fundamental human right and we engineer it into everything we do.
This week's announcements are the latest in a round of moves designed to give users greater control over their data, limiting advertisers' ability to track and target.
Apple is introducing greater controls over user data — including an anonymised sign-in ID and restrictions on location tracking — moves that could further limit advertisers’ ability to gather data on its device users. The iPhone maker announced a number of new privacy features for iOS 13 as part of a round of updates unveiled at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference earlier this week. The most significant privacy update, ‘Sign In with Apple’, offers an alternative for users to sign in to apps and websites rather than using their social logins. Social login options such as ‘Login with Facebook’ or ‘Login with Google’ have become popular among users as they circumvent the need to create a new identity for each website or app. However, the trade off for users requires them to give permission for the social platforms to track and use their app login data for ad targeting.
Apple’s new feature combines the ease of social logins while protecting a user’s right to privacy. It will offer the option to generate a random email address for users that don’t want to give away their personal email when signing in, which then forwards to the real inbox. “At Apple we believe privacy is a fundamental human right and we engineer it into everything we do,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, told attendees of WDC on Monday. ‘Sign In with Apple’ will be available across iOS, Macs and the Apple Watch. Apple has asked developers to display the new ‘Sign In with Apple’ button “prominently” within apps, which could result in other social login options being demoted, and therefore less frequently used. The moves appear to be predominantly aimed at preventing Facebook and Google from gathering information on Apple users, although adtech providers that rely on third-party tracking data could also be hurt by the changes. Apple has been cracking down on advertisers’ ability to gather information on its users for some time, as it looks position itself as a company which cares about user privacy.
Since it is in the fortunate position of generating its revenue from the sale of devices and services rather than ads like its tech rivals Facebook and Google, it can add heavy restrictions without feeling the pain to its bottom line. At the San Jose event on Monday, it also announced plans to add additional restrictions on how third parties can track a user’s location on iPhone and iPad devices. For the first time, users will be able to provide apps one-time access for location sharing, while Apple will provide users with a detailed report of how an app collected and used location data if used for longer periods of time. “Sharing your location with a third-party app can really enable some useful experiences, but we don’t expect to have that privilege used to track us. So, this year we’re building in even more protections,” Federighi said.
The manufacturer is also “shutting the door” on other methods of location-tracking that circumvent user permissions, such as apps which use a user’s Wi-Fi network information, IP address, or Bluetooth beacon data to try to pinpoint location. Meanwhile, earlier this year it introduced a more rigorous version of its Intelligent Tracking Prevention for its Safari browser, which eliminates most first-party cookies after seven days and blocks all third-party cookies by default.
Read more at Campaign Asia
Jeff Bezos proven right: Word of Mouth is the future (Kantar)
The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies… in the old world, you devoted 30 percent of your time to building a great service and 70 percent of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts
Amazon has changed our world in many ways.
For me personally, the countless number of consumer reviews help me to make better purchase decisions daily. I trust those recommendations more than any marketing campaign.
And, it is not just me, 70 percent of consumers trust recommendations on review sites in comparison to 33 percent that trust advertisements. No question, there are brilliant ad campaigns out there, that make me smile, think and buy! But, advertising is often just an addition to Word of Mouth from other consumers, friends, family, influencers or experts.
Word of Mouth can accompany us along our entire consumer journey; for example, when a friend tells us about a product the first time (e.g. a new smartphone), when we narrow down our options by reading online reviews, to making the final purchase decision with the recommendation of a sales person. While brands may reach more consumers through paid media campaigns, Word of Mouth has a powerful impact on brand perceptions when experienced, due to higher levels of trust.
That makes Word of Mouth the second most impactful brand touchpoint after TV (comparing 250 touchpoint studies that Kantar conducted between 2015 and 2019).
Across our research we have also learned that women respond better to Word of Mouth, as do consumers in collectivistic (vs. individualistic) societies, e.g. in Asia, South America or Africa.
In addition, among target groups that actively block or avoid advertising (e.g. using premium streaming services) and in categories with increasing advertising regulation, recommendations and referrals become even more important.
Tailoring marketing activities to these specific groups and providing newsworthy and shareable content, or by incentivising referrals, can stimulate interaction. Ultimately, this will help to create more buzz and leverage synergies with other brand experiences.
Building on Bezos’ prediction we believe that Word of Mouth will play an increasingly important role in marketing, especially in situations where consumers are overwhelmed by the number of substitute options and overload of marketing communications.
The use of smartphones, location-based services, and digital assistants will ensure Word of Mouth is shared with ease and speed amongst the wider population. By the increasing use of voice assistants (e.g. in cars or at home) consumers won’t be exposed anymore by countless numbers of consumer reviews, but algorithms will help to determine the single most relevant recommendation based on the consumers preferences, location, time, mood or occasion.
Full article at: Kantar
Why Instagram hiding ‘likes’ could be the reset button the world needs
If Instagram goes through with hiding 'likes' it could compel marketers to focus on deeper, more relevant metrics and make social media great again
In 2010, when Kevin Systrom was building an also-ran social check-in service called ‘Burbn’, he decided to take a break and travelled to a beach town in Mexico with his then-girlfriend Nicole.
In 2010, when Kevin Systrom was building an also-ran social check-in service called ‘Burbn’, he decided to take a break and travelled to a beach town in Mexico with his then-girlfriend Nicole.
It is here that Nicole – owner of the feet in the picture above and also a user of Burbn, complained about how she never posted pictures on the platform because she was embarrassed by their quality. This led to Systrom creating an online photo filter (XPro II) and taking the above picture the next day, and thereby pivoting Burbn to Instagram. The story was recounted by him to Guy Raz on the ‘How I Built This’ podcast on NPR.
Surely not the most inspiring backstory and definitely not a contender for an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. But it is a sublime moment in the social media history of the world where a raw human truth was discovered.
It helped Kevin understand the problem that he should be solving for – to create a platform that will help the user to ‘share something they love and ensure that they feel great sharing it’. It is this feeling that hundreds of millions of users have rediscovered, every time they posted on Instagram, ever since.
Somewhere along the line, it became something else. In 2007, a social media aggregator called ‘Friendfeed’, created a solution for content discovery across social platforms and that involved the invention of the ‘like’ button. And boy, did it take off.
The ‘like’ button addressed the most primal vanity among humans – the sense of reaffirmation that they are ok, or actually not just okay but great. And this gamification worked wonders for engagement and also made extraordinary creators out of regular users, as each one strived to outdo the other.
If history has taught us anything, it is that the decision on which features stay and go on social platforms, is only dictated by business continuity and not necessarily the larger good.
And after a little more than a decade, we are now at a stage where the nuisance value of the ‘like’ button far outweighs its business value. It is making platforms toxic and less fun, to a point where at least three of the top five social networks (Twitter, Pinterest and now Instagram) have spoken about doing away with the ‘like’ button entirely, in just the last six months.
The impact of this to brands might seem disastrous in the short term. All the social media measurement frameworks that have been built meticulously will have to be redrawn, all the KPIs of brand managers will have to be rewritten and many of the shining dashboard screens across offices might have to be switched off, albeit briefly.
Because in the long term, brands will gain immensely if this were to actually happen. Especially in these three ways:
1/ The means has been an end for way too long
That engagement has been a KPI for campaigns is by itself justifiable as it is the only quantitative metric that social platforms ever made available to brands. However, the fact that ‘likes’ are the only metric in many campaigns that we see around us is plain absurd. The disappearance of the ‘like’ button will push businesses to go back to hard metrics like volume of conversations or brand lift
2/ Reclaiming the golden goose of advocacy
One of the pillars of social media marketing that ‘likes’ have almost destroyed over the years, is advocacy. This romantic notion that someone who is not your family or who you might have never even met can actually influence your purchase decision, used to be a reality.
However, the pace at which we used engagement as one of the metrics to identify those influencers and brought it to a point where ‘influencing’ became a viable, full time profession, is when we nearly killed the market.
Today, while followers have grown exponentially for these influencers, their power to actually inspire purchase decisions has progressively decreased. Their followers are often blind-sided by overuse of branded content
3/ Making measurement great again
The code of the impact of social media and content on a purchase journey is yet to be cracked universally. While it sounds like a critical enough problem to solve, marketers are not exactly losing sleep over it as life seems to go on fine. While it wasn’t absolutely necessary, the disappearance of some of these engagement metrics will help put the focus back on creating business- impacting metrics.
But mostly I am excited about just putting ‘social’ back into ‘social media’. Even though it is not yet a reality, the fact that platforms like Instagram are thinking about ‘reducing’ the pressure on the user, gives me a lot of hope that we are going back to the basics.
Even though Kevin is no more part of Instagram, maybe this move will take us closer to his moment of truth with Nicole on that Mexican beach in 2010, when he realised he needed to help Nicole ‘share something she loves and makes sure she feels great sharing it’. That will be good for her, for the billion users on Instagram, for the world we live in and by extension of it all, for brands.
Full article at: Mumbrella Asia
Microsoft CEO: ‘Tech shifts are easier to deal with than business model shifts’
The chief executive of Microsoft has admitted the revamp of the organization’s business model and culture has been harder to implement than its evolving technology.
Satya Nadella, who took on the top role in 2014, said Microsoft has found it easier to adapt to a “first-class worldview of where the industry is going” than to “adjust to the harsh realities of the business model shift”.
This shift began when the brand hit somewhat of an existential crisis at the end of the 90s – a time when it had essentially accomplished its mission of landing a PC in every home and on every desk.
“We more or less achieved our goal, at least in the developed world,” he said at the Adobe Summit. “Ever since then we had to think of our next big mission.”
Nadella settled on ‘empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more’ in 2015. He said that for this to be embedded into Microsoft’s culture, a shift in mindset was required so that its staff began to think of themselves not as “know-it-alls” but “learn-it-alls”.
“We talk a lot about how we’re going to do all these wonderful things for customers and partners but until we can empower the people that work in our own enterprise with the best tools so they can then have pride in their craft it’s very hard to do these other things,” he said, adding that the company is currently in the process of figuring out a way to incentivise experimental failure, in order to stay ahead of the curve.
“One of the measures we’re trying to create internally is how quickly people are rewarded for disproving their hypotheses. Rather than saying, ‘You’ve got to be right all the time’, [we’re asking] how you give credit to people who come up with a hypothesis and prove themselves wrong.”
He continues: “And that’s as much about culture as systems. I see the chief marketing officer and chief information officer as uniquely capable of creating that ‘no regrets’ system in the organization.”
The change in the internal mission statement is intrinsically linked to Microsoft’s business model. Now, rather than pushing proprietary phone hardware and operating systems, Nadella has sculpted a subscription-based offering that aims to teach companies how to become digital companies in their own right.
“It’s not about increasing dependence on us,” he said. “It’s more about enabling customers to build their own digital independence with us. I think that’s really at the core of what we’re doing.”
Nadella’s changes to Microsoft’s purpose and business model have found favor with shareholders and analysts. Moving focus from operating systems to the cloud and SaaS products saw its stock price triple between 2014 and 2018 while taking the onus off sales and onto the less tangible concept of empowerment has opened the company up to partnerships with likes of Amazon, SAP and Adobe.
The brand announced an expansion of latter tie-up yesterday (March 27). Now, marketers and salespeople using Adobe products will be able to dive into the data of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn in order to draw a clearer picture of the budget holders and decision makers inside big companies.