Not Panels, It's Engagement!

Linus gave us Linux! Now this entry could be about how the open-source movement is morally right compared to the Microsoft empire. Well, actually I don't believe that and I don't really have a strong opinion on it - so I won't go there.

Anyone who reads this Blog will hopefully get a sense that I am personally fascinated by ideas and creation. Winston Churchill once said that the "Future Empires are Empires of the Mind. " I believe that.

I want to look at Linus' ideas again because I believe that they have great power in our world of research and marketing. Of course our individual brains are becoming sharper and more skilled over time. The reality is however that everybody is more clever than somebody - no matter who they are.

The open source movement created so much precisely because so many people contributed. Well if we look at insights or web 2.0 I believe that the same principles can be harnessed. For example:

- give respondents (participants in the new world) an individual incentive to create better ideas. Put them in contact with each other and let them fly in order to create better marketing solutions
- collect information and debrand it. Create an infrastructure where consultants and experts from many fields can provide perspectives and opinions on where to take the marketing solutions based on that data. The reward is kudos and incentives. Imagine the competitive and ego streak to drive a better solution! With so many disciplines falling over themselves to have the best ideas and 'solutions' imagine the fusion of techniques.

Would this type of business model not create? That is peer to peer production in a marketing and research framework. I guess I didn't think so long since my last entry!

If so much of the technology in the world that is fuelling our economies and promises to deliver gains in the marketing and research industry is from the Far East, why are we still basing our core knowledge on this outside of these markets?...

It is a truism to say that we must always create value in the customer's eyes. We must always seek new insights and ways of understanding the marketplace that can deliver value to their business and their stakeholders - whether that be engagement, insights, analytics, quality, being the n01 or no2 in each market (thanks Jack) or even creating the 'Blue Ocean' - whatever that actually is...

Well have we ever thought about what our customer's (the client's themselves) get from our competition? Ok, maybe they get lower prices, faster service and so on. But do these things do what research is there for? Research doesn't exist to be fast per se, or provide a lower cost per se. That is part of the basis of our competition. No, it exists to enable people to have better insights which deliver better decisions. Read profitability or revenue - whatever the financial indicator at stake is.

So do client's really care about our competitive sector? That there are competitive panels? Competitive ideas? Competitive quality claims? They just want that stated above. Perhaps it is time for us to acknowledge this and find new ways to work together to serve our clients? That is not about a monopoly or a cartel - no. It is about finding ways to work together to serve our client's interets AND achieve mutual gains. I am not talking about industry bodies or accreditations.

I am going to keep playing with this idea. I believe in it...

G'day!

In this Blog I always try to give you non-western perspectives which is important (Ok, well at least through the cultural lenses of a Brit, cum Aussie, cum Hong Konger). Many advances are coming from these markets.

I read the other day that there will soon be a population in the workforce who has known nothing but connections - mobile phones, the internet and so on. So if we think we are dynamic now, wait until this generation comes through and delivers their perspective by new applications and techniques.

So today I am in Vietnam. Actually I narrowly missed George Bush at the APEC Conference. Here is a country where e-mail penetration has nearly doubled in the past two years. 58% of the total population is aged 30 or below.

The spatial geographies are changing. Is this the Lucky Generation coming through?...Keep an eye on these markets because they will make some others look not so advanced in a very short space of time. They think in new and exciting ways. (Read my note on offshoring vs expertise reaching).

I am grateful to M&P Tarlow in 'Digital Aboriginal' (Warner Books) for these ideas. I thought that I would share them with you.

According to researchers the heart can create thoughts independent of the brain, so the concept of 'Listen to your heart' has some meaning. Indeed, when those researchers measured the electromagnetic field of the body, 90% of the energy flows from the heart to the brain, only 10% vice-versa.

So it seems that the heart creates thoughts and feelings that transmit an emotional interpretation to our 'rational' brain. So thought just doesn't come from the brain.

Here is the bottom line: As researchers we have long known that we are not rational beings. Indeed we have had to create some clever techniques to understand our emotional needs and drivers for decision making. But that emotion still stems from the brain - who is understanding or measuring (if it can be done) that from the heart?

How would we do it? Can it be done? Unlocking 90%....Can dialogue do it?

How do we build the Business to Business panel? The truth is that the usual tactics for engagement are just not good enough.

A few years back I had an idea of myShare panel, where the incentives for each survey were pooled and invested in certain funds. The panel participant could then have some fun on this and see their investment grow or decline!

So today I was reading about how customers become partners in our businesses. (This seems so obvious as to be a waste of my keyboard imprints, but there you go). If we really mean this then what about executing the concept?

The Barcelona football club is run by the Executive and the Fans - there is investment. What about a panel? Why not allow the panel members to be fully invested in some way? Would this not lead to engagement? Would they be walking advocates then?

If you want to build communities of the future then this has to be the way - full investment means a genuine care - and that means engagement.

Yes, that is a challenge, but you didn't think this was going to be easy did you?

There is a central contradiction in our world today (and the future).

- The pace of change is accelerating. Changes to technology often require fixed investments which can quickly become obsolete.

- The fixed investments mean that we have to put a brake on new technology to allow amortisation of the existing infrastructure.

So in a world where engagement and co-creation will be facilitated by new technology(ies) it may be the case that the best engagement is not a product of our brains or our spending power per se - merely our Accountants ability to deal with the ramifications of a vastly accelerated and shifting landscape to keep us ahead of the curve.

Keep them close to you!

Tim Berners-Lee saw that the interactive web was based upon co-creation. I believe that some people are starting to call this 2.0? Well the concept is not new - it is just that the technology is becoming more advanced to enable it to be more of a reality.

Anyway, one of the key facets of co-creation is the ability of people on-line to take on the second world and become a virtual self, living another persons life. The Protean Self has multiple personas (taken after Sociologist Robert Lifton). This is how we cope with modern life.

With this type of co-creation and multiple personalities can we not use virtual type avatars to help us with creative and projective research techniques? What about our next survey - tell me what persona you have? Will it ever come to that?

See you in the next world...

There are so many books out there. You just cannot and do not want to read them all. Some are great, some are useful, some are unoriginal and some......

I always believe that you need frameworks and ways of thinking to help you navigate business (and life). Here are two that I recommend as seminal works:

- Phil Carpenter, eBRANDS, Building an internet business at breakneck speed, Harvard Business School Press. Whilst some of the concepts of this book (written in 2000) do need post-modernising and revisiting, its core tenets are still a powerful framework to conceptualise our business and provide direction

- Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Manager. I have never read a book that was so simple and yet so powerful in direction. Easy to use frameworks give you pro-action, empowerment and entrepeneurial ways of thinking.


I have got a great deal out of both of these texts over the years and they represent 'go to' concepts when in times of need. I don't waste your time on other stuff. If I do, you won't come back to the Blog.

Jon Briggs

I have been talking a lot recently about design and experience. Let's face it, for most of what we do perception is important and plays a large part in shaping reality. You just can't shake that.

So I read recently that the new Mini built in Cowley, Oxford, gave the would be customer the opportunity to see their Mini order taking shape and experience the development of their 'baby' as a way of increasing anticipation and excitement. This of course is a linear extension of FedEx type tracking.

Why don't research companies do this? We use internet for data collection and for distributing results. Why not internet tracking as well? I can see that a few people would not like that, but when you think about it it may actually revolutionise the whole industry and the experience of our clients.

Some time ago Seth Godin wrote about the Sneezer in the context of the idea virus. These rare and magical people could not be bought. Indeed that was their chief weapon. Due to their vast network and influence, whatever they sneezed about would become the next big thing.

Oprah is a classic example. Look at the effect of her book recommendations...Look at the impact it has had on Tom Cruise's career....

If we take this down a level we look at endorsements - someone like David Beckham would be a good case study.

The truth is now that we are all storytellers. We all have increasing personal power. Indeed with the reduction in the power of 'cut-through' advertising the only way to have effective messages about brands is to immerse them in our everyday lives.

And so I come to this great concept I have read in 'Digital Aboriginal'. Real-Life Retailing. With new technology, every time I see something that I like which I am interested in buying:

- that nice Chilean White
- that great Armani

information is stored and I can easily call it up when I next reach my PC to see all information provided by partners - pricing, reviews, distributors and so on.

So instead of trusting just Sneezers, I primarily trust my friends, my acquaintances - the Pharmacists . And this could be you. Could be me. We all have a contract with Nike for 'endorsement'.

How do we research that? How do marketers respond to that? What does that do to our panel? What about the 'pure' notion of no marketing on the panel?

Digital Aboriginal is written by Mikela Tarlow. Visit www.twbookmark.com

Someone asked me recently in Taipei about the future for our panel(s). What an interesting question. You could start talking about communities, about engagement, about so many things actually.

But it was early. I stayed on the rational (and less marketing focused) responses.

- I read recently that Seth Godin in his brilliant book http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ 'Small is the new big' mentioned that one way to remove much of the SPAM issue is to postage stamp each e-mail. What would that do to the on-line panel economics? Let's move away from e-mail engagement approaches

- That in all markets connection to the end consumer is King. Never let anyone get between you and the end-customer. Well Tesco has done this as a superb case study and has maximised the value of it. The trouble is that for e-mail based systems we don't control the final 'loop'. Hence I feel an urge to partner with someone who might.

And this takes us back to Carpernter's original ideas in eBrands some seven or eight years ago. Partnership. You just cannot do it on your own. And that means so much more than 'outsourcing' - read 'Free Trade Below'

I read in Australia today that the television networks have asked a very large electronics company to change their advert which had featured commercial break filtering (like TiVO) - because they were worried that it would hurt their effectiveness and revenue in the medium term.

So I guess that there is no point me approaching the telco companies to help build my on-line panel?....Might be better going for that Bacon sandwich......

Jack Welch once said that Strategy is 'All in the Sauce'.(Jack Welch, Winning 2005)

Well, the thing is that for most organisations, their strategy has revolved around brand management to date. Now that is changing. With differentiation harder to achieve and mass advertising harder to make effective in terms of a brand message, the dominant players are becoming distribution led.

Take for example Coke. Microsoft. Google. It doesn't necessarily figure that they have the best products, just that they have strong distribution and have become the network choice through distribution (or should we say thru).

The thing is that panels are the same in many ways. It is increasingly difficult to make and then communicate a point of difference (not to say that they don't exist it is just hard to make people listen and then to care and act upon that). So the panels that 'win' are those that have the strongest distribution - read claimed size, scope. Can you get the job done? Of course in reality there is more to panels than this superficial network, but there is more to Coke than distribution as well! When they tried to change the formula slightly many people would not accept it so there are product attributes there as well.

So we need to embrace the new sauce just as we embrace HP sauce on our Bacon...

I love China. There are so many fascinating aspects to it. I also think that in so many ways the civilisation and culture is preferable to that of the western markets.

It seems that everyone shares this love from a business perspective. China is the great hope in so many ways. David Harvey of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore once told me that capitalism can only work well if it can continue to grow. Given its inherent contradictory (and uncontrollable) logic, this can only happen when there are great sinks for the capital to flow into - if you look in history you see that this is true:

- US and post war Europe
- Western European powers and Colonial / US growth
- Through global technological forces and Governmental change, the opening of vast sinks in the BRIC economies. China especially.

So those are the opportunities. However don't confuse this with a simple adaptation of the western model. It just won't work. There are so many differences and challenges that need to be considered from a perspective of building a platform for engagement:

- people's proaction in joining multiple times
- the challenges of the local IT environment
- the attention span in certain regions of the country

I see so many western models, that just won't work, applied there. So many of these considerations are just not accounted for. And that affects quality.

China in your hand? You can try!....

The truth is that over time what we accept will change. One only has to look at some of the Governmental surveillance from the United States, done in the name of national security. Even in Britain, the 'great' holder of civil liberties, I read recently that except for two Asian countries, its surveillance was perhaps the highest in the world.

The point about such 'surveillance' is that it has to be rationalised and it has to be consensual. It can only work if the net (perceived) disadvantage is outweighted by the advantage amongst the majority.

And so I read today that a new phone is being launched in the US. It lets users track friends locations (by mutual consent). The handset manufacturer, Samsung, calls this the Buddy Beacon.

What a cool concept! So as a marketing manager I know when you visit my store? When you experience my brand, product or service? Let me have instant communication with you (by mutual consent) to improve my service to you in the future. Thank you for being a brand Ambassador.

It is great to be cultivating and growing my crop in this way. This year will be a bumper year. No more drought of insights....

This is my third entry today. I am not bored honest...just some days you have a lot to say. Why is it some days as humans we are more creative than others? Maybe it is the Coffee... It cannot be the fresh air - I am in Hong Kong...

I came across this article from Singapore . Now we are all converging on a point.

The electronic booths are holding up. No re-count asked for yet in the US mid-terms!

It really is coming.....

All of the protocols, best practices, guidelines and regulations talk about the need for a managed panel standard these days. We all know that it is too easy to say this term managed - it is far harder to know what that actually means and then to actually do it! Some people don't know how to do it, some people don't want to make the investment as they have primary economic reasons.

The future is interesting here. Engagement can only come from management. Now who is running for the hills? Who is changing their positioning? Who is investing?

Management is easy to say and critical for the future. We must do things right like a proper manager and that will call for someone to do the right things. Management and Leadership.

Watch for this....!

Every e-business offers an element of customisation and personalisation nowadays. Geez this is not a new thing - Peppers & Rogers were writing about this in 1999 before I even got to Australia! Yes I still remember the seminal One-2-One Handbook. This was long before mySpace and all of that wizz stuff....

However is the panel concept really personalised? I mean of course panelists have individual accounts! Oh please, is that personalisation? You have that with the local utility company. I am talking about real personalisation:

- I can design my own portal, look and feel and content
- I can receive survey results that are global in nature so that I can learn as a citizen and be stimulated
- I can donate to charities of my choice and even do some work for them so that I give back
- I can ask my own surveys of the panel in some controlled way. I have always wanted to know how many people also think like me etc etc..

..Personalisation creates relevance and anticipation (I stole that from Seth Godin). Those three in combination create engagement.

Let's do it...

If we allow panelists to directly interact with each other in the panel environment in some semi-structured way what will that do for our panelist relationships? Will that attract new types of people? Is it a good thing? If panelists are becoming storytellers then yes, let's hear it. I am all ears.....Let me even capture your true voice! Send me your pictures digitally - who says that we cannot have a sensory experience?

When I was growing up I could not conceive of a world that was not in English. Other cultures were alien or at least not understood. Then as I grew up Latin languages became understandable and the world got a little bigger. Now I have been lucky enough to travel to many places I see the potential of human kind in all of its diversity. If we restrict innovation and technology to a western framework what are we really innovating? Surely Japan, India and China (to name but a few) offer untapped expertise and new discourses which can power new ways of doing and thinking. We have to harness this in a meaningful way

Let's stop thinking outsource. Let's start thinking engagement and opportunity to deliver new ways of doing things through different types of expertise. Now that is what I call free trade.....

....When I was growing up The Jam were one of the biggest acts around. Paul Weller http://www.paulweller.com/index.php was their front man. My brother loved them. One of their smash songs was 'Going Underground'.

I am sure that you know the words! Well how could Paul have seen so far!? This song was released in the early 1980's after all. In today's marketing world where push style communication is not only increasingly ignored, but is actively resisted in many quarters Corporations are realising that the key approach to engaging with the new-age consumer is to capture their true voice.

Their voice is captured on dedicated platforms or communities where honesty, feedback, respect, trust, empowerment and listening are the flavour of the hour.

Yes, we must go underground to capture this and get into these consumers world's through such community panels.

So Paul not only had an impact on my past - he seems to be able to see the future as well.

PS for all of you The Jam fanatics, yes I know that the song meant something completely different. Perhaps we can share notes on that offline.....

In an earlier entry in this Blog series I indulged a little and let you know that my ambition was to conduct a General Election by truly electronic means. Why do we have paper?

Well in the Newspaper this morning I read that the US mid term elections are using automated booths in some States - not to make it easier or more convenient for the voter though - as a way to have greater reassurance on the final vote count.

I read that there are security concerns with this and that the lack of a paper trail is seen as an issue..

I wonder how we will look at this in 15 years time? Will we laugh? Will we believe that we have saved many Forests?

However it will be viewed it made me smile....

Hope that you are looking forward to the weekend. I am sure that you were also relieved that my last Blog entry entitled X and Y was not a review of Coldplay. I will never do that, well at least you wouldn't stick around to read it anyway....

This entry is about the power (and chains) of the network effect. As any technology matures be it CDMA, 3G, the internet, mains power or yes even the on-line panel a general consensus appears about how it should look, feel and be experienced. Interesting isn't it that in an era of differentiated offers to an unprecedented degree we actually have a tendency working in the opposite direction....

The network effect is good, because as always we reach a common currency. However as always you have to look deeper and ask fundamental questions which are critical to us as marketers and as researchers:

- so why does anyone actually want to join and stay on a panel?

Yes, do we really think about this? Are we providing nails or making a hole? Are we providing rewards or some deeper experience of storytelling and expression in a world where most of us feel that expression is becoming more at a premium. With such a discourse does our networked panel begin to take on a different form, if not function?

I read recently that successful brands (read panels) create sensory experiences. How do we create taste, touch, feeling and interaction on these platforms? Yes engagement.

Is that what the network is designed to do?