More of the great and the good (????) claiming that other people in marketing and advertising don't get the digital age (whatever that is?):
Sir Martin Sorrell has warned that the advertising industry is failing to understand the scope and scale of change that is going on in the digital age. Speaking at the IAB Engage 2005 conference in London today, the chairman and CEO of WPP Group warned that there was a tremendous pace of change, which was not being fully grasped. He said it was a "cop out" to talk about children and grandchildren having different media habits. "It's happening now," he told delegates. Sorrell blamed the failure to react on the age of people who run the major media and ad groups, mainly in their 50s and 60s, and a reluctance to change.
He goes on to claim the issue is the need for 'good people'. Really? Personally I think the need is for people who aren't indoctrinated in the existing way of thinking. That is NOT the same thing.
The best things come from people working together. I could stop there but I'll inflict some more. Just been listening to 'The Who' (could have been any great band) and wondered whether a track like My Generation would have been possible without a hugely inspirational collaborative effort. Every member of that particular band was/is extremely talented but the performance was from them all even if some wrote and some fronted more.
Where is this going?
Well, Johnnie commented on collaboration and an article by Steven Coats: The Conundrum of Collaboration
Many organizations are not built around a model that fosters collaboration. The people they recruit and hire are selected based on previous accomplishments, as well as attributes such as self-drive, competitive spirit, and ambition to get ahead. There may not be much discussion about or investigation into the candidate's collaboration history and capabilities.
So business culture, certainly in the west, focuses on an intrinsic notion of self-promotion not team work or more importantly collaboration. Yet most work in organisations is based on these very notions. Strange when you think about it! Do we have some kind of adversity to trusting people who naturally collaborate? Do we somehow consider it a weakness compared to individuality? I think maybe we do.
If you 'have' to rely on others then you're not management material and yet in order to succeed in management then you have to rely on others.
So the best creation has got to come from teams working collaboratively. But to change western notions of individuality is difficult to say the least. The idea of team though can be strong and maybe turning the focus towards that collaborative entity is a way of shifting focus.
My favourite little exercise to ask how many uses for a paperclip can you come up with individually and then compare the answers to those fully from the group.
The drawing exercise Johnnie uses is also very powerful, as are some stories I've heard tell in lessons learnt meetings regarding problem identification.
Its also more fundamental than that though. If we continue along an individualistic route we continue to waste resources and opportunities.
To quote The Who - "Change it has to come, we knew it all along" and perhaps 'We won't get fooled again'?
How long does it take to create a blog entry? ask Jim at work.
Well how long did it take to do this?
10 seconds?
Of course the more intellectual stuff takes a bit longer, maybe 30 secs :)
My Aunty died yesterday - she was the funniest person I know. She always made me laugh. I associate crying a lot around her never before with sadness.
I'll miss you. And that bowl of sweets :)
BBC NEWS | Business | NTL seals $6bn Telewest takeover
The deal will create the UK's dominant cable TV company, enabling it to compete more effectively with market leading pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB.
Analysts have been expecting a tie-up between NTL and Telewest for some time.
Its taken time for me to comment on the takeover of Telewest by ntl. I was a little surprised to see that it was couched in terms of a takeover and that Simon Duffy will be CEO of the larger entity but not enitrely. From a business perspective I guess it makes perfect sense and, after ten years (plus?) un-does the stupidity that was the franchise idea of cable uk. The stupidity being that none of the smaller companies had the capacity to compete in the long run with BT (strangely missed from the BBC article) or the mighty BSkyB.
Comments from viewers actually get to grips with the more interesting questions of customer service and products. If able had been a single entity it would probably have been able to generate the kind of money necessary to break even in the medium term, but then again mis-management of the acquisition of smaller companies certainly hurt ntl and I suspect Telewest. The key factor in all of this isn't whether the technology will win out - cable generally is perceived as the better technology - but whether the investment will be there. If companies like Homechoice deliver viable IPTV (and I believe they do) what will happen as other operators start to give LLU services? Will they opt for IPTV (By this I mean Television via xDSL)? And how will a UK cable company keep the edge in a more competitive marketplace? Find a bigger backer is the only answer I can come up with, because that's the only way that product innovation and customer service can start to edge out the marketing muscle of the two biggies and the swiftness of the smallies.
Of course, some actual real, good engagement with customers might work. They can always pay me a bundle to start discussing how they might achieve that... I'm not holding my breath though.
Interested in hearing views on this, so drop me a comment and give me something to read other than spam :)
My feeling is despite