The old Pay TV business models need to really adjust their business models.

You Tube is a distribution system.  It is done over the internet.    For $2 a month you can subscribe to a channel.  Imagine if The Walking Dead is on that channel or Game of Thrones or your favorite sport televised live.  I would take up that offer, and stop paying my $600 Yearly Pay TV bill.  That is what people should be thinking about.  That is where it should be heading.

In Australia, as at December 2012, there are 2.3 million subscribers for Pay TV.  If all of those subscribers have the basic package and pay $600 a year, it comes close to $1.4 billion in revenue coming in for the year.  However, I believe that more money is to be made if people are able to choose the channels they want.  I know from September to February i will have the channel that plays The Walking Dead, and from March to June, i will have the channel that plays Game Of Thrones.  I love my sport, so i will have the channels that are relevant to those sports on all year round.

It’s a consumer world.  Give them all the choices.

Let them pick the channels, let them pick when they want to watch the next Game Of Thrones episode.  All the creators have to do is to make it and release it, let them watch it non stop for the week.  The era of the time slot is over.  That is an advertising relic.

Make it east to bill them and let them cancel when they want.  The old contract term doesn’t fit the modern day.

If fans decide that it is too expensive, they will find another way to get the content they desire.  Why would makers of content, want fans to go down that path?  Their job is to keep those fans in their circle and connect with them in other ways.

Look at Spotify.  They are bringing music to the masses.  Their search algorithms or music discovery algorithms are shit, but they are working on it.

Innovate or disappear.

Les cycles raccourcissent, de nouveaux entrants peuvent faire des lancements sur notre marché à n’importe quel moment, les clients ont pris le pouvoir et ont massivement adopté les nouvelles technologies, ils veulent tout et tout de suite (nous sommes tous des enfants de Google), ils ont peu de temps et beaucoup de choix, ils en savent souvent plus que nos vendeurs… bref, on ne peut plus pratiquer le marketing comme on le pratiquait au XXe siècle… le marketing à la Papa: plus rien ne sera jamais plus comme avant.

Les entreprises doivent mieux décrypter leur environnement, les marketers doivent mieux comprendre leurs clients afin de pouvoir nourrir leur “machine à innover”.

L’innovation est la conception d’une offre initiée par l’observation des besoins et des attentes du client. Tout simplement. Les clients n’achètent pas un produit. Ils sont à la recherche de la satisfaction de leur besoin. L’entreprise ne peut se développer durablement sans placer le client au cœur de l’organisation.

Nous accompagnons des dirigeants à engager leur entreprise non plus dans une surenchère produit, mais dans des solutions de service au client. Lorsque Orange vous aide à configurer votre smartphone, on ne vous parle pas produit ou technologie, on vous propose de simplifier votre vie au quotidien, parce que vous êtes par exemple dans un segment de client qui recherche ce type de bénéfice. Pour vous, la technologie doit être simple, facile et pratique.

La satisfaction client et la rentabilité pour l’entreprise restent les objectifs, et ça, ça ne change pas. Les entreprises n’ont plus le choix. Celles qui connaitront des croissances fortes, des croissances pérennes, celles qui seront leader sur leur marché sont celles qui travailleront à créer de la valeur pour le client. Le marketing c’est innover, dans le sens de la satisfaction client, et non pas dans le sens de l’invention technologique. Ne jamais cesser d’innover, en permanence… innover ou disparaître…

Aujourd’hui, il est devenu plus risqué de ne rien faire. Les entreprises connaissent des difficultés au moment où elles se contentent de faire ce qu’elles ont l’habitude de faire … IBM, Kodak, General Motors, Sony, Nokia, Microsoft, RIM… c’est à vous de voir.

.

But I work in a library where space is so limited that a large number of books in our adult collections are in storage. One library in Indiana solved the space issue by putting its maker space in a trailer. Even so, I wonder about the wisdom of devoting space, staff expertise, and budget to a service that I think is arguably beyond a library’s core mission. Yes, libraries promote literacy and maker services are a gateway to S.T.E.M. subjects everyone worries are lagging in America.

I guess my feelings on this topic are mixed because this is the classic conundrum for libraries: do we go the cool and trendy route, embrace new technologies (like 3D printers or Espresso print-on-demand book machines), invest in specialized staff training and equipment on the theory that this will draw more library patrons who we aren’t reaching? Or do we stick to our traditional services (albeit modernized to include mobile technologies, e-readers, etc.), including reader’s advisory and reference, because no one else does them like we do?

I know there is a very strong “innovate or die” camp in the library world. And I’m not a total luddite. But I hope libraries’ main role will  always be to help readers find books and vice versa.

So to all you data monkeys out there, enjoy!

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 38,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Fate however decided otherwise, and probably for the best, as just a few weeks ago I was named B&T Young Achiever of the Year for 2011.

Chris Maloney B&T Young Achiever of the Year 2011

But enough about me, in this post I want to recognise the incredible Innovate or Die interviewees that have taken home awards themselves this year.

two black sheep

In 2010, two black sheep were named Cafe of the Year in the 2010 City of Sydney Business Awards.

In 2011, the boys took out Cafe of the Year again, then stepped it up a notch to take out Small Business of the Year.

Well done Adam, Dave and the two black sheep team! You make my day (and coffee) every morning.

Two Black Sheep taking out Small Business of the Year

Jump Tours

Greg Price and the team at Jump Tours have been nominated for Best Tour in Tasmania at the Golden Backpack Awards for the last 3 years.

This year Jump Tours took out the major prize against some much bigger competition.

I remember the day Greg quit his investment banking job to start Jump Tours, and I couldn’t be more proud of what he has achieved.

Jump Tours taking out the Golden Backpack Award

Chimu Adventures

Another Greg. Another award winning tour company.

This time the award winner is Greg Carter and the team at Chimu Adventures who took out the Australian/Latin American business council’s Business Excellence Award for 2011.

If you are heading to South America, don’t tour with anyone but Chimu!

Chimu Adventures taking out the Business Excellence Award

Digitalpress

The final award winner (that I am aware of) is Theo and the team at Digitalpress, who were awarded a Gold medal in the Print Innovation category at the NSW Printing Industries Craftsmanship Awards, for their work for Castrol.

Theo easily takes out the most innovative person I have interviewed, and this award does not come at a shock. Well done Digitalpress!

Digitalpress award winning work for Castrol

You

Innovate or Die is a labour of love, and I’ll probably never get rich off it.

So it is your support that keeps it going, and for that I have to say the biggest thank you.

I wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday season, and I look forward to sharing more inspiring Innovate or Die interviews with you in 2012.

Much love,

Chris Maloney.

Related articles

• Top 10 Innovate or Die Interviews Revealed (innovateordie.com.au)

In case you missed any along the way, here is a list of the 10 most popular interviews with the people behind innovative brands.

The Tattourist - Jason Tyler Grace

Top 10 Innovate or Die Interviews

1. The Tattourist (Jason Tyler Grace)
2. The Ideas Bodega (Nicole Velik)
3. Hostel Kokopelli (Paulo Rathboune / Rutger Bosker)
4. Young Lovers Label (Luke Nuto)
5. The Startup Daily (Karl Krantz)
6. Downstream Marketing (Justin Hind)
7. Some Guy and a Camera (Guy Grisgby)
8. Chimu Adventures (Greg Carter)
9. Crystal Agency (Phil Cranch)
10. two black sheep (Dave and Adam Wright)

But when Rob Edwards, departing CEO of the Australian Direct Marketing Association, asked me to speak at ADMA Forum 2011, I couldn’t turn him down.

ADMA Forum is truly shaping up to be Australia’s premier multi-channel marketing event for 2011,  so it is with great pleasure that I will be presenting my new theory on diffusion of innovation:

The 16% Rule – How to accelerate diffusion of innovation using scarcity and social proof

Where and When?

ADMA Forum will be held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre from 15-18 August.

You can catch me on the Behavioural and Trigger Marketing stage on Tuesday 16 August at 4:10pm. I hope to see you there!

Learn more about ADMA Forum 2011 and check out the rest of the conference line up here.

Next Week’s Innovate or Die Interview

I am very proud to announce that next week’s interview is with Theo Pettaras, Managing Director at Digitalpress

Theo heads up an award winning team of print innovators, specialising in high quality, tactile digital print techniques. This is one not to miss!

As part of this review process two types of posts have stood out:

1. Innovation theories
2. Interviews with the people behind innovative brands

So to give you more of what you want I am proud to let you know that Maloney on Marketing will from this point forward be known as INNOVATE OR DIE.

1. Query Intent Detection
   It seems that all of the major engines have eschewed disambiguation in favor of attempting to automatically determine the query intent of a user. My guess is that more robust user data and greater analytical and data mining capacity will result in even more personalization and assumption of intent.
2. Search Term Pattern Analysis
   I believe we’re going to see a lot more tweaking of results and rankings based on how a user has conducted a series of searches from the past. I’m also guessing that advertising is going to be served and tracked to visitors based on search patterns – imagine a Google AdWords interface where you can target any searcher who’s made searches for “used cars” and “seattle” in any combination of search strings over the past 30 days. Powerful stuff, right?

1. Vertical Growth
   Ask’s 3D interface is clearly the future of vertical results, and it’s hard to argue that for many searches at the head of the demand curve, Ask is providing the categorically “best” SERPs because of this. With expansion into specialized results for recipes, local, news, video, images, flights and many more, I suspect that the other engines are going to try playing leapfrog, rather than catch-up. This will probably mean some very unique interfaces and a whole new set of challenges for search marketers.
2. Social Data Inclusion
   I may have plenty of bones to pick with Scoble, but that doesn’t mean his ideas are wholly without merit, though I think the directions of his predictions were pretty far off. My guess would be that data from sites like Facebook, Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Techmeme and others may eventually find a place in both relevancy detection (by attempting to match behavior with intent) and ranking (using temporal data & human preferences & sharing information).
3. Search & Discovery Suggestion
   I can’t look at the success of sites like StumbleUpon & Digg without thinking that search engines have to be experimenting in those fields. I imagine there are already efforts to attempt to provide “discovery” type information, searches, suggestions, etc. to users of the engine. Picture a new tab at Google that offers “search phrases you might be interested in,” based on your search history and other profiling data.
4. Link Patterns over Link Numbers
   PageRank was, without doubt, a remarkable innovation, but brute link juice may eventually fall to more sophisticated analyses of how, when and where certain sites and pages link.
5. Major Vertical Fracturing
   Why would you run a real estate search on Yahoo! or Google when you can do it on Zillow? Why run a local search on those engines when Yelp offers so much amazing data (full disclosure – they’re a client)? Could Avvo do this for the legal industry? Could Technorati (or someone else) do it for the Blogosphere? The possibility that some verticals might be stolen away in large chunks from the major engines is certainly a possibility.
6. Answers Over Results
   Naver in Korea has shown that when done right, a collection of human answers can be preferrable to a list of relevant web pages. This could be another option for fracturing, a possibility for more vertical creep or even an opportunity for a whole different kind of engine. One thing I see fueling the potential is increased mobile search – that market is still drastically underserved.
7. Semantic AI
   Picture a Googlebot that could not only read your pages, but “understand” what you were saying. A truly intelligent engine is probably still a decade or more away, but with every leap forward in contextual perception, the engines are going to be churning out better and better results.

Let’s push things forward

More reports on the fruits of mass collaboration (continuing with the theme of bikes). I happen to own a Specialized mountain bike and I happen to love it. I bought it over ten years ago when I was a bike messenger and I’ve held onto it ever since. The west coast bike manufacturer have teamed up with Google and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to launch their ‘Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest’. The contest appears to have been a success. According to the feedback on Specialized website

“In a matter of three months, contestants poured in from across the globe, ranging from one-time inventors to students at prestigious universities like MIT. Of the more than 100 qualified entries, ‘Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration Vehicle’ won based on environmental impact, creativity and design.”

And the winner is the Aquaduct, a bike that provides a solution for carrying water in developing nations. But (in my most ideal of minds) I would like to think that there was more than one winner in this contest. Even a brief look at all the other entries on YouTube will give you an insight into how much effort other contestants put into solving issues using mass peddle power.

Some of this sounds a little familiar. In December 2007, the BBC’s Dragons’ Den featured a team from Red Button Design, a Glasgow based speculative design company, seeking funding for a product called “Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System” (ROSS), “an innovative water transport, sanitation and storage device designed to bring relief to the 1.2 billion people across the world without access to safe water.” See their pitch here.

The core principles behind both devices are very similar, using the energy from the circular motion of the wheels to pump water through a filter, but the implementations are very different, with the Aquaduct designed to be ridden while ROSS is a tank pulled by a pedestrian.  The Aquaduct won a competition sponsored by Specialized, the cycle company, so the form of the solution was pre-determined by the entry rules. “The answer’s a bicycle, now what’s the problem?” The ROSS team, on the other hand, used the problem as a starting point, and this shows, as does their awareness of issues such as simplicity, robustness, maintenance and cost of ownership. I’m sure that both devices could do a worthwhile job, but on cost grounds alone ROSS wins hands down, at around £20 a pop. Where can you get a customised tricycle for £20 nowadays? Which is more likely to be stolen, a bike or a water tank?

There’s some amazing snobbishness about technology for developing countries. One of the Dragons wanted to compare costs between ROSS and a conventional standpipe/purification plant, as if to suggest this was the only ‘proper’ solution to the water problem. When Freeplay wanted to push Trevor Baylis’s clockwork radio out in the developing world, people got very sniffy about fobbing Africans and Indians off with ‘primitive’ technology. The idea that leaving a plastic bottle of contaminated water in the sun for a day would kill nearly all the microbes was scorned across the board because it would be seen to remove the urgency for providing wells and standpipes. Never mind that thousands of lives could be saved.

Back in the 70s and 80s, there was a brief attempt to move away from the term ‘alternative technology’ to ‘appropriate technology’. These two devices are undoubtedly appropriate, not just for the task they have to perform, but for the environment in which they will be put to work.

Innovate or Die is a bit of a grim sounding name for a competition that has produced some surprising and diverse innovations. Sponsored by Google, the challenge was to develop something new that is powered by a bicycle, and that can be shown to benefit the planet in some way.

One of the most outstanding ideas, and also the winning entry, Aquaduct is a mobile, pedal powered water filtration system, designed to use human energy to provide drinking water anywhere in the world, particularly in places that do not have grid electricity. This innovative bike was the winning submission in the Innovate or Die competition. Built as a tricycle, it has a large reservoir to hold the impure water. When you start pedalling, this water is pumped out of the reservoir, and through a series of filters, ending up in the transparent container at the front.

It means that you can generate and carry drinkable water during a journey, but it also has the facility to disengage a clutch mechanism, so that the pedals power only the filtration system and not the wheels. The whole unit then becomes a stationary, human powered water filtration system that needs no electricity.

The competition website is very pretty but not ever so informative. The best overview of the entries is on the competition’s YouTube channel, where you can see stuff that ranges from brilliant to truly crazy. I think my favourite is probably the wonderful Renotee and his gondola – or, as he put it, “California’s (if not world’s) first electrically assisted recumbent pedicab” – love the wicked laugh near the end of the video:

I also loved the cardboard pedal – or paddle – boat, and particularly its name, “My Magic Swirling Ship”:

All the entries are worth looking at – there are bicycles driving carousels, coffee grinders, washing machines and even welding machines. It’s pretty inspiring, especially as by saving electricity I might also manage to burn off some of my post-Christmas flab.

Amanda

Travel forward to earlier this summer, when Nike announced Nike+, a website focused on runners who use the joint-venture Nike running shoe with the apple iPod built in, exceeding even their own expections for how consumers would choose to interact with its social network.

There’s a long history of Nike’s commitment to innovation, I don’t need to summarize that here.  You can google “innovate or die” and Nike and get 607 results returned right off the bat.   Just as with their brand peer and partner Apple, the key is that Nike has incorporated innovation as part of its brand, people know and associate them with being a cultural leader in what’s next.  A trendsetter.  A benchmark.  Not just in products, but in the way they approach reaching their consumers through emerging media and cutting edge creative.  The agencies they chose to work with have these reputations, too – Wieden, Crispin, Razorfish – they are the Madonnas and Stings of the agency world, only first names are needed in conversation, and they are reaching consumers in ways never attempted before. 

As a consumer and an advertising person I have followed Nike for years, but did not know until they became a client of ours their commitment to fostering this culture of cutting edge innovation.  Many people, myself included, believe Nike functions on an enormous advertising budget which allows them to try new things at any cost to maintain their edge.  The reality is they work with a much smaller budget than you would think for such a huge company and dynamic brand, they just do it more efficiently.  More strategically.

Many people tell us they like working for smaller clients, or even non-profits, because its more interesting to try and do new things with less money.  Nike takes the same approach – more is not always better.  As large of a company as they are, this decisive, efficient culture they’ve created is more indicative of a smaller, more nimble company. 

From a recruiting standpoint, we see this immediately in the access we are given to executives who are actually hiring authorities, and in the speed with which they make their own decisions to move the ball forward.  On the flip-side,  dotcom companies like Google are struggling to maintain their “all hands on deck” culture in the face of enormous growth, and one symptom is their is excrutiatingly labored hiring process.  Innovation must carry through all channels of a company, not just their marketing and product strategy.

The bottom line is Nike doesn’t just tout their innovative, never satisfied, don’t look back culture.  They live it.  And we’re having a lot of fun recruiting for them.