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The Mesh: Marketing, Environment, Culture

October 28, 2010 /

For a class I’m taking this semester in the MBA program at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, I got to choose and review the online marketing book of my choice.  The deliverables included a formal book review, a blog post, a video and an in-class presentation.

With my first two choices gone (David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR and Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing), I turned to Rework from the guys at 37 signals.  Rework turned out to be a little too general business for the purposes of the class, but I did write it up here earlier.

Fortunately, a brand new, big idea book was recommended by Seth Godin as I was still in search mode.  I ordered, read and reviewed The Mesh: Why The Future Of Business Is Sharing by Lisa Gansky.

book, business, marketing, online, social, mobile, GPS, businesses, share, sharing, share platform, access, ownership, Lisa Gansky

Cover: The Mesh

The Mesh was very obviously a labor of love for Gansky, whose personal and professional passions are evident in the book’s concept, premises, tone and style.  The describes her vision, illustrates it with examples and backs into the broader driving and enabling trends making Mesh businesses and strategies possible and advantageous right now.  It’s this drawing together of otherwise disparate observations that makes her book feel so fresh.

I’ve already written a review and collected several links for the class blog post.  Here, I thought I’d take a minute to observe how it so nicely connects the themes and sub-heading of this blog – marketing, environment and culture.

Marketing The Mesh argues in favor of a business model that both threatens traditional companies and creates opportunities for new ones.  A Mesh company or a Mesh strategy employs: a core offering that’s shared (access rather than ownership); web, social and mobile networks; increased customer interactions; increased layers of information and analysis of data; and offers that are more and more timely, relevant, personal and location-based.

Think Netflix versus Blockbuster.  Both rent DVDs, but Netflix is, at its core, an information company dedicated to making it easier and easier for customers to find, watch and review movies and television shows.  Meanwhile, Blockbuster is in bankruptcy protection.

Zipcar was another key example in the book.  With your mobile device, you can locate, select, reserve and unlock one of dozens of individually-named Zipcars parked around your city.  Each transaction provides data about who, when, where and how long the car is used.  Zipcar’s partnered with all kinds of other businesses in complementary ways to provide more – and more personalized – value to each customer.

Environment One of the underlying themes behind the share concept is an increasing population and limited resources.  The increasing population is also increasingly urban; this density is required for share platforms to scale properly.  At the same time, it’s clear that our disposable consumer culture is unsustainable.  Mesh companies need highly durable goods from their suppliers.  Through frequent and repeat use of shared goods and real-time data collection, Mesh businesses will understand each product’s strengths and weaknesses, like when and how it’s likely to fail.  While demanding greater durability from suppliers, they’ll be in a unique position to provide information to aid in that mission.

Culture There are many broad, cultural themes in The Mesh.  For example, acceptance and adoption of share platforms requires a shift away from ownership toward access and sharing.  Gansky also covers customers as communities within the same share platform.  So many of the factors that permit the Mesh characteristics and driving and enabling factors to be observed and formally captured in a book are temporal and cultural.

All three themes – marketing, environment and culture – are ever-present in this quick and fun read.  I recommend it to marketers, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, futurists and anyone broadly interested in what’s happening out there right now.

My blog post for class that’s loaded with links can be seen here.

My video review can be seen here:

 

Mesh, The Mesh, meshy, companies, company, business, businesses, Zipcar, Crushpad, Kickstarter, thredUp, Prosper, Roomorama, Netflix

Seven of the dozens of examples provided by Lisa Gansky to illustrate her concept of The Mesh.

Reading “We Are The Web” – Better Late Than (N)ever

October 23, 2010 /

I’m completely late to the party on this one, but the distance created by my tardiness gave me enhanced appreciation for Kevin Kelly‘s 2004 essay “We Are The Web.”

It was most famously published in Wired in August 2005.  He’s conveyed it in a variety of ways since then, including edited and retitled versions.  It’s also echoed significantly in his 2007 TED presentation, embedded below.

Rather than restate the essay’s key points, I’ll only advocate for your exposure to the essay and its points through your own efforts.

I copied, pasted then printed it on 9 pages.  Contained therein are snapshots of the web and our relationship with it in 1995, 2005 and 2015.  The history was useful.  The forecast felt genius for the clarity and simplicity in its expression.  The whole piece really came together for me toward the end; ironically, it was as he was slaying the once-popular vision of “convergence.”

I’d not read Kelly at all, so it was all fresh to me.  I know neither how novel his concepts are, nor who else is writing on or adjacent to them.

Again, this video includes all the themes and many of the specific points made in “We Are The Web.”  If this presentation is of any interest to you, I highly recommend giving the original essay a read.

A New Low at High Speed

April 23, 2010 /

In case you were not yet aware: the US lags other developed nations in broadband and wireless infrastructure and services.  Our federal government is currently working on a National Broadband Plan to try to catch up – or at least to get into the game.

Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, criticizes the plan.  Meinrath says it’s “like entering a race and saying: ‘Let’s go for last place.’”  His organization is cited as the source of this info:  a 100-megabit broadband connection costs as little $16 per month in Sweden and $24 per month in Korea.  Meanwhile, service only half as fast costs $145 per month in the U.S.

Here’s a not-so-pretty picture from CNet News and the Communications Workers of America:

The US trails other nations in internet speeds

The US trails other nations in internet speeds

So, South Korea is among the leaders.  I’ve already taken an extremely indirect route to my point, so here’s a quick sampling of their many achievements in communication technology:

This leadership also comes with problems.  As illustrated in Frontline’s Digital Nation series, internet addiction among Korean teens and 20-somethings is a serious problem.  Kin to a young person falling off the face of the earth for a few days on a heroin bender, they disappear for great lengths into video games and virtual worlds by way of high-speed internet cafes (PC Bangs).

Now … a completely new low:

In Virtual Reality, No Child is Left Behind - by Greg Garvey

In Virtual Reality, No Child is Left Behind - by Greg Garvey

Here it is: a South Korean couple let their 3-month-old girl die of starvation, neglecting her in favor of raising a virtual child in a nearby internet cafe.  The real infant was fed once a day between “marathon sessions” in a “fantasy role-playing game.”  According to a police officer, the couple “seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby.  They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

Isolated incident or microcosmic glance into the fallout of racing into all things high-speed, digital and virtual?  I think it’s more the former, but with overtones of the latter.  Regardless, this is a new low at high speed.

I’ve blown over a huge topic area on this one.  A few personal notes:

  • I spent much time as a child playing Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision and Nintendo (NES, 8-bit)
  • I find new technology interesting, exciting and challenging; I’m not an early adopter
  • To say that I strongly favor the real over the virtual is an understatement of high order
  • I’d probably be a Luddite if not for the fact that I help feed, clothe and house my family by working in marketing
  • I simply cannot afford to wake up ignorant of trends and opportunities presented by technology

Hopefully, these outrageous stories will give us pause before our perpetual hurtling into tomorrow at high-speed continues.

Note: “In Virtual Reality No Child is Left Behind” (image above) was created by artist Greg Garvey, whose digital work can be seen here.

Our Nation’s Common Medium: Why Just One?

March 14, 2010 /

In advance of a significant broadband announcement ($25B in new spending) by the Federal Communications Commission, a former FCC Chairman, Reed Hundt, delivered a speech at Columbia Business School that he titled “The End of Broadcasting.”

I read about the speech at TVNewsCheck.com and began to watch it on Columbia’s website.  It seems Columbia’s site or server can’t support the traffic, so the speech is basically unwatchable.  This post, then, is informed by the first 20 minutes of the speech I endured on first go and Harry A. Jessell‘s analysis of it.  I expect to edit this post once I’m able to view the entire speech.

In this speech, Hundt argues that every nation needs a “common medium” with the following characteristics:

  • Reaches 100% of citizens
  • Is easy and customary for 100% of citizens to use
  • Is culturally accessible (in common languages)
  • Is open to participation
  • Is good for business
  • Is full of “news” and is sufficiently “local” in its manifestation
  • Is owned privately, not publicly
  • Provides to the government access to the citizens

According to Hundt, the FCC began the policy of favoring the internet over broadcasting as the nation’s one common medium as far back as the period 1994-1997.  Interestingly, Hundt described this as a “confession or admission,” from which I infer a heretofore duplicitous stance.

A couple examples of broadcasting being disfavored by Hundt’s FCC:

  • “This is a little naughty: We delayed the transition to HDTV and fought a big battle against the whole idea”  (Ethan: why!?  HDTV is gorgeous and beloved)
  • It was “simply astonishing” to Hundt that the government continued to promote broadcasting by subsidizing converter boxes for consumers in the analog-to-digital transition – “Those people would have been much better off getting a voucher for broadband internet subscriptions”  (Ethan: completely ludicrous, more below)

I consider this visionary policy.  I don’t know if you were using the internet between 1994 and 1997, but to call the experience “lacking” would be kin to calling water “wet.”  For a government agency to recognize the value and benefit of the internet at that point is praiseworthy.

I absolutely accept that the internet has infinitely more potential as a valuable information medium in the long term than broadcasting.  Per Hundt’s criteria above, the internet trumps broadcasting in openness to participation, facilitation of commerce and pin-point localism.

What I reject outright is the premise that a nation needs just one common medium.  In Jessell’s words, “what would you rather have, the best broadcasting system in the world or the best broadband system.  My answer: both.”  Agreed!  As I’ll continue to argue, broadcasting and broadband are unique and complementary.

Also, support of one medium (broadband) should not require the suppression of the other (broadcasting). However, Hundt suggests a nation is going to choose just one “because government in any country wants a way to reach everybody.  It will encourage it and promote it up to some level.”  I’ll ignore the Orwellian overtones and suggest that internet and broadcasting should be understood, appreciated and treated as unique and complementary media.  Two recent illustrations and an anecdote:

I also reject that the internet is superior for access and ease of use.  Let’s start with Hundt’s converter box line to tear this one down.  The FCC mandated that television stations kill off analog broadcasting in favor of digital.  The transition was extremely costly for broadcasters, though it cleared real estate in the spectrum that the government auctioned off for nearly 20 billions of dollars and dramatically improved the quality of broadcasters’ signals.

To aid in the transition, our federal government provided $40 vouchers upon citizen request to be used for the purchase of digital converter boxes so an old analog TV would still work in the all-digital broadcasting future (now present).  To suggest, as Hundt did, that “those people” (read: older, poorer) would be better off getting “a voucher for broadband internet subscriptions” is completely ludicrous.  In my world, $40 buys you ONE MONTH of broadband access.  In many cases $40 covered the entire cost of a converter box, which is useful indefinitely.

That’s just access.  Now, consider ease of use.  As a blog reader, you probably take for granted how easy it is to get online.  Have you spoken with someone who’s old or poor about selecting and purchasing a computer or setting up and paying for a broadband subscription?  Have you seen the line at your local library to get online?  Meanwhile, a television or radio can be cheaply purchased and simply powered on.  Whoever does so has immediate access to emergency information.

Let’s just pretend that the government’s need to access 100% of people is based in the dissemination of emergency information.  At present, clear protocols and enforceable requirements are in place for broadcasters to support these efforts (Emergency Alert System).  Should not the effective use of this system be properly credited and indefinitely employed by the agency which mandated it into being?

In conclusion:

  • I support government efforts to encourage and promote broadband access; I’m very curious to learn the details of the FCC’s imminent broadband announcement.
  • I look forward to the day that broadband internet provides 100% reach to American households at an extremely inexpensive price.
  • Internet and broadcasting are unique and complementary media.
  • In the near to medium term, broadcasting is less expensive and easier to use for more Americans.
  • This is an extremely complex set of ideas.  Among the related topics that could be explored:  mobile TV by way of traditional broadcasting and mainstream media as the foundation for a significant share of searches and social exchanges online.
  • Because nothing even close to a dollar-for-dollar, online-to-traditional model to support journalism exists, a threat to broadcasting remains a threat to journalism.  Call me old-fashioned, but I consider journalism a necessary precursor to some semblance of democracy.
  • Agencies of our government are busy determining your future.  To the degree you’re uninformed or disengaged, they’re doing it without you.  If you don’t care about broadcasting and broadband, think about those things that do matter to you.

Worth noting:

  • We do not pay for television at our house.  We use an antenna and a 32″ HDTV to enjoy the cleanest, highest-quality pictures and sound available from several local broadcasters.
  • We pay $37/month for moderate-quality internet access (Qwest DSL).

Interesting fact:

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