As previously, Cate showed an impressive grasp of the trends that new and existing businesses need to know about, to keep ahead of the competitive curve.
Tonight’s topic proved even more popular than before, requiring a move to a larger room, and an overflow event last-night.
Here are my notes from the event:
Cate started the evening by identifying three headline trends for 2012 of Doom and Gloom, Ubiquitous Digital and Humanness.
Doom and Gloom (aka – the economic recession is killing business opportunities – or is it?)
If you only read the papers or watched TV you would think the end is nigh.
Unemployment is at a 17 year high in the UK, with over 1 million young people out of work.
The UK economy is predicted to grow by 0.2% in 2012 (i.e. no growth to speak of).
But…
Interest in entrepreneurship is at an all-time high, and barriers to entry are at an all-time low, thanks to technology and the internet, with the likes of Facebook, PayPal and on-demand printing.
Slowly we are shifting to become a nation of entrepreneurs.
There are plenty of opportunities for person-to-person (P2P) businesses thanks to the likes of Kickstarter and SellAnApp. Or how about MinuteBox which allows you sell your expertise by the minute.
Opportunities also exist in the off-line world too, such as ‘cheap and cheerful’ offices for start-ups like The Ugli Campus, or how about opening the first cafe for entrepreneurs.
Too many business websites use ‘me too’ branding with stock photography and unclear messages – Cate gave the example of BubbleWebs as one that ‘shows what it does on the tin’.
Ubiquitous digital (it really is everywhere now)
65% of adult internet users now use a social networking site of some kind.
By the summer of 2012 over 50% of Brits will be using a smartphone.
So:
Cate’s tip no.1 – Mark your location on Google Places to boost traffic to your website.
Need to think beyond using social media just for marketing and PR – add customer support roles (e.g. Hippo Munchies in India using twitter prompts from customers to re-fill their vending machines).
Companies will develop intelligent and selective strategies for social media channels. No more scatter-gun approach to digital marketing.
Digital data will give commercial insights. E.g Klout score to measure your online influence.
Humanness (the importance of trust in a digital commercial world)
Ask yourself how is your digital strategy enhancing the lives of your customers?
More targeted communications and email lists – less scatter-gun.
Google is starting to highlight more human related content, so you need to have people talking about your business in social media.
Which means you have to do stuff that people think is worth talking about.
Results in a move away from novelty campaigns to real customer value. E.g. Zappos.com have a 24 hour staffed phone line, and up to a year to return products.
The need to stay human, once you grow beyond a single person business, think of your brand as a personality or celebrity.
2012 is all about being connected – individuals, networks and businesses
Use customer value to cut through the ubiquitous social media noise. Connections through honest communication is key.
Cate ended her talk by encouraging us to go away and start experimenting with some of the ideas covered. We now had 11 months lead on our competitors.
She really wants to hear from us how we a get on, so please get in touch with her at cate@insider-trends.com
This could be explained by the fact that my job is all about helping aspiring entrepreneurs with their information needs, rather than digitising parts of the enormous British Library collection.
However, one of the four strands of DISH 2011, held from 7 December in Rotterdam, was Business for Heritage, and I was asked to speak at session on Organisations that Redesigned their Business Models.
I certainly believe the Business & IP Centre is an excellent example of how a library can deliver a different kind of service, to support its community and economy. As well as giving a talk about the development of the Centre and the services we deliver, I was also asked to offer myself up as a trained business advisor.
Quite a few conference attendees applied for these one to one advice sessions, and I selected four I felt I could help the most. It was fascinating to hear first hand about some of the projects my clients were undertaking, and the challenges they were facing. In most cases it involved persuading staff with somewhat traditional and cautious attitudes to adopt new technologies and new ways of working. These were issues we had faced in developing the Business & IP Centre.
Overall I found the conference to be extremely well organised with fascinating speakers and interesting and engaged attendees. I would thoroughly recommend attending any future DISH conferences.
Here are my notes from the two days of the event:
I got off to an excellent start when I found myself sitting next to the conference chair Chris Batt and his charming wife Adie, who also happens to be his business partner, on the flight out to Schiphol airport. So I was able to get the inside track even before arriving in Rotterdam.
Chris has been a key figure in the information world for many years including Chief Executive of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). However, this was the first time I had had the opportunity to speak to him.
Wednesday 7th December – Introduction from Chris Batt, Conference Chair
DISH has now seven years experience, and aims to be a toolbox with practical solutions, rather than just keep on saying it is a ‘good thing’.
The four themes for the conference are:
Business for heritage
Crowdsourcing and co-creation
Institutional change
Building a New Public Space
Image by DEN (Digitaal Erfgoed Nederland)
We are living in a time of uncertainty, complexity and change, but more than ever a need for us to think strategically.
In the private sector it is a case of ‘a thousand flowers blooming’, but each one is aiming for market domination. And how can you tell which will be the success story?
We are moving from Evolution to Revolution (look at the recent changes in the music industry), also in some cases Extinction.
There are big differences between the public and private sectors, but both are serving the same customers.
In the public sector how does the weeding of the ‘thousand flowers’ take place, when there isn’t the private sector market control elements.
Do we undertake cost benefit analysis for our digitisation projects?
When looking at the UK government departmental strategies and cooperation, it is a case of ‘the whole being less than the sum of the parts’.
Chris asked the audience what ‘being ahead of the wave’ meant to them.
Is it the Institution, the Project, the Sector, or Public knowledge institutions?
To make progress we need to move from being technicians to strategists, and from an institutional focus to a consumer focus.
Living the Digital Shift – Katherine Watson – Director, European Cultural Foundation
We need to start with the person not with the technical tool.
We should look into the future, and ask ourselves how will the current six year old in school be wanting to use your services when they are ready?
Looking to the past is not helpful.
The economic crisis means that our funding landscape is crumbling around us.
In the future it will not be ‘back to business as normal’.
Rapid change means that it is not possible to predict the future with risk free certainty.
Cyborg anthropology and the future of interfaces – Amber Case
Although something of a surprising presence at a conference on digital strategies, Amber’s talk was absolutely fascinating, and I am still pondering on the implications of what she said. You can catch some of the same points in her TED Women talk.
The traditional tools that humans use have changed very little over thousands of years. Whereas computers have changed beyond recognition in less than 50 years.
The idea of Cyborg Anthropology first came about in 1941, when a group of scientists and technologists first met to review impact of computer technology on people. In 1992 it became a formal academic subject.
Becoming a cyborg
When you first go online, you have to start making decisions about how you will present your virtual self, and how closely related this will be to your ‘real’ self. You are likely to adjust this version of you based on feedback from your contacts.
The future
We will see more Calm Technology, which appears when you need it, and disappears when you don’t.
Technologists try to digitise old technology and nearly always fail. For example trying to ‘grab’ a virtual page and turn it, instead of pressing a button.
We need to have technologies which give us superhuman powers, eg Flipboard
There will be an increasing merging of tech with real life. E.g. body implants.
The interface will begin to disappear, so that actions are reduced, queries are eliminated. E.g. Kinect for Xbox®
The best technology is invisible… like a book.
Q&A
Q. How do you cope with the way technology negatively impacts available time and the ability to concentrate?
A. Amber recommended moderation in all things includes technology. She recently took 3 weeks away from her email and social media to read a book a day. The government in Singapore has proposed its citizens should turn off technology an hour before bed-time to give their brains time to settle down so their sleep is effective.
The answer lies in ‘creative muddling through’, using skill-full incompleteness.
Charles used an excellent analogy of the development of the wine industry over the last 50 years to illustrate different models of customer service that relate to the Cultural Heritage sector.
French wine is elitist, their bottles (with just a front label) give almost no clue to an amateur wine drinker as to the nature of the wine they will find inside. You need to know their language, geography, horticulture and coding systems.
The message is, ‘keep away, unless you know what you are dealing with’.
In contrast Australian wines are consumer friendly. They have colourful modern labels on the front and lots of helpful information on the back, explaining the grapes that make up the contents, and what the wine will smell and taste like. They a have a handy screw top, so you don’t even need to drink the whole bottle in one go.
The message is, ‘I go very well with your Chicken Korma’.
Because of these changes New World wines are now the largest selling in the world.
Then there is the rapidly expanding area of home made wine. People are planting their own garden vineyards and buying the wine making kit from the web. Needless to say the quality of wine produced ranges from the undrinkable to excellent.
The message here is, ‘anyone can have a go’.
Next Charles looked at four distribution models and the challenges they present for the cultural sector.
1. How we communicate
2. Where ideas come from.
Compare this to what he called the evil genius of Simon Cowel managed to operate in three out of four sectors.
He was particularly impressed by how Apple have been so successful, by creating a ‘guild’ of followers (customers) who believe their Apple products are helping them to live better, more modern lives.
3. How has society changed?
In the future to grow big with small investment will require seeing yourself as a movement, or networks with values and ideologies, not institutions, with opening hours, collections and catalogues. Social media and the web gives an opportunity to do this.
He gave the example of Barcelona football club as the kind of organisation which exemplifies this approach.
The English, who invented football, developed a game in which defenders never went beyond the half-way line. They repelled attacks with physicality and generally ‘booted’ the ball up the pitch to their attackers who had the skill to put the ball in to their opponents net.
The ball only ever went straight up and down the pitch. The occasional creative player would attempt to move the ball across the pitch instead.
However, Barcelona developed ‘total football’, where everyone is a key player with skill. The ball always moves across the pitch, never along it, the team aim is to never lose possession, and everyone has to contribute.
This has made them into the most successful football team in the world.
For Charles cultural institutions must learn that the way to win is, not to be brilliant and individualistic, but to remain part of the network, to pass, to constantly move, look for space and find interesting angles, to always remain linked. If you are not open to people passing the ‘ball’ to you, no one will be interested in playing with you.
In other words, play culture, like Barcelona play football.
Thursday 8 December
Come let us go boldly into the Future – Michael Edson
Michael gave the closing keynote talk, which was more a call to arms than an academic treatise.
He built towards his message that the ‘future is now’. So we should stop worrying about what may or may not be coming down the wire, and start engaging with our present future.
He summed up with three key questions we should all be asking ourselves:
1. What world am I living in?
2. What impact do I want to have?
3. What should I do today?
I have been attending keynote talks at library and information conferences for over 20 years now, and in all that time I have only seen two genuinely evangelical speakers from an information background.
The first was Eugenie Prime at SLA Conference in Seattle in 1997, when she called on all librarians to quit whining about image and begin walking the walk. And to earn respect by forgetting about our negative image and doing our jobs better than anyone else could.
Michael Edson qualifies as the second. The audience left his session inspired to tackle this particular professional challenge. No more whinging about all the problems we face, but to focus on the solutions.
Having met Bertie Stephens (Chief Flubitron) in a workshop last May, and signing up as Honourable Manlius Buggerflub (I’ve joined the fun Flubitron club), I wanted to keep in touch with their progress.
The good news is that they are growing at an impressively rapid pace, and have recently exceeded 14,000 Flubitrons. With four new demands every minute, their members have already demanded over 3,000 products and services.
I had a chat to their Online Marketing Rep Steph Fiala to find out more:
So what exactly is Flubit?
The idea of Flubit is incredibly simple but revolutionary. In an age of social media and online shopping, we have found a way to empower our consumers, through using our very simple platform. By grouping together and ‘demanding’ products they actually want to buy, we can get them great bulk discounts. Essentially, you tell us what you want and we do all the leg work and get you a discount, all because if you want something, chances are there are others online who also want it.
Bertie Stephens came up with the idea for a consumer-lead social marketplace at the end of last year, but it wasn’t until spring this year when he really decided to go along with his idea. In April, he met with the first investors and by May Flubit was sitting on a $1M investment and was valued at $4M.
But the successes run deeper, we managed to create a great team here at flubit. We have a group of really experienced, goal oriented leaders – Adel Louertatani, making sure we are in touch with all the right investors, Ricardo Gomez-Ulmke who makes sure all our ideas are plausible and ensures we do everything with structure, Patrick Perez, our non-executive advisor, the man who brought Apple Mac to Europe giving us needed council and of course our CEO Bertie Stephens challenging and directing us – and a group of younger, enthusiastic employees who know our market and make sure we get it right.
And how did the Business & IP Centre help?
The British Library offered founders Bertie Stephens and Adel Louertatani not only a meeting ground & research tool from it’s wide array of resources, but an important learning arena too via the IP Centre.
Partaking in a multitude of courses gave Bertie & Adel an ability to gain a further foothold into the world of small business marketing, financing, pitching to investors and even intellectual property protection.
From here Flubit have been in regular contact with a selection of speakers who have since become consultants who offer a reliable, experianced source of knowledge. It was only from the learnings of the IP Centre that Bertie was able to learn the correct and (more importantly) required steps to correctly copyright & protect the Flubit brand.
If you want to keep up with Flubit, you can join their facebook page, or become a Flubitron yourself.
The Flubit team celebrating their success Flubit style
Update October 2012: Flubit is now live
Update February 2013: Watch our Flubit Success Story video
I received a lovely surprise tweet recently. ” Hi Neil! I had a one-to-one with you couple of years ago. Still implementing your advice – it was great!”
It was from Dee Dee O’Connell, the founder of Dee Dee’s Vintage. And after my blushes died down, I recalled the information advice clinic where we met. In particular I remember being impressed about how much thought Dee Dee had already given to her business idea, and how resourceful she had been.
Dee Dee didn’t have the delightful logo above at the time, or her partner Ian White. But I was confident she would be successful, with her enthusiasm and expert knowledge of the vintage clothing market place, and her entrepreneurial spirit.
I get a lovely warm glow from being a small part of our success stories.
Dee Dee’s Vintage is a brand new online shop, specialising in Americana and classic British vintage clothing. We began life back in June ‘09 as a stall at the Vintage Pop-Up Market at Brick Lane, East London. We can now be found at selected vintage fairs, markets and festivals all over the UK. Check out our blog for the latest updates on our events.
We’re based at The Print House in Dalston, East London – home of Dalston Roof Park and Café Oto.
Yesterday I attended another of Kimberly Davies‘ Marketing Masters days. This time the topic was Effective Writing And Communications and featured guest speaker Steve Trister the creator of Performance Dynamite.
I not sure if Kimberly is a geographer at heart, but the four days I have attended have been located in south, east, north and now west London. I’m not sure where she will go next now we have covered all four compass points.
One of the consequences of moving to a new location each time, is that the rooms often have technical glitches with the sound or vision, or in yesterdays case, both.
Kimberly copes with these challenging starts to the day with an impressive level of professionalism and humour.
Kimberly spoke for most of the day and was excellent, however the highlight of the day for me was actor and business coach Steve Trister the from Performance Dynamite..
He walked to front of the room wearing a doctors mask and mumbled something to. That got our attention. He then asked us to name the number one disease in business. We came up with a range of suggestions, but failed to give the correct answer; Vomiticus Contentinaatum – otherwise known as puking content, or verbal diarrhoea.
I have to admit that working in one of the largest libraries in the world with over 150 million items in our collection, this is a disease I am all too well aware of falling prey to.
The cure to this disease is to make an emotional connection with your audience (of one or more). This of course is much easier to say than to do. So you need to prepare, by building the right mindset.
You need to tell yourself every day that you are already connected to your audience, then you need to mentally rehearse by visualising the event in advance (some of which will be scripted, and some not). This is similar to the way professional athletes prepare for a competition.
You need to be clear on the emotion you want to conjure up, be in state (or in the moment with no distractions), and to commit 100% to the performance.
Steve had investigated the famous research by Albert Mehrabian on non-verbal communication. He found the commonly quoted result, that clues from spoken words, from the voice tone, and from the facial expression, contribute 7 %, 38 %, and 55 % respectively to the total meaning, is wrong, as it it relates only to the communication of positive versus negative emotions.
Our voice is critical to how we communicate to our audience, changes in vocal emphasis (the stress we put on specific words) can completely change the meaning of what we saying. He asked how often do we take note of how we are actually speaking. He explained that our tongues are muscles, so we should exercise them using tongue twisters.
He also covered body language and the use of gestures, and how these can be used to reinforce or undermine our verbal messages. He said we should practice expressing our business activity in the form of charades. This made my mind boggle at how I could show the British Library through mime.
Steve illustrated each of these points with victims (sorry volunteers) from the audience, and guided them through. For the final example he had a professional photographer give an excellent and clear mime of his business.
Finally he said we should find an emotional story that will relate to your audience.
Needless to say Steve used all of these techniques during one of the most engaging and memorable presentations I have ever seen.
Here are my notes from the rest of the excellent day:
Learn the 20 rules of communication that should never be broken
Kimberly’s no. 1 life lesson;
“You can reach anyone in the world with, seven phone calls or less, saying the right thing.”
Statistics show that 50% of marketing spend is wasted.
Led to the idea for Sarsaparilla – to detox your marketing – Marketing Purification
Definition of marketing
Anything that affects the perception of your company. From logos to staff behaviour.
You are exposed to 4,000 brands every day. So how does your business stand out?
Know your audience
– Who is your target market?
– Who is your idea client / decision maker?
– What motivates them?
– Profile (gender, age, health, wealth, culture, interests, position, salary, budget, etc)
Then put yourself into their shoes.
– How can you make their life easier?
– What is in it for them?
Then find your voice (written language).
– Who would narrate your content?
– Think of a character of personality best suited – perhaps Steven Fry for the British Library
– Who would your audience relate to and want to hear? Admire? Look up to? Believe
– Imagine their voice each time you create marketing content
Keywords
– Ten words that best describe your business – For the Business & IP Centre: innovation, inventions, information, support, advice, help, entrepreneurs, business-startup,
– One word that best describe your business – knowledge
Unique Selling Point
– What truly makes your business unique – For the Business & IP Centre: The largest free collection of free market research and business information in the world, with expert guidance.
USP
– You need to be the only…
Misconceptions
Testimonials
Focus on the benefits for your customers
– List them – information, advice, contacts, training
– What problem can you solve?
– How can you make their life easier? – a clearer view of what they need to do to start their business
Key Messages
– What are the three key things you want people to remember about your business?
o Business & IP Centre at the British Library at St Pancras central London
o Free workshops and advice
o Free access to market research and business information.
Branding
Professional photos
KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid
Formula for success and to avoid writers block
Navigate
Incentives
Call to Action
Ask questions – keep the dialogue going
Relevance
The Elevator Pitch
The who, what, where, when and how of your business
I still think Sarsaparilla’s elevator pitch is the best I have come across;
50% of marketing is wasted. Sarsaparilla is a marketing consulting and training agency that specialises in marketing purification – the process of detoxing your marketing, protecting you from The Flash, Fluff, and Fakers, and helping you make more money with less.
Driving to my parents house the other day, I notice an unusual garage by the side of the road in shape of a thatched house (The Thatched Garage). Even more surprising was the extent of the niche of their shiny objects filling the forecourt. Not just off road vehicles, or even just Land Rovers… they only sell the Defender model of Land Rover.
However, they have been doing very well thank you occupying this tiny niche for over twenty years.
Having recently spent two weeks on safari in Tanzania, I have new found admiration for the sturdiness and off-road capability of this particular product of the Land Rover factory. After hours of pummeling on corrugated and rocky roads, I fully expected the vehicle to start shaking itself to pieces. But our driver had spent ten years driving the same car, and explained that all it needed was a thorough service after each adventure to be as good as new.
I’m no fashion expert, but there seems to be something about red shoes.
They feature in a typically grim Hans Christian Andersenfairly tale, in which a vain girl is punished by a pair of red shoes which refuse to stop dancing, even after she has her feet amputated.
Christian Louboutin’s whose shoes have a distinctive red sole, was suing Yves Saint Laurent for using the same colour on the bottom of its footwear.
US judge, Victor Marrero, has denied Louboutin’s request to block sales of ‘copycat’ red soled shoes from YSL’s 2011 collection.
Marrero wrote in his ruling:
‘Because in the fashion industry colour serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition, the court finds that Louboutin is unlikely to be able to prove that its red outsole brand is entitled to trademark protection, even if it has gained enough public recognition in the market to have acquired secondary meaning.’
Mr Louboutin is seeking more than $1million damages for alleged infringement of his ‘Red Sole’ trademark, claiming that he was the first designer to develop the idea of having red soles on women’s shoes.
YSL hit back, with their court papers stating ‘Red outsoles are a commonly used ornamental design feature in footwear, dating as far back as the red shoes worn by King Louis XIV in the 1600s and the ruby red shoes that carried Dorothy home in The Wizard of Oz.’
I was delighted to meet Bertie Stephens (Chief Flubitron) from group buying website Flubit during Tuesdays excellent Marketing Masterclass from Grow.
Their pitch is; For any product you want to buy online, tell Flubit, and we’ll work our little socks off to get you some wonderful bespoke discounts… for free!
And they already have 17,000 fans on facebook so are off to a great ‘pre-start’.
It was great to hear from Bertie how useful they have found the Business & IP Centre in developing their business and protecting their brand. I look forward to them joining the growing ranks of our Success Stories.
And this was the fun email I received in response:
The Flubitask Force to Manlius
To Balcombe’s newest and most wonderful Flubitron,
Honourable Manlius Buggerflub
Welcome to our world.
Now you are officially a Flubitron (an exclusive club we must add), you are one step closer to being part of a new revolution in internet buying. Soon, whenever you want something, you’ll be able to get it cheaper, just by using Flubit – how cool is that?! If you haven’t already, why not follow us on Facebook or Twitter to keep up with what’s new?
Over the next few months we’ll be finishing off some bits and bobs, polishing the knobs and preparing to launch this Summer. Hurrah!
So what happens now?
In 2 – 3 weeks you’ll receive your official Flubitron membership card (Flubicard – don’t worry you’ll get used to the terms). With this card you’ll have access to a whole range of offline and online benefits. We’ll let you know more about this with our introductory letter, or you can have a read here:
http://www.flubitron.com/
OK, so now we’re going to go and tell our Flubitask Force to start making your membership card, and we’ll be in touch in a week or so to let you know how they’re getting on!
The most important activity for any start-up (or existing business come to that) is research. If you don’t understand your customers, your market, or your products properly, you will make mistakes. And these could cost your business.
With this in mind, it looks like Guandong Enterprises ltd failed to do their research when producing a piece of memorabilia to celebrate our forthcoming royal nuptials. Although the names are correct on the ‘Royal mug’, the image is of red-haired Harry, instead of his older brother, less colourful brother Will.
Ironically although this mug is not likely to be a best seller, its value is going to go sky-high due to the mistake.
Innocent Vitamins was started by Dawn Reid in July 2010, based in the tiny village of Ashurst Wood in East Sussex, close to where I grew up. According to the Standard article, Mrs Reid claims that her brand was not inspired by Innocent Drinks, and that her customers do not get the two brands mixed up.
However, the smoothie company, founded in 1999, and now with a turnover of £128 million, sees things differently. They say their customers are confused by this new brand, and that using such a distinctive name in a similar category is not an appropriate thing for another company to do.
“We have given the company a way out by respectfully asking them to stop using the brand name, which we believe is more than reasonable, and doubt that most other companies would be so tolerant. We have to protect our brand and everything we have stood for over the past 12 years.”
It seems that Mrs Reid is planing to fight to keep the Innocent Vitamins brand, so this one could run and run.
My limited knowledge of trademark law includes the topic of passing-off, and the deciding factor in many court cases is whether a reasonable person would get the two brands confused side by side on a supermarket shelf.
However, as the Intellectual Property Office IPO points out, it can be very difficult, and as a result, expensive to prove a passing off action. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-protect-passingoff
If you register your mark, it is easier to take legal action. This allows you to take legal action against infringement of your trade mark, rather than using passing off. Further information is available under Benefits of registered trade mark protection.
I know what I think, but have a look at the photos below and decide for yourself.
A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors. It can be for example words, logos or a combination of both.
You can use your trade mark as a marketing tool so that customers can recognise your products or services.
A trade mark must be distinctive for the goods and services you provide. In other words it can be recognised as a sign that differentiates your goods or service as different from someone else’s.
A registered trade mark must be renewed every 10 years to keep it in force.
I have been covering sessions from founder and Head of Trends at Insider Trends Cate Trotter for a while now: Insider Trends – The Future of Online Marketing, The growing grey market in the UK and How to become a cutting-edge retailer.
