The Wisdom of Crowds

If you get the chance read Howard Greenstein's article at blog.inc.com on "The Workforce of Crowds". The premise of the article is the backbone of our new Coworking venture, The coIN Loft and our seminar series Community Innovation Project (November 5, 2009, University of Delaware, 42 Amstel Ave. Newark, DE. 19716)

How could your company use the collective intelligence of a crowd to move forward? Leave a comment!!

2010 Web Strategy

The following article is from www.baekdal.com

2010 is now only a few months away, and that means that many companies are now in the process of planning next years strategy and budget. So what should your web strategy be for 2010?

Here is something to think about...

The Use Economy

In 2010, the internet will move into the "use economy", as opposed to the "find economy" of the past.

Focusing your strategy around building a website that can be found on Google and present your entire product catalog as a visual stunning and engaging presentation is a thing of the past.

You can't use a campaign. You can't share a product catalog. You cannot make a package a part of your stream.

People do not share or discuss a newspaper or a blog. But if you write a really good article, then that is certainly sharable. Just as you cannot share a shoe campaign, but you can share that one shoe that all your friends talk about.

In the "use economy":

• Content is atomized.
• It's part of a stream
• It about on-going interactions
• It's a part of people's existance

A traditional website doesn't solve any of these challenges, and as such your web strategy for 2010 is not about a website.

It's not about the content either

The biggest change in a use economy is that the focus of your attention is not even about the content itself. Your content plays a very important role in that it functions as the motivator. It is what gets people interested in using it.

But the real value is in the use itself. What do people do with it? What kind of reactions does it create? How do they share it? What kind of conversations does it start? And most importantly, how does it make people feel?

That is the point of the use economy. This is what your brand should be all about. It doesn't matter if it's an article, a pair of shoes, or a cup of coffee.

You web strategy for 2010 should be about people, and interacting with them directly.

Checklist

What to do?

• Focus on how people can use your content or products
• Get people talking
• Help the communication along
• Focus on the long haul, instead of short term interactions.
• Focus on increasing sales via the energy created by your existing customers (i.e. the energy of your existing customers is what persuades new-comers to buy your products)

Where to do it?

• Use every channel that makes sense
• Move your content to those channels (don't use Twitter just to link to your website)
• Support people's environments
• Move your store into their world. If people talk about your products on Facebook, why not also allow them to buy it directly from there?

First time experience:

• Design your social channels in ways that makes it easy to find out what else you have to offer
• Make it easy to take the first step (just being friendly and open goes a long way)
• Encourage first time user to act.

The bigger picture:

• Use your website as the hub for all your activities.
• Show people everything you do, and where you do it.
• Centralize the bigger picture, but de-centralize your network.
• Make sure your internal workflows actually work.
• Make it easy to manage your social universe.

Things not to do:

• Forget your website as a platform
• Forget the technology (people don't care if what you use)
• Forget about creating a package/campaign
• Don't put anything between you and your customers.
• Do not lose your patience. It takes many months to reach critical mass. It takes time to learn what people care about.

In 2010 everything online is about people, communication and using that to your advantage. It's not a platform, it's not a thing, it's not a system, it's not about CMS, it's not about IT, and it's not even about website design.

Going Viral?

A virus only lives if its host continues to live. It's sole duty is to reproduce and spread to other hosts. Viruses by nature are built to weaken and eventually kill the host if they themselves are not eradicated, weakened or made dormant. To remain viral a virus must stay true to it's nature and continuously spread; however, fundamental problems exist as the notion of "going viral" is applied to business strategy.

In the true sense of the phrase, "going viral" doesn't seem to be a very reliable means of continued success. When living out it's manifesto the virus will repeatedly encounter two different scenarios:

1. Hosts will increasingly become immune as anti-viruses are produced. (competition)

2. Virus will reach maximum penetration, leaving itself no other place to spread. Eventually it

will die off as a result of it's own success. (unbalanced growth)

If one intends to achieve continued success as a viral business, they must take a step backwards to become the creator of viruses; not the virus itself. Viruses are made of DNA and RNA. A RNA virus is more effective in this case because it uses the DNA of the host to replicate itself. In other words, create thing's your "host" or prospective consumer will except, use and help spread. Once your virus is being spread on it's own, step away and allow the host to regain its strength or simply stop marketing your "thing" to them. At this point, you should focus your energy on producing a new RNA virus that will be compatible with your previous creation. Doing this will allow you to effective target the hosts that except and replicate your virus the fastest while leaving the rest of the population open for growth.

At this point we would love to leave you with a fantastic, life altering conclusion but unfortunately we couldn't come up with one. Hopefully we made a compelling argument for an alternative "viral" model. Check back with us soon....maybe we'll figure out a way to write a blow your mind conclusion for this entry.

New Thoughts on Our Process.....Agile Disruption Method Sounds Good

Thinking along our process, we have decided to coin the phrase: Agile Disruption Method. We were trying to figure out a good way to describe the flow of thinking we undertake with each new project or client and BOOM the Agile Disruption Method was born.

The last month and half or so we've been studying design thinking. If you have no idea what that is, visit the ideo website for further explanation. While design thinking allows its believers to navigate through a process, agile disruption method allows people to move freely with that process. At any given moment one could jump from prototyping to idea generation then inadvertently stumble upon a launch worthy solution which needs further discovery to substantiate. Situations such as this are not uncommon; however, we felt the need to formulate their occurrence into a formula which can help people (like ourselves) find the track again.

The following are some phrases or thoughts we felt best described what this method entails:

*Attention to aesthetic, function, usability, and human experience/value given to each phase of development.

*Fast-paced, counteractive way of creative thinking/reasoning.

*Continuous morphing, building, forming strategies all leading back to centralized root of problem.

* Infinite-possibilities approach; moving in all directions to expound upon new thoughts/ideas, not just forward toward the obvious or definite.

* "Go with the flow" approach until either a solution is rendered or the path becomes compromised to point of undoubted viability/inefficiency.

* Choosing what is to be created, it is the precursor and result of the creation process and iteration selection process. Assume nothing is as it seems until it is, then dismantle it to explore the possibilities that exist within.

* To guess toward best or most simplifying explanations, which deduction can explicate and which induction can evaluate.

* Every solution creates a problem that needs solving.

Just a small sample, more thoughts to come.......

Can Anyone Become a Leader?

While reading some excerpts from Seth Godin's book Tribes, we came across the statement: "The market needs you (we need you) and the tools are there, just waiting. All that's missing is you, and your vision and your passion." This sparked the discussion of the true meaning of a leader, and the questioning of if anyone can become a leader. It is said that a leader is generally a charismatic individual that can inspire others through his/her ideas & passion. We went on to explore what others have defined as a "leader" and found:

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." -Rosalynn Carter

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." -John Quincy Adams

"A leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up, and goes." -John Erksin

SO.....can anyone can become a leader?

When we discussed this our first thought was that some people are just meant to be leaders, while others are just meant to merely be followers. The more we thought, we came to the conclusion that everyone has at least some leadership qualities, and in some way could be leading or inspiring others and simply not recognize it. All it takes to be a great leader is passion, belief, and a firm commitment. So we encourage everyone, be committed to your passions, follow them and connect with people that inspire you to inspire others.

Coworking Wilmington

We've recently started working with Preservation Initiatives to start our own Coworking spot. For those that aren't familiar with the term, we're not talking about people that simply work in an office together. Coworking offers low cost office space, free internet, meeting rooms and interactive brainstorming rooms to entrepreneurs that typically work on the go in local coffee bistros/cafe's and home offices. The idea behind the concept is to create a collaborative environment which helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses through collective intelligence and cross-pollination of services.

Our space, The Community Innovation Loft or COIN will be a hybrid version our Community Innovation Project and a business incubator. We will focus our efforts on early-stage start-up and growth phase companies....no particular industries. We're looking at launching in either the LOMA Design District or in one of the newly renovated West 9th St. store front properties near Red Mohawk. Stay tuned for more info about the progress of the project. Join our meetup group: COIN Wilmington if your interested in participating in it's growth.

Business Plans Don't Work....Right?

That's right people...we said it. BUSINESS PLANS DON'T WORK.

We've had the "pleasure" of working with many different types of entrepreneurs along our journey and almost all of them have at one time or another mentioned how they need to update, write or follow their business plan. Every time we hear someone say this we always end up glancing at each other with a hint of laughter in our eyes.....here's why- the business plan is suppose to be a physical representation of your vision as an entrepreneur; the consumers needs, and how you plan to make money providing solutions to those needs. We place an enormous amount of emphasis on the business plan being a reflection of your VISION. If you can't see your business and its success, you can't write and therefore it doesn't exist.This is why many entrepreneurs end up miles away from where they wanted to be. If you want to avoid the vision pitfall, it takes honesty, empathy, agility and ingenuity.

We've developed a seminar specifically designed to address the vision problem many entrepreneurs face. We'll be running it at the University of Delaware starting October 20th. If you can make it please do....if not keep your eye out for the breakout events.