Why is the Enterprise 2.0 market not taking off more strongly? The reason has to do partly with ill-conceived pricing structures: volume-discount (VD) schemes. Fix them, and you fix one of the obstacles preventing the market from expanding rapidly. And by fixing them is meant reversing them, in particular by using volume-increasing schemes.
Enterprise social computing offerings -- such as social networks or the numerous Twitter-for-the-enterprise applications that currently abound -- generally don't have complex pricing structures. They are volume-discount based: that is, the more accounts customers buy, and the more employees who use them, the larger the discount vendors give them, and the lower their average price per user will be. Some vendors advertise flat pricing schemes, but when a customer is big enough, a volume-discount deal inevitably creeps in.
In the final part of discussions of social networks,
media, banking and money, I thought I would turn attention to the use of mobile
devices as access media to these networks.
Mobile usage in banking has grown
to a crescendo in the past year, after bubbling away nicely since the turn of
this century.
This is in part down to the fact that the latest smartphones allow a
bank to deploy fully functional internet banking services to mobile devices
using the same platform as their main websites.
In other words, it is now cost-effective and appropriate to do this.
However, the challenge with mobile finance is that
we tend to discuss mobiles as one homogenous group of devices when:
(a) there
are many devices; and
(b) the use of mobile devices to access financial
services are not homogenous.
Let’s look at (a) first.
I’ve been reading a range of articles
about the next generation internet, or the semantic web as it is called
by those in the trade.
Semantic is a method of looking for the meaning and relationships
between things, and the semantic web effectively moves us away from
files and downloads to databases and integration. In practice, this
means that rather than going on to the internet to pull things out and
push emails and files around, the internet continually monitors you and
your tastes and finds things to push at you which match your electronic
lifestyle. In other words, it makes everything online much more
relevant to you as an individual, and moves us away from having to
search because the semantic web will find for you.
Take the way we use Google today. When you go into Google and
search, it is very rare that you find what you want straight away. In
fact, you often have to crawl through screen after screen, and change
searches three or four times to even come close.
The semantic web overcomes these difficulties because you will not
have to search. The semantic web knows you and finds for you. It knows
you work for a bank or technology firm, and therefore knows that when
you say ‘payments’ you mean it in a professional sense, not a generic
sense. Therefore it senses the most relevant things to the way you
search and your profile of usual interests.
I found a whole range of technology predictions for 2009. One of the best general forecasts comes from Gartner, who say that the top ten technology areas to focus upon during an economic crisis are:
1. Reduce headcount or freeze hiring
2. Renegotiate with technology and service providers
3. Curtail data center expansion, virtualize assets and lease them back
4. Consolidate systems
5. Outsource commodity
6. Offshore outsource
7. Investment shutdown
8. Prioritize projects
9. Mothball businesses and projects
10. Change leadership and restructure IT teams
I agree with this list.
In banking, it goes further.
In banking, technology is a critical part of the solution for the crisis, and technology also provides a way to avoid the crisis occurring again.
That is why I titled this as technology providing 'a key for banking in 2009'.
Technology is the key.
I don't normally share or post my speeches - I prefer to just talk rather than read - but I wrote my speech last night for a dinner presentation and thought I would share with you a shorter version here.
The speech disappointed a few folks as it forecast two years of flat or negative growth to 2011, three years of slow growth to 2014, and then another boom period from 2014 onwards. They wanted the boom forecast to be more like 2010 (a year away?) but hey, I could paint nice rosy pictures to make you all feel happy, but what the heck, I'd just be lying.
Categorised under: articles, intranets, usability & information architecture, websites
Before embarking on any intranet or website design project, it is important to understand the needs of your users. It is then possible to identify the features and functionality that will make the intranet or website a success, and how the design can support users with different goals and levels of skill.
There are many ways to identify the needs of users, such as usability testing, interviewing users, discussions with business stakeholders, and conducting surveys. However one technique that has grown in popularity and acceptance is the use of personas: the development of archetypal users to direct the vision and design of a web solution.
This article explains what personas are, benefits of using personas, answers to common objections about personas, and practical steps towards creating them. It is meant as an introduction to personas, and provides enough information to start creating your own. If you want to know more, there are lots of resources available, particularly the work of Alan Cooper and colleagues at Cooper Interaction Design. Alan is credited with having created the first persona for software development purposes back in the early 1980s.
Personas are archetypal users of an intranet or website that represent the needs of larger groups of users, in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. They act as ’stand-ins’ for real users and help guide decisions about functionality and design.
Personas identify the user motivations, expectations and goals responsible for driving online behaviour, and bring users to life by giving them names, personalities and often a photo.
Although personas are fictitious, they are based on knowledge of real users. Some form of user research is conducted before they are written to ensure they represent end users rather than the opinion of the person writing the personas.
Below is a sample persona for an intranet project. This persona describes Bob, a 52 year old mechanic that works for a road service company. From Bob’s persona you can start to get a feel for his goals when using the new intranet. He wants to avoid feeling stupid, would like to retain his status as a mentor to his younger colleagues, whilst seeing the potential of the intranet to make him more informed when interacting with customers.
We all know brands are using Twitter — whether or not you want them around. Some of them don’t quite get the medium and just tweet self-serving links or marketing speak, but you won’t find any of those brands here. We’ve handpicked 40 of the best brands experimenting with the micro-blogging platform, and asked them a few short questions about how they’re using Twitter.
If some of their responses seem short, well that’s because they are. I asked each brand correspondent to answer our queries in 140 characters or less. Most of them got the point, a few rambled on a bit too long, and only asked me if “u” was acceptable in lieu of “you.” All in all, we’ve found some amazing people, doing some pretty powerful things at big companies, and all via Twitter.
Smart brands use Twitter in meaningful ways, and most of them use their brand name as a way to make sure customers can find and recognize them. This piece, and the knowledge I learned from the incessant hours invested, demonstrate why brands do belong on Twitter. No other medium gets you inside a business or brand quiet like Twitter.
And if you’re a brand that didn’t make our list, let us know why your tweets deserve consideration in the comments.
The Open Ventures Challenge will harness the interests, skills and resources of crowds and use these to create viable new fundraising ventures for Cancer Research UK.
These ventures could be a new chain of coffee shops that donates a percentage of profits; a record label that gives a fixed fee for every sale; or a web business that doesn't openly support Cancer Research UK, but is part-owned by them. The point is to create multimillion pound ventures to help fund Cancer Research UK’s life-saving work.
NESTA, Cancer Research UK and mo.jo are now calling for people with good business ideas - or the skills and energy to help make them happen.
In early 2009, people will start building teams around their favourite ideas and developing a business plan, with support from Cancer Research UK.
In spring 2009, the best groups will be selected for intensive coaching and mentoring to get their venture ready for an investment pitch.
In summer 2009, the groups will present their ventures to Cancer Research UK's venture board. The successful teams will walk away with at least £10,000 in investment to pilot their idea.
If you've got an idea that you think could be transformed into a million pound venture, or fancy getting involved at the early stages of one, please visit http://ovc.mo.jo
| Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading charity dedicated to cancer research and the largest funder of cancer research in Europe. |
 | mo.jo is focused on developing open models in venture creation, which enable anyone to actively participate in innovation creation, project development and resource |
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