Filesharing goes Physible

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Christian

CreativeTools.se - ZBuilder 3D-printed sample part 007 The controversial The Pirate Bay known for making copyright material available launched a new category: “Physibles”. Alongside the usual categories like music, films and ebooks, the site now offers digital objects that can be created with a 3D printer.

Essentially, 3D printers allow for the printing of three-dimensional objects by melting and fusing bits of plastic, layer by layer. These printers are still the domain of hobbyist, but soon improvements in the technology mean more complex materials and shapes will soon be possible. In theory, you could download a design file of anything imaginable and the 3D printer could create it.

The site writes in a blog post:

“We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We’ll be able to print food for hungry people. We’ll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We’ll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one.”

It may take some time before this idea becomes feasible, but The Pirate Bay’s move (and that of other filesharing sites) can fuel the development of better and cheaper 3D printers bringing them into peoples homes. If the music industry serves as an indicator, not so long ago iPod’s and MP3 players were a niche market until “free” music from Napster and other P2P sites became available.

Crowdsourcing is Reshaping Business Strategy

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Christian

This is the first of a series of ten articles describing technology-driven business trends reshaping business strategy across all industries.

The first article in the series is about crowdsourcing, a term coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 article of Wired magazine. The official definition of crowdsourcing from Jeff Howe, is “the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call.”

Web 2.0 technologies provide the infrastructure for crowdsourcing. Their interactivity creates contacts at a lower cost and encourages participation on all levels of an organization. Web 2.0 technologies also bring greater scope and scale to organizations, strengthening bonds with customers and improving communications with suppliers and outside partners. This model of labor has been more and more embraced by all kinds of organizations. 70 percent of the executives recently surveyed by McKinsey said that their companies regularly created value through Web communities.

Wikipedia is one of the best known examples of crowdsourcing at work. Thousands of Wikipedia users have created an encyclopedia that studies have shown is as accurate as traditional volumes like Encyclopedia Britannica. Google is another example, as it organizes websites based on how they link to each other. Google sees links as votes for the relevance of a page. Basically Google is tapping the wisdom of crowds to determine which websites are the most relevant.

Intuit is among somewhat more traditional companies that use crowdsourcing to extend their reach and lower the cost of serving customers. For example, it hosts customer support communities for its financial and tax return products, where more experienced customers give advice and support to those who need help. The most significant contributors become visible to the community by showing the number of questions they have answered and the number of “thanks” they have received from other users. By McKinsey estimates, when customer communities handle an issue, the per-contact cost can be as low as 10 percent of the cost to resolve the issue through traditional call centers. Other companies are extending their reach by using the crowdsourcing for word-of-mouth marketing. P&G’s Vocalpoint network of influential mothers is an example. Mothers share their experiences using P&G’s new products with members of their social circle, typically 20 to 25 moms. In markets where Vocalpoint influencers are active, product revenues have reached twice those without a Vocalpoint network.

Click here for a list of other companies relying on crowdsourcing.

To assure crowdsourcing success follow these rules:

Upfront research is necessary. Don’t neglect the up-front research needed to identify potential participants who have the right skill sets and will be motivated to participate over the longer term.
Crowds should operate within constraints. To harness the collective intelligence of crowds, there need to be rules in place to maintain order. Not everything can be democratic. Sometimes a decision needs to be made, and having a core team (or single person) make the ultimate decision can provide the guidance necessary to get things done and prevent crazy ideas and groupthink from wreaking havoc on your product.
Crowds must retain their individuality. Encourage your group to disagree, and try not to let any members of the group disproportionately influence the rest.
Crowds are better at vetting content than creating it. It is important to note that in most cases, the group merely votes on the final product; they do not actually create it.
Provide feedback and the right incentives. Give feedback to stimulate continuing participation and commitment. Getting incentives right is important as well: participants value reputation more than money.
Gain a high level of trust within a Web community to earn the engagement of top participants.

Ten technology-driven business trends to watch

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Christian

The McKinsey Global Institute recently published a paper describing 10 technology-driven business trends that are reshaping the business strategy across all industries. The surging web technologies, the increased computing power, and fast and ubiquitous communications are reshaping every aspect of business, from human capital, sales and marketing, customer care, R&D to organizational structures.

Trend 1: Crowdsourcing
Trend 2: New Boundaries for Organizations
Trend 3: Collaboration Networks
Trend 4: The ’Internet of Things’
Trend 5: Data Exhaust
Trend 6: Tech’s Environmental Footprint
Trend 7: Software as a Service (SaaS)
Trend 8: Multi-sided business models
Trend 9: Bottom up Innovation
Trend 10: Government 2.0

The rapidly shifting technology touches every aspect of a company, hence executives need to think strategically about how to adapt management and organizational structures to meet these new demands and opportunities.

The impact of the first six trends will often vary considerably in different parts of the organization and should be managed assigning the responsibility for identifying the specific implications of each issue to functional groups and business units. In addition, because some of the most powerful applications of these trends will cut across traditional organizational boundaries, executives should also identify parts of the company that are handling similar issues and make them work together.

Software-as-a-Service, Multi-sided Business Models, and Bottom up Innovation are causing far-reaching changes in the business environment that require shifts in a company’s strategy. CEOs and their immediate senior teams should start monitoring these issues to generate the interdisciplinary, enterprise-wide insights needed to take full advantage these trends. Once opportunities start emerging, senior executives should quickly test these on a small, closed environment and then expand successes quickly to other areas.

And finally the tenth trend, using technology to improve communities and generate societal benefits by linking citizens, requires action by not just senior business executives but also leaders in government, nongovernmental organizations, and citizens.

Startup Strategy 101

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Christian

You probably heard about Mint, the personal finance site that launched two years ago and was acquired for $170 million last month by Intuit.

The following video of Mint’s CEO Aaron Patzer’s presentation on building startups from the ground up, gives a lot of answers to questions presented to entrepreneurs launching a startup in Silicon Valley. I had to learn this stuff on the job– Aaron’s highly recommendable disclosures and advice includes:

Cofounders and employees
Incorporation
Financial modeling
Funding Rounds
Goals and milestones for each round
Handling investors

The presentation’s deck is available here .

Five Years of the Long Tail

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Christian

Almost 5 years ago, Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired magazine describing the niche strategy of digital businesses that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities and elaborated the Long Tail concept in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (ISBN 1-4013-0237-8).

Many markets have historically been dominated by a small number of best-selling products. The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, describes this common pattern of sales concentration. However, by greatly lowering search costs, information technology in general and Internet markets in particular have the potential to substantially increase the collective share of niche products, thereby creating a longer tail in the distribution of sale (MIT working paper titled “Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail” by Erik Brynjolfsson, Yu Hu, and Duncan Simester).

After 5 years not much has changed of course and when designing a successful digital business strategy, the following forces should be taken into account:

The democratization of the tools of production: the universe of available content is growing faster than ever. Almost everybody can become a producer of content with the available tools. Talent is not universal but is widely spread– give enough people the capacity to create and gems may emerge.
The democratization of distribution: the Internet makes it cheaper to reach more people increasing the supply at the tail. That in turn translates in more consumption and sales, though prices tend to zero (free).
The connection between supply and demand: the technologies that connect consumers (like search, blogs, twitter, etc) is what drives demand from the head (popular products) to the tail.

To harness the power of these forces consider to:

Make everything available: Use mass/popular products (head) to attract mainstream consumers, but almost anything is worth offering on the off chance it will find a buyer (tail).
Lower your price at the head (mass market) and charge at the tail (niche).
Help consumers find the tail: Provide the tools such as recommendations etc. to give tail products visibility to consumers.

LinkedIn translators not in it for the money

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Syndicated Author

When LinkedIn asked thousands of its translator members to complete a survey last month asking whether they would consider volunteering to translate the site, many said no and gathered together in a group called “Translators against Crowdsourcing by Commercial Businesses“.

Linkedin and the product manager who circulated the survey is answering those annoyed by the survey on LinkedIn’s corporate blog.

This case highlights:

1) things to consider when crowdsoucing (I think the error here was asking professional translators that do this for a living, specially considering that LinkedIn is a network created to help out professionals)
2) the use of blogs and other social media to mitigate the backlash

Who makes money on Twitter?

Posted on July 4, 2009 by Syndicated Author

A new role-playing game on Twitter has a “virtual currency” service called Super Rewards which gives players of online and mobile games ways to gain the upper hand against their opponents. The price: a fee, or a willingness to accept offers from advertisers. Most people pay Super Rewards about $10 for a competitive advantage, but some pay thousands.

Top Ten Sites in the Private and Public Sector

Posted on July 3, 2009 by Christian

A paper released by Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution evaluates the websites of leading US corporations with state and national governments, grades their overall performance, and examines features of digital innovation, including: personalization, interactivity, transparency, PDA access, disability access, language translation, number of online services, privacy, security, and user feedback.

These are the results:

top sites

Christian Prada on Strategy

Digital Business and Marketing Strategies for Real World Companies

Category Archives: Business Strategy