Digital Digressions

Did you know?

Right now I'm in the midst of a huge annual effort in the company to gather up insights, trends and inspiration to kick-off our annual innovation process - taking a starting point in a broad understanding of the world (both long-term and short-term) and making sure that insights are at the heart of how we innovate as a company.

When I say 'innovation' I literally mean 'the act of generating more value for the consumer, customer and the business by fulfilling a need or job to be done better than anyone else'. And to do that well, you of course need to understand what the needs and jobs to be done are out there - where can you be better, do more and be more relevant than you were even just a few months ago.

Of course it is a challenge to make sure you have as much relevant insight as hand as possible - but the second challenge is quite the opposite - the sheer quantity of information that is now available and the rate it also changes presents quite a task to ensure you don't drown people in information, but sift through it all - establish patterns and digest and present the insights in ways that make it workable for a wide range of people from different disciplines.(Remember: none of us are as smart as all of us, so the more people you can involve in the innovation effort the better chance you have of innovating both on small, medium and large scale and often you'll need all of those to be truly groundbreaking). So you need to create an inspiring and empowering experience, sparking ideas as opposed to anxiety (too much information, I can't handle it) or the opposite: boredom (I've heard it all before: what's new?).

One thing that I came across recently, is this 'Did you know' range of videos - which are very inspiring in how they contextualise the pace of change taking place right now. Below is the original video, which also talk about things we need to do as humanity to make sure we can keep abreast with the developments. I am told that the CEO of Coke recently used to get his team of senior leaders thinking about the pace of change. Below that is the other video, a 2008 update of some of the facts mentioned. So insights can be inspiring - in fact, when you really know what's going on - you realise we are all living on borrowed time and the more we understand that, the more likely we are to stay in business in the future too.

Think Eco-Systems not just Issues

Take global warming or government regulation as examples - these are all very complex topics, collections of variables where solving the problem cannot be achieved through solving one issue alone, but in fact the solution rests in addressing the eco-system tying together all the inter-linked variables. In fact, seeing things on purely the issue level may in fact be contributing to the problem.

In the book Freakonomics the authors quote numerous examples of cases where seemingly complex phenomena have very simple origins, but often in an entirely different field and the eco-system magnifies the impact through all the inter-related variables and creates an impact on local, sometimes national and international levels. One of the striking examples is their analysis of crime figures in large cities in the US. The numbers were growing at epic proportions year-on year until sometime in the mid-eighties the trend suddenly stopped and began a steady decline. Experts tried to attribute this reversal to anything from an increase in spending on the police, a growth in numbers of staff, prisons, different governments, new laws etc. but the biggest impact came from the legalisation of abortion.

How could this have anything to do with crime figures you may wonder? Here the eco-system comes in: the women most likely to have an abortion back in the 60s where women in low-income households with several children already and who before the legalisation either had to risk their lives to have an abortion by often unqualified people in unsafe conditions and risk prosecution or not have one at all. Many didn't and subsequently struggled to look after their children, who often ended up in crime from a lack of opportunity in life. As abortion became legal in many states, the numbers of these 'unwanted' children dropped and the sheer numbers of disadvantaged youth decreased, thus decreasing the populace likely to commit crime. It's not to say that the other measures had no impact at all, but collectively they helped solve the problem as the eco-system of ideal conditions leading to crime gradually became more untenable.

Biofuels are another example of where eco-system thinking really needs to be applied on a much larger scale than today - touted as the solution to the West's reliance on fossil fuels, the growth of crops destined for biofuels is now accelerating across the world, leading to an increased rate of rain forest destruction (these are our most efficient weapon in clearing CO2 from the atmosphere) as land is being cleared to grow palm oil - a crucial ingredient in biofuels. Much agricultural land previously home to food production is being converted to grow crops for biofuel, putting food production in danger. The biggest irony of all is that the process of producing biofuels has a greater negative impact on global warming than fossil fuel use - proving that there is no simple 'solution' to global warming, in fact simple solutions may in fact be aggravating it further, instead we need to think in eco-systems, not just locally, but nationally and internationally.

Nancy Gibbs of Time, talks in her column about the Vatican reflecting on its mortal sins for the modern age (24th March 2008) of the fact that back in the past sloth, lust, greed, envy and anger accounted for virtually all the crimes of mankind, whereas today the issues that once were the clear culprits behind our follies and misfortunes are far more complex than the 7 deadly sins alone. Causes and consequences come together to form eco-systems, where one problem feeds another and addressing consequences is meaningless without understanding and addressing the causes. Contextualising what was once simple in our now increasingly interlinked world - Quoting Mohandas Gandhi's version of the 7 deadly sins:

• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Science without humanity
• Knowledge without character
• Politics without principle
• Commerce without morality
• Worship without sacrifice

The responsibility rests with the individual, but that includes the duty to take care of others as well as yourself.

Institutional hubris meets the empowered consumer: The Terminal 5 song

A while ago I treated you to the full transcript of my own experience with British Airways on my return journey, which got delayed a full 28 hours. Back last summer that was an epic delay and worthy of headlines, but it pales in comparison to the debacle known as Terminal 5.

Newspapers here in the UK have been full of articles cataloguing the events that transpired when the new Terminal was finally opened to the public, mass-scale computer failures preventing anyone from logging in to check in passengers, an incomprehensible baggage-handling system that failed as soon as it was turned on, an elaborate and beautiful glass-covered building with inadequate signing and logic to handling vast quantities of people needing to move from one floor to the next, the list is endless.

Outraged consumers have filled columns and airwaves venting their spleen about how this kind of behaviour can be tolerated and how come no one has sued the pants off BA and BAA by now - it surely would happen in the States. The most creative expression of consumer-generated discontent is the Terminal 5 song that captures brilliantly some of the madness that this episode in the history of disasters known as BA/BAA ventures and service - it's even catchy! Bring on the empowered consumer!

Best of 2006: Oldies but Goldies

So here we are; another year nearing it's end so I thought a good way to start clearing the path for new exciting topics to be meditated upon in the new Year, would be to first celebrate some of the all-time most popular posts on this blog. Without further ado here goes:

1. Life Observations in a Nutshell: best bumper stickers This hilarious selection of one-liners will have you chuckling long into the night.
2. The Secret of Happy Employees Happiness at work really isn't rocket science; very similar in fact to what makes us happy in our everyday lives too.
3. The Myers-Bricks Recruitment Method is of course a hilarious take on the famous Myers-Briggs test so liberally applied in recruitment these days.
4. A Procrastinator's Guide to Getting Things Done getting organised is really this simple. Honestly :)
5. How to Encourage Innovation in Business some rules for revolutionaries
6. Life Observations in a Nutshell: Best Bumper Stickers part II the follow up to the most popular post ever; here are some more additions to an almost unbeatable collection already
7. Death by Powerpoint never be accused of making a boring presentation ever again - here are a few tips and tricks to keep you going
8. The Essence of Intelligence is in the Ability to Understand Others nuff said
9. Worst Analogies Ever use with caution; you have been warned!
10. Running Creative Brainstorms: a Collection of 'Non-Method' Methods use these and harness the creativity of your friends, employees, family members...

So there we are - hopefully these nuggets will keep you laughing and thinking until I think of something else to blog about. :)

Deeper Sense of Luxury

In an earlier post I talked about what makes a good toy, contrasting two rival consumer mindsets against one another as partially to blame for the problem with toys imported from China: on one hand the desire (or expectation) for safety and quality at knock-down prices; on the other hand - the (almost) accepted transitory nature of many products and the subsequent unwillingness to spend money on products where safety and quality are taken extremely seriously.

So where the true cost of quality has eluded people, and the effects of low quality not being completely clear (until now), it has been an easy option for many companies caught in this dilemma to go for Chinese-manufactured products as keeping manufacture in Europe or the US would simply have created prices that consumers would not be willing to pay.

However this is beginning to change. First indications of this was the emergent trading up, trading down trend where people deliberately sought to save money through highly thrifty shopping for everyday essentials, yet splashing out on upgrading select items in luxury outlets. Yet, contributing to the warped sense of value is of course the flip-side to all this, where reports and documentaries detailing how many luxury labels charge a premium for the 'perception' of quality they embody, but in actual fact many products are manufactured just the same as ordinary priced items. Luxury items simply command a higher margin, with labels pocketing the change.

What people are beginning to understand is what exactly the elusive term 'quality' means. It appears that Quality functions like a broad stroke term to encompass high expectations on:

•     Material
•     Finishing
•     Design and Usability
•     Functionality, features and compatibility
•     Ethics and sustainability
•     Health and Safety
•     Environmental Impact
•     Service and replace-ability

Many still refuse to pay the premium that this may translate to in the short term, but as we increasingly begin to be able to factor the costs of the long-term impact of such choices - it becomes very hard to sustain the argument. Leading this change is the growing attention paid to corporate social responsibility and initiatives like the Deeper Luxury report by WWF UK where the media response to this could be the tipping point for the Industry as suggested by CSRwire

Media Response to WWF-UK Report on Luxury Brands Could Be Tipping Point for the Industry.

Last week over fifty newspapers and magazines from Britain, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Switzerland reported on the corporate responsibility of the world's largest holding companies of luxury brands. For the first time they had been ranked on their ethical performance in the report Deeper Luxury: Quality and Style When the World Matters, which was published by environmental group WWF-UK. The news went 'viral' through trade journals and blogs on fashion, jewelry, and celebrities.

The report "could herald a huge change in the way global luxury brands operate," states Fashion UK.(1) 'The luxury goods industry looks like it's having its own Nike moment," suggests UN corporate reporting expert Dr Anthony Miller, referring to the mid-90's criticism of labour practices in Nike's supply chain that made the company invest heavily in its corporate responsibility programme. Within days, Just-Style.com reported that "PPR Group commits to improving sustainability" as a result of the publication.(2)

 

What Makes a Good Toy?

All the recent attention focused on the toy industry courtesy of safety concerns seem to have not just caused any Chinese-manufactured toys to be viewed with suspicion and sent parents trawling through the Internet in search of advice on the matter, but also caused a wider shift in spending patterns link as parents increasingly worry about finding something for their little ones this Christmas, which won't get recalled in a few months time when someone licks it and finds it poisonous.

This in my mind doesn't just touch on ensuring even better quality control on toys, but brings in to sharp focus two potentially incompatible value-systems: on one hand - the desire for safety and quality; on the other hand - the (almost) accepted transitory nature of many products (temporary diversion rather than long-term joy) and the subsequent unwillingness of some to spend money on products where safety and quality are taken extremely seriously.

Certainly in the toy industry nobody likes to point fingers and it is a matter of ensuring that each manufacturer takes responsibility for this, however with a lot of the focus on price, China has in recent years been a very tempting solution for many trying to keep abreast with a larger consumer trend of continuously wanting everything faster and cheaper than before. Quality takes time, it costs too and that can be a problem if your company's business model can't support the investment in it.

Back to lamenting toys I was recently asked what in my opinion makes a good toy, so here's my personal list of criteria:

1. Age appropriate - small children in particular like to put everything in their mouth and are very  tactile in their play and exploration of the world - that means that the materials used and size are essential in making the toy safe. Older children have better fine motor skills and have stopped 'chewing' on everything to figure them out so can better handle small pieces.

2. Hands on - minds on: children's gross and fine motor skills along with coordination mature earlier than other parts of their brain so it is important that their toys stimulate movement and coordination, both on large and small scale. The ability of the toy to engage your mind and imagination is essential as children learn about both themselves and the outside world through their imagination.

3. Easy to learn but challenging to master - this gives the toy longevity and guarantees interest over time.

4. Many ideas and opportunities - it is important to be able to learn through the toys, but if they do not encourage experimentation and idea generation the learning will be short-lived

5. Fun alone and together - being alone and together is important for kids, both with their own peers but also with their parents, so toys that can handle both enable role-play and storytelling that kids both love to hear and to do for themselves, alone and together.

Now some toys tick all the boxes, others only some, but it's important to remember than there are many kinds of toys, each with their own strengths and a good mix is important too, but above all they must all encourage play, the more the better!

 

 

Why the Era of the Insider is Over

Now this is intentionally a controversial title for a post, but hear me out. I'm not saying that we no longer need people who know stuff, in fact we will need them more than ever before - but what I am saying is that information and expertise is becoming so ubiquitous (through the Internet) that some of the models for profiting from expertise and insider knowledge are rapidly becoming redundant.

So back to the post. Let's start by a poignant example. Here in the UK estate agents have been running amok with property prices of late and been trying their best to prop up property prices all around the country. Why? Because the higher the sale price, the better their fee (as it is often calculated as a percentage of the final sale price). So whether you like it or not, it is in estate agents' interests to get as high a price for a property as possible. [Don't even get me started on whether it is reasonable to pay half a million pounds for some house built over a century ago, where heating mostly benefits the pigeons outside and no angle in the house is 90 degrees, making office chairs on casters spontaneously migrate to one corner of the room.]

Anyway - the game has been that of poker: If we tell you the price is going up and you better get on the property ladder soon, (pandering to the human weakness of dreading to lose out) people invariably believe it and more often than not in recent years, have been extending themselves far more than what could be recommended to just get on that property ladder.

Interestingly this began changing not too long ago, first with Nethouseprices, an on-line facility that keeps track on the actual price for which a property was sold. Certainly this began drawing a lot of interest and curiosity from people, but there was still room for estate agents to jump in the middle and say - 'weeeelll, that was then... this is now and I tell you it is hotting up big time!'. What do I mean? Well, the prices listed on Nethouseprices are lag measures - they only tell you the news AFTER it has happened. It's like saying - I would like to lose weight and tracking your weight only by getting on the scales every morning. The scales will tell you your weight at that precise moment in time, but not whether you are likely to be losing some weight anytime soon.

Well, I hear you ask - how could you measure the likelihood of losing weight? By finding a lead measure instead. So if you measured how often you took some exercise and how many calories you burned every time you exercised, offsetting that against how many calories you took in and going on the theory that if you burn more calories than you eat - you will find that sooner or later you begin losing weight. That's a lead measure. Keeping track of that will tell you before you get on the scales what the scales are likely to tell you. How does this apply to the housing market?

The fact is that the housing market is catching up too and instead of reporting lag measures (i.e the price at which properties were sold and no use to you since the property is no longer on the market so you can't jump in and buy it instead!) we, the consumers are beginning to have a chance to peek into that precious secret folder that only estate agents and individual sellers had access to before - that is, how much the price is coming down WHILE the property is still on the market. Ooops! The emperor no longer has any clothes as PropertySnake, interestingly named to be the opposite of the property ladder, will show. PropertySnake tracks how much prices of properties have fallen over time and by looking up areas by post-codes you get a good sense of the overall trend in that area in addition to what is happening to a particular house. If you then are so intrigued by what you find, you can look up with what estate agent that house/flat is listed with by clicking on the listing.

It is also a step on from traditional price comparison sites, which have mushroomed recently, because again - although those sites compare the prices right now, they seldom give you any indication of where the market is going. The same phenomenon is what happens at Ebay - because everyone can bid whenever they like and only by keeping track of something over time can you see whether the demand for that is heating up or not, it means your powers of detecting broader trends are limited to your own power of observation and whatever little software widget you might have that gives you the bids that are just about to close so you can bid in the last few minutes.

All those are still tactical tools, and up till now the strategy has been left to experts, but as we begin to see with house prices and no doubt with other areas too - the last vestiges for insider knowledge is becoming undone.

Why So Few Women at the Top: The Weight of Many Small Things

An excellent article recently appeared in the Harvard Business Review analysing why so few women have made it to top management in Fortune 500 companies. Their take is an interesting one, highlighting the fact that commonly perceived reasons for lack of female career progression, such as 'the glass ceiling' are in fact outdated metaphors for what is today a much more complicated picture.

They highlight the fact that times have changed and

the glass ceiling metaphor is now more wrong than right. For one thing, it describes an absolute barrier at a specific high level in organizations. The fact that there have been female chief executives, university presidents, state governors, and presidents of nations gives the lie to that charge.

At the same time, the metaphor implies that women and men have equal access to entry- and midlevel positions. They do not. The image of a transparent obstruction also suggests that women are being misled about their opportunities, because the impediment is not easy for them to see from a distance. But some impediments are not subtle.

Worst of all, by depicting a single, unvarying obstacle, the glass ceiling fails to incorporate the complexity and variety of challenges that women can face in their leadership journeys. In truth, women are not turned away only as they reach the penultimate stage of a distinguished career. They disappear in various numbers at many points leading up to that stage.

The article goes on to explain the very complex and nuanced world, to be seen more like a labyrinth rather than a single unsurmountable obstacle that provide the reasons why so few women indeed make it to the top. A series of actions are also suggested as ways for companies to address this problem, making a strong point of the fact that there is more to empowering women than putting quotas in place.

Summarising:

1. Increase people’s awareness of the psychological drivers of prejudice toward female leaders, and work to dispel those perceptions.

2. Change the long-hours norm.

3. Reduce the subjectivity of performance evaluation.

4. Use open-recruitment tools, such as advertising and employment agencies, rather than relying on informal social networks and referrals to fill positions.

5. Ensure a critical mass of women in executive positions—not just one or two women—to head off the problems that come with tokenism.

6. Avoid having a sole female member of any team.

7. Help shore up social capital.

8. Prepare women for line management with appropriately demanding assignments.

9. Establish family-friendly human resources practises.

10. Allow employees who have significant parental responsibility more time to prove themselves worthy of promotion.

11. Welcome women back.

12. Encourage male participation in family-friendly benefits.

Full version of article

Why Some of Us Give Up and Others Try Harder

How you react to adversity is really telling - some of us throw in the towel and simply give up, and others, facing almost insurmountable obstacles, don't think twice about continuing. What makes us strong on and how do people find the strength within themselves to carry on in the hardest of times?

As an avid cyclist, reading Lance Armstrong's 'It's Not About the Bike' is of course an amazing illustration of how he turned his life around, being diagnosed with cancer, battled four cycles of agonising chemotherapy enough to make the best of us curl up in agony and came back to win a total of 7 Tour de France victories. As he puts it in his consecutive book 'Every Second Counts'

"The experience of suffering is like the experience of exploring, of finding something unexpected and revelatory. When you  find the outermost thresholds of pain, of fear, or uncertainty, what you experience afterwards is an expansive feeling, a widening of your capabilities.

Pain is good because it teaches your body and your soul to improve. It's almost as though your unconscious says "I'm going to remember this, remember how it hurt and I'll increase my capacities so that next time, it doesn't hurt as much". The body literally builds on your experiences and a physique and temperament that have gone through a Tour de France one year will be better the next year, because it has the memory to build upon. Maybe the same is true for living too.

If you lead a largely unexamined life, you will eventually hit a wall. Some barriers can be invisible until you smack into them. The key then is to investigate the wall inside yourself, so you can go beyond it. The only way to do that is to ask yourself painful questions - just as you try to stretch yourself physically."

Professor Carol Dweck at Stanford examines exactly this. Through more than three decades of systematic research, she has been figuring out answers to why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others don’t—why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson. The key, she found, isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated or as something that can be developed.

[from Stanford Magazine] "Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine—and avoid the sorts of experiences necessary to grow and flourish in any endeavor. Students with learning goals, on the other hand, take necessary risks and don’t worry about failure because each mistake becomes a chance to learn. Dweck’s insight launched a new field of educational psychology—achievement goal theory.

Dweck’s next question: what makes students focus on different goals in the first place? During a sabbatical at Harvard, she was discussing this with doctoral student Mary Bandura (daughter of legendary Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura), and the answer hit them: if some students want to show off their ability, while others want to increase their ability, “ability” means different things to the two groups. “If you want to demonstrate something over and over, it feels like something static that lives inside of you—whereas if you want to increase your ability, it feels dynamic and malleable,” Dweck explains. People with performance goals, she reasoned, think intelligence is fixed from birth. People with learning goals have a growth mind-set about intelligence, believing it can be developed. (Among themselves, psychologists call the growth mind-set an “incremental theory,” and use the term “entity theory” for the fixed mind-set.) The model was nearly complete (see diagram).

To me this approach is really interesting, because not only can it influence the way we approach life, career and learning, but through the quote from Lance Armstrong - it can also be applied to physical performance. And to great result, as proven. So what does this all mean? Milton Chen talks about how children can be taught to "feed their own brains" through understanding that their brains and intelligence can be grown and how this mind-set actually improves their academic performance.

As Chen explains: "I asked Dweck about the implications of her research -- what teachers and parents should do, for instance. In an email interview, she recommended the following strategies:

 

• Teach students to think of their brain as a muscle that strengthens with use, and have them visualize the brain forming new connections every time they learn.
• When they teach study skills, convey to students that using these methods will help their brains learn better.
• Discourage use of labels ("smart," "dumb," and so on) that convey intelligence as a fixed entity.
• Praise students' effort, strategies, and progress, not their intelligence. Praising intelligence leads to students to fear challenges and makes them feel stupid and discouraged when they have difficulty.
• Give students challenging work. Teach them that challenging activities are fun and that mistakes help them learn."

Funnily enough - my own voracious appetite for reading anything and everything is very much in line with the same thinking. I believe we can learn anything we set our minds to and it is those moments that feel a little like vertigo, when new horizons of discovery open up in front of your mind's eye, that keeps me going and motivated. A full life isn't one without a continous expansion of our mind, abilities and  wisdom.

The Key to Social Media: Above all - Be Useful!

First I would like to dedicate this post to Mum of a LEGO Kid, because you just convinced me to drag myself out of my self-pity (I have a cold!) and reflect on what were my Aha-moments from last week's Conference on Social Media and User-generated Content.

So a rather intimate affair, we were around 50-60 people in total and from a refreshing variety of companies ranging from CNN, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, TripAdvisor, E.On, Honda, Habbo Hotel, Spannerworks and many more. Although initially I was expecting something bigger, the frankness of the discussion and the willingness of people to share their thinking and ideas was great - it seems a smaller conference is more conducive to that, rather than a bigger one where you never get to know everyone there.

Interestingly, there were also plenty of different approaches to the subject matter - from literally how to do corporate blogging by VisitBritain.com to my own talk about how we at LEGO strive to not only involve lead users in our product development, as was the case with LEGO Mindstorms NXT, LEGO Hobby Train and now the LEGO Universe MMOG but also have created ways for everyone to design their very own LEGO products via LEGO Factory and are gradually setting up structures to open up our business platform to our fans and LEGO certified professionals, creating an business ecosystem around LEGO.

Honda contributed with a case studies of their recent marketing campaigns on 'Hate Something Change Something' and 'Hondamentalism', both which I thought were brilliantly executed campaigns, but somehow I was a little disappointed not to see a truer user-focus from them - i.e users really having a big say in what Honda does, more than just interact around the campaigns.. perhaps it is hard to do as a car manufacturer, but somehow I would like them to be different and do it anyway! (call me a hopeless romantic!)

Coca-Cola talked about how coke music was the spring board for many a young aspiring artist and how the community here took off - of course needless to say, music has a strong tribal effect particularly on young people so hats off to Coke for making it happen. Another piece of inspiration came from Yahoo, whose Yahoo Answers is an interesting way to create discussion around a topic and find answers to all your questions, whatever they may be. Not that revolutionary you may say, but think of it this way - Wikipedia is great if you want to find the explanation to something you have stumbled on, but aren't sure of the details. Yahoo answers is great if you have a question, but don't know the answer.. You with me? Hmmm... perhaps not the best explanation - but essentially I'm trying to say that here community interaction is focused around problem solving, where the collective brain of hundreds of thousands of Internet users can come to your rescue whatever the problem.

Also, I can't help but love the pixelated world of Habbo, created by my fellow Finns at Sulake Corporation - also a massively multi-player on-line game, this one primarily at teen-agers and very funny in its approach to characters, locations - you name it.   

So ultimately if I was to distill my thoughts from the conference without making this too long a post it would be this:

1. Create an open platform - platforms work better than closed solutions, because you can never quite anticipate how people will use things you create. If you have a platform, more things are possible and it is easier to reconfigure stuff that doesn't work. Open platforms means its easy for advocates to get others on-board, and you do want a bustling community for it to make sense!
2. Unite people behind something they care about - Social networking is great, but after you've got all your mates on Facebook or Myspace, why would you go anywhere else? Good question. Ultimately we tend to be more open about meeting new people when it is around a subject we are really in to - immediately we have something in common with these strangers and it is easy to strike up a conversation. On-line it is very similar too.
3. Make it useful - Whatever fancy community you want to create, this links to the above point. Many an idea dies a horrible death, because beyond the novelty factor, it really doesn't do much. The bits that people come back to over and over again are the useful bits. Wikipedia is useful. Linked-in is useful too, these things have a purpose people get and hence I predict they will be around for a long while. Facebook has a chance of being around far longer than Myspace, because they went for an open platform, allowing people to come up with tons and tons of widgets and applications (some useful, some less useful), but at least they are there and things happen at a breakneck speed, so there is a reason to keep coming back for more than just checking on your mates.
4. Don't manipulate, facilitate - This one is very much about the approach. Meaningful things happen trough facilitation, only bad things happen through manipulation. Enough said. Help people to make a difference and you help yourself.
5. Be truthful and honest (and humble) - No, Social Media is not some sort of smoke and mirrors thing you can douse a failing product line in and miraculously see it recover.. it is essentially a dialogue and nobody wants to discuss anything with a liar and a cheat. To involve users you have to be honest and truthful, not think you can use this thing to warp people's perception from bad to good. Moreover, treat people with respect - always. I get so furious for instance when I hear people talk about driving traffic to websites by comment spamming - no, it doesn't work. You look like an idiot trying to advertise Cillit Bang by posing as Barry the character from the adverts on someone's blog..
6. Have some fun! Yes it can all be very serious sometimes and uniting people in laughter is a great one, however - it's more of an ingredient, as not all people will find all things funny all the time. Also, people who share a common interest or passion are more likely to be able to share something funny between them and boy, sometimes we all need cheering up!

Last, but not least I'll do a plug for our friends at Spannerworks, who have created a no-nonsense guide to all things social media in a nifty E-Book you can download and dazzle your friends with in-depth knowledge. Or as Forrester research puts it ‘Social Computing is not a fad. Nor is it something that will pass you or your company by. Gradually, Social Computing will impact almost every role, at every kind of company, in all parts of the world.’ Forrester Research, Social Computing - How Networks Erode Institutional Power, And What to Do About It

Understanding what makes your consumers and employees tick

Here's an excellent interview of Chip Conley, author of Peak - How companies get their mojo from Maslow by Mark Hurst of the GoodExperience blog, a treasure trove of articles on experiences and the thinking behind the design of them. Check him out at the GoodExperience Blog.

Chip Conley is CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the world's second- largest boutique hotel company. After a severe downturn in his business after 9/11, Conley read Abraham Maslow's works as inspiration for his turnaround plan. It worked: Joie de Vivre is again thriving, and Conley has written a book about what he learned - not only from Maslow, but from companies like Nike, Apple, and Harley-Davidson, which follow Maslow's thinking. Chip's book is

Chip will also speak at Gel 2008 in April in New York:

Q - What's the main idea of "Peak"?

The main idea is that we're all humans in the workplace - whether employees, customers, or investors - and those companies that succeed and become peak performers touch us as people in the workplace, by focusing on higher needs, as opposed to base needs.

Q - How is Abraham Maslow significant?

Maslow wrote about the hierarchy of needs in the mid-20th century. There's no psychologist or psychiatrist quoted more in business schools or corporations than Maslow. Drucker, Covey, Bennis, and Collins all write about him in their books - they mention him in two or three pages, mostly talking about the hierarchy of needs.

What's interesting is that the psychology profession - including Freud, Skinner, and others - commonly looked at the worst practices in behavior in defining the human condition. Maslow says, let's look at *best* practices - people who are fulfilled or self-actualized, who can "be all you can be" and have clicked in to doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Q - Describe the pyramid containing the hierarchy of needs.

There are five levels in Maslow's pyramid. At the base are physiological needs. Then come safety, social belonging, and esteem, and at the top, self-actualization, which is where people are more likely to have peak experiences - what ought to be, is, and life feels great. Reading Maslow woke me up to the idea that if there are self-actualized people in the world, then maybe there could be self- actualized *companies*, since companies are just collections of people.

So in "Peak" I break down Maslow's pyramid and apply it to key relationships - employees, customers, and investors. I took Maslow's five levels and turned them into three levels: the first two levels, physical and safety needs, are just survival. Levels 3 and 4, social and esteem, are just success needs, how the world sees you. At the top of the pyramid, self-actualization, is a transformative state, where you've moved beyond your own ego. So I created the "transformation pyramid": survival on the bottom, then success, and transformation at the top. I then applied those three levels to the motivations of employees, customers, and investors.

Q - OK, what do you say about employees?

For employees, what's the survival need? Money, compensation. Sure, some CEOs are almost exclusively motivated by money. But for most people, it's just a base need. Every survey I've seen shows that money is not the primary motivator for employees. As nonprofits will tell you, the base foundational need is important, but the differential from one company to the next is not huge. Money as a differentiator isn't important.

The success need is being recognized. Marcus Buckingham's book "First Break All the Rules" showed that the number one reason people leave their job is their relationship with their direct supervisor. People join companies, but they leave their bosses.

The top of pyramid is something different, intangible - in the pyramid we're moving from the tangible, to the physiological, to the very intangible. For an employee, it's meaning. This is somewhat blasphemous for companies; it's hard to measure what's intangible. Yet MasterCard says what's true, that what's most important is "priceless," and that's intangible.

How do you put your attention on the top of the pyramid? The three levels represent money, recognition, and meaning: let's translate each to a word that describes a person's relationship with their
work: a "job", a "career", or a "calling." Employers that move their employees up the pyramid get more happy and fulfilled and productive employees, who are much likelier to stay longer, and a positive spirit in that workplace. The fact is, I have 3,000 employees, and 1,200 of them clean toilets for a living. So it's a challenge for me to create that with my employees.

Q - What's the customer pyramid?

For a customer, the survival need equates to having one's expectations met. If you don't meet their expectations, you haven't met their survival needs; you've created buyer's remorse. It comes down to the difference between expectation and reality. Most companies get very focused on the base; that's what customer satisfaction surveys are about. "Was your check-in process efficient?" Well, sure it was, but I hated this and that other thing, which the survey won't ask me about. We most notice the intangible. Pure customer satisfaction is at the base of the pyramid.

The success need is having desires met, which companies deliver either via technology or training. Good examples of using technology are Amazon and Netflix, which use mass-customized technology. The more I use them, the better they know me and my desires. Similarly, Four Seasons hotels are more high-touch. Through great training, the people there know my desires. That creates customer loyalty - and this second level is where it builds, not at the bottom of the pyramid.

Now for the top of the pyramid. Henry Ford said, "If I listened to my customers, they'd tell me to get a faster horse." By meeting the unrecognized needs of a customer, which the customer may not be able to articulate themselves, you create a customer evangelist. So there's customer loyalty in the middle, and *evangelism* at the top. A self-actualized customer is so thrilled you've met a need they didn't know they had, that they become believer. Companies that do this include Apple, Whole Foods, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue. You get on a JetBlue flight and find your own TV at your seat. More importantly, you have some control at a time you'd otherwise feel out of control. Companies that do this well create not just loyalty but a marketing machine.

Q - What are some best practices of companies that use the customer pyramid to great effect?

There are four qualities that define companies that are creating these customer evangelists. First, they help their customers meet their highest goals - allowing a customer to achieve their ideal goals from using the product. Apple enables its customers to go out and exercise their minds. Nike encourages customers to "just do it." Google gives you exactly what you're looking for. These companies are helping customers meet their highest goals.

Second is giving your customers the ability to truly express themselves. By buying a Harley-Davidson, a middle-aged accountant from the Midwest can feel like a rebel. In the case of boutique hotels, you might say, "You are where you sleep." If a hotel has a personality that represents an aspiration for you, then hopefully when you check out it will have rubbed off on you a little bit. Similarly, there's a halo effect of being an Apple user; and Starbucks has tried to become a curator for a lifestyle for its customers. These are customers who feel like they can express themselves through the purchase of a product or service.

Third is making customers feel like they're part of a bigger cause. Hummer buyers may feel that connection, but most people would say that it's lacking a socially responsible element. Patagonia - the company, not the region in Argentina - runs its "1% for the planet" campaign, and its loyal customers are "Patagoniacs." They love being associated with Patagonia because it's part of a bigger cause. For people who buy from Apple, it's not just "I'm an iconoclastic rebel," but "I'm part of a bigger cause," the anti-Microsoft attitude. At Whole Foods Market, you may go there because you love the product, but lots of people buy there because they love the sustainability cause. People like buying a Toyota Prius because it makes them feel good about both buying a car *and* doing something for the planet, even though that's a rather oxymoronic thought.

The fourth quality is offering customers something of real value they hadn't even imagined. That's what JetBlue did with the TV screen. That's what FedEx did when they created overnight delivery. It was a remarkable thought, 25 years ago, that you could send something overnight. But that innovation became a commodity over time. A lot of people entered FedEx's market, and Fred Smith, the founder, said, "I thought I was in the transporting goods, and then I realized that I was in the business of creating peace of mind." So he created a logistics program to allow customers to track packages. Now the innovation, what people wanted, an almost unrecognized desired, was: if I'm sending it overnight, the person on either end wants to know where it is. FedEx went from being an also-ran to going to the top of the pyramid again and taking market share away from its competitors. FedEx's innovation in terms of tracking was addressing that peace of mind that customers were looking for.

Q - How can any company start to put these principles into practice?

The easiest way is to consider how Maslow's hierarchy can be applied to your customer. For example, for a hotel customer, the physical level is a clean and comfortable bed. Safety might be offering an electric card-key instead of a regular key, and making sure there's good lighting in the parking lot. And so on. Just remember that there is a hierarchy of needs of employees, customers, and investors, and you can help people around you understand that.
See also:

- More Good Experience interviews: where this interview originally came from! 

Lecture of a Lifetime

Many thanks to Tim Kirchmann for making my day today by passing this great article to me, which I simply have to share with you all (it's too good not to!).

Having just completed my lecture notes for the upcoming conference on Social Media and User-generated Content I was thinking about this only too recently. Should I concentrate purely on the topic, or should I impart wisdom of things I've learned along the way instead? The latter being far more tempting, I nevertheless decided to stick to my topic, assuming my audience will want to know more about this rather than hear my musings about the meaning of life. I could be wrong. In any case - here's something to inspire your day:

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture - UPDATE | ETC Global News

September 20, 2007 Wall Street Journal Online
MOVING ON By JEFF ZASLOW

A Beloved Professor Delivers The Lecture of a Lifetime

Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor, was about to give a lecture Tuesday afternoon, but before he said a word, he received a standing ovation from 400 students and colleagues.

He motioned to them to sit down. "Make me earn it," he said.

They had come to see him give what was billed as his "last lecture." This is a common title for talks on college campuses today. Schools such as Stanford and the University of Alabama have mounted "Last Lecture Series," in which top professors are asked to think deeply about what matters to them and to give hypothetical final talks. For the audience, the question to be mulled is this: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?

It can be an intriguing hour, watching healthy professors consider their demise and ruminate over subjects dear to them. At the University of Northern Iowa, instructor Penny O'Connor recently titled her lecture "Get Over Yourself." At Cornell, Ellis Hanson, who teaches a course titled "Desire," spoke about sex and technology.

At Carnegie Mellon, however, Dr. Pausch's speech was more than just an academic exercise. The 46-year-old father of three has pancreatic cancer and expects to live for just a few months. His lecture, using images on a giant screen, turned out to be a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.

He began by showing his CT scans, revealing 10 tumors on his liver. But after that, he talked about living. If anyone expected him to be morose, he said, "I'm sorry to disappoint you." He then dropped to the floor and did one-handed pushups.

Clicking through photos of himself as a boy, he talked about his childhood dreams: to win giant stuffed animals at carnivals, to walk in zero gravity, to design Disney rides, to write a World Book entry. By adulthood, he had achieved each goal. As proof, he had students carry out all the huge stuffed animals he'd won in his life, which he gave to audience members. After all, he doesn't need them anymore.

He paid tribute to his techie background. "I've experienced a deathbed conversion," he said, smiling. "I just bought a Macintosh." Flashing his rejection letters on the screen, he talked about setbacks in his career, repeating: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things." He encouraged us to be patient with others. "Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you." After showing photos of his childhood bedroom, decorated with mathematical notations he'd drawn on the walls, he said: "If your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let 'em do it."

While displaying photos of his bosses and students over the years, he said that helping others fulfill their dreams is even more fun than achieving your own. He talked of requiring his students to create videogames without sex and violence. "You'd be surprised how many 19-year-old boys run out of ideas when you take those possibilities away," he said, but they all rose to the challenge.

He also saluted his parents, who let him make his childhood bedroom his domain, even if his wall etchings hurt the home's resale value. He knew his mom was proud of him when he got his Ph.D, he said, despite how she'd introduce him: "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind who helps people."

He then spoke about his legacy. Considered one of the nation's foremost teachers of videogame and virtual-reality technology, he helped develop "Alice," a Carnegie Mellon software project that allows people to easily create 3-D animations. It had one million downloads in the past year, and usage is expected to soar.

"Like Moses, I get to see the Promised Land, but I don't get to step foot in it," Dr. Pausch said. "That's OK. I will live on in Alice."

Dr. Pausch's lecture, in the same way, became a call to his colleagues and students to go on without him and do great things. But he was also addressing those closer to his heart.

Near the end of his talk, he had a cake brought out for his wife, whose birthday was the day before. As she cried and they embraced on stage, the audience sang "Happy Birthday," many wiping away their own tears.

Dr. Pausch's speech was taped so his children, ages 5, 2 and 1, can watch it when they're older. His last words in his last lecture were simple: "This was for my kids." Then those of us in the audience rose for one last standing ovation.

How to Justify Something You Really Want

Now, if there ever was one line that epitomised the Western consumer culture it has to be the title to this post. It's not that we just consume mindlessly anything and everything that will make us look/seem/feel faster, smarter, sexier, thinner, happier, more fashionable, richer (whatever your aspiration: insert here) it is how brilliant we have become at justifying the expense to others and thus ourselves.

The marketing and advertising industry is largely to thank here in the way that they so ingeniously operate a two-pronged attack: first: highlight inadequacy in your target, second: propose to solve the problem with an attractive product/solution - you are doing them a favour, really! In the olden days, people were of course more gullible in some respects, but at least consumption hadn't become the entire raison d'etre of society back then. We still worried about God, wars, famine, death at childbirth, dangerous diseases and so on. Not to say these things don't occur nowadays, but as a society we have transplanted these collective worries with individual worries about success, keeping up with the Joneses, wealth and so on. The idea that some environmental catastrophe out of our control or event on a global scale could instantly render us completely powerless and deprive us of all the things we have worked so hard to achieve is frankly, beyond most of us. We can't really imagine what life is like for those who have just lost their life possessions in a Tsunami or Hurricane - or suddenly been bombed out of our homes by some mighty power, claiming to be fighting to 'free' us from something.

So having been experts in survival (we must be as this can be a hostile planet!) we have become experts in consumption as that is now the goal of much of our lives here - in fact we are told our entire societies depend on it. Politicians ponder about the economy and when there is a slow-down in high-street sales apparently the whole country is going to hell in a hand-basket and the only way to 'save' the life we hold so dear is to go out and buy, buy, buy to make the money (and thus the world) go around. Isn't it marvellous? No longer is it about being a good, ethical, god-fearing citizen that will earn you praise - it is how much you are doing to keep the economy afloat at large. Thus some parts of society argue about the damages to the environment done by too much car use and big SUVs and others argue over the economic impact of all those jobs being lost if we suddenly all decided to take up cycling and do away with all cars everywhere. The truth is that jobs and dependencies will build up around both sustainable and unsustainable business practises - but how much do we really care about the long term to be willing to face the pain in the short term when we adjust things?

So to conclude my ranting today I wanted to share with you a hilarious example of how to justify the purchase of something expensive or yet another example of something you already have (but better!) - in this example we are talking about bicycles, but it could just as easily be a new car, a motorcycle, another computer, game console whatever rocks your boat really (just tweak the justifications!). Here goes:

How to justify your next bike

By Elden "The Fat Cyclist" Nelson

A shiny new bike, yesterday (BikeRadar)

We cyclists are simple folk. We don't need much to keep us happy. Really, all we need are clear skies and a road or trail to make us happy.

And a helmet, of course. And gloves. And shorts with a special antimicrobial chamois insert. And form-fitting shirts. And very stiff-soled shoes, preferably Italian-made. And specialty sports drinks, with an incomprehensible combination of carbohydrates, proteins, electrolytes, and a lemon-lime flavoring that for some reason makes one think of furniture polish.

Oh, and we need bikes. More specifically, we need another bike. Always. And that means we need to pay for another bike.

Now, it's not the paying per se that's difficult. We can always find a way to get the money we need for bike stuff — take a second job, sell a kidney, money laundering, whatever.

What's difficult is justifying the expense of yet another bicycle, whether it be to our wives, our parents, or to our own nagging conscience.

Sometimes we fail in our justification, and then where are we? We're in the Purgatory of No New Bikes, that's where we are. That's a bad place. A bad, bad place. We should never have to be in that place.

And if you will follow these techniques, you will never be in that place again.

It will save money on gas

This may surprise you, but bikes can actually be used as transportation, and there are some people who — oddly enough — actually use their bikes to get around from place to place, instead of driving. Explain that with this new bike you will be saving serious transportation costs and doing your part for the environment.

Caveat: Do not explain that the new bike you're considering costs approximately the same as three years' worth of fuel, and most especially do not explain that any of the bikes you already have would work as transportation, too. If brought up as a counterargument, explain — dismissively — that your other bikes aren't really for that kind of thing.

It's less expensive than a humongous HDTV

This will take a little bit of preparation, but is well worth it. For about three weeks, don't mention the new bike you want. At all. Instead, with increasing intensity and frequency, begin talking about how you're thinking about getting a giant high-def television. And a Blu-Ray DVD player. And a subscription to high-def cable/satellite (or both!). And a serious sound system to go with it. Be very, very open about how much this will cost — about three times as much as the bike you want.

Argue convincingly (not too convincingly, though) and loudly about why you ought to get this massive entertainment system.

About the time your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent is at wit's end, capitulate. Right in the middle of an argument, act like a light's just come on in your head. "You know, you're right!" you say, catching them off-guard. "It's outrageously expensive and it would just rot my brain, especially when a new bike would cost me less than half as much!"

They'll be so relieved — not to mention pleased at having clearly won an argument with you — they'll just let that remark go. Next day, you come home with the new bike, as the two of you agreed.

Bonus: It's possible this technique will backfire on you and your significant other will really get into the idea of buying a home theatre system. That's the beauty of this technique: even if you lose, you win!

You Will Easily Recoup the Cost of This Bike in Prize Money

Did you know there's big money in bike racing? There is! Just ask Lance Armstrong; he's made a very comfortable living by racing his bicycle.

Do you think Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times riding a piece of crap like the one you ride? No, he most certainly did not.

If you're going to start winning races and making millions of dollars like Lance, you're going to need a better bike.

The prize money will follow naturally.

This bike will hardly cost anything after the trade-in

Thinking of trading in an old bike for the new one? Excellent. You'll want to get out your soft math skills for this technique.

First, find out the suggested retail for the new bike you want. Reduce that figure by 25%, because nobody pays MSRP for anything these days. Then take another 10% off because you're friends with a guy at the shop. Take another 5% off because you're a sharp negotiator. Tell your significant other that's how much your new bike will cost.

Next, estimate how much your current bike is actually worth. Add 10% to that, because I can tell you've taken really good care of your bike. Add 5% because I think you're just being too modest. Then add 15% to that figure because you want some negotiating room. Tell your significant other that's how much you'll be selling your old bike for.

If you're any good at all with creative math, you should actually be able to make a case that you may well be pocketing some money when all is said and done.

Note: When it turns out that the actual cost of the new bike is much higher — and the amount you sell the old bike for is lower — than you expect, I highly recommend shrugging and blaming taxes, shipping, and the fees the online site charged. "Man, everyone wants a slice," you can say, resignedly.

This bike is the bike to end all bikes

I fully admit that this approach is dangerous, but desperate times call for desperate measures, as I think all of us who have ever had a carbon fiber jones can attest.

"I know I have a lot of bikes already," you should say (it's good to start with a true statement, because that fools people into thinking other things you say may also be true). "This one, though, is different. It fits me unlike any bike ever made. It will never break. It is both beautiful and functional. It weighs 2.3Kg, fully loaded."

Continue with, "This is the ultimate expression of a bicycle. I shall never need another."

Look her/him right in the eyes as you conclude, "Hey, it's not like I'm talking about buying a Ferrari here, but how often in my life will I have a chance to own something that is truly perfect?" (Note: Do not say this if you own a Ferrari.) Try to mist up a little as you say this. It adds impact.

Warning: Do not use this technique more than twice per year.

Elden Nelson blogs most weekdays as The Fat Cyclist, where he posts fake news, fake ideas, and delicious ways you can combine bananas, peanut butter, and mayonnaise.

This article found at Bikeradar

Happiness is a skill you need to practise

Money can't buy you love sang the Beatles already a long time ago, yet these days we are finally beginning to understand the meaning of this yet, interestingly, various research around seems to be far more pre-occupied with who the happiest people on the planet are, rather than trying to understand what makes us happy.

Just back from my holiday in Finland I'm greeted with yet another piece of research (This time from Euromonitor) focusing on happiness and how it is beginning to increasingly pre-occupy both discussions, articles in the media and how, for some reason, the Scandinavians seem to be the happiest people ever. Considering these people live in pretty cold climates with plenty of rain, some snow and darkness for large parts of the day during winter months, we must conclude that at least you can't blame it on the weather. These are also countries that are relatively rich, have high literacy and work pretty long hours so you can't put it down to all play and no work either. Moreover, all Scandinavian countries also have high taxes, often the booze is expensive too and they all spend far too much time on the Internet - all supposedly things that  make us depressed, but not the Scandies. What could be their secret? I'll return to this later.

First to some facts about this emerging research field of happiness levels on a global basis - In June this year, experts gathered at the OECD forum in Istanbul concluded that economic-focused indices of the past, usually based around GDP levels, are no longer sufficient in measurements of social development around the world.

Various approaches have been introduced to try to address this, the most famous perhaps is the United Nation's Human Development Index. This has been used for many years to calculate a standardised, comparable indicator of social progress, based around the key social components of economics, health and educational opportunity. This itself was an advance on the earlier focus simply on GDP levels. The key statistics are GDP per capita, life expectancy and education (a weighted composite of adult literacy and school enrolments). Many other studies of human well-being around the world are also based on this work.

However, experts in this field have in recent decades confirmed that the key criteria behind happiness change as an economy and society evolve, and that the link in particular between economic success and happiness changes. The latter connection typically wanes as a country becomes wealthier – creating an income-happiness paradox that is frequently linked to aspiration and comparison, i.e.:

• The consumers' ongoing increase in income and material success fails to match the wider growth in their expectations as their wealth rises;
• Consumers feel that their own achievements fall short of the successes of others in their society (and with today's mass media, comparisons are also perhaps being made internationally).

Another way to approach the tricky subject of happiness is the World Values Survey. This academic-based survey looks into values across world societies, including social, cultural, religious and political aspects. It was launched in Europe in 1981 and its success led to its subsequent expansion into a regular global survey. Individual national surveys are conducted by a network of academics worldwide, each funded locally.

Press reports on the top-line results into “happiness” tend to vary, largely due to the fact that the survey asks two related questions:

• Taking all things together, would you say you are Very Happy… Not at All Happy" (graded response options);
• “All things being considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days.” (graded response options).

The latter “satisfaction” questions also relate to a definition known as “subjective well-being,” which some researchers believe is a better indicator of overall happiness than happiness-only questions. Incidentally, another newer survey seeks to build on this approach by adding in an environmental impact element. This is the Happy Planet Index (HPI), launched in July 2006 by the New Economics Foundation. Another body of work is the World Happiness Database by Ruut Veenhoven at the University of Rotterdam, and furthermore the map of subjective well-being by Adrian White at University of Leicester.

Comparing happiness in societies around the world in such different states of development and with such differing priorities clearly has limitations, but the principal is now gaining credibility amongst even the most fiscally-focused analysts. In very broad terms, work to date demonstrates that national happiness and well-being levels are generally related to health, income and education, and honest, tolerant government, offering people the opportunity to pursue a way of life of their choice. It is widely agreed, for example, that Denmark and other Scandinavian markets score well on all of these points. Denmark has also incidentally shown good rises in its happiness levels over the past few decades.

Economic improvement is a factor in less developed economies, but once a minimum standard is reached (probably around the level of the poorest Western European markets) it has a fast diminishing effect; The criteria behind happiness vary by market and over time as aspirations change. Many developing markets are still in the basic material upgrading phase. As is well-known, however, in advanced economies materialism has waned, and in these markets has even been described as a “happiness suppressant”; A just, open government and society show as key factors behind social contentment. Some fast-improving economies generating rapid financial gain for their citizens appear to have happiness levels limited by such issues.

All this research is missing a crucial point though - a human being's ability to take active charge of your own happiness. Rather than being told that the Danes are the happiest in the world, I would like to know which societies or people are best at coping with adversities.

Invariably we cannot control the things that fate will throw in our way, but I'm always astonished to hear about the stories of how people cope with seemingly impossible situations, how when told they only have a year left to live people emerge from initial depression to extol how much more they enjoy their life now than before. Some attribute it to a realisation of what is important in life and prioritising that, others talk about a self-discipline in terms of not succumbing to anger, jealousy and hatred and instead finding happiness in helping others - these are invariably individual stories with a great capacity to inspire and reminding us how much we ourselves are in charge of our own happiness and how the way we look at the world has an enormous impact in how happy we are. In that respect, the level of material wealth and how fair or just a society is become external factors providing an added bonus, but not the factors explaining happiness as a whole.

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton is a good introduction to this topic, pointing to the fact that our likelihood of feeling happy or depressed has a lot to do with the values we aspire to, and how learning associated to growth as individuals, altruism and helping others as well as creative expression have an infinitely greater capacity to provide a foundation to happiness than material wealth or celebrity. So with all this talk about happiness I would like to know how these happiest people on the planet look at these topics, not just the fact whether they are happy or not. I would argue that Scandinavians are great fans of self-actualisation through all these means and it is the wide access to, and opportunities within these areas that drives a great sense of satisfaction, rather than merely economic wealth and a fair justice system although they are very important. So much like any other talent or skill you have - happiness is a skill that needs to be practiced, not only in your outlook on life (refraining from seeing the bad side in everything and always striving to be positive and counting your blessings), but also in your investement in growing yourself as a human being through learning, creative expression and helping others, as well as looking after yourself physically. It's a balancing act, that only you can master.

Interview: Where Does the LEGO Lady Go to Unwind?

A fair question and although this interview explains all about one of my favourite places on Earth; little Pietra Santa in Tuscany, Italy read the Interview - although it is not where I'm headed this weekend. A holiday is certainly something I need right now, it's been a wildly busy year and I'm getting to that stage right now that although I love my job and have a blast doing it, people could be handing me the greatest gift on the planet and I would struggle to summon my trademark enthusiasm for it.

I simply need a rest. And to stop thinking about all the things I have to think about as part of my job just for long enough so that thinking about them will feel like 'I'm thinking about them after having had some time to think about something else' rather than 'I'm thinking about this again and by the way I haven't had time to think about anything else in the meantime'. You know what I mean. Fortunately a break is looming on the horizon and I'm truly madly deeply looking forward to it, much like someone crossing the desert must be feeling when they finally come across an oasis. So on that note - over and out and back again next week!

The Web and the Illusion of Anonymity

I had a strange experience the other day. Someone I met for the first time told me they had 'Googled' me before our meeting and were intrigued to find all this stuff about me, including this blog. Now forgive me folks, but on one hand here I am, with a blog being seemingly progressive and 'out there', in with the times and all that and the fact is that most of my friends don't read my blog, at least not regularly anyway, because they prefer to talk to me in person about the topics I blog about and many more things, rather than read about them on my blog.

Can't blame them really, but this has also caused a certain disconnect for me, where usually I would meet people and it would be me making the first impression and eventually this person would discover I had a blog, which would be more of a curious 'aha' moment for them, rather than something they would use to form an opinion about me even before meeting me. However, this, as I mentioned, was all turned on its head just the other day. The insecure person in me immediately wondered 'what do they think... do they like what I write or do they think I'm a total nutcase??' Anonymity on the web at least (most of the time) means you will never get to meet the people in person who think your blog is a bunch of ramblings and that you are truly nuts.. but it may all change!

Fortunately this individual was very complementary, or perhaps just a supremely a nice person who couldn't bring themselves to tell me just how bad they thought my writing was, but fortunately at least saved me the embarrassment of telling it to my face. Of course you will all rush to tell me that I should have thought of that when starting a blog and to this I reply: I did! Initially I was very much in two minds about whether I should blog under my real name or anonymously, and initially I did blog completely anonymously as I was experimenting with content and style and so on.

Eventually I settled for the 'a little bit about everything' approach that you find on this blog - stuff I think about and find that writing it down into a post helps me structure my thoughts and move on and think about new stuff... clearing my mind if you like. So my blog has now become a bit of a scratch book of thoughts and sometimes pretty personal too - in the same breath I have abandoned anonymity and even sport a button to my Linked-in profile now for all those who wonder who I am and why I'm interested in all these diverse topics (hopefully my profile goes some way to explain this..here's me hoping anyway!)

The scary thing is though that the more I have become 'exposed' through this blog, the more people, prospective employers, clients, you name it all use Google to check up on people they are about to make contact to. On one hand we are seeing extremely personal confessions on blogs and various social networking sites and on the other hand we are seeing more and more people having to pay the price for that as it seems that there are still employers out there who are looking for people who are literally the 'blank' canvasses - with no clearly defined and perhaps 'jarring' personal identities to try to mold into an organisation where individualism is a fault, not an asset.

Some are talking about how young people in particular should be much more careful about what they do reveal on-line as that digital trail will follow them forever - there are even companies devoted to destroying information about you on the net these days - service comes at a pretty price though. The one place not even they can reach are the news archives of various papers - once you end up there you are on the net forever. So where does that leave us? It seems that the arena is wide open for the debate on a set of 'net ethics' of sorts - what is acceptable to take into account about a person in terms of background checks on the net, versus what is advisable for individuals to reveal on-line?

Ultimately some things are personal and although revealed on-line on say a social networking site, they should remain as such or be considered as such by a company seeking to employ that person. Also those who devote countless hours to blogging and so on are in fact industrious minds to whom a blog is one outlet, but give the person a challenge to chew on that same industrious mind can be put to service for the benefit of a company, as opposed to being seen as an overtly extrovert destroyer of 'the way we have always done things in this company'. What do you think?

What Marketeers Forget When Thinking of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is on everyone's lips - it's attractive to users, because we become the authors, publishers, content creators and between us we can create infinitely more value for each other than a company can on its own. Context is the content. Marketeers are intrigued by this prospect too, because it means new, potentially more cost-effective ways to target their audiences, spreading word of mouth and if you are lucky, being able to measure the effect much more precisely than you ever could via say TV or print-advertising. There is a prospect of creating more bang for the buck and moreover, learning more about the likes and dislikes of your consumers.

In the wake of this growing phenomena, there is an exponential growth of seminars, lectures, conferences and events to explain what web 2.0 is, what you can do with it and how best to make use of it. Countless executives are invariably crammed into a room, where some net-savvy individual extols the virtues of blogging, viral marketing, you name it and the room is filled with various degrees of perplexed individuals who are beginning to realise that the entire paradigm they have structured their careers and lives around, is shifting into the unknown and many traditional practises will have to change if they are to survive.

Your Audience is Active - not passive
Traditional communications theory used to focus on measuring and analysing the effect of media on the people exposed to it. Audiences were considered passive and we all wanted to know what watching TV really does to you, does it make you buy more, more stupid, more obese etc? The truth is that audiences are active, they consume media based on its uses and gratifications gained. That goes for TV too these days - having a Tivo box makes the traditionally passive act of TV watching much more active as you can choose what you want to watch, when, skip the ads and teach the thing to tell you next time something is on that you might enjoy. This becomes even more acute when we move towards on-line media - users decide what they do, where they go, what they watch, who they talk to and so on. What others have said is easier for them to find out, and what is on their mind is easier to broadcast to everyone around them too.

If You Want to Talk, You Must Show You Care to Listen
Traditional marketing operating from a paradigm of passive consumers that need to be engaged, first be reminded of their inadequacies and then told how to overcome them still wants to approach Web 2.0 with the same attitude. It's still about trying to sell people some smokescreen and appeal to their fantasies and desires, but that will not work anymore, not in the traditional sense.

Imagine you are sitting at a table with a person you have never met. You begin a conversation, politely you try to find out who they are and so on. Imagine then if this person behaved as if you had just pushed the 'play' button, out comes some random message about who you should be, what you should do to be like that, what they are selling and how good it is. So you patiently wait till the end of this litany and ask again. You want to know about the person behind that statement. Are they nice, do they have integrity? Do they care about the same stuff you do? Again the same mantra. What that is, is a one-way broadcast, like radio and TV advertising, because the medium didn't allow talk-back - but nowhere is that approach becoming obsolete quicker than the web.

No longer is it about 'what do we want to communicate - it's about 'what do we want to facilitate!'
Web 2.0 is a dialogue, it's a start of a love-affair, it's a discussion that takes twists and turns depending on who is having the conversation and what the topic is. It's fun to talk to someone if they show they listen to what you have to say and respond accordingly. It's even better when they can put you in touch with other people just like you. It's extremely boring when you feel like you are talking to a wall. It's really that simple - but what it means is that smokescreens become harder to maintain. After all, not everyone is David Copperfield and besides, if everyone's rating everything and all views are public - you don't even want to be David Copperfield, you have to be you and be good, because what goes around comes around.

Build Good Karma
Buddhism is a very useful in this context and may even one day become the foundation of the new world-wide company ethic - but the basis is simple: refrain from bad behaviour, do good and remember that karma comes back to haunt you - good or bad. So can your company handle that level of openness, can you genuinely say that everyone in your company respects your consumers and tries their utmost to be fair, do the right thing and never lie? Marketing in this context becomes less about convincing people something is great, but more about setting the structure and motion in place for responding to what people want, encouraging them to work with you and always, always, always making sure you are honest, respectful and humble. In product design we  always used to joke that you are only as good as your last project. How true is that - in the world of web 2.0 you are only as good as the last consumer experience you delivered.

It takes a (global, connected) village to raise a child

No I'm not referring to Hillary Clinton's book, nor her speech on the topic of children - but I am borrowing the same (origin unknown) African proverb that claims it takes a village to raise a child. In fact, I'm building on it to refer to the Internet, the global connected village it has made the world, we are all connected, not necessarily by six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon but in fact by 3rd degree via LinkedIn (or Myspace, Bebo, Facebook or whatever takes your fancy).

For me it has been a revelation that by humbly starting to publish this blog here in my corner of London, UK, there are people as far as Kiribati who magically stumble on this site and moreover, can be bothered to read what I have to say. Truly humbling. Big up to Kiribati I say! This global village of ours has also taught me some very valuable lessons, some of which I agonise over in a previous post about the pain of trying to come up with consistently good quality material. Not sure I succeed consistently, but mainly due to the kindness and patience of my readers, I still have an audience..

I recently came across a brilliant study from Forrester research by a guy called Jaap Favier, Dutch perhaps I endeavour to guess? Anyway he has managed to pull together some great insights about how group dynamics are driving social media on the net and how this connectivity means companies need to change in order to stay relevant for their consumers. Sounds complicated, but on a larger scale I feel companies need to learn what the village has raised me to believe over the years:

Content is king -> CONTACT is king
It's not about the stuff, it's about whether you care to listen what people have to say, whether you can help put them in touch with each other and provide them with ways they can not only help each other, but create things together with you. Are you a good citizen and do people even want to know you? If you are evil, chances are they don't. Often only when you go look for friends do you discover what people really think about you. Don't let it get that far.

The Medium is the Message -> The RESPONSE is the message
Can you get people to care enough to get involved, can they respond to you, to others, do things change based on their response? You get what you give, if you are rude and deceitful, chances are you also foster that behaviour in people around you.

We call the shots -> THEY call the shots
Don't think you know it all. Don't even attempt. There are people out there who know your company, product, service you name it better than you do. They do call the shots whether you like it or not. A smart thing would be to learn from what they have to say and be humble.

KEEP IT REAL
Only if you are honest, true to what you promise and deliver it as good as you say it is, people trust you. To be trusted you have to keep it real, always. No lies, no cheating, no screwing people over - they find out soon enough and others even sooner, so be good and the world is good to you back. Most of the time anyway!

It's funny - yesterday we had the last episode of the Apprentice, (for now) where our pet magnate Sir Alan Sugar got himself a fresh faced new apprentice, Simon, willing to work 'his cotton socks off' as he bluntly put it when asked why he should be hired. Sugar, true to his name, subsequently presented Simon with some unsightly pairs of cotton socks that he could 'work off' in due course. Although not the most experienced of contestants, Simon's happy-go-lucky attitude and kindness got him quite far and moreover made him a master at dealing with some of the more prickly contestants in the show.

The complete opposite was Katie, fired from the show last week. It seems that in her case, common decency took a left-turn and avoided her altogether. Certainly, courtesy of having a blog you learn first-hand how quickly the Internet bites back and let's you know faster, sooner, and more sharply how much you suck, even when your best-friends stay silent. It felt almost sadistic and certainly voyeuristic to sit there watching Katie spouting her horrific comments about her fellow contestants to the camera and then select comments being revealed to the fellow contestants by programme directors.. pausing to focus on the furious candidate, squirming in their seat, rolling their eyes. It just amazes me that no one from the real or virtual village has played their part, taking Katie to one side, giving her a really good hiding and reminding her just what it means to be a citizen in the global village. Sir Alan Sugar did it sort of, a little yesterday - but all she did was smile. Knowingly. Thinking she still calls the shots. Think again.

The Rise of Transparency Tyranny

Recently we at LEGO had our most visible example yet of a phenomenon increasingly affecting companies world-wide: the rise of the consumer activist. Above and Beyond: LEGO Shop gives consumers new hope. In our case we are lucky as this commentary turned out in our favour and helped highlight some of the practises we have prided ourselves in offering ever since we set up our consumer service centres, but more often than not consumers bite back and give not only companies a piece of their mind, but also their fellow consumers.

We are truly moving away from the days when it was possible to limit the damage of a single consumer disappointment to travel only as far as that individual could reach through letter, phone and discussion with friends and family. Still damaging to a brand, granted, but today, we are faced with a new situation, a new world order if you like where single consumer contacts and their outcome, positive or negative - have the power to influence thousands, if not millions as they can now be recorded (not only in words, but through camera phones, video, voice) in addition to traditional text - making the content much more evocative and that content be shared with millions, through a plethora of rating and social networking sites.

The only fly in the ointment right now is the absence of profiles - i.e having a service/product/experience rated by someone just like me (age, education, income, job, interests, lifestyle etc.), which would lend the ratings even more gravitas, but it is just a matter of time before a networking site like Myspace teams up with a rating service and makes this happen.

Enter the era of transparency tyranny. This movement is picking up, as people are moving from trusting companies to trusting their peers instead. Furthermore the Digital Natives (those who have grown up with the Internet always there) communicate 155% more than before (Forrester), which means this phenomenon will only grow.

So in my opinion there is nothing that warrants a higher priority in companies than focusing on delivering first-class services and experiences to consumers, measuring it through the Net Promoter Score (NPS). The NPS has to be consistently good across all touchpoints, because this - more than anything, will determine the future of your company. In our case - by the power of our strong heritage, we have a lot of expectations to live up to - people who have grown up with the brand and have come to expect a kind of quality, continuity and ethic to LEGO, which the other toymanufacturers struggle to achieve. All eyes are on us to continue to deliver that in the age of transparency tyranny!

Culture or Conditioning: How Many of Our Problems are Self-made?

Reading the excellent book by James Surowiecki on the Wisdom of Crowds (see side panel for link), one of his examples when talking about the power of convention: seating in public places, got me thinking about the role of convention and norm in determining the shape and feel of our lives, jobs and even destinies to some extent. Let me backtrack slightly: in this chapter Surowiecki talks about how powerful conventions are in making society run smoothly, they maintain order and stability in addition to reducing the amount of cognitive work you have to put in to get through the day. Quoting:

Conventions allow us to deal with certain situations without thinking much about them... and they allow groups of disparate, unconnected people to organise themselves with relative ease and an absence of conflict.

So let's think more deeply about this - how much of our lives is actually made up of conventions? How many things do we actually do and put up with, not because that's the most logical way to approach a situation or solve a problem, but because it has always been that way or we have always done it in a certain way? Let's take this example by Surowiecki:

Consider a practice that's so basic that we don't even think about it as a convetion: first-come, first-served seating in public places. Whether on the subway or on a bus or in a movie theathre, we assume that the appropriate way to distribute seats is according to when people arrive. A seat belongs, in some sense to the person occupying it. This is not necessarily the best way to distribute seats. It takes no account, for instance, of how much a person wants to sit down, It doesn't ensure that people who would like to sit together would be allowed to. And it makes no allowances - in its hard and fast form - for mitigating factors like age or illness (in practice of course people do make allowances for these factors, but only in some places. People will give up a seat on the subway to an elderly person, but they are unlikely to do the same with a choice seat in a movie theatre, or with a nice spot on the beach).. so why do we do it? To begin with, it's easy and it allows people to concentrate on some presumably more important things. The rule doesn't need coercion to work, either. And since people get on and off the train randomly, everyone has a good chance of finding a set as anyone else.

Still if sitting down matters to you, there is no law preventing you from trying to circumvent the convention by, for instance, asking someone to give up his seat. So in the 1980s, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram decided to find out what would happen if you did just that. Milgram suggested to a class of graduate students that they ride the subway and simply ask people, in a courteous but direct manner, if they could have their seats. The students laughed the suggestion away, saying things like "A person could get killed that way". But one student agreed to be the guinea pig. Remarkably, he found that half of the people he asked gave up their seats, even though he provided no reason for his request.

This was so surprising that a whole team of students fanned out on the subway and Milgram himself joined in. They all reported similar results: about half the time, just asking convinced people to give up their seat. But they also discovered something else: the hard part of the process wasn't convincing the people, it was mustering the courage to ask them in the first place. The graduate students said that when they were standing in front of a subject, "they felt anxious, tense and embarrassed". Much of the time they couldn't even bring themselves to ask the question and they just moved on. Milgram himself described the whole experience as "wrenching". The norm of first-come, first-served was so ingrained that violating it required real labour. The point of Milgram's experiment, in a sense, was that the most successful norms are not just externally established and maintained. The most successful norms are internalised.

This leads me to the title of this post - how many of our perceived problems exist because we have begun perceiving them as 'convention',  and trying to fight them literally fills us with anxiety, tension or embarrassment? This happened to me too, not that I realised it necessarily at the time. In my case our team had been together for a few years and we unwittingly became became victims of some presumptions by our boss at the time, he had made his mind up regarding each of our strengths and weaknesses and forever treated us according to these stereotypes and never would let us prove him wrong by doing something different. After a while you almost begin to believe it yourself, when you find that you are arguing a point to deaf ears. Although you persist, it is easy to gradually give up as the embarrassment of asking and labouring a point simply becomes too great and before you know it you have been conditioned to put up with it.

Someone a while ago illustrated this very well, when explaining how fleas are trained for the flea circus. This is a true story! To get fleas to jump a specific (premeditated height) what you do is you stick them in a tall tube, the height of which you would like to train your flea to jump and stick a lid on the tube. In the beginning the flea will jump as high as he likes, but hit his head/body in the lid of the tube. He will do this a few times until he learns (mainly from the pain!) that this is not a good move. Eventually he learns to jump just so high that he won't hit his head in the lid of the tube anymore. Take him out of the tube and he will still only jump as high as the height of the tube he was in.

How much are are we victims of the same thing? How much could we in fact change what happens to us by daring to pipe up, speak our minds or even just as a difficult question? True, this will demand more labour on our behalf, but may in fact lead us to happier lives, new opportunities and allowing us to grow beyond our perceived limitations.