Author Archives: Sy

About Sy

Innovation Lead in the Payments Processing Market. Looking for fun in all the right places :)

Understanding Social Media – Four Steps to Social Media Revenue

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Social Media is very much the buzzword at the moment, because the board level execs, and therefore middle management have recognised the massive user base.  Their thinking is along the lines of “We know there are a lot of users there, can we plug what we do today into that?”

In a word, No! It’s a very different space.

Before you can plug your product into a social space, your brand and business needs to be on there.  You’re dealing with real people in a much more intimate way than via a call centre or your website.  The rules are different.  Before you can even think about making money from it, you have to accept you have some learning to do.  Then we can talk about monetisation strategy.

Four Levels of Engagement

Joe Wiggins at Perfect Circle PR, lists the four levels of engagement in the financial sector.

  • Let’s Be Social – simply using social technology to build the brand and community
  • Enlightened Engagement – informing customers through reviews, experts or other respected sources
  • Store of the Community – customers help drive product selection assortment and merchandising
  • Frictionless Commerce – the buying experience is completely redesigned to create a fully customer-centric experience

Let’s be social

Step 1 “Let’s be social” whilst a starting point, is usually a siren of a business who’s marketing department convinced the board that they needed to “just put out press releases” because the competition is doing that.  This is akin to using a telephone for morse code, a waste of potential, but a step in the right direction

Enlightened Engagement

This usually happens when someone high up in the business has the Eureka moment and gets it.  It’s when the business recognises that their customers are talking to each other, and their friends about the business and interactions with your company.

It’s a paradigm shift.  Not everyone outside your employee list is against you.  In fact, some of them really like you and want you to succeed!

Social Media gives you insight to those conversations, and as an insight & perception management tool is invaluable.  This is real time feedback, from people who want to help your brand or business.

Store of the community

Also known as an “App Store”, is a big topc in itself, and a massive investment for businesses that are not already on the cloud infrastructure route.

The idea of having an ecosystem and marketplace of developers vying to make your channels better, for free seems like a tempting one.  It’s entirely possible with the developments in coporate IT Infrastructure and software to begin to make your services open for integration with clients, or 3rd party systems.  PayPal X is a solid example of how to do this in a gentle, risk averse way.

An open platform a huge stepping stone onto the quest for the holy grail…

Frictionless Payments

I’m willing to bet everyone see’s the value in this, pay any merchant from any account, anywhere.  On a pure technology roadmap, you could certainly get there without going social… but then how do you interact with this new world of Social Networks once you get there?

You may have the worlds greatest product, but if it doesn’t play well with social networks you’re stuffed.  More importantly, if your business doesn’t support it on the human level, consumers won’t trust you, and the service will fail.

That’s why it is vital your business follows the social and open technology and values equally. It’s as much about how you do business, as the technology.

Spend time getting to know your professional and human audience.  Listen to them.  Interact.  Then let them build the services they want, on top of your core value!  In effect the community will do the integration for you, you just have to open the front door, by being a platform.

What do you think?

  • Will business truly embrace social?
  • How would you implement it?

Quora – Why you need to be using this service

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What is Quora? It took a few hours for me to “get it”, but after reading around and having a play here’s where I’m at.

A global Q+A site that actually works!

Unlike Yahoo! Answers or LinkedIn’s Q+A, the hooks to other Social networks make this very easy to spread to your existing network.  Unlike Facebook Questions, the ability to search for, or ask questions is exceptionally easy.  If you have a burning question you cannot get answered anywhere else, try it! You will be impressed.

The Geek reaction is palpable

I found Techcrunch’s article by MG Seigler a little whacky when I first read it.  Claims like “Is Quora the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years?” are pretty strong.

It’s worth remembering Quora has been around for a few months, and has been steadily winning over sceptics, and beginning to form consensus.

Adam at Comms Corner makes the case for why brands need to get into the FAQ space, like they have done Social Media.

1) If you don’t someone else will answer questions on behalf of your brand – like the early days of Wikipedia.

2) This is a great way to find dissatisfied customers and help them get the best from your product.

Emergence of global, centralised tools & products

We now have Wikipedia (Encyclopaedia), Google (Search,Translate), Facebook (Social), Skype (Speak), Ebay (Marketplace) and many more tools where the world comes together on one platform.  They all benefit from the network effect.  They are made better by the fact that everyone uses them.  Delaying moving to these platforms, means you miss the party & miss the opportunity.

  • Have you used Quora?
  • Will you sign up?
  • Have you got any value from it?
  • Do you think it will become mainstream?

Carrier Billing: Niche or New Standard?

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Was reading at Econsultancy that Carrier Billing could become key to the Android Market place success.  Is carrier billing going to become more of a standard?

There are many emerging payment methods and trends that could well catch on.  Carrier billing for SMS has been a neat niche growth market for some services, and would probably extend quite well into apps.

If you look at the SMS services, like Jamster downloads, or game purchases.  Carrier billing was a profitable endeavour because of its low friction nature.  All you have to do is send a very quick SMS, and you’re done.

Things get more difficult when dealing with commerce, services or subscriptions.  What if I buy something using my Ebay app and want to pay using PayPal?  How does carrier billing work then?

In Application billing

In app billing services like Bango provide a compelling option for developers because the model like Zong or Boku offers a standardised interface for billing against your carrier.

I for one, am not a fan of carrier billing.  It’s VERY bad for the consumer, and puts more power in the hands of the carriers, that needs to be de-centralised.  I have no doubt it will play a role in the coming years, as Apps replace SMS as the preferred mode of two way consumer interaction.

What happened to the virtual wallet?

Android marketplace could end up with very fragmented payment options, on a per carrier basis.  I look at what facebook are doing with facebook credits and virtual currencies as a way out of the millions of ways to pay mess at the checkout.  For the third world, and emerging economies, carrier billing services like Zong, or prepaid options like m-pesa or Obopay provide compelling abstractions…

The key will be, who can make paying for content consistent across the TV, Mobile, Tablet, PC and Point of Sale? To achieve that you need to separate the funding source from the payment method.  The schemes, Visa and Mastercard are not proactive in this space & even PayPal are dragging their feet.  This is an area to watch!

For me “one bill to rule them all” isn’t a fun idea.  I want financial control over who gets paid what, and when… and for that I need to be able to manage payments, and subscriptions via a financial institution or stored value account.  The PayPal wallet concept is right, it’s just not nearly as well commercially integrated to the emerging marketplace as it needs to be!

  • How big do you think carrier billing will become?
  • Will it become standard?
  • What alternatives are there?
  • Is there a role for a business to play the abstraction / Payment Service Provider role between carriers, banks and app stores?

Business Evolved – How Social Good is changing business

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I was reading at Scott Gould’s blog, that the one word you never hear contestants use in The Apprentice is “Leadership”.  Which got me thinking…

Why is the show such a hit? The show itself focusses on what are essentially 1,000s of year old business practices; manufacturing, buying, selling, marketing etc. Yet what makes the show sell, is the social aspect, how these humans interact, and our view as a society as judgement on each of them.

The Apprentice is a reflection of humanity, with the volume turned up, and the Top Gear blue filter over used to make everything more contrasted than it needs to be for effect.

They stop just short of touching base, before running an idea up a flag pole while searching for the blue sky thinker… just.  Yet what we find compelling is the human element.  Humanity in business.

Humility in Competitive Business?

The Apprentice: You’re fired is my favourite part, because it offers the fired hopeful a chance to demonstrate humility and humanity that the editor didn’t feel fit into the 1 hour magazine style swooshy editing. Sir Alan is definitely looking for a certain type of person in his organisation, and if anything uses the apprentice to demonstrate his might rather than as a hiring supply pool.

There are some great lessons to take from The Apprentice in what not to do. What I believe is missing, is what they did for the US Version. Donald Trump gives business lessons, some of which are surprising. “Find the person” was one. Find the most effective person within an organisation, whom you can trust and deal exclusively with them rather than with the anonymous drones.

You’ll never hear “humility” or “human” in the board room, because it has an adversarial nature, by selection and by editing. It is frankly, more entertaining than genuine people trying to help each other win.

Business Evolved; focussing on our human needs

Trying to sell the opposite message back into the corporate world is an interesting challenge. I believe this is something Scott is a shining example of. How to be humble, and how to be human, to create a slowly building, incredibly valuable network. It’s much more Warren Buffet than Gordon Gekko, and is in my view the only sustainable economy. The economy of mutual gain.

Vs

It’s why we’re seeing globalisation begin to demonstrate how interdependent humanity always was.  For every massive currency reserve, there is a central bank able to print its way out of trouble.  Selfish endeavour and hoarding is only a temporary solution to an evolving world, with evolving technology and economies.

Business can be used for good, and when doing so, can be massively profitable. Social Good now has to compete & beat the Gordon Gekko’s of this world.  The de-centralisation of knowledge brought by the internet means that is now more likely than ever

Social Good – Core to business in next decade
I’m willing to bet the theme of business for social good will soon move from neat marketing tool for the Generation Y consumer, to fundamental core theme for most business.

If you look at the businesses that have shown mega growth in the past decade, a belief in social good, or greater purpose unites them. Humanity is capable of its greatest achievement, and teamwork when it has a shared vision. I look at facebook, google & twitter as companies who believe they offer a basic level of social good, and a useful tool, rather than a pure cut throat business.

I believe we are going to see some old world businesses, and many new start-ups embrace social good as a core business practice and value.  Investing in human potential through Social Enterprise is proving much more profitable than handing over Aid or Loans.  Harvard Business Review article demonstrating Social Good with Microcredit

The focus isn’t ROI, but do people find the product useful. I for one, continue to read Scott’s blog on a regular basis to see how this is becoming more possible even in coporate and government sectors.  If you’re looking for an entire new growth segment for your portfolio.  Consider Social Good

  • Is Social Good at the core of your business?
  • Can Social Good help your business?
  • Does Social Good have anything to do with your bottom line?
  • Can doing the right thing be profitable?
  • Is business by nature adversarial?

WikiLeaks fallout: What does it mean for your business?

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Key points that have been missed during the WikiLeaks debate:

  • The vast majority of leaks suggest diplomats do an incredible job. Sensationalist media seems to be owning the narrative and is the real cancer of this story.
  • The US government by increasing security, has defaulted to secrecy. This is not how you win the trust of the people.
  • Assange comes from a breed of hacker who’s motivation is that the truth shall set you free. If we’re all caught with our pants down, nobody has the upper hand.

Personally, I disagree with his methods, his style and the term “Wiki” being used. His intentions are right, but he has let the narrative be controlled by a media who want to turn it into something else.

What is more frightening is the reaction, politicians calling Assange a terrorist is ludicrous and counter-productive. Brett King’s printing press analogy is correct. You cannot close the lid on pandoras box.  You cannot fight a problem caused by secrecy with more secrecy.

What does it all mean? Like the MP expenses scandal, it will die down.  Be aware however that transparency is coming, and those with the most to lose are those hiding something.

You can trace this “open” trend back to the invention of the internet itself. The motivation is inspired by the “hacker” ideal, who believe that “open” creates a better world.  They believe a re-distribution of knowledge is good for innovation, and good for the global economy. Diversity of input = stronger product.

The key message to take from this episode is that your default should be transparency. This would limit the impact of Assange and the WikiLeaks dramatically.  My advice? If you have secrets, get there first.  The acid test is your conscience.  The most motivated hackers are those who believe they are just.  If you find yourself in a WikiLeaks storm

  1. Launch a full internal investigation, and publish the results
  2. Commit to transparent process that will prevent the re-occurrence of any wrong doing
  3. Use the announcement as a platform for building trust with the public and your clients

Do you run a business? How would you react to WikiLeaks publishing your internal dealings?

Banking Disruption

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All this talk of clouds, social media, mobile and the like isn’t going away.  The financial sector has moved from “I don’t care” to “I don’t understand”.  Whilst it’s not a monumental shift, it is important.  As Brett King puts it

Bankers are simply used to owning the pipes, the network, the wires and perceiving that their exclusivity on ‘banking’, their ‘lock on customers’ comes from having a banking license. Clearly, however, disintermediation of the retail front-end of banks is rife. Banks are becoming wholesalers, networks and product manufacturers, but clearly with the lack of innovative capability, the rapidly growing gap between customer behavior and retail banks as poor service companies, the question of whether we need banks has been answered…

We don’t need retail banks – we do need the back-end networks that process payments, we need organizations that are prepared to take on the risk of lending (social lending is unlikely to scale up to mortgage level), and we need mechanisms that give us access to trading systems and markets.

This is an all too common view.  We’re reeling from the “bigger is better” attitude of the past decade, and waking up to notice that plenty of companies have positioned themselves to render banks less and less useful.

Major retailers now offer financial products of their own, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has just made it possible for anyone in the US to become a merchant if they have an iPhone.  Virtual currencies and mobile payments are almost completely alien to high street banks.  The fear of the unknown has caused inertia.

In effect high street banks are fighting a losing battle, as lumbering, slow moving, poor service companies.  What can they do?

  1. Focus on giving the most value to the consumer, not the least & profit taking (which is still rife, sadly)
  2. High Street brands have scale, and scale can often buy value.  Pass that on to the consumer!
  3. Bank’s IT departments are a black hole, they need a much more rapid service development cycle.  See Google: “Always in BETA” for how to break a new product
  4. Branches are a massive opportunity to leverage a brand name.  Face time for consumers is paramount
  5. Owning the pipes doesn’t make the consumer subservient to you, it makes you subservient to them.

The focus is so very risk averse, and focussed on tangible ROI that banks will likely be the last to move.  It’s often impossible to show a 5 year return on a wholesale perspective change.  What can banks do in the medium term?

Deutche Bank are represented by their CIO on the Enterprise Cloud Leadership Forum and at SIBOS 2010 made statements that are alien to many high street banks.

  • Learn about the cloud by leveraging the cloud (Use Google Apps, Youtube, Facebook for business!)
  • Have the internal debate about what to open up and how
  • Provide a platform for other developers to add value to your services

Can you imagine a CIO saying these things even 2 years ago?!

I look at Visa & Mastercard who now both have a development platform & a payment service provider as key leaders in the area.  PayPal & Bling Nation are then a neat front end to a scheme based auth’s engine.

What is a bank in a cloud based connected world, other than a database and risk carrying entity for financial products?  The separation between service and risk is also demonstrated by people like BankSimple who are primarily consumer focussed.

Interesting times…

Can you know the truth?

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In a friendly debate with Scott Gould about finding answers.  The debate has become, is truth a tangible thing, a tick in a box? Or is it something more personal?

The pragmatist in me chooses values which sit well emotionally, personally and logically. How did you choose your values?

Do you hold them as “the” truth, or hold them as “my” truth?

In a strange way, knowing the truth or finding answers doesn’t by default make us a better person.  We still have to live through mistakes and learn from them to grow.

As a person who violates my own values (albeit working diligently to fix that with discipline and focus), I’m in no position to hold them up as the right thing, or the ideal. I try to share values when it feels relevant and if you find them useful then good :) .  Stephen Fry is my hero.  He loves and lives for knowledge, and yet is remarkably honest about is human failings.

Personally I find the quest for knowledge the most addictive, fun and worthwhile pass time I have experienced.  As a human, I’m still capable of straying from those values and that has consequences and I think we all are…

I’ve learned far more from being wrong, and mistakes, than I ever did from being right. But then, being wrong is part of the search for answers. Can we find answers, without holding them up as the truth?

Why are we searching in the first place? What is motivating us? The desire to be right? The desire to know the answer? Or the desire to use the answer? Is it the answer, or how you use it that counts?

On Balance…

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Balance has always been my biggest issue. As someone who has never done a full forward roll (I always slope off to one side)…

The key appears to be moving from being a passenger in the entrepreneurial cycle to the driver. What could I commit to?… and importantly: How do I ensure I stick to that commitment? Not for a week, not for a few days… but really stick to it?

Read a great book called the 60 second motivator. It suggests something you are procrastinating is due to one of three things.

1) Importance
2) Confidence
3) Knowledge.

It has to pass those three gates to get done. If it’s not important to you, how do you reframe it, give it some context & make it important? If you don’t have the confidence, it doesn’t matter how important something is, you will retreat into your cave. Confidence is an elusive elixir, but one that is drastically improved via action and little victories. Break it up into really small tasks, and take action. Which leads to Knowledge. How do you break something into tasks? If you really don’t know this is where you need your network. Knowledge wants to be free. Start at Google & work towards the answer.

Knowing the path & walking it are two very different things.