5. âeveryone has their place in a rank, every place defined a function, and authority flowed through a chain of commandâ Charles Leadbeater @wethink From Flickr, Pete Ashton http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteashton/228555440/sizes/l/
49. Youâve not talked to⊠You talk most often to⊠16 calls, 25 m The person you call most at weekends is⊠âŠfor ages 5 calls, 24 m Your most expensive buddy is⊠âŠkeeps you talking for hours 1 call, 42m 1 call, 32m (Australia) You send most text messages to⊠74 SMS / 5 MMS
What Iâd like to talk about, from an innovation perspective, is the very title of this day⊠âThe Battle of Big Thinkingâ. A grand, awe-inspiring title, to be sureâŠ(âŠand, of course, one quite intimidating to present at).
But thereâs something I believe broken about the notion of âbig thinking; itâs not helping us help clients in the world as we know it in 2009âŠLetâs just unpick it a littleâŠ
Large companies were modelled on the military model of doing things; it was the best way anyone had to get stuff done; top down, follow orders, donât speak out of placeâŠ
Everyone did what the guy above them told them to. Things flowed down from the guy above you, and you told the team that reported into you. âBig Ideasâ are needed in this environment to flow down through the chain of command.
Which is exactly what you need for mass production â everyone playing their part in the one perfect, replicable thing you produce. Donât argue, donât innovate, because weâve not got the capability to deal with the notion of it being âdone differentlyâ.
But if you have mass production, you need lots of people to buy the things youâre making⊠or youâll pretty soon go out of businessThis is where our part in the story comes inâŠ
Through the mass media, we distributed adverts as perfect and homogeneous as the products and services they are forâŠ
To do this, you NEED big ideas⊠ideas simple and compelling enough to cascade down through the buying publicâŠ
Marketers are the generals, setting us all off on the next âBig PushââŠ
So we, as an industry, are conditioned for âthe big pushâ⊠the one big idea we can cascade. Itâs what weâve built agency structures around, and what we (kind of) charge clients forâŠ
Itâs undoubtedly why our Big Idea industry has turned to the social model of thinking⊠weâre not daft, we can see the writing on the wall, and we realise that itâs where our future lies.
Weâve looked at the equation above, and realised that we are have to âsocialiseâ it to make it fit for the modern era
Hang on⊠youâre straying off topic, arenât you? The Social Media section is later..?
Hereâs the thing â I donât believe that our future as an industry is solely wedded to the âmediaâ side of this equationâŠ
I believe that there is much more value for both our clients and ourselves in looking at the production side of the equation, and thinking âhow do we socialise thisâ?
Getting right inside the inner workings of a company and using our knowledge of how the world works to make it better
So not mass production; social production.Making the production of goods and services participatory, reciprocal and shared, using the same technology thatâs powered the social phenomenon.
I believe it can be a blueprint for our future.
The area is HUGE⊠if you think just how many different systems and processes exist in our clients businesses, and how different they all are, we could be here for days. But hereâs just six examplesâŠ
Think about whatâs inside the box? The actual product itselfâŠ
âŠand of course I donât have to highlight the trend in crowdsourcing to this room; Walkers, Marmite, Simple⊠the list of companies beginning to co-create products with their customers keep growing.
But thereâs an interesting Australian beer called Nelson Beer which is taking it further⊠itâs not just a gimmick-y one off use of crowdsourcing, the whole line is continually evolved by the people who drink it. Each iteration has unique number, so you can help create and drink the beer you really want.
So say these people are drinking iteration 18. Then some say âitâs too hoppyâ, but others say âitâs not hoppy enoughâ. Fine, then weâll split it off again and you can all get the beer you really want.This can continue again and again, company & customer creating the exact iterations they want. And because of the way social communications works, itâs easy to keep bringing those people back into the production and consumption loop.
Secondly, move from whatâs inside to what it looks like outsideâŠ
You may be aware of moo.com â a digital printing company which is revolutionising the business & greetings card industry by offering people exactly the cards they want, with as many different pictures, on a very small level run (hundreds, not thousands)⊠and all really cheaply too.
If you project that technology into packaging⊠well, no longer need everyone get the same packaging as everyone else. Pick the puzzles and games on the back of the cereal pack you want your kids to play, or include your own recipes on the back of the rice packet.
âŠwhich works beautifully as more and more people get their shopping delivered to them. Youâve included cereal in your shopping this weekedn? Sure, weâll print up your box and ship it to you direct.
Of course, not everyone will get all their shopping delivered â weâll still go and get shopping
But imagine you step out of work and think âI really fancy cooking a curry tonightââŠ
You find the recipe on your phoneâŠ
âŠand send the recipe to your fridge at home â this is the Gorenje iPod-Controlled Fridge.The fridge knows whatâs in your kitchen, thanks to RFID tags, visual recognition, data from your nectar card and so on.So it tells you which five ingredients you need.
The fridge sends these details to your carâs satnav, which then talks to the various supermarkets in the area (who also know exactly what theyâve got in stock), and lets you know the cheapest option, or the fastest option according to local traffic.
Itâs sometimes called âthe internet of thingsâ, or as Matt Jones called it, âThingfrastructureâ.Using technology like this will allow us to make much more efficient, smarter shopping decisions.
So, you get to a certain shop⊠how do you find what you want, or what you should buy?
Finding things in IKEA is a nightmare. Weâve all been, we all know.
But what if they took all the data flowing through the checkouts, and said âOK, letâs see which items go togetherâ. Then displayed this data on screens instore. âThis cupboard is often seen with this bedâ, and so on. Then it tells you the directions to where to look at that bed.
Itâs turning the âsocial networkâ for people into a âsocial networkâ for furniture.Or, if you prefer, âWhen Harry Met Salenâ.
Youâve got the goods and services you want; now, how do you pay.
Billing, like mobile phone billing, is fundamentally boring. So why force people to look at a list of numbers with prices attached, when actually you could draw interesting social diagrams of their phoneâs use⊠who they call most, who they should catch up with, and so on. Make it something people want to open, and look forward to.
Or go further; take all the numbers that people call, and turn it into a game. Give every customer a âbingo cardâ on their bill every month, and then when they call certain numbers, those numbers are ticked off their bingo card.
As time progresses towards the end of the month, make suggestions about who they should call to complete their cardâŠâŠif they complete the card, they get entered into a prize draw, or get 5% off their next monthâs bill.Customers call more people, and are happy to do so.
Finally, people have taken the products home⊠what happens then? How do thy share them?Well, surely this is only an issue for those people who create âdigital contentâ which can be shared. Not for people who make real objects, like cameras for instanceâŠ
Well, just wait till 3D printing kicks off in a serious way. Essentially, 3D printers make solid objects, building them up from plastics, resin or the likeâŠ
Front Design, a Swedish design group, conducted an experiment where they âdrewâ furniture in the air, turned those into 3d CAD files, and printed the resulting furniture. But where does this technology lead us in terms of cameras..?
Well, if 3D printers can make objects, then the next thing they move onto is components.
And if you can make components, you can build more complex thingsThis is BigShot â a âbuild-your-ownâ digital camera project for kids. Roughly half the components here could be produced today through 3D printing I reckon⊠electronics, lenses etc are a bit trickier.
âŠalthough of course Xerox have designed a kind of silver ink that means you can just print out circuit boardsâŠ
Essentially itâs all pointing to a future where physical products can be printed and assembled at home. Which means that the deign files that tell the printer what to print will be the equivalent of the mp3 file that tells your iPod what to play⊠which means it will be sharable.
Now, thatâs just 6 thoughts. There are hundreds of things you could talk about, each driven by our very sociable nature.
But what does it mean for the Battle of Big thinkingâŠ
Very simply, the blueprint for the future is not about identifying one âbigâ ideaâŠ
Itâs about working with our clients to develop the forty or fifty great ideas through their businesses that will make the connect between them and their customers much more valuable all round.
Hang on? Why us? Why the marketing guys?
Weâve seen what âsocialâ does to an industry⊠we understand the driving forces of the human desire to be social. And we understand the amazing potential that is available to those who harness it.
Simply sticking to the âbig ideaâ format is not the way forward for us; sure, itâs what weâve always doneâŠ
Our future lies in creating an ecosystem where social production is married to social media to connect people with companies in a way that benefits everyone involved.
Itâs a world in which we can get excited about all the brilliant little ideas we have, and make them happen.
So please, vote for social production, and vote for a better future for us all.