Marketing Influence & Thought Leadership

The Ecosystem of Influence

Social networks are radically changing the way we do business and are a new ecosystem of influence. They are virally creating communities within communities that are driving brand recognition and experience, product innovation and everything else associated with communications.  Social networks facilitate and automate vast interactions, connections and networks of people by enabling collaboration with colleagues, clients and suppliers anywhere and at any time. This new ecosystem almost completely eliminates the need for travel, and incorporates a rich suite of evolving Web 2.0 applications. Most importantly, however, within this new ecosystem there are individual influencer ecosystems with their own dynamics interrelationships, characteristics and influence models.

The Global Bazaar

The impact of these far-reaching social networks on business is becoming clearer every day as millions of consumers, partners, suppliers and businesses discuss and share their brand experience. Enter the new business to person (B2P) paradigm. Mohan Sawhney, author of The Global Brain reinforces this in his book, “social customers are driving innovation, they are empowered and collaborative, they are the drivers and initiators of innovation and are increasingly viewed as a strategic asset to companies. Today’s customer is looking for a personalized experience and relationship, demanding solutions rather than products,” in what he calls the global Bazaar.

As a former marine biologist I am often intrigued by how often ecological terms are used to describe business. The term symbiosis is often used to describe a business process, event or association that is viewed a synergistic or favorable. Symbiosis is not necessarily a good thing as parasitism and mutualism are also forms of symbiosis. So sometimes I have to laugh about the use ecological terms as metaphors or analogies in business because they don’t make sense. But let’s get back to the concept of an ecosystem of influence. First let’s define an ecosystem here is the scientific definition and my definition of a social media ecosystem.

Scientific Definition: An ecological system, a natural unit of living and nonliving components which interact to form a stable system in which a cyclic interchange of materials takes place between living and nonliving units, Dictionary of Biology, 1971.

Social Media Definition: A highly collaborative global area network of interconnected machines and people who communicate, collaborate and spread influence at the business velocity of the Internet.

 

Observation is King

When studying a biological ecosystem there are many parameters that have to be identified observed and quantified, the same goes for modeling an influencer ecosystem. The most important activity to conduct during and evaluation of an ecosystem is observation. This is paramount. Observing interactions and interrelationships within the ecosystem unveils its dynamics. But remember another important aspect of any modeling exercise is, understanding that there are always unpredictable and unmeasureable parameters and also influencers.

The Influencer’s Ecosystem

• Economic market conditions in which the influencer exists
• Geography global, regional and/or local reach of the influencer
• Competitors who don’t agree with the influencer
• Other Influencers who think the same and are part of his network
• Partners who support the influencer
• Customers who consume influencer content and trust it
• Vendors who work with the influencer
• Channels of influence, Facebook, twitter, blogs etc.

 

So let’s model the dynamics, interactions and interrelationships of Paul Greenberg a prominent influencer in the world of CRM and SCRM influence. Most notably Paul is the author of CRM at the Speed of Light and is one of the most prolific writers in the industry and it seems like he is competing with Ram Charan for world’s most traveled business influencer. What makes Paul successful is of course his knowledge and insights into everything CRM, but what separates him from the traditional one man boutique research and consulting house is the ecosystem that he has built around him.

Paul is also a visionary and this is something that I don’t see in the ranks of traditional market research companies anymore and his work on the concept of social CRM is way ahead of the pack. In fact his knowledge and use of social media as a channel of influence is a best practice in the industry for any influencer. One of the key advantages that Paul has in the market is business agility, he is not confined by any management team and/or antiquated culture that is holding back many of the traditional market research companies when it comes to social media. 

I have been working with Paul now for three years and here are some of my observations:

• He is a major influencer in everything CRM and is the father of our newest acronym SCRM and he participates in a highly competitive global industry where the market conditions vary with geography.
• He is global and is asked to speak at events globally and consults and advises companies on everything CRM and now SCRM.
• There are some influencers that think that customer experience management is more important than CRM.
• Paul has an ecosystem of influencers around him that he leverages including traditional market research companies; however, he differentiates himself by understanding the business value of technology and how to apply it to achieve business objectives.
• One of the most powerful aspects of Paul’s influence is the ecosystem of influencers around him including the conference and associations he participates in, and the CRM playaz. http://crmplayaz.com/
• Most CRM partners and vendors work with Paul in some capacity leveraging his insights and influence.
• Paul has a huge following on Twitter, he is always on Facebook and his ZDnet CRM blog is the most read in the world.
• The majority of the information that Paul provides insights on is accurate and trustworthy.

Net/Net

Last month I posted a blog entitled Everyone is a Journalist and Paul’s ecosystem picked it up and broadcasted it through their Twitter and Facebook channels, before I knew it I had over 3000 readers. This demonstrates the power of his ecosystem. People are joining and participating in social media peer group and communities globally and are forming ecosystems of influence of their own. Until next time I wish you great selling and marketing in the millennium.  

 

 

 

The Silicon Valley Way

Culture and innovation go hand in hand. Without a culture of tolerance and acceptance of other people, and diverse thinking there is no collaboration, no trust, no knowledge sharing and in the end no innovation. This is what differentiates Silicon Valley from many parts of the world, although India, China and other regions are now beginning to innovate in other ways such as business network transformation. The valley is a Mississippi river of diverse cultures and different ways of thinking along with the glass is always half full attitude. We don’t drink negativeaide in Silicon Valley, we are rewarded when we fail, it’s called experience here and innovation flows like water, it is everywhere.

There is something else special about the valley and that is the atmosphere of passion that comes with the innovation. There is an intense passion for ideas, accountability, products, business, people and leaders that can’t be found anywhere on earth. That is why Apple, Yahoo, Google, ebay, Cisco, HP, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and on and on and on, were founded in Silicon Valley. Small business leaders can learn a lot from this and should pay careful attention to the people they hire and the culture they build. Culture breeds innovation and enables small business to be more competitive and agile in competitive markets, look for those that think differently when building out your organization.

Top Ten Characteristics of Silicon Valley Thinkers

• Open
• Passionate
• Highly intelligent
• Multi-cultural
• Connected
• Visionary
• Strategic
• Rule breakers
• Innovative
• Focused

The Culture of Judgementalism

I grew up on the East coast in a culture that is the opposite of this, and after twenty years here in Silicon Valley and four startups later I see culture as the game changer.  Some parts of the East coast have an oppressive culture with caste system origins where negativeaide is sold on every corner, and a passion for judgementalism pervades along with an underling mistrust of anything or anyone different. I can remember being discriminated against just because my name ended in a vowel. And when I go back there now people still look me up and down when I enter restaurants as if I were a foreigner. Although the culture of judgementalism has lessened to some degree and there has been some innovation like Lotus for example, it is still ubiquitous, pervasive and stifling. What amuses me most is that many Easterners, (New York and the Washington DC area excluded) still think they know everything and are the center of the universe. At this year’s World Innovation Forum I had to laugh when I heard venture capitalist Brian Cohen talk about how much innovation had emerged from highway 128. He even went on to pontificate about what a genius the former CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation was. History tells us that Ken Olsen made one of the most strategic blunders of all time in the technology industry; he dismissed the concept of a personal computer. This was the kiss of death for DEC. Mr. Cohen needs a reality check on where innovation happens and for the most part it hasn’t been on highway 128 where I grew up.

John Hagel and the Pizza Guys

 

I had the pleasure to hear John speak recently at the Berkeley Innovation Forum and part of his discussion revolved around the culture of innovation in the valley. He spoke to us for quite some time without the use of power point, how refreshing indeed. John told an unsettling story about a recent discussion he had with the CEO of a large technology firm in the valley. When he asked the CEO where the innovation people were in the company, the CEO said, “oh you mean the Pizza Guys.” The unnamed CEO said “oh we can’t put them in front of senior management you don’t know what they are going to say, they are unpredictable and so we keep them locked up in a room and slide pizzas under the door.” This is not the leadership style that built Silicon Valley and you can probably guess which company he was talking about, the one with no innovation.

When I first came to the valley in 1973 it was all about semiconductors and you could trust leadership, and in some companies after five years of intense work you got a sabbatical, a paid year off to recharge your batteries. The valley has changed and some leaders are displaying a spectacle of greed that reeks of mistrust and unaccountability. This type of leadership will drive no innovation. John went on to talk about how innovation in large organizations doesn’t start at the core, but at the edge. He used the example of how Hasso Plattner, brought innovation to SAP by buying a company and in essence to get its leader, Shai Agassi a major innovator. Shai’s innovation began at the edge of SAP in the form of middleware called NetWeaver and the SDN, (Solutions Developer Network) a network of one million plus engineers focused on innovation of SAP business process solutions. The point is that innovation rarely comes from the core of business it usually emerges from the edge.  I would highly recommend John’s new book, The Power of Pull .

Centers of commerce have migrated over the centuries, the Venetians controlled the commerce of Europe through the Adriatic Sea, the Dutch mapped the world, the conquistadors of Herradura were the original .comers, and New York is still our financial center. The center of the world’s commerce has shifted west; the center of commerce is now on the best coast, the west coast. We are not fruit and nut land; we are on the Pacific Rim, at the bleeding edge of the world’s most innovative economic growth centered around India, China and southeast Asia. Until next time I wish you great selling and marketing in the millennium.

 We are now the best coast, not the left coast; we are not fruit and nut land we are the land of opportunity, we are not flaky we are fantastic, and the last time I looked we had more people than the country of Canada and an economy larger the Italy.