Deborah Schultz

Slides: What is The Future of Business?

The Future Of Business by Altimeter Group

View more presentations from Charlene Li.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to join our call yesterday to learn about our approach to the Future of Business [yes, it's a bit grandiose but we aim high!].  Charlene, Jeremiah, Ray & I all have a strongly held passionate belief that the future of business involves a 360 degree integrated approach involving lots of shifts and changes. The real interesting stuff happens when we view new tools and technologies not in isolation but in the context of the behavioral, sociological, cultural,  organizational and financial impacts our new Networked Age presents us with. A 360 degree impact requires looking outside as well as in.  In the not too distant future we will have a completely different set of rules and definitions of what even constitutes "inside & outside" an organization.  

In the hour we allotted, half of it was devoted to Q&A. We barely scratched the surface.  Our objective was to give you a taste of our approach, get some feedback and open the doors for you to tell us how you would like to work with us.  We hope to keep the dialogue going on our blogs and via the twitter hashtag #futurebiz.  We encourage you to prod and challenge us - it takes an ecosystem to innovate.

Deb Update: Joining Altimeter Group!

This morning I begin a new chapter in my career - I have joined the Altimeter Group as a Partner running the Innovation Practice.  I am super excited to join forces with Charlene, Ray  and Jeremiah - three extremely accomplished individuals!   In the short time in which we have been working together I have already seen how our experience and knowledge provide a 360 view of the emerging technology landscape and how it impacts business and society.  

My work life began in the early 90's when the Internet/Web first made it's presence known both culturally and economically.  I was smitten from my first hyperlink!  The power shift had begun!  The idea that technology could bring together people and organizations in new and exciting ways to bring new ideas and innovations to the world was and still is thrilling. Over the years I have participated in many different corners of the Web - from designer to coder to marketer to business person.  Throughout it all I have maintained the thread of focusing on the User/Customer and what this technology means to the individual and by extension business.  As a result I have often been a translator for both sides of the table - geek and non geek alike.  Bringing disparate points of view to the table to innovate and create something better is what brought me to this industry in the first place.

The world we live in today is porous - meaning that old definitions of public and private, business and free are being shredded.  The open web and flow of data mean that we need to develop new understandings and new strategies for business and personal life.  Just take a look at Deloitte's recent Shift Index and you know things have to change!

My vision for the Innovation Practice at Altimeter is to bring together the entire ecosystem in new and exciting ways that benefit us all. I realized the power of this both with my recent work at P&G and at a passionate session on this topic I ran at this year's Social Web Foo Camp.  This means that geeks, and thought leaders, vc's and big business ALL benefit by sharing knowledge earlier in the game.   Time to break up some of those homophily and work closer together !

If you are interested in learning more I encourage you to take the time to sign up for our webinar - we want to hear from YOU!  Also please feel free to drop a comment here or on twitter or on my altimeter email address.

The future looks bright!

Join The Altimeter Open House Webinar On The Future of Business
If you want to learn more about the Altimeter Group, we’re hosting an Open House Webinar to discuss the Future of Business on Thursday, Sept 10th, at 10am Pacific Time. (GMT – 8:00)  Sign up, it’ll be interactive where everyone can participate.

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Related Links:

The press release

It's the People, Stupid -designing social experiences

Here is my half of a recent presentation that Brian Oberkirch and I gave at Web2Expo in SF, called "It''s the People Stupid- Designing Social Experiences.  The premise of the talk was that the participatory, social web requires a new design sensibility and new human skills & behavior that we are only beginning to understand. However, there are ways to look at this and a beginning framework from where everyone can start.  After all, we take our selves with us wherever we go - both online & offline.

It's the People Stupid

View more PDF documents from Deb Schultz.

P&G Digital Hack Night: Learning to be a good digital citizen

In the footsteps of Yahoo and Google Hackathons - P&G  gathered a group of social web companies, geeks, marketers, agencies and P&G folks to Cincinnati this week for one night.  The goal? To demonstrate and learn about the power of networks and the impact of the digital world as it relates to marketing.  The press, madison avenue, and some bloggers [see complete list below] have written and focused on the the tactics of the event - using twitter and other online tools to promote & market a cause.  In my mind there is also a larger point and challenge. 

How do you teach a large, process driven organization to be innovative, work organically and think socially?

The hurdles to "getting digital" are not a technical understanding of the tools - they are cultural and organizational.  There are basic principles at play on the social web that need to be understood before one can jump in.  

Some principles and dynamics to think about:

• Opening up & loss of control
• The collaborative & organic nature of the medium
• The power and dynamics of network effects
• The importance of constancy and participation vs big grand gestures
• The personal intimate nature of the medium
• The importance of trust and relationship
• The always on - 24/7 nature of the web

The only way one can understand  and learn these attributes is by DOING. For those of us who live and breath this space, unpacking this etiquette seems stilted - we take the basics for granted.  To learn how to be a good "digital citizen" you need to understand the rules of the road.  Heck - even those of us who have grown up in this space can't keep up and continue to reinvent the rules.

The evening was chaotic and energetic. There were plenty of learning's on "both sides".  In full disclosuse [as many of you are aware] I have been working with P&G for the last year and a half as a "social web sherpa" of sorts, so it was exciting to get a good chunk of the digital ecosystem in a room to hash out and demonstrate some of these issues in real time.  I was not consulted on how the experiment was set up.  I probably would have eliminated the competitive nature and spent a bit more time on strategy and set-up ahead of time, but overall it was interesting to see the dynamics at play.  

Here are some of my quick learning take a ways:

•  Many of the P&G folks' thought the first task was to figure out the messaging of the campaign, where as the external folks just dived right in in plain English.
• The social web folks jumped on their networks first without necessary realizing the impact and focused on a long tail one-to-one approach figuring that network effects would take over.
• The P&G folks understood the need to identify where to get the biggest bang for their buck.
• The speed nature of the exercise brought out some incredible creativity. I had a sense that this freedom was very liberating for the P&G folks once they got into it.  Some of my teammates quickly brainstormed a quick rap [yeah-it's dorky, but they did it without planning or thinking about it too much.  We even got the team at Pandora to write a catchy little ditty. [Thanks Tim. It arrived a bit late, but kudos to them for jumping in.   Compare that to the month long planning cycles most companies go through.
• The P&G folks were often very process oriented and the invitees where comfortable with more chaos - meeting somewhere in the middle brought out the best.  
• Even the "digerati" who understand the principles of the social web stepped over the line a bit in the exuberance of the moment - to me this is a cautionary tale about the future of "influencers" and everyone's personal  understanding of their relationships, networks and personal brand.  Just as in the real world you are judged by your actions - so too are you judged online. Remember - Google is now the long tail of reputation.  
• The need for a different set of skills and expertise - teams needed a human connector to bring it all together and a catalyst to kick it off.  I see this as a growing skill set in business as a result of the social web. Think Community Manager meets Senior Executive.

In the end this was not about cause marketing - it was about demonstrating and learning the importance of the new principles and culture of the social web.  It is easy to say the big guys don't get it and walk away.  You only learn by doing.  I have a big cynical side, but I I have more faith in the social web and people.  I think that bad behavior will ultimately NOT be rewarded and I would rather educate and teach those who don't get it the rules of the road upfront.  We want big companies to take risks and experiment - let's not slap em too hard when they put a toe in  the water.

Other event-related posts [thanks Peter]:

- David Armano:  Make A Difference. NOW.

- Shar VanBoskirk:  P&G Tests the Power of Social Media

- Kevin Dugan: Being Digital at P&G, Raising $100k for Disaster Relief
- Everything Typepad:  Get A Cool Shirt, Save The World

- Chas Edwards:  P&G Digital Hack Night: Selling Tide T-shirts for Disaster Relief

- Bob Gilbreath:  Helping Victims of Disasters—LIVE at P&G ‘Hack’ Night

- Dave Knox:  Support Charity with a Tide Loads of Hope Vintage T-Shirt

- Jason Falls:  A Tide Retro T-Shirt For A Good Cause

- Karl Long:  Tide selling vintage washed T-Shirts for charity

- Kelly Mooney:  Special Ask - Help Me Help Families in Need

- Jory Des Jardins:  Blog for your life! ... and help save Disaster Victims

- Brian Morrissey:  The feel-good social marketing bribe
- Peter Kim: Recap on P&G digital night

Note: make sure the check out the comment threads on brian and peter's blogs - good dialogue and healthy debate!

Snackbyte: Boxee: listening, learning, improving, growing

Thanks to Chris at Gigaom for highlighting Boxee not only cause they are a cool game changer - but also the way they are "Proactively Listening" and acting on user feedback to run their business.  In the hyper-connected world - your community and your ability to "weave" is essential.  [link to a bunch of my presos on this topic].  

This is an entire new skill set that flattens traditional silos and definitions and constraints   - call it the "connector" on steroids, community manager, weaver, or my new favorite [thanks to great brainstorming with heather and kevin] - tummlers

This week's links from around the net

Stuff I found interesting this week

tag cloud of obama's speech - red, white, blue on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Wordle is a great little visual tool - that I have oodles of fun with - Data visualization isa great learning and insight tool.

Emily plugged in the inauguration speech, kinda neat.

Or in black and white: www.flickr.com/photos/emilychang/3212466161/ From www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=19530138

Tags: obama, inaug09, wordle, magnolia

Tech Policy Challenges for the Obama Administration | Freedom to Tinker

Opportunity for tech and policy & government to come together

Tags: tummler, techpolicy, cybercitizens, magnolia

Technology is Great, but Are We Forgetting to Live? - ReadWriteWeb

Sarah Perez - smartly points out that - life is abalance between recording and --well - living!

Imagine you're at a concert where your favorite band is playing for the last time. Or you're watching President Obama get sworn into office. Or maybe you're just ...

Tags: socialweb, presence, intent, lifestreaming, magnolia

This week's links from around the net

Stuff I found interesting this week

Ada Lovelace Day

Celebrating women geeks!

Tags: magnolia, findingada, girlgeek, pledge

2009 Web Predictions - ReadWriteWeb

A good aggregation of the smart folks at readwriteweb's predictions for 2009.

It's time for our annual predictions post, in which the ReadWriteWeb authors look forward to what 2009 might bring in the world of Web technology and new media. ...

Tags: socialweb, predictions, magnolia

Please stand by...

   I know it has been awhile.

   I have not forgotten you.

   I could make up some lame excuse but truth is

   I have been researching and curating new inspiration

   I have been meeting and speaking and learning

   No excuses.   No resolutions.

  

I continue to be humbled by every person who  chooses to subscribe to this feed and support my work.

So, please stand by for a new design, new ideas and new long form posts coming soon.

In the meantime, my stream of consciousness is readily available over on twitter to prove that I am alive.

I will also continue to bring you posts from around the net that I feel are out of left field and/or are not in the mainstream and deserve to be shared more broadly! Please let me know what resonates with you and what you are curious to hear me rant more about..;)

[photocredit: Voidmstr]

This week's links from around the net

Stuff I found interesting this week

Is Advertising Worth Saving?

Touche my dear Karl - well said - the ENTIRE ecosystem needs and OVERHAUL!

Tags: socialweb, relationshipeconomy, advertising, magnolia

On Alice, Tik Tok, Marketing, CES, and Finding The Ground - John Battelle's Searchblog

A nice metaphor of how we are through the rabbit hole and hopefully will land on our fee t on the other side

Tags: magnolia, socialweb, cec09, economy

This week's links from around the net

Stuff I found interesting this week

The case for Service Design

We live increasingly in a service centric world - designing service like we design products - very logical! Customer centric design/User centric design - whatever we call it put the customer in the middle!

Tags: service, customer, innovation, magnolia