I’ve been reading articles and attending a few events this past week that suggest the global outlook is not as bad as we all initially thought although the eurozone is still not out of the woods. The latest global outlook view from McKinsey¹ which interviewed over 1800 executives worldwide in June 2010 suggests that about a third of companies are still hiring and a strong majority expect profits to increase whilst 10% less since April 2010, are expecting demand to increase. A staggering 79% of executives are expecting the euro to fall in value over the next 3 months, albeit by less than 10% against the dollar. Those in the eurozone are more gloomy, with a third predicting a double-dip recession in their countries and more than a third expecting their workforce to shrink in 2010. This is in stark contrast to Asia Pacific, China and Asia where executives are much more bullish about recruitment.

We have a two tier growth pattern which will accelerate the future dominance of the Far East and Asian markets given the messages coming from Sir Digby Jones at the recent ITT travel conference and from the Entrepreneurcountry² event “In a world with no money” last week. We had better be ready for the shift we are going to see as demand accelerates for Mandarin and for specialists who understand how international trade is done in Far East and Asian markets. I was intrigued to hear the story about Daisy Raffan the 19 year old entrepreneur who learnt Mandarin from the age of 5, set up http://www.kidschineseclub.com aged 17 and now has an amazing global following before she has even finished her studies in Dubai. People can relate to her ambition to build a bridge between East and West, connecting children across the world to exchange language and culture.

It’s clear from Daisy’s story and others that if we identify with the compelling reasons why people set up their businesses it draws us in to engage with them. As I listened to some of the stories of the successful entrepreneurs last week, it was clear that it was their passion and the “meaning” to quote Alex Cheatle from the Ten Group that kept them going through all the hard times and not the money.

Judging by this week’s cover of The Economist it’s clear there are tough times ahead and the UK cuts are going to hurt but if we focus on the “meaning” and not just the “money” then maybe some of that meaning and passion will keep us going. Let’s hope our Chancellor George Osbourne spares some thought for SMEs, who are the engine of the UK economy, and does not leave us out in the cold.


¹ McKinsey Quarterly
² Entrepeneur Country

I was always intrigued by how active my Italian friends are on Facebook and now I understand from the Nielsen blog  that Italians are some of the heaviest users of social networking sites, alongside the US, averaging six and a half hours. Apparently we’re spending 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, whereas Japan trails in last places spending on average just over half and hour, proving that when thinking global we still have to “act local” when implementing any strategy.

For those companies trying to figure out how to develop their social media strategy it’s important that you’ve first thrashed out your brand values and who your target customers are before creating any social networks. As Fresh Networks have identified in their recent blog  there are some surprising results as to which UK companies are attracting the most social network followers. Who would have thought that the Tate would have the highest number of Twitter followers but when you think about the number of memorable offline and online events they have created, is the task any different to creating a strong affinity to your brand? However the value is not in the number of followers but in the quality of the interaction.

I listened to the branding and design expert Nick Talbot from Seymourpowell at the Institute of Travel and Tourism conference last week speaking about commitment, enjoyment, belonging, pride, desire, excitement, compassion and authenticity which are all states that many brands aim to engender with their target customers. Social media is just one channel in which to achieve this together with all the other complementary channels such as direct mail, your marketing campaigns, press promotions, competitions, events, games and other mechanics that help to deliver the right brand experience.

The key difference with social media is the transparency of that customer experience and it’s whether you are happy for your dirty linen to be washed in public when things don’t quite go to plan and you make a service recovery in full view of the world. It’s about training up your people to respond in a way consistent with the brand values and that’s a tough call when you don’t know what situation will be thrown at you e.g. volcanic ash or an oil spill. Luckily a board member was sitting on the Virgin Atlantic flight recently and was able to recover a situation which was about to go pear shaped with their inaugural flight from Ghana. However how many times do board members moderate conversations in social networks? BP executives could start to use social networks to run some open forums to invite constructive conversations on solutions to the oil spill issues as they unfold in the Gulf of Mexico. I visited www.twitter.com/BP and found a Bryan Pendleton “grad student, tinkerer, hacker, husband and father” with a few Twitter sympathisers who reckon it sucks to be Bryan Pendleton. Maybe global brands don’t care about social media yet

1. >http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/social-media-accounts-for-22-percent-of-time-online/
2. http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2010/06/tate-museum-uk-top-brand-twitter/.

Having just celebrated another decade this weekend with a large party I was reflecting on the things that have changed our everyday lives the most over the last decade and what changes the next decade will bring. As I remember all the photos and videos that were taken at the party that will be replayed via Facebook and other social networks I believe that these networks have been the most pervasive internet phenomenon that have fundamentally changed how we share information and how we travel.

We can now keep in touch via our “Facebook walls” and skype, google and tweet each other - verbs that did not mean much a decade ago. We can now check in before we travel and carry hundreds of books with us on our ereader or kindle which are changing even the weight of our luggage. We can now do so many things on the move and multitask on our web enabled phones 24/7. So what will the next 10 years bring?

As the number of Facebook users rumbles on towards 600 million, I’m now even hearing predictions from those like Thomas Power at Ecademy that we will soon be banking with the likes of Facebook. Ecademy was one of the first online business communities to start up at the start of the decade and I remember organising for their Amazon speaker to share their future vision of online retailing which has now largely taken shape. You might think Facebook as a bank is a bit far fetched but if you believe in the value of trusted networks then you can see how it might come about. We all know that for many high value purchases we rely on advice and recommendations from our friends and we are now seeing a raft of sites such as Trip Advisor and mobile applications such as Foursquare which enable us to do this 24/7 on our phones, I can see the beginnings of the location based applications which will change how we buy things not only on the web but instore as the web and the real world come together and as wifi becomes more pervasive and reliable.

We will see the proliferation of interactive applications as we travel which will invite us to engage with brands in new ways that reward us as customers for our engagement with them. We will also see the proliferation of social networks for business as networks like Linked In start to gain momentum. Witness the number of businesses large and small now using Twitter to give their customers updates on the latest new product launches, virtual discount vouchers for coming back to their shop and for sharing feedback on their shopping experience. Applications will encourage customers to become their virtual product development department as they test their latest applications and product and new service launches. We will be able to pass a button on our phones to send feedback on our shopping experiences. We will also be using our mobile devices to connect with our data 24/7 on the move as “cloud computing” grows exponentially.

We can already see airlines such as Jet Blue using Twitter as a rapid response customer service unit. We will also see brands reaching into online networks and related communities as publishers of these networks look to monetise their high value content. Transparency is likely to differentiate all this activity from the last decade. Rather than situations and issues sorted behind closed doors which we read about later in the press we will be able to witness the events as they unfold. We will even take part in them, as the media starts to engage the public to get involved in the creation of news. So how will we deal with this? We will need some very empowered staff, short chains of command and a good social media policy to deal with this transparency challenge. As I celebrate my next decade I will probably be reflecting on how I ever ran a business without the global social networks that we have seen multiply over the last one as they become the pervasive force for not only sharing experiences with friends but for doing business in the next decade.

Opening the Jerusalem Post this morning at our hotel in Jaffa I was faced with photos of Israeli soldiers being thrown overboard and pictures of weapons having been collected from the activists on board the shop. There was also a lament about the delay in getting an official media response from the Israeli Defence Force to that world opinion had already turned firmly against the Israelis before their response was ready.

I then checked the BBC news whilst cooling off at a local Tel Aviv café and find that Israel is again in the global spotlight with rumours of more threatened intafada for the Israeli killing of the activists on board the aid ship on route for Gaza. Two different versions of events for the global traveller to then work out what really happened and who’s to blame. In a world of instantaneous communications, when a tweet can be published in a few seconds it is clear that governments like that in Israel have been caught out and cannot respond fast enough. In a country that has pretty decent wifi in many areas and some of the tightest airport security on the planet, I’m surprised that it has not figured out how to respond in good time in such times of crisis. The UN also deliberated all night over its statement published today about the incident.

It’s clear that those on 24 hour duty to deal with the communications strategy are not yet empowered to enable speedy messages from any of these institutions.

Social networks and the internet are changing the way we respond to the media and there has been something of a role reversal where the media such as the BBC are the ones hungry for the latest news on the Israeli situation, promising anonymity for anyone able to contribute a personal story. Meanwhile the Jerusalem Post is complaining about hackers having tried to crash their servers today with over 4,000 emails in a few seconds. Anyone can now shape the news we receive and this brings its own set of risks and concerns as false rumours spread today that one of the Arab Israeli leaders had been killed on board one of the aid ships on route to Gaza.

The examples above show how any organisation large or small needs to be ready to deal with the media challenge which can spread good or bad news in seconds and could destroy their reputation in a tweet. Witness the impact that every latest discovery about the oil spill threatens the BP oil spill which fell another 15% today. Transparency and speed of response are essential to any successful communications policy.

This is a question I've been wrestling with for a while. I've been discovering with the help of a good friend that there is a huge growing industry in the US of companies putting together "how to guides" for everything from making money to finding the right relationships with just a PC and internet connection and making millions.

There are plenty of people that don't understand this social media phenomenon and I reckon there is probably more money to be made in educating people about it than actually doing it. As the growth in ebooks rises steadily this is the start of a whole new industry.

My challenge this week has been to approve all the branding and finish the web mock ups for the new marketing business. I'm learning about focusing on the pain points as I wrestle with my marketing copy and remember that it's not about how many years experience you have but the customer issue you can solve and the benefits you can offer to them.

What I've discovered is that social media is about earning your customer endorsement hence the new term "earned media" arising from the recent research that Nielsen have been doing with over 500,000 Facebook users. What they discovered was that ads endorsed by Facebook fans improved awareness by up to 16per cent and also improved purchase intention. These are metrics that marketers are keen to get their hands on to prove that diverting spend into this medium has an upside.

My view is that there is much more to measure and it's still one brave new world. Many FMCG players have opted not to dip their toe in the water and are being wooed by their marketing agencies to stay with TV & radio but if more research proves the brand building benefits of social media I can see a future big shift in spend.