Sustainability for Different Stakeholders

Nota bene: I don't really know what happened to my comment (and my two trackbacks) at Tom Davenport's article yesterday - they just didn't appear and maybe fell prey to censorship. Too long? Did I say something wrong? Update: Comment is now there.

Today, however, another Harvard Business Publishing article caught my attention. Christopher Meyer thinks that "We need a definition of Sustainability". He writes

An activity is sustainable when all costs are internalized, because if the costs are too high, the activities stop.

and

The key principles are:

(1) Measure the system life-cycle costs in all dimensions we care about
(2) Internalize those costs rather than wave them away or throw them over some regulatory transom.

This is what I answered:
Christopher, these are indeed some interesting thoughts on sustainability. Connecting it with costs definitely makes sense for businesses and their leaders.

Your proposal to internalize all costs would however mean a lot of new legislation, wouldn't it? And the measurement, as Patrick already mentioned, for many of these externalities is mostly not really realistic.
Just one example: measuring the impact of all additives that shorten human life (and by how much they do so) - a statistical nightmare. And the results would mostly come to late - a lot of people would have lived shorter than they were supposed to.

I believe an approach, that uses different definitions for different stakeholders might work best.

Let's use the cost-based model to talk to business and politics and another definition for the other stakeholders who are not so much concerned with costs but still understand that if they considerably damage the planet, their kids will be worse off.

If and when the measurements and laws for those products for which it is viable are in place

and

if (that's another big if) a majority of consumers are aware of the impact that they have by choosing one product over the other, change might come far quicker and with less externalities (in form of collateral damage to people and environment and a blown up governmental sector) than by relying solely on internalizing costs.

Therefore for me, Sustainability: "The present generation meeting its needs without prejudicing the ability of future generations meeting theirs"

and

"An activity is sustainable when all costs are internalized" might work quite well.

My thinking was also triggered by working on a business directory that will soon be released in México: Las Paginas Verdes (The Green Pages), an initiative by New Ventures México, which will offer an overview of sustainable products and services.

Dominant management thinking and heaven sent complexity

Tom Davenport, over at his Harvard Business Publishing blog, talks about "Too many sources of management ideas":

He begins with describing the success of the Harvard Business Review in Poland:

"I was a little envious. HBR in the US is a fine publication, but there are too many sources of management advice for any particular channel to dominate the business dialogue. Maybe things have become too fragmented."

And then talks about the difficulties for business publishers and readers:

"If you want to get an idea out into the world today, you’ve got to publish an HBR article, write a few blog posts about it, get a few business magazines to write about it, be interviewed by Maria Bartiromo, do a YouTube video, and perhaps even Twitter about it. (...) These are the heavy burdens on business authors, but they also fall on business readers."

This is what I replied:

Dominant management thinking

Tom, I was wondering why you would write that you're envious that one publication dominates the dialogue.

This might make it easier to find a common thread to discuss when you're meeting someone (e.g. during a conference, on a plane, train, etc.) as in your scenario you can be quite sure that he's read this publication. It might also lead to a quite informed discussion. It will certainly not be the most refreshing, multifaceted and passionate one - which is what you get when not one style and one thinking model rule.

Difficulties or heaven sent complexity?

Although forming part of Generation Y, I can still understand both Tom and Gregory (the other commentator): choosing well is not an easy task.

The same tools business writers use to get the word out about a new publication and which may seem chaotic and dispersed are also the ones that help me make a good decision though. Throw in a bit of search as a basis.

Comparing the broadcasting model with the internet model, and staying with business publications as an example, I'm happy not having to rely on a bestseller list, to have this choice and count on the support of my friends, followers, readers and contacts.

They all help me to stay informed about the field I'm interested in: everyone's scanning his or her space, blogging or tweeting about it, social-bookmarking it, writing me an e-mail, etc.

It's up to me to find the people who scan the space I'm interested in and whose judgement I trust. They all have a profile or a tag cloud - so that's easy.

And when it finally comes to the decision of buying one book or the other I can quickly get personal feedback on the shortlist, in addition to the reviews and ratings that I can find on the relevant sites, and make an informed buying decision about a book that I never saw, that probably never was or will be, on any bestseller list or covered by major media.

I'm using this model and it works for me. However I'm also frequently going to book stores, where I rummage for interesting titles, read passages, sit down if the book grabs my attention and buy it if I like what I see.

This is where the broadcasting model might still work: giving me a hint that something exists, investing in POS advertising, etc.. As I'm only going to a book store when I've got time on my hands, time to have a thorough look, I don't believe this influences me a lot.

Your thoughts?

The mobile future is calling

Interesting statements from people in the know in a BBC News article recently:

"We are about 18 months from an incredible boom in mobile applications and mobile adoption."
Mike Butcher, TechCrunch, April 2008

"The mobile web is not just about accessing the web from your phone, mobile phones that are location aware, temporarily situated and socially connected will transform our experience of the web, the world and ourselves."

"The next web will be about place and time."

Marc Davis, Yahoo Social Media Expert.

The new stage will give developers access to GPS, contacts book, communications stacks, e-mail and SMS functions on the phone.

Attributed to David Rivas, VP for Nokia's Series 60 technology management devices group

... via cimota.com, BBC News.

Will we see an explosion of new phone manufacturers?

Hampus Jakobsson, co-founder of The Astonishing Tribe, a member company of the Open Handset Alliance and partly responsible for the development of the Android platform, recently made an interesting statement (via Mobile Entertainment and techradar).

He says that the new platform will shake up the mobile market and that "There will be an explosion of new phone manufacturers".

Why should he say something like that? Aren't we actually looking at an industry with very few players, a de facto oligopoly with a trend to even more market concentration (e.g. Nokia's growth which is faster than the market's)?

New phone makers might be able to enter when current market barriers fall. Below is an analysis of those barriers.

Decomposing Market Barriers
In my opinion, the most important current barriers to entry for new handset manufacturers are: reaching wide distribution (and therefore economies of scale) by contracts with and subsidies from carriers, companies being able to offer a similar or superior user experience at a comparable price and last but not least hardware component manufacturing skills. What will lead to the reduction in market barriers? There are important changes shaking up the mobile ecosystem, one of them might well be Android.

1. Component manufacturing
Hampus rightly notes that building a phone is quite simple. It has become more and more commoditised over the years. To be honest: it's still a great engineering challenge to build a really good phone that can compare to those of the main players in this area. However it's possible and it becomes easier every day.

2. Offering a similar user experience
Actually, it's not about offering a similar user experience. Most handsets currently offer a lousy experience. You wouldn't really want to be there as a new manufacturer. This development would clearly be supported by a new and powerful operating system, offering full access to the mobile web and to the phone's components (GPS, Camera) and integral software parts (calendar, address book). Developers will flock to the greatest opportunities though - which at the moment seems to be the iPhone 3G and Apple's App Store (though Android's own App Store might just be around the corner).

3. Branding and acceptance
People are used to the limited number of handset manufacturers and the limited choice of brands. There are however opportunities for new manufacturers to enter. A huge number of buyers will check prices and compare phones on the internet before deciding to buy one. If you produced a handset and get great reviews on the main sites, there might be a considerable uptake. The only problem that I see is that in comparison to the incumbents you might not have contracts with carriers - and therefore your phone will be very expensive when compared to susidized phones.

4. Wide distribution
In my opinion, this is the critical point. How to reach wide distribution? The answer is obvious: by knowing your customer, building a great phone (hard- & software) that caters to his needs and finally also getting the business part right (where to sell it, how to compete with subsidized phones or maybe even scoring contracts with carriers yourself, how to survive the first months, ...).

Wrap-up
The barriers to entry for smart companies are falling and there might well evolve a new set of phone manufacturers who cater to specific needs and customise their handsets to relatively small user groups. Why not make use of this rich ecosystem and opportunity and try it yourself?

Conversations on the Web: Tracking, Publishing and Connecting Comments

Recently I added "Conversations on the Web" to the sidebar.

It shows a list of articles and posts on the web where I left a comment, therefore giving you the opportunity to join in on conversations that might be of interest to you as well. I believe it supports the purpose of the blog, fostering communication on topics of interest (to me and you) quite well.

Technically, this was really easy: it's just a del.icio.us RSS feed for my all my bookmarks with a "comment" tag, imported into a Blogger "feed page element".



I'm still thinking about how to best keep track and publish conversations that continue on different blogs in order to connect the commentators. A good example is my post on Humans & LBS, where I added an update to the post with links to blogs where the conversation is going on.

What are your ideas here? RSS-Feeds for the comments in the sidebar? Weekly Wrap-ups? A completely different tool? I'd be interested to hear your opinions.

Geodesic Domes, A World Traveller and A New Background

If you're not reading the blog via RSS, you might have noticed that I chose a new background for my header section.

It depicts the Montreal Biosphère, a geodesic dome, an amazing structure that becomes stronger as it increases in size. This one was built by R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983): world traveller, architect, author, designer and futurist.
Some details from his life: In 1927, on the verge of suicide he decides to set off on a lifelong experiment instead and to find out what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity. Although strongly critized by many as a hopeless utopian, he contributed to different fields with his thinking about ephemeralization and sustainability and by supporting a systemic worldview.

Why did I choose it?
For one, I like the colors and the detail. By showing a globe consisting of a web-like structure I believe the photo also supports the tagline of my blog quite well.

Who took it?
The photo is courtesy of Djof, or Etienne Boucher, who published it under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 2.0 Licence. Thanks, Etienne!

Do humans really need location based services?

UPDATE: the conversation not only goes on on this blog (in the comments) but also on Small Surfaces and Pasta&Vinegar.

Bernhard from the customer experience labs posed an interesting question: do humans really need location based services? (read his post here)

He cites the New York Times where John Schwartz reports on two (due to privacy issues highly discussed) studies which suggest we're boring: we don't move too far from our habitual, highly frequented locations.

Bernhard then correctly points out that local search doesn't really make sense if you mostly move on beaten paths and that by rather focusing on the understanding of the user than on technical possibilities we might be able to build a "location-based killer app".



My reply to this was:

Interesting post indeed. And the title is intriguing as it suggests that there might be someone else (machines, m2m, the web of things) who will make use of LBS more than we will do (location-based APIs?).

I agree on your thoughts that not everyone is going to use "Search nearby" - at least not all the time and for the reasons you and the two studies rightly pointed out.

But then the majority of people, though infrequently, does move to other locations than their most frequented ones and in this case (think of a holiday or a short trip) they surely will be using search.

IMO it's not only about movement patterns, but what people need, can do and actually use (see previous post). Google did some interesting profiling of mobile users: Repetitive Now, Bored Now and Urgent Now (read more about this here and here). I believe there might be a category or two missing, more to that in another post though.

In your daily life you might know where things are and don't need to search for them - but I see many other little problems to be solved and needs to be fulfilled:

- know where your friends and contacts are (location aware social networking)
- get updates on news, events, concerts, get-togethers, etc. in your part of the city/your block (location-based news)
- share your thoughts on places (location tagging, geo bookmarking)
- discover new places
- ...

This is at least what I would be using LBS for. User base of 1 understood, 500 million to go.

Photo by GISUser.com