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Hi Social Media ReInvention Community Members,
We've migrated Social Media ReInvention's website to a new WordPress site!
I made this move to improve my services to my readers. Please continue following, reading, and subscribing to my blog at our new location.
Many thanks,
Tony Faustino
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Yesterday was not Dick Costolo (Twitter CEO) and Twitter’s Investor Relations Team's best day.
The Wall Street Journal’s Yoree Koh published this article, Twitter Shares Tumble After Nasdaq Leaks Results Early, after Twitter’s 2015 Q1 Earnings Conference Call. Her story describes important challenges confronting the company:
Real-Time Havoc Breaks Loose Around 3:07 PM Eastern Time. Addressing these difficult issues was the least of Twitter’s problems. Selerity, a self-described real-time analytics and media company, stole the show by live tweeting Twitter’s 2015 Q1 unreleased financials BEFORE the Twitter’s earnings call.
Koh writes that Selerity’s web crawling software discovered an early and publicly available version of Twitter’s earnings release. Selerity started posting the following tweets about Twitter’s financials around 3:07 PM Eastern Time:
Here’s the Problem. Twitter’s 2015 Q1 Earning’s Conference Call wasn’t scheduled to take place until 5 PM Eastern Time. This real-time news event forced Twitter’s Investor Relations Team to ask The New York Stock Exchange to halt trades of Twitter’s stock:
A Small New Jersey, Real-Time Analytics Firm Earns Massive and Previously Unaffordable News Coverage. Selerity pounced on this real-time event and scored a public relations bonanza for its brand. As of 10:50 AM Eastern Time, my quick Google News Search on the phrase “Selerity” yielded 18,000+ results:
$4 Billion Evaporates in Forty Minutes. Rob Daumeyer (Editor of The Cincinnati Business Courier) writes that the 18% drop in stock price cost Twitter $4 billion in market value. The math works out to:
Important Note: The annotations to this chart are mine.
Ouch. But, Give Twitter’s Investor’s Relations Team Credit for Handling and Managing this Real-Time News Crisis. They understand the implications of managing events and shaping the story (in both good and bad times). Their swift actions with The New York Stock Exchange on a contingency plan minimized further damage to their plummeting stock price.
This event and Twitter’s actions will become a landmark case study in handling, learning, and recovering from a real-time public relations and investor relations crisis.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can subscribe to my blog via email (and can unsubscribe any time you like). I hope you’ll also share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit: Cubosh
These posts in the blogosphere and LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform showcase employment trends describing why a personal blog or website is a vital 2015 professional development goal:
Facebook changed its policy for business and fan pages to a pay-for-play model. Small business owners who built their livelihoods around that platform are struggling to adapt. Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Program continues eating away the monthly incomes of entrepreneurial authors / writers.
Adam Singer published this warning five+ years ago in his classic post, 19 Reasons You Should Blog And Not Just Tweet. Here are key snippets of Adam’s foresight from 2009:
3. Remember, you’re essentially contributing to someone else’s network on Twitter – certainly there are returns, but make no mistake they profit from your attention. I know you might not have a problem with that because you gain something too, but it’s good to be conscious of that fact.6. You own your work in a self-hosted blog and are in total control over how it is presented.
I know it’s not as “sexy” anymore (in reference to blogging) but it is still far more valuable and should not be discounted merely because the early adopters have shiny new object syndrome.
Long form content and blogging is coming back. Potential employers cite critical thinking and writing as key skills. Let's take advantage of our personal blogs / websites to show our thinking, analysis, and stories.
Transforming a complex or technical insight into a simple story is rare and sought after:
Hugh Macleod's home-spun wisdom from page 38 of his remarkable book, Freedom Is Blogging in Your Underwear speaks volumes:
My grandfather was a Scottish Highlands “crofter” — i.e., a small-time, mostly self-sufficient tenant farmer with his own little patch of land, who raised sheep and grew potatoes, turnips, and other stuff. And as I wrote in my second book, Evil Plans: hey, guess what — we’re all crofters now. Even people with secure day jobs in big corporations.Thanks to the Internet, we all have a little electronic “croft” — an electronic smallholding — to call our own what is commonly referred to as our own digital identity, which we can cultivate, like a small farm, however we see fit.
The good news is that, unlike my grandfather, we don’t have to spend our whole lives growing potatoes and shearing sheep for a mere pittance. We can sell things people find valuable — art and cartoons in my case, maybe consulting gigs or whatever in your case….
The Internet makes all this possible.
Go.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. If you disagree, I would love to hear from you. I want to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Share my work with your friends. Ideas that spread win. You can subscribe to my blog via email (and can unsubscribe any time you like).
Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit: Anton Diaz
Happy 2015! Hard to believe a new year's already here?
I found many interesting and thought-provoking articles to share this week. Thank you for supporting the Social Media ReInvention Community. Enjoy your brunch!
1. Fast Company: 14 Tips to Make 2015 Your Most Productive Year Yet. How are you doing with your New Year’s Resolutions? I’ve already slipped up. Maybe, there’s a better way: Focus on Themes Not Goals. Let's focus our efforts on one thing at a time so these changes become productive, lifelong habits.
That’s a goal worth shooting for (yes, rah-rah puns intended)!
2. Seth’s Blog: The Meritocracy Trap. Seth Godin calls out the David Sacks quote discussed in Joe Nocera’s New York Times Op-Ed piece on personal success and meritocracy — "Silicon Valley’s Mirror Effect.” Seth’s post describes the perils in achieving ultra-phenomenal success: it can lead to self-serving cultures, attitudes, and mindsets.
Seth’s and Joe’s articles make me think what I can do as a proud dad and father to two young daughters. I want the best for them. I want them to have the same opportunities (and more) my parents created for me and my sister.
That’s how this next article comes into play ...
3. WSJ Online - Digits Blog: The Year Silicon Valley Spilled Its Diversity Data. This interactive, diversity data website simply and visually explains the hiring data story behind Silicon Valley’s gender and diversity gap in The Valley’s most prestigious and successful companies:
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. If you disagree, I would love to hear from you. I’m also here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can subscribe to my blog via email (and can unsubscribe any time you like). I hope you’ll also share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit: Abee5
I love reading books. They’re my secret weapon for accessing critical thinking. Here’s a short listing of my favorite books / authors who inspired me and exhausted my Kindle in 2014 (by the author’s last name in alphabetical order). Note: Some of these titles are pre-2014.
Mitch Joel described Seth Godin's 18th book as the most beautiful illustration of Seth’s teachings. You can’t buy Seth’s latest book on Amazon (or any mainstream book retailer). You can only buy it at http://www.yourturn.link/. Beautiful, glossy images explode with color on every page. If I were a Hollywood producer, I’d pitch it as Linchpin and The Icarus Deception collide in a 20-car pile up at Mercedes Benz New York Fashion Week.
Seth calls out our schadenreude, spectator sport culture, and it’s power in curbing intelligent risk taking (except in Silicon Valley). When It's Your Turn is an in-your-face, call-to-arms, entrepreneurship manifesto. The battle cry rallies around showing up everyday, to create and ship our art. Now’s the time to revel in that uncomfortable place of “this may or may not work."
I'm moving into a new career as an entrepreneur in an early stage startup, That’s a scary leap after corporate life. But, those simultaneous feelings and fear are the right place to be:
I’m late in reading this classic marketing book. I hope to meet Seth, shake his hand, and talk marketing strategy. That requires fluency in Ideavirus terminology (i.e., sneezers - both promiscuous and powerful, the hive, persistence — not the one related to effort, vector, vacuum, amplifier, smoothness, etc.).
Ideavirus parallels Malcolm Gladwell’s idea diffusion theories from The Tipping Point and Geoffrey Moore’s insights from Crossing the Chasm. Like the Beatles music catalog, Ideavirus remains simple, timeless, and relevant.
I’m a die-hard fan and friend to Ann Handley. Last year, I published a public fan letter expressing my appreciation and respect for her work and generosity. Two weeks later, Ann sent me a signed copy of Content Rules and other great marketing books. Her attitude to give versus receive says it all.
Writing Matters. Writing with Purpose Matters More. Ann is an important inspiration for my blog post about six (6) C-Suite traits among awesome female executives who stand out. The media’s endless joy in reporting our children lag their global counterparts in the STEM 100 meter dash ignores an important fact: writing and storytelling skills propel financing for ideas and inventions.
Technical prowess and technical insight aren't enough. Creative storytelling and written communication carry equal weight (direct quote from Everybody Writes, page eight):
What’s harder is to find a book that functions for marketers as part writing and story guide, part instructional manual on the ground rules of ethical publishing, and part straight talk on some muscle-building writing processes and habits.
What’s also hard to find is a book that distills some helpful ideas about the craft of content simply and (I hope) memorably, framed for the marketer and businessperson, as opposed to say, the novelist or essayist or journalist.
I wrote this book because I couldn’t find what I wanted—part writing guide, part handbook on the rules of good sportsmanship in content marketing, and all-around reliable desk companion for anyone creating or directing content on behalf of brands.
Everybody Writes teaches disciplined practice to elevate and sustain our writing skills. Ann’s book reads like cozy conversation with her while enjoying a great cup of coffee or a couple of frosty Sam Adams beers (keep in mind, she’s a Bostonian).
Ann poured her heart and soul into this work (or as she says “gave birth to a Volkswagen”). I guarantee you’ll benefit from her knowledge, talent, and heart.
Bonus 1: Mitch Joel’s Episode #426 Six Pixel of Separation Podcast: Everybody Writes With Ann Handley.
Bonus 2: Speakers Spotlight YouTube Video — Ann Handley - Chief Content Officer | Bestselling Author.
If I could time travel to 2009, I would grab two books and my MacBook Pro before jumping into a hot tub time machine:
1. Tribes by Seth Godin
2. Platform by Michael Hyatt
If Tribes is the strategic and conceptual framework for digital leadership, Platform is the tactical roadmap for its successful execution. Creating and managing a personal brand is imperative in a crowded marketplace and recovering economy. Michael’s book unpacks the why's and how’s of building a digital platform — i.e., the collective fans who subscribe to and follow your blog, email newsletter, podcast, Twitter feed, etc.
He explains step-by-step how he built his influential online presence and to power his career as a publisher, educator, and public speaker.
Read this Wall Street Journal article by Taylor Swift (yes, that Taylor Swift). Her anecdote about an actress friend losing a movie role to another actor with a higher Twitter following extends beyond the entertainment industry. It's the heart of Michael’s book: the reach and influence of our digital platforms (or lack thereof) either rockets (or torpedoes) opportunity.
Art takes many forms (e.g., words, pictures, spreadsheets, presentations, sculptures, music, photographs, process diagrams, or anything we create with pride). These remarkable books capture Austin Kleon's philosophies and experiences on creating and promoting art. These fun, short reads answer two common questions among artists, writers, entrepreneurs, or marketers:
David Meerman Scott influences my thoughts and writing about reinventing marketing strategy every day. I fell in love with digital marketing and inbound marketing strategy after reading The New Rules of Marketing and PR five years ago. I own all of his marketing strategy books, and envy his ability to write with a rebel's heart.
When David sent me an advance copy of his latest book, I was honored and thrilled. He's leading the pack in describing how diverse organizations (from the Fortune 500, SMBs, and individual practitioners) use social selling to engage customers throughout the buying process. He published social selling success stories long before LinkedIn Sales Solutions made “social selling” in vogue.
His latest work may finally make organizations pay attention to their most valuable customers---their existing ones. Loyalty, fandom, and connection matter are game changers when fickle consumers can leave with a glance and a tap of their smartphones.
What has changed in the world of selling from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.
LinkedIn's Economic Graph Challenge generated tremendous hype. If Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn’s CEO), can morph How to Be a Power Connector’s core principles into simple, seamless, and intuitive features, he will create the world’s most valuable social network.
Inc. Magazine selected How to Be a Power Connector as the Number 1 Business Book of 2014. I’m twenty percent through it, and I’m convinced Judy's book and Seth Godin’s What to Do When It’s Your Turn (and It’s Always Your Turn) will prove indispensable in my new career as an entrepreneur.
I usually don’t publish reviews until I’ve finished reading the book. I made an exception with How to Be a Power Connector. Judy’s 25 years of wisdom and experiences are that important. I’ve arrived at the sobering realization my networking skills are deficient. I’ve done some things well. But, I lack consistency in adding value to my business network as well as strategically assessing, prioritizing, and systematizing it.
Thank goodness that's exactly what Judy teaches! Her book will change my life. Invest in yourself by buying and studying How to Be a Power Connector. It will change your life too.
Judy Robinett Speaker Reel from Creative Realm Entertainment on Vimeo.
Change the World. Every time I hear that overused cliche from another self-appointed, Silicon Valley genius, I wanna hurl (or please insert your own Wayne’s World reference).
Study Peter Thiel’s work (and his former Stanford Computer Science 183 Startup student, Blake Masters' notes) to learn and think like the real deal. The resounding themes throughout Thiel’s book: (1) think like a contrarian; (2) question and take action against conventional wisdom:
That courage to ask and act upon, "why does it have to be this way,” drove not only Thiel's entrepreneurial successes, but also the successful ventures of Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Max Levchin, and other PayPal Mafia members.
As a parent, I’m making it my life’s mission to inspire the same thinking and action in my daughters.
Traction delivers a clear, how-to method supported by real-world, actionable insights. Gabriel's and Justin's interviews and case studies describe the successful execution of Traction’s Bulls Eye Methodology. Bulls Eye focuses on the second most important aspect of an early stage startup’s life cycle:
I’ve ultra-summarized the book’s thesis. Read the first three chapters of Traction for free by joining the Traction Book mailing list. If you’re a team member of an early stage startup (like myself), invest in your company’s development by studying Gabriel and Justin’s book.
Please share in the comments the digital marketing and entrepreneurship business books you read in 2014. What did you love about them? How did they inspire you?
I’m here to learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. Let’er rip!
You can subscribe to my blog via email (and can unsubscribe any time you like). I hope you’ll also share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit: Gerard Stolk (vers Noël)
Thank YOU. Publishing and writing for Social Media ReInvention Community Members brings me immense joy and fulfillment. I can’t thank you enough for your amazing support and generosity to read and share my content. Thank you of sticking with me for five and half years! Time's flown by.
If you missed some of these, you can check them out here:
1. Lesson 2 of 6: Reinventing You After Age 50 Case Study -- Michael Ovitz and Shifting Your Behavior
2. Mark Zuckerberg's 5 Point Plan for Facebook's Future Growth and Mobile Domination
4. 3 Career Management Lessons for a Social Media Age I Learned From My Dad
5. Lesson 3A of 6: Reinventing You After Age 50 Case Study -- Michael Ovitz and Developing Validators
6. Book Review: The New Rules of Sales and Service by David Meerman Scott
7. #FAIL: #AppleLive Debacle Exposes Apple's Real-Time Marketing Weaknesses
8. 4 More Gifts to Support Others That Power Your After Age 50 Reinvention
9. 3 Tips on Writing and Storytelling from Twitter's Investor Relations Team
10. Tim Cook's Killer Innovation Hack: Diversity in Thought in Apple's Ecosystem (with a Capital D)
That’s Kind of a Big Deal. I’m grateful because I reached that achievement through your support:
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit: Andy Ihnatko
I'm an Apple Stockholder and Apple Tribal Member with Tremendous Confidence in Our Leader, Tim Cook. He's the right person to rocket Apple’s fanatic loyalty beyond its fanatical consumer base. Ginni Rometty, IBM’s CEO, describes Cook as the “hallmark of a modern-day CEO. It’s all about clarity of vision and knowing what to do and what not to do.”
Yet, critics shout: "Tim Cook is NOT Steve Jobs!” I disagree. Cook is a lot like Jobs.
Apple’s 21st Century Innovation Model is SICC: Simplicity + Inclusion + ControI + Collaboration
SICC Rhymes with SICK (and means the cool kind, not the feeling ill kind). Charlie Rose published his Tim Cook conversations after Apple's September 2014 introductions for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6+, Apple Pay, and Apple Watch. Their conversations reveal Cook’s strategic vision for Apple and The Apple Ecosystem. His ecosystem-driven strategy explains the rationale for two (2) major 2014 corporate decisions:
Cook explains these major decisions within the context of these central themes:
Staying Focused Anchors Apple. Cook elaborated (paraphrasing):
“Unlike other companies, Apple’s objective is not to make larger product portfolios."
“All of Apple’s major products could fit on this small table.” (in reference to Charlie Rose’s iconic interview set)
“It’s hard to edit. It’s hard to stay focused. The hard part is deciding what NOT to work on."
Diversity in Thought Fuels Apple Innovation and Design (17:13 - 20:23). Cook's leadership mission is ensuring Apple senior executives and team members collaborate at an incredible level. That mission begins with recognizing individuals who are historically strong Apple contributors. During this point in the conversation, Cook enthusiasically mentioned five to six senior executives (by first name) making considerable impacts during their Apple tenure — like Angela Ahrendts).
Brad Stone’s September 2014 BloombergBusinessweek article highlights Cook’s moves to include new perspectives at Apple. From January 2014 to September 2014, Apple hired approximately 20 senior executives from multiple industries (direct quotes below):
“(Cook) is very focused on finding a very wide range of people. It’s not automatically the way you think about diversity. It’s about bringing in experience, skill set, and perspective." — Susan Wagner, founding partner and director of asset-management firm BlackRock.
“(Cook) is comfortable enough to say ‘we need help here,’ and then he goes out and gets it.” — Jimmy Iovine, Co-Founder of Beats Electronics.
It’s the Ecosystem Stupid! (h/t James Carville)
Betting the Farm on The Apple Ecosystem. Cook’s strategic bet makes collaboration an Apple strategic imperative. Apple senior executives are functional experts who collectively work as a team. Horizontal product development enables integration of hardware, software, and services to produce a killer product. Cook explains (20:08 - 20:23; paraphrasing):
"Respecting, trusting, and complementing one another (in thought and skills) is what makes this all work."
Collaboration may be a virtue, but Cook insists it’s more of a strategic imperative. Aligning thousands of employees is crucial now that “the lines between hardware, software, and services are blurred or are disappearing,” he says (Cook). “The only way you can pull this off is when everyone is working together well. And not just working together well but almost blending together so that you can’t tell where people are working anymore, because they are so focused on a great experience that they are not taking functional views of things.”
The result is only now becoming apparent with services that work across different Apple devices. Embedded in the iPhone 6 and the new iOS 8 and Mac OS X Yosemite operating system is a feature called Continuity, which lets users start an e-mail or some other task on their Mac, pick it up on their iPhone, and then move it to their iPad or even the Apple Watch.
(Cook continues) "We would never have gotten there in the old model. These new products are reminders of why we exist.
The things we should be doing at Apple are things that others can’t.”
Google Is Apple’s Top Competitor (32:30 - 36:00). Cook’s answer to Rose’s “Who’s Your Competition?” question speaks volumes. He recognized Google twice during their conversation as Apple's most formidable competitor.
He dismissed everyone else including Samsung and Amazon. Microsoft never entered the conversation.
Larry Page makes it no secret he's pursuing an Android ecosystem-driven strategy. Google acquired Motorola Mobility in 2011 to gain control of the patents bolstering and protecting Android (and subsequent Google products and services). From Google’s Investor Relations Site, Page describes his strategic vision and rationale for selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo):
“Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem. This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere.”
Google Targets The Consumer Ecosystem. Just ask Tony Fadell, CEO and Founder of Nest. Just ask Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs’s biographer. In January 2014, Isaacson declared Google passed Apple in innovation supremacy with the Nest acquisition (refer to CNBC video below).
Matthew J. Belvedere’s CNBC article concluded Apple and Tim Cook fell behind:
While acknowledging the China Mobile partnership is a "big deal" for Apple, he said (i.e., Isaacson) Google-Nest exemplifies the "amazingly strong integrated strategy that Google has to connect all of our devices, all of our lives, from our car, to our navigation system, to how our garage doors are going to open."Isaacson also pointed out that Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell will be joining Google as part of this deal. "Fadell was one of the team that created the iPod. He was very deep into the Apple culture ... when Apple was so innovative." To play catch-up, Cook has to think about what industry he wants to disrupt next, Isaacson said. "I think Steve Jobs would have wanted as the next disruptive thing to either have wearable-like watches or TV, an easy TV that you can walk into the room and say put on 'Squawk Box' … or disrupt the digital camera industry or disrupt textbooks."
"We ought to see in 2014, Apple do something huge," Isaacson said.
Google-Android Commands Global Market Share, but Apple-iOS Captures Highest Profitability. Android is the defacto global, smartphone operating system. Conner Forrest’s Tech Republic article proves Android market share dwarfs Apple-iOS by a factor of four (4). His research strengthens Isaacson’s argument how Google is positioning itself as a consumer ecosystem powerhouse:
Photo Credit: Conner Forrest, Tech Republic
But, Does Market Share Dominance Mean Google Makes More Money than Apple? Tony Bradley’s November 2013 Forbes article shows Apple dominates profitability capture versus Android. That’s why “staying focused” anchors the Apple’s core values. Though not externally stated, Jobs knew and promoted that making money matters. Making money (or in Apple’s case, tons of it) bestows the rare, parallel luxury to sustain business AND develop new innovation.
Photo Credit: Conner Forrest, Tech Republic
Photo Credit: Neil Hughes, Apple Insider
Making Tons of Money Isn’t the Point. Apple almost went bankrupt 17 years ago. That’s the age of a teenager — it wasn’t that long ago. Walt Mossberg's November 2014 <re/code> article, The Mac’s Second Act: From Obscurity to Ubiquity, lends important perspective to Apple’s current financial situation versus its dire days in 1997. Jobs knew he needed someone of Cook's supply chain and operations genius. That’s why Jobs hired Cook.
In 1998, Jobs and Apple needed Cook (not the other way around).
Photo Credit: W_Minshull
Driving Collaboration and Accessing Innovation Extends Beyond 1 Infinity Loop. The Charlie Rose-Tim Cook conversation turns instructive when Rose asks Cook if Apple is "more open (around 22:26).” Cook's responses on iOS app developer relationship management, the IBM strategic alliance, and the Beats Music and Beats Electronics acquisition signal his mantra that creativity and innovation are a team sport (App Developers: 30:20 - 32:12; IBM: 22:26 - 25:37; Beats: 26:14 - 29:00).
Apple Manages Relationships with 9 Million Registered iOS Developers. MacNN News reported the number of developers registered with Apple has increased 47 percent since last year to 9 million. According to the United States Census Bureau, if "Apple iOS Developer City” was an American city, it’s population trumps New York (with room to spare for Nashville).
Cook recognizes the iOS developer community is key to Apple’s current and future success (paraphrased quotes from Rose conversation; 30:20 - 32:12):
“The June 2014 developer’s convention was all about giving developers access to iOS so Apple and iOS have access to innovation."
“We treat working with them (i.e., the iOS developer community) that it’s Apple’s privilege."
“Our (i.e., Apple’s) developers can sell their product (i.e. iOS app) worldwide in the Apple App store in 155 countries."
Show App Developers The Money. Apple Does. Google Does Too. But, Apple developers earn tons more. Andreesen Horowitz Analyst Benedict Evans proves Apple paid app developers five times (5x) more revenue than Google. In the past 12 months, Apple paid developers $10 billion versus $5 billion by Google.
Photo Credit: Benedict Evans
Tim Cook Wants the Apple Ecosystem to Command the Enterprise Market (22:26 - 25:37). Steve Jobs transformed our daily consumer lives. Cook wants to reinvent our daily professional lives. That’s the mission objective for uniting with IBM, a former adversary. Cook shared with Rose the following anecdotes (paraphrasing):
“We believe we can change the way people work at an enterprise level."
“The vision is to fulfill the unmet needs of the industry verticals down to the granular specificity of the job itself."
“We can change the way people work. We spend so much of our lives working."
Reuters reports the Apple-IBM alliance is developing inroads into the financial services industry (e.g., companies like CitiGroup). Furthermore, the same Reuters article states:
"The iPhone maker has worked closely with a group of startups, including ServiceMax and PlanGrid, that already specialize in selling apps to corporate America. The two people familiar with the plans, but who could not speak publicly about them, say Apple is already in talks with other mobile enterprise developers to bring them into a more formal partnership."
A Play for The Enterprise Version of The Internet of Things? Sounds like it to me. Now, that would be both transformative and lucrative. Stay tuned. I’m looking forward to learning about the Apple-IBM alliance’s penetration and progress after Q1 2015 (even more than the Apple Watch Launch).
On the Surface, Beats Masquerades as a Headphone Company. Unseen by the deal’s critics is how Tim Cook discovered powerful and influential diversity in thought.When Rose asked Cook, “Why did you buy a headphones company?” he responded (26:14 - 29:00):
“Talent. It’s the idea of gaining great talent."
“The creative genius of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre."
“Iodine’s deep knowledge of the entertainment vertical (i.e., music industry)"
“Dr. Dre knows artists and is an artist."
Cook Recognizes Remarkable Human Centered Design (HCD) When He Sees It, Hears It, and Feels It. Cook shared with Rose how “not all subscription services are alike.” His enthusiasm in describing Beats Music after experiencing it himself is palpable (paraphrasing):
“Beats recognized the importance human curation can make in how you feel and experience something."
“It (Beats) affects how you feel."
“You know it when you see it and feel it.
Jimmy Iovine Nails It Why the Apple-Beats Deal Is Smart. Apple is about feel and emotional connection. That why the Apple Tribe continues shelling out big bucks to replacing their perfectly working iPhones with more expensive ones at a record pace. Check out Iovine’s commentary on feel, the state of the music industry, and why he believes Apple and Beats are primed to transform it. I can’t wait to see the impact of his influence at Apple in its future product development:
Strategy+Business’ Matt Egol and Christopher Vollmer Argue Why Apple Bet Big on Beats Music’s HCD Intangibles. Egol's and Vollmer’s article describes how both companies focus on delivering an amazing HCD experience. The critics who say this deal is the tipping point for Apple’s inevitable innovation demise fail to recognize this fact. Here’s an excerpt their article:
The story behind the deal is much more nuanced, however. It’s not just about those tangible assets (referring to Beats’ headphone and streaming music platform), but rather a really big bet on capabilities—especially in product development, marketing, and branding. The fact that Beats has achieved a 59 percent share of the high-end headphone market in the United States and launched a high growth, buzz-worthy streaming service demonstrates the power of HCD principles at work.Apple is well positioned to accelerate this momentum, given its own commitment to HCD.
Photo Credit: Gideon Tsang
Cook’s critics point to the Beats acquisition as a leading indicator of Apple’s inevitable demise because it "no longer innovates from within.” Nonsense.
The Cautionary Tale and Parallel Paths of Apple and Merck as Fortune Magazine's Most Admired Companies. From 1987 - 1993, the pharmaceutical company, Merck, graced the covers of Fortune Magazine’s Most Admired Company issues as the Number 1 company in corporate reputation. In 1994, the company tumbled to Number 11. Merck’s CEO at that time, P. Roy Vagelos, declared the company would return to Number 1 (direct quote from Fortune’s Most Admired Companies February 7, 1994 article):
''WE WERE the first company to be selected No. 1 seven years in a row. My plan is that we'll be the first company to bounce back."
So says Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, CEO of Merck, no longer America's most admired corporation. A year of economic turbulence, plus a far more extensive survey of companies, has produced a new crop at the top, with half of America's ten most admired corporations newcomers to that elite group.
The long-reigning king is deposed, relegated to No. 11.
Vagelos’ Bold Proclamation Never Materialized. Merck’s 2014 Fortune Most Admired Company Ranking is Number 65 (in 2013, it was Number 58). Why’s this important? For seven (7) consecutive years, Merck was Apple.
Guess Who Fortune Magazine Ranked as The Most Admired Company in 2014? Guess who's monopolized this title for seven (7) straight years since 2008? Apple. But, the similarities end there. How Merck chose to sustain innovation in its “Year 7” (and beyond) proves instructive.
Merck Caved to Not-Invented-Here Syndrome. John Simons, February 2008 Fortune article explores Merck’s research and development insularity post-1994:
"Merck's scientific excellence had long inspired admiration and envy; corporate leaders voted it America's Most Admired Company in Fortune from 1987 to 1993. By the early part of this decade, however, Merck was finding it difficult to turn its science into new, profitable medicines. In Merck's case, there was a unique element added to what was an industrywide drought."
"Merck was so pleased and proud to be Merck that its research culture had become haughty and insular. The company refused to consider medicines discovered outside its own labs and spurned the mergers and research alliances that were reshaping the industry."
To Peter Kim’s credit, President of Merck Research and Development from 2003 - 2013, Merck reversed its attitude course. The Simons article continues:
"By late 2004, Kim had overseen a new system that allows scientists to mine scientific literature to identify promising chemical compounds. He also encouraged Merck scientists to use their connections to open doors for Merck's acquisitions department
"In 1999, Merck entered into just ten collaborative licensing deals; by 2006, there were 53 joint-development transactions and small acquisitions."
10 years passed before Merck transformed its strategic thinking towards developing and accessing innovation. In three (3) short years, Cook’s decisiveness and focus proves what happened to Merck will not happen under his “Apple Watch” as CEO.
The Tim Cook Leadership Era Means the “I” in Innovation Means "Inclusion Inspires.” That cultural pillar extends far beyond sexual orientation. He’s driving cultural and strategic shifts at Apple to sustain and grow a core Jobs-Apple value (10:37 - 12:04): “To Be the Best.”
When Your Competitor is “The Most Ambitious CEO in The Universe,” You Better Continue Reinventing and Transforming. Talent isn’t enough. Company culture drives innovation and competitive advantage.
Here are two amazing books on the significant impact of company culture:
Will Tim Cook Continue Being Criticized for Not Being Steve Jobs? Yes. When you succeed an icon and legend, that’s a given. But, Cook won’t blink twice. He described to Rose his skill in “blocking out and filtering the noise.” (20:59 - 22:05)
Tim Cook Bets His Legacy and the Apple Ecosystem on “The Corporate Internet of Things.” That’s a massive pivot for a company whose past successes are rooted in consumer fanaticism. But, Cook has no interest in “following the herd.” Cook described to Rose why he decided to leave Compaq and join Apple in 1998 (36:13 - 37:00; paraphrased):
"Well I’m just thinking I’m going to meet him and all of a sudden he’s talking about his strategy and his vision (i.e., Jobs), and what he was doing was going 100 percent into consumer. When everybody else in the industry had decided you couldn’t make any money on consumers so they were headed to services and storage and enterprise. And I thought, I’d always thought that following the herd was not a good thing, that it was a terrible thing to do right? You’re either going to lose big, or lose, but those are the two options."
"He was doing something totally different.” (referring to Jobs)
Not Following the Herd. Questioning Conventional Wisdom. Being the Best. Sounds a lot like:
Photo Credit: Apple Website on October 5, 2011
Thank you for taking time to stop by. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. If you disagree, I would love to hear from you. I’m also here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Comments are open. So let’er rip!
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Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Share-worthy links Social Media ReInvention Community Members can enjoy during Sunday brunch:
1) eMarketer: Second Screening During TV Time—It's Not What You Think. The television industry (and myself) thought associating Twitter #hashags with its programming increased higher audience engagement and participation. Wrong.
Check out this Facebook post detailing the Millward Brown Digital Study, From One Screen to Five: The New Way We Watch TV. Facebook collaborated with Millward Brown on the study.
This stat caught me by surprise (maybe it shouldn't). The number one ranked "second screen" competing for our time and attention isn't Facebook, Twitter, another social network, etc.
It's email.
eMarketer is publishing a detailed report on our television and social media viewing habits called, “Simultaneous Media Use: Screen Fragmentation Complements Traditional Channels.” Here's a direct quote from the eMarketer article:
The takeaway is that a major portion of digital activity during TV shows has nothing to do with the show or the commercials. People simply drift away from the program and do other activities on their devices. This represents a transformation in the role of television from being a focal point to being just one of many screens competing for attention.
We're an iTV and Roku family (dumped cable months ago). Maybe, that's why I don't tweet, like, or post while watching tv. I'm focusing on the show (a rare treat).
2) McKinsey Quarterly: Tom Peters on Leading The 21st Century Organization. I'm a huge Tom Peters fan. At 71, he's still a rebel with a cause. I love and respect his candid and forthright views about developing and understanding an awareness of power, influence, and politics in organizations.
That's how change takes place in The Fortune 500. Change takes place by influencing and developing political allies (one person at a time).
Here are direct quotes from the article:
Change is about recruiting allies and working each other up to have the nerve to try the next experiment. You find allies. You encircle the buggers.
You don’t bring about change in real big meetings or virtual meetings. You bring it about one person at a time, face to face—when we discover we have some common interests and we’re both pissed off, say, at too many CEOs who talk about charts and boxes. And so we create a conspiracy.
Bonus 1: Mitch Joel's recent podcast with Tom Peters.
Bonus 2: My post, Tom Peters Personal Branding Lessons, Part 1: Why YOUR Blog Matters. Mr. Peters linked to this post and cites it on his Media Sightings Page.
3) Brynne Tillman and The LinkedIn Challenge #thelinkedinchallenge. Brynne's LinkedIn Posts on Social Selling and maximizing LinkedIn's utility and power in our professional lives never cease to amaze me. She's a bona fide subject matter expert in her field.
Her creativity to create and initiate #thelinkedinchallenge is genius. It's a clever take on the #ALSChallenge. The purpose: connect and introduce two (2) Linked connections who can benefit from each other.
I participated right off the bat. Here's my Twitter conversation with Brynne:
4) John Mack and The Pharma Marketing Blog: #mHealtMobile Chat Takeaway: Pharma Must Involve Patients Early on When Developing Mobile Health Apps. Last week, I participated in the #mHealthPharma Tweetchat. John lead and moderated 45 global participants!
And, he performed brilliantly.
I first discovered the initial discussion thread in this LinkedIn Group: Mobile Health Global. The topic centered on this question: "What stands in the way of pharma developing high quality mobile health apps?" This is the headline of our first debate.Participate in it here since the 25th of September. John Mack will moderate it!
I love discovering LinkedIn Discussion Groups like this one! I virtually met and conversed with smart, passionate, and thought-provoking people in the LinkedIn Group and the #mHealthPharma Tweetchat.
Here are links to their Twitter Profiles:
Check out Teresa Bau's Storify presentation. I have to learn how to do this because it's pretty cool:
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Share-worthy and thought-provoking links I thought Social Media ReInvention Community Members would like to read while enjoying Sunday brunch:
1) The Wall Sreet Journal: US Mail Delivers Amazon Groceries in San Francisco. The US Postal Service (USPS) continues to hustle, reinvent, and adapt. They capitalized on their current strategic alliance with Amazon to play in eCommere and enter more profitable services (e.g., package delivery). Remember, when USPS started making Sunday deliveries for Amazon in 2011? The article describes the Amazon-USPS alliance as mutually beneficial:
2) BloombergBusinessWeek: How to Get Into an Ivy League College—Guaranteed. Can big data and predictive analytics get your child into Harvard? For $600,000, Steven Ma, Founder of Think Tank Learning, claims he can (and provides a money back guarantee). The company generates $18 million annually and serves 10,000 students throughout northern California and China (Beijing and Shenzhen). Northern California Asian American families and wealthy Chinese familes comprise 90% of ThinkTank's clientele. Their website and published content are an excellent case study in digital content marketing strategy and buyer personas. It's a fascinating story especially when American undergraduate programs are under fire for rising expenses and questionable ROI.
3) LinkedIn Pulse: Club Ed: How Some Colleges Became $41k-a-Year Gyms. Point-of-view from LinkedIn Influencer and Bain & Company's Jeff Denneen on the escalating costs at American universities. The article discusses "the arms race" or "Law of More" for student amenities at competing private schools (e.g., gourmet, organic-ingredient meals, student athletic facilities, enhanced student housing, etc.). Denneen poses the question on the ROI these costs deliver to students upon graduation. Why? Thousands of students from private universities can no longer afford these amenitiies post-graduation because of either A) Unemployment or B) Under-employment (accepting jobs not requiring a college degrees).
4) MarketingLand: Ford Motor Company Takes A Newsjacking Bite Out Of #Applelive Event. My fave article in this post.This is brilliant, timely, and funny newsjacking. Ford flipped on its head the attributes of the ballyhooed Apple Watch and apply them to their brands in real-time, laugh-out-loud, newsjacking examples. Denny's and Crest also delivered creative #AppleLive newsjacks.
5) Fortune Magazine: How Google Works. Eric Schmidt (Google's Chairman) and Jonathan Rosenberg (Google's former Head of Product Development and Senior Vice President of Product Management) provide excerpts and thoughts from their upcoming book How Google Works. Key insights shared include why Google's approach to sustaining its growth (systematizing innovation into company culture), identifying talent (hiring the smartest people possible who critically think and continuously adapt versus hiring for specific job position criteria), and nurturing talent (aggressively rotate the most passionate people into different organizations -- e.g., "pass the M&Ms and not the raisins."
Did you enjoy this post? If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
To say today's #AppleLive stream event went poorly is an understatement. I tried to watch from my iPhone, but the audio glitches with simultaneous translation and poor video quality made it unwatchable. Apparently, I wasn't alone in my frustration:
Instead, I monitored the Twitter streams of the Wall Street Journal's Johanna Stern, Geoffrey Fowler, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Brian Fitzgerald, and Wilson Rothman. Kudos to them for providing the real-time support and updates #AppleLive failed to deliver.
Apple acquired Topsy in December 2013. It was a brilliant move to bolster their real-time and mobile capabilities in their products and services because consumers live in a one-screen world. So with all this rich Twitter data, why isn't real-time Twitter communications with its rabid fanbase a strategic priority among senior leadership?
Let's examine how Apple's Senior's Leadership used Twitter during the biggest and most important live event in the company's history in five (5) years:
It shocks me Apple's top digital talent posted a total of four (4) tweets during the live event. 4. That's it. Why was he silent during the #AppleLive stream meltdown? Why wasn't he communicating with fans during this crisis?
The media hype teed up this event as an unprecendented public relations coup for Apple. Didn't Apple remember the negative criticism it and other Silicon Valley royalty received in recent months about gender imbalance and lack of diversity?
Therefore, why wasn't Angela Ahrendts a visible part of the whole damn event and the introduction of Apple's most important product in recent memory? She transformed Burberry into one of the most coveted and successful global luxury brands. The Apple Watch pricing is clearly positioned for the luxury demographic.
Instead, we get this. One (1) tweet. Are you kidding me????? Why was one of the world's greatest marketers silently sitting on the sideline????
The #AppleLive stream disaster exposed the consequences of Apple deciding not to participate in real-time communications during the Steve Jobs era. Sadly, they're continuing on the same path with Tim Cook.
Smart competitors will capitalize on this opening. If you can't compete on size and brute force, compete on speed and agility. That's how David beat Goliath.
Bonus #1: Check out Dan Munro's LinkedIn post: Apple's Colossal Marketing Mix
Bonus #2: Read Emmanuel Kolade's LinkedIn post: Apple Pay - Why Apple is Giving 500 Million People a U2 Album for Free
Bonus #3: See Georgia Wells' Wall Street Journal article: ‘Songs of Innocence’ Giving You Vertigo? Remove U2′s Free Album From iTunes
Bonus #4: Go to this Apple Support page to remove U2's "Songs of Innocence" album from your iTunes Music Library and Purchases:
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Inbound Marketing Certified Professional and Author, Social Media ReInvention Blog
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