Harold Jarche

Open Source Marketing

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My main interest in open source is the way in which it has turned the tables on who has power in the marketplace. OS Software gives a leg up to the small business that’s trying to enter the market. Now open source marketing seems to be the next target of the revolution (which, by the way, will not be televised). A recent article by Hans-Peter Brondmo shows what open source means to marketing:

What if advertising and marketing materials were published with a Creative Commons license, perhaps requiring attribution but otherwise encouraging, rather than prohibiting, derivative works? What if the goal were less to restrict and control the use of images but rather to encourage derivative use? Let’s call it open-source marketing.

Under this model, blogging about a company, product, or service would be encouraged by said company as a rule, not an exception.

Open-source marketing encourages openness and discussion, facilitates debate and idea sharing. It encourages free downloads of the finished ad and the "source code" — all the storyboards, video clips, raw animation, text copy, sound files, and other components — used to construct the advertisement. Open-source marketing enlists the audience to take a message, an image, or a jingle and "improve" it by creating derivative works. It encourages consumers to not just consume and critique, but to engage, improve, and redistribute improvements if the original doesn’t work or measure up.

This could mean a real shift in the way marketing is done, and may spell decreased revenues for marketing firms. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

The open-source movement has taken the world by storm. Get ready for it to turn its sights on marketing and advertising. Marketing has long promised interactivity, but it’s remained more myth than reality. Maybe we got it wrong. Perhaps what people want isn’t click-and-branch "interactive" marketing. Perhaps what they want is creative freedom and control. Perhaps what they want is open-source marketing.

Next month: how open-source software and cheap creative tools affect marketing by gradually commoditizing high-cost, proprietary approaches and lowering entry barriers.


This commoditizing of services and products is one of the major effects of open source. It forces those with proprietary systems to constantly innovate their upper-end products, because open source is driving the lower-end prices to zero. This is happening in real estate with companies like Property Guys, who offer a DIY real estate service for a few hundred dollars, versus the thousands that you will pay an agent. Once internet usage is ubiquitous, it may be faster to sell your house yourself, without the middle-man. How many other industries will be affected by the changing economics of open source?

Learning Outsourcing

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I mentioned in my last post that I had been working on an article on collaboration in the New Brunswick learning industry. As anyone here knows, almost all of our work is export focused, as the local economy is quite small. Another theme that is getting more press in the last year is learning outsourcing. Jay Cross thinks it may be the "next big thing", pointing to recent initiatives by Intrepid Learning Solutions and Knowledge Pool. In Atlantic Canada, many companies are already providing some kind of outsourcing services, be it custom development, hosted services, consulting, etc.

Jay is offering his services to help organisations examine the intricacies of outsourcing. Jay links to a recent report by SRI Business Consulting’s Learning on Demand service, entitled Learning Outsourcing: Strategic Opportunity. The report is authored by Eilif Trondsen and Hal Richman. Hal is my business partner, and resides in Nova Scotia. Given that Atlantic Canada has a number of learning-oriented companies, with a variety of skills and expertise, I think that we are well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. We just have to get the word out.

Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation in Business

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Last week I worked on a co-authored paper describing the value of collaboration in the learning industry in New Brunswick. After completing my draft of the paper, I came across this comprehensive paper by the Institute for the Future. I found it through a reference via Jon Husband that led to this post and reference on The Happy Tutor. The latter is not quite what some people would consider family reading.

The paper, from June 2004 (852 kb PDF), is entitled Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation in Business. It’s a deep link that you cannot find from the main website, and I’m not sure if this was intended or not. The authors are Andrea Saveri, Howard Rheingold, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, and Kathi Vian. The questions posed are:

  • How can new insights about the dynamics of cooperation help us identify new and lucrative models for organizing production and wealth creation that leverage win-win dynamics?
  • How can organizations enhance their creativity and grow potential innovation with cooperation-based strategic models?

The paper then goes on to discuss seven lenses, from diverse fields such as mathematics, biology, sociology, technology, law and economics, psychology, and political science, through which to view cooperation and collective behaviour. The seven lenses are: synchrony, symbiosis, group selection, catalysis, commons, collective action, and collective intelligence.

This paper does not claim to be a definitive work but it is a neat synthesis of work in many fields that may lead us to a better understanding of how cooperation may be the best strategy for economic growth and prosperity. It also puts many other ideas into perspective – such as Reed’s Law which I’ve previously discussed (see the map on page 5).

There is a lot to review, or read for the first time. The last section is probably the most interesting for those trying to develop a new business strategy.

When we look across these opportunities and think of some of the fundamental dilemmas that businesses face, we find five key areas of potential innovation and disruption to business as usual.

Knowledge-generating collectives

Adaptive resource management

Collective readiness and response

Sustainable business organisms

Peer-to-peer politics

The authors then go on to describe the implications of recent innovations in each of these areas.

Overall, this is a great read.

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace

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I guess this is like a chain letter. I don’t usually do this, but here goes …

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog!



This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).



The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet (Permalink: http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html) ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú results and commentary will appear there in the future.



Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.



The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst (this GUID enables anyone to easily search Google (or Technorati) for all blogs that participate in this experiment). Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)



INSTRUCTIONS



To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).



REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

 * (1) I found this experiment at URL: http://blog.wirearchy.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/27/131255.html

* (2) I found it via ?¢‚Ǩ?ìMy RSS Aggregator?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

* (3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://jarche.com

* (4) I posted this on date (day, month, year): 28/08/04

* (5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 11:44:00 GMT
* (6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Sackville, NB, Canada



OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):


* (7) My blog is hosted by: Tantramar Interactive
* (8) My age is: 45
* (9) My gender is: Male

* (10) My occupation is: Performance Consultant
* (11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: Bloglines

* (12) I use the following software to post to my blog: Drupal

* (13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 15/03/03

* (14) My web browser is: Firefox

* (15) My operating system is: Windows XP

Understanding the Real New Economy

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This Summer I had the opportunity to help Rob Paterson with his 4th year UPEI course, called Understanding the Real New Economy. It was fun, and quite easy for me as a mentor. All I had to do was read the postings and make comments – no marking, or assignments done under deadline. I really enjoyed reading the wide variety of opinions; some more insightful and thought provoking than others.

The main text for the course was Natural Capitalism, parts of which you can access online. The final assignment was to describe two possible future scenarios on PEI. One being the result of just "bumbling along" and the other about creating a plan and acting upon it. One of the students, Joshua Arsenault, has posted his final assignment on his blog. Here is the conclusion of the positive scenario:

But, in the end, change is highly contingent on individuals and the circumstances around the person at that time. It seems that the fuel crisis actually spurred innovation and change because Prince Edward Island had the creative people who stepped forward to promote change before the crisis occurred. The crisis then acted as the tipping point for the positive changes we live with now.

I hope that some of these students will be stepping forward in the near future.

Advertising on Blogs

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Google owns Blogger, and has recently removed advertising on its blogs. It has instead started a program called AdSense which allows bloggers to opt into targeted advertising. This got me thinking that maybe ads would generate some (probably not much) cash for this site.

What do you think? Would ads make any difference to you? Are they a pain, or do you just ignore them? Do you actually read and perhaps click on them?

Please make your opinions known on my poll.

Corporate Blog Manifesto

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Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble, has published The Corporate Weblog Manifesto on ChangeThis. Here are some of Scoble’s twenty points:

  • Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.
  • Use a human voice.
  • Make sure you support the latest software/web/human standards.
  • If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast.
  • Under promise and over deliver.
  • Never change the URL of your weblog.
  • If you don’t have the answers, say so.
    Never lie.
    Never hide information.

I agree with all the points of the manifesto, but I think that #19 – BOGU [look it up] could have been rephrased as “be kind to everyone”. I guess that’s just my Canadian perspective. As a smart-looking PDF this is the kind of document that you can print in colour for your CEO or CIO. Many of these points have been discussed by others, particularly Lilia Efimova, but it can’t hurt having a “manifesto”.

eLearning Market Peaked in 2001

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Stephen Downes reports today that:

The e-learning field is changing in front of our eyes, and
yet people are not seeing it. Content is flat, services are
the future.

Stephen’s comment stems from The Workflow Institute’s press release yesterday:

The corporate eLearning Market in the US peaked in late-2001 at about $6.5 billion and has seen 15-20% negative growth in both 2002 and 2003. In 2004, the market leveled off and has remained flat. As of mid-2004, the market for conventional eLearning is $4.5 billion with content accounting for half of the revenues. The technology segment accounts for $1.1 billion, and the robust services sector accounts for $1.2 billion. By 2008, at least 60% of eLearning revenue will derive from services.

While developing strategic plans for elearning ventures over the past two years, I have been telling my clients the same thing – focus on services. Now I have some more data to back it up. Thanks Jay.

On Economic Development

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There has been an ongoing debate in northern New Brunswick over the establishment of an incineration facility. Environmentalists and some community members are against the facility, while others see it as necessary economic development, in an area with chronic unemployment. I see a greater issue here – our perceived dependence on corporations.

We always seem to need "someone else" to come in and save our local economy. These external, disembodied corporations, which are only loyal to increasing shareholder value, have no stake in our communities. We continue to pressure our governments to create jobs, and they in turn go out looking for the largest corporation that will create the most jobs. Corporations, by their inherent structure, don’t give a darn about our communities. We need to grow our own industries, that are firmly rooted in our communities. We should focus on attracting people who will have a stake in their community, not inviting corporations temporarily to our region.

Instead of offering subsidized training for corporations to hire local employees, our money (since I doubt that the government will get out of economic development) should be used to encourage individuals to come here and set up shop. Let’s go for the slow food approach, not the quick fix. Even if there is the need for an incinerator, it should be our incineration company, developed in our community and responsible to our people and our envrironment. Everyone is welcome, but you will have to make the commitment of your complete physical presence to get any economic development funding.