Searching for Seth – Access, Knowledge & Choice

We only started digging into the musings of Seth Godin a short while ago – it’s a little like discovering Led Zeppelin in the late eighties…feeling like you missed out yet happy you have uncovered something outstanding.

Seth comes across with a certain clarity:

No, we don’t have an endless supply of the resources we used to trade and covet. No, we certainly don’t have a surplus of time, either. But we do have an abundance of choice, an abundance of connection, and an abundance of access to knowledge.

For Godin, it’s about engagement and accession. Oh, and the choice that knowledge provides. How we not only adapt to the digital age, but lift off. Propel ourselves.

Perhaps it’s time we examined what we have: our ICT infrastructure sitting under the desk, in the cupboard or in the rack, the systems software and myriad business systems to connect and report, monitor and secure; our websites and social; laptops & tablets, smartphones & bring-your-owns, search & keywords, our online shop…. Time to determine how we manage the abundance of choice, connection and access to knowledge….

As a recent startup, we have faced the same considerations – how do we develop our internal and external connections quickly without too much effort and cost? How do we build agile digital elements end-to-end across our business to allow access and choice for our team and customers?

Our aim like Seth Godin is to protect our precious resources, work in harmony & balance, and grab the opportunity that choice and knowledge offers.

Smart Work Hubs Project

We headed along to a showcase this morning put on by Regional Development Australia in the ACT and the Southern Inland to demonstrate the establishment of telework centres around the Capital region. These are part of the Federal Government’s funding to promote NBN readiness in regional Australia.

The project will undertake a “readiness assessment” to determine what is required to establish a professional office environment that utilises the NBN to provide conditions that may not be available in a work-from-home environment.

Mick Chisnell, Executive Director of the ACT Government Information Office, pointed out that there is a triple bottom line outcome from teleworking – economic, social and environmental. The other important point from Mick was that in 10 years we won’t be talking about teleworking, we’ll just be doing it.

This is something the JAM is highly conscious of – business and the community are already taking action with the opportunities presented by mobile computing (laptops, tablets & smartphones) and online tools and platforms. Government must act quickly in public policy to keep pace with the strategies and actions organisations are already implementing.

Younger people are also expecting to be able to bring their own devices into the workspace, engaging in social media platforms and presenting employers with the opportunity to change their work culture. To quote Cisco, “to transform a business, you have to transform the way work is undertaken.”

Providing flexibility and mobility in a workplace helps drive a business’s competitive advantage – not only in increasing staff retention but also driving workplace productivity and efficiency.

Robin Eckermann, who led the creation of TransACT, made the point that the digital economy has already been with us for decades. “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The 2nd best time is now”. This certainly reinforces the JAM’s view that the time to act is now.

Further gov info can be found at telework.gov.au

Why Online Marketing is not Digital Strategy

People have been asking: just what is digital strategy? Trawling through the web you would think it was all about online marketing. SEO, keywords, social media. But it’s not. It’s much broader and deeper than that. And frankly, more strategic!

Think about how you build a business plan – looking at the various elements of your business, your value proposition, your go-to-market strategy, your marketing strategy, your delivery strategy, your HR strategy, the strategy for managing your financials. Then think about how you execute – what are the processes, tools and resources you need to have in place to deliver the actions required? Then think about how you measure success, how you baseline where you are now and your progress into the future; how you build continuous customer engagement & improvement into your business, how you build innovation and collaboration.

Then think about what digital tools and activities you utilise to help you execute. How you use the web, the Cloud, systems, infrastructure; how people find you online, how you establish a dialogue with potential customers, partners, staff and others in your industry. How you convert bricks & mortar into online connection.

That’s your digital strategy – the means to execute your business objectives, the alignment of objectives and outcomes, the convergence of business, digital and the personal.

Online marketing is but one tool, one method of enabling engagement. It is one element of a much broader digital strategy that will drive your business success.