The Trade-Off for Free

Besides this blog, I also write a technology-focused blog for my company. We typically get about 20,000 visits/month, so it does a decent job of sharing information with our partners/customers and creates some interesting conversations over on our community sites. One of the responsibility areas for my group is to create content for our sales team and distribution partners to enhance the sales process. This includes blogs, demo videos, whitepapers, presentations, online tools, podcasts, etc. In almost all cases, we publish all of this content into public areas and encourage its reuse. It's one of the only ways my small group can scale to the thousands of people selling our products.

But as I've experienced on this blog before, we occasionally have our content reused in an inappropriate way. In a recent case, a partner had reused the content (which is fine), but had introduced a bunch of typos and grammatical errors in their version. So not only did it make them look amateurish, but it reflected poorly on the source (my company's blog). They also attempted to claim credit (without attribution) for some video content that we created and they pulled off YouTube.

Not long ago, this would have raised red-flags for Legal and PR/Branding departments. But in today's age, with the free-flow of information being so available (and mostly free!!), individuals and companies need to rethink how they will deal with this reuse.

• What was the cost of creating the original content? Is it worth a fight to protect that cost? In my case (both company & personal), the cost was almost zero (other than a minutes of my time), so it's probably not worth a fight.
• Did the reuse allow the content/message to spread more virally than it might have otherwise? If the answer is yes, and the message is more important than the attribution, then it's probably not worth a fight.
• Did the reuse create an opportunity to forge a stronger relationship with the re-user? In my personal case it didn't, but on the company side it allowed us to have a conversation with a new partner and help them better tailor a message around their strengths, while helping them lower their costs by reusing some of our content.

Now this equation doesn't always work out well, as this Washington Post article highlights for the media industry. But while the media industry complains about the evils of the digital world, the information (from wherever) is getting spread more than ever. So it really should make people question what is important in how information is shared and try and optimize around those areas. In my case it is primarily about digital learning and building my personal brand (both blogs) and driving greater sales (work blog), so reuse is not that much of a concern. If I had revenue streams associated with the work, then it would introduce a whole different set of questions. I don't think the media industry has started asking those new questions yet, as they are too caught up in demanding people play by their old rules. But eventually someone that has to tie revenue to content will ask new questions and maybe their will figure out a new model to create value. The questions and answers are out there, they just need people with a new/different focus to ask them.

Finding New Markets - From the Rest-of-World?

It's definitely an American bias, but we tend to think that new things get invented here (cars, computers, televisions, etc.) and then foreign markets open to accept those goods. Eventually they get copied for lower-costs overseas, and are exported back the US.

But the world becomes more global, I suspect that we'll see this model begin shifting and more things will take off overseas and then eventually make their way to the US. Not even market will be defined by the tastes or whims of Americans first.

I was listening to a podcast with Bill Simmons and Colin Cowherd from ESPN this morning, two American sportswriters that make their living talking about the Big 4 American sports (football, baseball, basketball and hockey). The conversation moved to HDTV and how soccer was so much more enjoyable to watch in HD, and how both of them were quickly converting into soccer fans. And not just ordinary soccer fans (since the US has had the MLS for many years now), but International soccer fans. They actually went as far as to predict that the World Cup would eventually become a bigger sporting event that the Olympics, and the International soccer (not US-based MLS soccer) would catch on big here too. Soccer! In America!!

I use this as an example because most Americans (up to a few years ago) would tell you that it could never catch on here. But the world is becoming more global. Technology (ie. HDTV, time-shifting DVRs) is having an impact that is shrinking the globe. It's happening in every industry.

So before you make that next assumption about where the next great concept or business model might come from (Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Shanghai), consider that it might just come from completely the opposite direction.

Great Discussion about Disruptive Technologies

This one is coincidental, as we're just now getting around to discussing Disruptive Technologies in our ITmgmt course. I personally think the entire course could (or should) have been focused on that, but I don't make the syllabus. Oh well...

A few weeks back I talked about a B.S.Report podcast between Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman where they discussed the downfall of the newspaper industry and some of the reasons this was happening.

As a follow-up to that discussion, Bill interviewed (right side of page) John A. Walsh, one of the Sr.Execs at ESPN behind ESPN.com and SportsCenter. Not only did Walsh provide additional reasons why the newspaper (and traditional news) industries are struggling, but he provided excellent insight into the mindset that is needed to truly create disruption within an existing marketplace. His passion for creating change and thinking differently comes through in ways that make you wish that you were working on one his projects right now!!

If you get a chance, take a listen for the first 30 minutes (or more) and then determine which end of disruption your business is on today. And keep in mind that ESPN began during the middle of the 18% interest rates and recession of the early 1980's. There may be no better time than now to be disruptive.

How the Internet effects your Business

I've written about the demise of newspapers and broadcast television before. Most discussions about the evolution of media sources is tied to the economics that get changed because of the Internet. But I was listening to The B.S. Report: 3/13 this morning, and Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman had an interesting discussion about the cultural aspects of why people tend to gravitate towards the Internet. At ~45 minutes, it's worth a listen. And no, you don't have to like sports or know about sports to connect with the discuss.

Beyond the discussion of the need to have information immediately (or gratification immediately), it touches on several issues that we've discussed in StratMktg. How do you react to competing business models? How do your customers perceive value? Can you still create revenue opportunities or provide "perceived value" if your primary product is free?