This article was written to frame The Insight Exchange’s SME Technology Summit in Sydney on December 1 – while many of the references are to Australia the issues apply globally.
Small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are taking a larger share of the business pie, and increasingly driving economic growth. This is one of the most important trends in business today, and one that will shape the next decade of business, work and society.
This powerful trend is driven largely by technology and connectivity, creating a world in which smaller, more nimble, better connected companies can outsmart their monolithic larger brethren, competing globally and tapping opportunities as they arise.
At the same time, using technology well in business is proving to be one of the most prominent drivers of success. Almost every aspect of business is becoming driven by technology. This is obviously the case with services businesses ranging from graphic design to even house moving. However this is relevant to every kind of organisation.
Gardening and worm farm retailers Wiggly Wigglers in UK, Caminito Argentinean Restaurant in the US, Brasserie Bread in Australia , Martell Home Builders in Canada and many thousands of others around the world are examples of companies selling highly tangible, everyday products that have built outstanding success through the use of online social media.
There are six key ways in which technology is changing the very nature of how smaller companies operate today.
1. Findability
Customers look for and find businesses in very different ways than just a few years ago. Search engines, recommendations from friends on social networks, and online services exchanges are now how most companies are found. Marketing has completely changed.
Read more →
Keynote: Network to win! ..for global professional services network Kreston
By Ross DawsonOn Tuesday I gave the opening keynote at the 38th annual global conference of international accounting network Kreston International.
Kreston are a very interesting organization. With revenues across the network of over $2 billion, they are the 13th largest accounting network in the world. The day of the conference they made the final step in becoming a network according to the IFAC (International Federation of Accountants) definition of a network. One of the critical issues in determining whether a group of firms is deemed a network is whether they have common quality controls. The appointment of a Global Quality and Professional Standards Director is a key step Kreston has taken.
I have long been fascinated by professional services networks. I wrote about them in my first book Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, and in detail in Chapter 9 of Living Networks.
I am actively continuing to explore the nature of networks in professional services. How well they network very simply determines their success.
As such I was delighted to be invited to do the opening keynote on the conference’s theme of Network to Win. It took the format of a participatory workshop run over two 45 minute sessions, getting the attendees to reflect on and discuss how they can best enhance the cross-firm networks that drive results.
Below are my slides for my presentation, provided primarily for event attendees. Note that they are intended to accompany my speech, not to be meaningful in themselves.
Six ways technology is transforming small business
By Ross DawsonThis article was written to frame The Insight Exchange’s SME Technology Summit in Sydney on December 1 – while many of the references are to Australia the issues apply globally.
Small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are taking a larger share of the business pie, and increasingly driving economic growth. This is one of the most important trends in business today, and one that will shape the next decade of business, work and society.
This powerful trend is driven largely by technology and connectivity, creating a world in which smaller, more nimble, better connected companies can outsmart their monolithic larger brethren, competing globally and tapping opportunities as they arise.
At the same time, using technology well in business is proving to be one of the most prominent drivers of success. Almost every aspect of business is becoming driven by technology. This is obviously the case with services businesses ranging from graphic design to even house moving. However this is relevant to every kind of organisation.
Gardening and worm farm retailers Wiggly Wigglers in UK, Caminito Argentinean Restaurant in the US, Brasserie Bread in Australia , Martell Home Builders in Canada and many thousands of others around the world are examples of companies selling highly tangible, everyday products that have built outstanding success through the use of online social media.
There are six key ways in which technology is changing the very nature of how smaller companies operate today.
1. Findability
Customers look for and find businesses in very different ways than just a few years ago. Search engines, recommendations from friends on social networks, and online services exchanges are now how most companies are found. Marketing has completely changed.
Read more →
Sky Business Tech Report: Interview on social media, online outsourcing, and how small companies are using technology to leapfrog big business
By Ross DawsonI was interviewed this morning on Sky Business Tech Report. Some of the things we discussed in the interview are:
* How social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many others change how companies engage with customers, become more efficient, and being competitive.
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SmartCompany webinar next Monday to feature SME Tech Summit speakers
By Ross DawsonSmartCompany magazine is running a webinar on Monday 16 November at 2pm: How Small and Mid-Sized Companies are Using Technology to Drive Business Success.
The webinar will provide a preview to some of the outstanding content at SME Technology Summit.
Amanda Gome, Publisher of SmartCompany, will moderate the discussion and share some of her insights in running a young and rapidly growing company, as well in covering the best of what’s happening in small and mid-sized business in Australia.
Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, will discuss how companies can best take advantage of online outsourcing to build efficiencies, scale operations, and grow companies rapidly.
Suzi Dafnis, Community Director of Australian Businesswomen’s Network, will draw on her extensive experience in building online communities using blogs, forums and other tools.
David James, CEO of Brasserie Bread, will share how he has rapidly grown a real-world business using Twitter and other social media tools.
See the full SME Technology Summit agenda for details of what they will be speaking about and where they fit into the array of valuable content available on the day.
And be sure to register for the webinar to get these speakers great insights! There will be three complimentary passes to the Summit drawn at the end of the webinar.
The rapidly building wave of online outsourcing and crowdsourcing
By Ross DawsonThe Age today has an interesting article titled Outsourcing on steroids that looks at the array of online technologies that are enabling the outsourcing of small tasks and the crowdsourcing of design, innovation, and other key business functions.
I’ve noticed that in just the last few weeks mainstream media coverage of online service exchanges and crowdsourcing tools is picking up. As the article in the The Age concludes, “it’s certain crowd sourcing is a key business trend for the future”. The
The article quotes me in two different sections:
This idea of how best to tap the most talented – rather than the cheapest – professionals in the global market is the subject of my next book. I’ll be writing a lot more about this on my blog.
Later in the article:
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Agency co-creation: very hard to make it work but that’s where the most value lies
By Ross DawsonThere’s a great article in the latest issue of B&T Today on how Westpac, one of Australia’s big four banks, is approaching working with its advertising and creative agencies. Here are a few choice excerpts from the article, which is well worth a read in its entirety.
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Free webinar on Implementing Enterprise 2.0 (and win a copy of the book!)
By Ross DawsonMy book Implementing Enterprise 2.0 has been selling at a very healthy and consistent pace since its launch earlier this year. The front page of the book’s website features links to reviews of the book, including some very useful ones from ReadWriteWeb, CMSWire, and Inside Knowledge.
I thought it would be good to share some of the book’s insights in a different format, so I have teamed up with Newsgator – who have been key proponents of the book – to do a free webinar on Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Practical Steps to Creating Business Value. The webinar will be held on November 18 at 2pm US ET.
We will draw six complimentary copies of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 for webinar attendees.
Sign up for the webinar here.
Below is the webinar overview. Hope to connect with you then!
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Practical insights and advice on Everyday Enterprise 2.0
By Ross DawsonNewsgator’s Director of Enterprise 2.0 Consulting Christy Schoon has launched a new blog Everyday Enterprise 2.0 at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Christy says “I’m going to write in plain English about everyday Enterprise 2.0 from my own on-the-ground perspective working with living, breathing social computing champions at Fortune 500 companies.”
One reason I love the blog is Christy’s four standard recommendations to businesspeople on where to start with Enterprise 2.0 (particularly the first one :-) ):
However I also like the rich content tone. It’s very refreshing to see a post titledPimp My Site that happens to be a detailed discussion about the practical issues involved in Enterprise 2.0 adoption but begins:
What robots.txt tells you about corporate culture – the case study of Nike and Adidas
By Ross DawsonEven if you are not a technical person, you may have heard about the apparently arcane robots.txt file which sits on websites but is seen only by computers, not by human visitors. The file contains instructions for search engines on what they can and cannot index and make searchable.
Note that in the examples below # indicates a comment line that is not read by the computer; the other lines provide specific instructions to allow or disallow access to search engines.
Let’s look at the robots.txt file on Nike.com – www.nike.com/robots.txt
In contrast, look at the file for Adidas.com – www.adidas.com/robots.txt:
In fact this means that the entire Adidas.com site except for one file can be crawled by search engines, but the comment does seems to suggest a difference in corporate culture from Nike :-).
(Hattip to @larsv!)
Social Media Strategy Framework in Korean – 소셜미디어 전략 프레임워크
By Ross DawsonAnd one more! …continuing our series of translations of Social Media Strategy Framework, today we are launching the Korean edition.
See the original post for the full overview of the Social Media Strategy Framework in English and compilation of the framework in 11 different languages.
Click on image to download pdf
Please share this with any Korean speakers who would be interested.
Also be sure to let me know if you can suggest any improvements to the translation.