Financial services is one of the most industries in which the use of social media is the most relevant, not least because customer service is a critical differentiator between highly commoditized offerings. While financial services and banking were traditionally highly relationship-based, the shift to online has significantly eroded those relationships. Social media, used well, provides an opportunity to build relationships in a world in which most financial services are executed online.
In a global context, Australian banks were fairly slow to adopt the use of social media, however more recently a number have become a lot more active as they recognize its fundamental importance to their future.
Vindaya Senadheera, Prof. Matthew Warren, and Dr. Shona Leitch from Deakin University have done some interesting research in their paper A study on how Australian banks use social media.
To analyze the banks’ activity they use the Honeycomb framework of social media which was presented by Kietzmann et al in their paper Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media, which points to the key elements of social media engagement as Identity, Groups, Relationships, Presence, Sharing, Conversations, and Reputation.
Here are a few key points from the research
Twitter:
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Qantas Business Radio: why crowdsourcing will drive the future of organizations
By Ross DawsonThis month’s Qantas Business Radio has a technology focus, including interviews with Nick Leeder, Managing Director of Google Australia, Simon Hackett, Managing Director of Internode, Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital, Charis Palmer, Editor of Technology Spectator, Ian Hogg, CEO of FremantleMedia Australia, as well as myself.
There are some great insights in the various interviews, and if you’re not going to be on a Qantas flight you can listen to or download the interviews here, though I believe only until the end of August.
My interview was very broad-ranging: we spent some time discussing implications for organizations of a connected world including the role of crowdsourcing and the idea of the global brain, went on to look at how to use the iPad for work and why it is the first technology that is better than paper for many purposes, and finally when newspapers will become extinct around the world.
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Research: The acceleration of Australian banks’ use of social media
By Ross DawsonFinancial services is one of the most industries in which the use of social media is the most relevant, not least because customer service is a critical differentiator between highly commoditized offerings. While financial services and banking were traditionally highly relationship-based, the shift to online has significantly eroded those relationships. Social media, used well, provides an opportunity to build relationships in a world in which most financial services are executed online.
In a global context, Australian banks were fairly slow to adopt the use of social media, however more recently a number have become a lot more active as they recognize its fundamental importance to their future.
Vindaya Senadheera, Prof. Matthew Warren, and Dr. Shona Leitch from Deakin University have done some interesting research in their paper A study on how Australian banks use social media.
To analyze the banks’ activity they use the Honeycomb framework of social media which was presented by Kietzmann et al in their paper Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media, which points to the key elements of social media engagement as Identity, Groups, Relationships, Presence, Sharing, Conversations, and Reputation.
Here are a few key points from the research
Twitter:
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Futurist conversations: Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard on the future of newspapers
By Ross DawsonContinuing our series of conversations between fellow-futurist Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency and myself, here is our session on the future of newspapers.
Here are a few notes from our conversation:
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Power, patents, competition, and ecosystems: Google’s bid for Motorola Mobility
By Ross DawsonYesterday I was interviewed on ABC TV about Google’s bid for Motorola Mobility.
The interview segments aired were on the value to Google of Motorola’s patent portfolio and the implications for the Android ecosystem.
Below are excerpts from the transcript of the interview on ABC.
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The extraordinary personal value of the web: $140 billion is the tip of the iceberg
By Ross DawsonHow much value do you get from the web? A lot more than you pay for it.
We may quibble about the cost of bandwidth and online services, and in some cases we should, but the reality is the value we get from connectivity and web-based services is massive.
Earlier this year McKinsey & Co released research titled The Web’s €100 billion surplus (registration required). The key findings are shown below.
Source: McKinsey
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Exploring new formats for music (and revenue): Björk releases inspiring “app album”
By Ross DawsonThe music industry has struggled for over a decade as it tried to push back against inevitable change and maintain the status quo. While there has been some good experimentation over the years, we are now reaching a phase where the old structures have pretty much died and all that remains is experimentation to build what will be a radically different structure to the music industry.
One of the most interesting experiments is Björk’s new “app album” Biophilia. The ‘mother app’ can be downloaded for free to iPad and iPhone, including the first song Crystalline, with the remaining songs (2 out so far) cost $1.99 to purchase. Each song includes rich interactive visualizations, scores, and sometimes even the ability to control the music. The individual songs can also be purchased on iTunes.
Here is the introductory segment, narrated in naturalist David Attenborough in his classic style, evoking the world of life expressed in the album.
For more details on Biophilia see:
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Applying scenario planning to portfolio and financial risk: 6 steps to better risk management
By Ross DawsonBack in the late 1990s I did considerable work applying scenario planning to financial risk management, using qualitative approaches to managing risk as a complement to quantitative methodologies such as Value at Risk. However financial institutions were generally very slow to acknowledge the value of anything not fully quantified, so I shifted my attention to broader strategic issues. I wonder if the finance industry is now more ready for these kinds of approaches.
Here is an article I wrote in 1998 in Corporate Treasurer magazine in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. The article has not dated, and remains completely relevant today. Just replace Asia crisis with the recent financial crisis of your choice.
Did You Forecast Asia? Scenarios In Portfolio And Risk Management
Did you forecast and respond effectively to the ongoing impact of the Asian crisis? The debate continues on whether or not the crisis was predictable, however the reality is that it was not effectively predicted. One of the major reasons is the strong bias in financial markets to making single-point forecasts. By their nature these cannot encompass anything except what is perceived as the most likely outcome, and thus blind us to the unexpected rather than help us to prepare for it.
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Futurist conversations: Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard on the future of Twitter
By Ross DawsonContinuing our series of conversations on the future with Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency and myself, here we discuss the future of Twitter.
Some of the topics we discuss include:
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Slides for Opening Keynote at Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration Summit
By Ross DawsonTomorrow morning I am giving the opening keynote, titled The Future of Living Networks and Organizations, at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration Summit.
Here are my slides for the keynote. As always, the slides are intended to accompany my speech, not to stand alone, so are provided for people who are attending the event, or who like nice images :-) (though note the videos are not embedded).
If I get a chance later I’ll expand on some of the ideas from the keynote, but in the meantime here are a few of the core ideas:
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US equities: zero gains over the last 12 years, how about the next 12 years?
By Ross DawsonIn my misspent youth I worked in international equities sales for Merrill Lynch. That was when I was first introduced to the Capital Asset Pricing Model that still underpins investment analysis today. Aong other things the model suggests that the return on an investment needs to be commensurate with its risk to attract investors.
Through the last century the empirical evidence on equity market investment was that its returns relative to other asset classes was broadly in line with its volatility.
As shown in the chart below, for the last 12 years, since 1998 or 1999 depending on the index, there have been zero gains in US equity markets. It is important to note that this does not account for dividends, which currently yield approximately 2% annually for S&P 500. However there is an important psychological issue in zero gains in the index. And it is clear that dividend yields do not justify the exceptional volatility of equity markets over the last decade or so.
Click on the image for full size
Source: Google Finance
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