Open strategy: News Limited shares its inspirations on the future of paid content

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Early this year I caught up for a coffee with Stephen Browning, Director of Corporate Affairs at News Digital Media and The Australian. During our conversation he told me about a weekly digest of what’s happening globally in digital news and paid content that he compiled for executives at News Limited, to keep them informed about all of many rapid changes in the space.

In the wake of News Limited’s recent blogger briefing on its paywall plan, which showed a dramatically more open attitude than the company had evinced in the past, it is now making its internal business intelligence report available to the general public.

Anyone can sign up for the weekly update at its Future of Journalism site. There is of course no really good reason why a company wouldn’t share with the world its internal business intelligence reports. However the reality is that almost none do. So once again hats off to News Limited for sharing this useful information with the world at large.

Below is the latest update from earlier today, showing the most interesting developments in paid content over the previous week, from the perspective of News Limited. (Apologies if the formatting doesn’t work properly – I just pulled in the HTML.)
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The future of retail: the rise of omnichannel marketing and sales

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This year I have been drawn significantly into the retail industry, being the lead technology advisor for a major study on the long-term future of shopping centers, and giving keynotes at a number of public and in-house retail industry events on topics including the future of retail shopping districts and social media in retail. We are now considering creating a detailed report on strategies for the future of retail next year.

The current edition of Harvard Business Review includes an excellent article titled The Future of Shopping, which echoes many of the themes we are seeing. Its frame of ‘omnichannel retail’ is a useful one.

As it evolves, digital retailing is quickly morphing into something so different that it requires a new name: omnichannel retailing. The name reflects the fact that retailers will be able to interact with customers through countless channels—websites, physical stores, kiosks, direct mail and catalogs, call centers, social media, mobile devices, gaming consoles, televisions, networked appliances, home services, and more. Unless conventional merchants adopt an entirely new perspective—one that allows them to integrate disparate channels into a single seamless omnichannel experience—they are likely to be swept away.

Most retailers think of themselves as primarily physical or online, with just a few thinking far beyond that to creating a fully integrated approach to the customer experience. ‘Clicks and bricks’ is a highly dated view in a world where there is continual channel proliferation.
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Latest data: Retailers shift to social media and online

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I am at a media briefiing by cloud-based ERP provider NetSuite at the very nice Quay restaurant in Sydney.

In addition to the interesting presentation by CEO Zach Nelson on the state of NetSuite, we have been given no less than 7 press releases, so a big news day for the company. One of these was the key findings from Frost & Sullivan of Australian retailers, conducted in October 2011. This includes a survey of the use of social media by retailers, showing:
– 34% monitor conversations on social media
– 29% use social media to promote their store
– 20% advertise on Facebook
– 17% use social media to publicize special offers or discounts
– 16% provide services to customers on social media
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How governments research and communicate about the future

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Governments around the world are increasingly recognizing that they have a responsibility for structured thought and research about the future, both to shape their own initiatives, and to assist companies and institutions in the nation to survive and thrive in times of change.

Examples of government futures groups include:
Egypt: Center for Futures Studies
France: Centre d’Analyse Stratégique
India: Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council
Indonesia: Badan Perencanaan dan Pembangunan Nasional
Mexico: 2030 Vision
Singapore: Futures Group
Sweden: Institute for Futures Studies
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Australia’s continued rise as a global hub for crowdsourcing

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Over just the last few years, Australia has established itself as a global hub for crowdsourcing platforms. Early last year I wrote about the phenomenon, pointing to leading service marketplace Freelancer.com, which is now based out of Sydney (see my interview of its CEO Matt Barrie on Channel 7 last week), 99designs, which recently raised $35 million as the top graphic design competition platform in the world, and DesignCrowd, another top player in the space. I followed up with a post about the innovative ideas broker Ideas While You Sleep.

Now late last week, further news pointing to Australia’s rise as a global crowdsourcing hub. DesignCrowd has raised $3 million to grow the business globally, including shortly hiring 10 new people. CEO Alec Lynch says:
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Latest: Equity crowdfunding coming shortly? Congress offers bipartisan support

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Continuing my ongoing coverage of the state of equity crowdfunding, news is just out that a Republican bill proposing that crowdfunding be allowed will get support from the White House. This is not too surprising given the White House recently explicitly supported crowdfunding in the context of the Obama Jobs bill, but is still a relief given there is not much Congress seems to be able to agree on these days.

The bill summary says:
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Proposal for a new crowdfunding model: Betting to win

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The other day I caught up for a coffee with Ryan Wardell, the founder of Project Powerup, a crowdfunding site focused on startups.

Project Startup uses the classic crowdfunding model used by Kickstarter, Indie GoGo, Sellaband and other crowdfunding platforms for funding creative projects, in which funders are rewarded by receiving products, services, preferential treatment, and feeling good, but no equity.

I have written many times about the limits on equity crowdfunding and what goes beyond, and there is a detailed chapter on equity crowdfunding in my forthcoming book on effective approaches to crowdsourcing.

We discussed the legislation in most developed countries that forbids small equity investments in private companies. Then an idea came to me about how to go about this. I can’t see that I’ll be able to do this myself for the foreseeable future, given our existing project schedule, so I’d like to throw it out there as a gift for whoever would like to take it and do it.
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Workshop slides: Creating the Future of Professional Services

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I am about to hop on a plane to Hawaii, where I will be running the ‘keynote workshop’ on Creating the Future of Professional Services for global accounting network DFK International’s annual North America conference on Maui. While it’s pretty crazy, I will only be there for as long as I spend travelling to Hawaii and back. I just have too much on now, including a lot of other client work and finishing a book very soon. In any case I intend to enjoy my brief sojourn in the sun :-).

As usual I will share my slides, mainly for workshop participants, since the slides are not intended to be used as a stand-alone, but also for anyone else who happens to find value in them.

The original idea was for me to do a keynote, but we soon developed the idea to be a half-day highly participatory session that will go into detail on pressing practical and strategic issues. There are five sections to the workshop, each with a presentation supported by the slides below, and then activities including discussions, case studies, exercises, strategy frameworks, and action plans, which are described in detailed handouts for all participants. The five sections are:
* Driving Forces
* High-Value Client Relationships
* Power of Networks
* Levers of Success
* Leadership

Here are the slides:

Workshop: Creating the Future of Professional Services

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Looking for talented editors/ writers / project managers / social media on cool tech, media, and future topics

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We have just posted an ad on Elance, looking for editors/ writers/ project managers for some of our existing and forthcoming online publications.

Please apply on Elance if this seems like a match, or pass it on to others if you think it might be of interest. If you have questions before applying you can use our contact form. We hope to find some awesome people!

Talented editors/ writers / project managers / social media for cool tech and future topics

We run a series of content websites on topics related to technology, media, and the future, among many other activities.

We are looking for highly talented editors/ project managers who can drive quality content and traffic on these sites.
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The global polarization of work: what we can do about it

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Today I gave the keynote at an invitation-only meeting of senior executives looking at the future of their industry. My role was to bring perspectives on the broader drivers of change in business.

One of the central themes of my keynote was the future of work and organizations. There are of course many facets to this, but one of the fundamentally important ones in considering the future of business and society is in how work is being polarized.

On the one hand, the elites who have outstanding talents or expertise, combined with the ability to collaborate effectively, have extraordinary choices. They can choose the employers who give them the most flexibility, the highest pay, or the greatest work satisfaction, depending on their priorities. They can work freelance for companies anywhere in the world, usually working from the comfort of their own home or local co-working space. They can live and work pretty much wherever they want in the world. As connectivity reaches deeper and broader into developing countries, a far broader pool of talented people can reasonably aspire to this lifestyle.
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