In the previous post we discussed why producers will lose. Now we will contrast why conductors will be the winners.
The optimum business model is one of embracing the “conductor” role aimed at providing people with “ideas, information and knowledge” they in turn can use to produce what they want with their community of friends and followers. Giving people the “right instruments to create their own communities” of conversations will ultimate lead to production of commerce.
A producer tries to “pull people” to their business. A conductor enables people to find the people, products and services they want, need or desire. A producer pulls people to their web site and the people are confronted with an anti-social experience and tricked into a “capture, control and frustrate” process. A conductor ensures that people are enabled to access, collaborate and share information seamlessly with no tricks, no intents to capture, control or frustrate people trying to use something to their benefit and the benefit of others.
What Does Win Mean to a Conductor?
Social conductors are focused on helping and enabling people to win. That is the overriding mission of their organization. Unless people can win then the organization will never win. Unless the community can win then there is no value to be conducted thus no role for the conductor. A social conductor is obsessed with finding ways to let people, markets and communities win.
On the opposing side is a producer who deems wining as meeting their goals, increasing results and subsequently everything evolves around those objectives. The relationship between a producer and markets is marketing driven vs. relationally driven. The producer looks at markets as places to get vs. places to give. The rules of the game of business are different for producers vs. conductors, they oppose each other.
The social conductor wins when people win and they focus on creative ways to facilitate wins for people. communities and markets. They know intrinsically that lasting results come from satisfying people beyond their expectations and respecting their relationship with people, internally and externally. The conductor views social technology as a new frontier to serve more people. The producer views social technology as a marketing medium to reach more people with their proposition.
The social conductor doesn’t worry about results or measuring social media rather they focus on measuring whether they are acting as the conductor on behalf of people. Social technology enables the conductor to do more with less and everything is done for the benefit and value of people. The conductor is focused on creation of value that people can use and measurement is centric to value improvements.
The social producer worries about results and measures everything they do with the aim of getting more by giving less. The differences between the conductor vs. the producer is what creates a win for the people they serve.
Given these scenarios which would do you think will win the most?
Continuing on with highlighting the difference between a social producer vs. conductor it is important to understand why social producers will lose.
People simply do not like to be considered as an asset used to produce results. Yet many corporations think, act and threat people as an asset for production of results. The attitude of using people as production assets came out of the industrial era and remnants of those attitudes linger even in today’s modern society. The use of monthly, quarterly goals and bonus plans are old school methods used primarily to get people to produce more for the organization. Measurement of individual production is yet another lingering method that most people consider sophomoric, foolish and demotivating. Yet we still see these methods being used throughout corporations everywhere.
The Intrinsic Value Factor
People gain intrinsic value from being proud of their work and the company they work for. Intrinsic value is also gained from the people they work with and the relationships they form as a result of their work. Intrinsic value reflects whether something is good or bad but also how good or bad it is. Working for a company that you don’t trust, whose methods you question and whose management actions are archaic doesn’t instill much intrinsic value with people.
The same is true of customer experiences with your organization. The experience a customer has with your business, your processes, products, services and people either creates or destroys intrinsic value. If customers do not sense that you really care about them then there is no intrinsic value instilled. If customers feel that all you want from them is a sale then there is no relational intrinsic value created. Using marketing tricks to pull people to a web site that wants to trap them creates no intrinsic value.
The list of value offenses created by organizations goes on and on. Consumed with achieving short term results organizations get obsessed with “production” without even considering how to improve the relational values it has with the marketplace of buyers, employees and suppliers.
The “producer” business model will fail in a world connected, relational and transparent. Why? Because people achieve more, share more and give more when they can sense, see and accentuate intrinsic values that allows them to be part of something or a group that is good, rewarding and social.
Social technology will accelerate the differences between organizations who are producers vs conductors because people have been enabled to express, experience and share the intrinsic values created by conductors. At the same time people have been enabled to express, experience and share the lack of intrinsic values created by producers. Get it?
If you are an advertiser you ought to get it quick and stop wasting your money.
Those who do extraordinary things change the game for those that don’t. Changing the game for others means you do something which changes the rules of the game before those following the old rules know it.
Apple changed the game for mobile device manufacturers and for mobile users. Apple is now attempting to change the game for “laptops” with the IPad. Google changed the game for internet search engine utility. President OBama changed the game of politics when he leveraged the internet to raise contributions ($600 million compared to McCann’s $50 million) and to take his message of change directly to voters.
Social media is a game changer. It is changing how people interact with markets. How buyers influence sellers and how old media adapts to this thing we call new media. The dynamics and disruptive nature of all things social are emerging on a daily basis.
Individuals and organizations are looking for and trying innovative ways to garner attention, awareness, affinity, audiences and subsequent actions. The flow of new technology enters the marketplace faster than most people and entire organizations can keep tract of never mind comprehending the pending implications. Jumping from one technology to another there is a frenzy of tactical maneuvers, creative uses and all indicative of a race with no clear end in mind. While garnering people’s attention for the moment the next moment moves the audience because someone else applies tactical maneuvers and creative uses of social media to get our attention. The limelight of tactical and creative attempts to get the audiences attention are but for a moment.
Strategy is What Changes the Game Not Tactics
There is no road map for use of social technology, only temporary roads. Temporary roads are tactical usesaimed at getting attention and awareness. Fueled by creativity these tactics are short roads with a dead end unless there is an overriding strategy that creates new “highways” for others to follow and use.
A highway for use of social technology requires deep thinking about users wants, needs and intentions. Since there is no preplanned highway and the objective of a sound strategy is to create a highway where none exist. Doing so takes creative thinking long term and development of tools and experiences that users find valuable, useful and serving their intentions. Time, convenience and valuable experiences are the strategic elements that can create new highways. Slick marketing and tactical attempts to get the audiences attention are side roads not long term highways.
A sound Social strategy is one which changes the rules of the game for more than a moment. If you can change the rules of the game and users like the new rules then competition will have to follow your highway.
Social media and related social stuff currently grabbing everyone’s attention represents an explosive map of new roads where everyone wants to discover where the roads go. Those who can think strategically will create highways for all to follow and use and subsequently these people and organizations will change the game and pull all the traffic from the side roads. Why? Because highways are faster routes for users to get from point A to B with better experiences.
If you are not thinking strategically about all this social stuff you may end up on a dead end road. Get it?
A social conductor is an individual or organization that enables people to use their organization to achieve wants, needs and desires. The opposite is a social producer who uses people to create direct benefits to their organization.
Pepsi Initiates the “Conductor” Model
Time Magazine states :To Pepsi, and to companies around the world, the days when mass-market media is the sole vehicle to reach an audience are officially over. Instead of pouring millions of dollars into a Super Bowl commercial, Pepsi has started a social-media campaign to promote its “Pepsi Refresh” initiative. Pepsi plans to give away $20 million in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education.
People can go to the Pepsi website refresheverything.com — which can also be accessed through Facebook and Twitter — to both submit ideas and vote on others they find appealing. Among those on the site now: “Help free healthcare clinic expand services to uninsured in rural TN” and “Build a fitness center for all students in Hays, Kansas community.” Every month, the company will offer up to 32 grants to worthy projects.
“This is such a fundamental change from anything we’ve done in the past,” says Lauren Hobart, chief marketing officer for Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages. “It’s a big shift. We explored different launch plans, and the Super Bowl just wasn’t the right venue, because we’re really trying to spark a full-year movement from the ground up. The plan is to have much more two-way dialogue with our customers.”
5 Elements of the Conductor Model
The conductor model leverages five elements of interaction with the marketplace. These are:
Attention: They do things that create attention from the marketplace. However the things they do draw attention to people’s ideas, wants, desires and needs rather than direct attention to themselves. They build social capital by doing things that people can participate in and benefit from. They provide content that is in context to people’s intentions rather than the intentions of their organization. The Pepsi campaign will and is drawing the right attention not just for one event rather 24/7 and 365 days of the year. Main stream media is discussing the Pepsi move away from Super Bowl to the above social media campaign and will likely report the results continuously.
Awareness: Social conductors draw attention to people and things that are social. Such things could be anything that people desire, want or need and the conductor enables people to easily access information that is in alignment with their intents. By raising awareness of issues of importance to people conductors are in fact raising awareness to their brand. Main stream media and the participants are likely to discuss the Pepsi campaign and the blogosphere will explode with commentary for a long long time.
Affinity: Social conductors create affinities to people by enabling people to interact, support and communicate relevant information that is important to people’s wants, needs, desires and intentions. By creating such affinities the social conductor is indirectly creating an affinity to themselves for the value created by the experience and interaction they enable.
Audience: By creating attention, awareness and affinity the social conductor builds an audience who relates to the conductors actions, intents and value created on behalf of the audience.
Action: The social conductor enables people to “act” on their desires, wants, needs and intention thus becoming the enabler of action on behalf of the audience. Being the enable builds trust and confidence in the conductor. Something every brand and individual aspires to accomplish.
The social conductor model is well socially oriented and aimed at giving people tools, content and experiences that enhance an individuals or other organizations objective. The results produced by a conductor come from the results that produce for people. Enabling people to produce results comes back to the conductor in ways typically not measured or considered.
The bottom line grows because of the context of being a social conductors that people appreciate. Such sentiment creates a transaction of appreciation which translates to a transaction for the conductor. A social conductor draws in support from the audience because of its intent rather than its marketing. On Twitter, Ashton Kutcher reveals to his nearly 4.5 million followers that he can barely wait for the voting to begin for the Pepsi campaign. Pepsi just may have started the race for organizations to learn how to become social conductors.
The marketplace reveals behavior, intent and related methods of who are producers vs. those who are conductors. The producer pushes hard to get results trying everything they can to get user attention and attraction. Conductors merely provide tools to users who then produce something of their own with it for their own purposes.
There are distinctive attributes that make identifying Producers vs Conductors transparent. As the use of social media grows you can see which conversations reflect the origins as producer vs. conductor.
Producers tend to think differently that conductors. How and what we think and believe is reflected in our behavior. Behavior is a reflection of what we do and say. While some believe it doesn’t matter as long as you get the result others believe how you get the result is more important.
Comparing the Two
Most people can identify with the difference between a producer and a conductor. All we’ve done is label the behavior and put it into context of transparency created by the social web.
For illustration purpose we will list the behavior that creates the relevant label. In future post we intend on identifying specific organizations that fit the description of either attribute. If we were trying to be politically correct we wouldn’t even attempt to do such a thing for fear of offending certain organizations. On the other hand “we the people” seem to be very fed up with political correctness and it seems that most people would rather be heard rather than stuff their opinions of what serves people’s best interest.
The chart below list some attributes we’ve observed and their subsequent behavior distinguishes them as a producer or conductor. Add to the list for the benefit of all readers so more people, and hopefully brands and organizations, can begin to see and understand the difference.
Producer
Conductor
Thinking
Scarcity
Abundance
Control
Collaborate
Contain
Transparent
Take
Give
Use People
Allow People to Use
Results Oriented
People Oriented
Marketing
Push
Pull
Their Message
The Buyers Message
Their Needs
Buyer Needs
Social is Marketing Oriented
Social is People Oriented
Offers
Needs
Their Intent
Our Intent
Their Talent
Our Talent
Their Customers
The Buyer
Public Relations
Corporate Relations
Social Relations
Political Correctness
People Correctness
Spin
Truth
Being Served
Serving Others
Image Control
Sentiment Driven
Organizational Acumen
Public Acumen
Finance
Cost Containment
Cost vs.Value
Reduce Cost
Improve Value
Revenue Per Employee
Revenue Enhancements
Revenue Per Customer
Service Per Customer
Sell More
Give More
Experience Doesn’t Matter
Experience Drives Revenue
There are plenty of other relevant attributes that compare a Producer to a Conductor but by know you should see the contrast in behavior. As markets continue to mature and “all things social” influences markets the question is which type of behavior will be more conducive to future markets. You decide and feel free to add attributes to the list above.
If you haven’t noticed organizations and individuals are trying to produce something using social media. The efforts are intended to fulfill the desire for a results, more sales, brand awareness and yes more followers.
The proliferation of social tools, social media and all things social is creating a frenzy to “produce” something, anything and everything aimed at getting results. The chase for the secret sauce to get results has the marketplace consumed with the production of content aimed at attracting awareness, attention and an audience. Marketers are trying everything to get our attention so they can move us to a transaction, the result.
The process of marketing has been focused on reaching the masses using numerous forms of media. Marketing has been designed to create attention and awareness of an offering targeted to a specific audience. Marketing followed “production thinking”. The more we market the more sales we’ll “produce”.
The model of “production thinking” creates environments in which “people” are used to “produce more” at less cost. The aim is to make profits from producing more and production is enhanced by optimizing people, processes and technology. Management methods to optimize production evolved around measuring anything and everything with the aim of finding out how effective people, processes and technology are at producing a results. The problem is the “production model” is that the people part has changed while the model for using people has not.
The Difference Between Producer vs. Conductor
A producer creates things aimed at producing results using people, processes and technology. A conductor helps people optimize their use of something which synchronizes with the talents and interest of others. The producer aims to use things to create a result for them or their organization. The conductor enables people to use things to create the result they want, desire and need.
The optimum business model is one of embracing the “conductor” function aimed at providing people with “ideas, information and knowledge” they in turn can use to produce what they want with their community of friends and followers. Giving people the “right instruments to create their own communities” of conversations will ultimate lead to production of commerce.
A producer tries to “pull people” to their business. A conductor enables people to find the people, products and services they want, need or desire. A producer pulls people to their web site and the people are confronted with an anti-social experience and tricked into a “capture, control and frustrate” process. A conductor ensures that people are enabled to access, collaborate and share information seamlessly with no tricks, no intents to capture, control or frustrate people trying to use something to their benefit and the benefit of others.
Pepsi opted out of the Super Bowl Ads and chose to “conduct” a social experiment by giving away $20 million for the best community development ideas. Coke Cola chose to spend millions to run Super Bowl ads aimed to producing a lasting impression on viewers. Which was the producer vs. the conductor? Which method produced the best results? You decide.
With all the emphasis on social media ROI you would think that companies believe that social media is a production line in a factory.This mentality is reflective of how management thinking is still in the industrial era.
Production thinking is about producing something for consumption by the masses. The results of “production” are reflected by subtracting the gross revenue from the cost. Thus the emphasis is placed on selling more to make more. To enhance sales opportunities companies adopted marketing strategies and tactics.
The process of marketing has been focused on reaching the masses using numerous forms of media. Marketing has been designed to create attention and awareness of an offering targeted to a specific audience. Marketing followed “production thinking”. The more we market the more sales we’ll “produce”.
The model of “production thinking” creates environments in which “people” are used to “produce more” at less cost. The aim is to make profits from producing more and production is enhanced by optimizing people, processes and technology. Management methods to optimize production evolved around measuring anything and everything with the aim of finding out how effective people, processes and technology are at producing a results. The problem is the “production model” is that the people part has changed while the model for using people has not.
Now Measure Social Media Production
The internet has changed a lot of things for people and business.Every evolution of the internetcreates yet another change and business tries to apply old management methods and thinking to these changes. The problem is that most of the changes brought on by the internet are centric to how people and markets interact. These interactions are changing how business ought to manage people and markets. People and markets are no longer for use rather both are now the users. The change from being used to being the user means “production models” for business are no longer viable rather the model for has shifted to a “conductor model”.
The term conductor meansa person who directs an orchestra or chorus, communicating to the performers by motions of a baton or the hands his or her interpretation of the music. Conductor also means a substance, body, or device that readily conducts heat, electricity, sound.The “conductor model” for business is more about enabling people to conduct commerce, internally and externally, rather than management trying to “produce” commerce with a “production mentality”.
Now reflect on what the social web, and all this social stuff, is creating. The fundamental change is that people are being empowered to “conduct” their own commerce, whether buying, selling or simply conversing. The term commerce deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer. The social web is self organized orchestras formed by conversational threads that readily “conduct” ideas, information and knowledge threaded throughout the internet and propagated on most any device.
The optimum business model is one of embracing the “conductor” function aimed at providing people with “ideas, information and knowledge” they in turn can use to produce what they want with their community of friends and followers. Giving people the “right instruments to create their own orchestras” of conversations will ultimate lead to the creation of commerce.
To adopt the “conductor model” for business means you have the recognize that measuring social media ROI is more about measuring your ability to enable people, internally and externally, to use you rather than you using them. Measuring your ability to be used is a lot different than measuring how you use people to use your stuff. To optimize in a world gone “social” it is wiser to think as a conductor rather than a producer.
Conductors measure the synchronization of efforts aimed at giving the audience of people more than they expected. They don’t measure the results of people producing rather what they produce for the people.
With more and more people conversing on the web marketers are trying to create ways in which to sell our conversations. There is a proliferation of tools aimed at tracking, aggregating and influencing conversations. The increased demand for monitoring our conversations means that the value of conversations is going up. The question is who truly captures the value creation obtained from and with conversations?
On the other end of the spectrum marketers are trying to learn how to sell their goods and services through conversations, theirs and ours.Whileall things social appear to be a medium to extend a marketing message the reality is that “all things social” really represents a much bigger dynamic of change than just a change in the way brands and merchants market to buyers.
The Bigger Dynamic of Change
Just recently The Economist came out with a feature article titled “A World of Connections: A special report on social networking“. The article states “Online social networks are changing the way people communicate, work and play, and mostly for the better, says Martin Giles. The ultimate goal, he wrote, was to come up with something that, ?first and foremost, would make it easier for people to collaborate with one another.”
“This special report has argued that social networks have already done much to achieve that goal. They have created trusted online venues where people can meet up using their real identities. They have provided ?rms with new ways to reach their customers and those who inf?uence them. They have reduced friction in the labour market by allowing employers and prospective employees to connect more easily than ever before. And they have speeded up the ?ow of information within companies.”
“All of these are impressive achievements. But arguably the most important contribution that the sites have made is to off?er a free and immensely powerful set of communication and collaboration tools to everyone on Earth who has access to a broadband internet connection. This democratisation of technology is driving the socialisation of the web and fundamentally changing the way that people interact with one another, as well as with businesses and governments. ”
Beyond the Obvious
While the article in the Economist will in fact continue to raise the awareness of possibilities from a connected world it would seem that the conclusions in articles like these are a flash of the obvious rather than insight into changes fueling the obvious. At the end of the day social conversations are and will continue to change everything. The Economist article ends with This democratisation of technology is driving the socialisation of the web and fundamentally changing the way that people interact with one another, as well as with businesses and governments. ”
When people are unleashed from traditional constraints of interaction, collaboration, creativity and communications they become empowered to change the world around them. People begin to learn that the world of possibilities isn’t what we’ve been taught to think rather it is whatever we can think and create together. This dynamic unleashes creativity, innovations, beliefs and knowledge never before tapped rather untapped by what we’ve been taught to believe.
Social conversations are in fact selling change. But the change isn’t from the markets rather it is from the people, those that buy into the change. The social wave is building momentum and when it hits your landscape you won’t understand it unless you let go of what you think you understand.
Everyone is chasing “social” as if it was the cure all and end all. Whether you’re a brand, a non-profit, a politician or a small business the lure of social media is being applied in many different ways.
Over the past several years the stories of how people are using social media has dominated the web and is now bleeding into main stream media. How? People and organizations are creating eye-opening stories about how they applied social media to accomplish an objective. Scott Brown’s win in the Massachusetts senate race is but one example and when you examine the factors that created his win social media stands out front and center.
There are inspiring lessons from the BIG and small stories of how people and organizations successfully applied social media. The irony of these stories is that most people who actually used social media to achieve and objective don’t understand “why” social media actually influenced the outcomes.
Lessons From Use
Social media is in its infancy stages and current usage is organic growth of a message propagated to the masses. A simple message from one person or organization can “catch the crowds” attention in profound ways that previously was not created by traditional media. The lessons from usage illustrate the simplistic yet profound nature of viral communications whose reach and richness has accelerated due to the internet. Some lessons to consider:
Enable consumers and constituents to be the influence, not your ads or your marketing but rather your message that appeals to the masses.
Innovate the message with the medium even if you don’t understand why or how. Barack Obama leveraged social media to get elected into the highest office in the nation. His party doesn’t understand “why” this worked and neither did Scott Brown. All they know is that it worked. Now both parties are jumping into the use of social media but neither understands why or how it works.
Social media reaches outside the traditional market and taps into people who have an affinity to your message, your product/service and you individually regardless of geography or traditional demographics that have defined your market.
Leverage social technology with relevant and relative media. Relevant and relative media is different than traditional media because it is relational rather than institutional. Social technology enables relational media to spread like wildfire because of the distributed power of reaching hearts and minds.
We live in a world of unprecedented change, increasing globalization, and the explosive influence of distributed communications fueld by this thing we call social media. Innovative uses of social media is the central driving force for any business, any cause or any nation that wants to grow organically and succeed in the new economy. This is a game-changing dynamic which will evolve rapidly as will the influence and impact on everything.
The game has just begun. There are no spoken rules rather the rules are hidden in the fiber of human relations and only spoken to the hearts and minds of those participating in the game of change. A game changes when people learn “why” people play the game and not necessarily “how” they play the game today. The rules of the game change when we learn why which then changes how we use something as simple yet profound as the ability to “connect” to and with the human network like never before in the history of mankind. The crowds learning why are the game changers.
Most organizations attempt to improve performance by changing management methods that are more collaborative and in tune with cultural dynamics of the modern work force.
Management methods have evolved but their is a generation moving through the ranks which will demand a revoltion vs. evolution in management methods. You could say that the modern organization is learning to become a “social organization” which reflects current market dynamics. The old organizational structure had a boss. The modern organization had a leader but the new social organization has a “builder“.
The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them. The Builder learns from them.
The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will. The Builder depends on good.
The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The Builder is inspired — by changing the world.
The boss says “I”; the leader says “we”. The Builder says “all” — people, communities, and society.
The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace. The Builder sees the outcome.
The boss says, “Get there on time;” the leader gets there ahead of time. The Builder makes sure “getting there” matters.
The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The Builder prevents the breakdown.
The boss knows how; the leader shows how. The Builder shows why.
The boss makes work a drudgery; the leader makes work a game. The Builder organizes love, not work.
The boss says, “Go;” the leader says, “Let’s go.” The Builder says: “come.”
So the question is this: are you merely managing an organization, just leading an organization — or are you building an institution? 99.9% of the world’s leaders are, well, just leaders. But today, leadership alone can’t get you from the 20th century to the 21st.
The Transition from Leader to Builder
Corporate leaders like being the leader. Being the leader means higher pay, maximum authority, higher profile and the final decision maker. However society has changed and people now expect to be involved in “leading” by being enabled to build innovation and pride into their work. The empowerment to build doesn’t need a leader for everyone becomes a leader when they are empowered to build vs. follow. While people need direction the direction of a builder is a series of “questions” that are answered by the crowd, internal and external. Questions that promote continuous learning and desire to innovate without restraints. Questions such as what, where, when, why and how does what we do, what we sell fulfill the intent of buyers? How can we fulfill buyer intents beyond their expectations?
A builder simply ask the right questions and lets the “crowd” find and execute on the answers. Answers centric to continuously improving “people’s experience”, both internal and external, so that the organizations overriding intention is one of attraction. Attraction of the right people, the right markets and last but not least the right thinking that creates the right behavior.
So ask yourself, no ask your people are you considered a boss, a leader or a builder. If the answer is the first two then you must make the transition to become a “builder” or you will not be able to build an attractive organization.
In the previous post we discussed why producers will lose. Now we will contrast why conductors will be the winners.![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
