Three reasons why some operators are having a hard time "getting real" and truly embracing Web 2.0, becoming Operator 2.0:
1. They believe in their own brand hype too much, but act contrarily inside the company.
2. They don't really know their users as well as they think.
3. They still believe that 'strategy', planning and timing are useful tools.
Read on to find out more...
Increasingly we see operators willing to flirt with Web 2.0. There are many examples at many levels, such as:
1. Creating web-friendly APIs to access the operator network
2. Setting up small teams to build Web 2.0 apps
3. Offering services designed to work with Facebook and other social networking sites
4. Using Twitter to engage with customers, developers, bloggers
5. Working with blogs or bloggers to spread PR
6. Considering the business models and co-creation relationships used by Web 2.0 companies
7. Trying to implement 'Agile' business processes
8. Asking users, mostly developers, to co-create products and services
There are more, and they are increasing all the time, though not at 'Web 2.0 speed.'
I give a
course, mostly to operators, about how mobile can and is following a similar trend to the evolution of web - indeed, how the two loci of development are increasingly intertwined, merging to form a new breed of mobile possibilities that we broadly called Mobile 2.0, concrete definitions notwithstanding. (The course also tells how Mobile 2.0 works, not just the concepts.)
During the course, I contend, not that controversially, that Web 2.0 is the centre of the digital consumer's universe, or soon will be, and therefore mobile networks are in many ways now an adjunct - at least in the first instance. See the slides below.
The point being made is that Web 2.0 is where all the action is - it's increasingly where we live our digital lives. Therefore, if the future of operating a mobile network is NOT about the saturated voice/text services and is all about applications, then these applications are inevitably going to be tied to Web 2.0 services, not to operator services. Nothing controversial here.
The mistake, however, would be to assume that folk who work in operators don't get this, or can't appreciate this contention, if it is a contention at all. The usual dismissive types aside, more operator folk really do get it!
Clearly, operators worry about this trend simply because they aren't currently in the Web 2.0 world - they don't add value to it, they don't generate value in it and they don't really get value from it. And this is the problem. When you fear something, you can easily ignore it, even if it means the end of your life as you know it - especially if it means the end of your life as your know it.
It is an attribute of the human intellect that we can hold two (or more) contradictory ideas at the same time - cognitive dissonance, the psychologists call it. It's painful enough to keep many a senior executive up at night, cushioned only by their fat bonuses (parallels with banking here?)
We cope with the dissonance by suppressing the ideas that we don't like, or that we don't want to face. We also create support structures to make that suppression easier - we surround ourselves with other head-in the-sand folk and we reward ourselves for sticking with the idea that we really know is rapidly running out of time and steam. We also create our own fallacies. In my experience, here are three that I think are particularly problematic:
1. Belief in the hype of your own brand
2. Belief that you know your users (even based on extensive surveys, focus groups, analytics)
3. Belief that planning and strategizing will actually work and that this will lead to a perfect time for change
Brand as Hype - There isn't an operator whose brand isn't something to do with 'connecting' people in an increasingly connected world, or some such equivalent - various metaphors get used. However, I don't believe it. By and large, how this translates inside the organisation is really 'making end-to-end network connections reliably AND billing for them whilst looking after the customer.' Great resources are poured into this and NOT into actually connecting people in all the various ways they might want to connect digitally.
It is almost getting silly that we often end up comparing everything to Google (see Jeff Jarvis' book called 'What Would Google Do?'). However, let's do that anyway. We all know that they're a search company, so let's think of search here as their core asset, equivalent to the core asset of the MNO - their network. However, Google's mission/brand inside their company is in 100% agreement with their brand hype, which isn't anything to do with search - it's connecting us to all the world's information. That's how a 'search company' ends up producing one of the most kick-ass webmail products around, one of the best online document products around, one of the best and most widely 'franchised' mapping services around - and so on.
Besides making that green call-complete button and 'send text' button work reliably on our mobiles, and mostly getting our bills right, what other service has an operator given us that is even vaguely kick-ass in the business of connecting people?
We know our users - There isn't an operator who doesn't have a model of their users - the usual clutch of segments with snazzy names, like 'Urban Warrior', 'Connected Crazy' or whatever they might be called. This DOES NOT equate to knowing your users. All it means is that you know, perhaps religiously well, how you archetype your users. This is something else entirely.
In the world of Web 2.0 and fine-grained analytics, user participation, social networks and all the other attributes that make us dizzy, there is NO ROOM for archetypes. The segment isn't four groups with reductionist monikers like 'Text Monkey' - the segment is EACH SINGLE USER with his or her habits, predilections and needs KNOWN AND CATERED FOR.
Before I recently switched to the iPhone, I was with another MNO since the BEGINNING of their GSM offering. Not once in that entire time did they show any sign at all that they knew about me, apart from my name appearing on the bill. And, by the way, I once had about 10 SIM cards with that operator. Still nothing. And I know why. In their world view - I was too small fry to count as a 'business user' worth fussing over. Moreover, they didn't have a business capable of being flexible enough to single out users and their needs.
Operators don't know their users at all - what their actual connectivity needs are - in the broader sense of connectivity, if that's the business they proclaim to be in. Sure, they probably know their handset interests, billing preferences, tariff tolerance and so on, but not their actual digital connectivity needs on a per user basis in a digital world. Who wants to connect to their bank - and how? Who wants to connect with their sport's team buddies - and how? They don't know. They don't know their users. How could they? The users don't co-create the services with them - they are politely, albeit efficiently, catered for, not embraced per the Web 2.0 vision (and reality).
Belief in strategy - This applies to many corporations in various industries, but telcos still maintain this fallacy - that planning, strategy (an old military concept that applied to slow-moving armies) and timing are allies and tools that really can deliver the goods. Any senior staff member knows the truth when he or she looks in the mirror and ask the question - 'what should we do about tomorrow?'
The real answer, the one that doesn't get discussed - and therefore never gets addressed - is ... 'we don't know.'
That's the quintessential problem of dealing with social technologies. That's why I've been putting this slide up for years ... it takes a while to fully appreciate McLuhan's idea (and he was talking about TV decades ago).
And don't worry, because you cannot know. And, if it's any comfort - most of your competition are in the same boat - EXCEPT, that is - the NEW COMPETITION - yes, oh dear, Google again - and other Web 2.0 companies that are already in your business - your real business - the business of connecting people.
But let me be clear - they don't know either, although Jeff might tell us differently. Let's see what the book says. Perhaps the clue is in the title - 'What would Google DO?' - And there's the magic word - DO. It's the opposite to the perfect timing mentality, which invariably translates not to DOING, but to WAITING, just like those bankers did who knew inside that their products were defunct, but perhaps not today, not tomorrow, not next week - WHOOPS! Sh*t! Too late.
Cognitive dissonance is strongly related to culture wars. And here's the one essential element missing from all Web 2.0 (and Mobile 2.0) definitions and narratives - that this stuff - DOING and creating in the web world of digital opportunities - is strongly related to culture. One has to have a certain mindset and cultural bias. Web 2.0 is as much a culture as it is a collection of narratives and memes about the essentialised web experience. It is a culture that is far removed from the one seen in the world of running networks. The dominant underlying themes of Web 2.0 culture are 'play' and 'risk.'
That's where the fault line lies - where the dissonance rises to its peak. In an industry predicated on removing risk (99.999%) - the prospect of taking risks is a scary and contradictory thing. But, until the fault line breaks, there is little or no prospect of becoming an Operator 2.0 - the future isn't bright. EXCEPT - it is! In a world where people thirst and crave for connection, more so every day - and perhaps even more so in these 'threatening' times - the future really is bright for those who can deliver the goods.
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