Selected links on: apps as cost-cutting tool, “the right to bitch”, Facebook’s midlife crisis, how data is not always equal to strategy, and a master list of companies renting and trading in today’s ‘collaborative economy’.
1. Apps: The New Corporate Cost-Cutting Tool
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324678604578342690461080894.html
Apps are the new cost-cutting tool…but are they meant to replace workers, too? How do both employees and consumers feel about this development? In a related article, Dennis K. Berman poses the following questions for companies that want to be more serious with apps:
- How can I use app technology to make things better for my customers first — and my business second.
- Can I afford not to play in this game? What expectations are my competitors creating?
- Am I ready to be in the “technology business” — willing to invest to continually adapt their content and platform? (In the faded days of…six months ago, it was easy to design for the iPad only. That’s rapidly changing as alternatives proliferate.)
2. ING Direct CEO Gives Employees “The Right to Bitch”
http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/ing-direct-ceo-right-to-bitch
It’s brave to make the right to complain a company policy, but braver still to heed the duty to listen and act on the issues that arise from this right. Enabling your employees to freely air their concerns is essential in becoming a social business.
3. Welcome To Facebook’s Midlife Crisis
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/this-is-facebooks-midlife-crisis
How can Facebook make the experience of staying on Facebook more compelling than just creating an account?
4. Data is not always a substitute for strategy
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130316190832-2293107-data-is-not-always-a-substitute-for-strategy
Steven Sinofsky writes: “While data can inform choices, no one is saying it is the only way to make a choice or that those making products should only defer to data. Product development is a complex mix of science and intuition. Data represents part of that mix, but not the whole of it.”
5. The Master List of the Collaborative Economy: Rent and Trade Everything
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2013/02/24/the-master-list-of-the-collaborative-economy-rent-and-trade-everything/
Jeremiah Owyang is leading a research effort on the Collaborative Economy. Based on what he has seen so far, he believes that “(T)o stay relevant with this unstoppable trend, every corporation must evaluate a business model of renting, lending, or gifting their products and services.” Bookmark this if you want to keep tabs of companies that are trading and renting. You’ll be surprised to know just how many there are out there! (The list contains mostly US-based business.)
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