Tag Archives: recession

This Is Not a Recession

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Liked the attitude of this post from Tom Peters, which came about thanks to a post on ICAEW’s IT Counts. I totally agree, that’s what I’m working to myself and will try and feedback thoughts accordingly. But my main point is the person who first needs to be different is yourself, to change you own attitudes, and all else flows from this accordingly. Well, that’s my self-empowered approach! We’ll see how well it pans out over ’09.

This Is Not a Recession

Don’t think of our current economic crisis as a recession. Instead, think of it as a recalibration.

Everything is different now.

If you think of it as a recession, you may be tempted to “hunker down” and wait for the economy to cycle back.

If you think of it as a recalibration, you will be motivated to focus on what you have to do differently, since everything is different now.

The way your business generates results is different, now. Your customers think differently, now.

Your customers care about different things, now.

Your customers act differently, now.

Your customers may actually be different people, now.

Customers aren’t disposable anymore; more than ever, you have to create sustainable customer relationships.

Everything is different now.

I’m posting this on January 7, 2009. One thing I’m convinced of is that the world I am working in today is different from any world I have ever done business in. The world has been reset. We can no longer look at the “LY” column on reports to use last year as a benchmark for what will happen this year.

Customers + social networking = value/recession

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During a recession social applications such as communities, social networking sites and word-of-mouth marketing will prove worthwhile because they depend not on a diminishing ad budget, but on an abundant resource: customers, so says the new Awareness report which in turn quotes Forrester Research:

“Conventional wisdom says that experimental media get cut in tough economic times. But social applications like communities, social networking sites, and word-of-mouth marketing are proving themselves, and they depend on an abundant resource — your customers — rather than a scarce one — advertising dollars. In a recession, social applications with measurable results will pay off.” (Forrester Research, Strategies for Interactive Marketing In A Recession, February 2008)

Note: it’s the measurable results that count!

The future is orange

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A Demos report (funded by Orange) published today 29 October argues that social networking sites could help companies beat the recession (report pdf).

I liked this extract from the report: “Consultancy firm McKinsey has studied the importance of social or employee networks for businesses. They found in their research that ‘the formal structures of companies… don’t explain how most of their real day-to-day work gets done’.

“They go on to argue that to capture that value, these network relationships need to be formalised in ways that do not interrupt the looseness from which their value emerges.” (Bryan, Matson and Weiss, ‘Harnessing the power of informal employee networks’)

Reminds me of a post I wrote back in July on ‘How to survive a recession social network style’ quoting the example of BMW’s comms strategy from the early 1990s recession.

Cains Beer Company PLC – in administration

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Ironic that with the Great British Beer Festival on this week the news that Cains Beer Company PLC – in administration. Looks like they had bad luck with the smoking ban, plus ran up a large tab with HMRC.