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ChatGPT BusinessWeek: Best of 2005
[[image:bw2005_copy1.jpg::right:1]]Zoals ik in mijn artikel van gisteren al aanstipte zijn we weer aanbeland in de periode van terug- en vooruitblikken. Dit weekend haalt het Amerikaanse tijdschrift BusinessWeek uit met een special over het beste van 2005: The Best Ideas, Leaders en Products. Over Google, Yahoo!, Apple, MySpace en General Electric. Maar ook The Long Tail. The Open-Source Workplace, Wikis, Blogs, Podcasting, Wireless, Mobile, Social Networking Sites en New Marketing.
De meest boeiende lijst vind ik die met The Best Ideas van 2005. Allereerst hier de complete opsomming met per onderwerp een (Engelstalige) samenvatting van de BusinessWeek omschrijving.
- Treat Your Children Well But Limit Their Inheritance: Money and youth can be an unhealthy combination, even if it doesn’t propel you and your heiress pals onto a reality show. In fact, popular wisdom now suggests that getting handed a fat check for simply being part of the right family doesn’t do much for anyone. With a $41 trillion wealth transfer predicted as baby boomers near retirement, more parents are scaling back massive family bequests, channeling money to social causes instead.
- Geography Is So Twentieth Century: When it comes to work, geography doesn’t matter anymore. Even in smaller companies, a growing number of people now operate in teams spread across continents. They use standardized information technology platforms for laptop computers, e-mail addresses, mobile phones, and intranet access. (…) People must learn to work to the ebb and flow of their own schedule–and reach out in new ways. Though geography may have become less relevant, the need for community never goes away.
- What Business Really Craves: Simplicity: Simplicity is the latest buzz in management and design. With the need to work faster and better, who has the time for owners’ manuals? Thus a new premium is being accorded to ease of use. The iPod nano nails it. So do Rocio Romero’s spartan, up-in-four-days prefab homes and Jura Capresso’s one-button espresso makers. Complexity has become a hazard in pushing products. The new trend is to strip things down to their basics and make products intuitive. In 2005, less was more.
- [[image:innovate.jpg::right:1]]The Way To Succeed In The Creative Economy: Innovate: The Knowledge Economy is giving way to the Creative Economy. Information has become a commodity like coal or corn. (…) The solution: Focus on innovation and design as the new corporate core competencies. To prosper, companies have to constantly change the game in their industries by creating products and services that satisfy needs consumers don’t even know they have yet. That’s how loyalty is built. (…) Smart companies now have a senior-level executive charged with driving innovation or sparking creativity. Perhaps it’s even the CEO.
- DNA Is Not Necessarily Destiny After All: For decades biologists have inhabited a universe focused on the dogma that genes–and the bits of dna they are made from–are biological destiny. After all, genes contain the instructions for proteins, the building blocks of life. But the supremacy of genes is under assault. Researchers in the emerging field of epigenetics have thrown new light on the power of chemical and environmental factors to shape how a particular gene acts. That would explain why one person may come down with a gene-related disease while her genetically identical twin will not. In another blow to the gene-centric world, scientists are exploring the power of what used to be called “junk dna”–the 98% of our total dna that is found between the genes. It can control important cell functions by creating snippets of a sister molecule, rna. Drug-related research is increasingly fixated on rna as well as on traditional genetics.
- How Much Is That (Designer) Doggie In The Window?: The pet has become a full family member–complete with salon shampoos, gourmet meals, and its own Christmas stocking. Americans now shell out $36 billion a year on food and services for their pets, rivaling what some spend on their children. (…) The latest status symbol: designer dogs.(…) Many boast a poodle parent, valued for its intelligence and lack of shedding. Think of it as an arranged marriage by parents willing to pay $1,000 or more to get the right personality into the family.
- Shop ‘til You Feel It’s A Full-Blown Experience: Companies used to focus on making new, better, or cheaper products and services–and then selling them in the marketplace. Now, the game is to create wonderful and emotional experiences for consumers around whatever is being sold. It’s the experience that counts, not the product. While that business model has long been the preserve of cult-like brands such as Starbucks and Apple, it’s fast becoming the norm in all industries. The goal: to build communities of passionate and loyal consumers. Think of the emphasis on a consumer’s individual experience as a final blow to the notion of mass marketing. (…) And there’s good reason to take the leap. Profit margins are much higher on “experiences” than actual products or services.
- At Bernanke’s Fed, More Cards On The Table: Former Princeton University professor Ben S. Bernanke argues that the Fed should announce a target level for future inflation and then issue regular updates on whether it thinks it’s on track to hit that objective. He hopes more openness will inspire investor confidence and keep market rates stable. It seems to work in countries such as Britain, Sweden, Canada, South Korea, and Brazil. Critics warn that an inflation-targeting Fed might be too inflexible in a crisis, but Bernanke promises to use “constrained discretion.”
- Google Wants All Your Business: Google continues to shake the world of commerce to its core, bringing new ideas and options before consumers. The iconic search engine sparked tremors of fear in every industry from book publishing to advertising in 2005, reinforcing the notion that search is truly the Internet’s killer app. When it intertwined satellite imaging technology with a new map service, millions sought out a bird’s-eye view of their neighborhood. Constant innovation fuels Google’s success, with ideas surfacing around the coffee stations or through informal brainstorming sessions. Engineers can flock to projects that interest them. The company’s founders believe in taking a lot of swings–risking numerous failures to get a few home runs.
- [[image:workplace.jpg::right:1]]The Power And Promise Of The Open-Source Workplace: In the old gray-flannel organization, the executive suite was where the action was. In what’s now known as the open-source workplace, power is distributed. The ceo is no longer omnipotent –and the truly effective ones don’t want to be. The best ideas may evolve from the bottom up and sometimes from the outside in. New technologies such as private workplace wikis and blogs are disrupting command-and-control corporate structures. Any employee can create, edit, refine, comment on, or fix an idea. What some used to dismiss as a recipe for chaos is more likely a path to greater productivity. The workplace becomes more transparent as power and information are instant-ly shared. Companies are even reaching outside their ranks to the virtual commons. Online fan clubs help lego Group design toy kits, so they sell out fast with no marketing. Procter & Gamble executives tap the wisdom of online crowds at InnoCentive, a Web network of 80,000 scientists, to find solutions for problems that stump their own staff. Such “peer production,” as some call it, creates value out of social behavior. In the new office, products, business plans, and even meeting agendas are created collectively instead of individually.
- How The Net Can Find Markets For The Obscure: The mass market is no longer supreme. Thanks to the Internet, you can also make money in the niches. That’s the notion behind the “long tail,” a term coined by Wired magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson to describe how the Net has made the lengthy list of low-selling products–the tail of the demand curve–as lucrative as hits. How? The Net’s ability to gather global demand for niche products means those niches can now sell enough in total to be substantial markets. Amazon.com’s recommendation service, for instance, makes hits out of once obscure books such as Touching the Void, while Netflix has made successes out of documentaries such as Daughter From Danang. Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos estimates that 20% of book sales are from outside the 130,000 titles sold in chain superstores. That’s a market that scarcely existed before.
- Taking The Qualms Out Of Stem Cell Research: Most objections to research on embryonic stem cells revolve around one simple issue: the need to destroy human embryos. But these complaints might wither away if critics could be assured that the embryos have no ability to develop into babies. That could open the path to research now only pursued abroad because of moral concerns in the U.S.
- Playstation Meets Pop Culture: The skateboarder has lent his cachet to a game set in virtual L.A. Video Gaming, that smash-it-up staple of Americana, is drawing big advertisers and shaping the broader culture. Games feature stars such as skateboarder Tony Hawk (above) and actor Sean Connery, who lent his voice to the new James Bond game From Russia with Love. Now, Electronic Arts has developed the Next Level Music label to sell music from its games for use in television commercials and for phone companies as ringtones. And major advertisers from Coke to Verizon have signed on, with a new video game ad network created by Massive Inc. to place advertisements in games.
- [[image:mutitasking.jpg::right:1]]Reaching The Simultaneous Media Multitasking Consumers: It used to be that your teenage kids were the only ones listening to music, zipping off instant messages, searching the Internet, and talking on the telephone all at the same time. But the explosion of technology and choices has pushed media multitasking across the generational divide. Everyone is now a simultaneous consumer of media. Those new patterns of consumption create challenges and opportunities for companies that can navigate the terrain. Marketers, in particular, are struggling with ways to reach people in a world of “foreground” and “background” media–the latter being a fade-in, fade-out form that grabs consumers’ attention only occasionally.
- Fab Fakes And Cheap Chic Have Created Mass Class: Time was when gauging class was as simple as eyeing hand-bag provenance: old money in Hermès Kelly Bags; strivers in Coach; bottom-quintilers in Kathie Lee. The poor shopped at discount stores while the rich sashayed down Rodeo Drive. What a difference celebrity magazines, the Internet, designer brand extensions, easy credit, and Chinese counterfeits make. High and low are slamming into one another, creating a new world of mass class wherein Karl Lagerfeld designs one collection for the runways and another for interns shopping at h&m. Technology is both homogenizing good taste–bringing magisterial sensibilities to the remotest backwaters–and making it more affordable.
- Where Your Kid Is Hanging Out Online: The hottest place for the under-24 crowd dubbed Generation @ to socialize these days is at MySpace.com. The social networking site drew 24.2 million visitors in October, making it one of the most pop-ular on the Web. For today’s wired youth, there is no distinction between virtual and physical reality. They have helped to spawn more than 300 networking destinations on the Web. Such sites are cyber-community centers where kids blog about breakups, make plans for Friday night, and get advice on the best shoes. For them, maintaining an online social presence is critical to navigating the offline world. No wonder companies are clamoring to get inside by posting ads or, as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. did in July, buying MySpace parent company Intermix Media. At the workplace, this generation also relies on social networks to make job connections and collaborate in new ways. So log on. Or get left behind.
- Employees Who March To Their Own Music: Yes, Let My People Go Surfing is a memoir of Patagonia’s mountain-climbing founder, Yvon Chouinard. But the 2005 book is also a heartfelt plea for capitalism, ethics, and fun to coexist in the workplace. The privately held Ventura (Calif.) clothing company lets employees take breaks if the surf is good or a fresh snowfall creates an immediate desire to ski; the weather won’t wait, but the work usually can. Chouinard firmly believes that smart, capable employees know how to get their work done and can judge the rhythms of their day without constant monitoring. This conviction has less to do with work-life balance than with the acknowledgment that work flow and passions are unique to each person. He’s also acutely attuned to preserving the planet’s resources, even inserting notes in Patagonia catalogs asking customers to buy only what they need. It’s a philosophy that resonates in an age of global networks, round-the-clock communications, and growing evidence that the earth is straining under the excesses of human behavior.
- Growing Greener: Whether it’s because of devastating hurricanes or those $3-plus gas prices, many feel it’s time to get serious about earth-friendly practices. Concerns over global warming are on the rise. And corporate leaders are at the forefront of pushing new ideas to slow climate change. From big-ticket gambles on new technologies to long-term commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a growing raft of companies bet they can profit from going green. Among them Toyota, General Electric, Alcoa, BP and HSBC.
- Tuning In To The Channel Of Me: We increasingly live in an era of one channel: the Channel of Me. All the great centralized means of distribution–from broadcast TV and magazines to retail chains and radio–are being transformed by technology that allows individuals to create their own unique program lineups and media experiences. In a mobile, digital world, people want to shape their own channel by choosing from all the available content out there. They want companies to sell them capabilities and options, not uniform products. Each person can build a personal music library, shopping experience, or TV schedule. Users will collaborate instantaneously with others around the globe. Business is there to provide the tools. The Channel of Me makes consumers the ultimate producers.
- Radio Dreams Come Alive In The Podcast: Say you’re crazy about wine. Along comes some free technology that makes it a snap to create your own radio show and distribute it over the Internet. On a whim, you decide to do a show on wine from your living room, call it GrapeRadio and, within months, have more than 10,000 weekly listeners. Before last year, that would have been the stuff of daydreams. But in July, 2004, so-called podcasting software released by former MTV VJ Adam Curry democratized radio and let loose a wave of dormant creativity. There are now more than 20,000 podcasts online on topics from learning French to Scottish music. Although championed by indies, podcasting has been adopted by media giants such as Clear Channel Communications, Walt Disney, and National Public Radio. Everyone is trying to figure out how to make podcasting pay. As with bloggers, few podcasters are likely to make money. Even so, thousands can now create free content that will compete with traditional media for listeners’ attention.
- [[image:brand_copy1.jpg::right:1]]Blogging The Brand: Until recently blogs seemed to represent the strident, angry, self-obsessed partisan–and, occasionally, the unhinged. But corporations have figured out that tapping into the blogosphere is a great way to build relationships with customers and suppliers. Some are even encouraging employees to post their musings on the Web to showcase their expertise and reach new audiences. Properly done, such blogs can lead to more democratic, transparent operations. Have there been some boneheaded moves, such as ads disguised as blogs? Sure. But as the blog world has doubled in size every five months, companies are finding they can use its power to manage crises and build communities around their brands. Some notable ones: GM’s Fastlane, Scobleizer, Public Eye, Vespaway, Wal-Mart Facts.
Het is overduidelijk hoe in bovenstaande lijst de internet-gedreven ontwikkelingen inmiddels dominant aanwezig zijn. In de overzichten van Best Leaders en Best Products eenzelfde beeld, ook daar eist de digitale economie volop haar plek op. Ik heb hieronder een selectie gemaakt uit beide lijsten en daarbij gezocht naar de mensen en producten met een directe ‘internet-connectie’ (web, mobile, wireless, technology, media, marketing, design, innovatie):
- The Best Leaders: Steve Jobs (Apple, Pixar), Terry Semel (Yahoo!), A.G. Lafley (Procter & Gamble), Kim Shin Bae (SK Telecom), Edward Zander (Motorola), Gary D. Forsee (Sprint Nextel), Richard Parsons (Time Warner), Alex Bogusky (Crispin Porter + Bogusky), Gerald D. Putman (Archipelago), Chris DeWolfe & Tom Anderson (MySpace.com), Stewart Butterfield & Caterina Fake (Flickr), Brian Bedol & Steve Greenberg (College Sports Television), Adam Curry (PodShow), Marissa Mayer (Google), Richard Tobaccowala (Publicis Groupe Media), Stefano Marzano (Philips Design), Kevin Brown (IPcelerate), Judy McGrath (MTV), Olli-Pekka Kalasvuo (Nokia), Claudia B. Kotchka (Procter & Gamble) en Bill Campbell (Intuit) (21 van de 38 leiders).
- The Best Products: PhotoStamps (Stamps.com), Nokia N90 cell phone, Candygram (My M&M’s), Nintendogs (video game), Microsoft Xbox 360, Kodak EasyShare-One camera, Plantronics Discovery 640 Bluetooth headset, Sling Media Slingbox (TV for the road), Sonos Digital Music System (House of sound), VIdeo on demand bOne-TIme-Use Video Camcorder (drugstores CVS & RiteAid), Cyber-Trainer (EyeToy kinetic fitness program), Bank of America SiteKey (High security), Apple iPod nano (thin is in), Motorola PEBL cell phone (all the gadgetry you’d expect), SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus memory card (plug and play), JVC Everio GZ-MG70 hard-drive camcorder en Atari Flashback 2 game console (17 van de 40 producten).
Het complete artikel vind je op BusinessWeek Online, inclusief links naar de slide shows over The Best Ideas, The Best Leaders en The Best Products. Verder roept de redactie van BusinessWeek de lezers op om via een online enquete op hun eigen favorieten te stemmen. De opties bij de sommige vragen spreken voor zich:
- Business Ideas: Consumer experience, Social networking, Co-creating with consumers, Collaborative working en Outsourcing
- Innnovators: Katsuaki Watanabe (Toyota), Niklas Zennstrom (Skype), Steve Jobs (Apple, Pixar), Terry Semel (Yahoo!), Larry Page (Google), Sergey Brin (Google), Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites) en David Whitwam (Whirlpool)
- Media/ Advertising/ Marketing Exec: Bob Iger (Disney), Richard Parsons (Time Warner), Rubert Murdoch (News Corp.), Alex Bogusky (Crispin Porter + Bogusky) en Larry Page (Google)
- Tech/ Science/ Telecom Masters: Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites), Shin Bae Kim (SK Telecom), Art Levinson (Genentech), Gary Forsee (Sprint/Nextel) en Chris deWolfe (myspace.com)
- Social Networking Sites: MySpace.com, Facebook.com, Xanga.com, Orkut.com, Friendster.com en LinkedIn.com
De andere categorieen zijn: Cars, Cell Phones, Digital Cameras, iPods, Video Games, Business Books, Innovation Consultants, Turnaround Artists en Innnovation Metrics.
Voor wie er niet genoeg van kan krijgen is er ook nog een Buzzwords 2005 Glossary.
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