thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

Since the global financial crisis (GFC) started in 2008 (or was it ’07) it has become more obvious that business as usual is one of the first casualties.

Some of us have been working on more sustainable business ideas as it has been clear for a long time that the “growth at all costs” mantra has run out of room. Looking back over this blog it has become a recurring topic as various economic, social and cultural indicators have started to redline.

However it takes a long time to change the culture around many of these driving ideas and so the GFC in many respects is now acting as a kind of circuit breaker to make businesses and consumers rethink out attitudes to all kinds of resources and business activities.

It is pleasing to see more sustainability projects gaining momentum. In the words of the Sustainable Future Institute project 2058

“The world is changing and, as New Zealanders, we need to think about what this means for us and our future.

Often strategic thinking only occurs in terms of the three-year election cycle, but this does not prepare us well for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Promoting long-term thinking, leadership and capacity-building to manage an uncertain future is critical.

To help address these challenges and opportunities the Sustainable Future Institute is developing a vision of what a sustainable New Zealand may look like in the year 2058 and an overarching strategy to reach this vision – this is known as Project 2058.”

The italics and bolding above are mine but I certainly agree that we need to take a longer term view on all kinds of projects. In my neighbourhood I’d like to give a great big hat tip to GreyLynn 2030 which is part of the transition towns movement.

Some of you know that from August this year I have been lecturing part time on digital marketing at Unitec. It has been a great pleasure to be part of a 50 person cohort of students from NZ and many from overseas who are looking at business futures with fresh eyes.

In reading essays and assignments on future business from the students it has become apparent that many of us are unclear on where NZ makes its money and where our economic future lies.

We also just had an election campaign that was knee deep in platitudes and backslapping from a presidential style beauty contest. No surprise to see that the best looking pony won but the prime Minister is in lala land is he thinks an increase of 2-3% of votes is really a mandate for asset stripping and idealogy driven changes to education.

The Greens have won 14 seats and in some electorates got more than 20% of the vote. The National Party will ignore that at their peril. The rise of the Green party and what it represents is far more significant that any other demographic changes in the last election.

From the official results it is also clear that voter disillusionment with the parliamentary process is at an all time high for something like 1m voters not bothering to vote at all.

• The number of seats in Parliament will be 121.
• The National Party has lost one list seat compared to election night, and now has 59 seats in total.
• The Green Party has gained one list seat compared to election night, and now has 14 seats in total.

What we need now is for citizens to really examine some of the myths around the NZ economic and business future from a factual basis.

New Zealand is in a global economy and we need to rethink where our investments of time and resources go in the future. We need to build a more sustaining business culture that recognises that the same old, same old isn’t going to work.

The presentation by Sir Paul Callaghan offers some ideas for a way forward -(see video above) or link here if that embed doesn’t work  We need more innovation and smarter use of technology in business. We also need to stop perpetuating some of the old myths about NZ business and stop throwing good $ after bad.

It is time to look part the political posturing of yesterdays men ( politicians that is you) who are still thinking short term for the most part. Last week I was delighted to have a look around Fisher & Paykel Healthcare which is a $500m company that New Zealand needs more of.

It is time to reframe the debate and understand where NZ has real competitive advantage come from. Lets go there instead of leaving it to commodities markets and bankers who really are still stuck in a zero sum game. Time to remap and reinvent the future.

Here is what all the 10 year olds will be doing next. Thomas makes some other good points during his presentation – like most of the kids know way more about the technology than their teachers which is a real challenge for educators.

‘Thomas Suarez is a 6th grade student at a middle school in the South Bay of Los Angeles. When Apple released the Software Development Kit (SDK), he began to create and sell his own applications. “My parents, my friends and even the people at the Apple store all supported me,” he says, “and Steve Jobs inspired me”.

Thomas points out that it’s hard to learn how to make an app.

“For soccer you could go to a soccer team … but what if you want to make an app?” He’s started a club for fellow students at school, where he shares his knowledge of programming. Thomas articulates his vision that students are a valuable new technology resource to teachers, and should be empowered to offer assistance in developing the technology curriculum and also assist in delivering the lessons.

Thomas has been fascinated by computers and technology since before kindergarten. Recently, he’s been focused on the development of applications for the iPhone, and has established his own company, CarrotCorp’

from TEDxManhattanBeach

For more examples see SMH last week

The other example I liked was - iSpoke Flash Cards

‘Another student from NSW, Conner Brendish, 18, helped create the $4.49 iSpoke Flash Cards, an interactive flash cards app which gives users the ability to create their own flash cards, store them in albums and record or overdub their own voice.

It was designed as an educational tool for children with special needs. Anthony Toben, a parent frustrated with the technology available to assist and treat autism for his son Joshua, got Brendish to make it. From the proceeds, 50 cents of each sale is donated to Autism Spectrum Australia.’

Here is a glimpse into the future of online shopping from Korea. What is exciting and significant here is that customers using mobile phones are able to use QR codes to short cut straight to a shopping cart by scanning those codes directly off a poster.

We have seen some use of QR codes and mostly it has been trivial to date.

“A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) designed to be read by smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, a URL, or other data.”

For QR codes to be useful shoppers need to have access to a QR reader cable ecommerce shopping system, a smart phone and fast, inexpensive mobile data.

The display posters are close to lifesize photos of each of the products. I can see this is an exceptional idea for extending online shopping functionality to busy locations where a billboard space might be available.

In effect shoppers are able to browse the equivalent of a several metres wide screen image of key products without going near a computer. Although to be fair their smart phones do need to be able to read the qr codes off the posters.

We need to do some more research on exactly how to do this for online shopping sites but I suspect billboard owners will be extremely excited about this

My QR code is displayed at left and if you have a reader you can scan my contact details but just imagine I could also sell you an ecommerce report at the same time.

Now we’re talking business !

P.S We’ve been watching all of the coupon sites and while that seems like a good way to drive offline media traffic on to online channels not all deals work that well for vendors or the media channels.

Also the price of accessing the old media (TV for the most part) is still expensive and the unintended consequences of a huge rush of traffic to a website or physical store is not easy to manage or profit from. Getting repeat business is not easy to do if most of the shoppers are deal takers who just chase discounts.

“We’ve also heard consistently from certain categories of businesses (very popular ones I’m afraid) that daily deals are uneconomic for them, which does raise questions around the sustainability of “50% off” daily deals for these types of businesses.”

Yelp CEO says they are working on new developments to the daily deal type of business.

My money is on QR codes and this store concept from Korea is the future of online stores and no unsustainable 50% off foolish deals are needed to get more online business by heading down the QR path.