Oh the irony

Facebook is buying print ads to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal

https://qz.com/1236981/facebook-and-mark-zuckerberg-buy-newspaper-ads-to-say-sorry/

<insert punchline here>

Digital Transformation needs a mindset change

I believe that digital technologies are changing every industry. Or to put it another way, I've yet to meet one that remains unaffected. And therefore companies have quite rightly identified the need to reinvent their business models, products and approaches to just survive in an environment that is changing faster and faster each day.

Therefore just meeting the digital challenge (let alone trying to innovate ahead of it) means creating new ways to solve industry-wide problems in new ways... often with software rather than physical objects.

In other words.... organisations  now need to change their way of thinking as well as completely amend their investment in new technology, business models, and processes.

In my view this is the way they can truly create the most value for their customers (and employees) and therefore compete better in an ever-changing digital economy.

But just changing the skills needed for digital transformation isn't enough.

Forget advanced SEO fix the basics first

I had a prospective client approach me the other day about conducting what they called "advanced SEO tactics" for their site.

They had obviously read some SEO blogs and thought they needed to apply some clever technical (and in some regards... slightly dodgy / grey hat) practices in the belief that this would instantly give them a boost in their organic rankings.

Now its kinda hard to tell a client "no" who is keen on learning all about digital marketing, especially when their heart is in the right place. But in this instance the client hadn't implemented some pretty basic 'white hat' SEO techniques already, such as:

1. Creating an XML sitemap (sitemap.xml) that updates regularly (e.g. daily) 
2. Optimising all page titles
3. Optimising all page meta descriptions*

*yes, I know that meta descriptions are not a direct SEO ranking signal for the main search engines and I hope by now you have deleted your meta keywords!

However I firmly believe that fixing and optimising these on-page factors.. allied with a decent approach to content creation, will have more of a long-term & quality improvement upon a site's rankings than the latest technical SEO ideas.

Do you live in the 'Bot-infested Badlands' ?

News Corp announced last week revenues of $2.18bn for the last 3 months of 2017. But aside from the 3% year-on-year improvement, the biggest headline grabbing phrase was reserved for CEO Robert Thomson describing the dysfunctional digital environment as "The bot-infested badlands".

This is clearly him positioning his brands as the quality online publishers and the opposite of the digital locations that are "hardly a safe space for advertisers, whose brands are being tainted by association with the extreme, the violent and the repulsive".

https://newscorpcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/q2-2018-press-release_final_02-08-2018-1230pm.pdf

Define your Content Strategy

You hear the term banded about a lot these days, from PR companies through to senior managers in businesses... they all want to have and own your organisation's Content Strategy.

But what's your definition of the term Content Strategy?

Here's mine:

"A Content Strategy should aim for the creation of engaging and appropriate content that delivers improvements in the agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)"


Those KPI's most often being:
- Increase online visitors & sessions
- Increase online engagement (most likely reported as a reduction in page bounce rates)
- Convert lookers to bookers (or into whatever your main commercial goal is)

What's yours?

The Four Technical Pillars of Digital Transformation

There's no doubting that the path to successful Digital Transformation involves changes to: people (e.g.skills), processes, products (e.g. the creation or improvement of customer facing software) and proposition. The temptation is therefore to assume the technology will just "sort itself out" without an investment in thought, effort and finances. 

So what technology is now supporting the transformation to digital?

Here's my top 4:

The move to cloud

The use of online cloud-based services such as Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure) means that issues such as the hosting and the scaling of digital platforms becomes an on-demand Operational Expenditure (Opex) rather than a Capital Expenditure (CapEx) cost. With this high cost barrier now radically changed (as we create a shift from one column to the other on the Finance Department's spreadsheet), this means that demand and growth of online services are easier to deal with.

The digitisation of services
The conversion of the physical into software has been happening for some while. We've had digital media players and MP3 collections for many years now and you only have to look at how many of our daily tools are on our mobile devices, including: cameras, credit cards, health meters, maps, messengers and travel tickets. Now, with increased processing capability everywhere, what else can now move from being tangible to tap-able?

The creation and use of APIs

Organisations increasingly want simpler user interfaces that present and collate functionality and content from multiple systems behind the scenes. Your users don't care if your systems are having to pull together multiple source of data to present their online information in the way they want it, if you don't they will get frustrated (and consequently look to go elsewhere). Building Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for each software system  enables this flexibility by providing the means for others to remotely invoke your applications functionality in a system-to-system way.

The adoption of DevOps

As the speed and complexity of digital delivery increases, companies realise they must integrate software development and IT operations. DevOps is the newer approach to this, where continual deployment becomes the norm and the ability of your tech team evolves form just being able to create stable code, to also deploying this code to a stable managed (typically cloud) environment.

Stop thinking Digital Transformation is just a bolt-on

Enough!

The next person I hear who states that "we are using online as just another retail / communications channel" or something similar is:

1. either getting a piece of my mind

or

2. a clip around the ear

You don't "just do digital" by bolting it onto your tired and outdated business processes that your company probably inherited from the 1950s. 

Yes digital is set of technology driven  business changes that you either implement or you more than likely fall behind. But just hiring a decent technology team to add something to your current ways of working just isn't going to cut it!

Murdoch upset with Facebook again

The billionaire publisher is once more annoyed at Facebook for making money promoting newspapers' content.
So unsurprisingly he demands even more money.

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/22/rupert-murdoch-facebook-should-pay-news-publishers

“If Facebook wants to recognize ‘trusted’ publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies,” 

Mobile Page Speed, SEO and AMP

You may have heard about it, but Google announced yesterday that:
"starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches."
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search.html

So how does this affect Mobile Search Engine Optimisation?
Well... Firstly don't panic. Website speed is already a ranking signal for desktop search and following yesterday's announcement this signal will now come into effect for mobile sites in July.
So even though Google is almost certainly tracking page speed already, it will not have an effect in the SERPs until later this year, so you do have 6 months to make changes to your site.

How does this affect AMP?
The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP) is an open-source initiative to improve the performance of web content on mobile devices. They are useful lightweight versions of your web pages that are hosted elsewhere (not on your own website) for speed, which in-turn improves their changes of being downloaded and read. However there is no direct link (yet) between Google's mobile organic rankings and AMP, plus there is no organic site penalty for not having it.
But even though the two things are separate, they can work together to get more website traffic and therefore conversions. This is because AMP can have their content displayed in a carousel at the top of the Search Engine Results SERPs. And therefore, even without PPC AdWords appearing, both AMP and organic search ranking of pages can push your content to the top of the search results in your mobile browser.
Note: We are also seeing the content/layout and even the appearance of this carousel change in the SERPS over time and location, so its display there should not be guaranteed.

What can I do about it?
Therefore we recommend to all clients and the wider online community that:

• Site owners minimise all page weight wherever possible (e.g. reduce the use of scrips and keep images to the lowest size possible - one client website has a strict policy that no image must be greater than 200k)
• AMP is considered a technology on websites that have content that does not dynamically change all the time (e.g. it is not advisable for eCommerce or fast-moving information sites).
• If you are in doubt... ask your SEO consultant.

Amazon own brands due to grow in 2018

Most people think that Amazon is just an online store for other companies and their products. Starting from humble eCommerce beginnings just selling books, the modern day retail behemoth now sells nearly everything from fresh produce through to antique furniture.

But most people don't realise that Amazon also currently owns about 45 brands and gets around 15% of its private-label sales come from them. For a breakdown of these see my earlier post: Amazon's own brands

And 2018 looks to be the year that Amazon truly evolves from a marketplace that just sells other brands, into a fully-fledged super retailer that owns the entire retail supply chain.

For more detail on this, take a look at the recent report from One Click Retail:

http://oneclickretail.com/amazon-private-brands-year-end-review/

Whatever next? 
How about Amazon buys Costco, the $83 Billion global retailer who has its own Kirkland brand sold predominantly across its stores?

Quiz : Which Facebook person are you?

Monday:
A. Look I’m travelling somewhere for work
B. Oh no its Monday again – here’s a picture of a Minion and a passive aggressive comment
C. Here’s me on my boat, bike, etc during the middle of the day

Tuesday:
A. Look I’m travelling back from somewhere for work
B. Here's a bloody boring news article about something depressing
C. Pictures of me in a foreign country doing nice stuff

Wednesday:
A. Here’s a link back to something I was doing 3 years ago when it was a weekend and a comment like "oh my, I wish i was doing that now..."
B. Image of kittens or babies or just anything better that my damn life right now!
C. I'm out at some event on Wednesday evening. That's late on WEDNESDAY people!

Thursday:
A. Here’s an article about alcohol, I may have a drink tonight if I didn't have to get up at 5am tomorrow
B. 3 burgers + 1 fries = £30, how much is a milk shake? (or is that 2 fries now I've looked at what everyone else has answered?)
C. Interesting anecdote about someone I once worked with (but don't any more because I don’t have to work)

Friday:
A. A picture of a gin bottle
B. "Hurrah, it's sodding Friday people!!!"
C. I'm walking the dog at 5:30am and telling everyone that life is great

Weekend
A: "Ahhhh...  hangover. But I need to go out and enjoy myself..."
B.  Nothing, apart from a picture linked to your Instagram account and a photo of some food.
C. A quote from someone spiritual & poignant on Sunday afternoon.


Mainly A's
You don't yet own your house, your car or even possibly the clothes you have to work in. The weekend is for resting and drinking. but you still have to go back to work on Monday and do the whole thing again. Your favourite colour is purple... maybe.

Mainly B's
Get a grip snowflake. Stop living your life on Social Media and spend it in the real world.
But if you don't forward this message on to 100 people in 10 minutes then some puppies will die.
Your star sign is Pisces or something...

Mainly C's
You're enjoying life and you've probably got a rich daddy, sugar daddy or a final salary pension whilst they were still giving those out. You probably never do these quizzes and the rest of us secretly dislike you.

Data Is Beautiful

Sometimes data can look visually appealing (albeit when coloured by the author) such as this graph of what people mean when they provide a statement around probability.

Source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/6vythg/i_redid_my_perceptions_of_probability_and_numbers/

Amazon's own brands

Did you know that when you shop on Amazon you are now increasingly likely to see Amazon's own brands appear?

Do any of these seem familiar?

4 Steps To Surviving Digital Transformation

There's no doubt that we are in the middle of a revolution in technology (and therefore the businesses that knowingly or unknowingly rely on technology). As nearly everything becomes software and change happens quicker & quicker, businesses are being asked to transform themselves or be changed

So how does an organisation survive in a world where digital transformation is now the norm?

Embrace technology
It is no longer important for just your company COO or CTO to have all the senior level technical knowledge (although even some of these don't!). Instead other Exec roles such as Commercial Directors and CEOs now need more than just an awareness of what IT can deliver.

Hire the best people

This is very easy to say and often one of the hardest things to achieve. Hiring talented and motivated staff with a personality & approach that matches your company is incredibly difficult. Do you care if they don't wear business attire? Do you mind if they sometimes work from home or outside of the core 9 - 5 hours?  Do you want to pay them what the market (e.g. your competitors) pays?

Hint: If you don't have a huge network of digital contacts, make sure you know and use a very closely aligned recruiter.

Stay fast and agile

Don't just ask your staff to work faster and faster, there is a limit to the amount of output an individual or team can deliver - despite the 'lean' and 'growth' or hack' approaches that seem so popular now. Instead agile delivery needs support from all levels of the business (and it has to be encouraged from the top of an organisation, not just the bottom or the middle layers!).

Have a plan & communicate it
"Failing to plan is planning to fail" is the old maxim. And this is especially try when you are trying to carry out a potential change to your customer experience, back-end business processes and goodness knows what else.  There's also no point trying to carry out a digital transformation in a communication vacuum, it just doesn't work. And I don't mean just communicate with your peers or immediate boss either. Communicate with your board, your minor stakeholders and perhaps even shareholders (and consider communication to your customers too).
Hint: Adopt some of the newer communication, collaboration & project tools. If you don't know what Slack, Trello or even Yammer is.... find out!

Where Does Agile Thrive?

In this diagram from scrum.org the differnet scales show where agile development typically works best....

The ever-increasing consumerisation of IT

So, according to the latest news… enterprises now buy 50% of their software without IT involvement. Does this figure come as a shock to those of us that have foot in both the Business and Technology sectors? Yup... kinda!

There is no doubt that the consumerisation of IT is having a significant effect on businesses, with many different lines-of-business having their own very healthy budgets to procure technology that supports their day-to-day work and often without getting the IT department of an organisation involved. Online applications, software as a service (SaaS) and the general rise of digital service subscriptions over the last decade or so have added to the on-going cost of technology that is out of the hands of the very people who used to procure, manage and support it.

And just as one hand gives (functionality to the business) the other takes away (control and coordination from the IT department). Which in-turn means less budget and potentially less staff are needed… which brings its own complications: IT staff are spread more thinly, they are only brought in when a system needs fixing and they now may have to face-off to highly competent technologists in Finance, Sales or HR.

International Trade Advice For UK Companies

Are you a UK business looking to expand Internationally?

If so, then there are several different online resources available to you that have recently launched:

The Lloyds Bank International Trade Portal
https://resources.lloydsbank.com/international-trade-portal/

The Barclays Bank Guile To Exporting
https://www.barclays.co.uk/business-banking/business-abroad/guide-to-exporting/

Great Gov UK
A useful resource that brings together international trade and investment information and services from across the British government. The site is maintained by the Department for International Trade (DIT).
https://www.great.gov.uk/

Concensus Is Not Insight

Every organisation has to make big decisions. Whether it be to issue a dividend of a specific value to shareholders, to hand out a brief for a marketing campaign, to invest a given amount in a project or to release a product at a set time.... they all have to make some decisions at some point.

But how does your's make decisions? Are the most important ones generally made by a few people (mainly still men) in a closed room? Do they have all the available data to hand or do they come to conclusions based upon what the others say?

Digital Darwinism Doesn't Have A Start Date

Digital Darwinism, the evolution of online services, propositions and systems that will eventually change every industry, is a concept that has been gradually creeping up on most people.

It's the little changes we don't see happening every day that add up to a lot over a short period.

• When did you start relying on Uber (or some other more ethical ride hailing App) to get you home after a late night in the office? 
• When did you start using the term "to Google" rather than just "to search online?"
• When did you start discussing that new Netflix series, as opposed to the regularly scheduled broadcast TV show you used to watch?
• When did you start ordering your household goods on Amazon?
• When did you start playing YouTube videos, rather than play music from your CD collection?

In the end you realise that there's less and less likely that there was a specific date for when you actually started doing these things... it just sort of happened. Or if you are a young person, you don't actually recall a date when many of these things were not the norm.

Evolution isn't a thing that happens to other creatures and people, with digital technologies the best example is happening right now.

Writing about Smart Ticketing

In my recent LinkedIn article “The 6 things they should tellabout smart ticketing and don’t” I cover some essential information that I would have found useful before entering into the world of ITSO Smart ticketing.

In this article I mention how: the industry if full of acronyms, Smart ticketing doesn’t necessarily mean smart customers (straight away), the benefits of combining smart ticketing with a decent online proposition, how you shouldn't stop improving the holistic user experience, testing and smart ticketing technical architecture.

This post has turned out to be my most successful article so far, with a large number of views and a few comments too. It has clearly proved to be interesting and engaging. Which is exactly why I wrote it.