Tag: durability

  • Endurance Models

    I’d ended last week’s post wondering about the role of durability in the design of communication and organisational structures. Dina has continued the discussion on her blog, adding on some very pertinent questions. Do visit and add on to this very interesting thought flow.

    I got myself three threads of thought in her post. One, the dependency (of one product on another’s durability) factor, highlighted by the classic example of Twitter, where app developers have been flummoxed by recent events. (Twitter buying out Atebits and making Tweetie a free app for iPhone). Two, brands needing to create enduring, sustainable relationships, and being agile and flexible, because neither consumers nor their relationships are ‘static’. And therefore, three, durability is morphing.

    Before we dig into all of them, a small point of view. While one one hand, Twitter buying out services/competing with them could be seen as very Google like, and something that kills innovation in my book, I do have faith in Twitter and believe it won’t go the way Google has. (Simplistically) Unlike Google, which practically kills (eg. Dodgeball, jaiku), Twitter has just removed one entry barrier (paying for the service) for Tweetie’s adoption. As for Fred Wilson’s post, i can only remind you (again) of Godin’s description of Twitter – a protocol, and that’s why I completely buy the argument in the post on creating something entirely new on top of Twitter. (a contra view on Twitter being a protocol, informative read)

    This, you would notice, is a thought that continues from Dina’s point on dependency. But there’s a link to the second point as well – creating enduring, sustaining relationships and being flexible. The services which (to quote Fred Wilson) were ‘filling holes’ were (IMO) way too dependent on twitter. They were only providing a value, which Twitter had not deemed as a priority at a particular point in time. Not sustainable.

    Now, social gaming is one of the opportunities that Fred Wilson notes. So, look at Zynga. Their creations acquired massive adoption because of Facebook. They keep making more games, running them on Facebook, but simultaneously, also made farmville.com, with integrated FB Connect, and offers them more flexibility to provide more value. More importantly, the genre is perhaps not something FB is likely to get its hands dirty in anytime soon. Slightly more sustainable. Look at Foursquare. Standalone, but with Twitter and Facebook integrated very well. A level higher on sustainability. So the point is, the durability would be a function of how these platforms are used, dependency is proportional to the value provided.

    Morphing. Though the usage of social media by organisations is a subject that is discussed often (including on this blog), I thought this post by Tac Anderson articulated it extremely well. He discusses three strategies used by the enterprise – the one off approach that isn’t integrated with any existing system/process; optimising social media for business – with clear resources, roles and responsibilities; optimising business for social media. The first and second areas are where most companies operate. The third is a business organisation optimised for social media (technology and culture). He points out that Netflix, Google, Amazon have built businesses optimised for the web, and doesn’t see a business that has successfully implemented it wrt social media. He does say that it may not make sense for a company to throw out an existing strategy and build another around social media, but the ones with the third approach will be the next Google/Amazon. Another good read on the subject is Tom Fishburne’s ‘The new product waterfall‘.

    It is debatable whether an organisation can move from approach 2 towards 3.  But I do think that the morphed versions of durability will emerge from business structures that are built to be comfortable with and are therefore in a position to take advantage of the tools and platforms of social media. That is most likely the way to create enduring, sustainable relationships in a scenario of changing consumer and communication dynamics.

    until next time, the durability of this thread on the blog ends here 🙂

    PS: Won’t have to endure a post next week. Back in a fortnight 😉

  • In duress

    A few days back, when I met Balu and Conall, we happened to talk about the lifecycles of services (Twitter and Foursquare was the context) and then discuss whether product lifecycles were being compressed too. It is interesting because let’s say an organisation has invested in a new technology and brought out a product. If they price it high, adoption will be slow, and it may never become mainstream. If they subsidise and price it low, they may lose out if a better technology arrives before they  break even. Mobile phones (feature compatibility and obsolescence), content storage devices (VHS to Blu-Ray) were some of the examples discussed.

    Dina wrote a couple of good posts (Part One, Two) recently on durability,and whether it is losing its power as a consumer driver. The plethora of brands advertising in the youth category would seem to agree (best expressed in Fastrack’s ‘Move On’ campaign), but as pointed out by Goutam Jain in the post, in many cases it would be intrinsic to the brand’s value. The rise of ‘good enough’ in the real time era is not helping the durability cause either. We could go from fidelity in devices to that in human relationships and the cause/effects in consumption, but maybe we should get Dina to do it later. 🙂

    The second post is also a great read and is based on the comments on the first, and introduces some excellent dimensions to the original thought.  Convenience + cost of exit, opportunity cost of not entering the next ‘upgrade’ are things that I’d like to add to that.

    Brand equity is something that falls naturally into the scope of this discussion. But what i was more interested in its impact on the content that brands create, including their communication. Look at say, print ads, whose physical durability is perhaps one day (equity created might probably last longer), or radio jingles and television commercials., with a slightly larger shelf life. On the internet, it can exist ‘forever’. But there are costs involved in all of these, and in terms of durability, they might not really deliver in this era of content abundance, fleeting attention spans, and the constant search for the next ‘wow’. Also, on a smaller scale, what happens when you design say, applications for a particular platform/device like a Facebook/ iPad, and it doesn’t prove to be durable? It is many ways, a gamble.

    So, when I read Clay Shirky’s amazing post ‘The collapse of complex business models‘, I sensed a tangential connection. To broadly summarise, the post uses Joseph Tainter’s ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’, in the context of TV content producers’ inability to cut expenses below revenues, and explains how at some point, the level of complexity added to a system fails to add to the output, and becomes just a cost, because the different levels extract more value than the total output. Also, by this time, the system is too large and too interlocked for it to adapt quickly and change. Then ‘collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification.’

    The post throws light on what is most likely the ‘tripping point’ for contemporary media. With increased connectivity between individuals thanks to various platforms, more ideas are being formed and honed. As new products and services arise, consumption patterns change, new needs are discovered and a disruption (which is perhaps another way of  describing simplification) always seems around the corner. I see this as a message to brands, many of whom have evolved their organisations, products and services on the basis of older ways of communication. How much has durability of products been a factor in the design and structure of communication and organisational processes? Or was it a result?  As durability ceases to be a major factor, is the new imperative flexibility?

    until next time, we still call it consumer durables 🙂