Dear Chief Executive

http://bit.ly/q1JNTG 

The internet is contributing 7.9% to the UK economy this year, about £11 billion.


This is up 10% since last year. It is bigger as a contributor to GDP than health, construction and transport.


The ONS report 10% of all retail sales are now conducted online. In September this amounted to  £5.5bn.


Most managers recognise the economy is at best, flat-lining and yet last month while retail sales rose, unexpectedly (by 0.6%), it was dwarfed by Online retail sales which were up 15% Year on Year. 


This is not just for the middle market buying the week's groceries. Top of the line retailers are benefiting from the web too and they are not nearly as affected by a sluggish economy.


When excluding online travel sales, e-retail sales growth in September jumped 20%.  We could do with a similar boost.


Not to be too bullish, it is realistic to imagine annual growth online in the retail sector to slow somewhat but good double digit growth will continue.


This suggests there is an opportunity here for us.


The data is clear that traditional selling outlets, that is, non internet retail sales, are in decline and to make up the shortfall online marketing is essential to maintain turnover, and probably margins.


With 35 million people already shopping online, it is not a big stretch of the imagination to believe that online selling in B2C is reflected in B2B data as well.


Organisations like Autorola are projecting sales of 220,000 cars  this year and twice that in five years. Construction Enquirer is an online magazine with a readership that would make the traditional magazines proud and 57% of businesses are reporting increased internet budgets this month.


We know that seven in ten B2B buyers start their purchase process with a query typed into Google or another search engine. Thus, right at the beginning of the purchase cycle, the internet is pivotal. B2B marketers with a social media strategy has now doubled from 32% to 64% in three months.


To get some idea of the capabilities that are part of the digital infrastructure now, the BBC has done amazing things online for the Olympics that we can learn from. But most important is that they have taken as their mantra that they will deliver content on "on whatever piece of glass" they choose". 


The range of platforms is now extensive and PC's are only one platform among many for delivering digital content. 


Mobile is critical and has even domestic implications notable in being able to offer wifi throughout or premises. 


At the same time the internet is expanding to include physical objects fitted with sensors or intelligence.


We need to find systems to manage different platforms and technologies as we increasingly need to accommodate the many different devices chosen by employees and consumers.


On the delivery side, users are adopting a wider range of channels from Facebook to Google+, mobile phone apps to storing everything in the cloud. 


This applies as much to individuals as to organisations. For the most part the adoption of these advanced technologies is hardly noticeable. The technology is so good it is not even noticeable. 


We will have to come to terms with offering digital services internally among employees as well as for an extensive range of external stakeholders.


What these data tell us is that to be competitive more than £1 in £10 has to exclusively flow from online activity. 


Better than 7.9% of turnover has to be directly attributable to the internet.


We need to be able to adopt and enhance activity on many channels with many communications platforms, including social media, throughout the organisation.


Having done that, we will be ordinary and average. To be competitive, we need to do better. The need to understand the internet at the heart of our organisation is now pressing. 


This means that all businesses, and ours in particular, need good quality digital capability too.


We also need to employ and deploy a much greater level of strategic as well as tactical expertise.




Your sincerely,


Your PR manager








Sources:
Every statement here has excellent provenance


http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16092825
http://www.bcg.com/media/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-64183
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15383602
http://www.brc.org.uk/brc_news_detail.asp?id=2064
http://www.imrg.org/IMRGWebSite/user/pages/homepage.aspx
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2118831/luxury-retailer-saks-courts-percent?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clickz+%28ClickZ+-+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2011/07/countdown_continues_as_olympic_1.html
http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2011/10/20/psst-want-to-know-the-top-10-technologies-you-cant-afford-to-miss-next-year-39748109/?s_cid=991
http://www.am-online.com/news/2011/6/30/european-b2b-online-car-sales-set-for-rapid-growth/29230/
http://blog.pwcom.co.uk/2011/04/15/for-online-only-b2b-media-twitter-matters/
http://www.newsreach.co.uk/seo/b2b-search-success-requires-an-ongoing-commitment
http://www.circle-research.com/2011/business-ideas/b2b-marketing-sector-bounces-back-57-report-rising-budgets/
http://www.circle-research.com/b2b-barometer/

A real nuts and bolts post by Jean-Baptiste Queru - every student should read

Jean-Baptiste Queru  -  Oct 16, 2011 (edited)  -  Public

Dizzying but invisible depth

You just went to the Google home page.

You just connected your computer to www.google.com.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how networks work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play DNS, TCP, UDP, IP, Wifi, Ethernet, DOCSIS, OC, SONET, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let's simplify.

You just typed www.google.com in the location bar of your browser.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how operating systems work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play a kernel, a USB host stack, an input dispatcher, an event handler, a font hinter, a sub-pixel rasterizer, a windowing system, a graphics driver, and more, all of those written in high-level languages that get processed by compilers, linkers, optimizers, interpreters, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let's simplify.

You just pressed a key on your keyboard.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know about bit about how input peripherals work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play a power regulator, a debouncer, an input multiplexer, a USB device stack, a USB hub stack, all of that implemented in a single chip. That chip is built around thinly sliced wafers of highly purified single-crystal silicon ingot, doped with minute quantities of other atoms that are blasted into the crystal structure, interconnected with multiple layers of aluminum or copper, that are deposited according to patterns of high-energy ultraviolet light that are focused to a precision of a fraction of a micron, connected to the outside world via thin gold wires, all inside a packaging made of a dimensionally and thermally stable resin. The doping patterns and the interconnects implement transistors, which are grouped together to create logic gates. In some parts of the chip, logic gates are combined to create arithmetic and bitwise functions, which are combined to create an ALU. In another part of the chip, logic gates are combined into bistable loops, which are lined up into rows, which are combined with selectors to create a register bank. In another part of the chip, logic gates are combined into bus controllers and instruction decoders and microcode to create an execution scheduler. In another part of the chip, they're combined into address and data multiplexers and timing circuitry to create a memory controller. There's even more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Can we simplify further?

In fact, very scarily, no, we can't. We can barely comprehend the complexity of a single chip in a computer keyboard, and yet there's no simpler level. The next step takes us to the software that is used to design the chip's logic, and that software itself has a level of complexity that requires to go back to the top of the loop.

Today's computers are so complex that they can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. In turn the computers used for the design and manufacture are so complex that they themselves can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. You'd have to go through many such loops to get back to a level that could possibly be re-built from scratch.

Once you start to understand how our modern devices work and how they're created, it's impossible to not be dizzy about the depth of everything that's involved, and to not be in awe about the fact that they work at all, when Murphy's law says that they simply shouldn't possibly work.

For non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all. That is the reason why many people can find computers so frustrating to use: there are so many things that can possibly go wrong that some of them inevitably will, but the complexity goes so deep that it's impossible for most users to be able to do anything about any error.

That is also why it's so hard for technologists and non-technologists to communicate together: technologists know too much about too many layers and non-technologists know too little about too few layers to be able to establish effective direct communication. The gap is so large that it's not even possible any more to have a single person be an intermediate between those two groups, and that's why e.g. we end up with those convoluted technical support call centers and their multiple tiers. Without such deep support structures, you end up with the frustrating situation that we see when end users have access to a bug database that is directly used by engineers: neither the end users nor the engineers get the information that they need to accomplish their goals.

That is why the mainstream press and the general population has talked so much about Steve Jobs' death and comparatively so little about Dennis Ritchie's: Steve's influence was at a layer that most people could see, while Dennis' was much deeper. On the one hand, I can imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Jobs did and the people he inspired: probably a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square. Deep inside, though, our devices would still work the same way and do the same things. On the other hand, I literally can't imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Ritchie did and the people he inspired. By the mid 80s, Ritchie's influence had taken over, and even back then very little remained of the pre-Ritchie world.

Finally, last but not least, that is why our patent system is broken: technology has done such an amazing job at hiding its complexity that the people regulating and running the patent system are barely even aware of the complexity of what they're regulating and running. That's the ultimate bikeshedding: just like the proverbial discussions in the town hall about a nuclear power plant end up being about the paint color for the plant's bike shed, the patent discussions about modern computing systems end up being about screen sizes and icon ordering, because in both cases those are the only aspect that the people involved in the discussion are capable of discussing, even though they are irrelevant to the actual function of the overall system being discussed.

Thank you Jean-Baptiste Queru

My five year prediction for the PR industry

—The next five years

—80% of PR revenues will be through digital interfaces.

—Relationship based practice (every ‘like’ is a relationship building block).

—PR industry will be a major economic driver in the (the internet economy)

—The range of digital interfaces will explode and interaction between things and people (with their associated apps) will become a new form of “Internet of Things” communication and engagement.

—Digitally evolving modes of communication such as body language, touch language,  direct brain interfaces based on electroencephalography (EEG) technology, etc.

—A new range of communication via smart phones apps (and other platforms) or services like  Pachube deliver Internet of Things capability and is opening up for PR to engage.

—Avatars and Internet of Things devices are going to be included in social segments/segmentation.

—Social Network societies with personal as well as new ‘tribal’ groups

—Media evolution planning as part of campaign/relationship planning (the media will have changed by the time the campaign kicks in)

—Semantic concepts (aka values) used for individual, personal and tribal group segmentation

—Corporate ontology’s as part of brand value, reputation and relationship management with semantic intelligence and competitive evaluation

—Radical Transparency

—Noticeable structural change in the nature of organisations.

—The value of the Internet

—GDP of Europe was EUR 11,791, 000 million in 2009. The euro area accounted for 76.0 % of this total, while the sum of the five largest EU economies (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain) was 71.6 % (Source: Eurostat)

—In 2010 the internet  economy represented 7.2 percent of UK. GDP (sources : Google/BCG).

—This GDP share is likely to grow by about 10 percent annually, reaching 10 percent of GDP by 2015

—By extrapolation, it is not unreasonable to assume the internet economy represents 7.2% of the European Economy or about EUR 848,963 million (800, billion)

—And it will be worth EUR 1,200,000 million in three years time.

—The United Kingdom exports £2.8 in e-commerce goods and services for every £1 imported – Digital exports to Europe could be very high

—Change of Internet and its use

—Internet use will be up by a factor of 3 in 5 years

—U.K. smartphone adoption growing 70 percent to more than 11 million subscribers this year.

—37 per cent of adults and 60 per cent of teens are ‘highly addicted’

—Almost half of Internet users connected to the Internet, using a mobile phone, while away from the home or office. 
There were 17.6 million mobile phone Internet users in 2011, representing 45 per cent of Internet users, compared to 8.5 million users (23 per cent) in 2009.

— UK internet population spent 3.4 billion hours online during August 2011

— 32.5million UK people are collectively watching over 5 billion online videos every month (17 hours per person per month).

—UK online retail will hit €40 billion by 2014 onlineshoppers will increase from 31 million to 40 million. Since the start of 2011 online retail has grown 18% (to October 2011)

—Online charitable giving has risen by 85% in the past three years 

—Britons spend 43m hours gaming every day, with consoles accounting for 21 per cent of that figure. Social networks claim 18 per cent and casual games 17 per cent.

—Using the Internet to sell goods or services, for example via auction sites such as eBay, saw large growth in 2011.

—International comparisons show some countries have an opportunity. The UK is one of the best situated

There is no doubt that this is a major opportunity for people active in the sector.

—What needs to be done

—Recognise the contribution of the internet (£100bn  250k employment in 2010)

—Doubling the broadband internet access speeds for an economy can increase its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 0.3%

—Development of internet based businesses

—Investment in research and teaching

—The PR industry’s need to do more digital work

— The value of the PR  industry in the UK is £7.5bn (Source: PRCA)

—If all PR was online PR, the PR industry would represent  7.5% of UK internet business

—However, 30 percent of communications professionals work at firms devoted to social media rather than traditional media. (source: Bizbox)

—The PR industry executed 2.25% of the UK internet business. That is a start which can now be developed.

—PR people contribute £122,000 per year to their industry (GDP).

—Internet employees contribute £ 400,000 per year to their industry (GDP).

—If the digital contribution from the  PR industry was 100% of its activity, at internet industry productivity rates, the PR industry would be worth £24.6 billion.

—Where is the PR industry focussing its future efforts

—According to the ICCO, demand for digital services rose internationally in 2010. As a percentage of overall fee income for public relations consultancies, these services remained relatively small (ranging from 5 to 20 percent) but showed an increase over 2009.

—A survey by Stevens Gould Pincus, suggests the use of social media for public relations and public affairs purposes jumped 15 percent from 2009 to 2010.

—30 percent of communications professionals work at firms devoted to social media rather than traditional media.

—At this rate,  the digital/social media element of the PR industry will represent £180 billion by 2016 all by itself (over 2.5 times the rest of PR industry earnings).

—The industry would increase employment  to 467,000 (to be competitive with the rest of the internet industries) in five years.

—How the PR industry will develop

—The development of internet mediated PR may be by the existing industry or by an emerging industry of specialists.

—It will be involved in a form of PR whether the industry likes it of not.

—The successful development will need to be competitive with other internet sectors (e.g. input £400k to the sector each person/year)

—The development will be on a wide front because the range of communications technologies, platforms and channels will be so diverse and will be integrated for optimum effect.—

—W3C is talking PR

—Already W3C is talking the PR language:

“The role of vocabularies (Ontologies) on the Semantic Web are to help data integration when, for example, ambiguities may exist on the terms used in the different data sets, or when a bit of extra knowledge may lead to the discovery of new relationships. “

An introduction to methodologies

—In planning PR activity, there will need to be elements that take account of:

◦The values systems and brand values of client and consumer

◦Different forms of segmentation from stakeholder theory to new ideas in the field

◦Channels that are evolving/changing or will be new at time of execution

◦New social frames/constructs

◦Development of protocols that will deliver an annual return on costs

◦The return per day (allowing for holidays and weekends)  has to be of the order of £2000 per day per employee

—This will require a significant element of  cost management, training and automation to deliver significant effect for optimal effort (and a 3.2 fold increase in productivity).◦

—Where the new productivity comes from ?

—Undergraduate education has to be much broader and must include an understanding of the technologies five years hence to leaven PR practice and give them a flying start

◦There are still schools teaching undergraduates how to write a ‘good press release’ but not the need for styles to deliver an effective blog post, Facebook messages or email.

—University research has to inform teachers and practitioners about the digital era

—The realms of research will extend into may other academic areas

◦there is every good scientific reason to believe that the internet is as much part of human evolution as speech.  We love it!

—Research will be needed to inform practice as well as academia and PR teachers.

—There is a deep need to be aware of the need for productivity throughout the industry.—

—

Six years later, we are talking about value

I was watching Derek Halpern talk about blog posts on YouTube and he suggested re-visiting old posts. I did.
The oldest talked about valuing relationships.

Here it is:

We have moved on. In six years, we have some better views:

Now, of course we are getting closer to having a form of ROI which I outlined in June.

In this instance, I did propose a form of valuation that would be effective for all types of PR and which would provide a value for public relations. We do have tools that can help with this approach and that would be useful.

So now who is going to work on creating some real (Open Source) facilities for the PR industry to share to be able to measure its effects?

Measuring and evaluating

As we get closer to the new academic term, I thought it may be helpful for students to take a look at how they can examine the work they have been involved in during this gap year.

We have moved past the time when a PR practitioner could imagine that he or she has delivered anything of worth if it is not available online. Getting some sense as its effect, even effectiveness may mean using any number of services.

Of course there are a host of tools out there which can be used but it may be very useful to have a quick look at the range of different tools and approaches that can be used.

Now, this is not a game about 'evaluating PR' - whatever that may mean. This is not about outputs and outcomes. It is all about how internet technologies, aided by people, have represented the activities of an organisation in a range of ways. Its more complicated than traditional PR evaluation which has been stuck in the mud of counting column inches for far too long.

Perhaps the first task is to look at some of the tools available. The broaden the mind.

A close examination may offer an insight into the ones that will shed light and the ones that will shed confusion.

So many claims and so little transparency is not helpful.

The next thing to do is to determined what  each service offers. What, information, for example is provided and what is its value to a communications expert.

Perhaps then, it would be time to see if we can offer insights to the practitioner in order to aid decision making about activities with measurable outcomes.

The list I offer is gleaned from bookmarks created over the years (so some links may not work). They are about tools that can offer a wide range of data .

Here, then, is the first column of your spread sheet!

• 20 free, awesome social media monitoring tools
• 27 Twitter Tools To Help You Find And Manage Followers
• 6 Websites to Track A Website’s Traffic
• A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions
• Advanced Google Alerts Buzz Management :: Monitor Blogs, Social Media & Online Reputation :: AlertRank
• Analytics
• blekko | slashtag search
• Blogging software for the business world | Compendium Blogware
• Bsg.co.uk - Bsg
• Conducting A Social Media Audit
• CrowdControlHQ: Overview | LinkedIn
• Demographics Prediction: Audience Intelligence: adCenter Labs
• DoubleClick Ad Planner by Google
• Find Out Your First Follower, First Tweet and Other Twitter Firsts
• Google for Advertisers - Home
• Google Insights for Search
• Google Realtime Search
• Google Trends
• Hellotxt - Read. Update. Organize.
• Here is the Youtube presentation from #sascon - jamescrawford's posterous
• Home | Quantcast
• How To Backup Your Twitter Archive
• How to use automated tweets on Twitter to efficiently market your business | The Efficiency Coach
• http://bloggerfinder.appspot.com/
• http://infochimps.com
• http://klout.com
• http://peerindex.net
• http://www.backtype.com/
• Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik - Web Analytics Blog
• Open Site Explorer Link Analysis
• Opinion research
• Ping.fm / Update all of your social networks at once!
• PRFilter™ - finding stories for you
• publicasity.co.uk | WooRank
• Publigram
• Quarkbase metrix
• SAS | Business Analytics and Business Intelligence Software
• SEOmoz | Website Analytics vs. Competitive Intelligence Metrics
• Sign in to Yahoo!
• Site Explorer - Search Results
• so this is mass communication?
• Social media gets blame for PR disasters | Sherrilynne Starkie
• Social Media Monitoring Tools Evaluation
• StatusNet | Open Source microblogging service
• TagCrowd - make your own tag cloud from any text
• Ten great web apps for marketers | Econsultancy
• The influence of Twitter and your Twitter influence - Airfoil Public Relations
• theclarityconcept.pbworks.com
• Tickery - Explore Twitter with FluidDB
• Top 20 social media monitoring vendors for business
• Top 5 Search Engines from May 09 to Jun 10 | StatCounter Global Stats
• Top 5 real time search engines
• TouchGraph | Products: Navigator
• TTN
• Viral, Social, Sentiment, Mobile: 4 Cool Web Analytics Tools | Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik
• Website Grader - SEO Tool - Report For www.laithwaites.co.uk
• website traffic spy
• Welcome » PostRank
• WHOIS Lookup and Domain Name Search | DomainTools.com
• WhoLinksToMe: Reputation Management Reimagined
• Wikipedia Search Engine WikiSeek Launches
• WooRank | Website analysis tool
• wow.ly
• www.webliquidgroup.com/assets/robots/Marketers_Social_Media_Monitoring_Survey_2011.pdf
• Your Checklist of Public Relations Measurement Checklists - The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Oh, yes and here are some old pages I produced four years ago:

The Home Office finds out the truth about 'Social Media'

The government and police have not sought any new powers to shut social networks, the Home Office said after a meeting with industry representatives, Reports the BBC.


While one may respect the Home Secretary for her political acumen and position in government, her knowledge of the internet, including mobile internet and social media may need some help.

That Facebook, Twitter or RIM can have some material effect on communication affecting a riot is undoubted (these are platforms and channels for communication). That they are  capable of activities that will change behaviours is very doubtful. That she can upset the economy with her tinkering is probable.

In the USA and Europe, and to a lesser extent across the world, £millions has been spent on using the internet to change behaviours by companies such as Wallmart, Exon, Toyota, General Electric and Allianz, the biggest in the world. They have all tried and all failed. They are not the only organisations who have a problem with getting online users to do things.  Google proudly released Wave and dropped it. TouchPad failed because it had few of the apps that made Apple’s iPad a runaway hit. Just 48 days after Microsoft began selling the Kin, a smartphone for the younger set, the company discontinued it because of disappointing sales.

The people in the thick of it are not so good either and the Home Secretary has realised that.

Meantime, economic research tells us:

• The Internet economy now represents 7.2 percent of U.K. GDP, more than construction, transport, or utilities.
• The United Kingdom ranks first in e-commerce and exports £2.8 in e-commerce goods and services for every £1 imported
• There are 250,000 U.K. jobs in Internet companies
• Small and medium businesses that are high-Web users experience higher growth and more international sales than those that do not use the Internet
• A recent additional study tells us that sales via the internet are, by themselves, of the order of £62 billion ($103bn)

The Home Secretary also had to consider how many social network outlets there are? The ranges of protocols being used that can be brought into play to avoid censorship (FTP, WWW, Email,etc etc)? The range of platforms in use (PC, Mobile phones, gaming machines etc)?

Her knee jerk reaction to the Prime Minster's elastoplast rhetoric was potentially very damaging and would solve nothing.

It is ironic that a British Home Secretary should attempt shackle the Web, invented by a British scientist  20 years almost to the day from its launch.

The trust machine

From time to time, I get excited about a future beyond my comprehension.

Imagine a computer chip that can decide, all by itself, if your organisation is trustworthy. Not a computer, not a big system but a chip (ergo, you can put lots of them into a single 'computer'). Imagine this chip gathering all the information on and offline that will allow it to make judgements about you, your organisation, the value of your products brands and the ethic you stand by.

IBM's cognitive chips, launched this week, are part of the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project, which aims to create a system that is capable of rewiring itself as it interacts with its environment while still analyzing complex information from several sensory modalities.

The announcement this week of the new cognitive computer chips is a big step on the way.

These systems, which would not be programmed like traditional computers, will learn through experiences like humans. They will create hypotheses, find correlations, remember, and learn from their environments.

As always, the PR industry will ignore all of this as being too technical and of tomorrow and not worth investing time in today.

As ignorant as BP's Tony Hayward was of public relations, the practitioner that ignores IBM's big announcement will be as unstuck. 'I'd like my life back' will also be a closed option for organisations that don't heed an ability for a computer to judge the capability, efficacy and ethics of an organisation.

I realise this is not a subject for journalists' given the job of investment banker or discovering a Higgs Boson particle or, harder still, being a professional PR practitioner, but it is important for the rest of us.

It is important because, unlike a number of practitioners who are obviously one egg short of a dozen, modern practitioners will have to persuade the David Cameron's,  Tony Haywood's and the Metropolitan police that good PR is not predicated on someone being able to write news copy or depend on some "Other Buggers' Efforts'.

Why must we take note now?

Firstly, this is going to have an effect within five years (less time that it took Twitter to master PR). Secondly, it will have a memory that can remember what you, as a practitioner did today (as in right now). Finally its ability to combine radical organisational  transparency with the totality of the organisational environment is now assured with all the organisational consequences that entails.

No doubt, this will take me and a number of other practitioners, and hopefully, some academics, time to think through but it is a significant professional challenge.