What do we wait for? E-commerce during recession time

This week I gave a lecture to my students on e-commerce. When I was finishing its preparation I decided to include a few suggestions for them if they want to start an e-commerce site.

Suggestions turned out to be more about what to do with a business idea, and looking for good ideas for good businesses I decided to show a short video of Martha Lane Fox, co-founder of lastminute.com

Many people who know about what happened in the 1990s with the '.com' bubble burst would acknowledge that many e-commerce failures were not due to technology, but to lack of planning, lack of good relationships with suppliers and sellers of products, and more importantly, frenzyness.

Textbooks suggests that a proven business model is a key factor for an e-commerce site to succeed, but in the case of last minute, there was little in the way of a model that connected those who had products/services to sell, with those who were looking for them, doing a 'last minute search' on the internet.

Martha Lane Fox strikes me as a gentle but determined person, who presumably also had a good network of people to start with, and an curiosity to find out things and try out possibilities. She encourages people to think big, start small, and keep going. Wise words I think.

In another class students to whom I asked the question "What are we waiting for to start your own e-commerce business" complained 'almost immediately' that during recession times it is very difficult to start. So I told them what a wise person told me once: There is a difference between a job and an employment. The first one needs to be done regardless. The second one is a paid one.

I guess now there are many jobs to be done, connecting people, brokering information, listening carefully to what is really needed in our countries and societies. Many people (me included) find it difficult just to buy things (like the latest mobile phone!) or continue consuming what we used to consume. But I am sure if the right product comes along, I will think again.

Those people who might not feel it is a right time to start, could also think of their networks of people. I finished my lecture with another question: "Who are going to be your friends / contacts in a couple of years time?" Maybe it is time we all dig our well before we get thirsty, in case you want to have a look at the book with this title.

So what are we all waiting for?

Mining through systems: Facebook and Tesco

Facebook and Tesco supermarket (private companies) seem to be going in opposite directions right now. The former is increasing its share value, the latter has diminished it. Both companies work with information systems that are generating benefits but also headaches.

I am not an expert in valuing companies neither am I knowledgeable of initial public offerings (IPO). But I can venture to guess why is it that the information systems of these companies seem to be playing a key part in the companies current valuation and with it in their successes or shortcomings.

Facebook could be offering any potential clients a database of active customers who increasingly spend more time in the Facebook site. Advertising from this database could increase sales for those announcing in Facebook. With new applications coming to feed from and into such database, we now see that our preferences and those of our 'friends' could be used for those wanting to sell us things. Moreover, those individuals or organisations who want to remain connected to customers or to other people can do it through Facebook. The value of 'attention', the value of 'retention', and the value of 'networks' are now playing in Facebook's favor.

It still remains to be accurately seen though, how much conversion to sales can Facebook offer from its advertising.

Tesco supermarket is one of the textbook cases that we normally use to teach our students about management information systems and in particular data mining. Tesco was/still able to gather data from its customers, mainly purchasing habits. This data feeds into the systems that forecast demand and connect to Tesco's suppliers. A sophisticated system that enables managers to track the behavior of customers and products, and act appropriately.

As with Facebook, it remains now to be seen how their data mining systems can help Tesco 'recover' or 'bounce back' from their disappointing end of the year sale season.

One thing to consider though is that (un) fortunately Tesco and Facebook databases do not store everything about us. They do not store our worries, the tricks that we do on a daily basis to get by money wise, or if we decide to go with the competition. They can store what we fail to do (yes, we did not turn up to buy things, or we did not comment on the status of our friends, we did not upload pictures from our last trip, sorry). But they do not ask us questions unless being told to do so by a software application and the person in charge of it.

You might say that there is a problem of quality here, that without good quality data or good quality products and services to provide there is not much that data mining systems can do. But rather than focusing on 'data', maybe these systems should start asking us questions. Not the questions of the sort "What do I need to do for you to buy from me?", but "How can I help you to live your life better?", "What is going on in your life?" or by really listening to what we have to say. Here data mining can still play a role if we direct it to answer these and similar questions.

IT Education and Joy

Last week in the UK, the government has announced plans to reform education in information technology (IT) in schools. This follows an imminent report to be published soon in which existing education does not fare very well. I read some of the news paper articles and could pick up a feeling of 'boredom' with the ways in which IT is being currently taught. There are complaints about the tutors who often do not inspire their pupils to get interested in what technology (mainly computers, computer programmes) can to for them.

During last week also, other news reported that school children are not happy, again, they get bored easily, they become anxious with the current economic climate. The family home does not seem to be for many a place where anxieties can be soothed or transformed positively into opportunities for learning and sharing life together.

IT education is not and should not be about getting pupils to consume more technology. The government is encouraging collaboration to find ways of motivating pupils to program their own software applications. This is only part of a more comprehensive plan to bring joy back into education. Joy is about discovering who you are and who you can become with appropriate support. Joy is also about recognising other important things in life than preparing ourselves to get a job and get on with plans to grow up and be 'someone'.

IT should be a window (but not the only one) through which pupils discover the world and by doing that they discover themselves. It should not become a communication barrier in the family environment. Yes, the kids are enjoying the latest video games, they all have mobile phones and tablets, they have a computer and they draw and paint fantastic works of art, but they do not talk to their parents as they used to...

There is a deeper problem here. The problem of collective joy. Who does not remember watching a film together at home with siblings. In my house it was me, my brothers and sisters, my parents. My father also took us to watch films at the cinema. He wanted all of us sitting in the same row. Many of these experiences were very joyful. They remind me of me and the family, of the family and me.

I keep encouraging my students to work together, and help each other whenever possible, so if they discover something, they did it together. I hope the UK government and others who are looking at transforming education keep the simple and joyful things that make education worth going for.

Technology and Trust

2012 has started with many expectations about new technological developments. Just recently I was reading about the plans of Google and Apple to get into the interactive TV market. New TV sets would connect to the Internet and would offer programmes on demand. I am also sure we will also see more and faster mobile phones, mobile applications, cloud services and security developments in the next few years. In the UK, these will also be enhanced by the availability of information and content for the Olympics.

2011 has left us though with a feeling that not technology but our institutions, organisations, markets and society in general requires us to rethink how best we can manage them. The occupy and spring movements reflect a desire to establish new ways of communicating, deliberating and addressing pressing problems. With less to spend and invest, many organisations are also asking themselves how they can become part of the new landscape they are in. Going global seems to have been an alternative but now organisations have to look after the trees as well as the forest, something that perhaps the markets have not done so well.

For us as IS users, educators, designers or managers, the challenge starts in making sure we rebuild the trust of our audiences. This trust seems to have been eroded by the lack of appropriate responses to crises. Not only we need to 'stop', and 'reduce' what we do as we did last year, but we also need to start thinking of new ways of doing our jobs. Perhaps it is time also to re-define the core of what we do.

It was Peter Drucker in his book "The Effective Executive" of 1967 who suggested that we are all managers, and that as such we need to think of the value that we offer to our organisations and societies. We should focus on outwards contributions, those which our audiences value. With the advent and now widespread use of the Internet, these audiences have become global, but at the same time what we offer has become a commodity rather than a relationship. We might have stopped considering the importance of relationships and how we contribute to them with something valuable.

It is in relationships where we build trust not as a commodity but as an essential property of being human. It is time we think of using technology to facilitate communication to rebuild the trust that seems to have diminished with situations of crisis and also with situations of prosperity. Many would say that it is only in the former where trust suffers. But I also think that the good times can lead us to want more and get more from each other to limits that could then affect the trust we have in each other.

In Cloud we (do not) Trust?

Just recently a student of mine did an interesting survey with small and medium enterprise (SME) people in Hong Kong. She wanted to find out how they were using ICTs and if there were barriers for adoption of Internet-based technologies.

The results showed that although SME people (owners, senior managers) are well educated and understand how ICT can benefit their business, they do not invest too much on Internet applications but on intranets. To communicate with the outside world, most of them have basic information websites for their businesses. But most of them export products/services to other countries.

You might say that in this era where online transactions are the norm of the day in a globalised world this seems odd. But it is not.

At risk of generalising, I think SME owners (including my brother) are good at deciding where to invest their resources. They are very 'hands on' individuals. What is not clear does not get their attention. I still remember when I tried to convince my brother to buy a software suite to help in the accounting and client management tasks of the business. We settled for using a spreadsheet for each of these tasks. To communicate with our suppliers in other countries we used email. And for the payroll we used telephone banking.

As my student, you might also say that SME owners need first to trust in technology and in the people that know about it (let us call them technologists).

Technologists though often do not make themselves any favours by speaking in a very unclear language. Recently I asked a cloud technologist about the business benefits of the cloud. The answer came back with a number of unclear terms: Scalability, Agility, and the last one: Capability. With a capability to navigate through a sea of data, the business can discover new strategies, it can better interact with other businesses (see my previous post).

I wonder if these terms help us to trust in the cloud. For some SME and company directors, it does not matter how and where the data sits. But that is different from scalability, agility or capability. It could well be a way of not getting bogged down by these terms.

We need to create conditions for people to trust in technology. We need translation of terms, getting close to the users and their language. Cloud technologists need to do this regarding all these benefits. In addition, they need to consider how users are to learn to live with a paradox: The paradox of developing a business capability that is not necessarily under our full control.

Not trusting in the cloud is not a sin, it could well be a misunderstanding, but it is not the lay person or the users' fault.

Sitting on gold, or the game called who is clever when it comes to data

Ok here goes a kind of sceptic towards positive post.

Someone knocks on your door. It is called 'necessity' and is desperate to make a living or justify his/her job or mission in life. The person says s/he knows you live a fast life and promises to help you organise things in the house. So that you do not spend too much time cleaning or deciding which clothes you are going to wear on the day. Not to worry any more doing the chores.

The person says s/he will also organise a kind of garage sale for you. S/he can rent out your white goods (washing machine, fridge freezer, etc), the bycicle, the lawnmower and even the old sofa to the neighbours while you are away. You did not know you were sitting on gold. Your house suddenly becomes a valuable asset that you can make work for you. And you are cash strapped, so things seem to look bright.

But you are still sceptic to accept the deal. The person says that s/he has a few clients already, and tries his/her best to persuade you that you will become a member of an exclusive club, those who share things and discover hidden treasures in their attics. All of this for a fee that you can pay whenever you use this person's services. Everything seems fine as it is on demand, which means people only pay for what they need.

To your doubts, this person says that you will have more time to look after your own business. Also, you can help the neighbourhood by being in touch more directly with the neighbours and the local government. You can be more motivated to tell the government what is wrong with your house, the rubbish collection of the police. You can also suggest new ideas to spend money from your taxes. So this is also an opportunity to improve the quality of life around you. All because you can now share and interact.

Would you like to accept this proposal?

mmm...

Hold on, let me just say a few things as a good neighbour.

What if what I just described is a mixture of something called data driven innovation?, what if your neighbours are companies who want data that you hold from your and their customers, and your neighbourhood is an eco-system? What if the other game this person is selling is called IT as a utility, something that you just pay for, like electricity, gas or water?

What if there is another thing called open government in which you can see how the government is doing, and in return the government is 'asking' you to share your data (goods) to improve its knowledge about the neighbourhood?

What if I told you that 'necessity' has a couple of assistants that I know of called Google and the Cloud, the first one speeding up searches on data, and the second one does all the data housekeeping?

Is it a useful set of games?

Maybe, like the pay per view TV, or anything that has the 'pay as you go' feature in it, specially in these times of austerity in some parts of the world. By the way, the name 'necessity' seems appropriate for these times.

We live in the era of technology products and services eco-systems created around them. Private companies and governments (mainly) are being visited by these friends called 'necessities', which we know of and are excited at the prospect of making data available. Telecommunication companies seem to sit in the middle as they hold your data and mine, without explicitly or perhaps properly considering how and if they can benefit from seeing your data go and come as you move in your daily life.

Management of this data inside and outside companies needs good managers. If you hire 'necessity', just make sure they know what they are doing. You and they need good quality standards, which many people are calling Service Level Agreements or SLAs. So now you can expect good services from those who come to clean and maintain your house and do the chores.

Imagine if instead of making your data available you decide to collect data from others, so the idea of 'necessity' became an attractive one and you want to do a similar business. I was just thinking today of a research idea: setting up a cloud based portal in which we could be using things like google docs to gather citizen's perceptions about something: Their views about laws, their health concerns, or their knowledge about diseases and how to cure them. Many citizens would be happy to air their views. Others would be happy to send this data from their mobile phones, and get information about what goes on in their area or locality. Others, more in this area of research would be happy to develop intelligent applications that can monitor how you consume electricity at home and give suggestions to lower your bill.

But then there is something called privacy of data. Those in eco-systems have to be careful with sharing or gathering data in unauthorised ways. We are supposed to help improve the quality of life of people (i.e. you and your household). By gathering data, in authorised or non-authorised ways, we can get to think that we know better than people. If given the chance, we can just suggest, explore, discover, but never impose or monitor.

I am not entirely sure that from now if we play this game we are to become what many people call 'prosumers'. So we are now innovating. We live in our house, someone does the work for us and we keep rearranging the furniture, and telling other people about it. It is like combining and recombining data to discover new ideas or possibilities. I seem to have heard a similar story of something called 'data mining', which is still popular but is not the holy grail (and I respect the data mining experts). We do some work in gathering and mashing up data, in other words making it available to those in the eco-system, including the government.

So in the game, the one who is clever with the data wins, the one who makes it available and the one who exploits it. But you can still enjoy this game by just playing like you do when you go to a casino to have a good time. You can still open your house to others. Just make sure you have some kind of insurance, like what you do by not taking your credit cards when you go to a casino or by making sure you do not end up living in Vegas or Atlantic city (too much of a temptation not to play every day).

Prosumers or not, we are still members of our communities, and we do not need to lose sleep on thinking about if we're sitting on gold or not.

Back to the revolution, back to the blog!

Last post is now over 6 months old. While we waited to see what happened with technologies this year the revolution has spread. Change of regimes, riots, a new war and many efforts to save the world economy in certain parts of our globe have been at the forefront of news.

The revolution has also seen the emergence of social networking so that now Facebook has a value in the market, Apple is now a big legacy to be continued and the alliance between Microsoft and Nokia has given birth to new technology products. Tablets and electronic book readers are now used much more.

And cloud computing is on the up. Yesterday I was at Kingston University in an event about this subject. It is interesting to see how companies like Microsoft have invested in the cloud. Their Azure platform is delivering interesting solutions. One of them is for the Body Shop, which is now a global business. My friend Farid and I coincided in thinking that still the cloud is rather a black box than a cloud. It just delivers what it is asked to do, not many questions being asked, not many pages in a contract to be read or signed.

Still, how these technologies are providing specific benefits so we can say they improve our quality of life and that of our organisations or societies needs attention. Those interested in research say that there is a new ecosystem (see a previous post in this blog) to which we can attach ourselves. End users see that they can get information in real time, presented in a nice way (maps, routes, bookings, news, etc), at their fingertips. Technology developers can now focus on particular parts of information products and services: (Mobile) Applications, middleware, databases or communication networks.

And governments are now more sophisticated in their use of technologies. Mobile applications for citizens are becoming a norm, as digital documents or signatures.

Maybe the revolution within this revolution is not to lose sight of what we can do with all these possibilities, and also to keep the good of what we had. I am still using the same mobile phone, netbook and laptop, am still reading printed copies of papers and books. They do the job for me.

I still think that we need to sort out other problems whilst we use the opportunities brought by technology. The big problem is still how to benefit more people from the changes we experience. It is about not being forgotten but being active in shaping such changes. Many of us would not like to be targeted as consumers but as human beings.