Bulasici Fikirler

Bir sure once Fast Company'deki bir yazi icerisinde cok begendigim bir cumle ile karsilastim:

"With so much time focused on the messenger, we miss out on the value of the message itself as a vehicle for driving virality".

Kabul edelim ki (burada sucu Malcolm Gladwell'e atmak istiyorum), sosyal trendlerin ortaya cikmasinda ve yayilmasinda bir grup ozel, farkli insanin oldukca onemli bir rol oynadigi uzerine kurulu oldukca fazla (ve populer) model var; bu modeller dunyasinda bu kisileri bulduktan sonra tek yapmak gereken sadece urunu/fikiri benimsemeleri ve yaymalarini saglamak. Ama giriste alinti yaptigim cumlenin belirttigi gibi mesaji tasiyan kisiye/yapiya yogunlasmak mesajin kendisinin onemi gozardi etmeye yol acabiliyor.

Yaziya geri donersek "Acaba bu cumleyi kim soylemis?" diye inceledim de Wharton'da Pazarlama bolumunden yardimci docent olarak gorev olan Jonah Berger ile karsilastim (kendisine bir nevi pazarlama dunyasinin yeni altin(!) cocuk adaylarindan birisi olarak degerlendirebiliriz dersem cok abartmis olmayacagimi dusunuyorum) ve kendisinin "Contagious" adli kitabini hemen Kindle'ima yukledim.

Kitabin detaylarina cok fazla girmek istemiyorum (keyifli bir okuma oldugunu rahatlikla soyleyebilirim), kitap temel olarak Berger'in sosyal iletim, bulasicilik konusunda olusturdugu 6 temel prensip uzerine kurulmus durumda. Bu prensiblerin cogu aslinda fikir sahibi oldugumuz, bildigimiz kavramlar ancak kitap icerisinde bunlarin cesitli arastirma sonuclari ve etkileyici hikayelerle desteklenmesi, ve bunlardan bir temel cerceve olusturulmasi kitabi onemli bir okuma yapiyor.

Berger'in modelinin dayandigi 6 temel yapiya hizli bir sekilde bakarsak:

• Sosyal Deger (Social Currency): Bizi disariya dogru daha iyi/degerli gosteren fikirleri/urunleri paylasmaya meyilliyiz
• Tetikleyiciler (Triggers): Icinde bulundugumuz cevredeki cesitli kavram ve nesnelerin tetikledigi (kurulan iliskiler sonucu akila gelen) fikirler/urunler daha sik paylasilirlar
• Duygu (Emotion): Onem ve ozen gosterdigimiz, umursadigimiz fikirleri/urunleri paylasmayi tercih ederiz
• Aciklik (Public): Gundelik hayatta gordugumuz/karsilastigimiz fikirleri/urunleri paylasma olasiligimiz yuksektir
• Pratik Deger (Practical Value): Karsi taraf icin bir deger iceren, hayatlarini kolaylastiran, potansiyel bir problemlerini cozen fikirleri/urunleri paylasmaya egilim gosteririz
• Hikayeler (Stories): Fikir/urun ile duzgun bir iliskisi olan hikaye, etkili bir truva atidir

Bu arada yanlis anlasilma olmamasi acisindan belirtmek gerekirse' bu alti madde hep birlikte olmak zorunda olan bir yapiyi anlatmiyor, urunun/fikirin yapisina gore bazen sadece bir maddenin ortada olmasi bile urunun/fikrin sosyal bir salgin sekilde yayilmasi icin yeterli olabiliyor.

Fikirlerin/urunlerin nasil yayildigini merak ediyorsaniz yada bu sekilde davranmasini istediginiz bir fikriniz/urununuz varsa "Contagious" gozden kacirmamaniz gereken bazi noktalari size gosteren/hatirlatan bir kitap olacaktir, bir sans vermeyi unutmayin.

Ready For The New Era?

In his last book, The Icarus Deception, Seth Godin defines the new six assets that matters in the so called connected economy: Trust Permission Remarkability Leadership Stories Humanity

In the today's world, with the huge boom of social networks and social media, we encounter an information overload in every aspect of our lives. Think this as being in a room with an orchestra but each instrument is playing a different melody. The human nature tends to close its outer sensors in this situation to decrease the level of complexity in the environment, most people starts to hear only instruments that has some kind of attraction. If we return back to this connected economy the first step to create this 'attraction' is trust and permission; don't forget, the only people we hear are the ones we choose to hear - give permission to be heard. And we choose to listen to those we trust.

Ever consider which ideas we share with our environment? The boring ones? The ones that everybody already knows? Or what we look for are ideas that are unusual, extraordinary, surprising? Or think from the opposite perspective, what kind of ideas we prefer to be shared with us? Yes, we are all looking for remarkable things; the degree of remarkability may change, and the tendency towards is won't.

Management vs Leadership... People loves this comparison, there are lots of articles, blogs related to this topics but still most people use the terms "management" and "leadership" interchangeably. Management is the act of well-known, the act of past, taming the complexity. Leadership,on the other hand, about the future, the unknown territory, change. And when entering a new era, past should be left behind.

There is an old French saying, "Les gens heureux n’ont pas d’histoire à raconter" meaning that happy people don't have a story to tell. I once fond of this idea, especially during university years when girls tend to be attracted sad-looking guys - according to them it creates a mysterious aura - which I found a little bit masochistic. But in the today's world, it is the story that spreads. Remember Simon Sinek's concept of the "Golden Circle" where everything starts with a "Why?". And it is your story that defines that "Why?' - and if you don't the inspiring TED video of Simon Sinek, go immediately to YouTube after reading this post.

And humanity...In today's current over-industrialized world in which mass production sweeps away the era of scarcity for most of the products, the new rarity becomes the "humanity", we begin to seek out for human originality and caring in this industrial jungle...

These assets remind me of so called "Rambo" knives which used to be advertised in the Sunday pull-outs of newspapers. These knives usually contain a compass, needles, fishing lines, etc. - a basic survival kit for unknown, wilderness environment suchlike the new era. To enter the new era, to safely pass over the "doorstep", to catch the next "safety zone", one must embrace these assets internally... There are no other alternatives...

Notes On ICT Summit Eurasia 2012 - Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1, I had a chance to attend the ICT Summit Eurasia 2012 for a day which is held between 11-13 September in Istanbul.
The second group of sessions I had attended are mainly about Mobile Health and Machine2Machine and Entrepreneurship.

Smart Education:
By 2014, it is estimated that the mobile health market will reach 40 billion USD, creating a great saving (estimated value for U.S. market is 3 to 6 billion USD).

Now the hot topics in this domain is health tourism and preventing diseases. Mobile Health is extremely important in the concept of "preventing diseases" as the health expense of an healthy individual is nearly 1000 USD whereas this number increases to 6000-16000 USD range for patients.

Based on this point of view, a new model for the health system should be designed. Current model in summary is something like:

Individual --> Sick --> Doctor --> Pharmacy

This should be changed such that the "Doctor" domain should have a tighter integration with the "Individual" domain.

The reasons behind the shallowness of mobile health in Turkey are defined as:

• too much players
• regulation problems
• highly stationary structure

To achieve this, a national electronic health infrastructure should be constructed as the first step.

Mobile Health is extremely important for Turkey, because it is the only way to prevent the budget deficit in the health domain.

Machine2Machine:

The number of mobile device users is reached to 5.9 billion across the world. By 2012, there will be 2.2 billion smart phone users available (in Turkey, this number will be 13.5 million).

The number of devices that contains a simcard is now 9 billion and this number will reach 50 billion by 2020.

In Turkey, the current M2M market is mainly concentrated on:

• fleet and asset management
• mobile pos
• telemetry

This situation will turn into the following in the near future:

• automotive
• consumer electronics
• health
• transportation

M2M is not a technology issue anymore, it turns into a business and marketing problem.

Possible list of items defining how the M2M business will effect the Turkish market:

• creation of local solutions easily
• generating solutions in a quick manner/li>
• creativity is much more important than the technology itself
• solutions with competitiveness
• big data gaining much more importance
• business intelligence becoming more valuable
• usage of data gathered in different areas

There are three main business models from the perspective of a MNO, such as (with revenue percentages):

• B2B (%15 - %20)
• B2B2C (%45 - %60)
• (B+B)2C (%55 - %80)

Entrepreneurship:
Unfortunately, the "Entrepreneurship" sessions were a little bit disappointing except for the local success stories (but i think most of us in Turkish market already know the story of Nokta, Peak Games, etc.) The Manifesto of Entrepreneurship is simply:

• team itself is one of the most important things (the most important thing at the beginning)
• the diversity of team members can create a great synergy
• idea is something but execution is something bigger
• focus on things that matters

Yes, this two parts series is the summary of a day in ICT Summit Eurasia 2012. Hope to see you in Webit Congress 2012.