On occassion we are fortunate and benefit from the insights and work of special people. When they pass it is noteworthy and sad. Such is the case with the distringuished professor CK Prahalad, who was internationally recognized for his research in corporate strategy and the best ways top management can navigate the often-complex waters of running large, multinational corporations.
As a Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy in the Ross School of Business, Prahalad was a well-respected and deeply admired member of the community, both as an expert in his field and as a teacher. In 2009, he received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman — an award given by the president of India to men and women who make exceptional and praiseworthy contributions in their respective fields. In the same year, the Indian government honored Prahalad with the Padma Bushan — the third highest civilian award in India — for his distinguished service to the nation. The Times of the United Kindom also named Prahalad the most influential business thinker on its The Thinkers 50 List in October 2009.
For many reasons this Harvard professor and author attained notarity. Among many publications, he had several international bestselling books, including “Competing for the Future,” “The Future of Competition” and “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits.” A visionary who saw the unique contributions the emerging global middle class is and will have on the world, he once was quoted as saying:
If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up.
At “Chirp”, Twitter’s developer conference, the company unveiled promoted tweets, new mobile apps, an enhanced geo-tagging feature, a link-shortening function, live search and the sale of its archives to the Library of Congress. That is a lot to talk about at a single event, but its not surprising given what's been going on with Twitter for the past year.
Augie Ray from Forrester shared this view, "Twitter's been under a lot of pressure to be a more transparent business. Now the company has come to a point in its maturity where it's starting to operate much more as a business and less as a startup."
The announced changes are not without skeptics. Some feel the promoted tweets are intrusive and third-party app developers are concerned Twitter is trying to put them out of business. But Twitter has also been criticized for taking too long to unveil its long term plans. Developers were unclear about where they should invest their efforts.
Here is an overview of the latest changes coming to Twitter with much of it based on David Goldman’s recent CNNMoney.com article “Twitter grows up: Take a peek inside”: Thanks David. Also, watch the video about foursquare's reaction to Twitter.
Promoted tweets: By far the most significant announcement. When users search with select keywords, a tweet from a company that bought those keywords will appear at the top of the feed. Companies that currently feature ads on the site include Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500), Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) and Sony Pictures.
Though the current model is still in the experimental phase, the company is hoping to succeed by making the promotional advertising more closely reflect individual users' interests.
Ensuring Twitter remains consumer-driven and not overly corporate is key to its survival, said Bob Pearson, president of the Social Media Business Council. "The reason Twitter is successful is because it has allowed customers to find what's relevant to them," said Pearson. "If Twitter starts deciding for people what's important, that's not going to work."
Mobile apps: Twitter recently unveiled an official BlackBerry app, and bought the most popular Twitter app for Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone, called Tweetie. The company also plans to soon release an official Android app.
Twitter had previously relied on third-party developers to allow mobile users to access their Twitter accounts on their phones. Apps like Twidroid, Tweetie and UberTwitter were some of the most popular, but there were dozens of others.
Twitter nabs top app maker
It comes as little surprise that having no official mobile app was a barrier to new customers. When people searched for a Twitter app, many were confused about which one to use. While an official Twitter app hasn't made third-party developers too happy, Twitter made it clear that those developers are still hugely important. "It's not a coup against developers," said Ray of Forrester. "It's absolutely clear that Twitter is very committed to improving its platform for the development community."
Geo-tagging: Another big announcement was the unveiling of a "Places" function that would better allow users to see where tweets were coming from. Twitter will keep a database of restaurants, bars, parks, stations and other public arenas. Developers use that data to create tools like check-in, similar to other location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla. Though some believe this poses a direct challenge to some of the more entrenched location-based services, Twitter argues that the new functionality is more of a complementary service.
It's more likely that Twitter would use the information to provide more relevant tweets about a specific area or place than hand out virtual points, badges or rewards like Foursquare's check-in.
Link-shortening: Since Twitter only allows users to post 140-character messages, URLs can take up a large chunk of the space for tweets. Services like bit.ly have become popular ways to shorten links to post in tweets. But using those services is cumbersome because users have to go outside Twitter's world to create those links.
Lawbreakers foiled by Facebook
Like with geo-tagging and mobile apps, the announcement made some developers nervous about the viability of their link-shortening services. But the barriers to creating link-shortening were so small (just register a two-character ending) that the business model of those services was questionable anyhow.
Archives: Twitter sold the rights to its archives to the Library of Congress, making them searchable on Google (GOOG, Fortune 500). All public tweets, dating back to the very first one on March 21, 2006, are now hosted in the government's Library of Congress. Users can access the archive by selecting the "Updates" option on Google's search page. The new feature adds a timeline at the top of the results page that shows the relative volume of tweets about that topic.
Live search: Lastly, live Twitter feeds began appearing in Bing search results pages this week. Twitter feeds have already been showing up in Google's search results for awhile, which served as the first source of revenue for the young company.
Tom Davenport comments that "you can't emulate everything that Google does", and he's right. But it is instructive to watch his HBR interview as he outlines the unique yet basic things Google has done to be successful. Here are some of Tom's thoughts:
1. Develop a scalable platform;
2. Have an excellent method of testing and deploying new products and services;
3. Have a high tolerance for failure; and
4. Treat knowledge workers in a method that improves their productivity.
Methods of organization and innovation are fundamental to success in any organization and these are but a few. Our companies try and help people adopt the forementioned and other disciplines that are part of best practices for success today. Watch this interesting interview.
I take for granted that many folks really understand what "Cloud Computing" is. Speaking at different events and talking with clients in the fitness, wellness, franchising and other industries, I've recently become more aware that many don't truly understand what the term "Cloud Computing" means.
Its really important for people in any organization to graps the concept of the "Cloud" because it is going to touch everything in our lives and organizations, if it hasn't already started to. Catch up on the basics with this video which is an excellent and short explaination of how Virtualization, Utility Computer and Software as a Service are converging to make Cloud Computing an important aspect of the world today.
Like a lot of businesses ours has been working on integrating social media. Many Kudos to our team, in particular Denisse, Justin, Robert, Rodney, Kelli, Kristina and others who are experimenting with Twitter, in addition to other tools, over the past few months. It isn't easy and we're just getting started, but we are learning more every day.
Many don't understand the value of Twitter in particular. But a lot of folks have learned, as this Hubspot article expresses, it is VERY valuable if its just used properly. That is the trick using it properly. Watch Mark Shaw's expert twitter tips video that gives some great pointers on adopting this technology to engage your customers and create a discussion friendly environment around your brand.
On occassion we are fortunate and benefit from the insights and work of special people. When they pass it is noteworthy and sad. Such is the case with the distringuished professor CK Prahalad, who was internationally recognized for his research in corporate strategy and the best ways top management can navigate the often-complex waters of running large, multinational corporations.
