The biggest criticism I hear about the local, mobile, social Web is that it doesn’t yet just justify the hype–that it generates little to no return and distracts companies from focusing on those parts of their business that actually produce revenues and profits. That’s a valid concern. The very act of choosing to put any resources (people, money, or time) into testing the value of the local, mobile, social Web for your business automatically makes those resources unavailable for something else. Management, more than anything else, is about prioritization. Why give priority to something with no certain return? With so many of you struggling to get your company’s management to sign off on proven efforts like SEO, where’s the upside in pushing for the far less certain return of social media or mobile? Don’t good managers prioritize those things that produce the greatest return?
Of course they do.
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But, here’s the thing. Social and mobile (and mobile’s partner in crime, local), represent the most fundamentally disruptive communications tools since the commercialization of the Internet itself.
Seriously.
Several years ago, Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century”
Mobile phones promise similar opportunities for developing and developed nations alike. According to McKinsey:
“The explosion of mobile networks is giving billions of people their first real entry point into the global economy, helping them become more informed consumers, connecting them with jobs, and providing much better access to credit and finance. The economic impact is tangible: every 10 percent increase in cell phone penetration in India corresponds to a nearly 0.6 percent rise in national GDP. Kenya shows how the future might unfold: just four in ten Kenyans have cell phones, yet half of all users–or one in five Kenyans–now make purchases via mobile-payment systems. Kenya’s largest employer is txteagle, an SMS messaging company, which provides jobs to more than 10,000 Kenyan citizens by doling out “microwork”: small tasks that can be accomplished over mobile networks.”
Mobile, just like cheap PCs and Internet access before it, will create a world of new customers in markets you’ve never imagined. Some around the corner. And some, around the globe.
Innovative companies, such as Google, 3M and IBM, allow their employees time to explore whatever they choose, in hopes of finding “the next big thing.” Those explorations resulted in, among other things, Google News, Post-it Notes and Lasik. These companies understand disruption. They’re not waiting for it to happen to them. Instead, they’re working to disrupt themselves.
Effective managers set priorities every day and focus the bulk of their companies’ energies on the areas that generate the greatest revenues and profits. You should too.
But, once you’ve done that, carve out a little time to explore more disruptive areas. And I know I’m repeating myself, but social, mobile and local represent the most fundamentally disruptive tools since the Internet itself.
Disruption is coming. Wouldn’t you rather it came from you? Setting the right priorities for your business is critical. But there’s at least one thing more important to good managers than setting the right priorities. And that’s making sure your company has a future.
