[MUSIC] 0:00 So they tell you, right? 0:02 They tell you that if you're gonna give a presentation you 0:04 should always start with the wow factor. 0:07 Then right at the beginning of your presentation, 0:11 you should hit them with something that blows their mind. 0:13 -Ance. 0:16 So that's what I'm gonna do. 0:16 This is gonna be better, more profound, and 0:18 more amazing than anything you have heard so far at Blend Conference. 0:21 In fact, I'll go further than that, I will go as far as saying this is 0:26 the most profound thing you will hear this year. 0:29 >> Woo >> Well are you ready? 0:32 [UNKNOWN] Right! 0:35 Are we ready, ladies and gentlemen? 0:40 Digital has changed stuff! 0:41 [LAUGH] Whoa! 0:44 You're not gonna get better than that. 0:48 All right, it sounds a little bit stuff, you know, 0:50 it's not like [INAUDIBLE] let's be a bit more pretentious, I'm now, 0:53 I'm, I'm speaking a [INAUDIBLE], you can't get more pretentious than that. 0:56 [LAUGH] So, digital has changed our social and economical landscape, all right? 1:01 Because it's true, and we so underestimate it. 1:09 We so underestimate the huge impact that digital has had on our world, 1:14 and on one level it's obvious and as digital professional we all know that but 1:20 I think we so underestimate how profound digital has been. 1:26 It's changed our very behavior, hasn't it? 1:31 I mean in a fundamental way, there is now a new generation of connected consumers. 1:35 Who are living in a completely different way. 1:43 We're all connected consumers. 1:47 We're always on except for when we're banned at a conference. 1:49 [LAUGH] Bastards. 1:53 [LAUGH] You know, real time mobile interaction. 1:56 And, and it's given us all an audience. 2:02 Every single one of us has an audience, don't we? 2:05 And don't we know it. 2:08 [LAUGH] Right? 2:09 Jared Spool. 2:11 Who follows Jared Spool? 2:12 Right. 2:14 Most of you. 2:14 Right? 2:15 Jared's [UNKNOWN] on Twitter. 2:16 Hates United Airlines, [LAUGH] doesn't he? 2:17 With an intense passion. 2:20 And he uses the power of his network to let everyone know how crap United are. 2:22 All right. 2:28 And we all do it, don't we. 2:30 And we know that the power is now in our hands. 2:32 As connected consumers and not in the hands of brands anymore. 2:34 Brands have to look after us. 2:39 Brands have to nurture us. 2:41 No longer are we forced to buy certain things, 2:43 because the competition are a click away. 2:46 If we're unhappy, we complain. 2:49 It's the generation of the empowered consumers. 2:51 And it's changed the way we make decisions as well now. 2:54 It's like, every time we go to buy something. 2:57 You know, you can be standing in a shop these days, can't you? 2:59 And you can scan the bar code to see if it's cheaper online. 3:02 And you could even stand there and 3:07 take a photograph of, of two, you know, should I get it in red or green? 3:09 And you post it up to, to Facebook or 3:13 Twitter, and your get instant feedback from your network. 3:15 They're helping you make decisions. 3:18 That's sound different. 3:21 And yet we underestimate what a profound impact it had on our society. 3:23 So, let me tell you a very quick story to this, all right? 3:29 British Airways. 3:32 Well I, I had a, I was flying back from, from a conference back home. 3:33 And with British Airways. 3:38 And I went to booking and our flight had been delayed. 3:40 Okay, fair enough, that happens. 3:44 Even I won't moan about that, on Twitter. 3:46 But then then I said, do you know what? 3:49 I'm gonna upgrade. 3:52 Cuz I, it's a long flight home so can, you know, can I upgrade to business class. 3:53 Oh yes sir, absolutely sir. 3:58 And, and they went through this rigmarole. 4:00 Went to the booth, oh I just need to check something with my manager. 4:02 Went out the back and came back and said no, you can't upgrade. 4:05 And I said why. 4:08 And they wouldn't tell me. 4:08 Just couldn't upgrade. 4:10 So this made me a bit miffed. 4:11 And I went online and I moaned about it as you do. 4:12 And, of course, within minutes, 4:14 somebody from British Airways contacted me on Twitter. 4:19 And then, they phoned me. 4:22 And then, they sorted it out. 4:24 But they failed to sort it out. 4:26 But, at least, they told me what the reason was. 4:27 So, the power has shifted, hasn't it, in the relationships. 4:29 And there are some companies. 4:32 That get it, like British Airways. 4:33 And there are other companies that don't, like United. 4:36 And it's changing our world. 4:40 And our world is being changed politically, because of social networks, 4:43 and because of the internet. 4:48 Obama's election in 2008 was the first one really driven primarily online. 4:50 The organization of that grassroots movement was, was organized and, 4:56 and managed online. 5:01 Online was a huge thing in that election. 5:03 We've seen regimes all around the world try and censor the web and fail. 5:06 In order to keep control. 5:13 In the Middle East we've seen country after country overthrown by 5:14 groups mobilized via social networks. 5:18 Wow! 5:21 That's incredible. 5:23 We've seen issue based politics become a thing, and so it goes on. 5:24 Sorry. 5:32 And we've even seen the leader of the free world, 5:34 puffet have to apologize for a website. 5:40 Isn't that amazing? 5:45 That's the world we live in now! 5:48 The President of the United States, oh, fuck, we've caught that one up. 5:50 [LAUGH] And I as a British person could not take a more pleasure at that. 5:54 It was possibly the happiest moment I've had all year. 6:00 [LAUGH] So politics has been changed as well. 6:03 But media has been changed as well. 6:08 Citizen journalism. 6:10 Anybody can produce content. 6:12 Abby is self publishing her book, because she doesn't need a publishing house. 6:15 Why do we need that anymore? 6:21 If you wanna write a book, write a book. 6:22 Self publish it. 6:23 If you wanna be a journalist, you don't need to be signed up to a major newspaper. 6:25 You can be a journalist. 6:29 We've all got the means of production and distribution available to us. 6:30 Who knows Jonathan Coulton? 6:34 Right. Jonathan Coulton is a musician and he was 6:37 a coder, like you guys a lot of you guys. 6:42 And, obviously, as a developer, he was intensely miserable with his life. 6:45 [LAUGH] And what he really wanted to be was a musician. 6:48 And so what he decided to do is he decided, 6:54 he's never gonna get signed to a record label. 6:56 He knew that was a dead end so what he did was every week. 6:59 Week in and week out he wrote and released a song. 7:02 Every week for ages and ages and ages. 7:05 And then one song, Code Monkey took off. 7:10 And now, he's still not signing the record label. 7:14 But he doesn't care. 7:18 He makes his money from concerts and from selling merchandise, and 7:19 all that kind of thing. 7:23 He's completely bypassed the existing gate, gatekeepers. 7:24 To be able to do what he wants to do. 7:29 So the world has changed. 7:30 Business has changed too. 7:33 Sector after sector have been decimated, because of digital. 7:36 Retailing, music, TV, newspapers, all have undergone major transformations. 7:41 And then there are kind of weh, established brand names. 7:49 The kind of brand names you think are gonna be there forever. 7:52 Have disappeared, Kodak, Blockbusters, HMV, Tower Records. 7:56 In Britain, we have a shop called Woolworths. 8:04 And Woolworths is a British institution. 8:08 It goes the Queen, the NHS, Woolworths. 8:11 [LAUGH] Woolworth's closed their doors. 8:14 It was like having my soul ripped out. 8:18 But they, they close their doors, because of digital. 8:22 And then there's entirely new sectors that are now possible. 8:25 Software as a service has enabled us to do all kinds of things. 8:28 That would have previously been impossible. 8:33 The internet has allowed us to target the long tail of consumers that we 8:35 wouldn't have been able to target before. 8:38 And yet more sectors have been entirely redefined. 8:40 And now, of course, there's ultimate funding methods as well, 8:43 again, another set of gatekeepers that have been swept aside. 8:47 You don't need venture capitalists to approve your idea anymore, 8:50 you don't need a bank manager to think it's a good idea. 8:53 All you need is KickStarter and equivalent services. 8:56 So, the business is being changed as well. 9:00 And that in turn, is changing the workplace. 9:02 What's the first thing you guys all do in the morning? 9:04 Right? 9:07 Probably even before you open your eyes? 9:07 oh, twitter. 9:12 [LAUGH] Right? 9:14 We all do that don't we? 9:17 First thing in the morning. 9:19 But then we check email don't we? 9:20 And, and, and so it goes on and so our day begins, we are always on. 9:21 We can work from anywhere. 9:26 And the lines between home and work are blurring now aren't they? 9:28 So, a lot of us work from home and then Google makes work like home with sofas 9:31 and, and sleeping pods and other pretentious crap [LAUGH] and we're seeing 9:37 a breaking down of the hierarchical structures of management as well. 9:42 The open source community doesn't have managers. 9:48 Let me paint you a picture of a world that is beginning to emerge. 9:52 You arrive on day one at your new job. 9:58 You guys [UNKNOWN] you get training manual respite. 10:00 And then they say, get on with it. 10:05 And you say, well, what am I meant to do? 10:08 Oh, I don't know, have a look around, see what's going on. 10:10 If you see a project you like, join that. 10:14 And then you, you go to your desk, and 10:18 you notice, on the bottom of your desk, a wheel. 10:20 Okay, so you go round, find a project that you like, 10:24 and then you wheel your desk over and join that project. 10:26 No managers, nobody telling you what to do. 10:29 That is the future of business. 10:34 And actually it's already happening today. 10:36 There's a company called Valve. 10:38 Everybody, anybody played Half Life? 10:40 And yeah, yeah, you wall know Valve. 10:41 Valve, I know my audience. 10:43 [LAUGH], so it's a gaming company, isn't it? 10:46 And they are the, they work in exactly the way I just described. 10:48 And do you know what? 10:52 They make more money per head than anybody else in the gaming industry. 10:53 So it can work. 10:58 Now, I'm not saying all businesses will become like that, but 10:59 I'm saying that things are changing. 11:01 We've also got a new generation of people entering the marketplace known as 11:03 the Millenials. 11:07 And they're just entering the marketplace now. 11:07 And what's really interesting about the millennials, is they don't follow you, 11:10 just because you've been made their boss. 11:15 They don't care about that. 11:17 They follow people they respect and 11:18 admire, because that's what the internet has taught them. 11:20 You subscribe to a YouTube channel. 11:25 You follow someone on Twitter. 11:27 That's how you mobilize. 11:29 That's how leaders rise up. 11:30 Now, I'd like to say, this is completely unprecedented. 11:33 That we have never seen any such profound change in our culture and society before. 11:38 Where you live at a pivotal point in the development of humanity. 11:43 And all of those things are true. 11:48 Except for it's never happened before, because it has. 11:50 We've seen this in the industrial revolution, 11:54 profound changes happening, because of technology. 11:56 Right. 12:02 Ima, imagine the industrial revolution is in full swing, right? 12:03 So, it's been driven by the power of steam, it's been driven by water. 12:06 Turning those wheels, generating that power. 12:11 And then electricity comes along. 12:15 And electricity changes everything. 12:19 And suddenly factories start getting powered by electricity. 12:23 But do you wanna know something really interesting. 12:28 A decade passes with electricity being mainstreamed in factories. 12:31 And a decade on, where are they building factories? 12:38 They're building factories by the water. 12:43 There is no longer a reason to do that. 12:45 But they haven't grasped the full potential of this new technology. 12:49 They're using it, yeah sure. 12:56 But they're not grasping the depth and breath of what that means. 12:57 And I believe we are in that place today. 13:04 Sure, we're all using digital. 13:07 Sure, it's become this part of pretty much every business, but 13:11 we're still metaphorically building our factories by the water. 13:16 We haven't moved on. 13:21 We haven't grasped the full ramification. 13:22 We look at a digital, and we go, oh yeah, that's a marketing tool. 13:26 Or it's an IT tool. 13:31 And we're not understanding its full ramifications. 13:32 It hasn't been allowed to change the fundamentals of our organizations. 13:36 It's been bolted on to the side. 13:40 And that's led to some massive failures that have been hugely, 13:42 hugely embarrassing. 13:48 In Britain, there's Birmingham City Council that spent an unprecedented 2.5 13:50 million pounds, I have no idea what that is in your funny money, but 13:54 two point [LAUGH] 2.5 million pounds on its website, and 13:59 that's running 2 million pounds over budget, ri, right? 14:04 Another one I like. 14:10 The Department of Trade and Industries website cost a staggering 11 14:12 pound 78 per visit to the website. 14:16 So that equates to $20, 14:21 every time you go to that website, it costs a British taxpayer $20. 14:23 Can you now see why gov.uk was a good thing? 14:29 $20, another one I quite like is Fergo or Frugo. 14:33 I think it is, who spent 40 million Euros. 14:40 Now I've no idea how you convert that. 14:43 That's funny money to funny money. 14:45 So [LAUGH] 40 million Euros. 14:46 And then it generated 100,000 Euros in profit. 14:51 That was a good investment, then well done, chaps! 14:56 Then there's, now we start kicking the Americans, which is fun boo.com. 15:00 Man it, I mean, this is impossible. 15:06 I'm sorry, I don't know how they did this. 15:08 $135 million they spent in 18 months. 15:10 Now, I'm willing to give it a go, but I don't think I could do that. 15:16 That is brilliant, isn't it? 15:20 I just love it. 15:22 And then my all time favorite, obviously, it's healthcare.gov 15:24 that's cost you guys, I love this $319 million, 15:30 with that figure set to rise to a whopping $677 million. 15:36 That is horrendous, but here's the great thing, right? 15:42 The original budget. 15:47 Was only $93 million. 15:49 Now, let's pause that sentence a minute. 15:53 [LAUGH] Only $93 million. 15:56 I could build them a website cheaper than that. 16:01 [LAUGH] All right? 16:04 Because they're approaching it all wrong. 16:06 They're approaching it with the wrong mindset. 16:09 They're approaching it with the wrong organizational structure to back it up. 16:12 They're digitally incompatible, these organizations. 16:18 They have top-down leadership, slow-moving, strictly hierarchical, 16:22 siloed organizations with a digitally illiterate leadership. 16:27 And they're internally focused. 16:32 It's summed-up brilliantly in a quote from Leroy Hood. 16:36 Leroy Hood famously said, bureaucracies are honed by the past and 16:41 can almost never deal effectively with the future. 16:46 Replace the word bureaucracies with your company name, cuz that's the truth. 16:49 You see what happens is, the truth is that the business models that worked so 16:57 well, for your organizations, don't work anymore. 17:03 What was safe ground, no longer is. 17:08 Because the world has changed around your clients, and 17:11 your own businesses, the world has changed. 17:16 You see, what happens is, 17:20 is when something comes along, right, like, like me. 17:22 Right, I'm on this stage now, and you're looking at me, and 17:26 you're fitting me into your mental model of the world. 17:29 Right? 17:32 You've seen me in a certain way, right? 17:33 You might put me in the British box, the Basil Fawlty box, 17:35 the Monty Python box, or [LAUGH] the just slightly weird box. 17:41 You know, whatever you fit me into your box, your mental model. 17:46 And that's fine most of the time. 17:50 That works great most of the time. 17:52 But then, but then something comes along, that is so 17:55 radically different that it doesn't fit any of our existing mental models before, 17:59 and we try and crow bar it in, don't we? 18:05 And digital is that, digital is unlike anything that we have dealt with before. 18:09 We tried to make it an IT tool and then realized it wasn't. 18:16 Now organizations are trying to make it a marketing tool. 18:20 But it's more than that. 18:24 It doesn't fit into our existing mental models. 18:26 So basically all your clients and if you work in house for 18:28 an a organization, all your organizations basically are all stuff. 18:32 It's what I'm saying. 18:37 Right? 18:38 That was supposed to be funny. 18:40 Nevermind. 18:41 [LAUGH] It's just a bit depressing actually, isn't it? 18:41 So we need to change this, don't we? 18:46 Something needs to change. 18:48 These organizations need to wake up and 18:49 smell the coffee, I guess over here, or tea in Britain obviously. 18:52 But who's gonna do that? 18:57 Who's gonna make that happen? 18:58 Is it gonna be senior management? 19:01 Don't think they really get it, do they. 19:05 Don't understand there's a problem. 19:07 Perhaps the ans answer is an outside business consultant. 19:09 You need to all hire me to come in and solve it. 19:13 But then senior management have to realize there's a problem to hire the consultant. 19:17 Okay, we're stuck there. 19:23 Maybe marketing people can solve it. 19:24 No, they can't solve anything. 19:27 [LAUGH] So, so, where does this leave us? 19:28 Well, it leaves us with the inevitable. 19:33 It's gotta be you. 19:36 Who else is it gonna be? 19:39 But I know what you're thinking it's not my job, and 19:40 I don't have the authority, right? 19:44 I can't tell my clients to rearrange their entire business. 19:47 Right? 19:52 Or if I work in house somewhere. 19:53 I was like, blah, no way can I get away from saying that, with doing that! 19:55 But here's the problem beautifully put up put across by Jonathan Khan. 20:00 When he said, he wrote for a list apart. 20:06 Here's the problem, organizations are the context of our work, and 20:08 when it comes to the web, organizations are broken. 20:12 So you have got right at this point, right in this room, 20:16 right today, you have to make a decision. 20:18 And it's the most primeval and basic decision that any human being ever makes. 20:21 Fight or flight. 20:27 What are you gonna do? 20:31 If you're frustrated by your clients' organizations or 20:34 your own organizations, you have to decide today. 20:37 Are you gonna fight to change things? 20:41 Or are you gonna fly? 20:44 Are you gonna go and do something else? 20:47 Are you gonna get other clients or are you going to move to a different company or 20:49 are you going to become a landscape gardener? 20:53 I've always fancied that. 20:57 Though that is the fundamental choice you are faced with today. 21:01 So let's make an assumption you've decided to fight. 21:04 Okay? 21:07 Being, you know, you're, you're, kind of, you're a nation of, of, kind of, 21:08 go getters. 21:13 Make it happen. 21:14 If I gave this talk in Brittain, everybody would just fly. 21:15 [LAUGH] But I'm expecting better from you guys. 21:17 You're gonna fight. 21:21 Now admittedly, you normally turn out late to most fights. 21:22 but. [LAUGH]. 21:25 I'm gonna really overstep the line soon, aren't I? 21:30 [LAUGH] Stop improvising, Paul. 21:32 Right. 21:38 [LAUGH] So, are you gonna fight? 21:38 You're gonna fight. 21:42 You're an amazing nation, you're gonna fight, right. 21:42 So, how. 21:44 [LAUGH] How are you gonna do that, right? 21:45 How are we gonna make that happen? 21:49 Well actually, we are at a perfect point, a tipping point, I believe. 21:51 Because at the moment, there's this little phrase that is flying around. 21:58 Not the web community so much, but the business community. 22:03 Kind of little phrase that maybe, management have heard of, 22:07 they don't really understand it, but they have heard of it, 22:12 and that phrase is digital transformation. 22:14 It is the ultimate in buzz words. 22:18 It is totally undescriptive of what it really is, but it's useful. 22:20 And what's so great about it, is there are some big-ass names doing it. 22:26 Running Digital Transformation projects. 22:32 Okay? And you can use that. 22:38 You can use this precedent to bring about changes within your clients and 22:39 your organization. 22:44 So let me what I want to do for 22:45 the remainder of talk is look at how to do that. 22:46 Now obviously, that starts with convincing management of the need to do something. 22:48 So I recommend starting with a really simple presentation. 22:54 A going in and highlighting the problem. 22:57 Now you might wanna get some outside help for 23:00 that, but actually at the end of this talk, I'm going to leave you with a URL, 23:02 which gives you everything you need to do that presentation. 23:07 All right? 23:12 To just outline the problem, okay? 23:13 To say, the, the way they've always been doing things no longer works, 23:18 not presentation should highlight pain points within the organization. 23:22 So yo need to understand, you need to say, you need to use that same rigger you used 23:27 in understanding users to understand management. 23:31 Why that pain point? 23:34 What are they struggling with? 23:36 Are they worried about not making a bonus this year? 23:38 Are they worried about what shareholders are gonna do? 23:40 Are they worried about new competitors in the marketplace? 23:44 Find those pain points and then put a, build your argument around them. 23:47 If it's a young company, that's hungry, talk about opportunities. 23:52 Talk about opportunities for them to reach new market sectors. 24:00 Or to, to challenge the incumbant within that sector, and 24:04 how digital can help with that. 24:08 If it's a well established brand that's been around for years and 24:10 is, is stuck in its way, talk about threats. 24:13 Talk about how what worked before isn't gonna work any more. 24:16 How there are, there are new competitors and 24:21 new environment, things that are gonna undermine the existing model. 24:23 And then, like I said, this can be some resources you can use. 24:26 But what you need to do out of that is not say, 24:33 we need to change the whole organization. 24:35 Because the minute that comes out your mouth, they can run [SOUND] away. 24:38 That's too big, that's too scary, that's too intimidating. 24:42 So you give them this presentation, and at the end of it, you just say, 24:46 we need to do a bit of research into this, let me go away and do it. 24:50 That's it. 24:55 So you show them a problem, and then you make the solution so easy for them to do. 24:57 Right? 25:03 All they need to do is say, yes, go my son. 25:03 And that's simple. 25:08 Don't cost them a lot of money necessarily. 25:10 It's just permission to focus on that. 25:13 Right. So, they could said yes to that. 25:15 The next thing you need to do, is start helping them find their focus. 25:18 There's a lot of wooly thinking amongst leadership within organizations, for 25:24 the simple reason they don't understand digital. 25:28 So what happens when you don't understand something, is, 25:32 you tend to lash out randomly, right? 25:37 And you tend to grab onto anything that looks like a quick fix solution. 25:40 Somebody's sending me this piece of technology that will solve all 25:44 my problems. 25:47 Yes, I'll have that, thank you. 25:48 And of course it never does. 25:51 See, you need to in your research, as you go and do your research, and 25:54 you report back on that, you need to re-focus on users. 25:58 And how user behavior has changed. 26:03 You need to research into how it's changed, and 26:05 what impact that has on your organization. 26:08 We also need to help them define clear digital objectives. 26:11 Why they've got a website, why they're on social media? 26:15 What are the point of these things? 26:19 Because it's not enough to just say, because the competition have. 26:21 And you also need to highlight to them the need to start thinking digital by default. 26:25 Now what does that mean? 26:31 Digital by default says, 26:33 instead of just doing the thing you have always done, consider the alternative. 26:36 So a great example of digital by default thinking is, 26:42 we've released a new product or new service. 26:45 So what we have always done is we've put out a press release. 26:49 Okay, put out press release. 26:53 You product service, press release, you product service, press release. 26:57 But I'm actually thinking digital by default says, well hang on, 27:00 before we do a press release, let's consider some alternatives here. 27:03 Would a blog post be better? 27:07 Would a social media campaign or SCO or a pay per click work better? 27:08 So it's not saying, don't use those old tools. 27:13 It's just saying consider the alternatives. 27:16 Let me give you an example, right. 27:18 We worked with a large charity in the UK, 27:19 that had always spent a fortune on TV advertising. 27:21 That's just what they did. 27:27 Campaign, campaign, campaign. 27:29 TV advert. 27:32 TV advert. TV advert. 27:33 And they were spending millions of pounds per year on TV advertising. 27:33 And always with the TV advertising, it ended with a call to action. 27:42 Cuz you have to. 27:46 Now, the call to action has changed over the years. 27:48 it used to be, you know, the visit one of our shops, or then it might be telephone, 27:50 or you'll get something through the mail that allows you to donate. 27:58 But of course now it, it points to the website. 28:01 Hoping that people will donate, and 28:06 they'll get return on investment from their TV advertising 28:07 [BLANK_AUDIO] 28:10 The problem that they had, and they didn't realize it, cuz they were just doing 28:12 what they'd always done, is that the website had a conversion rate of 0.32%. 28:18 So they were drive, spending all this money on advertising, 28:24 driving them to the website, and then the website was failing to do its bit. 28:27 When people did give, they gave quite a lot, 28:31 they gave 35 pounds per gift, which is good, but we said to them, 28:34 let's think differently, let's, let's be digital by default. 28:40 Let's stop our TV advertising, just for a little bit, not for long. 28:44 And let's take some of that huge amount of money you spend on TV advertising, and 28:49 use it to improve the calls to action on the website. 28:52 Don't need to redesign the whole thing, sure, 28:55 it's not responsive, but you know, let's leave that for another day. 28:58 Let's just focus on improving the calls to action. 29:01 And we, we reckon. 29:06 Well let's say, we can just raise the conversion rate from 0.3% to 1%. 29:06 RIght? Now that's still really low, 29:12 but let's just say, we could do 81%. 29:14 But let's say we could increase the giving just by 2 pounds per, per gift, okay? 29:17 We worked out that would generate an extra 2.5 million pounds in revenue, 29:23 based on their existing traffic levels. 29:30 For them to achieve the same thing, 29:33 through advertizing, through TV advertizing, being 29:36 driven to the existing site to create that 2.5 million pounds of extra giving. 29:41 They would have to drive a, 29:46 a 31 million extra visitors to the website, to achieve the same thing 29:48 [BLANK_AUDIO] 29:54 You see the thing, digital by default. 29:57 Thinking about digital first and not as our, an afterthought. 30:00 And they need to have a clear strategy for 30:03 how they're then gonna bring about this kind of change within the organization. 30:07 So they need to find their focus. 30:11 Then, I think what, 30:14 you, what will probably come out of your research once I give you permission to do 30:15 that, is the fact that you need strong digital leadership. 30:20 This is what's so lacking within many organizations. 30:26 Most organizations that I work with manage digital by committee. 30:29 Cuz they've realized that digital was cross disciplinary, so 30:35 what's the answer to that? 30:38 Well, you just bring everybody into a room to make a decision together. 30:39 No, you don't. 30:43 That's terrible. 30:46 The problem with committees, is they're so slow. 30:49 You know, you have to get all these, and then you no, 30:52 normally senior people, because everybody likes to get their all in. 30:55 So, the senior people, you have to get them all in the room together, 30:59 which only ever happens once a month, you know. 31:02 And, and you, you can't make decisions like that, it's too slow. 31:05 You also get this weird thing, where you get the wrong people making decisions. 31:08 Right? 31:12 You have the head of IT commenting on the color of the website, 31:13 cuz he's on the committee that's discussing it. 31:16 And there's no overall authority, is there, with a committee, either? 31:19 No one's ultimately responsible. 31:24 So instead what you need, is an executive sponsor at the very highest levels of 31:29 the organizations who owns and oversees digital. 31:33 Then you need a strong digital lead to head up a digital team, and 31:37 I'll talk more about that in a minute. 31:40 And, you may, 31:42 you have oversight using something called a responsibility assignment matrix. 31:43 Write that down. 31:48 Cuz I'm not gonna explain what it is now. 31:51 But if you go in and challenge and 31:53 say, we should be having a committee, you need to offer them an alternative. 31:55 I wrote a smashing magazine article on Responsibility Assignment matrices. 32:00 Cuz it sounds so sexy and exciting, doesn't it? 32:03 Nothing sounds more sexy than having a Responsibility Assignment matrix. 32:06 So yeah. 32:11 Check that out. 32:12 And she got this from Digital Lead, and 32:13 that digital lead's job is to implement the strategy that you draw up. 32:15 They have the authority to make decisions and maintain momentum of projects. 32:20 And, the executive sponsor's role is to protect the digital team from politics and 32:25 institutional thinking. 32:31 So let's talk about that digital team for a minute. 32:33 I think, when I talk about forming a digital team I diff, 32:37 I differentiate from a web team. 32:41 Right, they probably lot of organizations who already got web teams. 32:44 So gonna get rid of our web team, and 32:46 we're gonna have a digital transformation team. 32:47 How arsey and pretentious does that sound? 32:49 Right? 32:52 But there's good reasons for me calling it that. 32:53 One, I used the word digital rather than web. 32:56 Cuz one of the biggest problems in organizations is 32:59 that the digital is fragmented across the institution. 33:02 There's a web team. 33:06 Social media is managed for marketing. 33:07 There's people responsible for the intranet. 33:09 There's people responsible for every different aspect of digital spread all 33:11 across the organization, with no collaboration and no central control. 33:14 So what does that mean? 33:18 It means that user user experience is fragmented. 33:19 They're hearing different things in different tones of 33:22 voice from different people at different times. 33:25 They're pushed from department to department. 33:27 For a time, it needs centralizing, and 33:29 needs bringing together in a new strategy putting it into place. 33:32 The reason I picked the word transformation is for two reasons. 33:36 First, it's to make it clear, this is not a service department. 33:40 It does not exist to implement other people's ideas, 33:42 because what has happened is, web teams have come out of IT. 33:46 IT is a service department, so therefor web teams are. 33:51 So that means, they exist solely to put other people's ideas into action. 33:55 And that's where things go wrong. 34:01 So a transformation team is not a service department, 34:05 it owns a transformation project across the organization. 34:08 And then finally, the reason I picked the word transformation is because 34:14 a transformation is ultimately done, because the danger of centralizing, and 34:16 [LAUGH] he walked off the edge of the stage 34:22 [LAUGH] the danger of centralizing is you create another business silo. 34:28 And we can't do that. 34:32 We can't do that for two reasons. 34:34 One, is because the other people in management won't allow that to happen. 34:35 They will see that as a threat. 34:41 But two, we need to create something that's cross-disciplinarian. 34:43 One day, we want to get to the days where digital is ubiquitous. 34:47 Going back to the electricity example in the Industrial Revolution. 34:52 Do you know what happened when electricity first came along? 34:55 You, you'll like this. 34:57 They appointed a Chief Electricity Officer, right? 34:58 So you would go into work in the morning, and you would say, hello, Mr. 35:02 Chief Electricity Officer, can I use some electricity please? 35:05 And the Chief Electricity Officer would say, yes of course, you can. 35:08 Let's sit down and discuss how you want to use electricity. 35:12 And how we can make the most of it. 35:16 I might be exaggerating for comic effect. 35:17 This is not an historically accurate representation of events. 35:20 But there were Chief Electricity Officers. 35:25 Now that seems ridiculous to us today. 35:27 From the moment we get up to the moment we go to bed, 35:30 our entire lives, are rely on electricity. 35:32 Everything we do at work relies on electricity. 35:35 Do you know we need to be in that place with digital one day. 35:38 There will be a day when digital is ubiquitous across our organizations. 35:43 Where everybody gets it and understands it, and 35:46 uses it without even thinking about it. 35:48 But we are in an awkward transition period. 35:51 And I believe, just like in the Industrial Revolution, 35:55 we need our own Chief Electricity Officers. 35:58 We need digital, a digital transformation team to 36:03 help make that transition until everybody gets there. 36:06 [BLANK_AUDIO] 36:09 And the part of that is, that team needs to have a startup culture. 36:11 And what do I mean by that? 36:17 What I mean, 36:19 it needs to work in an experimentative, iterative fashion that tests continually, 36:20 where failure is acceptable because a lot of organizations don't allow failure. 36:25 And there's good reason for that. 36:31 If you're, if you're commissioning an advert, TV advertising campaign, and 36:33 you type URL wrong in the TV campaign, that has big bloody consequences. 36:38 So there has to be a lot of checks and balances in place. 36:42 If you're commissioning a building to be built, and the plans are wrong. 36:46 That has big consequences. 36:52 But that's not true in digital. 36:53 So we need to start creating this little bubble within the institution, 36:56 that has different culture, that can over time permeate out beyond that group. 37:01 A group that's unencumbered by the large institutional systems they exist within. 37:06 A group that works in agile springs, not agile with a big a but 37:12 agile with a little a. 37:16 That they work collaboratively with people across the organization. 37:18 [UNKNOWN] I did this once, 37:21 I went into a university, University of Strathclyde, and I met a guy called Harry. 37:24 Harry was a great guy. 37:30 I, I liked him. 37:31 He was a developer. 37:32 And, but I didn't hold that against him. 37:34 And Harry was just beaten down. 37:37 He'd given up. 37:43 He fought and he fought and, over the years to do stuff and 37:45 he'd been pushed back the whole time. 37:48 And we used to worked with Harry, for one, we set up this new startup culture, 37:51 and we, we transformed the way that it working, 37:57 we started the digital transformation project, et cetera, et cetera. 38:00 So we've gotten running, we got them working, and then the curse of being, 38:03 an agency is that you have to eventually pull out and let you to it. 38:06 So I met up with Harry, again a few months down the line, 38:10 almost a year down the line. 38:15 And do you know what? 38:17 The first thing he [LAUGH] came out of his mouth was, you made me cry. 38:17 I was, like, shit, what have I done? 38:23 [LAUGHTER] But he meant it in a good way. 38:25 His job, had transformed. 38:29 He loved his job again, and he's now the head of that digital team. 38:34 And he's doing a brilliant job. 38:38 And he's excited, and he's enthusiastic and he's passionate. 38:40 Because we created the right culture for him to bloom. 38:45 And for me, everything else in that, that organization can go to hell for 38:48 all I care, but Harry's happy, and that gives me job satisfaction. 38:55 And then you need to build a framework within which you operate. 39:00 A set of rules within which digital exists. 39:05 A set of policies and procedures. 39:08 Now, everybody hates policies and procedures, and 39:09 standard operating procedures and all that crap. 39:12 It's annoying. 39:15 But it, it's a tool of organizations that they've used over the years. 39:16 They get it, so let's use it. 39:21 Let's create policies and procedures. 39:23 Policies and procedures about how social media is used. 39:26 Policies and procedures about what gets on the home page, right? 39:29 Here's a great example. 39:33 Cuz everybody fights over the home page. 39:35 Somebody comes to you and 39:36 says, [SOUND] we're doing this event, it needs to go on the home page. 39:37 Okay, we have a policy for that. 39:41 Our policies and this is a real policy that I put in place. 39:43 Policy is that first of all, you appear in the fat arse footer. 39:46 Right? The footer at the bottom of the site. 39:51 That appears universally across the whole site. 39:53 Okay? 39:55 Every single page. 39:56 Actually, it's almost more higher priority than the home page in some ways. 39:57 Okay. 40:01 You appear on that, and 40:01 you are now in competition with every other thing in the fat arse footer. 40:02 Right? 40:06 If your page generates significant enough traffic, 40:07 it will then be promoted to the homepage. 40:10 That is our policy. 40:13 Right? That's not personal. 40:15 It's not saying, no, your content's not good enough, no, 40:16 your job is not important enough. 40:20 It's made it a policy, so you can have all kinds of policies. 40:23 Policies about how content is removed and under what circumstances. 40:27 For example, another policy I put in place, is that content has to be rev, 40:33 rem, re, reviewed every six months within the content management system. 40:37 The content owner needs to log in, go and 40:42 look at their content and say, yes, this content is up to date. 40:44 If they do not do that, 40:49 the content will not be removed but will instead be isolated. 40:50 It will not longer appear in the navigation. 40:53 It will no longer appear in the search results, and 40:57 it will have a banner put over the top of it says, this is archived content. 41:00 That's a policy for managing content. 41:05 It might not right for your organization. 41:06 It was right for them, but you see what I'm getting at? 41:08 And then finally, we need to be educating. 41:11 Our digital transformation team, their primary job is one of education. 41:16 Right? 41:22 Their pri, listen to me, and this applies to all of you. 41:23 Your primary job is not to build websites. 41:27 If you want to be the most effective and 41:33 give your clients the best service, your primary job is an educator. 41:35 It's to educate colleagues, 41:40 clients about the potential of digital to transform their businesses. 41:43 You need to work collaboratively with people across organizations. 41:49 As the Chief Electricity Officer no longer exists, 41:55 ultimately, you need to do yourselves out of a job. 41:59 Don't worry, there will be other things to do. 42:01 Right? 42:04 The Chief Electricity Officer doesn't exist anymore because he was successful in 42:06 integrating electricity with the entire organization, and making it ubiquitous. 42:10 Our aim as digital professionals, is to educate our clients and our colleagues so 42:16 that digital is ubiquitous. 42:21 And our digital transformation team can go away. 42:24 We need to help other people understand quite how powerful digital is. 42:28 And we have to help them go through this awkward transition period. 42:32 The next generation that coming into the market place, they get digital. 42:37 They'll use it. 42:40 It'll be fine. 42:41 But for right now, we're in a difficult position and we need to help people. 42:43 We need to help them move into digital by default thinking. 42:46 I want to leave with a qu, leave you with a quote from Charles Darwin. 42:51 It's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that 42:55 survives, it's the ones that have a most adaptable to change. 42:59 That's why I call my book Digital Adaptation. 43:04 Because it's not about whether or not you your organization is 43:06 doing great at the moment, whether it's strong and vibrant. 43:11 Doesn't matter how clever your leadership team is? 43:16 How clever your employees are? 43:19 It's about how adaptable your organizations are. 43:21 So I promised to leave you with some resources at the end. 43:25 So boagworld.com/blendconf/ and that has a whole load of stuff. 43:28 Has a version of this presentation that you can show to management straight away. 43:33 If if you want this stuff you can download to help you prepare your own presentation. 43:37 There's also a two minute trailer, 43:42 if all you can do is get two minutes of your manager's time. 43:44 There's a trailer designed to scare the shit out of them. 43:47 [LAUGH] If they want something in written format, there's a manifesto for 43:51 digital transformation which is a thousand words, 43:56 even your manager can read 1,000 words, right? 44:00 There's also resources to blog posts that I've written about, 44:04 where to start, how to start in this. 44:07 And then there's also a link to an amazing book on the subject that I 44:10 highly recommend you get [LAUGH] by a very talented British author. 44:14 [LAUGH] So there you go. 44:18 That is, that is what I'm saying to you today. 44:21 I wanna encourage you to go for it. 44:23 To fight rather than flight. 44:26 To change the organizations you work with. 44:27 Whether you work inside them or rather you're a contractor. 44:30 We need to stop piddling around the edges. 44:34 Putting wall papering over the top of the problems in our organizations. 44:37 But we need to, as Abby said, go down the rabbit hole, in her talk. 44:41 Go down the rabbithole and deal with those underlying issues. 44:45 And do you know what? 44:48 It actually a lot of fun. 44:49 Because what's the worst that can happen? 44:51 They can fire you. 44:53 [LAUGH] But we're so frigging in demand, 44:55 that you'll probably end up with a better job in a better company that gets it. 44:58 So what the hell? 45:04 [LAUGH] Thank you very much. 45:06 [APPLAUSE] 45:08