Outside Innovation

Customers Want to Interact With Each Other In and Around Their Activities and Projects

By Ronni Marshak

As we continue to do our web site audits on how well companies “manage our stuff,” Patty Seybold surfaces some insights based on our research and our customer engagements. As customers describe how they’d ideally like to get things done in the perfect world, a subtle requirement emerges: at the core of the next generation of win/win business models are customer-centric ecosystems that don’t just answer product or business transaction questions, but, rather, address the issues of how do I get things done. And, for advice, they turn first to their inner circle of family, friends, and colleagues; next to their outer circle of people out there in the world who are facing the same challenges; and, only as a last resort, to the subject matter experts that are associated with your brand.

Build Community Around "My Stuff"
How Will Online Communities and Social Networks Evolve?
By Patricia B. Seybold, CEO and Sr. Consultant, November 10, 2011

Recurring Patterns from Patty's Pioneers

At the end of October, a few of our stalwart band (going strong since 1989) of Patty’s Pioneers met face-to-face to compare notes on where technology is going and what challenges they’re confronting and overcoming in their varied businesses. As usual, the conversations were rich and deep and built upon the foundation we’ve established over the years. We delight in seeing the recurring patterns in how we think about applying IT, how we view the world, and how we address organizational issues.

We are all tickled by the fact that today’s technologies lend themselves really well to the kinds of system designs the pioneers are really good at. The systems and software these leading-edge architects design have lots in common:

• They keep a lot of data in memory/cache and deliver rich, but simple user experiences.
• They don’t assume an always up/high bandwidth connection, so they are parsimonious when it comes to transmitting data.
• They use consumer technology platforms as much as possible.
• They design elegant and simple APIs.
• They use services/distributed objects that request information and deliver information.
• They don’t care where in the world those services reside (in the cloud somewhere is generally fine).
• They assume that everything is loosely coupled (e.g., not always connected, but able to quickly find, connect and disconnect).
• They view the world as being made up of events that trigger actions based on business rules.