Another weekend, another set of links. This time a lot of them to do with the media business:
- What you don't measure is a blog post by Martin Geddes of Telepocalypse where he puts forth the notion that telcos need to track a whole different of metrics from the ones they've used so far to measure the performance of their companies. He contends, quite logically IMO, that measures like ARPU and churn are "lagging indicators tied to the old business model" (before IP-based telephony/services came along), whereas telcos need to assess their businesses for survivability in the new IP-based world. Short but interesting post. If you have any ideas, go and post a comment on his site.
- Fast followers is another interesting post by Martin. First he indicts telcos for being naive enough to think that they can survive and prosper simply by copying innovators and by controlling access to the customer. Then he suggests three ways in which operators can reinvent themselves to be part of the new world order.
- The economic arguments of redoing telecoms is a superbly written piece by someone called Bob Frankston who points out that the telecom business is based on artificial scarcities, which are a huge weight on the economy as a whole. His major point: connectivity should be viewed as infrastructure and funded as such. The current system traps value within the networks business, which, if released, could result in enlargement of the pie as a whole. Visionary article, and I am not doing a very good job of summarising it. Go. Read.
- What is Web 2.0 is an article by Tim O'Reilly that explains how the second generation of Internet companies are different from the first crop. This article has been around for a while (*gasp* all the way since September '05!) but I've only just read it. A must-read for any media businessperson that wants his company to stay relevant in the years ahead.
- Disney, Pixar and Jobs by John Hagel is a blog post where he outlines his vision for the future of the media business and incidentally, why buying Pixar may not necessarily have been Disney's best move. I don't really care about the Disney-Pixar-Jobs story but I think he's hit it right on the head with the more general points about the media business -- about it being less about products and more about relationships, about it morphing into a platform business and so on.
- Umair Haque writes on his blog about Edge Competencies. Now, this is an article that will appeal to business strategists, geeks and scientists alike. Haque's main point: "Edge competencies are about how to link external modes of coordination, like markets, networks, and communities – sometimes to the firm’s resources, skills, and activities, and sometimes directly to each other. Edge competencies are about knowing how to most productively use cheap coordination." Similar to John Hagel, Haque believes that firms cannot hope to always run tightly integrated operations entirely within their own four walls and need to learn how to tap external sources of innovation and competitive advantage. (Surprisingly, though, his blog doesn't support TrackBacks, a feature that allows bloggers to link to each other automatically. That's such an un-edge competency thing to do!)
As usual, these links are all from On Murli's Radar at the top-right of this screen and are also available by RSS. Feedback appreciated.
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