Dear friends,

After a few weeks of well deserved rest I have now returned to work. During my vacation this blog was left idle, as I saw fit to prioritize all and any outdoor activities that I could think of. We have precious little sun here in Sweden. It’s get it while you can or not at all.

But now we get crackin’ again and I look forward to it. We have an interesting time ahead of us. Apart from the excitements from the every day grind we also have a few interesting events at the horizon.

I’ll kick things off with an attendance at the Sweden Social Web Camp (SSWC), an un-conference taking place at Tjarö, a small beautiful island in the Blekinge archipelago. I attended the web camp last year, and it was truly a great experience. This year the number of participants have doubled and I do hope the format can survive the growth.

In late September we have a new event called Disruptive Code. The event takes place in Stockholm and features some interesting speakers, among others Andreas Ehn, former CTO of Spotify.

Later, in October I’ll be heading for Reykjavik and the You Are in Control Conference. It was announced today that interactive entertainment legend Ian Livingstone will be the keynote speaker, which is really cool. This will be my second time at the YAIC. Last year’s conference featured both high’s and low’s but all in all it was well worth the visit. The itinerary this year looks very promising indeed.

More exciting events to come, I’m sure.

Finally, on another note: Mattias Bodström from Piratförlaget is putting together a special Sweden Social Web Camp book, a collection of texts from the minds of people who will be attending the conference. Mattias asked me for a contribution and obviously I ‘m glad to help out. You can read my text below.

Information is not intelligence

One of the ways that I earn my keep is by gathering and processing information. Basically I try to keep an eye out for information that can be of value for my employer. I do this through the usual channels. I have my RSS feeds, I follow interesting people on Twitter, I read relevant publications and books online or offline. Sometimes I pursue threads that lead me to research papers, and sometimes I end up reading fashion blogs. I follow topics, conversations and people.

Information is currency, but almost all the information I get my hands on is out there for everyone and anyone to find. I guess it does take some skill and experience finding, filtering and evaluating information, but it’s hardly rocket surgery.

The hard part comes later when you try to make sense of it all. But surprisingly, it is not uncommon for the whole process to grind to a halt after the information has been gathered. Now that, I don’t get. Serving people with information without aiding them in ways such as putting the info in perspective, in context and then stepping up and proposing strategies and directions, is really a half ass effort. It’s luke warm.

To me this is obvious since I’m always interested in generated value – the end game of things. Not everyone feel that they can afford the luxury of applying a whole system approach to information and intelligence. But this is because we only value the outcome of the every day grind, and we only value this because we have found a way to measure it. That which we measure, we choose to think of as extremely important.
But by making your Competitive Intelligence process more lucid, you can measure it, and when you do you begin to see that the process of turning information into intelligence is at the very core of your business. You make your most important decisions based on the outcome of this process. How can you not want to get this right?

The whole chain of Competitive Intelligence is really a six step process:

1. Gather – What’s going on?
2. Analyze – But what ever does it mean?
3. Focus – What does this mean for us?
4. Suggest – Based on the above I suggest we do this: X, Y and Z.
5. Act – Do X, Y and Z.
6. Evaluate – In what way did doing X, Y and Z bring us any closer to our goal?

The chain of events – Information becomes Intelligence becomes Action. And then we evaluate and loop.

Consider this: Information not processed and acted upon is only of value for those who buy and sell information, i.e for those whose end game is the info in itself.

Doesn’t that make you think of shady characters in old movies, you know, those creepy fellows with a cigarette but in the corner of their mouths? And they say to the cop that they’ve got a hot tip that will move the investigation along. A hard boiled dialogue always follows, and it ends with:

- But it’s gonna cost you another five bucks Mr…
- You filthy swine!

The cop reluctantly pulls out his wallet, and the information creep grins and grabs the fiver with his dirty paw. And then he says something along the lines of “go ask big daddy kingpin”, and then he scurries into the night, not giving a hoot for the rest of the story.
Now that’s no way to run a business.

Getting this process right has never been more important than today. New information is generated at such back breaking speed that it can easily freak you out and make you lose your way. If you allow this process to float around in an ad hoc manner, which is not unusual, I suggest you think again.

Competitive Intelligence needs to be a prioritized process. It needs to be deliberate. And it needs to be embedded as an integral part of your day to day operations.

I attended a (very good) conference this week, and a debate sprang to life regarding “the good enough revolution”. Critical voices were heard. I felt that there were a few misunderstandings circulating in the debate, possibly due to the mix of marketing people and software people. They don’t necessarily read the same books, or live in the same reality. As I simultaneously belong to neither and both of these categories (if I had a business card I wouldn’t know what title to put there), I thought I’d share my thoughts on this with you.

Placed in a Product Development context the “good enough” concept is not hard to understand. As I have described earlier – the Agile mindset is to cut back on the scope side of a project triangle, in favor of delivering value at a certain set point in time. This means that all requested features might not be present in the first release. Naturally, a “good enough” mindset works very well in this context, if for no other reason than that it can help prevent “feature creep”.

This mindset also encourages a “release early” concept, based on the belief that the sooner customers get to fiddle with your product, the sooner you can gather information about the value of what you are building and how the users and “the market” feel about your efforts. This belief is supported by basic information theory, and I subscribe to the idea. After early release, continuous cyclic improvement follows, and iteration after iteration you improve your product – based on feedback – striving to reach the Product Vision.

The misunderstanding here is that the Product Vision, or even the whole business idea, should also be surrounded by a “good enough” mentality. Obviously, it shouldn’t be. And I’m not sure if anyone really has suggested that it should?

But I can see where the confusion comes from. In the debate, I felt the spirit of Seth Godin hovering between the lines of the “good enough” bashers rhetoric (don’t be good enough – be remarkable). But even Seth Godin is paradoxical when dealing with the subject.

Godin has in many books propagated that we reach for the stars, that we strive to be “remarkable” or make remarkable things (Tribes, Purple Cow), but he also propagates that we deliver (Linchpin). Because what we do is “art” and art only happens when our efforts meet the outside world. The last section represents a debatable, but interesting point.

It boils down to this: We have to deliver. We have to throw ourselves out there. The good enough mentality is a very helpful idea that can help us get there. An early focus on perfection will severely damage the work process, your spirit will be crushed, and you will run out of money. So start with good enough – find your feedback loops and then go conquer the world with your remarkable vision.

Filmmaker André Hedetoft could switch careers right this instant and launch a promising business as a marketing consultant. The marketing and personal branding strategy of André Hedetoft and his project “Extraordinaries!” reads like a manual on how to fund, promote and market products in the year 2010. André makes use of several of the most powerful tools in the toolbox: Crowdfunding, Storytelling, effective market positioning and segmentation as well as Personal Branding and transparency. He leverages the possibility of personal artist-to-fan connections, he delivers unique custom made experiences and perhaps most important, he makes it personal.  Very personal.
André reaches out to his audience and invites them to “join the adventure”. Using the Crowdfunding service IndieGoGo as his platform – he asks the world to support his project financially.

André, can you please tell us a little bit about how you first came across the Crowdfunding idea?

- A couple of years ago when I first started out, crowdfunding was totally unheard of. For  a young man just starting out in the industry, without any experience or more importantly connections it seamed that financing happened through some mysterious investors one could never hope to reach or by filling out application after application to different institutes and keeping your fingers crossed. But with the dawn of the new technology that made possible new ways to connect and distribute, the introduction of cross media and looking and learning from what the music industry just had gone through, something incredible happened. Someone somewhere out there looked at what was going on and asked a simple question:
What if we could sell the movie BEFORE we make it to the audience that really WANTS to see it?
Taking it even further. What if we could seek out and engage that audience (one by one if we have to) and instead of just offering them a piece of plastic, selling them on an unique experience? Crazy? Indeed. Brilliant? Undoubtedly so.

- I still don’t know much about the industry. I never met any of those mysterious investors and sending applications and keeping my fingers crossed is still a bit scary for me. But I do know what kinds of movies I want to make, I know who my audience is and where I can find and connect with them. Knowing that, you can count on me to make the best movie I can while taking them on one wild unique adventure. THAT I can do. THAT I will do.

So how do you connect with your fans?

- I started my fan club. It’s simply a way for me to start up a relationship with my audience. You know. The people I actually make the movies for and in that extent the only people I actually care about. I don’t really care about the middle men. I care about that ONE person who wants to see that little movie I’m about to make and I really want to get to know him/her, I want to take him/her on as cool and exciting and unique adventures I possibly can. It’s as simple as that. Like I state on the Fan Club sign-up page over at www.andrehedetoft.com.
Signing up basically means that you becomes one of the most important persons in my life and that I will do everything to treat you as such. So what are you waiting for?

What is the thought behind the personal questionnaire on your fan blog? Why do you want this information, and what do you intend to do with it?

- I’m trying to be really transparent on why I want the info and what I intend to do with it. First of all I call it “20 questions (so I can get to know you better)” and that is really the gist of it. This Fan Club is not just about me, in fact, it’s all about them. The more I know, the more I can do for them. If they trust me with their facebook/twitter/blog I’ll befriend them and connect with them for more casual and daily interaction. I used to have a facebook fan page but quickly gave it up when I realized that I didn’t get to see what they were up to or interact with them. It was all about me. So now I just have my regular profile instead.

- If they trust me with their address I will start out by sending them a personal handwritten snail mail and in extent I might connect with them this way when the occasion calls for it. For example on their birthdays, etc.
It’s ALL about getting to know my audience better and connecting personally with each and everyone of them. Be they 5, 50, 500, 5000 or 5 000 000.

How did you come up with the perks for your fans? Why the 1000 exclusive dvd’s?

- In reality I could think of 10 000 things I would like to offer as perks. But at the same time I really wanted to keep it simple. So I decided that I was going to offer ONE thing. And that ONE thing became 1 of 1000  signed, numbered, extremely limited, awesome special edition DVD:s. But: The awesome DVD:s is absolutely just the beginning of an adventure I will take them on. Because here is a lesson I had to learn the hard way and live by these days: Under Promise and Over Deliver. THAT I intend to do.

You seem to be as much a storyteller in marketing and branding as you are as a filmmaker. Why, in your mind, is this approach still the exception rather than the rule?

- I think most people grow up with (I know I did) the romantic/exciting notion of what an artist should be like. I mean who didn’t dream of living for the arts, poor and preferably suffering, sleeping during the days, partying during the nights, create whenever inspiration hit, only to one day be miraculously discovered and thrown into the superstar life. I mean that sure sounds a whole lot more exciting then waking up early, sitting down each day to create, putting in the hours, doing the hard work, incrementally making your way forward. Sure you can choose that first life and you may get really lucky. Some do. Me? I don’t care much about luck and I sure don’t care for one hit wonders. I much rather go up early, sit down each day to create (inspired or not), put in the time and care to connect with my audience, figure out ways to sell them a unique experience, get to make THIS movie and another one and another one and another one

There’s really no question that André is very conscious about the story he’s telling. When I asked him about the whole deal with the tattoo, I received a cut-and-paste answer. Rehashing the same pitch available in several locations on the Internet. I’m sure he knows it by heart:

- I was born 7 weeks early in an elevator and had to spend a lot of time in hospitals where I found my salvation in the geek culture. A while ago I combined my love for the geek culture with my lifelong dream to make movies that I myself would like to see and made a promise: When I have 1000 fans I will tattoo in Geek Movie Director on myself and make a superhero-series that is going to spread all over the world, for free, on the Internet.With that said and done, we created a short teaser to generate interest in the project. We got the 1000 fans. I got the tattoo. Now it’s time for “Extraordinaries!”.

That’s about as effectively “branded” as anyone can hope to be. A compelling story, an effective pitch, and he went and got himself inked, for heaven’s sake.

Do you think this way of funding, promotion and marketing is scalable (i.e do you think it could work for large scale projects as well?)

- Great question. Could they have funded, promoted and marketed say the $170 million dollar production Iron Man 2 this way? Why not? At the end of they day we are all only selling to our audience. Could they have found a way to connect with their audience, offering them not only the chance to see it at the cinemas and buying the DVD but also a whole range of unique experiences? Why not? Would this audience maybe spend double or triple what they would have on just the cinema tickets and DVD? You bet. Could they have cut their HUGE marketing budget ($150 million dollars) by  half and still made more impact by leveraging it to just their audience? Indeed. Are there 1 million other factors to consider in all of this? Absolutely. I’m not preaching that crowdfunding and audience building is the answer to all and everything. Just that we all have so much to learn from it. Be it a $170+$150 million dollar hollywood blockbuster or a small independent superhero-webseries.

We hear much about how creatives need to become more entrepreneurial in order to survive. Do you agree with that and if so, do you think this will change the film industry in any way? Will it change what films get made?

- By putting creatives and audiences together something incredible can happen. Remember the old expression “Everyone has a story to tell”. Well, now they actually can! No matter how niched a story you want to tell there is an audience for it out there and if you can connect with them, together you can bring it to life. We live in exciting times.

Indeed we do! And when will you release the first episode of “Extraordinaries”?

- The script will be ready in a week or two. Then plan is to shoot later this summer and after post production start releasing them in Nov/Dec.

All in all, marketing guru Seth Godin would be proud. In Linchpin, Godin wrote this, which resonates well with the marketing work of André Hedetoft:

“One author I know is willing to watch his books sit unsold, because that’s a better outcome for him than changing the essence of what he’s written. He has passion for his craft, but no real passion for spreading his ideas. And if the idea’s don’t spread, if no gift is received, then there is no art, only effort”.

With André, we get the art, not just the effort. And that’s pretty cool.

More about André on these pages:

www.indiegogo.com/Extraordinaries
www.andrehedetoft.com/

I touched upon this in an earlier post. But I thought it was worth repeating from a team perspective.

If you’re on my team a very quick outline of some sort of expectations management statement could read:

I expect you to speak up when something is wrong.
I expect you to speak up whenever you spot a problem.
I expect you to speak up when something doesn’t make sense to you.
I expect you to tell me when I’m wrong.
I expect you to bring your skill and passion to the table.

And what can you expect from me?

I will listen to you.
I will gather as much input as possible and facilitate a process that leads us forward.
I will kill all nonsense coming your way.
I will get out of your way and let you work your magic.
I will trust and support you.

Basically, we are all problem solvers. If the circumstances surrounding our project, or the very essence of our project deliverables, are completely free of obstacles, or in no need of solutions, I would venture a guess and say that the project in itself is probably rather meaningless, or rather: of little value. In a sense, value is created when difficulties are overcome. For this very reason, hiding problems out of sight out of mind, means compromising the whole process of delivering value.

If you are on my team, you are allowed to fail, if you just made an honest effort and hope to learn something from mistakes made. But the one thing you cannot do. The one thing that will earn you a shit storm of hellish wrath, is this line of thinking:

“It’s crap, a road to ruin, but that’s what the customer wants so hey, by any means – let’s go build it, see if I care!”

Think like that? Time to quit.

Here’s something some of you don’t want to hear: being a fan is for teenagers. No, really. It is. And in a time when the connection between the fans and the subjects of their adoration seem to be a cornerstone of many entrepreneurial wet dreams, this might be disheartening to hear.

But I stand firm: only teenagers collect and worship idols. I admire a lot of people, but I don’t worship them. With regards to me I could mention The Buddha, Donald G. Reinertse, Michel de Montaigne, Hunter S Thompson and David Eugene Edwards, just to mention a few people from various walks of life. But I remain sceptic. If they’re wrong, they’re wrong.

This is important because everything the guys at 37signals does, might not be the right way to go for you. Every move from Steve Jobs is not necessarily worth repeating in awe. Everything that Chomsky writes is not holy or untouchable. Everything in the Bible might not ring true. Richard Dawkins is not the ultimate source of all accumulated wisdom between heaven and earth. Neither is Seth Godin, Malcom Gladwell or Chris Anderson.

I choose these examples simply because I often come across people who all express unhealthy admiration for their work – to the point of worship .

In the words of the great Seneca:

“No new findings will ever be made if we rest content with the findings of the the past. Besides, a man who follows someone else not only does not find anything, he is not even looking. ‘But surely you are going to walk in your predecessors’ footsteps?’ Yes indeed, I shall use the old road, but if I find a shorter and easier one I shall open it up. The men who pioneered the old routes are leaders, not our masters. Truth lies open to everyone. There has yet to be a monopoly of truth. And there is plenty of it left for future generations too.”

But, I hear you say, aren’t you a bit of a Seneca fan right now with this quote and all?

No. I admire his writing. No more, no less. Please, learn to know the difference.