54 OPINION Humanising Tech
VOD, OTT, QOC BLAH, BLAH, BLAH Many broadcast companies are missing the opportunity to define aims and principles beyond the tech they provide. This means they also miss the chance to find ways to be authentic and distinctive beyond, say, the charisma of their founders or the short-term lead they may have in technical innovations. • Firstly, because all companies are now technology enabled, talking about technology is no longer enough. Competitors will catch up quickly and disruptors will innovate solutions that you haven’t yet begun to consider. So, in order to survive, your brand and your relationships have to go deeper. • Secondly, because talent and clients are expecting more. People want to work for companies with ‘purpose’ because they want their work to be meaningful not just lucrative. And clients want to work with firms which make them look good. • Thirdly, because broadcast companies are not standing out. Have a quick scan through a few tech brands’ press releases and you will see that they use near-identical language to describe near-identical strategies and propositions. Looking and sounding interchangeable is bad business. Dierentiation – or more precisely, meaningful dierentiation – and perceived ‘added value’ is the basis of preference and advocacy. • Finally, because you should manage your own destiny. Firms need to react quickly to opportunities. But just being agile is not a strategy. Businesses which stay the course are those with deeply-held principles and a clear sense of their own identity. This matters for a number of reasons.
IDEAS, NOT TECH Many business and consumer brands take their name from technology solutions: IBM (International Business Machines), HTC (High Tech Computer Corporation), Microsoft and Skype, for example. Over time, the ‘authority’ of a successful technology is transferred into brand equity – ideally a sector-wide reputation for doing certain things in certain ways, your company style – also known as brand positioning. Brand positioning is never static. It’s always evolving to respond to new opportunities and challenges to the point where the initial technology solutions or services which launched the company become only one part of a bigger story which sets the brand apart and makes it outstanding. In the broadcast world, personal relationships matter enormously and always will. People do business with people. But a brand which stands for ‘We’ not ‘Me’ (or even worse ‘That’) can provide headroom for everyone. TIME TO CREATE VALUE The opportunity to create valuable brands has never been greater. Entrepreneurs abound. Everybody wants to be part of a start-up or a disruptor. There are deals to be done. But to be in the game you need a distinctive, memorable and appealing brand that people take note of. Defining your brand means more than choosing a logo and a colour scheme. It means determining what you stand for and what makes you distinctive, and that is going to mean digging deep into your fundamental belief systems to think about why you are in business – your purpose – and being tough-minded and focused on what makes your service – your proposition – distinctively valuable. And looking good helps a lot. Google attracted people because it was clean and uncluttered and friendly – its identity really is a projection of its personality. And this matters, because despite what we all
tell ourselves, we actually make decisions based on subjective judgements like image and emotion. BEING HUMAN Reflecting on your purpose, proposition and personality requires a journey of discovery. It will help your business to align passions, resources and endeavours behind a shared vision. It will energise the transition from technologist to problem-solver, from short-term transactions to long-term relationships and wider impacts, from opportunistic and reactive behaviours to focused strategic intent. Ultimately, purpose and personality are human characteristics. They help firms to define what they are for and to come together as a distinctive, unified force. Those firms that take it seriously are the ones with a chance of being the next Google.
DESPITE WHAT WE ALL TELL OURSELVES, WE ACTUALLY MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON SUBJECTIVE JUDGEMENTS LIKE IMAGE AND EMOTION
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