Gavin Heaton

Founder Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of  award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. Read more

Starting a business is like flying by the seat of your pants. Even experienced entrepreneurs experience the simultaneous challenges of validating and launching a product, marketing, resourcing, managing staff, engaging stakeholders and securing funding. Often – in the whirlwind – a strategic approach to marketing is lost. Or worse – ignored. My view (as it would be), is that it is never too early to market.

But wouldn’t it be great if there was a way that you could accelerate your marketing? What if you could draw upon the experience and know-how of not just your best-friend-who-does-some-marketing, but one of the world’s most respected agencies?

You are thinking big dollars, right?

And yes, it could easily cost $100k.

A Little Help from Leo Burnett

During the Great Depression, Leo Burnett opened a small advertising agency. As a symbol of hope in a gloomy and challenging time, a bowl of fresh apples was placed at the front desk to welcome clients.

These days, Leo Burnett is one of the world’s largest communications companies – and they still welcome clients with fresh apples.

And now – with Help from Leo – they are aiming to give one new Australian business the chance to win $100k in strategic and creative advice.

How? They are taking the apples and turning them into a cider business.

If you think your business – your startup – or your idea could do with a boost, it’s time to hone your pitching skills. To be in the running, the minimum entry requirement is a short written statement of up to 250 words describing your business vision. Polish your words and enter at www.helpfromleo.com.

Prize is up to $100,000 (incl. GST) worth of strategic and creative advice for a single project, and excludes execution of ideas, including production or placement of any TV, press, radio, digital or other campaign, and also excludes 3rd party / external costs. Value of prize will depend on project winner requests. Conditions apply see helpfromleo.com. Ends 03/05/13. Entrant must be 18+ and own or own a majority of an Australian business with an ABN operating for 2 years or less as at 02/04/13. Limit 1 entry per business. Crafted by Leo Burnett with assistance from Eling Forest Winery.

Good luck!

Gavin Heaton

Founder Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of  award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. Read more

I have been a fan of HubSpot for some time. I love the way that they relentlessly connect the dots between marketing and action, between marketers and their customers, and the web and the business of marketing.

Over the years, the HubSpot team have developed and driven the concept of inbound marketing – releasing free tools to help educate and empower marketers, sharing webinars, whitepapers and a constant stream of email messages. I’m not saying that, at times, the stream of content is not overwhelming … it can be. But the underlying message is what fascinates me – you are left with the unmistakeable impression that if the web is a new way of doing business, then HubSpot is leading the way.

But what makes this new breed of company tick? What happens when you scratch beneath the surface – and is it really any different from the businesses that we are used to dealing with?

With the release of the HubSpot Culture Code, we can gain a glimpse into the philosophies and policies that inform and activate their culture. They have rethought the old and newer ways of working around focus, support, working hours, workplace and tenure. And the culture code makes the point that while people have changed, “many organizations operate as if they’re frozen in time”. (In many ways, some of these concepts feel foreign, unexpected, like travelling to a place that is familiar yet different at its core.)

You can leaf through the culture code below or on Slideshare. As an organisation dedicated to transparency (radically and uncomfortably), it makes sense. But how many other businesses do the same? How many business could bring themselves to operate in this way?

They say it’s to do with the care and attention with which they choose colleagues. And for a company that is hiring, the culture code is perhaps, the greatest advertisement there is. Nice work – inbound marketing at its finest, especially when you’re aiming to attract people, not clicks.

Constellation Orbits Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,… Read more

Avaya recently hosted industry analysts at its Customer Experience Management event to describe and expand on its direction for contact center customers.  Faced with a large installed base of legacy products, Avaya is setting a clear direction to help its customers gain value by leveraging their existing investments and moving forward with new applications for customer support.  Avaya’s direction is to simplify its offerings with more bundled solutions and give its customers new options for implementation.  Its vision for going forward includes investments in improved speech analytics and predictive analytics, mobile support and cloud solutions.  Avaya recognizes the need to offer its existing Avaya and legacy Nortel customers with a well-defined strategy and path for upgrading existing contact center applications with expanded next generation customer support options.

Avaya’s open mobile collaboration platform simplifies customer support by using the same tools to address unified communications and contact centers.  This significantly reduces time and effort to support applications and ultimately reduces support costs.  Another significant change is its shift from premise-based solutions to virtual solutions.  Its virtual solution supports an integrated multiple channel platform including social, mobile and the Web, which offers proactive personalized and customer aware interactions across all channels.

 Although a recognized leader in contact center solutions, Avaya lost market share in recent years to competitors, notably Cisco and Genesys at the high end and Interactive Intelligence in the mid-market segments.  Avaya recognizes this and has reorganized to assertively secure its market and grow its base.  It intends to do this with robust offerings in social, mobile, cloud and analytic solutions.   Future directions include solutions to harness Big Data from multiple sources and to deliver comprehensive reporting to help its customers gain higher value from customer interactions.  Additionally, its recent announcements of Open Virtual Applicance format (OVA), which is a pre-packaged file type that contains all the software files needed to install an application in a virtual machine.  This makes it easier to install and manage contact center apps, and has created new interest for customers looking for an open solution.

 Avaya has made several acquisitions during recent years to shore up its product offerings and expressed plans to continue to evaluate new innovative software solutions.  It is making a firm commitment to giving customers a choice of CAPEX premise solutions, OPEX cloud solutions or hybrid cloud offerings. Importantly, component system and new enhancements will run on both platforms and help customers leverage investments made without requiring a full system replacement.

In the services area, Avaya offers professional services directly and through its many channel partners.  It views its services offering as an area of high growth and competitive differentiation.  A good move for its partners is the give them the ability to quickly get pricing quotes for products and services, many within a one day turn around.

After years of reorganization and product direction confusion due to its Nortel acquisition, Avaya seems to have emerged with renewed focus and sense of clear purpose. Its executive team, many recruited for leadership accomplishments in competitive industries is setting a new pace for Avaya. While the challenge to change Avaya from a legacy equipment provider to an innovative software leader is not going to occur overnight, I believe they have assembled the right talent mix at the top of its Customer Experience Management team to make this happen.  A key factor to success, however, will depend on its many partners fully understanding and selling its vision and managing and maintaining strong service support for existing customers, as they evaluate and embrace new applications. 

Vice President & Principal Analyst Test

Joseph is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.&nbsp; Covering all things related to Data Management and Analytics, he focuses on making better decisions through using new sources of data, innovative ways of interweaving the volumetric flow of data of increasing compexity, and disruptive techniques for drawing inferences and making predictions from that data. <br> Sensor networks <br> Mobile devices <br> Machine-to-machine interchanges <br> Machine-to-human interactiions <br> Sensor Analytics <br> Internet of Things <br> Sustainability <br> Self-quantification <br> Since 1978, Joseph has been involved with renewable energy research, developing advanced statistical methods for complex system analysis, and creating analytical techniques and management… Read more

Cara is coming to a brick-and-mortar store near you. But don't be insulted when she doesn't recognize who you are.

Recently, I met with Jason Sosa, the CEO and Founder of IMRSV, Inc… twice. What came through to me was his passion for understanding the societal and human impacts of the technologies he creates and brings to market. This passion makes their mantra of and adherence to "privacy by design" very real and central to their approach.

Cara is the core software product from IMRSV, Inc. Cara analyses your face, and determines demographic, attention and emotive statistics about you, without attempting to identify you. As IMRSV states, Cara turns any connected camera into an intelligent sensor, but does so anonymously. Move from one Cara camera to another, or move away and back again to the same Cara camera, and the temporary ID number associated with you changes.

While Cara is pre-launch, I'm excited both by the technology, and by the IMRSV, Inc business model. The business model is very simple, whether a small shop owner or a developer interested in using Cara as part of a sensor analytics ecosystem, you pay $39.95 per camera, which includes the stand-alone Cara software and the Cloud-based data-as-a-service. The possibilities presented by Cara are what really got me going, fueling both an exciting initial briefing and a follow-up four-hour "lunch" and demo.

• small shop owners now have demographic information available to them that was previously beyond their reach
• larger organizations can better understand why campaigns in the physical world succeed or fail, just as they can online
• developers can build attention and emotions into their sensor platforms

What's does any of this mean? Here's a few examples.

• While Cara doesn't recognize a person, it can say that the person who bought X at the register was a young adult male or the person who bought Y in the drive-through was a senior female, based upon time stamps.
• Online retailers have long established ways of determining who is buying what online. Brick-and-mortar stores have tried to do the same through loyalty programs. Privacy concerns have affected adoption of loyalty cards. By anonymously providing demographic and attention data, physical stores can glean the same understanding of their customers as the online versions, without violating privacy.
• End-cap displays at retailers or kiosks at events can provided targeted messages, increasing effectiveness.
• A simple toy, using a smartphone to draw a face and its camera to record the smile of a child, can smile back.
• A car can respond to a driver glancing away from the road, perhaps "kicking" the driver in the butt through a vibration motor in the seat.

In addition to starting companies, Jason is very interested in the Singularity, and the impending impact of technology upon human employment and self-identity. This has led both to the "Privacy by Design" and "Principles of Good Use" for developers/partners. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Jules Polonetsky.

"Privacy by design solutions are critical to implementing new technologies in a world were data collection has become ubiquitous. Steps that Cara takes such as not collecting any personal information, and not storing, transferring or recorded any images are key to ensuring privacy concerns are addressed as these technologies are rolled out.”
- Jules Polonetsky
- Facebook.com/FutureofPrivacy
- @JulesPolonetsky

There are various pieces of research out there that show that the Internet of Things will be a 15 trillion dollar market right now. By 2020, I strongly believe that there will be over a trillion sensors deployed and that if your "thing" isn't connected, it won't be a viable product. Companies like IMRSV, Inc are providing the ecosystem to allow sensor analytics from everyday objects at very affordable prices. This will push this market even further and faster than the pundits anticipate. So, let me put on my tinfoil hat and stand on my soap box:

1. Every conceivable facet of everyday life will take advantage of connected data for informed decisions
2. Current sensor, internet of things, and data management & analytic companies will be assimilated into sensor analytics ecosystems or die
3. Privacy will be a major concern for those who care, but the majority don't know enough to care. Individuals like Jason and Jules will protect the masses and ensure adherence to privacy by design guidelines.

Except where otherwise noted, this content is
licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Gavin Heaton

Founder Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of &nbsp;award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. Read more

I must admit to being more than a little intrigued by Bitcoin, the open source, peer-to-peer digital currency. In fact, anything with the words “open source, peer-to-peer and digital” in its description is likely to pique my interest. But as a currency, Bitcoin operates independently of central banks or a central organisation – which in times of sovereign debt crises adds to its attractiveness.

Very few of us go through the process of thinking through how our currencies actually work. We know enough to understand our local banking systems – and the way that they manage transactions, the money supply and so on – but Bitcoin operates in a completely different way. As a peer-to-peer currency, there is no centralised control. There is no gold standard. To purchase Bitcoins, you need an account with a Bitcoin exchange, like Mt. Gox, which requires a form of verification. But Mt. Gox is not a bank – and once you have purchased Bitcoins you need to store them in a wallet. You can then use those Bitcoins to buy and sell – to transact with others who trade in Bitcoins.

Sounds complicated, right? And it is. Thankfully Duncan Elms has put together a video explaining the way Bitcoins work. It goes some way to clarify some of the complexity that underlies this new, and growing digital currency.

But once you know all this, what will you do? Will you throw caution to the wind and setup a trading account? Will you use Bitcoins to buy and sell real and virtual world things? Or will you watch from afar?

Bitcoin Explained from Duncan Elms on Vimeo.

Constellation Orbits Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.&nbsp; Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.&nbsp; She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,… Read more

Customer support organizations are scrambling to accommodate their changing customer behaviors and preferences.   The move to social media, mobile applications and online communities triggers customer service organizations to search for applications that deliver the same level of support on emerging channels as their traditional channels.  Without an actionable plan for accommodating customers equally across all channels, support organizations find their customers’ experience suffers.  This fragmented approach also causes integration issues, which often require extensive fees for professional services to bridge the legacy applications with the newer ones. 

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepo<br>LinkedIn:&nbsp;https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo &nbsp; &nbsp; , Title:&nbsp;Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The… Read more

The following five minute video was recorded following my keynote on Purposeful Collaboration at Oracle CloudWorld Mumbai on April 2nd, 2013.

Note: the caption for the first question is incorrect, they asked "How has collaboration changed..." not "How has Constellation (where I work) changed..."

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepo<br>LinkedIn:&nbsp;https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo &nbsp; &nbsp; , Title:&nbsp;Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The… Read more

The Rise of Purposeful Collaboration

From Simply Sharing to Getting Work Done

Collaboration tools enable people to discover and interact with, the content, colleagues and communities, that can help them get their jobs done.

Culture, Technology and Business Practices are evolving to adapt to today’s more social working environment.

The first era of enterprise social was about collaborating more effectively by working more transparently and increasing participating via “social software”.

With Purposeful Collaboration, “social” is built directly into the tools and business processes people use to get their jobs done.

In the age of social media, effective customer and employee engagement is becoming an increasingly important business initiative. Companies that effectively engage their customers experience greater customer loyalty and repeated patronage. Companies that effectively engage their employees can expect greater employee satisfaction and productivity. However, as the number of social channels continues to grow, engagement becomes increasingly difficult as constant bombardment of these channels often leads to alienation and fatigue. 

Enter the 9 C's of Engagement. Employ the 9 C's of Engagement to connect with your customers and employees in an increasingly saturated social environment.

In this interview at SXSW 2013, R "Ray" Wang explains how companies should be using the 9 C's of Engagement.