Endurance Models

I’d ended last week’s post wondering about the role of durability in the design of communication and organisational structures. Dina has continued the discussion on her blog, adding on some very pertinent questions. Do visit and add on to this very interesting thought flow.

I got myself three threads of thought in her post. One, the dependency (of one product on another’s durability) factor, highlighted by the classic example of Twitter, where app developers have been flummoxed by recent events. (Twitter buying out Atebits and making Tweetie a free app for iPhone). Two, brands needing to create enduring, sustainable relationships, and being agile and flexible, because neither consumers nor their relationships are ‘static’. And therefore, three, durability is morphing.

Before we dig into all of them, a small point of view. While one one hand, Twitter buying out services/competing with them could be seen as very Google like, and something that kills innovation in my book, I do have faith in Twitter and believe it won’t go the way Google has. (Simplistically) Unlike Google, which practically kills (eg. Dodgeball, jaiku), Twitter has just removed one entry barrier (paying for the service) for Tweetie’s adoption. As for Fred Wilson’s post, i can only remind you (again) of Godin’s description of Twitter – a protocol, and that’s why I completely buy the argument in the post on creating something entirely new on top of Twitter. (a contra view on Twitter being a protocol, informative read)

This, you would notice, is a thought that continues from Dina’s point on dependency. But there’s a link to the second point as well – creating enduring, sustaining relationships and being flexible. The services which (to quote Fred Wilson) were ‘filling holes’ were (IMO) way too dependent on twitter. They were only providing a value, which Twitter had not deemed as a priority at a particular point in time. Not sustainable.

Now, social gaming is one of the opportunities that Fred Wilson notes. So, look at Zynga. Their creations acquired massive adoption because of Facebook. They keep making more games, running them on Facebook, but simultaneously, also made farmville.com, with integrated FB Connect, and offers them more flexibility to provide more value. More importantly, the genre is perhaps not something FB is likely to get its hands dirty in anytime soon. Slightly more sustainable. Look at Foursquare. Standalone, but with Twitter and Facebook integrated very well. A level higher on sustainability. So the point is, the durability would be a function of how these platforms are used, dependency is proportional to the value provided.

Morphing. Though the usage of social media by organisations is a subject that is discussed often (including on this blog), I thought this post by Tac Anderson articulated it extremely well. He discusses three strategies used by the enterprise – the one off approach that isn’t integrated with any existing system/process; optimising social media for business – with clear resources, roles and responsibilities; optimising business for social media. The first and second areas are where most companies operate. The third is a business organisation optimised for social media (technology and culture). He points out that Netflix, Google, Amazon have built businesses optimised for the web, and doesn’t see a business that has successfully implemented it wrt social media. He does say that it may not make sense for a company to throw out an existing strategy and build another around social media, but the ones with the third approach will be the next Google/Amazon. Another good read on the subject is Tom Fishburne’s ‘The new product waterfall‘.

It is debatable whether an organisation can move from approach 2 towards 3.  But I do think that the morphed versions of durability will emerge from business structures that are built to be comfortable with and are therefore in a position to take advantage of the tools and platforms of social media. That is most likely the way to create enduring, sustainable relationships in a scenario of changing consumer and communication dynamics.

until next time, the durability of this thread on the blog ends here 🙂

PS: Won’t have to endure a post next week. Back in a fortnight 😉