BLOG: My trip to London pt. 6 (final) - ‘How social is changing our trip completely'

Monday, 9AM, time for the business purpose of my trip to London. After the one-minute touch-screen checkout at CitizenM I am walking to the ManpowerGroup Office in London City. Today I will meet with my Northern European colleagues for a two-day session on how social media is impacting our business, and how we can leverage our combined strength to use the huge potential of social for our candidate branding and engagement. While walking, I am thinking on how social influenced my trip so far.

First of all I came across the CitizenM Hotel-concept while reading slides on Business Model Innovation on the social sharing platform for presentations: www.slideshare.net. As I got interested, I looked up the hotel on TripAdvisor. This travel website has become thé review portal for all hotels, apartments, flights and restaurants. A great business model by the way, where almost all content is user generated (reviews and photo’s of travelers) and the money is earned with advertising. I filtered the reviews on ‘traveling alone’, and got 126 ratings that averaged 4.5 stars. Sounded good! Also the photographs matched the atmosphere that CitizenM where displaying themselves on their Facebook and Pinterest pages. On my way to the airport, I visited the Twitter account of EasyJet to check with a tweet what the extra costs were for taking an extra bag with me, and swiftly got a reply from their webcare team. 

Once in London, I used Yelp to find a nice restaurant in the neighborhood. This social review site lists all types of bars, restaurants and clubs. Search on the map, using your GPS location, filter on the amount you want to spend and the average rating of the restaurant’s guests. When I found a nice place, I could easily reserve it online with the ‘opentable.com’ connection, where I had reregistered for former trips already by connecting my Facebook-profile. When talking to a freelance writer during dinner in the hotel, I looked up her profile on LinkedIn and made a connection to see on what accounts she had been working on. After sharing my run on Sunday morning around the Battersea Power Station on Runkeeper, I received a couple of ‘hearts’ from my fellow-runners to motivate me. And in the evening, while writing my blogs, I shared my stories on our internal Google+ network. The comments and ‘+’es’ I was receiving, motivated me to continue writing and sharing with you. 

So if I am to point out the two most critical impacts that social has on today’s world, it would be these:

1. Traditional organizational hierarchy is soon history*

(* from a great Wall Street Journal article on ‘the end of management’)

Before we had the internet and social media, organizations needed a clear hierarchy and managers to organize people and allocate resources. Now we are online and social connected anywhere, anytime, any device. The internal ManpowerGroup Google+ is proving more and more to enable collaboration without the need of hierarchy. And guess what: the pace of creativity, collaboration and innovation is only increasing because of it. Employees no longer only need to make themselves valuable through what they know, they can develop more knowledge by collaborating in a much more fluid format. 

2. Reputation is the new cash

What became very clear of my social media influenced trip to London, is that reputation is key to succes for business in the future. Social media is bringing transparency. Via websites like TripAdvisor, it becomes transparent what the hotels’ value propositions are. Do they live up to it? And their own customers decide if the service, food, location and wifi is up-to-standard by rating it with 1 to 5 stars. The same is happening in a lot of industries. Uber is bringing ratings to taxi drivers. Would you order a cab with a driver that was rated with 2 stars by 24 people? And the Holiday Inn that I ‘rated’ in my blog. Would you book it?

And there is Glassdoor, a US website where employees and former employees anonymously review companies and their management. You could say: the TripAdvisor of the work-related part of business. It's already quite big in the US, and it will be coming over to Europe as well. Our services, operations, candidates, communication and style of doing business will be more and more rated by growing crowds of customers, candidates, employees. 

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 5 - 'Battersea Power Station and Digital Pink Floyd Music'

It was Sunday morning 9AM, the last day of my personal time in London. With my running shoes on I stepped out of the Tube at Sloane Square and started running. With my Runkeeper App activated to track the route, I ran over the Chelsea-bridge across the Thames and entered the Battersea Park. Lot’s of fellow runners here and families taking a walk or playing cricket on this chilly Sunday morning. Probably few had the same goal as I had. Above the trees at the horizon I already saw them: the famous chimneys of Battersea Power Station. This typical Industrial Brick Cathedral was build in the 1930’s. With the passing of time, the building is now neglected and has been out-of-service for over 30 years. 

In my early 20’s I discovered Pink Floyd music. One of their famous old albums, the 1977 ‘Animals', has the Battersea Power Station on its cover. Back than record companies were the empires in that industry that had the power over this ‘information’ (music). Granting access to this music would cost consumers a lot of money. Distribution was done only via record companies, and you as a customer where obliged to go to that store between 9 and 5 if you wanted some.

How disruptive was (and is) the digitization of information. The fact that records became data (MP3 files) meant that the whole record distribution model was superfluous overnight. I remember the first time I downloaded a Pink Floyd song using Napster, it was a miracle. Bits and bytes just streaming into my computer! Sony owned a lot of record companies and already had invented the WalkMan as a portable music player. A disruptive power out of a completely different industry however took over the music business: Apple with the launch of iPod (’10,000 songs in your pocket’) and the iTunes store.

And here I am running with my earplugs in, streaming the Animals album via Spotify over 4G wireless connection, paying € 8 a month for an ‘all-you-can-eat’ music business model 24/7. Sony is nowhere, EMI (the record company of Pink Floyd) has been diminished and was sold in 2011, record stores are closed. The Battersea Power Station looks like an old record company, disrupted by modern power supply and the roll-out of the ‘smart energy grid’. 

Has the digitization of information been disruptive for the staffing industry? Yes, of course. A vacancy is nothing more than a piece of information holding value for our candidates. For decades we made money out of that information, by distributing it via our own ‘record stores’, the branch offices. Having said that, the comparison falls short as we offer a lot more value than only distributing jobs. That’s why the upcoming of the job boards a decade ago proved to be not a threat but an opportunity. Now leading to completely centralized and digitized sourcing and recruiting.

Back to my running: it was time to stop my Runkeeper tracking. Enough about Pink Floyd for now. I’m heading back to the CitizenM to write the final blog in this series!

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 4 - citizenM says: Death to the Trouser Press

The sun is setting in London, time to head to my hotel for the coming nights: citizenM. The ‘M’ stands for ‘Mobile’. People they are targeting are not tourists, but Mobile Citizen. So I entered the Hotel in Southwark London at 6 PM. Right next to the entrance, 6 touch screen computers are awaiting me. I pick one and enter my last name. It automatically finds my booking, asks me to pick a citizenM card, hold it in front of the detector et voilá. The checkin is done! With the same card I can use the elevator, buy my coffee or beer at the bar, and checkout in 10 seconds. 

Contrary to the traditional hotels, the lounge is buzzing with people and conversations. And ‘lounge’ is not the appropriate name for it. The whole ground flour is one living room, subtly divided in colour and style into three area’s. The ‘citizen’ are working, plugging in their laptops in the numerous connection points, using the very fast and free WiFi Internet, sharing presentations on several large TV’s that are nicely build into bookcases decorating the walls, or reading the free newspapers on the tables. In the middle is the hotel bar, and in the corner large tables with connection points as co-working space. 

I selected this hotel on purpose as its concept triggered me. In a (very) traditional industry, this new Dutch based hotel chain has created a successful innovative service operation, business model innovation and a concept where the value proposition for the customer has been leading in every decision. Starting in 2008 in Amsterdam, the chain has now 7 hotels. On the website I read a “absolutely no trouser presses, bellboys, or stupid pillow chocolates.” To be honest, my decision to book citizenM was already made at that instant. 

Their value proposition? What does a hotel guest really, and I mean really, want?

• an XL king-sized super-comfy bed
• a powerful rain shower
• free movies on a wide-screen television
• free and fast WiFi internet
• international plug system
• a tablet to control temperature, lights, television and the alarm clock

That’s it. No stupid seats that you never use, no desk that you never sit behind, no bibles in the drawer, no lights that you have to get out of bed for to turn them off. They took away my pain points as a customer (waiting for checking in and out, paying for Wifi and/or having a bad internet connection, no guest interaction), and brought a smile on my face with a nice warm atmosphere, a hotel bar buzzing with activity and opportunities to co-work.

After my day in London, I took a meal (self service, card swipe and paid), a beer, and sat in one of the living rooms. Lounge music was playing, the whole hotel bar was crowded and buzzing. A freelance architect sat next to me and offered me a drink and we were eating some nuts while discussing the CitizenM concept.

CitizenM says: luxury isn't a packet of nuts in a minibar, it’s a 24 hour real-bar

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 3 - The Silicon Roundabout

At 2 PM I am walking through a narrow neglected street, just to be sure I held my laptop-bag a bit tighter to my body. In the Shoreditch borough, Bonhill street number 5. I am looking through the window, yes, this is The Campus, the domain of many startups in London. I had registered upfront via www.campuslondon.com and received a community-ID. After typing it in at the reception desk I receive my card and can go downstairs through narrow staircases and have access to the basement of the building. It is buzzing here with youngsters. 

They have one thing in common: they all are sitting behind a MacBook Air and have a bottle of water. Some typing, most with headphones on, some calling (with their iPhones), others having discussions. Most guys wear beards, hoodies and jeans, a phew are dressed up a bit sharper. And the women seem to have asian blood in their veins mostly and make up for at least 40% of the people here. In the middle of the basement there’s a small café/counter for coffee or a croissant that you can pay for with Pounds or Bitcoins. In the background New Orders’ Blue Monday is playing. In a corner there’s a desk with testing devices, ranging from smartphones to several tablet sizes and laptops. Apparently apps can be tested here for cross device functionality.

The Campus was founded by ‘Google for entrepreneurs' and positions itself as ‘An Engine for Collaborative Innovation’. Working here is free when you are part of the community (by registering), WiFi is free and fast, and the café offers cheap drinks. 

The Campus is one of the many coworker spaces in this neighborhood. This Eastern part of London is, besides the Silicon Roundabout (referring of course to Silicon Valley) also known as ‘Tech City’. Starting with about 15 media and high-tech companies in 2008, this area now offers the homebase to a couple of hundred tech-based startups. Next to Google, some bigger established companies invested in this area: BT provides super fast broadband, Cisco is establishing an innovation centre, Intel has established a research lab and Amazon has opened a Digital Media Development Centre. 

Most startups here are focussing on the FinTech (Financial Technology) and EdTech (Educational Technology) sectors. And I found this a facinating contrast. The large shiny luxurious skyscrapers of HSBC, Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse in Canary Wharf on the one hand. And the cheap shabby basement with startups in East London on the other hand. The business models of the first are crumbling, while currency clouds, crowdsourcing, mobile banking and digital wallets are disrupting the financial markets.

To complete my journey in this inspiring borough, I drank a beer in hipster co-working place The Book Club. One of the slogans I saw here on the wall: “We are living in a transformational era for financial services. Our children will look back at these past decades and laugh at how we banked”. 

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 2 - Stansted Airport without Humans

It was 9.40 AM when the plane touched the runway at Standsted Airport and taxied to the gate. After disembarking the plane, signing guided me to a driver-less mini-train. Passengers cued up before the doors, watching the countdown on screens to when the train would arrive and stop exactly at the designated door openings. The doors slid open and the train moved, while a sweet but cold digital woman’s voice told us the safety procedures and asking to keep our passports ready. 

Via escalators I arrived at the e-Passport gates located at the immigration checkpoint in the arrival hall. The gate number lit up of the available gate and I stepped forward. On screen I got instructions to put my passport on the scanner, while a camera, hidden behind a mirror, moved up to meet my length and clearly scan if I was really Radi Jaarsma. After a couple of seconds a green light flashed and the UK border opened itself for me in the form of sliding doors opening automatically. Meanwhile screens showed me at which bagage belt I could collect my overpriced extra hand luggage and after that I used my credit card and a touch screen to get my Standsted-Express ticket for a travel by train to London. I withdrew some pound notes from the ATM, grabbed a coffee from the coffee machine and the last thing I saw from Standsted Airport, where the automated gates on the train platform that opened in response to my ticket. 

Apart from my fellow travelers, there was no human interaction involved in this whole process from stepping out of the plane to stepping out of the train in London. It left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the white steel and spacious environment of Stansted Airport struck me as a cold mechanical atmosphere. On the other hand: my trip went very.. very smoothly. To be honest, the first human interaction that I had during that trip was in the train, when ordering a coffee (I need a lot of coffee in the morning). The guy was foreign and could not speak English very well, nor understand it. As an extra, he did not have change and when finally I overhauled him to use his credit-card terminal, it looked like it was the first time he saw that machine. After finding out that he was only allowed to use the credit card terminal for a minimum amount of 5 Pounds, I decided to treat two passengers in front of me for a coffee in order to get to that amount. 

This is what ManpowerGroup calls the Human Age. And almost as a paradox, a lot of tasks humans did the last decades are replaced by technology and robotics. All studies show that especially jobs that consist of some form of repetitive and routine tasks, are automated at a very rapid pace. Gartner calls this the ‘De-Routinization of Work’. And that is exactly what happened at Stansted. No more train drivers, ground services, immigration officers, ticket office agents and cafeteria staff.

The best contribution that people can bring to work, are not routinized processes that can be automated, but in the added values that are distinctively unique for us human beings: creativity, leadership, innovating, empathy, relationships, discovering. To put it more simply: the unique talents of people will flourish best in non-routine work. Helping workers to make that change is part of the ManpowerGroup ‘Dignitiy of Work’ statement.

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 1 - easyJet and Ancillary Revenues

At exactly 9.35 AM on Day 1 of my trip to London, the easyJet airplane was taxiing down the Schiphol Amsterdam Airport runway. I am on my way to London for a few days off, followed by three days of Northern European meetings with ManpowerGroup colleagues on Social Media and Digital Strategy. 

Why I am flying easyJet? It was the cheapest fare. I typed my destination in on www.skyscanner.nl and the white/orange carrier topped the list. And that is exactly the competitive playing field most airlines are in today: be on the first page of any air tickets list or you are gone. Flying from A to B is such a homogenous product, that price is almost the only differentiator for most people. And yes, of course I prefer a comfortable seat and leg room. A hot coffee included and a short movie would also be nice. But if it increases the ticket price? No, it’s just not worth it then. Both on private trip as well as business trips. 

It reminded me of a Finnair presentation I attended recently. Finnair did not make it to the first page of many ticket selling websites. Main reason was their ‘all inclusive’ pricing. Travelers were allowed an extra piece of hand luggage, could pick a seat and have a newspaper on board. Competitors like easyJet, Ryanair and Norwegian stripped all this, offer a low price, land on the first page and get more sales. Do these low-cost carriers offer less? Well, not necessarily, they just offer a basic price to get from A to B. And additional services come at a premium. Airliners call this ‘Ancillary Revenue’. The ticket price is the basis and makes the sale. Ancillary services are the real money makers. Once a tourist trip has started, people are more willing to draw their wallet. And the best thing for a company? High margins and hardly any competition in this stage of the sales-cycle. The customer is already ‘hooked in’ and the moment of ticket purchase forgotten.

In the top 60 of airline ancillary revenues, easyJet takes ninth place, with ancillaries taking

account of 19,2% of the airlines’ total revenue.

So how does that compare to the staffing industry, where our biggest brand - Manpower - is in? Traditionally we tend to charge our customers one price for all staffing services: a markup on the hourly wage of our flex workers. The staffing product is quite homogenous as well price plays an important role in decision making. Our industry is adopting the Airlines model. Start with a basic pricing and offer additional services at a premium. 

And while the plane was descending for London Stansted, I thought of how I coped with easyJet's business model. Well… With my plans to do some running in the morning, my hand luggage was completely stuffed. So I had to take my laptop bag with charger, iPad, etc. as a second piece. EasyJet charged me € 30 extra for it. That is 20% of the ticket price. And I paid it without a problem, happy that I was able to take two bags on board now. Together with a coffee during the flight of € 3, I contributed € 33 to easyJets ancillary sales.

Social Media: oude marketingregels gelden nog steeds

"Internet heeft het marketingmanagement zodanig getransformeerd dat traditionele strategieën zijn verouderd. De traditionele aanpak van de marketingstrategie is niet meer duurzaam. Vandaag de dag verbinden de klanten met het bedrijf op een manier die fundamenteel verschilt van de traditionele aanpak en via communicatiekanalen waarover een bedrijf geen controle heeft." (tekst: B2B Goes Social Symposium)

"De revoluties in IT zetten de hele
marketingwereld op zijn kop."

Zo. Heb ik jullie aandacht te pakken? Niets is meer wat het was! Maar... is dat nou werkelijk zo?

Social Media moet. En veel graag!

Ik raak altijd een beetje geïrriteerd van dergelijke teksten. Ze doen me denken aan de Dot.com bubble en zijn zo populistisch. Je leest ze veel. Neem een willekeurig congres over marketing en sociale media, bekijk het gros van de marketing titels op www.managementboek.nl of scan eens een aantal berichten op blogs als Mashable. 


Ieder zichzelf respecterend bedrijf moet iets met sociale media. En niet enkel om persoonlijk te netwerken - waar de bekende sociale netwerken overigens uitermate geschikt voor zijn - en wat wellicht de belangrijkste kracht is van sociale media. Maar er moet meer. Een Twitter account is een eerste vereiste natuurlijk. Met stip gevolgd door een Facebookpagina. Samen met LinkedIn vormt dit voor bedrijven wel het pallet dat de lading 'sociale media' dekt. Dat dit stuk voor stuk krachtige media zijn die goed kunnen passen in een marketingstrategie is zonder meer waar. Maar niet altijd, niet voor ieder merk, niet voor iedere doelgroep. 


Eens kijken naar een paar actieve bedrijven op Twitter en Facebook:

Volg de Brillo-sponsjes op Twitter

• Brillo schuursponsjes. Volg ze op Twitter. Afgelopen week kon je vertellen wat het favoriete Brillo schoonmaakproduct van je moeder was, met toevoeging van #mybrillo.

• Loodgieters actief op Twitter. Zo laat Brugmans Loodgieters zijn volgers weten dat de reclame op de auto goed is aangebracht en dat het eindelijk weer mooi weer is voor dakwerk.

• Yarden Uitvaart. In 140 tekens over leven, dood en hiernamaals via Twitter. 

• Van Paridon. Afvalstoffen transport en verwerking, actief op Facebook en Twitter. Een emmer van 15kg strooizout voor € 8,95 lezen we in één van de totaal twee berichten.

• SNS Bank. Enkele lokale kantoren zijn 'actief' op Facebook. Zo zien we bij Appingedam dat de baas een speech heeft gegeven. SNS Bank Almere Tweet dat kinderen een kleurplaat kunnen ophalen bij het kantoor.

Meestal eerst het medium, dan het doel

SNS Bank Appingedam op Facebook

Mijn ervaring met kleine en grotere bedrijven leert dat er vaak sprake is van 'me too' gedrag. Alle media, congressen, seminars en marketingbladen spreken over sociale media. De mening van het volk valt volgens het Acht uur Journaal te lezen uit Tweets. Als je niet meedoet mis je de boot en ben je hopeloos ouderwets. Het is gratis, iedereen zit op Facebook, snel succes en bereik. Dit alles leidt ertoe dat vaak snel geroepen wordt om inzet van Twitter of Facebook en pas later wordt (al dan niet) nagedacht over de boodschap (denk aan de voorbeelden van de SNS Bank en Van Paridon) of de geschiktheid van het medium om je doelgroep te bereiken (denk aan de Loodgieters en Brillo).

Zoveel is er niet veranderd

Laten we even terugkeren naar de introductie. "De traditionele aanpak van de marketingstrategie is niet meer duurzaam". Wat is dan die traditionele aanpak? 


Volgens mij bestaat de traditionele aanpak uit het bepalen van je doel(en), je doelgroep(en) en de inzet van je kanalen om hen zo effectief mogelijk te bereiken. Daarbij kent ieder kanaal zijn eigen tactieken en kanaalstrategieën.  En natuurlijk is het zo dat sociale netwerken veel meer mogelijkheden bieden om te verbinden met je doelgroepen dan traditionele media. De fundamenten zijn echter niet gewijzigd: wie wil je bereiken, met wat voor boodschap. Daarna volgt pas het beste kanaal om die boodschap te brengen. 
Is je doel om je naamsbekendheid te vergroten, of om direct te verkopen? Dat geeft hele andere kanaalkeuzes dan wanneer je je bedrijf als zogenaamde thought leader wil positioneren, kennis autoriteit. Of wat te denken van service verlenen aan huidige klanten of het in contact treden met mogelijke nieuwe medewerkers? 

Past het sociale medium wel bij je doelen?

Door het grote bereik, de uitstekende targeting mogelijkheden (het kunnen benaderen van specifieke klantgroepen) en de mogelijkheid tot interactie, zijn Facebook en LinkedIn belangrijke kandidaten als medium bij de uitvoering van een marketingstrategie. Twitter in mindere mate, maar wel weer geschikt in specifieke gevallen zoals het delen van nieuws en kennis, of het verlenen van service. 

Ik zal niet op alle voorbeelden ingaan, maar laat ik er een paar noemen. 
Als je de tweets van Yarden doorneemt, zit er best een consistent verhaal in. Ontmoetingen en bijeenkomsten over leven, de dood en het hiernamaals. Maar Twitter is niet het geschikte medium. Veel te vluchtig en te beperkt in context voor gebeurtenissen als dood en leven. Een forum, gekoppeld aan een blog geeft lezers en bijdragers veel meer ruimte om elkaars situaties te begrijpen, in te leven en te discussiëren. 

Het voorbeeld SNS Bank is wat mij betreft één uit het boekje van enthousiast, maar niet klantgericht denken. Ik stel me zo voor dat een medewerker van filiaal Appingedam graag wil bijdragen, zelf op Facebook actief is, en enthousiast de handschoen oppakt om zijn vestiging te promoten. Maar... "what's in it for me" denkt de (potentiële) klant. Om nog maar een traditionele marketing wijsheid van stal te halen die ook in dit nieuwe tijdperk nog altijd als een huis overeind staat. "De baas geeft een speech"? Daar lopen rekeninghouders niet voor warm. 

En nog een veel gemaakte denkfout. Facebook en Twitter geven potentieel een groot bereik. Maar dat bereik is er niet zomaar. Het zal opgebouwd moeten worden. Slechts de grote aansprekende merken, artiesten of kennis autoriteiten is het gegeven om zonder inspanning snel een groot publiek aan zich te binden. SNS Bank als geheel, maar (zeker) ook de regiokantoren, zullen flink moeten investeren om publiek aan zich te binden. 

Een herkenbare en consistent uitgevoerde redactionele formule die toegevoegde waarde biedt aan de doelgroep is stap één. Vervolgens het actief  contact leggen met die doelgroep, waarschijnlijk met inzet van advertising om de juiste mensen te bereiken in de enorme vijver van Facebook is stap twee. En als de community dan groeit, moet de content, service en interactie door blijven gaan, hetgeen betekent dat de SNS medewerker in Appingedam een deel van zijn dagelijkse werkzaamheden naar de community moet brengen. Mocht de geïnteresseerde doelgroep in de regio groot genoeg zijn (I doubt it), dan komt de medewerker bij de vraag: levert dit nu eigenlijk wel sales op, waarvoor ik mijn bonus krijg. Of had ik beter persoonlijk kunnen netwerken met potentiële klanten op LinkedIn en netwerkborrels in de regio?

"If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else".

Traditionele marketingstrategie blijft

Het eerst kiezen van een medium en dan pas nadenken over wie en wat je eigenlijk wil bereiken, is altijd al een foute aanpak geweest. Nu, in de tijd van online en social media, en 'vroeger' in de tijd van traditionele media als print, beurzen en RTV. Wetende dat sociale media de marketeer enorm veel strategische en tactische mogelijkheden bieden om te verbinden met de doelgroep, blijft de traditionele marketingbasis nog steeds staan als een huis. Wat is je doel, wie is je doelgroep en wat heb je hen te vertellen.

En Brillo? Ja... Brillo... Ik weet het niet. Ik ga ze maar eens volgen.