Becoming A Player In The Wired World

Mal Fletcher Added 13 December 2008

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Leadership And The New Media - Part 1

The power of the electronic media impacts every area of our lives today. Through it, world events have become a part of our individual experience - the global has become imminent.

Just when we thought the media might have reached saturation level, in the early 90s, along came the Internet revolution, followed by video-on-demand, 3G material on phones, PSP video players and much more. The Net has forever changed the way we bank, buy and even build relationships. Its size and scope are widening at an incredible rate.

It all began, of course, with the explosive growth in the PC market. Today, there are more microprocessors than there are people in the world.

If computers continue to double in processor power every eighteen months or so, as they have done for the past decade, by the mid-2020s our PCs will contain chips that are 10,000 times more powerful than the ones we have today. And that's without taking into account the rapid advances we're seeing in nanorobotics, which allows materials to be built from the molecular level up.

You can expect to see huge advances in the miniaturization of complex systems over the next few years.

Today there are more than two million known commercial sites on the web -- and millions of sites designed and maintained by everyday individuals. The blogosphere is humming as people record the minutae of their daily existence.

After its first 13 years, TV had 50 attracted million viewers. It took the Internet only 4 years to gain the same number of users.

On the back of the Internet revolutions - there have been two of them thus far - we have seen the rapid emergence of the so-called new media. Web video-casting, social networking, video-phones and so on are all a part of the new media package, which is extremely fluid.

Whatever the type of business or organization you lead, if you are to have influence in an increasing wired (and wireless) world, you will need to be a player in the Net marketplace.

The Net has power not because it is a source of products - e-sales are still relatively small in Europe compared with 'real' sales - but because it is a melting pot of ideas and a major point of contact for human beings.

Your presence in the new media marketplace will have to constantly change, if you are to be heard amidst the clutter, the background noise of Net traffic.

As leaders, we must stay in touch with this rapidly evolving new media. If we fall 'out of the loop' and lose touch with cutting edge systems, we may never again be allowed back in.

For business, as well as community groups and charities, the new media technologies are providing new opportunities for promotion of products, projects and strategies - and for connecting on a very individual basis with potential new customers and alliance partners.

Businesses have been using web pages to announce their presence of a long while now, but that is just the most basic use of new media.

Businesses are now able to host entire online TV stations for a fraction of the cost of traditional TV production and broadcast. Even individual leaders narrowcasting themselves courtesy of the ubiqitous YouTube and all the other video oppotunities offered by social networking sites.

The Internet and new media generally have also opened new doors for leadership development. Training materials are made accessible to team members in situ, or on the other side of the planet.

Tele-conferencing has taken on new forms, as traditional (costly) systems involving satellite TV etc have given way to cheaper and easier Skype-based systems. Keeping in touch with satellite branches, or co-workers in remote areas is becoming easier all the time.

To be a success on the Net, leaders in business and community life need to remember four important things in particular. If you keep these thoughts uppermost in your mind when planning your new media strategies, you won't go far wrong:

1. Stick to core competencies. The Net is service-based. It is more than a platform for the broadcast of your products or programmes - it is a community where people interact. It's also a place of shortened attention spans - hence the brevity of videos on YouTube. Don't try to offer your Net viewer everything at once. Focus on offering services that you perform really well, concentrate on your Unique Selling Points - on the condition that they are services you can offer with distinction via the Net. Sometimes, services which are easy to provide off-line are problematic to deliver via an online marketplace.

2. Use simple interfaces. What looks incredibly impressive to you or your designer may not be easily accessible to boast average computer users. The most hit-on portals on the Net are not complicated to look at. They're not top heavy with high end Flash or video graphics. They keep things simple and easy to navigate. The golden rule: keep the architecture and graphics interesting but simple.

3. Upgrade constantly. The Net is fluid and fast-moving, people will come back only if there is constant growth and change on your site. You don't need to change everything at once; just 'tweak it' enough change to keep things moving. It's a good idea to set up areas of the site which are totally database driven, so that a block of different announcements, articles or features can be added in advance, then clicking over automatically every day, or even every few minutes.

4. Promote! Promote! Promote! People need to know you're there. You need to have a presence on major search engines (Google, Yahoo! etc.) and a simple URL (web address), which you use on all your promotional materials. The shorter the URL and the closer it is to your business name, the better. Generally, .com names are most universally recognized, especially for brands or business names, closely followed by .net and .org - the latter being used particularly for organisations and charities. Having a county specific suffix such as .co.uk is not bad, provided you're in a market where people are familiar with that particular tag. Generally, the more international your address, the better.

5. Register web names early. If you have a new project coming up, register a web name for it as early as possible. Even if the name's not set in stone, if you think it will require it's own stand alone web presence to attract more eyes, register a few variations early on. Even in naming a project or company these days it's wise to check out what's available in terms of web brands. And it's not a bad idea to register more names than you're likely to use, as the growth of the Net will make it harder to buy some of those names later, when you may need them.

The Internet and the new media generally are great servants. To succeed with them, you must make them a priority in your personal and leadership strategies.

Used creatively they can open exciting new horizons and greater influence for you, your leadership and your team.