Distribution Policy

Via Scoop.it - Contemporary fiction

Gosh I can’t wait for e-books to finally mature in France. Heaven? no, a counter balance? perhaps. Authors would be maybe more valued. Why? Calling a big retailing center in France, asking them to reference my book on the shelves,

- Yes mister, it’s all good, still i have to inform you of the policy of our business : we review the sales in 4 months times, and we have a 40% off purchase policy when the items are sold.

Thanks… Some people do not understand what services of the supply chain and a shared and manageable working capital means, or the safety margin is pretty high, easy to understand given the number of books potentially hitting the shelves every week.

Between the rights of the publisher, and the one of the distributors, I would have to have a best seller to find a NPV of zero (NDLR: balance between investments and return with respect to time). Right now, would lose 15 % at the sale of any book, yes around 2 euros...  Amazon sales make it a little better, still cannot find better than the local library, contacting directly the editor, hence minimizing the cash in between and right now, even offering me to stand in a forum to sign copies of the book. ok pretty small, but interesting new business model to think of. BM not ready now, will do.

Show original Wikipedia on publishing, ok not so related with the above :)

Online Biz, where size does matter

I would like to share my view on internet business, and current context are supporting me to describe it hereby quickly. 

Context: Microsoft (MSN) acquiring Skype for sth like 66 $ per user from what we are advised. Go there for more info; well in French, sure the English exists.: http://eco.rue89.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-rachete-skype-a-prix-fort-et-plante-google-203281.

Away from the standard M&A, I would like to tag along this event to discuss about a key an utterly most important parameter for internet only online businesses: critical mass.

To come back on definition, I am considering as critical mass the number of people required within a whole subset of connected people in order to make one thing essential and unavoidable for all. 

Microsoft is a prime example. I have to say on my side, I am using Microsoft tools because I know most can read it, simply as that, the network effect in the long term. and no I am not a Keynes fan, Keynes who kept saying "in the long term, we are all dead" or sth like that, in the long term.


So i don 't go as far as the long long term kind of useless here but the 5 10 years brackets. In the long term, we will be here, and more we will know more about bet we need to nurture, and how we will articulate promises becoming reality

So, compared to traditional business, I am taking traditional as business not only interacting via the online sphere, Amazon being at the critical border. Even for Amazon, what matters really is the critical mass the business needs to have, between fostering customer loyalty, and engaging new customers. 

I would take one example further: Apple is well known as a seller on the online, on the offline grid. Apple is making most of its revenues from a small share of an overall segment of IT user (if you disagree, please ask me for references and details), in brackets “selling premium products and services “ to engaged customers Critical mass and the network effect are part of the deal to optimize this business equation, still not only an online business.

Apple does it because in the real world you can. Any, only,online business is possibly facing the complacency challenge, in such a low switching, perhaps slight higher informal acquisition cost, environment.

What Microsoft buying Skype shows is a remake of the Darwinian formula for the life cycle of a product/services:. Get better, or get lost

Before the end of a cycle, on an untangible world like the internet, you have to find your rebound as good as you can, and hopefully before your product is dead, perhaps even better at the climax of the products/services business.

Below, I do assume, it might make an ass of u, of me, anyway I’ve warned you. I do believe Microsoft MSN so long onto the waves were targeting most entertainment while skype developped and fostered loyalty and its brands even through the business side promoting connection the business way, developing the same services adequately on two spheres, the personal and the professional, while MSN was perhaps mainly targeting personal use.

Now, many articles will go out. Merging and acquiring, when not failing, is about setting up a fruitful strategy and who knows between windows phone, an updated MSN. Most importantly cutting the grass under Google and Facebook feet, it should be a successful try if nurtured and developed the innovative way and not staying complacent as MSN did in the past decade.

Reason why I am not thinking that it is totally silly if, in 3 years time, Facebook might go if not off the grid, secondary to one huge thing. Simple as untangibles in a world of tangibles. Online biz shows it, it is a football market, if a good player, make the most money when you can, because everything is even more unsettling tomorrow.

Well I am not forcefully a google fan, still I do enjoy it a lot, Google orientated part of their business on sharing and contents, sharing documents online, not only pictures, comments, status and so on. And I do believe here Google is more ahead, like Skype was with MSN, because not only focusing on one type of customers (General one type please allow me this generality), but playing on both fields. I would be Zuckerberg, I would buy Linkedin straight and develop an ecosystem within the system and the communities. Or maybe not, it could kill straight both brands. No, P&G, Unilever show it on another segment, you can keep integrity of multibrands while ensuring the most valuable synergies from inside, so definitely a move to go for? to work on the fruitful manure the business segment of community is.

Still, this Skype move is not as bad for Facebook as for Google given the shares of Microsoft in Facebook, which offers great growth perspectives and ties for a well thought plan in the future.

PS: I wrote that quickly and would review that some times in the next few days, still i do believe you can grasp the essence of what i say. As put in the title of this blog, it s a possible view, only one.

An Apple and the worm, a modern tale.

Coming back to old times, Adam, Eve, the apple. Ok not so long ago, the apple. I consider applied philosophy as the narrative that brings in frame both the apple, the frame, and the worm in the story. Well, i took the simplifications here to take the worm singular, but obivously can replicate and be plural.

Because every situation needs a worm to treat or to be affected by. In business, call it the easement for the customers, in the context of customers goods and services.
-In the case of Apple, the worm is this trigger pushing you to buy everytime the brand is coming back, a worm avid of money, the customers avid to get the last updates to fit in the frame. I use the image of Apple given I used the tablet of my nephew and drew that

The tablet and the worm - Henri Moufettal 2011

And if you treat Adobe, as seen as a worm within Apple, is the best way the cut out? (coming back from a strategy homework i had to do on that Apple Adobe last year http://stotb.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-does-apple-risk-alienating-its.html)

-For rental services, the worm is to give what you need, and add what you didn t think you need, so that your expectations are getting higher, while your loyalty as well. Yes, a worm is very hungry.
-For a pub, the worm is the end feeling. No going there to be totally drunk, still there to enjoy a pint, or two, or three, and enjoy the delicacy of lightness, the worm, a frame from where we escape.
-For cigarettes, I do not think the worm is about nicotine, too much in the frame, the worm is sitting outside quite nicely, and solicits you to include in a gathering of people to enjoy a break, and relax, if that’s relaxing.

What I called applied philosophy. Applied to you? Applied to business, Examples above, applied to politics, using the worm to sustain the conversation, applied to information, especially now at a time we are all time connected, there is no longer curiosity, there is the deep feeling, oh sh.. I don t know, I ‘ve got to know, applied to these every little things that makes us hungry or envious, and taking its roots from outside the frame.

Pretty negative picture, no. the worm is beautiful, In fact Apple succeeded in presenting an appealing design to one piece of hardware that looked ugly for long. It s where applied philosophy is useful because it is taking roots in our culture, in the whole culture, bringing back perspectives from old times (the greek were so insightful) and rethinking, I don t say reinventing, the wheel with the new datas. Ok, here the importance of datas is one driver, still not the main one. I do like, and I am sure CRM, polls, comments and so on are insightful, still we need the force, thanks obi wan, to synthesize without deleting important informations.

Still, we should always be opened to the slight glimpse of details around. Like walking through an art gallery, looking around, being attracted by some details that give the whole flavor to the paintings.

PS: By the way, from where does the expression worm, as a virus, came in IT, is it one fan of Apple in the 80s who decided to replicate these things over and over to rally people around a system meeting less metldowns?

Future of the business, right here, right now

On contents, on distribution, on a balance


Long long term, contents have its say, right now, distribution is what matters in our world where everything has to move fast and to be readily available. Along the corridor of the university, Edward calmly takes the right to the exit. On his way out, he meets a friend and a short discussion starts from there. As always, a discussion leading nowhere, should it, at least a food for thoughts

Topic: The creation of a GIE (Groupement d’interet economique) called ePresse premium. It gathers several newspapers on the French market. They decided to have their say in the overwhelming deal from actors having critical mass in the distribution to users: Google and Apple.[1] And the discussion that starts from there:

-Latest news, part of French newspapers don t want to be under the diktat of google and apple, hence a GIE, ePresse Premium

- As one of our professors said, "explain to me how tying several anchors together will make them float..."

- Throw an anchor to the big balloon hyperinflated in front of you.  The strategic battle is about contents. Who ensures/owns contents gonna deserve to stay, one thing is that in this game, there are no frames and no rules to follow, only a critical mass, I am sure Apple and Google don t care too much, here the US market helps them a lot.

- The battle isn't about content, it's about distribution. "Content holders" don't actually generate content.

- Well, I cannot refrain that, still, it s about content. there are plenty of way to find distribution and sell wind (bubok, publishing company, or others). Contents give the word of mouth, which give the coverage, which gives the distribution ... in an ideal world. Without content, we are nothing, and here the newspaper are the one creating contents from their employees who are settled in an organization to think and write. and reason why google is aiming to get google doc to take over microsoft office right now.

- Google docs vs Word is another issue entirely, mostly about desktop vs. cloud. Content is king, but newspapers don't generate content. They distribute the content that their writers produce. They don't make articles any more than record labels make music, writers make articles and musicians make music. Newspapers and record companies are in the distribution business.
Today, journalists and columnists can live without newspapers. Newspapers, however, cannot live without journalists and columnists. Google and Apple (in this case) are on the side of content generators, giving them a way to get distribution and get paid (if they're any good) without middlemen.

This discussion got short as looking back on it, they agreed more than they disagreed Cash is king, Content is emperor. As of conclusion, a final quick spell breezed over:

With no contents, there are no distribution. Distributing what?

With no distribution, one has to search for contents and value it, reason why customer centric business is the future.

As we were moving towards a technological society, the distribution system got totally rethought, taking shortcuts that only technology could offer. Now, we are deeply in a technological society. How will we  promote further contents, the kind of critical one that makes us unsettled, and rethink.

For most of what Edward understands, writers and philosophers are not writing simply to get rich, they are writing to enrich. E-Interaction is the distribution of the present, and well more than a simple distribution, it is the value of our present.

Still, how the mechanism of voicing out concerns away from standards is taking place once only some keys stakeholders have achieved the critical mass to overview it all and reach each of us? 

Well, embrace the distribution, you still own your contents. Still, this initiative from ePresse Premium might create some potentially good precedents in getting contents back into where it belongs, the center of the field. so much democratize since the first move from Gutenberg

Music: Fatboy Slim “Right here, right now”

Approach with rush, a story of framing – Fact: The current strikes in France

Approach with rush, a story of framing – Fact: The current strikes in France

Communication is midly rational and utterly emotional, a transition that came with the global connection. After a week off, Edward came back to class, looking to enhance his communication potential, the major help in articulating a given strategy involving the required stakeholders along.

So why utterly emotional? Because any words coming out are so widely repercuted all around. Because perceptions are changing from one to the others. Because we evolve in the same era but in different environment.

In any topics, and the agenda is full these days, the press advertises the facts with one framing. One frame that change from one to the other, and here comes an uncontrollable word of mouth. Where single ones will have to go over different reactions to reach a constructive discussion. We are not free to ignore, we are not free to attack, and gosh no, we are not forced to defend, we are not forced to react. And with the multiplication of medias sources having been demultiplied the channels of communication, we are willing to avoid. Forced to avoid? No.

I only remember one thing when I do participate to a discussion, online, offline. I listen to the others, I make my first key points clear to build on, and most of all, I am doing my best to understand the context around.

Everything is an iceberg. The Press says the top, I don’t believe the polls are showing the hidden parts, as I would have to have more information on how they have sampled the population. Topic: Strikes in France. Let’s take an example, a fact in fact:

I watched a TV show on internet as freely available. For the French speaking people, look at Blako’s news number II (source: Salut les Terriens – Min 16.16 - http://www.canalplus.fr/c-divertissement/pid3350-c-salut-les-terriens.html?progid=382630.

Further in the interview, Syndicalists reiterate our old daemon of an old may 68 carried out in a total other context (for information, one useful book I read was: the end of madness by Jorge Volpi) and yet, well, yes I am getting somewhat disturbed when the young population, in France, and in other countries for sure, are taking part to the strike on a subject not to say in your scope. Well, it shows France still has the beautiful thing 

about getting people together, which is the only good point I see : ).

You would be 5-10 years from retirement, I would understand fighting for a slow build up of the law, but hey, guys, students, you at 22, 23. Big news, yes, we will have to work till 68 if not 70. France is going over 200000 persons above 100 years old. They are our parents. With the system currently in place, system I agree upon, I am happy to participate to their pensions. But you, down the street, students from everywhere, I did agree about some previous of your strikes, the young contract, the over extension of contract for limited durations, but here, find a work first, look around and see how difficult it is.

From top of head, and a useful blog insight on the same trend (in French):

http://pasidupes.blogspot.com/2010/10/retraites-comparatif-france-allemagne.html

Spain: age of retirement 65

UK: age of retirement 65, 66 in 2020, 68 in 2046

Germany: age of retirement 63 now, 67 in 2029

So, the only thing you are creating now is that you are destroying the reputation of young movements in the future. Nobody will listen, again.

So frame yourself. What are you searching a job? Or a retirement life? And after feel free to ignore, free to attack, to avoid or to react. Communication is a mix of these but is further srenghtened when sticking to one truly till no longer possibly sustainable. Reacting is not a solution, constructing is. Remember your philosophy courses, and put in prospective please.

We know we are existing, we know our parents help us doing so. Time to talk useful. Anyway, the law gonna passed, because we are not in May, we are not in 68 and most of all, because we don’t have any proper alternatives. It's time to stop being pessimistic, and start to believe in our future, time to see where we are needed and what we should support. Time to build on again our reputation.

Les sondages, on leur fait dire n'importe quoi, mais bon soyons optimiste, nous avons la force et les moyens d'affronter le futur avec réussite:

http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/reading-list#search/france%20optimiste/5