Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success — Henry Ford.
This Henry Ford quote is a favorite quote of mine that I believe sits at the core of the society in which we live, operate, develop culture and run our businesses.
That culture is an on-demand culture.
I am talking more and more about on-demand culture when delivering Keynote presentations as my own journey in the digital space is evolving. I believe that really understanding this culture is KEY for business owners and brands, at no matter what level they operate.
As a consumer, I expect immediacy and I am not alone. At the push of a button I can have an UBER with me in minutes, with the tap of an App I can have a boarding pass delivered to me within seconds to create a smooth experience for travelling overseas. Our shortening attention spans and the increasing volumes of content we see daily mean that as consumers, we are bombarded with more choice than ever before. We have to filter out the noise and the things that are irrelevant to us. We have become more savvy with the choices we make because our attention can not be everywhere. We are more in control of WHERE we choose to spend our time when deciding whether to engage with a brand online and WHO we choose to spend that time with. My own choices are based on the experience I have with a brand, how well they engage me in conversation and how smooth and efficient my experience is. Where time and attention is the currency, all the boxes need to be ticked (and pretty quickly), because otherwise, I am going to go somewhere else!
Brands operating in todays on-demand culture need to innovate, transform and listen to the wants, needs and desires of what a consumer is looking for. I do not believe a brand can have success by making decisions internally at the top level of its infrastructure, as it has done for many years. This is a very old and stagnant approach. I believe that a brand must listen, respond and adapt to its consumers, its advocates, its communities and its employees. It must respond to the fact that technology has enabled much more consumer control than we have previously experienced.
Huawei KOL Programme: A Disruptive Transformational Concept …
I was invited to Open ROADS Community as a part of the HuaweiKOL (Key Opinion Leaders) programme. I was invited alongside other fantastic Huawei KOL’s by Walter Jennings, Senior Vice President of Influencer Relations. In itself, the innovation and unique concept behind the Huawei KOL programme in transforming and growing the brand through influencer marketing, demonstrates that Huawei is a forward thinking and transformational brand. They know that there is a need to really understand what a consumer is looking for. They understand that community matters, that influence and micro influence is important to growing their brand. Huawei are not a brand who just make decisions with a group of executives around a boardroom table, they know that in todays ever-changing, challenging, technology-fueled, consumer-driven market, it’s crucial to listen, to research, to feedback, to adapt, implement and make connections and grow relationships with their brand fast, with purpose and with meaning.
Enter: Open ROADS Community
- Real-time, On-demand, All-online,Do-it-yourself, Social
Huawei clearly gives innovation and transformation priority. This is echoed through their practices and initiatives. My experience of Open ROADS Community was fantastic. I was blown away at how forward thinking Huawei is in prioritising the importance of providing a place for listening, innovation, thinking and brainstorming.
The rapid evolution of the Internet into a major mobile platform has dramatically changed user behaviors. Huawei recognizes that ‘on-demand culture’ consumers expect digital services to be seamlessly available at any time and in any place. Huawei believes that the ROADS experience is the answer to staying competitive for telco service providers. As a leading global ICT solutions provider, they believe their services must be Real-Time, On-demand, All-Online, Do-It-Yourself and Social. I believe that Huawei are creating a leading example and I believe they will pave the way in encouraging other brands to adopt initiatives that encourage a collaborative, listening and learning approach to digital transformation.
Open ROADS Community aims to incubate ICT Transformation by bringing together leading voices from the ICT Industry such as telco service providers, solution providers, consulting firms and universities, with a goal to help brainstorm and develop best practices to becoming a truly digital business.
The event facilitated open discussions, participation from all speakers from leading global brands and event guests. There were some thought-provoking and inspiring presentations throughout the duration of the event, but this felt different to many other events I have attended. This was a very intimate and highly interactive event that involved every single person that attended. It inspired creativity and thinking. We brainstormed with millennials from UK universities. We had group brainstorming sessions and discussions. It was highly impressive to see a global market leader taking the initiative to really listen, to understand, to value every opinion.
Daniel Newman — a friend of mine, CEO, author, thought leader, keynote speaker, someone who paves the way with digital transformation and really inspires me and opened my eyes to the world of digital transformation says in his book ‘Building Dragons — Digital Transformation In The Experience Economy’ that ‘every company should build innovation discovery into its business model’. He further goes on to explain that this is a deliberate process of search, discovery, analysis and discussion. This process happened at Open ROADS Community. A place for discovery was provided, but I would say it was even taken a step further by involving discussions with other Global leading brands and not just keeping the discovery process internal to Huawei.
I believe that collaboration is and will become more and more important as brands realize that we are living in one of the most challenging times, a time that requires us to learn, to listen, to implement and move quickly to drive forward transformation. Together, we can achieve so much more. Huawei are not only creating an open industry ecosystem that creates an environment of knowledge sharing, exploration and collaboration but also, I believe they are creating a leading example of moving towards creating a far better connected world. It will be interesting to see how many brands follow their lead.
Going back to the Henry Ford quote, I truly believe that ‘working together is success’ and it will be the key to creating success as we all try to navigate, move forward, stay relevant and innovate in a tech-driven, consumer led, ‘on-demand’ society.
My experience at Open ROADS Community was excellent. I was extremely impressed with how Huawei are innovating in their unique and collaborative approach to innovation discovery and look forward to seeing more brands adopt this approach as they digitally transform.
This post was first published on Medium.
Victoria is head of events for Summit Live UK, live and social video and disruptive technology summit due to make it’s debut in London 2017.
She is an avid coffee drinker, founder and chief social strategist at Blend Social, social media management and strategy agency.
Victoria Helps businesses and brands to leverage the social sphere effectively tailoring bespoke solutions to suit business need and requirement.
Victoria has a keen interest in evolving and disruptive technologies, she is an avid live streamer and helps the businesses she works with to embrace new social platforms whilst integrating them with more traditional social media.
She see’s technology as an amazing vehicle for brands to connect with their communities and consumers in creating meaningful relationships and experiences.
Victoria’s experience has seen her work with clients from SME to UK stock market level. She has worked with major brands such as Lamborghini, Mercedes, Landrover, David Lloyd, Sainsbury’s and Toni & Guy and she provides solutions for businesses and brands of all shapes and sizes. Victoria has spoken and keynoted on many different stages in the UK, Ireland and on international stages, about a number of social media, live social video and experience.
She consults and implements digital, social and live stream strategies with the businesses she works with.