New Firms Best At Leveraging Social Media?

A hat tip to Mark Nepstad for pointing out Chris Perry's article on the challenge for any established business trying to leverage the social media. Just as the military potential of the aeroplane was not fully realised until the challenge was eventually handed over by the Army to a newly created Air Force, Chris suggests that marketing teams need to be re-engineered in order for businesses to realise the potential afforded by a phenomenon as 'revolutinary' as the social media.

But this misses the wood for the trees.

The rise of the Air Force and the success of Google, eBay, Amazon etc. illustrate that leveraging horizontal technological innovations is not achieved by shuffling the deckchairs in the marketing department of established organisations, but by forging new and separate businesses.

That leaves the challenge for the old guard to engage with the upstarts in order to leverage their greater success with the new technology. Time Warner (AOL), NewsCorp (MySpace) and even eBay (Skype) have famously demonstrated that acquiring one of these new firms doesn't necessarily result in successful engagement. So it seems that established businesses should both encourage new businesses to flourish around significant new horizontal innovations, and focus on co-operating with them to serve their customers, rather than outright ownership. Some, including the Wharton Business School, have called this 'coopetition'.

Figuring out how to compete by co-operating shouldn't necessarily entail wholesale reorganisation, especially when deep knowledge of the capabilities and shortcomings of your own business is key to knowing what's needed from the other party. Indeed it might be more beneficial to give managers and staff 'permission' to admit their organisation's shortcomings and figure out where they need help to adequately serve their customers, rather than to drive the organisation through complex wholesale change programmes.

At any rate, the scale of the challenge posed by horizontal technological shifts may at least partly explain why the average lifespan of a major western corporation is 40-50 years...

Madoff Victims Should Not Blame The SEC

Something caught my eye in the FT's coverage of the SEC's inspector-general's report into the SEC's handling of the Madoff saga:

"Jacob Frenkel, an attorney with Shulman Rogers, said the report indicated that some SEC staff, “failed to recognise a blazing fire because they were too focused on the smoldering match in their fingertips.... Madoff investors would have been better off and far more skeptical had the SEC never investigated or conducted examinations.”"

While the SEC has a lot of improvements to make, Mr Frenkel's claim just doesn't stack up. Worse, blaming the SEC will mean that Madoff's victims will continue to behave in the way that got them into trouble in the first place.

In my book, victims really only have themselves and Madoff himself to blame, on three counts.

Firstly, the complaints to the SEC only reflect what was being published by the likes of Michael Ocrant in 2001. Harry Markopolos said it took him four hours to spot the Ponzi scheme in 2000, using publicly available documents. And according to the Telegraph, Goldman Sachs banned its asset management and brokering divisions from dealing with Madoff's funds ten years ago, while "a raft of blue-chip financial institutions have suspected something was wrong for years." So there's no reason that Madoff's victims and their advisors should not have detected these concerns with even a little due diligence.

Secondly, from my own observation of the SEC's approach to potentially wrongful activity (e.g. in relation to Prosper.com) it's obvious that it can take several years for the SEC's enforcement machine to engage and eventually produce a settlement or prosecution. And, of course, such proceedings are subject to the usual vagaries of the appeals process (sustaining the doubt about whether viatical settlements are a security, for example, which has in turn left the status of other instruments unclear). While this is hugely frustrating for investors and competitors alike, it is clearly impossible to draw any conclusion from the fact that the SEC may have investigated something, unless and until the SEC issues a 'no action' letter (which can take a year, no joke), or ensuing proceedings are settled or otherwise concluded. So those who bet on the outcome of existing or potential SEC activity do so at their own risk. And clearly many people do make those bets.

Finally, what really seemed to cause Madoff's victims to invest was the bandwagon effect created by Madoff's skilful recruitment of socialites and other high profile names as key investors. This meant that investing with Madoff was more of a social badge than a financial decision. And that is hardly something that the SEC can be expected to do much about.

Social Networks No Playground For Bullies

Interesting post by Yasmin Joomraty on 'cyber-bullying', arising from the Keely Houghton case.

It seems clear from this case and other instances I've heard about that if someone resorts to cyber-bullying it's just the tip of the iceberg. So 'cyber-bullying' doesn't really exist as some kind of distinct evil in itself. Moreover, the bully's use of a social networking site is self-defeating, in that it arms the victim with the evidence needed to successfully fight back.

So cases like this are actually good PR for social networking services, just as, say, Betfair's standing was helped by the utility of its audit trail for those trying to clean up corruption in sport.

However, such illustrations of how evidence from online services actually helps with the detection and prosecution of crime also suggest we need to remain vigilant against the potential for the abuse of civil liberties, privacy, personal data and so on when it comes to the access and use of online data by the authorities and others.

Diversify More

Great to see a broader debate about where social lending sits in the banking and investment world (most recently summarised on Bankwatch).

It would indeed be very helpful if people could deduct their social lending fees/losses against their income tax, and lend money to each other via their ISAs. Some day common sense will prevail.

Of course, you can already lend money to people (who aren't related to you) via your Self-invested Personal Pension plan with the trustee's consent. I explored that in some detail in 2007 while General Counsel of Zopa, and even obtained FSA authorisation for Zopa to introduce people to a dedicated 'mini-SIPP' that was to be issued by a SIPP-provider exclusively for lending money via Zopa.

On that basis, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to lend money to others through a 'DIY' ISA or stocks/shares component of your normal ISA, especially where the administration and audit-trail is outsourced to a social lending platform such as Zopa (currently the only one in the UK).

But let's go further.

The artificial distinctions between the various investment 'channels' merely confuse the issue of how diversified you really are, and create a needless multiplicity of intermediaries who all have to take their cut from our money. We know what it means not to put “all your eggs in one basket”, but struggle to see or understand the “eggs” and the “basket”, and unwittingly hemorrhage returns in fees and commission.

Consider that you can invest your money in exactly the same managed investment funds directly, as well as via a tax-free 'wrapper' such as an ISA, pension and/or child trust fund. And if your corporate pension is managed as opaquely as mine are, then you have no idea whether your corporate pension trustee has your pension money invested in the same funds you hold via other 'channels'.

As I've pointed out previously, figuring out whether your 10, 20 or 30 different funds actually represent a diversified portfolio, or ultimately all track each other, is no easy task. The existing product providers and IFAs can't really be expected to take a huge interest in your mish-mash of pension and non-pension, taxable and non-taxable investments (and let's not forget the mortgage albatross or any other liabilities you thought were assets). They tend to earn fees simply based on how much of your money they have 'under management'. So if your investments are scattered to the four winds, the revenue they earn from you is disproportionate to the work required to pull all the information together. In fact, it may not even be cost effective to pay the fees for an adviser to do a proper job.

While the FSA has reviewed retail distribution to try to resolve this issue, that review ignored any asset offered by a provider that the FSA doesn't regulate, including all consumer credit (and hence social lending via Zopa). The limited nature of the FSA's remit and resources prevent it from seeing the financial world holistically. Consider, too, that the FSA's own "MoneyMadeClear" website has different tabs for pensions, as opposed to savings and investments - when in both cases you're simply 'investing', and your money could end up in the same place through either channel.

As I've said before, we need a one-stop, low-cost service that allows you to track all your savings and investments, whether in or outside pensions, taxable or non-taxable; understand whether they're up, down or sideways; benchmark them against competing options; assess whether you are really diversified; avoid the pitfalls of transfer fees, dealing charges and other potentially hidden expenses; and cost-effectively trade your way out of any problems.

Remember, you are on your own: pay less, diversify more and be contrarian.

Plain Sailing Is Not Plain English

Just spent a windy week on Mardy Gras at Dartmouth Royal Regatta, helping a friend celebrate a 'significant birthday' with some former crewmates, under the name "X-Pistols". Through fair weather and foul we managed a creditable 10th out of 19 in the IRC 3 class, even with me scrambling around amongst the winches. Huge thanks for the extremely generous hospitality (Fingals is well worth a visit), patient child-minding and tutelage in all things nautical, including:

While I enjoyed the experience immensely, I confess that it's a bit of a challenge getting this post written with only a keyboard to steady the constant swaying of everything around me.

And it's somewhat of a relief to return to the ordinary usage of 'sheet', 'guy', 'kicker', 'winch', 'car', 'tack', 'gibe', 'kite', 'rail', 'head', 'boom', 'pole', 'header', 'knock', 'tail' and, last but by no means least, 'grind'.

Fortunately, I did not have to learn first hand the alternate meaning of either 'broach' or the dreaded 'Chinese gibe', which I'm assured is far worse than a taunt from a gentleman of the Far East.