By Andreas Weber, Head of Value
Analyst | Educator | Speaker | Influencer | Transformer
“Everything we need to know is right in front of our eyes!”
Over a period of around three decades I have been able to participate in over 550 national and international innovation projects, many of which I was responsible for myself. They always turned out well. For quite some time now, it has been apparent that innovation cannot be the goal, but rather a means to an end. Transformation is the goal. The logical consequence: Beyond Innovation. Transformation wanted — welcome #InfluenceB2B!
1. Keep moving!
First of all: I have — with a heavy heart — left Mainz, the city of Gutenberg, after spending around 30 years there. My new home is Frankfurt am Main: The financial metropolis with an ideal infrastructure, multi-cultural, cosmopolitan and innovative — in short, the city has a spirit that inspires.
Nevertheless: I will always remain connected to the values of Gutenberg’s Galaxy. Because despite all the negative talk, it’s more worthwhile than ever before to grapple with the world of print. Hardly any other other cultural technology, hardly any other sector that has penetrated our world so intensively and continuously, has held its ground so well over the centuries when it came to transforming our lives, our culture and our economy. The endless (and often fruitless) debates about the risks facing print due to the Internet have clouded our vision. Print, per se, can be disruptive, and we need to understand that it is a fundamentally important driver of transformation, and not a victim of it!
2. Stay ahead!
My basic idea: In order to benefit from the fantastic, irrevocable and irreversible changes of the digital age to the greatest extent possible, we must all find a way to understand transformation not only as the optimisation of existing things through (technical) innovation, but instead that transformation can be used as the sustainable (or better: fruitful) basis for all business activities.
3. A new world
The things I do are the result of thinking, creative discourse and transformation for the digital age. The hashtag #InfluenceB2B describes it best: an objective that goes far beyond publication and consulting/coaching. Good social skills geared towards smart storytelling, interactive conversations and communities represent the foundation for establishing sustainable relationships outside of one’s own disciplines. ValuePublishing, which I created in the run-up to drupa 2016, takes on a central role here: It became an important tool of an #InfluenceB2B programme which combined blogging, education, keynotes, coaching/advising and community organizing in a targeted manner on a kind of platform. The outstanding network effects are the decisive aspect here.
4. Transformation as the business
Transformation has strategic and operative dimensions. At the beginning, as already mentioned, we have thinking and discourse, not the actual activity. Those who still think that transformation means finding a ‘digital’ business model with optimised processes and then everything will be good have not even begun to understand the digital age!
Rather, it’s about comprehending the basic nature of transformation and, thanks to a more in-depth understanding, being able to gain new insights:
- Transformation requires and supports a sense of community and empathy, in order to establish a connection to reality in the digital age.
- The comprehensive insight into new and relevant technologies plus the smart adaptability of the resulting benefits are what actually get transformation moving in a beneficial way — and keep it going.
- The efficiency of transformation increases with the uncontrollable dynamics of every economic, cultural and social framework.
5. Effective work – amazing results!
My focus is on achieving and also sharing new insights through media-based and personal discourse. This requires a systematic approach which is based on exponential dynamics and not linearity. And the best thing: It works right from the beginning! Above all and precisely because of the outstanding network effects which I achieve with my ‘transformed’ working methods.
Here are a few of the key points (especially for those who like to use statistics):
- Daily contact with 5,000 to 10,000 active social media users (via tweets and an automated twitter/online news portal that is updated each day)
- Directly addressing up to 25,000 hand-picked decision-makers in real-time via sustainable storytelling and social conversations
- Powerful viral effects with maximum interactions through focussed messages (benchmark to date: 6.5 million impressions on a specific topic in a very short time).
- ValueBlog as a multi-media compendium (ISSN certified) which to date bundles specifically relevant findings in over 400 posts — with high internationality (to date, 90,000 unique viewers on ValueBlog from more than 125 countries, with up to 2,150 viewers per day)
- Real-time tracking and analysis with targeted evaluation possibilities, a kind of lightning market research on a wide variety of topics — on-demand
- Increased impact through global partnerships with international specialist groups, user groups, experts, pioneers and companies from a wide range of disciplines
- And last but not least, the H2H factor: Substantiated know-how from personal meetings with over 120,000 participants from all over the world during talks, seminars, workshops, lectures, executive briefings, etc.
6. Where is the beef?
Thanks to my network effects and conversations, no time is wasted with complex acquisition activities or briefings that start at zero. This is a lot of fun, as I can get dynamic things moving without any waste or loss and continually integrate new target people/groups who are interested in innovation topics like transformation. The ‘coverage’ in cultural and creative economies as well as the digital economy is continually growing.
Conclusion
The move from being a publisher/consultant with offices in Mainz to an initiator of an #InfluenceB2B programme in Frankfurt am Main opens up a whole new series of possibilities. And it works elsewhere as well, as my lecture tour to the mega city of São Paulo, the new hotspot for transformation, confirmed in August 2017. Prior to this trip I prepared my topic with blog posts and discussions with hundreds of new contacts, above all through LinkedIn, which provided me with a specific idea of the expectations there. The result: My business partners and audience were very satisfied (I received the best rating of my career) and I was able to strengthen and also expand my contacts in Latam with exciting new projects.
I have numerous other examples of my successes which I would be happy to tell you about in a personal conversation. Why not contact me, preferably via LinkedIn! — By the way: My business principle has not changed: You can choose between “Rent-a-Brain” on a daily basis or specific projects with a fixed budget. After all, things that prove themselves survive!
