Thursday, February 17, 2011

Business brands for 24/7 workers

24/7 is a dream of efficiency for businesses.
Buying and consuming all day across the world.
Working across each timezone.

You probably work more than 9-5. And you probably check your email at night; at the weekend; again; and again. But that's ok. Because businesses do run all night, and because you might well have your best brainwave at night, or in the shower. And now you can capture it, and act on it, straight away.

We've got the technology to be more connected, and we can make the trade-offs in how we use it.

The acceptance of business as innate to our lives, rather than a prop for them, is changing our habits of consumption. e.g. Business products required in the home - e.g. broadband is often a domestic necessity to keep us online (witness those MP's expenses for it), e.g. Social products required in business - e.g. iPhones and iPads used for corporate email. Both products keep us working and playing all day long. Symbiotically we're connected in technology, but also in thought and focus on priorities of what we must do.

Business brands are having to move further away from the stereo-type "Business Man" to people who live and work in the same life. Accenture focused on marketing through Tiger Woods, to move Consulting to a favourite ground for mixing work and play. Cisco have demonstrated the benefits of their technology to people, more than just technology offices to create the 'Human Network'.

Opportunity to succeed comes from being able to demonstrate benefits to users, that reflect life of ambitions that inter-relate work as well as what we do outside it. Brands who can benefit our quality of life, and our success to manage colleagues, managers, friends and family will succeed in the complex web we've woven.

This is a guest blog, written by Phil Edelin, Brand Consultant for Dave.