Out of my box

Social media refers to the websites and applications that were designed to allow people to communicate more quickly, and to share content efficiently and in real-time.(The Balance Small Business, 2018)

Being able to share photos of you, what are your opinions, thoughts has transformed the way we live, and the way businesses operate.

Social media platforms are a cheap, easy way to connect with your customers, to increase awareness of your brand, and most importantly the ultimate business goal, to boost your leads and sales.(Marketing Insider Group, 2018)

It is indeed a more connected world, businesses can reach more than 4 million people in only a few minutes by using social media platforms, it is a very strong communication tools, and ignoring social media may lead to the failure.

The latest guest speaker at our DICE (digital ,innovation,creativity,enterprise) lectures, talked of the importance of using social media platforms to market and reach the segment market, Her name is Nadiyah Almutairi.

Nadiyah just graduated last year with an honor degree from Dublin City University, she currently works as a marketing officer, and she the nature of her job focuses more on digital communications, at Virgin mobile.

Virgin mobile Arabia is a new type of telecom company in the kingdom, and their mission is to make mobile better, one mobile phone at a time.  (Virginmobile.sa, 2018)

Nadiyah stated that Virgin mobile is indeed a new telecom company in the Arabian market, but they are capable of standing out in the tense competition of the telecom and mobile industry, As Virgin Mobile Arabia target aspects, they sell with the range of affordable prices, and they do have their own different business strategy, that is the core of the companies success.

The way Virgin Mobile Arabia operates and do business is a very strategic approach, they tend offer the highest flexibility possible in their work environment, as management is highly connected with their employees. As Nadiyah explained that she can easily go to the highest management and freely talk her mind, which shows how strong Virgin believes that communication is the key to success.                                   Nadiyah mentioned that their marketing team is considered ‘small’, the reason for that is that they tend to outsource, working with other agencies on different projects, unlike other telecom companies.

as a Marketing Officer in a small Marketing team , Nadiyah is involved in many projects such like digital projects, and communication projects, unlike big companies in the industry, where they have a whole team for each task, for example; huge companies will have a whole department just for the social media content creation.   Nadiyah believes that getting involved in many related projects will have a positive impact, giving you the chance to gain more skills in many related areas, and with the way they operate, in a very friendly work environment , it will lead employees to be more creative, unafraid to speak their mind , i could relate with what she mentioned about working in a small creative company, as i had a similar work experience, and it is true that when the highest management give their employees the chance to think outside of the box, marvelous results will show.

Furthermore, Nadiyah discussed how Virgin Mobile Arabia participate on social media platforms and how important it is for them to stay active and reach their target market.                                                                                                                         Virgin Mobile targets millennials; which are individuals who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century. (WhatIs.com, 2018). therefore, their tone of voice on social media platforms is so simple and straight forward. They make sure that they are active in more than one channels, as they also use social media platforms to advertise such like Anghami , snapchat, and Instagram.                                                              Her job is more focused on communication, communication the brand or any organizational goal through social media in a very easy to understand way, as many people will think that such posts are easy, Nadiyah states that easy posts like these are what keeps your account alive and your target market interested, as if your social media account is more likely to receive organic responds from real accounts if you posts puzzles and questions as a way of keeping the audience more engaged, the business social media account should not be only about the business it self, as you can create friendly interactions with your audience to keep them more loyal.(Social, 2018).

Nadiyah opened my eyes to another side of using social media platforms, as fun and easy it sounds, the truth is , using social media platforms have it own challenges that businesses need to work on, some of the challenges Nadiyah talked about were;

• People perception; as people will confuse Virgin Mobile with Virgin megastore, which will lead to a huge confusion and diffculties in their brand awarness strategy , as most costumers has already postioned Virgin brand to the mega store.
• Riyadh’s Chamber Of Commerce, as every social media have to be approved, as Virgin has faced many diffculties launching comeptitions to interact with their audience, as well as not being able to use many term such like ‘ we are the best’ as it may be considered fraud.
• Expensive social media advertising tool/conversion rate; at first you will think that social media is surely the cheaper advertising tool, however that is not 100% correct, as channels are becomeing more and more expensive, and can be booked all year , for example a trending hashtag on twitter can cost almost 90 thousand a day.
• and the most hard challenge is, the unexpected, social media never sleeps , you will never know when will the next trend be , and when should you be a part of it? as partipcating in trends is the cheap/ free advertisiment all busineses strive for, and the faster you partipcate, the better!

To sumup,  expecting the unexpeted is the only way a business can successed in such a competitve industry, to keep innovating is the key to success. Nadiyah surely is an example of how a person can manage swimming instead of drawning with all the hard tasks she has , as she mentioned ‘ jump in, it’s not about making alot of mistakes, it is about making the RIGHT mistakes’.

 

 

Bibilography:

The Balance Small Business. (2018). Learn What Social Media Is and How to Use It to Grow Your Business. [online] Available at: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-social-media-2890301 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

 

Marketing Insider Group. (2018). Why Social Media Is Important for Business Marketing | Marketing Insider Group. [online] Available at: https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/why-social-media-is-important-for-business-marketing/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

 

Virginmobile.sa. (2018). About Virgin Mobile. [online] Available at: https://virginmobile.sa/en/about-virgin/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

 

WhatIs.com. (2018). What is Millennials (Generation Y)? – Definition from WhatIs.com. [online] Available at: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/millennials-millennial-generation [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

 

Social. (2018). 8 Tips to Quickly Master Social Media For Businesses & Entrepreneurs. [online] Available at: https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-for-businesses [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

 

The Fourth industrial revolution; is the fourth major industrial era . it’s illustrated from the merging of technologies that is changing the way we physically act, and work, it leads to several breakthrough in different fields.

With all the intelligent robots, self-driving cars, we have already began a new revolution that will dramatically change our lives.

To demonstrate more, two guest speakers who are expertise of the industrial revolution has explained each revolution and all the digital trends that may lead to a revolution.

Introducing the speakers; Firstly we have Reef Alawwad, as the seven years experience she has from working at Accenture consulting company, a company that design and implement business transformations in partnership with the world’s leading companies, she was capable to explain the revolutions in a very easy to understand presentation. Secondly we also have a second speaker, Jack Molony, he is a senior consultant at New independent payment services, as Jack has stated the fact that as a tech consultant, the most important event that happened while he’s alive , was the fourth industrial evolution.

Furthermore, the two speakers have explained the 4^th industrial revolution revolution by revolution;

 

• The 1^st Revolution; it was below the 90s, which as Reef named ‘ The dark ages’ of services, where the industry were all about production, the focus was on mechanization to help people to their job ,
• The 2^nd revolution; at the 90’s where the named it the’ automation age , as Reef described the second revolution that was the globalization of automation and productivity , and as Jack mentioned it was name ‘ electrification’ where the electricity had a huge impact in the cost output.
• The 3^rd revolution: this revolution were at 2000’s, where Reef mentioned that this revolution integrated the business line of , customer focus, customer experience, and the focused automation. Where Jack stated that this revolution is named ‘informatization’ where it also introduced computers to job sectors.
• The 4^th revolution: this revolution started at 2010’s, where Reef called it ‘The digital age’ it is where new business models were introduced, and new digital generations like AI and blockchain. Molony did discuss the 4^th revolution in more detail, as he mentioned that in this revolution technologies were formed together as one to create new advanced technologies that had a huge impact on people’s lives.

Moreover, Molony gave detailed examples of what technologies were introduced in this revolution, and how important they are;

• Augmented reality ; Is what you imagine in your mind, can be seen as a picture in front of you, how it would look like in real life. Augmented reality have changed the shopping process, for example people can try out cosmetics before buying them by seeing it on a digital picture of them with the product, you do not need to try the product in real life to see how it would look on you, as well as checking how a piece of furniture would fit in your  home.

Studies showed that by 2020 people more than 250 million people will be shopping by AR.

• Artificial intelligence: AI has impacted PayPal to develop their security protection, as when they suspect harmful actions, the computer it self will react on it, as no human interaction will be needed. Another important example Jack mentioned was driving cars, as he believes would decrease the level of car accidents, and will spare people from traffic tickets. As he also noted that social and economical implications might be felt in all country’s with these changes.

 

• Cryptocurrency: the golden example for cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, you can set an account without having the need to provide your details like what central banks requires, it got to the point where central banks couldn’t keep ignoring the bitcoin boom , and needed to consider it as actual competition., however as Molony has noted that Bitcoins may offer a huge risk regarding the legal side banking, as criminal can use them.
• Advanced analytics; advanced analytics can influence country’s and not just company’s, as Russia was accused of influenced the US elections, as advanced analytics can be so detailed that it can tell us what happened?, why did it happen? And what will happen or how we make it happen? , The answers to the pervious questions can lead to a high understanding of how organizations can achieve success.

 

• Robotics & machine learning; robotics and automation are impacting the unemployment rate already, as a high percentage of jobs are being automated, people are losing their jobs to machines.

 

 

Moreover; the 4^th revolution are impacting not just how people behave/work, they also have a huge impact on governments forcing them to adapt into latest digital trends. Reef Alawwad as a consultant was able to be a part of participating the overcoming the challenges governments face while adapting to digital technology trends. Reef have illustrated the three top digital trends that challenges governments;

• Focus on citizen experience ; the government future strategy is to keep their focus on the citizen, , as the vision 2030 has made a huge shift in the work proposal and forced companies to change their directions to offer better citizen services.
• Unleash the power of data; to be able to satisfy your citizen, you need to develop a better understanding of their needs and wants, as governments are interested in collecting more Data to develop an insight to the citizens minds.
• Public-private innovation; Its when governments focus on supporting and recognizing creativity, like how the 2030 vision is focusing on entrepreneur.

 

To conclude, the 4^th revolution and all the digital trends in it are sculpting a new future for us, it will impact the economy in both positive and negative ways, as people and governments will face a lot of challenges trying to successfully adapt and implement digitalization.

Bibliography:

World Economic Forum. (2018). The Fourth Industrial Revolution, by Klaus Schwab. [online] Available at: https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab [Accessed 2 Nov. 2018].

Digitaltrends.com. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2018].

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2018). Industrial Revolution | Definition, Facts, & Summary. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution [Accessed 3 Nov. 2018]

HISTORY. (2018). Industrial Revolution. [online] Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/industrial-revolution [Accessed 3 Nov. 2018].

Dragonette, L. (2018). Artificial Intelligence – AI. [online] Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/artificial-intelligence-ai.asp [Accessed 4 Nov. 2018].

3Pillar Global. (2018). Augmented Reality – Introduction and its Real World Uses. [online] Available at: https://www.3pillarglobal.com/insights/augmented-reality-introduction-and-its-real-world-uses [Accessed 4 Nov. 2018].

 

Founded in 1998, Mike Becker created a small company that ended up transforming the toy industry, and pop culture worldwide.

Mike Becker , the original founder of Funko began describing his journey with a throwback in the past, how his friends introduced him to pop culture and toys, and how it became his way of having fun. In a matter of time Mike came up with the idea of starting his own company, a company that will be made out of passion, as he started to list ideas and look for inspiration, Mike found his ‘eureka’ moment while staring at the display of a toy store named ‘Sparkys’.

Mike searched for possible opportunities, he knew his product would succeed as it only need to see the light of the day, Funko’s First product was the Big-boy bubble-heads, as it sold fast, This was the begging of an undiscovered demand as bubble-heads became the addiction of demanding fans.

Mike made sure that passion and urge of having fun was the core of his company, as the name Funko stands for ‘Fun company’.

The company started to grow fast, as Mike did not hesitate to expand; he introduced new lines of bubble-heads, satisfying the market demand. Mike was certain that out there, people share the same passion and love he had for comics and bubble-heads, and that what keep him going. Funko allowed fans to relive their childhood, reliving the memories of cartoons in the past.

Mike’s started to create his own original product by just having fun, creating what he called “weird stuff that we liked”.

As Funko’s fan base started to grow, his fan mail started to fill up, as the CFO ( Chairman of fun) Mike made sure to spread Funko’s fun vibes through his fan base, Mike created the BOF (Box of fun) that he started sending out to fans, without knowing , Mike has created a more loyal fan-base. Mike knew that fans shared the same passion as his, and that is what gave his company the power to influence in the pop-culture and toys industry.

Moreover, Mike build his company out of the need to live out his fantasies and goals, to be able to share them with those who share the same passion of his. However, after almost seven years of hard work, in 2005, Mike has reached the point where he wanted to face new challenges.

Mike made sure that if the day comes for him to hand over the company to someone else, he will not hand over his life work to a random person, but to someone who shares the same passion of his, to keep up Funko’s spirit and vibes.

This person was ‘ Brain Mariotti’ Funko’s current CEO who were a collector himself, brain has observed Mike’s for the past years, he knew he had to prove himself, as he was giving the chance to work with what he loves the most was enough motivation for him.

Brain took Funko into new directions, with a vision that Mike did not really have. He builds on that foundation and took it to places that no one but he could have imagined. As Brain first leadership decision was to introduce a new product line that differed from the bubblehead character that funko was originally know of, his new products were more statues in nature but they still included the details of funkos originals.

The addiction of Funko has lead to creating a community of fans who are passionate of these toys, as friendship started to grow between collectors they share the love of these little toys and the love of having the feeling of being kids again. Love and passion these toys brought to fans was the source of value of these products, as fans were willing to spend their money in order to ‘ make them feel happy’.

 

Mike is one of the best examples of entrepreneurship, as entrepreneurship was explain as “entrepreneurship means being able to take action and having the courage to commit and persevere through all of the challenges and failures. It is a struggle that an entrepreneur is willing to battle. It is using past experiences and intelligence to make smart decisions. Entrepreneurs are able to transform their vision into a business.”- MJ Pedone, founder and CEO of Indra public relation.

Mike’s became an entrepreneur the moment he stepped up and started a company based only on his passion , as the entrepreneur he is , his person and business goals were inextricably linked, the goals was ‘ to have fun and share his passion’.

As entrepreneurs build their businesses to fulfill a personal goals, Mike created his company in propose of living out his fantasies and being able to share them. As Mike made it sound easy to sell out innovative product, it is actually hard to grow an innovative business in an already existing industry filled with competitors. Mike’s entrepreneurship changed the industry, it rised a new demand and need that was not discovered before, as new fans called “Funko made Pop culture a cool thing”, they change the product positing in the consumers mind.

He started with nothing but an idea, and organized the resources that were necessary to transform that idea into a real life business. He took the risks and he did not just look for opportunities, he created them!

Furthermore, as some might argue the he is not, I find Brain is another successful entrepreneur, he may not have created the company for just an idea, but he took a foundation and built to it, as said earlier; brain took Funko’s to new directions with his own vision, that no one but he could have achieved. He introduced new product that did not exist in the market before, he managed the company through his passion just like Mike, and took a lot of risks in the way, but he was determined that by passion and creativity Funko will rise even more.

Bibliography:

Funko, (2018), Funko1 [ONLINE]. Available at: http://geekandsundry.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Funko1. png [Accessed 19 October 2018].

MATT HEYWOOD, (2011), bobble-heads review [ONLINE]. Available at: http:/ /www.entertainmentbuddha.com/blog/wp-content /uploads /2011/03/IMAG0034.jpg [Accessed 19 October 2018].

Original Funko, (2016), Brian Mariotti explains why Dorbz are taking off! [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-6ssWUjHrU [Accessed 19 October 2018].

yoko mcCann, (2017), lauren solmonson [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.funko.com/blog/article/funatic-of-the-week-lauren-solmonson [Accessed 19 October 2018].

Bhide, A. (1996). Questions every entrepreneur must answer. p.122.

Clark, D. (2018). A Brief History of Funko. [online] News.entertainmentearth.com. Available at: https://news.entertainmentearth.com/2018/01/22/history-funko/ [Accessed 19 Oct. 2018].

Under30CEO. (2018). 10 Qualities of a Successful Entrepreneur. [online] Available at: http://under30ceo.com/10-qualities-of-a-successful-entrepreneur/ [Accessed 20 Oct. 2018].

 

Toppr-guides. (2018). Characteristics of Entrepreneurship: Definition, Concepts, Solved Example. [online] Available at: https://www.toppr.com/guides/business-studies/entrepreneurship-development/concepts-and-characteristics-of-entrepreneurship/ [Accessed 20 Oct. 2018].

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton