This is all to do with how much you should / could get paid by being a freelance consultant - and it's a very important question for those professionals looking to start their own business.
There are two methods for assessing your fair billing rate, and both are important, the floor and the ceiling.
This is an excellent post by Christopher S Penn - which is so good I decided to copy it pretty much word for word.
The Floor
Here’s how to judge your minimum billing rate. This is the rate you must charge in order for you to justify your time and the project you’re working on. First, you need to know what your mandatory annual income is, the money you must earn in order to be able to survive and reasonably thrive. As a consultant, there’s a good chance you will be a 1099 consultant as well, so you’ll need to budget between 30-50% extra for health insurance, self employment tax, etc.
For example, let’s say you have $40,000 in actual expenses for the year, including rent, food, etc. Your IRS tax bracket is 25%, so tack on an additional $10K for federal taxes and $5K for state and local taxes. Health insurance for a small business owner varies wildly from state to state, but call it $10K to be safe. You’re now at $65,000.
Once you have your mandatory annual income, divide that by 2,080, the number of work hours in a year. (52 weeks x 40 hours a week). That’s your effective hourly In this example, your required hourly rate is $31.25/hour.
Now here’s the part almost every consultant I’ve ever talked to gets wrong. They assume 100% utilization, meaning every hour they’re clocked into work, they’re doing billable work. That’s far, far, far from the truth. The reality is that consultants are lucky to get 2/3 utilization, and a better, safer estimate is 50% utilization. The other 50% of your time will be spent building your business. Thus, apply the appropriate multiplier based on what you think or know your utilization rate to be. If you’re just getting started out, assume 50% to start. That would mean your billable hourly rate would be $62.50/hour. That’s the floor.
Don’t accept any project under that rate unless there’s some massive leverage that comes with the project, like the opportunity to move up the food chain somehow. If you’re billing a project with a “Set Rate”, decide how many hours it will take you to accomplish it, multiply times your hourly rate, and be sure to specify in your contract that the project is restricted to X hours, with additional hourly charges for every hour after that point.
This is something that I wish I had read earlier in my career after making a series of terribly costly learning errors in pricing models i.e. we didn't get paid enough.
The Ceiling
The ceiling is where you make the big money, but it’s much harder to judge, much harder to assess without a lot of experience. The ceiling fundamentally is based on how much your work is worth to your client. For example, let’s say you’ve been asked to speak at a conference and you’re a popular speaker. You know that you can put 50 butts in seats just by telling your fan base that you’ll be there. You know that the conference is charging $495 per ticket. Effectively, your value to the conference is $495 x 50, or $24,750. If you don’t speak, the conference may or may not fill those seats.
It’s reasonable, therefore, to ask for a percentage of that ticket fee as your pay. How much should you ask for? Some conferences are offering up to 50% of the ticket price as a commission in their affiliate programs (Jason Keath’s SocialFresh is one such excellent event), so it’s reasonable to ask for that as your fee outright or in an affiliate program if you’ve got a great audience/community.
Now think about the contrast there. If you charged your floor rate of $62.50/hour, even if you billed for an entire day for the conference, you’d only make $500 at floor rate. If you got 50% of ticket under your affiliate program (assuming 50 seats at $495/seat), you’d get $12,375. That’s a really, really gigantic difference, and it’s why you should look to finding your ceiling as quickly as possible.
In order to develop a fair ceiling rate, you have to know and understand deeply the industries and companies you’re serving so that you know the economic value of the work you’re providing. As another example, say you know a particular method for looking at Google Analytics, a way that can instantly increase the ROI of a company by 30%. If you know the company’s industry and know that 30% more in their digital marketing ROI is worth X, you can justify charging a percentage of X and explaining how your pricing works.
A third example might be a graphic designer whose work increases website conversion from 2% to 5%. What does a 3% increase in conversion mean? Well, if the designer understands the companies he works with, he or she can say, “you’ll earn more with my design because my methods improve conversion from 2% to 5%, and that’s worth X to your company in additional revenue, thus my fee is a percentage of X’s value over the first year my design will be in operation as long as my design hits 5% conversion. After that first year, 100% of the increased value will be profit to you“.
That’s the power of ceiling pricing – it goes far beyond day labor rates because you know what your work is worth, and once you explain that to your clients, chances are they’ll be okay with it. Why? Because it demonstrates your understanding of their business and the value you are providing, and you have a performance target built in. If your client reaches 5% website conversion, you get paid a large fee because you created the value they were seeking.
Which is where Great Marketing Works is now heading - a new business model based on understanding the client's business not just understanding the client's industry or position.
We will therefore be doing a lot less work with small businesses and a lot more with established ones that understand the ROI from what we do - and have the commercial cashflow to instantly benefit from it.
Conclusion
Your goal in doing any kind of consulting is to get to your ceiling rate as soon as practical, while never violating the floor rate. That means developing a strong, deep understanding of the value of your work to your clients and moving away from the floor where you’re just another hired hand whose work quality may or may not impact their business.
It also means that you have to think about your personal brand a lot more than perhaps you did before... which is what I think I will blog about next week... Which all links in to our linkedin training... but that's another story...
Monday, 2 July 2012
Friday, 29 June 2012
Thinking of ships. Another Oli moment. About Leadership... pun intended as it's Friday.
Thanks Oli - this is taken from his excellent blog.
This is all about leadership. And comes from Andrew St George.
Andrew St George knows a thing or two about a life on the ocean waves. After three years of research, he has just published his book, Royal Navy Way of Leadership.
where he lists twelve leadership qualities.
These have been gleaned from literally hundreds of interviews with serving and retired members of the armed forces. At the very least, they are inspiring food for thought;
1) Capacity for Judgement and Decision Making (“the ability to judge, decide and convey that decision succinctly and persuasively depends on high levels of thoughtfulness and intellect, and the ability to decide and to act fast”)
2) Cheerfulness (“no one follows a pessimist and sense of humour is part of Royal Navy ethos”)
3) Clarity and Vision (“the key aim of any leader is clarity of intent so that people know where they stand”)
4) Communication Skills (“great leaders communicate in all ways: by the way they stand, speak, write and work. However, great leaders are also great listeners”)
5) Confidence (“in oneself and in others”)
6) Humanity and Humility (“the other leadership qualities cannot display themsleves without this quality”)Something Dan Sodergren really must learn...
7) Innovation (“being creative, resourceful, agile and sometimes lateral rather than direct”)
8 ) Integrity (“integrity and trustworthiness are important moral standards. They are conveyed and tested with every decision and every action”)
9) Moral and Physical Courage (“a rare quality, and essential for leadership”)
10) Professional Knowledge (“all other leadership qualities depend on this foundation”)
11) Stamina (“most great leaders have stamina, both physical and moral, which makes them highly resilient as individuals”)
12) Trust (“the ability to trut and be trusted as an individual, a team or a unit”)
This is all about leadership. And comes from Andrew St George.
Andrew St George knows a thing or two about a life on the ocean waves. After three years of research, he has just published his book, Royal Navy Way of Leadership.
where he lists twelve leadership qualities.
These have been gleaned from literally hundreds of interviews with serving and retired members of the armed forces. At the very least, they are inspiring food for thought;
1) Capacity for Judgement and Decision Making (“the ability to judge, decide and convey that decision succinctly and persuasively depends on high levels of thoughtfulness and intellect, and the ability to decide and to act fast”)
2) Cheerfulness (“no one follows a pessimist and sense of humour is part of Royal Navy ethos”)
3) Clarity and Vision (“the key aim of any leader is clarity of intent so that people know where they stand”)
4) Communication Skills (“great leaders communicate in all ways: by the way they stand, speak, write and work. However, great leaders are also great listeners”)
5) Confidence (“in oneself and in others”)
6) Humanity and Humility (“the other leadership qualities cannot display themsleves without this quality”)Something Dan Sodergren really must learn...
7) Innovation (“being creative, resourceful, agile and sometimes lateral rather than direct”)
8 ) Integrity (“integrity and trustworthiness are important moral standards. They are conveyed and tested with every decision and every action”)
9) Moral and Physical Courage (“a rare quality, and essential for leadership”)
10) Professional Knowledge (“all other leadership qualities depend on this foundation”)
11) Stamina (“most great leaders have stamina, both physical and moral, which makes them highly resilient as individuals”)
12) Trust (“the ability to trut and be trusted as an individual, a team or a unit”)
You know when it's good - when you almost drop everything and go....
But before I explain what it is... that would get me to leave everything I know and love for 100 days - let me just say this:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the
work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” Antoine de Saint Exupery
Now this comes from a blog by the very man who told me about the event.
An event which is sooooo wonderful I would have come on it if I could.
Luckily, for me time stopped me. Not a lack of time. But time itself. As the applications have past. But next year (if we have a next year) it is my goal to go on it.
“20 Mentors. 100 days. 1 ship. 14 countries. 10 ventures. 1 belief that entrepreneurship will change the world”.
Unreasonable at Sea is a mentor driven accelerator for tech entrepreneurs who desire to take their ventures into new international markets.
Instead of uniting entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial Hub of Boulder (as Unreasonable Institute does), they have partnered with Semester at Sea to launch an accelerator on a ship as it travels more than 25,000 nautical miles around the globe to 14 international destinations.
Over the course of the 100 day accelerator, the 10 companies they work with will have the chance to… explore the local economies of 14 countries where they will experiment in taking their technology to market and will bridge connections with top government officials, foundations, venture capitalists, and serial entrepreneurs.
Bring 2-3 core members of their founding team for the entirety of the program
Be mentored by 20 world-class serial entrepreneurs and innovators who will join us on the ship,
Be connected to and form relationships with top-tier globally centric venture capital funds and foundations.
And guess when the application process was over....
Last week!
Sometimes it would be better to not know than to know too late.
Or sometimes it is better to know people like Oli Barrett a little earlier in your life :)
By next year we will have launched our international marketplace for customizable mobile games - and this is what I will take with me :) (this is my new BHAG)
What I love about this idea - is that they have decided to leave Colorado and yet still manage to do some greatmarketing for it. Manchester take note!
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the
work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” Antoine de Saint Exupery
Now this comes from a blog by the very man who told me about the event.
An event which is sooooo wonderful I would have come on it if I could.
Luckily, for me time stopped me. Not a lack of time. But time itself. As the applications have past. But next year (if we have a next year) it is my goal to go on it.
“20 Mentors. 100 days. 1 ship. 14 countries. 10 ventures. 1 belief that entrepreneurship will change the world”.
Unreasonable at Sea is a mentor driven accelerator for tech entrepreneurs who desire to take their ventures into new international markets.
Instead of uniting entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial Hub of Boulder (as Unreasonable Institute does), they have partnered with Semester at Sea to launch an accelerator on a ship as it travels more than 25,000 nautical miles around the globe to 14 international destinations.
Over the course of the 100 day accelerator, the 10 companies they work with will have the chance to… explore the local economies of 14 countries where they will experiment in taking their technology to market and will bridge connections with top government officials, foundations, venture capitalists, and serial entrepreneurs.
Bring 2-3 core members of their founding team for the entirety of the program
Be mentored by 20 world-class serial entrepreneurs and innovators who will join us on the ship,
Be connected to and form relationships with top-tier globally centric venture capital funds and foundations.
And guess when the application process was over....
Last week!
Sometimes it would be better to not know than to know too late.
Or sometimes it is better to know people like Oli Barrett a little earlier in your life :)
By next year we will have launched our international marketplace for customizable mobile games - and this is what I will take with me :) (this is my new BHAG)
What I love about this idea - is that they have decided to leave Colorado and yet still manage to do some greatmarketing for it. Manchester take note!
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Worth thinkg about after a training session with New Directions - 7 Ways to Disrupt your Chosen Industry
I just finished a rather lovely trainig half day with MMU and some fine students who wish to take a New Direction in life and maybe start their own businesses.
I was, of course, talking mainly about guerrilla marketing and the amazing changes that digital marketing and mobile marketing are bringing to the world.
I then read the below from Fast Company - and loved it so much - I had to pop it below. So there you go.
To all of your reading this blog from New Directions - congrats to you and good luck with the new year ahead.
Just remember... Massive disruption is coming, and the only question is whether your idea is going to cause it or fall victim to it. Disruption is not easy--either to create or to confront. We have no illusions about that.
But in the spirit of helping established firms best serve their customers, we offer seven ways your firm could disrupt its own industry, raising the standards of customer experience and creating new opportunities for growth:
1) Totally eliminate your industry’s persistent customer pain points.
Each industry has practices that drive customers crazy.
Technology providers drive customers crazy with technical support that often requires long waits on hold and hopelessly complex interactions (“Just find the serial number on the back of your device and type that into the space provided along with your IP address and the exact wording of the error message you encountered”).
Unsurprisingly, this is the exact type of practice that causes customers to believe a company is behaving stupidly.
What practices exist in your industry that drive customers crazy? How do all companies in your industry behave stupidly? Identify these types of practices, and wipe them out.
Think: can we turn our process or perspective around, to look through the customer’s eyes as though they were the company and we were the customers?
2) Dramatically reduce complexity.
As we write this in November 2011, a company we have been tracking for some time--Simple, formerly known as BankSimple--is trying to take a machete to the insanely complex and confusing world of consumer banking.
Recognizing that banks do a pretty good job of managing money but a poor job of managing customers, Simple has been designing vastly simpler customer interfaces and tools.
Simple plans to partner with, not compete against, established banks. They’ll manage the customers while their banking partners manage the money.
The more complex the processes and practices in your industry, the greater your opportunity to gain competitive advantage by simplifying them. Yes, doing so will be very hard. But that’s the whole point; the first firm to do so gains tremendous advantages.
3) Cut prices 90 percent (or more).
Incremental change doesn’t disrupt an industry; radical change does. Radical price reductions require radical new processes and business models. Smartphones and tablets create numerous opportunities to identify these. Recently we replaced a $500 marine navigation unit with a $20 iPad app that works better.
You don’t cut prices by 90 percent through marginal improvements in existing products. You do it by asking, “What problem are we trying to solve for the customer, and how do these disruptive forces create opportunities for us to solve it in a far more efficient manner?”
4) Make stupid objects smart.
We didn’t think this one up. The race is on to make everything smart, and the dumber your products were to begin with, the greater the opportunity to make them smart.
Think of a garbage dumpster that calls central dispatch when it is full, eliminating the need for the customer to do so or your office to send a driver out unnecessarily. That same dumpster could warn the customer when it is overweight, and point out that it would be cheaper to empty it now than to further overfill it.
No offense to dogs, but their collars could alert owners when the dog wanders away, barks excessively, or jumps on the furniture.
Light bulbs could flash before they burn out. Baseballs could announce how fast they were thrown. Plants could politely request water when they are too dry, or shout out when you try to overwater them.
Take every product you sell, and make it smart…or accept the fact that you must forever more compete on price and accept low margins.
5) Teach your company to talk.
Apple's Siri personal assistant on the iPhone allows you to have a conversation with your phone. Your iPhone can now access the Internet as well as the information it stores, both understanding and responding appropriately to your statements.
Flash-forward two to five years from now. What if your company could talk to customers? We don’t mean that your employees talk on behalf on the company. We mean that a digital, computerized persona speaks on behalf of your firm.
It takes orders. It provides support. It answers questions. It upsells. It issues refunds. All of this, and more, in response to verbal requests by customers.
The toughest part of this challenge is not technical, although a few problems still need to be solved.
The tough part is knocking down the walls that separate your databases and departments. It’s deciding whose product gets cross-sold, who gets “credit” for sales, and who “owns” the customer.
Our view is simple. No one owns the customer, and you either do what’s best for the customer or you will lose him. But the real question we want to put forward is this: what happens if your competitors’ companies talk, but yours doesn’t?
6) Be utterly transparent
Think: not just no secrets, but also no spin.
The concepts of social influence and pervasive memory will make it increasingly difficult for companies to hide from dissatisfied customers, negative reviews, and faulty products.
What if your company didn’t simply try to stop hiding, but instead radically embraced the truth? How might it impact your culture to decide that your firm would be the most powerful force in your industry making certain that every speck of the truth was obvious to every customer, analyst, and reviewer?
Would it change your reward systems? Would it impact employee motivation? Might it cause changes in the kind of employees you attract and retain?
We’re pretty opinionated in this regard. The truth is coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But most firms won’t recognize this until it happens. Better to get far out in front while confusion reigns.
7) Make loyalty dramatically easier than disloyalty.
According to Don Clark writing in his Wall Street Journal blog, Intel executive Mooly Eden once asked an audience how many had cellphones, and then how many were married.
Then, he asked if any of the married people would be willing to hand over their phone if their spouse lost his or hers. None would. “That is my point,” said Eden. “That is personalization.” By definition, when companies act smart they are personalizing the way they interact with and serve customers. Once you start delivering personalization, you create immense opportunities to make loyalty more convenient than disloyalty:
You can store customer preferences, and act on them.
You can save the customer time, money, or effort--especially by eliminating repetitive tasks.
You can provide auto-replenishment of needed supplies.
You can monitor products remotely, and service them before they break instead of afterwards.
Think about every major purchase decision your customers face in your industry. How can you make it easier for customers to remain with your firm? Now, think even bigger. Can it be five or ten times easier? Subtlety can be lost on today’s customers.
The challenge is to make loyalty so much more convenient, so radically easy, that customers won’t even consider switching to a competitor. Ever.
I was, of course, talking mainly about guerrilla marketing and the amazing changes that digital marketing and mobile marketing are bringing to the world.
I then read the below from Fast Company - and loved it so much - I had to pop it below. So there you go.
To all of your reading this blog from New Directions - congrats to you and good luck with the new year ahead.
Just remember... Massive disruption is coming, and the only question is whether your idea is going to cause it or fall victim to it. Disruption is not easy--either to create or to confront. We have no illusions about that.
But in the spirit of helping established firms best serve their customers, we offer seven ways your firm could disrupt its own industry, raising the standards of customer experience and creating new opportunities for growth:
1) Totally eliminate your industry’s persistent customer pain points.
Each industry has practices that drive customers crazy.
Technology providers drive customers crazy with technical support that often requires long waits on hold and hopelessly complex interactions (“Just find the serial number on the back of your device and type that into the space provided along with your IP address and the exact wording of the error message you encountered”).
Unsurprisingly, this is the exact type of practice that causes customers to believe a company is behaving stupidly.
What practices exist in your industry that drive customers crazy? How do all companies in your industry behave stupidly? Identify these types of practices, and wipe them out.
Think: can we turn our process or perspective around, to look through the customer’s eyes as though they were the company and we were the customers?
2) Dramatically reduce complexity.
As we write this in November 2011, a company we have been tracking for some time--Simple, formerly known as BankSimple--is trying to take a machete to the insanely complex and confusing world of consumer banking.
Recognizing that banks do a pretty good job of managing money but a poor job of managing customers, Simple has been designing vastly simpler customer interfaces and tools.
Simple plans to partner with, not compete against, established banks. They’ll manage the customers while their banking partners manage the money.
The more complex the processes and practices in your industry, the greater your opportunity to gain competitive advantage by simplifying them. Yes, doing so will be very hard. But that’s the whole point; the first firm to do so gains tremendous advantages.
3) Cut prices 90 percent (or more).
Incremental change doesn’t disrupt an industry; radical change does. Radical price reductions require radical new processes and business models. Smartphones and tablets create numerous opportunities to identify these. Recently we replaced a $500 marine navigation unit with a $20 iPad app that works better.
You don’t cut prices by 90 percent through marginal improvements in existing products. You do it by asking, “What problem are we trying to solve for the customer, and how do these disruptive forces create opportunities for us to solve it in a far more efficient manner?”
4) Make stupid objects smart.
We didn’t think this one up. The race is on to make everything smart, and the dumber your products were to begin with, the greater the opportunity to make them smart.
Think of a garbage dumpster that calls central dispatch when it is full, eliminating the need for the customer to do so or your office to send a driver out unnecessarily. That same dumpster could warn the customer when it is overweight, and point out that it would be cheaper to empty it now than to further overfill it.
No offense to dogs, but their collars could alert owners when the dog wanders away, barks excessively, or jumps on the furniture.
Light bulbs could flash before they burn out. Baseballs could announce how fast they were thrown. Plants could politely request water when they are too dry, or shout out when you try to overwater them.
Take every product you sell, and make it smart…or accept the fact that you must forever more compete on price and accept low margins.
5) Teach your company to talk.
Apple's Siri personal assistant on the iPhone allows you to have a conversation with your phone. Your iPhone can now access the Internet as well as the information it stores, both understanding and responding appropriately to your statements.
Flash-forward two to five years from now. What if your company could talk to customers? We don’t mean that your employees talk on behalf on the company. We mean that a digital, computerized persona speaks on behalf of your firm.
It takes orders. It provides support. It answers questions. It upsells. It issues refunds. All of this, and more, in response to verbal requests by customers.
The toughest part of this challenge is not technical, although a few problems still need to be solved.
The tough part is knocking down the walls that separate your databases and departments. It’s deciding whose product gets cross-sold, who gets “credit” for sales, and who “owns” the customer.
Our view is simple. No one owns the customer, and you either do what’s best for the customer or you will lose him. But the real question we want to put forward is this: what happens if your competitors’ companies talk, but yours doesn’t?
6) Be utterly transparent
Think: not just no secrets, but also no spin.
The concepts of social influence and pervasive memory will make it increasingly difficult for companies to hide from dissatisfied customers, negative reviews, and faulty products.
What if your company didn’t simply try to stop hiding, but instead radically embraced the truth? How might it impact your culture to decide that your firm would be the most powerful force in your industry making certain that every speck of the truth was obvious to every customer, analyst, and reviewer?
Would it change your reward systems? Would it impact employee motivation? Might it cause changes in the kind of employees you attract and retain?
We’re pretty opinionated in this regard. The truth is coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But most firms won’t recognize this until it happens. Better to get far out in front while confusion reigns.
7) Make loyalty dramatically easier than disloyalty.
According to Don Clark writing in his Wall Street Journal blog, Intel executive Mooly Eden once asked an audience how many had cellphones, and then how many were married.
Then, he asked if any of the married people would be willing to hand over their phone if their spouse lost his or hers. None would. “That is my point,” said Eden. “That is personalization.” By definition, when companies act smart they are personalizing the way they interact with and serve customers. Once you start delivering personalization, you create immense opportunities to make loyalty more convenient than disloyalty:
You can store customer preferences, and act on them.
You can save the customer time, money, or effort--especially by eliminating repetitive tasks.
You can provide auto-replenishment of needed supplies.
You can monitor products remotely, and service them before they break instead of afterwards.
Think about every major purchase decision your customers face in your industry. How can you make it easier for customers to remain with your firm? Now, think even bigger. Can it be five or ten times easier? Subtlety can be lost on today’s customers.
The challenge is to make loyalty so much more convenient, so radically easy, that customers won’t even consider switching to a competitor. Ever.
Thursday, 31 May 2012
The forewarned flood will come - but it will not be water....
We will be drowning in DATA...
The growing world population combined with an increasing number of smart devices, faster broadband speeds, more Internet videos and growth in WiFi connections will see global Internet traffic surge, Cisco predicts. And rightly so...
By 2016, global IP traffic will hit 1.3 zettabytes a year, nearly four times its 2011 level. Which is more than an early prediction i.e. only of a couple of months ago.
One zettabyte equals 1 billion terabytes. As of 2009, the entire Internet contained about half a zettabyte, or 500 exabytes, of information.
Consumer videos will be the major driver of growth, Cisco predicted.
By 2016, 56 exabytes of Internet traffic a month will go over WiFi, Cisco projected. That's over half the world's total Internet traffic.
Cisco's predictions might be conservative. "Every time we make these projections, the entire industry has been wrong," Jim McGregor, president of Tirias Research, told TechNewsWorld. "The applications and the market are still growing much faster than anyone could have imagined." Which is why when we chatted to Dave the Futurist last year - the numbers were different (a lot less - and still scary!)
By 2016, Cisco forecasts that there will be nearly 19 billion connections, as the proliferation of mobile devices and machine-to-machine links drives up demand for connectivity. That's about 2.5 connections for every person on the planet, almost double the 2011 total of 10.3 billion connections. This IS the internet of everything folks - this is BIG DATA.
There will be 3.4 billion Internet users by 2016, Cisco expects. That's about 45 percent of the global population projected by United Nations estimates.
Fixed broadband speeds will almost quadruple, from 9 Mbps in 2011 to 34 Mbps in 2016, Cisco predicts. About 1.2 million minutes' worth of video will shunt across the Internet every second. There will be about 1.5 billion Internet video users by 2016, nearly twice the 792 million racked up in 2011.
Global P2P traffic in 2016 will account for 54 percent of global consumer Internet file-sharing traffic. That's almost 30 percent lower than the 77 percent of global sharing traffic P2P accounted for in 2011. However, the actual amount of P2P traffic will increase from 4.6 exabytes a month in 2011 to 10 exabytes a month by 2016.
"Let's hope that the network continues to grow robustly," Tirias' McGregor said. "We really don't know the potential impact of external factors such as a period of high solar activity. Nature and other external factors have a funny way of causing havoc when you least expect it."
So solar flares - predicted for the end of this year - a transit of venus - a flood of data - it could be more than interesting come the end of the year... and epoch.
The growing world population combined with an increasing number of smart devices, faster broadband speeds, more Internet videos and growth in WiFi connections will see global Internet traffic surge, Cisco predicts. And rightly so...
By 2016, global IP traffic will hit 1.3 zettabytes a year, nearly four times its 2011 level. Which is more than an early prediction i.e. only of a couple of months ago.
One zettabyte equals 1 billion terabytes. As of 2009, the entire Internet contained about half a zettabyte, or 500 exabytes, of information.
Consumer videos will be the major driver of growth, Cisco predicted.
By 2016, 56 exabytes of Internet traffic a month will go over WiFi, Cisco projected. That's over half the world's total Internet traffic.
Cisco's predictions might be conservative. "Every time we make these projections, the entire industry has been wrong," Jim McGregor, president of Tirias Research, told TechNewsWorld. "The applications and the market are still growing much faster than anyone could have imagined." Which is why when we chatted to Dave the Futurist last year - the numbers were different (a lot less - and still scary!)
By 2016, Cisco forecasts that there will be nearly 19 billion connections, as the proliferation of mobile devices and machine-to-machine links drives up demand for connectivity. That's about 2.5 connections for every person on the planet, almost double the 2011 total of 10.3 billion connections. This IS the internet of everything folks - this is BIG DATA.
There will be 3.4 billion Internet users by 2016, Cisco expects. That's about 45 percent of the global population projected by United Nations estimates.
Fixed broadband speeds will almost quadruple, from 9 Mbps in 2011 to 34 Mbps in 2016, Cisco predicts. About 1.2 million minutes' worth of video will shunt across the Internet every second. There will be about 1.5 billion Internet video users by 2016, nearly twice the 792 million racked up in 2011.
Global P2P traffic in 2016 will account for 54 percent of global consumer Internet file-sharing traffic. That's almost 30 percent lower than the 77 percent of global sharing traffic P2P accounted for in 2011. However, the actual amount of P2P traffic will increase from 4.6 exabytes a month in 2011 to 10 exabytes a month by 2016.
"Let's hope that the network continues to grow robustly," Tirias' McGregor said. "We really don't know the potential impact of external factors such as a period of high solar activity. Nature and other external factors have a funny way of causing havoc when you least expect it."
So solar flares - predicted for the end of this year - a transit of venus - a flood of data - it could be more than interesting come the end of the year... and epoch.
Friday, 25 May 2012
It's never what you are - but what you do. Wise words...
No they don't come from the Dark Knight. They come from someone of a very different ilk - a lady called Heidi Grant Halvorson - who is a motivational psychologist and writes some lovely stuff.
So I simple copy and pasted what I loved about her article which is here.
As it turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.
1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague — be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it.
2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers. Which means I WILL be going down to London this weekend - as just invited by the government.
However, Heidi takes this idea a stage further than just turning up - To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.
3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.
4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Which is something I always do.
Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.
Another thing which does the same - is telling people your goals! Which is something I didn't believe until I watched a lovely three minute presentation in TED - After hitting on a brilliant new life plan, our first instinct is to tell someone, but Derek Sivers says it's better to keep goals secret. He presents research stretching as far back as the 1920s to show why people who talk about their ambitions may be less likely to achieve them.
5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.
Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.
6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.
7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.
To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.
8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.
9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.
If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.
It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.
I hope you liked the above as much as I did - I think I scored about 5.5 out of 9. Which explains a lot and shows me where I can get MUCH MUCH better - you see I might be great at training and digital, social and mobile marketing - but I aint on that beach of success quite just yet. Dan Sodergren - as a person - needs a bit more work.
So I simple copy and pasted what I loved about her article which is here.
As it turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.
1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague — be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it.
2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers. Which means I WILL be going down to London this weekend - as just invited by the government.
However, Heidi takes this idea a stage further than just turning up - To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.
3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.
4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Which is something I always do.
Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.
Another thing which does the same - is telling people your goals! Which is something I didn't believe until I watched a lovely three minute presentation in TED - After hitting on a brilliant new life plan, our first instinct is to tell someone, but Derek Sivers says it's better to keep goals secret. He presents research stretching as far back as the 1920s to show why people who talk about their ambitions may be less likely to achieve them.
5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.
Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.
6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.
7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.
To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.
8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.
9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.
If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.
It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.
I hope you liked the above as much as I did - I think I scored about 5.5 out of 9. Which explains a lot and shows me where I can get MUCH MUCH better - you see I might be great at training and digital, social and mobile marketing - but I aint on that beach of success quite just yet. Dan Sodergren - as a person - needs a bit more work.
Monday, 21 May 2012
I just returned from SAScon. And met with some very cool and clever people.
I just returned from SAScon. And met with some very cool and clever people (and some fools too)
The below are comments from a former rather than latter i.e. a clever person - called Barry Adams who is the senior internet marketer for search at Pierce Communications in Belfast.
When he’s not helping his clients achieve online world domination, he writes blogs for State of Search and Search News Central as well as the occassional rant on his own blog www.BarryAdams.co.uk
Here are his SAScon Six…
Don’t follow hypes
Whenever you read about the latest app, new social website, or exciting new technology to hit the internet, always put things in perspective before you eagerly jump on the bandwagon.
Put your client first
The first thing you should be contemplating whenever you want to use a new channel or tactic is ‘what’s in it for the client’? Never do something just for the sake of doing it, even if it’s the hip & trendy thing to do.
Distrust industry ‘thought leaders’
The people who are most famous in any industry – especially SEO and social – are usually the ones that have a vested interest in being and staying famous. That means they usually have something to sell. Keep their commercial interests in mind whenever you read expert advice, and you’ll soon be able to spot the gaps in their logic.
Try stuff out
Don’t just use tried & tested methods. Don’t stick to ‘best practices’ because someone else told you to. Try stuff out – preferably on test sites rather than client properties – and see for yourself what works and what doesn’t.
Break the mould
Following the rules religiously is rarely the most effective method for achieving success. The biggest winners are those that are willing to do things differently.
Get drunk
Or, more specifically, get industry veterans drunk. Catch them at a post-conference social event and buy them a few beers. Chances are they’ll share interesting tidbits with you that would otherwise never be shared. ;)
The below are comments from a former rather than latter i.e. a clever person - called Barry Adams who is the senior internet marketer for search at Pierce Communications in Belfast.
When he’s not helping his clients achieve online world domination, he writes blogs for State of Search and Search News Central as well as the occassional rant on his own blog www.BarryAdams.co.uk
Here are his SAScon Six…
Don’t follow hypes
Whenever you read about the latest app, new social website, or exciting new technology to hit the internet, always put things in perspective before you eagerly jump on the bandwagon.
Put your client first
The first thing you should be contemplating whenever you want to use a new channel or tactic is ‘what’s in it for the client’? Never do something just for the sake of doing it, even if it’s the hip & trendy thing to do.
Distrust industry ‘thought leaders’
The people who are most famous in any industry – especially SEO and social – are usually the ones that have a vested interest in being and staying famous. That means they usually have something to sell. Keep their commercial interests in mind whenever you read expert advice, and you’ll soon be able to spot the gaps in their logic.
Try stuff out
Don’t just use tried & tested methods. Don’t stick to ‘best practices’ because someone else told you to. Try stuff out – preferably on test sites rather than client properties – and see for yourself what works and what doesn’t.
Break the mould
Following the rules religiously is rarely the most effective method for achieving success. The biggest winners are those that are willing to do things differently.
Get drunk
Or, more specifically, get industry veterans drunk. Catch them at a post-conference social event and buy them a few beers. Chances are they’ll share interesting tidbits with you that would otherwise never be shared. ;)
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