"I am done with the Freemium Model" says Tyler Nichols

Tyler goes onto say....

"I am done with “free”. I have come to the realization that most people who want something for free will never, ever think of paying you, no matter how valuable they find your service. I found this cold hard fact out over this Christmas holiday with my free Letter From Santa site. The site uses a freemium model allowing people to create personalized printable santa letters for their children for free. In addition to the free version, I also offered a paid version that includes a higher resolution letter, a personalized envelope and door hanger for a nominal cost."

He goes on to explain that free customers where higher maintenance than the paying customers with free customers not reading the FAQ and then going on to mark his thank you letter as spam.

So let me get this straight, you just used my service to make something for your kid for free and then you nail me with a spam complaint?

Even though they had agreed in the privacy policy to the occasional email. Where as the paying customers didn't spam his letter and only 20 of them asked for help.

You can read his full post here and all the comments people have made. 

My only comment is that the whole point of the fermium model is that there has to be enough income from the paying customers to pay for the free service and still make a profit. So the business model has to meet this criteria or it isn't a viable business. Maybe he shouldn't have offered support to the free customers? Would that have made the difference?

Thoughts after attending Media & Digital Futures workshop at Salford University

I have just taken part in a very interesting, simulating and thought provoking workshop where as industry representatives we were asked to work through and comment on two scenarios as to how the Manchester city region might look in 2017. One had a positive slant and the other a more negative one. I was in one of two groups looking at the more negative scenario which was called the 'noise' scenario.

In a nutshell this scenario says that the UK will still be in recession, technology has advanced but businesses are struggling to make good use of it. The lack of variety of industries and decline of manufacturing has made the region unsustainable with the emphasis being on service and knowledge based.  It is difficult to generate revenue on line as consumers expect it to be free and although there are a large number of digital startups the business models are generally unsustainable.  There is a skills gap with the education system not geared up to produce students with the skills needed and so young people are not making the transition from education to employment. Digital technologies have disrupted rather than helped our everyday lives and people have become overwhelmed by the amount of information, communication and 'noise' coming at them. On top of that the city's digital infrastructure cannot handle the demand with rural areas only having limited access. Finally the region is over regulated, public transport is unreliable and expensive and although everyone is talking about the problems there are no radical strategies being put forward.

I have to say this scenario is not to far from where I feel we are now.

So to start with we were asked as a group to come up with 5 key points from the scenario to start the discussion. I came up with 4 which were..

1. There is no space for the little guy.
2. Education is not delivering equipped young people.
3. 'Free' is stifling innovation as it hard to produce a return on investment. Which is why we no longer make anything.
4. Both the transport and digital infrastructure are failing.

Others thoughts included a negative impact on families and society. We discussed how the use of computers smart phones and other devices has continued the impact on family cohesion, that eating in front of the TV, had started. Family members occupying the same space but back to back looking at screens rather than face to face round the dinner table. Another point was the lack of a 'ladder' structure where larger companies support and provide small businesses with work and then we started to explore more sustainable business models. The current funding cuts are already causing the social businesses to revisit their mix of commissions to social work proving free or subsidised services, with the need to make  a profit to replace the grant funding to support the social work.

Next we looked at placing these issues, as well as a number from a previous group, onto a matrix made up of more or less likely to happen against being harder or easier to resolve. These other issues generated some debate including one about people not able to understand the technology they were using which got us into 'digital natives' versus 'analogue grans'.

Then we looked at how some of the 'easier' & 'likely' issues might be resolved with the suggestion that the tech one would get resolved without too much intervention because more and more of the population will be digital natives. I made the point that although more and more people have access to the technology they don't necessarily have the skills to use them creatively.  However it was interesting to note that most of the points we placed in the 'likely' and 'hard' quadrant of the matrix and we didn't really have an opportunity to discuss how some of those could be resolved other than a consensus that education is key. One comment was our education system is still based on victorian principles and when you consider Carole Vorderman's report on Maths recently and the need for two different maths qualifications,  if you extend that out to all the other subjects we have a major issue with not preparing our young people for a life in a 'post modern' society, our education system at best is still turning out 'moderns'. With my apprenticeship assessors hat on I am only too aware that most of the graduates from the mountain of 'medja' degrees aren't ready to work in our industry, their degrees haven't given them the skills to work as new entrants but has generated the expectation that they can come straight in as directors or producers. So the industry has set up an apprenticeship scheme to take on 16 to 22 year old and give the training and experience to become valuable team players in the industry.

I then brought up the whole collaboration issue and coined the phrase 'collaborate or die". One of the repeating threads in all my research into how our industry is changing is the mantra of 'you must collaborate'. Unfortunately although we encourage our children to collaborate at an early age, once they hit primary school the concept of collaboration is pushed out and so we now have several generations that just aren't interested in collaborating on creative or business projects which is a real shame.

Then we were given the opportunity to identify 5 issues for our own business, again I came up with 4...

1. 'Free' on the internet makes developing viable business models more challenging!
2. How do I get above the 'noise'?
3. I need to create links with other businesses and collaborate.
4. The challenge is to persuade potential clients to buy my skills, as they feel more and more that they can do it themselves or they just don't value them. Just look at most corporate videos, the sound is rubbish!

Finally we all came back together and we shared the findings of all 4 groups and although we had been looking at two different scenarios the findings were remarkably similar.  One comment that struck me was we live in a 'greed economy' where the aim is to make as much money as possible so I can have the latest this that or the other, instead of the motivation being, doing what is best for the community whilst making enough money to be OK with my lot, going from a 'me based culture to an 'us' based one. In the light of the recent riots etc this really hit home with me.

I found the whole morning a very enlightening experience and I look forward to the outcomes of this research and hope that Salford University can take it further.

Faith should harness art's appeal

I came across this very interesting article in The Guardian by Jennie Hogan and here strap line is...

Tate Modern shows that art now inspires on a scale that religion once did. Churches should get a piece of the action

As she points out churches were once major patrons of the arts but no more....

Despite the centrality of faith in the art of centuries past, religious themes within contemporary art are fading fast. At Chelsea College of Art & Design, where I work as chaplain, God is dead. As students in their studios aspire to join the avant garde there is only a faint desire to look back at works in which the Christian tradition is central. Perhaps when universal themes such as death, suffering and delight are explored though a religious and theological lens the students cannot see them. Could it be then that art is replacing religion?

But as the article goes on to say it isn't all doom and gloom...

The Reformation damaged the natural connection between art and faith but some places are making serious attempts to heal it. All Hallows on the Wall in the City has created a venue, Wallspace, and describes itself as a spiritual home for visual art. St Paul's Cathedral may not attract the same numbers as Tate Modern, but the UK's most famous church has recently been commissioning work from prominent artists. Antony Gormley created Flare II, a shimmering, almost abstract form which revolves mysteriously below Wren's geometric staircase. Bill Viola is creating video installations for two altarpieces. Some commissioned works are explicitly religious but many others are not. Clearly, the dean and chapter are keen to explore faith though art. 

I know from the work we do with Wellspring helping Christian musicians as well as other artists, that many are not respected or understood and remain sat in the pew unable to use their gifts to express their response to God in church. The church also has a view that artists should give their gifts for free especially in this country. The church is no longer a patron of the arts commissioning (paying for) art in all its forms. There are all sorts of opportunities for engaging all sectors of our communities like asking artists to explore issues, as Jenny suggests, starting with the universal themes like birth, life, suffering, delight, and death.

Come on Church, engage with your communities and use people's creative talents to explore the issues that are front and centre in their lifes.

New 'Social Creativity' site for you to try

We have all heard about social media well now we have 'social creativity' and there is a new web site from the folk at 186 Networks Ltd who are clients of mine and they have just released a new social creativity site called Stringsta

Create, learn, work, play, think together.  Stringsta™ is an amazing new way to mash-up videos, audios, images and texts collaboratively!  Work with friends all over the globe to create, edit and publish rich
media content in one simple interface.  The free, open platform is plugged straight into YouTube®, enabling everyone to make use of the world’s biggest video library.

What is it for?

Stringsta is a collaborative rich media platform where groups of people or businesses  can create, learn, work, play and think together, wherever they are, whenever they choose.

Stringsta is for collaborative film making, story writing, brand developing, news gathering, e-learning, music making, scientific researching, project managing, documentary making, lyric writing, photo sharing, speech making, consumer researching, opinion mongering, audience engaging, travel writing, intelligence collecting, data pooling, design conceptualizing, feedback giving… 

I haven't tried it yet but I know they have been working hard on this for a long while, so have a look, try it out and see what you think.