Steve van Wyk, CIO ING Bank – Building the preferred bank (with technology) !

October 25, 2010 By Remo Knops 1 Comment

Stress, the University of Twente’s largest study association, organized an awesome guest-lecture with Steve van Wyk, CIO @ ING Bank. The theme of the lecture is “Challenges @ ING” and one of the topics is the merger of the Postbank and ING, the challenges that came with it and how they were overcome.

In this article I will provide some of the interesting topics from the lecture, and for those who haven’t attended this lecture you really missed a great opportunity to have a detailed look at the technology-side of ING.

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

Who is Steve Van Wyk and why working for ING ?

Steve van Wyk briefly introduces himself and his family. He has Dutch roots, worked 11 years for Morgan Stanley in the USA and is now at ING for about 5 years now.

Remarkable was the fact that Steve van Wyk was at work in the Twin Towers at 9-11, because Morgan Stanley was at the second floor of tower two ! That day has made tremendous impact, and he will never forget how it required leadership. Not only to get the co-workers safe out of the building, but also a leader in terms of technology (off-load the data to other data centers and get the bank back online as soon as possible).

Honestly I think this is an event that shaped and polished someone as a person. Therefore I’m not surprised by his mantra that there are three important things in professional life:

People;
People;
and people !!

Why ING ?

Steve van Wyk shares three reasons why he loves working for ING:

Great entrepreneurial and bright people with lots of passion and corporate responsibility;
ING is an excellent brand and company, with exceptional distribution. Remark for example that ING developed the direct online (banking) model !
The ability to make a difference, personally as well as inspirational for the surrounding team Steve van Wyk works with on a daily basis.

Later in the Q&A session Steve van Wyk would share that he is most proud of the cultural change within his team and the whole organization, to make a difference and be aware of that ability every day. 🙂

Who is ING?

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

Despite probably most of us have a bankaccount at ING bank, it is interesting to ask the question “Who is ING ?” It extends the picture of who Steve van Wyk is and why he started working for ING.

ING

has 105.000 employees;
is active in over 40 countries worldwide;
is serving 85.000.000 clients;
… and has a rich history of over 130 years !

This rich history of over 130 years, mainly consists of mergers and acquisitions over time which were shown in a nice video “The History of ING“. A complementary overview of the history from ING can also be found on the ING Group wikipedia page. Take also a few minutes to read about the history of the ING lion in the logo of ING Group !

Technology @ ING – Some interesting statistics !

Technology is the ‘heart’ of the bank! Personally I do think that this statement is applicable to almost every company in whatever sector or industry. You simply can’t run a company anymore without technology or proper IT investments.

Steve van Wyk, elaborates on the following statistics, which provide an idea about the magnitude of technology (impact) at ING !

11,500 employees working on ING technology side, of which 5,000 work in operations and 5,500 in IT;
> 3300 applications;
> 10000 servers;
> 60000 laptops and desktops;
and the impressive amount of 5 petabytes of storage !!!

I’m not sure what percentage of servers is already a virtual server. On the Microsoft server and tools website you can read the following text:

“Server virtualization, also known as hardware virtualization, is a hot topic in the IT world because of the potential for serious economic benefits.”

The potential is not only aimed at economic benefits, but it can have a huge environmental impact as well, contribute to the decline of CO2 emisions in the whole IT sector.

Furthermore I was a little impressed about the 5 petabytes of storage, when the 1.5 Terabyte mark of storage has just been passed for consumer harddisks. Try to imagine what impressive amounts of storage a true web-company like Google uses? Anyway a lot of the banking transactions go digital:

160 million euro distributed each day in the Netherlands;
100 million euro is turned over at ING every 5 minutes, so calculate the losses for downtime of the systems;
>200,000 virus attacks per month;
+/- 16,000 incidents per month;

Quite interesting statistics, right ? In need to complement that 90% of the 16.000 incidents a month go without any disruption visible to the customer. Overall you can see the importance of technology and IT in banking, with a great opportunities for the (near) future !

Integration Postbank & ING (Bank)

One of the topics on the banner of the CIO lecture is the integration of Postbank and ING Bank, which are two independent entities. An obvious question is why integrate the two banks ?

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

Steve van Wyk explains the field of tension between customer needs and technological developments, and moreover the fact that you have to multiply the resulting investments by 2. Postbank and the ING Bank are two completely different systems, so you have to upgrade both, to compete in the market. Bost from a technical and financial perspective it makes perfectly senses to merge Postbank and ING Bank into a “new” bank.

The Postbank ING Bank merger in operational statistics:

9.8 million welcome packages;
10 million new banking-cards;
2.600 ATM machines re-branded;

And …

1.000.000 + lines of code changed;
2000+ technology employees involved;

Pretty impressive to change more than 1 million lines of code at the core of the banking system without any disruption of service (for the customer). It requires excellent planning, testing and clever implementation.

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

Migrate the data of 660.000 ING Bank customers;

Given the fact that ING and Postbank used completely different systems it is an impressive, technically complex task to migrate the data of 660k customers into the banking system of the “new” bank. When you take into account that daily life goes on, it is even more impressive because ING kept its shop open during the migration process:

1.000.000 mortgages administered by ING;
2.8 billion transactions through mijn.ing.nl;

The success of the (technical) merger Postbank and ING Bank is mainly driven by excellent technical people with lot of attention for details. Steve van Wyk describes it as “the passion to climb a mountain of complexity!”

Innovations @ ING (Bank)

Since I’m studying the master Innovation and Entrepreneurship @ University of Twente, this is an interesting part of the presentation.

Join ING Very Easily (JIVE)

Opening a new back-account at ING used to take you 20days, 4 bank visits and 6 mailings. After some thorough analysis of the process, and the application of new fresh approaches the customer leaves the bank with a working debit card and internet banking within 20 minutes.

The people with passion for the service are behind this success, who are “determined to challenge the status quo”. Remark the mantra of Steve van Wyk in the “Who is …” section of the article.

Model Office

The model office is an environment where ING and close technology partners (for example HP) can experiment how the use of new technology can be of strategic advantage.

It is a kind of innovation lab where new customer experience scenarios are tested. For example:

Your banking card is swallowed by the ATM machine you will directly receive an SMS message on your mobile phone, with a phone number to contact customer service or the directions to the nearest ING office (so you can get a new banking card);
Your money is swallowed by the ATM machine, because you are distracted and forget to take it out in a certain time-frame. The ATM machine swallows the money, and is directly transferred back to your bank-account. You are notified directly via multiple channels;
You need to book flight tickets but the balance on your bank account is critical. This innovation here is that a loan is directly and instantly offered to the customer, because it is cleverly integrated into the online ordering and payment process.

A video showed is those scenario’s in a lab-like environment where the different new interactions can be tested and if necessary optimized. It is great to see this kind of experimentation on the cutting edge of technology and business sides of the ING Bank.

Looking at opportunities that open up thanks to technology;
Listening to the needs of customers;
Innovative and creative thinking;

New technology is an enabler for new business models and a driver for new innovations. Not only the “passion for innovation” is key here, but people with an entrepreneurial mindset can really add value to the ING Bank in my personal opinion.

A tool like the business model canvas can really help to set-up different experiments to test new innovations or validate new business- and/or revenue models.

Times are changing, explore the future of ING

Professor Ir. Roel Pieper, explained the techniques of future mapping and scenario planning during the symposium “Vision on the future”. With the rapidly changing times, certainly in terms of technology, these techniques become relevant tools to anticipate on future changes. However lets have a look at how times changed for ING.

Times are changing, rapidly

Traditionally people deposited their money into banks;
It was kept in safes … it was accessed through checks;
Today, trillions of banking transactions fly through cyberspace with astonishing speed;

Without any doubt the traditional way of banking has taken a few leaps, with technology as a main driver. It’s impossible to imagine life today without internet banking and banking cards.

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

You don’t need 150 years of tradition to start a bank anymore;
Internet and mobile technology opens the door to many competitors for traditional banks …. and perhaps takes banks out of the equation;
People don’t need banks, they need banking !
What of Google starts a bank tomorrow ?
Digital is the new norm, and what if we are only half way ?

PayPal is one of the examples that directly comes up in my mind, when I think about competition -driven by internet- for banks. PayPal facilitates banking, however you still need to connect the PayPal account to an existing bank account.

“What if Google starts a bank tomorrow ?”

This is a highly exciting and very interesting future scenario to think about. Google has the financial means, the company has a strong focus on services, and Google is a motor for economic growth. In concept it doesn’t seem a big step from a service like Google Checkout to “Google Bank”. I bet there are a lot of technical implications, but moreover the legal implications might be a temporary showstopper. If this future scenario happens ING needs to think about clever ways to stay competitive, and add value for end-users of their services. The customer perspective is key ! 🙂

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

Some future scenario’s

10.000.000 new mobile subscribers per month in India;
Peer-to-peer lending: What if transferring money is as simple as bumping your phones together ?;

While the 10 million is a highly impressive number, but the more interesting part is that it gives access to potentional new banking customers. In this screnario the mobile (smart)phone, will replace the internet banking scenario’s we have here in the Netherlands and there won’t be as many bank offices in India. This means a tremendous opportunity in emerging markets to attract new customers to the ING Bank.

In the Netherlands we certainly see trends towards mobile banking as well. Mobile banking applications are available on different mobile operating systems. Steve van Wyk discussed the ING Direct Online service on the iPhone briefly. But there are more challenges and opportunities in the future:

New devices will allow to make truly intelligent use of digital information;
Augmented reality, geo-location, biometrics and mobile payments. –> “Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime”;
Morph: stretchable & flexible mobile devices using nanotechnology materials;

The last bullet is highly fascinating. I was fortunate to visit a meeting of VentureLab Twente, where Dave Blank, Scientific director MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, shared awesome stories about current research in nano-technology. It really opened a view into an interesting world with infinite opportunities for future products and services. It is a really interesting field …

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

These future scenario’s provide a lot of opportunities, but also a lot of uncertainty. Steve van Wyk, CIO ING, closes the lecture with two main questions for the future to think about:

Who will control the future of finance ?
What will a bank look like in the “second half” ? How van we build this bank ?

Overall conclusions and wrap-up CIO Lecture

First I would like to compliment study association Stress with the excellent organization of the CIO Lecture and the ability to attract a top employer like ING. More important it is really interesting to attend a lecture from someone at the corporate level from ING.

Steve van Wyk provided great insights into the technology challenges at ING. However he also addressed the merger of Postbank and ING from a technical perspective, and explored the experiments for innovation and future scenario’s of competitive advantage with the attendees. It was a great session, especially the last to parts were perfectly suited for people with an entrepreneurial skillset. 🙂

Picture used with permission of Stress, study association

I will personally remember Steve van Wyk as the CIO who made a short introduction round through the lecture room, introduced himself personally to a few students (I was lucky to be one of them), and have a short conversation with them. Remarkable was also his statement that by the time you are graduated, about 25% of the learned knowledge is already superseded !

You can furthermore see that human capital is the most highly important at ING, and with people like Steve van Wyk on the corporate level people will be the most important value for ING, despite all technological developments.

About Stress, study association for Business Administration […]

“Stress is the University of Twente’s (UT) study association for Business Administration (BA), International Business Administration (IBA), Industrial Engineering and Management (IE&M) and Business Information Technology (BIT) and was founded on May 21st, 1974. Currently, Stress has around 2500 members and is the largest UT study association.”

Endnote X4 – Thomson Reuters’ excellent customer service using an open strategy ?

September 3, 2010 By Remo Knops 4 Comments

Last week I published a book review of Open Leadership – How Social Technology Can Transofrm the Way You Lead, the latest book of Charlene Li.

In this article I will share some personal practical experiences about the use of social technology and some form of open strategy that was in place at the company.

Introduction of EndNote X3 “problem”

Since a few years I use Thomson Reuters EndNote to manage my references and easily include these in academic texts and -assignments.

Therefore I bought Thomson EndNot X3 at Surfspot.nl, an online shop for higher education students. It worked perfectly with Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate, especially the integration with Microsoft Word 2007 has been excellent.

Back in May this year I was fortunate to attend the Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch event in the Netherlands. Impressed with the new productivity features it didn’t take long for me to install Microsoft Office 2010 Professional on my Lenovo X60 Tablet powered by Windows 7 Ultimate. 🙂

Unfortunatly Thomson EndNote X3 didn’t integrate with Microsoft Office 2010 Professional. Some online research taught me that Thomson Reuters released EndNote X4 that did integrate really well with Microsoft Office 2010 (plus EndNote X4 included other new helpfull features as well).

After contacting the local distributor that provided me with different options, I shared my thoughts about a possible, rather expensive upgrade, on Twitter :

“Thomson Endnote X3 is not compatible with Microsoft Office 2010 ! Endnote X4 is but that requires an upgrade of +/- E100,- #expensive”

Thomson Reuters’ “solution”

A Thomson Reuters’ employee Nancy noticed my tweet and replied to me via the EndNoteNews Twitter account:

“@remoknops When did you purchase EndNote X3?”

“@remoknops Yes – a message was posted via your web site requesting proof of purchase.”

She also left a similar message via the contact form on this website, my personal blog which you can read below:

“I sent you the tweet about your EndNote purchase and possible upgrade for Word 2010 compatibilty. If you could email your proof of purchase, […]”

Of course I sent the proof of purchase of my EndNote X3 copy, an Adobe PDF scan from the original invoice, to Nancy for approval.

If it was the timeframe in which I bought Thomson EndNote X3 that made me eligible for an upgrade to Thomson EndNote X4, or I was simply lucky to experience a great example of customer satisfaction.

The result

A Thomson Reuters EndNote X4 upgrade that perfectly integrates with Microsoft Office 2010 Professional !

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

A first I want to thank Nancy (and Thomson Reuters) for contacting me and providing excellent customer service, that has been initiated by the social network Twitter.

“We no longer search for the news, the news finds us. We will no longer search for products or services, they will find us via social media.”

Above you can read one of the final screens of the video introduction of the “Making the Social Connection” session with Tony Krijnen, Daniel van Soest and Charlie Kindel @ DevDays 2010 !“. The described situation certainly holds for the Thomson Endnote X4 customer service example that I have described in this article. So this is an interesting fundamental shift in communication that wasn’t there some years ago !

Let’s recall the four open driven objectives, (1) learn, (2) dialog, (3) support, and (4) innovate, that are integrated into almost every successful strategic plan. If you have a quick look at this example there are certainly a few of these objectives in place.

Furthermore the publication of social media guidelines on the Thomson Reuters website is evidence that an open strategy and use of social technology is integrated in the overall corporate strategy of Thomson Reuters. The leadership part is a little hard to oversee from this side, however you can clearly see that Thomson Reuters is practicing a long the open leadership line of thinking !

Google – More than just a search engine, but not the only motor of economic growth

June 1, 2010 By Remo Knops Leave a Comment

A few days ago my attention was caught by a message communicated via the verified Google Twitter account, that introduces the role of Google as an engine of economic growth:

“We’re not just a search engine, we’re an engine of economic growth. Our U.S. economic impact in 2009 was $54 billion”

Introduction

On the official Google Blog you can read a related article, posted by Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales @ Google.

“This week is National Small Business Week, and Ross will be with me on Capitol Hill in Washington today to share his story and help unveil something that means a tremendous amount to me: a new report detailing, for the first time ever, Google’s economic impact in all 50 states.”

Let me be clear that the financial number of $54 billion is pretty impressive, but still I find the first time ever part remarkable. I’m pretty sure that the quantification on a state level is the first time ever in a public available document. Google is a public traded company, so you should be able to find estimates of the economic impact in the annual reports.

But what does the financial number of $54 billion, represent? If you download the Google’s Economic Impact – United States, 2009 – report, you can read that:

“In the pages that follow, we describe Google’s economic impact across the U.S. This impact is reflected by the number of advertisers and website publishers in every state, the non–profits we provide with free advertising, and the real–life stories of small businesses that have benefited from using Google.” (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.3)

What I really like about the report, is that start-ups, entrepreneurs and small business are included in this report. I recall the statement of Professor Pieper on the title slide of the opening speech presentation of the vision on the future symposium: “Value creation, nothing else matters.”

This task of value creation is perfectly suited for the entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, since entrepreneurship is an engine of the economy especially in the current hard economic times. Personally I think this is a highly interesting area to look into more detail. 🙂

Google Search, AdWords, AdSense and Google Grants

Google is well known for its search engine activities, but with regard to the economic impact let’s have a look at the business side where the money flows! In the the Google’s Economic Impact – United States, 2009 – report, you can read that:

“Aside from being a well-known search engine, Google is also a successful advertising company. We make most of our revenue from the ads shown next to our search results, on our other websites and on the websites of our partners. Through these ad programs, we help many others make a living too. This booklet presents a conservative estimate of Google’s economic impact on businesses across the U.S. based on three core parts of our business: Google Search and AdWords, AdSense and Google Grants.” (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.4)

As you can see all three advertising related core parts of the Google business-side are closely tied to Google Search, which is the key resource (control point) in the Google Business Model.

Google Adwords

The first advertising pillar the generates Google revenue is Google Adwords, that shows ads next to the search results based on the keywords that you have entered in the search field. In other words these are more or less “targeted” advertisements.

Google AdSense

The second advertising pillar that contributes to Googles Economic Impact is Google AdSense. On the Google AdSense product page you can read the following description:

“Google AdSense is a free program that enables website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads and earn.”

Almost everyone I know in online publishing is using Google AdSense to some extent, since Google AdSense can place advertisements in: (1) content, (2) mobile, (3) search, and (4) feeds. In fact it is a mutual relationship, since Google needs websites and online publishers to sell advertisements, while online publishers can use Google AdSense at no costs, and start earning money.

The most interesting part of Google AdSense is the multiple channel characteristic, each with different financial business (model) parameters.

Google Grants

The third advertising pillar from that contributes to the Google revenue is Google Grants. For me personally this was a pillar I don’t know that well, however if you look at the description on the Google Grants website, it is nothing more than Google AdWords for non-profit organizations:

“Google Grants is a unique in-kind donation program awarding free AdWords advertising to select charitable organizations. We support organizations sharing our philosophy of community service to help the world in areas such as science and technology, education, global public health, the environment, youth advocacy, and the arts.”

Calculations of Google US Economic Impact

In addition the financial number of $54 billion as the total of Google’s US Economic Impact in 2009, it is interesting to have a look at the underlying calculations.

You can find a pretty detailed description of the calculations in the Google’s Economic Impact – United States, 2009 – report, as shown in the picture above. (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.6-7) Furthermore you can find a video of Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales @ Google and Google Chief Economist, Hal Varian, who provides additional background information on the underlying calculations:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiGn8HPGrMM

When I first watched the video, I heard the word estimates a few times, which raised some skepticism. Of course I do understand that it is hard to make the calculations with a mathematical accuracy on two digits behind the comma, that are 110% reflecting the real world situation. However in the Google’s Economic Impact – United States, 2009 – report (p. 7) you can read:

“This is a first attempt to estimate the economic impact of Google’s core search and advertising business. In search and advertising, we’ve derived a conservative estimate of the impact of our tools on businesses, website publishers and non–profits, but we’ve left out such estimates as the cost savings for consumers now able to find the information they need more easily than before. We also have not estimated the economic impact our employees provide, or that of other major products like Google Maps and YouTube. So while we’re reasonably confident in our estimates, consider them a lower bound on Google’s true economic impact.”

As you can read in the “what is not included” section (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.7) there are some limitations and constraints. For example the is purely focussed on the core search and advertising businesses. YouTube is excluded despite it has become the second largest search engine online, is another example.

“For more information about our methodology and to download the two cited studies, please visit: http://www.google.com/economicimpact/methodology.html”

Final thoughts and overall conclusion

At first I think the Google’s Economic Impact – United States, 2009 – report is a highly interesting one, especially since there are some real-life examples included from each of the 50 states. I think both this report and the total economic impact, represent quite an amount of entrepreneurship.The report furthermore shows some core aspects of the Google business (model) side, where the search technology is an enabler for the advertising revenue model.

However there are certainly also constraints and limitations in this report about Google’s Economic Impact. You could also phrase it differently: the report has a clear focus on search and advertising, and it is a first attempt with recommendations for further research. 🙂 It would be interesting to do some math and compare the numbers from the Google’s Economic Impact 2009 report, with the Google Annual Report 2009.

Last year I was fortunate to visit Microsoft TechNet_Live, an event for IT Professionals and Technical Decision Makers, that started with a keynote “Join the New Efficiency” from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. If you have a look at section 1. and the included picture, you can see that Steve Ballmer is performing a similar exercise with the slide “IT More Critical Than Ever”:

“Steve Ballmer describes the impact of the Microsoft Ecosystem in the Netherlands in terms of hard numbers: for example jobs, revenues, new business opportunities and even as percentage of the GDP.”

It is not only Google, Microsoft or Apple who have a significant economic impact, but I think you can extend this reasoning and generalize that every (major) company has strategically build ecosystem that directly or indirectly includes other “surrounding” companies in the ecosystem.

Google AdMob in Google’s Economic Impact 2010 report ?

Do you remember the article on the Official Google Blog, in which Google closed the acquisition of AdMob. Mobile Advertising has become a central part of the Google Advertising business with the AdMob acquisition.

Combined with the growing global market-share of the open source Google Android mobile operating system, I’m really curious to find out what percentage of next year’s Google’s Economic Impact is generated from Mobile and Mobile advertising. …. and with these last thoughts I would like to finalize this article !

Wallpaper* and HTC team-up for design awards !

December 16, 2009 By Remo Knops 1 Comment

Yesterday I received some interesting news about HTC, which for a change isn’t about one of their latest devices, like the sponsorship announcement of Team Columbia-HTC just before the start of the Tour de France 2009 earlier this year.

However HTC now teams-up with Wallpaper* and sponsors the Wallpaper* design awards 2010, as you can read on the Wallpaper* website. An intersting move since Wallpaper* isn’t about mobile technology, but about design interiors fashion art and lifestyle as you can read in the subtitle of the Wallpaper* logo.

Perhaps this collaboration isn’t as strange as it seem to be at first sight, since the common denominator is design and functionality. You all probably know examples like the eye catching design of the “chin” on the HTC Dream and HTC Hero devices, or HTC is the first to use capacitive screen technology on Windows Phones with the HTC HD2.

“We all enjoy a bit of flash and flamboyance now and then but we reserve our highest praise for design that does something truly useful and does it beautifully. We go ga-ga for elegant solutions and functional punch. HTC, world leaders in communications technology, are of a similar mind and operate under the banner ‘quietly brilliant’. Who better then to partner up with to present this year’s Readers’ Choice award, a celebration of the beautifully useful.”

The nominations for the HTC Reader’s Choice (Design) Awards 2010 are:

Bullfrog LED front bike lights by Knog;
Air Multiplier fan by Dyson;
W+W toilet and sink by Roca;
Up street furniture by Ewo and Norway Says;
The 3rd person archive book by artist John Stezaker;

This list clearly shows a great variety of products, which really makes it an interesting “competititon”. Furthermore it is very intersting to check out additional pictures and art in a gallery of the five nominations.

Concluding thoughts

In ordre to wrap this is a very interesting collaboration, and it might sound strange when you first read about it. However according to the press release the partnership expresses HTC’s focus on design and innovation.

Strategically it might even be an interesting opportunity for HTC to tap into a “new” network of fresh designers guided by great out-of-the box thinking and who are able to come-up with new designs.

If you are interested in design, which I am as a mechnical engineer, you should certainly check out the five nominations with the additional pictures and bring out your vote. I’m very curious which design will be the winner of the HTC Reader’s Choice Awards 2010 !!

MindMeister – Collaborative Online Mind Mapping (on your iPhone)!

August 6, 2009 By Remo Knops 1 Comment

A few weeks ago Jason Langridge wrote an article on his blog “Online Mind Mapping” which caught my attention and covers a great online service for Mind Mapping called MindMeister.

Last year I attended a traning of Marc Tigchelaar which I covered in the article: “Speed reading, mindmapping & braintraining“, and during the recent “Business Model Knowledge Fair & Book Launch” I could experience the power of visual (thinking) techniques in business communication myself by applying it on drawing a business model.

Introduction: “What is mind mapping ?”

On the mindmeister website a very nice definition can be found which covers most of the concepts behind the mind mapping technique:

“Mind mapping is a creativity and structuring technique that focuses on the human mind and its assumed inner workings. Contrary to the conventional methods of linear reading and writing, mind mapping is based on the central thesis that our mind works both rational and associative. In order to mimic this behavior we have to adapt our traditional methods of note taking, brainstorming, and creating lists. We need to introduce visual stimuli based on imagery, colors, icons and a more holistic view on a given topic or theme. “

On the website of Tony Buzan -the developer of the Mind Mapping technique- you can find a very practical and helpful example called: “Exam Revision 10 Top Tips“. Here comparison overview is shown of a mindmap next to the list of tips, so please compare for yourself.

MindMeister and some key features

Now we know a little about the basic concepts and reasoning behind mindmaps, let’s have a look in which ways MindMeister extends on these concepts and makes this tool extremely useful for business and working in projects:

“MindMeister is the market leading and multiple award-winning web-based collaboration solution that uses proven mind mapping concepts to facilitate multi-user planning, brainstorming, and project management sessions from within a standard web browser.”

While I used Mindjet Mindmanager 8 until now to draw mindmaps on my Lenovo X60 tablet, it is not easy to work simultaniously, adjust or share the mindmap easily with you project team. This brings us to THE unique feature of the MindMeister service.

Collaborative Online Mind Mapping

“MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere.”

With this concept MindMeister become a valuable business tool, which projectmanagers and engineers could use on daily basis, without the need to be writing on a white board in the same physical room with your team mates. It will help to capture idea’s in an efficient way, and describe relations among the different idea’s in a graphical way.

Mobile access

Another feature that I really like as a mobile technology enthusiast is the availability of a MindMeister for mobile application. With this application you really have total freedom of accessing your mindmaps on the go, even without the need of a computer or notebook.

“MindMeister mobile, our iPhone application, provides access to your online mind maps whereever you are. You can create new ones, edit them and sync them with the server. Through our unique user interface you have both the comfort of an iPhone application and the familiar interface of MindMeister”

Unfortunately the MindMeister for mobile application is only available for the Apple iPhone, and as a Windows Mobile fanboy I truely hope that this great application will be ported to the Windows Mobile platform as well. I think it would a great application to have in the business center of Windows Marketplace for mobile.

Overall thoughts

Despite I really like Mindjet MindManager 8 on my Windows Vista powered Lenovo X60 tablet, I think that the MindMeister service brings mindmapping to the next level and making it available for a wide variety of business applications. You can easily share the mindmap with your colleagues and changes by your co-workers are shown on a real-time basis.

MindMeister connects the web, the pc and the smartphone so you can access the mindmaps anytime anywhere. This is a comperable strategy as some of the Microsoft products like Microsoft Live Mesh or another example Evernote. This multi-platform approach is a concept that I personally like, and I truly hope te see a Windows Mobile version coming soon !

MindMeister is offered in four different editions: (1) basic; (2) premium; (3) business; (4) academic; The basic version is free, and this is a great opportunity to get familiar with mind mapping or start instantly sharing and colaborating on mind maps with your co-workers and friends.

Reference List

Microsoft, Yahoo! – Will the Search Landscape really change ??

July 31, 2009 By Remo Knops Leave a Comment

Perhaps some of your remember the acquisition propositions of Microsoft to Yahoo! earlier this year, which in the end didn’t result in Microsoft buying Yahoo!. However yesterday the news spread very fast on the web that both companies announced a long-term agreement in the Web Search segment.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.”

Analysis key terms of the agreement

But even the simple term version in the summary made me think about the advantages and impact the agreement has for both Yahoo! and Microsoft. Dueto my background in and interests in technology trends I wanted to have a closer look at the key terms below:

@1. “Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;”

Remarkable is the long-term character of the agreement, especially in the fast moving and hard to predict digital era we currently live in. However the agreement might be a good strategic move, in order to continue development and expand marketshare for the Microsoft Bing decision engine.

@2. “Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.”

This key term only supports the expansion of Microsoft Bing, since it will power the search platform on Yahoo! websites. A questionmark however is if Microsoft will also have access to the Yahoo! search data, which is collectd by Yahoo! until now.

@3. “Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.”

It sounds like this key term is really aimed at combining complementary skill sets, or to reduce Microsoft’s sales force for premium search advertisers.

@4. “Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.”

Thus the agreement is only for the search-segment of both the companies, while other parts like the Instant Messaging platforms and the Web Properties, etc. will not be part of this agreement. From a Microsoft perspective, it looks like this deal is fully aimed at brining Micrsoft Bing to the next level. What intrigues me is how the close collaboration agreement will be shaped in practice? Will the Microsft Yahoo search become a separate business unit under the Microsoft Bing “umbrella” ?

@5. “Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.”

This one is very interesting, since I believe that both companies will invest in continuous development of the user experience as well as the search experience. This key term triggers a question again: What will happen to the Intellectual Property (IP) that is a result of a co-creation process, which required both parties’ knowledge to develop / or create ?

@6. “Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.

Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.

Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.”

Well here come some financials in play. Microsoft (Bing) will pay Yahoo! compensation for the market expansion which seems to be fair for both companies. The first bullet however only covers the first 5 years of the agreement, while the exclusive license agreement on Yahoo!s search technologies is bought for a period of 10 years! Honestly in the fast moving internet era, these periods seem to be long but might be the result of “slow moving giants” compared to the flexible start-up companies.

@7. “Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.”

Looking a the compensation-term of the agreement above and the fact that Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo! revenue per search, both companies but foremost Microsoft have really faith in the success of Microsoft Bing, which is more than a Google search alternative.

@8. “At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.”

Nice to write down the estimates, but which prediction and estimation models are used to calculate these numbers. What is the balance between the financial win for Microsoft and what is the financial win for Yahoo!? However I do think that this merger / acquisition can result in highe efficiency improvements by combining the best of both worlds in search and advertising. If the numbers and calculations we’re correct we will see in time.

@9. “The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.”

Consumer privacy is certainly a good point, but will this key term not slow down the companies since they seem te rely both on certain types of information for additional development of their services.

Thoughts and wrap-up

Todd Bishop -co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash- has written a series of articles on the TechFlash website about this deal from a variety of perspectives in the following highly recommended articles: “What people are saying about Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership” and “Analysts, investors react to Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership” and “Audio: Ballmer and Bartz discuss partnership, Google, and f-bombs“

“While Microsoft gets the larger market share to improve Bing’s search relevance and advertising volume, Yahoo still gets 88 percent of the revenue from ads on Yahoo search, without the R&D and operating expenses that it would normally encounter. That frees up Yahoo to concentrate on its online media business, Ballmer said.”

But how can we relate this agreement back to the failed acquisition in February this year, and what was te initial goal of the Yahoo! acquisition at that point in time ? Was it also aimed at buying the search technologies of Yahoo! in order to improve Microsoft Bing and leverage the Yahoo! network to collect data and expand in advertising as well ?

All interesting questions, which will require some additional research. However what most strikes me in this deal is the long-term character and trust both companies have in this agreement and the partnership. I would like to know when you really can measure the impact of this agreement, both in financial- and in operational and efficiency terms as well.

In the article I explicitely didn’t talk about Google -another industry giant an leader in the search segment-, but I’m also really curious on their strategic reaction as well. And:

Is the agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo! a clever move to dismantle Yahoo! piece by piece or is it a better deal for Yahoo! so they can really develop ventures in new or related industries ?
Will the two industry giants be able to be more flexible and move faster due to this agreement, like a early start-up ?
Which management challenges will the (partly) merger of Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing) bring ?
What impact has this acquisition on the innovative power of Yahoo! and Microsoft ?
What is the impact on the business models of Yahoo! and Microsoft ?

Concluding

The current agreement betweent Microsoft and Yahoo! is a very interesting business case, of which I will follow the developments. I hope in time some questions will be answered and perhaps some new challenges will come on their path. The long-term character of the agreement and the open formulation of the key terms, makes it even more interesting to follow. Please let me know what you think of this agreement, and you might have some thoughts about the proposed questions as well.