Do you remember when everyone used to go on about ‘cyberspace’ and the ’information superhighway’? These terms sound daft today don’t they? Well, within a few years you will react in the same way to ‘big data’, the ‘digital economy’ and ‘digital marketing’.
Why? Because they are just faddish names masking an underlying trend.
The ‘big’ and ‘digital’ are superfluous; as standalone entities these things don’t – or won’t – exist. In business there is only data and marketing, and we all work within the same economy.
By conjuring up a parallel world the property industry is falling into a trap. Every week we hear about the rise of TMT occupiers, MediaTech and the particular office requirements of the tech industry. How these companies have special needs, how they can only be found in particular areas of the city, and how these locations are, in various ways, ’special’. We even have a new breed of agent to deal with them, where suits are banished and ‘awesome’ and ‘disrupt’ have to be inserted into every other sentence.
Unfortunately all this talk is missing the point. This not a new market at all; it IS the market. This small sector (real tech companies don’t employ many people) is but the shouty end of a fundamental trend that is seeing every company become end-to-end digital.
We are told that this new sector requires interesting, well-designed and engaging space. That they want space that is suited for collaborative activities, but with quiet zones, and touch-down areas, and meeting rooms, and lounges, and perhaps stand up/sit down desks. They need great connectivity, decent kitchens and somewhere to park bicycles.
The bottom line? They want a decent place to work that isn’t grey. Well, show me someone who doesn’t.
These people deal with ‘big data’, it is said (normally by people who have no idea what that is). Companies are starting to pay a lot more attention to making decisions, throughout their operations, based on data rather than hunch or gut feeling. This is nothing special; all companies will follow the Google mantra: “In God we trust, all others bring data.”
The same applies with ‘digital marketing’ – it is just a subset of marketing, not a standalone function. The trend is that marketing embraces more digital channels and pays more attention to data analysis, but this is the case for everyone. Everyone knows that print, if not dead, is a dead-end. The Economist has lost 46% of its print advertising income since 2012; their response has been to become more digital. And so it will be across all business.
The trap to avoid is following the fad and treating tech companies as somehow different, or non-tech companies as old school.
Every company is a tech company. Or soon will be.
Essential tech for property people: online courses
The property industry has an ongoing love affair with print. Endless brochures, property details, research reports and miscellany are lavishly printed on glossy, heavy paper.
All very well – and paper does have a part to play – but the reality is that digital is the starting point for most people today.
If you want to know something, read something or buy something then a screen is the place you start. Increasingly this is a mobile screen, be it a tablet or a smartphone.
Unfortunately a large percentage of data outputted by the industry is either still in print, in PDFs formatted for print, or on websites that aren’t mobile formatted. One of the biggest surveying firms in the world is still a closed book to mobile users, being unusable on a small screen.
So things have to change. And to help this happen there are two online courses I recommend as many staff as possible are encouraged to take. The first is Squared Online (paid), run by Google and formed of five modules that guide you through the digital landscape and theory and practice of digital marketing. Made up of online lessons, background reading and collaborative projects it would suit any property marketeer.
The other course, the Digital Business Academy (free), is run by Tech City UK in collaboration with University College London. It is designed for people who want to start their own online business but many of the lessons would benefit almost anyone looking to develop their digital skills.
Find out more at www.wearesquared.com and www.digitalbusinessacademyuk.com
Antony Slumbers is founder and chief executive of software developer Estates Today. Interact with him on Twitter @antonyslumbers
