The economy is in the doldrums. Unemployment is way too high and last week the March “new job report” numbers were down from February . . . and the next day the stock market tanks. It seems we are treading water . . . yet . . .
Then comes the news that Microsoft buys 800+ patents from AOL for $1 billion dollars. The sale includes core and strategic technology patents and patent applications covering online technology in the areas of advertising, search, content generation and management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming, and security, among others.
Then we learn that Facebook has agreed to acquire Instagram, the popular mobile photo sharing app, for $1 billion dollars in cash and stock. Yes, I said an “app” was just sold for $1 billion dollars!
Then this . . . The Wall Street Journal reports: Best Buy’s CEO Brian Dunn Resigns, Company Cites ‘Personal Conduct.’ Yeah right . . . personal conduct. Brian Dunn was forced out of Best Buy because he failed to halt Best Buy’s declining sales slide.
Ever heard of showrooming? Shoppers can walk into a retail store like Best Buy and scope out the merchandise with a phone app that tells them where they can get that item cheaper. The WSJ says, “Best Buy, which dominated electronic retailing for much of the past decades wasn’t moving fast enough to counter the emergence of consumers armed with Smartphones who use the company’s large stores as showrooms for merchandise that they wind up purchasing online.”
Where is the action and money flowing?
Answer: O-N-L-I-N-E.
The economic engine is switching quickly to online and THAT is the common theme of the above news stories.
As I read the Best Buy story on my iPad at the Wall Street Journal’s site, there was an ad on the side of the page from Heifer International. Yes, Heifer International is a nonprofit that you may have heard of whose mission is to help end world hunger and poverty by donating animals to individuals in poor countries.
Heifer International is running electronic ads online. Why isn’t your fundraising group running ads online? Heifer International is a mid-sized nonprofit organization raising just over $10 million dollars a year.
Honestly, do you think that your fundraising organization is any different than Best Buy? Best Buy’s business model is being disrupted by the Internet. Your fundraising model has already been disrupted by the Internet. Best Buy desperately needs a new strategy . . . and so do you!
That’s what we do at Browne Innovation Group. We help you define and implement a new strategy based upon the reality of the Internet. Our program is called the Transformational Strategic Plan.
Think about it over the weekend. Are you going to go to the wall like Best Buy and start seeing staggeringly big drops in fundraising revenue - or are you going to invest like Microsoft and Facebook (although waaaay less than a billion dollars) in transforming your fundraising organization?
-Mike
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