Joining the UK Africa Delegation

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This week represents something of a first for us as we head to Africa as part of a UK business delegation lead by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister. Also in attendance is Lord Green, the Minister for Trade and Investment, and Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development, along with a number of prominent business leaders from across the UK.

This trip is exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it represents the beginnings of a closer working relationship with government, something we’ve been keen to explore for some time. Secondly, in a visit dominated by big business, it gives us the perfect opportunity to demonstrate what the non-profit sector in the UK has to offer, and highlight many of the exciting developments – and potential – of mobile technology for social good across the African continent:

Africa has always been key for us. Our work is all about technology innovation, and how mobile phones can help solve some of Africa’s bigger problems. As the developers of FrontlineSMS, a piece of free text messaging software used across the continent, our key objective as part of the delegation is to foster closer relationships with the private sector and government, and understand how we can best support local innovation and entrepreneurship in the mobile sector. It remains an area with huge potential

Tonight we’re in Lagos, Nigeria after spending the first full day in Johannesburg and Pretoria. The South African leg of the trip kicked off with breakfast meetings with South African business leaders, followed by a short audience with David Cameron and Jacob Zuma and a quick photo opportunity. An official Press Conference was the final act of the morning, held by both leaders at the government building.

Events back home have lead to the cancellation of the visits to Rwanda and Southern Sudan – a real shame – so we’ll be heading home tomorrow (Tuesday) after lunch meetings with a number of Nigerian politicians. The BBC posted an article earlier today on the Africa visit, and the pressure the Prime Minister is under to return to London.

The Rolling Stones School of Management Innovation

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What do the Rolling Stones and FrontlineSMS have in common? Not much, you might think. Well, they’re not users, they’re a little better-off than us and they’re considerably more famous. But there is something a little more subtle we share with them – management innovation.

In his autobiography – “Life” – published last year, Keith Richards describes the evolution of The Rolling Stones‘ management. Three quite distinct individuals played key roles in getting the band to where they are today. From an article last November in The Week magazine:

“First up was Andrew Loog Oldham – described as an oddity of the London music scene – who successfully branded The Stones as the “dirty, snarling and mean” antidote to the then clean-cut Beatles. Then came Allen Klein, a lawyer expert in negotiating with record companies. Finally, there was Prince Rupert Lowenstein, a private banker with no roots in the music industry, who professionalised the outfit – establishing separate companies to handle publishing, merchandising and touring – which made The Stones one of the richest bands in history”

The evolution and management of FrontlineSMS can also be broken down into three phases:

  • Technology innovation
  • Organisational innovation
  • Business model innovation

As The Stones example demonstrates, each phase requires a very different skill set, and it would take an extraordinary individual to be able to manage and deliver successfully on each. While I may have been the right person – in the right place at the right time at the very least – to successfully deliver on Phase One, that doesn’t mean I’m the right person for Phase Two, or Three. A large part of building a successful organisation is assembling a talented, diverse team with complementary skill sets. Identifying gaps and being honest about our own strengths and weaknesses is a large part of the process.

The social entrepreneurship sector, however, remains largely laser-focused on the innovator, the person behind Phase One. Recognising that organisations develop in phases, and have different needs at each, there needs to be a slight shift in how we view – and support – entrepreneurs and the vehicles or organisations they help create.

With this in mind, there might well be a few things the social entrepreneurship sector could learn from The Rolling Stones.

The future of mobile messaging

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I often get emails from research companies or publishers trying to sell me things. Most aren’t relevant, remotely interesting or affordable. One this morning, from Portio Research, caught my eye. It’s still not affordable (at least not for us), but it did come with ten great report ‘teasers’. And all of them interesting and relevant. From the official email:

10 Facts You May Not Know About Mobile Messaging

1.     Revenues will break USD 300 billion in 2014. Annual worldwide mobile messaging revenue will reach nearly USD 210 billion by the end of 2011, and smash USD 300 billion in 2014.

2.     Messaging currently accounts for the majority of global data revenues. Messaging in 2011 will still be responsible for more than 60 percent of global data revenues; SMS and MMS alone will contribute a massive 55.7 percent to global data revenues in 2011.

3.     SMS is king. With little fanfare, SMS has long been the foundation and mainstay of non-voice service revenues. And will continue to be so for some time.

4.     SMS brings in 13 times more revenue than Apps. SMS alone generated USD 114.6 billion in 2010, and will reach USD 126.8 billion in 2011. Compare that to forecasted mobile broadband revenues (USD 58.1 billion in 2011) and mobile application revenues (USD 9.5 billion in 2011) and there is still much to get excited about in the world of mobile messaging.

5.     New European data usage trends are emerging. 2010 was something of a landmark year with significant growth seen in other mobile data services, beyond messaging. Trends seen in Japan and South Korea can never be seen as “typical” indicators of what will happen in other markets around the world, as those countries stand alone in terms of leading technology adoption. However, when mainstream markets in Western Europe witness trends that recur in more than one market, then we know a change is coming. Operations in Spain and Germany have now witnessed the changeover, where non-messaging mobile data revenues now exceed SMS revenues.

6.     MMS is a huge success. Contrary to years of popular opinion that MMS somehow failed as a service, MMS is the second highest grossing non-voice mobile service of all time, second only to SMS.

7.     MMS outperforms mobile apps and mobile music added together. In 2010, worldwide MMS traffic hit 248.7 billion MMS messages and generated massive revenues of USD 32.5 billion. To put that into perspective, MMS is bigger than mobile apps and mobile music added together, MMS is bigger than mobile gaming and mobile video added together, twice over. MMS is still a huge business, making a lot of money, and still growing in all geographic regions worldwide, and at a double-digit growth rate in most.

8.     Europe records the highest mobile e-mail revenue. In 2010, the Asia Pacific region was the largest mobile e-mail market worldwide in terms of number of mobile e-mail users, whereas Europe generated the highest mobile e-mail revenue worldwide.

9.     Latin America will see the largest mobile e-mail user base growth. As an individual country market, Japan has been the biggest market for mobile e-mail in terms of user penetration and it is expected to maintain its position in the near future. Over the coming years, the Latin America region will have the highest growth in its mobile e-mail market owing to the increasing smartphone penetration and the small current mobile e-mail user base.

10.  Over 311 million people use Mobile IM. Mobile IM is ‘the small player’ in the mobile messaging mix, generating revenues of USD 6.8 billion in full-year 2010, a substantial amount of money, but small compared to the massive USD 114.6 billion generated by SMS. Mobile IM is an extremely popular service, with more than 311 million users at end-2010.

The full report – “Mobile Messaging Futures 2011-2015” – is available here on the Portio Research website. Have your cheque book ready.

The FrontlineSMS trump card

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This time last year I was on my way back from Washington DC where I’d spent a week at the National Geographic Explorers Symposium. It was one of those am-I-really-here? events where you randomly share a lift with the likes of Bob Ballard – who discovered the wreck of the Titanic – or Spencer Wells, who’s trying to figure out where we all came from.

I couldn’t be there this year, but I did receive a nice surprise in the mail from a friend who works for National Geographic Traveler Magazine. At this year’s event they produced a deck of cards with the names of each of the Explorers and Emerging Explorers. I love what they’ve done with ours.

All that’s missing is the \o/ logo.  ;o)

That aside, hearty congratulations to everyone who made the Explorers Class of 2011!