How the “Finnish BBC” is embracing change
I just attended a half-day workshop / seminar held by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) aka the “Finnish BBC”. The topic of the day was their fairly new company strategy: “YLE Enabler Strategy”. I had not really dug into what they mean when they say “enabler” before attending so it was a nice surprise to notice that it actually means what I hoped it would mean: That these guys actually get it.
I’ve been ranting and raving about how businesses need to embrace the change by engaging their audience through being more transparent and focusing on true end-user benefits and needs and here I was sitting and listening in amazement when my speech was delivered to me by Mikael Jungner, the CEO of YLE.
Hold on a minute.
The CEO of the monolithical remnant of the 50’s and 60’s talking about openness, wanting to be the enabler of new business models and being the platform for new and better ways of creating and distributing great content.
Did not see that one coming.
So what is YLE doing right?
- They’ve already made their sites “social media compatible”
- They are already sharing their content archives (limited only by the pre-historic copyright laws): Elävä Arkisto / Tehosto / Areena
- They see the opportunity, not the threat. And they see it high enough in the organization to really make things happen.
- They’ve got the right people, with the right mind-set working on their services – with the backing & blessing of the CEO
- They don’t claim they have all the answers: They want us / you to help them.
Lesson for everyone: If YLE can adopt this new approach then there is NO excuse for any other company / entity to not follow in their footsteps.
YLE troops: You’ve got a new fan. Thanks for a great day and keep up the great work!
Category: Disruption, Media, Social Media | Tags: bbc, enabler, Social Media, Web 2.0, yle 4 comments »
April 18th, 2009 at 19:48
The sad part in this is that now when there’s finally a cool guy running YLE, what do the politicians do? Try to get rid of him of course, cause he’s not playing ball (sucking ass) like he “should”. I really hope the dinosaurs won’t fuck this up.
May 5th, 2009 at 19:45
From one point the enabler strategy is fine, but finnish communications industry is fairly small and YLE is too big for this market. All actions like this unenables commercial companies to provide high quality content that after all shall be future for the enabler strategy.
Finnish YLE is not BBC, since we have only 5m audience.
May 7th, 2009 at 16:25
There is truth to that as well but then again Jungner was talking about how YLE actually is looking at ways it can help nurture and support the formation of a more vibrant commercial content industry that focuses on creating more Finnish content. And again – wisely and openly – they don’t claim they know how they can do it but at least the intention is there.
Dissing them outright won’t help. What we need is ideas and initiatives that guide them toward the right direction.
And if anyone can be an enabler it is YLE – exactly because they are so big.
May 16th, 2009 at 18:33
[...] YLE can do it, You can do it May 16, 2009 Here is a post by Jussi Solja about embracing change. A blog worth [...]