Executive Education Program at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership

1. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
February 3 - February 14
USA Module (Los Angeles | San Francisco)
Berlin School of Creative Leadership
President: Michael Conrad
Academic Director: Prof. David Slocum
Franklinstraße 15 – 10587 Berlin
www.berlin-school.com

2. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
USA MODULE – February 3 – February 14 (UCLA/UC – Berkeley Campuses)
The Common Room
University of California – Anderson School of Management
Team Project
For
The Berlin School of Creative Leadership
(Co-designed with SpectrumDNA, Park City, Utah)
BLUEPRINTING AN ENGINET
The art and science of building successful
programming for networked media
(web, wireless, etc.)
Technique over Technology

3. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
Networked Media and the Enginet
Networked media is the class of media that boasts many-to-many connectivity between
programmer and audience, and/or audience-and-audience. Networked media
includes the web, wireless, peer-to-peer television and all manner of broadband
internet.
The most native of programming structures for networked media is the networked
engine— the “enginetwork,” or simply “enginet.” An enginet is a functional framework
of programming built around a kernel theme—trading, searching, genre of content,
dating, dining, travel booking, etc—that engenders users to easily work in the service
of the enginet owner (you), or in the service of themselves around the theme.
SpectrumDNA has designed a *recipe* derived from market-proven programming
that increases the probability of success in building these kinds of “engine”
sites/services.
“You can leave anything out, as long as you know what it is.” -- Ernest Hemingway
What is an Enginet?
As stated, an enginet is a “networked engine.” All the most popular sites on the
internet are enginets of one kind or another—search engine (Google, Yahoo),
publishing engine (any blog site), game engine (massively multiplayer online games),
auction engine (eBay), freelance engine (elance.com), dating engine (match.com),
social networking engine (friendster.com or linkedin.com), etc.
An enginet is *not* a website; or, more accurately, a website is a very, very weak
enginet. Most websites are simply print pages with text, graphics, photos and perhaps
a few flash animations—a place where users can only “consumer”—read, watch, listen.
Most web design is focused on user interface. It’s like a car designer focusing on
dashboard design in creating automobiles, and ignoring how the engine and drive
train are designed and built, or how people drive.
An enginet is a combination of content, community, commerce and code that attracts,
harnesses and cultivates a desired user behavior—dating, auctioning, freelancing, file
swapping, searching, game playing, blogging, etc.

4. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
Producer
Distributor
Marketer
Vendor
Consumer
Networked media provides for ways to expand the role of the user beyond that of just
consumption. In networked media, programming design can engender users to take
on other roles for us, or for themselves—to act as producers, distributors, marketers
and vendors… all in addition to being a consumer! That’s what enginets should be
designed for: to activate users into taking on one or more of these roles, and harness
that behavior. More on that later in
this paper.
“Form” vs. “Function”
What’s important here is that
networked media are media where
often function outweighs form.
Whereas feature films and television
shows rely heavily on form (story,
image, sound, etc), the most popular
websites in the world have been
adopted as much (and sometimes *more*) for their function, not their form—those
design elements that comprise “content.” Originally-Spartan sites like Yahoo and
Google are famous for it. Craiglist.com has one of the most austere and under-
designed sites in history, yet remains one of the most popular sites on the planet.
“Social networking” sites are often actually *difficult* to use—that is, their design
was/is sub-par by most design standards, yet their adoption spread like wildfire. Even
simple-designed but user-empowering sites like habbohotel.com and neopets.com can
attribute more of their success to what users can *do* than to what users see, hear,
read, etc. The latter is important, but not more important than enabling user activities
that *cannot* be enabled in any media other than networked media.
Enginets offer users a function, and the form should *not* get in the way of that
function. That is, the form of an enginet should be driven by its function, not the other
way around. Furthermore, “form” will often be more important as it is applied to
constituent parts of the enginet—content: that is, writing, animation, video production
value, etc—but the overall enginet must be designed from a “function, then form”
standpoint to gain maximum value from that content.

5. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
What is needed are by-design Enginet Blueprint plans for building a fully-functional
and optimally-effective site—complete with flow-charts, diagrams, design mock-ups,
storyboards, text descriptions, prototype code, etc. That is, it must be and can be
complete enough to answer any questions an investor, supervisor or partner might
have as to the purpose, function and look-and-feel of the enginet. Furthermore,
Enginet Blueprints can be developed for existing websites looking to evolve into the
more effective enginet form.
What is the “Enginet Blueprint” plan?
The “blueprint” details everything an Enginet does or will do, and everything it doesn’t
or won’t do. That is, in words, pictures, diagrams, flow charts, prototype code and
anything one needs to communicate about how the enginet is built—the function and
form. Then choice subsets of which can be shared with investors, fellow creators,
technology support, ad sales and other stakeholders in the success or support of your
enginet. It especially focuses on the by-design nature target user’s experience.
The team project will outline an Enginet Blueprint, describing:
1. Context (1-2 pages)
What are the supposed theme, purpose and target demographics or psychographics
for this enginet? Includes:
Concept: This section should describe what your site/service is and does. This is the
“elevator pitch.” It should provide the high-concept overview of what your enginet is
intended to do—the “archetypal” or “resonant kernel” of behavior it seeks to harness.
Behavior(s) Captured
What is the behavior or set of behaviors you are looking to capture and nurture?
This/these should be as archetypal and simple as possible.
Stakeholders
Institutions, individuals or groups of individuals who are being targeted, or conscripted
into the service of the project.
Target Audience Demographic and/or Psychographic

6. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
Summary: This section should provide a more in-depth overview of the overall function
and purpose of the site. An executive or investor reading this should have a top-level
snapshot of what the finished product will look like—version to version—how it would
work and how it would make money (if that is the aim).
2. Programming Structure
This is the section which provides detail of how your site/service will function, and how
you will build it to engender that function.
Remember: This is not an exercise in technology; it is an exercise in technique. That
is, what good is building an enginet unless you’re building it for human beings? Don’t
build because technology allows you to. You need to think through how this engine
will be set up to get your target audience to interact, engage, contribute, etc.
The first angle from which to consider your enginet is from the full definition of
“programming”—content, community, commerce, code—employable in a networked
media environment.
a. Content
These are the elements you will employ to engage the users’ senses: text,
graphics, photos, 3D, sound, etc.
b. Community
These are the elements you will provide to allow users to connect with each
other or with you (as the programmer/manager of the enginet).
IM, blogs, email, chat rooms, user reviews, etc.
c. Commerce
These are the elements you will provide to allow users to engage in some
exchange of value—buy things, sell things, trade things, act as a marketer for
you (for some compensation, though not necessarily money), etc.
Will you offer pay-per (view, play, download, etc) elements? Subscription?
Auctions? Direct sale goods? Direct sales of bits? Or is it meant *not* to make
a profit, but simply to engage users for some marketing strategy, or some
altruistic mission?

7. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
There are a finite number of ways to make money in web and mobile wireless.
You can go through each one and creatively apply it to your proposed enginet.
Once imagined, prioritize them based on what can be done early in the life of
the enginet, and do your best to ensure you’re not “painting yourself into a
corner” with your code so that you don’t obviate the opportunity to turn on the
other commerce elements down the road.
d. Code
These are the computer (or other device… mobile handset, PDA, etc) code
elements of how you will design the site to allow the interaction with the
enginet, as you intend it. Will it require a database? What will that database
schema look like? Will you have it programmed in java, PHP, c++, PERL, etc.?
Why would you choose one over another? You need to research the plusses
and minuses of one choice over another. That’s the real world for a designer.
This “code” is the method and structure through which you can execute all else
you want the enginet to do.
This is the section that will eventually be “mined” for a “minimum marketable
feature set”—a subset of functionality that will be chosen to build into the first
incarnation of the enginet. The MMFS should be buildable within 6-12 weeks.
3. Audience Activation (Turning on the Be-bits)
Determine and describe how your enginet does or does not turn on the five be-bits
(“behavioral bits”): producer, distributor, marketer, vendor or consumer. The enginet
does not *have* to turn all on, but you should be making the choices consciously. If
you can turn on more than one user be-bit, you should take advantage.
Remember: one of the main uses of any enginet is to activate other modes in a target
audience than just the consumer mode. That is, your target user is acting only as a
consumer if they are listening, reading, watching… *even* if they are clicking through
your site—that is, interacting. Most websites are built primarily for a consumer
function—watching, reading, clicking, playing, etc. Even if a website is “interactive,” it
may not be “networked.” That is, enabling users to take on peer-to-peer functions that
go beyond bi-directional interaction. By their very nature, Enginets are designed to
harness other behavior in a target audience—to act as producer, distributor, marketer,
vendor/exhibitor *or* consumer in a framework of other users.

8. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
The potential roles in which you may want to activate users are infinite. We big them
as follows, in the roles of the classic industrial supply chain:
a. Producer
How are you enabling and compelling your target audience to *make*
programming for you… on their own? Examples: if they are blogging, they are
making text. If they are posting items for sale, they are making text and
graphics and offering goods… through your enginet. eBay doesn’t manufacture
auction postings; they have provided an enginet that allows users to do it for
themselves—their users are the ones *producing* auction postings. How does
your enginet get the audience to contribute to your site? For you, or for
themselves.
b. Distributor
How does your enginet provide for the audience to either distribute on *your*
behalf, or distribute for themselves. This could apply to distribution of
information, software, or physical items.
c. Marketer
How does your enginet provide for the audience to *spread the word*? That
is, they could be spreading the word for you, or spreading the word for
themselves. It depends on the purpose of your enginet. Often, both are
achieved. For example, linkedin.com provides an enginet that allows me to tell
my business colleagues to join the social networking site and broaden our
collective network, but in doing so markets linkedin.com, the enginet, too.
d. Vendor/Marketing
Are you providing ways for users to act as a seller or exhibitor? To offer
product, programming, advice, etc. in return for some exchange of value.
Mostly, this relates to exchange of money from one audience member (buyer)
to another (seller), but actual monetary compensation is not critical in allowing
your audience to activate their vendor bit.
Remember, even a blogger is a vendor of sorts. It depends on what they define
as “value.” That is, some bloggers find enough reward in just having people
visit their blog, while others see value in getting others to incorporate their blog
into other, larger sites through techniques like RSS (XML) syndication models.

9. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
e. Consumer
How will your audience members be able to engage as in watching, playing,
listening, reading, etc. What will they get to do for free? What activities will
cost them?
4. Target Demographic and User Motivation
Another goal of any enginet is to:
1. Connect with a target audience; and
2. Maximize Reach, Frequency and Depth of Session with that audience.
A target audience ranges from niche like Indonesian food enthusiasts to the broadest
of audiences, like entire world of auction enthusiasts. Regardless, understanding the
nature of user, and their range of sophistication in site usage, is important.
Reach, Frequency and Depth are measure of how many users come, how often they
come and how long they stay. Sometimes called three-dimensional programming, it’s
different than traditional periodic day-and-date programming like daily newspapers,
weekly television shows or monthly magazines. The latter, by necessity, have fixed
intervals in which programming is released, and fixed/limited programming lengths—
number of words, number of minutes, etc. For a well-crafted networked engine on the
Internet, as many users as possible can come, as often as they like and stay if they
like, all determined by how well the engine/site is programmed.
Reach is a measure of unduplicated users coming during a specific time—daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly. It’s the best measure of audience *size*.
Frequency is a measure of how often those individual users come—twice a day, once a
week, or in fits-and-starts based on the users’ needs and the type of enginet you’ve
built.
Depth is a measure of how long they stay.
How do we garner reach, frequency and depth?
(1) By building a compelling mix of content, community, commerce and code;
(2) By activating as many be-bits as possible, relevant to the enginet’s purpose; and,
finally, by
(3) Motivating the user-base by activating as many of the basic human motivational
factors as possible. Those factors are: Society, Compensation, Utility, Fear,
Addiction, Diversion, Ego and Superego.
Note: a good acronym mnemonic—

10. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
“Skilled Cooks Use a Few Aromatic Dishes to Entertain Strangers”
a. Society
Allowing users to connect with each other—create communities of interest—in the
context of whatever purpose the enginet serves. Examples: JDate.com (Jewish
dating site), (business or personal) social networking sites, massively multiplayer
games, etc.
How will you turn on users’ natural inclination to connect with others, or express
their individuality as compared to others in your enginet’s community of
interest?
b. Compensation
Compensation is simply that: compensating the user with some value in return
for performing some action or service.
Will your enginet provide ways for which users can be compensated for their
actions? Will you allow them to put up a “store” of sorts? Sell advice? Trade?
Auction? Earn points that can be redeemed for real value? Start a virtual
business where they can earn virtual currency that they can use within the
virtual world the enginet creates (like many MMOGs do)?
c. Utility
How does your enginet provide the user with utility, if at all?
d. Fear
Do you employ the dynamic of “fear” in your enginet design?
eBay allows users to set up alerts as to whether they’re winning or losing an
auction, causing many auction enthusiasts to spend the half-hour glued to the
computer screen for fear of losing that auction. Moveon.org provides an
enginet that allows users to easily voice their opinion/vote/influence with their
political representatives, for fear of some law or other action be taken against
their wishes.
e. Addiction
Many sites—eBay and Neopets included—find ways to get their users addicted to
their service, product or programming. Not a new dynamic in the world, but

11. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
one that is very powerful and a great motivator for getting users to your site
more often and for longer periods.
How might your site be addictive, if at all?
f. Diversion
How is your enginet entertaining? Why would someone spend their leisure time
using it?
g. Ego
How does your enginet satisfy or stroke the ego of the user?
h. Superego
This relates to a user’s “value system,” not their self-gratification. It’s how they
feel about their politics, about their culture, about humanity, the environment,
about a disease from which their mother suffered, about religion… about things
bigger than themselves. This is a powerful motivator and should be consciously
employed.
What kinds of value systems are embodied by your enginet? Does it embody a
certain culture, religion, empathy or way of thinking that draws users, and
works to keep them coming back?
5. Marketplace Differentiation
The internet (and related media) is the “great commoditizer.” Because there is no
physical distance, it becomes harder and harder to keep one site differentiated from
another—to maintain a competitive advantage. Online retail sites are famous for this—
with sites like froogle.com and pricegrabber.com, a user can search once for the
cheapest price for a given product, finding dozens of sites from which to comparison
shop at one time. Yet sites like Amazon.com remain atop the heap. Why?
There are a handful of differentiators that cannot be commoditized, and that
programmers of networked media should keep in mind when designing and building
enginets of any kind—whether simple retail engines or full-blown trading posts. There
are eight differentiators:

12. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
a. Customer Service
Providing a top-notch user experience at all levels has consistently been a
differentiator online and offline. Dell has done it. Amazon has done it.
Elance.com has done it. eBay has done it.
Remember, customer service in networked media does *not* always mean “talk
to the programmer.” It can be as simple as providing the customer the ability to
give their opinion of another user, public feedback on the function of the
enginet, etc.
Customer service can range to anything that gives the customer a voice, and
listening to it. How is the enginet built to service the customer? How might it do
this differently than similar sites?
b. Community of Interest
Once a community starts to build, it self-perpetuates. It’s one of the reasons
eBay is still the largest auction site on the entire web. It’s not that building an
auction engine is difficult, it’s that for enginets that require a critical mass of
users (auctions, trading sites, job sites, dating sites, etc) the larger the
community of interest, the better the chance you have of differentiating your
enginet from others.
Furthermore, the community-of-interest does not have to be a commercially-
minded community to be a differentiator. There are uncountable topics around
which communities aggregate—religion, politics, heritage, family, school, work,
hobbies, sports, etc. Designing an enginet that does that most effectively—
engender community—will ultimately be a boon to the enginet programmers.
How will you engender community? Have you thought about the ways in which
you’ll attract and build this community?
c. Exclusivity
Anything that is unique to a enginet will be a competitive differentiator. This
can apply to patented technology, or the presence of exclusive bits of
programming—behind-the-scenes movie footage, one-time live chat with a big
star, exclusive release of a new song, etc.
What might you have exclusively in your enginet?

13. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
d. Personality
This is most often related to “brand,” but it goes beyond that. Nike has a
brand—a unique identity; but Yahoo, Google, eBay, etc arguably have a fuller
personality—how we interact with them, how they “behave” is unique… a
differentiator, if done well.
Thinking about networked engines as having personalities (as opposed to
simply a “brand,” which it should have as well) will help you differentiate your
efforts.
What will the personality of your enginet be like? Do you have a strong brand
strategy? That is, a way to make the name, form and/or function different from
any others in networked media?
e. Entertainment
Engaging the attention of others is a much-sought-after skill. How do we
capture their attention, and nurture their loyalty and trust?
How will you keep your audience diverted to your enginet?
f. Marketing
This is always a competitive differentiator. However, we need to look at it from
two angles - (1) offline marketing; and (2) online marketing. Furthermore, you
need to consider whether you can afford to spread the word via (a) top-down
broadcast-oriented, yell-from-the-top-of-the-mountain type marketing, or (b) more
clever, guerilla-style, word-of-mouth or word-of-mouse type marketing.
How do you propose to market your enginet (1) offline; and (2) online.
g. First-In
Is there anyone else in the marketplace offering a similar enginet? Are you
first? Talk about how this is the first of its kind, if it is.
h. Last Standing
Discuss the resources—especially manpower (be specific)—you’d need to build
and manage this enginet on an ongoing basis.
Summarize how your site will differentiate itself from other sites on the internet. That
is, how will your enginet be unique?

14. Franklinstrasse 15, 10587 Berlin, Germany / +49 30 397 43 603Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Executive MBA
A brief (1-page maximum) preliminary description of the venture will be due. It should
contain a concise description of the basic idea and why the team feels it’s promising.
All team members should be identified. Substantiation of the idea, or definition of the
business model, are not expected at this stage and should be deferred. Written
comments will be returned prior to class time, the following week. Please submit all
written material in Word, and I will return all comments using the “track changes
feature” in a copy of the submission.
Preliminary team presentations for feedback and comments from the class, faculty and
industry practitioners (off-line). These sessions are intended to offer the opportunity to
test ideas and presentation elements in advance, presenting to each other, faculty and
entrepreneurs for additional feedback and giving teams the first opportunity to defend
ideas under scrutiny. Preliminary pitch/feedback sessions will be scheduled outside of
class hours only if needed. Groups will need to work with the Course Instructor to
schedule these sessions so the time is used effectively.