From "three values" to "Choice", the annual special issue produced by Tencent Culture in 2021 will talk with you about "Choice".

The development process of an enterprise, in fact, comes out slowly from a variety of choices. This year, we try to ask some neglected questions from the most common things in Tencent's daily operation and find answers.

Each unique and interesting phenomenon provides an aspect for our observation, and the combination of these sections is now Tencent, not so perfect, sometimes even self-contradictory, but always full of vitality and always inspiring goodwill.

Behind every question and answer, there is a choice.

You will see a lot of choices in this year's yearbook. Should we give up a small team that doesn't make money? What to do in the face of criticism? How to say goodbye to employees who are about to leave? Behind every Tencent's choice is the choice of many Tencent people.

In this article we share today, let's listen to Pony's choice: why did he choose the Internet at that time, and why did he choose sustainable social value innovation today? In Pony's view, the CBS Trinity is opening up a new blue ocean.

When the Internet first appeared more than 20 years ago, it was cool to write programs. People used to compete with each other whose code was beautifully written. Instead, I cared more about what I wrote was used by more people.

In 1995, I opened the Shenzhen station of Fidonet (Huiduo Network) with Modem (modem) and telephone line, which opened the door to a new world. Huido Network was born in 1984 and is the first BBS network in the world. All sites are spontaneously set up by enthusiasts who love computer communication. BBS was originally intended as an electronic bulletin board, but its functions were growing driven by user demand, and later developed a letter discussion area and file exchange area, which can send e-mail and faxes and share the latest sharing software. BBS can also communicate online, and online users can chat in real time, play computer games together, and seek expert help when they encounter problems. Emoticons were already very popular at that time, such as: -) smiling; 8 -) drooling with envy; 8Mel X stands for scared. Emoticons are more expressive than words, and everyone can create some symbols to spread on the Internet all over the world.

Huido Network is my first close contact with the Internet, this experience let me establish the most basic understanding of Internet products.

Three values

How to produce a good Internet product?

First of all, it must have an application scenario before the product can be used.

A knife is so sharp that if no one uses it, it can only lie in the corner and rust. If the computer is not connected to the Internet, it is only an isolated island of information. Basic science continues to break through the limitations of human cognition, making us more and more capable. These abilities that continue to improve and accumulate will eventually be applied through some scenarios to improve our work and life. After Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, humans knew electricity and had the ability to generate electricity, while Edison invented the light bulb to illuminate humans; Morse invented the Telegraph, which used electricity to transmit messages. Huido connects unfamiliar netizens around the world, making it easier for people to exchange information, exchange emotions, open new application scenarios and bring computers to life.

Second, the network will generate new value, when the product is used by many people to form a network, it will evolve and iterate on its own. This is like a good literary work, the reader has its own interpretation, often beyond the author's design. The same is true of Internet products, sometimes you can't imagine how people will use it. The more people use it, the more diverse the scenes and ways of using it, and the more netizens will invent it. If we pay attention, we will find more, draw inspiration from it, develop new features, and drive the product to iterate over and over again. Huiduo.com has developed more and more functions from a bulletin board, and netizens can also create their own emojis, which is the value derived from the application of networking.

In the following decades, with the continuous upgrading of BBS and the rapid development of the Internet, it has evolved new application scenarios, new functions and new products that are difficult for us to imagine at first. Portals, instant messaging and short and short videos are all innovations, and we are fortunate to be involved in creating favorite products like QQ and Wechat, which are the products of participation and creation by Internet people and users, which is an exciting process.

The process has not stopped. In the process of doing QQ and Wechat, we have a third discovery: cross-border value.

QQ is the application produced after the pager, an instant messaging tool, crosses the border to the Internet, and the essence of Wechat is a mailbox, which is the application produced by the combination of mailbox and mobile Internet. Many innovations come from cross-border, and when the accumulated technological capabilities of human beings develop to a certain stage, these capabilities will produce new application scenarios in the cross-border.

The trinity of user, industry and society (CBS)

Now we are faced with a new blue ocean, a blue ocean of cross-border innovation driven by Tech for Good. In the third decade of the 21 century, two changes are taking place at the same time: one is the rapid improvement of a series of technological capabilities brought about by scientific and technological progress, including cloud, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, biotechnology, new energy and so on. The other is the demand change brought about by social, economic, cultural and technological development. More and more industries are becoming digital and intelligent. More and more elderly people, children and people with disabilities are joining the digital world. The main object of Internet services has developed from users (C) to industry (B), and now it has become social (S)-- this is a new stage.

At this stage, social needs are very different from those in the past, and many social problems that have been accumulated by various industries and different people for a long time cannot be solved overnight. It requires us to take a comprehensive view of the overall situation and find a direction suitable for us on the basis of an in-depth understanding of the pain points of the society. When we first went deep into the countryside, we encountered a great setback and successively sent 11 experienced product managers to the countryside, all to no avail. Only one student was so stubborn that he clenched his teeth and persisted in Tongguan, Guizhou, and made the project "for the village". Giving full play to the connection ability of Wechat for the village, we have created a mobile Internet toolkit that helps the rural revitalization, can customize the Wechat official account for the village, create a "party and mass service center" for the grass-roots government on mobile phones, train the leaders of rural revitalization through the "cultivator plan", and so on. But this model is still heavy. In the fields of industry, education, medical treatment, culture and so on, we have also made a lot of attempts. Like rural issues, until now, we are still in the stage of learning, thinking and exploration.

Since we put forward the strategy of "industrial Internet", we have been involved in many industries, and we know more and more about the industry, and we are closer to the pulse of society. Especially during the epidemic period, in the process of making public emergency products and services, we deeply feel that in education, health care and other industries, many public needs can not be met simply from the perspective of commercialization. In the new stage and new pattern, we need to have new ideas, and our business model needs to be upgraded. A few years ago, we were already setting up different science laboratories, some studying AI, some studying quantum, some studying robots. In the process of going deep into the industry, we have made great progress in all aspects of our ability. Since the establishment of the Sustainable Social values Division this year, we have set up a new series of laboratories focusing on social issues, including Yinfa Science and Technology Lab, Innovation School Lab, Science and Technology Ecology Lab, carbon Neutralization Lab, and Village Development Lab. The concentric war epidemic in 2020 and the process of participating in Henan rainstorm aid this year let us see the team motivation and creativity inspired by charity.

In this process, we have found more possibilities for cross-border innovation. For example, Tencent documents, which were outstanding in the torrential rain in Henan Province, various rescue agencies joined the rescue operation, making the function of this "life-saving document" constantly evolving, and developed functions such as bulletin boards and communication bars from document editing to become a large-scale online collaboration tool. We are particularly happy to see that a collaborative software has such a great effect on the C side and even the social side. Our technical team not only supports the response to social needs and helps solve social problems, but also excavates new application scenarios in the future.

There are many similar examples. In order to make everyone hear more clearly at Tencent meeting, our technicians developed a new generation of real-time audio technology-Tencent Teana AI technology. Recently, this noise reduction ability has been used in cochlear implants, increasing the clarity and intelligibility of cochlear implants by 40%, so that many deaf people can hear the world more clearly. Teana Labs and cochlear implant manufacturers have also developed an App called Maxilanbao, which can improve the voice recognition rate by 66% by putting the phone aside while watching TV and turning on the AI function.

In 2017, we developed the AI medical imaging product Miying, which has the opportunity to display this ability in the fight against epidemic. At the beginning of 2020, when there were a large number of patients and suspected patients in Wuhan, it was a convenient and quick way to identify COVID-19 by lung CT screening, but doctors alone could not see it. We cooperated with Central South Hospital of Wuhan University to develop COVID-19 image recognition model and diagnosed more than 24000 patients with pulmonary CT in Leishenshan Hospital in two months. At the beginning of 2021, the diagnosis system was installed on the car and became a "mobile square cabin CT". The examinee could do CT examination in the car, which was used in Hebei Province. These new requirements accelerate the application of AI in the medical field.

It was also during the fight against the epidemic that we saw in the moments that residents of some communities had to enter and leave safely with the right password, so we used Transit QR Code's technology to develop health codes. Now the health code is like an electronic pass extending in all directions, and its track has become a strong support for China's epidemic prevention.

Recently, the national first aid network, which we are planning, has also gained new inspiration from the rainstorm in Henan Province. We saw that after a citizen was in distress, the family called the local JD.com store to ask for first aid. This inspires us to think about whether we can give full play to our ability to build a new open first aid network platform, coupling the forces of all sectors of society, including rescue teams, volunteers, communities, stores, and even strangers. Including insurance company sales, couriers, ride-hailing drivers, and so on. We have the ability to create such a network.

Tencent started from the cross-border, now in rural revitalization, aging, carbon neutralization and other social issues, there are many social needs that have not been fully met, but also a long-standing social pain point. From the perspective of solving social pain points, relying on existing technical capabilities, we can find a lot of exciting scenes. What is different from the past is that we used to innovate from the product in the past, but in the future we have to jump out of the original framework, open our horizons, and look for more systematic solutions from a global point of view. It may serve the user (C), may serve the industry (B), may be a combination of the two, and sometimes cooperate with government departments or other organizations (S). It is the trinity of user, industry and society (CBS), but the ultimate goal is to create value for the society.

In just 20 years, the Internet has started from a "cat" + telephone line to today, the total number of Internet users in China has reached 1.011 billion, and the Internet penetration rate is 71.6%. The reason why we put forward sustainable social value innovation, and rise to the corporate strategy, set up a special department to invest 100 billion funds to do, because it is not only our responsibility, but also represents the direction of future innovation. We are deeply aware that social value is like a piece of soil, it is the foundation of the development of the whole enterprise, the deeper the root is, the more user value and industrial value grow on it, the more luxuriant it will be. The better we do the user value and industrial value, in turn, we can absorb more sunshine and nutrients and feed back to the social value of the roots. The three complement each other and form a trinity.

Still need to focus.

There are a lot of things to do in this blue sea, but you still have to find what you are best at and focus on doing it. Immersion and concentration can lead to discoveries and breakthroughs, not only in the field of basic scientific research, but also in applied innovation. The experience we have accumulated in making products in the past is also applicable to sustainable social value innovation.

When faced with requirements, we often find that there are many user requirements, and we need to identify key requirements and real requirements. This kind of identification and judgment ability can only be established when we are immersed in the process of serving users. You have to go deeper to see where the user's most painful point is. It may be an opportunity for innovation, which others can't imagine, but you take it seriously and seriously get a small innovation point. After many points are gathered, innovation occurs naturally.

Don't get lost in needs, we have to combine our strengths to solve key problems. It is also necessary to focus on forming strengths, focus for a long time, and concentrate superior forces on a valuable issue in order to make continuous breakthroughs.

Tencent is a pragmatic company. for so many years, we have been positive-oriented and have encountered problems to solve problems. In the face of the blue ocean of CBS trinity and cross-border innovation under the new situation, what enterprises need to do is to put in seriously and go out to do it. Since the epidemic last year, the acceleration of the digitization process has aggravated the social problems such as the gap between the rich and the poor, the real economy is under pressure, and the aging of the population is also approaching the reality. We are facing great changes in the times, and the entire Internet industry is rethinking the future. But I always believe in the power of scientific and technological innovation and improvement. Since its birth, the Internet has been committed to making people break down barriers and connect closely. Innovation is the driving force for the development of this industry. Tencent's development stems from our putting user value first and walking all the way to the present with the original intention of being a user and a society. The current industry consolidation gives us the opportunity to face up to the problems omitted in the rapid development in the past and rethink the role that an enterprise should play in society. How to make better use of and give full play to our existing capabilities, apply them to more and more needed scenarios, and create value for society, this is a difficult problem that we are trying to think about.

This is a never-ending road. Finding answers to questions and looking for application scenarios for capabilities is a very pleasant process of innovation and creation.