Apr 17, 2014 | Change, Collaboration, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
The most successful people I have seen over 40 years of business share one crucial characteristic.
Curiosity.
The successful are insatiably curious, it spans all aspects of their lives, not just the parts that are spent working at what pays the mortgage, but across all aspects of their private and social lives as well as their commercial ones.
Curiosity also in independent of the size of the enterprise, and often happens in clusters, as one curious person infect those around them. The Medici effect.
Supporting the curiosity are a number of specific behaviours I have observed, that to a greater of lesser extend are exhibited by all, they are in effect the enabling behaviours of their curiosity.
- They are always asking questions, some whilst knowing that the receiver has no idea of the answer, or even if one exists.
- They seek alternative views everywhere, encouraging others to play devils advocate
- They network relentlessly, seeking a diversity of views, not just on their areas of specific interest, but across the span of human activity
- They read widely, then test what they have read against their own experience
- They are curious about advances and ideas outside their area of immediate focus
- They observe, play “fly on the wall” looking for “jobs to be done” by all the products being used in the environment they are observing.
- They experiment relentlessly, often in very small ways, and explicitly set out to understand what worked, what did not, and why.
- They record everything, by making notes, using a Dictaphone, and more recently using the plethora of mobile devices to great benefit.
Perhaps you can add some more, but at least ask yourself how many of these you display, and are they displayed by those around you.
Apr 11, 2014 | Change, Collaboration, Innovation, Small business
courtesy respectserendipity.com
At first sight, “Organised” and “Serendipity” are at opposite ends of the scale, almost mutually exclusive.
Serendipity occurs by chance, when the stars align, the unexpected happens and not by any organised process, or so we are led to believe. Organisation by contrast removes by its nature the chance occurrences, random relationships, and inconsistency that make serendipity possible.
As collaboration increases and we recognise and seek to harness the intellectual capital of individuals by what is often called loose/tight management, the opportunity for serendipity increases, simply because the processes that run our lives are looser, more inclusive rather than exclusive. The use of technology to facilitate collaboration and recording process has increased the opportunity for those serendipitous moments and insights that just used to occur at the water cooler, and in the lunch room.
It follow then that setting out to organise in such a way that the chances of serendipity are enhanced is both logical and indeed, is a competitive necessity. It is after all where the insights that lead to innovation and its rewards are born.
Are you organised for it?
Mar 11, 2014 | Change, Governance, Innovation, Personal Rant
Comment on possible changes to the cross media ownership laws is emerging, again. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull reopened the conversation in an interview with Sky, reflecting that the media landscape had changed dramatically, so it makes sense to change the rules that govern the ownership that were set up before the changes occurred. It seems pretty sensible to me.
However, here is the paradox.
The traditional media is commercially stuffed, as the advertising has been drained away by the “new media” of the internet, but never have they been so powerful. Just look at the role the Murdoch press, and the so called “news” programs on commercial TV at prime time in the evening, played in the recent federal election.
“New media” outlets are popping up all over the place, previously unpublishable individuals (like yours truly) can have their say, amongst comment and analysis by serious groups like the Guardian , and new collaborations like that represented by the Conversation . However, the agenda is still being shaped by the newspapers and evening TV “news” programs.
Occupying a core place in the system is the ABC, seemingly reviled by both political persuasions when in Government, so they must be doing something right. However, the future of the ABC is consistently under question, and the economic argument is a solid one. The demographics of the ABC are heavily skewed towards the top half of the population, 70% of the population never engage with the ABC over the course of a year, and yet we all pay equally, effectively a regressive tax. As the argument goes, those who want the ABC can generally afford to pay for it, or have their viewing/listening interrupted by ads which pay for it, and those who do not ever listen/view it should not be expected to pay.
The media landscape has changed beyond recognition in the last decade, and the rules that govern that landscape should evolve as well to better ensure a competitively and commercially healthy system, as we are all best served by diversity, competition and innovation. Just what that evolved regulatory framework means is under debate, and some pretty smart people are putting their views, amongst them Marc Andreesen, an investor who gets it right more often than he gets it wrong, with this terrific post on the future of news.
Any change will impact all of us. How we obtain information, analysis, and opinion, wrapped up as “news” in my humble view, is crucial to the way we interact with the world, and we should all be engaged in the debate about the changes.
Mar 4, 2014 | Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
Innovation is a process, mostly it is managed for better or worse with some sort of stage-gate process.
Sensitive project management of innovation is vital, the context of the project, the culture, management engagement, business model, the source of resources used, funding, and all the rest are critically important, and blend into a system.
However, one vital consideration often under-considered, or missed, in development projects is the evolution of the Customer Value Proposition.
Concentrating on the product, its specifications, the technology, operational considerations, design and engineering, and all the rest are vital, but ultimately, it is the customer who puts their hand in their pocket, and allocates, or otherwise, their scarce resources to your products. They will only make that choice in your favour when it is in their interests to do so.
Why is it then that the foundations of the value proposition, the identification, characteristics, interaction, and measurement of the drivers that will deliver customer value and therefore sales are often ignored, or glossed over? In my experience, it is usually because the developers fall in love with their products and designs, not really considering them from the customer perspective.
The value proposition usually evolves during the design and pilot process, but only if it is allowed to.
Sensibly, there is a second stage gate process, one that is parallel to the product development, the value development process which critically translates the product features into customer value as they evolve.
A test of the success of the value development process is the depth of the debate about price. A successful VDP will preclude almost any debate, and certainly the most often used determinants of prices, being cost and competitor activity, will be relegated to the bottom of the pile of considerations.
Jan 6, 2014 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Small business
Its the new year, 2014, January 6 to be exact, and I have been ruminating on the “List” every blogger accumulates and publishes early in January in the hope that they get noticed, and build some momentum for the year.
All the research tells us that headlines that include a list, like “top 10” and “5 things to…” get opened more than their non-list competitors, so that is what most seem to use, understandably. Being opened is the first hurdle, and a list helps with that, but the following wished for outcomes, being relevant, shared, and useful are just as challenging, and lists do not necessarily help.
Contemplating my list, trying to articulate the things I see happening that may influence our commercial choices in 2014, I saw a common thread. Everything I was contemplating sprang from the opportunities opening by being different, new, or looking at a common challenge from a new perspective. This seemed to hold equally when contemplating new products and technologies, emerging services, and new business models.
It seemed to me that the thread was that the real advantages and advances in 2014 will not come from doing the same things better, but by doing different things.
How different are you planning to be? what is on your agenda that is genuinely new, rather than just a rehash of something old but perhaps proven? how are you going to stand out in an increasingly homogeneous world?
Oct 30, 2013 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
Engaged in an innovation portfolio management assignment a while ago, we struggled to define why one project should continue to suck up resources in preference to many other seemingly worthy opportunities.
We tried all sorts of models, financial and strategic, and really faced the dilemma that all were driven by assumptions, the accuracy of which was only clear with hindsight.
Not much help there.
We set about distilling all the data, assumptions, models, and diagrams we had collected into something simple, something that reflected more than the assumed commercial and strategic value of the initiatives, something we could engage with. We came up with one word, and three questions.
Value.
Who would benefit from this initiative?
Why was it better than anything else?
Why should anyone care?
Suddenly the task became clearer.
The discounted cash flows, competitive positioning, portfolio diagrams, and potential for stock exchange announcements became less important, and what become far more important was the simple notion, which of the projects we were considering was doing something important, solving a problem, adding value to someone unavailable elsewhere.
We developed a set of metrics covering these three questions we called the “Value Gap”
The value gap analysis between options to invest in new stuff became the benchmark for prioritizing projects, and we found there were only a very few from what had previously been a significant portfolio that were worth our effort.
