LEAD/MARKE

Save the World: Wash this Spoon!

Via sustainable-sam.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "The Biggest Innovation Challenge of All"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Business Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility: Tom - Tim - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

We all get caught up in the day-to-day activities of work and life but have you really stopped to think about how extraordinary your life is? Don’t worry, I’m not about to do one of those self-help/motivational rants but I do want to make the point that we may be in the middle of a economic development bubble if we don’t address the biggest innovation challenge that is confronting all of us.

The long-term growth in world GDP per capita is a confronting chart. I first saw this in Eric Beinhocker’s book “The Origin of Wealth”. Really, nothing happened until the 18th century and then there has been an increasing rate of GDP growth that really takes off with the industrial revolution. This is the chart from “Origin of Wealth”.

We are living in extraordinary times and it’s very easy to take this development for granted. As Beinhocker puts it even more succinctly:

…over 97 percent of humanity’s wealth was created in just the last 0.01 percent of our history. As the economic historian David Landes describes it, “the Englishman of 1750 was closer in material things to Caesar’s legionanaires than to his own great-grand children.”

The trouble with this rate of growth is that it is both amazing and disconcerting at the same time. If I showed a curve like that to a finance colleague they might say that it looks like a market bubble. If I think back to the ecology classes in my science degree it looks like the population curve of a species that goes through boom and bust cycles.

Since the 18th century this growth has been underpinned by the use of finite fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil. There is a very close relationship between GDP and energy consumption and while economies are slowly becoming less energy intensive, this relationship is largely intact. The biggest innovation challenge of all is decoupling fossil fuel consumption from GDP growth. Food and water might be constraints to growth as well but these can be overcome with energy.

Energy Consumption and Economic Growth (The Economist)

The first energy crunch in the middle of the 17th century was due to the loss of forests around cities that provided wood. The winners were the nations and towns that could find and extract coal to power development.

The winners of the next energy crunch may not be the nations that own resources. Instead, it will be the innovators who can restructure economies to break the relationship between fossil fuel consumption and economic development.

(ralf says: Incrementals won't save us. Innovation for innovation's sake won't save us.
And - as Einstein said: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them".
Now read Tim's last sentence again ;)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > "Innovation Funnel"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Business Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility: Tom - Tim - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

Every company has some form of innovation funnel. The funnel is wide at the front to capture potential ideas and narrows to the select few that launch. Projects progress from the idea stage through design and ultimately to market.

Amazingly, the average new product success rate is less than 10%. So companies spend a lot of time on this innovation funnel looking for ways to boost their hit rate. Most companies focus on the back end. They raise the bar, elevate the hurdles, and tighten the scrutiny, allowing fewer ideas to make it through. They inject more idea killers and sharp teeth into the process.

Yet running a more severe gauntlet doesn’t necessarily lead to better ideas. It can lead to safer ideas, but the added internal review cycles and scrutiny sometimes sand away what makes ideas most unique.

Funnel focus is better placed on the front end. Ensure a heavier and constant stream of new ideas and then find ways to test versions of those ideas in the market. Learn from actual use of the ideas and spend less time in stage gates.

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman shared some entrepreneurial observations recently, including this gem on innovation:

“Launch early. Unless you’re Steve Jobs, you’re most likely partially wrong about what your theory was. So launch early and often. Launching early attracts customer engagement, and it’s the customer who’s going to tell you what’s wrong so you can correct it.”

I think this iterative approach can apply to physical products, not just web products. Betabrand in San Francisco launches a new idea each and every week. Some do well and some don’t, but they learn with small stakes. Small stakes allow them to place frequent bets.

Rather than try to lower the failure rate, lower the cost of failure.

(ralf says:
In most companies the above procedure is derived directly from their (ineffective) strategy & innovation process, thinking, talking deciding just once a year: all brains, man power and commitment are put behind one single meeting, shot, window of opportunity.

But these times are over for good. You cannot manage the new individuality, independence, and impatience of people at just 3 days of 365. You have to live the new life, second by second, day by day.

Changing this will automatically lead to Tom's reco.)

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. Twitter: @tomfishburne

Brand Engagement & Agility: "The New Hotness: Word-of-Click Marketing"

"Everyone has heard of “word of mouth.” It’s a grassroots style of marketing that uses the goodwill of current and future customers and magnifies it as much as possible.

Share this post

Two things have changed with social media emerging as a primary marketing venue.
First, the potential to have messages amplified is much higher - individuals can spread their message much more prolifically through social media than they ever could before through standard “word of mouth.”
Second, businesses have a greater amount of control over not only how amplified their message is but also how they can monitor what’s being said.

The “mouth” has been replaced by the “click.” It’s a “Word of Click” world, now, and businesses must be willing to use it if they want to truly take advantage of social media."

Read more about
- Understanding the Power
- Monitoring the Clicks
- Encouraging Word of Click
- Tools to Master the Click
at The New Hotness: Word of Click Marketing, flowtown.

Design: Ferrari Testa Rossa, 1958

Via brooklynmars.

How to write a Manifesto [Ironic]

(Every now and then marketers have to write manifestos, sort of. They should, but often I think they can't. So they shouldn't.

You should not WRITE, but think about what you should DO!

Manifestos do not disrupt the world. Actions do!)

 

Via thisisnthappiness.

Praise of Great CRM: Painted Racing Car Reminds me of 40yrs old Campaign!

The painting below reminds me (in a flash) of a series of collectible mini posters you received fuelling up at Aral, the German BP. That is some 40 years ago!
Can you believe that? I am stunned again what true customer relationship managament is able to do - if done right!

Via listenyourwildside.

Great (small) posters of racing cars given to a child of 7-10 (or whatever) do make an impact for 40 years (and counting). Can you imagine achieving that today?

Impossible?

Just have to understand the target group. Just have to give them what they really love. Give them something they will get nowhere else. Find something deeply connected to your core. You do that every day?

Don't just surface wants and needs. Digg deeper. Think about yourself, your kids, your own youth. Think about wants, cravings. Think about the most extreme usage of your products. Think about fascination. Think about people being proud to possess and show off (in the best sense).

If gasoline did it then, yoghurt can do it, too. Or sliced bread, power drills, tires.

Truly great CRM connects people and brands for a lifetime - via bigger-than-life emotions! Think about it!

 

Innovation: Preserve's Success Story of 100%Recycled Plastic Products

"At a moment when making cheap consumer goods in the United States seems to be a nostalgic memory, Eric Hudson and his 12-person team at Preserve are doing the improbable.

From $15 cutting boards to $2 cereal bowls to $3 toothbrushes, every product in Preserve’s catalog is made in the United States. And everything is made of 100 percent recycled plastic, from sources like yogurt cups, clothes hangers, and water filters.

Over the past few years, Preserve’s products have found a place on the shelves of major retailers such as Target and Whole Foods Market.

Another interesting wrinkle: Any item the company sells can be mailed back to Preserve when you’re done with it, and the plastic will be reused in new products. Preserve’s toothbrushes even come packaged with a postage-paid envelope."

Read the whole story at Bostonbusiness. Via @johnmaeda.

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > "Like us on Facebook"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Business Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility: Tom - Tim - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

The Facebook “Like” land grab is in full swing. Fan acquisition is becoming an increasing part of many marketing plans, in the midst of a lot of debate on the value of Facebook fans. Different pundits are increasingly trying to pinpoint a universal value to fans.

As one observer summarized, “Your Facebook fans are worth exactly $1.07. No, they’re worth $3.60. Or maybe they’re worth $136.38. Unless they’re worthless.”

Setting a value per fan can lead to indiscriminate fan chasing. Many brands seem intent on amassing as many fans as possible, independent of the relevance of the fan. They’re treating fan accumulation as a media buy.

While fans can be bought, it’s important to remember than quality trumps quantity. And simply accumulating fans is only the start.  Developing a relationship is far more valuable.

Hal Thomas posted some useful notes following an SXSW panel on the value of a Facebook fan: “The value of a Facebook fan is ZERO until you do something with them. There is no inherent value in amassing fans.”

The overlooked key to getting fans to like your brand is to be a brand worth liking.

(ralf says: Every marketer should carry the last sentence under her pillow. Nothing to add - just a few quick links: Ooops - the Value of a Facebook Fan is Zero! and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn - When Shall we Three Meet Again? In Thunder, Lightning, or in Rain? and Liebe Facebook-Apostel, ich habe im Bus jemanden “geliked”! and Facebook Fans: Die gute Nachricht ist die schlechte Nachricht! and Engagement & Experience: What are Your "Pentalobular Screws"? - Enjoy!)

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. Twitter: @tomfishburne

Re/volution - Let's Do It!

Via paavo.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Three Steps for Inventing the Future"

(L/M NET features Tim's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

The Future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. - William Gibson

That’s the idea that framed yesterday’s post – Where’s My Flying Car? I argued that as innovators, our job is to invent the future – and that in doing so, instead of trying to come up with something that has never existed before, like a flying car, we’re better off trying to figure out how things that already exist can be redesigned so that they mean something completely new.

It’s about innovating meaning rather than innovating stuff.

Some of the responses to that post triggered some thoughts about how to do this – so here are three steps to take for inventing the future:

1. Make sure that what we’re doing creates genuine value: Yesterday I talked about how part of the problem was in defining potential solutions to our problems only in terms of ways of thinking that already exist. Umair Haque made a similar point in his post last week:
   

   What stands in the way of the future, most often, is the past. It’s yesterday’s sluggish institutions. Yet, instead of reimagining and rebooting those institutions, we keep reviving and resurrecting them - zombielike - hoping that by bringing them back from the dead, we can keep the status quo humming along for just a little while longer, that we can eke out the last meager, shriveled morsels of returns from seeds laid down during the industrial age.
   So here’s my question: Does what you’re doing have a point - one that matters to people, society, nature, and the future?

   This is the first step in inventing the future.

2. Create value by meeting needs, not wants: Jeffrey Phillips made a very good response to yesterday’s post. He argues that we don’t have flying cars because while a number of people may want them, no one really needs them. Phillips says that the best way to create value is to focus on needs:
   

   Wants are interesting and may lead an innovator to potential value, but are often not deeply rooted or key to a person’s life. Additionally, wants often don’t scale, that is, they aren’t shared by a significant number of other people. Needs, on the other hand, are more immediate, more closely felt and more likely to be shared. Innovators must do a better job distinguishing between wants and needs.

   So that’s step two.

3. Redesign things that already exist to create new meaning: Kevin McFarthing gave a great example of doing this in a comment:
   

   Very interesting post, Tim. A good example of disruptive technology and displacement of existing is the growth of mobile phones in places like India and Africa. People talking to each other is an “old job”. Mobile phone technology leapfrogs landline and cable to allow millions more to talk to each other. The language of the job and the technology exist, economics facilitate, and the innovative change in the market happens.

   That’s step three - innovate meaning. In this case, mobile phones in the west mean “I can talk anywhere”, but in developing countries, they mean “I can finally talk.”

I’ll take Kevin’s example one step further. Mobile phones have been revolutionary in Africa in several ways – for example, they have been used to create banking for many people that don’t have a bank account:

Disintermediation is also made possible by mobile money. Services to transfer cash by text message have been around for some years. One of the most successful, M-PESA, began in 2007 in Kenya, where it now has more than 13m users. It is now used for salaries, bills, donations: few things cannot be paid for via a handset. Similar services can be found in more than 40 countries. Though not yet on the same scale, this seems to be only a question of time: in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, more people have a mobile phone than a bank account

This has it all. The mobile services are making people’s lives materially better. They do this by meeting a genuine need. And the value is created using technology that has been considered a failure in North America and Europe, but which is given a new meaning in the context of developing countries.

This isn’t just an innovation lesson that applies in developing countries though. You can use these same three steps anywhere. In fact, you should use these same three steps any place where you want to use innovation to invent a more meaningful future.

(ralf says: What I like most are wants that ideally become needs - because needs are more or less rational(ized), wants are very emotional, and innovations addressing emotions will be more successful (if they are also relevant at the same time, of course).
The want to have web access in your mobile in a few months became a basic need for everybody before just being online at home or the office.

Sometimes wants become needs very fast, as soon as enough people want(!) it.)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

There is Nothing like a Saturated Market - Just Saturated Managers

Everywhere marketing managers, CEOs, innovation managers and strategic business developers complain about mature markets. What are they doing all day long?

If you would walk through our world with open hearts and eyes you may find potential, niches, and business models everywhere.
And you do not have to start with thinking about Apple converging, inventing and de/constructing markets!

We should not discuss what others do, but start ourselves to see the world with different eyes, the eyes of the consumer, the eyes of our customers. And please don't ask them - understand them, get firsthand insights - not secondhand guesses and (mis)interpretations.

Eg. consider people at a bus station as potential car or (motor) bike buyers, they are searching for mobility solutions.

Tear down the limitations of your markets. Pretend that there are no specific markets, all markets are one. All products converge. All services converge. To one, to some.
Convergence adds value, adds efficiency, adds convenience. Convergence defines new business models. And calls for higher simplicity instead of higher complexity.

Human's new independence, individuality, and impatience defines Informal Markets which call for convergence, are a threat to traditional managers, and separate the wheat from the chaff concerning engaged, thriving leaders vs. saturated managers just protecting the(ir) status quo.

Seize the day - and end the myth of mature markets!

Design: VW Bus Ball by Lars-Erik Fisk

Via darkroastedblend.

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > "Outsourcing Social Media"

(L/M NET features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

This week, brand marketers descended on Austin for SXSW Interactive in a bigger mass than ever before. Most are grappling with how to incorporate social media into their marketing plans. They face a decision on how much to insource and how much to outsource.

Last week, Chrysler revealed some of the risks of outsourcing, when someone at their social media agency accidentally tweeted the f-bomb from the Chrysler brand Twitter account instead of their personal Twitter account. This tweet also referenced Chrysler’s Motor City campaign.

Accidents do happen, and can happen of course even when social media is insourced. Yet what this accidental tweet reveals is the machinations behind the curtain of social media. Brand teams, communication teams, and agency teams are all juggling for control over the social media voice of a brand. Figuring out the right role for everyone is complicated.

I found useful perspective from Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni on whether, when, and how brands should outsource social media: “Should You Outsource Social Media“.

There is room for a team approach, but brands should think carefully about what to insource and what to outsource, particularly in content development.

Social media alone won’t make a brand more authentic. Also, you can’t outsource authenticity.

(ralf says: Agencies often 'pretend' to have understood the brand, but even the average marketing person has not! You will have to live the brand with all its rough edges and flaws. Does an agency dare to do that? Of course. Should you dare to outsource? Never!
What you may outsource is pure advertising, disguised as social media. But that may do more harm to your brand than you might expect.

Do you outsource your own character and personality? No - you only do, if you do not have any, if you have to fake it, play a role, pretend to be a better, more likable person, or?
It's more successful to change than to outsource ... as a person or a brand. It's a higher investment, but it is much more rewarding!)

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. Twitter: @tomfishburne

"Is Innovation a Matter of Age?"

"Creativity is of no age. The ability to create novel ideas by combining knowledge stays throughout the entire life.

The likelihood of translating creativity into innovation success, though, seems to be a matter of age. The determinants for successfully implementing and exploiting ideas strongly depend on the context, i.e. field of activity, socio-economic environment, cultural conditions etc.

Major factors like expertise/knowledge and social capabilities increase with age.

Impartiality, in contrast, tends to decrease.

Paired with an individually preferred creative style, this combination results in a certain fit of the innovator with the context.

Overall, this obviously leads to younger “radicals” and older “experimentators” with regards to statistics. However, people of all ages can be basically capable of being successful innovators."

Via Is Innovation a Matter of Age?, Blogging Innovation.

The best way I always prefer is to put a young and an old thinker into one room ... that is the easy part. Finding them in an average corporation is much more difficult.

Mostly both of them have already given up fighting for their ideas, innovations, ...

29 Things Designers Need to Know

Via baubauhaus.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Will Rogers Explains Business Model Innovation"

(L/M NET features Tim's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

One of the keys to successful business model innovation is to find the hidden assumptions in your industry and then change them. When you are doing this, it is useful to remember this quote from Will Rogers:

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

It used to be that everyone knew that to make any money in office equipment, you had to sell it outright and make the profit on consumables. Then Xerox showed that ain’t so – they started selling photocopiers on leases that included consumables and service, and they blew the industry wide open.

Right now, everyone knows that to make any money in automobiles, you sell those outright too. Better Place is making a bet that this ain’t so – that you can sell cars like you do mobile phones, with a low up-front costs and usage charges.

If you are trying to enter an established market, the most dangerous thing you can do is simply recycle the business model that everyone else in the industry is currently using.

You’re much better off innovating the business model. To do this, try to find the hidden assumptions. What does everyone else in the industry assume to be try that ain’t so? Change that, and you’ve got a chance.

Why should you bother with this? I’ll let Will Rogers explain that too:

Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

(ralf says: And if you think you are moving fast, being exhausted, desperate, and burnt out but not getting to the point, not meeting targets, not anticipating the consumer, not becoming truly successful, better think about that:
It does not make sense to run - if you are on the wrong train!)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Don’t Push Rocks, Roll Snowballs"

(L/M NET features Tim's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

Innovation is the process of idea management. One of the critical steps to successful innovation is getting your idea to spread. Hugh MacLeod’s outstanding new book Evil Plans has a lot about how to get your ideas to spread more effectively. One of his tenets is that we should create random acts of traction.

There are two important parts to this idea. The first is that we need to create social objects that have traction – in other words, we are using a pull strategy. The second part is the random bit – we don’t know in advance which ideas actually will gain traction. So we need to experiment, and try out a lot of different ideas.

He starts to frame this idea by quoting Doc Searls:

Tell ya what. I’m fifty-seven years old, and I’ve been pushing large rocks for short distances up a lot of hills, for a long time. Now, with blogging, I get to roll snowballs down hills. Some don’t go very far. But some get pretty big once they start rolling.

See, each snowball grows as others link to the original idea, and add their own thoughts and ideas. By the time the snowball gets big enough to have some impact, it really isn’t my idea any more.

Anyway, at this point in my life I’d rather roll snowballs than push rocks.

Hugh has more great ideas per paragraph than nearly anyone writing these days (he’s in the same league as Charlie Stross) – here is how he follows that point up:

My friends, Dennis Howlett and James Governor, both technology consultants, certainly understand this. As they can only realistically execute on 10% of their ideas, they don’t seem to mind giving away the remaining 90% for free, via their blogs. If one of their free ideas gets “Random Acts of Traction”, it’s great PR for their businesses. It leads to conversations eventually. Conversations that eventually lead to paid gigs.

This only works, of course, if you can make your “snowballs” quickly and inexpensively enough. If you spend too much time worrying about it, you lose. If you try to control where the snowballs go after you’ve released them down the hill, you lose.

“Fail cheap. Fail fast. Fail often. Always make new mistakes.” -Esther Dyson. Words to live by. Exactly.

There are a ton of important ideas tucked in there. The bit about Howlett and Governor having too many ideas to execute themselves is important. It illustrates why we have to have a good process for selecting ideas.

The Dyson quote emphasises the importance of experimenting, and then learning from the ideas that don’t work.

But to me, the important point is that we need to send the snowballs out and see if they gain traction. This is a classic pull strategy. How do we execute this?

Here is how John Seeley Brown, John Hagel and Lang Davison describe their book about this process:

In many respects, The Power of Pull can be read as an attempt to reinstate the central role of socially embedded practice in driving knowledge creation and performance improvement relative to the recent emphasis in the management literature of process reengineering. In short, companies need to refocus technology innovation on providing tools to amplify the efforts of communities of practice to drive performance improvement

If you want to roll snowballs, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Your idea has to meet genuine needs. Pull strategies are based on ideas that meet real needs for people. If you are going to spread the idea through a community, people need to talk about it. They will only do this if you have created tangible value for them.
• Pull strategies rely on networks. Which strategy is best for doing this? This is still a controversial question. Many people advocate targeting people within the network that are highly influential. I prefer the “big seed” approach put forward by Duncan Watts. Greg Satell explains this idea:
  

  As I explained in an earlier post, he calls his approach Big Seed Marketing. His reasoning is that since influence is so hard to track, it is much better simply to start with a lot of reach (i.e. a big seed) and use social media to amplify it. It seems to me to be an incredibly reasonable and sound approach.

• You need to try out a lot of different ideas. Just as you seed your ideas as widely as possible, you try out as many as you can. As Hugh says, you need to roll a lot of snowballs down the hill.

Push strategies are attractive because when you are pushing your ideas, it always seems like you are active, and that you are in control of how successful the idea will be. However, this feeling of control is an illusion. Instead of betting everything on one big idea, we’re usually better off trying out a lot of smaller ones – especially if our environment is turbulent.

So I’m with Doc and Hugh – it’s better to be rolling snowballs than to be pushing rocks.

(ralf says: "Instead of betting everything on one big idea, we’re usually better off trying out a lot of smaller ones – especially if our environment is turbulent." - And whose is not these days!?
But did you ever try to 'roll out a lot of smaller' ideas in a huge corporation? In a siloed business environment? In a "low interest category"!? Tim's point may be the last reason you needed to make a change in your corporate philosophy - so use it wisely!)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

Design: Leica M8

Via bendingconcrete.

Business Innovation: Nielsen > "The Rise of the Value-Conscious Shopper"

Okay, you think, so what, 'The Rise of the Value-Conscious Shopper'. But, and there is a big but, the headline may as well be phrased like: The Decline of the Brand Shopper. Now what?

Not only that people don't buy your stuff any longer, because you do not deliver value, distinction, or any virtues, they even switch to private label. They have understood, that these are the same products and ingredients as your expensive branded stuff, or?

The brand must rise again, breakthroughs and innovation must rise again, product (not advertising) creativity must rise again. Understanding the customer's real needs and wants must rise again. Corporate intellect, intuition, and imagination must rise again.

Otherwise the Nielsen findings will get worse:

"Findings from a 2010 Nielsen global online survey of more than 27,000 respondents across 53 countries show that the private label phenomenon is here to stay.

In fact, while more than half of online consumers surveyed said they purchased more private label brands during the economic downturn, fully 91 percent said they will continue to do so when the economy improves."

Quote and graph via Nielsen.