LEAD/MARKE

brandPoem (no.129) of the Week

All Brands Should Make Themselves a Poster out of That - to never Forget!

(Just in case you do not care, you should read this, please: RED BULL STRATOS SHATTERS RECORDS - AND TRADITIONAL NOTIONS OF MARKETING. Or that: Red Bull und die Moral der Geschichten. Or that: Kommentar: Felix Baumgartner und der deutsche Michel.)

Via brandpoems - a leadmarke project
> "Dear Brand, .. Outgrow Yourself, Inspire the World!"

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > cannibalize

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

 

“If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will,” Steve Jobs famously said.

Cannibalization risk is a major factor in evaluating innovation. No product is 100% incremental so we have to decide whether new products will more than offset the sales loss of what’s already on the shelf. What’s often left out of the equation though is the risk of our current products becoming obsolete no matter what we do.

Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1975, over a decade before the first high-resolution digital camera was on the market. At the time, the Kodak film business was highly popular and profitable. This was two years after Paul Simon sang “Mamma don’t take my Kodachrome away”. Why would Kodak ever want to jeopardize that cash cow?

In the thirty plus years after inventing the first digital camera, Kodak resisted the shift from analog to digital at every turn. That strategy culminated in Kodak’s Chapter 11 filing earlier this year.

Apple has always preached creative destruction. Imagine the cannibalization analysis to launch the first iPhone when you have a phenomenally successful iPod already in the market. But that decision kept Apple ahead of the game.

Ultimately we can’t treat any of our products as sacred because our competitors surely won’t. If we want our products to succeed, sometimes we have to risk sacrificing them.

(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away one signed print of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post by 5:00 PST on Monday. I’ll pick one comment. Thanks!)

 

(ralf says: 

So the biggest challenges to change and progress as a society are the ubiquituous monopolies all over the world, desperately trying to keep the status quo alive. Trying to fence of emerging competitors who challenge the already obsolete business models of the market dinosaurs.

 We need courage again in our businesses. We cannot wait for Apple to blow all our markets barriers away.

We need markets which outgrow themselves.)

Tom is cartoonist and founder of Marketoonist, helping organizations communicate with cartoons. He draws from 16yrs of marketing, most recently as Marketing VP at method. He speaks about innovation, creativity, and marketing, using cartoons to visualize. @tomfishburne

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > Xiameter Case Study: Adding Business Model Innovation

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

 

I recently spoke with Stacy Coughlin and Kristina Bobrowski about Dow Corning and their experiences with business model innovation in the creation of Xiameter. The story is a great case study of how an established, successful firm can still improve their innovation efforts.

The story has been told by others pretty well already – Xiameter has been made into a Harvard Business Review case study authored by Clayton Christensen, Mark Johnson and Henning Kagermann.  Kay Plantes andJeffrey Phillips have also written excellents posts on this case after speaking with Stacy.  Here is how Jeffrey describes the advent of Xiameter:

The Replicator 3D Printer: This Machine will Change the World

I absolutely follow wired's headline:

Via dpstyles.

If some of you still fear the internet, then a machine like the above will (excuse my wording) scare the shit out of you.

Why? Have a look at that clip of Shapeways, which offer 3D printing via the web:

Via pablo marques.

Got an idea what will happen to the world, when everybody owns a printer like that?

You think that won't happen? Hm, that is what wired's cover story is all about.

The below printer is delivered to your home for 2.199Dollar.

Have a look at the CEO's statement:

Via MakerBot.

 

Addendum

Oct., 10th, 2012 > Some more examples you find here: Waffen und Solarkraftwerke aus dem 3D-Drucker (Videos in English) and there "Public Safety is too Important to Leave it to the Professionals" [video].

And: Embracing 3-D Printers, Manufacturer Tells Customers to Print Their Own Replacement Parts.

November, 10th, 2012 > World’s First 3D Printing Photo Booth to Open in Japan.

November, 14th, 2012 > Chris Anderson: ‘Maker’ Movement is Next Industrial Revolution .
US military invests in 3D printing on the frontline. This video:

Via pablo marques.

10 User Experience Mistakes Startups (and Global Corporations) Make

Here you find the 10 User Experience (UX) mistakes startups (and of course many many established companies) make - and how to avoid them.

"Smart companies are now placing customer value at the heart of their organisation by developing a company-wide experience strategy – one that crosses UX, branding and marketing, with the goal of creating a uniform experience for customers across all ‘touch points’ of their company. ...

1. Great experience, wrong product
... Build the right product before the perfect one

2. Doing it too late (and half-heartedly)
... Involve UX early in the process

3. No clear value proposition
... Have a clear value proposition

4. Lack of focus
... Focus, focus, focus

5. Not enough observation in the wild
... Test and refine with real users

6. Forms from hell
... Make forms fun

7. Letting developers write copy
... Microcopy is your friend

8. No story, no personality
... Develop a personality

9. Technology as a barrier
... Make technology human

10. Launching to soon (or too late)
... Ship it (and start learning)"

Please read the full post, eg. for great examples, at netmagazine.

Bye-Bye Retail as we know it? > Tesco's Virtual Supermarket

Quite an idea! And a very good example for a Win-Win situation:

"Tescos are now using the walls of the subways in Seoul in South Korea as a virtual supermarket. With over 500 products displayed, the customers can then scan them on their phone and have them delivered straight to their homes.

Commuters can now do their shopping on their way to work and can get the goods delivered that same evening. Since more shopping is being done online now there may come a time when shops will no longer exist on the high street, already many of the big stores are more like showrooms rather than shops."

Quote and image via catrinastewart.

 

André Vatter just told me that this exists since mid 2011, watch the video.

Why does nobody in Germany offer that? Or do they? Tell me, pls.

And André told me ;) 

McDonald's - Mein 10-Jahres-Boykott [@wiwo]

Unsere aktuelle Wirtschaftswoche-Kolumne:

"Unternehmen sollten bei ihren Marken darüber nachdenken, ob sie weiter den Konsumenten ablenken wollen vom wahren Produkt, oder ob sie ihm reinen Wein einschenken und schleunigst Unternehmen, Marke, Produkt und Management dem notwendigen Paradigmenwechsel unterziehen.

Ich denke jedenfalls, wenn McDonald's soviel Zeit hat, bis es die Schweine ernst nimmt, kann ich mir entsprechend viel Zeit lassen, bis ich McDonald's wieder ernst nehme, oder?"

 

... bitte bei wiwo weiterlesen ...

> alle unsere bisherigen Wiwo-Kolumnen!

Afraid of the Web? Get a Glimpse of what 3D printing will do to your world!

"MAKIES is an action doll creator: a player/customer can design their own action doll – features, hair, clothes and everything – & we then 3D print it uniquely to them, build & dress it, and send on to them within 3 weeks of ordering."

Via Makie.

And, please, do not even think about everybody having their own 3D printer at home! This will become your worst nightmare - just after the web ...

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Eight Business Models, and Why They’re Important"

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

 

The term Business Model is one that gets thrown around a lot these days. Even though it might sound like a buzzword to you, it’s important to understand what a business model is, and how they are useful.

One of the confusing things about the business model concept is that there are a wide variety of models of business models, and it seems as though everyone that talks about them makes up a new one. This can be frustrating if you are trying to figure out how to use the concept.

At their core, all business models address this questions: how do we sustainably deliver value to our customers? In this instance, the sustainable part refers to your organisation – how can you deliver value so that you’re still around in the future?

Entrepreneurship: The Present Order is an Unreliable and Cowardly Indicator of the Possible

"There are businesses that succeed by doing traditional things slightly better than the competition.

And there are businesses that redraw the landscape entirely, creating needs we never knew we had and remoulding our sense of what we have to have in order to be happy …

Entrepreneurship depends on a sense that the present order is an unreliable and cowardly indicator of the possible.

The absence of certain practices and products is deemed by entrepreneurs to be neither right nor inevitable, merely evidence of conformity and lack of imagination…" - Alain de Botton, WIRED

Via wearethedigitalkids.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > You Have a Choice - Act!

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

 

There are plenty of excuses for not innovating – for not taking steps to change things. However, if you see a way to make things better and you don’t do anything, then you’re letting your situation control you. If you’re dissatisfied with the situation, you have to change the way you act.

Here is the way that Tom Peters puts it in a post from Innovation Excellence:

I believe there is one and only one source of innovation – pissed off people.

@TheThirdClub - or: To All the Brave Entrepreneurial Wo/Men: Creativity & Innovation Desperately Need You!

(Note: This is a cross post with my distinctive leadership blog)

We just founded The Third Club!
Get to know more about it here (ya, it's German).

(Polaroid by Douglas Wilson > available here) 

At the moment we are 12 brave wo/men - but want to allure all brave wo/men out there! Just to give you a very small hint on what we are talking about please inhale the following list.

(Yeah, I know, some 20.000+ great people are not on that list.
But you do know: there is no definitive list of great people.)

This is not about names. The personalities beyond them will give you a pretty good picture what I am talking about. They are the wild-card characters of entrepreneurial personalities and spirit, of motivation, engagement, and dedication I would love to see @TheThirdClub:

[L/M NET] Helge Tenno > The Game Changer: Presence & Proof

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

 

What we have done up till now is limit our thinking of what online can do based on a narrow view of what marketing can do. But what happens when marketing changes?

Traditional advertising and design has one goal: to deliver a promise, either based on what the consumer wants to become, or what the brand wants to become. All traditional marketing, advertising and design is built around this core idea: the transmission of an idea from a sender to a receiver. Inside this mindset digital offers some abilities that are new, and speeds up some abilities that are old. But in essence digital is nothing more than a technological option – a choice between newspaper, billboard, TV, radio or internet ++.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Innovation Obstacle: Bureaucracy?"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:

Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

What is the innovation that led to civilization?

There are some interesting answers to this question in Why the West Rules, For Now by Ian Morris. As part of his research, Morris has developed a Social Development Index, which he uses to track the progress of civilizations from 14000 BC to present. The index tracks improvements in areas such as energy capture (both as food and as fuel), organizational capability, technology development, and information sharing capacity.

Here is what the graph shows (taken from this .pdf that summarizes the research):

The first big jump happened between 2000 and 1000 BC, indicated by the very crude arrow that I’ve added. What was the innovation that caused that jump?

The invention of Bureaucracy.

Morris (and many other historians) argue that it was the invention of bureaucracy that actually triggered the development of agriculture, written communication, and other tools that are necessary for people to undertake complex tasks.

Bureaucracy is one of the most important innovations in human history – without it, we’d still be in caves. So why does it get such a bad rap whenever we talk about innovation? It’s nearly impossible to discuss innovation within organisations without hearing complaints about bureaucracy and bureaucrats.

The problem isn’t actually with bureaucracy. Bureaucracy makes systems, supports the development of routines, and gives us some constraints – which are actually essential to innovation (see here and here for examples). We need all of these things to innovate.

The problem with bureaucracy is when we follow rules simply for the sake of following rules. This is another form of path dependence, which leads to lock-in on sub-optimal systems. The problem is with bureaucratic systems that don’t support strategy – these stifle innovation.

Bureaucracy is actually a neutral term, like aerodynamics. To call a car “aerodynamically designed” is a nonsense – all cars have aerodynamics. It’s just that Teslas and Porsches have excellent aerodynamics, while minivans and SUVs have terrible aerodynamics.

In the same way we can have excellent bureaucracy, which supports innovation, and terrible bureaucracy, which obstructs innovation.

Bureaucracy isn’t actually an innovation obstacle, but bad bureaucracy is.

(ralf says:
And now we would need a word for 'good bureaucracy'.
A bureaucracy fostering innovation, speed, acceleration of processes, supporting the individual, empowering curiosity, beginner's mind, outliers! ...)

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

"The Creative Adult is the Child Who Survived" [Quote]

Via schoengeistig.

The web essentially is a ... [Quote]

“The web essentially is a planetary-scale nervous system where individual minds take on the role of synapses, firing electrical pattern-signals to one another at light speed - the net effect being an astonishing increase in creative output.

Jason Silva, Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker, gonzo journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, Connecting All The Dots, Dec 10, 2010"

Via amiquote.

"tumblr should buy a country - we’ll all be forever alone, together"

There is very much truth in these following words, found in tumblr, expressing the feelings and sensations of young, mindful people of all ages, interested in art, design, aesthetics, beauty, ugliness, horror, politics, living, networking.

Tumblr is the individual, daily, small revolution:

"I think tumblr should buy a country so all of us can relocate there permanently. It’ll have nation-wide free wireless internet. We can live in houses according to blog categories and we’ll stalk the good looking people on tumblr from an awkward distance. The only foods on our diet will be pizza and nutella. And we’ll all have a gazillion cats who dance. Of course, a HP Marathon once a week with the regular Misfits and Spongebob. Unicorns will be our chosen form of transportation. At tumblrland, we’ll embrace each others’ awkwardness and best of all, our humors will finally be properly appreciated. And we’ll all be forever alone, together."

Via workman, accumulating some 133.000 notes.

Tumblr is the most advanced, most fashionable social network. It might even be the future of blogging, sharing, or archiving personal information and knowledge in the cloud.

That is why you should watch it carefully!
But don't break it!

My tumblr: this message is to wide to fit your screen.

Distinctive Leadership: CEOs and Managers of the World Breathe a Sigh of Relief on Steve Jobs' Resignation

As Steve Jobs' resignation is not just a leadership issue, but also an innovation and value creation issue, I repost my distinctive leadership post here:

"CEOs and managers may respire. Their hardship is finally over. After Steve's resignation nobody - they hope - will compare them to Steve again.

They all hated to be compared to a phenomenon. They all hated to be confronted with expectations only a Steve Jobs could live up to.

And they had a great excuse: he was the only one, there was no other coming near to his achievements. Yes, he was a phenomenon, and they themselves were great managers. They could live with that.

I must disenthrall them all, it's even worse: they all could become a Steve Jobs, they all could innovate, they all could transcend markets, they all could build Informal Markets (as I call them), they all could introduce revolutionary business models, and realize them successfully. No excuses apply.

Leonardo da Vinci on Innovation

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works.

You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else.

The trick is the doing something else.”

Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath; painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, writer (1452-1519)

Via.

The Automobile Innovation Delusion or The Art of Building the No-Go Car

Now we finally got it - the Parking Assistant!

Longing for some years now to find it in a car, not to have to steer it, to drive it backwards, to leave control with a machine. Just great!

But why did we long for a Parking Assistant? Because those bloody cars grew so big that we cannot cope with its sizes and dimensions any more. Cars crash our horizons, our parking lots, our garages - and them car makers couldn't care less. Just great!

Now they innovated again, gave birth to this marvelous gadget of Parking Assistant - instead of doing their homework in the first place. And we have to pay for that lazyness and ignorance. Just great!

True innovation in the car industry would imply building: