Monthly Archives: September 2009
Leads alone mean nothing. Leads don’t equal revenue. By definition, leads are just prospective buyers who haven’t yet bought a thing.Marketers get upset when their executives think of them, and their budgets, as a cost center. But those same marketers often focus on generating leads, and that’s it. They don’t hold themselves accountable for the sale.What happens after the lead is what’s really important. So you have someone who qualifies as a prospective buyer. Maybe that prospect has even shown interest, shared a pain that you can ease.They still need to buy. They will still have objections. Some may buy on their own, but most need to be walked through the sale.Smart marketers know that leads are just the beginning. They know that their job isn’t really done until leads buy.Successful marketers go beyond setting a common definition for qualified leads with their sales counterparts. They also work with …
Innovation Perspectives is a new monthly feature to present our loyal readers with different perspectives on a single topic all in one place along with the ability to compare, contrast and discuss them in the comments here on Blogging Innovation and in the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn. This month’s topic was: “Where should innovation reside in an organization, and who should ‘own’ or manage innovation?”Thank you to Jeffrey Phillips for submitting this month’s topicHere is a list of all of the authors that participated this month and links to their articles on this topic.Steve Todd – Trench InnovationJeffrey Phillips – The Innovation Buck Stops HereRowan Gibson – Who’s Your Innovation Czar?Drew Boyd – Should Marketing or R&D Lead?Mark Roser – An Innovation ProgressionMichael Soerensen – Building the Innovation OrganisationPaul Hobcraft – A Place to ResideBraden Kelley – Own Yes, Manage NoIf you would like to suggest a topic for … Continue reading
This is the eighth and final ‘Innovation Perspectives’ article we will publish this month from multiple authors to get different perspectives on “Where should innovation reside?” Here is the final perspective in the series:by Braden KelleyWhen I think about who should ‘own’ or manage innovation, and where it should reside in an organization, I believe the answer is obviously “It depends.”There cannot be a single answer for these questions because every organization’s strategy and specific culture of getting things done could be different. But, the one thing that I can say for sure is the following:”Every CEO must own innovation, but not manage it.”The CEO must own innovation because he or she is responsible for approving the strategy that the organization is going to pursue. At the same time, managing innovation is an emerging specialty of the same level of complexity of human resources or finance, and so CEO’s …
It had to happen. After several years of solid growth and blue sky thinking, we now have a big, dark cloud hanging over the global economy. So what do we do next? Manycompanies are likely to put the brakes on strategic growth initiatives, reasoning that money is getting too tight to invest in innovation. It’s the usual knee-jerk reaction. And it’s totally counterproductive. In a stalling economy, companies need to find new opportunities for pushing up revenues, not just focus on cutting costs.Judging by all the long faces at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, the party is definitely over (at least for a while). I may be sticking my neck out here, but I’m not entirely sure I want to join the pessimists. In the past, the mighty U.S. economy has proven to be incredibly resilient, despite all the prophets of gloom and doom. In this decade alone, … Continue reading
I’ve been thinking for a while about the perfect physical space for innovation. When we work with our clients we often are asked to help design a physical space for the team to work in. This should be a space that is open, colorful, inviting and really different from the regular work environment. The space needs to remind the people working there that when the teams are innovating, they need to be thinking differently than they do when in their day jobs. In a perfect world, there would not be such a separation of thinking, but until everyone is a perfect innovator, we’ll have to settle for great thinking spaces.The spaces we’ve worked on and in are usually spare space the firm can afford to reconfigure, and are usually the typical Class A space, with bare gray walls and industrial strength carpet. Sometimes the walls have been painted interesting colors … Continue reading
This is the seventh of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on “Where should innovation reside?” Here is the next perspective in the series:by Paul HobcraftResiding in something we own is desired by nearly all people. Creating the same desire is what is needed with innovation. It needs to ‘reside’ in us all and we need to feel we ‘own’ or identify with part of the innovation process. It is not just what we do…it is the way we set about and do it, so innovation becomes part of our natural everyday thinking. Getting to this ideal state, for a person, a team or for any organization is hard work and needs many things to come together.So where should innovation reside?Innovation can only be encouraged, managed, tracked and measured if it is a core element in organizations growth aspirations. So … Continue reading
