Monthly Archives: September 2009
by Jeffrey PhillipsRecently there’s been a debate about why larger firms can’t innovate. Perhaps they are too comfortable. Perhaps they are too afraid to cannibalize their markets. Perhaps they are afraid of risk and uncertainty. Perhaps, Perhaps.Or maybe they operate under a management model that rewards compliance and punishes creativity. Now I think we are getting to the crux of the problem.I’ve had the opportunity recently to hear Gary Hamel speak and see Dan Pink’s new Ted Talk. Both are compelling, and somewhere between Hamel’s discussion about management innovation and Pink’s thoughts about compensation and incentives lies the real issue that challenges many larger, and especially entrenched, firms. We structure our organizations (Hamel) and reward structures (Pink) to reward consistency and compliance, when what we really need is experimentalism and creativity.Think about it. Most of the management practices we follow are based on management models put in place by Taylor … Continue reading
Well, Labor Day is behind us, autumn is upon us, and we’re about to come up on a year since the fall of Lehman Brothers. The recession itself is almost two years old, having officially started in December, 2007. Most companies began to feel the slowdown early last year, followed by an unanticipated shockwave that rippled through the economy in September. Since that time there has been a steady drumbeat of bad news, and businesses have had to find ways to cope with and adjust to continuous uncertainty about what’s going to happen next. Washington hasn’t helped, taking on one of history’s most consequential and divisive arguments about the role of government at a time when the economy needs rest. No one has any idea what the outcome–or the consequences–of the argument will be. So how ya doin?It’s not a trivial question. When the story of this recession is written … Continue reading
by Kevin RobertsI wrote yesterday about the recent YMCA Raise Up N’ Represent in Auckland. In my speech I referenced a startup by three twenty-something guys in Dunedin, a city near the southern tip of New Zealand’s south island. If New Zealand is the Edge of the world, Dunedin is at the Edge of the Edge. And as I’ve written before, the Edge is not a liability. It’s premium territory, and co-founders Jason Leong, Francois Bondiguel, and James Wigglesworth demonstrate that. Together they developed a personal budgeting program called PocketSmith. There are many services that track your expenses and show your performance meeting budgets and the like. However PocketSmith doesn’t linger in the rearview mirror, it looks forward to forecast your financial future. They already have 6,500 customers from 70 countries and partnership deals that will give them massive reach into the US consumer base. For New Zealand, the old … Continue reading
by Braden KelleyApple’s September 9, 2009 media event came and went with what most might call a whimper. There was no highly anticipated Apple iTablet, and the event served to mostly refresh the iPod line.Lost in the disappointment over the lack of an Apple tablet computer introduction was a small, but potentially huge change to the iPod Nano.A lot of other authors have written about how great the Flip video camera is, and how it disrupted the video camera market by introducing a smaller, simpler video camera that was ‘good enough’ at recording video, but made it much easier to get video onto the PC and onto the Internet. Today at Office Depot I saw an 8gb Flip for $199.Now, the 8gb iPod Nano is $149.So the iPod Nano is cheaper and a lot smaller. The iPod Nano also has an FM radio, pedometer, voice memo capability, built in special … Continue reading
A classic dilemma for companies is determining the best way to foster innovation. There are many good books with different approaches. Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” has influenced a generation’s thinking about innovation. He focuses management and entrepreneurs’ attention on the Big I: ‘disruptive innovation’.One outcome of the popularity of Christensen’s book is the awareness people have that entrenched business practices can inhibit companies’ ability to recognize and address discontinuous innovations from new market entrants. Motorola, for example, is often held up as an example of this. The company continued to develop only analog cell phones even as the digital phones were getting traction. In clinging to analog, which it dominated, it fell far behind in the mobile phone market.A key practice espoused by Christensen is for companies to tackle discontinuous innovations by creating separate divisions. These divisions have an R&D profile, meaning they are funded without requiring a financial return. … Continue reading
The past few weeks, I’ve been schlepping around fabric stores since Cyndi wants to recover several pieces of furniture. This is unfamiliar territory for me, which usually means an opportunity to hunt for different takes on Brainzooming-related ideas.One can imagine the most asked question in a fabric store is, “How much material is it going to take to reupholster __________?” With many ways to fill in the blank, store staff must spend a lot of time answering the question, especially since customers could likely struggle to accurately describe (from memory) items they’re looking to recover.That’s where this photo shows such an innovative services marketing idea: a poster depicting 60 pieces of furniture with the approximate square yardage needed to recover them.With the poster in place, the exchange on “How much material is it going to take to reupholster __________?” becomes a smile and a finger point to the nearest poster … Continue reading
