Monthly Archives: December 2009
Co-authored with Peter Skarzynski, CEO of Strategos, in close collaborationwith well-known strategy guru Gary Hamel, I believe that “Innovation to the Core” (Harvard Business School Press) is by far the most important thing I’ve ever done.Lots of people have been asking me for a synopsis of the book, so here goes…Could you describe your company’s “corporate innovation system”? Ask this question inside most organizations and all you get is a blank stare. It’s obvious that, in the vast majority of firms, innovation is still more buzzword than core competence.Yet a few leading-edge players – including GE, IBM, P&G, Whirlpool, Shell, Cemex, Best Buy, and W.L. Gore – are demonstrating that large industrial organizations really can tackle the challenge of innovation successfully in a broad-based and highly systemic way.What these companies understand is that it’s entirely possible to make innovation an “all-the-time, everywhere” capability, something that becomes part of the organization’s … Continue reading
Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nookby Kevin RobertsFear of new technology is not new. In 1982, the king of all Hollywood lobbyists, Jack Valenti, told the US Congress:”I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.”Hysteria aside, the movie industry was utterly convinced that the advent of video cassettes would destroy the film industry. 30 years on, video and DVD have had the opposite effect – far from undermining the industry, they are integral to its ongoing profitability. How could Hollywood keep producing so many films, at such great cost and such variable quality without the “straight to DVD” option? Even the notorious box-office bomb, Waterworld, almost broke even in the end, thanks to DVD sales.There has been similar angst about the fate of books and the publishing industry since … Continue reading
Parker Smith wrote a piece that got me thinking. In Foursquare: Democratizing the Loyalty Program, he posits that Foursquare could be the loyalty program provider to small businesses. I think he’s right.Then I noticed these identical product benefits touted by the companies themselves, Foursquare and Jack Dorsey’s Square:”For example, foursquare can tell you how many times a customer has been to your venue or the frequency of their visits. Many venues are now using this data to reward their most loyal customers with freebies or discounts.” – Foursquare”If you frequent a place that accepts Square, we’ll let them know you’re a repeat customer. That 10th cappuccino may be on the house, no paper coffee card required.” – SquareWould you look at that? Are these guys going to end up competing with one another?A few years back, I was the personalized marketing product manager at Pay By Touch, which offered the … Continue reading
In my December BusinessWeek.com column, I highlighted the vital need for internal branding, calling it the missing link between perception and reality, promise and delivery, effective marketing and positive outcomes. Now along comes a speech by Jon Iwata, SVP of communications and marketing at IBM, that makes my argument look like a kiddy pool compared to the depths he’s diving. His speech was titled, “Toward a New Profession: Brand, Constituency and Eminence on the Global Commons,” but don’t let that scare you. He made some insightful points about why IBM has created a new internal discipline that combines brand management and what he calls “workforce enablement,” aligning “experts in the workplace and experts in the marketplace.” The reason? Iwata says, “One day soon, every employee, every retiree, every customer, every business partner, every investor and every neighbor associated with every company will be able to share an opinion about that … Continue reading
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” begins with its narrator, Nick Carraway, recounting his father’s admonition that not everyone in the world is provided the same advantages. The comment led to Nick’s inclination to “reserve all judgments,” a “habit that…opened up many curious natures” to him.This opening passage of “Gatsby” has shaped me dramatically. Amid growing up in an environment of clear rights and wrongs, these words were a reminder to delay judgment in order to better understand people, even those who are objectively well outside my behavioral beliefs.Given the importance of suspending judgment in the early stages of originating new ideas, this practice has been fundamental to helping businesses imagine new possibilities for potential opportunities. There’s a time for judgment, but initially, ideas have to emerge and “breathe” first.It isn’t all glorious, however, when you reserve judgments. As Nick notes, it led to him being “the victim of not … Continue reading
Just a short message to wish you a happy holiday season from the team here at Blogging Innovation.As a special gift, we’ve made all of our white papers and case studies registration-free for your convenience. Just click to download.If you’re not already one of the 1,650+ members of our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn, we invite you to join the discussions and news item sharing that occurs there for the growing Blogging Innovation community. May your season be full of time spent with happy and healthy family and friends.All the best,BradenBraden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.
