Monthly Archives: May 2010
I view life as a series of experiments. When you look at it through this lens, failure means something completely different. One definition of an experiment is: “A test or investigation, especially one planned to provide evidence for or against a hypothesis.” The only way an experiment can fail is if you don’t get the evidence. Even if the evidence proves your hypotheses was wrong, the experiment itself was a huge success. When you view innovation through the lens of experimentation, it redefines failure. When developing new ideas, the best approach (especially when there is “market” uncertainty) is to create small experiments that can be scaled over time. The experiment can give you one of four outcomes: Our hypothesis was validated by the experiment. Let’s make a larger investment in a larger experiment. Our original hypothesis was wrong, but we found a different direction that looks promising. Let’s create a … Continue reading
Do some of your customers and prospects treat you like a commodity? If they do, you’re likely competing on price far more than you’d like. Companies and industries that slide into commoditization almost always have a better option. There’s always a way to identify, quantify and communicate significant incremental value and results for your clients that your competitors fail to do. Part of this is in how you approach the customer in the first place. Many sales organizations use the same approach, the same pitch, the same presentation with every prospective customer. Problem is, if you’re genericizing your pitch, it’s likely going to look very similar to what your competitors are presenting as well. And if they look the same, it’s even easier for customers to treat you like a commodity. Jeff Thull writes about this in “Mastering the Complex Sale”, under the headline “If You Commoditize Your Customers, They … Continue reading
This problem analysis method examines an issue from twelve different viewpoints. It is based on the words of the poem by Rudyard Kipling: I keep six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. We probe the topic using these questioning words from a positive and negative perspective. The issue is defined as a question and then 12 sheets of flip chart paper are arranged around the room. On each sheet one of the 12 questions is written as the heading and the team then comes up with answers to that question. Suppose the issue is, ‘How can we improve customer service in our retail centres?’ The questions could be constructed as follows: What is good customer service? What is not good customer service? (Or what is bad customer service?) Why do we get …
If you’ve been following me online on Twitter or elsewhere, you’ve probably heard me mention the concept of “Social Teams” more than a few times recently. It is, in my mind, a powerful idea that has the ability to change the way companies and individuals view online collaboration efforts – with the potential to achieve dramatic results. I’ve always believed that people want to interact online in a similar structure to their interactions in the offline world. The fact that we’re not usually able to doesn’t mean that we don’t want to. In the real world, we associate ourselves with communities to find people of similar interests with whom to interact. These communities are important to define the overall population of socially connected people; but they’re useless as a way to actually get anything done. When we set out to actually achieve something, we abandon the broader “community” concept in … Continue reading
The root of the word “manager” comes from the same root as the words “manipulate” and “maneuver”, meaning to “adapt or change something to suit one’s purpose”. Although these words may carry a pejorative meaning, there is nothing inherently wrong with them. Indeed, into each life a little manipulation and maneuvering must fall. For example, if the door to your office gets stuck, a handyman might need to manipulate it to get it working again. If there is a log jam at the elevator, you might decide to maneuver around the crowd and take the stairs. No problem there. However, there is another kind of manipulation and maneuvering that is a problem — when managers use their position to bend subordinates to their will. While short-term gains may result, in the end the heart is taken out of people. Your staff may become good soldiers, but they will lose something … Continue reading
Weenie – Walt Disney’s playful term for a visual element that could be used to draw people into and around a space. According to Disney Imagineers, a weenie is big enough to be seen from a distance and interesting enough to make you want to take a closer look. The best weenie examples are the castles in each Disney theme park. Pictured is Cinderella Castle at the end of Main Street, USA at Walt Disney World in Florida. Weenies are critical to Imagineer efforts at laying out a sequence of story points in an organized fashion. Broader Marketing Interpretation In design – whether it is retail space, package design, instruction manual, or website – it is important to progressively reveal layers of information, and not overwhelm customers. Visually guide them, offering weenies as they move deeper and deeper into your space. Convenience and grocery stores draw customer deep into locations … Continue reading
