Monthly Archives: August 2010
Blogging Innovation is looking for the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers, and we have more than $10,000 worth of prizes as rewards available to a select few people who take the time to nominate someone. Do you, or does someone you know, write articles about innovation? Or do you just have someone that you like to read that writes about innovation, or some of the important adjacencies – trends, consumer psychology, change, leadership, strategy, marketing, management, collaboration, or social media (as they relate to innovation)? Well, Blogging Innovation is looking to recognize the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers and you can help us find them. People who nominate someone to be included on the list will be entered into the prize drawings for a range of great prizes (more than $10,000 worth), including: 1 ticket to the World Business Forum (October 5-6, 2010 in New York City) – $2,500 value 1 ticket … Continue reading
As your organization continues rebounding from the financial meltdown, here are 50 ways to ensure that it becomes increasingly conducive to ongoing innovation. Commit to a few of these today and make some magic. Your next step? Remember that innovation requires no fixed rules or templates — only guiding principles. Creating a more innovative culture is an organic and creative act. Wherever you can, whenever you can, always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is “Public Enemy #1″ of an innovative culture. Have more fun. If you’re not having fun (or at least enjoying the process) something is off. Always question authority, especially the authority of your own longstanding beliefs. Make new mistakes. As far as the future is concerned, don’t speculate on what might happen, but imagine what you can make happen. Increase the visual stimuli of your organization’s physical space. Replace gray and white walls with color. … Continue reading
Companies pursue lots of ideas; some turn out well and some badly. Since we can’t tell with 100% certainty if an idea will work, bad ones are a cost of doing business. And it makes sense to tolerate them. The cost of a few bad ones is well worth the upside of a game-changer. It’s like the VC model. However, there’s a class that must be avoided at all costs: the dumb-ass idea – an idea we should know will not work before we try it. It’s not a bad idea, it’s beyond stupid, it’s deadly. A dumb-ass idea violates fundamentals. What’s so scary is today’s ready, fire, aim pace makes us more susceptible than ever. Our dumb-ass antibodies need strengthening. We need an immunization, a filter to discern if we’re respecting the fundamentals. We need a dumb-ass idea filter. To immunize ourselves it’s helpful to understand how these ideas … Continue reading
Most businesses look for new opportunities in obvious places, adjacent to their current position. They typically ask two questions: What new markets can we sell our existing products or services into? What new products or services can we sell to our existing customers? These are perfectly valid questions. You should ask them and you explore the possibilities that the answers bring. But don’t stop there. If you do then may miss other and more exciting possibilities. Look for some distant relations as well as close cousins. Caterpillar was a well-established leader in heavy earth-moving equipment. Then in 1996 they started selling ‘Cat’ branded work boots. These were successful with young consumers who would never use or buy heavy Caterpillar machinery. By 2000 they were selling over 25 million pairs of boots. They have now branched out into other kinds of clothing and toys to exploit the Cat brand. Disney Corporation … Continue reading
When it comes to the topic of leadership, I often look to successful sports coaches for insights into how best to manage talented people. In fact, Vince Lombardi is one of my all-time favorites. As he once put it: “Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization – an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win – to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think it is.” There are few coaches with a track record as illustrious as former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. He’s a long-time hero of my friend Bob Seelert’s, and since Wooden’s death earlier this summer, I’ve been reading up on this inspirational leader. Wooden was the first person to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and … Continue reading
For small growing companies, customer development is the most important task to ensure survival. And this customer development process is all about understanding who you are selling to and why they want to by it. Noted author and entrepreneur Steven Gary Blank perhaps says it best when talking about the risks for these types of companies: “The greatest risk–and hence the greatest cause of failure–is not in the development of the new product but in the development of customers and markets. [They] don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers…” And this customer development information does not come easily, nor does it become apparent even after your’ve sold your first product. Sometimes you find yourself focusing on the wrong customers, not understanding the demand that buyers have for your product. And other times you focus on the wrong features. In many cases, your best customers … Continue reading
