Monthly Archives: November 2010
If your company is deep in planning mode for 2011 (or soon will be, or should be), and you’re in charge of acquisition marketing, consider dumping the PowerPoint slides and lengthy Word documents this year in lieu of a single, simple spreadsheet. It will save you time. It will guide your work for months to come. Your CFO will love you. Think of it this way: The first tab is the most important, as it represents a roll-up of how leads generated convert to sales opportunities and closed business each month or quarter. If you already know what your lead-to-opportunity and opportunity-to-close conversion rates are, you should be able to plug in the expected sales figures each month or quarter, and the formulas will work back to 1) the required size of sales pipeline at the beginning of the month/quarter, and 2) the required number of leads to …
This year I thought I would experiment with a Top Ten list at the beginning of each month, profiling the ten posts from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Blogging Innovation. So, without further ado, here are October’s ten most popular innovation or marketing posts: Recessions and Innovation are Funny Things – by Boris Pluskowski The Nine Innovation Roles – by Braden Kelley Treating the Complexity Complex – by Holly G Green Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2010 – by Braden Kelley The Problem with Metrics – by Tim Kastelle What is an Innovation Consultant? – by Jeffrey Phillips Innovating the Business Model – by Paul Hobcraft Lessons from Google’s ‘Instant’ – by Steve Faktor Innovation and the Renaissance Person – by Jeffrey Phillips Social Software – What Is Your Intent – by Hutch Carpenter If you’re not familiar with Blogging Innovation, we publish 2-4 new articles … Continue reading
We keep hearing that the whole point of strategy is build a sustainable competitive advantage. This makes some sense, up to a point. The problem though is that the skills and routines that help us build one can also constrain us, and prevent us from responding to a changing environment. That change can be someone who has come up with a better version of whatever it is we do, or it can be a change driven by new economic platforms. In both cases, one of the difficult decisions to make is when to jump to the new platform or the new technology. James Surowiecki illustrates this dilemma in The Next Level, his discussion of the demise of Blockbuster: Why didn’t Blockbuster evolve more quickly? In part, it was because of what you could call the “internal constituency” problem: the company was full of people who had been there when bricks-and-mortar … Continue reading
It’s often the case that people expect their leaders to be decisive — able to make difficult decisions quickly. Indeed, this kind of behavior is interpreted as one of the hallmarks of good leadership. The reality is different, however. The “rush to judgment” mindset creates undue pressure on leaders — the kind of pressure that causes them to prematurely choose a path forward even when confronting a complex problem. To be truly effective, leaders need to balance the need to quickly converge on a single solution with the conflicting requirement that multiple perspectives be considered. Yes, spending time to gain an understanding of the thought processes behind conflicting perspectives slows down the decision-making process. But it also creates a rich opportunity for much more robust solutions. Slowing down is not necessarily a sign of procrastination or indecision. More accurately, it is a sign of impending wisdom about to be applied. … Continue reading
Blockbuster’s recent bankruptcy filing was yet another chapter in the Clayton Christensen annals of disruptive innovation. A major brand with convenient locations that got disrupted by a website and the U.S. Mail. Note that we’re seeing the back-end of the disruption, when it all seems so clear. How easy is it to see such a disruption beforehand? “Not very” would be the honest answer. What distinguishes a truly disruptive technology or business model from a flash-in-the-pan idea? Keep in mind the basis of a disruptive innovation: “A technology initially addressing low-end market needs that slowly moves upstream as its capabilities evolve.” From that perspective, think of all the things out there that have stayed low level and did not disrupt industries. Disruptive innovation is like a Category 5 hurricane: powerful, slow-moving and rare. Which brings me to the Apple iPad. Are we witnessing a disruptive tropical depression? DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION LADDER … Continue reading
I recently attended a confab of senior-level executives who oversee online and digital activities at a variety of leading corporations. While what happened at the conference was enlightening, I think I may have been more enlightened by what I didn’t see happening: social media activity. I have to admit, that confused me. My first clue was when I asked around and nobody knew the conference hashtag. In fact, many people didn’t even know what a hashtag was. Despite that, I was surprised at how little Twitter activity was happening in and around the conference, and even more surprised at how few of the participants had Twitter profiles at all. So I checked Facebook. Participation there was a bit more common, although most attendees had inaccessible profiles or used them for personal reasons only. LinkedIn showed a bit more representation, but it was apparent that most attendee profiles had not been … Continue reading
