FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

AUGUST ISSUE

Innovation and creativity are probably two of the least effective processes in any company. After all, 80-90% of innovations fail to achieve their stated objectives. And those are only the ones we know about. But at the same time, we know that to survive and grow, businesses need to continuously identify new market opportunities and differentiate themselves from the competition. In other words, they need to be creative. Innovate. So how do you do this without burning 80-90% of your money, customers and the motivation of your people in the process? Well, you can start by reading some of the articles in the issue of #ShiftPerspectives which once again has brought together some quite interesting views from thought leaders around the world. Then you can do something truly remarkable. You can act upon this knowledge, instead of just continuing to do what you’ve always done. Because that is, in the end, the real reason why innovations fail. We know we should listen to customers and build proposi-tions based on insights, yet we prefer to work on the ideas we consider cool ourselves. We know we should stay pure to the original design intention, yet we keep watering it down because of competitive price-points. And we know we should think about new busi-ness models and experiences, yet we still do just another product. So here’s my challenge to you. Stop talking about real innovation, creativity and all the wonderful things we should be doing, and just do them. If you want to be “the next Apple” then break the mould and make sure that 80%-90% of your products are successes rather than failures. You’ll have more fun, make more money and may actually do something meaningful for your customers and the world at large. Happy innovating!

FOREWORD BY ALAIN THYS, FUTURELAB

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

AUGUST ISSUE

introducing our new website

www.shiftperspectives.net

You will be able to download or read the quarterly emag online, and find all the issues in one place.

You will find interesting views and comments from our authors, as well as lead posts for the Shift ThinkTank discussion topics

A new concept - a business think tank. You will be able to post your own ideas, thoughts & opinions on set topics and interact with other users.

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

AUGUST ISSUE

Langdon MorrisHOW TO CREATE A WINNING BUSINESS MODEL

Paul WilliamsYOU MAY BE WRECKING YOUR OWN INNOVATION

Seth GodinHOW TO BE A GREAT CLIENT

TOP WAYS TO DEFEND THE STATUS QUOCREATIVITY

Johnathan Salem BaskinWHAT COMES AFTER INNOVATION

Mitch JoelCTR-ALT-DEL - IT’S TIME FOR A BUSINESS REBOOT

Chris LawerAVOID THE RISKS OF USING CUSTOMER INPUT FOR INNOVATION

DEVELOPING A CONCISE DEFINITION OF CO-CREATION

Idris MooteeWHAT IS WHITE SPACE MAPPING?

Gerald NanningaSTRATEGIC PLANNING ANALOGY #314: ONE STRATEGY

Scott AnthonyTHE DANGER OF PART-TIME BUSINESS BUILDERS

David PolinchockTHE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT

Mike BrownSTRATEGIC PLANNING DOESN’T HAVE TO KILL CREATIVITY

David ArmanoADVERTISING: INNOVATE OR DIE. VOL.1

Langdon Morris is a part-ner of InnovationLabs and an affiliate of WDHB Con-sulting Group.! He is recog-nized around the world as an expert in innovation.Recent clients include:

NASA, American Heart Association, SAP, Gemalto, the Federal Reserve Bank of the US, France Telecom, Stan-ford University Medical Center, the Uni-versity of Minnesota Medical School, Cap Gemini, DuPont, Wipro, L’Oreal, Accor Hotels, and many others.

He is author or co-author of six ac-claimed books, and he has also written numerous white papers.

He is also Senior Practice Scholar of the Ackoff Center at the University of Penn-sylvania where he is researching com-plex social and business systems (www.acasa.upenn.edu/); a Senior Fellow of the Economic Opportunities Program of the Aspen Institute (www.aspen-scale.org); a member of the Scientific Committee of Business Digest, Paris! (www.business-digest.fr/english/index.html); and a member of the leadership council of the Aerospace Technology Working Group (www.atwg.org).

He gives speeches and workshops on innovation around the world, and he has taught MBA courses in strategy at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris and Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires.

www.innovationlabs.comOriginal Post

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

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How to Create a Winning Business Model LANGDON MORRIS

As a critical source of competi-tive advantage, innovation cer-tainly deserves the attention it receives. But innovation is also notoriously difficult to manage.

And while recognized innovators are widely admired for their achievements, every busi-ness leader knows that the pursuit of inno-vation is exceptionally challenging even as it is entirely necessary.

The roots of the problem lie in the fact that innovation takes place at the crossroads of two critical uncertainties: uncertainty about the future, and uncertainty about what will be best for our organization.

Given these issues, executives face two key questions:

First, What innovations should our organi-zation be pursuing?

And second, How should we create them?

We respond by noting that among the four types of innovation that any firm could pur-sue (more detail on this below), business model innovation should be highly attrac-tive and pursued aggressively. Why? Be-cause business model innovators are earn-ing very attractive returns on capital, and finding new market opportunities that oth-ers have overlooked.

But business model innovation is also wide-ly misunderstood, and consequently few organizations are reaping the significant benefits that can come from doing it well.

We’ve been thinking about this for some time, and working to understand why busi-ness model innovation may be important for every company. We’re also working on a systematic program to organizations develop breakthrough business models of their own.

Four Types of Innovation

Organizations typically must allocate their innovation investments among four types of innovation: incremental, breakthrough, new venture, and business model. (This is spelled out in considerable detail in Perma-nent Innovation.)

to maintain market share. But it’s a main-tenance strategy, and rarely confers much of an advantage. It’s necessary, to be sure, but by no means is it sufficient to support growth.

shot at stardom, but as they are quite rare, pursuing breakthroughs is a properly rec-ognized to be a high risk approach

“”

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-

-

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Defining Business Model Innova-tion

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Google-

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Amazon.com-

Apple -

Fedex -

Southwest Airlines-

Wal-Mart, Costco Ikea,

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--

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---

--

1.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

At its simplest, a business

model simply describes how

a company makes money.

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You may be wrecking your own innovation

Innovative ideas – the kind that can trans-form your company – are inadvertently being demolished. When first presented, many ideas meet wrecking-ball comments such as…

“How’s that going to work?”

“Good luck getting that done!”

“We don’t have time for something like that.” And the classic,

“Doesn’t work… Trust me… We tried that years ago.”

We’ve all heard (or perhaps said) killer phrase comments like these. These are offered as a “public service” to the team to prevent us from going off track and wasting time.

But, what have we really accomplished?

Yes… we’ve kept the meeting on schedule.But we also, have made the suggester feel stu-pid, are causing people to hold back their cre-ativity, and may have destroyed the next big idea.

Instead of immediately leveling them, what if we built on new ideas?

Ninety-nine percent of innovative ideas aren’t simply blurted out in their final form. They need development to reveal their full potential.

Instead of destruction, try construction. Use the idea as a foundation and see how tall we can build the framework. If we want to be as innovative as possible, instead of saying “Yeah, but…” try “And, if…”

What’s the worst that could happen?

We’ve wasted 120 seconds on a thought that, in the end, won’t work?

But what’s the best that could happen?

Perhaps we construct something that does solve the challenge. Even better, maybe it morphs into something completely different – something incredible!

As a bonus, we’ve made the suggester feel val-ued and perpetuate creative, open thinking – the stuff that leads to future innovative break-throughs!

In these competitive times, when innovation is considered one of the single most important factors to the continued success of a compa-ny… Spare the “Yeah but…” wrecking ball, use “And if…” to construct your own innovation.

PAUL WILLIAMSPaul Williams launched Idea Sandbox in the spring of 2005 driven by his passion to help others create remarkable ideas.

Paul spent the first 15 years of his marketing career work-ing with The Disney Company, ARAMARK Corporation, Star-bucks Coffee Company. He had a few engagements in between, including marketing for a manufacturer of green, energy-efficient lighting in Florida called Harris Lighting.Consistent themes in each of Paul’s job roles have been:

customer details – not sacri-ficing the customer experi-ence.

strong brand guardrails.

“It’s okay to get big, but stay small (I call this jum-boSHRIMP).I’ve merged the skills and les-sons learned at these organi-zations to build a sandbox. An idea sandbox, created specifi-cally… to help companies pay better attention to their cus-tomers, build their brand in a meaningful way, andto be be remarkable.”

www.idea-sandbox.comOriginal Post

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

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Two-By-Two Diagram: Simplifying the Complex Some call it a matrix, others a two-by-two diagram. I call ‘em awesome.

Two-by-twos allow you to plot complex infor-mation in a matter that allows you not only to see the relationship between two things, but also to make better judgments and decisions. I often use these during brainstorming sessions with clients as a way to filter our stacks of great ideas to the fewer, bigger, and better solutions.

How to Use Them

1. Determine the two important qualities you want to use to measure or filter your ideas.For example… We want to better understand the relationship between employee sales and their customer service scores. This two-by-two would begin something like this…

2. Next, I’ll plot where each team member ac-cording to both their sales and their service score.

We can see Julia ranks where we hope all of our employees would be… she is making high sales and earning a high customer service score.

We can also use two-by-twos as a diagnos-tic tool to understand where adjustments are needed. Looking at the diagram, we can see that Winston needs help with customer ser-vice. O’Brien needs both sales and service help.

You can plot anything… other measures you may find helpful include…

Product MeasurementWhich products are profitable to which customers?PLOT: Product Profitability -and- Customer Type

Customer ServiceWhich aspects of our service needs to be worked on?PLOT: Degree of Importance to Customer -and- Satisfaction Levels

Television Ads RankingWhich commercials are connecting with custom-ers?PLOT: How Memorable -and- Relevance

Marketing Promotion LogisticsWhich marketing promotion is easiest to imple-ment?PLOT: Ease of Implementation -and- Investment

Innovation GaugeLet’s prioritize our innovative ideas.PLOT: Remarkability of Idea -and- Difficulty to Im-plement

Two-by-twos are not only for the board room, try them at home…

What dinner menu to prepare for your dateEase of Preparation -and- How Delicious

Choosing a DaycareCompassion of Staff -and- Distance from the Office

Inexpensive Sunny Vacation DestinationsCost of Travel to Get There -and- Number of Days with Sun

Two-by-twos are simple, effective, and versatile – they make it possible to plot nearly anything. Give them a try…

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

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As a client, your job isn’t to be innova-tive. Your job is to foster innovation. Big difference.

Fostering innovation is a disci-pline, a profession in fact. It in-volves making difficult choices and causing important things to get shipped out the door. Here are a few thoughts to get you started.

Before engaging with the inno-vator, foster discipline among yourself and your team. Be hon-est about what success looks like and what your resources actually are.

If you can't write down clear ground rules about which rules are firm and which can be bro-ken on the path to a creative solution, how can you expect the innovator to figure it out?

Simplify the problem relent-lessly, and be prepared to ac-cept an elegant solution that satisfies the simplest problem you can describe.

After you write down the ground rules, revise them to eliminate constraints that are only on the list because they've always been on the list.

Hire the right person. Don't ask a mason to paint your house. Part of your job is to find someone who is already in the sweet spot you're looking for, or someone who is eager and able to get there.

Demand thrashing early in the process. Force innovations and decisions to be made near the beginning of the project, not in a crazy charrette at the end.

Be honest about resources. While false resource constraints may help you once or twice, the people you're working with demand your respect, which in-cludes telling them the truth.

Pay as much as you need to solve the problem, which might be more than you want to. If you pay less than that, you'll end up wasting all your money. Why would a great innovator work cheap?

Cede all issues of irrelevant personal taste to the innova-tor. I don't care if you hate the curves on the new logo. Just because you write the check doesn't mean your personal aesthetic sense is relevant.

Run interference. While innova-tion sometimes never arrives, more often it's there but some-one in your office killed it.

Raise the bar. Over and over again, raise the bar. Impossible a week ago is not good enough. You want stuff that is impossi-ble today, because as they say at Yoyodyne, the future begins tomorrow.

When you find a faux innovator, run. Don't stick with someone who doesn't deserve the hard work you're doing to clear a path.

Celebrate the innovator. Sure, you deserve a ton of credit. But you'll attract more innovators and do even better work next time if innovators understand how much they benefit from working with you.

How to be a great clientSETH GODIN

SETH GODIN is a bestsell-ing author, entrepreneur and agent of

change. Godin is author of ten books that have been bestsellers around the world. Seth is a renowned speaker as well. He was recently chosen as one of 21 Speakers for the Next Century by Successful Meetings and is consis-tently rated among the very best speakers by the audiences he addresses. Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry's leading inter-active direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998. He holds an MBA from Stan-ford, and was called "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/Origina Post

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of the time, in my experience, the hard part about

isn’t coming up with something no one has ever thought of before. The hard part is actually

the thing you’ve thought of.

The devil doesn’t need an advocate. The brave need

1. “That will never work.”

2. “... That said, the labor laws make it difficult for us to do a lot of the suggestions [you] put out. And we do live in a lawsuit ori-ented society.””

3. “Can you show me some re-search that demonstrates that this will work?”

4. “Well, if you had some real-world experience, then you would understand.”

5. “I don’t think our customers will go for that, and without them we’d never be able to afford to try this.”

“It’s fantastic, but the sales-force won’t like it.”7. “The salesforce is willing to give it a try, but [major retailer] won’t stock it.”

8. “There are government regu-lations and this won’t be permit-ted.”

9. “Well, this might work for other people, but I think we’ll stick with what we’ve got.”

10. “We’ll let someone else prove it works... it won’t take long to catch up.”

11. “Our team doesn’t have the technical chops to do this.”

12. “Maybe in the next budget cycle.”

13. “We need to finish this initia-tive first.”

14. “It’s been done before.”

15. “It’s never been done before.”

“We’ll get back to you on this.”

17. “We’re already doing it.”

All quotes actually overheard, or read on blogs/comments about actual good ideas.

Top ways to defend the status quo 99%

creativity

executing

supporters, not critics.

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

AUGUST ISSUE

For all of you dim bulbers who are students of busi-ness fads and buzzwords, I think we’re about to wit-ness one of the major turn-

ing points in our chosen field of dabble:

“Innovation” is about to get re-placed with something else. I don’t know what it is, or when it’ll hap-pen, exactly. But I can just feel it. Can you?

Innovation has had a great run, mostly because it’s so gloriously vague; in fact, it has a conflict in-herent in its definition, as “to inno-vate” is to try to somehow update something that’s already estab-lished. That old/new thing is man-na from heaven for a business fad because such dichotomies scream out for endless explanations, ampli-fications, and projects that require complicated gantt project manage-ment charts to describe what de-fies simple, declarative sentences.

Companies have been challenged on innovation much the same way as comrades in the Soviet Union were dared to be patriots. It was never an end result that could be measured, but rather an aspiration-al ideal, pursued via an incessant-ly variable process that was never properly realized, or thereafter du-rable.

Like party officials, a generation of management consultants and busi-

ness school grads made a comfort-able living lecturing companies on innovation and, like all really good buzzwords, companies incorpo-rated it into their values, mission statements, messaging, and the other subtle strains of branding nonsense. A generation of middle-managers had their job descrip-tions rewritten so they could focus on educating and monitoring their fellows on their innovation-ness.

Only now, most of the those mid-dle-managers have been let go; companies large and small are well along dismantling the Berlin Wall of Innovation -- separating the pu-rity of business fad from the reali-ties of the marketplace -- because, like their brethren in East Germany, they effectively awoke one morn-ing to see that there was no there there. Lives aren’t better. Stuff doesn’t get sold more often, or more profitably, just like all those mock-heroic propaganda posters couldn’t distract a population from the unpleasant reality of their lives.

What we’re left with are the empty concrete high-rises, and the drab mediocrity of balance sheets lead-en with a has-been fad.

Innovation was never a stand-alone philosophy, religion, or manage-ment approach, any more than globalization, outsourcing, or cus-tomer-centricity. It was simply the catchy patina of insight and poet-ry that smart marketers -- in aca-

demia, and in the services vendors who feed in the wake of its affirma-tion -- applied to the boringly con-stants and unsexy truths of busi-ness management.

God forbid Harvard Business School or McKinsey admitted that the keys to effective competitive business strategy now were no different than they were 100 years ago; the details have changed, but that’s the stuff of vocational training. And there’s no serious money in that business.

So as companies today are reevalu-ating the resources they commit to pursuing innovative purity, I’m sure the gurus are dreaming up the next fad and commensurate buzzword. My pick: collaboration. All the non-sense of social media -- from the technology, to the social and as-yet incomprehensible economics -- seems just tailor-made for some-thing far more than a marketing de-partment experiment.

Companies will get lectured on its importance above all else. Gradu-ate courses will be taught, and expert consultants will create im-mense slides and charts on what it means. Perhaps the next genera-tion of employees, though a smaller group, will get their lives commit-ted to this higher ideal. Everyone will focus on enabling it the “right” way.

Come to think of it, that’s innova-tion!

What Comes After Innovation?JONATHAN SALEM BASKIN

I’m Jonathan Salem Baskin, and I’ve worked for 27 years

translating branding strategy into some-thing more than imag-es and words, leading marketing commu-nications for world-leading brands and advising others. My experience taught me one, overwhelming truth: The best way to discover better an-swers consistently is to ask better questions relentlessly.

I have dedicated my work and writing to this purpose, in the hopes of improving the delivery and expe-rience of brand mar-keting for businesses and their consumers.

http://dimbulb.typepad.comOrigina Post

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CTRL-ALT-DEL - It’s Time For a Business Reboot MITCH JOEL

Market ing M a g a z i n e dubbed him the “Rock Star of Digi-

tal Marketing” and in 2006 he was named one of the most influential authori-ties on Blog Marketing in the world. Mitch Joel is President of Twist Image – an award-winning Digital Marketing and Communi-cations agency. In 2008, Mitch was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in So-cial Media and one of the top 100 online marketers in the world. His first book, Six Pixels of Separation, named after his successful Blog and Podcast (www.twistimage.com/blog) will be published in the Fall 2009 on Grand Central Publishing – Hachette Book Group (formerly Time War-ner Books).

http://www.twistimage.com/blog

Original Post

Maybe the Internet changed much more than we think? Maybe busi-nesses have to reinvent not only themselves, but the entire industry they serve?

Its very survival could depend on it.

The truth of the matter is that the business world is changing. Not year by year, but moment by moment. Big business is being beat-up by two guys, a clever spin on a traditional industry, a rental lease on some ga-rage space in Menlo Park and a cou-ple of iPhones.

What's a business to do?

There's this great little story (no one knows how much of it true or how much of it is fiction, but here it goes): In the 1500s, Hernan Cortes was the captain of eleven ships with more than 500 soldiers headed for Mexico to conquer the Aztecs. Af-ter his ships arrived in Mexico, the sailors and soldiers were not in the best of shape. Some of them fell ill on the journey and some had lost their motivation. Several of Cortez's crewmates wondered what would happen to them in this strange new land. If they faced challenges or re-sistance, how would the crew re-turn home? The crew asked Cortez what the plan would be to get back home. The captain had the perfect response: He burned the ships.

There was no going back. The old ways of doing things were about to be rethought.

In fact, there were no more "old ways of doing things"... a new way had to be defined. The story of Cor-tes and the burning of the ships rip-ples through to the present time. So much has changed in terms of what it means to be a business owner: the global economy, how we connect to our consumers, technology and new platforms, and the marketing and communications we create to con-nect more effectively with them. The new breed of entrepreneurs must burn the ships. The traditional ways just don't cut it any more.

I've modernized the concept of "burn the ships." It's time to: CTRL-ALT-DEL.

New channels, new tools and new business, like new lands, calls for new strategies, tactics and plans.

It's time to reboot business.

Hoping for innovation on the tradi-tional quarter by quarter strategy is not going to save your business or your industry. The pace and rate of technology is at the point where these new media channels and plat-forms are simple for anybody to use (kids, teens, adults, boomers and older), and they're not only using them, they are creating their own experiences and sharing them with the world.

How do you compete? You CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Success is going to come from those who really analyze and imple-ment the latest shifts and trends in business, technology and media, and how it affects their organiza-tion (from innovation and business development to marketing, PR and human resources). This concept of CTRL-ALT-DEL is not simply about "change management." CTRL-ALT-DEL is about "change business". It's about "change industry" and it's about "change business models." Zappos is more than a great example of superior customer service, iTunes is more than a great example of how to sell songs for $0.99, and Kogi BBQ is more than a great example of how to use Twitter to sell Korean BBQ tacos. They are all prime exam-ples of how specific businesses hit the CTRL-ALT-DEL on their business model, and in the process reinvented the industry they served.

Being on Twitter, having a Facebook Page or uploading videos to You-Tube is one thing: thinking about how to CTRL-ALT-DEL your business and imagining what that will look like in the next 2-5 years, is a whole other game. The tools and platforms are just that: tools and platforms. The real "game changers" are those who figure how those tools and plat-forms to help them to reboot their business model.

Which businesses do you love that have used the CTRL-ALT-DEL but-tons on their business model?

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Avoid the risks of using customer inputs for innovation CHRIS LAWER

I am MD of Strategyn UK. We create product and service strategies for client companies using our patented innovation methodology. We work with a company’s executive manage-

ment to invigorate growth and drive share-holder value through creating an internal en-gine for innovation. Our structured innovation process takes approximately 4 months to complete and the result is a precise view of where in the market there are opportunities for our client companies to create value. This process has created billions of dollars for val-ue in market cap for client companies. Our list of clients includes Microsoft, Unilever, Colgate, MetLife, StateFarm, Motorola, J&J, Medtronic and AIG to name a few.Specialties:Innovation, New Product Development, Breakthrough product creation, Outcome-Driven Innovation and ResearchI also lead The OMC Group - a UK-based network of customer strategy consultants. Collectively, we have several years’ senior, in-ternational management and consultancy ex-perience in consumer and business-to-busi-ness companies and the public sector as well as strong academic research pedigrees. We work in the fields of strategy, innovation man-agement, organisational learning, marketing and brand management, customer insight and customer-focused capabilities develop-ment.

http://chrislawer.blogs.comOriginal Post

When managed correctly, open, customer-driven innovating firms

enjoy competitive advan-tage arising from a number of sources. These include; bet-ter “unlearning” of established assumptions and practices, higher innovation potential and predictability and faster sens-ing and response to valid and valued customer requirements.

Also, customers perceive high-er switching costs arising from their own knowledge and emo-tive investments in the firm which can help with building loyalty. The risks of customer involve-ment Nevertheless, as firms begin to develop new capabilities for capturing, sharing and apply-ing customer inputs, there are important risks they should be aware of when doing so. These include:

1. Companies may fall in to the trap of predominantly captur-ing expressed customer wants, becoming victims to the “tyran-ny of the served market” as de-scribed by Prahalad and Hamel

in their 1994 book, Competing for the Future. Here, firms may unwittingly limit themselves to bland, anecdotal, low-risk, in-cremental innovation if they are too explicitly, customer-driven and responsive.

2. Companies can get bogged down when using House of Quality or Voice of the Customer methods to in-terpret customer statements into ideas and potential solu-tions; they may even place un-necessary limits on the total set of customer inputs to make the process more manageable and timely.

3. Customer statements can be “gamed”; that is, staff may select or ignore certain cus-tomer inputs based on their own beliefs and assumptions as to what is or is not important. In doing so, valid and important innovation opportunities may be lost. In their 2005 Harvard Business Review article, “Man-aging Customer-Centric Inno-vation”, Selden and MacMillan suggest that it is essential that frontline employees are put “at the heart of the innovation pro-cess”. Yet to do so effectively, customer-facing staff must be trained to sense and capture the right inputs from custom-ers.

4. In extreme cases, internal sharing of customer anecdotes and stories can divert man-ager’s attention from what is truly important. Subsequently, they may curtail investment in resources to build deeper cus-tomer knowledge and lose their disruptive potential.

5. Lead-user programmes can promote the significance of the technical, specialist needs of the most active, knowledge-able customers at the expense of the requirements of the wid-er market.

6. Companies can quickly become inundated and over-whelmed with inputs and ideas from customers. They come from a variety of sources – web sites, contact centres, lead user toolkits, customer satisfaction surveys, managers that “walk the talk”, focus groups and so on. What’s more, they arrive in a variety of different formats and technologies, few of which are consistent and actionable. Firms talk about customer needs in terms of solutions, specifications, benefits, expec-tations and so on; but in most case such statements of value do not allow them to identify precise opportunities for inno-vation.

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The customer inputs are king The one common denominator in all the above-mentioned risks of customer in-volvement concerns the means by which companies capture, filter, share and ap-ply inputs from the customer. Companies, lacking any knowledge of what appropri-ate customer inputs are needed may of-ten ask the wrong questions, or worse, they may not know what to do with the information once they receive it. Custom-ers, though happy to share their “require-ments”, do not know what information the company really needs. No wonder then that such mutual confusion and ambigu-ity often leads to unexpected failure when companies pursue rigorously the custom-er-driven path to innovation.

But latent unarticulated needs do not exist

With so many risks, some firms may be tempted to ignore the customer and shut out their inputs. (How often have you heard the “but no customer ever invented the Sony Walkman!” justification for this position?) Unfortunately, their argument for doing so also misses the point about customer inputs. Typically, the case for ignoring direct in-puts from the customer rests on one single pillar: customers cannot articulate their la-tent, unmet needs. Yet this is in fact a ma-jor misconception that can severely limit a firm’s innovation potential. It is widely assumed that in addition to their articulated needs, customers have la-tent, unarticulated needs. The term latent need, which is defined as a need that cus-

tomers do not know they have, was made popular in a customer behavior model de-veloped in the late 1980s by Noriaki Kano, a Tokyo University of Science professor of science. Since then, much has been writ-ten about the many techniques developed to capture customers’ latent, unarticulated needs. The misconception however can be stated very simply. It is that latent unarticulated customer needs do not actually exist. The mistake arises from a misinterpreta-tion of Kano’s model. He used the term latent need to mean a feature that cus-tomers didn’t know to ask for, not an inde-pendently stated need or an outcome they did not know they had.

I suggest that a solution is the tangible feature or product attribute that address-es and satisfies a customer’s need to get a job done. Confusion about latent needs enters the equation when the word need is used to mean solution. Customers do not have latent, unarticulated needs; rather, what they do have is latent, unarticulated solutions. For example, in the 1980s consumers did not know they wanted or could not articu-

late their need for an in-car navigation sys-tem (a solution), but they did know they wanted to minimize the likelihood of get-ting lost, and to minimize the time it takes to find a route to a specific destination. They also knew they wanted to be noti-fied of traffic problems to avoid delays en-route (a job). It’s not that customers don’t know what they need; it’s that they don’t know what solution will satisfy their needs. This is natu-ral. Customers are not expected to be able to articulate a technically sound and for-ward-thinking solution – that is the compa-ny’s job. On the other hand, customers are perfectly able to articulate what jobs they are trying to get done and what outcomes they use to measure the successful execu-tion of a job – even if products to help get the job done do not yet exist. When a need is defined as a desired outcome (as in the desire to minimise the likelihood of getting lost or the time it takes it to find a route to a specific destination), the argument for ignoring direct inputs from the customer is shattered; this is because there is no such thing as a latent, unarticulated outcome. I believe that many managers conveniently use unarticulated latent needs as a ratio-nale to avoid capturing customer inputs in the innovation process. Often, this may be because customer inputs are at odds with their own personal motivations or beliefs. If they would rather pursue their own ideas, this myth provides just the ammunition that is needed to cast a lingering shadow of doubt on the research. The argument is perfect: “If customers cannot articu-late their latent needs, then any research conducted by the company is incomplete. Therefore, we should use our own insight and intuition, not customer inputs, to de-cide what to build.”

It’s not that custom-ers don’t know what they

need; it’s that they don’t know what solution

will satisfy their needs.

1. Jobs to be done: Key inputs for growth

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To create a breakthrough product or service or to successfully enter a new market, a company must know the following:

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3. Identifying Constraints: Barriers to Customer Success Another way to create value is by helping customers overcome constraints that inhibit them from getting a job done. It is common for numerous con-straints to stand in the way of product use or adoption. Determining why a product or service would not be used – even if it satisfies all the stated outcomes – identifies a third, often very promising avenue for potential growth.

SummaryBy dissecting a job – that is a task for which a product or service is used – into its discrete steps and then asking customers what performance and quality metrics they use to measure success in executing each step, we can obtain a set of customer desired outcomes. When the resulting out-come statements are used as inputs into the innovation process, variability is held in check, and the risks of customer-driven innovation are overcome. Moreover, companies are finally able to reliably boost their efforts at cus-tomer-driven innovation.

References Hamel, G. and Prahalad, C.K. (1994) Competing for the Future, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Selden L and I. C. MacMillan (2006) “Manage Customer-Centric Innovation - Systematically”. Harvard Business Review, April, pp. 108-116 A. Ulwick, (2006) What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innova-tion to Create Breakthrough Products and Services. McGraw-Hill, New York

It should also be noted that when captured cor-rectly, desired outcomes are stable over time.

People who were driving their cars back in the 1960s for example, wanted to minimise the like-lihood of getting lost and reduce the time it takes to arrive at a specific destination (others may wish to increase the number of attractions en-route if they are driving for pleasure) – just as people do today and always will in the future.

Desired outcomes have this unique quality be-cause they are fundamental measures of per-formance inherent to the execution of a specific job. Indeed, they will be valid metrics as long as customers are trying to get that job done.

Consequently, knowing what outcomes cus-tomers are trying to achieve gives a company short-term as well as long-term direction in se-lecting which ideas and technologies to pursue. The outcomes that should be the focus for improvement however do change over time as new and better technologies are introduced.

When in-car navigation systems became por-table from one vehicle to another for example, customers were better satisfied with their abil-ity to minimise the time it takes to transfer one system from one vehicle to another.

This meant that the opportunity to create new value along that dimension was diminished and that manufacturers had to determine which other outcomes were important and un-satisfied before new value could be created.

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Developing a Concise Definition of Co-Creation as a Foundation for Innovation and Competitive Advantage

A perspective of the firm as an au-tonomous knowledge creator that learns about customers and cre-ates value for them is increasingly redundant. Now, firms are explor-ing alternative modes and build-ing capabilities to co-create new knowledge and innovate superior and mutual value with their cus-tomers. Such a shift in assump-tions about the value of custom-er-held knowledge has profound repercussions for how companies innovate as well as the nature of value itself. Some even argue that the very locus of innovation is slowly migrating from within to outside corporate boundaries and that this movement demands a new consideration of questions relating to how firms actively ac-cess and deploy the knowledge held by customers. In the following twelve state-ments, I develop a logic that con-cludes in a concise definition of “co-creation” and how firms may derive competitive advantage by facilitating co-created value.

Traditionally, customer value has been defined and differenti-ated by product quality (Features, Attributes and Benefits - the old Kotlerist FAB of 1950-1990s mar-keting textbooks).

Open source product innova-tion (or “co-production” not co-creation) emphasises the tech-nical co-production of new and improved products, their features and attributes with customer's direct involvement in the idea-generation, concept development stages of the innovation process; it is limited to the design, devel-opment and testing of enhanced functional “things”, “objects” or “technologies” with individuals or in communities of users.

Increasingly though, value is migrating from products to ex-periences as customers seek out personalised value to satisfy their situational needs. (Drivers: de-mand for better experiences, tech-nology enablers, enhanced cogni-tion, new sources of knowledge, increased socialisation, product functional similarity, etc.)

Customers are therefore placing increased value on the quality of the experiences they have when they interact with firms and their products (and services).

The quality of an expe-rience is determined by how rel-evant or personalised the experi-ence is for an individual customer; Experience quality is a combina-tion of the functional and emo-

tional elements specific to the sit-uational and temporal context of each customer or context.

The locus of value-cre-ation therefore shifts from prod-uct quality and design innovation to experience design and quality innovation, or service design.

As value-creation is “inno-vation”, traditional firm-centric in-novation processes are becoming distributed in order to provide the means to deliver ongoing, adapt-able, personalised, unique expe-riences for individual customers in unique space – time – event contexts (or “experience environ-ments”).

Therefore, the locus of in-novation is shifting towards the in-dividual in distributed experience environments.

In distributed experience environments, the firm and cus-tomers come together to create value; value in the form of person-alised unique experiences for cus-tomers; knowledge, capability for both and revenues and profits for the firm; the by-product of which is know-what and know-how to continue to deliver and shape that value.

Therefore, co-creation de-fines the processes of distributed value-creation between firms and customers or between customers directly, to create personalised ex-perience value and knowledge, or enhanced cognition defined in the broadest sense and goes beyond “rational inference, know-what and know-how, to include percep-tion, interpretation, value judg-ments, morality, emotions and feelings” (after Nooteboom’s Cog-nitive Theory of the Firm, 2009).

Markets are therefore forums for the co-creation of personalised experiences; value is differentiated according to the quality and rele-vance of personalised experiences for customers (as in Prahalad and Ramaswamy, The Future of Com-petition, 2004).

To facilitate co-creation, firms must therefore develop platforms that bear capabilities for the cre-ation and release of heteroge-neous, personalised customer experiences or distinctive, unique value. These platforms provide the foundation for deriving com-petitive advantage arising from enhanced service and experience quality, knowledge capability, and novel learning mechanisms for de-veloping dynamic capabilities for ongoing innovation performance.

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Steve Jobs

“We’re cautious. We’d rather exceed expectations than miss but I think it’s going to be a continued difficult economy.

Apple is trying a different way to navigate out of this .

We’re trying to innovate.”

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What Is White Space Mapping? IDRIS MOOTEE

Idris Mootee is a highly acclaimed strategy and in-novation expert and keynote speaker who has

a long history of working as a strategy adviser serving C-level executives and start-ups. Idris leads retreats, facilitates execu-tive strategy meetings, speaks at prestige conferences on the topic of strategy, business mod-el design and innovation, and conducts executive level work-shops around the world. He is the author of four business books (some are published in mulit-languages). Quoted in publications including the WSJ and NY Times. He holds ad-vanced degrees in business and management. Idris’ presentations range from 40 minutes to 90 minutes. Each presentation is researched and customized specifically to com-pany and its industry.

http://mootee.typepad.com

Original Post

When people talk about exploring white space in in-novation, often they

refer externally to unserved mar-kets or businesses that are outside their core. It is basically where un-met and unarticulated needs are uncovered to create innovation op-portunities. White space is where where products and services don’t currently exist based on the pres-ent understanding of values. White space is also a tool that allows us to look at the landscape with new lenses. White space can moreover be defined as a unique set of at-tributes, identifying new openings where your competitors currently aren’t focusing or it is being con-sidered part of what traditionally considered a remotely different in-dustry.

White space is also an important outcome of a customer inquiry and discovery process that leads to new profit growth opportunities by defining potential gaps in existing markets. This process can be used to identify entirely new markets . It can also be used to map incre-mental innovation in products or services - new source of customer value that can be translated to eco-nomic value.

Many are reluctant to enter any white space because of the un-knowns. Some can cannibalize existing products or services and some require a very different busi-ness models. And some require ex-tensive system design and support. As a result, no one wants to take any risks and naturally retreated to their core and close adjacencies. Deciding what’s the core is an art and then deciding what’s consid-ered adjacencies is another art. Do we look at the core from compe-tencies, brand or assets?

How do we use white space map-ping? The first step in the white space mapping process is to deter-mine if you will approach it from an internal or external perspective.

Externally focused, the process begins with mapping the market, products or services based on whether these markets are current-ly served, underserved or unserved. The goal is to find gaps in existing markets, product or service lines that represent opportunities for your business. Some of these gaps may be opportunities with little or no competition. Others may iden-tify non-consumers. Still others may uncover an entirely new mar-

ket space that has the potential to transform your industry.

Internally focused, white space mapping becomes an inward look-ing tool to map your company’s ability to address new opportuni-ties or threats and how efficiently and effectively it can react to these opportunities from a process, sys-tems and structural perspective. In this scenario, white space mapping becomes an instrument to iden-tify barriers to your company that inhibit it from pursuing new prod-ucts, new markets or threats unless a new business model is developed.

As markets mature, competition intensifies, new technologies are invented and new consumer be-haviors are constantly emerging. As such, white space mapping is becoming an important strategic exercise for organizational learning and strategic planning as organiza-tions actively look for new sources of differentiation. For a company to remain relevant over the long term, it must respond to these shifting conditions intelligently and white space mapping needs to be part of their strategic planning efforts.

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Strategic Planning Analogy #314: One Strategy GERALD NANNINGA

I have nearly 30 years of experience in business,

having worked with a num-

ber of leading retailers, including Best Buy, DSW,

Supervalu, Shopko, Filene’s Basement, Tweeter Home Entertainment, Save-A-Lot, and Value City, among oth-ers. Most of my work has been in the area of Stra-tegic Planning, but I have also done work in market-ing, finance and consumer research. I am bi-lingual

(speak both marketing and finance) which helps me

take a more complete and balanced approach to busi-

ness problems/issues.

http://planninga-from-nanninga.blogspot.com

Original Post

THE STORY

Early in my career, I was working on a project with another guy in the department. He seemed more motivated than normal to get this project done. He also wanted me to be more highly motivated.

Trying to get me excited, he said, “I was talking to the boss, and he said that if we do a really good job on this project, I will get a big promotion.”

So I started thinking…this guy had less seniority than me and a lesser position. If he were to get a big promotion, it would mean that he would become my boss, putting an additional layer be-tween me and the top of the organization. In es-sence, his reward would have the indirect effect of acting as if I we getting demoted, or at best hav-ing my career path made worse.

So, if WE work hard, HE benefits at MY expense. What’s in this for me? Would not I be better off if the project has a little less than a stellar per-formance? The status quo looked a lot better to me than the so-called “rewards” that would come from working harder.

I could see the look on the face of the guy I was working with. He was starting to realize what was going through my mind. Now he regretted having told me about his potential promotion.

THE ANALOGYBusiness is ultimately about getting things done. One of Strategic Planning’s key roles is to help de-termine what should get done. However, just de-

ciding what should get done does not necessarily ensure that it will, in fact, get done.

In the story, there was a disconnect between what the company wanted to get done and what I want-ed to get done. Project success and my personal success were at odds with each other. As a result, I was not fully motivated to make the company goal a reality.

These types of situations happen in the business world all the time, often on a far larger scale than the project in my story. Businesses will make grand pronouncements of wonderful new strategic ini-tiatives. They will explain how these new strate-gic plans will make everything for the company so much better.

Then, over time, you stop hearing much about that grand strategic initiative. Worse yet, there is no real evidence that the key elements of the strategy ever got accomplished. Status Quo prevails.

A year or two later, the business will make grand pronouncements about an entirely new and dif-ferent set of strategic initiatives. Forget those old initiatives. Let’s embrace the new ones. Of course, the success in implementing the new initiatives turns out to be no better than the failure of the old ones. Why? Usually in these situations, there is a disconnect between the ones declaring the initiative and the ones who are supposed to ac-complish the initiative (just like what happened to me). Unless you fix the disconnect, the strategic initiative will not succeed.

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THE PRINCIPLE

The principle here is that strategic plan-ning needs to be more than just a source of great ideas or mandates. It also needs to get involved in the messy work of im-plementation. Otherwise, the forces of the status quo will usurp control and render the strategy powerless.

I was reminded of this principle today while reading an interview with one of the au-thors of a book called “One Strategy.” The book, which was published late in 2009, tells the story of the project to design and release Windows 7.

The premise of the book is as follows. Most companies have two strategies: The “ex-plicit” or “directed” strategy (the declared strategic desire from the top) and the “implicit” or “emergent” strategy (what emerges from the everyday activities of the organization). If those two strategies are not aligned, you will fail.

The book’s prescribed solution is to seek “strategic integrity”—where both strate-gies are one and the same. This is done by working on all those forces which cause the “emergent” strategy to vary from the intended “directed” strategy.

This includes things like policies, proce-dures, organization, rewards, incentives, management style, and so on. In addition, there needs to be constant communica-tion between the keepers of the directed strategy and the keepers of the emer-gent strategy so that they can stay on the

same page. The book uses blogs by the Windows 7 project manager to illustrate how Microsoft created strategic integrity through this process.

In my story above, my rewards and incen-tives were not aligned with the project, so I was less than fully motivated to make the project a success. There was the potential for me to lose strategic integrity.

What is amazing to me is that this is con-sidered a radical enough new idea to war-rant a book. Isn’t this just common sense?

Let’s assume for a moment that I owned an auto repair shop and decided to turn it into a gourmet restaurant. I tell the head mechanic to make the change and then go away for a few months. When I come back, I find out that nothing had changed. When I ask the mechanic why the new strategy was not implemented, he says:

“You didn’t give me any money to make the conversion from auto repair to gour-met restaurant. I had no policies or pro-cedures for running a restaurant. All the employees here are compensated as a % of the labor costs in automotive repairs. If they stop doing auto repairs, they stop

getting paid. In addition, all the mechanics figured that they would soon be out of a job (replaced by chefs) if they cooperated.

Finally, I’m more comfortable managing a repair shop than a restaurant. So we de-cided to keep things as they were.”

Common sense should tell us that this would be an expected response. If you truly wanted to make the conversion from auto repair shop to gourmet restaurant, you would need to get rid of all those bar-riers to conversion and stick around to make sure that the forces of status quo do not win.

But I guess it is not common sense, since strategic failure (lack of strategic integrity) is so common.

Part of this is the fault of the professional strategy community. We often don’t like getting our hands dirty with the messy task of implementation.

We voluntarily cut ourselves out of the daily conversation where the “emergent” strategy takes place. This is a mistake. No wonder so many companies see strategy professionals as irrelevant.

Part of this is the fault of the operators who try to block strategists from “med-dling” in their affairs.

Strategists cannot help remove the barri-ers if they are forbidden from entry into the world of everyday business activity.

We often don’t like getting our hands

dirty with the messy task of implementation.

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So how can we help fix this situation?

If the natural tendency is for the two sides to not want to work together, create incentives to over-come these natural tendencies. Tell the strategists and the operators that neither is rewarded unless both do their part to build the One Strategy. Sud-denly, their success is dependent upon each other, so there is more incentive to work together.

The operators are more likely to trust the “med-dling” of the strategists if some of the members of the strategy team are current or former operators. In addition, the strategists are more inclined to get their hands dirty if members of their team are used to getting their hands dirty. So if you want one strategy, build one blended team.

Professional strategists and professional opera-tors both have something to offer. Blend them to-gether, so that they offer assistance to each oth-er rather than offering two distinctively different strategies.

SUMMARY

Strategic plans are doomed if they are mere words handed off to people who are incented to keep the status quo. Strategy & Implementation need to be blended into a single, ongoing process.

FINAL THOUGHTSI witnessed a company where about 90% of the organization believed that the “directed” strategy would have a negative impact on their career path. This was like my little story above, only multiplied by the thousands. As you may have guessed, the 90% revolted against the 10% and won.

the potential

who feel that change

Scott is the Managing Director of Innosight Ventures.!He previ-ously was the President of Inno-sight’s consulting arm where he worked with Fortune 500 and start-up companies in industries such as media (print and broad-

cast), consumer products, investment bank-ing, transportation and logistics, healthcare, medical devices, software, petrochemicals, and communications equipment. In 2005-2006 he spearheaded a year-long project to help the newspaper industry grapple with industry transformation (Newspaper Next), and in 2003-2004 led a multi-month project to help the government of Singapore under-stand how to create an environment that fos-ters entrepreneurialism and innovation.

Scott!is a featured speaker on topics of growth and innovation.!He is!a!judge in!the!Wall Street Journal’s 2009 Innovation Awards.!He is a fac-ulty member of the Leadership, Innovation, and Growth Program at GE Crotonville. Scott is also!a member of the Board of Directors of Media General.!

Scott has written three books on innovation: Seeing What’s Next with Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen (Harvard Business Press, 2004), The Innovator’s Guide to Growth with Mark Johnson, Joe Sinfield, and Elizabeth Altman (Harvard Business Press, 2008), and The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times (Harvard Business Press, June 2009). He has written articles in publi-cations such as the Wall Street Journal, Har-vard Business Review, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Sloan Management Review, Advertising Age, Marketing Management and Chief Executive, is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Online and serves as the editorial director of Strategy & Innovation.

http://blogs.hbr.orgOriginal Post

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The Danger of Part-Time Business BuildersSCOTT ANTHONY

How many entrepreneurs do you think consider their venture to be a hobby? That is, their ven-ture is one of a long list of things they are working on? Probably

not too many — especially not many suc-cessful ones. Yet, that's how many compa-nies treat their new growth businesses.

How so? Many companies ask people to be part-time business builders. Consider companies that form "innovation teams" where members are expected to work on several businesses concurrently. Or com-panies that ask people to fit business-building efforts into their "spare" time.

It's possible to be a valuable part-time contributor to a project. And it's possible to play a vital role in an innovation effort that closely adheres to a company's core business model.

But building a truly new business can't be a part-time endeavor. There are simply too many challenges that require constant attention. Remember, most start up busi-nesses fail, and that's with diligent, min-ute-by-minute attention from the found-ing team.

At best, setting up growth initiatives in a fractionalized manner slows innovation substantially. At worst, this setup leads companies to veer in the wrong direction as part-time business builders implicitly slide back into known models that con-

form to the base business rather than ex-plore the disruptive frontier.

Leaders sometimes think this is a rewards problem. They will note how an entrepre-neur who owns a startup business will just work harder because they are positioned to capture all of the economic returns. I think that's partially true. But the reality is that there is a big difference between waking up in the morning thinking only about a new business and waking up in the morning thinking about a range of dif-ferent things, regardless of the rewards.

It might seem hard to have scarce re-sources focus fully on a single opportuni-ty. But the reality is, this single focus is by far the best approach to build a disruptive growth business. And it doesn't have to be a resource drain if you keep teams lean and focused (more on this in a future post when I talk about "Penrosian slack") and make reasonably quick decisions about shutting down, re-vectoring or accelerat-ing businesses.

Building a new business is hard enough as it is. Don't make it harder by asking people to be part-time business builders.

I’m sure you all know the story of the blind men and the elephant. If not, here’s a brief description from Wikipedia:

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one’s perspec-tive.

I was out walking the dogs today and this image popped into my mind. I was thinking about the ad industry at the time and the various elements all vying for at-tention. I hear people talk about how brands can’t survive with-out this or that and it seems at times that we’re all blind, feeling our way around the brand.

One person only sees social me-dia, the next only traditional me-dia, the next only digital, a fourth only retail and so on. But not enough people are seeing the whole picture.

For example, social media is clearly hot right now and cer-tainly there are brands that are using social media very well. But, for example, I’m not sure all brands should be on Twitter or will have fan pages. They are fine products when you need them, but for example, how many peo-ple would friend Preparation H?

Would you follow them on Twitter?When people ask me to define “brand experience,” I say that it’s everything you do. And thanks to tools like Twitter and Facebook, everything you do is even more important today. Deliver a bad experience and the whole world knows, right then and there.

It’s comforting to see more agencies add strategic, big pic-ture thinkers to their ranks and brands need to start adding more big picture thinkers as well.

Someone needs to be looking at everything you do, the big pic-ture. Looking at how all of the pieces fit together to create one, consistent brand experience.

Brand managers need to stop seeing only the one part and they need to start seeing the whole picture. In the future, that’s what brands will live & die on.

What do I do? I help brands align their on-line and offline experiences

into Oneline™ experiences,

to create a better business, drive revenue and differenti-ate in a world that’s too simi-lar. I help brands understand how to better connect with their audience and that to-day what you do is far more

important then what you say. You can go to Engage Me to learn more about the specific services that I can

bring to you.

You may have known me as the Founder and Chief Experience Officer of the Brand Experience Lab,

which was called “A play-room for marketers and

agencies” by Ad Age when it first opened. Or, you may

know me from my days writ-ing Experience Manifesto, a blog I wrote for over 5 years. Or maybe you know me as LBBINC (my previous com-pany was Location Based

Branding) on Twitter.

http://blog.polinchock.comOriginal Post

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The Blind Men and the ElephantDAVID POLINCHOCK

What part of the

elephant do you see?

Are you able to see that there are

other parts? Do you understand

how all of those parts work together to create

something better?

Mike Brown! is a Strategic Innovation Catalyst at Brainzo-oming™.He has been at the forefront of leading Fortune 500 cul-

ture change, contributing new approaches in research, devel-oping simplified tools for strate-gic planning, and aligning sales, marketing, and communications strategies!for maximum business results. Additionally, he’s won multiple awards for his strategic brand-building approach to cus-tomer experiences in NASCAR and conference event market-ing efforts. He has accomplished these successes through a teach-ing orientation and providing non-experts with dynamic tools so they can succeed like experts.Mike is the author of the ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOva-tion,” a guide to breaking through personal challenges to living a more creative and innovative life. Additionally, he authors the daily Brainzooming blog on strategy, creativity, and innovation.He’s been a! frequent, repeat speaker for organizations, asso-ciations, and universities,

http://brainzooming.comOriginal Post

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Strategic Planning Doesn’t Have to Kill CreativityMIKE BROWN

I sat through a poorly managed, business-wide meeting to allegedly solicit perspec-tives for an organization’s vision state-ment. Rather than using creative thinking exercises to help collectively form a strong

vision, however, the leader directly asked the entire team what the vision should be. Par-ticipants then sat quietly as only a few people spoke (one-at-a-time) to offer opinion-filled perspectives.

Beyond being incredibly boring for everyone, think about this: What was the cost of 40 or 50 well-paid people sitting around mostly twiddling their thumbs for 3 hours, as perhaps 10 of them actively participated at any point?

What a way to waste time, creativity, and good-will for future strategic planning.

Do yourself a favor. Bookmark this article, and if you find yourself in an organization trying to develop a vision statement, PLEASE don’t take the same approach I endured!

Here’s what to do:

Break into small groups where multiple people can actively participate at the same time to stretch the group’s thinking and share creative ideas.

DON’T ASK the obvious question, “What should our vision be?” Going right to this question won’t save time or improve results. People don’t talk in ready-made “vision statements.” This one-ques-tion approach simply draws out monologues doing little to coalesce a group’s collective per-spective.

Instead, ask strong strategic planning questions to get participants to share the important words, phrases, and ideas that shape a vision.

Such questions include:

What is our organization passionate about do-ing for our people and our customers?What are we best at and where can we continue to excel?Who will our customers be five years from now? What do we think will be important for us to de-liver in best serving them?What are capabilities we want to put in place to stretch our organization and better serve our audiences?What are the things we need to concentrate on to dramatically exceed our goals and objectives?

Have small groups report their answers to these questions. Listen intently and write down ALL the ideas the group shares.

From this treasure trove of input, you’ll be ready to construct an overarching statement born from active participation and the hopes and language of your organization. Plus people will actually be excited about participating the next time you need them to do strategic thinking.

Oh, and by the way: The Brainzooming Group is great at facilitating these types of dicussions so you get maximum participation. We actually generate creativity and enthusiasm through how we approach a team’s strategic conversations. Email me at brainzooming@gmail.com, and let’s talk about how we can help you deliver great results for your organization.

I am currently building a practice around social

business design with Dachis Corp. I have 14 years experience in

the creative field with the majority of my

time spent in digital marketing and experience design. An active partici-pant in the industry, I write Logic + Emotion which is ranked in the top

10 media + marketing blogs accord-ing to Advertising Age. My writing and visual thinking has been cited

by Forrester, The Boston Globe and has landed me in BusinessWeek

on several occasions including their “Best of 2006”.

Prior to Dachis, I spent time as a cre-ative/strategic lead at notable firms such as Critical Mass, Digitas and

Agency.com—putting in a combined tenure of 8 years in the large digital agency environment. I led multiple initiatives for clients such as HP, All-state, Fifth Third Bank, Miller Brew-

ing, Grainger, and Bally Total Fitness. Previously, I earned my interactive stripes working with The Chicago

Tribune on their site initiatives.

Today, I blend strategy with design and look for new opportunities

around the evolving Web (otherwise known as “Web 2.0”) to enhance

the customer experience and bring brands and people closer together.

http://darmano.typepad.comOriginal Post

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AUGUST ISSUE

Advertising: Innovate or Die. Vol. 1DAVID ARMANO

I thought I had found my dream candidate. Someone who understood the language of both design and business. Someone who could think in pictures and express concepts with prototypes. A creative

problem solver.

! An individual with a firm grasp on “Web 2.0”. Someone who saw the potential of emerging technology as enabling us humans to make the connections we’ve always desired.

I brought him in for an interview. I showed him some of our own concepts. Our prototypes and visualizations of better, more fluid interac-tive experiences. He was impressed. He didn’t think that marketing firms did this kind of thing. He was curious to hear more. So I did my best to articulate the role of the digitally-integrated agency in creating brand experiences.

The kinds of experiences that people reward with their time, attention and participation.

I knew he was being sought after. He had just graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technol-ogy, but he had that aspect about him—like a lot of people were in the process of pursuing him.

I sensed that I probably would not be success-ful in recruiting him—but it was still worth a shot. He possessed a blend of skills that I was looking for.

Analytical Expressive

Curious Empathetic

He understood technology, but more impor-tantly he understood why people behave the way they do.

In the end, he went to go work for Google.

Why am I sharing this tale of love and loss? I’m sharing it because I think it’s time for Ad-vertising to get serious about innovation. Ru-mor has it that the Ad Industry is in it’s death throes. I don’t think that’s completely true—but if Advertising doesn’t start innovating for real—they will be dead as a doornail. Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics recently featured a post that made the case for how the Advertising in-dustry model isn’t equipped to handle R&D. In it, he cited the following reasons:

“1. The Deliverable. Advertising agencies pro-duce content for a living; specifically, memo-rable stories in print ads and broadcast spots. Moreover, these stories are to be one-of-a-kind. Storytelling does not require R&D, nor does originality in storytelling.

“”

FUTURELAB SHIFT PERSPECTIVES

AUGUST ISSUE

Like all profes-sional-services firms, agencies sell exper-tise, which by definition reflects what has worked in the past. R&D reflects an inten-tion to try what hasn’t been tried before.

Like all vendors, ad agen-cies are risk-averse. Proposing the untried to results-oriented clients is a risk with long odds, an unknowable payoff and a steep downside.

And more recent contributing factors in-clude:

The big agencies that have the requisite resources are all publicly owned these days, and Wall Street has little patience with company spending that can-not be tied to short-term results.

There’s been general erosion in R&D spending by U.S. businesses recently.”

Then I thought about my dream candidate. The one that went to work for Google. Google does R&D. They experiment with new products, features and services. They certainly innovate (though the case can be made that this is overstated).

Traditional Advertising at the core is still about telling stories. T-E-L-L-I-N-G. Not experiencing for yourself. Hearing about it. Reading about it. Passively taking it in. Now I’m all for good storytelling, but there has to be more in order to thrive in the world of creative, empowered, individualis-tic, fickle consumers who spend more time engaging the social network then they do watching TV.

OK, you heard me ramble on about my dream candidate. The one that went to Google.

Hmmmm. Well, right off the bat, it would need to stop acting like an agency. That would mean replacing the Dog and Pony show with things like cultivating real cus-tomer insights and utilizing Ethnography.

My vision of a dream agency would be filled with people who think with both sides of their brains and visualize different solutions to the same problem. The agency would need to have a toolbox of methodologies, but still be nimble enough to act quickly. Maybe the dream agency will be part IDEO.

But it also has to be really creative.

It would need to know how to both tell sto-ries and craft experiences. It would need to be well versed in the multitude of digital channels and be able to execute in them.

It would need to be able to present brands in ways that are consistent with the life-styles of the people who swear by these brands.

It would need to understand how to engage people as opposed to just telling stories to them. So maybe the agency would be part R/GA.

But none of this is enough.

Sometimes you need more than creativ-ity, strategy, design thinking, anthropology, and a good media plan.

Sometimes you just need some plain cooky, out of the box thinking that stops people in their tracks.

Sometimes you need to be one step ahead of the curve culturally to deliver something that’s never been seen before.

Sure, some of your efforts might be better then others, but you wouldn’t be afraid of taking risks and doing things like putting people in Chicken suits for all the Web to see (and interact with).

So maybe the dream agency is part Crisp-en Porter + Bogusky.

Food for thought.

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