Blogging Innovation

Innovation That is Measured is Treasured

2010-02-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

Why Results Require Rewards: Encouraging Action With Incentive

by Robert F. Brands with Jeff Zbar

Imagine a company that has taken the time to consider the role of Innovation in the corporate mission. Employees were encouraged to be part of the innovation process but their reward was compensation linked strictly to output.

Does that encourage value-added thought process? In my mind, it encourages work, which should need no encouragement at all.

Now, what if that same company put a reward system in place whose reward system was based on innovation and results, not hours or labor? It aligned reward to patents granted, products launched, or sales achieved? And its reward process was integrated along side its Vision, Mission, Strategy, and Resources/Budget?

I would argue that that organization has asked itself a key question: What motivates your team to excel in innovation? The answer is Net Rewards for Net Results.

Many companies see cash as the ideal motivational perk. This might not be the case. A recent survey from McKinsey found that three non-cash motivators rise above all other forms of incentive:

Praise from managers
Attention of leadership that takes place in one-on-one conversations
The chance to lead projects, teams or task forces.

Such nods and recognition topped even cash bonuses, increased base pay, and stock or stock options – the three top-ranked financial incentives, McKinsey found.

"The survey's top three nonfinancial motivators play critical roles in making employees feel that their companies value them, take their well-being seriously, and strive to create opportunities for career growth," the McKinsey report noted. "These themes recur constantly in most studies on ways to motivate and engage employees."

Though being discussed last in the list of the 10 Imperatives to Innovation, "Net Rewards and Net Results" arguably holds equally high a position as any other imperative. There's a fundamental connection between the two. Rewards must be in alignment with the expectations of the organization and its people. Some organizations seek to innovate, but try rewarding people based on R&D spend. It is a worthy financial metric, but is no guarantee for success.

Incentives should not be about output or spend. It's about "thought-put," and the creativity, ideation and esprit de corps brought to the effort.

Done right, rewards the organization in search of inspiration, motivation, ideation - all the imperatives that drive innovation. It rewards the individual for performing at a high level, and the team for working effectively as a Unit of One.

For the organization that seeks results, incentive is a kind of Reward ROI. By investing in employee rewards as a carrot, think of innovation as ROI derived from the alchemy of ideas-to-money. As we've written before, innovation leads to improved performance, heightened sales, more black on the bottom line. This profit - whether in actual product on the street or improved organizational performance - brings benefit to all stakeholders: shareholders, executive leadership, employees, customers and consumers.

Various perks can drive incentive. Incentives must be earmarked for all participants at the table. This may include the development team itself, to the marketing, finance, R&D, sales, customer service or people from other departments who helped with ideation, market research, justification or any other process that went into creating the new initiative.

For example, in the NPD process, the team or division should be rewarded with a compensation package that includes a percentage of sales derived from new products delivered. The neat thing about NP sales is that success is rewarded and people stay engaged and involved they care post development or launch.

Simply put, the fruits of your team's labor benefit all - and rewards must reflect that. Moreover, this type of validation acknowledges individuals' ability to envision new concepts, help shepherd them through the R&D process (even if the individual is not part of R&D, per se), and play a key role in bringing product to market.

Rewards can enhance valued employees' commitment to the organization, boost morale, motivate future efforts, reinforce positive outcomes, encourage repeat performances and help keep employees' "eye on the ball" vis a vis innovation and ideation. It also strengthens the connection between strategy and results.

In sum, when Net Rewards are based on Net Returns in the innovation process, everybody - the organization, the innovators, the stakeholders and the consumers - wins.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Robert F. Brands is President and founder of Brands & Company, LLC. Innovation Coach Robert Brands has launched a new site - www.RobertsRulesOfInnovation.com - to complement his upcoming book.

Part 3 - Three Innovation Distinctions

2010-02-09T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Stephen Shapiro

This is the third of my "Innovation Distinctions" entries.

In the first part of this series, I wrote why you should focus on "Challenges, not Ideas." Next, I addressed the distinction of "Process, not Events."

In this final entry, I discuss why innovation requires "Diversity not Homogeneity." Be sure to read the previous two articles before reading this one.

As mentioned in the other blog entries, I first shared these distinctions with a group of speakers and authors who were brainstorming ways to improve the learning experience for other speakers and authors who attend their conferences. Here's the Catch 22: Having only speakers and authors speaking to other speakers and authors does not lead to much creativity. Most of the "ideas" presented are well-worn and don't address the "real world" outside of the industry.

Therefore, my last suggestion to the group was to increase the level of diversity at these learning experiences. This would provide a wider range of ideas, suggestions, and points-of-view.

How does diversity apply to an organization?

Diversity can mean a wide variety of things:

Diversity of race, creed, color, sex, etc.
Diversity of innovation styles
Diversity of disciplines

I won't address the first point as that has been a topic of discussion for decades. Let me tackle the next two.

Diversity of Innovation Styles

The second point ties directly to my Innovation Personality Poker system.

In the card-based game, I discuss the four primary innovation styles: analytical, creative, planning/action, engagement. Most organizations favor one over another and therefore do not have a good balance of styles. There's a reason for this.

Although homogeneous teams are often more efficient (i.e., you get things done faster), having a bunch of "yes men" working for you is not the answer for long-term growth. When people think too much alike, new ideas struggle to surface. In these homogeneous climates, innovation and growth (i.e., effectiveness) suffer.

The essence of successful companies, then, is the ability to be both efficient and effective. They are able to focus on both production and innovation, not just doing things right but also doing the right things.

There's plenty of evidence that team diversity translates directly into corporate profits. Sigal Barsade and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school studied top management teams at large corporations in the United States. Interestingly, the more diverse the functional roles of the members of those teams were, the greater the average, market-adjusted financial return in those companies. Diversity of the top leaders translated into bottom-line results.

In Personality Poker, there are four key concepts:

You need people in your organization "play to their strong suit." That is, make sure that everyone understands how they contribute to and detract from the innovation process. This includes ensuring that you have the right people with the right leadership styles in your organization.

As an organization, "play with a full deck." You must embrace a wide range of innovation styles. Instead of hiring on competency and chemistry, also hire for a diversity of innovation styles. Every step of the innovation process must be addressed. You need people who are great at conducting research, delivering results, developing plans and reports, building relationships, and creating new ideas, amongst other things.

"Deal out the work." That is, you must divide and conquer. You can't have everyone in your organization do everything. Instead, get them to divvy up the work based on which style is most effective at a given task. You can’t have everyone generating ideas, or focusing on planning.

Recognize that in order to treat everyone the same, you must treat everyone differently. People have different needs in terms of how they like to be managed, how they like to be praised, and how they want to contribute to the organization. In order to attract and retain a well-balanced organization you must be prepared to treat people as they want to be treated. To do this, you must overcome the inertia of your company's personality and embrace the needs of the individual personalities.

I could write a whole book on the value of diverse teams. Oh, wait, I did! My Personality Poker book will be published by Penguin's Portfolio imprint Fall 2010. Throughout, I provide examples of, and evidence for the value of having a diversity of "styles" within your organization.

But what about the third type of diversity: The diversity of disciplines.

Diversity of Discipline

A discipline is any area of expertise like biology, chemistry, physics or mathematics. You can have an organization comprised of diverse innovation styles while sharing only one discipline.

A while back, I spoke with Al Bredenberg, Senior Researcher from ILO Institute. He subsequently wrote an excellent blog entry on the topic of diversity where he quotes me. He also mentions a Harvard Business Review article by Lee Fleming that suggests that companies with less diversity of discipline produce better overall financial results than highly diverse ones.

"The financial value of the innovations resulting from such cross-pollination is lower, on average, than the value of those that come out of more conventional, siloed approaches. In other words, as the distance between the team members' fields or disciplines increases, the overall quality of the innovations falls. But, my research also suggests that the breakthroughs that do arise from such multidisciplinary work, though extremely rare, are frequently of unusually high value - superior to the best innovations achieved by conventional approaches... When members of a team are cut from the same cloth, you don't see many failures, but you don't see many extraordinary breakthroughs either."

However, as the diversity of disciplines increases, "the average value of the team's innovations falls while the variation in value around that average increases. You see more failures, but you also see occasional breakthroughs of unusually high value."

Therefore, although there is value to diversity of disciplines, the challenges seem to outweigh the benefits.

What's the solution to having a diversity of disciplines without having to deal with the inherent complexities?

Open Innovation. By working with companies like InnoCentive, you get the value of discipline diversity while having few of the downsides. You get the take advantage of a wide range of experiences while only paying for successful solutions.

I will write more on Open Innovation in subsequent entries.

The Bottom Line

Diversity can create incredible value for an organization. It can help facilitate the innovation process. It can help increase the quantity and quality of breakthrough ideas. The key is knowing the right way of managing and engaging a diverse set of perspectives.

Related posts:

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Stephen Shapiro is the author of three books, a popular innovation speaker, and is the Chief Innovation Evangelist for Innocentive, the leader in Open Innovation.

10 Simple Ways to Stay Connected

2010-02-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Matt Heinz

No matter what you do for a living, an active network is critical to your current and future success. That said, it's very easy to ignore the often simple, tactical things you can do to keep your network engaged and growing.

Here's a list of ten things to consider doing daily. If ten is too much to start (although this list should take all of 15-20 minutes if you stay focused), start with just 2-4 and expand from there. Each piece incrementally will help, and you'll be surprised how quickly your investment comes back in the way of opportunities, introductions and more.

Email three people you haven't spoken with in some time, just to catch up
Scan your LinkedIn home page for profile updates, and comment back on 2-3 that are particularly interesting to you
Use Gist.com to see what your contacts have done, read or published recently
Send one hand-written thank you or congratulations note to someone
Return one phone call or email from a sales rep. Make it short, but return the connection. You'd be surprised how often these turn into something more valuable than the pitch.
Give someone an unsolicited recommendation in LinkedIn
Scan your blog RSS feed, and forward 1-3 articles to people you think will find them interesting or valuable
Invite someone to lunch today. You have to eat anyway. If they say no, they're happy you asked. If they say yes, you get a valuable chance to reconnect.
Thank someone for the hard work they did yesterday, and copy their manager if sent via email
Send an unsolicited email to someone you've always wanted to meet, asking for a quick phone call or coffee. Do this daily, and I guarantee your response rate will be better than zero.

What would you add to this list?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

January's Top 10 Innovation Posts

2010-02-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

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 January's ten most popular innovation or marketing posts:

10 Lessons Learned from 2009 - by Holly G. Green

Top 10 Innovation Articles of 2009 - by Braden Kelley

Microsoft - Apple - Google in Tablet Battle - by Braden Kelley

Three Enterprise 2.0 Themes to Watch in 2010 - by Hutch Carpenter

Apple Tablet Sneak Preview - by Braden Kelley

Apple Tablet Won't Be Runaway Success - by Braden Kelley

Should you be measuring ROR instead of ROI? - by Ric Merrifield

Presenting Twitter in Search Results - by Hutch Carpenter

10 Signs That Innovation Will Fail - by Stefan Lindegaard

What is Design Thinking? - by Venessa Miemis

If you're not familiar with Blogging Innovation, we publish 2-3 new articles every day built around innovation and marketing insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members.

Join our Continuous Innovation group or subscribe to our RSS feed to follow along.

Braden 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.

Study of Innovation Risks

2010-02-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

Building upon the Boston Consulting Group innovation study, Altin Kadareja has configured a research study for his graduate thesis titled: "Quantification of Innovation Risks".

He is focused on developing a model that can identify, analyze and quantify the risk of innovation projects. This model stands besides innovation project management practices and is based on a step by step structural framework empowered by a PRA (Probabilistic Risk Assessment) analysis.

He is closing out his research this week, so please help him out by filling in a
short online survey (only 13 questions).

Braden 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.

56 Reasons Why Innovation Initiatives Fail

2010-02-08T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Mitch Ditkoff

Innovation is in these days. The word is on the lips of just about every CEO, CFO, CIO, and anyone else with a three-letter acronym after their name. As a result, many companies are launching all kinds of "innovation initiatives" - hoping to stir the soup. This is understandable. But it is also, far too often, very disappointing...

Innovation initiatives sound good, but usually don't live up to the expectations. The reasons are many.

What follows are fifty-six of the most common ones - organizational obstacles we've observed in the past twenty-two years that get in the way of a company really raising the bar for innovation.

See which ones are familiar to YOU. Then, sit down with your Senior Team... CEO... innovation committee, or best friend and jump start the process of going beyond these obstacles. Let the games begin:

"Innovation" framed as an initiative, not the normal way of doing business
Absence of a clear definition of what "innovation" really means
Innovation not linked to company's existing vision or strategy
No sense of urgency
Workforce is suffering from "initiative fatigue"
CEO does not fully embrace the effort
No compelling vision or reason to innovate
Senior Team not aligned
Key players don't have the time to focus on innovation
Innovation champions are not empowered
Decision making processes are non-existent or fuzzy
Lack of trust
Risk averse culture
Overemphasis on cost cutting or incremental improvement
Workforce ruled by past assumptions and old mental models
No process in place for funding new projects
Not enough pilot programs in motion
Senior Team not walking the talk
No company-wide process for managing ideas
Too many turf wars. Too many silos.
Analysis paralysis
Reluctance to cannibalize existing products and services
NIH (not invented here) syndrome
Funky channels of communication
No intrinsic motivation to innovate
Unclear gates for evaluating progress
Mind numbing bureaucracy
Unclear idea pitching processes
Lack of clearly defined innovation metrics
No accountability for results
No way to celebrate quick wins
Poorly facilitated meetings
No training to unleash individual or team creativity
Voodoo evaluation of ideas
Inadequate sharing of best practices
Lack of teamwork and collaboration
Unclear strategy for sustaining the effort
Innovation Teams meet too infrequently
Middle managers not on board
Ineffective rollout of the effort to the workforce
Lack of tools and techniques to help people generate new ideas
Innovation initiative perceived as another "flavor of the month"
Individuals don't understand how to be a part of the effort
Diverse inputs or conflicting opinions not honored
Imbalance of left-brain and right brain thinking
Low morale
Over-reliance on technology
Failure to secure sustained funding
Unrealistic timeframes
Failure to consider issues associated with scaling up
Inability to attract talent to risky new ventures
Failure to consider commercialization issues
No rewards or recognition program in place
No processes in place to get fast feedback
No real sense of what your customers really want or need
Company hiring process screens out potential innovators

Others we may have missed?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Mitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions and the author of "Awake at the Wheel", as well as the very popular Heart of Innovation blog.

Innovators Welcome Ambiguity

2010-02-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Paul Sloane

Brilliant thinkers and innovators are very comfortable with ambiguity - they welcome it. Routine thinkers like clarity and simplicity; they dislike ambiguity. There is a tendency in our society to reduce complex issues down to simple issues with obviously clear solutions. We see evidence of this in the tabloid press. There have been some terrible crimes committed in our cities. A violent offender received what is seen to be a lenient sentence. This shows that judges are out of touch with what is needed and that heavy punishment will stop the crime wave. The brilliant thinker is wary of simple nostrums like these. He or she knows that complex issues usually involve many causes and these may need many different and even conflicting solutions.

Routine thinkers are often dogmatic. They see a clear route forward and they want to follow it. The advantage of this is that they can make decisive and effective executives - up to a point. If the simple route happens to be a good one then they get on with the journey. The downside is that they will likely follow the most obvious idea and not consider creative, complex or controversial choices. The exceptional thinker can see many possibilities and relishes reviewing both sides of any argument. They are happy to discuss and explore multiple possibilities and are keen to challenge conventional wisdom. People around them and subordinates can sometimes consider this approach to be frustrating and indecisive.

Albert Einstein was able to conceive his theory of relativity because he thought that time and space might not be immutable. Neils Bohr made breakthroughs in physics because he was able to think of light as both a stream of particles and as a wave. Picasso could paint classical portraits and yet conceive cubist representations of people.

How can you welcome ambiguity? First by admitting that there are few absolute truths and that for most common beliefs the opposite view might also be true. If the general view is that you can either get high quality or low price the brilliant thinker will ask, 'Why can't we get both? How can we deliver great quality at really affordable prices?'

Cognitive dissonance is the concept of holding two very different ideas in your mind at the same time. This is something all the great composers do when they think of two melodic themes and how they can intertwine, adapt and combine them. We would find it very difficult to whistle one tune while thinking of an entirely different one but that is the sort of thing that Beethoven or Mozart would consider trifling.

When we mull over the interaction of two opposing ideas in our minds then the creative possibilities are legion. A wind-up clock and an electrically operated radio are two very different concepts but by imagining their combination Trevor Bayliss was able to conceive of the clockwork radio. Most of us would dismiss such an idea out of hand. It seems incongruous to have a large mechanical winding device inside a small radio. And we can immediately see the drawback that the programme we were listening to would stop when the winder ran down so that we would have to get up and wind the thing again. That appears a very tedious operation.

But Bayliss saw beyond these limitations and considered the needs of people in the developing world who did not have access to reliable mains electricity and who could not afford batteries. For them winding up a radio is a minor inconvenience. The clockwork radio has transformed their lives.

If we want creative solutions and real innovations then we should welcome ambiguity. We should explore the possibilities of two different things interacting together. We should let opposites play.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan-Page.

Radical Innovation of Meaning - Apple iPad

2010-02-07T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Hutch Carpenter

"Ultimately, the iPad is a large iPod touch: a great device to draw your inspiration from, but perhaps not the seismic shift in technology that we were expecting."

- Claudine Beaumont, Apple iPad review, The Telegraph

The much anticipated announcement of Apple's iPad tablet was met with a resounding... "ho hum" or worse from much of the technology crowd. The biggest criticisms were its lack of key features (no Adobe Flash, lack of USB ports, where's the camera?, etc.). The Apple iPad as a technology innovation is a disappointment.

But with Apple, and Steve Jobs, that's not really the point now, is it?

Sure, Apple has had plenty of technological innovations along the way. But then, so has its competitors. Yes, Steve Jobs is a showman, but that effect only lasts for MacWorld presentations.

No, what Apple does well is put forth "radical innovations of meaning". That term is from Roberto Verganti, who wrote about the concept in his excellent book "Design-Driven Innovation".

Apple's skills with design-driven innovation are what will make the iPad a success.

Design-Driven Innovation: Innovation of Meaning

"Market? What market! We do not look at market needs. We make proposals to people."

- Ernesto Gismondi, Chairman, Artemide, Design-Driven Innovation

Verganti's books builds the case for a different form of innovation. One in which companies tap the undercurrents of societal changes early, and create products addressing them. As Artemide chairman Gismondi puts it, these products are so different, they are akin to "making a proposal" to a market. They are not linear updates to existing products.

As Julian Bleeker notes in his review of the book, design-driven innovation is not a "follow the trends" approach. "Trends" are what any company can do. Rather, it's deciding that conditions are right to introduce a product that plumbs changes previously unexplored in your industry.

Verganti describes this work as the radical innovation of meaning. Many purchases are based as much on meaning as they are on features. Innovation of features is an ongoing process for companies. But innovation of meaning is a stunted process for many firms.

Take a product that has an accepted use, a common set of features, and provide something new that turns the traditional meaning of the product on its head. In the book, he describes multiple examples of this, drawn mostly from Italy, his home country. For example, Alessi, a manufacturer of household items, successfully innovated the meaning of many common items. It introduced a series of playful characters that represented everyday kitchen items:

Mandarin: citrus squeezer stylized as a Chinese mandarin
Nutty the Cracker: squirrel that cracks nuts

While it may sound trivial as you read this, this product line was an absolute gangbuster in sales. Alessi figured out that people still enjoyed playful experiences, even as adults. No one else was thinking this way in the industry at the time. But now the kitchenware actively pursues emotional design. It was no accident either. Alessi spent time researching changes in societal norms. That we still like to be kids was a change they saw (and one that many of us today take for granted).

Companies that do this well are both influencers and participants in what Verganti describes as the "design discourse". This is an ongoing conversation with thinkers, tinkerers, researchers and companies who target the same evolving changes in societal context. Often, these are people outside your industry who are studying the same changes you are interested in.

It is by accessing these networks where companies can "see" evolutions of societal norms that offer opportunity. These are opportunities not driven by expressed consumer desires, but by shifts in cultural norms. Done well, companies that successfully innovate the meaning of products enjoy significant growth and profits.

Oh, and early on, these innovations of meaning can be slow to gain acceptance by the market. Explains the early iPod and Nintendo Wii reactions.

Apple iPad: What Is Its Radical Innovation of Meaning?

OK, if iPad is innovating meaning even more than it is technology, what meaning might that be? Here's my best guess:

iPad is tapping into an emerging dynamic of a more interactive, tactile experience with digital technology and information. These interactions make technology less of an interface, and more of an extension of ourselves and our environment.

The tweets above are a couple that show the natural way children engage with technology. Given the iPhone experience, they turn around and want to apply it to other devices. Buttons on devices, our traditional form of interaction, are divorced from the screen. They provide a measure of distance from the digital experience.

Touch, however, represents a new level of intimacy in the digital experience. In technology terms, it's just an alternative form of interface. Touch, mouse, tab, whatever. But touch is a vital human sense, and a core part of experience. It's how we interact with others, how we shop, experience textures and so much more.

In terms of the "design discourse", there are pointers of changes ahead in terms of integrating touch more deeply into our digital engagement.

Digital Wellbeing Labs: Responsive Feedback Behaviors

Designer Alexander Grunsteidl noted the impact of both the iPod and the Wii on our perception of how to interact with technology:

The Wii and iPhone, and before the iPod click wheel, have created a popular introduction to gesture based interfaces, demonstrating responsive feedback behaviours, applying "natural" physical effects like flipping and inertia, similar to the ones we are accustomed to in the real world, to improve usability expectations of an interface.

As new "cultures of use" emerge we are creating opportunities to form a language of gestures, similar to the conventions of "right-clicking" and standardised keyboard shortcuts.

Note the term "culture of use". Not industry trends. Because the dominant form of interaction for computers and video games is still mouse and buttons. And consumers aren't asking for touch.

But there is an underlying change in thinking about how people interact with technology and information.

Architectural Design: Digital Intimacy

University of Nottingham Nottingham UK student Stephen Townsend received a commendation in the recent President's Medal competition in the U.K. His entry, Digital Intimacy, depicts a concept where interaction is built into the architecture.

If you notice the graphic to the right, you will see people reaching out their hands and interacting through touch. Townsend calls it the "kinesthetic interaction space". Kinesthetic refers to a style of learning based on physical activities.

He designed this kinesthetic interaction space as a therapeutic solution for children with special needs. Here's how he describes it:

"The 'Kinesthetic Interaction Space' is conceived as an interactive architectonic intervention aimed at children with autism, providing sensory stimulation to assist with intervention methods and aid interaction with other children through shared kinesthetic experience. The focus of the thesis is on the development of dynamic material systems that could enable new forms of interactive environment. Architecture is conceptualised as an embodied interface and physical space has been fused with digital media in order to stimulate the imagination of inhabitants. K.I.S. is intended to facilitate playful explorations and fluid dialogues between people. The user learns to interact with their environment through an intuitive process, engaging the physical presence of inhabitants and forming spatial narratives."

While Townsend's concept addresses children with autism, the underlying design is consistent with greater digital intimacy overall.

TEDEx Talk: Phones That Touch Us

PhD student Fabian Hemmert presented at a recent TEDx talk. He is working on a concept where phones include physical movements that better connote actions to people using them. In the video below, you'll see him describe how the phone would shift weight in relation to changes in movement on a map.

As Hemmert notes, humans live in a physical world, one "which tastes good, feels good smells good". He wants to design products that better integrate that experience.

iPad: The Future of Computing

Those three examples I just gave are part of a larger design discourse about the nature of digital engagement in our future. Are we "locked in" to the mouse and keyboard? Or will we continue to evolve the interaction experience?

In Wired, Brian X. Chen sees things similarly:

"If you think about how a computer like this will impact people sociologically, suddenly the iPad is far more than a larger iPod Touch, as many have described it. It's the computer for everyone: an idea Apple has been working toward for years.

That doesn't mean the iPad will be the only computer for everyone and destroy every PC on the market, because that's not even remotely likely. But it will introduce a significant new category."

Bold pronouncement for sure. But entirely consistent with a radical innovation of meaning. Henry Blodget sees an outcome of this drive for digital intimacy: pervasiveness.

They won't live on desks, the way desktops do, and they won't be carried everywhere, the way mobile phones are. They'll just be there, around the house, on tables and counters, the way today's books, magazines, games, and newspapers are, booted up, ready to use.

Keep in mind student Stephen Townsend's kinesthetic interaction space, built into the house. How about an iPad in every room of the house, ready to go? You can see thinking evolving on similar lines here.

I can see people becoming quite attached to their iPads. Their little units of digital intimacy.

Once you see where this is going, it should come as no surprise that Apple may be working on a larger version of its iPad, as a full computer. Steve Jobs is placing his chips on this radical innovation of meaning.

Related Posts:

Apple's Hidden Disruptive Innovation

Insights to Drive Apple iPad Success

Will Apple Introduce the Innovation Expected from Google?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Hutch Carpenter is the Vice President of Product at Spigit. Spigit integrates social collaboration tools into a SaaS enterprise idea management platform used by global Fortune 2000 firms to drive innovation.

Secretly Famous

2010-02-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Clockwise: Jumble Room, The Randy Pike, Augill Castle, Little Town Farm as seen on 'Secretly Famous'

by Kevin Roberts

A key element of a Lovemark is secret ingredients (in the Mystery bucket). Think the recipe for Coca-Cola. The Harley Davidson sound. How you get the Caramello into the center. Some secrets however are for sharing, not locking up. In sojourns to the Lake District of England where I have a home in Grasmere (the most beautiful village in the whole wide world) I was introduced to Nathan Westgate and his team of 'secret agents' who search out the most unique places to stay, eat and visit.

Nathan has created a website Secretly Famous that shares recommendations of quirky and unusual places that have the real charm and character of the Lake District, one of the world's must-do tourism trails (read your Wordsworth). You'll find farms, barns, bars, beds and bakeries. His 'secretly found' places are all independently owned, are run by people who have amazing passion for what they do, and champion the best local produce.

My favorite place in Grasmere to recover my senses is The Jumble Room run by Andy and Chrissy Hill - "a small bohemian-style restaurant". You'll find this is now "Secretly Famous" along with The Randy Pike in Ambleside, Augill Castle near Kirky Stephen, and Little Town Farm near Preston, among many others.

Nathan, who is a brand consultant in Preston, has started with the Lake District and Lancashire, will venture to Cheshire and Yorkshire in 2010, and then the world.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.

Reverse Innovation a Popular Trend

2010-02-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

The Rise of Simplicity - The Reason Behind the Success of Reverse Innovation

by Yann Cramer

Thanks to a number of spectacular successes obtained by blue-chip companies in recent years, Reverse Innovation is becoming a popular trend. Examples include GE's portable ultra-sound equipment designed in China and sold worldwide, LG's low cost air conditioner designed in India and sold worldwide, Renault's Logan low-cost model designed for Eastern European markets and now selling on Western Europe, etc.

In an enlightening article, Vijay Govindarajan outlines a historical perspective from globalisation to reverse innovation, and highlights the key driver behind this evolution: the revenue gap between developed and emerging markets. But there are other drivers that may be less visible but no less powerful.

The Road to Reverse Innovation

In his article What is Reverse Innovation, Vijay Govindarajan outlines the following historical phases:

Globalisation: companies designing and manufacturing in developed markets products that are "de-featured" for export to emerging markets that can't afford the fully featured original product.

Glocalisation: companies still de-featuring products from developed markets but now localising production in emerging markets to take advantage of lower labour costs.

Local innovation: companies now designing in emerging markets products that are directly suited to the local needs. (Manufacturing continues to take place locally for costs reasons.)

Reverse innovation: companies designing and manufacturing in emerging markets for local use AND export to the developed markets (with or without some level of scaling-up).

It is obvious that the evolution up to phase 3 is driven by the revenue gap between developed and emerging markets, hence the need to scale-down the product features and leverage lower labour costs in order to reach the emerging market affordability threshold. But something almost invisible, just below the waterline, happens during the shift from phase 2 to 3: that is the realisation that there is only so much you can achieved by scaling down.

Simplifying Does Not Necessarily Make it Simple

When the beast is too complicated - some would rather present it more positively as 'sophisticated' - getting to something that is simple enough, may require to start from scratch rather than incrementally shave off features from the beast. This is an experience we all make every so often: the need to start afresh from a clean sheet of paper. When shifting to phase 3, companies realise that the incremental cost reductions achieved by scaling down products are reaching a plateau, and they take the radical step of starting from scratch and designing afresh in emerging markets for emerging markets.

We Do Not Need All This C**p

The driver that leads from local innovation to reverse innovation is even less visible - almost taboo. It is the realisation that customers in developed markets have been stuffed with increasingly complex product features that they actually do not need! The policy has enabled companies to maintain healthy unit margins in the face of intense competition, but an increasingly powerful undercurrent in developed markets pushes simplicity to emerge as something that is not just cheaper but also more reliable, more effective, more authentic, more beautiful, in short: desirable.

This trend is now making companies who have banked their success on high cost/high margin products vulnerable to potential new entrants that would disrupt the established cost structure paradigm. The success of low cost cars in developed markets - Renault's Logan today and Tata's Nano tomorrow - is there to demonstrate that radical simplicity appeals to a significant and likely growing market segment.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Yann Cramer is an innovation learner, practitioner, sharer, teacher. He's lived in France, Belgium and the UK, he's travelled six continents to create development opportunities with customers or suppliers, and run workshops on R&D and Marketing. He writes on www.innovToday.com and on twitter @innovToday.

Speed vs Strategy

2010-02-06T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Steve McKee

Cristobal Conde is CEO of SunGard, a leading global software and IT company. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Conde was asked what has been the best move he's made during the downturn. He answered, "We could have generated more earnings by having more layoffs. We wanted to protect R&D. We wanted products ready to go at the end of the cycle. I saw a huge competitive opportunity to protect programmers when others weren't."

Conde's perspective is smart, but rare. Our research shows that most companies overreact to a downturn and cut not just fat, but muscle. If they go beyond what's absolutely necessary, that can easily compromise their future. Conde turns the fear on its ear by asking his employees "What is it you need to do now so you will remember the crisis as a gift?"

Chilean by birth, Conde has developed a taste for a uniquely American institution: NASCAR. Perhaps it's because he sees in racing similar patterns to those of business. "Going into the crisis is not that different from going into a turn," he says. "You slam on the brakes. In the turn, the most important thing is your position relative to other cars. I've been telling people, 'Focus on our relative market shares rather than overall volumes you can't control. What are we doing to improve our position?' After the turn, you take that better position."

Conde can't guarantee that SunGard will come out of the recession a winner, just as even the best NASCAR drivers don't know when they'll cross the finish line first and when they'll come up short. But races are decided by the strategy of the driver as much as the speed of the car.

Drive smart.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Steve McKee is a BusinessWeek.com columnist, marketing consultant, and author of "When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What To Do About It." Learn more about him at www.WhenGrowthStalls.com and at http://twitter.com/whengrowthstall.

Two Biggest Mistakes in Social Media

2010-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Mike Brown

What are the two biggest mistakes in social media marketing?

1. Believing everyone sees your content

2. Believing no one sees your content

In the first instance, thinking you can simply dabble in social media and get lots of people to see what you're saying doesn't work. For nearly any traditional brand (and @shitmydadsays isn't a typical brand) wanting to talk about itself, audiences don't spontaneously emerge. It takes time to create an effective fan/follower base. Simply picking a fast-approaching date and saying "implement Twitter (or Facebook) by such-and-such date to get our message out" is asking for disappointing results.

The second mistake rests on the assumption you can ease your way in, make some mistakes, and find your social media footing. Maaaaaaaaaaaybe. But there are too many counter examples of brands that screwed up and got burned because of not knowing, understanding, or working within the evolving conventions of social media. If you've got a brand worth anything, you need to be ready for prime time the instant you step on the social media stage.

How do you avoid these terrible two?

Focus first on developing a solid social media strategy and ignore the ridiculous peer pressure you may feel to create a social media presence ASAP. This is a game made for deliberate, smart followers - not fast, unprepared, first-movers - to win.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Mike Brown is an award-winning innovator in strategy, communications, and experience marketing. He authors the Brainzooming TM blog, and serves as the company's chief Catalyst. He wrote the ebook "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" and is a frequent keynote presenter.

Crowdsourcing Innovation vs. The Economics of Elitism

2010-02-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

by Mark Prus

Which Is Better?

A recent article in The New York Times discussed the innovation process at Apple. Clearly the process begins and ends with Steve Jobs. And clearly Mr. Jobs is a creative genius. He also has a lot of help with top notch design engineers. As a result, Apple is perceived as one of the most innovative companies on the planet.

If you have visionary leadership at your company, this might be a good way to go. But companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) also have strong leadership and they have taken a different route to innovation. P&G has been a leader in Open Innovation, and many of the new products they have launched in the past few years have come from outside the company.

Which approach is better? Some say that Crowdsourcing produces a lot of good ideas, while "home grown" innovation is capable of producing bigger breakthrough ideas.

I love Apple (full disclosure: I own Apple stock and am a big fan of their products). However, I am not sure that the "elitism model of innovation" is one that can be expanded to a lot of companies. I believe that Steve Jobs is a true visionary, and that people like him come along far too rarely for this to be a workable model of innovation. It does work for Apple... but how many other companies can implement it?

Your thoughts?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Mark Prus is a marketing consultant who offers a name development service called NameFlash^SM.

Share the Love

2010-02-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Holly G. Green

Three Strategies for Creatively Recognizing Employees

Valentine's Day is for lovers. Usually we stay away from the topic of 'love' at work but we're talking about positive recognition here, not the stuff that gets you in a sexual harassment lawsuit!

Smart leaders and managers know that it's a good time to show your employees some love as well. In other words, let them know how much you appreciate their hard work toward achieving your organization's goals. (You did set the goals in January, right?)

Recognition doesn't have to be big, time-consuming, or expensive. In fact, the most meaningful recognition often comes simply from saying "thank you" for a job well done. But there are times when the situation calls for more than just a simple verbal acknowledgment. There are a lot of things that get in the way, but you do need to do it.

Here are three strategies for letting your employees know how much you care.

1. Start small.

Start by saying "thank you" on a regular basis. Over time, change what you say and how you say it so that it doesn't become routine. Be specific. Instead of, "Nice job," say, "Nice job on the quarterly audit. I know you worked incredibly hard to get it in on time."

Recognize individual accomplishments with a short e-mail note or comment in a team meeting. Send the employee a handwritten note of appreciation, and send a copy to your boss. How many of us have those handwritten notes saved away because they are so rare and really do mean something? Leave a sticky note with a snack thanking the person for his or her efforts. Leave a message on their desk that the employee will receive first thing in the morning.

Give small gifts such as cards, desk toys, picture frames, gift cards, or chocolate. To make sure your gift will truly be appreciated, check out the employee's work area to see what types of things they display. Or find out where they go for coffee in the morning or lunch at noon. A gift card to a favorite coffee shop or restaurant shows that you are observant and thoughtful.

2. Get Personal.

For performance that requires more than your basic pat on the back, orchestrate a thank-you letter or e-mail from senior leadership. Have the company leader call the employee with personal thanks. Make sure the employee is recognized publicly perhaps in a company e-newsletter, on the intranet, or at an all hands meeting. Send flowers or a gift basket on behalf of the company to the employee's home.

Offer the employee an assignment or project that will stretch their current skill set. Give them an increase or change in responsibility and authority. Offer them an opportunity to shadow someone in a job they want to have next. Increase flexibility of work hours and/or occasional comp time (hint: employees really like this one).

Give employees a relevant book inscribed with a message from leadership recognizing their accomplishment. Allow them to observe a team or project that would represent a big promotion (and thus a learning opportunity to observe). Arrange for your manager or a senior leader to take your group out to lunch or dinner to celebrate a team accomplishment.

3. Use Peer Recognition

It is just as important for employees and teams to recognize each other as it is for leaders and managers to acknowledge good work. One good way to recognize a team, department, or organization is to establish a "Caring Credits" program.

At the beginning of the month, give everyone three cards. Employees write notes acknowledging their colleagues for going above and beyond their job requirements, and submit the cards to a designated individual (someone in HR, the team leader, etc.). At the end of the month, the person with the most cards written about them earns some sort of recognition. Distribute all the cards collected to employees acknowledged so people can see the praise they received from co-workers. That way, everyone gets recognized, not just the winner.

Another good strategy involves setting aside some wall space for public recognition. Pick a Friday afternoon to engage employees in creating their own (and your own) "What's Great?" wall boards.

Employees use the boards to write a brief note about something great that occurred during the week. Notes can include professional or personal achievements or events. Encourage people to contribute to each other's boards as well as their own, and watch how easily they begin to add to the boards without weekly prompting. The different handwritings and colored markers will brighten up the workspace. And others will stop by just to see what's new on the boards.

So take a few moments this Valentine's Day to show your employees some love - the legally appropriate kind! Then look for simple and effective ways to do it throughout the year. A little bit of recognition goes a long way toward maintaining a happy, motivated, and innovative workforce. Remember, recognition doesn't have to be big, time-consuming, or expensive. It's not brain surgery... sometimes it's harder!

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Holly is the CEO of THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc. (www.TheHumanFactor.biz) and is a highly sought after and acclaimed speaker, business consultant, and author. Her unique approach to creating strategic agility, helping others go slow to go fast, will change your thinking.

Role of Social Media in Creating Word of Mouth and Customer Experience

2010-02-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Paul Williams

What's the role of social media in creating Word of Mouth (WOM)?

You could say there are two parts to WOM - the analog and the digital.

Analog is person to person... face to face. I'll also put written and print media into the analog category.

Digital WOM is converted and stored in a format that can be sent and re-sent electronically.

Social media refers to tools that allow us to easily spread the story electronically, digitally. Like a pyramid marketing scheme I tell my network, and they tell theirs, and they tell theirs... Social media tools (blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc) make the spread easy.

In fact, I may have to contradict my earlier statements indicating that Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin are the father's of Word of Mouth (WOM).

The REAL Originators of Word Of Mouth

I think the folks who wrote the Faberge Organics Shampoo commercials in the 80s invented it.

Do you remember those ads?

If you tell two friends about Faberge Organics shampoo with wheat germ oil and honey, they'll tell two friends, and so on... and so on... and so on...

Sorry about the poor quality - this is all I could find.

(Feed Link For Faberge Commercial)

Has the focus of Social Media had a negative effect on the Customer Experience?

I'll say potentially, YES. Marketers dazzled by the shiny object that social media is, may think they've solved their communication problem - or are engaging in a 'meaningful' way because - for example - they've created a Facebook Fan Page for their business.

False Sense Of Security

Let me pick on one of my favorite brands, Starbucks Coffee, as an example. Specifically, their "My Starbucks Idea" website. Through this site, Starbucks welcomes everyone to submit product, program, design, service, or ANY idea.

The My Starbucks Idea home page declares:

"You know better than anyone else what you want from Starbucks. So tell us. What's your Starbucks Idea? Revolutionary or simple - we want to hear it. Share your ideas, tell us what you think of other people's ideas and join the discussion. We're here, and we're ready to make ideas happen."

Starbucks thinks they are listening.

Customers think Starbucks is listening, and taking action.

Starbucks thinks they've "checked the box" (to some extent) in being a social media player by having this site.

Power to the people!

However, if you look at the "milestone" of the 50 Ideas Launched and Still Counting! - celebrating customer ideas implemented - Starbucks has technically only implemented six (6) ideas submitted by customers. If you dig into it - as John has on his Brand Autopsy site in his Tough Love For Starbucks post - you'll see that most ideas were already in the works, would have been done anyway, or aren't even customer-facing ideas (e.g. Employee discount on work clothes).

A problem with social media is that companies may think - simply by participating in the trend - that they're meeting customer need. Starbucks has invested in this suggestion site and believe they are checking the "we care and listen to customers" box. They think they've fulfilled the portion of their strategy, that supports the objective: to "Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time."

Starbucks isn't being as democratic with ideas as they claim (and think) they are. It really isn't "power to the people." Social media (or maybe improper use of social media) is giving Starbucks a false sense of security.

Social media isn't for everyone. To "engage in meaningful conversation" may actually mean a conversation. A face-to-face, human-to-human dialogue. For example, the kind a barista can have with a customer at Starbucks.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Paul Williams is a professional problem solver at Idea Sandbox. He can help you create remarkable ideas to grow your business. You may read more at his website and find him Twittering as @IdeaSandbox.

Bill Gates Coming out of Retirement?

2010-02-04T15:01:00.000-08:00

by an Anonymous Microsoftie

When I saw the op-end piece in The New York Times this morning by Dick Brass, I thought it was time to submit an article somewhere about this pattern of facts. I came across Blogging Innovation today and thought it might make an interesting place to cast some daylight on the possibilities. I shouldn't get into any trouble because I am just stating facts and asking questions, and I don't even mention certain names.

So here goes...

Just in the past month there have been some really strange things that by themselves might not amount to much, but if you look at the facts as a collection, it starts to make one wonder if something is up over at Microsoft. Microsoft is in fact my employer and I am the first to admit that I don't know of any secrets on this subject. I am just seeing some odd patterns, and I started to wonder if they add up to Bill Gates coming out of "retirement" to fix Microsoft.

The facts exist in a couple of different categories, and the first is the signs of trouble internally:

Systemic problems. In The New York Times today, a former Microsoft executive wrote a lengthy opinion piece called "Microsoft's Creative Destruction" where he lays out some vivid examples of problems within the company - specifically that the Office and Windows franchises have run their course and there are no obvious heirs, despite several attempts that were quashed for personal and political reasons. Very compelling. But it does beg the question - why now? What is the reason for that op-ed piece?

Executives are leaving. CFO Chris Liddell did an amazing job as CFO and just left to be the CFO of General Motors, where it has been widely speculated that he will be their next CEO. Senior Vice President Bill Veghte, an almost 20 year veteran also just resigned because he also wants to be the CEO of an organization. Again, why now? Were Liddell and Veghte told that they weren't candidates to be the next CEO? There aren't many people who can come in and take that job.

Wall Street disapproval. With a brand new CFO, last week Microsoft announced much higher than expected profits, and the stock dropped. Why? Some have speculated that any time a company like Microsoft misses expectations in either direction that substantially, it is a sign that they don't have a real handle on what's going on. Who has the credibility to get Wall Street excited about Microsoft, there are not a lot of people who could do it quickly.

Mostly flat stock for ten years. There have been some big fluctuations, but if you look back at the last ten years, the stock has been basically flat, and that isn't sustainable. Could you imagine what the stock would do if Bill Gates came back to be the CEO?

The other side of this that's intriguing is that Bill Gates has taken on a dramatically more public persona related to his foundation work, from Twitter, to Facebook, to The Daily Show (where he was engaging and funny). Here are some facts that are interesting:

Foundation CEO is a close, trusted friend of Bill. Last year, former Microsoft executive Jeff Raikes took the job as CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and for some odd reason agreed to a really big salary even though he made a huge pile of money at Microsoft. So if Bill puts one of his most trusted former Microsoft execs in charge of the foundation, that then makes it possible for him to make time to go fix his "baby" - Microsoft. Why wouldn't Raikes be the one pushing all of these messages for the foundation?

Bill is rebranding. For many years, Bill Gates had a bit of a Darth Vader reputation. People literally called Microsoft "the evil empire" and Bill was the leader for all of the anti-competitive things that were alleged to have happen in those days. Now Microsoft is seen by many as irrelevant in discussions about Apple, Google, and IBM. So now, Bill goes out and talks about all of the incredibly cool things his foundation is doing, people are becoming "fans" of his on Facebook by the thousands every day, he's being buddy-buddy with Jon Stewart and he is becoming really cool and really popular, while still being one of the smartest guys in the world. What a great story to have Joe Cool go in to fix his ailing "baby"

It wouldn't be the first time. Michael Dell came back to Dell, Jerry Yang came back to Yahoo!, and there are others who have come out of retirement to fix their creation (though not always with storybook endings). Bill is only 53, he's still not that old and he has all of the credibility in the world to come back in and reinvigorate the masses. Why wouldn't he do that with the foundation in the competent hands of Jeff Raikes and Bill's wife Melinda?

As I said, I haven't heard any rumors about this, but it certainly makes for an interesting narrative and it would explain a lot of the above. Personally, I think it would be great to see and Microsoft people would do backflips to have Bill back at the helm, Google would cringe, and Wall Street would cheer and I would bet on a storybook ending.

So hopefully Bill is considering coming out of retirement, and he can take Bill Brass's op-ed piece as input into imagining what is needed at Microsoft.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Our Anonymous Microsoftie would prefer to remain anonymous so we have not included his or her picture here. If you have any inside information to add, please add a comment or contact us.

Cisco Announces $250,000 iPrize Competition v2.0

2010-02-04T00:30:00.000-08:00

by Braden Kelley

Cisco has announced its second Cisco iPrize Competition. At stake is a $250,000 Grand Prize that will be awarded after eight selected finalists have the opportunity to present their innovation idea to Cisco's selection commitee using Cisco Telepresence.

The first Cisco iPrize was awarded to an idea focused on reducing the energy consumption in the electrical grid. This idea is currently undergoing development in Cisco. But the winners are back at it again and have entered an idea in Cisco iPrize v2.0.

I had the opportunity to do a video interview with Sharon Wong, Director of Business Development in Cisco's Emerging Technology Group about the competition:

Interview with Sharon Wong about Cisco iPrize from Braden Kelley on Vimeo.

In this open, global competition entrepreneurs submit proposals and collaborate to create the seed idea for Cisco's next billion-dollar business.

You have until April 30, 2010 to submit your idea. Idea submissions should fall in one of four categories:

The Future of Work: New solutions that accelerate and change the way we do business

The Connected Life: Technological inspirations that dramatically improve living conditions and disseminate culture

New Ways to Learn: Next-generation solutions that transform when, where, and how people learn.

The Future of Entertainment: New solutions that change how people play together

Below on the left you'll find a video of Marthin De Beer announcing the Cisco iPrize Competition and on the right you can watch Guido Jouret speak about some of Cisco's views on what makes a big idea:

You can submit an idea by yourself or you can work together as a team. Once ideas are submitted, iPrize community members can vote for the best ideas, and otherwise engage with the community of people who have submitted ideas. For complete rules and other information, please check out the Cisco iPrize Questions and Answers.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Braden 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.

Finding (or Avoiding) Innovators

2010-02-04T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Jeffrey Phillips

As always, we'd like to make our readers and clients happy. In that vein, I'd like to introduce how to spot people who are likely innovators. In this way, you can identify them more quickly, and choose to hire them if you want to be more innovative, or you can ignore and avoid them if the status quo is more your scene. Good luck with that strategy, by the way.

Identifying people who are innovators is actually relatively easy. They are the ones who don't actually seem to belong the organization in the first place.

Innovators tend to:

Reject the standard framing of a problem and restate the problem or opportunity. Rather than work within the given constructs or framing, many innovators want to toss out the framing and start anew. Just like Galileo, this may require working against an orthodoxy, yet nonetheless, it moves and so must we. Those folks who are so problematic about wanting to change or expand the framing of a problem? Probably good innovators.

Be optimistic. They are almost always the glass half full people. Pessimistic people will focus far too much energy on the "problem" while innovators will acknowledge the problem and move on to find interesting solutions. They believe the problems are merely temporary barriers to more interesting solutions.

Look to the future for signals rather than to the past. In most businesses, many people will ask "has this been done before" and "what can we learn from that success or failure. Innovators want to know "can we be the first" and what signals in the market or environment give us indications that we'll be successful

Care about solving unmet or poorly understood challenges. Often innovators are going beyond the obvious, ordinary problems to uncover deeper unmet or poorly understood issues. If your team is captivated by solving an obvious and incremental problem, they aren't innovators.

Network with people different than they are. Evidence suggests that the best innovators are people who read outside of their industry, interact with people from many different backgrounds and interests and seek to bring solutions from outside their industry to the table. People who are very deep in one industry but ignore signals and solutions from other industries are usually not very innovative.

Are proactive. Innovators actively seek change while many executives are content to wait and react to what other firms do.

Are dissatisfied with the status quo and willing to change it rather than simply accept the status quo and merely complain.

Are very comfortable learning, trying and failing, and then trying again. They aren't stymied by a single failure and are usually very determined to start again, reframe the problem and try a new tack or approach, learning from previous failures and incorporating that knowledge.

So, if you are in the market to hire someone and want to know if he or she is likely to be an innovator, look for these signs:

Ask them about an existing problem that you have. See if they are perfectly willing to accept your framing, or if they request the opportunity to reframe or change the frame entirely. If the latter, a likely innovator.

Ask them about existing societal problems or corporate problems or challenges. Listen to how they approach the problem and their willingness to suggest changes or alternatives and the possibilities they suggest for change.

In the context of a problem, what information do they seek - external, future oriented or internal information about the past?

Can they name a big failure in their lives and demonstrate what they learned and how that failure helped them gain more insight into an eventual solution?

Can they name five people in relatively senior positions they interact with on a regular basis who are from different industries? Can they demonstrate an active network outside of their "home" industry?

The kinds of answers you get with these questions will tell you how strong the "innovation" force is within the candidate, and whether you should hire that person or turn the Force against them.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Jeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of "Make us more Innovative", and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.

Exploiting the Competition for Innovation

2010-02-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Mike Myatt

Whether you want to admit it or not, competition is part of your world, and likely a bigger part than you'd care to admit. Granted, exploiting the competition is not a novel concept. Even so, it is still very common to hear many executives adopt a competition neutral position. These executives simply don't believe competition to be a significant factor in the execution of their business plan.

While this may make for a nice sound bite, I don't buy it, and if they're truly honest with themselves, neither do they. In business you can either choose to deal with your competition (even if that means partnering with them), or you can opt to stand idly by and let the competition eat your lunch. In today's post I'll share my thoughts on the proper way to view your competition and how to identify competitive threats...

While some companies talk a good game with regard to competitive strategy, in my experience very few businesses actually address the issue in adequate fashion. I suppose much of my perspective on competition was formed during my days as a soldier and athlete. In the military we valued intelligence, studied our enemy's strengths and weaknesses, developed a battle plan around a solid strategy, and executed our tactical mission as if our lives depended on it - because they did.

Similarly, in my days as an athlete, our game plan each week was refined based upon the strengths and weaknesses of the team we were playing next. If we didn't study films and scouting reports, develop plays that would exploit match-ups, and execute our game plan we would lose... it was as simple as that. Dealing with competition in the business world is really no different than dealing with enemies on the battlefield or competitors on the athletic field... you either win or lose based upon your state of preparedness, desire and commitment.

How well do you know your competition? No, really... Not how well do you think you know your competition, but how well do you really understand them? Do you have a business intelligence platform? When was the last time you conducted a formal competitive study? Do your R&D and innovation programs evaluate the competitive landscape? Do your marketing, PR and branding initiatives exploit the competition? Do you stack-up as well as you think, or have you just adopted a position out of convenience?

The first step in developing a competitive strategy is to identify your current and potential threats, and then to prioritize said threats based upon perceived risk/reward and cost/benefit scenarios. The following list is clearly not exhaustive, but it is representative of the main competitive threats to a business. As the following list indicates, competition can come in the form of any one or combination of the following potential threats:

Existing or potential direct and indirect competitors.

Existing clients or end-users that could either become competition or strengthen your competitors if they have a change in loyalty.

Current or former employees who could become competition.

Vendors, suppliers or distributors that could become competition, or provide an edge to your competition.

Competitive innovations in process, management, talent, pricing, efficiency, etc. that can cause disruption in the market.

Strong changes in brand perception via news, PR, branding, litigation etc. can create changes in the competitive landscape.

Competitive technology innovations that could adversely impact your business.

Competitive mergers, acquisitions and roll-ups that could adversely impact your business.

Political, legislative, regulatory, or compliance actions that could create a competitive imbalance in the market.

Changes in general market dynamics that could create competitive changes in the market.

Once all areas of competitive risk have been identified and prioritized it will be much easier to develop a strategy for stacking the odds in your favor regardless of when, where, or how you encounter the competition.

The key to successfully exploiting competition over the long haul is linking your competitive strategy to the discipline of innovation and the mindset of custom centricity. A sustainable competitive advantage is not found by creating minor advantages in product features. Long-term competitive separation is created by innovating around the needs of your customers and clients with a focus on long-term value creation.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Innovation Metrics of Leading Companies

2010-02-03T00:15:00.000-08:00

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have often shunned the idea of metrics for innovation as it has been very difficult finding companies being good at this.

However, I believe it is important to work this out in order to raise the innovation productivity and in this post I share some input from a couple of large corporations based on a discussion on LinkedIn last year.

The discussion was started by Jimm Feldborg, who is R&D Manager at Grundfos in China. Jimm pointed out that a good start is to understand whether your indicator is a:

Lag indicator. The results are lagged with weeks, months or years and cannot be changed. Some examples are rewards and the number of patents.

Current indicator. The results happen right now giving you some possibilities to act and change and thus affect the future results. Some examples are the number of ideas generated and ongoing projects.

Lead indicator. The results are predictive for the future. You can make radical change in your approach and thus affect the results. Examples are pretty hard to give here.

Jeff Murphy, an Executive Director at Johnson & Johnson, suggests that innovation metrics (and metrics for any deployment like this) need to be dynamic by design. He continues:

Initially, metrics should focus on engagement, training and participation of individuals.

Then, as you begin to build a critical mass of capable individuals, the focus of your metrics shifts to your innovation pipeline (active projects by stage, flow of projects through concept, development, launch or kill...) and early wins. This is in addition to item 1 metrics above.

Finally, as your organization's initiative begins to mature, your focus shifts to the end goals - return on investment, successful new products or services launched, revenue from new launches, etc. as well as optimizing your development and commercialization process. This is in addition to the item 2 metrics above.

If an organization gets ahead of itself in the metrics area, it can lead to unrealistic expectations during the early stages. On the other hand, if it gets behind on implementing the appropriate metrics and delays getting to #3, it leads to under-performance, and activity without business results.

Jeff emphazises that the key is to match your selected metrics with your deployment lifecycle. He also states that there are literally hundreds of metrics that you can choose from, but optimally, 8-15 metrics at any one time for an organization will be enough for senior management and/or the effective management of the innovation deployment. If any more granularity is needed, that should be done at the functional level.

Lessons from Intel

Personally, I keep getting back to a visit at Intel a few years back. It was interesting to get an inside view of this Silicon Valley giant, but it was also strange to sense how it was driven by control rather than creativity. I did miss a more creative sense, but I take my hats off for their ability to measure their innovation initiatives in which they track the following information.

Number of innovation-related rewards and recognitions

Numbers from various feedback mechanisms, showing employee acceptance and understanding of the initiative

Results from the innovation self assessment capability maturity framework (survey measuring five levels of maturity related to innovation behavior)

Percentage of our budget dedicated to innovation, research, and exploration of emerging technologies

Shareholder value created from innovation activities. (Shareholder Value = IT Efficiencies + Business Value provided to the IT customers)

Number of ideas generated in specific innovation harvesting campaigns

Number of ideas harvested from the campaigns and turned into implementable projects

Number of invention disclosure filings (IDFs)

Number of Intel patent submissions

Number of white papers published.

You can read further in this paper, Developing Systemic Innovation in an IT Organization, that provides an overview of how Intel works to foster and encourage innovation through its IT organization.

Paul Chaudury, VP of Innovation at Sara Lee, mentions that he has successfully followed the below KPI creation and reporting process at his prior job:

Net sales from new products. Reported monthly.
% of net sales from new products at year 1 and the next three years

Projected value of the pipeline. Reported quarterly.
Risk adjusted year 2 sales value of all ideas and projects in pipeline.
Different probability rates for each phase in stage gate.

Average time to market from concept to launch date. Reported monthly.
# of weeks from exit of concept phase to launch date

Aggregate portfolio net present value. Reported quarterly.
Risk adjusted NPV of cash flow of all projects in pipeline from feasibility to launch phase in stage gate process.

Paul mentions that most of the calculations were automated and that reporting was done to senior management. KPIs were part of the key annual objectives and performance review for all involved with innovation. After a year from implementation, the process was continuously improved to fit the needs and it became a part of the company culture.

I also scratched the topic in a recent blog post, Increasing Innovation Productivity in which you can also find a few metrics used by P&G.

Francois Couture also started a new discussion related to this in my Leadership+Innovation group on LinkedIn.

Your input is highly appreciated.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

Are MBAs becoming irrelevant?

2010-02-03T00:01:00.001-08:00

by Idris Mootee

Are business schools preparing students for a flat world where organizations and national boundaries are becoming blurred?

Looking at this year MBA rankings by Financial Times, there aren't many changes in the Top 10 list. The surprise is that #10 is a Hong Kong Business School and #12 is an Indian Business School. Other top schools (some are more local) in the rankings: IMD (Swiss) ranks 15, HEC (French) ranks 18, CEIBS (Chinese) ranks 22, Haas (American) ranks 28, Cornell (American) ranks 38, Ivey (Canadian) ranks 49. Here's the latest FT Global Top 10 MBA Rankings for 2010:

London Business School
University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
Harvard Business School
Stanford University GSB
Insead
Columbia Business School
IE Business School
MIT: Sloan School of Management
University of Chicago: Booth
Hong Kong UST Business School

There are a lot of criticisms around MBA programs on different fronts. I was advising some folks that this is still the best all round business education. The last three months, I have written 4 recommendations for some folks. One was accepted by London Business School, one by Stanford Business School, one by Chicago Graduate School of Business and one by MIT Sloan. I am happy for all of them. I still think it is one of best paths to change the world.

There are arguments around whether it needs to be two years and almost all European MBAs are one year with only exception of LBS. The traditional two-year MBA curriculum, grounded in the core functional disciplines — strategy, marketing, organizational behavior, accounting, finance etc. — has been in existence since it was first pioneered in the US in the late 50s. MBAs were very much an American thing. US companies placed more value in an MBA than European companies. In the UK, a general management program combined with solid work experience is generally accepted to be sufficient.

The world of business is on the verge of transformation, a transformation, and so should business education. Where technological advance, geo-political forces, rapid globalization are all putting pressure on the business education system. I attended an event a while back at the Yale School of Management; there were 20 education institutions from around the world all struggling with the relevance of the MBA to 21st century organizations. Everyone sees the need for transformation but not many knows what and how to transform. Asking any B-school's Dean the question how their business schools must change to better prepare our students for the challenges that they will face in a hyper competitive and uncertain world is a good start.

Yes the world is flat. Organizations are becoming increasingly flat, and social technologies are blurring the boundaries of a corporation. Leaders of modern enterprises competing in the global economy need to look for truly global managers who are capable of leading and managing across the boundaries of function, geography, and organizations and industries. Are business schools ready for this? Or should we change the old paradigm that an MBA is an elitist qualification which can enable the holder of the degree to fast-track his/her career to power and fortune? An MBA should mean less as a qualification. It is a sense of empowerment and commitment for an individual to take on big challenges, transform oneself and create win/win strategy for shareholder, employees and societies.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Idris Mootee is the CEO of idea couture, a strategic innovation and experience design firm. He is the author of four books, tens of published articles, and a frequent speaker at business conferences and executive retreats.

Innovation a Prisoner of Inductive and Deductive Logic

2010-02-02T11:03:00.001-08:00

by Braden Kelley

I had the opportunity to attend an event hosted by the Seattle office of design firm NBBJ yesterday. The event featured Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and author of "The Design of Business" and "The Opposable Mind." I'd like to share a video interview I did with Roger before the event:

Interview - Roger Martin - Author "The Design of Business" from Braden Kelley on Vimeo.

I'd also like to share some of the key insights from Roger's talk at the event:

People think in ways that form rules in their brains, and they are not always aware of the ways that those rules constrain them

That which tends to get you more reliability often gets you less validity

IQ tests have test/re-test reliability, but only 30% of life outcomes are related to IQ, 70% is attributable to other factors
Emotional intelligence measures may be more valid, but not reliable

If you insist on reliability, you can't prove in advance that your heuristic of a mystery is correct

Innovation is a prisoner of deductive and inductive logic

We learn to analyze quantities, but what matters more often are the qualities

Abductive logicians welcome variance because they want to try and understand the outliers. Our modern education system beats abductive logic out of you. Are you focusing on quantities or qualities?

We depend too much on quantities - Having more Science Technology & Math (STeM) graduates is not the way to invent the future

Our businesses run on abstractions to help us understand the world, so new ones can be created and existing ones can be questioned

Outliers in data can be significant sources for growth and innovation. Take the example of Intuit's QuickBooks - it was created because of the persistent existence of Quicken outliers trying to use the program to run their business instead of their personal finances.

From the book - "It's not necessarily that some young whippersnapper's going to come up with some better idea than you. They're going to start from a different premise and they're going to come to a different conclusion that makes you irrelevant.""

Sometimes you have to marinate on wicked problems. Instead of trying to simplify them, wade in a ways and then take a break and ruminate.

If you live in a way that sets up your mind to determine whether things are true or false, then you can't invent the future.

Innovation is more about combining and synthesizing existing conceptualizations and models. There are three main ways to do this:

Disaggregation - Target is a good example - In packaged goods, they focus on price, but in soft goods the focus on design.

Doubling-Down - To get the buzz of exclusivity that Cannes gets, the Toronto Film Festival pushed so hard on inclusivity that they created the buzz through the People's Choice Awards

Mixing - Hidden gems

"It's not the job of the customer to invent the future."

Quantitative and qualitative surveys force customers to make something up when they don't know how to answer

Customers only know themselves and are happy to talk about themselves

Interesting question - Should we be teaching intuitive thinking to science, technology and math majors? - Yes! - We should focus more energy in science on the intuitive leaps of the mind necessary to come up with interesting hypotheses.

CEOs should see themselves as the Chief Validity Officer because of the overwhelming reliability-focus of our organizations

Heuristics are a drug for strategy & design consultants - Often they are so busy with the heuristics that they don't take the time to push heuristics down into algorithms or to explore new mysteries

My book review of "The Design of Business" can be found here.

My previous interview with "The Design of Business" author Roger Martin can be found here.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Braden 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.

Real Reason Amazon Should Acquire Netflix

2010-02-02T00:31:00.000-08:00

by Ric Merrifield

Amazon and Netflix might be great together, but not for the reasons you might think.

The way I see this, it's a little bit like peanut butter and chocolate, two great tastes you might not expect to go well together. People are talking about the possible acquisition of video company Netflix by Amazon, and they are speculating that it has to do with movies and streaming media. Maybe, but I don't think that's why this acquisition would be so powerful, and I am frankly surprised I haven't heard more people talking about this.

Here's why.

One of the biggest mistakes I think Amazon has been making all along is ignoring the buying history of customers. They never recommend anything to me based on my buying history. They tell me what other people have bought when I buy a certain book or a tent or a squash racket, but they don't seem to really pay attention to what I buy and what I like. And I buy a LOT on Amazon. They are crazy to have ignored this for so long.

By contrast, Netflix has the most incredible recommendation process ever. While I do have to make the effort to rate movies I have watched (irrespective of whether I watched them through Netflix) based on what I have liked and what I haven't liked, they have the ability to say, for example, that for a movie like Pulp Fiction, while the average viewer gave it three and a half stars out of five, based on my history and preferences, they think I would like it much more, on the order of four and a half stars. What's amazing to me is that they are always right, and I have really unusual taste in movies.

Back to peanut butter and chocolate - if Amazon could use the Netflix recommendation engine innovations to do a better job of tracking my purchases and preferences and recommending everything from books to movies to music to running shoes, it would be amazing.

Is it worth it? Well as of today, Netflix is worth about $3.22 billion, according to Wall Street, and Amazon is about 16 times bigger at $52 billion and to have this incredible way to connect with customers and help them find what they will really like even before they know about it, that would be a huge, much needed, boost for Amazon. The lift in revenue would be significant - just ask anyone in retail about how much upselling is done at the point of purchase.

Overdue rethinking at Amazon, but a great match. I really hope it happens.

P.S. It makes for an interesting side note that if Amazon does buy Netflix, that would probably put founder and CEO Reed Hastings on the board, and he's already on the board of Microsoft. Would he stay on the board of Microsoft?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Ric Merrifield is known at the "Business Scientist" at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA and is the author of "Rethink". He blogs about ways to rethink through getting out of what he calls "the 'how' trap".

The 'Captive Upsell' Business Model

2010-02-02T00:16:00.000-08:00

by Rocco Tarasi

I was reading Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson the other day, and it got me thinking about other innovative business models. One of the best that I have encountered recently was at the Bridgestone tire store when I got new tires for my car.

What was so impressive was how they convince you to purchase an alignment while they are mounting your new tires. While your car is being worked on, they come out with a computer generated report that shows the misalignment of each of your tires, and offer to do the alignment for an additional fee. It is a very compelling sales pitch:

The computer generated report provides reliable evidence that your tires are misaligned, instead of just looking at the wear on your tires (a computer can't lie, right?).

To some extent, you have already experienced the problem that they are selling you a solution for - the reason you are there in the first place is for new tires, and misalignment wears tires out faster. The alignment is offering you a chance to extend the life of your tires, and you are most receptive to that sale when you are about to pay for your new tires.

Since your car is already up on the jacks, you believe - rightly or wrongly - that doing the alignment will be cheaper now than if you want to do it later. You've already paid, via your new tires, for the labor to get the car on and off the jacks.

You expect (and they verify) that it will only take a few additional minutes to do the alignment, since again it is already on the jacks. Deciding to get an alignment later will most certainly take more time.

You are already spending many hundreds of dollars on new tires, so the alignment seems inexpensive in comparison.

This honestly is an impressive sales technique. The manager that I worked with was personable and not at all pushy - he didn't have to be, he had all of the above factors in his favor. I bought the alignment - I wouldn't say I "happily" bought it, but I didn't leave there with a negative experience even though I spent more on the trip than I intended to.

It is interesting to compare this to a somewhat similar sales technique - an electronics store trying to sell you the extended warranty on your new technology purchase. How does that situation compare to the five factors above?

Reliable evidence? Not really. TVs, stereos, cameras, DVD players – they aren't known for their poor quality.
Already experienced the problem? Probably not. Odds are you are buying a new toy not to replace a broken one, but because you are upgrading (DVD to Blu-ray) or because you have a new need (like a bigger house).
Cheaper now? Yes. You can only buy the extended warranty at or soon after your purchase.
Only take a few minutes? Yes.
Inexpensive in comparison? Yes (usually).

So three "Yes" and two "No" answers. But those two "No's" are important - without reliable evidence you don't believe your new purchase is going to break, especially if you haven't had one break before.

The lack of evidence is also supported by countless stories you've read of how extended warranties are a rip-off. Perhaps if they lowered the warranty price then it wouldn't be considered a rip-off anymore - but then again, they have likely maximized the price that consumers would consider "acceptable" to maximize their revenues. If they lowered the price it probably wouldn't gain any new consumers, so they would be just giving away revenues.

There is one other problem with the extended warranty purchase - there is no "immediate gratification". The warranty payment is for something that might happen in the future. It doesn't make me enjoy my new TV or DVD player any more now. This reminds me of one more experience - buying my first big screen TV at Best Buy, and the salesperson talking me into an overpriced Monster surge protector. I bought it - partly for its insurance policy, and partly for the supposed immediate improvement in having a "cleaner electrical signal to the TV". I know, I know... but how did that experience stack up against our five factors above (plus our new sixth "immediate gratification" factor)?

Reliable evidence? Not for the "cleaner signal"
Already experienced the problem? Not for the cleaner signal either, but I did have a relative lose their electronics from a lightning strike.
Cheaper now? Not really, I could buy it at any time.
Only take a few minutes? Yes.
Inexpensive in comparison? Yes.
Immediate gratification? Yes.

When I think back to why I chose the surge protector and not the extended warranty, I think it was a combination of (1) from every news story I heard I knew the warranty was overpriced; and (2) since the surge protector served a dual role - part product improvement, part insurance policy, I was able to more easily justify the high price since it was still much less expensive relative to the TV itself.

I know that I didn't need a Monster surge protector, but I wonder how many other people have gone through the same thought process, and what other similar sales cases we could apply these factors?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

Rocco Tarasi was an accountant, investment banker, and CFO before becoming a technology entrepreneur. He writes about innovation at www.InnovationMinute.com with a focus on "everyday" innovations in business models, sales strategies, products and services.

Creating Preference in a Commodity Business

2010-02-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Matt Heinz

I was asked recently how to successfully sell value in a commodity business. When your product or service is virtually identical to what is available elsewhere, how do you create differentiation, preference, value and market share acceleration?

It's not easy, but there are ways. Here are five to start:

Service: How well you treat your customers can make a big difference, especially if you want to be a premium-priced commodity seller. Customers who don't value service will always buy on price, and if you want to be the low-cost leader, that's fine too. But if you want to sell value with a commodity, provide excellent, remarkable service at every level and every interaction with your customers and prospects.

Trust: What's your reputation? What are you known for? Do customers trust you, and why? Know what your customers value, and establish a tight bond between those values and the trust you create and strengthen in the way you do business, every day.

The Little Things: There are countless ways to do little, remarkable things for your customers. Unexpected things that make you stand out, thoughtful gestures that show you're different, and that you care. Real estate agents who bring new buyers a pizza or sandwiches on moving day, that's special. Auto dealerships that offer free car wash service for life. Things like that can be huge for differentiation and preference, not to mention word-of-mouth for your business to new prospective customers.

A Consultative Approach to Selling: Are you just selling the commodity, or are you providing additional value in the sale? Are you teaching customers more about the industry they work in, the environment in which they need that commodity. Are you helping them be more successful in the process of buying? Provide that kind of value-added service as part of the sale, and you're creating immediate value & differentiation.

Results: A commodity market doesn't necessarily mean that every option is the same, and will deliver the same results. How are you able to transcend what you're selling, and deliver differentiation and value in how that commodity impacts your customers? Is the end-result better through you? How? And how effectively can you communicate that results-based differentiation? Let your happy customers tell that story for you. Use their enthusiasm and success in the market to drive preference and value.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!