October's Innovation Contest Winners

Thank you to everyone who entered our innovation contest for October. After much deliberation, I have chosen the three winning articles.

The three winning article authors win one of three signed copies of Bill George's latest book "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis", and the opportunity to have their article republished here on Blogging Innovation if they so desire.

For now, here are the winners (in no particular order):

1. Innovating with Constraints - by Tim Kastelle


2. Four Things You Should Know Before You Innovate - Glenn Ross


3. Can social media take the place of marketing automation platforms? - Barrett Coakley

If you are one of the winning authors, please send me your mailing address so that I can mail you your book, and your e-mail address if you'd like me to re-publish your article here on Blogging Innovation.

We will be announcing the details of November's innovation contest soon. In November, we will have copy's of Gary Hamel's latest book "The Future of Management" to give away.

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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.

October Innovation Contest Reminder

Have you written an innovation or marketing blog post that you are particularly proud of, or plan to write one?

Would you like the chance to share it with a larger audience and maybe even win one of three signed copies of Bill George's latest book "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis" at the same time?

In support of our mission to make innovation and marketing insights accessible for the greater good, we are looking to publish the three best innovation or marketing blog posts submitted for this contest.

Here is how to win:

1. Select your favorite blog post highlighting an innovation or marketing insight (or write one)


2. Add the following text with the link to the bottom of your article


• I've entered this article in Blogging Innovation's October Innovation Contest - To show your support for this article, please follow the link and add a comment.


3. Send @innovate an @reply on Twitter with a link to the article so we can find it


• OR, post it as a news item in the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn with "Contest" in the title


4. We will read the articles submitted by Midnight October 30, 2009 and give the comment volume here a chance to influence of our selection of the three winners

Winning entries will be selected and announced on October 31, 2009 and published on November 1, 2009.

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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.

Are You Playing Offense or Defense?

Interview - Bill George of "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis"


I had the opportunity to meet Bill George at the World business Forum and later interview him. He is the author of "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis", and a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. Bill George is the author of three other best-selling books, and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic. I interviewed him about social media, the recession, offense vs. defense, leadership, and needs of the innovation workforce.

Here is the text from the interview:


1. Do you think that CEO's and other corporate leaders should be participating in the social media conversation on Twitter?

I actually wrote a blog on this very subject last month (Extra, Extra, Tweet All About It). Just as it's important for CEOs to read the newspaper and watch TV to remain current with customers and trends, it is equally important for CEOs to participate in social media, particularly Twitter. In no other forum can you be the spokes of a potentially very large, real-time communication wheel - this can be very useful in assessing one's standing in the marketplace. On Twitter, CEOs can have unfiltered access to customer opinion, engage with customers and other CEOs, respond to questions, and further build their personal brand and promote their company.

However, there is one caveat every CEO should keep in mind: You cannot join Twitter just to say that you are "on Twitter." From my limited experience (I've been on since August), I've learned that engagement is crucial to getting the true informational and relational benefit of the service. If you don't devote sufficient time and energy, others will see right through you and the entire operation will be a waste of time. The long and short of it is: The world of social media is the new marketing and communication standard. CEOs would be wise to keep pace.


2. Any tips for people having trouble facing their reality?

Be open to criticism. In fact, go looking for it. If you are truly having difficulty facing your reality, ask your support network - your internal management team, your family, your friends - to help face it with you. "Facing reality, starting with yourself" is the first step in my latest book "7 lessons for Leading in Crisis", and I find that this step is the most difficult, particularly for veteran leaders with well-defined egos and track records of success.

A good rule of thumb for any leader: Whenever your company falls into the depths of crisis, automatically acknowledge partial fault or involvement. This is because under every conceivable circumstance, as the leader you had a hand in a creating the crisis. This does not mean accepting all the blame and putting the weight of the world on your shoulders, it's just a good starting point. Concede the need for improvement, and that mindset will aid in your finding exactly where you fell short, and what your reality looks like.


3. How do you help your organization see that it is time to switch from defense to offense?

When you notice that your competitors are going on defense! One of the worst things you can do in a crisis is hunker down and ride out the storm. And that is the tendency for many companies - they sit idly by, and wait for the "norm" to come return. Meanwhile, the market landscape is adapting to new consumer wants and industry needs. When you see your competitors sidle off and play defense, that's when your organization needs to go on offense. But don’t be a bull in a china shop - be measured and precise in your moves.


4. Any tips for people who feel their company is wasting a good crisis?

Yes - don't let it continue! Crises present rare opportunities for companies to reinvent as there is typically less internal resistance to change if employees believe it will have positive impact. For those leaders who fear their company is in fact wasting the crisis, I would recommend they pull an about face, communicate their concerns, and work the problem from scratch with their management teams. Leaders need to dig deep and prepare for the long haul if they want to be effective in crisis-time, and that begins with open communication internally and an on-the-offensive approach to solutions.


5. What traits do you believe managers need to acquire to succeed in an innovation-led organization?

Open-mindedness, trust, vigilance, and determination. You must be open to outside-the-box thinkers. Plenty of people claim to have that mindset, but many are unnerved by truly original innovation as it may seem foreign to the point of being impractical. However, a handheld phone-mp3-computer seemed impractical (and impossible) 10 years ago, but now we have the iPhone. Trust is also key. You have to trust your teams to work effectively and create good ideas. There is a requisite need to delegate some control. It's the only way truly creative people create. At the same time, however, leaders are in charge - they must be vigilant and active in the innovation process. Leaders cannot be timid in voicing skepticism or input. Finally, one must be determined. Seldom does an idea work the first time around. Leaders have to be determined to see a great idea through to the end. In fact, what makes it a great idea is that it has been put through the wringer and improved.


In the future, I hope to bring you a review of "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis" and right now you can enter to win one of three signed copies of this book in our October Innovation Contest.

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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.

October Innovation Contest

Have you written an innovation or marketing blog post that you are particularly proud of, or plan to write one?

Would you like the chance to share it with a larger audience and maybe even win one of three signed copies of Bill George's latest book "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis" at the same time?

In support of our mission to make innovation and marketing insights accessible for the greater good, we are looking to publish the three best innovation or marketing blog posts submitted for this contest.

Here is how to win:

1. Select your favorite blog post highlighting an innovation or marketing insight (or write one)


2. Add the following text with the link to the bottom of your article


• I've entered this article in Blogging Innovation's October Innovation Contest - To show your support for this article, please follow the link and add a comment.


3. Send @innovate an @reply on Twitter with a link to the article so we can find it


• OR, post it as a news item in the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn with "Contest" in the title


4. We will read the articles submitted by Midnight October 30, 2009 and give the comment volume here a chance to influence of our selection of the three winners

Winning entries will be selected and announced on October 31, 2009 and published on November 1, 2009.

---

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.

World Business Forum - Pulling It All Together

by Braden Kelley

I had the privilege of bringing you live tweets during the World Business Forum from a balcony full of friends and colleagues (new and old) as a member of the Bloggers Hub, and to now bring you this article.

The World Business Forum kicked off with Bill George (former CEO of Medtronic) speaking about leadership in the crisis. Bill George was a worthy last minute replacement for Jack Welch, and he spoke at length on some of the content of his book "7 Lessons for Leading in a Crisis". I hope to bring you an interview with Bill George later this week.

Bill George started by talking about how we are left with the aftermath of the financial storm - a healthcare, energy, environment, and jobs crisis. Of those, the jobs crisis is the most pressing. Ask Bill George what he thinks about the stimulus and he will tell you that we should be focusing on creating new jobs rather than trying to save jobs that will likely be lost anyway. Ultimately in a crisis you have to set aside your old financial plans, make new plans, and after re-calibrating your business, look to go on the offensive. Markets NEVER come back the same after a crisis. Companies have to anticipate change, have a defensive AND offensive teams during a crisis. An innovation team should be part of your offense. Innovation can help lead us out of this crisis.

Later in the conference a trio of financiers and economists took the stage - David Rubenstein, Jeffrey Sachs, and Paul Krugman. David Rubenstein set out the US economic problems at length and admitted there is no simple answer. He predicted a United States that will have higher taxes, lower social benefits, higher savings, lower dollar, and decreased growth. David Rubenstein hypothesized that the government is going to maintain its increased role in business for a while and probably reduce its support for entrepreneurs. He also predicted that New York City will lose its status as the financial center as its role becomes ever more diffused between London, Dubai, Sao Paulo. Emerging markets will be the future. It was funny that after all of this gloom and doom about the United States, that the later speakers from Brazil and Taiwan thought that the world is full of possibilities. His recommendations? Innovate around healthcare, emerging markets, and energy - AND innovate yourself.


Ultimately, perspective depends on whether you are climbing up the pyramid or sliding down.


Jeffrey Sachs spoke about a world bursting at its seams, with nearly 7 Billion people facing a series of crises. A world in which the sense of American predominance is fading - but this is not the same as saying the American empire is falling. Sachs spoke at length about American political failures to regulate finance and health care effectively, and the crumbling infrastructure in the United States. Jeffrey Sachs seemed to be saying that lobbying is killing the United States and that both political parties are at fault - they are happy to take the cash. Speaking of cash, the financial Sector has spent $3.7 Billion on lobbying in the last ten years. The number two lobbying group? You guessed it - Healthcare. For me the takeaway was the following - The system is broken and American taxpayers don't want to admit it. And after ruminating on Patrick Lencioni's talk, it's clear that American politics has moved to conflict around people. American political leaders need to re-capture their ability to build constructive conflict around issues, or nothing will change, in fact they'll get worse. But he didn't just speak about America, he also spoke about the big challenges that the world is facing. A world in which water is already becoming a limiting constraint on growth. A world in which greenhouse gas production, water usage, and land usage are not sustainable. Ultimately we will hit the carrying capacity of the earth, and so now it is up to us to improve how efficiently we utilize the resources that the world has to offer, and reduce the amount of waste of the system. Innovation has an important role to play in that.


"We have global scale problems that will require global scale cooperation." - Jeffrey Sachs


While David Rubenstein talked about our financial future, and Jeffrey Sachs on our political and global future, Paul Krugman focused more on trade. Krugman talked about the relatively recent shift in the majority of trade coming from developed countries to developing countries. He referred to this as a third phase of trade or "trade at a distance", and spoke about how higher energy costs in the future may slow the growth in this kind of trade. Krugman compared the 'Great Recession' to the Great Depression and spoke about how there has not been a big uptick in protectionism but at the same time the fall of the American economy has been steeper so far than in the early years of the Great Depression. Krugman believes that the trouble in the labor market will continue for some time and that this will be a drag on the economy. At the same time, Krugman seems to believe that financial innovation is bad and should be banned. I can't say that I agree, but I would say that it should be scrutinized and that risk shouldn't be allowed to be externalized and rated with a degree of safety that it doesn't deserve.

When I take the content of Krugman, Sachs, and Rubenstein together, one thing is clear, innovation is needed more than ever. For countries that want to stay at the top of the pyramid, and also for countries that want to continue climibing upwards, it will be incredibly important to find effective ways for governments, businesses, and non-profits to work together to create the building blocks for innovation and stimulate a climate that supports innovation better than the competition (in this case - other countries).

President Clinton's speech had several great examples and insights about the challenges we should think about. Here are ten of my favorites:

1. In under-developed countries, people will keep cutting down trees until you give them a reason not to.


2. We are now highly interdependent on a global scale.


3. The recession might be over in Economics 101 terms, but it is definitely not over for workers, and it might not be over if hiring managers get spooked


4. When President Clinton took office, there were only 50 web sites on the Internet. Period. Now Blogging Innovation ranks at about 300,000 out of 30,000,000 in terms of traffic (Top 1%).


5. We have a shared vulnerability to terrorism. The world shares the risk.


6. America must do something about the healthcare crisis. Climbing healthcare costs are driving America into an uncompetitive position in the world.


7. You hire a President to make the 10% of decisions where all your advisors don't agree.


8. The hardest thing about being President was making decisions that he wasn't sure were right, but there was a deadline to be made.


9. Solving the climate crisis and changing the way we produce and use energy is the only way to get job levels back up.


10. We need to focus on balancing the budget after we climb out of this recession - Shared Benefits, Shared Responsibility.

When you look at all of the challenges we face, it is obvious that our organizations (businesses, governments, and charities) need to change in order to support our new reality and these changes will not be easy or pain-free, but we must innovate, and each organization type must seek to innovate in concert with the others. Gary Hamel spoke at length about what management was designed to do versus what we now need it to do. Management was designed to get people to show up on time and do things with greater efficiency and sameness, but we have different needs now. Management is focused on managing operational efficiency not on managing operational change. This needs to change because we now need organizations capable of changing as fast as change itself. We need to move from managing to get employees to do more to managing to get employees to create more - this requires a different approach. The secret to management innovation is to challenge the assumed trade-offs. The trick is to separate the what and the how. But, you're not going to become a better company by looking at the Fortune 500 - you have to look on the fringes for innovation. And these fringes need to become mainstream fast because the best people from the next generation will not want to work for organizations that don't mirror the meritocracy of Internet. So, Gary Hamel implored the audience to conduct management experiments and report back with their findings because of course - if you're reading or listening to this, it's because you don't want to follow some other organization, but because you want to lead.

So, are you ready to experiment? Are you ready to lead your organization into these uncertain times and transform your organization into a more nimble competitor capable of changing as fast as change itself? Or do you want to sit back and cross your fingers that none of your competitors will. The world is changing, it always has been, and those organizations and countries that aren't constantly seeking to understand what changes are coming and aligning their resources to maintain their connection to the customers' and trading partners' needs, will find themselves sliding down the pyramid or out of the seats of influence and prosperity.

Which future are you ready to choose? Or will you let it choose you?

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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.

Live Coverage of the World Business Forum

by Braden Kelley

We will be bringing you live coverage on Twitter of the World Business Forum today and tomorrow (October 6-7, 2009) from the Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Here is a partial list of the amazing speaker lineup:

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON - Embracing our Common Humanity

PAUL KRUGMAN - The Future of the Global Economy

GEORGE LUCAS - A Conversation with George Lucas

GARY HAMEL - Management Innovation

IRENE ROSENFELD - Leading Transformational Change

JEFFREY SACHS - Economics for a Crowded Planet

T. BOONE PICKENS - A Conversation on Energy Dependence

PATRICK LENCIONI - Building Winning Teams

BILL CONATY - Talent Management

DAVID RUBENSTEIN - Global Economic Crisis

KEVIN ROBERTS - Branding


Here is a video from one of the speakers, Jeffrey Sachs, on "Lessons for the Future":



So follow along with us on Twitter and the rest of the people from the Bloggers Hub.

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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.