Tag Archives: amazon

Jeff Bezos: Failure can’t be separated from invention

in Innovation
Jeff Bezos - Caricature

Jeff Bezos – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

How do you maximize people’s potential to drive innovation? As Bob Ross says, “We don’t make mistakes, only happy accidents”. So, let employees make happy accidents.

This is what happens at the world’s most innovative companies, one of which is Amazon.

There are many lessons we can learn from Jeff Bezos about maximizing people’s potential to drive innovation. For example, in his annual shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos closes the letter with some final tips on what lets the company continue to lead. One is that invention comes from everybody, not just senior leaders. A lot of those ideas are going to fail. That’s not a bad thing:…

Are all innovators alike?

in Innovation, Question-To-Innovate, Questions

Are all innovators alike?

Nuances and details are lost in the sea of bullshit that is media and human irrationality, and an outcome is one of the most dangerous things humans do: build people up to more than they probably are.

Sure, the world needs heroes that carry a positive narrative that others can latch on to and get inspired to make a story of their own. My heroes are Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. You have your own, for your own personal reasons.

And just like you and I have our own motivations for why we do something, what we do and how we do it; so do other potential innovators.

Truth is, that in a world where people are fitted into boxes, everyone has their own creative style. Some people are more systematic than others, and some of us are more intuitive. I believe that failing to understand this distinction between people is a huge innovation obstacle!…

Complaining is not a strategy

in entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos starts his High Orde... Many companies may start their lives playing to win, but inevitably end up playing not to lose. It is this cycle of being proactive and then reactive that may become a fact for your organization.

Many books and blog posts have been written about the many reasons companies fail, a key reason is because they stop paying  attention to customers, and instead focus on competitors. It is a very interesting dynamic to observe how companies may start innovating but then decide to align themselves with their competitors…

The question is: why?

The answer comes down to human nature. Success hides problems, and our tendency to become complacent after having some success puts us in a state of reaction. As a result, competitor activity becomes a huge source of anxiety and frustration for company leaders. For me, a clear signal that a company may be loosing its footing is when it talks a lot about what competitors are doing and how they have to match them; not what they are doing differently.

Sure, other competitors may take advantage of trends in technology and ride a wave that ends up disrupting existing businesses; but very rarely are companies created with a deliberate need to crush existing companies. That happens after the fact!

It is very simple, the future happens to you, not other competitors.…

What is the most productive innovation methodology?

in Innovation, Question-To-Innovate, Questions

what is the most productive innovation methodology

This is a question I get a lot. Just like there is no shortage of creativity techniques, there are many innovation methodologies. For me, there isn’t one single way. Just like there isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” strategy that every company can plug and play onto itself. I think that just like every person/company should have their own reason for existing, they should come up with their own way on how to stay relevant.

For example, Intuit, came up with their own innovation methodology. It was crafted from their own values and reasons for doing what they do and why they do it. Here is their how:…

Innovation posts of the week: The 3 Types of innovators

in Must reads of the week
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great customer gift

A great customer deserves a special gift continuously

in Customer Service, Marketing

great customer gift

But that gift can’t be that obvious.

It’s always interesting to me how some organizations delight their customers. Or how they assume their customers will be delighted.

The image above is a promotional email from Scientific American Book Club, it was delivered to my inbox with the title: A great customer deserves a special gift like one of those solid wood outdoor playhouses. Your clients who are also coffee lovers may appreciate gifts like a coffee mug funny. You may also consider giving out custom office supplies; visit sites like https://www.swagify.com/custom-office-supplies to see more options.

The title got my attention, but the offer didn’t!

Why? Because their offer makes me feel like it’s a hard sell. It’s repetitive and predictable. It actually annoyed me. I mean, are book clubs still relevant? I’m sure in some cases they still are but I’ve never actually felt like I’m in the SCIAM Book Club.

Also I can get those books at Amazon delivered to my Kindle for less. The other problem is I’ve been a SCIAM Book Club member for two years and have so far bought two books from them and it wasn’t even by choice. I was forced to.

Meanwhile, as an Amazon Prime member I don’t pay taxes and get free two day shipping on most orders. And on top of that, Amazon just threw in free online video streaming rights to about 5,000 TV and movie titles. All that for $79/month.

Am I delighted? You bet!

So what gives?

The best way to delight a customer is to exceed and/or break their expectations. A type of gift that breaks/exceeds expectations is the one that isn’t directly related the offering a customer expects. What do I mean? For example, us Amazon Prime members didn’t expect to get free online video streaming with our subscription when we signed up. It would’ve been more common to expect a lower price or quicker delivery (incremental value) on our purchases. While that may make us happy it certainly would not have exceeded our expectations.

The element of surprise is the ultimate equalizer

Think about it this way, when you are dating a girl or guy everything starts out really fast and you just want to do everything for your partner to keep them interested. You want to keep them entranced. But as that relationship grows and reality settles in, most of the time, that ‘want’ disappears. Your partner knows your tendencies and knows what to expect. You become predictable. A bore.

The way to break this pattern is to do something unexpected, to surprise.

And so it is the same with the relationship between a customer and an organization. But in this case, the customer is the receiver and the organizations has to constantly be surprising and delighting. Otherwise you risk becoming a bore, predictable, more of the same.

In a world of sameness, promoting sameness is not a viable strategy. Get that out of your head and break the pattern.

 

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