Archive for: October, 2009

What is strategy?

in Strategy

mastermind

So many definitions, so much complexity. Nobody really knows what strategy really is.

So, what is strategy?

To me strategy is not pursuing a detailed plan step by step, it is finding or creating options that give me an advantage at any moment.

Let me explain why:

The world is full of people looking for a secret formula to success and power. They don’t want to think on their own; they just want the recipe to follow. For this very reason they are attracted to the idea of strategy.

In their minds strategy is a series of steps to be followed toward a goal. They want these steps spelled out for them by some expert or guru. Believing in the power of imitation, they want to know what others have done before. Their maneuvers in life are as mechanical as their thinking. They are predictable.

The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than everyone else. Instead of going for A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B or C depending on the situation.

Our society values people who have the right answer but in reality there is no single right answer, there are many. At any moment one approach can be better than the other, being aware of this is what separates true strategists from the one’s following a game plan.

Do you agree? What’s your definition of strategy? This is an important topic, let’s get a discussion going!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Weekend innovation tip: Obsess about your customer

in Innovation tips
.!.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is thinking they know enough of their customers.

It’s like a website, businesses create it based on the features that want it to have but don’t think about what the actual users want. It’s not about what makes you happy, it’s what makes your customers happy. This is what’s called being customer focused and it’s at the core of .

Obsessing about your customer means you need to ‘get into your customer’s skin’, you must become them and make their frustrations your own. In the online world this means extracting insights from website analytics and tools that let you know what’s happening beyond your website.

In the offline world this means using the . Mix these two together and you have a great way to get deep insights into unarticulated needs.

The Order video

Let’s say you have a restaurant and your goal is to improve the overall customer experience. You start by asking yourself:

Pok?mon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew dvdrip

How do I make a restaurant better? Where do we start?

You don’t start with the restaurant in mind, you start with your customer.

You start by paying attention to what they say and do in the context of your restaurant. You try testing different things, like a different table and chair arrangement to see how they walk through the space, you look for subtle changes in their behavior and make adjustments.

White Sands movie download

Team America: World Police move

Sixty Six dvdrip Journal of a Contract Killer ipod Understand you’ll never really understand your customer. Humans are complex and their preferences change in the most subtle ways, being on the constant lookout and anticipating those changes in needs enables us to create a better This Christmas full College Road Trip video customer experience.

Must read innovation stories of the week: The innovators Code

in Must reads of the week

This weeks must read story is about the personal characteristics of successful innovators, the Innovators Code. A research study conducted by Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen found five ‘discovery skills’ that distinguish them. The ability to associate, question, observe, experiment and network.

Wild Seven download Revolution Summer move

Cinderella Man dvd

 

 

Boarding Gate trailer

Jack Frost ipod

buy Unknown World

Schindler’s List divx

The world needs more awesomeness

in Innovation

A few weeks ago Umair Haque said . In an effort to do that he’s :

The goal is to produce a stronger, collaboratively written manifesto on awesomeness, rich with real-world example, discussion, and commentary.

 

Here then are my thoughts:

 

Awesome for me is something that let’s me do or experience something that I’ve never done before. This can also be called innovation, but then again we always had phones until the iPhone came along.

Bottom line ’Awesome is a dramatic improvement over what was before.’

 

Products and services that make my life more awesome are:

  • An iPod let’s me carry thousands of songs in my pocket.
  • An Alienware Computer let’s me play games at the highest performance.
  • A PS3 let’s me play the best console video games at a high performance
  • A Kindle let’s me have books to read at any time I want.
  • A Moleskine notebook let’s me write down notes in a very simple way.
  • makes me smarter and more productive because it let’s me remember more things anywhere I am.
  • let’s keep up with news in a very intuitive and simple way.
  • Mind Manager let’s me create mind maps in a simple and efficient way where I feel confident I can come up with better ideas. 
  • In-n-Out let’s me eat an old fashioned burger the way it should be.
  • let’s me buy pretty much anything I want through the internet and get it 3 days later in a perfect state.
  • let’s me browse the internet wickedly fast (but I still prefer ).
  • let’s me share anything to anywhere in the web directly from my browser.
  • Jordan basketball shoes let me play basketball without having to worry about performance and safety.
  • Nike sports wear gives me the psychological edge in sports.
  • Logitech let’s me have beautiful, efficiently modern tech devices to use with my computer.
  • A Heineken makes me feel like I belong to special group of beer drinkers.
  • A Zebra F-701 pen is a good looking pen with great feel and it’s cheap.

?????? ?????? ?????

 

In conclusion:

 

Awesome enables me.

Awesome empowers me.

Awesome activates me.

???????? ?????? ????? ??????? ??????

 

What are your thoughts on awesome? What products or services do you consider awesome?

Facebook’s business strategy in a nutshell

in Strategy

The Business Insider interviewed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his thoughts about Innovation, particularly how he came up with the idea while at Harvard and how he’s been able to get FB to it’s present state of 300 million users in 5 years.

While I don’t think Facebook is good at pure innovation, I think they’re a good at identifying and integrating great ideas from other companies into their product to make it better and ultimately this is all that matters.…

How innovators understand the unmet needs of customers

in Innovation

Most breakthrough ideas are born when we have a deep understanding of the customer.

When the world changes unexpectedly as it has in the last 18 months, customer needs change, and as business leaders we must find a way to address them. Of all the techniques available to an innovation practitioner, entrepreneur, marketer or business leader none is more important than getting out on the field and observing people in their domains.

One of the key discovery skills that makes up the ‘’ is the detailed observation of human behavior. It’s no secret that being deeply empathetic and getting under people’s skin can drive insight into their needs and frustrations.

The problem most businesses have about understanding unmet customer needs, is that they rely on the popular survey or focus group to get these insights by asking their customers what they want or need. Most of the time, the things people say and what they do are not always the same. In-context observations are often useful for getting beyond what people say to understand what people do and feel.

In-context means being with people in their real settings, doing the things they normally do. The stories that emerge from these encounters in the field show us new opportunities and inspire innovative solutions.

Some companies such as P&G have used the power of observational research to discover customers unarticulated needs even calling it ‘Day in the life’. By going to various countries to watch how people clean their bathrooms, they developed Mr. Clean Magic Reach.

So where do you start?

How to understand the unmet needs of customers

First you need to accept that you really don’t understand your customers. It’s a difficult barrier to break, but you have to fight it because your customers have needs you’re probably not even aware off, and if you’re not going to satisfy them someone else will.

Next.

To experience your customers needs and frustrations you must become them, and put yourself in their shoes. Get in their zone, spend time with them, do the things they do. Live their life!

This isn’t easy, but luckily there are a few things you can do that come natural to most humans. Observe!

What should you look for in observation?

  • Things that prompt shift in behavior.
  • Work-arounds and adaptations.
  • Body language.
  • Thing people care about.
  • Anything that surprises you.
  • Anything that questions your assumptions about how the world works.
  • Anything that you find irrational.

Do you agree with this? What method do you use to uncover your customers unmet needs?

IDEO’s Tim Brown Design Thinking Mindmap

in Innovation

Tim Brown on Change By Design from IDEO on Vimeo

IDEO’s Tim Brown discusses his new book, Change by Design, to be released September 29, 2009. To read more about the book, visit http://www.ideo.com/changebydesign/

When we look at the world differently we get to new ideas.

Design thinking is the conversion of need into demand. Need into solution.

I went ahead and copied the Change by Design mindmap, visit for bigger resolution.

design thinking mindmap

Enhanced by Zemanta