Category Archives: Strategy

Innovation = changing things

in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

When I was younger and went with my parents to all family get togethers all the grown ups would sit at a table and talk/rant about politics (you get the picture!). My mom would ask me why I didn’t go and sit with my dad so that I could learn something, to which my response was:

 

Because all they do is talk about the same things over and over again and never do anything about it.

 

And so then and there my parents figured out I wasn’t into talking, I actually wanted to change things and wasn’t afraid to do it myself. But living in Mexico brings all sorts of challenges, the copycat mindset is present everywhere and one who tries to create progress is immediately pulled back or even worse killed.

Contrary to what others believe I think Mexico is ripe for innovation and it presents all the challenges that us change makers get worked up for.…

Are you the best at something nobody needs anymore?

in competition, Innovation, Strategy

The antivirus on my laptop is and has been for the past 8 years. It makes me feel that I’m protected from adware, spyware and any sort of thing that can bring down my computer. It also makes me feel proud to say it because I know the Avira team is more than up to the challenge of staying ahead of my needs by making sure their ‘software’ never feels outdated.

 

Bottom line is I know they’re always on their heels and will work to keep their product ahead of the pack.

 

Why am I telling you this?

 

Remember the boiling frog syndrome?

 

If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will instinctively jump out. But if you place a frog in a pot of cool water and gradually increase the temperature, the frog won’t notice that the water is getting hotter. It will sit there until the water boils and boil with it.

 

This is what most businesses suffer from. They let routine set in and let the habits that brought the success before to blind them of changing opportunities, changing times, new behaviors to become outdated and irrelevant, in a word inertia set in. They failed to change and became the best at something nobody needed anymore.

 

The history of your organization is not set in stone

Because change is continuous it’s is very difficult to know what is next after you’ve made it past the first curve but merely accepting that tomorrow is not going to be like to today is a great place to start. This means you have to do activities that are different from the day to day stuff your organization does, it means of where things are going and then .

 

Innovation is all about change and this requires that you have all your senses in tune to what’s changing around you. The day to day stuff gives you no insight into what’s changing, it only reinforces what you already know which is going to become irrelevant sooner than later.

 

I don’t know how the Antivirus of the future looks like but I bet Avira has a good idea and I’m willing to stay with them because they’re in it for the long haul.

You have to set aside time to innovate

in Innovation, Strategy

So you want big ideas, and voila you’re in the game but are not willing to do the soft work. The work that the ‘thinkers’ should do, the work that gives you headaches because you have to use your brain.

Sorry to break it to you but innovation does require you to use all of your senses, not just going into automatic and doing the day by day hard labor. It’s important to be sensitive to the things that are changing around you by keeping your eyes and ears open and more importantly, being insanely curious.

Asking questions and noticing something different is where innovation starts, so why don’t people dedicate time to think, ponder and reflect?

Bottom line people see these types of activities as boring and not producing nothing in the short term. I think that captures this perfectly.

wrote up a great argument and says that , it also requires making time to think, ponder and reflect:

Sounds like fun, but doesn’t look like work, is the complaint that’s rattling around in your head.  And you are probably right.  This doesn’t look like the work that gets done in your business, simply because everyone is focused on the here and now, the further and later is not being investigated, and can’t be investigated or understood using the tools that look like work in most firms.

This has a cascading effect.  Since the effort involved in understanding innovation opportunities doesn’t look like work, we find other urgent but less important things to fill our day.  Then, we are left with the conundrum that while innovation is important, we can’t “find” time to innovate.  It’s a vicious cycle, eventually leading to the failure to create new products and services, or to miss new market opportunities.  Then, what was urgent becomes even more urgent, and even less attention is paid to innovation.  Eventually everyone is working on next quarter’s efficiency savings and no one is taking time to innovate.

I bet you deal with this too, IMHO work isn’t just doing the day by day tasks, it also includes reading, thinking, pondering, conversing, reflecting; basically the things that are known to be a waste of time. But just like the cartoon above says, you have to do it anyway because if you don’t then you’ll be startled by the future because you weren’t paying attention.

Make recombination part of your business strategy

in Creativity, Strategy

jordan 2010

 

“Everything we create is just a product of recombination.”

What’s the inspiration behind the ?

The ability to see through your opponents and keep your intentions hidden. Just like in the world of design, in the world of Air Jordan’s the word . It’s safe to say that every single new Air Jordan has a distinct feature that borrowed from previous models to create the new one, and that is a key to their business strategy:

They’ve mastered the art of recombination.

Not only do they do it with the newer models but also with all the other extensions they’ve build around the Air Jordan’s such as the retro’s, TEAM and individual player models. I think the is to the sneakers industry what Apple is to the tech industry mainly because both companies set out to reinvent whatever they do. Jordan’s reinvent the basketball shoe and Apple reinvents mmm well everything it comes into contact with.

Jordan’s are also about performance and with every new model there’s some innovation in that department but this focus on recombination has made . If you don’t believe me check out the and you’ll see what I mean, a lot of transformational inspiration.

If there’s one thing you can learn from Air Jordan is they from themselves and from other sources and then combine them to come up with something entirely new all while maintaining a focus on style and performance.

Ask yourself: How can I make recombination part of my business strategy? Who can I borrow ideas from that can help me reach x objective?

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The imitate to benefit syndrome gets you nowhere

in competition, Strategy

Every once in awhile, I get an email that asks me to give out ideas (strategy) that previous clients used to achieve a particular goal. I’ve attached part of an email conversation below. It only explains part of the story, but let’s just say that I’m being asked for a secret recipe that they can plug-and-play and voila!

I can give you this information, but it’s no use to you because if all you want is to try to copy their success, let’s just say you’re going nowhere.

Best practices that worked for someone else don’t necessarily mean they’ll work for you. You shape your business based on your own strategy that works to your unique mix of strengths and weaknesses.…

Failure is an idea not an outcome

in Innovation, Strategy, Success

the eagle

We are all failures – at least, all the best of us are. – J.M. Barrie

As a society, what keeps us from creating anything worthwhile?

FEAR.

Rock climbing requires a tremendous amount of focus. You need to keep your emotions in check in the ever present fear of falling to your death. If don’t control your fear, you die. It’s that simple!

For climbers falling isn’t failing, falling is just part of succeeding. …