in Innovation
The hot topic these days is innovation, whether I’m in conversation with relative newcomers or long-tenured companies trying to reinvent themselves. Everything is moving so quickly in markets and inside businesses today. This forces the obvious question of ‘How best to get and stay ahead?’ Innovation invariably becomes the answer – but what kind? How to do it well? How much to risk?…
in Innovation, Strategy
Creativity is all about combining different ideas. It’s elements, its attributes. They can all be combined to create something new. Here’s something interesting, a basic table to visualize strategies:
Created by Adobe’s Chief Strategist, Mark Randall, the “Table of Strategic Elements,” lets him analyze existing companies to identify new combinations. He has identified 14 “elements” ranging from bD, (big data), through Ga, (Gamification), to Ad, (advertising).…
in Strategy
This is a shout out for B2B companies.
The F.B.I. has the list of the 10 Most Wanted Criminals in the World. What if professional services companies had their own 10 Most Wanted Customer List? Heck, why don’t you have one already?
Who do you wish to serve?…
in Innovation, Strategy
A few weeks go, Bill Taylor (@practicallyrad) asked: Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?
Next question is: Are you applying as fast as you are learning?
Here’s what I’ve noticed for awhile since I’ve been on Twitter, but became a little more obvious to me in the last few weeks: Those of us who spend time on Twitter, are a lot more cognitively accelerated than those who are not.
Case in point: My Mix group I told you about. They are interesting people, and have a lot of things to talk about. But none of them have a Twitter account. Or a blog. And it dawned on me that by only meeting once per month, that this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
For example, One of the Co-Founders of Serena Healthcare, who also in the group, provided me with another insight. Here’s a guy who takes mindmap notes on his iPad as you are speaking. And if he doesn’t have his iPad, he takes notes on his laptop as you are explaining things to him. But you know what? For all his note taking abilities, he doesn’t have or want a Twitter account because he feels overwhelmed by its fast paced nature.
What?
This guy’s mind moves fast. But apparently not fast enough.
So does that mean that we, ‘The Twitterati’, are a special bunch? I know some people who think so. They tell me that Twitter is for intellectuals, not for the lazy minded. Twitter is a fire-hose of knowledge no doubt (if you filter it becomes even more apparent), but that’s not where the discussion should stop.…
in Strategy
Isn’t it kind of old to see the word ‘differentiate’ on proposals? I mean, any strategy should be different. And adding the words ‘different’ to proposals doesn’t necessarily make it different. Difference is in the actions. Not the words.
Here’s a thought: Let’s frame differentiation as creating memories.
Look at the video below:…
in Creativity, Innovation, Strategy
Image via Wikipedia
If you’re a fan of basketball, competition and innovation, you will enjoy this. Before the start of the NBA season, ESPN published a fascinating article about how the Miami Heat’s offense will be reinvented. As you might remember, the Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the last year’s NBA Finals.
After the loss, the Heat’s Head Coach, Erik Spoelstra had a lot of time to think about how we would reinvent his team. His answer: Study the Oregon Ducks spread offense to see how he could apply the same principles to create a fast-paced basketball offense.
How might an offense that’s powered by dynamic players be reinvented?…
in Innovation, Strategy
While the statistics are debated, apparently Google’s Chrome browser has overtaken Firefox for the number two spot in two short years and now sits behind Internet Explorer. Why has this happened?
Two years ago Firefox was cruising. Their value proposition was that of reliability and security. They created a browser that never crashed and protected users. Two attributes people didn’t associate with Internet Explorer because of it’s propensity for getting exploited by hackers and malware.
They also pioneered the ability to personalize the browser by letting developers create extensions that added more functionality to the browsers. Mozilla took advantage of this and became the browser of choice for techies and internet enthusiasts.
But this focus on reliability, security and personalization, while great, made them blind to an emerging dimension: speed.
Google focused it’s efforts on making a browser that was not just reliable and secure, but also very very fast. It even touted that it was faster than lighting, and it is.
Well guess what?…
