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The Crowd Picked a Cat

February 25, 2013 in Business Genome, Innovation with 0 Comments

What are crowds good for, anyway?

Hasbro recently made their decision to axe the iron and replace it with a cat as the new game piece for their classic Monopoly game. Last time they updated tokens was the 1950s when there was no online option for figuring out the best way to ditch the purse, the lantern and the rocking horse. In the 1950s, no doubt a committee met, perhaps some customers were consulted, but for sure no Facebook campaign was part of the selection process.

Not surprising that an Internet-based vote would lean heavily toward a cat. According to Yahoo! Canada, there are currently more than 110,000 cat videos on YouTube. Cats are popular icons among the online crowd.

But is a cat the best decision for a game piece? And thinking more broadly about crowds and commerce, when does it make sense and when does it NOT make sense to cast a wide net for input into business decisions?

Luckily I just attended a conference dedicated to the power of online collaboration—the Spigit Innovation Summit–so I had a chance to reflect on some guidelines that we can use to consider when a crowd makes business better and when they should stay out of the way. Spigit is Continue Reading…

Getting to Your Click Moment

January 31, 2013 in Business Genome, Innovation with 0 Comments

How to orchestrate serendipity that leads to breakthroughs

Think of a tough challenge you’re facing right now. Conventional training would lead you to work through solutions, analyze, evaluate, benchmark, measure, and research your way to the cure, the solution, or the discovery. But, based on a conversation between Frans Johansson, author of The Click Moment and Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter—held at an event called The Intersection—there’s another path toward breakthrough. Johansson suggests that some ideas don’t come to us through a linear path. His theory is that you have to orchestrate serendipity to get to the “click”—a new way of thinking about your situation and the possibilities ahead.

Evan Williams agrees, “After all, who could Twitter benchmark against when we came on the scene? We were a mashup between social sites and tools like Facebook and instant messaging, with an altogether new twist that brought us down unexpected paths. We had to collide almost accidentally with aspects of gaming, news alerts, and even consumer promotions to devise a new platform.”

There are lots of things we can’t predict. But, Continue Reading…

Embrace the Opposite

January 15, 2013 in Business Genome, Innovation with 1 Comment

Four steps for starting the new year with a fresh outlook on business.

I’d like to start 2013 with an idea for anyone who’s trying to shake off complacency and invoke a fresh perspective this year. I recommend that everyone pick something you believe very deeply and force yourself to embrace the absolute opposite opinion. Even better, write the argument for your initial belief (like, “We can never make money with our global business”, “We have to jump onto the gaming trend”) and then convince yourself of the opposing view.

For me, the inspiration for my inaugural 2013 philosophy, “Embrace the Opposite”, came from a funny juxtaposition of events—going on record against something with a high degree of passion on one day in December and less than two weeks later, reversing my position. Strongly, and with an equal degree of conviction as my belief in the opposite opinion. What I learned from the unfolding of events has become a new badge of honor (instead of an embarrassment). And, based on this experience, I plan to enter a To Do on my calendar at least once a quarter, “Embrace the Opposite” today.

Aaron Kushner is either the new Pied Piper of newspapers or a naïve newcomer. Either way, watch him in 2013 to inspire the spirit of embracing unconventional approaches to business.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you Continue Reading…

Revenge of the Nerds

November 15, 2012 in Business Genome, Business Strategy with 2 Comments

Why “new math” won the election and what it means for business

We’re just recovering from a crazy election. One that took a lot of people by surprise. People paid extremely close attention to the numbers, the polls, and the television ads, trying to tune into the pulse of the American voter. Pundits representing every political persuasion studied numbers religiously, plotting their moves, readjusting the dollars they were spending, and redirecting their strategies trying to lead their chosen candidate to victory.

The problem for many people who got it wrong couldn’t be attributed to not trying hard enough. It was a matter of trying extremely hard to execute a strategy, equipped with antiquated perspectives and tools that were not designed to reach a large percentage of today’s voters.

There are two great books that explain the Continue Reading…

Death to the SWOT

October 26, 2012 in Business Genome, Business Strategy with 5 Comments

A New Game Plan for Planning 2013

Please toss out your SWOT analysis and replace it with these easy to use new tools for strategic innovation.

‘Tis the season for evaluating our performance in 2012 and dusting off our strategic plans to refresh them for 2013.

I have a radical idea.

Please don’t start with a SWOT analysis.

For those of you who haven’t used them, the SWOT analysis is a tradition in many board rooms and break rooms. We analyze our companies based on our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and magically discover what our next move can be to grow our companies by 10 percent.

What should the rat do next?

What should the rat do next?

The problem with SWOTs is that they weren’t designed to automatically help us discover what to do next. As a matter of fact, I’ve sat through hundreds of strategy sessions that start with a big Continue Reading…

Rejuvenation Innovation

October 5, 2012 in Business Genome, Business Strategy with 3 Comments

How my first fly fishing experience changed my view of business

Catching (and then releasing) a beautiful cutthroat trout rejuvenates innovation

First, a disclaimer. I swear that this is not an essay written simply as an excuse to write off a fishing vacation. Before I went to the ranch, writing about it was the furthest thing from my mind. The concept was: escape, rejuvenate, and refresh. Period. I cleared my mind, packed my bags, and headed off for a few days of trail riding and fly fishing—neither of which I’d ever done before.

I loved the idea that I’d be doing things that were so unfamiliar that I’d be forced to take off my judgment hat and just plunge into the experience. I relished the sensation of disconnecting from everything that seemed familiar. It seemed as if on some levels, there might be lessons that could apply to other aspects of my life, but that was not the goal. All I wanted to do was go with it, enter virgin territory, and connect with nature.

Since I work in the area of helping people come up with strategic business innovations, I find myself parroting lines to clients like, “It’s ok to feel uncomfortable” and “Since we’re entering unfamiliar territory, you’ll have to design a new rule book for the next initiative.”

But, it had been a long time since I’d put myself in uncharted waters, so being able to do that with a fly fishing rod in hand (for the first time ever), ended up offering me poignant moments of insight, resulting in this list of Rejuvenation: Lessons in Innovation, a list of tips Continue Reading…

Photos from Embrace Innovations, Bangalore

September 10, 2012 in Business Genome with 0 Comments

Here are a few photos from the Embrace Innovations, Bangalore event I was recently at:

Front and Center Messaging

September 10, 2012 in Business Genome with 0 Comments

What a national political convention can teach us about saving babies

I’m a big believer in taking lessons from one industry and applying them to another. Sometimes it’s the juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated concepts that fuels inspiration.

Last week I was in Bangalore, India at the same time that the Republican National Convention was in full swing in the United States. Time with the client, Embrace Innovations, was spent rethinking the best way to communicate the benefits of a low-cost infant warmer that is designed to save lives of low birth weight babies. The team wrestled with ways to raise awareness and positively reinforce the message to doctors that their efforts to communicate to mothers would save lives.

But, it was the team’s downtime and off the subject conversations that yielded a concept that inspired an idea that just might have legs. We mashed up strategic thinking about an infant warmer with an idea from the Republican National Convention. Here’s how the process of cross-industry insights could bring a new dimension to your Continue Reading…

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