Oct 27, 2010 | Personal Rant, Social Media
Isn’t it interesting, the next election in NSW will be contested by a large number of independents, and they will all have a shot at being elected.
It is pretty easy to just put this down to the appalling dross we have been putting up with for ages, but is it the only reason?
I think not.
Both sides are as distrusted as the other sharing some key characteristics other than almost homogeneous policies, where they seem to be as dysfunctional as each other, but other things, they are boring, dull, common, beset by “duurrrrr”, relying on mass media to deliver a picture as it has in the past. However, we the voting public no longer rely on mass media to form our views, we get our news, information on our particular interests, and opinion forming commentary, elsewhere, all powered by the new media forms that have emerged.
The independents now emerging are doing so because they now can, they do not need the piles of money and endorsement of the media owners and party machines to be seen, it can be done by being different, gaining stature because they are prepared to say things with personal passion, their views are not subjected to the discipline of the focus group, they are interesting, and interested, and can connect on a personal level.
I expect a NSW parliament full of independents post election, maybe we will get some robust debate for a change, not the personal attacks that belong in the gutter, but battle of ideas, options, and something different.
Sounds constructive for a change, and perhaps even useful.
Oct 26, 2010 | Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
The thing about market research is that it can only elicit responses to the questions that are asked from within the context of what they already know and understand.
Innovative solutions are rarely a result of asking a group, or committee, about what they would like. Henry Ford once quipped that if he has asked customers what they wanted before he developed the model T, they would have responded, “a faster horse” and this is proven true time after time.
Similarly, leadership is not about agreement, and gaining consensus all the time, it is about someone having the moral courage to stand by him/her self and say, that is wrong, or I disagree, here is what I think, this is what I am going to do!
When was the last time you saw a statue recognising the contribution of a committee?.
Oct 25, 2010 | Collaboration, Communication, Social Media
Why is it that in the face of plummeting communication costs, and remarkable availability of new tools to make it easy, that business travel continues to grow?
On first glance, we should be travelling less, not more, but on further consideration, perhaps it is the richness of the face to face engagement and the potential to develop “social capital” with customers, geographically spread colleagues and suppliers that is keeping us on the planes, and the communication tools let us keep on top of the necessary crap in the office without having to be there.
Travel may be complementary to other communication costs, rather than the new tools being a substitute for travel as we all assumed to now.
The depth of personal, face to face communication cannot be substituted by the width possible with social tools, as looking someone physically in the eye involves having some “skin in the game”, putting yourself out there in a way not equalled by electronic means. The evolution of communities and the social capital that keeps them glued to gather, will see roles changing, but the physical handshake cannot be substituted by exchanged electrons.
Oct 24, 2010 | Collaboration, Customers, Innovation, Leadership, Social Media, Strategy
Creating and managing a development portfolio is a critical factor in the success of most commercial enterprises, but one that is done poorly in many I have seen. Some recent with a client struggling with the challenge for his organization served to clarify my thoughts, and assisted his organisation to develop a portfolio discipline that appears to be working well.
Success is much more than just using a few tools, of which there are many, it is about how the enterprise at its core deals with ambiguity, trade-offs, and the challenge of being frustrated and wrong a lot of the time, whilst being sufficiently resilient to keep on batting, and batting hard. As Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind” and nothing creates chance like persistence tempered with learning from each experience.
Below are some of the things that appear to me to be of importance
- Have a clear strategy. Without a clearly articulated business strategy that has commitment from those responsible for implementation, how can you possibly have a Product development and commercialization portfolio with any hope of success?
- Self awareness. Know what you do not know as well as what you do know, and where the knowledge about what you do not know may reside, particularly if it is with a competitor.
- Externalities. Understand the forces driving developments that may create opportunities in the industries you target, and the commercial and competitive imperatives that drive the decision making of individual customers and potential customers in those industries.
- People. Have access to great people, both internal and external in a variety of ways to extract a range of informed views and data upon which to build a case. Use the emerging communication tools to link these people and leverage their knowledge and experience
- Sponsorship. Ensure there is a senior level executive sponsor for each project that emerges from the pack. This person should have the passion, knowledge and position to carry the case for resource allocation, risk management, and strategic fit to the senior decision maker in the enterprise.
- Endless polishing. Keep polishing the portfolio, it will never be a completed exercise, it is a live entity always, and needs TLC. Part of the polishing is creation of a “carpark” which captures ideas, issues, technologies, and all the sometimes random stuff that can create that “Eureka” moment when things suddenly come together in a new way. Revisit the carpark regularly.
- PDCA. Be prepared to experiment, trial, look for insights, learn by doing, but be aggressive about performance, and relegation and promotion to and from the carpark, and further through the development process, and learn from all that experience.
- Customers. Engage customers as early and as often as possible, after all, they are the ones whose problems your product is supposed to solve, and they are usually full of problems and improvement ideas, some of which may be of value to you.
- Dare to be different. No successful new product did the job just the same as something that already exists, that is just a price-fight, differentiation is fundamental to success.
- NPD is everybody’s job. Product development and idea evolution happens holistically, not by functional line, and it must be a priority for every stakeholder in and around the enterprise, not just something that requires attendance by the marketing personnel at a meeting every second Tuesday at 10am .
There you go, sounds pretty easy!
Oct 21, 2010 | Collaboration, Communication, Leadership, Strategy
Achieving transparency is at the core of a lot of what I do in the fields of demand chain development, strategic alignment, and mentoring leaders. Transparency enables emerging problems and issues to be identified, and addressed quickly, efficiently, and with a minimum of waste in the process, and for opportunities to be grabbed.
However, the downside that sometimes evolves, particularly in closely defined cultures, is that it also enables blame to be pinned on an individual or team, and this is hugely counter productive.
Once transparency is used as a finger pointing exercise, it will not get a second chance, as people learn quickly that it will be counter productive to bring problems to the notice of others, when they run a risk of being the messenger that gets shot.
