May 11, 2010 | Alliance management, Demand chains, Leadership
When people are tied together, when they are in “communities” they tend to develop shared values, aspirations, and courses of action. The incidence of double dealing, dishonesty, personal gain at the expense of the community gain, are reduced.
An efficient demand chain is just another type of community, it benefits from the collaboration, is able to identify and filter out self interest and hubris, and can deliver value to all participants.
The oxygen of such a community is information, both the quantitative data that can be collected and shared, but perhaps more importantly, the qualitative stuff that accrues with use, personal relationships, shared obligations, the mutual understanding of peoples idiosyncrasies, and simply the need to be recognised.
May 10, 2010 | Innovation
Largely we agree that there is a problem with the production of CO2, and that we need to do something, the argument is about what, when, how much, and who is paying.
It is a bit like insurance, you pay a bit now to mitigate the risk of ruinous pain in the future.
Bill Gates is now the largest philanthropist in the history of the world, and key amongst his activities is searching for solutions to the climatic pain we will feel if nothing changes. This link is to a TED presentation, in which Gates outlines in a way accessible to a layman, a new way of utilising the power of the uranium molecule, and ignoring someone with Gates’ history of innovative success, and with the resources he can assemble would not appear to be very sensible.
May 9, 2010 | Communication, Innovation, Social Media
I suspect neither Coke or Mentos planned for the tsunami of videos on Utube and others demonstrating the effect of a Mentos in a bottle of coke. Nevertheless, it happens, and it remains to be seen if the popularity of coke-bombs impacts the brands in any way.
Blend-it has made a business by demonstrating the blending power of their appliances by blending all sorts of things, latest is an Ipad, but this by contrast is a deliberate marketing strategy that has delivered a huge brand position for little cost.
The point is that the power of the web can be harnessed, and used to your benefit, but it is a demanding, unpredictable mistress, and just as prone to turn around and bite your bum, as it is to do you a favour.
Believing you can manage the web content that impacts on your products is the first mistake, best you can do is participate, contribute, comment, and if you do it well, as Blendtec has, you can leverage the power, never control it.
May 6, 2010 | Change, Communication, Leadership, Strategy
For years there have been libraries written on the value of business purpose, vision, mission, and values, consultants have made a good living out of running workshops and managing implementation projects. Now, at a TED event, all the complication has been stripped away by Simon Sinek in a terrific presentation about “why” .
As managers, and in my case, a consultant and advisor, we talk about all this stuff, but never have I seen it put so simply, and so compellingly.
May 5, 2010 | Change, Communication, Innovation, Social Media
What happens next?
Mega platforms for social networking have overtaken many of our lives, from email, facebook, twitter, and the rest. All have the common trait of being “mass” platforms, designed to be used by anyone, with very modest generally available customisation allowed at the fringes.
For most people, in most situations, this is enough.
However, every time something has been invented, that reaches a wide audience, and satisfies a generic proposition, someone starts playing with the tailoring. This applies throughout history, to all widely used devices from armor to iphone apps.
Bespoke social networking at the edges is about to evolve into a fragmented range of networks where there are substantial barriers to entry, and therefore attract a highly focused group, with a deep connection of some sort, who can network amongst a select group of peers.
Imagine a social network of PhD qualified nuclear physicians from a selected group of institutions, which excludes the University of West Bumcrack and its brothers. This tiny, exclusive group of geeks, would love a social networking platform, an app that enables them to interact with the couple of dozen others around the place who understand them, but to date it has not been offered because it does not “scale” and the established rules for success of these networks is “scalability” which means it is capable of being monetarised. In addition, it would work differently, much more like a series of human interactions as would occur in the university common room, rather than being reduced to a series of quantitative options as is the case in a mass app.
The corollary is that if you are not in the “frame” for the bespoke app, you will probably never even know about it.
