The paradox of learning
Real, lasting learning comes when you get stuff wrong, then seek to understand why you got it wrong. The obvious paradox is that by doing nothing new, or different, by staying inside the accepted practice, you get nothing wrong, and often receive accolades as a...
Innovation at Google speed.
The verb "to Google" took only a few years to emerge as Google changed the world around us. Peter Norvig was Google's research director from its early days, playing a key role in building the phenomenon that is Google. His basic thesis is that you must be prepared to...
21st century innovation.
When one of the giants of industry, in this case, General Electric, takes a position on a topic, and supports that position not just with money and commitment, but sets out to persuade anyone who will listen to adjust their own perspective for everyone's good, we...
A tale of “Either/or” and “Both/and”
Typically, we see things in an "either/or" context, you can do one thing at the expense of another, take your choice!. You can have line efficiency, or line flexibility, not both, advertising reach or frequency against a narrow target, but not both in the advertising...
“Adverfanning”, a new marketing challenge.
Advertising has a new coat, "adverfanning" as in advertising to attract "fans" for your social site, who are then the target of directed or "Permission Marketing", a term coined by Seth Godin over a decade ago. Adverfanning has been growing exponentially with the...
Laugh to succeed
When was the last time you saw people around the water cooler laughing like a bunch of kids, in work-time? Did you think that perhaps they were being frivolous, wasting the organisations time? If you did, you would not be alone, as we seem to take ourselves too...
Opportunity cost and value
Opportunity cost is a concept well understood, and often used in a theoretical sense, but not often is it translated into something easily understood. In a store just before Christmas, I was tossing up between two brands of domestic coffee machine, that appeared...
The “F” generation
Yes, another alphabetically numerated generation for us to get our heads around, the F of "Facebook" generation. These kids, born in the mid eighties, have grown up connected. To them, Facebook is more than a tool, it is a part of their social fabric, fundamental to...
Business purpose revisited
I've written a bit over time about the value of a unifying business purpose, the way it can unify and motivate the stakeholders of an enterprise, often beyond the boundaries of just employees. It is all easy to say, but apparently very hard to do, as the number of...
Easy decision matrix.
A couple of years ago working with the CEO of a family company as it struggled for commercial sustainability in an increasingly hostile environment, we came up with a 3 part package by which to judge all the competing priorities that were on the table. There had to be...