Mar 20, 2013 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Small business
Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal, early facebook investor, uses this term to describe the opportunity created by not competing, not being pushed into the competitive funnel of beating the other guy, rather they prosper by looking for ways to be different, to see an opportunity and grab it, rather than just doing incrementally better than the other guy at leveraging an established product category, business model, or process.
As an investor, he looks to invest in businesses where the founder has a clear view of the future, where the crystal ball has been rubbed and delivered a picture that makes sense, and disrupts the status quo, even if it has not been even contemplated before.
This story of Facebook turning down a billion dollars from Yahoo when it was still in Zuckerbergs Harvard dorm is instructive, and is perhaps a pointer to why Thiel has such a stellar track record. However, the simple notion of investing in businesses where there is no competition, where a creative monopoly exists, is compelling, and is one that should have far wider appreciation that in a VC appraisal. The successful business strategy book “Blue Ocean Strategy” is a tome that makes the same point in 300 pages, and has spawned an industry, so something must be working.
How are you developing your own creative monopoly? You do not have to be a multinational. Several local SME’s I have contact with have successfully created their own creative monopoly in their area, carved out a niche where the competition is minimal, and are doing very well.
Mar 18, 2013 | Innovation, Leadership, Management, Strategy
Well, they can’t, not without people. It is the people who think, then act to get stuff done via organisational processes. It does not matter if you are BHP, or a two person consultancy, it works the same way. Indeed, if you are a one man business, find others against whom you can test your individual thinking, and it will improve.
The essence of “thinking,” really teasing out the guts of a problem or situation is to make use of all the available data and opinions, not just those that agree with yours, not just those that rise from a similar set of assumptions, and certainly not those that lead to a semi-predetermined outcome.
People avoid conflict, it is uncomfortable, they avoid being on the outside of the crowd, but guess where all the really new stuff comes from, so the challenge in enabling organisations to think is to encourage conflict of the mind, to welcome ideas that challenge ours, and embrace the conflict.
The worst thing I have seen in 20 years of consulting on strategy, marketing and improvement is silence. It is always a strong indicator that the organisation is not thinking, but looking to the bosses to make the decisions, because they know best.
Bullshit I say, give me the friendly, heartfelt noise of active debate any time.
Mar 14, 2013 | Governance, Innovation, Personal Rant, Strategy
Leaving aside the fact that it is an election year, and rhetoric is the usual fare served up, there remains an economy to run.
Lots of space will be allocated to “Innovation” plans, the Manufacturing jobs announcements a few weeks ago, the Arts creativity and Innovation plan announced yesterday, big announcements, lots of largely recycled money that probably will not be delivered, and hot air expended, but what of the real dilemma?
Governments govern, they (attempt to) create repreatable processes that exclude variation and eschews risk, whereas innovation requires a high tolerance for risk and failure, the absolute opposite of the risk appetite of Government. Distinctly oil and water here!
How do we encourage and support startups, the innovation lifeblood of the economy? The stuff we can dig up and flog at commodity prices cannot in the long run be anything but a race to the bottom of the price curve, and we will lose, as we are unprepared to accept the labour, environmental and public oversight deficiencies of our less fussy international competitors.
At a time when our exports of services are declining, can we ignore the opportunities in tech startups and services? When Google puts its money where its mouth is, and gets together with a few entrepreneurs with a track record of success as they have with the Silicon Beach Action Group, should we listen?
Feb 12, 2013 | Change, Communication, Innovation
The next big wave of innovation just may be co-ordination services.
When you think about it, the web has given us huge amounts of data at our fingertips, but created the problem of dealing with all the options we have. Usually we want only a very few options from which to make a choice, the more tailored those options are to our needs, the better, but we are now being deluged.
Think about the co-ordination of travel needs of inner city residents and transport. Often they do not need a car much, but when they do, a standard rental is not always convenient. Enter Zipcar. Travel planning is made easier by the on line room booking systems, AirBnB co-ordinates those plans with the needs of owners of non hotel facilities that people may like, and a bit of extra cash. The list goes on.
The current “scandal” of horsemeat in Findus products in Europe, and the Jindi cheese Listeria recall in Australia highlight the frailties of food safety sensative supply chains. We have the cpability to make the whole chain absolutely transparent, every product traceable, and if we used it, the problems would be gone. The challenge is the collection, analysis and delivery of the data, co-ordinated with the need for the data.
Co-ordinating and organising all this data, seamlessly, instantly, across all your devices and locations should be a fertile field of innovation.
Dec 11, 2012 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
Web based A/B testing goes a long way towards eliminating dumb mistakes, making the best choice, creating a discipline around innovative activity, and encouraging change, and has been made far easier in a whole range of areas by the data collection capabilities of the net.
But what happens when you cannot test, when you are doing something so completely new that the frame of reference necessary for good test results does not exist?
Try testing the Model T in 1890, only a few would have seen the possibilities because the horse was the frame of reference, the early cubic paintings of Picasso, art that so broke the rules as to be outrageous, or the calculations of Copernicus demonstrating the earth was not the centre of the universe, something catholic church felt pretty strongly about.
At some point testing becomes a redundant tool, you simply cannot test everything, and you have to rely on the guts, instinct, and insight of the few outliers who see things differently to make meaningful change
Nov 22, 2012 | Communication, Innovation
Innovation is all about seeing beyond the obvious answer, making the connections others miss, recognising cause and effect relationships differently.
Most also accept that with training, our bodies perform better, we run faster, further, jump higher, etc.
Surely it is the same with our brains? The more we stretch the boundaries in our nuts, the better we become at doing it. Therefore, it seems to be pretty sensible to do some training. The cryptic crossword in the local paper, deliberately inserting yourself into situations that are different and uncomfortable, and even, yes I am assured by my 30 year old son with a couple of degrees, playing some of the more creative video games (cannot bring myself to do that one).
I often start a workshop, presentation, and even casual conversation with a conundrum of some sort to try and get the juices going, so these two posts from Holly Green are gold.
