Aug 4, 2009 | Demand chains, Innovation, Operations
The impact of current behavior of all who are engaged in an alliance on the perceptions and expectations that will drive the evolution of the alliance into the future is pervasive.
Success breeds expectations of more success, and failure breeds blame and retribution. Any alliance has its setbacks, so the latter influence often brings alliance development to a shuddering halt. Those engaged in addressing the challenges of alliance evolution for the first time often do so from the perspective of the types of assumptions made by economists and accountants, that of rational behavior.
Anyone who has spent any time dealing with a number of alliances has seen evidence that much of what goes on cannot be explained by using assumptions of rational behavior, it is far more influenced by what may be seen as irrational behavior, until a social psychologist becomes involved, then many actions become predictable as the vagaries of behavior are factored in.
I have previously noted the impact of an apparently irrational need for revenge demonstrated by Ernst Fehr an economist at the University of Zurich, in a game widely known as the “trust game with revenge” in which an apparently irrational need for what can be termed revenge, is demonstrated to be a hard-wired behavior.
This apparently irrational drive for revenge, in this context of alliance development is often just a minor bit of “pay-back,” for perceived slights and misbehavior, but it has brought many nacent alliances to an end.
Aug 3, 2009 | Innovation, Sales, Strategy
Application of public technology in the past has been often seen as a means by which the state can exercise control, and as such has come under severe criticism from civil libertarians. Remember the howl that emerged with the “Australia Card” debate in the eighties.
However, any reasonable view of the currently available technology would see that it has enormously added to the power of the individual to control their circumstances.
Anyone now can become a published author or photographer, a band need not contract to a record company to get its music heard, and the individual has access to vast amounts of information of all types.
The fact that some do not manage this new power has nothing to do with the technology, just about how people use it. Tim O’Reilly argues convincingly that an artists greatest problem now is not piracy, but obscurity, little has really changed, it is just the means to the end that has changed.
Aug 2, 2009 | Demand chains, Innovation, OE, Operations
Standard project management tools are designed to manage a sequential series of activities typified by a building project. They do this very well, as the work flows are dependent on the completion of previous work that is done to well understood, almost generic specifications.
They are far less useful when they are set up to manage processes that rely on the production of information for their success, where iteration between different activities are required, such as those in a product development project or a value chain development and improvement process.
This leads to the conclusion that when developing such a project that requires the production of information to be successful, spend a bit more time in the planning stage to map the flows of information, particularly where there are known dependencies, as well as the work flows. This added investment of time in the planning stages typically yields huge returns during the implementation.
A simple question, asked over and over, can help:
“What do I need to know from other tasks before I can complete this one?”
Jul 30, 2009 | Innovation, Marketing, Sales, Strategy
The digital age has made the notion of copyright as an enforceable protection of an income stream outmoded. How then do you make money out of an idea?
In the past, people created stuff to be heard (or read, or seen) and that meant you could make money, because people were prepared to pay for the privilege.
In the present, and presumably, into the future, stuff is being created and everybody who chooses can hear you, for free, so the question becomes how do you make money from something you give away.
The answer is tangled up with what people do with what they hear for free, the value they can add in other ways than just flogging a single copy of a book, or CD.
Science fiction writer, blogger and all round interesting character Cory Doctorow has his books on his site, free to download, just click and there it is, saving in Australia at least $23.99 on a purchase. You can also order a hard copy, signed if you want it, and see the other stuff he has written, and get an opportunity to be exposed to his views.
As a writer, his objective is to get over a point of view, as well as making a living, and that happens any time someone reads his words. “Free Books” attracts them to the site, and often they end up buying, something, even if it is only into an idea. Most people prefer to read a book, so often an engaged reader will buy a copy of a book they have read for free, and they refer others to the book, buy it as gifts, and generally act as apostles for the specific book, and the body of work.
A number of headline bands are following the same strategy, download the music for free, and come to the concert, where they will sell you a seat, merchandise, an experience you will remember, and a place in the “triiibe”, the term coined by Seth Godin and explained in his book which he initially gave away, but has subsequently inhabited the best seller lists as a result of the value of the ideas articulated. That book gets referred to in places like this, and sales sometimes result, sales powered by the initial freebie, and the power of an idea.
Jul 28, 2009 | Innovation
The 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, author of seminal publication, “The Origin of Species” is attracting a lot of attention.
Management thinkers for some time have used many of Darwin’s concepts as metaphors for management challenges, and as the “connected” world expands, the application of his theories to management generally and to the evolution of the infrastructure and applications on the web particularly become more numerous, almost daily. One of my favorite quotes comes from Darwin’s work, I have used it consistently for 20 years when talking about innovation, and it remains as valid to management today as it was to the thinking behind “The Origin of Species” when it was written in 1859 after his 5 year voyage on the “Beagle”.
“It is not the swiftest that survive, nor the most powerful, but the most adaptable to change”
