Aug 9, 2011 | Collaboration, Communication, Management
Negotiation is usually difficult, that is the nature of things when two parties are setting out to maximise their outcome. Whilst it may not be a win/lose situation, where the parties set out to make the pie bigger, or different before cutting it up, it nevertheless is a confronting process for most.
Considering the negotiation therefore as just another difficult conversation has great merit. Do the background work, see it from the other parties perspective, and be prepared to work through the negotiation toolbox, but do not lose sight of the personal dynamics of a difficult conversation, and set out to manage them as a part of the process.
The nine mistakes articulated in the link above can form a framework for planning a difficult conversation, forewarned is forearmed.
Aug 8, 2011 | Customers, Demand chains, Marketing, Small business
On Friday I made a very modest contribution to the proceedings of the Organic and Green trade show in Sydney. A bunch of committed, passionate people, working their collective butts off to build businesses that deliver on the organic promise to consumers.
The numbers however are daunting.
The Australian grocery trade is north of $106 Billion, the organic market, counting everything, (perhaps twice) with the most optimistic assumptions is $500 mill, including all the cosmetics, soaps, candles, recyclable bags, et al, many not included in the grocery figures, and probably constitutes 50% of the total. In other words, perhaps 1 in every 5,000 dollars spent in Australia on food is spent on organic food. How do you win in that arena?
Answer, one person at a time building a tribe, connecting them, giving them a reason to connect with others, supporting the ways they can connect, and working 20 years to be an overnight success.
Organic products are at what I believe to be a unique point in time, the confluence of two great social impacts.
The first is the tools to connect being given to us by the web 2.0.
The second is the sudden realisation that food matters more than as just fuel, that there is a powerful social and familial force present when you prepare and share good food, on top of the obvious benefits of the impact of healthy food on the individuals health.
Had you told me 3 years ago that a TV reality show would contribute to a major change in behavior, I would have told you to stop smoking illegal stuff, but perhaps the change was lurking, and Masterchef just provided the catalyst.
Aug 5, 2011 | Branding, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Tesco is the leader in the field of retail social media marketing, as noted in the past, but have really outdone themselves with this experiment with a virtual store in railway stations in South Korea.
The speed at which innovations are being tested, and if implemented is increasing, but usually we would expect a smaller business to be sufficiently agile to try some of this stuff, but Tesco is building a really impressive track record.
Australian supermarket retailers are in the dark ages by comparison, although some of the smaller food service retailers are starting to move with location and coupon promotions, but I would expect Coles particularly, now managed by a veritable cricket team of ex-Tesco Poms to make the running amongst the big boys.
Aug 1, 2011 | Change, Communication, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
There is a powerful new analytical tool on the block, “social network cartography” for lack of a better term. The masses of data now becoming available are able to be analysed with respect to the networks that exist amongst people. If your friends are obese, the your chances of being obese are greater, if your friends smoke, there is a greater chance you will. This can all be mapped.
Much of the pioneering work has been done by Nicholas Christakis and colleagues from Harvard Medical school over a 30 year period, starting with data generated by the Framington Heart Study, which is being reported increasingly widely, such as this piece on smoking in the Boston area, reported in Kelso’s Corner blog, as a tool for change.
Christakis presents his ideas in this TED presentation, along with more examples. This data cartography is a tool that is evolving rapidly, but appears to me to have an amazing capacity to create graphics that will demonstrate all sorts of complex arguments, and as you know, a picture tells a thousand words.
Jul 28, 2011 | Branding, Marketing
Sometimes asking a customer, or potential customer what they want is a bad strategy, as they can only respond from the perspective of what they already know and understand.
When you have something different and unknown to offer, there is not much point asking, you just need to get trial.
The elBulli restaurant run by Ferran Adria has been voted the best restaurant in the world for some years now, it costs a fortune, is very hard to get to, and has anything but a conventional menu, yet thousands are turned away each week. Chef Adria ignores customers, and they love him for it.
Several times over the years I have launched products that were genuinely new, and learnt very early on not to do any quantitative research at all, and no qualitative work unless those involved could see, touch, feel, and use at least a close prototype of the finished product. Only then can they offer an opinion worth listening to, but even then, there is little you can do to prototype the power of the brand which may evolve over time.
To continue the elBulli example. Had Chef Adria put some plates of curry ice-cream in front of a group of a group of people who ate at 5 star locations, and told them how much a trip to his restaurant would cost, and by the way, it was a 2 hour drive through treacherous mountain roads to get there, and they would have to wait 6 months for a booking that had nothing to do with when they may want to eat, it possibly would not get a gold star from the research group. How is it then that it is judged the best, and is probably the most famous restaurant in the world?
Just when you thought you had the rules of marketing nailed, something like this comes along!
Jul 25, 2011 | Communication, Leadership
Rupert Murdoch’s refusal to accept any responsibility for the behavior of his staff in tapping phones to get stories, was grand farce. Did he pay the pie-chucker?
When compared with the actions of the MD of Arnott’s some years ago when there was a poisoning scare and he was televised throwing boxes of biscuits into a dumpster, and Toyota MD Akio Toyoda recently fronting US congressional hearings to accept full responsibility for the recent Toyota quality glitches, and many others, Rupert’s gutless display leads me to a new verb.
To “Rupert”
This describes the situation where the one clearly in charge points at various and varying underlings and says “them, not me”. In all probability, those poor underlings accept the charge, as it appears young “Becky” has, in exchange for either “be quiet” money, or keep “your job” choices.
I think we can have some fun with this.
My local council, Burwood, is currently doing a “Rupert” on the approval in 2002 of a very dodgy DA, and the associated transfer of public land.
There is a bit of “Ruperting” going on in the Liberal party in relation to the support of the Howard Government of an ETS
The airport train yesterday was cancelled without notice, leaving hundreds of very disgruntled train passengers (me included) waiting for almost non existent buses out on Elizabeth Street to take us to the airport. I wonder if the new transport minister will do a “Rupert” today and blame the previous government?
Well, at least I like it!
