Apr 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
The speed at which things can happen is halving, and halving again, the wider implications of Moore’s Law at work. In such an environment, where is the value in static annual planning cycles, bi-annual sales meetings, 3 and 5 year plans when we cannot forecast what will hit us next week?
The premium on flexibility, and agility is continuing to increase, and to survive and prosper, it seems to me that there are three strategies that need to be implemented:
- Work cross boundary, function, geography, technology type, customers profile, all of the above, and all at the same time. The tools to do this are now readily available, what we lack is the understanding and leadership required to implement and leverage their capabilities.
- Redesign processes, to automate, outsource, or crowdsource, the regular and definable actions, the ones that have become “commoditised” and focus attention on the things that add value, the unusual, and difficult. It is usually the case that the ideas that lead to those insights are between the ears of your stakeholders employees, customers, suppliers, leaders in other industries, so ask them
- Do both of the above quickly: very, very quickly, your time just halved again.
Dec 3, 2012 | Management, Uncategorized
A really good explanation of the Kickstarter process.
Crowdfunding is not the new panacea for new ventures to raise money, you still need a robust business plan, the right people, and a value proposition that really works, but it is an option not available just 2 years ago.
Astonishing evolution of a funding option.
Jul 10, 2012 | Uncategorized
How far can you stretch a brand without diluting the power of the core?
The answer it seems is “it depends”. The stronger and more defined the brand, the more it stands for something specific, the less adaptable it is, and the converse is also true, the less defined a brand, the more able it is to be stretched, but on the other hand, why would you bother?
Should Coke launch a lemon variety?
Should Harley Davidson build a scooter?
Should Louis Vuiton sell a 69.99 suitcase?
Extending a brand is a sport of choice amongst marketers, the arguments are strong, mostly around leveraging the brand building investment that has already gone in, but it fails to understand that consumers build brands, not marketers.
Jul 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
3-D printing has been around for a while, extraordinary technology evolving rapidly offering many “Oohh, Arrhh” moments, as we saw various items like wrenches, and skeletal joints being “printed” as working models. The technology is now going further, watch here for a look at an exhibition in Paris that is simply fantastic, and an interview with one of the brains driving the development.
7 years ago I watched astonishing designs being done using “Solidworks” software by an SME client in the plastics industry. The software offered 3-D design and animation functionality that was beyond anything I had seen to that time, and seemed to take the product development process of physical products, in this case complicated closures, by the scruff of the neck. It completely changed the drivers of the product design and development model that had been in place.
Now attaching this stuff to 3-D printing enables working models to be built in prototype as they are being designed, at a cost that is almost to the point of being irrelevant.
The pace of change is still accelerating, what are you doing to consider how to stay ahead of the pack?
Apr 10, 2012 | Management, Personal Rant, Uncategorized
I kept a diary of how I spent my time recently, and noted a number of things I suspected, but did not have the “data” such as it was.
- Being “connected” had reduced my productivity significantly. My concentration was broken when emails came in, seemingly demanding just a look, people ringing, texting, just wanting an immediate response/decision irrespective of my current load, and capacity to appropriately consider the response.
- The discipline of the “to do” list had been destroyed. As a young bloke, I did a list for the next day, last thing every night. That list offered a priority guide, time allocation, a memory prompt, and a record of activity each day. Whilst like most plans it was a point from which to depart, it still gave structure to my day, week, and priorities. That discipline has effectively gone in the welter of competing tasks surfaced by connectivity.
- My “head-time” had been destroyed. In the dim, dark, unconnected past, I had time to consider options, seek considered input, and just allow a situation to stew in my brain over a period, which often led to options not consciously in the mix at the outset. This happened as I walked at lunch-time, sat in traffic, over the weekend, and just having a casual chat with colleagues whose council may have added a perspective. All that valuable head-time is gone, driven away by the access and immediacy of the devices in my pocket, and the expectation of others that an immediate response is mandatory.
Years ago, a mentor urged me to distinguish between the urgent but not important, and the important but not urgent, and act accordingly. Being connected has given the urgent a huge increase in leverage at the expense of the important, and it is taking a real effort to redress the imbalance.
I have reverted to a to do list that structures my day, turn off all devices in the middle of the day and take a hobble around the block and talk to myself or a colleague, and set out to do the most important thing on my list first thing in the day. This added discipline is proving to be much harder than I thought, but useful. My personal productivity seems to have lifted, as has my satisfaction with the tasks completed every day.
Jan 29, 2012 | Innovation, Personal Rant, Uncategorized
In the December 2011 quarter, Apple made $13 billion in profits, an extraordinary figure, 3 billion more than the revenue of Google in the quarter. Apple is an innovation machine, making it so is the legacy of Steve Jobs.
However, there is usually a flip side to the stories of huge success, Jobs was not the nicest person around, brilliant, magnetic, but a real genuine article prick, according to his biographer, and the woes of Apple contract manufacturers in China are well known.
But, who has heard of the mineral Tantalum? Apple uses it, as does every other producer of our electronic gadgets.
Talison, a company headquartered in Perth used to mine tantalum in Australia, a mineral extracted from an ore called Coltan, short for Columbite-tantalite, but no longer due to competitive price pressure coming from African supplies. Pity we lost another market.
Coltan is now one of the minerals being mined in West Africa, using primitive tools, and kids paid slave wages, sold so we can have the latest gadget, and the nasties in charge can buy more guns and anti-personnel mines, and fill their Swiss bank accounts.
This blog is usually about marketing, management, and the stuff that hopefully scratches my readers brains to facilitate improvement. However, from time to time, we need to think about the ethical base of what we do.
This almost unknown story of Coltan ore, and its derivatives should be on our agenda.
