Archive for the ‘ Innovation ’ Category

Want to be a good strategist? Keep challenging your assumptions and general conventional wisdom!

I love when I catch myself seeing the world through old glasses. It’s not a proud moment when it happens, but it’s an important one. Realising I run the risk of being out of date is a harsh wake-up call that generally keeps me on my toes for a year or so… and this morning I had such a wake-up call.

For all my life I’ve seen Sweden as a modern, innovative, creative country, and also one at the forefront of design! I even wrote a blog about it called ‘What’s up with Sweden and all its innovation”. In it I describe why I believe a small country like Sweden (a country I lived in until the age of 18) has produced so many big brands, and why it’s responsible for so many disruptive innovations.

So you can imagine my reaction reading the below title from Tyler Brûlé’s (Editor and Chief of Monocle) column in this weekend edition of the FT.

A decline into Swede nothings!!!! I nearly spilled my Cortado as I jumped off my seat! What is the man talking about?! Has he never heard of IKEA, H&M, Tetra Pak, Volvo, SAAB and Ericsson?!!!

I kept feeling annoyed until I got to the following caption ‘Swedish goods and services used to be a refreshing constant in my daily life but somehow they vanished – no cars, no telecommunications, no media, no hotels, no airlines. H&M and IKEA might continue their global assault (along with the odd crime author) waving a small blue and yellow flag, but increasingly Sweden Inc seems a little less potent’.

It made me think…Ericsson was founded in the late 19 century, Volvo in the 1920’s, IKEA and H&M in the 40’s, Tetra Pak in the early 50’s. Many of these organisations had their glory days in the 90’s, which also happens to be the last decade during which I lived in Sweden!

I’m embarrassed to admit that I had not questioned my assumption and beliefs about Sweden being an innovative country for over 15 years, and in these times that may as well be 100 years!

Not the end of the world I know. But take a break and think about yourself as the manger, strategist, consultant, and or leader you are, and then think about how often you challenge your assumptions or the conventional wisdom around which you base your decisions.

Not as often as you should, of that I’m sure…Now think about how that affects your decision-making!

There is no doubt that to ensure relevance, to ensure quality of advice and decision-making, we need to ask ourselves regularly (as in on a daily basis):

•    How long have I been doing, and why do I do things this way?
•    When did I decide what I believe on a certain topic to be true, and is it still?
•    Is what I do/think still valid?
•    What has happened that could/should change my assumptions?

There is nothing new about this… yet most of us fall into the ‘assumption trap’. To avoid this we must challenge our thinking by surrounding ourselves with people that are different to us, that come from different backgrounds and have different experiences.

I’m lucky to be part of this fluid world, and to have a business partner and clients who don’t allow me to have too many moments like this morning. Because of this I usually don’t need Tyler and the FT to remind me of the fact that I don’t drive a Swedish car, and that my phone, clothes and furniture aren’t Swedish (I mean really Liri!!! – pretty obvious!)!

Having said that, It’s with a bit of sadness though, that I bid farewell to my innovative Swedish legacy!

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2010
05/16
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Disruption
Innovation
Strategy
this fluid world
1 comment

When it’s broken don’t fix it…smash it and re-build it!!!

If it’s broken don’t fix it…smash it!!!
I had the pleasure last week of seeing a senior representative from a publishing company speak.  I say the pleasure because his presentation could not have been more different than what one would expect from an incumbent in a threatened industry.
Not only was it honest, inspiring and realistic, but it left you with some hope that maybe, just maybe there was a future for this company, one based on a willingness to challenge themselves and to innovate.
Innovation is often stopped because of one of the following reasons.
High cost structures prevent investment in areas that do not generate an ROI above a certain size. The first slides in the presentation covered the organisations office move, and described the details around a serious down sizing project. No more plush offices, and today only a third of the size it used to be was not described as a problem but as an opportunity to integrated between departments, to collaborate and to embrace the future.
A focus on the past (especially if it represent ‘the good old times’). It’s rare to listen to someone dismiss any strategy beyond 18 months as pointless due to the pace of change in today’s business world. It’s rare to hear someone discuss how their newly developed purpose statement (or vision) will be irrelevant 12-18 months from now. It’s even more rare to hear someone do so with a confident smile, rare, but incredibly inspiring!
An unwillingness to cannibalise on core products. I was amazed to listen to someone who openly spoke about how their new digital products would decrease the circulation figures of their off-line product (for you who are not in advertising, advertising revenue it dependent on high circulation figures). This is of course not a secret to anyone, but how many are prepared to not only accept it, but to barge ahead under that premise?
The immediate revenue from a new idea is seen as too small compared to the revenue derived from core activities, and is therefore rejected by the incumbent. I saw no sign of this in the presentation, instead relatively modest revenue figures achieved from sales of an app was referred to with the respect that can only come from someone who understands that times are changing.

I had the pleasure last week of listening to a senior representative from a publishing company speak about their digital strategy.  I say the pleasure because his presentation could not have been more different than what one would expect from an incumbent in a threatened industry.

Not only was it honest, inspiring and realistic, but it left you with some hope that maybe, just maybe there was a bright future for this company, one based on a willingness to challenge themselves and to innovate.

So why was I so inspired by what I saw?

Change and innovation is on everyone’s lips, innovation appear in many mission statements, change and innovation is a priority for most senior managers…yet change and innovation is rare. Everything I heard during the speech showed how much this department has embraced the need to change, and how much it was working hard at breaking the innovation barrier.

Broken barrier

Change through innovation is often stopped because of one of the following reasons.

A high cost structure prevents investment in areas that do not guarantee a revenue above a certain size. It was interesting to see how the first slides in the presentation covered the organisations office move, and described the details around a serious down sizing project. No more plush offices, and a department a third of the size it used to be. This however was not described as a problem but as an opportunity to integrated between departments, to collaborate and to embrace the future.

A focus on the past (especially if it represents ‘the good old times’). It’s rare to hear someone entirely focused on the future. It’s rare to listen to someone dismiss any strategy beyond 18 months as pointless due to the pace of change in today’s business world. It’s rare to hear someone discuss how their newly developed purpose statement (or vision) will be irrelevant 12-18 months down the road. It’s even more rare to hear someone do so with a confident smile, yes rare, but incredibly inspiring!

A fear of cannibalising the core product. I was amazed to listen to someone who openly spoke about how their new digital products would decrease the circulation figure of their off-line product (for you who are not in advertising, advertising revenue it dependent on high circulation figures). This is of course not a secret to anyone, but how many are prepared to not only accept it, but to barge ahead under that premise?

The immediate revenue from a new idea is seen as too small compared to the revenue derived from core activities, and is therefore rejected by the incumbent. I saw no sign of this in the presentation, instead relatively modest revenue figures achieved from sales of an app was referred to with the respect that can only come from someone who understands that times are changing.

Facilitating change and innovation is at the heart of what this fluid world does, and it’s working with, or being exposed to people like this that makes us love what we do.

So to anyone out there busy smashing the present in favour of the future , I say “I can’t wait to see what you build!”

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2010
03/07
CATEGORY
Advertising/Media
Challenge the obvious
Competitive Advantage
Innovation
Strategy
Thoughts
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The risk that comes with reducing the possibility for serendipity…

The Observer published an excellent article today called ‘Democratic, but dangerous too: how the web changed our world’.

It crystalised something that has been bothering me about the Internet, or to be more precise about the way it’s often used in marketing, and therefore the effect it’s having on how we are seen as people.

The article says it so much better than I would, so here it is.

‘The surveillance implications for this [the internet] are clear, but there are wider cultural implications when the money people behind the scenes get their rewards for feeding us exactly what we want. Amazon’s recommendation engine, Last.fm’s social music service, even news sites such as the Huffington Post, reduce the possibility for serendipity by serving up what they think we want, channelling us into a loop of confirmation.’

It seems that in the early years of the Internet it gave people the chance to break away from being able to be put in predefined boxes… and then through our own behaviour, some tracking, some ad and information serving… there we are again, back to being categorized and put into bland boxes.

bland box

The author Douglas Rushkoff put this brilliantly when he said: “The more like one of my kind of person I become, the less me I am, and the more I am a demographic type.”

I guess this sounds like a marketer’s dream, a world where we break people down into categories so we can do our job. To me it sounds like we are missing something important.

It feels like marketers are missing the opportunity to really understand me. This has the unfortunate outcome of me having to live in a world where people continuously make assumptions about me. I bought a book about birds, I must be a bird watcher (not so much!). Ignoring the individual means that marketers live in a world where they continuously miss the point of, and the opportunity brought by the Internet.

It also feels like marketers are missing out on the opportunity that comes with randomness….the more people cross fertilise between topics, the more they have their views and opinions challenged, the more they stumble upon different things, the better the quality of their ideas. And in a world of co-creation this is not just relevant to employees, but also to customers. Ignoring this means that marketers live in a world where there is a risk of marketing myopia, not just on a corporate level, but on a social and cultural level, a myopia that  could lead to a decrease in the quality of ideas, and therefore also of the products, services and solutions organisations offer.

It also seems that by fixating on what people are doing (and on putting them in boxes), marketers are not paying attention to what they’re NOT doing. In a world that only pays attention to the do’s, all we will achieve as marketers is incremental innovation; rather than radical innovation. Nothing wrong with incremental innovation, but not exactly the key competitive advantage companies should strive for!

I’m not saying the Internet is not a wealth of information and inspiration. It most definitely is! I’m simply stating that the social and cultural risk that come with reinforcing similar behaviour (mainly driven by a wish to control), could mean that rather than capitalising on the paradigm shift caused by the Interenet and going forward, we will start going backward.

A good marketer allows his curiosity to go everywhere (and therefore also the people he interacts with), a good marketer does not just follow people’s behaviour (or competition’s) and act accordingly, they lead the way, often without information or data, a good marketer gives people not only what they want, but also what we need, and what they never knew they wanted…

…but most importantly, a good marketer celebrates individuals and individualism (not boxes)!

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2010
01/24
CATEGORY
Advertising/Media
Competitive Advantage
Innovation
Marketing
Marketing Myopia
Strategy
4 comments

I want to be a Dyson!!!

It was about 16.00 yesterday…I was at the Social Media event organised by figaro digital (thanks for the invite Jonathan!), at the Hospital Club when I realised I wanted to be a Dyson!

To be more precise, I was listening to Alan Moore’s, the author of Communities Dominate Brands: Business and marketing challenges for the 21s, presentation on social media, when it happened (sorry Alan I promise your presentation inspired me in many other ways ).

It’s not often I’m jealous, or envious, and it’s not often I see a statistic that makes me go WOW (apart form the size of the profit losses of the likes of Nokia, and most of the daily newspapers of course…).

But yesterday I saw a statistic that made me jealous, envious and go WOW all at the same time! Dyson it seems (according to the presentation) controls 50% of the worldwide market share for vacuum cleaners!!!

50%!!! This means one out of two vacuum cleaners that are bought in this world is a Dyson. If you are buying a vacuum cleaner there is 50% chance you will come home with a Dyson. Ok, Ok I know you get the point, but I’m still trying to get my head around it.

vacuum-cleaner-james-dyson

If I was running a company that manufactures and sells product I would want to know how, how do I get 50% market share?! Or maybe it’s just me and my fixation on a little thing called competitive advantage!

Either way I decided to check it out, and apparently ‘all’ you need is the following:

A persistence and determined entrepreneur – Dyson made more than 5,000 vacuum cleaner prototypes before the final Dyson was launched.

+

A whole load of passion and positive attitude – even when other manufacturers refuse to license your design, over and over again.

+

Total respect for design and the key role it plays in product development – even if your product wont be seen by anyone, and is used to clean floors and carpets.

+

A fundamental belief that investment in new technology is the only way to keep ahead – in other words to constantly look for a sustainable competitive advantage, even if you are market leader.

+

A willingness to explore (to quote Mr Dyson “Reinventing yourself is a fragile thing. You can’t prove it’s going to be a success, but if you don’t do something new, you will die.”.

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If you are an entrepreneur, or a creative, hire a commercial sidekick – in Dyson’s case this was Richard Needham, former Tory Northern Ireland and DTI minister.

Mix it all up and what do you have?

A company that revolutionised the entire vacuum cleaner market by changing the nature of a relatively boring product into an aesthetic lifestyle product, a status symbol.

And this my friend is apparently how you gain 50% market share!

Now if that’s not a company with The Edge…then what is!

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2009
07/29
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Competitive Advantage
Innovation
Strategy
THE EDGE
Thoughts
1 comment

What does the landing on the moon have to do with marketing and business?

I would have said not much, until I read this caption in The Times.

apollo mission

In July we celebrated 40 years since the man landed on the moon, 40 years since we achieved “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. And what did this trip teach us about? The earth! We went all the way to the moon to learn about our own planet. Here are only some examples of what it influenced:

•    The Green movement was greatly aided because key people were inspired by the astronauts’ speech about how seeing the Earth from afar made them realise how fragile it is.
•    René Dubois (1) was inspired by the moon landing (more precisely how the astronauts described what the earth looked like from a distance, giving them an overwhelming sense of oneness), when he coined the phase ‘Think Globally, act locally’.
•    Bean stopped complaining about bad weather after his return from the moon, instead he said, “I’m just glad there is weather”

Reading this made me realise how much every move I made, be it to another country or a new job, taught me about myself…especially so when forced outside my comfort zone (which in my case would be for most jobs I ever took, or most cities I moved to). There is no doubt that what I saw, the people I met, the people I worked with, the challenges I faced turned me into a better marketer, a more flexible business person, and to the right company a more valuable employee.

If exploring had this effect on a few astronauts, on the people they touched, and on me… and if some organisations see the value having explored can bring in terms of new capabilities, ideas, shift in perception, then how come we see so little of it in business?

I suspect the answer lies in the definition, and in the concept of accountability.

‘Exploration is the act of searching or travelling a terrain for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown people, including space (space exploration), for oil, gas, coal, ores, caves, water (Mineral exploration, or prospecting), or information.’

Read it again and ask yourself what the key word is in this definition….

Personally I think it’s the word unknown…

Unknown does not fly when the internal accountability process machine kicks in…Think about this possible scenario. Why are you doing this? I don’t know? What will you get out of it? I don’t know? Who will end up using the product/service? I don’t know? And finally what is the ROI? You got me there, I have no clue! It does not matter how enthused you are about your idea, how much you believe in it…if the figures don’t add up, it is not likely to happen in the corporate world.

And since exploring has by definition and unknown in it, well I think you get the point, not many middle managers (or senior for that matter) are going to sign up for something with unknown stamped on it…and I’m not sure I can blame them, after all they have a job to do…or should I say to keep.

I do however blame the corporate mechanism that makes exploration so hard, not to say impossible, (and let’s be honest the economy is not doing anything to help this situation). If any exploration, or discovery, is to take place it needs to be embedded in the organisation, its culture, who and how they hire, and how budget is allocated. Innovation takes real commitment. For example Google, as a motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), encourages all their engineers to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them (2) (although if you speak to Google employees some of them will say, “Yes it’s called Sunday”). 3M used to have the same philosophy years ago. Despite the success of these organisations, few adopt these type of techniques in everyday management.

I wish this was not the case, so when an organisation do, or when they simply take a risk, they need to be celebrated! So in the spirit of the anniversary of the moon landing I would like to salute Coca-Cola for something many people do not know. In July 1969, Coca-Cola co-sponsored the first truly international telecast – the landing on the moon.

coca cola moon

A company statement said: “It is with true pride and a sense of pioneering spirit that we can announce that The Coca-Cola Export Corporation is commercially co-sponsoring the telecast of the Apollo XI Moon Shot — from take-off July 16 through moon landing July 20, to splash-down July 24 – on behalf of the product Coca-Cola.” (2)

I find it great that they chose to associate their brand with an event, as amazing of an event as it was, with an unknown outcome attached to it, a potentially catastrophic one. I wonder if in today’s world some scenario planning analysis would have told them not to go there since a very possible scenario would be for the spaceship to blow up at takeoff, or to actually make a splash (of the non Coke type) on landing!

So in honour of “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” why don’t you raise the sails, get your staff on board, and go on an exploration journey…somewhere you have not been, or never thought of going (and I don’t mean geographically). Do it in search of something new, different, original, incredible, extraordinary…just because you can! I bet you it will teach you a lot about your organisation, what you can and can’t do, should or shouldn’t do! And if one great idea, initiative, learning comes out of it (which it will!) make sure you turn it into a fabulous splash!!!

—-
(1) René Jules Dubos (February 20, 1901 – February 20, 1982) was a French-American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, humanist. He is credited as an author of a maxim “Think globally, act locally”.

(2) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

(3) Source: http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/my_weblog/2009/07/appolo-11-anniversary.html

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2009
07/27
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Innovation
Organisational Behaviour
Strategy
Thoughts
Write comment

Go on, ignore competition!!!

Yes you heard me. I’m telling you to stop doing something that is the basis for most companies strategic planning and decision-making – obsessive competitive analysis.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying observing competition is a mistake, I’m saying it should not define your strategy. If your competitors become more efficient, so should you. If your competitors enter a new market, you too should consider it, if your competitors significantly improve their product so should you, all in the name of not allowing them a competitive advantage. However, this is not the same as defining your every strategic move based on their activities.

Business is not a race where everyone runs on the same track towards the same goal (although it sure looks like it from where I’m writing).

running-race[1]

Business is a playing field where the participants, and the rules of the game, changes – your role should therefore be to facilitate and to drive this change, your role should be as a creator of something different and new. Following competition is counterproductive to this!

Not convinced? Well here are three reasons why you should ignore competition (ok so I’m exaggerating to make a point):

(1)    The blind may just be leading the blind
(2)    Little innovation comes from following (and by that rational limited growth)
(3)    Strategy should not be defined by competition

1) The blind may just be leading the blind

Do you think your company is well run? Is senior management some of the best you have ever seen? Are your decisions and strategy based on intelligent market analysis and on real understanding? Does your corporate culture encourage excellence? Does your company have a history of making the right decisions?

I guess many of you will answer no to these questions. If that is the case, do you have any reason to believe that the answers from the companies you compete with will be different?

Probably not…so I ask you…

“If you have no reason to believe they are better than you, why would you want to follow their actions, why would you want to do what they do, produce what they produce, communicate in the way they communicate, sell to the same customers – basically why would you trust them to do the right thing?”

2) Little innovation comes from following

Over emphasis on competition is a reactive game, a game that leads at best to matching your rivals’ efforts, and at worse playing the catch up game (in the case of carbonated soft drinks this means fighting for an increase of less than 0.5% in market share), or producing more of the same.

Kenichi Ohmae (1) illustrates this very well when he says “To start you have to ask the right questions and set the right kinds of strategic goals.  If your only concern is that General Electric has just brought out a percolator that brews coffee in ten minutes, you will get your engineers to design one that brews it in seven minutes.  And if you stick with that logic, market research will tell you that instant coffee is the way to go.  If the General Electric machine consumes only a little electricity, you will focus on using even less.” (Thank you Knowledge for finding my favourite article :) )

What it does not do is lead to creativity, innovation, disruption. Yes it can lead to a growth in market share, but it wont lead to real market growth. Surely you will agree that growing the pie, or creating a new one, makes more business sense than fighting to protect your slice of, or growing the existing pie marginally?

3) Strategy should not be defined by competition

Responding to competition is not strategy; defining ways of beating competition is not strategy. Strategy is being obsessed with finding new ways of satisfying needs. In this scenario following competition only has one purpose, to ensure that you don’t do what they do (the opposite of what most competitive analysis is used for today).

If competition is already doing it, then someone is satisfying the need. Sure maybe not well enough, and feel free to go ahead and improve on an existing product/service. I’m simply asking you not to make it the basis for all your strategic activities. Look for a sustainable advantage by focusing your attention on what is not already done, what is not available, what no one has thought of, but mostly on what people need, what they value. Once you understand all this, ensure your products and services deliver on it, be it through your business model, your products and services, the customers you choose to satisfy, your communication, your processes. This is how I believe you will achieve an Edge over other companies. But more about that some other time!

So you see, ignoring competition (for a while at least) may make you look at your business in a different way, which could lead to a better way of creating, hiring, managing, producing, delivering, communicating.

Somewhere in there there is a market leader waiting to be born, if you give it (instead of the competition) some attention!

1) Kenichi Ohmae (大前研一, Ōmae Kenichi, is one of the world’s leading business and corporate strategists. He is known as “Mr. Strategy” and has developed the 3C’s Model.

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2009
07/22
CATEGORY
Innovation
Organisational Behaviour
Strategy
THE EDGE
Thoughts
6 comments

When it rains it pours, so how about hiring and not firing?

On the 8th of July this year Britain suffered the heaviest rainfall since records began in 1865!

rain fall

I was in London that day and this was the view (or lack of!) from my living room window!

rain

It was like nothing I had ever seen before!

Earlier this year another record number was announced, this time by the World Health Organisation (WHO). 259,000 people were made redundant in the last quarter of 2008, this being the highest number since the organisation started compiling such statistics in 1995. I can believe it since hardly a week goes by without a friend, or a friend of a friend, being made redundant. Again this is like nothing I have ever seen before.

unemployment

Lying in bed last night, I remembered something I read once, something that had a deep effect on me (and since then I have desperately tried to find who said it…)

“Laying people off, that is easy, creating jobs…now that is hard!”

Pause for effect and have a proper think about what I just said…Laying people off, that is easy, creating jobs…now that is hard.

Can you remember the last time we were in the business of creating jobs? I can’t… Maybe during the Internet bubble (when we were not too busy creating fancy Power Point presentations of course!).

One thing is for sure, business school, and especially MBA’s, are not there to teach us how to create jobs, they are there to teach us how to be efficient, they are there to teach us about ROI, they are there to teach us about management accounting and productivity, and that that is how you make a profit (I know I suffered through it for a year).

Bearing in mind that the people graduating from these schools are supposed to become the leaders and CEO’s of today, no wonder very few people, and organisations, are concerned about creating jobs, no wonder there is no reward for the amount of people you hire (while remaining productive of course)!

I’m all for being efficient and competitive (in fact I’m ALL about being competitive)…but I wonder sometimes if we asked ourselves a different question, would we get a different answer. I wonder what would happen if we asked ourselves “What can I do today to create a new job?” what effect would that have on the decisions we make?

How would changing the goal from decreasing the number of hires to increasing them (with the right control mechanisms in place) affect the way we do business? What would happen if instead of saying “Times are tough, we need to lay people off”, we would say “Times are tough, what can we do to keep people on, or even hire people?”

What if this would get the creative juices going? What if it would make everyone step up and generate amazing ideas and solutions? What if it would lead to creativity and innovation?

I have an idea, why don’t you set your senior managers a challenge, why don’t you ask them to find ways to hire people instead of laying people off? Just to see what they come up with! You may be surprised, it may be some of the most creative ideas, or innovative things you will have heard in a long time!

Go on, help me find the answer to the question “I wonder what it would be like to live in a world that is about creating jobs?”!!!

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2009
07/18
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Innovation
Thoughts
Write comment

What’s up with Sweden and all its innovation?

I don’t know about you but I have always thought a hell of a lot of good stuff comes out of a country inhabited by only 9.2 million people, speaking a language very few people care about (a little over 9.2 million people I would guess :) ).

abba_w_swedish_flag

I have often wondered why, but to be honest never gone as far as looking for an answer, until I read an article in brandchannel.com, Brandinavia: Why Nordic Brands Rule. The article attempts to answer the question “How come the Nordic countries are such a branding powerhouse? (IKEA, VOLVO, Lego, Nokia, Ericsson, Absolut)?”.

The reason given in the article is that Scandinavia is a social democracy where people are taken care of from cradle to death (paid for by high taxes). This means Governments can focus on commercial issues, a focus that materialises in three ways:
-    Low corporate tax
-    Investment actively being encouraged
-    Supporting aggressive export of their products

Before continuing, and in the spirit of total disclosure, I need to mention I’m half Swedish (in case my last name has not given it away). I will therefore focus my comments on Sweden for no other reason than it being the only Scandinavian country I know intimately having lived there for 15 years.

I very much enjoyed the article, it was well written and informative, however I do question its focus on brands.

To me this is not a story about branding, but about creativity and innovation. What is interesting about Sweden is not the amount of famous brands it has given birth to, but how innovative it’s products and solutions are. Yes I agree that this innovation has lead to the creation of many famous brands, but more importantly they changed entire industries (the article mentions this but not in the sense of disrupting industries). IKEA revolutionised the furniture industry, H&M the clothing industry, Tetrapak the packaging and delivery industry etc.

tetrapak

(Tetrapak)

I believe a more interesting question to be, what makes the Swedes so creative and therefore innovative (to be discussed later)?

I also question the author’s Government support explanation. Although I would agree that the social democracy argument goes a long way to explain the successful go to market of products, and eventually the existence of strong brands, I feel this is very much an economic argument. The truth is it does not explain the actual initial innovation, especially as it was there long before Swedish businesses had the commercial support from their Government (We invented the safety matches in 1844, the commercial vacuum cleaner in the early 1900’s).

Personally I believe that the Swedish culture has more to do with the success of its products.

Having lived in Sweden for a long time, trust me when I say creativity is not what jumps out at you when you spend time with its population…and yet there it is!!!

So how come it’s there, in abundance? A long discussion with my father over breakfast lead to the following conclusion, it’s the Swedes practical side, and their constant search for practical solutions, that feeds this creativity. IKEA was born because the founder Kamprad wanted to ship a chair to someone but did not know how to package it, hence taking the legs of…and not because he wanted to disrupt the furniture industry. Skype was born because Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis were looking for a practical way to benefit from the Internet (in addition to making some money)…and not because they wanted to disrupt the telecomms industry.

Ok so this explains why great ideas are generated. But how come these ideas have such mass appeal? Again the answer I believe (and my dad too) is cultural. Sweden is a collective society, a society that always thinks of the group, and how to benefit that group. It’s therefore more likely that the ideas generated, and what is subsequently developed in terms of products and service, will be of benefit to many (satisfying a collective need), and by that rational sell in great numbers.

And finally, it does help that Swedish design, like the article mentions, is second to none. Again the answer is cultural. Swedes are very simple, honest and straightforward people. Yes is yes, no is no, what you see is what you get, there are no frills! And that is exactly what Swedish design is like, simple and pure (which again tends to have a mass appeal).

skandium2

(Skandium, design store on Marylebone High Street.)

So what should we learn from the Swedes that we can bring to our innovation efforts? Actually three little things, nothing we did not already know, so incredibly obvious, yet three things that prove hard to achieve (unless you are a Swede of course).

1.    Don’t be creative for creativity’s sake (is there a practical use for your product or service?).
2.    Think of the user, the people when you create (can you imagine a day when a large group of people will use your product or service?).
3.    And while you’re at it, throw in a bit of good taste into what you create, it never hurts!!!

Lycka till (Good luck!!!)

Brandinavia: Why Nordic Brands Rule, by Barry Silverstein, July 13, 2009 issue

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2009
07/15
CATEGORY
Disruption
Innovation
Strategy
Trend (people)
2 comments

Thank you Mr Ralph Fiennes for proving my point (to myself) about the role of arts in business!…

I  have always wondered how employees are supposed to be creative working for organisations that make them sit in front of a screen all day, preferably at some grey desk (of which there are 100’s), five days a week…9 to 5…. I understand that flexi time, allowing employees to work from home, or finding ways to decrease the dependency on computers can be seen by many as not only impossible to manage, but to achieve.

Since I have never been the CEO of a major corporation I will not challenge this opinion (having said this I will argue that, at the very least, buying a pot of paint, a few random chairs and some non corporate desk lamps should not be an impossibility – just as a start!).

This morning I was reminded of an old idea I used to advocate, the concept of organisations setting aside an ‘arts budget’, a budget aimed at exposing employees to the arts. Basically the idea is to in-source what I believe is a key ingredient to creativity – being shown something beautiful and inspiring and different through an artist’s passion, and most importantly something totally unrelated to business and every day work.

Why? It’s simple…to foster creativity and hence innovation.

This morning I found myself staring at my computer, stuck…I had nothing to say, no ideas, and there was really nothing I wanted to do. Probably a case of the Monday morning blues, which I have been known to cure with a massive Monday morning treble shot of Espresso!

Minutes later I find myself in a café, My Apple Mac and a coffee in front of me, and not exactly sure how, in the middle of a debate about Shakespeare with the man next to me (Ralph). Between us Shakespeare never rocked my boat, and I would never choose to go and see one of his plays… but this is the point… Ralph’s passion about the subject energised and engaged me, and when he recited Macbeth and Cleopatra with such intensity and love for the arts, Shakespeare all of a sudden started to mean something to me, and I felt all of my energy coming back.

D. Goleman, P. Kaufman were clearly right in ‘The Art of Creativity’ when they wrote ‘When the creative spirit stirs, it animates a style of being: a lifetime filled with the desire to innovate, to explore new ways of doing things, to bring dreams of reality’.  My creative spirit was clearly stirred because I ended up cracking a work related problem that has been bothering me for ever– I’m not saying the next Google will come out of the idea I came up with, but whatever will is guaranteed better than if I had stayed staring at my screen.

So if an ‘arts budget’ could create one experience like this per person per month, and we were to multiply it with the total number of people in an organisation only God knows how many ideas could be generated (I know you will need to see some fool proof ROI – topic for another time)…..

However, we may have to send people to see a play though as I doubt Ralph is in a position to help. It was only half way through my four hours of working I realised that Mr Shakespeare was in fact Ralph Fiennes.

Ziegfeld Theatre

I hope he forgives me for not having thanked him for the inspiration he brought the world through Schindler’s List. The Constant Gardener, and the English Patient!!!!

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2009
06/22
CATEGORY
Innovation
Thoughts
1 comment

The world seems to be full of disruption…or?…

From where I’m sitting you could think that disruption is all around us, and constant!!! Everyone wants to do it, are in the middle of doing it, or have already done it (some over and over again)!

I sat in two different meetings today, both with the same agenda, the desire to disrupt. One, a social application looking to disrupt…well to be honest I’m not entirely sure what….and the other a government body looking to disrupt their own organisation (sounds like a paradox to me).

Earlier this week I went to the Mobile Advertising UK event in London where again the word disruption was heavily used.

But is this really the case, is the world full of disruption? I mean really? If this was the case we would all suffer from disruption fatigue, this driven by the fact that industries would come and go on a monthly/yearly basis, technology would be relevant for a nano second (well that one is not entirely untrue), and we would all have to change jobs every week just to keep up with the change!

Since this is not the case something else must be going on….

12 years ago Christensen brought the word disruption, or rather disruptive technologies, to the mass market in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma. It is a must read for anyone claiming to be involved in anything disruptive.

innovators dilemma

If you learn only one thing from reading this book it should be that disruption is not synonymous with innovation, it’s not synonymous with change, or with new product development. Those things are part of every day business, things you are expected to do…and really the basics of staying competitive, or even in business.

But because we live in a (business) world handicapped by marketing myopia, filled with such incredible fear of failure and apathy, any type of innovation, any type of change, hell in some cases any type of action (just having done something) gets elevated to the status of a disruptive act!

The word disruption comes from  Latin disruptus, past participle of disrumpere, from dis- + rumpere to break. It is synonymous to burst; rupture, split up; rend asunder, and finally to the world turmoil! When you disrupt, or are disrupted, the paradigm shift is so big that it can’t be missed. Ask GE Medical and Kodak if they noticed Stentor, a tiny medical software company I worked with in the early 2000, who very much disrupted the mentioned incumbent’s medical diagnostics business! I bet you their answer would be ‘Hell yeah!”.

We all know these type of paradigm shifts are rare. So what is going on, why does everyone think they are disrupting or about to?

It’s simple. We are clearly obsessed with saying (words) rather than doing (action). The business world is like a series of buzzwords. We have gone from emotional intelligence to Just In Time (JIT) to re-engineering to… with very little actual change. (Feel free to look through 15 years of The Harvard Business Review, and you will be able to map out the buzzword of the month step by step).

So despite the fact that change and innovation is one of the hardest things to do, and happens rarely, it’s no longer enough …why…because the word is not exciting anymore. And when a word goes out of fashion, what do we do? We simply bring in another one. We no longer want to innovate we want to disrupt…well at least we say that we do (because if we knew what it actually meant, and what it would take to achieve, most of us would stay home the ‘day’ it is supposed to happen)!

So to these disruption crazy companies I say, let’s be really boring, old fashioned, unexciting! Let’s focus all our thoughts and energy on coming up with new products and services that people value, and subsequently on bringing them into the market place successfully.

Basically let’s leave buzzwords out of business and stick to the knitting of getting every day business right… just for a little while…now that would be disruptive!

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2009
06/19
CATEGORY
Disruption
Innovation
Strategy
Thoughts
1 comment