HSM Inspiring Ideas

Weekly Bloggers Hub Cap #WBF10

WBF10 Bloggers Hub members had another busy week...check out what they're talking about: 

• Mitch Ditkoff (Heart of Innovation): Here's to the Crazy Ones
• Jim Estill (CEO - Time Leadership): Conscientious Equity Book Report
• Terry Starbucker (Ramblings from a Glass Half Full): Can Charisma Be Taught? The 90% Theory and Why That Can Be Enough
• Phil Stott (Vault's Careers Blog): Career Lessons from the 2010 World Business Forum
• Stephanie Susman (Fleishman-Hillard Innovation): World Business Forum Recap, Jack Welch on Management
• Elizabeth Glagowski (1 to 1 Media Blog): New DMA CEO Makes it a Family Affair
• Mike Myatt (N2Growth): How Dumb is Your Business?
• Carol Roth (Unsolicited Business Advice): Is Anyone Laughing at your Goals? If Not, Think Bigger
• RP Siegel (Triple Pundit): How the Government Looks at Green Jobs
• Faith Fuqua-Purvis (Ponderings & Insights): The Elephant Whisperer: Owning Your Own Elephant
• Maureen Matcalf (Metcalf & Associates): James Cameron at World Business Forum 2010: The Power of Innovation, Creativity and Passion
• Rohit Bhargave (Influential Marketing Blog): Life and Marketing Lessons from LIVESTRONG CEO Doug Ulman
• David Allen Ibsen (Five Blogs Before Lunch): Betty White on Brands and Leadership
• Bret L. Simmons (BretlSimmons.com): The Power to Lead Effectively
• Denise Lee Yohn (Brand as Business Bites): Dick Lynch on the Turnaround at Popeyes
• Jason L. Baptiste (On Startups): 16 Ways Your Startup Needs to Be Getting Customers
• David Klein (The Popped Kernel): Nando Parrado: Survival is a Choice
• Andrea Meyer (Working Knowledge): AG Lafley, Jim Collins, Al Gore: First Step in Innovation
• Lauryn Franzoni (ExecuNet): Finding the Will to Survive...and Thrive
• Monika Mitchell (The Economy of Trust Blog): Joseph Stiglitz: America Has Created Two Economies
• Bob Silver (MWW's Return on Reputation): Miner, Hero and Born Leader: Leadership When it Counts the Most
• Larry Ossei-Mensah (My Global Hustle): Vijay Govindarajan: Managing the Present While Creating the Future
  

Thanks Bloggers Hub Members for a great WBF10!

Implementing Innovation Requires Some Innovation of its Own #wbf10

You're walking down the street and that little light bulb flashes above your head, and you know you're about to revolutionize your life or the future of the company you run or work for. Alas, you get home and your core life intercedes--the kids need help with their homework, or there's a leak in the kitchen sink. By morning, you've forgotten that great idea. Or you bring the idea to work and it ends up being ground up and left for dead by the everyday forces of running the business.

Sadly, a lot of truly innovation proposals amount to nothing for business because "life gets in the way." As Dartmouth/Tuck School of Business Professor Vijay Govindarajan puts it in Five Warning Signs Your Innovation Efforts Are Going Off the Rail (HBR Blog 8/16/10),  "Execution is the poor stepchild of the innovation challenge. People love to engage in the hunt for the big ideas, but, let's face it, without execution capability, an idea on paper is....just an idea on paper." Successful innovating companies institute an innovation process that ensures those ideas get off the paper without undermining the day-to-day function of the core business--that is, they develop a "dedicated team for the innovation initiative that partners rather than fights with the core business." But even with that team in place, Govindarajan says things can go horribly awry. His five warning signs point out the tensions, jealousies and turf wars that occur when innovation process meets core business.

It seems that what businesses need to innovate is their innovation processes. That's why WBF10 is excited to present today's leading voice on the subject, Govindarajan, who will bring his unique views on how to build a highly innovative business within an already profitable business to World Business Forum 2010 on October 6. The Business Week"Top Ten Business School Professor in Corporate Executive Education" will also discuss the three forces driving constant strategy redefinition and and how breakthrough strategies should be executed, among other topics. For a sneak preview, here is Govindarajan on "strategy as transformation."

www.hsmglobal.com

So, it all boils down to what's inside box number one, box number two, and box number three. Monty Hall would probably get a kick out of that; your business could, too.

WIF 10 Wrap: Innovation, it's what the world needs now #wif10

WIF 2010 is now history. When I came into this, I thought that I would be hearing about new inventions and tech gadgets. But in an era of economic uncertainty, sovereign debt crises, uncontrollable oil spills and employment dislocation, innovation in the near future has to focus on the organizations we run. This year's World Innovation Forum was about how organizations need to retool to put people first, to communicate with people because people are communicating with them, and to recognize the value of their own people.

Robert Brunner: "Design is Ideas, not objects" #wif10

Ammunition Group founder and renowned industrial designer Robert Brunner closed out WIF10 on a high note, exhorting companies to "design or die." He asked and answered the question "Why do people care about companies?" It's "because of how the product makes people feel. And design is the interface between a  company and its constituents." Echoing an allusion in Seth Godin's presentation, he asked attendees to ask themselves, "Would your customers care if your company was gone?"

In this photo, he stands under one of his designs, the Fuego grill:

Photo by www.PhotographybyDov.com

Michael Porter: "America has no coherent strategic plan. Our economy has lost its dynamism" #wif10

Harvard's Michael Porter led off WIF 2010 with a discussion of reforming health care and returned to talk about the subject that shot him to notoriety: strategy.

Photo by www.PhotographbyDov.com

WIF10 Day 2...Robert Brunner: the Apple of design's eye says, "Design or die" #wif10

Ammunition Group founder Robert Brunner has designed so many iconic products (for Apple, for Barnes & Noble, for Kohler and others) that you have to listen to him. So what's the first thing he says? "Design is Ideas, not objects."

Ultimately, design is foremost about the experience people have and feel. For him and his partners at Ammunition, what matters is connecting to people. Whatever you create is speaking to people. Design also requires that you work with people--it requires partnership. "I can create one thing that's perfect; to create 1000 [of them], I need a partner to make it. I have to understand them and they me. Good design can cause disruption--design can be extremely disruptive in the market place in a positive way. Design can redefine who you are.

He thinks for a long time, in business, executives didn't understand design. Why do people care about companies? Because of how the product makes people feel. And design is the interface between a  company and its constituents. He tells companies to ask themselves, "Would your customers care if yout company was gone?" And we can all think of the companies that could answer "yes" to that question.

His theory on business and innovation success today can be boiled down to three words: Design or Die.

He offered four thoughts on the design or die mantra:

1. Great products are more than objects. Take the iPod. It's more than the pretty little case we all thing of. Rather it's the design, the interface, the brand, the communication, retail experience, and all the materials that make up "my music." If you strip all that out, just looking at the packaging, you have a well-executed object.

2. Your brand is not your logo: Then what is your brand if it's not you logo, ads, products, retail display? Your brand is a gut feeling. It is something that exists in people's hearts. When more than one people have a feeling about you you have a brand. And its hard to get rid of. You cannot define it; you can only influence it. If you do it well, you shrink the psychic gap between you and your constituents and you have a relationship. It's always benn there but it's more impotant today because all shopping is in warehouses or online where you can't make a snap decision what to buy. It comes down to brand. Also, the global BS meter has become very fine-tuned. Before gong to the warehouse, everyone knows everything. So be yourself, but just be good at it. E.g. Harley Davidson--how many organizations' constituents tatoo the company logo on themselves. Harley is the ideal=they spend little money on ads, but everyone understands them and has a feel for them.

3. In a design driven company, everyone in the room is a designer: Recognized brands produce products that require management, marketing, design, engineering, manufacturing, operations, sales, distribution, customer service. The design is the chain. But that doesn't mean decision by committee. Every company needs the CEO, the Chief Experience Officer. Consensus is the root of mediocrity.

4. Risk is not a 4-letter word: Innovation = risk. Risk begets failure, which eventually begets success.

Joel Makower: How Green Are Our Values?

As co-founder and executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., Joel Makower has his finger on the pulse of the green movement, and has been taking that pulse for over 20 years. He divides the green movement into three eras. And we are just entering the third, which if all goes well, should make green connect with people on the value level, as opposed to being a guilt trip.

What are the three eras of green?

WIF10 Day 2...Ursula Burns: No Xerox Copy, Just its CEO #wif10

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns seems like a really nice person. She sat down at WIF10 for a wide-ranging interview that touched upon the revitalization of the company she runs, the greening of Xerox and what it means to be a leader. She has been at Xerox long enough to have watched its transformation from the copier company to the business process company it is today. Interesting factoid: when Xerox made its first device it did 14 pages a minute in black ink. Xerox knew people wanted more, and spent the money to make color. But 90% of pages produced by companies today have color in them, but today 80% are still printed in black. Why? Cost. Today, black and white is .01/per page; color is .07 per page. Until that comes closer, customers will skip printing in color. That's one simple Xerox mission: solving cost of color, which would be a simple but critical change in how people produce documents.

WIF10 Overwhelms twitter...Just Kidding...Maybe

The headline says it all. Twittering from Day 2 has brought twitter to a standstill for the time being.

Just kidding, but anything's possible.

WIF2010 Day 2 Begins with Seth Godin--Artists Shall Inherit the Earth #WIF10

Creation as problem solving is the key to innovation: A writer writes; a painter paints; comics write jokes, Warren Buffet buys companies, and for him it's an art. Artists do what they do because they are driven to their art--they can't live without it. They are also the people who are not afraid to live without a safety net. They feel the fear and do it anyway.  Artists are the modern innovators, and that's why they are the most valuable people in today's world.

Populate your business with "artists"...the future will be yours.

Seth Godin, marketing guru and author or too many books to even begin to mention here, opens Day 2, and the WIF audience is rapt for 90 minutes. The organization has to change its very approach to marketing and innovation. What marketing has been about for a really long time is talking at people. The basic idea is to get people to buy more. And until recently that has meant making average stuff for average people because the "mass" in mass marketing is average. TV was the perfect medium for this method of marketing. That model of marketing, "interruption to success" is flawed. The revolution has arrived. There are too many products and choices and brands for that to work. Marketing innovation has become an oxymoron because it requires you to bother and spam people to buy. That era is giving way--doing the best ad doesn't work anymore.