Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Twenty tips to make you a World Class Knowledge Manager by next Thursday
The Principles of LORM Part 1 Learn Once Repeat Mistakes.
OK, here is a big statement. You may or may not agree with it but if you would kindly indulge me for the time being I'd be most grateful.
A CEO has primarily one role. She, or he, is the person who has to find and implement the most efficient methods of consolidating, directing and dispersing knowledge.
Let us assume you think there may be something in this? As evidence let me offer up this. A recent survey of CEO's of Fortune 500 companies by Boston Consulting found that they thought that 'they could do better with corporate communications' and that it (communication') was one of their top five priorities. I drew two conclusions from this. Firstly, you can make a lot of money by carrying out studies of the bleeding obvious, and secondly; they didn't ask the right question. The other four items on the list,the usual suspects of profitability, cost reduction, sustainable and innovation, can only be influenced if you manage the knowledge flow in the organisation in the first place. You can argue about that over your next strategy/ priority meeting.
While you are doing that and mulling it over, you may also choose to reflect on the overwhelming obviousness that Intellectual Property is probably the only asset that gives your company its value. It isn't your bricks and mortar, your inventory, your capital investment . Another survey states- and this one is actually much more revealing- that Knowledge accounts for 67% of the net worth of every corporate entity. So, if I was you, I'd damn well better look after it.
It maybe isn't surprising then that many companies have established a board position with responsibility to manage the knowledge processes, and implement these strategies and processes that will enhance this value further. The postings come under various business card guises; CEO, Knowledge Manager VP's, Chief Information Officers, Innovation Managers, Front Line Change Coordinators and, if they have really been thinking, not necessarily falling within the shadow of the IT department. It is of course, a flagship position, reflecting the importance that this process has within an organisation. Managing information, its sharing and caring should be part of the job specification of every manager and employee. The chose just get to manage the budget and take the blame when it doesn't work.
Communication is often seen as a bit of a poison chalice. It isn't about software, usability, sorting data. That is the easy bit. The real difficulty is that everyone wants to change but nobody wants to change themselves. Getting people do something real and positive about improving communication requires developing a skill which is more akin duck herding. Trying to get lots of happy individuals, with their own sensitivities, experiences, references and paranoias and trying to get them all talking and moving in the same direction. You need to delicately move them forwards without moving too quickly so they all end up in the same place without scaring them off to fly off somewhere else. Some people are really good at it. Most of us aren't, including many 'people persons who think they are.
With that in mind I've put together a few tips, which may or may not help people in coming to terms with their new job spec.
These are the twenty (or so) CEO/CIO/Knowledge manager's , or indeed any managers management principles of.. err...Management
1. Don't always question.
I know it is what most of us do, and what the Gurus told you do in the old days of last year. They implored us to 'Question everything. Challenge every assumption'. You still do that, just don't get obsessed with it. Instead, revitalise the casual conversations and information sharing as a normal business practice. And devote as much as half of your time to developing that dialogue. You can't expect to learn a lot just by challenging your staff. They will, more often than not, give you the answer they think you want, especially if they have to give answers off the cuff. Welcome, unreservedly, one another's thoughts and opinions and give them time to respond.
2. Establish a nil tolerance for Mediocre Practice but don't polarise the process and focus too much effort on establishing Best Practice.
Instead focus on ways to eliminate worse practice. When is best good enough anyway? A Best practice will invariably come out in the end if you are initiating the other 19 ( or so) principles. Well a few of them anyway. Incrementally it is a much quicker fix, for both you and the customer. In any case the question you should be asking is 'Are you benchmarking yourself against the mediocre, the safe, and the obsolete? Is it a 'me to' action. Do you want to give Karaoke performance of Britney Spears or Ella Fiztgerald. For a lot of people Britney is good enough. But for some....
3. Actions SHOUT.
I'd like to introduce you to the CASER principle, with apologies to Gordon Gould, the first man to use the word, laser, whose acronym I have blatantly hijacked. (Laser actually stands for Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation for all you pub quizzers out there, which is why you shouldn't really spell it with a 'z'.)
I have made up my own version. CASER which stands for Creativity Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Results.
If you can vividly show the effect, good or bad that results from the implementation of their ideas you reinforce the feed back of the original signal. Or, as Spiderman puts it to Dr Octopus, you get 'harmonic reinforcement'. Show them that you take their ideas seriously, and they will trust you more seriously to share their ideas.
3. Actively Look Out.
Scan the horizon, not just through the myopia of market analysis or the telescope of your marketing or sales department. That is an awfully narrow field of view. And, have regard not just for at the usual suspects, the competitors in your field or your own market. Navel fluff picking isn't pleasant to look at and you eventually look silly or deranged.
Most of the good ideas don't come from your own staff (Or you for that matter). You are not the stewards of all things 'magnificent'. Humbleness is truly attractive and inspiring. Acknowledgement of others contribution wins friends and accomplices.
4. Experiment Persistently.
Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of intellects however flawless their rationale.You can, and must, plan ahead to know where you want to go, and what steps you will have to make to get there. But then put the plan aside and focus on the first steps. Regularly stop to reflect on the action and repeat the process.
3. Let go of the need to be right. It's OK to make mistakes as long as you learn from them.
Your mistakes are your experience. Pass it on. If you malign failure, you destroy entrepreneurship, snuff out innovation and in the end you harm the company. If you "forgive and forget" because you want to be that great boss you always wanted to work for, that same mistake will be repeated twice or a dozen times. Failure is normal, accept it, move on but demand that lessons be learned and communicated through the entire organisation.
Expect no less from everyone in your organisation.
4. Empower but support
It is absolutely all right, positively, to give assignments to people who have never done it before. The codicil is that, if you do, then it is your responsibility as a manager to provide them with a network of expert advisors whom you trust. Legitimacy lies in competence as much as position in the organisation chart. Position without competence results in disaster. Competence without position results in helplessness.
5. Don't refer to the 'Internal organisation'.
Talk about specific people. Referring to other organisations of the company as "them" is laying the ground for future excuses about the lack of results for everyone.
Organisations are almost inevitably impersonal, complex, and change every 24 months anyway. People and communities however are far more stable, resilient and trustworthy.
7. Kill off internal client-supplier relationships.
The internal market approach is the very worst possible form of internal collaboration. A client-supplier relationship in a monopolistic environment is the epitome of bureaucracy. It damages the social network and value of the company and paralyses its ability to solve problems for the customer. If you want to reinforce the silo mentality that is the next best way of doing it.
8. Before deciding on a plan, always ask with whom the plan was discussed.
The raison d'etre of the corporate manager is not to come up with the bright ideas, but with ideas shared with other stakeholders. Reject all proposals and action plans bearing only the signatures of your staff.
9. Involve people collectively in your thinking.
If you merely want compliance (at best) rather than real commitment then use managerial authority to deploy programs and plans from the top-down. Then sit back and watch it all unravel. If you want people to adopt your views and act accordingly, you must engage in meaningful conversations with them, and not "cascade down" or "communicate messages". If you have a teenager you will l know exactly what I mean.
Think about the power of stories. No-one is won over by a PowerPoint slide, a chart, other peoples quotations, or an Excel spread sheet. Well they shouldn't be. Nor will they ever adopt for themselves another's goals. Intellectually in the short term it may possibly- short term in this case being the five minutes after the Ra-Ra speech until the next problem hits them as they get back to their desk. For medium or long-term participation you need to connect emotionally (How to do that? Well that is the tricky part and the reason why 99.999% of all managers, including you and me are not Steve Jobs. See The Beautiful Question Part 11 posting for a possible answer)
10. Management is not so much about delegating to individuals than about organising and empowering groups.
Effective action ("execution") in any organisation is all about coordination and synchronization. Speed of execution is best achieved by self-synchronisation of competent people who understand and trust each other. The first job of a manager is to detect who these people are and make sure they work together in the right setting (working group, project team, community of practice...) Or separate them if they or in a dysfunctional group. .
11. It's not about giving objectives.
It's about making sure they understand your intent.If they really understand your goals and if it makes sense to them, they will figure out what to do by themselves. It is by far more difficult to articulate a clear intent than to give objectives. Those that figure out that particular trick are the true leaders. Remember the power of the story.
12. Never give targets without negotiating them first.
Giving measurable quantitative targets without negotiating them with those responsible for making it happen is just bad management. But negotiate hard and if you do shift their comfort zone, give them the support to deliver. Not an excuse to fail.
13. Don't Squirrel knowledge
Don't think that you always know what information is 'good' for your staff. Let them know what you know, give them access to every document you have, unless it is explicitly confidential or for a damn good reason. Don't work on a "need to know" basis. No one ever said 'Oh, that Barry bloke, he communicated too much'. Let them sort out the information overload. There are plenty of tools and tricks to help them. Even if you do cocoon them they will always find out but via half-truths, conjecture, second-guessing, the water cooler whispers and arrive completely at the wrong picture. Paranoia is a part of almost every human activity so don't give it more oxygen. It is far easier to manage any fallout than motivate the disenchanted.
14. History is good- Look back.
Balance market studies, action plans, specifications etc. With case studies, lessons learned, good practices. Spend some time reflecting on past experiences. And ingrain all new employees and stakeholders with the story. Encourage the promotion of the myths and legends. Commitment to the past reaffirms the company's culture and the brand.
15. Don't promote people that sound smart, but those who make sure that smart things happen.
The company's promotion process is the primary driver of employees' emotional positivity. It isn't money, or perks or glory. It can build or destroy confidence or simply reinforce the CGAS attitude.
16. Don't expect dedication from someone who fears for his job.
All efforts are stalled by the fear of job loss. If you need to fire people, do it at warp speed, and make sure it appears to all as an exceptional event. Don't subscribe to the deadly spiral of cost cutting.
17. Never manipulate your staff. You actually can't!
Employees are hypersensitive to inconsistencies and incoherence across an organisation. They immediately detect every ripple of manipulation when they hear conflicting messages. Largely, because they are looking for them and we come circling right back to the paranoia thing again. Establish trusted relations with your peers first. Trust is the bandwidth of communication
18. Get yourself a knowledge technology coach.
Communication and collaboration technologies are dramatically changing. E-mail is becoming extinct. You need to up your game.
19 and 20. Ask yourself and everyone else you can think of, this question
What are you going to do to make sure you and your organisation have mastery of the flow of knowledge, bearing in mind that this skill will probably be your only competitive advantage next year?
OK, maybe you wont get around to it all by next Thursday.
Copyright Raindancer 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
No time to do a to do list
No time to do a to do list
If I hear another person say to me, ‘You have to work smarter not harder’ I may loose the plot. It’s the sort of consultant speak sound bite that wrankles to the core of my bone marrow. This is not just because everyone uses it; it’s become a consultant karaoke song, like 'Imagineering' or 'lean manufacturing' or 'just in time'. Urgh! Even simple act of just writing that the phrase down gives me that squirmy goose bumps feeling. Because, as a piece of advice, it is sooo utterly useless.
If I was smarter I wouldn’t have to work harder now would I?
I’d love the time to get smarter. To be ultra efficient, successful, smug. It can’t be that hard. I mean look at that dingbat competitor down the road. He's playing golf everyday and was in the bottom set for maths!
‘What you need’ the life coaches and mentors say,’ is to take control of your 'to do' list’. It’s a start I suppose, and I take their point but for a start, exactly which list are they talking about here? Is it the one I have on my Windows Outlook that I started in the airport departure lounge in a fit of organisational sobriety while I had nothing better to do? Would this be very same task list that I’ve forgotten to update or delete the items I actually did remember to do that pops up with those annoying reminders every time I open my e-mail?
Or, perhaps they mean the list on that piece of paper in the hole thingy where you put stuff so it doesn’t disappear into the foot well while your testing your cars ABS. Under the sticky stack of car parking tickets?
Or, possibly the list stuck under the magnet on the fridge beneath the pizza delivery number and the invitation to a swimming party. Excuse me while I go off at a tangent here, just because I can - Those invites say ‘Adults are welcome.….welcome to do what exactly? To turn pale blue and stand around catching veroukas’ in last years all too snug swimsuit, trying not to look at cleavage or caesarean scars while you try to suck it in to the point of hyperventilation- Mental note to self. Book tanning session at gym before aforesaid party. Membership should be used for something. Better put it on the to-do list.
There must be some way of organising our lives better. I mean if we can put man on the moon and crash a beagle into Mars surely we can have bash at some personal organisation?
Frankly, I’ve got no tips to offer personally. I could try to delude myself that I am sort of guru or practitioner in the art of time management. But numerous editors and colleagues will gleefully attest to by deficiencies in this area. Frankly, finding this article on my to do list was a bit of a surprise and completing it almost a herculananeum task. Whenever, by some chance of fate, I do actually remember what the knot in my hanky is actually tied to remind me to do, I have to lie down in a dark room with a wet towel on my head to recover from the shock.. But, I know a man, or in this case a women, (why isn’t that so surprising?) who really knows about this stuff. She is one of those adorable American woman who can run a law case in three cities, solve a murder, referee her kids softball game and figure out how to print out her spreadsheets so that they fit on just one piece of paper and maintain readability without optical aids, all on the same day…and then even has the time to share with you on her life coaching blog site her daily dose of self courage and motivational adrenalin while casually throwing in the fact that she has today, a well as qualifying as an airline pilot, won the high school moms home baked cookies competition. She is Oprah on speed…
So I asked Melissa.
Melissa’s tip number one is to use paper, don’t make digital to do lists on your computer or electronic devices. Now before I get the tree conservationists rounding on me, and rightly so, I probably will need to remind the readers that even though they, and they know who I am talking about, will probably input all the relevant information into the ether of their hard disk, more than likely than not they will probably only print a list out anyway. This will take up three lines on a piece of paper in the corner and then they will stick it in their filofax or under a pile of papers and loose it. The paperless office is just a mirage. [Interesting side note here. Just read a pamphlet on the paperless office. Did the irony get lost somewhere?].
The advantage of using paper is that you may use both sides, which will probably be really useful as you have run out paper anyway as you didn’t put ‘getting more printer paper’ on your to do list. The technophiliacs amongst us, meaning you, may well be using a spreadsheet to help you. Now this is fine but, if this is the case, my advice to you is that you and your Excel really should really be getting out more often. I used to work at a company (in fact most of them) where Excel was seen as some sort of light sabre for the Jedi management classes, where management prowess was judged by your manipulative skills of spreadsheet dynamics. It was not uncommon to see a droop (Collective noun) of managers peering intently over a screen of grids with numbers in hushed conversations about what the benefits of a ‘pivot table’ in this application could be. (See, I know the jargon at least)
But that’s another story, for another time. Paper to me is so err …substantial. There is something oddly alluring in experiencing the pleasure of scribbling in the margin and that thoroughly satisfying feeling you get when crossing something off the list. It is the same feeling you get when watching the Sunday afternoon films after your mum’s Sunday dinner and the dishwasher is on its cycle. I know its pathetic but these are small battles won-.
Somehow, if it is on paper, you feel you own it, its personal. Digital is antiseptic. Maybe it one of these left side, right side brain things, a psychologist somewhere will undoubtedly have a word for it. Like your pump bag at school, it may be embarrassing but it is yours and if anyone nicks it you will cry. If you ‘own’ it, you are more likely to take an interest in it and actually do something about it.
M’s next world shattering point knocked me bandy. Well there were several she mentioned actually but I want to build up the excitement. She asked me to ask myself, or you this question. Should the item even be on your to do list? Does it actually need to be done? What would happen if you didn’t do it? Would the sky fall on your head? Should somebody else be doing it? If not, why not?
I felt a wave of feng shui flow through my nether regions. Here was a new personal mantra. I was aligned! And then she gave me a new chant. Only ever put three things on your to do list. Wow there, mister! Three? Really? But, she added, keep two lists; I knew there was a catch. Apparently you have to have two lists, one in the back of your filonotethingybook, and one in the front. You move things to the front only when they have to be done. Now this is radical stuff. But it makes sense. I can cope with about three things at a time, anymore and I get sidetracked and end up not finishing anything. I can hear the sound of heads being slapped across the Kingdom. There is nothing common about common sense is there? We just need to be reminded about it once in while. Pity it has to be by an American.
My friend also told me to tell you that say if you do something for 21 days you will develop the action into a habit. For most of us getting past 21 minutes is tough enough. There are so many more interesting things to distract us. Like the satellite remote control or putting the kettle on. Not necessarily to make a drink, just put it on and forget you have.
By now light bulbs were popping on in my head like a deserted fairground and a kid with a catapult and grudge but we haven’t finished yet.
Don’t open your e-mail box before you look at the to-do list. E-mail and to do lists are non-compatible. Like olive oil and gravel. Didn’t Bill and his buddies realise this when they wrote Outlook. It is some unwritten law, at least I’ve never seen it in any operations manual, that the reading and the replyment thereof of the new e-mails of the day shall take preference over all life processes in the Universe, even it is only from your mate discussing the lamentable merits of LUFC’s 4:3:3 system. As soon as you hit your mail inbox your intentions to tackle your tasks, keenly honed on the commute to work, are gone like a leaf on the breeze. Take a deep breath and be brave! The World will not collapse into a black hole if you don’t look at your e-mails for ten minutes. Honest Injun!
Finally, two gems Melissa thought we should share in the spirit of sharing and caring as her 'Blogyourwaytolove' web site puts it.
Firstly, prioritise the list, even the three things you have on it. OK, so that is pretty obvious but some tasks are always much more important, relatively. An air traffic controller’s to do list- example, item 3. Must get the other plane to change altitude and course in the next er.. five seconds, has a smidgen more urgency than say, putting together a budget for indoor plant decorations.
How to prioritise though? That’s easy. Number one priority every time, is the completion of task on the list that is going to make my boss look good? After that, really just take a pin.
Mel's last tip was how to deal with the big items that sometimes appear, hysterically, the week before you go on holiday. For example, the complete, new interactive catalogue for a brand new e-commerce site in fourteen languages that the MD wants to launch at the sales conference in two weeks. Piece of cake!!!
Before we go into M’s solution I just wanted to flag up this Alert! More consultspeak. You may well have been wooed with the idea that you ‘should break these big projects into smaller projects, that you really can ‘eat an elephant, if you do it one piece at a time’ or that ‘epic journeys start with one step’. OK, that’s fine I get that. The fact is though that you will still have to eat some pretty unsavoury bits of an elephant that frankly make the bush-tucker trials look like a picnic. (Which, agreed, to some extent it is). So, and I agree with Melissa here, you should be thinking of ways to make the unsavoury bits more user friendly. Maybe share that task with a friend or colleague. Or better still, delegate.
The Pass the Buck technique only works, of course, if there is actually somebody to delegate to. You may well be looking down from your heady heights at a responsibility vacuum. The clue for you here that this strategy won’t work for you is when you realise that you don’t actually have to appraise anybody yourself.
Or, you could try to do it in a different way, in another environment. Like brainstorming at Starbucks and wash it down with a Caramel Machiatto to get rid of the taste.
Speaking of which, that reminds me, I notice that beverage replenishment is fast approaching on my mental to do list. Now if I could only find my filofax, make sure my PowerBook is charged up and my PDA is synced I’ll be in complete control of my appointments, contacts and list and able to work on the run. I’ll be off but before I do I will leave you to ponder this.
In the words of Melissa. ‘The knot in the hanky of life is there to simply to remind you. It won’t do it for you. Getting your thumb from out of your arse will always help’. Thanks Melissa. Hold on a sec, was she talking about me? Must add doing a to do list on to my to do list.
The Raindancer©2006
If I hear another person say to me, ‘You have to work smarter not harder’ I may loose the plot. It’s the sort of consultant speak sound bite that wrankles to the core of my bone marrow. This is not just because everyone uses it; it’s become a consultant karaoke song, like 'Imagineering' or 'lean manufacturing' or 'just in time'. Urgh! Even simple act of just writing that the phrase down gives me that squirmy goose bumps feeling. Because, as a piece of advice, it is sooo utterly useless.
If I was smarter I wouldn’t have to work harder now would I?
I’d love the time to get smarter. To be ultra efficient, successful, smug. It can’t be that hard. I mean look at that dingbat competitor down the road. He's playing golf everyday and was in the bottom set for maths!
‘What you need’ the life coaches and mentors say,’ is to take control of your 'to do' list’. It’s a start I suppose, and I take their point but for a start, exactly which list are they talking about here? Is it the one I have on my Windows Outlook that I started in the airport departure lounge in a fit of organisational sobriety while I had nothing better to do? Would this be very same task list that I’ve forgotten to update or delete the items I actually did remember to do that pops up with those annoying reminders every time I open my e-mail?
Or, perhaps they mean the list on that piece of paper in the hole thingy where you put stuff so it doesn’t disappear into the foot well while your testing your cars ABS. Under the sticky stack of car parking tickets?
Or, possibly the list stuck under the magnet on the fridge beneath the pizza delivery number and the invitation to a swimming party. Excuse me while I go off at a tangent here, just because I can - Those invites say ‘Adults are welcome.….welcome to do what exactly? To turn pale blue and stand around catching veroukas’ in last years all too snug swimsuit, trying not to look at cleavage or caesarean scars while you try to suck it in to the point of hyperventilation- Mental note to self. Book tanning session at gym before aforesaid party. Membership should be used for something. Better put it on the to-do list.
There must be some way of organising our lives better. I mean if we can put man on the moon and crash a beagle into Mars surely we can have bash at some personal organisation?
Frankly, I’ve got no tips to offer personally. I could try to delude myself that I am sort of guru or practitioner in the art of time management. But numerous editors and colleagues will gleefully attest to by deficiencies in this area. Frankly, finding this article on my to do list was a bit of a surprise and completing it almost a herculananeum task. Whenever, by some chance of fate, I do actually remember what the knot in my hanky is actually tied to remind me to do, I have to lie down in a dark room with a wet towel on my head to recover from the shock.. But, I know a man, or in this case a women, (why isn’t that so surprising?) who really knows about this stuff. She is one of those adorable American woman who can run a law case in three cities, solve a murder, referee her kids softball game and figure out how to print out her spreadsheets so that they fit on just one piece of paper and maintain readability without optical aids, all on the same day…and then even has the time to share with you on her life coaching blog site her daily dose of self courage and motivational adrenalin while casually throwing in the fact that she has today, a well as qualifying as an airline pilot, won the high school moms home baked cookies competition. She is Oprah on speed…
So I asked Melissa.
Melissa’s tip number one is to use paper, don’t make digital to do lists on your computer or electronic devices. Now before I get the tree conservationists rounding on me, and rightly so, I probably will need to remind the readers that even though they, and they know who I am talking about, will probably input all the relevant information into the ether of their hard disk, more than likely than not they will probably only print a list out anyway. This will take up three lines on a piece of paper in the corner and then they will stick it in their filofax or under a pile of papers and loose it. The paperless office is just a mirage. [Interesting side note here. Just read a pamphlet on the paperless office. Did the irony get lost somewhere?].
The advantage of using paper is that you may use both sides, which will probably be really useful as you have run out paper anyway as you didn’t put ‘getting more printer paper’ on your to do list. The technophiliacs amongst us, meaning you, may well be using a spreadsheet to help you. Now this is fine but, if this is the case, my advice to you is that you and your Excel really should really be getting out more often. I used to work at a company (in fact most of them) where Excel was seen as some sort of light sabre for the Jedi management classes, where management prowess was judged by your manipulative skills of spreadsheet dynamics. It was not uncommon to see a droop (Collective noun) of managers peering intently over a screen of grids with numbers in hushed conversations about what the benefits of a ‘pivot table’ in this application could be. (See, I know the jargon at least)
But that’s another story, for another time. Paper to me is so err …substantial. There is something oddly alluring in experiencing the pleasure of scribbling in the margin and that thoroughly satisfying feeling you get when crossing something off the list. It is the same feeling you get when watching the Sunday afternoon films after your mum’s Sunday dinner and the dishwasher is on its cycle. I know its pathetic but these are small battles won-.
Somehow, if it is on paper, you feel you own it, its personal. Digital is antiseptic. Maybe it one of these left side, right side brain things, a psychologist somewhere will undoubtedly have a word for it. Like your pump bag at school, it may be embarrassing but it is yours and if anyone nicks it you will cry. If you ‘own’ it, you are more likely to take an interest in it and actually do something about it.
M’s next world shattering point knocked me bandy. Well there were several she mentioned actually but I want to build up the excitement. She asked me to ask myself, or you this question. Should the item even be on your to do list? Does it actually need to be done? What would happen if you didn’t do it? Would the sky fall on your head? Should somebody else be doing it? If not, why not?
I felt a wave of feng shui flow through my nether regions. Here was a new personal mantra. I was aligned! And then she gave me a new chant. Only ever put three things on your to do list. Wow there, mister! Three? Really? But, she added, keep two lists; I knew there was a catch. Apparently you have to have two lists, one in the back of your filonotethingybook, and one in the front. You move things to the front only when they have to be done. Now this is radical stuff. But it makes sense. I can cope with about three things at a time, anymore and I get sidetracked and end up not finishing anything. I can hear the sound of heads being slapped across the Kingdom. There is nothing common about common sense is there? We just need to be reminded about it once in while. Pity it has to be by an American.
My friend also told me to tell you that say if you do something for 21 days you will develop the action into a habit. For most of us getting past 21 minutes is tough enough. There are so many more interesting things to distract us. Like the satellite remote control or putting the kettle on. Not necessarily to make a drink, just put it on and forget you have.
By now light bulbs were popping on in my head like a deserted fairground and a kid with a catapult and grudge but we haven’t finished yet.
Don’t open your e-mail box before you look at the to-do list. E-mail and to do lists are non-compatible. Like olive oil and gravel. Didn’t Bill and his buddies realise this when they wrote Outlook. It is some unwritten law, at least I’ve never seen it in any operations manual, that the reading and the replyment thereof of the new e-mails of the day shall take preference over all life processes in the Universe, even it is only from your mate discussing the lamentable merits of LUFC’s 4:3:3 system. As soon as you hit your mail inbox your intentions to tackle your tasks, keenly honed on the commute to work, are gone like a leaf on the breeze. Take a deep breath and be brave! The World will not collapse into a black hole if you don’t look at your e-mails for ten minutes. Honest Injun!
Finally, two gems Melissa thought we should share in the spirit of sharing and caring as her 'Blogyourwaytolove' web site puts it.
Firstly, prioritise the list, even the three things you have on it. OK, so that is pretty obvious but some tasks are always much more important, relatively. An air traffic controller’s to do list- example, item 3. Must get the other plane to change altitude and course in the next er.. five seconds, has a smidgen more urgency than say, putting together a budget for indoor plant decorations.
How to prioritise though? That’s easy. Number one priority every time, is the completion of task on the list that is going to make my boss look good? After that, really just take a pin.
Mel's last tip was how to deal with the big items that sometimes appear, hysterically, the week before you go on holiday. For example, the complete, new interactive catalogue for a brand new e-commerce site in fourteen languages that the MD wants to launch at the sales conference in two weeks. Piece of cake!!!
Before we go into M’s solution I just wanted to flag up this Alert! More consultspeak. You may well have been wooed with the idea that you ‘should break these big projects into smaller projects, that you really can ‘eat an elephant, if you do it one piece at a time’ or that ‘epic journeys start with one step’. OK, that’s fine I get that. The fact is though that you will still have to eat some pretty unsavoury bits of an elephant that frankly make the bush-tucker trials look like a picnic. (Which, agreed, to some extent it is). So, and I agree with Melissa here, you should be thinking of ways to make the unsavoury bits more user friendly. Maybe share that task with a friend or colleague. Or better still, delegate.
The Pass the Buck technique only works, of course, if there is actually somebody to delegate to. You may well be looking down from your heady heights at a responsibility vacuum. The clue for you here that this strategy won’t work for you is when you realise that you don’t actually have to appraise anybody yourself.
Or, you could try to do it in a different way, in another environment. Like brainstorming at Starbucks and wash it down with a Caramel Machiatto to get rid of the taste.
Speaking of which, that reminds me, I notice that beverage replenishment is fast approaching on my mental to do list. Now if I could only find my filofax, make sure my PowerBook is charged up and my PDA is synced I’ll be in complete control of my appointments, contacts and list and able to work on the run. I’ll be off but before I do I will leave you to ponder this.
In the words of Melissa. ‘The knot in the hanky of life is there to simply to remind you. It won’t do it for you. Getting your thumb from out of your arse will always help’. Thanks Melissa. Hold on a sec, was she talking about me? Must add doing a to do list on to my to do list.
The Raindancer©2006
Newsletter or snoozeletter?
I’ve been advising a client of mine over the last few weeks regarding their self produced newsletter. This is always tricky.
I’m usually pretty kind and will try not to call a person’s baby ugly but sometimes you just have to tell it like it is. Anyone can, and often will, delight in telling you what is wrong but if you want to have any crediblity and be taken seriously you also have to be able to suggest a practical solution. Unlike their previous consultant's proposal, our solution doesn't require re-capitalising the company, whole scale business card reprinting or reinventing the market. That is always a good place to start I find.
We pulled it to pieces as courteously and with as much diplomacy as we could but we didn’t pull our punches; we sent off our observations, held our collective breath and waited for the fallout. The MD rang us up and said that the marketing manager, his sister, (Sound of penny dropping) was going on maternity leave, could we talk? Now they could have taken their bat and ball home and in some instances in the past, and probably in the future too, they will. I’d far rather we both understood each other from the outset. Sometimes taking a thorn out a paw has been a delicate but necessary start to some of my best relationships with clients. My worst clients have been those were, primarily for pragmatic economic reasons at the time, we didn’t say what we really and completely thought during the getting to know each other phase. Those contracts, however silver lined they appeared at the time, have never made us any profit but then everyone is blessed with 20/20 hindsight.
The vast majority of our clients, just don't understand the true potential of a great email newsletter. Or conversely, the real down sides, and negative effect if you get it wrong.
In the early days of the web, there were some wonderful, informative, interesting newsletters. There still are some shining examples. Now, more and more newsletters have become little more than graphic designers strutting their stuff...with small snippets of incomplete content, accompanied by links through to an accompanying web site. They compound the problem by being self obsessed, WWD (What we do) missives, a woefully disguised sales pitch often with a misleading title that really gets your pip when you open it to find it vacuous, irrelevant or patronizing. You may as well try to disguise a whale by putting hat on it. The result? The newsletters themselves are boring, not useful, often irrelevant, not really satisfying...and destined for the junk folder and your company to oblivion. Well maybe not quite that far but certainly off the man’s radar.
Why it makes sense to deliver complete content in your newsletter?
A good newsletter builds respect and trust. Think of the newsletters to which you have subscribed for a year or more. You keep reading them for a reason. Because they are worth the time spent. And each time you read a new issue, your respect for the company or organization behind it deepens a little bit more. Meanwhile, more and more of the "drive them through to the web site" newsletters, with teaser content and onward links, lose our attention. The only way to make sure your newsletter is consistently opened is to make it WORTH opening. Complete Content newsletters are a long-term asset and should have investment and maintenance. The hard part for marketers is to resist the temptation to maximize short-term click-throughs. It may make their monthly report look good for the boss, but it doesn’t quite tell the whole story. For a variety of reasons we may find ourselves under pressure to use the newsletter to drive as many people as possible through to our sites. It's an understandable aim, but you need to find a balance that won't diminish the value of the newsletter itself, keep it fresh and running at top speed. This ‘salesman’ is potentially talking to thousands of customers. You would get pretty miffed, probably apoplectic if one of your sales team said or did some thing to ruin your relationship with your customers but thousands of company let their newsletter do this, without knowing it. As a potential customer I am really not that bothered that you have a new contract with Mr SillySod plc , or that you have a new Sales director. I want to know how you can solve MY problem, not my competitors.
What makes a good or even great newsletter?
1. Deliver complete content within the body of the newsletter, with optional links to your own site or other sites. In other words, links should be included as a choice for readers who want to explore further, not as a condition of experiencing the full content.
2. Take the long-term view.
Don't measure the success of your newsletter by short-term metrics. And don't keep changing it in search of incremental improvements in click-through rates. When you start doing that, you are on the road to transforming your newsletter into a promotional salesmail, where content is included simply as a hook, and not for its inherent value.
3. Maintain a consistent theme, tone and format.
The newsletters that keep the attention of their readers, year after year, are those that remain familiar in terms of the voice of the editor, the theme of the content and the format of the newsletter itself. Why? Because your readers are extremely sensitive to changes in their favorite newsletters. They don't like unexpected shifts in voice and content. And as many publishers have found out the hard way, subscribers hate it when text newsletters are changed to an HTML format, or when an HTML newsletter undergoes a big change in design.
And finally….. I think the essence of producing a valuable newsletter is never to lose sight of the long view. Don’t think in terms of weeks or months, but next year Make sure you deliver real value with each issue, and that means including complete content within the body of each issue.
Finally, don't let short-term metrics divert you from your long-term goal. Building long-term readership and loyalty takes time, a lot of time. The rewards however are far more lucrative and long term.
Consistency breeds familiarity. It works.
Raindancer Copyright 2006
I’m usually pretty kind and will try not to call a person’s baby ugly but sometimes you just have to tell it like it is. Anyone can, and often will, delight in telling you what is wrong but if you want to have any crediblity and be taken seriously you also have to be able to suggest a practical solution. Unlike their previous consultant's proposal, our solution doesn't require re-capitalising the company, whole scale business card reprinting or reinventing the market. That is always a good place to start I find.
We pulled it to pieces as courteously and with as much diplomacy as we could but we didn’t pull our punches; we sent off our observations, held our collective breath and waited for the fallout. The MD rang us up and said that the marketing manager, his sister, (Sound of penny dropping) was going on maternity leave, could we talk? Now they could have taken their bat and ball home and in some instances in the past, and probably in the future too, they will. I’d far rather we both understood each other from the outset. Sometimes taking a thorn out a paw has been a delicate but necessary start to some of my best relationships with clients. My worst clients have been those were, primarily for pragmatic economic reasons at the time, we didn’t say what we really and completely thought during the getting to know each other phase. Those contracts, however silver lined they appeared at the time, have never made us any profit but then everyone is blessed with 20/20 hindsight.
The vast majority of our clients, just don't understand the true potential of a great email newsletter. Or conversely, the real down sides, and negative effect if you get it wrong.
In the early days of the web, there were some wonderful, informative, interesting newsletters. There still are some shining examples. Now, more and more newsletters have become little more than graphic designers strutting their stuff...with small snippets of incomplete content, accompanied by links through to an accompanying web site. They compound the problem by being self obsessed, WWD (What we do) missives, a woefully disguised sales pitch often with a misleading title that really gets your pip when you open it to find it vacuous, irrelevant or patronizing. You may as well try to disguise a whale by putting hat on it. The result? The newsletters themselves are boring, not useful, often irrelevant, not really satisfying...and destined for the junk folder and your company to oblivion. Well maybe not quite that far but certainly off the man’s radar.
Why it makes sense to deliver complete content in your newsletter?
A good newsletter builds respect and trust. Think of the newsletters to which you have subscribed for a year or more. You keep reading them for a reason. Because they are worth the time spent. And each time you read a new issue, your respect for the company or organization behind it deepens a little bit more. Meanwhile, more and more of the "drive them through to the web site" newsletters, with teaser content and onward links, lose our attention. The only way to make sure your newsletter is consistently opened is to make it WORTH opening. Complete Content newsletters are a long-term asset and should have investment and maintenance. The hard part for marketers is to resist the temptation to maximize short-term click-throughs. It may make their monthly report look good for the boss, but it doesn’t quite tell the whole story. For a variety of reasons we may find ourselves under pressure to use the newsletter to drive as many people as possible through to our sites. It's an understandable aim, but you need to find a balance that won't diminish the value of the newsletter itself, keep it fresh and running at top speed. This ‘salesman’ is potentially talking to thousands of customers. You would get pretty miffed, probably apoplectic if one of your sales team said or did some thing to ruin your relationship with your customers but thousands of company let their newsletter do this, without knowing it. As a potential customer I am really not that bothered that you have a new contract with Mr SillySod plc , or that you have a new Sales director. I want to know how you can solve MY problem, not my competitors.
What makes a good or even great newsletter?
1. Deliver complete content within the body of the newsletter, with optional links to your own site or other sites. In other words, links should be included as a choice for readers who want to explore further, not as a condition of experiencing the full content.
2. Take the long-term view.
Don't measure the success of your newsletter by short-term metrics. And don't keep changing it in search of incremental improvements in click-through rates. When you start doing that, you are on the road to transforming your newsletter into a promotional salesmail, where content is included simply as a hook, and not for its inherent value.
3. Maintain a consistent theme, tone and format.
The newsletters that keep the attention of their readers, year after year, are those that remain familiar in terms of the voice of the editor, the theme of the content and the format of the newsletter itself. Why? Because your readers are extremely sensitive to changes in their favorite newsletters. They don't like unexpected shifts in voice and content. And as many publishers have found out the hard way, subscribers hate it when text newsletters are changed to an HTML format, or when an HTML newsletter undergoes a big change in design.
And finally….. I think the essence of producing a valuable newsletter is never to lose sight of the long view. Don’t think in terms of weeks or months, but next year Make sure you deliver real value with each issue, and that means including complete content within the body of each issue.
Finally, don't let short-term metrics divert you from your long-term goal. Building long-term readership and loyalty takes time, a lot of time. The rewards however are far more lucrative and long term.
Consistency breeds familiarity. It works.
Raindancer Copyright 2006
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
So... you thought You were having a bad day?
So, you thought you were having a bad day?
We all have them. Dealing with the poor payer, a client who just doesn’t ‘get it’ and never will. A technical problem that you just can’t work around and the onlyguy who can sort it out is in a meeting (on the golf course). It’s what business is about after all, crisis management. If everything went OK and all of our customers were perfect we wouldn’t have a job now would we? And it wouldn't be half as much fun.
But, if today happens to be one of those days, spare a thought for one of my heroes. For those of you who know me you will be aware, as I’ve probably bored you to tears, that my big interest is the History of Science. The subject is filled with an unending list of people of passion trying to deliver an idea exhibiting degrees of obsession and drive that which make most of us look like the simpering wimps we largely are. Me, especially, included.
Scientific endeavour has as many courageous and determined participants as any field of human activity. Probably more. For me they serve as a constant reminder and make me truly appreciate that the entrepreneurial ‘risks’ we take are, in the grand scheme of things, are, as mothers often say 'not worth worrying about'.
I started my a career as a cartographer so it won’t surprise you, armed with that little snippet, to learn that the people who fascinate me most are those who mapped the world, dressed in tweed and canvas; who waved goodbye to their loved ones and cheerily disappeared into the undergrowth of a Continent. Not just for a month or two but in some cases for a generation.
So, if you ever feel the sphincter muscle of fear contracting or you think you have a ‘problem’ spare a thought for just one of this merry band.
The story takes place in the late 1700’s. One of the major challenges facing the intelligentsia ( Did i spell that right) in their drawing rooms was to figure out just how big and what shape this piece of rock were are hurtling through space on actually is. Not for the least reason so that the people who did want to have a look around other parts of it could find their way back home. One of the basic gaps of knowledge that had to be filled was to work our just how far we were away from the Sun. To do this they decided to use the astronomical phenomenon of the Transit of Venus. Something which happens about once in a blue moon but not quite as rare event as a politicians apology. Fortunately one such Transit was on the horizon, if you will excuse the pun. The plan was to dispatch people to different parts of the World; observe the transit at the same time, measuring angles and azimuths and such like and from the trigonometry they would, somehow- although I think I missed that particular maths lesson- be able to work it all out. This was the first truly international scientific project, 60 teams from eight countries sent off to the furthest flung outposts of the known World. And what was known at the time, wasn’t really that much.
Not surprisingly perhaps, the task was beset by problems; Not just of the airline, ‘loosing your bags' kind of problem but slightly more dramatic; shipwrecks, pirates, disease, mauling by wild animals, the odd war. All the participants obviously had their own adventures and stories but my particular favourite of these intrepid souls is one Gulliame le Gentil. Or ‘Bill ’ as we know him in our house.
A year before the transit Bill was sent out from France, his target was a observation site in India. He probably thought that this would be one of the easier venues to reach. He certainly had one drawn one of the longer straws compared to some of the spots that had been allocated. Siberia and the Middle of Wisconsin being the pick of the away days. But, due to a number of delays, I’m guessing possibly palm leaves on the line or the late arrival of an inbound brigand, on the day of the transit, he was still aboard his ship in the Indian ocean, unable to take observations the crticla observations from the bobbing platform. He could see it, just not do anything about it.
Now most of us would have given up at this time but not Monsieur Billy. Oh no. Presumably he didn’t fancy the return trip because he decided to wait and observe the next transit- eight years later. Which isn't quite the same as heroically queuing for Wimbledon tickets all night. The 4th June 1769 dawned with a clear blue sky. But for the whole duration of the 3 hour transit one solitary cloud appeared out of nowhere and blocked the view.
Le Gentil, I like to think probably muttering a few expletives or maybe gave just a gallic shrug, decided enough was enough and set off for the nearest port only to contract dysentery which laid him up for another year.
He arrived home eleven and half years after leaving and achieving pretty well nada to find he had been declared dead by his nearest and dearest; all his possessions and property had been distributed with enthusiasm amongst them. Maybe there was a note saying dinner was in the oven. We don’t hear a lot of him after that.
Other possibly more famous names were involved in the Project too. Mason and Dixon, before their four year sojourn into the New World to draw a line, where given the Sumatra straw- but they never actually arrived, having been attacked and caught up in a small war with the French. Who, scientifically at least, were supposed to be on the same side. In fact the whole project was a bit of a failure all around. When the results came in there were just too many readings with too many differences to make mathematical sense. For the mildly curious, as I am sure you are by now, the problem was eventually settled by one James Cook, former resident of my home county. His observations of the next transit ten years later in Tahiti, (Now there is a gig) gave enough good information for another Frenchman, Lalande to calculate that our mean distance from the Sun is 150 million miles, give or take little bit.
I recounted this story to a group of school children, whose first question was ‘what they did it for?’. 225 years later their work is brought into relevance as mankind faces one of its biggest challenges yet, that of Global Warming. There are hundreds of people whose exertions, (If ever is ever there is a word which understates their achevements that is it), have contributed to the body of work, many of whom literally gave their life to obtain this knowledge and provide us the fundamental information. Knowledge which allowed us to measure and map the world. And now allows us to detect and measure and predict the changes it will undergo.
We take for granted that we can now map the planet in an instant, and then bitch and moan when our GPS system fails to tell us tell us that the road we are trying to go up in our air-conditioned ipod on wheels is actually a one way street.
Makes you think doesn’t it!
Now, hopefully, have a better day!
Copyright 2006 Raindancer
We all have them. Dealing with the poor payer, a client who just doesn’t ‘get it’ and never will. A technical problem that you just can’t work around and the onlyguy who can sort it out is in a meeting (on the golf course). It’s what business is about after all, crisis management. If everything went OK and all of our customers were perfect we wouldn’t have a job now would we? And it wouldn't be half as much fun.
But, if today happens to be one of those days, spare a thought for one of my heroes. For those of you who know me you will be aware, as I’ve probably bored you to tears, that my big interest is the History of Science. The subject is filled with an unending list of people of passion trying to deliver an idea exhibiting degrees of obsession and drive that which make most of us look like the simpering wimps we largely are. Me, especially, included.
Scientific endeavour has as many courageous and determined participants as any field of human activity. Probably more. For me they serve as a constant reminder and make me truly appreciate that the entrepreneurial ‘risks’ we take are, in the grand scheme of things, are, as mothers often say 'not worth worrying about'.
I started my a career as a cartographer so it won’t surprise you, armed with that little snippet, to learn that the people who fascinate me most are those who mapped the world, dressed in tweed and canvas; who waved goodbye to their loved ones and cheerily disappeared into the undergrowth of a Continent. Not just for a month or two but in some cases for a generation.
So, if you ever feel the sphincter muscle of fear contracting or you think you have a ‘problem’ spare a thought for just one of this merry band.
The story takes place in the late 1700’s. One of the major challenges facing the intelligentsia ( Did i spell that right) in their drawing rooms was to figure out just how big and what shape this piece of rock were are hurtling through space on actually is. Not for the least reason so that the people who did want to have a look around other parts of it could find their way back home. One of the basic gaps of knowledge that had to be filled was to work our just how far we were away from the Sun. To do this they decided to use the astronomical phenomenon of the Transit of Venus. Something which happens about once in a blue moon but not quite as rare event as a politicians apology. Fortunately one such Transit was on the horizon, if you will excuse the pun. The plan was to dispatch people to different parts of the World; observe the transit at the same time, measuring angles and azimuths and such like and from the trigonometry they would, somehow- although I think I missed that particular maths lesson- be able to work it all out. This was the first truly international scientific project, 60 teams from eight countries sent off to the furthest flung outposts of the known World. And what was known at the time, wasn’t really that much.
Not surprisingly perhaps, the task was beset by problems; Not just of the airline, ‘loosing your bags' kind of problem but slightly more dramatic; shipwrecks, pirates, disease, mauling by wild animals, the odd war. All the participants obviously had their own adventures and stories but my particular favourite of these intrepid souls is one Gulliame le Gentil. Or ‘Bill ’ as we know him in our house.
A year before the transit Bill was sent out from France, his target was a observation site in India. He probably thought that this would be one of the easier venues to reach. He certainly had one drawn one of the longer straws compared to some of the spots that had been allocated. Siberia and the Middle of Wisconsin being the pick of the away days. But, due to a number of delays, I’m guessing possibly palm leaves on the line or the late arrival of an inbound brigand, on the day of the transit, he was still aboard his ship in the Indian ocean, unable to take observations the crticla observations from the bobbing platform. He could see it, just not do anything about it.
Now most of us would have given up at this time but not Monsieur Billy. Oh no. Presumably he didn’t fancy the return trip because he decided to wait and observe the next transit- eight years later. Which isn't quite the same as heroically queuing for Wimbledon tickets all night. The 4th June 1769 dawned with a clear blue sky. But for the whole duration of the 3 hour transit one solitary cloud appeared out of nowhere and blocked the view.
Le Gentil, I like to think probably muttering a few expletives or maybe gave just a gallic shrug, decided enough was enough and set off for the nearest port only to contract dysentery which laid him up for another year.
He arrived home eleven and half years after leaving and achieving pretty well nada to find he had been declared dead by his nearest and dearest; all his possessions and property had been distributed with enthusiasm amongst them. Maybe there was a note saying dinner was in the oven. We don’t hear a lot of him after that.
Other possibly more famous names were involved in the Project too. Mason and Dixon, before their four year sojourn into the New World to draw a line, where given the Sumatra straw- but they never actually arrived, having been attacked and caught up in a small war with the French. Who, scientifically at least, were supposed to be on the same side. In fact the whole project was a bit of a failure all around. When the results came in there were just too many readings with too many differences to make mathematical sense. For the mildly curious, as I am sure you are by now, the problem was eventually settled by one James Cook, former resident of my home county. His observations of the next transit ten years later in Tahiti, (Now there is a gig) gave enough good information for another Frenchman, Lalande to calculate that our mean distance from the Sun is 150 million miles, give or take little bit.
I recounted this story to a group of school children, whose first question was ‘what they did it for?’. 225 years later their work is brought into relevance as mankind faces one of its biggest challenges yet, that of Global Warming. There are hundreds of people whose exertions, (If ever is ever there is a word which understates their achevements that is it), have contributed to the body of work, many of whom literally gave their life to obtain this knowledge and provide us the fundamental information. Knowledge which allowed us to measure and map the world. And now allows us to detect and measure and predict the changes it will undergo.
We take for granted that we can now map the planet in an instant, and then bitch and moan when our GPS system fails to tell us tell us that the road we are trying to go up in our air-conditioned ipod on wheels is actually a one way street.
Makes you think doesn’t it!
Now, hopefully, have a better day!
Copyright 2006 Raindancer
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Thanks to Creative PR
My thanks to Andy Green at GreenComms and author of 'Creative PR' for coming up with the tag line. I had the words, just didnt know how to say it. That's creative PR for you I guess.
This man gets it!
You can check Andy and his company out at www.greencomms.com
Cheers
This man gets it!
You can check Andy and his company out at www.greencomms.com
Cheers
The Breeze in the Bottle
I don’t know one CEO who would say that innovation wasn’t in the top five priorities for his company. I don’t know one government organisation who wouldn’t agree that the fostering of innovation and creativity wasn’t at the core of any economic or social development strategy. As the manufacturers across the globe struggle with new competition, drive down costs, increase gross profit and retain their customers never has innovation be more keenly persued. Nor, and plumbing increasing depths of irony here, has it been allowed to fall so easily through the cracks. We are a kargely karaoke marketers, poor impersonators of the true stars- the predominant sound we can hear is the creak of bandwagons rolling over the end of cliffs. We yearn for the idea which will differentiate, to be different, to stand out from the crowd. Probably the worst insult you can level today would be to describe an individual or a company as boring, or predictable.
'.....the sound of bandwagons rolling off a cliff'
It is not just about self and corporate esteem but its also about pragmatism too.
The numbers add up
Here’s a thought for you to bear in mind if you are in anyway shape or form responsible for investment, education, finance, research, industry or, bless them, those lost in the corridors of politics. The average ROI on capital investment typically is about 8-10%. The capital return on innovation, (provided you have an innovation management system in place), is on average over 30%.
That’s the conclusion of a major study by the Harvard Business School not some plonker up in Yorkshire beating on his drum again. This is the reason that Sweden, who have a population of one eighth of the UK, actually have a higher national manufacturing output than the UK and Ireland put together.
You can throw extra weight with the innumerable research studies which unequivocally prove that the enhancement of a creative culture in any organisation increases the well being, health, employee retention, and, getting back to the bottom line again, efficiency. of any orgainsition. But then I’m guessing, like me, you are growing slightly weary of being told the obvious. It is one of those things we would all like to invest tiem and money in, but frankly how do we do it? The key, of course, as the academics at HBS tell us, is the active management of the innovation process, and the system that will develop and encourage the positive energies of a company in creativity, provding workable solutions, in simply,innovation.
Innovation is not simply about the glory boys in new product development. It applies to every process, in every department, in Human Resources, in training, in customer support. Innovations, which enhance the relationship with the customers or allow the development of the products and service more profitably for the benefit of employees and shareholders.
You can’t just rely on the odd brainstorming session and a staff suggestion schemes; that will not answer all your prayers.
But maybe something esle will?
We are really excited to be launching The Breeze In A Bottle. Our New DIGITAL magazine, podcast, blog and website. The first truly International Creativity resource for the rest of us.
This is the realisation of a dream for us. The culmination of over 20 years of research, teaching and implementing innovation strategies, of experiences and best practice gathered from companies large and small, institutions, NPO’s and NGO’s from Europe, North America and Asia.
In forthcoming issues and regular features:
• Get your staff excited without driving them mad.
• How to make your boss look good
• Ideation
• Training and creative thinking
• The Management of Innovation
• Methodological problem solving, TRIZ and ASIT
• IP asset management
• Patent protection and enhancement
• ‘Knowledgement’, the management of the knowledge base.
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• The management of culture change
• Cross culture creativity
This isn’t just about us or simply one point of view. One thing we have learned is the best ideas generally come from somebody else!
We have already secured contributions from some of the leading names in innovation, with dozens of interviews and commissioned articles for broadcast over the next year. We are thrilled to have some internationally recognised names and world leaders as contributors who have kindly agreed to help us spread the word.
July 1 2006 we are launching a weekly podcast, 30 minutes abstracts of the latest and best ideas of innovation and its management. So you can listen on your MP3 on your commute, while mowing the lawn, doing the ironing- I listen to mine while ‘reading the paper’- At last you have a reason for legitimately putting your Ipod on expenses.
Drop me a line if you need the details
Despite advice from our accountant we do not take advertising, our income arises from the meagre subscription we request after the first trail issue. This basically covers the editorial coffee bill. Being entirely up front, we obviously do not this just for the good of our health but to promote our speaking and in house training services. Hopefully you will see that we do know what we are talking about.
Look out for us on 01.06.06.
Copyright 2006 The Raindancer
'.....the sound of bandwagons rolling off a cliff'
It is not just about self and corporate esteem but its also about pragmatism too.
The numbers add up
Here’s a thought for you to bear in mind if you are in anyway shape or form responsible for investment, education, finance, research, industry or, bless them, those lost in the corridors of politics. The average ROI on capital investment typically is about 8-10%. The capital return on innovation, (provided you have an innovation management system in place), is on average over 30%.
That’s the conclusion of a major study by the Harvard Business School not some plonker up in Yorkshire beating on his drum again. This is the reason that Sweden, who have a population of one eighth of the UK, actually have a higher national manufacturing output than the UK and Ireland put together.
You can throw extra weight with the innumerable research studies which unequivocally prove that the enhancement of a creative culture in any organisation increases the well being, health, employee retention, and, getting back to the bottom line again, efficiency. of any orgainsition. But then I’m guessing, like me, you are growing slightly weary of being told the obvious. It is one of those things we would all like to invest tiem and money in, but frankly how do we do it? The key, of course, as the academics at HBS tell us, is the active management of the innovation process, and the system that will develop and encourage the positive energies of a company in creativity, provding workable solutions, in simply,innovation.
Innovation is not simply about the glory boys in new product development. It applies to every process, in every department, in Human Resources, in training, in customer support. Innovations, which enhance the relationship with the customers or allow the development of the products and service more profitably for the benefit of employees and shareholders.
You can’t just rely on the odd brainstorming session and a staff suggestion schemes; that will not answer all your prayers.
But maybe something esle will?
We are really excited to be launching The Breeze In A Bottle. Our New DIGITAL magazine, podcast, blog and website. The first truly International Creativity resource for the rest of us.
This is the realisation of a dream for us. The culmination of over 20 years of research, teaching and implementing innovation strategies, of experiences and best practice gathered from companies large and small, institutions, NPO’s and NGO’s from Europe, North America and Asia.
In forthcoming issues and regular features:
• Get your staff excited without driving them mad.
• How to make your boss look good
• Ideation
• Training and creative thinking
• The Management of Innovation
• Methodological problem solving, TRIZ and ASIT
• IP asset management
• Patent protection and enhancement
• ‘Knowledgement’, the management of the knowledge base.
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• The management of culture change
• Cross culture creativity
This isn’t just about us or simply one point of view. One thing we have learned is the best ideas generally come from somebody else!
We have already secured contributions from some of the leading names in innovation, with dozens of interviews and commissioned articles for broadcast over the next year. We are thrilled to have some internationally recognised names and world leaders as contributors who have kindly agreed to help us spread the word.
July 1 2006 we are launching a weekly podcast, 30 minutes abstracts of the latest and best ideas of innovation and its management. So you can listen on your MP3 on your commute, while mowing the lawn, doing the ironing- I listen to mine while ‘reading the paper’- At last you have a reason for legitimately putting your Ipod on expenses.
Drop me a line if you need the details
Despite advice from our accountant we do not take advertising, our income arises from the meagre subscription we request after the first trail issue. This basically covers the editorial coffee bill. Being entirely up front, we obviously do not this just for the good of our health but to promote our speaking and in house training services. Hopefully you will see that we do know what we are talking about.
Look out for us on 01.06.06.
Copyright 2006 The Raindancer
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
The greatest business myth?
One of the great myths about business is:
"Build a superior product, offer a superior service, and provide
elegant solution to difficult problems, and you will be successful."
It is a shame that the best talent, the groundbreaking work,
the technical superiority is in the field that is suffering the most
with the highest cutbacks, the slimmest of margins and lowest
of salaries.
Perhaps it is because (technology) is not a glamorous industry.
We don't make the Internet faster, or the seal.. er.. seal better.
We make machines work. We make turkey bags from 11 layers
of plastic film so people don't get sick from spoiled food. We make
bolts stronger so engines don't fall off airplanes. We make drugs
that cure diseases. And yet we earn some of the lowest salaries.
Consumers drive prices down, which drives costs down, which
drive overhead down, which drive salaries and benefits down.
To me, business currently means means that some of our smartest and most talented people. With key skills and experience developed in the manufacturing industries are spinning the wheels. I know talented project managers who are now selling carpets. My neighbour used to build sophisticated head-end servers - and he is now selling kitchens at B&Q. I’m sure they are very nice people at B&Q it's not what they want to do, it's not what they should be doing - so why are so many talented people having such a hard time?
Here's why:
What you can do and how good you are does not matter.
What matters is how well you COMMUNICATE what you do
and how good you are.
That is the difference. And you know it’s true. Everyone knows the person who has been promoted above their capabilities, who suffer delusions of competence, but they talk a damn good job and know exactly what noises they need to make to move them onwards and upwards.
Every year, tens of thousands of people invent, innovate
and create brilliant products, terrific solutions to truly perplexing
problems - only to find out that it's darn hard to raise money
for their new ventures, and even harder to get customers to
listen.
Most of the time those new products and services
die on the slag heap of great ideas that never saw the
light of day.
You don't want that to happen to your great idea.
So here's how to make sure it your idea doesn't prematurley expire:
Make sure that marketing, sales, advertising and PR is
the foremost priority in your new venture.
Even if you don't like Microsoft (they're not my favourite
company either, (I converted to mac several years ago and am still waiting for my first crash)), you MUST learn this lesson from them: They don't have the best software by any stretch of the imagination,
but they do have the best sales strategy. And in business,
It’s the sales strategy that wins, not the superior technology.
So if you're waking up every morning thinking about the
minute details of your cool product or service, please stop
and re-calibrate. Understand this:
1) Having a superior product is not necessarily an advantage,
and can even be a DISadvantage - because it can distract you
from the real objective, which is to GET and KEEP customers.
2) The product you develop is rarely the product your
customers want to buy. That's OK as long as you're listening and
flexible. But if you've already spent all your money perfecting
the product, then you won't have any left to respond to customer
feedback.
3) The product or service itself is, at most, maybe 25%
of the equation. Advertising, PR strategies, and real-world
market testing (as opposed to "market research", which is
usually just "opinion research") --- all of these things are
MORE important than the product.
4) Innovate, Don't Invent -- It's much easier to go into
an existing market and solve an existing problem with
a slightly improved, more interesting product (innovation)
than to create a product from scratch that solves a problem
people don't realize they have. That's goes along with my
principle of "enter the conversation inside the customer's
head." Align your self to your customers.
Back to my neighbour selling kitchens—nobody needs to suffer this fate. But don't underestimate the challenge: If you have superior talent, then the best investment you can make is in communicating that talent to the world -- clearly, effectively, and without fail.
The Raindancer 2006
"Build a superior product, offer a superior service, and provide
elegant solution to difficult problems, and you will be successful."
It is a shame that the best talent, the groundbreaking work,
the technical superiority is in the field that is suffering the most
with the highest cutbacks, the slimmest of margins and lowest
of salaries.
Perhaps it is because (technology) is not a glamorous industry.
We don't make the Internet faster, or the seal.. er.. seal better.
We make machines work. We make turkey bags from 11 layers
of plastic film so people don't get sick from spoiled food. We make
bolts stronger so engines don't fall off airplanes. We make drugs
that cure diseases. And yet we earn some of the lowest salaries.
Consumers drive prices down, which drives costs down, which
drive overhead down, which drive salaries and benefits down.
To me, business currently means means that some of our smartest and most talented people. With key skills and experience developed in the manufacturing industries are spinning the wheels. I know talented project managers who are now selling carpets. My neighbour used to build sophisticated head-end servers - and he is now selling kitchens at B&Q. I’m sure they are very nice people at B&Q it's not what they want to do, it's not what they should be doing - so why are so many talented people having such a hard time?
Here's why:
What you can do and how good you are does not matter.
What matters is how well you COMMUNICATE what you do
and how good you are.
That is the difference. And you know it’s true. Everyone knows the person who has been promoted above their capabilities, who suffer delusions of competence, but they talk a damn good job and know exactly what noises they need to make to move them onwards and upwards.
Every year, tens of thousands of people invent, innovate
and create brilliant products, terrific solutions to truly perplexing
problems - only to find out that it's darn hard to raise money
for their new ventures, and even harder to get customers to
listen.
Most of the time those new products and services
die on the slag heap of great ideas that never saw the
light of day.
You don't want that to happen to your great idea.
So here's how to make sure it your idea doesn't prematurley expire:
Make sure that marketing, sales, advertising and PR is
the foremost priority in your new venture.
Even if you don't like Microsoft (they're not my favourite
company either, (I converted to mac several years ago and am still waiting for my first crash)), you MUST learn this lesson from them: They don't have the best software by any stretch of the imagination,
but they do have the best sales strategy. And in business,
It’s the sales strategy that wins, not the superior technology.
So if you're waking up every morning thinking about the
minute details of your cool product or service, please stop
and re-calibrate. Understand this:
1) Having a superior product is not necessarily an advantage,
and can even be a DISadvantage - because it can distract you
from the real objective, which is to GET and KEEP customers.
2) The product you develop is rarely the product your
customers want to buy. That's OK as long as you're listening and
flexible. But if you've already spent all your money perfecting
the product, then you won't have any left to respond to customer
feedback.
3) The product or service itself is, at most, maybe 25%
of the equation. Advertising, PR strategies, and real-world
market testing (as opposed to "market research", which is
usually just "opinion research") --- all of these things are
MORE important than the product.
4) Innovate, Don't Invent -- It's much easier to go into
an existing market and solve an existing problem with
a slightly improved, more interesting product (innovation)
than to create a product from scratch that solves a problem
people don't realize they have. That's goes along with my
principle of "enter the conversation inside the customer's
head." Align your self to your customers.
Back to my neighbour selling kitchens—nobody needs to suffer this fate. But don't underestimate the challenge: If you have superior talent, then the best investment you can make is in communicating that talent to the world -- clearly, effectively, and without fail.
The Raindancer 2006
How to get an idea?
One of the questions I am often asked in seminars and by my clients is “how do you get your ideas?’
I’m glad you asked too. I’m just assuming this as presumably you are reading because as you are a little curious. Most of my rent is actually paid by providing the answer to that very question and showing people how they can plug into their own creativity.
For my sins I have always been endlessly curious, I always want to see what is on the other side of the hill and desperately avoid giving what I call “car key’ answers. You know that feeling of mild panic when you can't find your car keys? When you find them, you stop looking don't you? Most people answer questions in the same way and work on the basis that the first answer is the correct one. They don’t push on to look at the alternatives, the outlandish, the bizarre, the more creative solution. Some people are good at sport, singing, maths. I'm blessed, or cursed if you like, by being a thought nomad. My school reports didnt; ever suggest that this would actually be a good thing, but i can't complain and the journey it has taken me on and count myself lucky that it has allowed me to meet such an interesting bunch of people along the way.
This part of my persona has got me into trouble on several occasions, caused some amiable ( at least on my part) frictions with other colleagues who are content to paddle their canoe with everybody going in the same direction, at the same speed. There is nothing wrong with that. Its is comfortable. I’m just not comfortable with comfortable. It doesn’t float my boat. That's not to say I seek the uncomfortable for the sake of it. That would be daft and I’m not that. Bewildered and deluded maybe. My other fetishism is waste, wasted talent, wasted time, wasted opportunity. I’ve always struggled with the balancing act between the two. Sometimes you have travel up a dead end just so you and others don’t go there in the future. Ask Mr Edison( If you could). That my frustration is now my mission in life, ito show the people paddling the canoe how much fun it is, how rewarding and just how fulfilling getting out of their comfort zone is. Then they really would be able to exploit their talents and experiences and enjoy their 37 hours a week plus the commute. And take it home with them to their relatioships, their children, their hobbies.
I know for some people it seems insurmoutable. It is difficult to get the creative juices fully flowing. Our current educational system, seemingly at every stage, fails woefully to train us how to think sideways, upways or downways. It doesn’t help that in any creative process we are asking ourselves, and others, to move out of the comfort zone. You almost always have to move out of the canoe flotilla. Being out on your own, the fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of a whole bunch of stuff, can build mental barriers that are almost impossible to breach. But I firmly belie that anyone, and I mean anyone, even the most cynical sceptic, (providing they can fog up a mirror), can be trained how to be creative. No really... even accountants. You just have to know how to plug them in to the mains.
Not ever technique works in every circumstance. A case in point is the brainstorming session; one of the most used tools to effect creative thinking. Over twenty years in this business have failed to leave me convinced of their true effectiveness. I know they don’t work that well for me. Despite the fact that there may be a 'no judgment’ rule, in good brainstorming sessions anyway, you just know that at the next coffee break somebody will be whispering: "Did you hear what he said? How stupid is she?" They work for certain projects for certain groups, copywriting and ad campaigns come to mind, but only with a great facilitator and they are a rare bird indeed. I’ve lost count of the truly painful mind numbing sessions, that I;ve had to chew my tongue through,that have created enough flip charts to kill a small forest. They have their place but I’m not a fan for other more practical reasons too, there are much better techniques but we shall save that for later posting
My own trick, which seems to improve my personal ideation productivity at least initially, involves working alone. Not that I’m antisocial. Just the opposite actually, according to teh resluts of my latest character personality assasination/anaylsis questionaire. Please never put me in an open plan office if you want quick answers. My “place” is my study at home, I kick off my shoes and grab a very strong coffee and then pace about the room for an hour, or more, often all afternoon, humming. This foible, I find, tends to drive people mad in an open office. Others, I know, need a hot shower and to get dressed up, and , sad as this sounds I know, may even have to put a tie on! Some will drive a car, walk the dog, do the ironing, or jog. Mundane repetition has been show by psychologists, studying the bleeding obvious, to clear the brain; providing a sort of colonic irrigation for the head. Just a word to the wise here. Don’t, as a friend of mine did, ever suggest that the ironing would be 'therapeutic' for his partner and ‘free up her creative energies’ or you may find that a flying iron can leave a nasty mark.
There are lots of places and tricks we can use, and what works depends on individuals. Somethings we do unconciously are actually the triggers. I read in one academic paper that smells can do it too. Interesting to observe the test programme for that I think.
Over the fifteen years I worked in New Product development I’ve gathered a few tools along the way to help my colleagues and me smash through hurdles. There are a dozen or so techniques for fueling creative thinking, which I’ve found consistently work really well, but the first and most important part of any creativity exercise is figuring out what is the right question to ask in the first place.. The killer question as Phil McKiney calls it.
But how do you figure out what the key questions should be? Glad you asked.. again. One of the key tools that has consistently helped extract myself and my team out of a pile of whatever is a methodology called TRIZ, (This is pronounced ‘Trees’ by the way, I give you this information just so you don’t look like the clot I did for three years when you talk about it!) A Russian gentleman developed this technique about 50 years ago. He obviously had too much time on his hands, as he reviewed hundreds of thousands of patents looking for common threads. We must thank him sincerely (Through a medium) for his efforts though as Mr Altschuller identified 40 inventive principles. Along with these his matrix and contradictions principles form the basis of the key tools and have lead directly to some huge steps in technology I won't bore you with here. The current database has now reviewed over 2.5 million patents. If you want more information then google TRIZ after you have raed this and I’ll wake you up in the three months it takes you to read every paper written about it. It looks and is damn confusing when you start off, until some kidn soul takes you by the hand and shows you the way. Luckily for me I found one such person. It isn’t the most accessible of tools and, to be frank could do applying some of its own problem solving power to some creative self PR.
However, over the years it has been modified and simplified somewhat and developed into the systematic inventive system, a series of tools for those tricky problems, in new product development, problem solving, inventin and innovation. It is particularly effective at deveoping and strengthening patents. It has been getting a much higher profile with the CEO's as they can now more easily evaluate and develop their company's most valuable asset, its IP.
Although developed initially by and applied largely to engineering problems the same principles can be applied to any aspect of Marcoms, CRM, new product and service development and is even being applied to conflict resolution in the MIddle East and other theatres. Maybe Mr Blair and Mr Brown need some edification in its delights?
There are five key Tools to help you. Although the idea behind each Tool is quite simple (the Tool of Subtraction, for instance, simply asks that you subtract some element from an existing product), actually using the tool can be tough, since it requires that we think in new and unintuitive ways. That is the hard part. Our natural resistance to doing truly unintuitive things - moving outside our comfort zone- creates a mental obstacle, which makes it hard to get the most out of the Tools. To solve this problem, a set of Principles was devised which we use alongside the Tools. The Principles help the user of a tool get into right head place for using it and, hopefully, becoming more innovative. Unfortunately it is not a substitute for talent. It enhances those who have it, but it does often make those who may ordinarily struggle at least stand out from the crowd.
No point just talking about it. Let's see how it works in practice using one of the tools, the Tool of Subtraction, and the Principle that they call the Path of Most Resistance (PMR).
Imagine you're a mobile telephone manufacturer and you're trying to come up with a new product. What sort of innovations comes to mind?
Most, if not all, of your ideas probably involve either adding something to the phone, or enhancing a feature that already exists. Can you actually get a phone without a camera? At the risk of being accused or becoming one of the Grumpy Old Men I have to admit that this drives me slightly nuts when I go into one of my defence industry or R&D clients. For security reasons you often cant take your camera phone on site so you have even more forms to fill in and check outs and check ins often take longer than the meeting itself. I digress.
When we try to create things, our usual mindset is to add something to the existing product. It has to be faster, smaller, have more buttons, more functions - it's the easiest way to go about it, and we naturally follow the path of least resistance. To use the Tool of Subtraction - to take something away from the product - is not intuitive, and not as easy. It requires us to follow the Path of Most Resistance - to do the least intuitive, most uncomfortable thing - at least temporarily.
As we move forward, we continue to use the Tool and the Principle together. Let's start by subtracting what seems like the most essential element of a phone- the screen. We will most likely want to rush to replace the missing screen with something - a monitor, or LED, let's say. But since replacing the missing component is our intuitive response, and we're trying to follow the Path of Most Resistance, let's try, at least for the time being, to leave the screenless telephone as is. Let's ask ourselves if there could be any possible use for such a product. Well of course there is, they didn’t used to have screens until a few years ago anyway but then maybe we have forgotten and revisit some of the basics.
In fact, there are some interesting possibilities for our screenless telephone:
A communication and entertainment tool for the sight impaired
A telephone you can use just in the car
A phone you can take into secure areas, (yippee!) You know some libraries and museums are banning camera phones to protect copyright and pirate photocopying!
A low cost onsite telephone system for employees
A phone you can build into other appliances and equipment, or a car.
Sound far fetched? Wrong answer. If you are looking for a real example of reduction just look at the Motorola Razr phone. I’m not sure how true this but it is a story doing the rounds in innovation circles in the telecommunication business as I write. It was originally canned by the Motorola execs as they thought there wouldn’t be a market for a phone that had less functions than the competition. The only reason we, and seemingly every other body in the universe are walking around with them now is because one engineer ignored them, used his budget to rapid prototype in China and then presented it to the board only after he had shown it to two or three major potential carriers. I for one, can easily believe it. On a roll now, just applying one simple change took it into the stratosphere. Praise the soul who asked the next question “What if we make it pink? We will double the potential market”. Actually one of the 40 TRIZ inventive steps on your checklist is, 'change the colour'.
A product that may at first have seemed ludicrous turns out to have several uses.
The value of using a Principle like the Path of Most Resistance is that it forces us to think differently than we normally would. But you might have noticed that once we were pushed past our initial resistance, it was fairly easy to come up with uses for a screenless telephone. The Tool and the Principle working together make it easier to be innovative.
Let's return for a moment to our screenless telephone. If we continue to follow PMR, we can push this idea even further. Once we see that the product has potential users - the blind, the security conscious and drivers - we may want to consider how else those users can use the product. Will the driver, for example, use her screenless phone outside the car? Will the blind person's sighted family be able to enjoy it? Yes - but only if they can see, and not just hear, their programs. Which of course requires a screen. Our natural inclination might be to search for the best possible screen to which we could attach our screenless TV, but PMR will direct us to look for at solution that already exists in the product's immediate environment - like a PC. This can be the basis for a sort of PC TV, which is easy to implement by installing a card into the PC or plugging your phone into a laptop or the DVD TV player in your kitchen for wireless video streaming and video conferencing . Or….. you get the idea.
In this case, the user of Subtraction is guided by the PMR Principle, to maximize the tool's effect. Similarly, all the Principles support the use of any of the five tools. Just for fun I can tell you that the other tools are;
Attribute Dependency
Division
Multiplication
Task unification
But they are a whole other bag of monkeys! To be continued…
However, please don’t overlook the most important tool. What we in the innovation business call the ‘Idea Capture Device” but, you may know as simply a notebook. You never know when the idea will come and if you don’t write it down as soon as it arrives, you risk loosing it forever. At my last count I've got over 200 notebooks, but them I'm an idea Junkie.
Next Blog issue, "capturing the moment and couple of tricks to help".
Raindancer 2006
I’m glad you asked too. I’m just assuming this as presumably you are reading because as you are a little curious. Most of my rent is actually paid by providing the answer to that very question and showing people how they can plug into their own creativity.
For my sins I have always been endlessly curious, I always want to see what is on the other side of the hill and desperately avoid giving what I call “car key’ answers. You know that feeling of mild panic when you can't find your car keys? When you find them, you stop looking don't you? Most people answer questions in the same way and work on the basis that the first answer is the correct one. They don’t push on to look at the alternatives, the outlandish, the bizarre, the more creative solution. Some people are good at sport, singing, maths. I'm blessed, or cursed if you like, by being a thought nomad. My school reports didnt; ever suggest that this would actually be a good thing, but i can't complain and the journey it has taken me on and count myself lucky that it has allowed me to meet such an interesting bunch of people along the way.
This part of my persona has got me into trouble on several occasions, caused some amiable ( at least on my part) frictions with other colleagues who are content to paddle their canoe with everybody going in the same direction, at the same speed. There is nothing wrong with that. Its is comfortable. I’m just not comfortable with comfortable. It doesn’t float my boat. That's not to say I seek the uncomfortable for the sake of it. That would be daft and I’m not that. Bewildered and deluded maybe. My other fetishism is waste, wasted talent, wasted time, wasted opportunity. I’ve always struggled with the balancing act between the two. Sometimes you have travel up a dead end just so you and others don’t go there in the future. Ask Mr Edison( If you could). That my frustration is now my mission in life, ito show the people paddling the canoe how much fun it is, how rewarding and just how fulfilling getting out of their comfort zone is. Then they really would be able to exploit their talents and experiences and enjoy their 37 hours a week plus the commute. And take it home with them to their relatioships, their children, their hobbies.
I know for some people it seems insurmoutable. It is difficult to get the creative juices fully flowing. Our current educational system, seemingly at every stage, fails woefully to train us how to think sideways, upways or downways. It doesn’t help that in any creative process we are asking ourselves, and others, to move out of the comfort zone. You almost always have to move out of the canoe flotilla. Being out on your own, the fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of a whole bunch of stuff, can build mental barriers that are almost impossible to breach. But I firmly belie that anyone, and I mean anyone, even the most cynical sceptic, (providing they can fog up a mirror), can be trained how to be creative. No really... even accountants. You just have to know how to plug them in to the mains.
Not ever technique works in every circumstance. A case in point is the brainstorming session; one of the most used tools to effect creative thinking. Over twenty years in this business have failed to leave me convinced of their true effectiveness. I know they don’t work that well for me. Despite the fact that there may be a 'no judgment’ rule, in good brainstorming sessions anyway, you just know that at the next coffee break somebody will be whispering: "Did you hear what he said? How stupid is she?" They work for certain projects for certain groups, copywriting and ad campaigns come to mind, but only with a great facilitator and they are a rare bird indeed. I’ve lost count of the truly painful mind numbing sessions, that I;ve had to chew my tongue through,that have created enough flip charts to kill a small forest. They have their place but I’m not a fan for other more practical reasons too, there are much better techniques but we shall save that for later posting
My own trick, which seems to improve my personal ideation productivity at least initially, involves working alone. Not that I’m antisocial. Just the opposite actually, according to teh resluts of my latest character personality assasination/anaylsis questionaire. Please never put me in an open plan office if you want quick answers. My “place” is my study at home, I kick off my shoes and grab a very strong coffee and then pace about the room for an hour, or more, often all afternoon, humming. This foible, I find, tends to drive people mad in an open office. Others, I know, need a hot shower and to get dressed up, and , sad as this sounds I know, may even have to put a tie on! Some will drive a car, walk the dog, do the ironing, or jog. Mundane repetition has been show by psychologists, studying the bleeding obvious, to clear the brain; providing a sort of colonic irrigation for the head. Just a word to the wise here. Don’t, as a friend of mine did, ever suggest that the ironing would be 'therapeutic' for his partner and ‘free up her creative energies’ or you may find that a flying iron can leave a nasty mark.
There are lots of places and tricks we can use, and what works depends on individuals. Somethings we do unconciously are actually the triggers. I read in one academic paper that smells can do it too. Interesting to observe the test programme for that I think.
Over the fifteen years I worked in New Product development I’ve gathered a few tools along the way to help my colleagues and me smash through hurdles. There are a dozen or so techniques for fueling creative thinking, which I’ve found consistently work really well, but the first and most important part of any creativity exercise is figuring out what is the right question to ask in the first place.. The killer question as Phil McKiney calls it.
But how do you figure out what the key questions should be? Glad you asked.. again. One of the key tools that has consistently helped extract myself and my team out of a pile of whatever is a methodology called TRIZ, (This is pronounced ‘Trees’ by the way, I give you this information just so you don’t look like the clot I did for three years when you talk about it!) A Russian gentleman developed this technique about 50 years ago. He obviously had too much time on his hands, as he reviewed hundreds of thousands of patents looking for common threads. We must thank him sincerely (Through a medium) for his efforts though as Mr Altschuller identified 40 inventive principles. Along with these his matrix and contradictions principles form the basis of the key tools and have lead directly to some huge steps in technology I won't bore you with here. The current database has now reviewed over 2.5 million patents. If you want more information then google TRIZ after you have raed this and I’ll wake you up in the three months it takes you to read every paper written about it. It looks and is damn confusing when you start off, until some kidn soul takes you by the hand and shows you the way. Luckily for me I found one such person. It isn’t the most accessible of tools and, to be frank could do applying some of its own problem solving power to some creative self PR.
However, over the years it has been modified and simplified somewhat and developed into the systematic inventive system, a series of tools for those tricky problems, in new product development, problem solving, inventin and innovation. It is particularly effective at deveoping and strengthening patents. It has been getting a much higher profile with the CEO's as they can now more easily evaluate and develop their company's most valuable asset, its IP.
Although developed initially by and applied largely to engineering problems the same principles can be applied to any aspect of Marcoms, CRM, new product and service development and is even being applied to conflict resolution in the MIddle East and other theatres. Maybe Mr Blair and Mr Brown need some edification in its delights?
There are five key Tools to help you. Although the idea behind each Tool is quite simple (the Tool of Subtraction, for instance, simply asks that you subtract some element from an existing product), actually using the tool can be tough, since it requires that we think in new and unintuitive ways. That is the hard part. Our natural resistance to doing truly unintuitive things - moving outside our comfort zone- creates a mental obstacle, which makes it hard to get the most out of the Tools. To solve this problem, a set of Principles was devised which we use alongside the Tools. The Principles help the user of a tool get into right head place for using it and, hopefully, becoming more innovative. Unfortunately it is not a substitute for talent. It enhances those who have it, but it does often make those who may ordinarily struggle at least stand out from the crowd.
No point just talking about it. Let's see how it works in practice using one of the tools, the Tool of Subtraction, and the Principle that they call the Path of Most Resistance (PMR).
Imagine you're a mobile telephone manufacturer and you're trying to come up with a new product. What sort of innovations comes to mind?
Most, if not all, of your ideas probably involve either adding something to the phone, or enhancing a feature that already exists. Can you actually get a phone without a camera? At the risk of being accused or becoming one of the Grumpy Old Men I have to admit that this drives me slightly nuts when I go into one of my defence industry or R&D clients. For security reasons you often cant take your camera phone on site so you have even more forms to fill in and check outs and check ins often take longer than the meeting itself. I digress.
When we try to create things, our usual mindset is to add something to the existing product. It has to be faster, smaller, have more buttons, more functions - it's the easiest way to go about it, and we naturally follow the path of least resistance. To use the Tool of Subtraction - to take something away from the product - is not intuitive, and not as easy. It requires us to follow the Path of Most Resistance - to do the least intuitive, most uncomfortable thing - at least temporarily.
As we move forward, we continue to use the Tool and the Principle together. Let's start by subtracting what seems like the most essential element of a phone- the screen. We will most likely want to rush to replace the missing screen with something - a monitor, or LED, let's say. But since replacing the missing component is our intuitive response, and we're trying to follow the Path of Most Resistance, let's try, at least for the time being, to leave the screenless telephone as is. Let's ask ourselves if there could be any possible use for such a product. Well of course there is, they didn’t used to have screens until a few years ago anyway but then maybe we have forgotten and revisit some of the basics.
In fact, there are some interesting possibilities for our screenless telephone:
A communication and entertainment tool for the sight impaired
A telephone you can use just in the car
A phone you can take into secure areas, (yippee!) You know some libraries and museums are banning camera phones to protect copyright and pirate photocopying!
A low cost onsite telephone system for employees
A phone you can build into other appliances and equipment, or a car.
Sound far fetched? Wrong answer. If you are looking for a real example of reduction just look at the Motorola Razr phone. I’m not sure how true this but it is a story doing the rounds in innovation circles in the telecommunication business as I write. It was originally canned by the Motorola execs as they thought there wouldn’t be a market for a phone that had less functions than the competition. The only reason we, and seemingly every other body in the universe are walking around with them now is because one engineer ignored them, used his budget to rapid prototype in China and then presented it to the board only after he had shown it to two or three major potential carriers. I for one, can easily believe it. On a roll now, just applying one simple change took it into the stratosphere. Praise the soul who asked the next question “What if we make it pink? We will double the potential market”. Actually one of the 40 TRIZ inventive steps on your checklist is, 'change the colour'.
A product that may at first have seemed ludicrous turns out to have several uses.
The value of using a Principle like the Path of Most Resistance is that it forces us to think differently than we normally would. But you might have noticed that once we were pushed past our initial resistance, it was fairly easy to come up with uses for a screenless telephone. The Tool and the Principle working together make it easier to be innovative.
Let's return for a moment to our screenless telephone. If we continue to follow PMR, we can push this idea even further. Once we see that the product has potential users - the blind, the security conscious and drivers - we may want to consider how else those users can use the product. Will the driver, for example, use her screenless phone outside the car? Will the blind person's sighted family be able to enjoy it? Yes - but only if they can see, and not just hear, their programs. Which of course requires a screen. Our natural inclination might be to search for the best possible screen to which we could attach our screenless TV, but PMR will direct us to look for at solution that already exists in the product's immediate environment - like a PC. This can be the basis for a sort of PC TV, which is easy to implement by installing a card into the PC or plugging your phone into a laptop or the DVD TV player in your kitchen for wireless video streaming and video conferencing . Or….. you get the idea.
In this case, the user of Subtraction is guided by the PMR Principle, to maximize the tool's effect. Similarly, all the Principles support the use of any of the five tools. Just for fun I can tell you that the other tools are;
Attribute Dependency
Division
Multiplication
Task unification
But they are a whole other bag of monkeys! To be continued…
However, please don’t overlook the most important tool. What we in the innovation business call the ‘Idea Capture Device” but, you may know as simply a notebook. You never know when the idea will come and if you don’t write it down as soon as it arrives, you risk loosing it forever. At my last count I've got over 200 notebooks, but them I'm an idea Junkie.
Next Blog issue, "capturing the moment and couple of tricks to help".
Raindancer 2006
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