• connect to customers: i think it’s in the title…If you didn’t see the fact that customers want to be considered as a real people, with advice, voice and opinion, and not as number or a cash machine!
• stop deafness: listening new insights and voices for brands shapes marketing of products and services…from the outside of the company
• ability to make marketing accountable, with one of the “three dimensional” skills of CMO: quantitative methodic
• staring at “where” are customers are (and “fish where the fish are”)
• a temptation to make marketing a C-level role to strategic level
• starting the socialization of customers with SCRM where systems are not owned by companies but fully controlled by customers
• achieving the shift between manufacturing culture to consuming culture, with social stones
• be “there”, after all: where are really the customers (the difficulty is the mobile era that boost the necessity of being ubiquitous for the brands)
• “messages are bi-directional and morphing”, because brands must listen and stare at what’s going on now, from the valuable opinions all around social web
• customers have a voice and know now, how to use it: being too much deaf would produce deaf services and products for empty market

• “the monologue has passed away”. Try to sort of the noise confusion and get the smartest ideas from out of the box…
• “embrace the challenge of new medias”: the abilities to “talk” to customers boosted in a multi-directional shape means using the tools where they talk, listen and take informations. The new platforms for audience…
• reinvent marketers curiosity: more than ever curiosity is the most efficient skill to “open world” communities, and makes you “breath the trends”
• “fail can become an option” for learning, experiment and grow the value purpose. Shorter cycles, decisions and experience samples and protos
• customers, but employees, partners, audience, suppliers…do marketing for you too. Let’s party with them, and grow communities!
• “like” the likers: be aside all who make effort to click and send love to you
• identify virtual tellers and workers who shape their own opinion of your brand
• know and learn or grow your new skills as: creativity, design but dealing with figures and datas. And if you hire, don’t hire a marketer but an artist, social inspired.
• “marketing is experience”: make us free for customers and create the CEM for your brand (Customer Experience Management)
• “marketing is experiences”: allow customers to share fails, tests, samples and experiences, even make them build their own with your brand/products. You can’t even imagine how fertile, collaborative and addict are your silent fans…and btw, they will shout it on the web!
• “the customer is not an idiot, he’s your boss” ; live with it or die!
• the new management paradigm: push/pull balance with innovation, customers, market. Marketing as a regulator, “community manager” more than the brand dictate

All lot of reason why marketing we knew has changed and is probably dead, for brands that didn’t realize it. The sum of research on the subject is huge, but always turned from the companies that stare markets, without really engaging with the customers, or doing it their way, but not on the control of who buys: the customer. Think of how you can be patient and demanding as a customer, but beyond your simple need: being considered. A best seller know as “cluetrain manifesto” lead us, 10 years ago, the frame of what’s now, concrete and operational. For those who didn’t read it, you’ll find a totally actual subject in these assumptions, with customers who were already fed up and felt upset of “bad” practices.

Renewal is king and the necessary “central” function, protected from “one to many” is dead. The fact is now to put it in the center of the debate: social platforms, everywhere, anytime of the consumer’s life, to improve experience, collaboration and efficiency, dealing with “markets” not as targets but “doers” and influencers.

Products, services, sales propositions, all are on the shelves, but on the “social shelves”, driven to success or death. It’s up to you to decide how you deal with it and which marketing you deserve. Or decide to set up, now, for your teams…

That makes this new subject about “size” of companies to be compared and valued, as new challenges in world commerce points out. But not only “size”, but also the ability of reaction facing the speed up of competition and focusing on abilities to compete on “time-to-market”, with great resources and know-how. In fact, the size might be the effect of several causes in growing up companies:

• Raising the business and activity
• Raising the R&D tasks
• Complexity of processes, needs for controlling or middle management
• In direct effect for human intensive resources needs

And we said “size” might be increased by the complexity of organizations, not directly focused on results and too much on means. To get an impression of what’s going on and the different leverages that could be used, it seems necessary to compare strengths and weaknesses of the two ways to do business. Having in mind that there is no “good” or “bad” but relevant with your activity, your business plan and the kind of business you’re in. You could be a startup in a whole big group and act as well. The simple fact to measure and value the differences between small and big structures make sense to the way you organize path to delivering.

And it seems startup models spread through all industries now, according to the fast moves from software and IT power. Having a different method to go faster and rethink the way doing “business” or simply create and deliver products or services. The “lean startup” or light structure company steps aside of traditional approach of:

• Business plan
• Financial goals
• Design and building
• Launch

Recovering some kind of instinct creativity with:

• Hypothesis
• Experience
• Trials/samples/prototyping

Faster than ever in the creativity cycle and the way it can improve really on the go, the starting defaults and mistakes. No need to start with perfect products, but having in mind “testing and launching fast” instead of trying to do the best at first sight. The idea behind is to be more flexible and test any possibility, with several trials, formulas and prototypes to cover all situations before really launching. The different kinds of issues allow lots of consumer reactions, corrections and empower the experience cycle. Doing, building and destroying in short decision cycles make the whole creation experience more interesting and collaborative too. And these practices are particularly owned in startups spirit, where ideas run and go, as fast as the wind…Building, creating other combinations means agility and flexibility that big companies can envy, but don’t handle correctly.

This new method, named “pivoting”, in the lean startup concept, brings a new approach for innovation and collaboration between customers and teams, including fast innovation and reaction to dead end, studying more easily B plans. Big companies and schools, with the whole scrambled education system turn their eyesight to these behaviors as business cases and practices to hold, nurture and leverage. This makes another round for risk taking too, that is a huge danger in strong and long process for big companies, who then hesitate to innovate and launch new concepts. But we all know differences in appreciation of “risk” and failure: some fear and some learn, just this difference means a lot in an entrepreneurship environment and mindset. A culture where failure is considered only as a “bad side” is doomed to sleepers and followers. But meanwhile, if you risk often and fast, you’re in the know for an incredible venture of learning more efficiently than others. Because, instead of fearing yourself and your skills, you enforce them by example, mistakes and make it a “friend”. Not a loser, but a learning machine to enhance your creativity and trust potential.

The lean startup model knows to cope with it, so that it could be a strong model for biggest companies, out of order with creativity, flexibility and relevance.

Dealing with its agenda, Eric Schmidt had a short talk with fellows of French-American Foundation, on 7th of december, with many people from different horizons. A smart and warm seance with french students, entrepreneurs, citizens, allowing the audience sharing thoughts, opinions and questions with Google’s chairman. We spent a cute but short time, enjoying the sense of humour of someone who deals with lots of challenges every day, straight to the point. He underlined and justified the choice of France as a new European and Middle-east settlement because of culture, talented and skilled people and that special taste of something sometimes called “arrogance”, that keeps French alive and probably unique. As a French citizen, I can confirm but prefer a “passion” side of this character…

Mr Schmidt delivered some clues about how Google cope with the main issues he has to deal with: data privacy, creation protection, EU lawyers at Brussels ongoing affairs, mobile potential and some of the new big features, Google’s working on. He agreed with the fact they made some mistakes and must be very humble about the privacy: the “don’t be evil” quote from the ages might be a straight forward obsession, to get back to trust and loyalty. Musing all these subjects with all the following statements with:

• the importance of being in France for a long time. Periods of doubt and untrustancy disappeared and i’ts time to build something stronger with the French ecosystem (schools, startups, VCs, engineering…). Trusting in the ideas system and relevancy, but saying there’s obviously a problem with “financing” ideas…in France
• the challenge of globalization, where in fact they are with the sheer nature of the web itself. Passing through a nearly joke with “politics often act local while problems become global”
• the increasing view and facts with mobile and smartphones that boost all the web uses and underlining apps. No, Google doesn’t plan to be a full carrier for mobile…but there’s an advanced work with the Nexus and so much more…
• the fact that a company like Google changes the world, because “technology change expectations”. Consumer becomes much more clever, accurate and addicted to more services. the way it “changes” the world…
• the cycles gear up now: increasing difficulty to see long term expectations and trouble relations with VCs and financial sources
• the necessity of keeping that “don’t be evil” faith, beyond buzz and threats: building trust means protect from all, privacy and engagement from community
• the digital fence and opportunity: freezing some industries but opening wide fields for innovation
• the hard file with the “Hadopi” French exception, in a whole, plugged, wired and online world: protect the creation in a WWW more opened than ever…and punish pirats but not the tools that put, rank and organize the links to contents…“autocrats dream to turn off the internet, he said”
• his three keys to success (personaly like it): Ideas, Team, Quick delivering
• a shortlink to new ambitions with art and museum: Google Art Project

I spent a smart moment with a tremendous manager. One who can rock the world and lead great innovation, passion and engagement. One who could ignite the taste for entrepreneurship, leading business and mentor a whole industry, in the tracks of enlightning the way we do business. Thanks to French American Foundation for having organized this relevant session, I think I’m not the only one “liked” it.

That made my day for sure, in the way I love America, since earliest stages. Of course because of my cousin, Sean (who is a great jazz musician, a complete talented “entertainer”) and his father who died in 2008, Jimmy, who played and brought the blue note in Paris in the 50′s, and played with the best. For me, it’s definitely a family and love affair with America…

• raising loyalty and sensibility to more information, messages and requests
• searching for trust and truth, in this ocean of crowded “social” advertising: how to cope with it to build a strong “wired” reputation
• the effects on production cycle, wastes and ability to modelize business before it runs: a real opportunity to change minds, process and get the best results overall

Any doubt?

Check out at all these awesome initiatives done with the poor and above all, from the bottom roots…of desperate lands. No you can’t stop initiatives and control the path that guides to innovation. No wealth can replace the willingness and local solutions, facing misery, fell apart when you have no resources to use, but brain and collaboration. Simple ideas can sometimes burst poor’s destiny to help them, but especially when they have no other choice to cope with it, alone. And yes what we call “Design” can change their world. Using wastes to make in function local and shared open-air ovens, text messaging to prevent from disease, explain sanity or water use or like in Bangkok to replace old crap houses, they used recycled wood to build stronger and safer habitations.

But also facing a huge need for mobile work, the ability to build “mobile schools” on a bus or a boat, that can hold education, following the whole migration of households lead to rootless work to survive. Then, the famous design museum “Cooper-Hewitt” started with UN, a huge exposition “design with other 90 cities” with this tremendous thema, in NYC this fall. This exposition allows to introduce the design into several parts of communities, using it as: include (lose people, recovering the social link into ghettos), transform (wastes or the way to consider things and buildings for a better local welfare), exchange (a huge way to barter skills and local knowhow for moneyless people), reveal and adapt (habits make sometimes lazy, avoiding us to recreate new environment with less resources), prosper (with all the global dynamic through this whole initiative, leading to local economic raise and employment for new ways of “working”).

What called Schumpeter “innovation”, seems to drafted here as “something in pulse, moving economics and social, creating new products, things or services with the whole dynamics of organization (in this case local and poor groups, probably fell apart and helpless populations)”. He believed a lot in entrepreneurship as a real source of innovation for economic dynamization, and we can see in all these examples, the “force of nature” and the potential in the willingness to change their local world. But entrepreneurship doesn’t mean “a restricted way inside huge companies, brands or startups”. Some used it their own way, with lean management, aside with local communities to overcome their needs: kind of proud, willingness to live better and especially count only on their own…and destiny. It used to work with developping nations, when investment from richest countries disappeared, leading local groups to another way of subsistance: using and creating new oceans to live, with redesigning landscapes, habits and means.

Obviously, a particularly sharp and interesting lesson for us, balancing between bright, opportunism and ideas sourcing for a better world. Don’t miss the curve because it’s full of insights for developped world too, while earth is aching and resources seem to be compromised…

]]> http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/designing-the-future-how-to-change-the-world-with-design-from-the-bottom%e2%80%a6/feed/ 1 48.785607 2.173505 48.785607 2.173505 evidencesx Design90 DesignStanford Bookmark and Share http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/facing-the-dip-in-happiness-wicked-way/ http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/facing-the-dip-in-happiness-wicked-way/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:00:18 +0000 evidencesx http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/?p=658 ]]> Everybody sees Happiness as an incredible quest, without seeing what’s in front of us. We always search for what we don’t have, forgetting to enjoy the daily simpliest pleasures. It seems to be a real crisis of happiness, while we forgot all we had, as little children, who themselves care for any few thing to come and bite life breathless. We all claim for more, but never organize us to understand, appreciate and consume the situations that could help us to get higher happiness. We just put it on doom, mischance or broken life, never source on ourselves to know us better and find the light inside. It must not be the fault of life. Or others. It might be our fault, just forgetting the meaning that we really put in our life. Consumption became a powerful exposition for fulfill our fitness indicators, and expose others, in order to seduce, capture or trick the game. It must stay pleasure first, as we don’t buy any good but values, brands or attributes…Marketing gurus got their own skills to show you in a mirror, that doesn’t reflect you anymore. We have to seed the “be” against the “have” and be inspired of it.

This summer, I’ve been really inspired, reading two books, under the hot sun of Tunisia. Happier from Tal Ben-Shahar and The Dip, little handbook from Seth Godin. One explaining path to more happiness, with lots of stories, examples and concepts, simply with bright exercises to follow a coherent line into the tale and being able to apply few rules, quite immediatly. I’ve noticed, through this awesome story, the underscored aspects of having in mind the two terms of appreciate pleasure: short-term shots, necessary because they are the fuel of each day we spend, and the deeper elements that shape the “meaning” of a whole life, used as guides, goals or long term sense. And to link both, we have to make a work on ourself to share and balance the benefits, resources and efforts to build something relevant and sustainable. We link then to the other guide by Seth G. about “quitting”, leaving something in our life, on several motivations: fear, doubt, too much effort or energy, difficulty, no more envy, mindset change or whatever that could make us shift. And that’s when this period comes, after the beginner’s chance or the one-shot short-term pleasure, that one must make choice: go on or leave? Who never thought about it or being confronted to a major choice in his/her life?

What does it mean? refusing happiness at the threshold? no pain, no gain?

And I found some correlative coincidences in the fear of the dip and the fact of “consuming” happiness, burning it too fast, without any plan, goal or forecast for meaning and without giving a long-term sense to life. Starting, beginning in something, diving into new experience, company, life need a snap of vision, envy, chance and motivation, but probably less energy because of novelty and curiosity. We all know how to get a small shot of pleasure, in simple few things we can allow us daily with meetings, close and personal thoughts and dedicated moments. But the real problem is to “process” them to make them scalable, sustainable and part of something bigger: goal. A kind of envision with steps to cross, the “complete estimated and fully hope” way of your life to be discovered. But how get to it while you don’t organize the way, the steps? If you consume all your energy, focused on short-term pleasure, when dip is coming, because it always does after a period of “trial”, the feeling of doubt, mistrust or despair will appear. Some will get from this, with lots of energy and target to grow the hard curve. But many won’t, because they will miss the whole vision of “sense” for their life.

But when you take time to set goals for achievements, giving you a “reason-to-live” beyond, you start to draw something more clear and valuable, all along the path…This gives you courage, force and energy, and maybe you won’t spend any time in the dip, surfing on pleasure, all along the steps. I tried to represent the way I figure it, on the second graph. Imagine you have a stairway, where each step is a new challenge, hurdle or thing to achieve, and for each step you will get all your attention to feel, learn and get all the lessons from: you’ll get more profitable time, enjoyable and memorize a lot more than if you don’t get any attention at all. But moreover, you will touch to a higher level of short-term pleasure and you’ll earn it forever. This is the principle of having a far away goal, while spending time to appreciate each part of the path to go there. While consuming your short-term pleasure, you’ll touch a well being level like a trigger, and function with a “ratchet effect”. What you earnt is forever, speaking about welfare level. And that’s a real funny way to share and balance between easy approach to solve daily stuffs, learn and feel, then dreaming of the big picture that makes sense for you. And the best way to get rid of this “haunting” dip, that demands so much efforts, pain and questions for you to go on…

The best you plan for the future, the best you can appreciate all the strong steps to go there, and feel all the energy of passing the difficulties of life. “Success calls success” we could tell, like a process circle that gives you motivation, sense but joy in the action. Because a kind of “rat race”, refusing pleasure now for hoping it later is to ascetic, take time to stare the whole story, imagining how you could get tot he peak, enjoying all the phases, encounters and lessons that make the process. “If there’s a goal, there’s a way”, I could add “an enjoyable way”.

Don’t quit, ever, just have an enjoyable trip, reachable goals, reliable and fulfilling milestones, and trust for you to take right decisions with insightful and tuitions mindset. An eye on the horizon goal, the other on daily feelings. You’d better start now…

Resources if you want more:

• happiness as healthcare
• happiness loves company
• happiness as your business model
• the happiness project

• things become boring as we reach them ; just like collectors who keep fever until they get the last piece of their collection…and depress then after
• the emotion is intense while the action is, but step down just after the success. It’s really strange, but it is. Ask for champions who won, and then…kind of baby blues, in someway?
• to keep the sheer energy, innovation with happiness must be considered as a never ending process, always searching for new tracks for improvement, challenging the service level and beat our own results. An impossible quest? Not sure, because passion is an awesome fuel for everyone…

• dealing with HR 2.0 behaviors
• ability to swap resources and change in more flexibles ways, any opportunity into a strategic purpose
• what we can see in our daily lives with simple features at home: security, care, compliance, supply & information access, knowledge…

• Resources management:

Dealing with digital solutions and having a 2.0 company means a very flexible platform and mindset, at all levels: cost of work, flexibility of schedules and planning, multiskills profiles and so on. And it’s not supposed to be native and initially designed, with old models. We saw as HR are important to be stared on another point of view if companies want to succeed in transformation and exploit all the opportunities of flexibility. Now companies must fiond partners and stakeholders who can play the same game on the whole value chain, avoiding the fearing bottleneck. Tools like social platforms increase a lot tha ability to share, exchange and modify a process, on ongoing reaction and improvement, creating light sticking to core functions. And that reactivity makes a company more “time-to-market” and able to take opportunities on the long run, but with long tail targets too.

• Home and life-as-usual appliances:

Having tested the whole chain of connectivity in professional environment makes you more exigeant and waiting for new things and bright applications at home. Linking all devices, wiring all the house and becoming a whole datawarehouse for the family, we all see the huge advantages for such a framework: data sharing, security, automatic warnings for intrusion, triggers, ovens piloting, freezing monitoring, and others “machine to machine” global assignments. Domotic verse 2.0 might make this huge sector rise as never done, with all abilities to connect, act and interactions that are now in fact, concrete. Easiness, care and customization allow techs learning and acceptation more possible than ever.

Did you ever live, the incredible speed of information spreading, as you first have an idea, start to tell to a friend…and what becomes next: the one tells to a friend, who tells to a friend…six degrees later world knows all about it. That shapes what is to be said: living in a connecting world allows us to save time, moments and whole phases in building innovation. You can now make work a huge diversity of people, around the clock, in a single project, getting insights from the best of them, challenging everything from seeds to concrete plan. And it changes the vision we have on anything is possible or not: speed of sourcing, evaluating and throwing an insight, our ability to get information on marketplaces, competitors or competition in a larger view. Branding or modeling prototypes and viewing them in “real” second world (3D, social games, virtual environments…). Thrilling isn’t it. Not at all but a strong opportunity.

And if it’s for us, it’s for competitors, too. Competition keeps us awake (must?), and dangers come faster than ever: from stakeholders to suppliers, or even closer partners, anyone can, without having it in mind, leak on important secrets. And for a time-based competition, connectivity might probably change the game: speed of renewal cycles, defining, correcting and sourcing make markets more demanding on the service level and innovation. Being faced in daily life to digital shift, consumers have to adopt, learn and make them, the opportunities of technology.

In production fields, the reduction of wastes, mistakes or return, driven by a more accurate forecast of volumes, needs and trends go directly on the bottom-line. Engineers can have a close feedback with marketers, for model design, duplication, customization…and on-the-go modifications. That’s an incredible change in the process, always wired, and the ability to evolve, on ongoing periods, and raise the sustainable facet of production: less wastes, less energy, less stress, as it takes part of the whole shipment way of delivering goods or services.

Don’t you know that in poor areas (like described in BOP markets with books like), 7% on the income of poors is dedicated to connectivity expenses, often before cleaning, safety water, health or food…? The only step for isolated zones to be linked, bankable and start a tiny commercial activity is to be…connected. Connectivity changed the way farmers for example, can set their prices for their crop, because they’re connected (e-choupal system) with bid marketplaces and stocks for the raws they have: they can choose quickly to do or not and with who, they are going to deal.

Hold on for the second part and “connectivity effects on resources”. Stay tuned, and meet the following part soon, here…

]]> http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/first-step-the-connectivity-effects-the-way-it-does/feed/ 0 48.785607 2.173505 48.785607 2.173505 evidencesx enterprise_2_map_of_the_2009_marketplace_large Bookmark and Share http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/are-startup-founders-good-developpers-to-run-a-company/ http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/are-startup-founders-good-developpers-to-run-a-company/#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 13:02:33 +0000 evidencesx http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/?p=574 ]]> It’s in fact a strategic question, launching a startup, with the “all-in-the-hurry” rush of the beginning: dreams, passion (core!), energy. Straight from an idea, new innovation (techs, economics, social…), a team or sometimes a single person and it goes: idea, prototype, business plan, network to make the buzz and finetune the concept. Well…and here surges the problem:

• is vision strong enough to be long term and hold a big market enough?
• isn’t the idea already dead-born, too mainstream, crowded?
• which kind of stakeholders, partners for which use, in the jungle?
• how much cash available and for how much time?
• how much time before new comers, copy, better and cheaper?
• and when will surge the “Peter Principle” and how recognize it before it runs?

• founders inside, of course!
• investors, for their role only: lending money (but not leading strategy, for heaven’s sake!)
• consulting/advising: out of the company, not involved, not too close (no mates, no husband or wives!) ; good friend for with no engagement at all in the company, it’s important to be outside with no pressure, to keep “fair thinking” as best as possible
• failure stars: draw the best from others mistakes is core for starting business
• models: mentoring, icons…everything that keeps a goal, target, dream alive with all the power around
• professors and academic sources to keep on the knowledge environment and hold the  growth for learning more
• experience, throughout senior management, veterans, successful storytellers who can give method, process and business behavior
• youth: concrete, essential, sheer access to young blood to hold the spirit of “building something that can change the world”. Young generations don’t hesitate to push the limits and keep the “gear up” to next level
• network and networkers. More linchpins, fellows who drive the dance, link people, give their arts for free. Hooked to several networks, to stare and share the next pratices, and learn the “lean startup” methods

Thinking of what’s all these things could produce in fair, bright and well driven hands and brain?

Startup’s begining is like a single musician, but always requires tabs: how, where and with who? and these questions become more important, as the startup rise and burst the ceiling. It needs next a good leader, good musicians, good tabs, good map and be sure nobody’s lost. And this kind of experience is rarely understood, experienced, with youngest generations and young creators, who only see speed, miracle and energy.

Well, we’re not supposed to fire all young creators, saying they are unskilled for the follow up, but it’s to say they should be surrounded by many skills and advises, they sometimes don’t fell or value. And the whole system must go on, with energy, passion, envy and team innovation: hold the light, generate the spark for future generations, means oldest show them the way, because they know, because they failed too. And failure is probably the most difficult thing to swallow, but gives you a special taste: taste for danger, taste for forbidden, taste for fear. Everything that is full of speed and power, to build something strong, relevant and remarkable…