Customers Don't Innovate

From the Servants of Chaos weblog, by Gavin Heaton

"When looking for inspiration or for innovation, many marketers turn to focus groups. This is 'tried and true', makes us feel like we are gaining insight and a valuable understanding of consumer behaviour. And while, yes, it may yield some insight, it won't necessarily lead to breakthrough innovation.
Focus groups reiterate old stories. The participants talk about your brand and your products or services and (depending on the strength of your brand) will tell your story according to their experience. In general, the story you will hear in focus groups is already yesterday's story (or last weeks' or last years').

But innovation is about future stories. Innovation doesn't start with 'once upon a time', it starts with 'imagine if ...'. Innovation is hard work, but it must be done by YOU. You can't expect your customers to innovate for you (and I know there are some who do ... but I am talking about customers not evangelists) ... it is not their job. As Steve Cone says 'Focus Groups are a waste of time and money' ... and quoting Henry Ford:

'If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.'

The innovation that a customer may have about your business is to move to your competitor who is engaging them in product development via blogs, updating them with podcasts and serving them with truly unique products. So start imagining your future today, and start telling a whole new story (maybe in a whole new way)."

The Top 10 Myths of Business Innovation

From the Innovation weblog

"Author Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm, Living on the Fault Line) has published a hard-hitting list of the top ten myths of business innovation. In no-nonsense style, he literally explodes some of the most popular notions about this topic. Here is the list (in David Letterman-like reverse order), along with a few nuggets from it that caught my attention:

10. We don't innovate around here any more.
9. Product life cycles are getting shorter and shorter. 'And whose fault is that? If you do not differentiate in hard-to-copy ways, you cannot expect what differentiation you do create to be long-lived... Sustainable differentiation requires barriers to entry and barriers to exit.'
8. We need a chief innovation officer. 'Like a hole in the head. Think about what your true goal is: you want innovation that creates differentiation that leads to customer preference during buying decisions.'
7. We need to be more like Google.
6. R&D investment is a good indicator of innovation commitment.
5. Great innovators are usually egotistical mavericks.
4. Great innovation is inherently disruptive.
3. It is good to innovate. 'No, it is good to differentiate on an attribute that drives customer preference during buying decisions. Innovating elsewhere costs money and entails risk but does not create competitive advantage... you would be surprised about the amount of innovation going on in your company right now that serves no economic purpose.'
2. Innovation is hard.
1. When innovation dies, it's because the antibodies kill it. (This last point is especially interesting, but I can't do it justice with a quote from Geoff. You just gotta read it!)

This list is must reading for anyone who is concerned about growing the innovative capacity of their organizations. Geoff makes some great points. Deep down, his central themes are that innovation must serve the customer, and that companies must innovate by differentiating their products and services along directions that matter to customers.

Geoff's "top 10" list is already stimulating debate. Tom Foremski from the SiliconValleyWatcher blog takes issue with Geoff's contention that innovation doesn't always have to be disruptive."
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Love and Management

From Management Craft, by Lisa Haneberg

"Lovemarks Revisited All This Week....

I am a hopeless romantic, I admit it. So it tickles me to see that LOVE is at the core of many of our newest and freshest perspectives on management and business.

I have been rereading Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, for a project. The first time I read it, I loved it, but I did not see that it was a management book in addition to a marketing book. Kevin Roberts has written a great book about leadership, management, and maximizing performance - even if he wasn't trying.

I will be sharing bits and pieces from the book that can help us be better managers and leaders all this Valentine's Day week. If you are uncomfortable reading about love, intimacy, and sensuality in business terms, be prepared to hang out on the edge with me.

Before I get into Lovemarks, let's chat about aphrodisiacs! First, here's a definition of an aphrodisiac from Gourmet Sleuth:

'Aphrodisiacs are those things that cause us - either males or females - to feel sexually aroused, to desire, to become romantically excited. Aphrodisiac stems of course from Greek - aphrodisiakos, from aphrodisia - sexual pleasures; and especially from the Greek mythology, in which Aphrodite, was the Goddess of love and sex. The Cambridge History of Food writes, that 'Aphrodisiacs were first sought out as a remedy for various sexual anxieties including fears of inadequate performance as well as a need to increase fertility. Procreation was an important moral and religious issue and aphrodisiacs were sought to insure both male and female potency.' "

Read the rest of the article ....
Technorati Management tag