THE INNOVATIVE SKILL SET: WHY IS EXPERMINTATION IMPORTANT

THE INNOVATIVE SKILL SET: WHY IS EXPERIMENTATION IMPORTANT?

            In the social media era, creating new content is critical. To do this you have to be innovative. Experimentation creates new and innovative products and content.  To create new brands, sometimes you have to stop and approach something from a different direction. A working prototype is built to see if the rendition is workable.

            Examples of experimentation to create new products are the car industry. In 1908, Henry Ford had an idea that went against the grain from conventional thinking. There were many renditions of the automobile. The conventional wisdom was that the car would be powered by an electrical engine. This created great cost. The cost made it impossible for the average American to own a car.

            To coin a phrase, Ford had a better idea. Henry Ford understood that the car market had to revolve around an average buyer. To construct a car for the average American would be the key to success in the car business. Ford understood that the person who devised a car for working people would create the dominate brand in that space. Ford understood that the only way to create a car like this, a car “for the masses” would be to create a car with oil driven car. Oil was the new type of fuel. Most people in 1908 did not think that oil was a reliable for m of energy. How to change people’s minds? How to create a car brand that runs on oil? EXPERIMENT.

            Ford fought with his investors. Finally, he was able to get the funding he needed to create a prototype engine. The engine was experimented with, and a working model was created.  How to brand the car?

            In his early years, Henry Ford was a champion race car driver. Henry Ford entered his car in a race at Grosse Point, Michigan. It was an important race. He won that race. He demonstrated to everyone that an oil driven car was the means by which the automobile could be constructed for the average individual.

            Recently, Alan Mulally, the C.E.O. of Ford has repositioned the modern auto industry. Mr. Mulally understood better than other auto executives that social media is a central part of an average American’s life. He understood that an average American spends a great deal of their time in their cars. Most cars are not equipped for a driver to bring their social media devices and platforms into a car and interact and still safely drive their cars.  In talking with parents, and being one himself, Mr. Mulally understood that texting was a real problem. He tasked his engineers with finding a solution.

            Ford’s engineers started to experiment with texting and social media to find ways that devices can be plugged into a car’s operating system.  They invented a technology that allows a driver to come into a car, plug in their phones and speaking devices, and speak as they drive.  This is a texting technology. Instead of taking your eyes off the road, a driver texts into his device as they drive.

            Through experimentation, the modern automobile has been redefined from a transportation device into a social media device. Through experimentation, Mr. Mulally rebranded the car into something that has more relevance to the average American.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com  

HOW ALBERT SLOAN AND ALAN MULALLY USED SOCIAL MEDIA TO INSULATE THEMSELVES FROM IN EVOLVING MARKETS

Social media is about technology and techniques. These techniques and technology help us engage people to create deep relationships. The deep relationships created by social media are a tool that a modern marketer uses to insulate themselves from error. Marketing is about making bets in the market place. The size of social media allows a marketer to make better bets. When social media is used properly, the relationships created by engagements insulate a marketer from error. A marketer now can rely on the wisdom of many instead of just himself. There is a wisdom to crowds that insulates from error. Two example of this are Albert Sloan of General Motors in1923 and Alan Mullally of Ford Motor Company in 2011. Both of these CEO’s from different eras used the wisdom of crowds to make critical bets that repositioned their brands and insulated themselves and their companies from error.

Both of these CEOs came from a different era. They both used the social media of their era to adjust to the speed of their markets. This adjustment allowed them to understand the paradigm shifts in their markets that allowed them to adjust and to reposition their products so that they were able to create a brand that was unable for their opponent to compete against.

Henry Ford was autocratic and he made the important decisions for Ford in the early ‘20s. Alfred Sloan at General Motors organized executive committees to collaborate and make the important decisions after deep group discussion. This set up has great impact General Motors to this day. General Motors needed a luxury brand to offset Ford. Sloan had two choices, either the Seville or this thing called Cadillac. Seemingly from a cost standpoint the Seville had a cost advantage. There was a committee meeting that changed everything.

The manager of Cadillac, Nicholas Dreystadt, told the committee that Cadillac had an image with black professionals, which was an important niche market for General Motors,  that other managers weren’t aware of.  Black professionals purchased Cadillac as a symbol of their success. Because of this all blacks desired to purchase a Cadillac, even if they couldn’t afford it. This created a brand for GM among all blacks, a demographic that now becoming important. This information could only be developed through group discussion. It was not information that was common in the general car business. Cadillac was selected, and it is a major GM brand to this day.

In our modern era, General Motors had a technology that Ford had no answer to. It was a patented technology that was only available on General Motor products.  The emergence of social media allowed Ford to create a technology that has repositioned the modern automobile market.

Ford’s C.E.O Allan Mulalley ordered his Vice Presidents to embrace social media as a means to communicate with the customers of their markets.  This has given Ford a great deal of information and insight that they would never have developed on their own.

In talking with customers and in studying the technology, a Ford Vice-President, Doug Van Dagens, made a prescient observation.  He observed that General Motors technology originated inside the car. Social media is about taking your technology and connecting to other devices. This is what Ford has decided to do with its newest models. With the newer Fords, a customer brings their devices with them, and plugs them into the Ford.

Ford had made a major breakthrough in the area of texting. You hook up to a panel, activate voice recognition, dictate your text, and that text is sent out, safely.

Ford has repositioned the car. It is no longer a mechanism of transportation. The car is now a social media platform. Social media is fast markets. Embracing it has allowed Ford to adjust to the speed of the market.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com