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  

INNIOVATION SKILL SET: WHAT IS OBSERVATION AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

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            An All-Pro NFL linebacker and a world class social media marketer have one thing in common. To be successful, both have to “read their keys”. In football, a linebacker will observe only certain players. That will tell him where the next play will be run. The same way is true in social media marketing.

            The “player” that a marketer keys on in this analogy is your customer and the “key” that you read in order to be successful is how a customer uses your product.  To be a successful marketer you have to be innovative. A major key in being innovative is your ability to observe your customer. Observation is best described by that immortal, Dr. Yogi Berra, “You can see an awful lot just by watching”. This is a prescient observation about what observation is. You watch to see how your customer uses your product. This will give you keen insights in how to improve or market your product.

            A marketer who has done this is Kelly Rowland, the singer.  As I write this article in August of 2011, Ms. Rowland is having great success. The reason why Ms. Rowland’s brand is so successful is because she observed her fans. She “keyed” on them. Her fans have given Ms. Rowland great insight into what they want. Ms. Rowland is a humble woman, but she is a keen marketer. How she has marketed her music is a benchmark to be followed in the marketing of any product.

            Ms. Rowland’s strategy started with a plan and a goal. Her goal was to become the top brand in R&B. She then observed and keyed on her fans to get an insight on how to do this. She observed what music they were buying and what artists lead her genre. She observed that the leading genre of R&B is dance music.

            Ms. Rowland’s observations of her fans made her realize that she had to redefine her brand.  Ms. Rowland’s observation made her become innovative. Ms. Rowland has had success in her career. She has won Grammy’s. Her success was in blues R&B and Gospel. After observing her fans, she realized that to become a player in music, she would have to be innovative.  She realized that she would have to become edgier in both music and in her stage appearance. She would have to become a “new Kelly”.  How to do this?

            Again, the principal is, first observation and then creating a brand through innovation. This is how Ms. Rowland innovated. She sang a duet with a well-known rapper known for edgy lyrics.  However, in the video, the rapper never appears with Ms. Rowland. The lines he sings in the song are very few. By doing it this way, the song “belonged to Kelly”. The video and the song took off.

            Ms. Rowland was innovative in her way of marketing the song. She used YouTube. This is a free sight. The song and video was stylish and edgy. The song took off. Social media is viral. Soon the people were taking the video and song and posting to their friends through social media sights.

            YouTube was an innovative choice for Ms. Rowland. The sight has a “comment” section. She could see first- hand how fans were reacting to the song. She could see how the fans responded to her. She then started giving interviews on video and putting them on YouTube next to the video.  She could answer fan questions in real time, and build a following.

This building of a following was important. The dance R&B is a crowded space. Through an innovative use of YouTube, Kelly observed just when the best time to release her album. When it was released it was No. 3 in the first week.

To create a great brand, first you observe your customers, and then you innovate.  Dr. Yogi Berra best describes the process of observation and innovation, “It ain’t over to till it’s over… and then it ain’t over”.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

INNOVATION SKILL SET: WHAT IS QUESTIONING AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

             To create innovation, we should always ask the questions. Questions challenge the status quo, and this keeps our thinking fresh. It helps us notice changes in the market and questions allow us to respond to the market in real time. A basic question that can save many companies is, “Why do we do it like this”. To become a great innovator, Robert Kennedy’s question should be rephrased, “Our competitor’s look at the process and say ‘why’. We should look at the process and say ‘why not---what is stopping us’?

           There is a power in provocative questions. Many times a basic question unlocks truths that were not thought and which creates products and brands that were even on the radar screen. In 2001, General Electric was a consumer goods organization whose products and markets had matured. This was a critical juncture for GE. Jeffrey Immelt asked a basic question, “can we create dominate brands and strong, reliable revenue streams from markets of scarcity”.  He commissioned an intense study to investigate the market potential of sources of energy and products from the sun, wind, and water. General Electric discovered that these sources of energy, from avenues of ‘scarcity’, could create billion dollar revenue streams for G.E.  Ecomagnation is a strategy that is not only creating billions in new revenue, but it is also creating massive amounts of good will for General Electric, as it creates jobs in the nations of emerging markets.

Jeffrey Immelt is a benchmark for what a great innovator is and does. An innovator constantly asks questions that challenge conventional wisdom. To be an innovator, you have to upset the status quo. The GE board originally voted down ecomagnation because they felt that GE could never make money at it.  An innovator thinks about how to change the world that exists.  Mr. Immelt observed. Mr. Immelt asked  basic questions.

            Questions to ask are “Why”, “Why not”, and “what if”. Most managers’ concentrate on existing production processes. Innovators challenge the assumptions. Cloud computing is becoming an important technology. A manager asked a basic question,   “Why are we uploading software, when it can be done over the Internet”.

Innovators intentionally come from an opposite direction. To be an innovator you must ask yourself a bunch of questions that are not conventional, as Jeffrey Immelt did. These questions may create a radically different alternative than the conventional means that have been in use. As in the case of GE, the following step after asking questions may create some critical new insights. These are insights that lead to large, new revenue streams, new markets, and new brands.

            We compose restraints on our thinking when forced to deal with real-world limitations, such as resource allocations or technology restrictions. Great questions actively impose constraints on our thinking and serve as a motivation for out-of-the-box insights. As Google likes to say, “Creativity loves constraints.” The constraints make us think of new ways that create new value propositions that our competitors can’t match.  General Electric’s markets were mature. Where was new revenue going to come from? The constraints of the market created billion dollar revenue streams.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

THE INNOVATOR'S SKILL SET; WHAT IS ASSOCIATION?

               Innovation is the ability to confront a new set of circumstances and to create a solution in real time. An example would be watching a football game on television. A team has spent an entire week preparing for a certain game. The opposing coach comes out with a new formation. Innovation occurs when the first team figures out a way to offset this new set of circumstances. Innovation is changing the game plan in real time and off-setting your opponents surprise. Innovation is a critical skill set to have in the era of social media. Social media creates scale. The ease of use that social media affords is both a great asset, but also a great liability. A marketer in the social media age needs great skills in branding, redefining, and repositioning products.

In social media, great amounts of content are being created overnight. This means that new products and new brands are constantly making their appearance in the market place. When a new brand appears, how does a conventional marketer create a branding strategy to off-set this new product?                        Association is the ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from different fields. Association may also be described as the “Medici” effect. This refers to the creative explosion brought on by the Medici family in Florence, when the Medici’s brought together the creative energy of sculptors, painters, scientists, poet, philosophers, and architects. As these individuals connected, new ideas blossomed at the intersection of their respective fields, bringing on the Renaissance, one of the most inventive eras in World History.

            To understand how association works, you have to understand how the brain works.  The brain works more like a Google search engine, than it does a dictionary. Google search is about your conventional experience with a word. If you Google “Red Sox”,  you might get many hits concerning Fenway Park or the history of April of 1912. In contrast, if look up “Red Sox” in a dictionary, you would get a straight definition of what socks, and not sox,  is.The more diverse our experience and knowledge the more connections the brain can make. The more connections we can make, the more innovative we can be. This is why reading and being aware of the world around us is a critical thing for a social media marketer. Fresh inputs trigger new associations;  this leads to new, fresh and unusual ideas. As Steve Jobs has said, “creativity is connecting things”. The world’s most innovative companies prosper by capitalizing on the divergent associations of their founders.

            Associating is like a mental muscle that can grow stronger by exercising. Innovation is created by exercising our minds and our imaginations.  As innovators engage in these behaviors, they build their ability to generate ideas that can be recombined in new ways.  The more frequently people attempt to understand, categorize, and store new knowledge, the more easily their brains could naturally and consistently make, store, and combine associations.

            Innovation is critical as Africa attempts to create a middle class market economy. In an era of social media, of fast, easy to use telecom networks, entrepreneurs can come to Africa. By using innovation these entrepreneurs can quickly create content that has a strong market and create middle class jobs for Africans.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com            

WHAT IS CREATIVITY AND HOW DOES THIS CREATE INNOVATIVE PEOPLE?

WHAT IS CREATIVITY AND HOW DOES THIS CREATE INNOVATIVE PEOPLE?

            Africa is in the process of evolving from an emerging economy to a middle class market economy.  For this to happen, Africa must have creative and innovative entrepreneurs to build Africa’s economy.  Creativity is the finding of a solution to a problem that was formerly, seemingly unattainable.

To make Africa into a thriving, market economy would seem to be an insurmountable task. Creative and innovative entrepreneurs that create legitimate jobs can do this. Let’s think about creativity and how it creates innovative people for a minute.

 Creativity is important because it demands innovative people.  Innovative people have the ability to connect a group of different things, different groups of information, and then place this information into a logical, understandable whole.  

The ability to innovate is the culmination of many experiences. What makes innovators different? Harvard researchers spent 6 years and interviewed three thousand executives to find out. The number one skill that separates innovators from noncreative professional is “associating”.  Associating is the ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from different fields. The more diverse our experience and knowledge, the more connections the brain can make. Fresh inputs trigger new associations. The new associations lead to new, innovative solutions to problems.

            When you ask creative people how they did something they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it; they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. The reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they had thought more about their experiences than other people.

 Unfortunately, creativity is too rare a commodity. A lot of people haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very specific solutions to the problem. The broader one understands the human experience, the more creativity they will have.

            The ability to create is based on experience from a great many different sources. You draw on those diverse experiences and then you bring the whole together. Highly creative people are skilled at making associations, connecting seemingly unrelated things. Most important very creative people make a conscious decision to do so. They don’t always know where the dots will connect, but they are confident that they will.

            At the present time, Africa is in the process of evolving from being an emerging market into becoming a middle class economy. How can this be done? It would seem out of the question that a continent such as Africa could even think of joining the family of nations as a legitimate player. Social media has changed all that.

            Social media is the creation of engaging content that another group of people would want. What is needed is a platform. We live in a world of the smart phones. In the world that we live in, a creative African fashion designer could very easily create African dresses that are desired by Western audiences. She could place these designs on YouTube, and be an overnight (literally) success. A scenario that I have stated is not out of the question.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

WHAT IS INNOVATION AND HOW DO YOU ACHIEVE IT?

WHAT IS INNOVATION AND HOW DO YOU ACHIEVE IT?

            At the present time, the continent of Africa is on the move economically. It is attempting to move from being an emerging market to being a middle class economy. Africa has the desire to be a significant player in the globalized economy. We are seeing the emergence of the African Gorillas.

If this is going to happen, African is going to need entrepreneurs to create jobs. Jobs are the key to Africa’s development. Foreign aid has a chilling effect on a society. It makes a nation and a people dependent. When people are gainfully employed, if frees them.  This is why jobs are so critical to the development of Africa. Innovation is the key to development of Africa.

 Let’s just ask a basic question, “What is innovation”? “How is it achieved?”       Innovation is the creating of “cool stuff”. This cool stuff is both necessary and unnecessary. Some things are cool, but not necessary, like jewelry or fashion, but they are nice thing to have.

Innovation is the bringing to life of Robert Kennedy’s quote, “People see things and ask ‘why’ and “how” and “can we, I wonder”.  An innovator will see things and ask ‘why not’.  To create innovation, you also have to create a culture for it.

            Innovation is the outdoing of the competition. Innovation does create competitive advantage for both a company, and also for a continent, such as Africa.

            To be entrepreneurial, you must constantly engender new ideas. Good ideas happen whenever you have thinking people. How are they created? Receptiveness and reward are ways to engage people to give their best and feel they have a stake in the company.  Through ideas, people challenge one another in a way that is not overwhelming. A leader will inspire competition and inspiration by showing their confidence that each person in the organization can express creativity in his or her own way. This new idea may be in product design, product usage. It may be in anything that involves the organization.

Innovation is mostly done by seeing how people use the product.  Creativity and innovation is “hands-on” but it is also “hands off”.  It is observing “what works” and “what doesn’t work”. It is about honesty, and the foregoing of silos.

            There is a “gotta”.  You “gotta” have a culture for this to work. You have to encourage people to discover new things, to see things differently. People in a professional culture have to be open to new things. Creativity takes leadership. Creativity is not just allowing people in an organization to just go off in their own direction. There must be at least some “adult supervision” for creativity to be developed.

            You “gotta” allow people to make mistakes, because they will. You are dealing with new things. When something is new, no one really knows if the thing will work. 

            In creating a culture for creativity, the wisdom of crowds is imperative. Through encouraging employees and their ideas, you get a grassroots intelligence network. Employees will focus on new things in that are in marketplace. They and their work teams will talk about them, discuss their advantages and shortcomings, test them, play with them…and then wonder, “What can we do that is better?” From these discussions, new products will be developed. A benchmark for innovative companies is Google. They are encouraged to think of new things. These new things are discussed. They are then developed and created. Google Maps was created in this manner.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

WHY IS THE APPLE OPERATING SYSTEM CRITICAL IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICA?

            The Apple Operating system is critical to the development of Africa because the system revolves around elegant products that make information technology simple to use. At the present time, African economies are on the move. Africa is quickly evolving from being an emerging market into a middle class economy.

            These economies are now called the African Gorillas. The Gorillas are   analogous to the Asian Tigers of the 1980s. These were emerging economies that leveraged a common platform, the Pacific Ocean, to create middle class economies that are major players in the contemporary global market place. The Tigers used the Pacific Ocean to create export driven economies which are the key to their success. The Gorillas have social media. Social Media allows a person or a country that has content of some kind, to move that content anywhere around the world. The limitations of space, time, and capital do not exist in a social media era. What is needed is an operating system that can be used to minimize the limitations that present African economies possess.

            Large amounts of African populations are illiterate. This seeming overwhelming limitation is a non factor if you have an operating system that is based on easy to read graphics and icons. The Apple operating system does this. Apple’s approach to development and design is to achieve the very most with the very least. The system relentlessly focuses on customer experience and avoids anything that will compromise an elegant experience.

            Simplicity and accessibility are the two criteria for the Apple Operating system.  This is why this system is critical in the development of contemporary Africa. This is where Apple’s philosophy is in contrast to a lot of technology companies.

            The products that most Western companies develop do not emphasize user convenience and experience. Apple’s products are not just a collection of parts. In product development every detail is refined and if something does not belong there, it is eliminated. The iPod was not the first digital music player.  The many devices before the iPod had many buttons and dials that appealed to gadget obsessed geeks with the time to figure out how to work them.  The iPod was elegant, attractive, and sleek. It was a digital juke box that held 1,000 songs and yet fit into your hand. If you wanted a song, it was a simple few clicks away.  The iPod was simple, easy, and natural.

            This is the system that Africa needs. They need a basic, open, operating system,  that developers can create applications for as the need develops. The African applications are geared toward African market. The applications are simple and may appeal to a Western market. The applications can then be marketed to Western markets. If the content is popular, you now have a very successful software company operating in Africa, employing Africans at middle class wages.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com