Category Archives: simplicity
Striving to Be Simple-minded
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Da Vinci Somewhere in the complexity of Chicago traffic today, I began to wonder when such a great term became a pejorative. This term – which should be a positive – has so many negative connotations that I want you to suspend your disbelief at its current definition to […]
Innovation’s 20 Questions
At last, some simplicity around Innovation. I’ve seen and evaluated a lot of frameworks for delivering innovation in the organization. A lot of them are very pretty. They are lofty and fluffy. I wanted to take away all of that and give you something extremely practical and real. Normal language. No really big words. Just a set of radically simple questions to help you determine if something should qualify to receive the time and attention innovation deserves from your organization. (PS – there is a TL/DR graphic of the whole framework at the beginning of this long post)
Customer Focus 2011: House and Home Companies who get it right
Alas, I have begun in earnest the always daunting and often unrewarding task that is home renovation. Some days I come home and see a part of the house into which I have poured my heart, soul and dollars and say “ahhhhh.” However, because I am early on, around the corner is simply another “ewwww.” […]
10 business models that rocked 2010 – from the Board of Innovation
I came across this content from a fellow IBMer who came across it from someone else, who… ah, the beauty of social media. And it is highly unsurprising that the Board of Innovation – the Slideshare’s owners – used Social Media centric models. Instead of me blabbing, I’ll let you get to the good stuff. […]
Are marketers really bad people?
(subtitle: you can’t change some people’s mind no matter how often you mail/email/call/plead/cajole/text/friend/tweet) Seriously, I have spent the past three years trying to change someone’s mind about the fact that marketers really are not the scourge of the earth he thinks they are. Now, he is an economist by trade. He is big on “utility.” […]
Enabling MRM Success, Preventing MRM failure (Marketing Resource Management)
(post is shared as well at the Covalent Marketing site here) I met with 3 clients in the past eight weeks interested in implementing Marketing Resource Management (MRM). So, I started kind of where I usually do – and asked why they thought it would be valuable to them. More specifically, I asked them what […]
Low on cost – high on ingenuity, and saving lives
OK – this example is off topic, but it isn’t. It is a crystal clear representation of how you can stop engineering high-priced overly technical solutions to problems. Two young women with some serious smarts demonstrated they have tons more creativity than cash but are massively able to help people -with – a salad spinner. […]
Marketers: More creativty and less cash – Begin now
Me to client: “So, I understand your modernizing your systems.” Client to me: “Yes, but we’ve recently been asking about how our customers might benefit.” (And here’s what I didn’t say…”Let me get this straight, you’re spending 3/4 of a BILLION dollars. You are 1 year into a 2 year project and only now asking […]
