Posts categorised as Interviews

Interview with Leslie Scott, the Creator of the Game Jenga

Posted by Chris Wilson November 13th, 2009

About Jenga, The Book about the game

A few months back I was approached by Leslie Scott’s publicist about setting up an interview with Leslie regarding her book About Jenga. At the time I had no idea who Leslie Scott was or why I would be interested in a book about that I assumed to be a history book for a board game.

But, luckily for Leslie, her publicist had clearly done her homework and was on target with her pitch. I kept reading and found out that Leslie was the creator of the popular household game, Jenga, and her book is packed full of stories and lessons learned on her lifelong journey with the game. Leslie’s extraordinary experiences fit nicely with unique approach to content I try to provide here at The Fresh Peel.

Jenga is a game that has always intrigued me because of it’s simple complexity. It’s such a simple game to understand, but a complex game and somewhat stressful game to master. And Leslie’s story has taken many twists and turns, with many great lessons learned along the way. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of About Jenga from the publisher.)

In this interview, I quiz Leslie on a variety of topics that she touches in the book, everything from her experience working at Intel to her intuitive understanding of the need to maintain the Jenga brand.

—-

Also, Leslie’s publicist sent me a signed holiday edition of Jenga that is signed by Leslie herself. I’ll be randomly giving this away to anyone that comments at the the end of this post. You have until Friday, November 20th to leave your comment for a chance to win!

—–

Q: Where did the idea for the game Jenga come from?

Leslie: Jenga was based on a game that my family devised in the mid-1970s using my then five-year-old brother’s wooden building blocks. We played this game within the family, and with friends, for several years before I decided to modify it, name it, manufacture it and take it to market in 1982.

Q: What triggered Jenga’s rise to its iconic status in the world of household games?

Leslie: This is a difficult question to answer in just one sentence as it begs further questions, such as what makes a good game in the first place, and even why do we play games at all? But in brief, I think Jenga satisfies all the basic requirements we have of a game. It demands skill, involves interaction with other players, provides suspense, and takes place within a finite period of time.

Q: In the book you stated that you were, “convinced that once buyers saw it, they would tumble over each other in their eagerness to put Jenga on the shelves in their shops.” That wasn’t exactly how things played out. What additional steps would you have taken in the beginning if you knew what you know now?

Leslie: I started a company with the sole purpose of taking Jenga to market. This meant that when I launched Jenga at the ’83 London Toy Fair, neither my company (Leslie Scott Associates) nor the product I was trying to sell had any name recognition in the business whatsoever. With hindsight I now know that it is exceedingly difficult for an unknown business to break into any market with an entirely novel product. At the time, I had naively assumed that the toy and gift business thrived on novelty. If I had been aware that this was not the case, I may have tried to license the game to an established company, one that had traction in the toy trade. But would they have been interested in this unknown game? Probably not.

Q: I was surprised to read that you worked for Intel for quite a long stint early on in your career. This was before Intel was the chip inside the world’s computers. How did this experience prepare you to become the creator of Jenga?

Leslie: Whether this was deliberate policy or not, in the early days, Intel fostered a culture of entrepreneurship within the company. By this I mean, employees were encouraged to take risks, and make their jobs their own. I discovered that I thrived in this environment. As Intel expanded and my job became (by comparison) a little more structured and lot more routine, I found I wanted to recreate the excitement of those early years, and did so by starting my own business; to put Jenga on the market.

Q: What lessons can we learn from games and gameplay that can be applied to the world of business?

Leslie: Games can provide an environment in which we can test ideas, or carry out thought experiments without risk of causing any real harm. There are lessons that one can learn from playing games that might be applied to the world of business, providing great care is taken never to fall into the trap of considering business as ‘ just a game.’ It is not. Business is real life, with real life consequences.

Q: How did you come up with the name Jenga? How important do you think the name has been to the games success?

Leslie: I wanted to give the game a name that would not mean anything, at least not in English, so that in due course, the definition of the word Jenga would be my game. I was born and raised in East Africa, speaking Swahili, from which I ‘borrowed’ the word Jenga. Jenga means ‘build!’ in Swahili. The fact that Jenga is now synonymous with the game (to the extent even that the word is frequently used as a metaphor for a certain type of instability), is certainly very important to the continuing success of the game.

Q: You have had some interesting experiences with trademarks and patents throughout the course of your career. What advice would you give to those interested in legally protecting their work?

Leslie: If you have invented a new device (for example, a new kind of randomizer); then patent it, if you can afford to do so. I filed a patent pending on Jenga, but could not afford to take it any further. If the word(s) you have chosen to name your product are not descriptive of the product; then trademark the name. And always copyright your rules.

Q: When it comes to branding Jenga, you said that there were, “two key moments in the history of the game, that were decisions as a result of an intuitive understanding of the art of branding.” Can you tell us about those two key moments?

Leslie: The first ‘key moment’ came when I refused to allow either Irwin Toy or Hasbro Corporation to drop Jenga as the name of the game. Both companies wished to acquire the rights to the game (Irwin for Canada, Hasbro for the rest of the world) at a time when I was up to my ears in debt from having published and marketed the game for three years entirely on my own. Both companies loved the game, but both ‘hated the name because it didn’t mean anything’. It was a potential deal breaker, but I stuck to my guns.

The second moment came when I begged Hasbro not to publish a range of ‘Jenga wooden puzzles and games’. I was certain that this would be entirely missing the point that Jenga was known as a very specific game.

—

Thanks Leslie!

Now leave those comments.

CATEGORIES: Books, Branding, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Professional Trend Spotter and Author Jeremy Gutsche

Posted by Chris Wilson October 5th, 2009

Exploiting Chaos Post2Post Book Tour

The Post2Post bus has returned!

Trend Spotter, Jeremy Gutsche

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Jeremy Gutsche, founder of the wildly popular TrendHunter.com and author of Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change, which is the featured book for October’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

Not only is Jeremy one of the founders at TrendHunter, but he is also a highly sought after speaker. He was one of Capital One’s youngest Business Directors and innovation leads. Prior to Capital One, Jeremy advised top-level strategy to Fortune 50 and government clients as a Management Consultant at the Monitor Group.

In this interview, I picked Jeremy’s brain on everything from finding innovation out of chaos to what his response is to opponents of trend spotting.

—–

Q: Is chaos a necessary ingredient for innovation?

Jeremy: It’s not required, but during periods of chaos, consumer needs change. This presents an opportunity for companies who are able to identify these needs.

Q: What are some things that history teaches us about chaos and crisis? 

Jeremy: People get caught up in the downsides of the depression, but history teaches us that these times consistently provide us with new opportunities. In fact, some of the most iconic companies were founded during chaotic periods of economic downturns, including: Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, Amgen, Hyatt, HP, EA, and Fortune Magazine.

Fortune Magazine, for instance, was founded just four months AFTER the 1929 Wall Street crash. It was a dollar an issue (the price of a wool sweater), but it thrived. DURING the Great Depression, a subscriber base of 500,000 was grown, and the magazine made seven million dollars in modern day profit. The reason Fortune was successful was not because it was a luxury publication, but rather, because consumer needs had evolved. When people lost their jobs and saw the world changed by the decisions made by NYC based corporations, they wanted to know what was happening behind boardroom doors. Fortune was an answer; an answer to a new consumer need.

Q: You introduce a new wave of management theory which you call “The Exploiting Chaos Framework.” Give us a brief description of each of the four tactics and how they work in the framework.  

Jeremy: Culture of Revolution – Culture is more important than strategy because it underlies your organization’s ability to adapt. During times of dramatic change, the importance of an aligned organization becomes even more important

Trend Hunting – Innovation and strategic advantage hinge on the ability to anticipate new trends and identify the next big thing. The book outlines our TrendHunter.com approach to filtering through chaos and identify clusters of opportunity to focus your innovation.

Adaptive Innovation – Engineers, designers, and scientists have invested billions of dollars to perfect human creativity. By applying the best of their proven practices to your own field, you can think big while acting small. You can rapidly identify and evaluate new opportunities.

Infectious Messaging – The Internet has created a world cluttered with chaos, but it has also created the world’s first viral platform for ideas. Well-packaged stories travel faster than ever before. Unfortunately, most marketers are stuck in a world dominated by traditional advertising and cliché. By cultivating infection, your ideas will resonate, helping you to leapfrog ahead of the competition.

Q: What’s different about the framework that you present from current and past management models? Why do organizations need a new model?   

Jeremy: The EXPLOITING CHAOS framework teaches readers about reinventing SPECIFICALLY during times of chaos and change, whether in an area of growth and bubbling opportunity or periods of downturn.

Q: In the book, you say, “if you want to change the course of your organization’s future, you need to spark a revolution.” Where in the organization does this spark take place and who makes it happen?    

Jeremy: The revolution is in the mindset of the entire organization. It becomes part of the culture. It takes place when the leaders of the company are able to articulate a mantra. An alignment towards a common mantra helps the company to evolve in the same direction.

Q: Your framework includes trend hunting, which is what you and your team does on a daily basis at TrendHunter.com. Is the trend hunting a part of the framework that an organization could outsource? Possibly to an company like TrendHunter. 

Jeremy: We provide premium research and help facilitate workshops for companies… but ultimately, trend hunting involves looking for ideas that spark interest based on YOUR consumer’s needs… So truly breakthrough organization has to have origins within one’s own company. Accordingly, we like to help companies by providing them with a toolkit and trends in other industries that might be relevant for their own problems.

Q: What would your response be to someone that says, “you can’t spot trends because by the time you recognize a trend it’s already here, and thus no longer a trend?”  

Jeremy: In the book (and our professional research), we use the term clusters… The theory being that you need to find groups of meaningful and inspiring ideas. If these ideas are relevant to your consumer’s needs, and they aren’t incredibly broad, then you’re going to have a good basis for creating remarkable products that solve a consumer need.

Q: What’s your biggest challenge as a professional trend hunter? 

Jeremy: Balancing my time… I do about 5-10 speaking gigs a month, and all that travel keeps me away from the Trend Hunter team, who is diligently programming new functionality and hunting new trends as we do this interview…

Q: What do organizations tend to struggle with more? Trend Hunting (recognizing trends) or Adaptive Innovation (Finding ways to apply those trends)? 

Jeremy: It’s so easy to get caught up with routine daily tasks and the status quo, that I think organizations struggle most with Culture. However… I won’t avoid your question that easily… I think organizations struggle with Trend Hunting because it is too easy to jump to the closest answer or to make the same decision that was made the day before…

Q: Everyone wants to be noticed. How can we make our messages better and more infectious? 

Jeremy: At Trend Hunter, our Rule #1 is to RELENTLESSLY OBSESS ABOUT YOUR STORY! Careful word choice can have an astounding impact on the viral potential of your message. At Trend Hunter, we have the luxury of being able to test our word choice and see a measured view count for each test. For most products, the goal is immeasurable buzz and word of mouth. Here’s a sample of how I break it down in the book:

The framework we use at Trend Hunter includes three components: an article must be simple, direct, and supercharged.

Simple: As Jack Welch of GE put it, “Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster, and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.” Similarly, author Seth Godin notes that simple messages “supercharge word of mouth.”

Direct: An outsider should understand your value proposition from your 7 words. Your value proposition is your advantage. It’s the unique attribute that explains why I should choose you.

Supercharged: Your seven words should pass the “I-have-to-tell-someone-test.” If they don’t, why will someone else care? You can’t expect your message to drive word-of-mouth exposure if you don’t give people a supercharged story.
 In traditional marketing, there is an emphasis on cliché, clever wording, and invented words. At Trend Hunter, we pursue viral, and that means we place our emphasis is on simplicity.
Rule #1: RELENTLESSLY OBSESS ABOUT YOUR STORY

—

Thanks Jeremy!

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Brand Consultant and Author Marty Neumeier

Posted by Chris Wilson April 21st, 2009

The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Marty Neumeier, brand consultant author of a number of the popular whiteboard overview business books, The Brand Gap, Zag, and now The Designful Company, which is the featured book for April’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

It’s been very exciting for me to interview Marty because his work has done a lot to shape my own thoughts and methods when working with clients. Not only that, one quick search for on this blog for “Marty Neumeier” will show you how often ideas from his books and from content produced by his company, Neutron, inspires and shapes my thoughts here.

In this interview with Marty, we touch on a few of concepts from The Designful Company.

—–

Q: You open up The Designful Company with the idea that, “We’ve been getting better and better at a management model that’s getting wronger and wronger.” What’s wrong with the way companies are managed?

Marty: The management model we’ve been using is based on the cold mechanics of the assembly line. The assembly line was successful partly because it turned a blind eye to morality, emotions, and human aspiration—all the better to make your competitors and customers lose, so you can win. We’ve spent the last century making minor tweaks to this same narrow idea of success.

But now we’re finding that innovation without emotion is uninteresting, products without aesthetics are uncompelling, brands without meaning are undesirable, and companies without ethics are unsustainable. We need a new management model that replaces the win-lose nature of the assembly line with the win-win nature of the network. I call the new model “the designful company.” It harnesses broad-based creativity to build a culture of nonstop innovation.

Q: How must the traditional views of design and designer be redefined in order for a company to build a culture of nonstop innovation?

Marty: We need to get past our view of the designer as a shaper of objects. The dictionary defines a designer as someone who plans an artifact or system of artifacts—in other words, the “posters and toasters” of the 20th century. This is too narrow. I prefer Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon’s definition: “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” In this definition, design is a way of thinking, and anyone in the company can be a designer, including the CEO.

Design thinking is about refusing to accept the easy answer. It’s about imagining new possibilities that weren’t on the table before, and prototyping those possibilities so they can be tested. It’s the difference between “deciding” the way forward and “designing” the way forward. Deciding only works in a stable market where innovation is a low priority.

Q: In what areas of business can design thinking be leveraged?

Marty: Well, of course, communications and products—the aforementioned posters and toasters—are still important, and can be designed a lot better. But we can move design thinking up the ladder to more important levels, such as brand strategy, end-to-end customer experience, organizational design, decision-making, business models, and corporate vision. When we apply design thinking to these questions, we get even more bang for the buck.

Q: How does design thinking lead to a culture of innovation?

Marty: Design thinking creates the process and vocabulary for a designful company. It runs on human qualities such as empathy, intuition, imagination, and idealism, which in turn lead to customer focus, holistic problem solving, innovative ideas, and extraordinary quality. The overall advantage that a culture of innovation gives you is enterprise agility. It allows the company to maneuver as a single entity.

Q: Looking at Interbrand’s Best Global Brands list, are there any that standout as designful, innovative companies?

Marty: Not as many as there should be. I would say IBM, Disney, Google, BMW, Apple, Nike, and IKEA are designful companies. But Coca-Cola, Microsoft, GE, and Cisco are not so designful.

Interbrand’s formula seems to be a rear-view assessment of brand value. I’d like to see a formula that gives more weight to the momentum of a brand, which would offer a better predictor for a brand’s future value. Y&R, for example, has a formula called the Brand Asset Valuator, which takes into consideration a brand’s “energy.” Designful companies are full of energy.

Q: What will the fate be for brands that fail to fully embrace design thinking?

Marty: Generally speaking, they’ll find their products and services will become increasingly commoditized and even obsolete as their competitors race ahead.

Q: You discuss the importance of collaboration within companies, but what opportunities do you see for companies to collaborate with groups (i.e., consumers) outside the company walls? What about online collaboration?

Marty: The web is actually the technology that unleashed collaboration. I’ve always said that we don’t live in the Information Age—we live in the Collaboration Age. The web has allowed people to work together across distances in real time for almost no money.

This new connectedness has also made it necessary to work together, because there’s no place to hide in a network. Customers now know things about brands and companies that even their employees don’t know. Customers are literally running the show. So it makes sense to enlist them as a functioning part of the brand machinery. I love how Skittles has turned their website into a forum for customer opinion. What they get in return for their transparency is a direct view into their customers’ brains, plus extra credit for having confidence in their brand.

Q: In a designful company what is the attitude towards failure?

Marty: Designful companies embrace failure as a learning step. Companies with a traditional “deciding” mindset are uncomfortable with failure, since they expect to be successful immediately. The only way be successful immediately, however, is to make small, safe moves.

Q: Please explain the stage-gate innovation model and its purpose.

Marty: Stage-gate innovation allows you to make big, bold moves by turning innovation into a journey. It was pioneered years ago by oil-drilling companies to minimize investment risk. Later it was adopted by venture capitalists for the same reason. The concept is that you start with a large crop of bold ideas, then invest increasing amounts at each stage for the ones that pass muster. Only one or two ideas make it through the funnel, but they’ve been de-risked without having to compromise their boldness.

(Click to view a larger version)

Q: When it comes to measuring a potentially innovative project as it moves through the stage-gate process, what metrics should we use to determine if it should move to the next stage?

Marty: It depends on whether it’s a product, a business model, a strategy, and whatever. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s a product. In the first stage, you might create a prototype and measure customer excitement. At the next stage you could measure usability. At the next stage you could test various price points. And so on, until you’re satisfied that you have a winner.

The beauty of the design process is that you can test assumptions quickly and cheaply, so that you never have to play it safe. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do in a time of fast-moving markets and leap-frogging innovation.

Going forward, the bottom line is this: If you want to innovate, you’ve got to design.

Thanks Marty!

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Books, Branding, Creativity, Design, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing, Miscellaneous, Social Media

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Future of Work: Interview with Piers Fawkes

Posted by Chris Wilson February 13th, 2009

Piers Fawkes Future of Work Interview

Piers Fawkes is the founder of PSFK – trends-led publishing, events and consultancy business with offices and representatives in London, Hamburg, New York, Shanghai and Sao Paulo. Each month, over 300,000 people from around the world read PSFK’s websites and newsletters for inspiration.

Here’s what Piers has to say about the future of work along with some advice for Gen Yers entering the workforce.

—-

1. Explain to readers what PSFK does.

Piers Fawkes: We’re a trends and innovation company. We publish a daily news site and books; we hold events around the world – big and small; and we offer consultancy to companies that include Apple and Target. Our job is to inspire our readers, audience and clients to make things better.

2. How many people make up PSFK? And how do you communicate and collaborate together? What tools do you use?

PF: We have a small team in New York and representatives in London, Hamburg, Sao Paulo. Shanghai and Singapore. But I’d like to think that we have a team of 400,000 – the number of people who visit the site each month. We often ask our audience to help us across the three business functions: readers comment, suggest speakers, promote events and even do research for us.

3. How have the rules of collaboration changed for businesses?

PF: Probably what has happened is transparency and speed. Through digital tools, we can be very open about what we’re doing, our process, how we’re getting paid and our collaborators can do the same. And, we can get help from across the world very quickly by the click of ’send’, ’submit’ or ‘publish’.

4. PSFK seems to cover a lot of ground throughout the year blogging, planning and hosting events, consulting and much more. What is it about the way PSFK operates that leads to continuous results?

PF: All three aspects of our business feed each other. For example, the publishing allows us to keep our fingers on the pulse, our events help us meet tastemakers who we could interview on PSFK or use for research, the consultancy helps us travel which means more content for PSFK.com

5. What affect, if any, do you see the rise of social media and social networks having on the future of work?

PF: I think we will all eventually be guns for hire. Social Media helps people find other people to hire and/or collaborate.

6. You recently had some blunt words for all the Gen Y’s who will soon be entering the work force. Give us some highlights.

PF: I think there’s a naivety about how Gen Y perceives the workplace. It’s changing drastically and I recently reacted to some very old fashioned career advice on (the great) YPulse. You can read my thoughts and people’s reaction here – but basically the wake-up news is that companies are trying to get leaner, have flexible staff, use more perma and freelance staff who train themselves. When I entered the workforce there was talk about the fact that there won’t be any jobs for life anymore and that people will have 5 or 6. Twenty years later and I have had over a dozen jobs. Gen Yers are going to work for scores of companies and they need to remember that companies aren’t there to give you a job, they’re there to make a profit in constantly changing times. They seek a relationship with staff based on flexibility and delivery. They’re not going to have the bandwidth to help people with developing what is an antiquated perception of what it ‘career’. I think that there will be very few full time jobs by the time Gen Y retire.

——

This post is part of the Future of Work interview series, discussing the future of work with leading experts from some of the world’s most progressive marketing, advertising and strategy organizations.

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

RELATED POSTS:

None

Future of Work: Interview with Chris Brogan

Posted by Chris Wilson February 12th, 2009

Chris Brogan Future of Work Interview

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, as well as the home of the New Marketing Summit conferences and New Marketing Bootcamp educational events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

Chris is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations and individuals. Most of you will know him from his blog at ChrisBrogan.com or his his almost constant Twitterstream.

As a digital nomad that’s always on the go, Chris and his company definitely operate outside of many of the restraints posed on traditional business frameworks.

Here’s Chris’ take on the future of work.

—–

1. Explain what your new business venture, New Marketing Labs, does.

Chris Brogan: My company, New Marketing Labs, LLC, is a sister organization to CrossTech Media, and we do education and execution in the online marketing and social media space. We run conferences, bootcamps, and executive briefings on the one hand, and we work directly with clients to fulfill business communications strategy execution on the other.

2. How many people make up the team at New Marketing Labs? And how do you communicate and collaborate together? What tools do you use?

CB: There are 3 direct employees at New Marketing Labs. We use CrossTech Media’s backoffice support team for billing, legal, and event operations, and we have a trusted network of social media agents who can do some work as needed.

For collaboration, we use Twitter more than any other tool. It’s fast. It’s simple. It’s multi-modal (we can use it on a desk or a phone or anyone’s browser). We use cell phones instead of desktops. We don’t have a central “base” platform yet, but we haven’t needed it. Well, I take that back. We use PipelineDeals.com for our sales funnel. That’s proving to be really useful.

3. How have the rules of collaboration changed for businesses?

CB: Collaboration requires mobile technology these days. Every tool we use has a mobile element. We’re using iPhones because we can use the location-based applications ,the simple interface, and the ability to work wherever to our advantage. We are atomized in our ability to gather, disperse, and re-form wherever we’re needed.

4. What affect, if any, do you see the rise of social media and social networks having on the future of work?

CB: Social tools are the ultimate in capturing unstructured human data. As a reformed project manager, tools like Microsoft Project just aren’t the human equivalent to how we communicate around business projects. We need different forms. Social platforms give us MANY modes of communication. We’re learning how to integrate those to enterprise platforms internally, and how to use them professionally externally. It’s how business is done in the coming years.

5. Do you think social media could be a bridge that leads more companies to operate virtually?

CB: Absolutely. With everyone in 2009 being extremely price conscious, I can trade a $39/month EVDO card from Verizon plus a $130/mo phone bill from AT&T for an iPhone for a $6500/cubicle expense. I don’t need an office. When you think about it, what business ever really gets done in an office? People need workspaces that fit their needs, but the form they take shouldn’t be relegated by tradition. There are opportunities abound with the new tools for presence.

6. How do you see methods of working like coworking, crowdsourcing and telecommuting impacting the way that organizations operate?

CB: I think co-working is interesting. It seems more suited for people who might want more collaboration. When I work in my coffeeshops, I want the opposite of collaboration. I need a place to put my face down and not be interrupted. I see co-working as having the potential to recreate the “office meerkat” environment, with lots of loose conversations. Again, in a creative and interactive setting? Perfect.

Crowdsourcing will work for lots of future projects. We use it all the time via Twitter. I ask Twitter for most everything these days. It’s a lot more responsive than Google. Telecommuting is an old term. Web commuting might be the new name, yes?

7. Can corporate giants exist in a world where coworking is the the norm?

CB: Size is a mixed bag. It means you have lots more time to die. It means you have more resources to bring to bear on specific points. But at the same time, let’s look at the US Armed Forces. Shortly into our engagement in Afghanistan, we realized that building more and more aircraft carriers, tanks, and missiles wasn’t really going to cut it. Look at today’s engagements: small forces, small arms, small vehicles. It’s a lot more tricky to have a big impact, but then, the targets are diffusing.

I think this is similar to the business environment.

8. Are physical face-to-face meetings still necessary? Will they be in the future?

CB: Yes, they are. I think what happens is like this: 60 /30 / 10. The first sixty percent of work can be done online. The next 30 percent should be in person and should cement relationships, and build on what’s come before. The last 10 is the wrap-up. That’s how we like to operate.

9. What are the skills and education of the future marketer?

CB: Information arbitrage. Content packaging. Communications management. And curation.

10. In terms of the future, what are you most excited about? What do you see as the biggest threat?

CB: I’m excited about the opportunity for more interactions to come back to the cafe-shaped scale. That means that I’m looking forward to a return to people knowing each other’s names, and I’m eager to see what happens when business gets back into conversations instead of pat answers, cold advertising, and endless remixes of the old stuff.

——

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

RELATED POSTS:

None

Future of Work: Interview with Joseph Jaffe

Posted by Chris Wilson February 11th, 2009

Joseph Jaffe Interview on Future of Work

Joseph Jaffe is President and Chief Interruptor of Crayon, a strategic consultancy that helps its clients achieve positive change and impact by joining the conversation. Crayon is organized and operates as a mashup of sorts, bringing together the best in consulting, agency, advisory, thought leadership and educational worlds, no matter where they might be physically located.

Joseph is the author of two books, Life After the 30-Second Spot and more recently Join the Conversation. He also hosts and authors the Jaffe Juice podcast and blog.

Joseph submitted his responses via audio recording, so here’s your chance to listen to some of his thoughts on the future of work.

—-

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[ Download Joseph Jaffe's Audio Response ] Running time: 29:47

——

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Future of Work: Interview with James Ware & Charles Grantham

Posted by Chris Wilson February 10th, 2009

James Ware and Charles Grantham Interview

James Ware is a co-founder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work program. He has over 30 years experience in research, executive education, consulting, and management, including five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School.

Dr. Charles Grantham is a co-founder and Executive Producer of the Work Design Collaborative (WDC) and the Future of Work program. Charlie leads a number of WDC’s applied research and development projects, focusing on emerging forms of work and commerce.

He has been active in this area for over 25 years and is recognized as an international expert on the design of information and organizational systems that support these new forms of work. Currently he is focused on the design and development of community-based business centers that serve as a link between “talent” in local communities and the global Internet-based economy.

James and Charlie co-authored Corporate Agility with Cory Williamson, which addresses the need for organizations to coordinate and integrate HR, IT, and CRE/facilities to develop new business capabilities for competing in a flat, global economy.

Here’s what James and Charlie had to say about the future of work.

—-

1. How important is it to employees that they have some level of control over their work environment?

James Ware: It’s essential. The most important factor in motivation and engagement is a sense of personal self-control. While employees understand and accept the idea that a “boss” has some legitimate influence over what they do, the biggest source of frustration and anger in the business world is the belief that your boss doesn’t understand or care about your needs or situation. And the biggest source of resistance to change is the fear of losing control over one’s actions and performance.

Charles Grantham: Very important. The more you involve them in the design of the work environment, the more they are ‘engaged’ with the company. Further it is extremely important that they perceive they have significant input to changes in the environment.

2. How important is it to the overall function of a company that employees be given this control?

JW: Critical – see above. Subject, of course, to basic agreement over what is expected of the employee. I am a big believer in “management by results only.” In other words, tell me what you need me to get done, and when, and then turn me loose. Otherwise I might as well be a robot.

CG: It goes directly to retention of top talent. If you want to keep them they have to be given this control in today’s work world.

3. Is there any connection between the small number of companies that offer employees this control and the steady rise in the number of people who are choosing to take the path of self-employment?

JW: Absolutely. Other than forced layoffs and involuntary terminations the biggest reason people are leaving large organizations is their frustration with being treated like robots or children (or both). Self-employment carries all kinds of business risks but there’s no one who can tell you what to do.

CG: In our opinion yes. This shift to self-employment may be slowed by current economic conditions—but everyone who is getting laid off is a potential self-employed person in the future. I’d venture to say that a large number of those being laid off will never return to full-time corporate employment. When IBM did their massive layoffs only about 50% eventually returned to the corporate world—the rest began new careers as self employed entrepreneurs and never looked back.

4. Explain what the “Third Place” is for readers who aren’t familiar with the term.

JW: The term was invented by Ray Oldenburg to refer to coffee houses and other public places where rich conversations take place (public parks, forums, restaurants, other gathering places). We use it to describe the places people work other than a corporate office (“the first place”) and their home office (“second place”). There is an increasing number of shared workplaces – some like Starbucks are “accidental” while others are designed as workplaces where the space, equipment, and costs are shared by the users (or members in most cases).

CG: The “first place” is the traditional assigned company office; the “second place” is the home office. The “third place” is everywhere else you work. Think of a Starbucks on steroids.

5. Can corporate giants exist in a world where coworking is the norm?

JW: Of course. We’re not going to see the end of large organizations. Some industries and technologies still require scale – and make sense only at large scale (eg, power companies, telecoms, automobile and airplane manufacturing), On the other hand, many “large” organizations are increasingly really conglomerations of many smaller subcontractors – even cars and planes are “produced” by thousands of companies and the big names (GM, Ford, Boeing) are really assemblers. Thus we’re going to see many large organizations setting up their own “co-working” facilities to house both their own employees and their many vendors, service providers, and subcontractors.

CG: They have no choice. Do it or go away. The global economy will no longer support organizations who are only 60% effective in terms of its use of real estate, technology and people.

6. What is corporate agility?

JW: It’s basically the ability to move quickly in any direction – to respond to competitor moves, to shift operations from one location to another, to grow in one place and shrink in another at the same time. Agility comes from having few fixed costs, and from not trying to build a giant firm that “does it all.” When firms use outsourcing and subcontractors they can switch talent or facilities or technology much more easily than when they have made long-term commitments. It means “rent, don’t buy” in the broadest sense. Agility also means a state of mind that takes nothing for granted and assumes from the get-go that the world is dynamic and ever-changing.

CG: It’s the ability of an organization to change and change quickly as dictated by external pressures and events. The degree to which you can change your products/services, location, methods of production and distribution and talent pool is directly related to your ability to sustain yourself-in short the agile will succeed. Those that aren’t agile will disappear.

7. Why have so many organizations lost their corporate agility in recent years?

JW: I think many of them are still operating on industrial-age assumptions about stability, certain environments, and a slow pace of change. In addition, too many organizations have invested in large, hard-to-change IT systems that have locked their business processes into “electronic concrete” so it’s harder than ever to change business processes. Finally, I also believe that many executives have responded to all these business challenges by “hunkering down” and staying with what they know instead of opening up to change and recognizing it can’t be business as usual.

CG: Three reasons: Executives can’t hold a vision of company purpose larger than quarterly profit growth; they lose focus on the basic value proposition their customers see; and they can’t overcome obstacles to change inside their companies.

8. Strategically what should companies do to regain, enhance, and retain their corporate agility?

JW: Cut their fixed costs as close to zero as possible. Spend time with their customers to understand what they really need and how to add value. Keep it simple, stupid. Pay more attention to the outside world. Spend a lot of time in conversation with peers (inside and outside the company), employees, customers, service providers, and public officials. See the world as they do and as it is, not as they want it to be. In others, listen and learn.

CG: First understand what value they bring to their customers. Then strip down to that core value and get rid of everything else. Build an infrastructure (real estate, it and people) that is variable cost in nature—not fixed cost. Lastly, hire leaders who embrace change, even encourage it.

9. How much of a factor has technology played in changing the way companies operate?

JW: Very dramatic. IT has clearly changed the paradigm of what people can do, where it can be done, and how much it costs. While it sometimes locks companies in to old processes, when done right it can create incredible agility. It empowers individuals – and changes the role of management itself.

CG: Increasingly a larger factor. it started as a way to do old stuff more efficiently. Now it allows companies to do new things—especially in extending and managing networks of suppliers, customers, partners and employees.

10. What affect, if any, do you see the rise of social media and social networks having on the future of work?

JW: Very powerful. The essence of knowledge work (which is what creates value today) is conversation – creating and exchanging information. Social networking applications extend the reach – they are global – and they accelerate the processes of information exchange. The business world depends on two things – ideas and relationships – and social networking enhances both. And the new apps are so much more “natural” than the old stuff. The world really is becoming a “global village.”

CG: A tremendous effect. The core organizing principle of businesses in the next decade will be consciously built and ever changing networks. Networks of people, ideas and resources. Nothing will be static and time horizons will collapse. Think of how the movie industry works. Its always organizing and reorganizing.

11. In terms of the future, what are you most excited about? What do you see as the biggest threat?

JW: I’m excited about the opportunities for new knowledge creation – out of the diversity of multiple cultures and personal experiences, brought together by social media of all kinds. And I’m particularly excited about how IT empowers individuals and small businesses. We may actually one day see the end of arbitrary authority – we may finally see the rise of organizations that reward merit and ability and are more collegial and much less hierarchical.

For me the most exciting prospect surrounding the future of work is the fact that individuals have so many more options for expressing themselves and benefiting from the value of their ideas and efforts. I’m personally convinced that most large organizations make horribly poor use of human talent – and IT is creating a “new economy” that really – finally – rewards talent.

In terms of threats, I think the biggest challenge is the power that senior executives still wield and don’t want to relinquish. In other words, they will become the biggest resistors to change. I believe ultimately the “people” will win, but as we’ve seen in the political world, those who have power don’t give it up readily or without a fight.

CG: The most exciting thing is people realizing they are in charge of their destiny. They get to make choices. Do what they want. Go where they want and on more and more on their own terms of engagement.

The biggest threat to social stability is the possibility that governments can’t provide the basic infrastructure to allow people this freedom.

Final Thoughts

JW: I think the most important question is why these changes have taken so long to be realized. And the answer is resistance to change – from those who hold power and benefit from the status quo (by the way, I don’t believe the anyone basically resists change – they just resist being changed by forces beyond their control – back to my original point in Question 1). Ultimately I believe technology is incredibly revolutionary, and I’m thrilled to see it becoming so much more widespread.

——

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

RELATED POSTS: Future of Work Redux

Future of Work: Interview with Author Andy Law

Posted by Chris Wilson February 9th, 2009

Andy Law and the Future of Working Interview

Andy is the founder and Worldwide Chairman of the Law Firm, which is a global company that operates through twenty-one nodal hub locations.

He is also the author of the book, Creative Company, which at the time of it’s release (1999) offered up a rogue set of challenges to the working model of the advertising world. I first read Creative Company after Seth Godin recommended it in All Marketers are Liars and I quickly understood why Godin liked the book. Andy has a never ending inquisitive nature about him, and isn’t afraid to question the most time-tested of systems (In this case, Business).

It’s 10 years later and I had the chance to catch up with Andy to pick his brain again about the future of work and to find out if he has any thoughts about what is on the horizon.

—-

1. What happened at St. Lukes? Why did you decide to part ways with the company?

Andy Law: I was the wrong guy to lead the next stage of St. Luke’s life. There were co-owners there with a different take on the future. It was about their future, not mine.

2. You are now the founder and Worldwide Chairman of the Law Firm. Could you give us quick synopsis of what the Law Firm is?

AL: My second book, Experiment At Work, outlined how you could see a company as a social network. The interlinking of everything we know needed a new model. Anita and Gordon Roddick sat down with me and we thrashed out what a future looking organization might look and feel like. In spirit with my past activities I wanted a network that took the best of the world’s thinking without the onerous management structure that so often goes with global organizations. So The Law Firm is a franchise operation, offering creative communications around the globe.

3. How much if any of the theology at the Law Firm can be traced back to St. Lukes?

AL: Well St. Luke’s was about Liberation Management and fair return on sweat equity. The Law Firm has these times 10.

4. What’s different about the Law Firm versus St. Lukes?

AL: The Law Firm is global. But beyond that I feel it unfair to make comment because I don’t really know what is happening at St. Luke’s. It is, rightfully, a different company now.

5. What role does technology play at the Law Firm?

AL: The operational protocol at The Law Firm is based on internet protocol. With Open Source Creativity we have a proprietary internet tool to help us work together. The company is totally reliant on technology.

6. In recent years, concepts such as ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment), working from home, and Telecommuting have begun to gain some traction in the business world. How do you see this fitting into the future of work? And does this reduce the Law Firm’s need for Nodal (satellite) locations?

AL: We are working towards a totally new way of working. By September we will be using the city as our workplace. There has been so much private/public investment in city architecture and spaces, we will be using the entire city as our workspace. More on this nearer the time……………….

7. I pulled a quote from the Law Firm website which says, “It takes an honest ad agency to say advertising won’t always work for you.” With the fragmentation of the media industry, are you having to say this to clients more often?

AL: O yes!

8. With the changes in the way that people communicate and collaborate online, marketing and advertising companies are needing to reach out and work with a new type of creative team. What do these “creatives” look like. What are their skills?

AL: Younger, and more generalist in outlook.

9. In your book Creative Company, you talked a lot about the possibilities for the future of work. It has been 9 years (correct?) since Creative Company was published. What does the future of work look like to you today?

AL: Ever more exciting. Economic downturns provide opportunity. Necessity is the mother of invention, but Dissatisfaction is its father. There will be even more organisations created and linked by the internet. Overhead will be reduced and imagination increased as people uses the fabulous resources at hand to create new things. Marx was nearly right. The means of production is now in the minds of the people.

10. In terms of that future, what are you most excited about? What do you see as the biggest threat?

AL: See 9 for what is exciting. Biggest threat is that government does not see and support the new emerging economy of inventive SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises).

——

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

The Future of Work: Interview Series

Posted by Chris Wilson February 8th, 2009

Future of Work Interview Series - Marketing Fresh Peel

Where do you work?

Does your work travel with you when you’re on the go? What tools do you use? How do you collaborate over long distances?

Could you improve the way you work?

What does the future of work look like in marketing and advertising?

What does the future of work look like?

—

Keep an eye on the Future of Work Interview Series to see what some of the industries leading thinkers have to say about these topics and more. (Bookmark this page because I will be updating the links below as the interviews are posted.)

—

Future of Work Glossary

Coworking – the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space. Learn More at Wikipedia.

Crowdsourcing – a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. Learn More at Wikipedia.

ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) – a management strategy where employees are paid for results (output) rather than the number hours worked. The goal is to keep workers who deliver results while firing those who are not productive. Learn More at Wikipedia.

The Third Place – a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Learn More at Wikipedia.

Telecommuting (also known as e-commuting or telework) – a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links. Learn More at Wikipedia.

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Author and Personal Brand Consultant, Hajj Flemings

Posted by Chris Wilson November 4th, 2008

Hajj Flemings is the author of The Brand YU Life, which I previously reviewed in further detail. He specializes in personal and corporate brand management consulting, training and seminars.

As promised, I quized Hajj’s a bit more on the subject of personal branding. Enjoy!

—

There has been a recent surge of interest in personal branding, especially in online communities. Why do think personal branding has become such a hot topic?

One of the reasons is the balance of power of has changed. With the success of web 2.0 icon Gary Vaynerchuk and others we are seeing in real-time that anyone with an idea, passion, and time can live their dreams. That idea is extremely appealing to people.

The second reason is personal branding is threaded into the fabric of social media (SM) and as SM continues to explode I believe you will see personal branding continue to grow in popularity. The majority of the Rockstars of personal branding have integrated a solid social media strategy.

In The Brand YU Life you make a lot of comparisons between personal brands and business brands. Do you see more similarities or differences between the two?

I used a lot of business brands as comparison because people conceptualize and understand business brands without a lot explanation. This is due to the fact that people use and interact with business brands all day as consumers. I focused on shifting their paradigm of being a consumer to one of a producer.

Tom Peters the father of the personal brand movement stated in Fast Company magazine, August 1997, “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. Personal branding was birth from a comparison between a business and a person. I personally see more similarities than differences.

Are there any concerns for individuals in replicating business brands?

Business brands are typically much more established and there is a defined culture that guides every business decision. Personal brands on the other hand are typically more nimble and can make decisions without an act of congress being passed. Business brands should be used as a model to understand the functions and elements of a brand if this thought process is used it shouldn’t present a problem.

How important is the act of listening in developing your personal brand, both online and offline?

Listening is very important, very simply you don’t what you don’t know but being open to other voices and minds who don’t think like you or live where you live can assist you in increasing your influence. Information is changing at such a fast past if you don’t have a listening strategy you will be operating with old data that could cost you missed opportunity or destroy the reputation of your brand.

Thanks Hajj!

CATEGORIES: Books, Branding, Interviews, Social Media

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Author and Speaker, Tom Asacker

Posted by Chris Wilson October 30th, 2008

Tom Asacker Author of A Little Less Conversation Many of you know Tom from his book A Clear Eye for Branding, but now he’s back for round two and demanding a little less talk and a lot more action. With his newest release, “A Little Less Conversation,” Tom Asacker skips the typical branding jargon, formulas and hyped-spin and instead cuts to the heart of creating a brand that “attracts customers, engages, and delights them.”

I had a chance to pick Tom’s brain a bit on the new book. Enjoy!

—-

Q: Why the title, “A Little Less Conversation?” I thought the age of web 2.0 is all about conversation.

Tom: Web 2.0 may be about conversation, but this age is about what every age has always been about: people, and their hopes, dreams, and desires.

The title is a play on the Elvis Presley song of the same name. Remember the lyrics?

“A little less conversation, a little more action please. All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me.

A little more bite and a little less bark. A little less fight and a little more spark. Close your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me. Satisfy me baby.”

Again, Web 2.0 may be primarily about conversations, connections, and participation. But succeeding in business is about opening up your heart and helping to improve people’s lives by providing relevant and meaningful products, services, and experiences.

Q: What’s different about today’s brands, and how is their role changing?

Tom: For people living in a post-modern industrialized world, brands are more than mere functional “solutions to problems.” The rational man, utilitarian view of marketplace offerings is defunct. Today, the brands people choose are also reflections of their sense of self and self worth. Yes, people want the brands they choose to be reliable and fair. And yes, they want to save time and save money. But they also want the brands they choose to look good, be good, and do good. They’re constantly reexamining and remixing their brand choices to find the very best “value” in the marketplace; value which causes them to feel the way they want to feel about themselves and their decisions. Those organizations that viscerally understand this will succeed and thrive. Those that don’t will die a slow death; or perhaps a quick one given the new macroeconomic realities of the foreseeable future.

Q: You challenge the traditional AIDA (awareness, information, desire and action) model of decision making. How does the decision making process really work?

Tom: Think about the upcoming elections. In the AIDA model, voters would become aware of a candidate; seek out as much information as possible; consider the positives and negatives, which would then make one candidate more desirable than the other; and then vote for that particular candidate. Instead, what do people really do? They become aware of the candidates; learn the candidates’ stands on the issues that matter most to them (and/or listen to their rhetoric and watch their mannerisms); seek out information to reinforce their desire for the candidate that best reflects their personality and views; and rationalize their selections. It works the very same way with other decisions. We use information to reinforce our instinctual desires; especially in a marketplace where we have come to expect a certain level of features, quality, pricing, and delivery.

Q: In the book you described five trends that have changed the playing field for brands. What are they?

Tom: Too many brands to deal with; too much information for people to process, most of which is conflicting; customers are no longer passive consumers of marketing, they’re savvy and skeptical discerners; the Internet has enabled radical transparency and message amplification; and, people simply don’t trust businesses or the people who run them.

Q: Of those five trends, which would you say is the least understood by marketers?

Tom: It’s not any particular trend that trips up most marketers. It’s the effect that the combination of trends has on customers’ mindsets and decision-making processes. I don’t think marketers understand how customers are truly feeling today, nor how they rapidly intuit marketplace value. In fact, I’m sure that most don’t.

Q: As the branding landscape continues to change, many brands are struggling to grow globally but still be able to connect with customers locally. How can brands be both global and local?

Tom: If they’re struggling to grow globally, then they’re not doing a good job locally. Growth is an outcome of how well brands do connecting to meaningful cultural insights. Connect locally and you will grow globally.

Q: What does a consumer’s view of self have to do with the brands they choose?

Tom: Everything. Every decision we make is a reflection of how smart we think we are; or how cool, special, caring, funny, “in the know,” etc. Show me a brand choice that doesn’t consciously, or subconsciously, reflect on people’s sense of belonging or sense of self and I’ll show you a slow growth, low profit offering. Think about it: the people that chose to read this particular post, rather than one of the other, say, 990 on the Alltop marketing aggregation, did so for a reason. And that reason is what matters to them, and should matter to you.

Q: What part do social connections play in view of self and in the decision making process?

Tom: We’re social beings. Our constantly morphing definition of who we are and what we believe⎯and the decisions we make to reinforce those evolving definitions⎯are influenced by our many cultural experiences; what we watch, what we read, where we work, where we worship, who we associate with, what people in our various subcultures wear, say, go and do. It’s the material we use to guide our decision-making, and to shape our sense of self.

Q: You write that, “marketers are obsessed with words” and that they, “believe that they are in the communication and persuasion business.” Are you saying that brands shouldn’t worry about what they say?

Tom: To the contrary. I’m saying that marketers need to understand what value they’re trying to deliver through their use of words. It should be strategic and other-focused. Instead of trying to influence and persuade, marketers should be trying to connect. Do you see the difference? Here’s a telling example. Framingham State College in Massachusetts recently sent alumni a letter asking for “your support,” and gave the following rationale: “Blah, blah, blah, blah. . . .” Nearly 40 engaged alumni responded with a donation.

Q: What should marketers be focused on?

Tom: The one thing that truly matters: people’s feelings. The goal of any organization, of any brand, is to create customers (or clients, users, members, donors, fans, subscribers, etc.), and you accomplish that goal by continually innovating to add value to their lives. To make them feel happy, about themselves, their lives, their associations, and their decisions. Everything the organization invests in, and works on, should be laser focused to that end.

Thanks Tom!

CATEGORIES: Advertising, Books, Branding, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Author and Cartoonist Tom Fishburne

Posted by Chris Wilson August 25th, 2008

Interview with Tom Fishburne, This One Time at Brand Camp

The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Tom Fishburne, author and cartoonist of This One Time at Brand Camp, which is the featured book for August’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

I’ve hosted some excellent authors in past Post2Post series, but interviewing Tom adds a whole new level of excitement for me. I’ve been a fan of his cartoons for a number of years and I’m routinely amazed at how with a simple cartoon, he can take issues that baffle brand managers and marketers and portray them with such clarity.

Tom brings a wide range of brand experience to the table. Not only is he the genius behind the popular Brand Camp cartoon series, but currently mans the helm at method as Senior Marketing Director of Europe and he previously managed marketing and new product development for Haagen-Dazs, Green Giant, Yoplait, and Cheerios while at Nestle and General Mills.

In this interview with Tom, we touch on everything from his time back in Harvard Business School, when he would draw cartoons during class, to exploring complex brand issues such as niche markets, social media and the fight between global and local pulls. And to mix things up, I welcomed him to toss in any cartoons from over the years that he thought related to the topics at hand. Enjoy!

—–

Q: What got you into cartooning and specifically cartoons targeting brand managers?

Tom: I first started drawing cartoons at Harvard Business School (not the typical career path for a cartoonist, I know). I was struck that all 800 students in my class shared the same inside jokes, so I started a weekly cartoon called Sky Deck in the school paper. Sky Deck was our nickname for the back row in the class, where all of the pranksters and goofballs sat.

When I graduated, I found myself in another environment where everyone shared the same inside jokes – this time, the big American food company, General Mills. I knew that Scott Adams started Dilbert by posting his cartoons to his cubicle at PacBell, so I created Brand Camp, emailed them to my friends there, and tacked them up to the outside of my cubicle. They started to get forwarded around to other companies and now reach about 10,000 people a week, not just brand managers, but anyone who likes to make fun of brand managers (agencies, financial managers, operations guys – wow, just about everyone in the company).

Q: Why the title This One Time at Brand Camp?

Tom: Well, the Brand Camp name came from the movie, American Pie, where the geeky band student Michelle starts off every story with “This One Time, at Band Camp…” I wanted my cartoon to poke fun at a day in the life of working with brands. It feels sometimes like we all go to camp together. People who work with brands share inside jokes and stories that others often don’t really get (I know my wife rolls her eyes on occasion when I get going on a branding-related story).

A reader told me they always forward my cartoons to friends with the subject line, “This One Time, at Brand Camp”, and it made me think it would be a good name for my second book. I published my first collection, “Brand Camp”, in 2004.

Q: In your intro you say, “everything I need to know about marketing, I learned by drawing cartoons.” How true is this statement?

Tom: I always liked that classic list from Robert Fulghum: “all I really need to know I learned in kindergarten”. Things like “share everything” and “play fair” and “take a nap every afternoon”. He writes that “wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.”

It made me think about some of the marketing lessons I picked up along the way of drawing a cartoon. Obviously, I learned quite a lot about marketing at places like General Mills and Nestle, but I wanted to share some of the simple extra-curricular lessons I picked up at the drafting table, not from traditional brand management.

Q: What are some things that drawing cartoons has taught you?

Tom: One of the biggest lessons is to not be afraid of niche markets. Most traditional marketing is focused on the mainstream consumer. At one brand I worked on, we used to joke that our target was a “woman, age 25 to 39, with a pulse.”

But, by trying to appeal to everyone, many mainstream brands aren’t that appealing to anyone in particular. Mainstream brands are losing relevance and there’s increasing opportunity to reach very vocal niche audiences.

I think this is why a cartoon targeted to the improbable audience of brand managers kind of works. Chris Anderson writes all about this effect in a book called “The Long Tail”. The Internet allows my very niche sense of humor to reach pockets of niche readers all over the world.

Another big lesson is to always keep a sketchpad handy. My cartoon ideas come at unpredictable times (on a run, in the shower, in the middle of meeting when I’m supposed to be paying attention to something else). I’ve given up trying to contain them and instead doodle when the inspiration strikes (although usually after the shower).

I think business ideas work the same way. Yet, in a business, we typically try to shoehorn idea generation into a tidy box (like scheduling a half-hour ideation before a forecasting meeting or cramming new product brainstorming into a few weeks a year). The result is that the best ideas get lost in the ether in big companies.

In our office, we installed a floor-to-ceiling magnetic whiteboard we call the “wiki wall”, where everyone in the company can jot down ideas, at all times. Ideas continually build on each other and it becomes the foundation of our new product development.

Q: You have experience working with brands in companies structurally small, large and behemoth sized. When it comes to managing a brand, is a company’s size an asset, liability or both?

Tom: I’ve come to feel that it’s more about the mindset than the size. Working in a small company forces you to be David against Goliath. You have to be innovative at every opportunity. You have to turn every consumer touch point into a potential marketing opportunity. And you are forced to continually challenge the prevailing rules of the category. It’s a great discipline to learn, and I think that small companies inherently teach you how to do that.

But I think you can apply that challenger brand mentality to big companies too. There’s just as much opportunity to become David within Goliath as there is to be David against Goliath. Large companies have staggering resources, but can often feel complacent, bureaucratic and slow. But, there is always room for rule breakers within big companies. I love the fact that an irreverent, cheeky brand like Axe/Lynx came out of a company as massive as Unilever.

Adam Morgan wrote a great book on this challenger brand mindset called “The Pirate Inside”. He starts with the classic Steve Jobs’ quote, “it’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy,” and then gives advice how to create a Pirate culture inside companies, large and small.

Q: With the rise of social media and the age of conversation, what new opportunities do you see for brands? What are some potential pitfalls?

Tom: The rise of social media means that good ideas are being shared and that people who really dig your brand can do a whole lot of telling on your behalf. It levels the playing field, because it’s no longer just the brands with budgets for 30-second TV spots that get their message out there. In fact, the traditional 30-second spots are rapidly losing relevance, so it’s a major opportunity for brands.

But the risk is what Seth Godin writes about in “Meatball Sundae” on the “new marketing” bandwagon. There’s a rush of companies leaping into myspace, youtube, and blogging in exactly the same self-serving way they approach TV advertising or an FSI insertion – by trying to “interrupt” consumers from what they were doing. This obviously misses the point. Consumers are gravitating to “new marketing” channels exactly because they are in control, not the brands.

Q: As the branding landscape continues to change, many brands are struggling to grow globally but still be able to connect with consumers locally. How can brands be both global and local?

Tom: Great question (note to self: this would make a good cartoon).

I’ve actually learned a lot on this topic in the last two years in my day job, where I’ve helped launch an American brand called method in the UK. We’re not there yet, but we’ve learned the goal is to have a core brand identity that is truly global, but local flexibility to not only “translate”, but “transcreate” (a funny expression I heard along the way).

Part of this is making sure that your core identity is truly global. We found that ours mostly was, but there were some bits that were very US-centric. Some were OK (we weren’t trying to hide that we were from California just as Ben & Jerry’s wouldn’t hide they were from Vermont). But some were not (more specific than general points on our sustainability communication). So, it meant evolving our core identity (which actually put us in a stronger position in the US too).

The other part was figuring out the right amount of local flexibility. We created an international marketing toolkit so that product and creative communication is largely global. But, then we’re really creative on the ground with how to do it.

In the US, we had started to do pop-up shops in different cities (a month-long store rental where we could tell the whole brand story in a 3-D space). We didn’t have the budget in the UK and retail space is even more of a premium in London, so we found a large consumer show called the Ideal Home Show where we built a method home that let us do much the same thing on a small scale. Everyone on the stand spoke with a British accent of course, but it was essentially the same story told in the American pop-up shops.

Q: Your cartoons in many ways tend to reflect the most current issues, thoughts and concerns of brand managers around the world. What are some of the most popular topics you see on the horizon? Might we see these topics in future cartoons?

Tom: I’ve certainly started giving a lot of attention to the economy and the impact that will have on consumers, particularly with ethical brands that cost a premium. I think that shift is fascinating to watch. For so long, consumers have been “trading up”, and it will be interesting to see how the economy affects that over time.

I will certainly continue covering sustainability, particularly as companies struggle to find their voice. There has been so much greenwashing and I think consumers are starting to feel a serious green fatigue.

But, perhaps most of all, I sense a major shift in marketing from the snake oil salesmen of our past to an optimistic future where marketers are simply nice people who make good products in a transparent way. I see a lot of cartoon fodder on that journey.

My cartoons are kind of like a diary, so they typically reflect exactly the issues I see. Any topics are fair game (particularly if they make me chuckle), and I’ll continue to stumble along just like the characters in my cartoons (and laugh at all of our mistakes along the way).

Thanks Tom!

CATEGORIES: Books, Branding, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Post2Post Virtual Book Tour: Featuring Jack’s Notebook

Posted by Chris Wilson July 16th, 2008

Post2Post Tour Featuring Greg Fraley Author of Jacks Notebook

The bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Gregg Fraley, author of Jack’s Notebook, which is the featured book for July’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

Gregg works as an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies and does keynote speeches and workshops on creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and new product development. You can catch his podcast with Doug Stevenson where they team up as The Innovise Guys where they blend creativity and improvisation to create innovation.

Fraley is a board member of the Creative Foundation (CEF), and he teaches creative problem solving at CEF’s annual Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI). He is also a professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA).

Jack’s Notebook is a a business novel that explores the process of CPS through the fictional tale of Jack Huber. As you will read later, Gregg defines CPS as, “a problem solving methodology and it can be used to help develop solutions for any complex challenge, problem, situation, or opportunity.”

This Post2Post stop features two sections. Enjoy!

——

Be sure to check out the February Fresh Peel Post2Post stop with Ramon Vullings of Creativity Today.

CATEGORIES: Books, Creativity, Innovation, Interviews

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Author Gregg Fraley: CPS in Marketing & Branding

Posted by Chris Wilson July 16th, 2008

Creative Problem Solving in Marketing & Branding

Gregg Fraley is the author of Jack’s Notebook.

Greg works an an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies and does keynote speeches and workshops on creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and new product development

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity pick Greg’s brain and squeeze out some of his juicy thoughts on marketing, branding and how he thinks creative problem solving applies to the mix.

Q: When it comes to building brands, what mistakes do you commonly see?

Gregg: With regard to new brands, I’d say a lack of differentiation, a lack of consistency, and a lack of authenticity. I mean the best brands are truly unique and they stay true to themselves. Examples that come to mind are Apple, but also brands like Quaker Oats, or Budweiser. They do what they do well and they stay within the confines of what is believable and real to consumers. With big established brands the dangerous tendency is to water down the brand by extending it into areas where it really doesn’t belong. Line extensions are easy, and so they extend and extend until the brand caves in on itself.

Q: What is your view of the state of organizational marketing and branding? Where should CPS fit into these structures?

Gregg: There’s a $64,000 question! Let me give it a go.

Organizational marketing is going through a profound shift right now, a shift towards more formal process. The state of Marketing, while highly sophisticated in many ways, is still managed by informal systems within most organizations. Typically, they have no overall model for how to answer the needs of the consumer and fulfill the companies mission across the breadth of the enterprise. Each product, each brand, tends to be handled separately from the others. What this screams for is a formal marketing process that is flexible enough to adapt to the needs of various brands but tight enough to bind them to the organizational mission. CPS, being a generic problem-solving model, has the scope and flexibility to manage this.

Q: Why is understanding your motivation so important?

Gregg: It’s human nature to work harder, smarter, and more creatively on challenges that we care about. If we understand why something is important to us it’s more likely we’ll be creative about it. You can’t fool that thing some people call the soul, it knows what you really want even if you pretend otherwise.

Q: How does this concept fit into marketing? Social Media?

Gregg: Well, motivation is a two way street. As marketers we need to understand why we’re putting out something we need to understand our mission and our message. As consumers we need to feel that the mission and message of the companies we buy from is authentic and not simply a cynical way to extract money from our pockets. Marketers need to understand consumer motivations at a very basic, very fundamental, level. Knowing the consumer in that way enables a marketer to create products, services, and messages that speak to their listening.

Social media tends to magnify who we are. If we’re authentic, that comes across, and it can be quite powerful. If we’re not, that comes across as well, and probably worse than it should. So, keeping the fact in mind that social media adds or subtracts 10 pounds to our authenticity factor, we should make double sure we know what we want to say, and why we want to say it. As marketers using social media we have to be very careful we’re providing value to the community and not simply selling products. After all, social media isn’t about we and them, it’s about us.

Q: With the introduction of social media and crowdsourcing, do you think there is an opportunity for a company to lead and monitor a CPS session with customers online?

Gregg: Yes, there is such an opportunity. Actually, it’s already happened in a slightly different format than you suggest. Cisco just sponsored an online contest, using Brightidea.com’s system, to find a new business venture to fund. It wasn’t exactly CPS but it most certainly was high level ideation, which is a part of CPS.

Many companies are already using CPS internally via their intranets, and some are using it to reach out to partners. I’ve facilitated online CPS sessions that have involved a mix of a companies internal branding/marketing people and an international network of trained brains. They tend to be pretty successful these sessions because they allow people to work when they can, it allows for adequate incubation, and there’s lot of thinking diversity. It’s certainly a lot less expensive than flying a lot of people into some central site.

It doesn’t have to be complex. Starbucks has an online idea box if you will, which isn’t full cycle CPS, it’s a subset, the ideation step. It’s called MyStarbucksIdea.com and I think it’s a good idea for them. Subsets of the CPS process can be totally appropriate, I mean, how many consumers would even want to be involved with the detailed planning that goes into a product launch?

Virtual CPS sessions, with consumer involvement for the appropriate steps, makes total sense. It’s inexpensive, easy to implement, and potentially very high value.

Q: What would you say to an organization that is clearly stuck in the old model of marketing, which is rapidly losing its effectiveness? Is CPS the answer to overcoming their apparent risk aversion?

Gregg: What would I say? Wake up!

It’s hard to understand sometimes why organizations can’t see the handwriting on the wall. Maybe the answer is tough love. Like in the Dickens story, we have to put the ghost of Christmas future in front of them. It can be grim, or, it can be rosy. But for Tiny Tim to live, they have to wake up and change now!

CPS could be a big part of the answer. CPS is a great process for facing a fear, or a complex situation, and making some sense out of what you might do. If an organization is motivated to change than CPS can be a tremendous tool for helping them do it. Risk aversion build up in organizations as they get bigger. The bureaucracy is built to manage things as they are, and so, change threatens the well-oiled system. It puts people in fear mode. Fear has people thinking like lizards when faced with a threat lizards run, eat, (or mate!) with what’s in front of them. You can’t think like a lizard and change how your organization goes to market; you need imaginative solutions. Organizations should strive for deliberate, continuous, and holistic innovation, and CPS is a good process to enable that. And of course, Jack’s Notebook is a great way to learn CPS!

Thanks Gregg!

Have any questions about CPS in Social Media, Branding and Marketing?

Gregg has agreed to take questions in the comments section, so fire away!

More with Gregg Fraley:

Creative Problem Solving (CPS)

CATEGORIES: Books, Branding, Creativity, Innovation, Interviews, Marketing

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Author Gregg Fraley: Creative Problem Solving (CPS)

Posted by Chris Wilson July 16th, 2008

Creative Problem Solving

Gregg Fraley is the author of Jack’s Notebook.

Greg works as an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies and does keynote speeches and workshops on creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and new product development.

Q: What is CPS and where can we use it?

Gregg: CPS is a problem solving methodology and it can be used to help develop solutions for any complex challenge, problem, situation, or opportunity. If you’re hunting for your car keys you probably don’t want CPS, it’s too much! If you’re trying to sort out how your brand fits in the marketplace and what do next year, CPS is an appropriate system.

Q: You shared with me a story about the origins of CPS. Would you mind sharing that story with my readers?

Gregg: Sure, it’s an interesting story. CPS has been around for over 50 years. CPS was originally conceived by ad maven Alex Osborn, a founder of BBDO. Alex was confronted with the daunting challenge of transforming BBDO. BBDO’s initial stage of growth was all print media. The dominant media of the day was newspapers. But as we know, things changed, and print was being eclipsed by the new media juggernaut, radio. BBDO almost imploded when the key sales person at the agency left and took half the customers with him. Faced with this crisis, Alex needed to give his account executives tools to help their customers adapt to the new media. They needed to think up ideas for their customers and with their customers, but they lacked the confidence to do so. Alex had developed thinking tools for his own use over the years. So, he put down his own methods for ideation on paper. He then trained his team in these thinking tools — what he called brainstorming. Yes, he actually coined that term! Well, it worked, his people brought in new customers by helping them with ideas. BBDO became known as a great ideas agency and prospered with the new media. Alex then took his thoughts about creative thinking and put them into the seminal book Applied Imagination and the basics of CPS was born

Q: What is the most common mistake you see by those engaged in the creative problem solving process?

Gregg: Well, the most common mistake is not using a process at all. When faced with complexity the brain tends to spin or churn from one thought to another related to the problem. We tend not to write things down and so we muddle about in confusion. The value of a structured process like CPS is it helps us sort it out. Sort out what we want, what the facts and feelings are, what the challenge really is, and what are our options for moving forward. It helps us push beyond the obvious and find breakthrough solutions.

If you are already using the CPS process the answer would be not allowing enough time. A common mistake in problem solving is rushing to a solution. Taking time allows the mind time to incubate the question at hand. Time tends to lend insight and insight leads to more creative solutions.

Q: What’s the significance of lists?

Gregg: List making, particularly when it is done without judgment, is the easiest way to get into imaginative mode. The mind seems to like the incremental aspect of list making, and, it tends to give us what we want, which is more options. List making is divergence and in general we need more divergence in our thinking. Critique and analysis are overemphasized in our education and training, and divergence is left behind. List making is a great way to re-balance things.

Q: Could you give us some tips on making great lists?

Gregg: First of all, write them down (it’s not called Jack’s Notebook for nothing!). Mental lists tend to get lost in the shuffle of the 65,000 thoughts we have a day. Next, know what the questions is, what you are seeking options for, be clear about that. Most of all, defer judgment and let any option that pops into your head get onto the list, don’t edit. Sometimes silly, impractical, or wild ideas are the steps the mind needs to take in order to get to a Perfect idea. Finally, when blocked put your list aside and take a short vacation from the challenge, give it some time, then come back to it. New options will emerge.

Q: I noticed that the characters in your story seemed to always engage in CPS when they were in small groups of no more than 4 people. Was this just a happenstance, or is there a maximum number for people working together through CPS?

Gregg: Happenstance! There is no minimum or maximum, CPS can be done alone, or, with large groups. I did a session a few months ago for a cosmetics company that included over 70 people and three languages. The groups in Jack’s Notebook just happened to be about that size of four or less because it’s what the story called for. I’ve found that groups of 15 or less are optimal for corporate ideation. Larger than that it becomes a logistics challenge, smaller, and you don’t have a lot of thinking diversity. It can still be done you work with what you have.

Q: You seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the correct phrasing of questions. Why?

Gregg: Well, that’s part of the structure behind creative problem solving. Words are what we have to work with in problem solving. Words point the brain in different directions depending on how a question is phrased. For instance when you have a challenge you could say, How did this project become so expensive? That kind of question leads one to think about the past, and it invites critique. Saying it as a solvable problem takes us down a different path, so In what ways might I reduce the costs of the project? has us thinking about ideas, about options, that bring the cost down. Phrases like In what ways might I, or How might I are empowering and provide a subtle bit of hope. They challenge the brain to come up with answers that are useful, and, the brain tends to respond well to that.

Q: Many companies are quick to start planning, but are very slow to act. Often times plans never make it any farther than the board room or company retreat. Why?

Gregg: There are a lot of reasons, but that most basic one is the person or team empowered to execute the plan isn’t motivated to change. In my opinion, and it’s unfortunate, many organizations aren’t motivated to make a change unless there is an emergency that demands it. Board rooms and retreat situations often get people thinking, and that’s good, but they tend to use the critical/analytical side of the brain too much and so the plans they generate are often all head and no heart. If you don’t have the heart to do something it simply won’t happen.

Q: What should they do instead?

Gregg: It should be less of a one meeting thing and more of an all the time way of being. Innovation is holistic it’s not doing an activity, it’s being, living, breathing, eating, and waking-up-in-the morning in innovative mode. An organization needs a deliberate and formal holistic system, like CPS, to enable consistent innovation. Adopting a particular tool, technique, or hiring a dynamic and charismatic leader isn’t going to get it for you. What will get it for you is a holistic approach that blends many complex elements into a gestalt that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Q: Your bio states that you, work as an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies. What types of situations and problems do you typically help these companies solve?

Gregg: All kinds! Most typically it’s around new product development. My bread and butter work is facilitating intensive new product ideation sessions. I’ve also worked on and facilitated projects for internal process improvement. More recently I’m getting involved in assessing an organizations innovation culture and making recommendations on how they might improve.

Thanks Gregg!

Have any questions about Creative Problem Solving? Want to know how CPS can help you find the perfect mate?

Gregg has agreed to take questions in the comments section, so fire away!

More with Gregg Fraley:

CPS in Marketing & Branding

CATEGORIES: Books, Creativity, Innovation, Interviews

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Post2Post Virtual Book Tour: Featuring Creativity Today

Posted by Chris Wilson February 14th, 2008

Post2Post Book Creativity Today

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Ramon Vullings and Godelieve Spaas, co-authors of Creativity Today, which is the featured book for the February 2008 edition of Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

Ramon is a skilled facilitator of innovation, creativity expert, consultant at New Shoes Today.

Godelieve is an expert on developing a conscious mind in change, and is also a consultant at New Shoes Today.

—–

This Post2Post stop features three sections. Enjoy!

CATEGORIES: Books, Creativity, Innovation, Interviews

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Authors Ramon Vullings and Godelieve Spaas: Creativity & Innovation Part II

Posted by Chris Wilson February 14th, 2008

Creativity Innovation Part II Post2Post Creativity Today

This is Part II of a two-part interview series with Creativity Today co-authors, Ramon Vullings and Godelieve Spaas.

Ramon is a creativity guru and a skilled facilitator of innovation.

Godelieve is an expert on organizational change, and a master at creating organizational models.

If you missed Part I, be sure to check out how Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation kicked things off.

—–

Q: Creativity Today breaks the creative process down into three phases. What are the three phases? And what would the cliff notes summary of the book say about each of the phases?

Ramon: Creativity Today actually focuses on 4 steps:

1. Situation – What is the real question? This takes up a lot of time, after analyzing this, you’ll know what it’s really about

2. Divergence – Generate ideas and takes different perspectives, really ‘widen’ your view

3. Convergence – Select ideas, without choosing for the old perspectives. And enrich the selected ideas, so they become concepts

4. Action! – An idea/concept without action is nothing… here it takes leadership to start implementation.

Q: With your experience in coaching groups of people through the phases of the creative process, what part of the process do you typically find to be the hardest part for groups to achieve? Why?

Ramon: 1. Situation – The hardest part for many groups is to agree on the actual question/situation. Why are we here for? People have such different views on the ’same’ situation. When you get through the discussion a lot of internal ‘miscommunication’ is cleared up and there is a better mutual understanding.

2. Action – Great thinking, now the doing starts. Getting people into action ‘today’ is very hard, it’s a presuppositions that there are moments to think and other moments to act. Yet they actually need to go together.

Q: Why should we pay extra attention to naive ideas?

Naive ideas show an ideal world, it’s best to come as close as possible.

Q: What is a nearling and why is it so important?

Ramon: A nearling is a positive word for something new that you did with the right intentions, which has not (yet) led to the right result. A nearling sits right between 0 (= inactivity) and 1 (=success). you need to try and test many things before you finally have learned how to reach success, however you define success. We (the Western world) are very binary, it’s 1 or 0, it’s success or failure. And everything which is not success is a failure. While actually only 0 (inactivity) is failure, this being in an innovative context as 0 in a Zen context is success. The nearling sits right between the 0 and the 1. You’ve take an initiative which has not (yet) to the desired result, if you learn from your nearling and share them, you’ll see they offer just as much value as ‘best practices’. You need nearlings to take you from ‘bets practices’ to ‘next practices’.

Q: In a majority of the case studies presented, there was often a bottom up approach to solving the stated problems, by involving groups of people, such as front-line workers, that might not normally be involved in decision making processes. Does this indicate a flaw in many organizational hierarchies? If so what can be done to correct this? Should some organizations be restructured so that ideas can grow and ripen within?

Ramon: The basic here is the creative attitude, be open and listen, while postponing your judgment. People ‘on the floor’ know what’s happening and can provide real insights. It’s an organizational value which is underestimated in many organizations. For creativity (around 2% of the time) it’s really needed to involve a large diverse group, the rest of the time (98%) it’s ‘processing’.

Godelieve: There will certainly be a flaw, if not a typhoon, in organizational hierarchies. And if we don’t make room for it, the management will end up with empty hands. There are several reasons for that. Until now it was OK to ask people to bring only part of themselves to work. But more and more they want to feel whole in their work. So to bring in passion, knowledge, skills and responsibility, and to receive a feeling of meaningfulness and fulfilment.

Working bottom up is only the beginning. It is a start to turn the organizational pyramid up side down. The former top of the pyramid will in the future be the facilitator for the employees who are capable and responsible for their work, within the global direction and borders that the directors set. Organizations really need all the skills, and knowledge employees have to give. They need their creation power, their passion, and every single scope on any issue they can get, to become a flexible and continuous innovating and creating company.

Q: Productivity has become a buzzword in recent years as people are try to do more in less time. Is there a proper balance between focusing on productivity (the repetition and logical organization of our lives) and getting out of our routines to utilize creativity as a strength?

Ramon: By being really creative one can win time, same as with productivity. Yet many people let themselves be seduced by all new opportunities these concepts offer. Being more productive offers more time to do more. It’s a Catch-22, you need to break out of the circle, this is where creativity can help.

Godelieve: Exploration and exploitation are up till now two different things in an organizations. Many books and articles are written on this topic. And they will all tell you that exploration and exploitation do bite each other because their dynamics are totally different.

It is the challenge to connect those two. For two reasons: because the exploitation process will become more and more dynamic, for example to realize mass customization. And the second reason is that if we don t combine the two, the exploration process will be the one that gets no attention. And it is that process that creates the future. It is my true conviction that by separating the two we alienate the future from the existing companies. And it is worth some thinking through if that is what we want.

—–

More with Ramon and Godelieve:

Marketing & Branding

CATEGORIES: Books, Creativity, Innovation, Interviews

READ:View Comments

Make a Comment

Permalink | Trackback

Interview with Authors Ramon Vullings and Godelieve Spaas: Marketing & Branding

Posted by Chris Wilson February 14th, 2008

Marketing Branding Interview with Ramon Vullings, Creativity Today

Ramon Vullings and Godelieve Spaas are co-authors of Creativity Today (along with Igor Byttebier).

Ramon is a consultant at New Shoes Today, and is a champion of selling ideas around creation, innovation and change. He has a knack for stepping back and looking at everything from a much bigger picture.

Godelieve is also a consultant at New Shoes Today, and is an expert on guiding organizations through change.

In short, if we were forming a world-wide committee to restructure the marketing and advertising industry, they would be some of the first people I would call. So I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to squeeze some fresh, juicy and innovative thoughts on marketing and branding out of them.

Q: What is your view of the state of organizational marketing and branding? Where should creativity fit into this?

Ramon: The state in general? A very mixed landscape. Creativity is used (understood) in 2 ways, the PR-people who ‘own’ creativity in terms of new ways to grab the customer’s attention and the radical new way of positioning a product or service. It requires a lot of creativity to come up with new views especially in mature markets/products.

Q: In what ways do organizations tend to limit themselves in their thinking and actions in regards to their own capabilities and their industry? How can an organization overcome this tendency and use it as a point of differentiation amongst their competitors, specifically in their branding efforts?

Ramon: In many ways, here a lot of presuppositions come in play. Many industries still limit their view on ‘how this industry works’ while actually you can redefine an entire industry by challenging the basic assumptions, the takes taken for granted. A few examples: EasyJet has clearly redefined the airline industry (do we need tickets? do we need allocated seats? do we need free newspapers on onboard? etc…). Their totally new view on the way things always have been done has opened up a full mature market.

Q: What are presuppositions? And how can reinforcing them and also breaking them play an important part in an organizations marketing efforts?

Ramon: Presuppositions are assumptions on which on view on things is based. Presuppositions are a marketer’s strongest enemy and friend if it comes to new experiences. People expect something form a product of service. Yet by breaking presuppositions you can play with the experience, doing something people don’t expect, add value where they didn’t expect it or take out cumbersome steps in processes. All aimed to alter the experience.

Q: With the introduction of social media, and the rise of conversation on the web, what new opportunities to do see for organizations to harness the power of creativity?

Ramon: The rise of social networking opens up so many options to be creative. Creativity is a value neutral term, is works for good and bad. From a marketing perspective you can be very creative with all the personal data available on the web (in example see the enormous amount of spam which is being pushed out these days), yet this is probably a bad way of using the information. Being creative in a positive way is that you can now look for new combinations in areas you would not have thought there was a connection, between people, brands and behaviors.

Q: What would you say to an organization that is clearly stuck in the old model of marketing, which is rapidly losing it’s effectiveness? Is creativity the answer to overcoming their apparent risk aversion?

Ramon: A creative basic attitude helps, yet creativity is nothing without clear leadership. The guts to let go of things (products, services, ideas) and the power to push things through, as it takes a lot of leadership to introduce new ideas.

Godelieve : Creativity is only partly an answer to that. In fact what is needed is what I call responsive marketing. Responsiveness has always been a very important capability of marketing and sales, and it will be key in the future. The focus will change from awareness of what is, to what is changing. So from one form to what is in between two forms, in between two situations. The more you are capable to respond to what is to come the more effective you can be. Of course, the moment you know what is coming up, your creativity comes in very handy, to find an answer for that.