Customer Experience Crossroads

ideaCity last day... and now i'm really worried about the oceans

If there's one thing I'm taking away from this conference, it's that we need to get serious about the environment, and most specifically the oceans.

One of the creatures in serious trouble is the shark, due to, as you may know, shark fin soup.

Sharks have been around for 450 million years, and have survived five major extinctions. As Rob Stewart said today (he made Sharkwater documentary), everything in the oceans is below them in the foodchain, so they were responsible for the rebuilding of the ocean ecology. "Shark tested" as it were. 

And because the sharks are in trouble, some troublesome and very large squid have now expanded their range up and down the western coast of North America, and will round the cape to the east soon.

Estimates of the death of the oceans are by 2048, and some even sooner, within 25 years.

I was so impressed, however, by the passion and brains of the Millennials that spoke, that I hope they can mobilize the rest of us to do the right thing.

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Worst one-liners:

 

Yesterday I was having a perfectly delightful discussion with Preston Manning, who spoke brilliantly about human rights. And a strange man came up and entered our conversation with these words, directed at me: "The trouble with women is..." It was such a bizarre thing to encounter at a conference about ideas.

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Best one-liners today:

"People always make the right decision when they're given the facts."

"If the oceans fail, so does our species. We have to make a choice."

Squids: "Earth's resident aliens."

"Success is not about how much money I have in my bank account," -- from the guy who ran across the Sahara, Ray Zahab

"It's not about outdoing yourself. It's about expanding your personal limitations." 

"That's when I got it. These people [scientists] had stuck with those boring classes and now they could do cool stuff." Ben Gulak, inventor of the Uno.

"It's like being on a personal cloud."

"Being in the joy business."

"Governments and corporations do not have long-term human survival at heart."

"People that know what's going on have escape plans."

"The wild lies all around us + we take it in like breath. Our lives are inseparable from the lives of insects."

"I am a philosopher, which means I know nothing about anything."

"Why should we now block the further evolution of our species." 

"Genes are nature's nanotechnology."

Back to listen to a Klezmer band, and then one more session of speakers before we all roll off to the last party. This is a conference that spoils you for other conferences. Even the jaded among us are in awe of the science, the personal stories of struggle and achievement, and the passion of the speakers.

ideaCity Day 1

ideaCity (or as I keep mistyping it on this Mac, ideaCuty) is showing signs of the recession. And that's all I'm saying about that for the rest of the week! 

My buddies here have opinions:

 

Kara says: Irwin Cotler and Laura Archer were inspiring. [This is good evidence for the recency effect, since they were both in the last session.]

Pat's faves were: the assisted-death doctor. His volunteers are getting arrested in the US. In Georgia, they ran a sting operation and arrested some 80 year olds. This was truly shocking to a group of urban liberals, such as this audience is filled with. [Richard MacDonald, a very impressive man, Final Exit Network.]

Here are my top "heard and overheard" today. 

Galileo saw Saturn 400 years ago. Now, they know that the rings have spiral ripples. One of Saturn's satellites has a large underground water reservoir, and evidence of carbon atoms. (Encilidas?) Too bad it's so far away. 

"Space is really empty. Even when it's full."

"If the Sun was in Toronto, and was 15 cm across, the nearest star to us would also be a similar size, but would be on the Yukon/Alaska border."

"Religion is mythology misuderstood." 

"Organized medicine is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one."

"Democracy was born 27 centuries ago. It's enemies are war, tyrranny, ideologies of opression. These days, democracy fights back, and often triumphs, but sometimes at great cost."

"Only people in the provinces talk about being world class."

"Aboriginals make up the source of the root of the ideas upon which we are acting, when we (Canadians) are acting at our best."

"Are they really human rights, or are they privileges, when only the privileged can exercise their human rights?"

OK, off to refill on caffeine, and take a bio break. Catch you later, and thanks for stopping by.

Northrop Frye apparently said: "If there is anything historical in the Bible, it is there by accident."

"Myth is what never was, but always is."

Off to ideaCity09

I'm off for three days of brain feeding at ideaCity. In prior years, I did try to post to the blog from the computers in the lobby. But this year, my plan is to Twitter.
If you want to stay tuned, you can follow me on @susanabbott
And I hereby promise to tweet about interesting stuff, not hors d'oevres and such. Will try for some pix too. [If i can figure out how to do it ok? I may look like a tech head, but it's sheer fakery.]

It looks like there might be an official Idea City Twitter this year,  @IdeaCityNews.

Regular programming will resume next week.

And thank you for reading.

Your humble servant, etc.

Susan

Marketing in a down economy

Be an aspirin, not a vitamin.

This bit of wisdom came to me via Cathleen Colehour, and I think it captures exactly what we need to do to be successful.

Some inspiration for the alternative New Year

I often think that September is really the start of the psychological New Year. All those years of back to school.... The summer break that re-energizes. [This is clearly temperate climate, northern hemisphere thinking, so global readers are invited to translate into suitable metaphors!]

I was thinking of this today when I got this quote from Franca Leeson, one of the Mindcamp organizers. The quote is from Oliver Schroer, a violinist and composer who wrote this not long before he died of leukemia. It speaks to creativity in a different way, by talking about accepting all the ideas, even the things that look like mistakes.

"A few years ago, I reached a point in my music making that I called Total Music. For me that meant, when I played, particularly in improvs and such, there were no more mistakes because I could use everything ... in my own playing, I was not rejecting anything that came up. It was all valid, because it could all be contextualized to make sense, to be meaningful and useful and musical. Well, maybe I have reached a point in my life where it is Total Life. As in, all of what I am going through can be used; none of it need be rejected. This is a very freeing perspective. It means you can stop editing your life and the bits you don't want, because you realize you have been given these things, and strange as it may seem, they are actually gifts ... Use it all, I say. And don't wait, either." -- Oliver Schroer

Wishing you a happy psychological New Year.

Three big takeaways

A reader suggested I try to summarize the key themes from this year's Idea City. I could hardly lay claim to customer experience expertise and fail to respond to readers, now could I?  So here are my big takeaways, along with what I think this means for marketers and those who create customer experiences. [And thanks for the suggestion, Estaban.]

[1] The information technology curve is not linear, it's exponential. It is still picking up speed.

This might sound pretty pedestrian at the outset, but it isn't. Exponential curves tend to look slower in the beginning and faster later on. We've seen this many times in terms of adoption rates, improvement in technology performance, total production of information in a year, etcetera. [Example: for a long time, people thought there was no role for computers in the home. Now we have computers everywhere.And we keep finding new places to put them.]

What I learned at Idea City was that human biology has been treated somewhat mechanistically in the past. Now it is being treated -- by scientists -- as an information system. So things like medical research and commercialization of that learning will now start to follow this pattern.

There are many societal implications of this, but I see a number for marketers and customer experience folk as well. One is that social networking applications are going to just get better and better. It is not a passing fad. The future might not be Facebook, but clearly we like the possibilities of connecting virtually. Whatever clunkiness exists will disappear. There is not going to be an easier time to get in the game and start the organizational learning process. Further delays will only leave you behind the curve.

[2] People are going to start living a lot longer, and this is going to happen faster than we expected

Boomers have no plans to fade into the sunset. We can already see the impact of this. But science seems to be on the verge of really making an impact on aging.

If we get longer lives with reasonable health -- say the health and vitality of a fifty-year-old  into our nineties -- every institution, public and private, is going to be affected. Most of the speakers focused on the science that is going to make this happen. A few touched on the implications for public policy, like pensions. But the impacts will be pervasive.

[3] There are no rules

People who make big advances in any field are the ones who ignore the conventional wisdom. Jun Ye, the builder of an atomic clock that ticks 430 trillion times per second said this: "At the edge of the universe, you are looking at the universe that was just formed. At the beginning of the universe, physical laws could not all be the same as they are today". So even the laws of physics may not be immutable.

If you want to do something in your business that is exceptional, you need to extract the conventional from your thinking.

[4] Teaching is not as interesting as sharing the experience of passion. Humor is also highly engaging.

The best speakers are always those that just talk about what they are interested in and do it in a way that the foundational knowledge for their field does not become a barrier. They tell stories. They talk about implications. And they make people laugh. They are not all serious.

If scientists can be this interesting, surely we can do better in our customer communications: stop being so serious; tell more stories; and show some passion for the content.

 

Idea City 08 - what I learned about ideas today

The best speaker this morning was Matthew Diffee, who does hilarious cartoons for The New Yorker. And had some pretty interesting things to say about ideas as well.

"In any business, coming up with ideas helps."

He says the question he gets asked most often is, how do you come up with your ideas? His answer: "Like you, I think of them."

He went on to explain that ideas are actually work, and require thinking. He suggests that it is a good idea to get in the habit of creating new ideas frequently. The important thing is not to have "one great idea" -- it's to have "thousands of good ideas."

His closing thoughts were also pretty wise, despite being humorous: "You're probably not as good as you think you are. But you're also probably not as bad as some other people think you are."

Good words to remember on those days when you think you might never have another good idea.

Idea City 08: more great quotes and snippets

We had a great party last nite at Spice Route. Good wine from Dan Akroyd's winery, and a lot of interesting nibbles. But I know you really want to hear more of the great quotes from these amazing speakers at Idea City.

Curtis Suttle, a CIFAR scientist, and microbiologist on viruses, provided some amazing information about the smallest life forms.
"You are actually carrying around five to 10 kilos of bacteria [in your body] right now."
"95 per cent of the living material in the oceans is microbial, by weight."
He also told us that of the new DNA sequences they are mapping for microbes, more than 90 per cent represent undiscovered organisms.

Trying to use Typepad on the Macs here is making me sympathetic with Mark Chen, the cosmologist who spoke about the search for dark matter happening two kilometres under the surface of the Earth in Sudbury. At one point he explained why he could not show us the short video clip he had planned: "My movie is collateral damage in the Microsoft vs. Apple battle." It turns out that the atoms we are familiar with only constitute about 4.6 per cent of the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy.

Alan Broadbent, one of those guys with a list of titles as long as your arm, spoke about the need for governance reform for Canadian cities. He summed up the situation as follows: "Cities are like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire -- dependent on the kindness of strangers." He noted that Toronto exports tax funds amounting to about $15 billion annually to the rest of the country. "If we could keep even $1 billion of this, we could realize our dreams, and the whole country would be better off."

Bill Marovita, a senator from Illinois and gun control activist, gave us shocking statistics about gun crime and children dying from guns in the U.S. The truly shocking part was the stories he told about the NRA efforts to stifle political change in this area. He also shared for us his hope for a change of government in the U.S. in November. "Never in my lifetime has the U.S. been held in such disrespect, disregard and distrust as it is today. If Obama is elected, it would send a message to the world that America is back." I only wish I could have written more of these inspiring words. I sure hope he is right.

I'm not going to take time to add links or pics, but I think you would be as fascinated as I was to learn about the 100 square foot house that Jay Shafer lives in. He also builds these gems for other people. (You can find out more at www.tumbleweedhouses.com). He said something that we should all emblazon above our desks or on our office doors: "If a project doesn't seem absolutely necessary from the get-go, I don't even start it."

I'm going to wrap by telling you a bit of what Ezra Levant had to say. He's a far right-wing writer and I wasn't expecting to agree with much of what he said. However, he spoke about how out of control the human rights commissions now are in Canada (as a victim himself), and how they are now truly abridging our rights to free speech.

Much of this is due to complaints from parts of the Muslim community, who believe that being offended is tantamount to being discriminated against. Levant noted that it is OK to make fun of every other religious group, and even to make offensive art using other religious symbols. The public pressure amounts to a "soft jihad" where we lose our confidence, start to doubt ourselves, and self-censorship becomes pervasive.

Levant believes this trend has "devastated our western traditions of healthy vigorous debate." He believes that the proper response to offensive speech is social control (eg. ostracism).

What is less political, and more relevant to our pursuits was this thought that he closed on: "You need to hear ideas you don't like because all progress depends on it."

It's so joyous to take a walk with these brilliant minds. Now, off to grab a snack before the late afternoon session starts, and another party tonight!

Idea City 08

I'm blogging from Idea City this week, Toronto's answer to TED.
We had a wonderful line-up of speakers this morning, and I'm not going to try to capture all the good stuff. Instead, I thought I would just share a few of the most interesting quotes, and a couple of personal insights.

First insight: A very lively rendition including a drum solo is a great way to energize the start of a conference. [Note to self: use music more often everywhere to set the mood.] Isaiah Gibbons, 12, was our drummer.

From Chris Wood, author of Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America: "We're in ecological overdraft".

From Donald Yeomans, who studies asteroids at the Jet PRopulsion laboratory: Asteroid contact "is the only natural disaster that you can actually do something about."

From Alfons Weersink, a food economist: "Human creativity is not finite"

From Gina Mallet, food critic and author: "There's been a rise in the puritanical eater; you're either saving your life, or you're saving the planet's life."

From Claudio Aprile, molecular chef, talking about his first job at a donut shop at age 14: "I filled the donuts up with three or four times the prescribed amount of jelly. I pushed the envelope to see how far I coud go before the donut exploded."

Steve Scherer, molecular geneticist, called a standard medical visit an "observational interview".

There's more, but I'm keeping people waiting who want to party and eat. So there's more tomorrow.

Don't give up too soon: keep tweaking a good idea

Almost three years ago, I bought an orchid. It was beautiful, but after the first flowers faded, that was it. I thought I was caring for it properly, having listened carefully to the salesperson, read the brochure, the fertilizer label and several online articles. After more than a year of frustration, I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Then I spoke to my friend Andrea who has many beautiful orchids. She helped me sort out correct watering. I was letting toxins build up in the soil because I wasn't soaking the plant.

I repotted, trimmed off the dead roots, used cinnamon to protect the cut spots from fungus and diligently watered using Andrea's method. The plant loved it, but still no flowers.

Then I tried changing fertilizers. Several weeks ago, I decided to give it a rest for the winter, and cut back on the fertilizer. Things would either happen in the spring, or they wouldn't.

Finally, incredibly, there is now the beginning of a flower spike. It's probably the wrong time of year, but I don't care. I feel so vindicated for my efforts to learn, and my testing of different approaches.

In business, we often give up on our orchids too soon.

We blame the idea instead of looking for the tweaks that would make the idea work. [That orchid won't bloom. Too bad. Nice idea, but it's time to move on. Apple is having great success with dendrobiums. Google is all over azaleas. Gartner says the future is in geraniums. Time to get with the program.]

We think the program is implemented just because we announced it. [You told me we'd have flowers. Where are the flowers? What happened to all that fertilizer we invested in? If we're not getting flowers this quarter, we need to seriously rethink our investment here.]

We focus on new sales and forget to keep tending the customers we already have. [You shouldn't be spending so much time on that plant. Forget it and move on. There's hundreds of them at Home Depot.]

To really move things forward where people are concerned, you need to invest real time. Customers take time to forgive you for the mistakes of the past. Your staff won't think you're committed unless you hang in with a program for at least a year. Hiring and training don't happen overnight. Launching a new brand or fixing an existing one is a multi-year mission.

Don't give up on your orchids.

Idea City 2007 wrap-up: intellectual property protection

My brain was in overload after Idea City, a three day conference about ideas, based on TED, but held here in Toronto. I've pulled out a few of the most interesting tidbits that I think relate to our theme.

• A new way of protecting intellectual property
• How to teach people to do things according to Jane Juska (the round-heeled woman)
• Greenification of everything -- Electric cars and car sharing
• The science of aging
• Mammals with empathy, and a sense of justice

New model for protecting intellectual property

I heard inventor Alexander Bock, inventor of the PowerSkip boot, talk about his new method for protecting his intellectual property. His concern, of course, is that unlicensed fraudulent goods would leak out of China, and his small company would never be able to police the situation. He has come up with a clever solution. I had the chance to talk to a few people there who have more experience in these things than I do, and they agreed that it was a radically different concept, and definitely worth exploring. So here's a fuller explanation, with visuals.

And here's the Zurich Insurance video link on YouTube that shows the boots in action. Or you can see them at the PowerSkip web site.

Idea City Day 2

After a rocky start yesterday, we had an amazing line-up of speakers.
A couple of the highlights...

Co-creation is everywhere. Robotics manufacturers like Roomba are creating platforms that are hacker friendly. You open up the top and the circuit board says 'welcome'. Even better, the company has contests and prizes for the best hacks and inventions on their platform. Helen Greiner, co-founder of iRobot, was one of the speakers. She believes robots are a potential solution to many risky environments --they build military robots that are currently in use in Afghanistan. She also believes they are a potential solution to elder-case, so that people can stay in their homes longer.

Alexander Bock, the inventor of the power-skip boots that are featured in a Zurich Insurance advertisement told us a bit about his invention. But he really caught my attention when he discussed the problem of preventing counterfeit goods being sold. I believe his approach relates to licensing the wholesaler, rather than the manufacturer of the goods, to choke off illegal distribution, and improve the ability of the patent-owner to monitor royalties. If I can find out more, I will post on this later.

The best speaker in many respects was Dr. John Helliwell, who is researching the economics of happiness. He researches SWB -- subjective well being. It turns out that a major contributor to well-being, to our subjective report of our overall life satisfaction, has to do with how much time we spend with friends and family. We also feel better about our overall lives if we trust our neighbors. And we feel better about our work if we trust management. He wrapped up his session by getting all of us to sing "the more we get together, the happier we'll be". And we all sang.

Dr. Helliwell, it turns out, is part of a program funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced REsearch. I heard four of their scientists speak yesterday, and they are an impressive bunch, including several Nobel winners. One of the things that interests me personally, is how applicable to our day-to-day challenges much of this academic pure research actually is. I spoke later on to some of the CIFAR people at lunch, and they are trying to get this message out to people.

More later. Ciao for now.

Interview with Jonathan Tisch about Reinventing the Customer Experience

This blog tour by Jonathan Tisch has been interesting on a few levels. What a creative idea, for starters. And what a clever publicist to pick up on it.

I knew we'd be up at the end of the tour week, and I thought that things might be getting repetitive by now. So I sent questions that I hoped were different, and might scratch through the polished package that accompanies anyone who occupies a corner office, to say nothing of someone who is also on the speaking circuit.  I don't think we got anything unvarnished, but I think we did get some frank and forthright commentary.  Here's our e-mail Q&A, as conversational as we could make it.

"[It is] challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits"

Susan Abbott: Jonathan, I first wanted to tell you that I read a paragraph from your book to kick off a recent client working session about customer experience. It was about how everyone in the organization actually needs to think about and be focused on customers. I was happy to hear people repeating this stuff a week later to others.

I only wish it was so easy to get people on board, especially at the top of the organization.   I know some are -- Lafley at P&G of course is a great example. But it seems like the exception, not the rule. Why aren't more executives on board?

Jonathan Tisch: With the focus coming from Wall Street on quarterly earnings for public companies, it becomes a bit challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits. The enlightened leaders of some companies have figured out that great customer service usually leads to an enhanced bottom line. That is the ultimate challenge – to find ways for your customers to receive the service that they deserve, turn them in to life-long customers, and ensure that they don’t go to the competition should they have a bad experience. 

"What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business"

SA: One of the things that immediately drew me to your book was your genuine understanding of the vulnerability of the traveler who is a guest in your hotel. I spent a few years where I was continually on the road, and it can be a lonely and frustrating place at times.

Still, I recognize that my expectations are very high. But of course this wasn't always the case -- I can't imagine what travel in the 1800s must have been like. It makes me wonder how customer expectations will change in the future. You mentioned the importance of staying on top of emerging trends and the next demographic shift. Could you comment on that? 

JT: What is happening in the lodging industry today relates to the old saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same.” What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business.

Our business has become highly sophisticated with very large, corporate entities becoming players. When you look at the Marriotts, InterContinentals and Hiltons of the world – all with many thousands of properties, at different price points and market niches – you understand that the big are getting bigger and that, through acquisitions and strategic alliances, they have become formidable competition with tremendous offerings.

There has also been a greatly enhanced focus by Wall Street and private equity on the hotel business, so many of the new players are very well capitalized and have extremely bright people as part of their organizations.

That’s the business of hotels.

But what hasn’t changed since the first person checked into a hotel 1,000 years ago, is the hotel business. At its core, our business is based on hospitality and making people feel welcome, comfortable and safe. The companies that continue to thrive are the ones able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality.

Going forward, we will always have new technological advances to deal with. But once again, our industry is extremely biased toward interpersonal and human relations.   

"The companies that thrive are able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality"

SA: You mentioned several instances in the book where staff quite correctly bend the rules to look after a customer. But you also note consistency is critically important -- customers need to know an organization is reliable and dependable.

Is there a tension between customization and consistency? And if so, how does an organization deal with this tension?

JT: If your co-workers are properly educated and trained, then customization and consistency can, indeed, be compatible. That’s the nature of crisis resolution. What I like to discuss with my Loews Hotels co-workers isn’t about the problem necessarily. It’s about the recovery.

With so many options for the consumer, recovery from a problem is paramount because that’s how you keep one of your customers from going to a competitor.

It is a very fine line that has to be taught to, in some cases, entry-level individuals – how to get involved and what opportunities for crisis resolution are available to them. At Loews Hotels we pride ourselves on balancing consistency with customization to provide the level of service our guests have become accustomed to. 

"The CEO cannot be involved in every decision -- nor should they be"

SA: I'd like to ask you about managing a culture of innovation. If we want to harness the creative talents at all levels of an organization, how do we do that? What specifically does the CEO need to do to role model the right approach? Short of writing a book, of course.

JT: The CEO always sets the tone for an organization. Due to corporate hierarchy, it can get a little lonely at the top if there’s not complete buy-in at every level of the organization.

Due to physical and time constraints, the CEO cannot be involved in every decision – nor should they be involved in every decision. It’s extremely important for middle and senior-management to have a very clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the company. In addition, creativity is an important tool that should be harnessed to effectively manage toward these goals. This is something that needs to be taught to all the individuals making decisions.

"The CEO always sets the tone for an organization"

JT: It’s very important to always monitor the touch-points of your organization so that you can see where the customer intersects with your product or service.

As the CEO, there are times when I find myself talking to clients about their experiences, in a sense pleading with them to be honest and candid with me. It really is important for the CEO to hear everything – the good and the bad. Because much of what gets to a CEO on a daily basis is somewhat sanitized by those working for them, I find it important to regularly speak with our guests.

Additionally there are always letters, observations, comments and criticisms that come across the transom. CEOs always need to understand what’s being said about their organization so that they can deal with the situations appropriately.

SA: Thank you, Jonathan. It's not often that a CEO of a major organization lets themselves be interviewed by a blogger. I really appreciate having your executive level perspective on things that my readers and I think about!

JT: Thank you, Susan, for this dialogue! I’ve enjoyed this week immensely. Thank you for welcoming me to your blog.

SA: We talk a lot on this blog about the need to stay close to customers, and the tools that help you do that effectively. I'm wondering what some of your favorite methods are?

Jonathan Tisch to visit May 25

Jonathan Tisch, author of Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing the Customer Experience (with Karl Weber) will be visiting this blog for a Q&A next Friday, May 25. 

It's all part of a blog book tour.
(And isn't that just a cool idea, courtesy of David Polinchok at BrandExperienceLab)

Jonathan's the CEO of Loew's Hotels, so he knows a few things about chocolates and such. I have been pleasantly surprised at how meaningful and meaty the book is.  In fact, I read an extract from the book at a recent client working session to get us all into the right mindset.

So I am delighted to be able to have Jonathan as my virtual guest. I don't think we have the capability of virtual autographs, for which I'm truly sorry. However, we're very big on co-creation around here, so if there's something you'd really like to know or ask a hotel CEO or experience leader, please e-mail me.

Other blogs will be hosting Jonathan as well.  Here's the schedule:

Monday 5/21

http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org - Q&A format

http://customersrock.wordpress.com/ Q&A format

 

Tuesday 5/22

http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/ Podcast/Q&A format

 

Wednesday 5/23

http://www.grokdotcom.com Podcast format

http://www.vacantready.com Q&A format

 

Thursday 5/24

http://www.lipsticking.com/ Podcast format

http://experiencethemessage.typepad.com/blog/ Q&A format

 

Friday 5/25

http://www.arc.typepad.com/customercrossroads Q&A format

http://experienceology.blogspot.com/ Podcast format

Two events you need to know about: Ideas and Innovation

I'm delighted to be attending two cool events in June that you should consider adding to your calendar. Both these events have the potential to refresh your thinking, and recharge the spirit. Plus, they are both highly participative, so you'll get a chance to really engage with the ideas.

Business Pulse '07 -- Innovation Summit

Where: York University Executive Learning Centre, Toronto

When: June 5, 7:30 am - 5 pm with reception following

A one day event that will wrap an 18 month research project on best practices in innovation. Good speakers, and an interactive program will make this a memorable event. Hosted by Schulich Executive Education, York University.

The conference web site is here, or you can go directly to the brochure by clicking here.

[Full disclosure: I'm part of the facilitation team.]

Idea City

Where:Toronto

When: June 20, 21, 22

Three days of stimulating speakers and engaging with others around ideas. What could be more fun?

I've been hearing about this event for years, and this year I shifted my continuing education budget around in order to attend. [People tell me it's life changing. In a good way.]

The event site is here.

I'll probably blog about the event while I'm there, but wouldn't you rather be there than just read about it? Tickets are now getting expensive, but there are still one or two early-bird tickets around. If you want to snag one, please e-mail me.

Clayton Christensen: Back to the beginning

Doing a little year end file clean-out, I came across a wonderful interview that Inc. did with Clayton Christensen in 2002. Reading it reminded me of the brilliant simplicity of his ideas, and how often we hear someone spout a muddy version that clouds the picture.

On strategies for growth when competing with established leaders:

The leaders in every industry have vast resources at their disposal. If I try to grab a piece of real estate that the established leaders want, where the customers are attractive and the business is attractive ... the leaders will win. So what I want to do is to craft a strategy that takes advantage of what I would call asymmetry of motivation. That is, a situation where I'm motivated to go after the business of the market leaders, but the piece of their business that I can most naturally go after is the one that they're the least motivated to defend.

This wonderfully clear idea, four years before Kim & Mauborgne published Blue Ocean Strategy.

Defining disruptive innovation:

A disruptive innovation is a technologically simple innovation in the form of a product, service, or business model that takes root in a tier of the market that is unattractive to the established leaders in an industry. Very often this occurs at the low end of a market ... Or it takes root by providing a simple and inexpensive product that enables a new population of customers to begin participating in a new application in the market.

I think Nintendo Wii meets a number of these tests, by the way, including being less costly, with lower overall processing horsepower than competitors, and appealing to a market that hadn't before used this type of game. They also developed a distribution system for Wii games that enables them to sell and make money on games at a very low price -- too low for existing distribution channels.

Litmus Test: Is this market suitable for disruptive innovation?

First ... Is there a larger population of less skilled, or less wealthy, customers who could be pulled into that market? ... If there isn't a larger population of less skilled and less wealthy people whom you can identify to pull into the market, it's a strike against the disruptability of that market.

Second ... An innovation will get traction only if it helps people get something that they're already doing in their lives done better....The safest assumption is that people won't change the fundamental things they want out of life... You need to be very observant about what people are trying to do -- not what they say they wish they were doing. If you can facilitate what they're already doing -- maybe make it cheaper, easier, and more convenient to do -- then your disruption has a much better chance of success.

Some good thoughts to take into a new year.

References:
The Disruptive Start-Up: Clayton Christensen On How To Compete With The Best, by Nancy J. Lyons, Inc magazine, Feb 1, 2002. Available online via Sherpa Partners Resources for Entrepreneurs

Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata interviews the Wii development team about their philosophy and approach to the design and technology in Wii here. A fantastic read, and gives a lot of insight into how an innovative process unfolds inside an organization.

Customer Driven Innovation

At a qualitative research conference a while back, I attended a session on using games to support innovation. The people you see above are other researchers, holding up their "product box". [Sorry the pics are so small, all I had was the camera phone. And it's taken me this long to get the darn pics out of the phone, but that's another story!]

This method was laid out in Luke Hohmann's book, Innovation Games, and this was a nice chance to see it in action. Tables were given lots of materials to work with, and a plain white box. The task was to create a box for an alarm clock that they would like to buy.

Participants came up with lots of interesting ideas. For example, at my table we wanted an alarm clock that knows what time it is, just like a cell-phone does. A smart clock.

Many people mentioned Apple inspired design -- features and controls so easy to use you don't actually need to read the manual, because it's intuitive. Can you tell that this group spends a lot of time in hotel rooms, trying to set yet another clock radio, or figure out what the current local time is?

What I found especially interesting about the exercise was that the room seemed to divide into two larger groups: those who were concerned about clock functionality, and those concerned about managing the morning mood and ambiance. Could these be segments, I wonder?

During the debrief, the facilitators asked multiple questions of each spokesperson, to uncover the needs and ideas around the benefits sought.

You'll find lots of people who will tell you that "focus groups can't lead to innovation", and other blah, blah of that nature. I say it depends a lot on who is running the event. If you ask customers literally "what should we do?", you may not get that much you can use. 

But the joy of this exercise was that it focused people on unmet needs, and benefits they would derive from the features they proposed. A development team could definitely learn a lot from the output of that.  And the act of creating the box helped all of us get past "design issues" and focus on what we'd really love to have.

References:
Summary of keynote speaker Paco Underhill from the same conference, talking about global trends in retail.

This method first came to my attention through Luke Hohmann's book, Innovation Games.

 

Co-creating with your customers: a TTC story

Our local Toronto Transit Commission is not known for its usability or customer experience.  I tried to figure out which one of four buses would be most likely to come by one day recently, and was completely unable to decipher any of them (see above map, which defies all cartography conventions).

The TTC's web site is no better, either from an aesthetic or informational standpoint.

Bringing bloggers into the design process

But let's get to the co-creation, and see what can happen with even a little effort to invite your customers inside the tent...

The story is best told by the blog that started it...Reading Toronto:

"The Toronto Bloggers' website challenge to new TTC Chair Adam Giambrone gathered steam with postings on readingtoronto.com, Spacing.ca, Torontoist.com, Blogto.com, and transit.toronto.on.ca. It seems that Toronto's netroots can influence city hall. In case you missed the news, bloggers in the city were embarrassed by the transit commission's online presence. We asked our readers - people who tend to use the site every day - how they would improve the TTC website. Their answers are honest and insightful."

The new TTC chairman, Adam Giambrone, seems to have accepted the challenge. Today's Globe and Mail reports that he will be meeting with the bloggers to discuss their ideas, and a new site should be up and running by the summertime. !!! 

This is a big step for an organization I've heard described as insular, rigid and paramilitary in outlook.

And the input is excellent.  Here are a few of the suggestions made via comments on the various blogs:

"Like Google Maps, I want to be able to type in a destination address, execute a search and be taken to a map segment that shows the nearest TTC route; then I’d like to be able to use that route information to construct a travel plan from my point of origin....
The current system expects a user to know what route number he/she wants which is, of course, backwards thinking."

"As well as a journey planner, simple printable maps should be available to broswers, maybe with operation schedules/wheelchair accessible stops/other related information provided."

"Information like closures, schedule changes, or route disruptions should be available on the site, as an RSS feed, as an e-mail subscription, or as an SMS subscription that can be signed up for from a page on the TTC website."

"Trip planner please. Vancouver’s Translink already has one that on their website that’s very helpful. Also, most Translink stations display a phone number which you can call en-route and speak with an attendant regarding Transit schedules, like how long until the next bus, and route information.
http://tripplanning.translink.bc.ca/hiwire?.a=iTripPlanning&.s={$SID}"

I thought this recommendation was particularly insightful...

"...the TTC should hire a someone to head up a Design department. This person will be in charge of formulating standards for TTC advertising, route/schedule information posters, website design, and station/vehicle signage. ....If that doesn’t happen, this will just be a one-off, and like all one-offs will end up decaying into another sloppy mess. The TTC needs design everywhere, not just on its web site."

Another commenter has created a TTC schedule for their Palm, that you can download!!!!! 

Another great suggestion from several people: the TTC should make their database available to developers, to enable just this sort of open-source innovation.

So what?

The learning here: if people care about your service, they are receptive to helping you improve it to meet their needs better. The insights generated on these blogs contain real insights, the sort of ideas I'd be delighted to generate for a client as part of a research project. And this organization is getting them for free. Let's hope they have the brains to listen.

If your customers built a web site about your organization...

You might ask yourself this: if your customers built a web site about you, what would be there? What tips and tricks would they share with others? What navigational aids? What contact points? What secrets would they share?

References:

"The TTC gets some online help", by Bert Archer in the Globe & Mail, January 6, 2007. [free for 7 days]

Reading Toronto, founded by architect, urban planner and columnist Robert Ouellette, looks at the city from the standpoint of the creative arts.

Spacing Wire, a blog about public space issues in Toronto. Here's the TTC post with comments.

Blog TO, a blog about Toronto events, with an emphasis on the arts. Here's their post about the TTC with comments.

Torontoist, their TTC post and comments are here 

Transit Toronto shows how a dedicated fan site can actually provide significantly more useful information than the corporate site.

Qualitative Research Conference: Toronto October 2006

Why you need rubber soled shoes

It's cheaper and faster than ever to collect reams of information: it's wisdom in using this information that is in short supply. And you really should have some rubber soled shoes.

These were some of the things Paco Underhill talked about in his keynote last week at the joint QRCA/MRIA-QRD conference. Paco is the hugely successful analyst of shopping behaviors and author of very successful books on the subject, Why We Buy and Call of the Mall. 

Inner Context of the Shopper

One of the most interesting observations he made is that we all shop more often, even though we live in a state of accelerated time. We go into a store with a specific mission, and if we don't fulfil it, may leave empty handed.  That mission, even for the same person in the same store in the space of the same week, could have very different characteristics, based on the value system and emotion at play due to the inner context.

For example, shopping for a child's birthday cake, shopping for tonight's dinner, and shopping for the weekend when the relatives you dislike will be visiting. And in some respects, we need to treat each of those scenarios as if we were dealing with a different customer.

The Key Question

The key question, for Underhill, is always: "how do I respond to local market conditions and build same store sales?"  Depending where in the world you are, these challenges are vastly different.

When speaking of the global middle class, 2/3 of our expenditures are discretionary. We don't need to spend money on much -- someone has to entice us to spend.

In other parts of the world, money is a new and exciting toy, and that's where all the innovation is happening in retail.  Underhill shared some excellent examples of this.

Roppongi Hills, Tokyo

Underhill described Roppongi Hills as the "All Mall". It has hotels, an art gallery, residential towers, and a multitude of recreation facilities. One of the unusual elements is the large amount of public art that has been included throughout the facility, both inside and outside.

Creative use of space in Johannesburg

What you are looking at here is a drive-in movie theatre on the roof of a shopping mall (the Menlyn). A great use of space, and a good way to bring more traffic into the mall.

Another example cited by Underhill was a mall owner who built a stadium for student athletic activities on adjacent land, solely to drive traffic into the food court of the mall.

Forget about Parking in Sao Paolo

In order to bring traffic into the mall from the nearby office towers, this mall offers a free shuttle bus service that will pick people up and then run them back in complete safety so they can shop over their lunch hour.

Finding Happiness in Tokyo

Three Minutes of Happiness is the name of a chain of stores in Tokyo that sell inexpensive items for everyday use. Here's the description from Frommer's guide:

Bargain yen shops have opened all over Japan the past few years, but this is one of the best I've seen. It carries tableware, household goods, office supplies, cosmetics, watches, sunglasses, some basic clothing, and many other simple items, mostly in bright and happy colors like lime green and sky blue.

Although these shops seem very well designed, they are reminiscent of one of the fastest growing categories of shopping at home: the dollar store, and other deep discount formats, that are the antithesis of good design.

Dubai, Dubai

Underhill compared Dubai to the cantina scene in the original Star Wars movie, and called it the first place on the globe that is ready to receive the intergalactic traveller. You can get anything you want, and you can pay in any currency you choose.  Dubai apparently has fifty major shopping malls, in addition to the more traditional souks.

The Challenge

Underhill believes that landlords of shopping malls must go from being landlords to being placemakers. And the best ones are reaching for this. But there is still a lot of room for improvement.

His main recommendation, which we heartily endorse: get some good shoes, and get out the office to see what's going on.

MBA via iPod

This morning I was browsing my bloglines feed and came across this comment in a discussion of Web 2.0:

"Audio Books on an iPod. I’ve listened to audio books for years, mostly on cassette tapes in my car. They fill in driving time with a motivational or teaching message. Now with my iPod I can listen to books anywhere. It is amazing to listen to business oriented books while walking through different business districts. These books suddenly come alive. This process has actually become the subject of a new blog for me. Called “MBA on the Run” it talks about using audio books as part of a personal MBA program. Simple technology that takes the message to the medium."

MBA on the Run is indeed all about listening to business books on your iPod. Not a bad business idea, but even cooler as a not-for-profit:

"All proceeds from book and technology sales as well as ad revenue over the next two years will go to help build a youth center and computer lab. Please consider helping out our future entrepreneurs and career seekers by buying books and equipment through links on this site."

I love the creativity that the web has unleashed in people. Before the web, this kind of cool idea might never see the light of day. Now, it can be up and running in an afternoon with no capital, no fixed organization structure, and no overhead.