Making stuff…

Daddy doesn’t grow anymore..

My daugther of three is very proud that she is growing. In the car she asked if her sister is growing aswell. I confirmed. Then she asked if her friends are growing and her nephew and niece.. Yes they are all growing. Finally she asked if daddy is growing also.. I said no.. Daddy is not growing anymore. Daddy is growing in different ways. She looked confused.. That look stuck with me..

Later that look suddenly reminds me of how corporations “look” when you tell them that there is a limit on (profit) growth. There is something like an equilibrium. That different ways of growth than monetary/scale are needed..

In case you didn’t notice, Advertising as we knew it is gone

Great post on Hee-Haw marketing. Comforting to see more are seeing the change..

Please read it!

Here are some great parts out of that post:

 So, the picture should be even clearer. Advertising is dead, but marketing isn’t. We’ve started to adapt to this new environment by doing the only thing we could do, stop advertising, and just embrace the humanity of it all.

Now, we’ve become conversationalists, trying desperately to elicit some response where before we simply ignored it. And that’s a good thing. The implication is that we no longer own it or control it. Now we earn it.

While “targeting” the right consumers is more important than ever, our focus is expanding to trust, to improving the lives of our customers. It’s evidenced when you hear ad:tech attendees like Carver say, “The first question that should be hardwired in our product skulls is how will this help someone do something better, or faster or with more enjoyment…my mom, myself, my friends, etc. If we didn’t believe in our technology and the effort then there would be no enjoyment in bringing an app to market. In the end today’s market and media should be about many levels of choice and the opportunity to participate at whatever level a person finds most rewarding.”

As Harold Mann of Mann Consulting said, “But those that definitely work to improve people’s lives tend to make money more easily. When the money is the byproduct of the work and not the reason for it, it is easier to sustain one’s career.”

Assessing creational capabilities in corporations

If we are slowly moving to an Creative/emotion driven market, how can stockmarkets/financial institutions assess value? How can you predict and define value in such an abstract, emotional and human environment.

I asked a question in LinkedIn. Excellent tool! See the question and answers below..

Conclusion: We tend to have different believes…

What is the most important ingredient in the process of creation?

• The ability to suspend judgment and allow ideas to flow.
• Brevity.
• A well defined problem. In advertising, the problem might be “Our product (company) is perceived as such and such, we want to change that perception to so and so. How do we do it?”
• Creativity … a defined problem and clarity are great, but you need to be able to go outside the box … often a long way when creating someting new …
• Passion and simplicity.
• Some people are better at creation than others. No mistake : all people are creative. But some have more passion, interest and talent for creation. Are willing to invest time in it, are taking the risks to experiment.
  Further : the right mix of people in a creation process : different kinds of people can augment each others’ talents.
  Environment : Differs greatly for different people, but Fear is the greatest enemy of creation. Boundaries, however, can help creation very well. I always like to think of the ideal creation environment as one where I would like to play a game in.
• Perseverence/persistence, visualization, trust and inner peace
• Trust! Theory of Social Constructivism: there is no one reality or there is only one reality, either is the same leading to us ourselves: the absolute top of creativity. Therefor it helps me to trust that coincidence does not exist as creation is creating reality.
• Communication
• Me… or you?
• Well, based on my experience in creating mobile phones from idea to mass-market creation – mix of people, information (of market), experience, trial-error method and also perseverance to the issue at hand, and a bit of a madness as well…One of the most interesting concepts of a mobile phone was made in cellar of an old house purposefully – not within processes of full R&D engineers … At least, this is the way story goes 😎 .The process of innovation is naturally an interesting area where creativity is needed besides using it for advertising – where similar “propeller heads” are needed to create new campaigns…
• I’m going to have to go with water, an amino-acid rich watery soup, and radiant energy (preferably UV).
• Maybe this is too obvious, but it seems the answer is in the question: creativity. To drill down a bit, I’d say that means the ability to think in non-linear ways, to connect seemingly random ideas and (sometimes to one’s detriment) constantly live in the world of possibility. As with intelligence, though, I think there are a number of axes on which creativity can be measured (visual, verbal, etc.) (It has been postulated that the top 1% of creatives have characteristics that may put them at a psychological/functional disadvantage in the “real” world)
• Tough question. As someone in a continually creative position I would say the MOST important ingredient is going to vary… Some days, a problem is presented and a creative solution is required. The pressure of the situation will often force creativity (think of a brainstorming session) Some days, creativity happens as a result of having time and resources at hand. (Consider playing around with ideas because there is NO pressure) Some days, creativity will spring upon you unbidden (think of the brilliant middle of the night idea). I think a willingness to accept is probably the only ingredient that consistently carries through all these situations. (And I am equally certain that there are other situations that elicit creativity.
• Curiosity. That’s what gives me the ability to step into my client’s world. A strong desire to know or learn something that then becomes a product of my imagination
• Fantasy and dreams

Thanks to all that contributed!

 

Struggling to share

Currently I am working on basically a presentation linking it all together( well atleast for me). Wondering if I should share it all openly.. It starts to be, I believe,  a powerful story..

The beauty is that what I am preaching I need to practice..

Arghh end of the week it is online…

My ChangeThis Manifesto

Dear reader,

My proposal for a ChangeThis Manifesto was approved. Currently my proposal is up for voting. When I have enough votes(I have no idea what enough is) it will be published.

Here is my proposal:

Value Creation: The RIGHT way

19-March-2007

The coming years competitive advantage for corporations is created purely by right brain activities: creativity, intuition, emotion, communication and a holistic view of the world. This manifesto is about releasing the strength of the right side brain within businesses. It shows ways to create new value in an emotional driven world. This manifesto has the ambition to support companies to reach their true potential. Not through growth but through self actualization. “A company at best can be itself”

Thanks for voting for this manifesto!

Wheel of Creation

Been busy working on a model for value creation. Nowhere have I found a model that I truely believe. Most of the current models about competitive advantage, blue oceans and innovations have a left brain way of solving the problem. It is often based on rational decisions, cause and effect, schematics and matrices. Well we have a right brain problem..and we try to solve it with left brain answers..

So after some investigations in how the brain works and how people self actualize I tried to create a wheel that seems more balanced between right and left brain activities and internal and external activities. The current model is 3/4 right brain and 1/4 only left brain. Alot more in balance to operate in this holistic, creative, emotional and communicative age. Hard to sell that 3/4 of the time people in your company are not productive in the traditional sense?

Something I am confident to share is that the first phase of the wheel is what I call “Imagine Intuition”. In this phase you create your wish, belief or challenge. This basically changes your perception. This is in my opinion the biggest achievement of the whole creation cycle. Many companies describe their goals through cause and effect( 10% more sales than last year, higher penetration in..) or they create a very functional mission(making the best shoes). BAM..There it just went wrong.. It doesn’t change your perception. How difficult is it to change if your perception of yourself in a larger context did not change. Therefore impossible to self actualize..(right?) Let go of your current situation. David Wolfe of Ageless Marketing wrote this about corporate selfactualization: “Maslow would view FoEs(Firms of Endearments) as having reached the organizational equivalent of self-actualization. To reach that level in human life requires “letting go” of the ego. With ego in recession, a person’s worldview changes from self-centeredness to others-centeredness. This doesn’t mean the sacrifice of one’s self-interest. Self-interest is all the better served at the highest levels of maturity. This is true of companies as well as human beings.”

So what I preach in the first step of the wheel is to wish, believe or challenge yourself. Free from form or function. This first step, often ignited by an event, is crucial in the process. Those who fail will describe themselves as” I am a moneymaking machine” those that succeed in this phase describe themself as ” I (wish) to support people in…” for example.

Have trust and let go. Believe that the rest of the creation process will fall into place. A company at best can be what it is.
Soon more on the subject. Any feedback or opinions are more than welcome..

The Broad Thought

More and more I gather evidence that the very core of a company is what I call the “Broad Thought”. The broad thought gives companies a sense of purpose. It is close to a religion. A beliefsystem. The Broad Thought influences the company culture and creates stability. The difference with a Mission Statement in my idea is that a Mission Statement is focussed on the functional excercise of the Broad Thought. An example of a Broad Thought is “Against Throwawayism” from Iittala

A well defined and effective Broad Thought has in my opinion a couple of characteristics:
1. It creates freedom to innovate(level of abstraction)
2. Not bound to function or form(so immaterial)
3. Emotionally charged(Fueled)
4. Passionately carried out by Top Management
5. Value focussed and not growth focussed
6. Defined from a serving(supporting) perspective
7. any ideas…?

The benefits of defining a Broad Thought are:
1. Bridges the gap between society and corporations
2. Offers roads to innovation (differentiation)
3. Creates room and guidance for CSR
4. Creates a subject for co-creation without the pressure of existing products

The biggest pitfall for a broad acceptance among employees of a Broad Thought is that it is communicated.. YOU SHOULD NOT COMMUNICATE THE BROAD THOUGHT… Here really comes to the big eye opener:

YOU SHOULD MAKE EMPLOYEES FEEL IT THROUGH EXPERIENCES..

More on the Broad Thought soon…

The Support Economy

Just read an article written in 2002(!!) about the book The Support Economy. In this Harvard Business School article Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin discuss about the “rift between corporations and society”. Here some nice passages:

A century ago mass consumption was on the rise. People wanted more things. The answer was to produce more goods at an ever-lower cost—mass production. Corporations were organized around a managerial hierarchy invented to provide a tight inward focus on the increasingly complex processes of production and distribution. This was a massive innovation over the older model of a single owner who tried to oversee everything. Under managerial capitalism, ownership became dispersed, but control remained concentrated in the management group.

The evolution from one episode of capitalism to another is a normal historical process. Just as mercantile capitalism was displaced by proprietary capitalism, and that new form was later displaced by managerial capitalism, it makes sense that managerial capitalism will be displaced by a new, more comprehensive form that better serves today’s populations.

Capitalism’s capacity to evolve and its incredible versatility have proven to be the single most important source of its robustness and success. In fact, capitalism has avoided devastating crises not because it is fixed, but because it changes. Each historical episode of capitalism has a limited range of adaptation, however. As markets and technologies undergo historic change, so too must the current model of capitalism.

The new individuals have plenty of things. They have access to plenty of services. But they now yearn for something that corporations have not perceived, let alone put on offer: the kind of support that will enable them to live the lives they choose.

People’s desires, needs and wants have radically changed, but corporations have remained distant and indifferent to the true nature of this change. As a result, we have a business environment in which people are chronically disappointed and frustrated by their experiences as consumers and employees. We no longer trust large organizations to serve our needs. On every level, we are experiencing a divisive “us vs. them” mentality.

Each new episode of capitalism emerges from the complex interplay of three forces: (1) New human yearnings that create a new approach to consumption and new kinds of markets, (2) technologies capable of addressing the demands of the new markets, and (3) a new enterprise logic that can link employees, technologies, and markets in new ways.

The fire is laid. What’s needed is the match. Many people already sense that there must be a better and more relevant way of doing capitalism. The search is on for a new enterprise logic that will fundamentally alter the orientation, purpose, and economics of commerce. The Support Economy is intended to contribute to that search as it invites discussion of a new enterprise logic that we call distributed capitalism. Watch the flames when these three forces finally combine. That will mark the real discontinuity between the economy of the twentieth century and that of the twenty-first.[Note: I think it is happening now]

In our chapter called “Rediscovering the End Consumer, Over and Over Again” we show how most “new” business concepts are simply self-referring. They do not move beyond the rules of a certain way of doing capitalism, and therefore they cannot possibly alter the problems they target. Instead, just the opposite occurs—the status quo overpowers new ideas and turns them into variations on the same old themes. That is why every innovation from quality circles to reengineering to customer relationships turns out to be another road to cost reduction.

Deep support means “getting my life back.” In order to provide this, deep support means that commercial entities absorb both accountability and responsibility for every aspect of the consumption experience. Deep support enables psychological self-determination. It produces time for life. It facilitates and enhances the experience of being the origin of one’s life. It recognizes, responds to, and promotes individuality. It celebrates intricacy. It multiplies choice and enhances flexibility. It encourages voice and is guided by voice. Deep support listens and offers connection. It offers a collaborative relationship defined by advocacy. It is founded on trust, reciprocity, authenticity, intimacy, and absolute reliability.

AMAZING..

The Corporation

Thanks to Tom van Brunschot.. Powerful documentary(23 parts).. This is the beginning of the doc.. Setting the scene. Reminds me of my post on What Business Am I In?