innovation playground Idris Mootee

Open Source Advanced Branding Masterclass - Program Framework

Branding has become almost a religion in some corporations, and is difficult to dislodge, because many believe that the brand itself is something that changes consumer behavior. Many of the great brands impose themselves on markets; write their own set of rules and many even create their own mythologies.

For the last 50 years brands are results of commercial partnerships between ad agencies and marketers. The next 50 days, great brands will be built as a result of partnerships between marketers and consumers. Brand equity as a result is created through dialogue and engagement. The new world of marketing is where consumers have as much control (if not more) over a brand as those who are actually marketing a brand and paying for the ads. I like that.

While many marketing tools, at their core, are fundamentally based on the concepts of intrusion and interruption, we have come to a point that is not acceptable anymore. We need a new toolbox to build brands. The traditional thinking around branding was to endow a ‘commodity’ with unique characteristics through the creative use of name, slogan, packaging and advertising images. However, in a world where there is a muddle of images and messages, it is almost impossible for a brand to rise above the noise to be noticed, let alone be liked. So the question is how can marketers leverage emerging social media to establish a dialog with their customers and how they can leverage the resulting conversations to learn more about their customers, create a new level of engagement and, ultimately, influence brand preference.

If you need a primer on where things stand today and also need to prepare to embrace and leverage what comes next, this Open Source Advanced Branding Masterclass is for you. No classroom, no books and no fees.

Brand strategy development has always been a fascinating topic (we are not talking about brand identity, naming, or logo design here). During those eight weeks, we will be exchanging views on 'Bonding' more than 'Branding' and ‘Dialogue’ and not “Direct Marketing”.

We all hate rules, but we will work together to reinvent the rules (before we break them again). Mmarchiare per sempre! Brandmerkend voorgoed! Brandmarken ewig!

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Thanks everyone for great feedback. I have received over a hundred emails last 24 hours. So I will be responding a little slower. Looks like we are going to have great start. For registration, pls write a small post. Class starts first week of Sept. Thanks.

How about money for your start-up in 25 days?

Facebook is gearing up for the big game. They have just hired a Web veteran from AOL to fill its VP marketing role and to help find new ways to bring in revenue. I have two friends who were being considered for this job and it turns out they hired someone who is much younger. Mr.Chamath Palihapitiya 30 years old and Canadian (I was told) was a former executive at AOL. Their mission plan to get $30mm of profit from $150mm of revenue (which isn't a lot) and need to find creative ways to monetize their assets. Not exactly an easy task.

Facebook is very hot these days. A Silicon Valley-based venture investment unit AppFactory announced to provide a $300mm cash commitment (from Bay, parent of AppFactory). They will be in units from $25,000 to $20mm and available to Facebook developers with good ideas.  They will fast track these investments and Bay doesn't want you to wait for months while they perform due diligence. The beauty is that these investment decisions will be based solely on instinct.  Follow this link and get your money here baypartners.com/appfactory. Quick. Cash is waiting.

Some are saying Facebook is the next Google. That's a little too early.

Announcing The Open Source Advanced Brand Strategy Masterclass

An idea came to my mind while having breakfast this Sunday. With all these Web 2.0 tools out there, there must a way to democratize professional knowledge and during that process further advance them. There are plenty of open source software packages out there designed using sound pedagogical principles to help educators create effective online learning communities, but do we really need them?  Here's the idea. I will run my Advanced Brand Strategy Masterclass (I started running this in 1999 and it costs $2,500 per person) but via my blog this time, making it truly open source and totally free. I will divide the three days workshop material into 8 lectures and each week I will post them with notes and links for studies. Participants will post their comments and exchange views. There will be no tuition fees and no text books. There will be no geographical and class size limits. All you need is a computer and a connection. 

The idea is to democratize professional knowledge, making the best resources available to more people who needs the for their job. With tools such as blogs, wikipedia, Flickr, Facebook, del.icio.us, YouTube and Google Docs we are about to join in something new.  Not only that, but the material we generate (notes, feedbacks, discussions exercises, research) will be useful and available for future learners who want to take this journey. Absolutely no fees involved. It is all about open source.

Honestly I am not 100% sure how it works. But it is probably the first of its kind that a program of this nature is delivered via a blog. You can organize virtual work groups if you wish. You will also be encouraged to deliver your presentation via YouTube and conduct group discussions via Facebook.  It will require a bit of self-organization. I think this is a really cool idea. I plan to start the first class on first week of Sept. So the first graduating class will have their photos on Flickr unles someone volunteers for a photoshop job. More info to follow.

What's Next for Social Networks? A Social Network for Bathroom Graffiti Pictures

We’ve seen social networking for everything from music to arts and professions to hobbies. Here's something new - a social network for bathroom graffiti lovers. Especially for those who think MySpace's visual environment is not loud enough. The Bathroom Graffiti Project just relaunched their website as a social network at www.graffitiproject.com and their mission is to collect and archive pictures of bathroom graffiti from every corner of the world.  They are now assembling hundreds of photos, and allowing new members to easily join this club. All you need to do is to take a photo of the graffiti in your bathroom (if you don't have one you can create one with washable color crayon) and upload it through Flickr or send it through your email.  Other than sharing photos I'm not sure what upcoming features or funtionalities they have in mind to truly enable this community. In the meantime I'm sure they're thinking about new devices to add.

While they think of new ideas, can you think of what's in store next for social networks?

10 Lessons of Innovation - Presentation

There are hundred of books and thousands of articles written on innovation with stories about the creation of breakthrough ideas and new business concepts. Often there is a lot of emphasis on different creativity and brainstorming approaches. But often missing is how ideas are being converted into growth businesses. That's the most difficult part. It's about mobilizing people, exploring technical feasibility, develop strategies to promote adoption, developing strategic alliances and managing risks. Along the way innovators face difficult decisions that are often contradictary and paradoxical. Here I share with you The 10 Lessons of Innovation which is a speech I gave to a group of executives a few months back. I hope it is self-explanatory and if not, I apologize as I have misplaced the notes from my speech, otherwise I would've included it here. If you have quesions on any slide, just post it here.

Why Traditional Strategic Planning Sucks and Best Practices are for Idiots!

I often get a lot of people asking me “what are the biggest challenges of moving large organizations into an open-innovation zone?” My answer is we need to deal with this on a strategic level. The quick answer is “Size” is the No.1 enemy. Most large organizations still prefer to develop/own those innovations even knowing that the chance for success to do it in-house is much lower. The second reason is, it's not something a division head can do. This has to come from the CEO and the management team to commit to this fundamental shift. They need to admit that their current model is not delivering the needed levels of top line growth and there’s a need to innovate and find new ways to create shareholder value.

It is not easy for any CEO to admit that their current strategy sucks and cannot provide them with the pace they need for accelerated innovation and growth. It is the CEO’s job to place that wake-up call to the management team to help them realize that this is a different kind of game they're playing. It's not that they don’t want to be innovative, but it's just that they don't know how. My advice is first stop talking about innovation. I have been counting how many times this word appears on annual reports and corporate statements. Innovation is not a slogan; it is about a plan and taking action. It is “doing by learning”. It is “structured play”. It is about experimenting with the unarticulated customer's needs (often unmet) and what is possible with the business' capabilities (including technologies). When the two things come together, that’s where magic happens.

Some folks at BCG have written a book called Payback about innovation and their argument was basically companies running out of ideas. In fact, there are too many ideas. The real challenge is taking those ideas and getting them and implementing them in a way that you can make innovation pay for itself. But to say that companies don’t need a lot of ideas to feed the top of the funnel may not be the case. There’s nothing called too many good ideas. The real challenge is how to see the true potential of those ideas and how to bring that into the organization business boundaries. Only by doing that, one can truly decide which ideas should go up the list and which are to come down.

HBS’ professor Christensen has a good theory explaining that large companies have problems dealing with disruptive technologies. Disruptive technologies are "innovations that result in worse product performance, at least in the near term." They are generally "cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use." Disruptive technologies occur less frequently, but when they do, they can cause the failure of highly successful companies who are only prepared for sustaining technologies. Large companies have large barriers to innovation which make it difficult to invest in disruptive technologies early on.  Baggage from precedents (both capabilities and mindsets) hinder any efficient response to disruptive business models.  Large companies usually have an established customer base that they must be accountable to.  These customers often ask for better versions of current products rather than completely new technologies.

Christensen has correctly stated that it is highly uncommon for firms that manage established lines of business effectively, to anticipate and respond well to a disruptive technology coming from an external agent, much less being able to commercialize one themselves. It is always about the attacker and the defender. But there’s more to this that Christensen did not cover. It goes beyond the general business strategic thinking and goes against the notion that any strategy’s ultimate goal is to maximize shareholder value. We must recognize the fact that if we are going to drive the effort to shape the future of our organizations and societies, rather than have our future defined for us by corporations, all of us need to radically rethink how we can engage in the work of strategy and innovation.

As a strategist for almost 30 years, I can tell you that there what are the 5 big problems with strategic planning that make it virtually impossible for any kind of innovation to emerge or happen:

- Traditional strategic planning assumes that industry boundaries are given

- Traditional strategic planning assumes all firms behave rationally

- Traditional strategic planning assumes predictability

- Traditional strategic planning does not believe in giving away value in the early phase of a big industry shift (open source or open innovation)

- Traditional strategic planning does not value sustainability and social responsibility

Many of those innovations brought by the “Attackers” all have elements that are goes against traditional strategic planning approach. Web 2.0 is powering up a wave of new “Attackers” that can potentially take tens of billions of shareholder value off from the “Defenders”. It is not only about technologies, many are simply riding the Web 2.0 wave to democratize old business models… from crowd sourcing to direct music distribution and peer-to-peer financing. The list goes on and on ….

Strategic planning does not push large organizations to think deeply about the long-term strategic sustainability of their organizations in a time of continous disruptions. The whole marketplace is under severe threat with “Attackers” popping up everywhere, and the consistent and disciplined pursuit of innovation is most likely the only viable strategy for building new business models that will secure the future of our organizations. The many flaws of traditional strategic planning methods make it virtually impossible for organizations to appreciate and internalize the depth and breadth of the responsibilities they have for the future enterprise, or the new kind of Enterprise 2.0.

Fastest Cities in the World 2007

Fast Company just nominated the fastest cities in the world. Here's their Fast Cities 2007, with category based on city, population and how "fast" they are in their respective category. There are actually quite a few surprising cities here. Having lived and worked in cities including London, Boston, LA, Milan, Hong Kong and Toronto and spending considerable time in Tokyo, New York, Paris and Beijing, I kind of understand why some of these cities are being chosen. Toronto being the No.1 global village is well deserved. Shanghai for the creative class, I saw that coming, but I'm surprised Chicago is more of the green leader instead of Portland. Ho Chi Ming as the high tech hot spot also came in as a little surprise for me, I was thinking Tel Aviv, maybe. You can check out the list below.

Creative Class Meccas
Shanghai, China: 14.5M; investment
New York: 18.8M; income per capita
San Francisco Bay Area: 4.2M; technology
Buenos Aires, Argentina: 12.6M; university

Global Villages
Toronto, Canada: 5.1M; diversity/immigration
Johannesburg, South Africa: 3.3M; immigration
Berlin, Germany: 3.4M; immigration

R&D Clusters
Fort Collins, CO: 276K, patents
Seoul, Korea: 9.6M, patents
Raleigh-Durham, NC: 1.6M, college grads

Green Leaders
Chicago, IL: 9.5M, more green roofs than all other cities combined
Stockholm, Sweden (center image): 1.7M, Europe's least-polluted major city
Portland, OR: 2.5M; most LEED-certified green buildings
Vancouver, Cananda: 2.1M; 'World's Most Livable City'

High-Tech Hot Spots
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: 5.1M; 98% of children complete secondary education
Chandigarh, India: 928K; tech exports quadrupled in five years
Boise, ID: 568K; 2nd highest tech GDP growth in the U.S.

Urban Innovators
Curitiba, Brazil: 2.9M, 45% use progressive bus system
Salt Lake City, UT: 1.1M; youngest urban population in the U.S.
Tallinn, Estoonia: 399K; 58% use the internet

Culture Centers
Barcelona, Spain: 4.8M; 1500 design studios, 18 design schools
Miami, FL: 5.5M; Wynwood Art District
Dakar, Senegal: 2.5M; International Fashion Week

Startup Hubs
Austin, TX (lower image): 1.5M, more wi-fi hot spots per capita than anywhere else
Madison, WI: 543K; University of Wisconsin R&D
Tucson, AZ: 946K; top 10 in U.S. in job growth and high tech concentration
London: 8.5M, most IPOs in the world

You can find out about the runners-up here. Happy July 4th!!!!

Web 2.0 and the Marketing New 4Ps

Marketing has gone through evolutionary changes in the last 36 months. It is probably the most profound period of change in the history of marketing. No one will disagree. The first generation of marketing took a pure functional view and was entirely tactical in nature, dominated by the 4P’s: Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement, focusing on pushing mass market product messages and driving store promotions. The next generation of marketing takes a “customer” view: uncovering unmet needs, facilitating conversations, realizing, and delivering real customer value through "customer engagement". Many of those popular tricks in the marketer’s toolkit are now obsolete. It's time for a new one.

As a marketing practitioner and advisor for senior marketing executives for many years, I am fascinated to see the evolution of strategic marketing theory, concepts and practices. In this “experience economy”, strategic marketing now plays a different role. It is now “conversation-driven”, “social network-powered”’, “technology-enabled” and “information-intensive”.

When I wrote “High Intensity Marketing” in 2001, the idea was to help marketers to adapt a new perspective on these elements that is encompassing and strategic, not narrow and tactical. I came up with the “New 4Ps” model to supplement the traditional marketing 4Ps. They are Personalization, Participation, Peer-to-Peer and Predictive Modeling. Don't forget it was pre Web 2.0 days. I was even planning to assemble/acquire a network of firms offering these capabilities. It was a little ahead of its time and it was in the midst of the dot.com bust.

Today, all of this is very much alive and these are the directions that cutting edge marketing is advancing. The first “P” is the simple idea of “Personalization” which now takes on a whole new meaning (I wrote in my book that in the near future we can segment a customer by his or her genetic type, I’m not sure if I like that idea myself). I was focusing on customization of products and services through the Internet.

The second “P” is the concept of “Participation”, it is to allow customer to participate in what the brand should stand for; what should be the product directions and even which ads to run. This concept is laying the foundation for disruptive change that we have yet to see the full impact. Looking back I was grossly underestimating the degree of democratization brought about by this idea. By enabling each of us to create and publish our own stories, the power of deciding what we read; listen and watch has spread from a handful of media companies to anyone with a camera, a connection and a computer.

The third “P” is “Peer-to-Peer”"interruptive" which refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens. The historical problem with marketing is that it is in nature, trying to impose their brand on the customer. This is most apparent in TV ad, which pushes out its own idea of what brand is without engaging the customers. These "passive customer base" will ultimately be replaced by the "active customer communities". Brand engagement happens within those conversations.

The last “P” is “Predictive Modeling” which refers to neural networks algorithms that are being successfully applied in marketing problems (both a regression as well as a classification problem).

Early in 1991, John Seely Brown, then Director of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, referred to customers as the “ultimate partner”, he was absolutely right. Customers can now participate in every part of the value chain. I will trying to set up a network of agencies to deliver on this, unfortunately I was a little ahead of its time.  The new 4Ps concept which I presented in many conferences including the Internet World (NYC) in 2001 is real today. I'll share it with you here at a later date.

Integrating Design Into Your Organization

While we are talking about the new role of IAs (I've got many emails about my last post and it's actually a very popular subject), I thought you might be interested in this presenation by Kim Goodwin, VP of design and GM at Cooper (a consultancy founded by Alan Cooper [the inventor of personas] dedicated to conceiving and designing interactive products and services), called speaking at Business to Buttons (download her presentation here) this summer. She said “Doing the design is the easy part. It’s only half the job.” She was referring to communications and change. Enjoy.

Web 2.0 and the new role of Information Architects

In the world of Web 2.0, the role of Information Architects are getting more important and complex than ever. What's been called social classification, ethnoclassification, folksonomy, freetagging and metadata for the masses have become the foundation for experience innovation.  Services like Flickr, del.icio.us and Furl are creating communal classification schemes by aggregating tags, simple metadata added by each system's users. The remarkable success of these services seems to up-end traditional thinking about classification about what IAs learned in school.  What lessons can IAs learn from Flickr, del.icio.us and the like? How is service design affecting the role of IAs? What about portability and micro-contents? What are the new skills required? I have prepared this presentation for an industry briefing, and if you'd like, it is available for viewing below.