The reason why every executive is feeling intense pressure from competitors or disruptive start-ups is likely becasue of the fact that the models or dominant logic behind theie business strategies are constraining the companies' ability to innovate. Have you wonder why it is so hard it is to move beyond the "adjacent" opportunities to open up new revenue streams? Naturally you turn to your customer intelligence people, next you are overwhelmed by those terabytes of analytical data, not that these are not useful, perhaps the models you are using are not up to the challenge of making sense in this information-rich, hyper-networked and customer-in-control world.
It is easy to say that innovation is the answer to all this. But the real question is "how". I’ve been talking to many senior executives last few weeks about how to help them to set up innovation capabilities and most of all how to put them to use for current projects so they get immediate "Return-on-Innovation." I showed them different approaches and what works better in what environment. The key message was that they need to start looking at different mental models that shape their businesses thinking and start challenging them.
In any area of your life or business where there's an urgent need to change and transform oneself to stay relevance, mental models play a central role. Yet we often have little awareness of what our models are and how they shape what we can see and do (unless you have direct access to your inner world through the use of medications). Mental models can appear simple, and are often invisible, yet they are always there and have a significant impact on our decision making process. Changing the way we compete or changing the way we create customer value begins with changing the way we think and imagine.
The world we live in is not out there on YouTube or codified on a HBS business case study. It is in our own minds that those circles and arrows (like Power Point) telling us the "what" and "why". It is those little unwritten and unarticulated ideas that drive our intuition and logic. Until we recognize this, we will always be running away from ghosts. In our business (and sometimes even personal lives), we often fail to see the true threats and true opportunities because of the limits of the way we make sense of the world. I see that happening with my clients and some very intelligent member of my strategy team. To see the true opportunities requires one to go back deep inside to do a little tuning.
I personally don’t like the word "user" or "consumer". I do use the word "consumer" because of habbit. Industries that refer to their customers as users: software and gadgets. Industries that refer to their customer as consumers: consumer packaged goods and general retail. I often try to avoid it. Here’s an example, look around us today, “user-generated content” is turning into the central connective system that holds together customer communities, product and net services. These people all have different "purposes" and "jobs" to get done. But we use the word "user" referring to all those who produce, share and distribute content. This is a wrong term. This reduces the human being on the other side to someone who mechanically perform one thing with one common reason. Why can’t we try to understand why these people are doing what they are doing and what motivates them. If nothing else it would probably help marketers keep stay focus on what these people are doing in mind. Thing about this:
Flickr – Photographers Created Pictures
YouTube – Audiences Created Video
Stock Brokerage - Investors Created Advice
Hobbies – Prosumer Created Knowledge
Education - Students Created Thought Pieces
Vacationer – Traveller Created Journeys
Discussions – Participant Created View-points
Community – Members Created Stories
Parents – Parents Created Content
Well, what should we do? And can you give me an example. One of the ideas I bring to client is stop looking at your customers as "consumer". Usually they'd say "what do you mean?" Since our undergrad days, many of us studied Consumer Behavior as part of Marketing, assuming that the job of marketing is to sell things to people who consume them. This is true but not the whole truth. There's more to that. The job of consumer is "not" just to consume, there are many motivations that drive the consumer to behave in many ways, if we use this over simplistic view we are missing many of the unmet needs of these people. So I show them some of the alternative mental models (this is now part of the proprietary tool kit of Idea Couture's Customer Engagament Innovation ). The first one is using the lens from one of the following customer archetypes:
- Consumer as User
- Consumer as Creators
- Consumer as Explorers
- Consumer as Taste-makers
- Consumer as Storytellers
- Consumer as Activists
As John Seely Brown put it “In the old world, managers make products. In the new world, managers make sense of things.” Here is a good way to make sense of things. This is an example of an idea may seem quite simple and but powerful enough to allow us to see the world under different lens, and come up with powerful innovative ideas. This transformation of thinking is where all the transformations of our business and personal lives begin. Good luck with your journey. (Illustrations by John Wall for Idea Couture Inc.)
