My January started off as December left off with a full travel schedule. San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, and Houston made up a very busy month!
We had projects around marketing, sales, communication and idea development. We launched initiatives around our Repeatable Successful Acts (RSA) and added new data from two new industries to our expanding knowledge of the behaviors of top sales professionals. Our continued addition of data has built the RSA platform into a significant sales strategy. We have also developed a “why customers buy” aspect of the program creating a new strategic approach to the use of the RSA platform.
Our curriculum, based around the two core skills of communication and thinking is now in place at over a dozen of our clients and I will be launching it for three new clients in the first quarter of this year.
During tough times companies need to focus their energies on those activities that can give a strong return; on those strategies that they can control. Skill sets create advantages; properly trained, talented people grow companies; and even in this unpredictable, chaotic age, that rings true.
The need to generate ideas is a full time job for any organization. It might be around product development, design, marketing or sales, but the want to find fresh perspectives is a business imperative.
In the last two months of ‘08 and the first two months of ‘09 our strategic platform on idea development, THE ROUNDTABLE is becoming a regular process in over half a dozen of our clients. Here is the concept:
- Invite (and I do mean invite) a small group of diverse thinkers to participate. This is a special task and deserving of a real invitation.
- Meeting no more than once a week for four weeks.
- Each meeting is no more than 90 minutes.
- Each Roundtable deals with only one goal — for instance, reduce expenses by ___$’s, develop a new value add program for our clients or how can we leverage technology to help our market presence. Roundtables never have more than ONE goal.
- The Roundtable is charged with coming up with no more than THREE ideas with actionable plans.
- A HOMEWORK assignment is created prior to the first meeting. The participants have to come with their ideas already in place, each bringing three around the goal. The purpose of the first meeting is to share, combine, reduce ideas, working towards the three.
- The next meetings deal with final selection of the THREE ideas, the development of their actionable plans, and the creation of the presentation on their final plans so that the ideas gain organizational traction.
- Facilitation is critical at the first meeting to be sure the concept is understood and the ground rules are followed.
In the companies we are currently running Roundtables, we have seen fantastic results. New strategies are being developed around the Roundtables output. When you add a process that creates form around an outcome based on imagination, and you have a real methodology for creating new ideas — it leads to new ideas build futures!
Nesting: The economy continues to support new ideas despite the media’s report to the contrary. The “nesting” syndrome, where more people are staying at home for entertainment and dining instead of heading out, is opening more and more niches. New concepts in the grocery business are really having an impact. Stores are adding “take home meals” with pre-washed and diced veggies, measured ingredients and a variety of recipes to makes dinner. Others have taken their rotisserie chickens and added all the fixings to make a complete meal. Some have added a large natural food section to take advantage of health conscious shoppers. These new ideas have expanded their niches and are taking advantage of new trends. The impact is that the food industry showed GROWTH in ‘08 and more predicted for ‘09. That’s real money from new ideas. That’s ideas generating momentum. That’s the power of IDEAS!
Making Music for the Masses: Being a musician (might be a stretch) I am always interested in the methods of writing songs. I lack the knowledge of musical theory to do anything other than work with chordal structure. Well, Todd Machover, a composer and Professor of Music at MIT has created software that allows anyone, even me, to create music! Hyperscore (www.hyperscore.com) is a mouse based interface that delivers a visual language of lines and colors to allow a person to draw and paint music. You can start from scratch and make your own music without being a Julliard graduate (though I bet that helps). The more avenues that exist for creativity the more people will experiment and will try opening up a flow of ideas. After all, a song is simply a musical idea!
Doing: One of my most frequently asked questions is, “will this idea work?” My answer is the same: “though well conceived and designed there is never a 100% solution.” Here is something I am sure of – Do nothing and nothing will change. That is a 100% guarantee. The real question being asked is how can I manage my risk. With extremely fluid markets that create daily challenges think about new ideas in terms of “small steps”. I shy away from BIG leaps and try to look at problems in pieces. At CISCO they looked at breaking problems into smaller pieces and giving them to cross-functional, collaborative teams (sound familiar – ROUNDTABLES) and new ideas started flowing. Small pieces and fresh perspectives mitigate the danger of doing!
: Interested in these ideas?
You can contact Steve at steve@creativeventures.com or give him a call at 972-490-7717.
