Here’s a 3-step approach when you’re stuck for a viable solution to a challenge:
This technique can be just the thing to eliminate the stumbling blocks you’re facing.
If you have the opportunity to listen, I'm substitute hosting on the Hot Talk 1510 AM "Eye on Small Business" radio show at 9 a.m. CDT Friday, June 26. Regular host Kelly Scanlon, publisher of "KC Small Business" magazine is at the NAWBO national conference in Chicago, where she was selected as President-Elect of the national organization.
This week's guest post is another international submission, from Tim McKenna, CEO of Australian-based Team Technology. He's a professional electronics engineer turned professional systems analyst and programmer. As described in his Twitter bio, Tom is a creative thinker, inventor, entrepreneur, and ICT professional with lots of ideas for business strategies and start-ups.
Tim shares his perspective on a frequently discussed issue - challenging your own perspective to be able to imagine possibilities beyond today's reality:
An Innovation Dilemma
A major innovation barrier is people having preconceived ideas about how a product or process is structured or meant to work. This has been termed Structural Fixedness.
"Structural Fixedness" inhibits creativity since it prevents us from redefining a view of something we currently take for granted - our frame of reference. It doesn’t thwart innovation altogether, but we do become limited to exploring only ideas built upon what we already believe to be true. Our frame of reference, of course, changes depending on the nature of the concepts, processes, or problems we’re dealing with.
Our individual frames of reference result from our learning and experiences; they're part of who we are. We cannot perform our jobs, or even operate as adults, without knowledge, behaviours, and belief systems. If we wish to be truly innovative, though, we need to have the courage to challenge and renew our own frames of reference. This means pushing the boundaries of our comfort zone, which isn't for everyone.
My background is in engineering, project management, and software development. I consider myself an innovator in the software field. Since my background is somewhat different from most software developers, I don’t feel bound by the same "rules," especially since they can vary greatly depending on whom you talk to or where you work. The result? I tend to question concepts and practices others probably take for granted.
To add to the problem, we have "best practices" and "bodies of knowledge" thrust upon on us. It's a dilemma that best practices help ensure quality outcomes while by their very nature restricting innovation. They do this by functioning as rules about how certain tasks should be performed. Yet in rapidly changing industries - such as software - new products, tools, and development methodologies appear all the time, making it a struggle to define best practices anyway.
Breaking established rules sets us up to become targets for critics who are uncomfortable with the concept. Co-workers and others in the industry become insecure when forced to question their own knowledge and principles, which also adds to criticism.
Violating rules and achieving successful outcomes is the surest way for innovators to attract criticism and animosity. By successful, I mean a business, a client, or market is pleased with the result. So while important audiences are rewarding your willingness to look at and behave differently in these situations, to the rule-bound, you'll seem like a bank robber who gets away with millions AND gets to spend it, all while escaping the law! - Tim McKenna
During a presentation, I was highlighting the blog post on finding a strategic PITA (pain in the ass), describing how it was originally inspired by a senior person at our ad agency who never fails to dissect our ideas in painful, yet tremendously valuable ways.
A number of the attendees were in advertising and were surprised someone from an agency could get away with taking strong stands with a client. The experience for most of them has been that the agency has to conform to what the client wants to do, with little challenging involved. They wondered how my strategic PITA gets away with what he does.
My reply was he is able to do it because we want him to do it. It's a waste to engage smart people with diverse perspectives and then expect them to hold their tongues and simply agree with what we want to say or do.
Whether someone has the experience and intellectual horsepower to be strategic is only part of the issue. The important part, particularly in client-vendor relationships, is whether you've given another person permission to take on the "pain in the ass" role you need. So, have you given your potential strategic PITA the go ahead yet to be truthful? If not, do it today!
I downloaded this menu of standard meeting room layouts from a hotel where a strategic thinking session had been scheduled. Quite frankly nearly all of these layouts could be big inhibitors to innovative thinking. Put people in a conventional room arrangement, and you foster conventional thinking.
What can you do? Work with the hotel (ahead of time, ideally) to come up with a room layout that's anything but standard:
This post ran for Father's Day on my "Aligning Your Life's Work" blog. It triggered a number of people reaching out to share stories about their fathers, so I decided to run it here on Brainzooming also:
Many of you know my dad entered the hospital in early April. Three surgeries, four ICU stays, a life flight to Kansas City (followed by an ambulance ride back to Hays), and several weeks in rehab later, he was released Friday after 70 days.
Through the incredible prayers of many people, the indefatigable support of my mom, and his indomitable positive spirit, he's alive today, with something still to prove.
There were many ups and downs during his hospitalization. One 24 hour period stands out.
On Mother's Day, I headed to Hays when he returned to ICU with a blood clot in his lung. The ICU doctor pulled me aside and asked if I understood how serious Dad's condition was. I assured him I did. And even though it was ostensibly her day, I don't think I wished my mom Happy Mother's Day until 9 o'clock Sunday night.
Back at home, I laid in bed, making myself cry for the emotional release needed in the days ahead. I thought about what I'd learned from my dad and all the things he'd been and done in his life. And I got the idea for the piece below.
As I've told a number of people, I feared the worst when I went back to the hospital the next morning at 8 a.m., and Dad was unconscious and on a ventilator. At the 10 a.m. visit, he was alert and nearly squeezed my hand off; suddenly my tears from the night before turned to tears of joy. By the 8 p.m. visit, he was off the ventilator and watching "Dancing with the Stars."
That's my dad, and I'm so glad he's out of the hospital for Father's Day to be able to read this post.
I love you Mom and Dad!
Producing social media content for the BMA conference in Chicago came together quickly and was an incredible learning experience. It was also incredibly rewarding to work with a diverse group of writers & video people to create content for the conference.
Amy Lillard was at my right, tweeting, blogging, and sometimes, being snarky, throughout the general sessions. In her own words, Amy "helps smart, talented people find the words to express their smarty-pants-ness. She specializes in marketing writing for agencies, social media campaigns, technical writing, and medical writing. Her new blog on 'Making It Better,' which highlights how a turn of phrase and well-chosen word can improve any marketing piece, is coming soon; in the meantime, visit Wayfarer Writing for updates, case studies and contact information."
I asked Amy to share her take on learnings from the social media experience at BMA09. She's done so, in addition to using one word that's never appeared in Brainzooming before....enjoy!
What will social media get you?
In my case, a response to a LinkedIn question and three days of blogging and tweeting got me a seat at the sold-out Business Marketing Association 09 conference, lots of cool leads, a chance to wear some new suits, a guest post on Brainzooming, new friends over margaritas, and free breakfast at the Drake Hotel. Not necessarily in that order.
When Gary Slack, Chair of the Business Marketing Association, posted a LinkedIn call for bloggers, tweeters and videographers to attend the Unlearn conference, I jumped at the chance. Through luck (and minimal stalking) I joined Mike Brown and eight other folks on the social media team at the jam-packed conference. After three days of non-stop blogging and tweeting, my brain hurt, my fingers ached, and I needed (several) drinks, but I was exhilarated and educated.
What exactly did I learn from the experience?
It was a tremendous experience and rockin’ good time. And it was a clear demonstration of the conference theme – Unlearn. Rethink what you know about conference attendance. Reconsider what you think about presenting information and gleaning insight. Unlearn, and embrace social media to do it. - Amy Lillard
The Business Marketing Association national conference was a tremendous learning opportunity, and not only because of its presentations. A small group of us were afforded the opportunity to live tweet, blog, and video the conference to produce content for the BMA website during the conference. It’s worth taking a look at the posts written by the social media team for overview of the range of content.
In the interim, here are tweets from three of the stand out presentations:
3 Days of UNLearning at the Business Marketing Association Conference
"UNLearn" was the theme for last week's national Business Marketing Association conference (quick disclosure, I'm a board member for BMA). The theme emphasized the importance in today's environment of challenging existing knowledge, assumptions, and beliefs to lead & grow businesses more successfully.
The conference delivered on the theme in multiple ways, and each day, I challenged myself to articulate what I had "unlearned." Here are the top unlearnings from each of the conference's three days:
Taken at Water Tower Place last week while attending the Business Marketing Association Conference. Look for some other posts this week generated from the conference and the experience of producing its social media content team.
This originally appeared on the Funny Eye for the Corporate Guy blog and is from an actual photograph of a Holiday Inn that was in the midst of changing its brand affilitation. Somewhere a brand manager should be dying a slow death.
This Thursday's guest post is a first in that it was unsolicited, and it introduces an international perspective since its author is from the UK. It's been cool how many people globally have been following Brainzooming, particularly because of Twitter. Next week's guest post will originate from Australia.
Relative to the topic, we haven't spent too much time on Brainzooming discussing branding and specifically how logos fit into marketing efforts. We'll address some of that gap today with this guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, a custom logo design service provider based in the UK. Here's Ben's take on integrating logos into branding efforts:
Branding is an early step in developing a company or product. Naturally, you want potential customers to recognize your brand from among the competition by showing you have something not being offered by anyone else. Yet, among all the introductory activities business leaders face, they may consider logo design a secondary matter. That's not sound strategic thinking though if you're trying to mount a successful marketing and branding effort.
For example, think of Nike. The “Swoosh” first comes to mind. What if there were no Swoosh? Would you as quickly recall the perceptions you have associated with the Nike brand? Most likely not.
Hence, before moving ahead with a marketing and branding effort, a well-designed, attractive logo is vital. A strong logo is necessary to directly impact the customers' minds and convey your brand attitude and benefits to the target market.
Other reasons to place a deliberate emphasis on establishing an innovative, strategic logo design? Doing so:
Gives your brand a unique identity
One of the most important functions of a strong business logo is establishing a brand identity that's easily recognized and remembered by customers. A person may not remember your business by name alone, so integrating a logo into your identity system makes it easier to create customer recognition of your business at a glance.
Shows stability, reliability, and credibility
If you don’t have a logo or have one that doesn’t accurately portray your business message, it can undermine customer confidence and desire to do business with you. A logo that accurately represents your business, however, contributes to leaving a lasting impression of stability, reliability, and credibility.
Can make your brand a personality
Think again about Nike and the brand impact it would lose without the Swoosh. Would its brand be as strong today if that image weren't known by customers? Would the name work as well by itself? A unique logo gives a brand personality that can dramatically improve memorability over the long term.
Provides more polish for your brand
Having a logo is important, and having a professionally-designed one is vital. If a logo doesn't look professional or is not well designed, it will reflect poorly on your business image. Customers may get the impression you don’t care about the way your business presents itself, which might signal you also don't care about the quality of products or services you provide.
You can start the design process by brainstorming images you want to represent your business, engaging a logo design company for help, and ultimately working through the entire design process. Obviously, developing an appropriate logo takes time and effort, but getting a strategically sound logo in place is a crucial initial investment that will open the door to successful marketing and branding, which should contribute to your company’s long run success. - Ben Johnson
Strategic Thought: Adaptability is a great thing to have when planning & implementing strategy, but at some point, you have to be able to depend on some degree of consistency for successful performance.
When Southwest Airlines unveiled a new fare structure along with its return to a number-specific boarding process, it was a potential brand deal breaker for me. For someone who had made great sport of flourishing under the old 3 letter boarding process, I envisioned losing out on my fairly regular #1 general boarding position. This coveted spot was secured through strategic thinking, planning, early arrival, relationship building, stamina, and pure competitive spirit.
Having flown Southwest many times since the modifications, the process change has been great from my perspective. It still favors planning and punctuality, but it’s shifted the strategy to only a few minutes before the check in time 24 hours before the flight, not sitting on the floor for several hours at the airport before departure.
I’ll be leading the social media team at this week’s Business Marketing Association UNLearn Conference in Chicago. The sold-out conference features more than 20 sessions on a broad array of topics. The social media team will be doing live tweeting, blogging, video interviews, and I’m sure a variety of other projects to document and share the conference with attendees and those who can’t be there live.
The main social media page for the conference is www.marketing.org/unlearn - visit this link to branch off to Twitter searches (the conference hashtag is #bma09), daily blogs, and links to video interviews.
June is wedding month, so for a random creativity starter, use the age old advice given to brides on what to include in their weddings: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.
Apply the maxim to a creative challenge you have this month in the following way:
Something Old - Think back to a previous creative success. What was the secret ingredient to your creative win? Apply this previous success key to a current challenge to see what it sparks now.
Something New - Buy a bridal magazine or any type of heavily picture-oriented publication that's new relative to what you usually read. Go through page by page looking for images and words as creative idea starters.
Something Borrowed - Ask others who are part of your creative team for their favorite creative idea starters. Borrow their creative triggers to get your creativity going.
Something Blue - Watch this video of paintings from Pablo Picasso's blue period. See what new ideas are prompted by Picasso's artistic approach.
