Are You Facing a Creative Imbalance?

Being in the transportation industry (as I was) meant a lot of time spent thinking about balance, and not being too heavy inbound or outbound. In moving things (or people), the ideal state is the same number arriving and departing. If you're too heavy outbound, it means you have lots of things going out, but very few coming in. Heavy inbound is the opposite - many things arriving, but few leaving. Within the economy, there are distinct geographic and industrial patterns in the movement of goods and people. As a result, transportation providers are constantly trying to achieve balance within their networks.

All of this has a direct tie to creativity. It's not difficult to find yourself in creative imbalance, with a disconnect between the amount of creativity you're producing and the creative elements you're taking in to fuel your own pursuits.

Typically, I run heavy on the outbound side of creativity. Part of it is my personality; part of it is a strategy to provide real-life testing of the various creativity-instigating exercises and tools I share. If I'm creatively spent and a particular approach helps spur my creativity, chances are it will work for you as well.

Right now though, I'm so heavy outbound, it's a little ridiculous. Beyond blogging and tweeting, I've been doing a lot of proposal writing (which is a wonderful situation to have), building messaging for the business side of Brainzooming, and trying to do more commenting and guest blogging, too.

One problem of being too heavy outbound in transportation is you wind up with all the equipment you need to function located somewhere else. You have problems making commitments because you lack necessary resources.

What that means for me in the creativity world is trying to force myself to schedule an all inbound day - no blog writing, no tweeting, no thinking about what I should be communicating. Simply a day to read, absorb, replenish, and learn, unencumbered by the need to say something.

Quite a goal, and I'll let you know when it's achieved! In the meantime, how's your creative balance? - Mike Brown

8 Ways Social Media Benefits Events

Incorporating social media (via Twitter, blogging, video, community sites, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) is a growing phenomenon for live and virtual events. Last week included a swing through Chicago for strategy development on two conferences where I produced social media in 2009. I'll be heavily involved in growing the social media presence for both events (the national Business Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association Market Research Conferences) again in 2010.

According to attendees and event industry observers, we introduced more innovative social media experiences than even many tech-oriented events. This impact at the front end of producing event-based social media comes from the fact the activity merges several areas of expertise for Brainzooming, including:

• Strategy development
• Customer experience design
• Social media
• Event production

Based on first-hand experience, beyond creating a buzz or "newness" for an event, strategically incorporating event-based social media delivers a variety of real benefits:

• We created additional layers of content beyond capturing speaker talking points. We produced additional commentary, links to relevant information, and video interviews, among other educational assets.
• We extended the conference impact to audiences outside the event through conference websites and the liberal use of hashtags.
• It's possible to motivate favorable behaviors through incorporating promotional offers to drive trade show traffic.
• It provides another way for attendees to become actively engaged in an event.
• We gained an understanding of audience reactions to presenters on a real-time basis.
• It's a way to solicit and address on-site customer service issues.
• Our efforts provided additional educational value by introducing a large percentage of attendees to social media applications.
• The social media team's presence prompted new interaction opportunities among those engaged in tweeting at each event.

What experiences have you discovered with event-based social media? We've found that realizing the full range of benefits requires a well-planned strategy and "producing" an event's social media effort, not simply leaving it solely to organic development. (Check out the deck we put together for the AMA Marketing Research Conference to get a sense of the range of interactivity we built into the event.)

Through both producing major events and taking a lead on organic social media in a number of smaller events, we've developed many fundamental approaches and look forward to sharing the benefits of these learnings in events this year. And if you're doing event planning, let us know if you're interested in finding out more about how social media can deliver new value for your event. - Mike Brown

Domino's, Conan, and 3 Fundamentals for Communicating Big Brand Change

There are lots of discussions on whether Domino's is brilliantly innovative or colossally mistaken in the redesign of its pizza with new crust, sauce, and cheese. It's obviously a multi-dimensional brand question involving both major product and communications decisions.

Not having eaten Domino's for years, I don't know whether it's better or not. Instead, the question here is how to creatively present a major strategy change to customers? Do you do a mea culpa, as Domino's has done, saying we've heard you, and it's necessary to change? Or do you take an even more aggressive stance and sell against what you were doing previously?

While some commentators have said Domino's is doing the latter, it depends on what communications you're watching.

Its 4-plus minute "documentary" version of the story presents a Domino's message of, "We've heard your concerns and have been working hard to address them." Editing to sound bites for a TV spot, however, pushes the message closer to, "We sold you crappy food, and said it was good." By the time comedians and the public get a shot, it's, "We suck, and frankly, we didn't care...until now."

Here are three communications take-aways from Domino's to consider when implementing a major change:

• Go out of your way to NEVER sell against what you used to do. Violating this simply makes you look stupid ("If you knew you sucked, why were you doing it in the first place?"). Your loyal customers will also FEEL stupid ("They say they suck; what does that make us for liking what they did?").


• There's a fine creative balance since your focused change message will change based on who's shaping it. Even if you followed the first lesson, somebody outside or inside your own organization will wind up messing up the message (intentionally or unintentionally), ensuring you will be selling against your history.


• This issue isn't limited to brand changes and turnarounds. It applies to internal programs, reorganizations, career changes, etc. When you're making a dramatic change, really think through your strategy and what you really want to offer as the rationale.

The Conan-Leno Tonight Show debacle at NBC is a relevant example of these three fundamentals. I've never been a big Conan fan, but watched during his last week to see how he handled the messaging relative to the three lessons above:

• Conan didn't message against the past, as much as against what the future held. He skewered NBC, but focused more on the ridiculousness of the current moment and future changes in forcing his decision to leave.


• His well-known ironic, wink-of-the-eye comedy style gave him lots of room to play with the situation. And as his late-night comedy competitors weighed in on the story, he took an underdog role, laying claim to being the most respectful defender of The Tonight Show brand legacy!


• Amid this significant brand and career change, Conan used the last moments before his highly-compensated, highly-enforced silence, not to savage NBC, but to talk instead about the pride in his 20 year association with NBC. Watch the excerpt below from his final episode to see a tremendously classy way of messaging a nasty change and doing it with dignity.

Periods of major change are great proving grounds for brand marketers. Go to school on these two very prominent examples for approaches and learnings to use in future turnarounds you face. - Mike Brown

Quit Complaining and Be Smarter

Find yourself mired in an organization (and feel free to substitute relationship, school, whatever outside entity you want here) that isn’t working for you?

No matter what you do, you’re not able to advance ideas, get things done, or maybe even feel like you’re being heard. Worse yet, you can't afford to walk away even though your frustration feels like it's eating you up inside.

Sound familiar?

Wonder what you can do?

Here’s an idea – quit complaining and channel your energy into being smarter and more innovative than the system in which you’re stuck! Possible approaches:

• Figure out the politics
• Go against your typical m.o.
• Focus on things to get you ahead

Take the weekend, plan your strategy, be positive, and come in as a new person this Monday! - Mike Brown

Not Even One of These Things Is Not Like Another

I was in my first meeting the other day of a group expected to help shape strategy for an organization with domestic and international reach to a mainly young audience. Of the eleven people present, ten were Caucasian males (mostly baby boomers), and the other was a Caucasian female baby boomer.

Ok, big problem looming!

Next time you're on an input-giving or decision making group, look around at the participants. If you're lacking diversity on any important dimension relevant to your target audience, voice a concern.

In this case, after challenging ourselves on the group's composition, one member offered to have his wife take his place. Nice sentiment, but hardly a fix for the underlying problem.

Leaders need to aggressively look out for diversity and ensure it's taken into consideration, even when it means reaching far outside their traditional networks to include different people. Beyond being an issue of propriety, it's critical for innovation and sound strategic decision making. - Mike Brown

11 Ways to Back Out of a Creative Dead End

Most of the US has been pounded with cold and snow the past few weeks. Don’t know about you, but it makes me feel my creative spirit is at a dead end when things outside are cold, bleak, and dark.

So what to do to turn a creative “dead end” into a “live start”?

Here are the ideas I wrote down for myself the other day to break out of my creative doldrums:

• Be around fun people
• Spend some fun time with my wife
• Nap without worrying about losing valuable time
• Go someplace bright and warm
• Go someplace dark and warm
• Finish something (realizing that, unfortunately, blogs aren’t ever done unless you quit them)
• Find someone who loves something I created
• Seek out people who have good news to share
• Appreciate what I have
• Get worn out from working out and quit eating holiday treats
• Make a cool handwritten font

That’s what I’ve been trying. Please add your ideas to the list too! – Mike Brown

Advice for 2010

Be a contrarian this year - Think when others are reacting. Get antsy when everyone's comfortable. Innovate when you don't have to innovate.

Embrace dramatic change - Go against the "change one thing and test" strategy. Get friendly with chaos and change lots of things at once.

Get more from your life - Live today with wonder as if it were your first day. Create as if it were the only day you have. Be as bold as if today were your last. - Mike Brown

When People Don’t Understand There Are Lots of Ways to Be Right

What’s your first reaction to a new possibility? And importantly, what are typical reactions to new possibilities from the people who surround you? Lately, I’m encountering more people whose first reaction is why something won’t work, how they know better than I do about it, or who simply react with a hostile tone.

For someone who espouses openness to ideas, I’m seeing detrimental impacts on my attitude. When you hear enough negatives, it can lead you to also start reacting negatively to new possibilities out of frustration, spite, or self-protection.

What to do in this type of situation? Overtly model positive behavior and hope they get it? Challenge them directly on how they dampen creativity? Leave the relationship for the sake of creative self-preservation?

No single answer works - each choice has its own advantages and peculiar stumbling blocks. Sounds like some type of combo is in order. We’ll see how that possibility works. – Mike Brown

The Third Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Giving the Okay to Challenge Thinking

Early in his tenure, our CEO shared his ten business principles. I don’t remember nine of them, but one stood out for of its simplicity, matter-of-factness, and wide applicability: “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I've used this admonition numerous times when attempting to slow (and ideally thwart) ill-founded ideas others felt really strongly about pursuing. When you can invoke the CEO's own words, it provides a lot more credibility in challenging dumb stuff and trying to do the right things for the business.

The approach's success oriented me toward the tremendous leadership benefits of sharing what really matters in easy-to-understand words. If you can get your message distilled in a simple, clear way, it frees up team members to use their own perspectives and innovative spirits in beneficial ways a leader could never anticipate. I've written several times about my own struggle for simplicity and have tried to take this learning to heart.

As an example, I was leading a motor sports program in what was then called the Busch Series. It's considered to be a second-tier series in NASCAR behind the "Cup" series, where everything costs 3 to 5 times more to sponsor. Our challenge was creating a program with a top tier Cup sponsorship's impact with a relatively small investment. This potential dilemma was at the heart of our internal program strategy: "We're doing a Cup level program with a Busch Series budget." With that direction, the team understood our constraints and was freed to be more creative and challenging in how we attacked our goals.

Think about what simple strategic guidelines you can share with your team to help them be more effective in carrying out the most important activities.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

Out and About Marketing - Double the Fun, If You Follow the Rules!

The Baskin Robbins Double Header Cone screams, "I came out of an innovation session!"

That's okay though because it appears from the outside-looking-in to have a solid customer experience-based strategic foundation.

An ice cream cone allowing multiple flavors and formats side by side lets customers preferring cones experience them in a new, fun way. Who can beat two different ice cream flavors and formats (soft serve and scoop) the way YOU want to combine them, instead of randomly (mashed scoops), sequentially (scoops on top of each other), or in a forced swirl (for soft serve)?

It's fun for kids (who seemed to be the primary audience the day we were in Baskin Robbins) and probably makes a parent's life a little saner (since it helps more easily please a kid wanting multiple flavors). For Baskin Robbins, it creates some near term buzz and introduces a new, slightly higher price point to upsell customers who'd typically only buy a single cone.

Unfortunately, the poster's fine print clearly states "no substitutions." You can't have two scoops or two soft serve flavors. The Double Header cone "fun" doesn't extend to customer-driven innovation at the point of sale.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving (US-based readers), and be on the look-out for "out and about marketing" examples to share here! Brainzooming is taking a few days off and will be back Monday. - Mike Brown

Out and About Marketing - Making Buying Decisions Simpler

Product innovation is rampant. Great for providing choices! Crappy for having to choose from among them.

So it's smart product strategy for brands to remove uncertainty and apprehension by making decisions simpler for consumers. Interestingly, today's examples of doing this well both come from Sam's Club - home of having to buy more than you'll ever need to get a good deal (especially for a two-person household).

Shopping for cheaper deodorant, the main brand switching factor was getting a product smelling close to my current choice (or at least not smelling weird).

This sealed four-pack of Degree deodorant had a great per unit price. But who likes a great deal on 4 deodorants only to find out after buying it that it smells like perfume?

How to avoid this deal breaker? Ingenious marketing to the rescue!

This multi-pack included a scratch-and-sniff label on the left of the package allowing me to smell the deodorant before buying. It was close enough, and I switched brands.

Cyndi was getting an early jump on shopping for Christmas baking as she's planning to make hundreds of chocolate chip cookies (among other things). A pallet in the middle of one aisle featured a great buy on 72 ounce bags of Nestle Semi-Sweet "Morsels," the chocolate chips of Nestlé® TOLL HOUSE® cookie recipe fame.

She asked how many bags she'd need since the recipe called for 12 ounces of chocolate chips. Doing the math in my head, I looked over to the stack of chocolate chips to see the math clearly displayed on the packaging: these big bags are good for 6 batches of cookies each. Since math skills are probably declining at the same rate product proliferation is increasing, how innovative to simplify the math and create happier cookie makers.


And by the way Nestlé®, maybe you should up the recipe to 18 ounces of chocolate chips? That's 50% more in sales for you and even happier cookie eaters! - Mike Brown

Out and About Marketing - Coca-Cola and Ore-Ida Experience Marketing

Admission - I quickly grow impatient (yet only slightly unruly) in crowded stores.

Fortunately, my Flip camera has helped keep me out of trouble recently (kind of like Cheerios for geeky adults), creating amusement in finding great marketing strategy examples to capture.

To get you ready for the time spent in stores this week for Thanksgiving preparation and Black Friday, we'll share a few "out and about marketing" examples this week. Be on the look-out for ones you see and submit them as future guest Brainzooming posts!

Merchandising Can Be Experience Marketing

Why have boring grocery store displays when they can be colorful, fun, and create memorable visual experiences? These two stacks of soft drink boxes for Coca-Cola products are from two local grocery stores - Price Chopper (left) and Hy-Vee (right).



While the pumpkin at Price Chopper was just plain fun, the Hy-Vee display was a top-five highlight for the Kansas City Chiefs this season!

Taking the Experience Home

This product makes me both proud and ashamed to be in marketing.

Talk about turning a generic category (tater tots) into an experience for multiple audiences. These Ore-Ida ABC Tater Tots are innovation rock stars on multiple levels!

For parents, they combine two high interest experiences - learning and getting kids to eat. For kids who enjoy school, they're great fun; for those that hate school, it allows them to work out a little aggression on these dreaded Sesame Street sponsors. Plus, I love how easily you can imagine the idea coming straight out of a Trait Transformation exercise!

So why do they also make me ashamed to be a marketer?

Because they're tater tots! How much cool brand experience does it take to get ANYBODY, let alone kids, to eat tater tots? I LOVE tater tots, but they're not "trainer-approved." So how about applying cool brand experience strategy to vegetables and fruits that are less processed, less fun, and healthier! - Mike Brown

How a Category-Creating Jersey Deal Set the Stage for an Industry-Centric MLS Cup - Guest Post by John Digles

I met John Digles in June 2009 as he produced video interviews for the Business Marketing Association Conference. John's background is fascinating; he's an award-winning film maker whose work has gained critical notice, including at the Sundance Film Festival.

John is also founder of entrepreneurial incubator StrategyDeli and sits on the DePaul University Marketing MBA Advisory Council. As Chief Marketing Officer of XanGo, John implemented a number of innovative programs, including:

• Negotiating a category-creating jersey-front deal with Major League Soccer
• Creating the award-winning XanGo.TV social media site
• Leading an international marketing program in more than 25 markets

John's innovative track record earned him an invitation to address the WFDSA World Conference XIII in Singapore.

Sponsorships represent great marketing opportunities if approached strategically and with activation plans fitting a brand's business objectives. Today, John shares his perspective on how XanGo put together an innovative sponsorship program that's led to the brand being featured in tonight's Major League Soccer championship on ESPN.


Jersey-front sponsorships are a long-running international soccer tradition. Global corporations such as Samsung and bwin invest millions supporting top teams and showcasing their brands on the playing fields of the world’s most popular sport. But when XanGo, a 4-year old emerging nutritionals leader and direct sales company based in Utah, inked the first jersey-front sponsorship in U.S. Major League Soccer history in November 2006, it was the first of its kind in North American professional sports.

The innovative deal to place the XanGo brand on the jersey-front of Real Salt Lake (RSL) was a perfect fit for the XanGo healthy lifestyle brand and its reputation as a “company of firsts.” We faced risks, however, that come with introducing this kind of advertising. Some wondered if American soccer fans would accept a branded jersey, while others considered a direct sales company an unlikely sponsor.

Exploring the jersey sponsorship, we formulated an activation program designed to mobilize hundreds of thousands of independent XanGo distributors and “make every game a home game” for RSL. Reaching a new consumer constituency would provide opportunity for distributors to teach the business as they filled the stands and hosted their own events at local soccer matches.

XanGo rolled out with an advanced digital strategy and a branded web site celebrating the game and teaching soccer basics. Research showed the site became a destination for parents whose kids were discovering soccer and joining leagues across the country. Many of these visitors learned about XanGo for the first time.

XanGo distributors and employees made RSL’s branded kit one of the league’s top-selling jerseys. FIFA Soccer by EA Sports, one of the world’s most-popular video games, featured XanGo on the jersey of the game’s RSL team. And the XanGo Cup hosted friendly exhibitions between RSL and international soccer superpowers – and their TV audiences.

Measurement data showed the jersey deal became a key factor in boosting global brand recognition, web traffic, and recruitment.

Weeks after the XanGo sponsorship announcement, David Beckham signed with the L.A. Galaxy and global nutrition and direct sales company Herbalife secured the next jersey-front deal. Jersey sponsorships with major brands followed around the league, including BMO with Toronto FC, Best Buy with the Chicago Fire, and Amway Global with the San Jose Earthquakes.

Network marketing is a passionate, loyalty-driven business. As direct sales brands cut their jersey deals, distributors from each sponsoring company became more vocal and competitive in showing support.

Three years after the first jersey-front deal, Real Salt Lake and the L.A. Galaxy have reached the MLS Cup, taking two direct sales titans to the league’s biggest stage.

While the category-creating deal surprised some, the trend of direct sales sponsorships has aligned thriving nutrition brands with the game, increased consumer awareness of the business and converted millions of passionate distributors into active fans for Major League Soccer. - John Digles

Getting Ready for 2010: 3 Real Life Planning Successes

I'm a proponent of spreading strategic thinking broadly in a company and not readily handing off strategy development to outside parties exclusively. Yet I've been a part of many examples where an outside perspective helped move strategy development ahead much more quickly.

Here are several examples you may be facing where it's good to get outside expertise:

Turning Talk Into a Plan

A small subsidiary's three-person management team was told to get a plan in place to show corporate management the company's direction. They had no planning process and only ten business days to deliver a comprehensive strategic plan. We brought in the Brainzooming process to develop an innovative strategic plan in one day. The output couldn't be simply a bunch of ideas nor could it be only a rote plan with little strategic insight.

Structuring a day-long session using question-based exercises allowed the team to answer questions about the business, participate in exercises to stretch strategic perspectives on competition and opportunities, and come back the next morning to make people and timing decisions on a tight plan to share with the operating president.

As non-planners, they wouldn't have been able to put together a coherent business plan in ten days, but they did understand their business and the general direction they needed to head. We combined their deep knowledge with exercises and facilitation allowing us to challenge and create a strategic flow from their answers. We delivered the best of both worlds - a structured plan reflecting their intent for the business with sound strategic logic and more innovation than they'd have ever brought to it alone. This experience demonstrated the clear benefit of the emerging Brainzooming process.

Stimulating a Management Team that Knows It All

We rolled into town to help a really experienced senior management team tackle annual planning. Because of their tenure and smarts, they knew the company inside- out. This knowledge rendered them ill-suited to solving a long-term growth challenge: as every idea was uttered, they "knew" why it wouldn't work for the brand.

During the course of a day-long planning session, I created a new exercise on the fly based on a brand in a very different industry sharing the same fundamental characteristics of our client. I asked the group to suggest how this other company could address the same challenge they were facing. All of a sudden ideas started flowing non-stop. We were able to take the concepts and strategically apply them to their business.

Left on its own to think strategically, the management team would never have reached an alternative look at its business. An outside perspective, unburdened by excessive detail was critical to identifying an analogous situation, providing an entree for innovative strategic thinking and implementation.

Doing the Thinking for a Distracted Management Team

We had a pre-scheduled planning follow-up with a management team who, since our initial session, had been charged with exploring a major brand contraction. Unable to convince them their new assignment should be the focus for our session, we instead spent time addressing the status quo scenario. Unfortunately, the status quo wasn't likely or compelling enough to command much of their attention and strategic creativity.

Frustrated by the lack of intensity while addressing the status quo, we wrapped the effort early. We told them we'd work on the status quo scenario, delivering 200 prioritized, fleshed out ideas and concepts within 3 days. Using several creativity techniques during the flight home, we generated really strong creative concepts for the status quo or, with some modification, for the alternative scenario also.

This was a great example of the importance of a balanced group in doing the best strategic thinking. The client's management team had business experience and functional knowledge, but was sapped of any creative energy it ever had. Bringing in outside talent for a creative spark was needed to turn lackluster thinking into vibrant, implementable ideas. - Mike Brown

Getting Ready for 2010: Tools to Improve Your Success

With 2010 looming and the importance of approaching the year with creative business and competitive options, here are links to a variety of tools to help if you're under the gun to get a successful plan completed.

A Foundation on Strategic Thinking

• An Overview on What Strategic Means, Who to Involve in Strategy Development, and a Few Strategic Tools

Creating a Strategic Focus

• Steps to Re-evaluate and Focus on Important Elements in Your Business


• Better Understanding What's Strategic in Your Business

Contingency Planning

• Thoughts on Dealing with Uncertainty


• Steps to Deal with Planning Amid Uncertainty


• Quickly Developing Options When Your Current Plan Isn't Working


• Having to "Wing" Your Strategy Because of Uncertainty

Updating Your Current Plan

• Re-checking Your Marketing Plan for Completeness


• Reviewing and Modifying Your Strategic Direction


• Updating a Marketing Plan Under Tight Resources

Implementing Specific Strategic Thrusts

• Generating New Ideas When You Need Them


• When A More Aggressive Competitive Strategy Is Needed


• You're Fighting an Uphill Battle and Need a Contrarian Strategy


• Developing a Low-Investment Marketing Strategy


• You Have a Turnaround to Fix

Wrapping Up with a Smile on Your Face

• The Ultimate in Flexible Strategy

Additionally, Trendwatching.com has released its briefing on "10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010" covering impacts arising from (among other things):

• Urbanization
• Fragmentation in what constitutes luxury
• Increasingly complex online presences
• A push for mass IRL interactions emanating from online networks

There are certainly other Brainzooming articles touching on these planning topics, but ideally this short list will get you jump started for current planning efforts you have to complete. - Mike Brown

The Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 Event - Innovation Challenges Roundtable

I "led" (and by "led," I mean "asked one question and got out of the way") a roundtable on innovation challenges at the Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 event last week with a group of incredible marketers. The only challenge was taking notes fast enough!

The participants included Jeffrey Rohrs (ExactTarget), Andy Shafer (Elevance Renewable Sciences), Sean Cheyney (Accuquote), Steven Handmaker (Assurance), Kathy Zanzucchi (Microflex Corporation), Theresa Kwan-Zangara (Gallagher Benefit Services, Inc.), and Brian Krause (Molex). Here are innovation challenges the participants successfully addressed:

No Process for Channeling Customer Ideas

ExactTarget crowdsources product innovation ideas - 90% of enhancement ideas come from its user community. Additionally, an Idea Lab allows customers on the forefront of its product use to trial changes in a structured environment. (Jeff Rohrs)

Customer Perspectives Are Being Ignored

It's important for marketing to be involved with innovation and new product development efforts to help vet ideas. Without marketing introducing a customer perspective, there's an opportunity for gaps to develop. (Kathy Zanzucchi)

There's No Widespread Understanding of Innovation

Marketing can become more involved and help drive innovation by setting up company-wide training curriculum on innovation. (Sean Cheyney)

No Motivation to Share Ideas

One way to stimulate employee innovation ideas is making a full-fledged program of it, complete with a character (in the case of Assurance, it's "Ivan Idea"!), a convenient intranet-based way to submit ideas, and a $5 gift card for EVERY business process improvement idea submitted. Among 200 Assurance employees, 60% have submitted ideas! Every idea is reviewed, followed-up, and published through the work of a key middle management group. (Steven Handmaker)

The right kind of internal competition can be a stimulus for sharing proven ideas others haven't yet implemented. With a distributed marketing force, Gallagher Benefit Services uses national webcasts to prompt individual offices to share what's working for them to improve efficiency, revenue growth, and operations. Marketing plays a role in drawing out best practices from participants. (Theresa Kwan-Zangara)

Death by a Thousand Approvals

Sometimes innovation hinges on avoiding corporate inertia and simply starting before getting everything cleared. Social media implementation can be an example of this in more traditional companies. Get the kindred spirits in place, agree to the program goals and risks you're willing to take on, and begin. With social media especially, there may be a better opportunity to start and experiment within an agreed to framework that minimizes the potential for big gaffes. (Brian Krause)

Thanks to everybody for making it such a great information-packed session. For even more ideas, check out this previous Brainzooming post on dealing with ten common NOs in business inNOvation. - Mike Brown

The Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 Event - Joe Batista

I participated in the Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 event November 2 in Chicago, leading a round table on getting around innovation roadblocks. The next several days will highlight some of the many intriguing ideas shared during the day from great marketing practitioners.

Yesterday's Creative Quickie mentioned the title "Chief Creatologist" which belongs to Joe Batista at HP, who spoke on "Creating New Market Revenues in a Down Economy." I met Joe at a 2007 Frost & Sullivan event, and his case study-driven presentations at both events were tremendously thought provoking considering HP targets $3 billion in new growth quarterly from the approaches Joe shared.

He looks for business growth through discovering and exploring new areas to respond to clients' needs. His efforts center on going beyond a closed innovation model and exploring the company's research in new ways and looking beyond its boundaries for new opportunities:

• Joe highlighted techniques to help identify new growth sources, including thinking broadly about the available assets a company has, generalizing what the assets (especially technology) can do, and connecting organizationally-dispersed assets inside a company. Comment - These all tie to fundamental lateral thinking principles, stressing the real-life importance of being able to apply abstract thinking skills in identifying opportunities that would otherwise be missed.
  
• Look for pockets of knowledge and expertise inside your business and explore how they can be converted into new revenue streams. Comment - A great way to do this is to identify what BENEFITS your knowledge can provide and then think through what other parties are seeking these or related benefits.
  
• One more potential growth source? Growth arises from examining currencies you have available inside your company (i.e., what flows through your value system) and by making the boundaries of your company porous so ideas from outside can flow through it. Comment - Joe's remarks continually underscored the importance of being able to step away from detail and "get" the bigger, potentially underlying picture, whether it's inside or outside your company.

There's a lot behind these summarized comments. I look forward to trying to connect with Joe further and better understand the innovative approach he's bringing to business growth! - Mike Brown

BTW -This is the second anniversary of the blog's first post. No big deal in the posts this week, but it seemed like at least worth a mention. Look for the Brainzooming redesign and move to a Wordpress format in the very near future!

Creative Quickie - Take Some Time

Keith Prather and I attended the October 21, 2009 Central Exchange CEO Series luncheon featuring Beryl Raff, Chairman and CEO of Helzberg Diamonds.

It was an interesting talk, especially when she went off script, discussing challenges in her career, how she developed a specialty in turnarounds, and the first meeting with her new "boss," Warren Buffett.

The first audience question was about what type of atmosphere she feels fosters innovation. Her answer was one where the status quo is challenged all the time and people "talk about ideas."

There's your creative quickie: see how often you're challenging the status quo today (vs. settling for what's okay or routine) and notice amid the time pressures of business, if you're avoiding "talking" about ideas.

Don't rush to "just do something." Invest time in strategic thinking and challenge your world as it exists today. - Mike Brown

A Whole Brain Network of Great People

I've extolled the benefits of surrounding yourself with both left brain and right brain people to complement what you lack in expertise and perspective. It's incredible to tap innovative people across the entire spectrum of points of view on strategic situations you're facing.

Last Friday at my going away party, another upside of a network of great diverse thinkers surfaced: it makes for a better party!

Shortly after the announced start time, someone remarked about the "surprising" number of attendees from finance and accounting backgrounds. Looking around, nearly the entire crowd would be considered naturally left brained thinkers (i.e., quantitative, precise, punctual).

A little while later, more of the right brain people (i.e., intuitive, holistic, random) began to arrive. By the time the event was well underway, it became a whole brain party, spawning interesting combinations of diverse people interacting with one another throughout the evening.

And since my creative instigation partner Jan Harness drove the party planning, there were 3 innovation exercises along with post-its and Sharpies for guests to ideate on what Brainzooming could become!

Because of the whole brain network of great people in attendance, we had a crowd early on, lively interactions and ideas throughout, enough people staying late to extend the party, and a final small group of both left and right brainers having a passionate (and by "passionate," I mean "interesting but slightly uncomfortable") conversation about my future prospects.

Truly, the type of whole brain night I love! - Mike Brown