Gabor George Burt

Fast Track to re-engaging your childhood creativity

“To be successful we must live from our imaginations, not from our memories.”
—Stephen Covey, author and leadership expert

This week I have shared two examples highlighting the power of re-imagining and defying conventional wisdom, first with an article on the Invisible Helmet followed by the article entitled “Do you know too much for your own good?” It is this very ability to think in a counterintuitive manner that can enable businesses to be market driving, to deliver lifestyle enrichment and to repeatedly infatuate its customers.

What are the key takeaways?

1.) We all had a wide capacity for inventiveness when we were children. By re-engaging our childhood creativity, we can recover the foundation for strategic thinking that defies conventional wisdom and elevates us to the realm of market driving.

2.) Unconventional wisdom has been a critical driving force for great accomplishments during the course of human history. Inspiration is all around you; you just need to open your eyes and mind.

3.) In a hazardous and unpredictable environment, the role of unconventional thinking is especially critical as a basis of business strategy. Especially when market conditions are unprecedented, traditional ways of operation cannot apply. Instead of a strategy for mere survival that may simply accelerate your company’s decline, you should recalibrate your perspective in order to see the environment as full of new, exceptional opportunities.

4.) As in your childhood, aim to have a broad inquisitiveness and have this curiosity permeate every facet of your life. Some of the most momentous unconventional ideas for your business will come to you via observations in settings far removed from it.

5.) No matter what your market position is, whether you are an established market leader or a newcomer, it is to your strategic advantage to continuously challenge and redefine market standards.

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Do you know too much for your own good?

When we re-ignite our sense of exploration, imagination, and curiosity that we had as children we suddenly find ourselves able to overcome even the most challenging of limitations.

It’s the premise for my book, Slingshot: Re-Imagine Your Business, Re-Imagine Your Life, and the topic of a thoughtful article by Mark McNeilly over at Fast Company entitled “How Your Own Expertise Is Holding You Back” that advocates challenging assumptions, getting an outside perspective and taking a Blue Ocean Strategy-like approach.

….the expert faces the challenge of knowing too much. She knows what works and what doesn't. He knows what's been tried and why it didn't work. Unfortunately, by accepting these things as givens, they cannot see what is possible. Only someone who views things with a "beginner's mind" can imagine what could be if the assumptions are challenged.

Let me give you an example; Peter Gruber, the director of the popular movie, Gorillas in the Mist, couldn't figure out how to get the gorillas to do what he wanted them to do. They weren't following the script, so to speak. So he held a meeting.

In the meeting an intern said, "Why don't you let the gorillas write the story?" Everyone laughed at her but later she was asked what she meant. She said, "What if you sent a really good cinematographer into the jungle with a ton of film to shoot the gorillas? Then write a story around what they do on film." So that's what Gruber did. As he said, "This woman's 'inexperience' enabled her to see opportunities where we saw only boundaries."

Read the entire article over at Fast Company.

[Image via LetsGraph.]

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Re-imagining bicycle safety: the invisible helmet

Today I share with you the inspiring story of two women who are re-imagining bicycle safety by creating an “Invisible Helmet.” Their work touches on three primary innovation principles that I write about in my book, Slingshot. Let’s take a closer look how.

1) Stretching the definition of your business to its broadest extent in order to discover new market spaces of expanded relevance. The Invisible Helmet expands the relevance of the traditional helmet from an oftentimes cumbersome instrument for safety into a fashionable  accessory with increased utility and safety for the wearer.

2.) Learning to identify consumer ‘pain points’ and to turn them into ‘points of infatuation.’ The Invisible Helmet eliminates many of the drawbacks most often associated with wearing bicycle helmets such as uncomfortable and cumbersome to wear, lack of style and often lack of proper protection.

3) Embracing the shortcut to meaningful innovation: Instead of outright invention, you need to simply unlock powerful combinations of existing components. Air bag technology is not new and neither are scarves or accessories worn around the neck, yet no one has previously thought to combine these two existing components into one for the purpose of improving bicycle safety.

[Video via YouTube.]

How much are your customers willing to take?

Over time, customers acquire certain perceptions which influence their emotional response to new offerings. By recognizing such perceptions, you can position your offering so as to have the best likelihood of infatuating customers.

In my weekly series of short, comic anecdotes in partnership with WOBI (World of Business Ideas), I look at the world of strategy and innovation through humorous inquisitiveness. After all, having such a perspective is fuel for our creativity and imagination.

In this next installment “How Much Are Your Customers Willing to Take?” I talk about consumer perception that the quality of a car's entertainment system closely reflects its overall quality and driving performance. Be sure to check out other great content available in English, Spanish and Italian on the WOBI site.

[Image from Slingshot: Re-Imagine Your Business, Re-Imagine Your Life.]

 

Do you know where your Satisfaction Frontier is?

A new report via Bloomberg reveals that we can never be too rich, consistent with a central tenet of my Slingshot Framework: As consumers our satisfaction frontier is always just beyond our grasp. But why beyond our grasp; why so elusive?

Any highly successful and well-received offering that you put on the market transitions from an Infatuation Interval to the Entitlement Period, barring those that create a permanent infatuation. During the Infatuation Interval, consumers are fixated on the offering’s novelty, seduced by its perceived benefits, and blinded to its potential shortcomings.

However, as this veil of infatuation wears off, consumers gradually take ownership of the offering, that is to say, they will no longer consider themselves privileged but rather fully entitled to it. The perception of ownership passes from provider to consumer. Consumers feel that they now possess full rights of ownership for the offering. This is the start of the Entitlement Period, in which consumers will take notice of and express all the things that could make the offering even better for them. And you have to be careful here: if you let your consumers linger too long in the Entitlement Period without heeding their suggestions or demands, they will at some point turn away from your offering altogether. That is the danger of stopping to innovate, especially in today’s environment of accelerated life cycles, market convergence, and relentless inundation of consumers by an overabundance of offerings — all of which puts immense pressure on your offering to retain the attention of consumers.

[Original image from Slingshot: Re-Imagine Your Business, Re-Imagine Your Life.]

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Tablet market headed towards red ocean

There are several driving forces behind the need for businesses to create blue oceans, including increasing price wars and shrinking profit margins. For major product and service categories, the accelerated pace of commoditization means that differentiating brands becomes harder in both economic upturns and downturns. And as brands become more similar, customers increasingly make their purchasing decision based on price — propagating a vicious, bloody tide of red oceans.

Could it be the case that the tablet industry is changing into a bloody, red ocean? A recent interview with BlackBerry’s CEO points to the growing commoditization of this popular industry and reinforces the notion that there are no permanently great industries.  

Via QZ:

In other words, the tablet market is now identical to the PC market of the late 1990s, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple and during a time when Macintosh computers were significantly more expensive than PCs running Windows. Consumers have a choice: Save themselves some coin on a more open, flexible platform that isn’t as heavily designed, or go for the safety of Apple’s walled garden, which they may be locked into already, thanks to a heavy investment in apps for their iPhone and previous iPads.

[Image via Smart Movie Making.]

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Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss

Are you also a fan of Dr. Seuss, the incomparable author of childrens’ books? His invented characters have such deep insight about human nature and business that I often refer to them throughout my book and on this blog.

So it was a delight to see this collection of Dr. Seuss’ Life Lessons recently. And as you look toward the weekend, I invite you to enjoy and contemplate.

[Image via Mamiverse.]

 

Falling out of ‘Like’ with Facebook

Companies which are focused on benchmarking and continuous improvement, instead of on continuous redefinition of their business and on searching for ways to re-infatuate their target audience, run a deadly risk: They could be best at what they do, yet become irrelevant to the world. And the most unsettling aspect is that no company, no matter how successful or iconic, is immune to this.

Which brings me to social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter. With reports of six million users in the U.S. leaving the site last month as well as the reported ease of buying influence on Twitter, it’s clear that for users of some of the most popular social media outlets the Infatuation Interval is now giving way to an Entitlement Period.  

Via Fast Company:

The reason? It's thought that people are bored of Facebook and are, instead, turning to newer networks, such as the Facebook-owned Instagram and Path, which is putting on a million new users each week. "The problem is that, in the U.S. and U.K., most people who want to sign up for Facebook have already done it," says Ian Maude of Enders Analysis. "There is a boredom factor where people like to try something new." Maude adds that the risk of Facebook pulling a Myspace is "relatively small, but that's not to say it isn't there."

[Image via FastCompany.]

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Women gamechangers

Blue Ocean moves can be done at all levels of an organization and with any dimension of an offering. Often the most powerful ones seem insignificant and simple in hindsight, but they unlock considerable consumer enrichment.

In my book I provide thought-provoking stories of creating blue oceans like the Pillow Concert, Disney’s FastPass and the Worst Swimmer in Olympic history. Here’s another exciting and relevant example, this time from a female entrepreneur creating a Blue Ocean success story through her series of networking events for women.

Check out the full, inspiring story:

I looked for what was missing. What many women said they needed. I listened when women said they hated networking. But why? That’s the best way to grow your business whether a startup or an established business. The challenge was how to create something that would benefit women in the form of networking yet still make money in the Blue Ocean. I figured it out with Fusion Tour.

[Imagine via SurreyFA.] 

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Is your business like an opossum?

The opossum is a strange animal. Its principal line of defense against potential predators is feigning death. While an ingenious and innovative psychological deterrent, this has at least two significant risks if not followed up by subsequent innovations.

In my weekly series of short, comic anecdotes in partnership with WOBI (World of Business Ideas), I look at the world of strategy and innovation through humorous inquisitiveness. After all, having such a perspective is fuel for our creativity and imagination.

In this next installment “Is Your Business Like an Opossum?” I use the example of the opossum as a symbol of the need for companies to create clearly distinct and unconventional strategies. Be sure to check out other great content available in English, Spanish and Italian on the WOBI site.

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