Creating Blue Oceans

Blue Ocean of missed opportunities

Last week we received an article from one of our readers, recommending it as a follow-up to our previous entry on the bicycle industry.  In that article, we touched on Mark Sanders, designer of the Strida, who is creating a new Blue Ocean marketspace and defying conventional wisdom by focusing on occasional bicyclists instead of diehard bicycle enthusiasts.

Most recently, during his keynote presentation at the Taipei International Cycle Show, Sanders spoke on the “Blue Ocean of missed opportunities.”  From Bike Biz:

Bike trade is missing the big picture....

Strida designer Mark Sanders - who received an iF gold design award recently for his latest bike project - gave a presentation to industry figures at the Taipei bicycle trade show. He used the Blue Ocean Strategy to point out that the bike trade is marketing to just a small part of the potential market for its product.

Sanders is director of MAS Design Products.

Blue Ocean Strategy is the title of a business book by W. Chan Kim. It's subtitled 'How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant'.

The blue ocean in Sanders's presentation is the market potential; the bike trade operates in the smaller, 'red ocean' of male, sport enthusiasts.

Sander says, "I put on the presentation because I believe the industry focuses too much on sporty males - which may put off the vast majority of potential cyclists.

It's also about how alternative and universal bike design may be a help in attracting more people to bikes as transport.

"I expected flack from industry leaders, but quite the contrary, they seemed to agree 100 percent. But it seems to be a chicken and egg scenario: manufacturers supply what distributors ask for. The demand comes from grass-roots bike shops, which tend to be run by sporty males. Not focussing on the bigger market matters in the current economic climate."

Notes and slides from Sanders’ presentation are available here.

Global Crisis – The Comic Angle: Adorable Dow Jones and Taco Bell

No matter where one turns these days, it seems nearly impossible to escape the news of the latest company or industry to unravel.  So to challenge the status quo of doom and gloom,  and to inject a layer of much needed levity, our new series presents satirical articles of different industries in crisis.  This week, we turn to two short, humorous bulletins.

From the satirical magazine Recoil :

Adorable Dow Jones surges four points
New York, N.Y. – The lovable Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) climbed a tremendously cute four points today, following yesterday’s less endearing 161-point fall. While morning trading pointed to another day of poor performance, the DJIA rallied to lift everyone’s spirits, ending with the charmingly impressive four-point gain. “Every time I get a little down, the Dow just seems to inch adorably upward, slightly squelching my fears of total economic collapse,” said trader Phillip Broxton. “It’s like one excitingly divine rollercoaster ride.” Other traders report feeling similar, many saying that Tuesday’s pleasurable increase made them remove the ammunition from the firearms in their top drawers.

And from The Onion:

Rise In Rent Forces Local Taco Bell To Take On Roommate
ROCKFORD, IL—With rents soaring and operating costs at an all-time high, management at the Auburn St. Taco Bell decided earlier this month to lessen their financial burden by taking on a roommate, 24-year-old Mark Studer.

[Image via 240779.]

What the World Economy needs today: Blue Ocean Strategy

Is it possible to innovate and make the competition irrelevant with BOS?  This is the question posed recently to BusinessWeek’s Innovation Editor, Bruce Nussbaum.  His answer unequivocally echoes and reinforces what we have said all along, that Blue Ocean Strategy, with its simultaneous pursuit of differentation and low cost, IS THE WAY OUT of the global economic downturn, and that it is, in fact, the foundation for the future.

According to Nussbaum:

The entire global economy today requires Blue Ocean Strategy. It requires going into a whole new space — a whole new space in your mind, in your corporate strategy, in your corporate tactics — to do well, to prosper.

The old rules are changing.  They’re dissolving, they’re not working. We are really falling into a disatrous global recession... This requires a new mindset. It requires taking the old stuff ... that got us through the 90's and generated a lot of wealth a lot of prosperity, and we’re going to have to dump that.  As we deal with and come out of this recession, we are going to need in both civic culture and business culture a new framework. We are going to have to design new rules, new structures, new relationships, new values to deal with a differnt world.  We have to assume the world is going to be very very different....

[Video source BusinessWeek .]

Petal Power in the Clouds

Here on CreatingBlueOceans.com we have followed closely the progress of Nintendo — perhaps one of the most illustrative Blue Ocean Strategy success examples.  And so when we were tipped to a story about another game maker breaking out of the confines of red oceans and into the blue, we were compelled to take a closer look.  It seem that rather than competing in the overcrowded marketspace of action and adrenaline packed games which are primarily geared towards youngsters, Jenova Chen, who heads thatgamecompany, has created what might just be the industry’s antithesis — Zen-like, nature-based games which generate an emotional connection with the player.

From Exclaim! :

"I wanted to create something that was the opposite of what the media had seen videogames as, the opposite of violent, the opposite of goal-driven and points-collecting. We tried to be rebels and the success of Cloud was totally unexpected. Once we put it online, our servers crashed four times. Some people even said they cried because of the game. And a lot of people that had never even played games came to the site and downloaded Cloud. That was an epiphany. "

Ultimately, Chen's goal is not that different from Nintendo's successful "blue ocean" strategy of appealing to non-traditional gamers, except he's after a more mature audience.

"I'm just sick of laser robots and chicks. I'm tired of space marines. I want something more sophisticated. I'm making games for adults," Chen says. "A lot of us have grown old. A lot of us stop playing because we think it's not worth our time. If you have a job or you have kids, would you spend 40 hours grinding just to see an ending? The content in games today is just not useful to your life. What do you learn — how to double-jump? But if videogames can offer new type of emotions, new type of feelings, than more people can enjoy videogames.”

Related gaming industry articles from CreatingBlueOceans.com:

Nintendo’s Blue Ocean unaffected by global crisis

Nintendo’s Blue Ocean pay day — defying the global crisis

Nintendo plays with Blue Ocean Strategy and wins

Nintendo’s Blue Ocean washes over Sony

[Image via Exclaim! ]

Defying Conventional Wisdom: Meat with exercise?

Blue Ocean Strategy is all about challenging conventional wisdom – questioning taken-for-granted assumptions, and overstepping industry boundaries. It’s a frame of mind of continuously questioning and searching for a different angle and fresh perspective. You can draw inspiration from everyday life, and train your mind by having a discerning view of the world around you. Consider the following bit of comic insight as example of challenging conventional wisdom.

The increasing demand for free-range animal meat is admirable. It shows that people are concerned and compassionate about the amount of exercise animals get prior to being eaten. But is it enough to simply know that a cow or chicken is free-range or not? This label only indicates whether an animal had access to exercise, but doesn’t show to what extent it took advantage of it. So shouldn’t the general temperament of the animal (i.e. lazy, lackluster, frisky, or hyper) also be indicated on each package of free-range meat, so as to allow consumers to get the full picture?

Naked Angels wrapped in Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy is equally relevant to all organizations as a framework for successful strategy formation.  Continuing to demonstrate its wide application, Gabor lead a session on February 21st for the board members of Naked Angels, one of the leading off-Broadway theatre groups in NYC, known for its innovative productions and dedication to emerging artists.   The focus of the session, held at the Norwood Club, was to re-invent performing arts, in a way that stays true to Naked Angel’s essence, but expands its relevance to the group’s constituents (artists, donors  and audiences).   The highly charged session produced some exciting strategic alternatives, and left board members with renewed vigor, unity and sense of purpose. 

Naked Angels was formed in 1986 by a group of restless and ambitious artists reacting to a void in the theater community for new and creative voices.  It’s name is taken from John Tytell’s book, Naked Angels, which referred to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and other Beats as “a generation that wanted to break out of convention and scream.”  

Dedication to the emerging artist has lead to the company’s reputation for developing and producing outstanding, innovative plays.  And over the years, Naked Angels has presented hundreds of readings, workshops, and full-scale productions.

Their April 2007 production of Armed and Naked in America, continues one of Naked Angels’ more noted traditions: The Issues Project. Embodying the company’s highest artistic aspiration, a community-based theater that is social, diverse, and dialectic, the Issues Project challenges the disparate talents of the group’s members, rallying writers, directors, actors, musicians, and filmmakers to speak out against a pressing social or political concern.  The result is raised awareness to a particular cause or organization by creating a piece of theater that is both provocative and significant.  For over 20 years the  company has taken on controversial issues from gun control to the environment, faith to human rights.

Visit the Naked Angels website here.

Request Gabor to lead a Workshop for your organization’s next meeting by sending an email request to: info@creatingblueoceans.com  .

[Image via nakedangels.com .]

Global Crisis – The Comic Angle: The light at the end of the tunnel and Disney’s magical parade of layoffs

No matter where one turns these days, it seems nearly impossible to escape the news of the latest company or industry to unravel.  So to challenge the status quo of doom and gloom,  and to inject a layer of much needed levity, our new series presents satirical articles of different industries in crisis.  This week, we turn to two short, humorous bulletins.

Light at the end of the tunnel
From Reuters: In the working-class community of Weymouth, south of Boston, Easter's Country Kitchen, a crowded little diner, captured the mood in a notice near the food counter:

"DUE TO BUDGET CUTS, THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS BEING TURNED OFF." 


Disney's magical layoffs
From The Onion Radio News, here is a satirical take on how Disney might handle laying off staff, by putting on a magical parade with them.  Listen to the brief audio spoof here.

[Image via Reuters.]