Creating Blue Oceans

Departing from conventional wisdom: Think really different

Companies today, facing an environment of great uncertainty, need to embrace the idea of challenging traditional industry assumptions.  This perspective of defying conventional wisdom goes hand-in-hand with the process of Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a systematic approach to turning unconventional ideas into winning strategies.   One of the most visible practitioners of unconventional wisdom is Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, under whose leadership the newly-released, already sold out iPad is championing a new era in computing.

From Newsweek:

Perhaps more important, this elegant little device comes loaded with Jobs's grandiose ambition and is yet another example of his willingness to defy conventional wisdom and bend the ethos of Silicon Valley to his own will. The Internet is supposed to be all about freedom and choice—yet here comes Steve Jobs with an Internet that is a completely closed system. Apple not only sells you the device, but also operates the only store on the planet that sells software for it. Such "walled gardens" were supposed to be a thing of the past, cracked open first by the freewheeling PC revolution and then demolished by the anything-goes-and-everything-is-free World Wide Web. Jobs figures he can get away with this radical lockdown because the products Apple makes are so good, outstripping the imaginations of even the most engaged consumer. Jobs argues that this tighter control allows Apple to create a more seamless user experience—your iTunes account stores your credit-card information, which makes it very, very easy to buy stuff. There's no friction. Thinking about an old song from high school? Go to iTunes, grab it, pay a buck, and listen. I do that all the time now on my iPhone, and I'll probably make bigger purchases—movies, books, TV series—for my iPad. In fact, a closed system may be the only way to deliver the kind of techno-Zen experience that Apple has become known for.

The closed system also lets Apple make more money, because it collects 30 percent of whatever customers spend on apps or content. Same goes for movies, music, and books. Instead of making a one-time sale, each iPad sold becomes a recurring revenue stream for Apple.

[Image via Techno Buzz.]

A Blockbuster lava casualty

All companies face difficult or life-threatening challenges at one point or another, and it is their adaptability and ability to make smart strategic moves which allow them to prosper even in the face of adversity.  But those companies that fail entirely to innovate risk becoming a Lava Casualty.  

Take for example the current plight of Blockbuster video, via the Christian Science Monitor:

Could the age of video stores come to a screeching, shuddering halt? After years of losing customers to Netflix, DVD vending machines, and video streaming services such as Hulu, the rental chain Blockbuster yesterday indicated that it could soon push for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In a filing with US regulators, Blockbuster reps pointed to "significant liquidity restraints" and a pile of steadily-mounting debt.

"The increasingly competitive industry conditions under which we operate has negatively impacted our results of operations and cash flows and may continue to in the future," Blockbuster reps wrote, according to the Associated Press. "These factors raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern." According to the Guardian, Blockbuster lost $569 million last year, and is currently struggling to deal with more than $975 million in debt.

Is your business or industry in danger of becoming the next lava casualty?

[Image via ASDF.]

Driven to Pure Inspiration

This week, we move to the fifth and final sneak peek installment from Razi Imam’s forthcoming book entitled Driven.  In his book, Razi shares personal insights to motivation and achievement. We are delighted to have received an advance copy from which we will share brief excerpts that focus on the deeper inner drive that allows us to challenge conventional wisdom and come up with breakthrough ideas. 

From chapter five of Driven by Razi Imam:

An example of this form of Pure Inspiration took place when renowned scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, unlocked the secret of gravity. In fact, most laws of science in history have been discovered based on this form of Pure Inspiration. Newton’s explanation of gravity changed the way people comprehended the universe. He showed in his book, Principia Mathematica, that everything in the universe, gravity included, behaved in an orderly, not a chaotic, way. He made it clear that all movements, large or small, follow the same, elegantly simple universal laws. Newton’s Pure Inspiration spawned a new era in science and technology. In formulating his physical theories, he developed the field of mathematics we now call calculus. Based on his mathematical formulas, scientists have landed robots on other planets and have accurately predicted the motion of heavenly bodies such as comets, and asteroids. 

Regular readers of Creating Blue Oceans will recall Landslide Technologies has drawn on Gabor’s expertise to enter an already crowded and very competitive sales force automation market.  It did so in a way that redefined the market and creating Blue Ocean space, and has been the recipient of accolades ever since. The company’s latest crowning achievements including the introduction of its new President and CEO, Rich Faulk, as well as its successful bid to raise another USD 8 million in growth  capital. Landslide’s founder and former CEO, Razi Imam, stepped down recently to start another business focused on nanotechnology.

Pre-oder your copy of Driven now.

[Image via mandj98.]

CreatingBlueOceans.com: One of the Best

CreatingBlueOceans.com was recently selected as one of the Top Innovation blog-entertainment sites in the world, alongside other well-known media powerhouses such as Fast Company and Business Week.

This notable distinction came from The Daily Reviewer, a social blog reader website that ranks sites based on popularity.  With thousands of blogs pre-selected, the ranking process is automated taking into account how many users have voted for a particular blog, thus, helping to ensure that only the best blogs, like CreatingBlueOceans.com, make the final cut. 

We would like to thank our readers and contributors for helping us achieve this honorable distinction. 

Google’s next blue ocean: Landlocked Topeka, Kansas

Challenging an industry’s conventional wisdom about which buyer group to target can lead to the discovery of new blue oceans. By looking across buyer groups, companies can gain new insights into how to redesign their value curves to focus on a previously overlooked set of buyers (Blue Ocean Strategy, page 61).

We recently came across an article entitled "How Topeka Became Google, Kansas,” which describes the unconventional approach of one USA town to gain the attention of Google in the hopes that it will be selected as a trial city for ultra-high speed broadband Internet service.  It seems that Google, observing that an endless number of towns and cities in the USA are starved of stable, easily-accessible and super-high speed Internet, is at it again using a Blue Ocean Strategy-like approach to tap into a previously overlooked set of buyers—who are turning out to be fanatically grateful fans. 

From Mashable:

Welcome to Google, Kansas – the capital city of fiber optics, population 122,642. The small city with a big dream recently changed its name from Topeka to Google in order to show its enthusiasm for Google’s experimental Fiber for Communities program.

Mayor William W. Bunten issued a proclamation on Monday declaring the name change and urging “the citizens of Topeka to recognize and support the continuing efforts to bring Google’s ‘Fiber for Communities,’ experiment to our city.”

Talking to Bunten you wouldn’t expect this 79-year-old politician and military veteran with a penchant for phrases like “tickled pink,” to be the man behind the innovative Google fiber optics push. And yet such is the case. Now Bunten’s somewhat bizarre decision puts him and his city center stage, currently swimming in an almost overwhelming sea of press and attention the likes that Topeka — ahem Google — has never seen before.

[Image via Telegraph.]

Departing from conventional wisdom: The barbecue hovercraft

Companies today, facing an environment of great uncertainty, need to embrace the idea of challenging traditional industry assumptions.  This perspective of defying conventional wisdom goes hand-in-hand with the process of Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a systematic approach to turning unconventional ideas into winning strategies.   This week, to provide some inspiration, we feature an example of  Defying Conventional Wisdom.

For our example, we turn to a recent article detailing the story of Rudy Heeman, a New Zealand inventor who has constructed an operational hovercraft in his garage, contrary to the conventional wisdom that such a craft could only be created by engineers from well-established aerospace firms.  And as one of the readers of the article comments, “this guy builds a flying car in his garage, while Detroit can't build a decent car with billions of dollars to work with.”

From The Huffington Post:

A New Zealand inventor and hovercraft aficionado has used parts from his barbecue, his daughter's scooter, and his wife's car to create a hovercraft that can fly.

The craft--a standard hovercraft fitted with detachable wings--can fly at up to 96 kmh and at a height of around 1.5 meters.

Rudy Heeman, who created the 'hoverwing,' has been building hovercraft in his spare time for over a decade and says he spent over 800 hours and tens of thousands of dollars creating his flying gizmo.

[Image via Daily Mail.]

Driven: How enlightenment happens

This week, we move to the fourth sneak peek installment from Razi Imam’s forthcoming book entitled Driven.  In his book, Razi shares personal insights to motivation and achievement.  We are delighted to have received an advance copy from which we will share brief excerpts that focus on the deeper inner drive that allows us to challenge conventional wisdom and come up with breakthrough ideas.

From chapter five of Driven by Razi Imam:

Mir Pacha went on to describe how an event like this [enlightenment] happened to Scottish biologist Sir Alexander Fleming when he discovered penicillin in 1928. While working in his laboratory on September 3rd, Fleming noticed that mold had developed by accident on a plate of bacteria. The mold had spawned a bacteria-free zone around itself. After further experimentation, Fleming found that such a mold culture prevented bacteria from growing, even when diluted hundreds of times. His Enlightenment centered on the fact that the fungus excreted a substance that killed the contagious bacteria. That substance, now known as penicillin, gave birth to the modern antibiotic form of treatment. Fleming’s Junoon allowed him to find a cure at a time in our history when bacterial infection was a major cause of death. Diseases such as tuberculosis were common, and their diagnoses was considered a death sentence.

Regular readers of Creating Blue Oceans will recall Landslide Technologies has drawn on Gabor’s expertise to enter an already crowded and very competitive sales force automation market.  It did so in a way that redefined the market and creating Blue Ocean space, and has been the recipient of accolades ever since. The company’s latest crowning achievements including the introduction of its new President and CEO, Rich Faulk, as well as its successful bid to raise another USD 8 million in growth  capital.  Landslide’s founder and former CEO, Razi Imam, stepped down recently to start another business focused on nanotechnology.

Pre-oder your copy of Driven now.

[Image via In My Imagination.]

The Perfect Calm Series: HOW TO Donate to Chile Earthquake Relief Online

One of the most exciting spheres of application for Blue Ocean Strategy is the realm of Social Capitalism. This explosive market space is at the intersection of successful business and lasting social impact. Traditionally these two spheres were considered separate, but the two can be pursued simultaneously via Blue Ocean Strategy. Periodically, we feature stories which illustrate stimulating ventures, ideas and concepts targeting this very market space.

This week, in light of the recent disaster in Chile, we select the story:   HOW TO: Donate to Chile Earthquake Relief Online .  

While this is not a quintessential example of social capitalism, it is an inspirational illustration of using new technology for quick, large-scale public donations to disaster victims.   We highlighted similar efforts underway after the disaster in Haiti.

Do you know of companies, organizations or business visionaries sailing along the intersection of good business and social good? Share your ideas with the Creating Blue Oceans Community.

[Image via OneWorld.]

Flip it on!

Simplicity is at the core of Blue Ocean Strategy.  First, in an increasingly complex and turbulent business environment Blue Ocean Strategy distills the strategic challenge into a handful of essential questions, followed by a simple, logical framework and a visual platform for expressing strategic intent.  Such simplicity of focus is often a breakthrough eye-opener for executives, who usually see a much more convoluted and blurry picture.

We have shared previously the inspirational story of the Flip video camera.  As a related follow-up, we draw our readers’ attention to a recent article from BusinessWeek, which discusses four design points you can apply in your business based on the Flip model of simplicity.

From BusinessWeek:

The [Flip] founders never set out to create a "beautiful" but unapproachable device. They didn't set out to create a device with trendy new features that increased complexity. They set out to build a good product that was approachable and fun.

[Image via Awaken in the Now.]

Driven: The stuff of great discoveries

Today we move to the third sneak peek installment from Razi Imam’s forthcoming book entitled Driven.  In his book, Razi shares personal insights to motivation and achievement.  We are delighted to have received an advance copy from which we will share brief excerpts that focus on the deeper inner drive that allows us to challenge conventional wisdom and come up with breakthrough ideas.

From chapter five of Driven by Razi Imam:

This first wave of Junoon comes upon you strongly, in such forceful, dazzling light that you feel transformed. It’s as if your entire brain sparks with illumination. You become changed with energy as this revelation from the universe hits you completely and captures your mind. You’re instantly able to see the solution to a problem with which you have been wrestling; it comes to you in wordless form, and you perceive the entire package as it’s laid out to you in the depths of your being. You undergo a transcendent moment of creation as this inspiration enters your consciousness, and you comprehend what you must do and all the ramifications. The solution is complete, non-debatable, and irrefutable. This is the stuff of great discoveries -- from scientific and technological advances to extraordinary forward leaps in philosophy, logic, art, music, and ethics.

Regular readers of Creating Blue Oceans will recall Landslide Technologies has drawn on Gabor’s expertise to enter an already crowded and very competitive sales force automation market.  It did so in a way that redefined the market and creating Blue Ocean space, and has been the recipient of accolades ever since. The company’s latest crowning achievements including the introduction of its new President and CEO, Rich Faulk, as well as its successful bid to raise another USD 8 million in growth  capital.  Landslide’s founder and former CEO, Razi Imam, stepped down recently to start another business focused on nanotechnology.

Pre-oder your copy of Driven now.

[Image via zastavki.]