The Apple approach to innovation

Vox has an article talking about the release yesterday of the Touch Bar for Apple MacBook Pro laptops. It's a significant advance. They explain why it succeeded for Apple despite the fact that this particular innovation had been tried before by other manufacturers but failed.

Apple controls its products tightly. This approach allows it to approach innovation very differently:

In contrast, Apple controls the entire “stack” for its products. It manufactures the hardware, writes a lot of the software, and even makes some of its own chips. This makes it hard to achieve a large market share, since it’s difficult for one company to serve a lot of different kinds of customers. But the example of the Touch Bar shows that the Apple approach still has some distinct advantages.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Apple successfully pulling off an ambitious innovation like the Touch Bar because it requires simultaneous investments on both the hardware and software sides of the business.

Apple’s ability to make dramatic changes to its platforms has been an important source of strength for the company. And it’s a big reason that two of Apple’s chief competitors — Google and Microsoft — have increasingly aped Apple’s business model in recent years.

Here is more on why Apple can lead far more successfully than its competitors despite having much less market share:

A feature like Touch Bar or Adaptive Keyboard is only going to succeed if it becomes a platform-wide standard. And on a decentralized platform like Windows, that creates a chicken-and-egg problem: Applications developers are only going to put in the effort to support it if it’s available on a lot of laptops. But laptop makers are only going to offer it if there’s a lot of application support.

This is a particularly severe problem in the Windows PC world precisely because the PC market is so competitive. The hardware for the Touch Bar is apparently expensive — Apple is charging $300 extra for the cheapest MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar compared with the entry-level MacBook Pro without it.

So if a PC maker added a Touch Bar to its laptops, it would be taking a big risk of getting undercut by competitors that skipped the Touch Bar and charged significantly less. This is probably one reason Lenovo’s adaptive keyboard was so much less impressive than the Touch Bar — the Chinese company couldn’t spend a lot on the feature and risk being priced out of the market.

Apple can guarantee that a significant percentage of their products will contain the new innovation. This allows the software makers to design products with the confidence that there will be a ready market for their work once the new innovation is finally released.

This model has been so successful for Apple that Microsoft and Google are now openly copying it. They have both ventured into producing their own hardware (Surface, Chromebooks, and the Pixel). All of this will likely lead to even more innovation in the years to come.

Here is a link to the original article:  http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/27/13441068/touch-bar-apple-google

Take a simple idea and take it seriously

Interesting column today on the Motley Fool.

Take a Simple Idea and Take it Seriously

The article points out how companies that seem to do one or two things but do them really well have outperformed big name (read:  "sexy") stocks over time.

McCormick makes garlic powder. Its stock is up 1,423% since 1995. Oracle has a near-monopoly database management software. Its stock is up 1,419% since 1995.

V.F. Corp makes jeans and flip-flops. Its stock is up 1,444% since 1995. Cisco Systems connects the entire world together in one place. Its stock is up 1,018% since 1995.

Valspar makes industrial coatings, and has returned 1,521% since 1995. Adobe makes some of the most popular software in the world, and has returned 1,230%.

Google is one of the most exciting companies of all time. Its stock is up 345% since 2008. Altria makes cigarettes in the rapidly declining U.S. market. Its stock is up 494% since 2008.

I cherry-picked these examples, but the idea holds up with broad indexes. The best-performing industry over the last 50 years, by far, is consumer staples – things like food, toothpaste, and toilet paper. The worst-performing industry, by far, is technology.

The article summarizes with a few key points. Here is the one that resonated most to me:

Value isn't necessarily created by innovation or complexity. It's created by solving people's everyday problems for the longest period of time. This is why toilet paper and garlic powder have been better investments than some of the most innovative technology companies. Lots of technology has solved people's problems, but few to the degree toothpaste and deodorant have, and will continue to do for the indefinite future.

I couldn't agree more!

Mickey Mouse innovation

Original post:  June 15, 2015

Perhaps the greatest challenge with technology is finding creative ways to merge the fantastical new capabilities with existing applications. There are so many possibilities, but it can be horrifically expensive to retrofit aging platforms. This is especially true if you have significant capital invested in what you already have!

When cutting-edge technology is discussed, you may think of obvious candidates like Google or Apple. You may not associate innovation with Disney. To me, that speaks to how well Disney has integrated their technology. It seems almost like a seamless extension of the existing platform instead of a wholly different experience.

Disney has spent over a billion dollars on technology. Perhaps the most visible example of this is in its smart bands.

This article from Wired helps explain how it works:

The MagicBands look like simple, stylish rubber wristbands offered in cheery shades of grey, blue, green, pink, yellow, orange and red. Inside each is an RFID chip and a radio like those in a 2.4-GHz cordless phone. The wristband has enough battery to last two years. It may look unpretentious, but the band connects you to a vast and powerful system of sensors within the park. And yet, when you visit Disney World, the most remarkable thing about the MagicBands is that they don’t feel remarkable at all. They’re as ubiquitous as sunburns and giant frozen lemonades. Despite their futuristic intentions, they’re already invisible.

Part of the trick lies in the clever way Disney teaches you to use them—and, by extension, how to use the park. It begins when you book your ticket online and pick your favorite rides. Disney’s servers crunch your preferences, then neatly package them into an itinerary calculated to keep the route between stops from being a slog—or a frustrating zig-zag back and forth across the park. Then, in the weeks before your trip, the wristband arrives in the mail, etched with your name—I’m yours, try me on. For kids, the MagicBand is akin to a Christmas present tucked under the tree, perfumed with the spice of anticipation. For parents, it’s a modest kind of superpower that wields access to the park.

....

It’s amazing how much friction Disney has engineered away: There’s no need to rent a car or waste time at the baggage carousel. You don’t need to carry cash, because the MagicBand is linked to your credit card. You don’t need to wait in long lines. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of taking out your wallet when your kid grabs a stuffed Olaf, looks up at you, and promises to be good if you’ll just let them have this one thing, please.

This is just what the experience looks like to you, the visitor. For Disney, the MagicBands, the thousands of sensors they talk with, and the 100 systems linked together to create MyMagicPlus turn the park into a giant computer—streaming real-time data about where guests are, what they’re doing, and what they want. It’s designed to anticipate your desires.

Which makes it exactly the type of thing Apple, Facebook, and Google are trying to build. Except Disney World isn’t just an app or a phone—it’s both, wrapped in an idealized vision of life that’s as safely self-contained as a snow globe. Disney is thus granted permission to explore services that might seem invasive anywhere else. But then, that’s the trick: Every new experience with technology tends to gently nudge our notions of what we’re comfortable with.

There are substantial business benefits as well. The "Fast Pass" system which allows users to skip the lines on rides three times per day also helps Disney.

It also allows Disney to optimize employees. The goal was to create a system that would essentially replace the time spent fiddling with payments and tickets for moments of personal interactions with visitors. The MagicBands and MyMagicPlus allow employees to “move past transactions, into an interactive space, where they can personalize the experience,” Crofton says. What started as a grand technology platform has inevitably changed the texture of the experience.

Here is a link to the complete article:  Disney's $1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband | WIRED

The art of innovation

Original post:  June 3, 2015
Yesterday's keynote address at the GS1 meeting was given by Guy Kawasaki. He is perhaps best known as the chief evangelist for Apple and one the original team members responsible for the Macintosh. He gave a stirring address on "The Art of Innovation".

The talk covered his ten points which talk about innovation. While they are geared more towards retail-style products, there are elements that we can take and apply towards innovation within medical devices as well.

Here are the ten:

  

1. Make meaning: this point is about finding the higher purpose for your company, product, or service.

2. Make mantra (why product exists):  what separates your company, product, or service from others on the market?

3. Jump to the next curve:  Look for landmark innovation that transform, not just incremental improvement. He cited the case of ice collecting from ponds, then from centralized warehouses, then refrigerator/freezers. Each was a step change from the previous innovation.

4. Roll the dicee. Dicee stands for :Deep intelligent complete empowering elegant. Your innovation should have these qualities. Admittedly, this is likely more for retail products but aspects may still apply in medical devices.

5. Don't worry, be crappy:  Ship fast and improve later. Don't worry about getting a perfect pilot out the door, just a functional one.

6. Let 100 flowers blossom (unintended product uses):  If you start out with one intended use but your customers go in a different direction, roll with them! His example was Avon Skin-So-Soft which found a second life as an insect repellent.

7. Polarize people:  don't be afraid of people who can't stand your product as long as you have those who love it. Innovation always creates detractors.

8. Churn baby churn:  Look for ways to revise and improve always. If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will.

9. Niche thyself:  Create competitive advantage by finding some way to separate yourself from the crowd and becoming the top dog in at least one area.　

10. Perfect your pitch:  Create a simple way to convey your value proposition and win over converts or backers.　

If you have 21 minutes to spare, here is his TED talk:

Chicken and the egg

Original post: May 21, 2015

There is a natural tension that often accompanies any attempt to bring innovation into the world. There will always be defenders of the status quo. Many of those people make their living by supporting the way things are. It is also much easier to keep something new from happening than it is to start something fresh. Finally, there are costs to innovation. In order for someone to make the leap towards something unfamiliar, they have to feel that there is enough of a benefit.

There are many situations where we might find ourselves in a standoff. It's like the answer to the perennial question:  which came first, the chicken or the egg? For many innovative ideas, you need to recruit willing participants. However, it can be difficult to recruit these participants without promising them some kind of defined benefit. Of course, you can't prove the defined benefit unless you have the test data from the willing participants!

Something similar to this is going on in California. Residents there are struggling to comply with water restrictions due to a severe drought which has stretched on for four years. Ironically, the farmers were able to avoid the most serious restrictions despite the fact that they currently use up to 90% of the water in the state! Of course, they also realize that this drought threatens their long-term survival.

One of the best ways to save water is to irrigate fields using more efficient methods. Instead of the familiar sprinklers in crop circles, drip tape can help water get down to the roots much more effectively. Less water ends up wasted because it's blown away by winds or evaporating uselessly on stems and leaves. Unfortunately, it's really tough work to lay down drip tape (see the photo above). It is also quite costly to invest in the initial outlay of equipment and labor to install this system. It's much cheaper to drill deeper to try to bring up more groundwater. Of course, the cheaper method also has the drawback of using up a finite resource. It also has the additional handicap of making it far less likely that the groundwater will ever be replaced (even if the rains return). There are some instances of such drastic over-use of groundwater that resulted in the ground sinking several feet because so much water was taken from the aquifer!

There are no easy solutions. Standing outside the situation, it's easy to say that the farmers should invest in drip technology. That doesn't account for the fact that they may not have the capital available to invest. If the weather does not improve, it will certainly force harder choices in the days ahead.

Here is an article describing some of the challenges facing the farmers:  Why California Farmers Are Conflicted About Using Less Water : All Tech Considered : NPR

Three slides from Ian Morrison

Original post:  May 6, 2015

Ian Morrison is a healthcare "futurist" who was the keynote speaker yesterday at the GHX Supply Chain Summit in Phoenix. He discussed some of his ideas for the "Innovation Imperative". In his opinion, healthcare really needs to transform itself in order to survive. He pointed out the many ways that various health systems across the country are attempting to address the issue. I thought these three slides were interesting.

The first bullet point discussed the "trajectory of silicon". As computing power continues to develop at the exponential rate predicted by Moore's Law, it becomes possible to harness increasing amounts of data to apply towards many new solutions that could not have existed before. Many potential innovations yet to be developed will require us to come up with novel ways to apply the power of data.

I found the "Scout Badge" problem to be an elegant way to describe some innovation efforts. It's a proxy for labels that allow you to say "me too" without any truly meaningful, lasting results behind the programs represented on the page.

Mr. Morrison went on to discuss the problem of a disproportionate share of spending going towards the sickest patients. These efforts are often aimed at patients in their last days with no real impact on their lifespan or quality of life.

Earlier, he had referenced a program by Wal-Mart which will send associates in need of specific surgeries to designated centers of excellence around the country. Special teams dedicated to these efforts examine the patients and perform the procedures. In an article by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker, Morrison cited the fact that 30-50% of the time, the patient is sent home without having the surgery.  It's possible that there could be much more reduction over time with careful application of these types of principles.

He also gave two innovative examples of addressing major issues. Emergency rooms are often plagued by repeat visitors who are treated over and over again at high cost. In one example (the truck), the hospital was able to have an agent drive out to visit the families of the worst offenders and explain the treatment and the necessary measures to manage the patient's condition. It dramatically reduced the readmission rate. In the refrigerator, there was an elderly diabetic patient who was not taking her medication and came back again and again to the ER for treatment. At one point, they confronted the patient and asked why she wasn't taking her medications. She told them that the shots had to be refrigerated and she didn't have one. They bought one for her and she did not return due to diabetic complications!

"Fixing" an innovation

Original post:  Mar 23, 2015

One common misperception of innovation is that it springs forth fully formed (like the apocryphal Venus in the Botticelli painting). In reality, many inventions require constant tinkering and improvement. Sometimes, it requires someone completely separated from the original creators to take an existing idea and transform it into a transcendent idea.

This photo is from the first successful attempt at some version of a typewriter. While it looks somewhat familiar, there are substantial differences compared to what you might commonly associate with the classic models.

But it had big problems. For one, the keys pressed onto the curved paper at an angle, which meant some of the letters were blurry. It also necessitated a hunt-and-peck approach to typing that made it hard to use — you could get used to a writing ball (just as you do to a QWERTY keyboard), but it was difficult to master the angled keyboard. Worse, it was hard to see what you'd typed until your document was finished. Finally, there wasn't a workable way to use a "shift" key.

Yet modern typewriters didn't really take off until 1873, when Remington produced a version of the typewriter that had a QWERTY keyboard and a shift key. Equally important, it printed sharper letters. People realized that typewriters were good not just for those with visual handicaps, but for anybody who wanted to write a clear document. Though writing-ball advocates are still fans of the device's aesthetics, the typewriter won for functionality.

By taking the original "pincushion" design and making it more useful, Remington actually paved the way for commercial success.

Here are some other examples of twists to the original invention that helped changed the future:

These 4 big inventions were terrible ... until someone fixed them - Vox

First? No, best!

Original post:  Mar 18, 2015

Technology companies often tout that they are the first to accomplish certain feats. With saturated markets and intense competition, marketing teams from across the tech spectrum are constantly touting every little advantage as some type of "first". This article from the Verge explains that it isn't just about being the first. It's about being the best in class.

Last week, Apple released a new Macbook. PC makers quickly noticed that it wasn't quite as thin as some of their ultrabooks:

The article points out:

All these counter-hype tweets from major PC companies betray an obvious insecurity about their trendier competitor. It’s fine to seek to undermine Apple’s bandwagon by pointing out the limitations of its new product, but comparing minuscule numbers is really not the way to do it. Do you really think zero-point-whatever millimeters of extra thinness will convince people to put up with the worse trackpads and battery life of most MacBook competitors?

It’s a lesson that tech companies should have learned by now. Being first to do something is unimportant. Being best is what counts.

It goes on to discuss first to market innovations like the Dell Streak (5" smartphone) and Intel Mobile Internet Device (Ipad mini precursor). Never heard of them? That's exactly the point. They were first, but they didn't survive. Being first helps you get noticed. Providing usefulness helps you stay on top.

Here's the close to the article.

The emphasis on beating others to the market just seems silly and misguided. When you’re shopping for a new mouse, do you search for the first laser mouse or the best one? Do you care who built and sold the first set of Bluetooth headphones? When it comes to personal electronics, no good idea is left uncopied and, before long, everything good that might once have been unique becomes a matter of choice for the consumer. So even if you’re first to reach a new technological breakthrough, your window for enjoying that lead will be brief.

When Apple cites numbers, one of its favorite data points to bring up is user satisfaction, which is close to 100 percent for all of its products. That’s in spite of the company rarely being the first to do anything. Just take HTC as an example: it had an aluminum unibody phone, a 7-inch aluminum tablet, a plus-sized smartphone, and the Beats brand all before Apple did. Apple’s just doing all these things a little bit better and profiting from it.

Quality matters more than speed. That is especially true in a tech industry where speed advantages perish almost as soon as they appear. I’d love to see the new MacBook legitimately overshadowed by a better competitor. With Windows 10 on the horizon, that’s a real possibility. But as of today, Apple’s best competitors seem lost chasing their spec tails and neglecting what matters. Beat the Mac’s experience, not its numbers.

Here is the link to the full article:  First doesn't matter | The Verge

Innovations can be free

Original post:  Mar 3, 2015

We often associate innovations with costly and complicated new gizmos. We may even expect to spend a great deal of money on the new solution. In my opinion, that is a failure of imagination. Some of the best innovations might actually be free!

This article in the New York Times gives an example in healthcare. Patient surveys are becoming an increasingly important factor in the overall grades that hospitals get as a measurement of patient outcomes. This has led to a new goal: reducing patient suffering. This elusive factor in overall quality is very difficult to measure (much less address).

Here is the story of how one innovator developed his solution:

That is how Dr. Michael Bennick, the medical director for patient experience at Yale-New Haven Hospital, solved a problem. He noticed a question on a Medicare survey asking, Is it quiet in your room at night?

Maybe, Dr. Bennick thought, what is really being asked is: Can you get a good night’s sleep without interruption? Is it really necessary to wake patients again and again to take blood pressure and pulse rates, to draw blood, to give medications?

He issued instructions for his unit. No more routinely awakening patients for vital signs. And plan the timing of medications; outside intensive care units, three-quarters of drugs can be given before patients go to sleep and again in the morning.

Then there were the blood tests. “Doctors love blood tests,” Dr. Bennick said, and want results first thing in the morning when they make rounds. That meant waking patients in the wee hours.

“I told the resident doctors in training: ‘If you are waking patients at 4 in the morning for a blood test, there obviously is a clinical need. So I want to be woken, too, so I can find out what it is.’ ” No one, he said, ever called him. Those middle-of-the-night blood draws vanished.

Without anything else being done about noise in the halls, the medical unit’s score on that question rose from the 16th percentile to the 47th nationally in the Medicare survey. Now the entire hospital follows that plan.

“And it did not cost a penny,” Dr. Bennick said. “The only cost was thinking not from our perspective but from a patient’s perspective.”

While some of these recommendations may seem "common sense", in reality they are not widely practiced. In my own experience, I often wondered why it was so critical to have someone burst into your darkened room as you were in a deep sleep and flip on all the lights to take your vital signs. It would seem that rest is very important to the recovery process.

There are more anecdotes in the full article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/health/doctors-strive-to-do-less-harm-by-inattentive-care.html?_r=0

Stumble you might fall

Original post:  Feb 10, 2015

We can all agree that there is a tremendous need for innovation. One of the most common sayings of the recent past was that we wanted to "fail faster". Of course, no one really wants to fail. The whole point of trying to change what you are doing is to end up with a better result! That said, it is difficult to do new and different things without running into some challenges along the way.

This actually relates to a lot of the work that I do in data standards. We are attempting to do something within healthcare that really hasn't been done before. We marvel at what retail has done. It's as if they are Olympic-level athletes. Meanwhile, most of us haven't even started the sport! It isn't realistic to expect us to be competitive any time soon without an awful lot of training and practice.

Perhaps the place we can start is with our overall objective. Instead of trying to "fail faster", maybe we need to "stumble but not fall". No one wants to fall flat on their face. We may not have the luxury of being able to fall down. But even if we trip along the way, we keep moving in the same general direction of progress.

Keep yourself connected...writing's on the wall....

Innovation has to extend beyond the product itself

Original post:  Feb 3, 2015

It's extremely hard to create new markets out of thin air. While we correctly heap all kinds of praise on the chosen few that succeed in bringing amazing new inventions into our lives, we also ignore the thousands of new products that never quite find their footing. Many of those lesser lights were excellent ideas on their own. For whatever reason, they may not have captured the imagination of enough customers to sustain themselves in the marketplace.

We often think of the giant technology companies as if they are invincible. They toss around their mighty power and we simply react. But even the largest and most successful companies sometimes have a difficult time sustaining innovation.

One example of that is Google. While they dominate search and have other really great products like Google Analytics, Maps, and Documents, they do not enjoy complete success at all of their inititives. They were unable to make Google Health work properly. Google Wave had promise but never caught fire. Even Google Glass, once so highly prized that there was a lottery for the right to pay $1500 to acquire one, has now been downgraded to a much lower profile. This article explains some of the reasons why:

On Thursday, Google announced that it would stop selling its much ridiculed Google Glass smart glasses, and that the product would no longer be developed in Google X, the company’s research division.

In a blog post on the Google Plus social network, Google said Glass was graduating from X. It will still be available to “certified partners” and for commercial trials in places like hospitals and factories. But the Explorer program, in which software developers and gadget nerds could buy a test version of the product, is over.

The article continues by pointing out that only two years ago, Glass was the star at Google's developers conference. It showcased some of the incredible future possibilities of the platform. Yet all of that promise also held some of the same reasons why it hasn't been successful:

Today, Glass is more like a case study in the perils of developing hardware whose purpose isn’t clear. Unlike, say, the iPhone — which cleverly combined products people already understood and used — consumers weren’t quite sure what to make of Glass. That creeped some people out.

The device was pre-emptively banned by bars and large parts of Las Vegas. Legislators in West Virginia tried to make it illegal to use the gadget while driving.

“There’s no vision for why people actually need this device,” Mr. Gownder said. “That’s a problem. When you don’t have that, people fill that in with their own assumptions, and right now the assumption is that this is a device for recording people.”

That last issue probably doomed the product. The article closes:

“From the privacy perspective, we are of course pleased to see Google drop this product,” Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, wrote in an email. “And it is a very big deal when Google backs down, particularly after its big push.”

He continued: “But it is also speaks to a larger issue in tech design about privacy. Eyeglass-mounted web display and phone for those who wanted it? Not really a problem. Surveillance and recording of those around the user? Yeah, that’s a problem.”

Here is the link to the full article:  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/a-retreat-for-google-glass-and-a-case-study-in-the-perils-of-making-hardware/?_…

How kitty litter relates to innovation

Original post:  Dec 15, 2014

You may not have heard of Ed Lowe. Truthfully, before I read the article, I had never heard of him either. In 1947, he had the bright idea to take fuller's clay and sell it to farmers as nesting materials for chickens. Unfortunately for Ed, the farmers weren't all that interested.

Serendipity took over from there. A local woman came by asking for sand for her cat who would now be coming indoors for the winter. Ed sold her some of the fuller's earth. Because it had the ability to help neutralize the odor of kitty urine, it became an overnight sensation among the indoor cat community. Ed came up with the moniker "kitty litter" and the result is one major reason behind the enduring popularity of house cats.

Luck is important, but persistence is probably more important. When your invention runs into resistance, keep trying!

Here are links to two articles on the invention of kitty litter:

Kitty Litter's Invention Spawned Pet Cat Industry - Businessweek

How Was Cat Litter Invented?

Reach out and touch a customer

Original post:  May 14, 2014

We talk about innovation a great deal. Innovation means more than just products. It can also include the services that we provide to others.

Whenever we discuss innovation, we usually start with the product or service that we currently offer. It's only natural to view the future through the lens of the past. When your frame of reference is riding on horseback, it might be difficult to imagine that they would ever be replaced by a horseless carriage. This article by HBR talks about one of the best ways to come up with the next breakthrough idea. It recommends that we examine our customer touch points.

It discusses the effort of a bank to differentiate its products. If you think about banking, there is very little that any one bank offers that cannot be found at every other bank. How do you stand out in that crowd? Here is what they did:

Rather than trying to improve the product or beef up the instructions to make its function more clear, which the bank had repeatedly tried to do over the years, the redesign team decided to completely reimagine the initial touch point – the moment when their customers would first experience the product. They turned to Apple for inspiration.

The banking team ordered a MacBook Pro and marveled at how the product made them feel when they opened the box – the quality of the packaging materials; the simple elegance of the assembly instructions; the beautiful design of the product itself. Why, they wondered, couldn’t their financial product create the same type of emotion for their customers? After all, the line of credit was providing them with a sense of financial security.

With the Apple experience fresh in their minds, the banking team redesigned the touch points surrounding the line of credit product – from how the product was delivered (in a beautiful box with a luxurious feel that makes the user feel they are opening a gift) to the color-coded operating instructions. What’s more, they provided customers with a product playbook, which included several examples of how the product could be used with multiple scenarios. Within six months of making these changes, call volume had declined by more than 40%.

The article goes on to give several examples of other companies and their efforts to use customer feedback to help them improve their products or services.

Here is the link to the full article:  For a Breakthrough Idea, Start by Examining Customer Touch Points - Brian Klapper - Harvard Business Review

How do you think you can use this example to help your department offer a new twist on your products or services?

Marketing yourself

Original post:  Feb 27, 2014

Tomorrow, I am scheduled to volunteer at an event in Lowell. I will be joining a number of other company veterans at the event. We will address a group of other veterans who are just beginning their transition to civilian work life.

One of the hardest things to learn coming out of the military was the concept of self-promotion. Much of military life involves team activities. The team matters far more than the individual. Each person is expected to do their job so that the entire group can advance. In civilian life, there are many times when you will also have to work on a team. In order to get to that point, though, you first have to be hired! Job interviews are really about trying to position yourself as a key contributor (as opposed to just another team member).

This article from Inc. gives one person's opinion. It says that you should never describe yourself using the ten terms provided in the article. To be honest, I don't agree fully with each of them. That said, there are legitimate points raised about trying to stay away from the obvious and succinctly making your case for why you should be hired. There is a fine line between effective self-promotion and just being a bit full of yourself.

Here are some of my favorites from the article:

"Motivated."

Check out Chris Rock's response (not safe for work or the politically correct) to people who say they take care of their kids. Then substitute the word "motivated." Never take credit for things you are supposed to do--or be.

"Authority."

If you have to say you're an authority, you aren't. Show your expertise instead. "Presenter at SXSW" or "Delivered TED Talk at Long Beach 2010" indicates a level of authority. Unless you can prove it, "social media marketing authority" just means you spend a ton of time on Twitter.

"Innovative."

Most companies claim to be innovative. Most people claim to be innovative. Most are not. (I'm not.) That's okay, because innovation isn't a requirement for success.

If you are innovative, don't say it. Prove it. Describe the products you've developed. Describe the processes you've modified. Give us something real so your innovation is unspoken but evident... which is always the best kind of evident to be.

"Creative."

See particular words often enough and they no longer make an impact. "Creative" is one of them. (Go to LinkedIn and check out some profiles; "creative" will appear in the majority.)

"Creative" is just one example. Others include extensive, effective, proven, dynamic, influential, team player, collaborative... some of those terms truly may describe you, but since they're also being used to describe everyone else they've lost their impact.

Here is the link to the full article:  10 Ways You Should Never Describe Yourself | Inc.com

The secret to innovation? Winning hearts and minds....

Original post:  Nov 14, 2013

This post is linked to part one.

As the article goes on, Dr. Gawande discusses simple innovations to combat infant mortality in rural hospitals. One of the simplest methods is to keep newborn infants warm. While high-tech incubators exist, the most effective tactic is using the mother's own body warmth. Yet even this simple advice is consistently ignored.

The author goes on to discuss why people struggle to adopt new ideas. He writes:

The most common approach to changing behavior is to say to people, “Please do X.” Please warm the newborn. Please wash your hands. Please follow through on the twenty-seven other childbirth practices that you’re not doing. This is what we say in the classroom, in instructional videos, and in public-service campaigns, and it works, but only up to a point.

Then, there’s the law-and-order approach: “You must do X.” We establish standards and regulations, and threaten to punish failures with fines, suspensions, the revocation of licenses. Punishment can work. Behavioral economists have even quantified how averse people are to penalties. In experimental games, they will often quit playing rather than risk facing negative consequences. And that is the problem with threatening to discipline birth attendants who are taking difficult-to-fill jobs under intensely trying conditions. They’ll quit.

The kinder version of “You must do X” is to offer incentives rather than penalties. Maybe we could pay birth attendants a bonus for every healthy child who makes it past a week of life. But then you think about how hard it would be to make a scheme like that work, especially in poor settings....

Besides, neither penalties nor incentives achieve what we’re really after: a system and a culture where X is what people do, day in and day out, even when no one is watching. “You must” rewards mere compliance. Getting to “X is what we do” means establishing X as the norm. And that’s what we want: for skin-to-skin warming, hand washing, and all the other lifesaving practices of childbirth to be, quite simply, the norm.

In his eyes, here is the solution:

But technology and incentive programs are not enough. “Diffusion is essentially a social process through which people talking to people spread an innovation,” wrote Everett Rogers, the great scholar of how new ideas are communicated and spread. Mass media can introduce a new idea to people. But, Rogers showed, people follow the lead of other people they know and trust when they decide whether to take it up. Every change requires effort, and the decision to make that effort is a social process.

This is something that salespeople understand well. I once asked a pharmaceutical rep how he persuaded doctors—who are notoriously stubborn—to adopt a new medicine. Evidence is not remotely enough, he said, however strong a case you may have. You must also apply “the rule of seven touches.” Personally “touch” the doctors seven times, and they will come to know you; if they know you, they might trust you; and, if they trust you, they will change. That’s why he stocked doctors’ closets with free drug samples in person. Then he could poke his head around the corner and ask, “So how did your daughter Debbie’s soccer game go?” Eventually, this can become “Have you seen this study on our new drug? How about giving it a try?” As the rep had recognized, human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change.

As we develop our own innovations, it will be important to keep this in mind. We must never forget the human factor in change management.