Margaret Mead famously said, “I am unique – just like everyone else”. With all of this uniqueness going around maybe our offer can be more focussed, perhaps for a more specific target market. This is the focus of the Kim and Mauborgne Blue Ocean Strategy model. Driving costs down, even as you create more [...]
You have defined your purpose. You have articulated a compelling vision for your organisation. Your values and your norms are clear. You have analysed your market and your competitive environment. You have evaluated your financial performance from your previous year and set your financial targets for the coming year. You have reviewed your offer. You [...]
In June 01 1999 Napster launched the peer-to-peer file sharing. People around the world began to share their music. At their height in February 2001 they had over 25 million users across the globe. Soon after this they were shut down by a court order from the music industry. In January 09 2001 Apple announced [...]
We think we are open-minded. We assume we see all perspectives on an issue in a balanced, fair and Solution-Focused way. However research by Herbert Simon shows this not to be true. Our capacity to think freely is always bound by what we already know. And new ideas push us into the realm of resistance [...]
This posting on the Exponential Organisation is taken from the book on the new organisations by Salim Ismail. Here is a classic tale of disruption: Jan 2007: Steve Jobs releases the first Apple iPhone. Two months later: Nokia buy Navteq for $8.1 billion. A high tech road mapping and tracking system with in-road sensors, software [...]
Sherlock Holmes uses key indicators. In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories he says “I watch these five people and when they do something different I know the game is afoot”. It would be great to have such an arrangement in our organisation. “We watch these eight measures and when one starts moving we know [...]
What do these brands have in common? Yes they misread the market famously. Of course it is easy to point fingers, but the point of this illustration is that even the best get it wrong. IBM failed to see the potential of the personal computer In the late 1980s, personal computers had been around for [...]
On 17 October 1973 the Arab members of OPEC along with Egypt and Syria, triggered by the US involvement in the Yom Kippur War, pulled the plug on oil supplies to the United States and Europe. This was a scenario few had contemplated. Fuel restrictions emptied the roads. The embargo ended in March 1974. The [...]
There we have the history of civilisation in 10 great leaps of innovation. Fire, Wheel, Paper, Printing press with moveable type, Michael Faraday who discovered semiconductor properties, AGB with the first phone, Signore Marconi, the three guys who gave us the transistor and Ted Hoff who invented the microprocessor. And here we are, at the [...]
Imperturbable Frank Wild checks out the wreckage of the Endurance – the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition – 1915/1916. From whence cometh your decision-making input When the Endurance finally broke up completely, the men heaved a collective sigh of relief. The tense wait was over, the die had been cast and they set off across the [...]
