Regeneration + Ecosystem Strategy + Brand Activism + Innovation + Art
The final Harvard Business Review post in the series, and hopefully the start of some real change at the bottom of the pyramid.
Our goal is to go social for social business. Can social co-creation help the poor?
Keeping fingers crossed. Thanks to Ingersoll-Rand for the sponsorship and to all the judges and advisers at 300House.com! Thanks jovoto and COMMON. Thanks Shaun.
Thanks also to Scott Berinato at HBR and of course – VG, my partner in crime.
For the past two years I have been conducting some extensive testing with a number of my clients in various fields – software, consulting services, academics, non-profits, entertainment, and self improvement – and here’s what I came up with at the end of the study. I’m interested in one metric – conversion to sales.
Conversion to Sales
Website: 29.5% of sales
Facebook: 4% of sales
Twitter: 1.5% of sales
Print: 2% of sales
Book: 9% of sales
E-book: 7% of sales
Email newsletter and blog combined: 42% of sales
Seminars: 5%
The old rules of online marketing beat social media by a mile, period.
See you later, FB and Twitter…
Writes Floyd Norris in the New York Times:
The Business Roundtable, a group comprising 200 of the largest companies in the United States, is out with a “study” that claims to show that the United States levies excessively high tax rates on companies. It actually shows nothing of the kind.
This is the sort of thing that makes business look E-V-I-L.
What is the Business Roundtable? Another version of the US Chamber of Commerce? And just who are the members of this august organization?
Surprise! They’re only the CEOs of the “most respected” companies in the US.
Have they no shame? No sense of decency?
The CEOs should be embarrassed, but instead they keep playing this absurd, deceptive game. We have come to expect this sort of behavior from the oil and coal lobby, but not you. To Bank of America, General Electric, Xerox, Wal-Mart, UPS, Target, SAP, Pepsico, Microsoft, and Procter and Gamble: Grow up, ladies and gentlemen. You are hurting both democracy and capitalism. Not to mention your brand.
Good on you, Google and Apple, for not being part of this institutional lying machine.
This chart by the folks at the Eurasia Group, got me thinking. Something just doesn’t make sense:
Then it hit me. This is a rather conventional way to screen for global opportunities. If we looked at other screens like “innovation potential,” “middle class expansion rate,” “Gini coefficient shrinkage,” or “corruption index,”you’d see a very different picture.
I was recently going through this report by Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang
when a “Deja-Vu all-over-again” wave came over me: this is exactly
what happened with corporate community managers – back in the heady days
of “community” (see JH3’s Net Gain).
Except that there was a third career path: striking off on your own.
That’s what I did with Double Loop Marketing. And it’s still the best professional decision I ever made.
[NOTE: This post was cross-posted on Alex Bogusky‘s FearLess Revolution; I’ll be posting some thoughts there as well from now on.]
Years ago, when I was a kid just out of college at my first job, I had an interesting chat with the legal counsel for the world’s largest engineering and construction company. We were talking about ethics and business. [All of this was before Enron and WorldCom, before Michael Moore’s Sicko or the BP oil spill.]
His advice?
As I recall, he called it the “New York Times Test” – which went something like this: if your actions or behavior show up on the front page of the New York Times, could you still face your family without embarrassment?
The point he was making was that it wasn’t about being legal or adhering to the law. Ethics was about doing the right thing above and beyond the law, because you’re going to judged by the standards set by your family, not the courts.
Today, we might just call this the WikiLeaks Test.
In other words, if you’re engaged in private activities which will cause you public grief – stop. Pretend all your actions are transparent – open to the public. For all you know, they already are!
Seth Godin posts a very insightful blog entry on the HBR site. He’s talking about the challenges of marketing at the bottom of the pyramid:
When someone in poverty buys a device that improves productivity, the
device pays for itself (if it didn’t, they wouldn’t buy it.) So a drip
irrigation system, for example, may pay off by creating two or three
harvests a year instead of one.
Read all about it >>
The $300 House Challenge is showing us that individuals and companies are willing to make a difference.
Check out WorldHaus from Bill Gross and his team at IdeaLab. Read his Harvard Business Review post on the “design challenge” here >>
The Gap screws up with their logo redesign. A giant failure of imagination in the boardroom.
But Umair Haque asks the right questions:
Seriously.
We all need to wake up. The Chamber of Commerce approach to design isn’t going to work anymore.
David Smith‘s HBR post on the financial challenge of the $300 House raises some very important issues:
Cracking the challenge of slums is the world’s biggest problem of the next quarter-century, because the ecology of slums and the ecology of cities are linked. We cannot have a healthy global economy without healthy cities, and we cannot have healthy cities without tackling slums.
Join us >>
We’re building a “creationspace” (JSB’s word) for the $300 House-for-the-Poor at 300house.com >>
Please sign up, and tell your friends!
Here it is. The new song from Steel Pulse – for the people of Haiti.
At: www.holdon4haiti.org >>
Watch Paul Farmer explain:
Disclosure: SELF is my client, and I helped facilitate the project.
Ever since the Haiti earthquake, I’ve been thinking about why we don’t have a quick-build house made of sustainable materials at a price point that the poor can afford (with micro-credit if needed).
The $300 House-for-the-Poor is an extension of the concept of “reverse innovation” (inspired by my client and friend VG) in which innovations developed in poor countries are then brought back for use in developed countries and other parts of the world. Housing impacts health, energy, education, and security.
What if we could build sustainably designed houses for the world’s poor at an affordable cost? What if these same designs could provide relief to refugees and victims of natural disasters? The we I’m referring to is a collaborative of companies, governments, and NGOs.
This type of a structure will be engineered in the same way the TATA Nano was engineered – without the traditional assumptions.
Once built, the $300 house should be used across the globe – from Haiti, to Africa, India, and yes, even in this country, to help the homeless.
So what are we waiting for? It’s time to get busy designing the $300 House!
The political intentions of our GOP friends would leave the US with a hollowed-out economy.
Here is an example of how Obama’s unpopular bail-out for the auto-industry led to the creation of a new and critical cleantech industry – electric batteries – in this country. What say you, FOX News?
Watch:
Good for you Alex Bogusky! Can this ex-ad-man save the planet?
More on Hunter Lovins and Catherine Greener >>
Go J.R.! Note he mentions my client – the Solar Electric Light Fund. Stay tuned for more news about them…
I like the SolarWorld ads Hagman does quite a bit. Here he’s talking to Sue Ellen (who seems to be blaming him for BP’s mess in the Gulf):
Shine, baby, shine! Well said, Larry Hagman!
The thing about Hagman is he put his money where his mouth is – years ago – by converting his estate to solar, before solar was cool.
Question: Will President Obama invite Kindra Arnesan to the White House? She represents “We the People,” not “Them the Corporations.”
Run for governor, Kindra!
Now we know that our corporate newsmedia isn’t going to cover this, let’s see if Rolling Stone magazine or The Daily Show will. Funny when the news comes from the edge, not the center. The center continues to not hold…
For the first time, in 2010, online advertising will pass traditional advertising on TV and print:
While this is remarkable, I can tell you where the highest ROI is.
It’s with the Republican party. You can buy every single Republican vote for a paltry $34 million, as the health care circus has shown us.
Wow. Who needs Google when all you need is the budget for one Superbowl ad. Think about that: all it takes to buy the entire GOP is one Superbowl ad. There goes the future of our country.
PS – On a side note, I wonder what it takes to buy our Supreme Court… 5 bucks to Clarence Thomas’ wife?
Just a few days ago I praised Forrester‘s decision to create individual blogs for all their analysts. So they finally get it, I thought. Boy, was I wrong!
Yesterday I noticed how their migration to the new blogging platform was executed:
Yes, that’s the dreaded “The requested page could not be found” message.
Apparently, for Forrester, moving to a new platform means all old URLs die.
This is just so wrong. Linkrot is a common mistake that companies and institutions make all too often. For this to happen at an institution like Forrester shows me they don’t understand web basics. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of big companies have made this mistake, but for Forrester it’s inexcusable!
Maybe Forrester should have a chat with Jakob Nielsen. Check this:
Any URL that has ever been exposed to the Internet should live forever: never let any URL die since doing so means that other sites that link to you will experience linkrot. If these sites are conscientious, they will eventually update the link, but not all sites do so. Thus, many potential new users will be met by an error message the first time they visit your site instead of getting the valuable content they were expecting. Remember, people follow links because they want something on your site: the best possible introduction and more valuable than any advertising for attracting new customers.
and
At other times, it becomes necessary to re-architect a site and impose a new structure. Even then, the rule continues to be: you are not allowed to break any old links. The solution is to set up a set of redirects: a scheme whereby the server tells the browser that the requested page is to be found at a new URL. All decent browsers will automatically take the user to the new URL, and really good browsers will even update their bookmark database to use the new URL in the future if the user had bookmarked the old URL.
I remember when the same stupid mistake was made by Harvard Business Review back when they switched domains from hbswk.hbs.edu to harvardbusiness.org. Overnight, they destroyed their online ecosystem, as Forrester has just done.
What’s the big deal, you ask? In today’s connected world, this is brand destruction plain and simple. Not the way to build an attention platform.
Every now and then, a CEO or company founder asks me one (or both) of these two questions:
1) must I have a separate blog from the company site?
2) do I have to use my name on the blog?
My answer depends on the individual. It’s quite simple, really.
If I think they’re a thought-leader in their industry – that’s to say their opinions and ideas lead the field – then I often encourage them to blog under their own name on a blog that stands outside their company domain (more on that in a second).
The key assumption is that they are thought leaders. If I don’t get this assumption right, we are all wasting time. There’s no point setting up a double-loop model if you aren’t going to have something important to add to the conversation. Here’s what to do instead: have a company blog, put your press releases on it, and talk about your products. Have your agency Twitter and Facebook away to their heart’s content. Just don’t call it thought leadership, because it isn’t.
So, now that we’ve established that, let’s look at what is thought-leadership.
How do you know you are a thought leader? Here are some clues:
1) people you’ve never heard of start emailing you long (relevant) notes about something you said on your blog
2) your clients start reading your blog – so do analysts, journalists, and others you respect
3) you notice your blog gets ten times more traffic than your company website
4) you start getting calls from prospects asking for your services (and products)
If these four things don’t happen, (1) you’re not blogging right, or worse, (2) you aren’t a thought leader.
Now let’s talk about individuals and why using your name is actually a very good idea.
Authenticity. People relate to other people. We see this in entertainment: Oprah, Martha Stewart, David Letterman, Elvis, Bob Marley; in sports: Shaun White, Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele, Ali (and unfortunately Tiger Woods); and in business: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Jeffrey Immelt. So if you’re the founder or CEO, and you have a message worth getting out, you want people to know who you are. The connection is personal not corporate.
Passion. If you believe fiercely in what you say, do, and think, then it is this passion that people want to connect to – directly. Without that PR person. Passion can’t be staged.
Trust. Your voice as an individual is far more trustworthy than a faceless corp. And you are believable when you believe.
Findability. People search for names. So if you write a book, they’ll search for you, the author. “Byron Katie”* gets 10X more searches than “The Work,” for example.
Longevity. As a person, you live till you die. You may switch companies, or labels, or publishers. You, the brand, stays constant. Your attention platform is how you go direct to the customer, no resellers necessary. Your followers stay with you forever.
Ideas. Companies don’t have good ideas, people do. Good ideas originate in the heads of your people. These are your thought-leaders. Don’t make them anonymous thinking this will help your company; it won’t.
The Brand. Too much has been said about you, the brand. A company can renovate its brand by hiring an ad agency. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to be real.
Lately, even large companies are seeing the benefits of using thought leaders as ambassadors for their brands.
So we see Don Tapscott and Tammy Erickson* at NGenera, JSB* and John Hagel* at Deloitte, Chris Meyer at Monitor, etc. etc.
At academic institutions we see examples like Vijay Govindarajan* at Dartmouth and Tom Davenport* and Larry Prusak* at Babson College.
The CEO blog works well for startups and SMBs as well: Gaurav Bhalla* for Knowledge Kinetics, Francis Cholle* for The Human Company, Dean McMann* for McMann & Ransford, Phil Townsend* at Townsend and Associates, Bob Freling at SELF, and Steven Feinberg* at Steven Feinberg Inc.
When a blog is shared – i.e. when more than one executive participate – then it is alright to pick another name, usually connected to the topic we want to blog about. See: Steve Lesem* at Mezeo.
* disclosure: Tammy Erickson, JSB, JH3, VG, Tom Davenport, Larry Prusak, Gaurav Bhalla, Francis Cholle, Dean McMann, Phil Townsend, Bob Freling, Byron Katie, and Steve Lesem are some of my clients.
Vijay Govindarajan on the HBR blog: The U.S. Must Grab the Lead on Green. High time our business leaders started leading, as VG encourages them to do.
According to VG:
At the company level, many energy businesses are unwilling to
cannibalize their existing services and their current investments. At
the national level, the same dynamics are in play. Aided and abetted by
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the traditional energy lobby (oil, coal)
is using its political and economic muscle to stifle innovation in
alternative energy and clean technologies.
Don’t get me started on the losers at the US Chamber of Commerce!
A nice story from the World Bank blog about a grass-roots organization‘s efforts to stop petty corruption in India and around the world:
…the idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the
University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how
widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up
with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out
to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his
resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse,
widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people. He
thought these notes would be a way to get people to show their
disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The notes
did just that. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such
demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee
notes to date since it began this initiative. Along the way, the
organization has collected many stories from people using them to
successfully resist engaging in bribery.
I like it. Now let’s send some “zero dollars” to the Famous Five justices Supreme Court, the Blue-Dog Democrats, and the entire Republican party.
No excuses.
First Tylenol, now Toyota. Same old story. Silence is not damage control.
Now the NHTSA is looking at the pedal maker. There must be a way to check the electronics – some way to look at the log files, perhaps?
Note that both companies are blaming their suppliers.
Is this the result of in-house PR?
Orville Schell’s portrait of a Nation that says “No, We Can’t”.
Somehow, I think that the US still offers the world the best way forward.
Yes, despite the lobbyists and the money-grubbing pirates in high office, there is still hope.
Don’t give in, America.
Go Google, Go!
It’s time. The Chinese government never has any qualms about “doing evil,” so it’s good to see Google stand up for some principles.
What a wonderful world. While you were wrapping Christmas presents, China decided to lock up Liu Xiaobo and throw away the key.
Xiaobo’s crime? He drafted Charter 08, which demands the open election of public
officials, freedom of religion and expression, and the abolition of
subversion laws.
His wife’s cell phone mysteriously stopped working so she could not be reached by the press. Nice touch.
See Wikipedia >>
If this is how the New China plays the world, it looks too much like the Old China.
We need a new strategy to deal with this kind of stupidity. Obama can start by inviting the Dalai Lama to the White House.
This is how the government in the UK is helping the public understand the significance of Copenhagen.
In the US we’ve got Sarah “Snake Oil” Palin – who is only too happy to urge a boycott.
Why is she still in the news?
Insights on Anger, fear, and escalation of commitment
via strategy-business.com
“…angry employees are more likely to commit further resources to a failing project or choice. By contrast, fear makes people second-guess themselves and often abandon support for efforts that have gone even slightly off the tracks.”
OK. What happens when you have other emotions like sadness, joy, or just plain happiness? Do you make stupid decisions when you delude yourself? Or does a cynic make better decisions?
This is something that keeps happening with IBM’s FTP server.
I was just trying to download this report: Seizing the advantage. When and how to innovate your business model”…
I have to say, this happens all the time on the site.
What’s going on IBM? This is not exactly the best way to win friends and influence prospects.
P.S. – will let you know if I ever get to the document!
UPDATE: Not sure if this is the same document, but I found it on the UK site.
UPDATE #2: Look what I found at Booz >>
UPDATE #3: And this from EY >>
How do you encourage curiosity across a global organization?
“Many consultants out there would rather just give answers and are even afraid to ask questions. We deliberately hire people who aren’t like that, even early in their careers, and senior consultants coach them on how to be inquisitive. Sometimes that means asking a client’s managers very difficult questions, really pushing them hard to reveal or do things they’re not comfortable with–getting a CEO to explain lagging sales, for example, or to acknowledge why a competitor’s pulling ahead. Other times that means encouraging constructive dissent–deliberately engaging with people who disagree with you and being willing to probe them on their point of view. That can be tricky, but persistent questioning usually produces the best solutions.”
– Orit Gadiesh in an interview HBR, Sept. 2009
Remember when she debuted? Too bad her purple reign is over…
Listen to this:
Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin, a new study finds. Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. The results, presented October 20 at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, may help explain the changes in the brain that lead people to overeat.
So is this another example of addiction as a business strategy – similar to what the tobacco companies were doing earlier?
Maybe that’s why the IT geeks have such a hard time implementing Lean IT >>
If you haven’t heard about free2work.org, you will. This is part of a growing explosion of consumer-education organizations dedicated to exposing “worst practices” among multinationals.
The hope is that if consumers know what is going on, they will vote with their purchasing power and seek out the companies that are doing good. I’m all for it. Who wouldn’t be? Oh, I forgot about the US Chamber of Commerce…
On the academic side of things, we see the same story emerging:
Rosabeth Moss Kanter‘s latest book, SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good
Maybe Doug Smith was just a little ahead of the times when he wrote On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We in an Age of Me
Now we see that Bob Marley is going to be sold like soap.
Is this the end of the Marley brand?
Are we going to see Marley toilet seats and diapers?
Here comes Marley Cola, extra sharp.
Or: Marley chewing gum.
Or: Marley underwear:
Or: Marley real estate.
Or: Marley leisure wear.
Or: Marley golf clubs.
Rasta don’t work for no CIA, but he’ll work for a private-equity firm.
Shame on you Rita and Ziggy. Shame.
This could kill Bob for real.
Step one: Know who you are…
borrowed from Alina Wheeler’s Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
>>
Phil Townsend wonders why GE hasn’t opened up it’s Reverse Innovation model in his post: Opening up Reverse Innovation >>
Townsend makes a good point:
So why can’t a company like GE follow down this path with “open reverse innovation”
– inviting small companies in India and China to submit their products,
services and ideas to be evaluated by GE for global distribution. Of
course, the open model would require an environment of trust –
but what better way to create goodwill in new markets than to be seen
as a development partner in the China, India, and resource-starved
Africa? A.G. Lafley sits on GE’s board; surely he could help them get started.
Townsend also proposes the formation of innovation collaboratives funded by companies like GE to create a pipeline of new products for GE.
Not a bad idea, if you consider that a recent
McKinsey survey found that 20% of companies have opened up their
innovation processes to employees and customers and they report a 20%
rise in the number of innovations, on average.
Mezeo’s Steve Lesem explains how Cloud Storage is a disruptive innovation:
The common assumption is that the traditional IT vendors will be disrupted by cloud computing offerings from Amazon and Google.
The truth is, Amazon and Google may eventually impact this market, but
they will not be the first to disrupt traditional IT service
providers.Already we see hosting providers like Rackspace and SoftLayer provide their own suite of differentiated cloud offerings.
My thinking is that the entire cloud story is a paradigm shift for IT. See this article I just co-authored: Considerations for Migrating to the Cloud: How Cloud Computing is Changing the Enterprise »
See also: Lesem’s Cloud Storage and The Innovator’s Dilemma »
Edo Segal has an interesting guest blog at TechCrunch describing the “Future of Media.”
He points to Apple’s App Store as an example of what the rest need to learn:
The only way to block the incredible ease of pirating any content a
media company can generate is to couple said experiences with
extensions that live in the cloud and enhance that experience for
consumers. Not just for some fancy DRM but for real value creation.
They must begin to create a product that is not simply a static digital
file that can be easily copied and distributed, but rather view media
as a dynamic “application” with extensions via the web. This howl is
the future evolution of the media industry. It has arrived from a
company that is delivering the goods. Apple has made it painless for
consumers to spend money and get the media they want where they want
it, proving that consumers are happy to pay for media if delivered in
ways that make it easy and blissful to consume.
He also states, rather matter of factly, that “he premise of extending the media experience to the cloud is a core
necessity for the survival and growth of the media industry.” I agree. The media industry needs to “sell access and experiences, not media files.”
So how does an artist or a media company build these experiences?
I’ve been doing some thinking along these lines for a band I’ve followed for many years – Steel Pulse. What’s interesting is that while the band has a huge, global, cross-generational following built over the past 35 years – the media companies that were responsible for promoting them have done absolutely nothing to tap into this enthusiasm. Not one thing.
The same goes for most of my business thought-leader clients as well. The publishing houses do nothing to create a conversation with the passionate fans.
Engagement is the key. How does a musician or an author engage with their audience, their fan-base? It starts with the quality of the conversation. And let me tell you, it’s far easier for an individual thought-leader or musician to do this than companies, largely because companies are too formal, too corporate, and don’t usually communicate with a human voice.
What’s needed is a way to go direct.
Let the celebrity or thought-leader engage with their fans directly to build an attention platform, unique to the celebrity. The company that empowers this attention platform, and builds new services for the fans, will build the next media empire with the “lock-in” that comes with authentic engagement.
Of course, none of this works without authenticity. The celebrity must remain true to themselves. In Steel Pulse’s case, this means they need to stick to their core brand dimensions. So each successive album, each song, each product, each statement, builds on the Steel Pulse Experience.
They could even track the core messages of a successful album – in this case “True Democracy” – and extend their meaning in new songs and releases:
So now let’s talk engagement, and I’ll break it into two simple phases – push and pull (borrowed from JSB and JH3).
Phase One: PUSH
So what does the celebrity do today? In Britney Spears‘ case, she’s
tweeting her launch of a new song. To me that’s not much of anything.
Yes, she’s reaching out through social media -Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace – but these are all still one way marketing pitches – push media.
The artist pushes their songs, their products, their newsletter, their tweets, etc. etc. No discussion, no give and take. Products are created and sold. One market, one size fits all. Core fans are treated the same as newbies. Nothing special except the show and the products – media files: audio or video. See what I’m getting at?
All of this is still just pushing product.
Phase Two: PULL
What happens if the fans come to you – with their suggestions, requests, and insights? What happens when they want to participate? Is it possible to co-create products and services based on insights from yoru fans? Of course it is.
Start the conversation. Go 80/20: focus on the 20% of fans that will get you 80% of your profits. Start talking (and listening) to your biggest supporters.
Engage: physically meet the 20%. Create special events for them. In soccer for example, fans pay $30-50 dollars just to watch Cristiano Ronaldo practice. What’s wrong with doing a 30 minute sound check for your fans? Invite them to the sound check – and have exclusive “sound check products” available only for these fans – available at the event, and online as well. You could even have a question and answer session that they get to download later that evening.
Then of course you sell the live version of the show – for a “limited time only.” Vary the show slightly with the song set, so every night is a different.
Let your fans download the raw tracks and make their own mixes. Have a contest for the best mixes. Sell the mixes to other fans. Use them in your album.
And when you create a new album, it’s version-time. Reggae music has a long history of selling versions. What’s sad is they’ve stopped this traditional practice when really they need to be exploiting it. (See Hal Varian on versioning.) So every song should have the following versions: album version, extended version, dub version, accapella version, acoustic version, dance version, Nyabinghi version, etc. etc.
Talk to the fans about the songs through webcasts, band-calls. Let then know where and what’s next. Let them vote on what you should do next.
For legacy songs, make sure you sell versions-in-time. The 1983 version of Chant a Psalm a Day is quite different from the 2000 version, which again is totally different from the 2009 version. Real fans want them all.
All of this is do-able today. It’s not about technology, it’s about attitude, and the ability to communicate, to lead. For a cause-driven band like Steel Pulse, this is their opportunity to shine.
And let your fans share in creating and spreading your experience.
Now let’s take a quick look at the business world.
VG, as he’s called affectionately, is an author and well known strategist. His latest article in the Harvard Business Review, co-authored with Jeffery Immelt and Chris Trimble, has been a huge success – introducing the world to a concept called reverse innovation.
What we’re doing now is building his engagement strategy – through his innovation newsletter. The idea is to start a conversation about innovation with the people most interested in this topic.
A small step to start, but I know from experience that a “simple” newsletter can drive over 50% of monthly sales online.
The great news is anyone can build an attention platform like this. And if you have something important to say, your platform will bring you the attention you deserve.
It may even elect you President!
As I was finishing up on this, I just saw a tweet from John Hagel on author platforms (read here). Again, if Apple can help an author or musician build that platform, then Apple will “lock-in” that artist for life. Same goes for Amazon.com. The distribution model for media is changed forever, period.
