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Prepare for the unexpected
Imagine that you are a pilot and you have to fly through a 5 mile canyon upside down. It’s actually kind of hard to imagine because it’s not something you’re trained to do but it’s something that could...
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What matters: Don’t waste your customers time
In the past month I spent close to 9 hours with support representatives from a couple of companies with whom I’ve had issues with. One is Sprint and the other is Dell. While 9 hours in a month doesn’t...
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What business are you really in?
It’s not the most obvious one. Do you think Zappos is in the online retail business? Not according to Tony Hsieh: “We’re in the experience & emotions business — the stories & memories...
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No competition = No innovation?
Can there be innovation without competition? David Armano posited this question on his blog and I thought I add my own thoughts to the question and hopefully incite some useful discussion. I actually...
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Another reason why benchmarking against competitors is stupid
One of the problems of measuring an organizations innovativeness is R&D spending. If you ask people: Who’s more innovative between Apple and Microsoft? They’ll say Apple. Yet if we measure them...
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Don’t look for examples, be the example
I have a client who has (so far) the only SaaS payroll management solution for small businesses in Mexico. This is both great and bad. Let me explain… In our initial meeting I was told they used...
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It matters how you play the game. Not just being first.
A few weeks ago Techcrunch published an article about a startup that got seed money from a well know group of VC’s. And because this startup is working on a similar concept that my team and I are...
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Competitive advantage in social media: Carpe Diem Stupid!
R.I.P. after 6 years of use Yesterday one of the surge protectors in my house, the Back-UPS 500 from APC, finally gave up on me after 6 years. Since I’m using another surge protector from Belkin to...
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3 Ways to help customers win
“It’s not enough that we win; all others must lose.” – Larry Ellison Heard this one yesterday. I’m all in for competition, but business isn’t about war (at some point I used to think like Genghis Khan...
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How can a business differentiate without changing the product itself?
Via Quora: What can you change in a business that is strong enough to differentiate the business from all competitors, but without touching the product itself? For example, GILT, changed PRICE but...
View ArticleInnovators widen their view of competition
I’m sure you’ve been in meetings where everyone worries about competition more than they worry about customers. It is a fact that for traditionally run businesses, any talk about strategy quickly...
View ArticleWhat’s the secret sauce of a culture of innovation?
This Thursday we’ll discuss “Measuring an innovation ecosystem” on Innochat. Many will argue that to develop a culture of innovation you need talent, support, capital and a host of other mechanisms....
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6 of the most common strategy traps
Strategy without change is pointless, and doing what everyone else is doing is not a strategy; it’s a key principle most business people don’t get. Take the most common advice you hear out there: don’t...
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In the future you are either a digital business or a dead business
Today, every business is digital and it’s changing how business is done. But many businesses have yet to wake up and understand this reality. Look at the chart below, I’m sure your business is lacking...
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Platform Revolution: How Platforms Change Strategy with Geoffrey Parker
The internet is the big disruptor of our time, changing the advantage from products to platforms. Case in point, Uber, Airbnb and PayPal. They all disrupted their markets when they launched. Today...
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Chaos Learning: The Key To Mastering Uncertainty
It’s a given that The Next Economy will be driven by 10 essential technologies, some of which are already a big part of our daily lives. What’s not a given is we don’t know how everything will play...
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How Startups Slay Giants
Illustration credit Christian Laborin Slaying giants is fun, almost every new disruptive company slays a giant or two. Last week I had a chat with a team based in Puebla Mexico working on a cool...
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Contrarian Mindset: The Courage to Be Wrong
A couple of months ago I republished a list of all the ways Misfits (innovators) are misunderstood in the workplace and what they want from their boss to be able to get along with them. It got a great...
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Tim Grover: The Language of Winning
Everyone knows who Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are. But, do you know who was their trainer throughout their careers? Their trainer was Tim Grover. Tim knows a lot about winning from having spent so...
View ArticleThe Marginal Gains Philosophy: How to Achieve Big Results Through Small...
We all want to get better, some more than others, at whatever it is that we do. But, most fail and end up being average. Talent alone won’t make you great, but obsession will. Obsessing about the...
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