Funny how you think about what you want to be when you grow up. At 55 you think I might know.
How dull would that be? I am supposed to be thinking about retirement…spare me!
So…sorry Mum I still don’t know.
But one of these would be fun.
Enjoy…
http://worldfuturetrends.tumblr.com/post/26977197756/futuristlab-the-role-of-futurists
Friday, 13 July 2012
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Customer Service - Solutions or Outcomes
I have noticed a huge shift in the customer service being rolled out at Coles. Not that I want this to be an advertisement for a large supermarket chain (I try to support the independents whenever I can) - but they have very much lifted their customer service game.
Which reminded me, in a very round about sort of way, about a chapter I had read in the book (hardcopy not e-book) Managing Creativity and Innovation, Practical Strategies to Encourage Creativity published by Harvard Business Press.
We spend a lot of time surveying customers, asking for feedback about satisfaction levels, what they would like to see improved, customer service, product suggestions etc.etc.etc. I have been asked to complete so many on-line surveys that the whole idea has become quite passe to me (but I still fill them in - you just never know). I often wonder what they will actually do with the results and whether my time has been appreciated. And I have read so many stats that have been interpreted so many different ways that I wonder at their interpretation and validity anyway. The truth is always in the pudding as they say - what are the resulting changes?
And I wonder if we spend time truly listening to what people say. Indulge me for yet another moment while I go on about the difference between hearing and listening. You see hearing is a physical process involving sound waves, auditory canals, villi in the ear canals, brain pathways - I am sure you get the picture. Listening on the other hand is paying attention to, heeding.
And another thing, do we really want to ask our potential clients/customers what products or services they want? A common retort here is that had the inventor of the automobile asked people of that time what they wanted at the time in terms of transport, the reply would have been a faster horse!
The above mentioned chapter suggests instead that we should be asking our customers/clients about the outcomes they desire. What is it that we can offer that would make life better for them?
Tony Ulwick is the founder of Strategyn, a company formed around the principle of Outcome Driven Innovation. He talks in terms of outcomes. He uses as his example the case of music storage. Had you asked music lovers how they wanted to store their music, just a few short years ago, their replies would have included larger CD racks, alphabetical systems, cases that don't crack or break and so on. These are all solutions...
An outcomes approach on the other hand would include suggestions such as access to a lot of songs, a system that resisted damage to the source of the music, something that took up minimal storage space and other similar ideas. Ulwick suggests that this is the difference between outcome and solution based thinking.
Of course, the task doesn't end with the collection of the desired outcomes...the next step could involve prioritising the outcomes according to their importance to customers, and then realising those outcomes into the business or organisation.
BUT - and there is always a but - we also have to beware of remaining too close/loyal to the thinking and ideas of current clients/customers. The risk indicated is the potential to limit innovative options. It's a balancing act really. Thanks goodness the research is out about Trusting Your Gut Instincts...
Which reminded me, in a very round about sort of way, about a chapter I had read in the book (hardcopy not e-book) Managing Creativity and Innovation, Practical Strategies to Encourage Creativity published by Harvard Business Press.
We spend a lot of time surveying customers, asking for feedback about satisfaction levels, what they would like to see improved, customer service, product suggestions etc.etc.etc. I have been asked to complete so many on-line surveys that the whole idea has become quite passe to me (but I still fill them in - you just never know). I often wonder what they will actually do with the results and whether my time has been appreciated. And I have read so many stats that have been interpreted so many different ways that I wonder at their interpretation and validity anyway. The truth is always in the pudding as they say - what are the resulting changes?
And I wonder if we spend time truly listening to what people say. Indulge me for yet another moment while I go on about the difference between hearing and listening. You see hearing is a physical process involving sound waves, auditory canals, villi in the ear canals, brain pathways - I am sure you get the picture. Listening on the other hand is paying attention to, heeding.
And another thing, do we really want to ask our potential clients/customers what products or services they want? A common retort here is that had the inventor of the automobile asked people of that time what they wanted at the time in terms of transport, the reply would have been a faster horse!
The above mentioned chapter suggests instead that we should be asking our customers/clients about the outcomes they desire. What is it that we can offer that would make life better for them?
Tony Ulwick is the founder of Strategyn, a company formed around the principle of Outcome Driven Innovation. He talks in terms of outcomes. He uses as his example the case of music storage. Had you asked music lovers how they wanted to store their music, just a few short years ago, their replies would have included larger CD racks, alphabetical systems, cases that don't crack or break and so on. These are all solutions...
An outcomes approach on the other hand would include suggestions such as access to a lot of songs, a system that resisted damage to the source of the music, something that took up minimal storage space and other similar ideas. Ulwick suggests that this is the difference between outcome and solution based thinking.
Of course, the task doesn't end with the collection of the desired outcomes...the next step could involve prioritising the outcomes according to their importance to customers, and then realising those outcomes into the business or organisation.
BUT - and there is always a but - we also have to beware of remaining too close/loyal to the thinking and ideas of current clients/customers. The risk indicated is the potential to limit innovative options. It's a balancing act really. Thanks goodness the research is out about Trusting Your Gut Instincts...
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Mystery's a Fact...man
Apologies for the title...let me explain. I have written many songs in my life, as I know, has my fellow Create and Innovate Musketeer Christina. I have only one that I will claim is any good (quite prolific eh?) It's titled 'Hi and Low' and has as it's bridge the following...
"Said goodbye to some I loved
Did I love em strong enough
Only they'll ever know.
We gotta celebrate the act man
Cause Mystery's a fact man
Hi and Low..."
If I could upload the mp3 file I'd let you have a listen.
Anyway the point I am slowly getting to is that Change is Certain.
As Innovators and Creators we should all embrace the space. Indeed we must inhabit the space.
We can not prove an Innovation will work.
We can only sense that we or something needs to Change. And no more intensely than now.
And we don't know at what point in the cycle we are at any given time (that's hindsights job)
That's why I believe Innovation and it's friends Imagination, Creativity and Collaboration have to be incorporated into our lives, both public and private.
I stumbled across this quantum physics definition that took my fancy today after reading a post by Create and Innovate on the facebook page (go and like it now) about Uncertainty.
https://www.facebook.com/createninnovate
" The Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that the more one knows about where a particle (person;sic) is right now, the less one knows about how fast it is going and the direction that it is going. This also works the other way around: the more one knows about how fast the particle is going and the direction it is going, the less one knows about where it is right now".
So I don't know what you make of that definition (I would love to hear).
It somehow appealed to my sense of Mystery that surrounds all of our existence.
Ommmmm.
Kevin Coffey
"Said goodbye to some I loved
Did I love em strong enough
Only they'll ever know.
We gotta celebrate the act man
Cause Mystery's a fact man
Hi and Low..."
If I could upload the mp3 file I'd let you have a listen.
Anyway the point I am slowly getting to is that Change is Certain.
As Innovators and Creators we should all embrace the space. Indeed we must inhabit the space.
We can not prove an Innovation will work.
We can only sense that we or something needs to Change. And no more intensely than now.
And we don't know at what point in the cycle we are at any given time (that's hindsights job)
That's why I believe Innovation and it's friends Imagination, Creativity and Collaboration have to be incorporated into our lives, both public and private.
I stumbled across this quantum physics definition that took my fancy today after reading a post by Create and Innovate on the facebook page (go and like it now) about Uncertainty.
https://www.facebook.com/createninnovate
" The Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that the more one knows about where a particle (person;sic) is right now, the less one knows about how fast it is going and the direction that it is going. This also works the other way around: the more one knows about how fast the particle is going and the direction it is going, the less one knows about where it is right now".
So I don't know what you make of that definition (I would love to hear).
It somehow appealed to my sense of Mystery that surrounds all of our existence.
Ommmmm.
Kevin Coffey
Monday, 25 June 2012
A Faster Horse
Gotta love Steve...
Don’t be a focus- group slave
When Jobs took his original Macintosh team on its first retreat, one member asked whether they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. “No,” Jobs replied, “because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” He invoked Henry Ford’s line: “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’”
Read this on the plane to India...see the whole Fin Review article here...
A Faster Horse
Kevin Coffey
Don’t be a focus- group slave
When Jobs took his original Macintosh team on its first retreat, one member asked whether they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. “No,” Jobs replied, “because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” He invoked Henry Ford’s line: “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’”
Read this on the plane to India...see the whole Fin Review article here...
A Faster Horse
Kevin Coffey
Friday, 22 June 2012
Dear Retail - Your Sales Just Aren't Enough
And I don't mean - increase the percentage off or give me more for less...I mean as consumers, we aren't duped by the term SALE anymore. Myer have had 30% off footwear for months now but every time they advertise they make it sound like a bigger and better sale than the one that came before. We won't be duped I hear consumers cry! Translation - we're not idiots so stop treating us like idiots!
So let's talk about the Retail Experience. I don't mean the internet retail experience and I don't want to talk about the damage that online is doing to stores. For the record, I am no fan of closing stores in favour of internet retail. In my book all that's going to do is make for less social contact, less part time work for students (read how on earth will they develop a good work ethic) and the flow on from all that is still unknown - really. I want to talk about Bricks and Mortar retail.
Walk into a shopping centre. Talk about same old same old. Oh they have been renovated, expanded, updated, onlined...but fundamentally what has really changed? Walk into a Westfield or a GPT centre and you see the same brands in the same shops and sometimes they have a different shell. I was completely dumfounded/gobsmacked/horrified, when at the International Airport in Sydney I found myself confronted with the SAME STORES. Had I been beamed up to Westfield or GPT? Was this a nightmare? Where were the niche, quality, artistic, UNIQUE stores I had fantasised about?
Thank goodness for centres like the Junction Village, Darby Street, the little shopping village at Lambton and others like them - at least they offer consumers that something different! Unfortunately many of the operators are having to close the doors because they can't compete and they're not being supported.
I am tired - tired of having my senses offended by the over stimulation provided by too much product in a small space - make that too much of the SAME product in a small space. It might work in Singapore, where there are endless malls, with endless shops, with endless product but it doesn't do it for me. I know - all you true shopaholics are now gasping and in a state of shock - but this is my blog and you are free to comment!
Renew Newcastle (thanks Marcus, Marnie, Siobhan and others) are an example of how innovative ideas can create and revitalise a retail experience. Renew Newcastle supports and encourages niche stores with niche, quality, handmade, artistic local product.
Another change in retail is becoming evident with the focus returning (brace yourselves) to where it should be - back to the customer, read customer service and customer experience. I caught a glimpse of an Are You Being Served rerun on free to air TV(my children love it) the other day and it was remarkable. What goes around certainly does come around! Full circle back to customer service. I mentioned to someone on the counter at Coles that I had had trouble with a product and she informed me that part of the new training was to make it up to customers when they weren't happy. She replaced my product! Dumbfounded/gobsmacked and pleasantly surprised this time! I remember when you had to have a receipt, a signed affidavit and a witness to get a replacement, and you had to be extremely brave, prepped and well prepared to venture in for a refund...
Westfield and Sportsgirl are all about adding to the customer experience. Walk into their domains and you are likely to find a stylist who will help you put it all together. Clever and effective. Apple have been all about the customer experience for quite some time, from greeting you at the door to ensuring that you can close a purchase from anywhere in the store and not just at a point of sale register.
In store innovations are being implemented all over the world. Theatre, sound, new technology, digital media and the integration of sustainable retailing are being used to improve or simply change the customer experience. If you want to read more try this article http://www.popai.com.au/news/june-2010/marketing-at-retail-innovations-set-to-transform-how-australians-shop.aspx
or simply google innovations in retail. You can only wonder what's next...
So let's talk about the Retail Experience. I don't mean the internet retail experience and I don't want to talk about the damage that online is doing to stores. For the record, I am no fan of closing stores in favour of internet retail. In my book all that's going to do is make for less social contact, less part time work for students (read how on earth will they develop a good work ethic) and the flow on from all that is still unknown - really. I want to talk about Bricks and Mortar retail.
Walk into a shopping centre. Talk about same old same old. Oh they have been renovated, expanded, updated, onlined...but fundamentally what has really changed? Walk into a Westfield or a GPT centre and you see the same brands in the same shops and sometimes they have a different shell. I was completely dumfounded/gobsmacked/horrified, when at the International Airport in Sydney I found myself confronted with the SAME STORES. Had I been beamed up to Westfield or GPT? Was this a nightmare? Where were the niche, quality, artistic, UNIQUE stores I had fantasised about?
Thank goodness for centres like the Junction Village, Darby Street, the little shopping village at Lambton and others like them - at least they offer consumers that something different! Unfortunately many of the operators are having to close the doors because they can't compete and they're not being supported.
I am tired - tired of having my senses offended by the over stimulation provided by too much product in a small space - make that too much of the SAME product in a small space. It might work in Singapore, where there are endless malls, with endless shops, with endless product but it doesn't do it for me. I know - all you true shopaholics are now gasping and in a state of shock - but this is my blog and you are free to comment!
Renew Newcastle (thanks Marcus, Marnie, Siobhan and others) are an example of how innovative ideas can create and revitalise a retail experience. Renew Newcastle supports and encourages niche stores with niche, quality, handmade, artistic local product.
Another change in retail is becoming evident with the focus returning (brace yourselves) to where it should be - back to the customer, read customer service and customer experience. I caught a glimpse of an Are You Being Served rerun on free to air TV(my children love it) the other day and it was remarkable. What goes around certainly does come around! Full circle back to customer service. I mentioned to someone on the counter at Coles that I had had trouble with a product and she informed me that part of the new training was to make it up to customers when they weren't happy. She replaced my product! Dumbfounded/gobsmacked and pleasantly surprised this time! I remember when you had to have a receipt, a signed affidavit and a witness to get a replacement, and you had to be extremely brave, prepped and well prepared to venture in for a refund...
Westfield and Sportsgirl are all about adding to the customer experience. Walk into their domains and you are likely to find a stylist who will help you put it all together. Clever and effective. Apple have been all about the customer experience for quite some time, from greeting you at the door to ensuring that you can close a purchase from anywhere in the store and not just at a point of sale register.
In store innovations are being implemented all over the world. Theatre, sound, new technology, digital media and the integration of sustainable retailing are being used to improve or simply change the customer experience. If you want to read more try this article http://www.popai.com.au/news/june-2010/marketing-at-retail-innovations-set-to-transform-how-australians-shop.aspx
or simply google innovations in retail. You can only wonder what's next...
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Look Outside Your Industry For Ideas
It has been written that Steve Jobs knew how to make connections...the magnetic ac adaptor for the macs were actually a connection he made between his products and the magnetic power chords that accompanied woks selling in Japan as a safety precaution. The magnetic ac power adaptor was an impressive innovation.
Picture a wok simmering away and a child running through, tripping on the chord, knocking the wok over, contents going everywhere, 3rd degree burns...Enter the magnetic ac adaptor - wok is simmering away, child runs through, trips on the chord, chord comes away...Jobs made a connection, adopted the idea - and adapted it for the Macs. If you tripped on the chord, the computer wouldn't come crshing down...
Human beings are adaptable creatures. Maybe we should ask more often how we can adopt and adapt ideas from one industry into another industry. A great example of this being accomplished successfully is the use of sensors. Sensors are used in homes and in businesses as triggers for security systems. Sensors trigger the alarm if anyone breaks into your home or business - or in my case if a spider crawls over them. The auto industry adopted the use of senors for other security reasons - to prevent accidents. The technology of sensors has been adapted to assist people with sight impairments - same concept - adopted into different industries.
And look at how the mobile phone has evolved. From the early days when it was simply a way of making a mobile call, to its modern day morphises of call maker, txt sender, email receiver, music source, picture taker, film producer, game source - one idea - so many different applications - oh applications!
Which brings us to the collaboration of ideas and that opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. Richard Branson's space shuttle, when it takes off, will be an historic occasion bringing together space travel and tourism. Can you think of two more remotely connected industries coming together to create a new possibility...
Picture a wok simmering away and a child running through, tripping on the chord, knocking the wok over, contents going everywhere, 3rd degree burns...Enter the magnetic ac adaptor - wok is simmering away, child runs through, trips on the chord, chord comes away...Jobs made a connection, adopted the idea - and adapted it for the Macs. If you tripped on the chord, the computer wouldn't come crshing down...
Human beings are adaptable creatures. Maybe we should ask more often how we can adopt and adapt ideas from one industry into another industry. A great example of this being accomplished successfully is the use of sensors. Sensors are used in homes and in businesses as triggers for security systems. Sensors trigger the alarm if anyone breaks into your home or business - or in my case if a spider crawls over them. The auto industry adopted the use of senors for other security reasons - to prevent accidents. The technology of sensors has been adapted to assist people with sight impairments - same concept - adopted into different industries.
And look at how the mobile phone has evolved. From the early days when it was simply a way of making a mobile call, to its modern day morphises of call maker, txt sender, email receiver, music source, picture taker, film producer, game source - one idea - so many different applications - oh applications!
Which brings us to the collaboration of ideas and that opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. Richard Branson's space shuttle, when it takes off, will be an historic occasion bringing together space travel and tourism. Can you think of two more remotely connected industries coming together to create a new possibility...
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Words Words Words
Just finished reading a great book - Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. One of the themes that stood out for me was that of Perception. How we perceive things is really coloured by the sum of our life's experiences.
When LEAN Management was discussed at an event Create and Innovate presented at last week, I thought "great concept but why give it such a negative name". LEAN to me has connections with job cuts, budget cuts, doing more with less and so on and so forth. In its true form, all LEAN means is getting rid of the waste, and that usually refers to wasteful practices. There is definitley no harm in that!
In an ideal world though I would call it something like LEAP - Learn Easier Alternate Practices. DEAP would be better - Develop Easier Alternate Practices but it doesn't conjure up the same light images as the word LEAP. Am I making any sense at all? Can you see the leprechaun taking off?
BAE Systems at Williamtown have achieved remarkable things through the introduction of LEAN Management - I wish Create and Innovate had been involved. That's real results for a real company in real time. When I google LEAN Management and see the fluff written by way of definition of the practice, you have to wonder how the principles of LEAN ever took off. Except that it started not as LEAN but as the Toyota Production System. And that's my point. The term grew out of an action.
Most of the terms we use, or even overuse to the point of cliche, came from somewhere. Creativity has existed through time immemorial. But if you look for a definition opf creativity, you get everything from the occurrence of a new novel, to a special class of problem solving. Truth is you need creativity in every facet of a business. To come up with a new concept you require creativity, to produce a new product you require creativity, to market a product you require creativity, to commercialise a new product you need to do it creatively. We act Creatively all the time...
Innovation has yet to become a part of the business culture in most companies and organisations in Australia and yet the word is already almost cliche. It is thrown around with much abandon and some individuals and organisations even hide behind it. There is an article worth reading You Call That Innovation? Companies say they love to Innovate but the term has begun to lose it's meaning. It's in the Wall Street Journal and written by Leslie Kwoh. Google it (a name that has become an action and has it's own definition - like Band-Aid or Apple).
Before I go, I also like the term Disruptive Innovation.
Disruptive innovation can be defined as an improvement or advancement that enhances a service or a product in a manner that has never been expected by the market. Jonathon Pitts
But isn't that what any Innovation is? I get the emphasis is on enhancement here, but any change for us at Create and Innovate is an Innovation - whether it be space travel or the use of tweezers and a hammer to remove a broken key from a door. In someone's perception both acts were essential, both innovative.
Words are words. In business these days you need your actions to be as loud if not louder than your words. Rhetoric can buy you short term. Action buys you respect and long term survival. Ideas are great but flutter into the ether unless followed by action.
When LEAN Management was discussed at an event Create and Innovate presented at last week, I thought "great concept but why give it such a negative name". LEAN to me has connections with job cuts, budget cuts, doing more with less and so on and so forth. In its true form, all LEAN means is getting rid of the waste, and that usually refers to wasteful practices. There is definitley no harm in that!
In an ideal world though I would call it something like LEAP - Learn Easier Alternate Practices. DEAP would be better - Develop Easier Alternate Practices but it doesn't conjure up the same light images as the word LEAP. Am I making any sense at all? Can you see the leprechaun taking off?
BAE Systems at Williamtown have achieved remarkable things through the introduction of LEAN Management - I wish Create and Innovate had been involved. That's real results for a real company in real time. When I google LEAN Management and see the fluff written by way of definition of the practice, you have to wonder how the principles of LEAN ever took off. Except that it started not as LEAN but as the Toyota Production System. And that's my point. The term grew out of an action.
Most of the terms we use, or even overuse to the point of cliche, came from somewhere. Creativity has existed through time immemorial. But if you look for a definition opf creativity, you get everything from the occurrence of a new novel, to a special class of problem solving. Truth is you need creativity in every facet of a business. To come up with a new concept you require creativity, to produce a new product you require creativity, to market a product you require creativity, to commercialise a new product you need to do it creatively. We act Creatively all the time...
Innovation has yet to become a part of the business culture in most companies and organisations in Australia and yet the word is already almost cliche. It is thrown around with much abandon and some individuals and organisations even hide behind it. There is an article worth reading You Call That Innovation? Companies say they love to Innovate but the term has begun to lose it's meaning. It's in the Wall Street Journal and written by Leslie Kwoh. Google it (a name that has become an action and has it's own definition - like Band-Aid or Apple).
Before I go, I also like the term Disruptive Innovation.
Disruptive innovation can be defined as an improvement or advancement that enhances a service or a product in a manner that has never been expected by the market. Jonathon Pitts
But isn't that what any Innovation is? I get the emphasis is on enhancement here, but any change for us at Create and Innovate is an Innovation - whether it be space travel or the use of tweezers and a hammer to remove a broken key from a door. In someone's perception both acts were essential, both innovative.
Words are words. In business these days you need your actions to be as loud if not louder than your words. Rhetoric can buy you short term. Action buys you respect and long term survival. Ideas are great but flutter into the ether unless followed by action.
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