Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Architected, Inc. (IAI).

Today IAM Talking with Ethan Bloch CEO and Co-founder of Flowtown, and we’ll be talking about Flowtown’s evolution (thru two pivots or restarts) into the Gift Marketing platform it is today. Keep your eyes open for what they’re up to – this is a shift in marketing that everyone should pay attention to. It’s an interesting twist on influence, guerilla marketing, and stunning people with great products and services, not beating them over the head with TV ads and traditional media.

Free Samples aren’t just for Costco Aisles

Ethan is a whip-smart entrepreneur, tied into the best of both technology (a given), but also into deep roots of marketing and human behavior. He and his Co-founder, Dan Martell (with the rest of the Flowtown team) are bouncing right on the waves of the social media revolution to do things a bit differently.

We talk briefly about the pivots/restarts of Flowtown, where the earlier incarnation to the current model was experiencing rocket growth only to be shutdown and rebooted entirely.

The newest version of Flowtown, off to a great start since the launch in November 2010, focuses on Gift Marketing.

Gift Marketing?

Never heard of it?

Pay attention to the stories Ethan mentions of a little coffee shop in San Francisco down the street from Flowtown’s offices, and the “Crush It” success of Pretzel Crisps, which Ethan almost forgot to mention, but is (ahem) tremendous food for thought.

Unexpected gifts, customer engagement, listening to the market – that’s right folks, it’s a new world, but the good news is… it works. It’s cheaper. It’s faster. And you should be trying it right now if you haven’t already.

Comments or Questions?

Wondering how to apply Gift Marketing to your company? Can you use similar techniques inside your company? Comment below, and we’ll answer and discuss together.

Listen now!

Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Architected, Inc. (IAI).

Today IAM Talking with Noah Kagan, the Chief Sumo (CEO) of AppSumo, and we’ll be talking about understanding your market or community, testing assumptions, and understanding why people buy (or for an enterprise spin – do [or not] anything).

AppSumo provides Daily Deals for Web Geeks – and I stumbled onto both AppSumo and Noah in parallel, both as a customer (listen to the podcast to hear more), and in following with his personal activities in marketing and psychology through Ramit Sethi.

It *all* matters… but you need to get started first…

I’d summarize our conversation here, but to be honest, it was quite freewheeling, and one of the most entertaining and honest discussions I’ve captured in recent years.

You’ll find that Noah is very action oriented, which would be easy to view as an addiction to an “ooh, squirrel!” approach to life. But no, Noah can and does dive very deep into experiment in many aspects of his business, and the world of selling online specifically, to rapidly build up solutions.

We didn’t cover his role at Mint in this interview, but if you have any doubts as to what understanding customers pre-launch of an initiative, read about the pre-launch marketing plan for Mint (circa 2007).

Strap in, and hit play below – I guarantee you’ll find some interesting ideas to put into action.

Comments or Questions?

How are you defining your audience, community or market? How do you target? Do you build a product/service for sale to the world before talking to and understanding your customers? How do you target enterprise solutions, if you’re building/buying for employees? Comment below, and we’ll answer and discuss together.

Listen now!

Today, the topic is about redefining innovation – Hint: You’re not starting from Ground Zero.

Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Architected, Inc. (IAI).

Today IAM Talking with Ken Tencer, the CEO of Spyder Works Inc. and co-author of the book “The 90% Rule” which we’ll be discussing in this episode.

Ken’s company, Spyder Works, is a branding + innovation firm that enables clients to look at themselves more strategically… to imagine themselves differently in the marketplace. Find out more about Spyder Works at spyderworksdesign.com, and more about the book at 90percentrule.com.

Thanks goes out to Tom Martin of Tom Martin Media, Ken’s PR guy (and a common friend between Ken and I), for making the introduction, and arranging for a soft copy of the book to arrive at my office in advance of the interview.

Key Concepts of the 90% Rule

There is so much attention given to the 80/20 rule (Pareto’s Rule) – which is typically phrased that 80% of returns come from 20% of the appropriately targeted efforts – that immediately the 90% Rule caught my eye.
The core concept of the 90% Rule aligns perfectly with what I’ve been promoting for several years – stop thinking of innovation as THE NEXT BIG THING! (what I call “BIG I INNOVATION”) and focus more time on leveraging what you’ve already done – that 90% of the repeatable core of your business/products/services that you can use to pivot to your next piece of business.

It’s continuous improvement (or what I call “small i innovation”) and offers far more bang for the resource buck than people seem to give credit for.

Ken has some great examples of these pivots or extensions in the interview (listen below) and of course in the book, directly.

As you’re listening to the interview, we briefly discuss the Six Steps to Creating a Culture of Continuous Innovation, and which Ken was kind enough to provide the infographic we discuss, as eye candy to go with the discussion.

Six Steps to Creating a Culture of Continuous Innovation

The end-to-end process and infographic from the book:

Breaking down the six steps, we have:

Step One:  

Revisiting your company’s origins and identify where you want to take it long-term

Step Two: 

Exploring what you *can* be, not just what you are (Note from Dan: We hone in on this step in the interview)

Step Three: 

Building a relevant brand rooted in customer-centric thinking.

Step Four: 

Maximizing leverage by outlining your best opportunities and the criteria upon which to assess them (Note from Dan: decision making and critical thinking lags in almost every organization I run across – ideas are only part of the battle, folks)

Step Five: 

Building an opportunity matrix to determine the human and financial resources required for moving ahead.

Step Six: 

“Speaking” to be heard clearly by all your audiences. (Note from Dan: If you’ve done your work up front in this Design Thinking approach to Innovation, you already know your audience quite well – and now it’s time to reflect that knowledge right back)

Comments or Questions?

How are you defining innovation? How do you target? Are you building on your 90% base, or going for disruptive innovation opportunities? Comment below, and we’ll answer and discuss together.

Listen now!

More details on our practices related to Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Today, the topic is Taking Open Innovation to a Global Organization.

In this episode, I am interviewing Jon Bidwell, the Chief Innovation Officer for Chubb & Son.

Mr. Bidwell is currently responsible for the development and deployment of Chubb’s global innovation platform, designed to engage employees and distribution in the collaborative development of new products, services and process improvements and has been with Chubb since 1983.

Jon and I had first met in Boston at an Imaginatik User Conference – where the sheer speed and completeness of both Jon (and Chubb’s) vision and execution truly stunned me. There is always room for innovation improvement, but as you will hear in this interview, building a strong innovation foundation has given them confidence that the future seeds of innovation have already been planted, sowing both short-term and long-term innovation success.

Key Concepts in Scaling Open Innovation

Scalability is a relative term, and the speed with which you can scale out, in this case to employees on a global scale, is not something that the vast majority of organizations have any experience with. If tapping more than the R&D or marketing departments for innovative ideas is of interest to you, then stay tuned…

Listen now!

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for Open Innovation? to engage employees, partners, and ultimately, the world?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within AND outside of your organization.

More details on our practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Today, the topic is Business Model Innovation – White Space and You.

In this episode, I am interviewing Mark Johnson, the author of a new book, Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal.

Mark is chairman of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore, and India, which he cofounded with Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen. He has consulted to Global 1000 and start-up companies in a wide range of industries—including health care, aerospace/defense, enterprise IT, energy, automotive, and consumer packaged goods—and has advised Singapore’s government on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mark’s most recent work has focused on helping companies envision and create new growth, manage transformation, and achieve renewal through business model innovation.

Find copies of his new book, Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal, at your favorite online or brick and mortar book store. The official website for the book is www.seizingthewhitespace.com.

Key Concepts Covered on White Space Innovation

We cover several of the key concepts, including a deep dive into the Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and the “job to be done” mindset that Innosight typically uses in their work, which is part of an overall trend in innovation management that focuses on the outcomes that customers are searching for, rather than the products, services, or solutions-based approach, which is rapidly becoming a dated and dangerous approach.

We also discuss several aspects of innovation maturity – both from the standpoint of innovation practices, product innovation vs. process innovation vs. white space or business model innovation, as well as maturity in skillsets and personnel to execute on a variety of innovation initiatives.

Listen now!

Listen to the Interview: IAM Talking with Mark Johnson – Business Model Innovation – White Space and You

Reference Materials for White Space Innovation

For reference, two of the figures or graphics referenced from the book, can be found below.

The Four-Box Business Innovation Model

And the Stages of Business Model Implementation

Closing Review

Whether you are just getting started with innovation management, or are already a seasoned innovator, I would readily recommend Seizing the White Space as a worthy addition to your innovation toolkit. Business Model Innovation may be the latest flavor of innovation to get air time, but not without good reason. By re-thinking the fundamentals of at least SOME aspect of your innovation portfolio, to make way for White Space Innovation opportunities, you will be in far better shape than your “head in the sand” competitors.

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for White Space discovery?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within your organization

More details on our practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Collaboration – it’s all the rage, and to some it is “new.”

Yet for any project, whether it is assembling a sales proposal in response to a Request For Proposals (RFP), to the collaboration and coordination necessary to build an aircraft carrier, or any size or style of collaboration in between, there are several questions to consider when it comes to modern day collaboration, what many are calling Enterprise 2.0, or for those with a longer history in business collaboration, Knowledge Management 2.0.

Do you believe that your organization has pulled together a suitably versatile and agile collaboration toolkit?

Are your collaboration tools built for distributed teams, or for localized teams?

Are the tools involved well-integrated into the flow of collaborative work (search, research, document, refine, revise, publish, re-use, etc.), or do you as a user of the toolkit have to remember what tool or application to use at various stages within the context of collaboration?

While management may say that “we need more collaboration,” are you measured based on collaborative contributions, or in the end are you actually penalized for team contributions if it gets in the way of your individual work and personal performance measures?

Join us for a discussion (continue discussion in comments below or twitter via #iaie20) on the current and future state of collaboration – and what it takes to ensure that your culture, skills, and technical tools are up to the task of real-time, flexible online collaboration. Not all collaboration efforts or outcomes are the same – make sure you are setting yourself up to succeed.

Watch the Video archive of Webinar

Is your Information Architected for Collaboration? for Innovation? to leverage the strengths of the workers and teams within the organization?

Contact us now at 
617-933-9655 to discuss our Collaboration-focused assessments, consulting or workshops, and to schedule a private 30-minute executive briefing on how we can most effectively work together. You can quickly jump-start or re-start your collaboration efforts, and we can show you how.

Schedule a private executive briefing now

Target your collaboration pains now, details on our consulting practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 Workshops, Coaching and Consulting
• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Thanks again to Steve Wylie for inviting us to keynote a second time, to Susan Scrupski for her work and our partnership with The 2.0 Adoption Council, and to Wayne Kurtzman for the fantastic voice-over work in the intro video clip.

This represents highlights of some of the most shocking and interesting findings from the work we have been doing with The 2.0 Adoption Council, focusing, in this case, on IT Resistance, Management Resistance and User Resistance, budgets spent, and where those budgets are being allocated for Enterprise 2.0 projects at large-scale and in large enterprises (of all types represented in the council).

Interested in the companion whitepaper and further Enterprise 2.0 resources?

• Sign up for the entire bundle of related Enterprise 2.0 Resources we have created both directly based on the resarch presented at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, as well as additional resources created in the last year.

Are you experiencing similar resistance in your own organization?

How have you overcome the resistance? Top-down? Bottom-up? Internal communications? Carrot? Stick? Weigh in – we all need to uncover the best and worst practices if this market is going to take hold and grow even further.

After attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last June, I blogged that for me, the show came down to an acronym –  CIT, which stood for Culture, Innovation and Twitter.

This time the conference is summed up in an even shorter acronym – ER.

No I am not referring to the popular use of ER as in Emergency Room, inferring that the show needs resuscitation – FAR FROM IT.  In this case, ER stands for Energy and Reality.

ENERGY

I could not help but feel it; volume levels, packed halls and a sense of excitement that seemed to top that of all previous Enterprise 2.0 conferences.  Overall attendance was basically the same I was told.  Maybe it was just the location on the west coast versus the east coast – but no – right? I mean we all know that west coasters are supposed to be more laid back then us east coast “rat-racers.”  Maybe it was linked to the fact that the conference was held in tandem with the VoiceCon event.  If so, kudos to the  TechWeb team for doing so.  Either way the energy level was noticeable. Some sessions were literally had attendees spilling out into the halls. The questions asked were many and hard-hitting. Attendees were interested in going beyond the basics and theory and into issues of implementation war stories and ROI. That in fact brings me to the second letter of the acronym – R for Reality.

REALITY

This conference was marked by a far greater level of discussion and presentations by practitioners of Enterprise 2.0 within end-user organizations.  There was far less time spent debating the reality of Enterprise 2.0, and whether it would take hold, if it merited the 2.0 generational label, etc.  That seemed to be behind us.

Indeed, Steve Wylie, the conference chair, noted how the show floor was no longer the exclusive domain of start-ups and pioneers, but now included the likes of OpenText, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe among others. It was really quite a show floor.

Andy McAfee stated he felt the market was at its tipping point, the first time I have ever heard him be so bullish about the movement he labeled a few years back.

In her keynote, Tammy Erickson, President, nGenera stated she believed that 2010 is going to be the year of “A-ha”, referring to the turnaround in senior executives who now “get it” and will move forward. (Not only do I agree, but also it is interesting to recall that in our research from 2 years ago, we found that while most executives believed E2.0 was critical to business success,  most executives also did not know what E2.0 was. The level of awareness and understanding of Enterprise 2.0 is now catching up with the intuitive sense that it matters. That is the Aha.)

But more powerful than any of these facts  was the number of presentations and panels given by end-user practitioners – speaking from the trenches, which I referred to earlier.   These were not sales people, marketers or academician theorists (Yes there were still enough of those to go around). These were folk who had their sleeves rolled up, successful projects behind them and the scars to prove it.  Among the many, my two favorite were the presentation given by Bevin Hernandez who shared her amazing success at Penn State, where she waged a strategy that was more about culture and behavioral change management than technology; and a panel entitled Case Studies in Enterprise Micro-Blogging, in which real-world use of micro-blogging in the enterprise was discussed ala the good, the bad and the ugly – but not the theory. Participants spoke freely of misplaced efforts and failures, as well as what it takes to get real value out of micro-blogging inside the firewall.

Finally, the maturity of the Enterprise 2.0 market was punctuated by the coming out of the 2.0 Adoption Council, many of whose members were speakers at the event as well. As I blogged about months ago, Dan Keldsen and I executed a market study with this council. The results were the focus of our keynote at the event.  The findings are compelling and insightful and I encourage downloading the initial report, but again, it is the sheer existence of the council itself that provided further evidence that E2.0 has come out of the theoretical closet and into the reality of the boardroom. The council is comprised of (at present) 115 individuals representing major global organizations. Each individual is a senior level manager, a full-time job managing Enterprise 2.0 within their respective organization.  Each manages a substantial budget ranging from the 100s of thousands to tens of millions of dollars. They are beyond the pilot stage of deployment, into production, effecting literally thousands of end-users in each organization.  Each is a real-world major case study. Collectively, as “the council” they truly mark the turning point in the Enterprise 2.0 market.  Congratulations to Susan Scrupski for her execution in putting together this council.

Before I wrap this up, let me be clear.  While the acronym de jour is ER, CIT (culture, innovation and Twitter) was certainly still a part of the conference.

Culture was still frequently talked about as a major component to Enterprise 2.0. I gave an entire session on just this issue, using 4 different clients of mine as case studies. As I mentioned earlier, the case study presented by Bevin Hernandez of Penn State focused predominately on culture and change management. In fact, when asked if she could have accomplished all she had, if not for the technology she was using (ThoughtFarmer), she eloquently and politely opined that the technology made a difference and made many parts of the rollout easier, but that at least in her case, it was the strategic change management that really made all the difference.

Innovation came up several times, but perhaps most impressive was the risk that TechWeb took in allowing IAI to provide a ½ day version of its innovation management training as one of the pre-show tutorials. Although not as popular as some of the more mainstream E2.0 topics, the training pulled a fair number of attendees and was well received.  Those that attended understood that if Enterprise 2.0 is about leveraging technology and practices to facilitate and invigorate collaboration, then one likely end game is the facilitation and acceleration of innovation, which is a practice to be managed in its own right.

And as for the big “T”, Twitter, oh it was prevalent all right, but no longer novel. Again testament to how quickly some of these tools are being adopted.

In conclusion, kudos to Steve Wylie and his team at TechWeb for a job well done, and kudos to the Enterprise 2.0 community for a well done performance. We at IAI were very proud to be a part of it and look forward to hopefully seeing most of you at the Boston 2010 Enterprise 2.0 conference.

The video from the keynote was streamed live, but appears not to have hit the archive yet – great to have had a chance to reprise our keynoting skills with a variation from our keynote in June 2008.

While we await a pointer to the captured video from November 2009, below we have provided both the intro video before we walked onstage (which went over quite well, thanks again to Wayne Kurtzman for the voice-over work), and which we’ve received a number of requests to post publicly – embed/tweet/spread as you will, and thank you to the live audience for your indulgence in running (galloping?) with the horse theme of the keynote.

And if you did not have a chance to watch the keynote live, below are the slides we had presented, highlighting some of the most shocking/intriguing of the statistics in the research work we have done with The 2.0 Adoption Council – a consortium of over 100 organizations representing the best of the best, and the largest of the Enterprise 2.0 projects that have been deployed around the world.

Without our voiceover from the conference, the findings likely beg some explanation as we had 20 minutes to hit the highlights and dive into the major issues found in IT Resistance, Management Resistance and User Resistance experienced by the 2.0 Adoption Council members in this research project.

Any questions while we await the audio/video from the show?

Comment away, and we will see what we can do to continue the conversation post-conference.

What resistance have YOU found in your organization, and how did you overcome it?

Driven from the Top

This is the type of interview (audio, video or “just” text) that we typically do with Enterprise 2.0 customer engagements. The “soft” efforts that it takes to actively sow and reap Enterprise 2.0 needs all of the bottom-up AND top-down efforts you can bring to bear – while I’m a big proponent of emergent behavior, there’s nothing like stated dedication to an ongoing effort like a change of management thinking to Enterprise 2.0 to ACTUALLY (rather than theoretically) make change happen.

Allyis was kind enough to host me for 3-days last week in their offices in Kirkland, WA, for two separate sessions – one to continue sowing the seeds of Enterprise 2.0 Thinking (and Doing) with their executive and management team in a 2-day hybrid course of the Enterprise 2.0 Specialist course that Carl and I had developed for AIIM while we were the Market Intelligence unit of AIIM, and a 3rd day which I’ve been describing as a day-long Enterprise 2.0 keynote (I *think* that’s a good thing) largely for clients and the local contacts of Allyis to continue discussing and learning about Enterprise 2.0.

Engagement and 2.0 Nirvana

Fascinating discussions, and very interesting to hear how technology and/or culture lead and lag each other across various departments within companies, or across different organizations. Still a long way to go Enterprise 2.0 Nirvana, but I have to say I was VERY heartened to engage all of the people of Allyis and their peers in the Washington state area.

Hear what Ethan Yarbrough, President of Allyis had to say about the start of their journey, and the ongoing work they are doing to push to the front of the Enterprise 2.0 curve.

What are YOU doing in your business to BE Enterprise 2.0? Let us know – transparency, participation, feedback – no progress without reflection and refinement.

Any efforts that you’ve used to market, sell, educate on Enterprise 2.0 within your organization, chime in  – we’re using these materials to build up the story around the 2.0 Adoption Council. More stories = better.

(Downloadable MP4 version)

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for Collaboration? to leverage the strengths of the workers and teams within the organization?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within your organization

More details on our practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting
• Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 Workshops, Coaching and Consulting