The foundation for innovation November 5, 2007
Posted by Barry Klopper in Innovation.add a comment
It’s really fascinating… Many people actually have very little understanding of the processes that are critical to driving successful innovation in businesses.
It’s all well and good to initiate brain-storming sessions for creativity’s sake, and then to arrive at a blinding collective epiphany – ‘Eureka! We have it, let’s scrap everything and do it this way from now on.’ (Think: Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic).
If we accept that the premise of innovation is to ‘look at a challenge or task from a fresh perspective’, then it’s vital that there is a fundamental grasp of the logic and processes which had driven the old perspective in the first place.
It’s no good trying to change something that had no foundation to begin with. Change, simply for change’s sake is inevitably going to see you back at the same point of frustration at some time.
You need to re-examine, understand and document what logic and processes underpinned your previously unsuccessful initiatives before you can try to change these. Only now can you really begin…
Communicating your achievements November 2, 2007
Posted by Barry Klopper in Innovation, Marketing.add a comment
And speaking of things Microsoft… Here we have an IT company, Idion Technologies, that achieved Gold Certification partner status. This is an ‘accreditation’ bestowed upon companies who have reached a certain level of proficiency and success in building applications and products based on Msoft’s development platform.
Aspirational in itself, this is however not a unique achievement. So how does one convey this to your current and prospective markets?
We created an innovative print campaign in specific industry publications that would be appealing and stand out from the conventional advertising clutter.
A somewhat humorous visual approach, combined with a simple message: ‘One in a million’. Not numerically correct, but it reflected the fact that this certification was nevertheless an aspirational and hard-earned achievement.
We also used the opportunity to communicate the company’s success in developing mobile technology - ’Free at last…’ These messages really stood out and generated a great response at the time…
Owning the market November 1, 2007
Posted by Barry Klopper in Innovation.add a comment
Microsoft is more than just a household name. So, how did they build their empire? Aside from their global domination of the software and operating system market, it’s simply put, ‘Build an aspirational Community’.
Microsoft makes it a practice to teach, train and support programmers and developers around the world so they understand their operating system and tools well enough to write thousands of applications and software programs that work with the Microsoft Windows platform.
Through the years, Microsoft has been successfully building a community that is loyal to the Microsoft brand, and in spite of a world of acquiescence vs resistance and a host of negative publicity around perceived unfair trade practice, it’s still the dominant IT platform and most successful company in this niche.
They keep growing and supporting their community and will continue to own a substantial piece of their market…
