I’m off till the end of the month, but with a bit of an update: we’ve been through a tornado.
This is a photo just about 1/2 mile from our place ; we saw it from a window as it passed by. If you look at the 2nd, lower funnel, we were just about below that to the east.
Quite the experience!
The great news is: everyone in the area is ok, the damage was significant but restricted; the swathe was just about 100 feet wide!
There are more photos at my twitter feed, http://twitter.com/jimcarroll
I’m now into a bit of a slow stretch for some summer; postings here will be slow for a time.
Years ago, inspired by similar times, I wrote about how innovation thrives in the building of sandcastles. It was a great post — and it made it into BusinessWeek. I thought it a fitting post to leave here while I’m busy doing other things — such as building sandcastles.
With that line of thinking,. here’s my list of “10 Reasons Why Innovation Thrives in the Building of Sandcastles: and What We Can Learn From Such Creativity.”
>by Jim Carroll, CAMagazine, August 2009
When you travel like I do, you spend a lot of time reading. One ofthe recent books on my list provides a fascinating look back at the 1950s and ’60s: Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. (No, I didn’t buy it for the pictures, because there are very few.)
I was struck by one paragraph about how Hef worked very hard in the early years to get advertisers on side. He was initially met with resistance, for obvious reasons, but he persisted and eventually succeeded at signing up some of the “leading brands of the time.”
Just what were those brands? Crosswinds House beach towels, Scintella Satin BedSheets, the Lektrostat Record Cleaning Kit, Mansfield Holiday II 8-mm cameras, Leslie Record Racks, Electro-Voice Musicaster loudspeakers, the Ronson Electric Shaver, Max Factor crew-cut hair dressing and the Rogers “Rocket Flame” cigarette lighter. And let’s not forget Merrin Gold Jewelry and the Batch Book, “a new and modern address book that lets you list every pertinent detail — the surest way to avoid social errors.”
Those brands aren’t exactly household names today; in fact, very few of them still exist. Some disappeared due to changing societal norms, others due to technological change. Some probably just ran out of steam.
Brands disappear for a variety of reasons: think Enron, E.F. Hutton and Woolco. Brands can also stick around and become tarnished, losing respect in the eyes of the customer because of a series of missteps. My own client list includes organizations such as Chrysler, Motorola and the US Army Corps of Engineers — brands that for a variety of reasons have lost respect in the marketplace.
Is your brand at risk? That’s a key question, because corporate brands today are no longer guaranteed longevity in the marketplace. They can disappear because of obsolescence, competition and business model change, or simply because, as we have seen of late, failure and error.
Brands now also have to contend with the potentially lethal challenge of social networks. Pizza chain Dominoes quickly discovered how much harm social network “terrorism” can do when employees posted a damaging video on YouTube in which they were less than reverent with customers’ food.
It is isn’t just the risk of events like this that can threaten a brand. People are extremely busy chatting online — on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere– about the brands that they like, and the ones they dislike.
Consider the effort one customer put into a self-created commercial for US based grocery store Trader Joe’s.
All of a sudden, organizations are discovering a reality that I’ve been pointing out for years: a brand is no longer what you say it is — it’s what they say it is.
Think about your brand, whether you are in public practice, consulting or the corporate sector. Does your brand still resonate? I often talk to my clients about the need for constant brand innovation and challenge them days.” Better yet, I ask them if their brand looks tired because it is tired.
Many people don’t spend much time thinking about branding, but it is becoming more important considering how quickly perceptions can change. Here’s how you should challenge your thinking.
:
Back in 2006, I keynoted the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers at their annual conference in Tampa. At the time, YouTube was only just beginning to have an impact, and social networking was still in a nascent stage. It was January — Twitter wasn’t even around!
But there was a lot of talk at the conference about the rapid rate of change that the cable and telecom industry was facing. My job, as opening keynote, was to get them in the right, innovative frame of mind to deal with an upcoming tsunami of change.
I ended up writing an article for Broadband Magazine, on my keynote theme, Are We Thinking “Fast” Enough? I dug the article out the other day with respect to another upcoming talk within the industry.
It still makes for good reading today, starting with the observation that “in this era in which new developments and technology are coming to the market faster than ever before, everyone must become an innovator, whether it be with new business models, skills partnerships or customer solutions.”
Some of the key points I raised are even more critical today:
Run through that list, and ask yourself if that is your industry situation today.
Are you thinking fast enough?
One year ago today, I was on stage in Sydney, Australia, opening the 2008 Toshiba Mobility Exchange Conference.
Part of my talk focused on the issue of “innovation in the high velocity economy.”
Looking back at a clip from the talk, one year after the global economic meltdown, some key points continue to remain extremely valid going forward as the economic recovery begins.
In a summary, my point then, and my point now, is that innovative organizations concentrate on:
If you can nail those things, you are well positioned to deal with what the global economy tosses your way.
Looking back at my slide deck, I concluded with the observation that high-velocity innovators concentrate on “global scalability, rapid assembly of teams, and hierarchy destroyed, because of a relentless focus on fast, emerging opportunity.”
I don’t think any of that has changed despite everything that has gone in the last year, and it still provides a good framework for innovative thinking.
Are you in the right frame of mind to cope with the future, particularly as it becomes evident that an economic recovery is beginning.
Here’s a few questions you can challenge yourself with:
A good starting list to challenge yourself as the economy begins to move forward!
GET IN TOUCH
Jim's Facebook page
You'll find Jim's latest videos on Youtube
Mastodon. What's on Jim's mind? Check his feed!
LinkedIn - reach out to Jim for a professional connection!
Flickr! Get inspired! A massive archive of all of Jim's daily inspirational quotes!
Instagram - the home for Jim's motivational mind!