JimCarroll

It’s back! Aggressive indecision! Here’s how to kick it out!

October 15, 2008 by JimCarroll

It’s back!

Aggressive indecision! With all the economic turmoil, leaders, executives and staff have the “deer in the headlights” syndrome.

I spoke about this trend extensively on stage during the last recession in 2001-2002. People got into the message, and it restored their enthusiasm for the future and innovation.

I actually wrote about “aggressive indecision” in my book, What I Learned From Frogs in Texas: Saving Your Skin with Forward Thinking Innovation. Ask yourself if you are seeing these signs:

Take a look around you – at yourself, your co-workers, your organization, and the business world at large. What do you see? People mired in the thick mud of aggressive indecision. They tend to wait for absolutely perfect information which will help convince them that the time is right to make a decision, rather than making decisions based on imperfect information as they had done in the past. They’ll take a look at the information they have, decide that it’s just too darn risky to make a decision on what they see, and do nothing.

The result is an economy in which everyone seems to be stuck in a rut, unwilling and unable to move forward. The fact is, our confidence in the future has been shattered. Corporate nervousness has become the watchword, with the result that everyone is taking the easy way out: deal with uncertainty by doing nothing.

An era of “aggressive indecision:” a very dangerous attitude to have, given that organizations must be in a state of continuous innovation in order to cope with the rate of change that now surrounds us.

Look, organizations that innovate and adapt at high speed, while trying to deal with the harsh new realities that surround them, have a good chance of coming out the other side of this thing. On the other hand, if you let aggressive indecision rule your corporate culture, you are probably not going to do well.

Share the video, and the original article around. Get out of your funk! Innovate!

Read the original article Paralyzed by indecision: Just Do It
Read Jim’s blog entries on the global economy

How do you innovate in a volatile economy?

October 15, 2008 by JimCarroll

When the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Division, based in New York, went looking for a keynote speaker on marketing and advertising trends within the consumer goods sector, they went with Jim Carroll.

In an event co-sponsored with Advertising Age, the publisher of such innovative titles as Everyday with Rachel Ray wanted to provide a concise, inspirational but challenging overview of the trends impacting innovation, marketing and advertising within the food sector … and decided that Jim’s message on how to innovate at high-velocity was the ideal fit for their symposium.

Ironically, the event fell smack-dab in the middle of one of the wildest economic corrections that we’ve ever seen, and much of the discussion through the day focused on how to innovate in a fast-paced, ever more challenging economic environment.

I outlined how innovation-oriented organizations will use the economic challenges as an opportunity — they’ll examine the emergence of fast-paced trends, and will adjust their actions, products, services, and brand message accordingly.

Consider a few of the trends we’re already seeing:

The food consumer is now shifting their focus — 71% of consumers are choosing to prepare meals at home instead of eating out as a result of the economic correction, Restaurant trips have decreased from 1.5 times a week in 2006, to 1.2 times today. (Food Marketing Institute US Grocery Shopper Trends 2008). There’s a big opportunity to rapidly shift to in-house meals, from a branding and comfort perspective.
Chef Katie-Lee Joel, who also spoke at the event (she’s the author of the book The Comfort Table and a Top Chef judge on TV), affirmed this point, speaking of the trend in which “comfort food” — feel-good food — will once again take priority as people adjust their spending.
other trends will pick up steam as people think more about their food consumption habits. For example, the trend to “local food” will pick up steam with the recession — people will want to feel responsible when it comes to food choice and the environmental footprint related to particular food. A study in Australia found that the typical shopping basket of 29 supermarket food items had travelled an astounding 70,803kms! An unbelievable number that certainly causes a pause for thought!

The key issue — organizations must have the capability to understand how their markets are changing quickly with the recession; how consumer choice is changing; and how their advertising, branding and marketing activities will need to change. It’s something I call corporate agility — it’s been covered extensively in this blog, and in my Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast book.

It’s a critical concept to think about during these times.

Do you really need an innovation spark? How about a custom edition of Ready, Set, Done?

October 15, 2008 by JimCarroll

Since Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast was published a year ago this week, it proved to be a book that has provided unique innovation guidance to thousands of people.

And in many cases, the book has been purchased in bulk, with copies distributed to those in attendance at one of many keynote presentations or workshops through the year.

Many CEO’s and event organizers have indicated that it would be great if they could tie their innovation message to that found within the book. To that end, we’ve done a few custom print runs during the year. We’ve now decided to formalize the process.

Effectively immediately, with an order of as small as 250 copies, we can offer you a custom edition of the book.

What you get:

Prominent mention of the name of your CEO or sponsor on the cover of the book
Four pages (2 pages, 2 sides) for a custom Foreword right at the front of the book, bound into the book

Contact Jim Carroll for details, to explore this fascinating new opportunity.

The cost for a custom print run will range from $16-18 depending on volume, plus shipping costs. For a group of 250, that’s a cost of just $4,000 to put in front of your staff, customers or association, a customized message with a very special book about innovation.

Video clip — where’s the opportunity? Where’s the growth?

October 14, 2008 by JimCarroll

Given the rapid pace of global economic developments in the fall of 2008, it’s interesting that the number of organizations bringing me in for a leadership or management event has increased.

That’s because, despite perilous economic times, CEO’s in a variety of industries are working hard to ensure that their organization stays focused on growth.

At these leadership meetings, I’m offering insight on growth markets and opportunities; innovation strategies to stay ahead in the downturn; and unique insight on how organizations are working hard to re-align their strategies and structure with fast paced market change.

If you need to get your staff and team mindset in the right frame of mind for moving forward in this high velocity, rapidly changing economy, you might need this type of high level, energetic message.

To help you get in the right frame of mind, here’s a little motivational video clip from a recent keynote I did on stage in Sydney, Australia.

100 Days of Innovation – #2 – Go Upside Down

October 10, 2008 by JimCarroll

When thinking about new product or service development, don’t do it in isolation. Seek advice and guidance from your business partners — or, even let them drive the innovation agenda.

This is the lesson I learned from a large company in the consumer goods/entertainment space. They had traditionally been responsible for an innovation plan that went like this:

Get the assortment right, i.e. in terms of new product
Figure out the merchandising plan
Then do the marketing

They then realized that trends and consumer choice was evolving so fast, that they no longer had a truly good grasp on the innovation agenda that they should be pursuing. They also came to realize they were taking product to retailers — but the depth of insight from retailers meant that they saw entirely different product and market opportunities.

So what did they do? They went outside — and learned how to work with the retailers, by having the retailers do much of the product innovation. Soon, the innovation pipeline worked like this:

Figure out the marketing plan, what unique ideas could be pursued in terms of consumer choice, attitude, brands
From that, determine what merchandise, packaging and products to produce
And then get the assortment right

Going upside-down is a powerful innovation concept — it challenges you to do things differently. More important, it pushes you into a mindset where you are pursuing partnership oriented innovation, with the result that have better, fresh, unique, external insight.

All too often an organization loses its ability to innovate because it becomes very internally focused — it can’t see beyond its own walls. People become narrow in their focus, and fail to see big opportunities.

Going upside-down changes this, in so many ways, and it’s one of the most important innovation ideas that you can pursue.

Can we talk – upside-down innovation?

Innovation – act fast – empower people!

October 9, 2008 by JimCarroll

Empowering staff and partners to make quick decisions is an essential component of innovating in the high-velocity economy.

Particularly given that right now, optics are really important.

RBC Plaza’s Grand Opening is on, but, Um, About Those Sky Divers …

(from iStockAnalyst)

Oct. 2–RALEIGH — A big building calls for a big celebration. But when the building is a bank — and its grand opening comes amid a banking meltdown — falling bodies send the wrong message.

Therefore, the sky divers at today’s RBC Plaza opening are canceled. Once again: The fabulous parachuting display is off.

“Given the recent market activities, we just didn’t think it was an appropriate time to have people jumping off of a bank building,” said Jamie Averette Mitchell, a spokeswoman for RBC Bank, which is dedicating its downtown Raleigh headquarters, the 33-story RBC Plaza, today.

The parachuters were to be part of a series of grand-opening events. They were to draw attention to the tower –the region’s tallest — at Fayetteville and Martin streets.

But RBC nixed the jumpers after a week of Wall Street turbulence, which included the worst drop ever in the Dow Jones Industrial average and the sale of Charlotte banking giant Wachovia to Citigroup for a mere $2.1 billion. The celebratory leap might have reminded some of the bankers and stockbrokers who jumped from buildings during the Depression. They didn’t wear parachutes.

Mitchell said, “We wanted to be very respectful of our financial partners and Wachovia” — a name emblazoned on another Fayetteville Street tower.

Part of my consistent innovation message through the last several years — “faster is the new fast” — challenges organizations to think whether they can move at the fast pace required of them in today’s high velocity world. Innovation isn’t just about new products and design — it’s about challenging yourself as to how you operate, act, compete, change and do things differently to keep up with rapid trends.

In this case, what could have been a PR disaster has turned into a smallish news story barely covered anywhere. That’s great innovation.

JimCarroll

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THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE FAST features the best of the insight from Jim Carroll’s blog, in which he covers issues related to creativity, innovation and future trends.

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE FAST features the best of the insight from Jim Carroll’s blog, in which he
covers issues related to creativity, innovation and future trends.