Travelled up to Edinburgh at the weekend to see my brother. And in all honesty was looking forward to the train journey as much as the visit itself. Phone off. Stare out of the window. I thought about buying a trash novel to read, purely to disengage brain. Instead I bought the Harvard Business Review, purely on the basis of it counting their 'Breakthrough ideas for 2007'. They had 20 in total, which were of varying interest. Below is a quick summary of the ones that caught my attention...
1. "The accidental influentials" - Duncan J. Watts
Argues that society is not made up of 'influencers', people who shape culture/pass on ideas to others, and that any notion of 'influencers' being at the core of one's marketing strategy is flawed. Instead, people are accidentally influential, insomuch as for an idea to spread rather than a few thought leaders shaping opinion, what is required is groups of easily influenced people in contact with other easily influenced people. The notion of influencers creates a bottleneck when the people they come into contact with are not easily influenced, Watts argues.
2. Harry Potter marketing - Dalsace, Damay and Dubois.
Introduces the idea that brands should not be age focused, i.e. define themselves as being a 18-34 brand, as that inevitably means they have to reposition themselves depending on the tastes/influences of 18-34 year olds at any given time. Instead brands should 'grow up' with their target audience, evolving and ageing alongside those to whom the brand was launched. Struck me as being a good idea for social networking sites, which will inevitably be seen as the property of an age group at a point in time, rather than a consistent representation of an age group throughout time.
3. Algorithms in the attic - Michael Shrage
Lots of ancient maths equations could make loads of dollar due to computers increased ability to use them properly. E.g. Google founded on an 18th century algorithm to classify nodes. Lots of money for mathmos if they bother to sift through the annals of their subjects history.
4. The emerging hotbed of User-Centred- Innovation - Eric Von Hippel
Innovation is vital for economic growth. Users are now at the centre of innovation rather than companies. Therefore governments should support user innovation, and encourage business to use it well. Denmark taking the lead.
5. Living with continuous partial attention - Linda Stone
People not really concentrating on anything as constantly looking for updates/new opportunities and don't want to miss anything. Different from multitasking. Results from massive bandwidth of technology and people trying to mimic computer updates. Good excuse if your not paying attention to someone.
6. Innovation and Growth - Size matters - Ap Dijksterhuis
Bigger companies are more innovative (on an aggregated per capita basis) than smaller ones. However to sustain they need to innovate faster as they grow bigger to sustain momentum. Plus resources required to service larger workforce is not 1:1 relationship with growth, more like 1:0.8, whereas innovation is a 1:1.2 ratio.
7. What sells when father knows best - Phillip Longman
Daunting thought that patriarchy will reestablish itself as those of a conservative judaeo-christian disposition are more likely to breed more than liberal types. Explanation of why religion more of a public issue now than 30 years ago. Basically, more social conservative are being nurtured than social liberals.
8. Business in the nanocosm - Rashi Glazer
One day we'll all have portable machines that builds stuff, e.g. plates, tables, bags. Bit science fiction since people find it hard to believe that books won't exist on paper in a few years, but interesting nonetheless.
9. Act globally, think locally - Yoko Ishikura
Business should think about local impact of actions and then scale globally. Similar to actor-network theory, I think. Good stuff, but hardly a breakthrough idea.
10. The best networks are worknets - Christopher Meyer
When approaching a problem you need to design a 'worknet' which involves five steps as follows,
1. Define the work - What is the purpose?
2. Identify the talent - Who am I talking with?
3. Engineer exchanges - Ensure balance between emotional, informational and economic returns.
4. Design the experience - Create environment that supports exchanges, virtual or real.
5. Assemble the technology - use leading edge stuff, but not for its own sake.
I thought this was seriously good. And would advise anyone interested in strategy to find a copy and read in full.
11. The folly of accountablism - David Weinberger
Accountability has gone wrong, has become a belief system and serves to bureaucratise, and give people false beliefs they can control life through adhering to specific set of rules. Essentially adding layer upon layer of process and sign off is wasteful and creates more damage to an organisation in the long run. Should be substituted with realism and trust.
Hope that was useful. If it was buy HBR every now and then, although it is £15.95, but it does contain good shit. Particularly if you don't use academic thought in your job (which is everyone bar people who work for think tanks).
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