Think Out Loud is a blog brought to you by the team at ThinkTank - a catalytic consultancy specialising in strategic marketing, branding and innovation based in Cork, Ireland.
At ThinkTank we were encouraged to read Alf Smiddy’s recent Blog post entitled -It’s all about your Brand - which also appeared in innovative financial services firm, Quintas’ spring newsletter.
As a former MD and Chairman of Beamish & Crawford Plc, for over twelve years and current chairman and director on a number of Boards, Alf has a tremendous depth of experience in both the financial and branding arenas. This combination of skills is particularly unique and it’s inspiring to hear one of Cork’s most respected business leaders recognising the importance and value of brands.
In an insightful and thought -provoking post he outlines why in our tumultuous economic landscape, business as usual has become irrelevant and how companies need to to “inspire and mobilise people around a common purpose.” He goes onto explain,“I firmly believe that it’s through innovation, the re-invention of existing brands, and the creation of new brands that will create the climate for business success going forward.”
When it comes to innovation we often focus on the sexy part – coming up with the ideas! In this insightful Harvard Business Review video Vijay Govindarajan, Tuck School of Business professor, talks about why innovation is so hard to implement and what you can do about it. Innovation is all about commercializing creativity and Vijay explains why companies need to forget about the past if they want to create the future. In his new book The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge with Chris Trimble – he explains how companies need to build separate innovation teams that a are separate from the operating engine of the business. This is important if you want to let go off organizational baggage and introduce new skills and fresh perspectives. You can follow Vijay on Twitter right HERE!
Good design is good business. Yet it’s amazing how few good business people recognize and understand the commercial value of good design.
Think about how every day poorly designed products and services add complexity instead of simplicity to our lives. The tortuously convoluted language used by the financial services industry, the non-intuitive features on electronic gadgets that most of us will never fathom, big call centres that tell you what they can’t do instead of what they can, antiquated recruitment practices that tick boxes instead of identifying talent and newspaper layouts that are cluttered with ads all fighting for attention like kids on a sugar rush! The universe may contain intelligent design but many products and services certainly do not!
Naming a business is a lot like laying the cornerstone of a new building. Once it’s in place, the entire foundation and structure is aligned to that original stone. If it’s off, even in the slightest, the misalignment becomes amplified.
The tougher it gets out there, the more important it is to put your marketing money where it will do the most good. Coming up with the right name for a company or a product can make a huge difference in building a brand and even in determining it’s future success. Too often companies jump straight into designing a logo and then spend the rest of the marketing budget trying to explain to people what they actually do and what their difference is.
After conducting 1500 in depth face-to-face interviews with CEOs and public service leaders around the world – “creativity” was identified as the single most important leadership competency for the successful business of the future.
The report suggests that creative leaders should “embrace ambiguity,” “take risks that disrupt legacy business models,” and “leapfrog beyond tried-and-true management styles.” Coming through the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial control and process ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in mindset. It’s a sea change from a rational ‘scientific’ management approach built around efficiency and control to a creative ‘intuitive’ approach – based upon agility, adaptability and emotional intelligence.
With the acceleration of the pace of change – global trends are reshaping the business landscape and are forcing companies to either adapt or die. At ThinkTank, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how companies can become more creatively evolved.
No committee, no budget and no rules; The grassroots movement that’s determined to transform the way people look at Cork city.
A new movement has begun to “transform” Cork city into a better place for its residents and visitors. It’s a movement without a leader. Already, two cafés, two marketing companies, publicans, journalists, start-up businesses and unemployed people have pledged their support. It’s called Transform Cork and it’s open to everyone keen to improve the city. There’s no committee, no budget and nothing but the power of the internet at its service. It’s using Twitter, Facebook, blogs and now the Cork News. It seems to have sprung out of nowhere, committed to changing Cork from the bottom-up – rather than the top-down.
“Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who’s forging a bullet with your company’s name on it,” Gary Hamel, a leading business strategy writer and consultant, has written. “You’ve got one option now — to shoot first. You’ve got to out-innovate the innovators.”
Unfortunately most organizations have an in built defence mechanism against new ideas. People don’t like change so immediately find reasons why ideas should not be considered. The problem is that if you don’t start anticipating the future you could be run over by it.
Many SME’s would acknowledge that they need to become more innovative but just don’t know how to start or where to begin. ThinkTank sat down to map out 4 practical ways SME’s can generate ideas, capture insights and successfully implement a game changing innovation strategy.
In tough times we need ideas more than ever before. New ideas are the rocket fuel that can propel growth, ignite economic opportunities and improve our quality of life.
INSEAD’s Global Innovation Index 2009-2010, currently ranks Ireland as the 19th most innovative country in the world. Ireland Inc is basing its recovery on forging a new smart economy built around innovation. Crowd-sourced competitions like Your Country Your Call have recently been launched to encourage citizens to generate new ideas and proposals that could transform Ireland by creating new jobs, new opportunities and a new way of thinking.
The IDA (Industrial Development Authority) have also invested €2m launching a global campaign with the positioning ‘Ireland – Innovation comes naturally’. It is designed to attract greater direct foreign investment and stimulate economic growth. To highlight this focus, the ‘I’ word has even found its way into our political lexicon. Minister Batt O’Keeffe is now fondly known as the Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Innovation.
So what can we do locally to become more of an Innovation Nation? As part of a new series, we’ll take a closer look at innovation and how we can apply it to our businesses and our lives.
New opportunities or good-paying jobs won’t come from bailouts like NAMA. They come from start-ups. And where do start-ups come from? They come from smart, creative, inspired people who are willing to take risks and not handouts.
So if you’re considering starting your own business – or looking for ways to expand an existing one – here are three time-tested strategies you can implement to fast track growth and gain a competitive edge.
Sign up for our quirky quarterly newsletter Thought Starters. It will give you an insight into the latest strategic
marketing and branding thinking and help you to grow revenues and create new profit opportunities.
There was a problem loading your MailChimp details. Please re-run the setup process under Settings->MailChimp Setup
