Introducing a new offering into an unripe ecosystem will doom your new venture. Instead, find a mini-ecosystem in which you can build a solution that works and use it as a steppingstone to reach your… Read more »
Archives for 2021
When HR really does get a seat at the table! Congratulations to Kathleen Hogan on being recognized as the HR Executive of the Year
It’s almost a meme among HR professionals – wanting a “seat at the table” while often being relegated to routine problem solving and dealing with the messier sides of humanity. But whoa, when its done… Read more »
Positioning: Beyond the Statement
Developing a positioning statement is often done as a fill-in-the-blank “Mad Libs” exercise. The power of insightful positioning, however, goes right to the heart of how you are creating value, and for whom. In marketing… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – September 2021
Dear colleagues, Hey, everybody! We’re already through September?—?back to school, back to work, back to thinking about Q4! This monthly wrap-up of my weekly Thought Sparks news pieces will give you a short summary and… Read more »
The Principles of Learning from Prototypes: 5 Lessons
Prototypes are a great way to get customer feedback about elements of your proposed innovation before you have to invest a ton of resources in them. But there is a bit of science to how… Read more »
How a Growth Gap can Sneak Up On You
This article was co-developed with Alex van Putten, Partner at Cameron and Associates, and draws from our 2017 article “How to Set More Realistic Growth Targets.” It’s always easy to project rosy growth goals that… Read more »
Digital transformation, the discovery-driven way
Talking about digital transformation has a way of freaking people out. They then do the exact wrong thing, which is to throw money and effort at anyone who can promise that – Poof! – digital… Read more »
How Not to Blow Your First Marketing Campaign: 3 Factors
Most new product launches fail. One big, and unnecessary reason is focusing too much on the product or service offering and not focusing enough on how the thing will be brought to market. New! New!… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – August 2021
Dear colleagues, Welcome to the monthly newsletter, with a wrap-up of my weekly Thought Sparks and some things to watch out for in September. If you’d like to get the weekly Thought Sparks delivered right… Read more »
Discovering Perfectly Predictable Mistakes – Before You Make Them
There are no failures in Thoughtland – that mystical place where great ideas for new products and services are first born. But if you want to travel to the real world, you’ll need a different… Read more »
The Discipline that Turns Vision into Reality
In the heady days of coming up with what you think is a breakthrough idea, it’s easy to get carried away by assumptions. Forcing yourself to create a deliverables specification can create powerful discipline. Entrepreneurs… Read more »
We need to talk about five mechanisms to avoid future catastrophe.
Humans are surprisingly adaptive creatures – many of the changes wrought by the pandemic would have been unthinkable in an earlier era. And yet, we’re also remarkably blind to changes happening right under our noses. … Read more »