By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Feb 17, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET I was invited by Boston Globe innovation columnist Scott Kirsner to participate in a brainstorming session to answer the question: how do we better communicate New England’s innovative, creative, entrepreneurial spirit to the rest of the world? The meeting took place at Flybridge Capital Partners in a conference room with a great panoramic view of Boston and was attended by an eclectic group of twenty five leaders from across New England all with a passion for strengthening our region’s innovation story and voice. It was an energizing session and I left with many ideas and a refreshed enthusiasm for New England’s potential as a national innovation hot spot.
Here are a few observations from the session:
New England cynicism left at the door. New Englanders take cynicism to entirely new heights. One characteristic of innovators, which was true for those assembled, is that they remain optimistic even in the midst of a severe recession. It is a pleasure to be around innovators because they always see the silver lining and look for ways to take advantage of these disruptive times. Our discussion had a positive tone and there was a collective sense of optimism in the room.
More than a slogan. I shared a story about once filling a war room with the economic development ads from all fifty states. I covered the name of each state with masking tape and brought people in to the room challenging them to match the ad with the state it came from. All of the slogans were similar like “A Great Place to Start and Grow a Business” and no one could connect the ads with the right states. The reaction to my story was immediate and strong. This group was not interested in creating a new advertising slogan or catchy logo. Slogans come and go and telling the New England innovation story has to be a genuine narrative backed up with real proof points of our region’s innovation capacity.
 Act as a region. The northeast knowledge corridor has an amazing collection of innovation stories, assets, and institutions. As a region we have an opportunity to become a national innovation hot spot. Collectively our story would be compelling and genuine. While labor, knowledge, and capital move freely across state borders, political boundaries have caused us to fragment our economic development effort. We sub-optimize our efforts and our story and must develop a regional communication platform. Our brainstorming session had voices from NH, CT, MA, and RI. It was a start.
Purposeful networks. Many participants talked about the importance of networks and leveraging social media platforms to strengthen connections throughout the region and to share our innovation story. Dave McLaughlin of Boston World Partnerships talked about the work they are doing focused on creating and enabling “connectors”. I raised the idea of creating purposeful networks focused on solving the big issues of our time including health care, education, and climate change. We are blessed in New England with an incredible concentration of the inputs for innovation. Within our region we have many of the world’s best colleges and universities and a hard-wired spirit for discovery and entrepreneurship. I proposed that we develop an innovation story that is about better outputs and solutions. Why don’t we create a regional innovation hot spot that delivers real transformation in our health care, education, and energy systems? If we did it would deliver on the promise of technology for patients, students, and citizens and we would create a more prosperous regional economy.
You can find Scott’s blog post on the discussion, a list of attendees, and the audio from our brainstorming session here.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Feb 13, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET I fully support YUM and think they are a great company and corporate citizen. But the other night I was parked across from a KFC restaurant and for several moments couldn’t stop staring at the logo rendering of Colonel Sanders.
It just wasn’t the way I remember the Colonel looking. I’m no Colonel Sanders expert and only met him a handful of times…But something about this logo image bothered me. This man pictured in the logo looked pleasant, harmless, bland, and a little metrosexual. Frankly, he looks more like a Walmart greeter (no offense to Walmart greeters) than one of the century’s great restauranteurs and entrepreneurs.
 And the Colonel often mumbled to himself while deep in thought about his exacting standards about whatever he was doing…..and never would have said something like “Today tastes so good.”
Colonel Sanders, as I recall him, was kind-hearted and generous but could be gruff at times, too. He always seemed like a proud and determined man, He was in many ways an artist. A perfectionist who demanded from others what he gave.
And he seemed to enjoy life. Seemed to suck out the marrow, in his own way, as Thoreau wrote.
 When it was time for me to leave the parking lot the other night, I pulled away slowly and stared again at the image of the Colonel on the KFC logo.
And decided if the new made-up image of the Colonel could meet the real Colonel, there’s a good chance the real Colonel may have taken a swing at him –and told him to get that silly grin off his face and for he and his apron to back in the kitchen. And probably given up on him ever looking as dignified as the man who came up with the 11 secret herbs and spices and left his unmistakable imprint–including his unique and distinctive appearance — on the world.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Feb 12, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
At age 50 I am able, by and large, to order meals and shop like a “big boy” without always forgetting to add two or three additional items.
In fact, I always finish my orders with “And that will do it. Thank you.” to discourage any attempts to upsell me. But it never works. My full, well-considered and complete decision– made by a grown man–is ignored and always challenged as not well thought out and missing at least a side order of fries or the days special or a stick of chapstick at the checkout counter or an extra warranty in case what I am buying doesn’t work.
To combat this assault on my judgment, I am going to start ordering or bringing to the check out counter two or three extra items. After my order has been taken or charges rung up, and just at the moment I am about to be upsold, I am going to say, “You know, after some reflection, I don’t think I need the extra calories in those fries, please take that off my order.” Then after pausing add, “Tell you what, I really shouldn’t get that apple turnover either. It is unhealthy and they usually are cold anyway.” And keep going until the poor person at the register gives up on me for an upsell.
Same at retail stores. I will bring an extra two or three items to check out and then “down sell” myself. “You know, I won’t ever use these socks, let’s take that off my purchase, please.” And “Let me pass on the sun glasses, too. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess like most adults I just can’t competently shop for myself” –and then laugh self-deprecatingly while looking confused and helpless.
I want to adopt this practice until I am even for all the attempts to upsell me. Which will take me about 15 years. Actually, only about 13 years. Well, I am going to say just 10 years. Let’s actually just make it just 8 years.
And, no, I don’t need an 8 year warranty with that decision.
Get the idea?
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Feb 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET Is your path to success more like Mine That Bird or Rachel Alexandra? Do you start out slow, figure out the game, and then sprint past the competition to win the race or do you come out of the gates strong, define the race, and than hold off contenders looking back as you cross the finish line? Both paths can lead to the winner’s circle but the journey is completely different.
No one was paying attention to Mine That Bird before the Kentucky Derby. He was a 50 to 1 shot and the race favorites were not focusing on how to compete against him. He lagged behind at the start, waited for an opening on the rail and took off. By the time the field recognized the competitive threat it was too late and Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby running away. Are you like Mine That Bird? Do you scope out the race and the competition before making your move. Coming from behind is always exciting. We love a good underdog story. By letting the race unfold before making your move you can size up the competition and look for a clear opening. But, what if the early front-runner has an insurmountable lead or finds a new gear making it impossible to catch up? What if your strategy doesn’t work and there is no clear path through the competition to take on the leader?
By contrast, Rachel Alexandra was the clear favorite in the Preakness. She was expected to win and broke out of the gate fast, living up to the early hype and expectations. She defined the race throughout, daring the competition to come after her. She led from start to finish and held off any attempt including a strong bid from Mine That Bird to come from behind. Everyone knew the talented filly was the horse to beat. Are you more like Rachel Alexandra in your path to success? Do you define the rules of the race and create the market leaving competitors to come from behind? By the time competitors figure out your approach you are already off to the races creating distance that they are forced to make up. The biggest challenge with coming out of the gate fast is that by putting yourself out in front you immediately become the target. Unlike the underdog coming from behind everyone wants a piece of your action and focuses all of their energy on finding a way to beat you. If you take the front-runner approach it is important not to put blinders on. Are you prepared to go the distance and sustain the lead through out the race? Can you respond to competitive threats during the race? Can you kick in to an entire new gear to change the game during the race to keep competitors from catching up and overtaking you?
Both paths to success can work. I am biased toward Rachel Alexandra’s approach. I like to define any race I compete in and prefer to lead, redefine, and lead again. It might not be as compelling as the underdog story, coming from behind to win, but I like the odds and the view from the front of the race better. It will be interesting to see if Rachel Alexandra can win in the longer distance Belmont Stakes. The competition will be coming after her and have more track to catch her if she comes out with the early lead. Are you more like Mine That Bird or Rachel Alexandra in your path to the winner’s circle?
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Feb 5, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET Sure, I envy rich people – most of us do, if we’re honest. But usually I don’t begrudge them their wealth – I can admire their accomplishments, aspire to be like them, or just enjoy the fact that if it weren’t for rich people giving parties & hiring bands, most musicians I know would be even more under-employed. (What’s the difference between a musician and a savings bond? The savings bond eventually matures and makes money. Cue rim-shot.)
Of course, there have always been those hideous examples of gross over-consumption or bad behavior that can give wealth a bad rap. (You know, the CEOs with gold-plated toilet seats in their private bathrooms, the jewel-encrusted socialite who owes her maid back pay, the wealth congresspeople who vote to pay themselves hundreds of thousands in farm subsidies.) Other rich people can be counted on to put them in their place with a throaty “How vulgar,” like Cyd Charisse’s character’s reaction to seeing a ‘talking picture’ at a party in Singing In The Rain. (I once played at a very expensive country club, where one of the drunken members was trying to make suggestive remarks to me – at least as far as one could understand his slurring. I was trying to put him off politely, not wanting to be rude to a client, but a lovely silver-haired dowager heard him and told him in no uncertain terms to do something anatomically impossible to himself. That’s the kind of rich person I want to be! . . . but I digress)
These days, of course, income inequality is all the rage – probably because income inequality is at levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Naturally, one might expect the very richest people to feel a bit under siege, but they don’t help themselves when they make public comments about unemployment insurance just encouraging people to be lazy, or feeling just like Jews in Nazi Germany. (Note of advice to Tom Perkins – unless you’re Jewish and have relatives who are Holocaust survivors, that is not a very good idea. Nor is it smart to defend your remarks while bragging about a $380,000 watch that is ‘worth a 6-pack of Rolexes.)
But I’m not jealous of Tom Perkins – in fact, I’m grateful to him for inspiring my next song (which is my way of saying to him what that kind dowager said to the boor who was bothering me . . . )
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Feb 3, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET Everyone bows down to the all, important benchmark. How many times have you heard someone say, “You only get what you measure”? Most organizations commit to identifying and measuring performance against industry best practice. Many have recognized the value of looking outside of their industry for practices that might provide a source of competitive advantage. Adopting existing best practice makes sense if you want to improve the performance of your current business model. Going beyond the limits of your current business model requires a network-enabled capability to do R&D for new business models. The imperative is to build on best practices to explore and develop next practices.
Understanding best practices and applying them to increase business model productivity is an essential capability for all organizations. No surprise most companies benchmark their performance adopting practices ranging from accessing benchmarking data to sourcing (internal and external) process improvement capabilities. Like all learned behaviors the earlier it is adopted the easier it is to scale and to apply in other markets. Entrepreneurs and small business leaders should start with a back of the napkin approach. Be specific about goals and take the napkin out a lot.
 It doesn’t take long to exhaust the library of best practices in any given industry. Field organizations have seen most of what the competition is doing and can report their observations. In addition your customers and networks have an important perspective that should be tapped. Social network platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-in make real time information interaction possible across networks. Leverage these new tools and platforms. It is worth it.
Only exploring your own industry for best practices is limiting. New sources of competitive advantage are far more likely to come from observing and adopting best practices in completely unrelated industries. All leaders should spend more discretionary time outside of their industry, discipline, and sector. There is more to learn from unusual suspects who bring fresh and different perspectives than from the ideas circulated and re-circulated among the usual suspects. The big and important value creating opportunities will most likely be found in the gray areas between the silos we inhabit. Get out more.
Best practices are necessary but not sufficient. Business models don’t last as long as they used to. Leaders must identify and experiment with next practices. Next practices enable new ways to deliver customer value. Next practices are better ways to combine and network capabilities that change the value equation of your organization. Organizations should always be developing a portfolio of next practices that recombine capabilities to find new ways to deliver value. Leaders should design and test new business models unconstrained by the current business or industry model.
It is easy to sketch out business model innovation scenarios on the white board. It is far more difficult to take the idea off the white board for a spin in the real world. We need safe and manageable platforms for real world experimentation of new business models and systems. Since most leaders in the 21st century will likely have to change their business models several times over their careers it makes sense to do R&D for new business models the same way R&D is done for new products and technologies today. Create the space for exploration.
It is not best practices, but next practices that will sustain your organization on a strong growth trajectory. While you continue to pedal the bicycle of today’s business model make sure that no less than 10% of your time and resources is dedicated to exploring new business models and developing next practices.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 31, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET Negotiation Tactics
Sometimes when you are in a negotiation you can feel like the Washington Generals basketball team (the exhibition team whose record against the Harlem Globetrotters is 6 wins and over 1300 losses).
You aren’t asking for parity or for something that will help you win more games. You just want to persuasively plead with the Globetrotters not to run up the score so much in future games.
In such instances, you are not negotiating from a place of strength; but rather a place of pity.
When you find yourself in this negotiating situation, at least try to get an autographed ball from the opposing team.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jan 29, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET Sales techniques: connecting with the customer.
It is important, sales people are taught, to find ways to identify with the customer to help build rapport.
Last night I had an experience with a sales clerk who tried this technique on me–but it didn’t have quite the intended effect.
I was shopping for a plain blue dress shirt. The sales rep was a heavy roundish fellow who was very affable and extremely helpful.
We found my size but I learned there were three different tailoring styles within my size.
The sales clerk explained, “This shirt has a taper on it and is for men who, you know, still have the wide shoulders and narrow waist (he used his hands to illustrate a small waist). And the shirt you are holding is for guys who, well, who are just really skinny and always will be and have narrow shoulders (he made hand gesture for narrow shoulders). These guys will never have much meat on them.”
He then reached over and grabbed a third blue dress shirt and proceeded, “And then this shirt is for guys like you and me.”
Hmmmm. I guess we sorta connected with that observation but I didn’t care for it personally. Just wasn’t expecting it and almost asked for the tapered shirt because I’m on this new diet.
But didn’t.
I bought the shirt. And the hell of it is that the shirt fits perfectly.
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jan 27, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET  If TED is about Ideas Worth Spreading then BIF is about Ideas Worth Scaling. I may have stumbled on to BIF’s new positioning. I blurted it out in my last post Biotech Disruption Part Deux. It has stuck with me all week. What do you think? I love TED and what it is doing. I am biased due to my friendship with Richard Saul Wurman (RSW) who founded it. RSW has been a BIF advisor from the beginning and as a BIF-5 storyteller on October 7-8th, he will share the story of his new book about an old fable. The BIF community was proud this week being named by Mashable in the same company as TED as one of the “Top 7 Places to Watch Great Minds in Action“.
I think spreading ideas is critical but the end goal is solving a problem or creating a new opportunity. I don’t know about you but over the course of my day I hear a lot of great ideas. I even occasionally contribute a few. The question is can the ideas translate into action and can they scale? I think a lot about how to enable R&D at the business model and systems level. The BIF community is passionate about scaling new ideas in health care, education, and energy.
Real world experimentation is imperative to solve the big social issues of our day. These systems all need to be transformed not tweaked. We have the technology available to enable system changes. It is not technology that is getting in the way it is humans and the organizations we live in, both stubbornly resistant to change. We need to try more stuff. We need to experiment with new system approaches designed around the patient, student, and citizen.
Many good ideas spread and catalyze important conversations but far too few translate into action and even fewer scale to deliver value to a meaningful percentage of those that can benefit from the idea. The promise of technology is to deliver value at lower prices to more people. We are not taking full advantage of technology because we are stuck in old systems.
Read the rest of…
Saul Kaplan: Ideas Worth Scaling
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jan 20, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects. Unless, of course, if you want to learn something new. In that case seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and the big value creating opportunities are in the gray areas between the unusual suspects. It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. We need to get out of our silos more.
It is human nature to surround ourselves with people who are exactly like us. We connect and spend time with people who share a common world-view, look the same, enjoy the same activities, and speak the same language. We join clubs to be with others like us. I want to belong to the non-club club. The only tribe I want to be in is a tribe of unusual suspects who can challenge my world-view, expose me to new ideas, and teach me something new. Our tribe of unusual suspects can change the world if we connect in purposeful ways.
As an “accidental bureaucrat” over the last six years I had a front row seat to observe the silos in action. Every week went something like this; On Monday I met with the health care crowd, on Tuesday it was the education crowd, on Wednesday the energy crowd and so on, you get the idea. This cycle repeated over and over again. Each crowd was comprised of the usual suspects, well-intentioned people rehashing the same discussion incessantly. The scene is right out of Groundhog Day. Most of the participants were there to represent institutional perspectives and to protect their respective interests. In each crowd there are always a few innovators that want to change the conversation but they make little progress. At the end of each week I always came away with the same conclusion. If only we could take the innovators from across each of the silos and bring them together to enable more random collisions.
Maybe we could change the conversation if we connect the unusual suspects in purposeful ways. Maybe then we can make progress on the real issues of our time, little things like health care, education, and energy. It will take cross silo collaboration and breaking down the boundaries between industries, sectors, and disciplines.
People always ask me how I could have worked in the public sector after being in the private sector all of my career. Doesn’t it move too slowly? I don’t know about that. I worked with many large companies, during my road warrior consulting days, and I don’t remember them changing so quickly. You are right, I would say, government agencies move pretty slowly too. I can’t resist adding, I am certain that academic institutions move the slowest of all! The point is few organizations across both the public and private sector have the capacity to innovate and change because they are working hard pedaling the bicycle of their current business model and trying to stay alive and competitive.
Read the rest of…
Saul Kaplan: Random Collisions
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