In a recent blog post I discussed the virtues of Design Thinking as a framework to facilitate the creation of innovative marketing and communication strategies.

In this post, I offer thoughts on what leaders need to do to create a culture where innovation and design thinking can actually thrive.

Lessons from Harvard Business Review.

In an article published in the December 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review entitled “The Innovators DNA" authors Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregerson, and Clayton M. Christensen discuss the characteristics of leadership that drive innovation cultures within organizations.  The article is the result of a six-year study to uncover the origins of creative - and often disruptive - business strategies in innovative companies.

The authors discovered that the best leaders in many organizations are not the genius behind ground breaking innovations.  Rather they are the curators of ideas and design and are the facilitators of collaboration that often lead to great innovations.

The ability to innovate is the secret sauce of business success. 

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

For many executives, when it comes to understanding basic stakeholder perception and sentiment towards a company's product or corporate brand in the social web, Twitter is a great and safe place to start. 

People who 'tweet' want to be listened to, they want to be heard.  As such, Twitter is a perfect platform for people to channel their emotions, thoughts, experiences and ideas.

There are a number of free Twitter applications available that allow you to run an infinite number of Twitter queries at the same time - such as TweetDeck. 

As an example, you can start by running the following queries, side-by-side:

• Love [insert your company/product name]
• Hate [insert your company/product name]

This is a safe and easy way to understand the sentiment of people toward your company (brand, products and services) - at the extremes.  You can also conduct the same with your competitors as a comparison or benchmark. 

If you want to take things one step further you can 'engage' with and thank customers who support and love your products/services - by responding to tweets.  Perhaps ask a few questions while at it: "What do you like best about x products?" "How can we improve your experience?"

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result.  It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success. Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the "building up" of ideas. There are no judgments early on in design thinking. This eliminates the fear of failure and encourages maximum input and participation in the ideation and prototype phases. Outside the box thinking is encouraged in these earlier processes since this can often lead to creative solutions.

As the principles of design thinking have largely been used to help companies reinvent their innovation processes to develop compelling and transformative products and services - there is much that marketing and communication professionals can derive from these basic principles to support the creation and design of influence strategies to shape market conversation and ideas to advance the competitive positions of their companies.

I recently touched on this in a post on thought leadership.

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

Answer: Everyone!

Social media has evolved significantly from its roots in marketing and corporate communications to the point that it should no longer be viewed as merely a function or a discipline within a company. 

In a business context, social media is no longer just a destination or a set of tools and features.  It has evolved into a very powerful extension and dimension of work…a new way of thinking about how business is done.

Asking the question (today) 'who owns social media?' in business is like asking the question 'who owns email?' 

Everyone does. 

Email has traditionally played an important role in how people communicate, collaborate and share information.  In many ways, social media represents a massive evolution (or revolution) as to how we do the same – but in a different context and with greater benefit.

Everyone in a corporate environment needs to understand, appreciate and own how social media is used in the context of what they do.

Resistance is futile

A mistake that many companies make is to relegate social media to just marketing and/or corporate communications and associate it as only relevant to the youngest generations of people. 

Adjusting to the use and rules of social media and social thinking is not easy for everyone.

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

Social media is a tremendous environment for B2B companies to establish competitive advantage through compelling thought leadership.

In a social environment, thought leadership allows companies to frame and stimulate conversation and collaboration around important and sometimes complex ideas and real-world business and socioeconomic problems – where their solutions are uniquely positioned to help address.

Through social media, companies can reach highly targeted audiences by role (CEOs, CIOs, developers, etc.), industry orientation and geography through any form of generic or specialized social network or community (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MyVenturePad.com, YouTube, etc.).

If compelling, people will contribute, share and internalize the thought leadership – giving companies a tremendous opportunity to influence agendas and establish standards in the market.

As outlined in a recent post by Rob Leavitt, in order to make an impact - thought leadership requires focus, depth and continuity.

For many companies this represents a big challenge due to a lack of skilled and trained staff (in house) to produce good, deep and continuous thought leadership - on their own.

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

I had a great discussion last week with Mike Kelly and Peter Auditore about social media and why business leaders should care.

If you agree with the premise that we now live and work in a world that is increasingly becoming more and more ‘social’ then it is easy to understand that new rules in business are being written for companies to be successful and compete.

Social media now thrives in a dynamic environment as a result of the convergence of many great enabling technologies built around the Internet, Web 2.0, and mobile along with advancements in bandwidth and connectivity (among other things).

We now operate in a world where hundreds of millions of people are seamlessly connected through devices and the Internet - sharing billions of pieces of content, information and experiences on a daily basis.  It is just amazing.

In many ways, social media has evolved to become a very powerful medium to channel emotion, context and experience.

• Emotion: How I feel…
• Context: What I think or where I am…
• Experience: What I did and how I will act as a result of...

Perhaps the most important component for business leaders to understand and appreciate in a social world is 'experience.’

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

As I recently discussed, Tom Foremski, Vanessa DiMauro and I have started a great collaboration – extending from of our work together at the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR). 

The three of us meet regularly to discuss industry trends and share experiences from our respective work in media, business and technology.  Our discussions have sharpened our individual and collective views on social media and social business that have helped us (or at least me, anyway) become more effective in our 'day jobs.'

Through our collaboration, we have also identified a great opportunity to share our experiences and ideas through a new blog, intended to help business leaders and practitioners understand how to incorporate social strategies and social thinking into the heart of their business operations (beyond marketing and communications) - strengthening the competitive position and market leadership of their companies.

Today we launched the blog Every Company is a Media Company.  This blog is intended to support rich discussion between marketing and communications practitioners, business and IT professionals, academics, consultant, etc.

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

“People don't change behavior or positions based on what they know. They change based on what they feel.” – Oprah Winfrey.

 

This is an extremely powerful and clarifying statement from one of the most successful and influential ‘social’ leaders of our time.  What makes Oprah Winfrey so influential, anyway?  In my view, she is successful because she has a pulse on the issues and concerns of millions of people within her core audience.  She is a master at channeling and telling stories based on both her own experiences and those of everyday people.  She comes across as accessible. She is a masterful communicator and understands the importance of authenticity. 

Regardless of your view on Oprah’s politics or opinions…it is hard to deny the great and transformative power of her influence.

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

I’ve dedicated a great deal of 'electronic ink' on my blog to topics that impact the world of communications in a corporate environment.

It is very clear that we now operate in a world of all things social - social media, social networks and social influence. Over the past two years, many communication leaders have had to rethink the design of their programs, mission, organizational structures and purpose - to better enable their companies to lead in a hypercompetitive and increasingly social business environment.

Without a doubt, social media has creeped its way into the core of business operations and strategy at companies of all size and industry orientation - around the word. 

Business leaders are starting to take stock of how people (consumers, employees, partners and influencers) are using social technologies to inform, shape and share opinions about their companies.  In fact, many companies are actively incorporating ‘social strategy’ and ‘social thinking’ into the core of their innovation process (research and development), service and support operations, sales and partner programs, and of course employee engagement efforts.

Implication for Communication Leaders

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.

2010 where have you gone!

One of the great highlights for me so far in 2010 has been the opportunity to collaborate with two great industry friends and SNCR colleagues - Tom Foremski and Vanessa DiMauro.

Tom is a well known blogger who left the Financial Times about six years ago to be a full time journalist blogger. For the past six years he has built a loyal following of 60k+ people who subscribe to his popular blog Silicon Valley Watcher to read his keen observations and straight shooting analysis on the important trends in business, technology and media driving Silicon Valley. (Tom is also credited with defining the term “Every Company is a Media Company”)

Read more »

Republished with author's permission from original post by Don Bulmer.