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The Conversation Age is Yesterday's News

As Geoff Livingston says in the title of his book, Now Is Gone. He's right. At least when it comes to change and innovation. Today, what we call Web 2.0 or social media, which heralded in the "Conversation Age," is no longer the next big thing. That is yesterday's news. Someone, somewhere and someplace is beta testing the next big thing. It may or may not have anything to do with social media.

That does not mean we discard social media's tools or naively believe that they are firmly in place. We do not and they are not. It also does not mean that yesterday's news is irrelevant. Quite the contrary. In politics and business, yesterday's news represents today's course of action.

As is always the case, large corporations and most businesses of any size will continue to adopt and adapt social media over the next decade or two. And that is precisely why we should not look to or for corporations to be leaders of innovation, creativity or change in terms of business models or business tools. Those companies are better at improving current products, services and ways of doing things than they are at leading the next generation of thinking.

Instead, entrepreneurs and risk takers are the leaders of change. Therefore, we consultants, marketers, communicators and informers/educators of all things should be looking at them for the next big thing. For our ultimate responsibility is to bring business into the present, while the future is being developed, created, launched, tested and improved elsewhere. Meanwhile, while we are quietly moving our clients to adopt and adapt the last big thing, we need to be educating and preparing ourselves to do the same with the next big thing.

Indeed, now is gone and we can testify to that because corporations are interested in whatever is now. Somewhere the next big thing is percolating. Are you prepared to cut a path through the forest to help your clients launch and execute on whatever that thing is? Give yourself a decade or two to change the business world. Meanwhile, several next big things will have launched and happened. None of this is bad; it just is.

Author's P.S.: When writing Lead With Your Heart, I recognized that to get businesses to adopt and adapt the business model outlined within would take longer than my remaining lifetime. In order for that change to take place, I and many others must first be believers and then be passionate about seeing that change happen. In social media the passion exists, and businesses are slowly rising to the challenge. We will have to wait to learned whether always putting people first, the premise of Lead With Your Heart, creates that kind of passion.

Whole Foods Kisses the Sky

When the new Whole Foods Market opens in Glastonbury, Conn., tomorrow (March 12) it will be the first  supermarket to generate most of its power on-site with an ultra-clean fuel cell, according to Robin Rehfield, Whole Foods PR Representative.

“We are always looking to reduce our impact on the environment,” Kathy Loftus, Global Leader, Sustainable Engineering, Maintenance and Energy for Whole Foods Market says. “Together with UTC Power and the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, we’ve designed a combined cooling, heating and power system for our new Glastonbury store using a quiet, highly energy-efficient fuel cell that will reduce our carbon footprint dramatically.”

The new 46,000-square-foot store will generate 50 percent of the electricity and heat and nearly 100 percent of the hot water needed to operate the store on-site using fuel cell technology. This allows Whole Foods Market to reduce its burden on the power grid and its impact on the environment. 

More than half of the energy potential in traditional power plants is lost to the atmosphere as waste heat or in line transmission losses. In contrast, the UTC Power fuel cell system captures its exhaust energy for local cooling and heating. The harnessed exhaust energy at the store will cool refrigeration cases year-round and heat the store in the winter months.

“Our UTC Power PureCell® system provides Whole Foods Market with enhanced energy security and will ensure a reliable food supply for customers and protect against costly food spoilage if the power grid goes down,” Jan van Dokkum, UTC Power president, says.

Fuel cells are one of the cleanest and quietest power-generating technologies in the world today. Also highly efficient and virtually pollution-free, fuel cells produce electricity, heat and water electrochemically, meaning there is no combustion.

Whole Foods Market’s use of a fuel cell system versus a conventional power plant has carbon dioxide-mitigating benefits equal to planting more than 21 acres of forest, the companies said, and reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions equal to removing 100 cars from the roadways per year.

For this effort to do good, we give Whole Foods the All Heart Award.

Surprise Clients and Shake Up Their Skepticism

Yesterday, I wrote about practicing happy to grow your business. Today, I will share a story about what can happen when you do everything you can to make people happy.

I had a prospective client meeting this morning as a result of the best kind of business development: The client responded to a direct mail campaign and called me. The reason they called: My firm differentiates itself in a way seldom seen by my audience. We guarantee results, and if we don't  achieve them, we return some of the fee. Few marketing/communications firms do so, and even fewer businesses have ever heard of a firm making that offer. Therefore, we both differentiate ourselves and surprise our prospective clients with a message that at first elicits skepticism, which often leads to a telephone call. They called, we talked and today we met with the VP of Sales and the Comptroller.

As in any such meeting, we discussed the process that we would launch to meet their wants and needs, and promised we would get them numbers by next week. They were happy with the discussion, liked the ballpark job fee estimate that I provided and then wanted to know about my firm. I shared my business philosophy about making people happy, showed them yesterday's blog post and then waited to be asked about the guaranty. The Comptroller asked, told me he was skeptical, and then I explained how it works. It made sense to him, and now we are off getting numbers that will be lower than my ballpark estimate, even if I have to cut my margins. Because at the end of the day, we work to exceed customer expectations. That is a big part of putting people first and making them happy.

Everyone knows we need to differentiate ours businesses. Most businesses do so by making claims about their products and services. We chose another way to go. I'm not sure it matters how you differentiate your business as long as you do what you say. But if you can differentiate your business by surprising customers, then I think you've created something special. That differentiation doesn't have to be a guaranty, and for anyone adverse to risk or for anyone who can't clearly conceive of a guaranty that works for both themselves and their client, a guaranty is a bad idea. If you frequently return money, you won't stay in business long.

In conclusion, customers love surprises when they serve to exceed their expectations. How do you surprise your customers?

Get Your Innovative and Creative Mojos On

My long-time liberal friend Pat expends more than a little energy reminding me of business social responsibility. Often his reminders come in the form of talk radio tapes, NPR videos or articles by socialist-leaning authors. The thinking is excellent but often redundant and '60s-ish. Today, Pat outdid himself and sent me a link to TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. Not new to me but also not familiar, I checked it out. Now I urge you to do the same. It may make a difference in all our lives.

TED began in 1984 as a conference. Today, the annual conference hosts some of the world's best thinkers and doers, who have 18 minutes to share their insights and predictions with the audience. After the conference, the speakers' videos are shared on TED's web site (link is here and on my blog roll) and released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted. This fits TED's mission perfectly, which is simply stated as spreading ideas.

In TED"s words: "We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. Over time, you'll see us add talks and performances from other events, and solicit submissions from you, as well."

Here's something that should tickle entrepreneurs and bloggers fancy and get your mojos in gear. TED wants to hear our ideas.

TED is best described as a global community. "It's a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who have just two things in common: they seek a deeper understanding of the world, and they hope to turn that understanding into a better future for us all."

To whet your thirsts, I have added one of the videos, featuring Jeff Bezos' After the gold rush, there's innovation ahead. Bezos offers historical evidence showing how similar the gold rush and the dot com era were: "from the riches made by pioneers to the media hype that attracted luckless speculators.

"But a better analogy can be found in the early days of the electric industry," he says. "In the late 1800s, the U.S. was first wired to support lightbulbs; the following century saw a long procession of new appliances, life-changing advances, and of course some amusing failures."

His conclusion: "I believe there's more innovation ahead of us than behind us." What do you think? Where is business heading? Marketing? Sales? Customer Service?

An Angel Who Walks on Water

Chris Angel, 2007 Magician of the Year, has one message: You can do anything you set your mind to. For those of us who believe innovation and creativity are two hallmarks of business and personal success, Chris Angel is an inspiration. Chris Angel Mindfreak begins its third season on TV with the premier scheduled June 4 on A&E.

Watch Chris walk on water:

And get more information about this amazing person at his web site.

Can Electric Equal Hot Cars?

Most of us, even "greenies", find ourselves underwhelmed by electric cars. They are expensive to  purchase, difficult to work on for the inexperienced, slow, and not practical on modern highways. But are electric cars about to become hot?

According to a CNET article, Electric cars: Little juice coupes, what we are seeing is "A handful of automotive giants and start-ups racing to bring to market a mass-produced electric vehicle free from the limitations that doomed previous efforts."

According to Daron Gifford, leader of the auto industry practice group at KPMG "... the technology is quickly getting better, making new vehicle designs possible. The cost of owning these vehicles is coming down when the cost of gas is up, making the vehicles more appealing to a whole new set of cost-conscious potential buyers."

Even if costs are coming down and proponents claim speeds up to 90-miles an hour with charging times of 10 minutes, won't selling electric cars represent a challenge to marketers. Past experiences with battery-charged cars garnered unhappy customers and bad press. Isn't that a lot to overcome?

Still, high costs of oil and global warming represent large selling points, and a good story may change minds. Can marketers find an authentic and believable storyline and then convince clients and CEO's to develop that story to be credible, honest, and appealing?

Free Enterprise Does It Best

This is not a political post but it is about government staying out of the way of business.

Sometimes government regulations are necessary to protect workers and to prevent fraud. However, if we want businesses to innovate and respond to customers wants and needs, government needs to get out of the way most of the time.

A great example of addressing what customers want appeared in a CNET article today. Entitled GE's efficient incandescent bulb to match compact fluorescents, the article says that "GE has developed a high-efficiency incandescent lamp which the lighting powerhouse said will eventually deliver the same environmental benefits as compact fluorescent lamps." It will be ready for the market about 2010.

What moved GE to create this innovative and important product advancement? I don't have the inside skinny but here is my best guess.

Energy costs are rising. People want to reduce their energy consumption. Incandescent lights gobble up energy. Compact fluorescence is grabbing market share.

What we have here, my friends, is a perfect example of supply and demand. Demand for lighting that consumes less energy is rising. Compact fluorescent lamps fill the demand. GE is losing market share and needs to respond to the demand. The result: GE is reinventing Incandescent lamps, which are cheaper and easier to customers to use in most lamps. Assuming that remains true, GE's new innovation will begin to take back market share.

Government could have intervened and ordered companies to produce fluorescent lamps, provided grants for new start ups and tax breaks for current lighting businesses. And if they had, we would all be using fluorescent lamps sometime in the future. Instead, government stayed out of the way, allowed market forces to work, and the result: We will have choice. And my guess is that we will see more rapid improvements in fluorescent lamps that meet our wants and needs, as well. That's what competition and supply and demand economics do.

Meet Little Eddie and Get Smart

I'm all thumbs when it comes to creating visuals that stick but much better at messages that stick. (If you haven't yet read Made to Stick, you should. It's a great primer and written well.) And because I suck at creating visuals, I go with photos.

However, a blogger friend, David Armano, has created a great design that should be on everyone's computer, desk and in their mind's eye. In his post Meet Ed: Experience Diamond, David ties together all the elements of building most anything, from a business, to marketing campaigns. to cooking and presenting a great meal.

This is my take, not David's. However, he we inspired by Made to Stick, as well as Kevin Mullet's  Essence of Rich Internet Applications, and Little Eddie.

With David's permission, here it is:

In David's own words:

Time to put some principles from Made to Stick into practice.  Last year, I posted a visual of The Holy Trinity of Experience Design.  I've been wanting to update this for a while.  Basically it was inspired by Kevin Mullet's  Essence of Rich Internet Applications with my own touches added to it.  But it was missing a few things.  Namely that the experiences we create need to stand the test of time, adapt and evolve.  In other words—be sustainable (See Don Norman's comment on the trinity post).  Also, while I like the idea and sound of the word Storytelling, I think what we're really doing is Storyswapping.  So, I also made a change there to stress sharing.

Thanks David.

Open and Look Inside the Box

I am over at the DailyFix today: Check out Open and Look Inside the Box by clicking here.

Here's a taste:

We spend lots of time discussing tools. That is a good thing, as long as we remember there is very little useful and new about the tools. We can use a podcast or a megaphone, and either can succeed or fail. We can create dynamic 3D graphics or etchings on a cave wall, and unless they send the right message to the right audience at the right time, they are equally useless.

Tools are the means to an end. But we must begin with the most basic of all tools, an integrated communications/marketing plan, a road map to success. It might be the size and detail of <em>War and Peace</em> or written on a napkin. But however it is created, it is the box containing the action items that must be launched, managed and executed.

"Homogenization is good for milk. But it's bad for ideas."

Today's CNET feature an article entitled, 'Homogenization good for milk,' not ideas. The entire quote is special and one we should apply to all things in life: "Homogenization is good for milk," said Patric Verrone, president of Writers Guild of America, West. "But it's bad for ideas."

He was speaking "at a public hearing in Los Angeles Tuesday before the Federal Communications Commission, consumer groups, civil rights leaders, independent content producers, journalists and the like argued that media consolidation is killing creativity and diversity."

I encourage each of us to apply the quote to the things around us that homogenize us, that work to make us mediocre and more like automatons than free thinkers. Here are a few of my thoughts. Please write yours down and share them with a friend.

• Political correctness
• Big box stores
• Wall Street Analysts
• Big government
• Censorship
• Discouragement of Outspokenness
• Fear (of failure or success)
• Linear thinking only allowed here

Your turn. Go ahead. Give it a try. It will make you free!