Kanter's Innovation Pyramid

In this month's Harvard Business Review, longtime Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter discusses how companies continue to make the same mistakes in their innovation strategies and how these "classic traps" can be avoided.

One idea Dr. Kanter discusses is an "innovation pyramid" that describes how successful companies manage their innovation portfolio. Writes Kanter:

Companies can develop an innovation strategy that works at the three levels of...the innovation pyramid: a few big bets at the top that represent clear directions for the future and receive the lion's share of investment; a portfolio of promising midrange ideas pursued by designated teams that develop and test them; and a broad base of early stage ideas or incremental innovations permitting continuous improvement.


Initiatives can migrate from one level in the pyramid to the adjacent one--perhaps a midrange idea grows in importance so that it becomes a big idea, perhaps an early-stage idea shows enough promise to be promoted one level.

Many companies get stuck just at the top of the pyramid, or at the bottom. To successfully innovate you must have initiatives at all three levels.

innovation, strategy

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Management Innovation is the best way to achieve competitve advantage

I wanted to point out an important post from the consistently excellent Business Innovation Insider, in which Dominic interviews Gary Hamel, the renowned management researcher, on innovation. Hamel makes a provocative statement in the interview: "If one looks back over the last 100 years of industrial competition, it is management innovation, more than any other sort, that has produced big and enduring shifts in industry leadership."

By management innovation he means new ways of organizing, measuring and structuring businesses--for example, the Toyota Production System.

I have to say that Hamel's statements really struck me. We get lazy in thinking of innovation merely in terms of new products--when, in fact, new ways of working can yield more long-term success.

In other words, the Toyota Production System has made and will make far more profits for Toyota than the Prius ever will.

Think about that.

(Pictures courtesy of South West MAS and hybrid-vehicle.org)

innovation, strategy, management

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Fortune 500 Corporate Blog Review: Anheuser-Busch (#146)

No blogs for Anheuser-Busch. Corporate blogging, at least at this large-company level, remains the province of tech companies and certain few others. (Those responsible for Boeing's blog, which I criticized in an earlier post, are due an apology. At least they have one and view it as worthy of time and investment.)

Anheuser-Busch would be fertile territory for blogging. I could easily write something every day about the beer industry. Regulatory pressures, impact of consolidation, product innovation. And, of course, lots of potential liability, never mind lots of enemies.

Ah, well. A-B does have the "Here's To Beer" site, which will have to suffice in place of a real corporate blog for the moment. Things could be worse.

(Picture: Anheuser-Busch limited-edition beers, courtesy of the A-B web site.)

blogs, corporate blogs, marketing, Anheuser-Busch

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Google AdWords report week 4

Here is the report for the latest week:

Here are the statistics for the fourth week of the Google ad experiment.

# impressions via Google search: 675; #website hits: 12; clickthrough percentage: 1.78%; cost per click 40.7 cents.

# impressions via Google's ad network (i.e., other sites where Google posts ads): 2,851; #website hits 7; clickthrough percentage: 0.25%; cost per click 51.3 cents.

# response forms: 3 (first three!).

Big improvement in search impressions (20% higher), in search hits (more than double), and of course, in registered leads. Cost per click was down. Here's how the two top keywords did:

Keyword	Impressions	Clicks	Total cost
MVNO	546	11	$4.72
MVNE	68	1	$0.16

Starting today, I will increase the budget 1/3 (from $30 to $40 per month), and monitor the results.

marketing, advertising, Google, Google AdWords

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Friday comix - open innovation

innovation, strategy, open innovation, Friday Comix

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Bookselling: it's a distribution game now

Seen books in any strange places lately? As the New York Times discusses in today's paper, nontraditional outlets for books are proving to be publishing's best hedge against declines in book sales in superstores and mass merchandisers.

More than just a way to capitalize on the "long tail" phenomenon, pairing the right book with the right outlet can mean significant sales volumes. "Specialty outlets," for one publisher at least, now sell more books than independent booksellers. Says the Times:

With the proper placement, a book displayed at a national chain like Urban Outfitters can easily sell more there than at any other retailer, including blockbuster stores like Barnes & Noble. A recent article in Publishers Weekly noted that one surprise fall hit, “Wall and Piece,” written by the graffiti artist Banksy and published by the Century imprint of Random House in Britain, saw its biggest sales at Urban Outfitters and independent bookstores.

You can now find books in butcher shops, furniture stores, clothing stores and delis. And, oh yeah, at Starbucks. The merchant gets some extra revenue and the ambience enhancement that a properly-selected book provides. The publisher gets a showcase with limited or no competition.

Would you like a historical novel with your chai latte?

(Photo courtesy of Peace News)

marketing, sales, distribution, books, retail

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Airships 101 with Doug McFadden

OK, class, today we're going to talk about blimps, also known as airships, with Doug McFadden, a longtime blimp pilot (and my brother-in-law). First, a definition from Wikipedia:

A non-rigid airship, or blimp, differs from a rigid airship (e.g. a Zeppelin) in that it does not have a rigid structure that holds the airbag in shape. Rather, blimps rely on a higher pressure of the gas (usually helium) inside the envelope.

You've seen them in the sky--the Goodyear blimp is an icon, and others such as the Fuji, Sanyo and Saturn blimps cruise throughout the country as gigantic floating billboards. Typically, in the US, these blimps are provided on an outsourced basis by one of several blimp operations companies (e.g., the Lightship Group). Yet despite their familiarity, blimps remain a rarity--according to Doug, there are fewer than 100 blimp pilots worldwide.

The use of blimps is expanding beyond promotion and public relations, however. Doug remarks that blimps are in growing use for military and law-enforcement surveillance and geologic exploration. International use is also increasing, with blimps in service in Japan, Indonesia and Brazil, among other places.

One limitation to the blimp's usefulness as a promotional tool is the time and expense involved in rebranding the blimp. This time means that long blimp contracts (three months minimum) are the rule. Technology is changing this, as new blimps are being built with video screens embedded in their sides, allowing for easy and fast changeover from one sponsor to another.

Curiosity whetted? Check out this exhaustive fan website, the best single resource for airship information on the web.

(picture: the Bell Mobility blimp, courtesy of 99.3 The Drive radio in Canada)

marketing, advertising, innovation, airships

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