Updates

So I thought I’ll start with updates on some experiments. The sales guy in Motivational Experiment got fired. The CRM Experiment tanked in that the negative aspects were just too many to overcome, mainly the horrible GUI. Top management tried its best.

But something interesting happened on the Newsletters Experiment. We did end up creating quarterly newsletters using Constant Contact but I suggested emailing only excerpts and take readers back to the blog for the entire article. That shot up our blog and website rankings and all this turned out to be a good move. I’d suggest it to anyone looking at newsletters because you save on space and use it for marketing the website; two birds in one stone.

- Harsha Raghavan

Blue Ocean Strategy

The book’s title also reads: "How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant"

While I am wary of business books (funny thing for an MBA to say!), I read them to gleam the gems created by others. Chan Kim and his co-author have spend 10+ years compiling research for this book, so hats off to them.

Big Thought: Rethink market strategy and competition. Instead of competing, the authors stress on creating a market. Examples like Ford Model T, Cirque du Soleil, Southwest and Samsung are testaments to this strategy. I love their "Strategy Map" and the ERRC Grid (Eliminate, Reduce, Raise Create) ideas.

Their pricing strategy is also interesting – instead of merely comparing what the comp is offering, the authors suggest looking at what customers will pay and then working back to an acceptable, profitable cost structure. This is radical in that it clearly will lay out what innovation is OK and what is not.

The other Big Thought is value-innovation, which is not just technological innovation but creating buyer value.

Scott Steen has written a good post about the book and has even applied it in his work. He also writes "(1) focuses on just a few things, (2) is differentiated from the rest
of what’s out there, and (3) is simple enough to reduce to a catchy
tagline" – that is, don’t try to be everything to every buyer, differentiate (in the Strategy Map; you’ll need to get the book to understand this better) and the strategy must be explainable.

None of this will be new for you. But what the book has done is provide a cool tool for us to use. The authors also note that 3/4ths of the examples used in "In Search of Excellence" are now-defunct companies, so this definitely is an updated new strategy. They also say that Porter’s competitive research work is part of the surviving-in-red-oceans strategy, while they’re asking you to create a whole new marketplace.

Rishi Khaitan of It’s Rishi has written an excellent book review. He reminded me about the unit of analysis used by the authors.  Instead of finding out if a particular company is successful or not (like others books do), the authors calculate the success using the "strategic move" as a measuring unit.

Here are some other blogs that talk about the book:RTodd.com, PebbleRoad.

I’m open to discussing with someone else who has read the book to plotting the Strategy Map for their industry or an sample industry and the ERRC grid etc. I think it’ll be a fun excerise.

Get the book, willya?

- Harsha Raghavan

Cardvio.com

By Carm Huntress, guest written for Experiments – Trial by Fire! and Harsha Raghavan

First, let me thank Harsha for giving me the opportunity to share
something on his blog. I hope you enjoy my rantings. Since I have
started working on my current start-up, Cardvio, I have spent a huge
amount of time analyzing the current web industry, technology and
trends. There are many things that worry me around the Web 2.0
phenomenon, particularly how many companies are trying to make things
work with no real idea of how to make revenue.
However, there are some aspects of Web 2.0 that I think are really
innovate and have brought a lot of great new concepts to the Internet.
Here are just a few:

* Community – Take a group of people who are interested in
something and get them to rate/review/improve/redesign your
service/product and the wisdom of the crowd will surely out perform the
individual
* Long Tail Markets – The web has no inventory costs, so it’s easy
to create spaces for companies to connect users to niche products and
services way beyond a brick and mortar store
* Platform – By creating a system that allows customers to more
easily interact and redesign your product in any way they choose, the
opportunities for innovation and growth become infinite

I recently read this great article in Fast Company about Slim Devices
and how they developed their new high end audio device. They
essentially opened up ever part of the R&D process. They created a
forum for users to review, suggest and give feedback on product ideas
and features of the new device.
Slim Devices even went so far as to allow users to actually re-write
the firmware of the product much like an open source project.

The interesting concept I took away from the article was that Slim
Devices is a company making hardware devices and using web 2.0 ideas to
improve and better innovate their products. This means that Web 2.0
concepts do not have to be constrained to just the web, they can be
applied to any market, in almost any industry.

So, what I would like to suggest is for you to look into your company
and think about these concepts of Web 2.0 and ask yourself what would
happen if you tried to implement them inside your organization. For
instance, imaging if struggling Ford Motor Company created a car that
was completely built by consumers. I could imagine forums focusing on
every aspect of the car from the dashboard to the drive train and
making innovative ideas on how to make it better. And what if the car
could be modular much like a piece of software. Where pieces could be
taken off and easily replaced with other options or parts.

I think the lesson to be learned by Web 2.0 is that the concepts it
introduces should be applied not just to the web but to any company.
Go out and get your customers/community involved and see where it takes
your organization.  Today, it’s not the protection of your IP that will
make your company a success, it’s your customers and the connection
they feel with your organization that makes the difference.

Big thanks again to Harsha and if you want to check out Cardvio and try
out Internet to Mail Greeting Cards, go to www.cardvio.com.  Also, our
blog is cardvio.blogspot.com. 

– Carm Huntress

Hello again!

Hello!

No, I did not hiberate for the winter (though I’ve gained a little weight!).

As any other struggling blogling, I let life happen to me. I’m staging a comeback. You will find better language, fresher content and hopefully, hopefully more guest posts.

I’m starting out with my friend Carm Huntress of Cardvio.com. He has a brilliant yet simple web-to-paper technology. I invited him to write a guest article and have posted it verbatim. Please contact Carm at his email address and I am sure that you will find him an interesting speaker and idea man.

I’ve spent the winter experimenting a bit with sales and managing my team (with disastrous results, which I am going to share in the upcoming posts). Please share your thoughts and experiments with me and others; there is a lot to be learned from your successes and failures. I will also share my commentary on authors that I read (and am reading now).

Thanks and I look forward to the continued conversation!

- Harsha