10 for 10

10 great things about 2010, every day!

2 words to electrify your business

  1. Innovation
  2. Collaboration
There - how's that for the briefest blog post ever from the keys of a rambling commentator?

Having said that, I sense you would feel distinctly short-changed if I didn't at least justify these mots juste. Sure, you now have the dynamite in your hands, but where's the ignition?

First let me explain why these two multisyllabic mongrels are like sentiment Semtex to me.

Innovation is all about differentiation (and I only have two words so I've amalgamated the two). Why are you breathtaking? What does it take to separate you from the competition? That, my friend - and yes, you are looking incredible today - is what makes innovation such a standout for your business.

Innovation is:

  • Discovering what works
  • Using that to underpin your methods and strategies
  • Developing something so amazingly better than your discovery, with the fundamental success principle as the backbone, that people will wonder how they lived without it
  • Constantly reinventing yourself, the jobs of your crew, and the product, so that its evolutionary mantra is to be different to anything else, anywhere
It's not as tough as it sounds.

Think of the last time you used something and it didn't do what you wanted it to do. Insight.

Think about how you used that screw in place of a coat hanger. Insight + action = innovation.

We're ignoring the fact the screw will ultimately tear a hole in someone's jacket. My recommendation is if the screw is a long-term solution, rather than the tried and tested 'chicken wire, Sellotape and papier mache' philosophy of botch, you always get someone else to put their coat on the industrial coat hanger first.

Insight and action, perception and care. The four horsemen of innovation. I weave passion into 'care' because if you don't have the passion, you can't care. And if you have passion, you'll be curious enough to search for new ways to do things. Just as you did when your coat fell on the floor because there weren't enough hangers.
 

Collaboration

Today my mind wrote a love letter to a local newspaper that is frankly on its arse. Neglected and shivering like the dog in those RSPCA adverts; different, in that the dog gets rescued.

This paper is in the thralls of expiration. It is dancing mournfully towards a sad and inconsequential death. It is the Dervish without the whirl, the Ball without the Cannon. It is, in a much more abbreviated sense, evaporating.

Quite aside from the number of typos, or maybe their trigger, is that it is maligned by its curators. It is considered something that you would wipe from your shoe - if you didn't have a courtier.

I'm not casting disrespect on my journalist peers; in fact, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. For if they were to tell me it's a labour of love, I would suggest they find an alternative profession to which their skills are more suited.

There is no sense of community. There is no sense of 'this is what you asked for'. No 'we simply want to be your voice'. The very essentials of any local organ.

No listening, no interacting. No collaboration.

I worked in the travel industry for years. There was a magazine for holiday sellers. The editor knew the rules and, some might say, he made them for others to follow. Few did.

One of his principles was to go one further than engage his audience - to integrate them into the creation of his magazine.

Every year Travel Weekly would run a competition, with a great deal of pomp, for one travel agent to be its poster child. This lucky - and it was lucky, because you were summarily invited to all manner of exciting events and familiarisation trips, and laden down with countless goodies - would write a weekly column about the industry.

It didn't matter that it wasn't possessed with high journalistic principles and morals. In fact it was all the better for it. The most read section of the magazine, week in, week out.

Why? Because it spoke for the readers, to the readers. It expressed their thoughts. And it gathered feedback, not only from columnists in the same magazine, but inside and outside the industry. It sparked major campaigns, it illuminated MPs and got discussed in the corridors of power.

Power. The power of collaboration.

To be a successful business you have to understand what makes your reader happy and then go further, to the edges of their expectations and beyond.

Or as God(in) would say, Be the Purple Cow.

Think unthought:
  • The Philharmonic Hall where the stage is bright and lovely, then you repair to the toilet and the inner and outer door clash like ill-practised lutes.
  • The dog owners who say they adore the great outdoors and then allow their pets to foul freely. The bags of excrement swinging in the trees, the crap on the football pitch. Jesus, this gets me.
Think thought:
  • Liverpool's sparse Lebanese restaurant Saharaa that does a few things, but remarkably well. They set the scene with pretty music and lightweight decor; hookahs are only £6 a blow; and the food champions your tastebuds as a footballer at the height of his craft would tame a free kick.
  • Cromwell's Restaurant, Wirral: you don't just want to eat here, you want to take the recipes away to try at home. Our condiment sets are so unique, you steal them. We host Tweetups, and we even show you how to use WordPress. We build communities. We're so much more than a place to dine. I'm going on Valentine's Day - I can't wait.
  • The company that engages every conceivable - potent - method of reacting to customer need. GetSatisfaction, the legendary 4Q online survey pioneered by Google Analytics' Avinash Kaushik, Twitter (and Monitter), Facebook, Google Buzz (urgh!). The company that challenges the norm. The company that listens, but then sets the standard that exceeds the want. But don't misinterpret these tools as reaction facilitators: you have to lead.
You can be unaware. Or you can be the thought leader.

What does all this boil down to? Collaboration, care (that's your passion) and the art of customer service.

How to sum everything up - both innovation and collaboration? Easy: otaku. Exceptional passion, exceptional service.

Exceptional success.

Have a great weekend!