HowardWright.com

Publishing thoughts

Since starting publishing a couple of my own books I seem to have found a new 'opportunity' as a publisher with currently 4 authors on the books - 2 books already published and two more due next month.

One of the things I decided I needed to do if I was going tomake this into some sort of business was to do a bit of publicity. The last book I published was for the Chair person of the Hertfordshire Womens Institute and she suggested becoming a speaker for them - so I went along to the audition and am now official.

As I have my first speaking event next week I have been pulling together some material for the talk and did a few data visualisations which I thought might be of interest to a wider audience. One of the qustions I usually get asked is what shoujld I write about - so a quick search through Amazon UK come out with the data for the following visualisation which looks at the different categories of books by volume:

Books by category - Amazon UK April 2012

The second question is - "aren't physical books dead? A quick search on the Internet brought up the following information about how many physical books are published per year. For this I only took the top 20 countries to make the output uncluttered. In the UK and the US there were over 400,000 new titles published last year!

Books published by country

To support this arguument from a different angle I did a search on how many book titles are available on Amazon and iBooks.

Books by 'binding'

Think like a consultant

This is probably the hardest post in this series as I am sure I will get quite a few comments from people telling me I am wrong - but hey let's see if I can draw some insights out of my experience of working as a consultant since 2005.

Maybe this post isn't so much about thinking like a consultant but more about understanding how consultants think to help the next time you are working with them or engaging them.

Lets start with the key drivers of those working in consultancy business:

(Health Warning - This is only meant as a way of providing an insight into thought process - a generalism and should not be taken as fact)

• Get the most out of the client relationship - in terms of knowledge that can be reused elsewhere as well as financial reward 
• Always look to the next job - whether that is continuing with the current client or the next job. A good consultant always has the next job on the starting blocks - just in case.
• Protect your sources - whether these be, your experience, information sources or contacts. These are the things things tat te client isn't have and I paying you for.
• Try and build a relationship with the most senior person in the 'food chain' of the client organisation. These will be the people making decisions. - particularly on expensive consultants so having a relationship with these people can only be positive.
• If things start to go wrong make sure that the client takes responsibility - ok this may sound cynical but the last thing you need is damage to your reputation. 

OK so this is a cynical view of the consultancy business and there are a lot of great things about employing consultants - otherwise I wouldn't be in business!

When I was in the corporate world the joke was "how do you tell a consultant?" and the answer was "look for those who are taking more than they are giving".

Certainly when I worked with consultants from one of the 'big 5' they were always keen to get their hands on as much data and information as possible - wherever it came from and whether it was relevant to the work they were involved in. And they didn't seem to have any compunction in using it to their advantage. I remember one conference I was speaking at where I saw some very commercially sensitive data being shared by a consultant from the company I had been working with 6 months earlier - when challenged their response was that the confidentiality agreement we had signed didn't cover this information - true, but I had assumed that it was a generic agreement - clearly I was wrong.

These experiences changed my approach to consultants and when I set up on my own in 2006 I decided to adopt an 'ethical' approach to consultancy - to 'give more than I take' - I figured this was better for the client - interestingly what the clients wanted was information and insights about other companies. Although my approach was a good sales pitch - it ended up being difficult to adhere to as the demands from clients steered me back to the more traditional consultancy model.

So my view of consultancy might be jaded but I guess the question is "is the current consultancy model sustainable in a post recession world?"

Your thoughts?

The Tribe of innovation

I was listening to Radio 4 this morning and they had a package on the subject of tribes and their relevance to society today. This reminded me of some work I did a few years ago on the innovation tribe.

As an innovator you can feel very alone in large organisations as although you have to be part of the company tribe - complying and conforming with the company culture and norma, you, as an innovator are there to challenge the very roots of the tribal 'brotherhood'. This can mean that you end up being in conflict with the main tribe - you can become a tribe of one!

One solution to this is to find other tribal members outside of your organisation and this is where the many associations and networks can help. The important this is that you recognise your need to find other members of your innovation tribe.

Think like an entrepreneur....

Yesterday I was challenged on the blog to do a 'Think like a woman..." post but in the interests of my marriage I decided against it!

Today I am going to try and get inside the head of an entrepreneur - how do they think?

Firstly a trip to Wikipedia to find out what the definition of an entrepreneur is:

Wikipedia = “An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.”

I think this is a little narrow as many entrepreneurs are not owners or managers when they start - they may become them when they finish but this is the destination rather than the starting point.

Entrepreneurs focus on opportunity - and when I say focus I really mean focus! An entrepreneur is someone who can spot an opportunity and unlike most of us who find all the reasons why it can't be done, will focus on making it happen. As an employee of a company we focus on resources such as money, people and time and thinks "I can't do it, because I don't have the money." A person who thinks like an entrepreneur will say "Let's just get on with it and find the money later."

So lets break this style of thinking down into its component parts:

• Discovery - the first thing to do is to spot the opportunity. Now most entrepreneurs don't spend their lives looking for them but when they turn up they have the mind set to capitalise on the gap in the market or the new idea. 
• Development - The next thing they do is to develop the idea. It might be that  they dont have all the knowledge to undertake this themselves but they are probably well connected through services such as Linkedin and Facebook to find someone who is.
• Design - To maximise the impact of their idea, and to get the required funding, a good entrepreneur will design a good story - something that will engage people in his/her idea. This will be coupled with a marketing and communications strategy.
• Dig-Deep - Yes the dreaded funding question. Many entrepreneurs have such a strong feeling about their idea that they self-fund - or ask friends and family to help. An entrepreneur will get the money and overcome any barriers no matter what. This can lead into all sorts of trouble, however!
• Deploy - The final stage of the idea is getting the idea out into the market - whether that be a pilot first or just a full blown launch. For the entrepreneur this can be the most or least exciting bit of the whole journey - depending on what has been the driving factor.

Throughout all of this activity the one guiding principle has been focus - focus on the end point, focus on getting things done, focus on solving every problem that emerges, focus on success!

Hopefully you can see that this way of thinking translates into business quite easily - the only real difference is the attitude and single mindedness the entrepreneur brings to the party.

Where do you sit on the scale of 1 - 10 of being an entrepreneur (10 being the most like)?

 

 

Think like a builder...

A slightly off the wall idea after yesterday's post on thinking licke a chef. I thought I would try a slightly different tack and try something different.

So how do builders think? I guess this might be a holy grail for some people who are wrestling with

their ilk at the moment. But after a stormy relationship with this profession last year I gained a glimpse into their thought processes.

Lets start with the assumptions they make as this colours their thinking:

• How much money can I extract from the customer?
• How can I source materials and labour at the cheapest possible price?
• Lastly, where is the next job coming from?

So based on these assumptions how does a typical builder approach a job proposition. Well like a doctor the first thing he/she will do is assess the customer - how demanding will they be, how much do they know, are they likely to sign a contract and are they likely to change their mind a lot during the build (this is important as it is a way of extracting additional funds for each and every change from the contract).

Assuming that they get the contract the next thought process is to look to schedule the work and try and find available resources - I use the word available because the best sub-contractors are usually the busiest. If suitable reources are available then the thought process moves to sourcing materials - this is where additional 'savings' can be made - particularly if the builder has more than one contract running at a time - which is the norm.

Once the work has started the role of the builder moves on to managing the customer and the sub-contractors. This for most builders is the most difficult phase as it is when the most uncertainties unfold - deadlines missed, sub-contractors missing and materials not available. Hopefully the contract has been written to minimise any consequesnces from these issues in the builders favour.

So what can we take from this for general business.

• Firstly again its understanding/assessing the customer - but in this example its to see how far they can be pushed.
• The next is to find suitable resource - this may not always be the best but it is available. Having someone on site - even if they are incapable of doing the job can be useful to keep the customer happy.
• Next - try and keep everyone happy. Make sure everyone thinks they are getting what they want.
• Lastly get as much out of the contract as you can - anything that is not written down should be charged extra.

Having read this back I can see this model working in a number of industries already - mobile phones and car dealers are two that spring to mind.

This is not a very positive veiw of the industry but talking to a builder in the coffee shop this morning unfortunately confirmed much of what I have written!

Do you have experiences which differ?

 

Think like a Chef...

This series of posts about how people think has got me excited as it is fascinating trying to get into other peoples heads and work out their thought processes. I am sure there are more learned studies but in this series I am trying to draw out what we can learn, from a business persective from finding out how people think.

This morning, after a great curry last night, I thought I would focus on the Chef - the creater of great food, and consider how they think.

The first thing the chef needs to do is to understand his/her customer. What will people want to eat - think abouut demographics, what sort of customer would be eating what food? Once this has been established the next step, I guess would be to design a menu - something that will attract and satisfy the sort of customers who will be eating the food.

Once the menu has been formulated the necxt step will be to test it - is this the right type of food, does it tase good, will it sell (if its a commercial kitchen). Assuming it works the next step would be to source the right ingredients. Chef's are very partcular about the quality, and provenance of their ingredients.

Next comes the actual cooking itself - this is a balance between formula and feeling - there will be some rules to abide by but a lot of it goes on the taste itself with the chef adding seasoning to just get the right balance of the four tastes - salt, sour, sweet, bitter. There is supposidly a fifth taste called Umami which is a 'meaty' or savouriness but the experts are still arguing as to whether this is a real taste or not.

Lastly the presentation of the food is vital to the person consuming the food - if it looks good it tends to taste better.

So what can we learn from this?

1. Understand your customer - what do they want what are their demographics?
2. Create a product, service, proposition, solution to meet their needs
3. Check your idea out with the customer - is this what they really want?
4. Make sure you have the right ingredients - people, information, resources etc.
5. Follow the formula - whether this is a a project plan, a management framework or your own thoughts.
6. Seasnon the solution - make sure you have the right balance - can you add something to make it 'taste' better.
7. Lastly think about the presentation - does it look good

I think this covers most of the key steps. I could have included things such as portion control, the different roles in the kitchen, the preparation of the foods and I am sure there are many more steps that might be in there but I thought these were the ones that were most relevant.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

Think like a doctor...

After yesterdays post from the frozen, and snowy, heights of Dunstable Downs in which I talked about how to think like an innovator it made me think about how other people might think - so I intend to embark on a jourey of trying to find out how people think.

 

Mmmm this could be difficult but maybe I could devise a few questions that would give me some clues as to their thinking and problem solving processes. As I mentioned yesterday an Innovator thinks laterally - constantly looking for linkages between the problems/issues he sees and the things he/she sees around him on a daily basis. I would argue that true innovators dont go looking for solutions - they just find them!

So today I thought I would have a first go at Doctors.  OK so I am no expert but there is quite a lot of clues out there on the Internet as to how doctors seem to approach situations and problems. The first thing they seem to do is watch - they watch the patient as they enter their consulting rooms, or as they approach the patients bed. What is the general demeanour of the patient - how are they walking - what body language are they exhibiting?

The second factor seems to be listening - OK so the first usual question is "how are you today?" and my first thought is always well if I was OK I would'nt be here! But once you get over that the patient will usually outline what they see as the problem - highlighting the syptoms as they go.

At this point there seems to be a bit of disagreement about where to go from here. One train of thought seems to be to treat the symptoms - this I suggest was a very prevalent approach in the 1980's and 1990's and probably resulted in over prescription of drugs such as sleeping tablets and antibiotics.

The second approach and one which is gaining ground is a more holistic approach - one where the doctor almost dismisses the symptoms and looks for root causes. In his book How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman provides a number of examples of where patients have been visiting doctors fo years with a wide array of symptoms - only to be finally diagnosed with a root cause that at first wasnt obvious, but once addressed celared up all the problems the patient had. 

So going back to the thinking process -

1. watch,
2. listen,
3. appriase,
4. diagnose,
5. listen,
6. dispense

- seems to be the logical route being taken. 

How can this approach be applied in business? Well if you have worked in business for any period of time this approach to problem solving shouldnt be unfamiliar - although maybe not written in this way. I think the problem many managers and leaders have is they forget to watch and listen. We often tend to jump to comclusions - fixing the symptom rather than finding the route cause - opting for fire fighting rather than prevention.

OK so this is my quick and dirty analysis - what are your thoughts - are there other examples from other professions that we should consider - feel free to post your own ideas/analysis.

 

 

 

How the Barcode lost its stripes

Copy of recent article in  Mail and Express Review

Publication Date: March 2012

The first patent for a bar code product (US Patent #2,612,994) was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952. The Woodland and Silver bar code was a sort of "bull's eye" symbol, made up of a series of concentric circles – like the rings in a tree.

 A local food shop owner had made an inquiry to the Drexel Institute, where the two graduate students were working, asking about the possibility of research into a method of automatically reading product information during checkout. Bernard Silver joined together with fellow graduate student Norman Joseph Woodland to work on a solution. It is from this early work that today’s barcode technology was developed.

It wasn’t, however, until 1996 that the first commercial use of the barcode was implemented – although even at this early stage it was recognized that some form of standardization would be required if the concept was going to be deployed on a wider basis.

 By 1970, the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code or UGPIC was written by a company called Logicon Inc. Plessey Communications in the UK produced the first industrial bar-code equipment in 1970 which used the UGPIC symbol set – this evolved into the traditional UPC symbol set we use today. In June of 1974, the first commercial UPC (Universal Product code) scanner was installed at a Marsh's supermarket in Troy, Ohio and the first product to have a bar code included was a packet of Wrigley's Gum.

 From these early beginning the humble two-dimensional striped barcode has become ubiquitous around the world, although it has been impossible to find any statistics as to their global usage or the volume of items scanned. But just walk into any shop, anywhere in the world and every product will have one!

 There has been many attempts to supersede the traditional striped barcode including RFID, Bokode, Microsoft HCCB (Colour Barcode)and probably many others. The QR code is the latest of these attempts and unlike these other attempts seems to be gaining traction around the world..

 Unlike the more popular stripy bar codes, a QR Code stores data in both the vertical and horizontal directions and hence has more storage capacity per unit area. Denso Wave, the company that introduced QR Codes to the world in 1994, says that QR codes are readable from any direction and that data stored inside QR codes can be restored even if the corresponding image is partially damaged. There is difference between traditional ‘striped’ barcode and QR codes can see that in below image.

The QR code can store a surprising amount of data. If only numeric data is stored there can be up to 7089 characters or if text is included 4296 characters.

Who’s using QR Codes?

A recent study in the US revealed that 24 – 35 year old males mainly use QR codes. – 53% are between 18 and 34 and in the US over 14 million Americans scanned QR codes in the month of July 2011 alone. The reason for all this scanning – well 46% of people who scanned received discounts as a result.

 Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both seen the potential and have actively embraces the QR code in their marketing campaigns.

 The travel industry are also embracing the QR code and there  are already tourist maps and travel guides published for many cities in the world and recently, London joined in the game by placing physically printed QR Codes on signs near tourist destinations.

 Although encrypted QR codes are not very common, there are a few implementations. It is possible to encrypt QR codes using the DES algorithm (56 bits) for example Japanese immigration use encrypted QR codes when placing visas in passports.

 The postal industry has also embraced the QR code and  China, Spain and Croatia have all launched stamps with QR codes on them.

 QR as art

One phenomenon of the Internet has been the continual pushing of the boundaries – whatever they area and the area of the QR code is no different. Although a seemingly simple printed artifact the QR code is quickly becoming an contestant for artistic license. A number of individuals and companies are ‘tinkering’ with the QR code image – adding images, logos and distorting the image itself. The high level of error correction means that the code still works which considering the amount of data that can be held in the QR code is amazing.

 The second area where art and QR codes collide is where artists such as Scott Blake are using the QR code as a medium in larger images – almost seeing the QR code a s pixel.

 As ‘art’ creeps into the QR code market it begs the question are these codes going to be the new collectable? As the number of letters and associated stamps declines will QR code images be the new philately? If so how could the postal operators use their capabilities to retain a share of this lucrative collectables market?

 How could you use QR codes – what different ways could they enhance your marketing, operations or customer communications?

 There is plenty of software on the market, much of it free, to let you read, create and even amend QR codes – so start the

experimentation!

 When considering these questions there are many techniques and tools that could be used and my new book ‘100 Great Innovation Ideas’ published by Marshall Cavendish provides a springboard to the world of Innovation. The book outlines 100 different ways to think differently and hopefully will stimulate new ways of thinking about these and other questions. The book is available in all good book shops and on Amazon.

 References:

http://qrarts.com/ - a website dedicated to using QR as a new art form.

www.oneextrapixel.com - creating portraits within the QR code

http://qrstuff.com - QR generator and source for other QR products (US)

New Innovation models

Being actively involved in the Innovation practionioners world has shown that there are a whole host of new models of Innovation emerging. Today I read on Emory website an interview with Vijay Govindarajan about   Reverse Innovation - the concept of new ideas and products being developed for the emerging markets of China and India and then migrating to the 'developed world'.

I am talking about Unovation - which is taking things out of products and services to meet customer needs at a more affordable price, eXovation which is what I am terming 'permeable' innovation which is a hybrid between open and closed innovation, and I am sure there are many others.

One of the problems with concepts such as Innovation is that it has become a catch-all word which means all things to all men and companies are getting weary of the word. As I have mentioned before on the blog we need a new vocabulary for the new and the exciting to re-invogorate the activity and spark new initiatives. This week I was with a global telecomms company and I was talking about Innovation models and they actually said 'we have done innovation a couple of years ago - we are looking for something new'.

Any ideas for new words?

Funding those great ideas

Funding for Innovation and new technology projects has always been an issue for large companies as budgets are put under pressure and the drive to continually reduce costs is maintained. Typically companies have a ‘cookie jar’ where they keep some seed-corn funding available for new stuff or more usually things get funded by reducing spend in other areas.

I was talking to a few innoation practitioners across companies about funding and they all report a   similar pattern to the one I faced in Royal Mail when I headed up the Innovation team. There was a ‘plenty and famine’ pattern with the gap between the two being around 18 – 24 months – money would be put into Innovation and new things, typically CEO or Marketing led and then taken away again – typically finance or HR led.

Last week I came across an interesting concept, which was CrowdFunding of start up projects. There is a website www.kickstarter.com where people across the world can invest small amounts of money in start-up projects that they are interested in. For your investment you don’t get any equity but the investee provides some sort of tangible benefit that costs very little. I invested $10 in three girls from New York who have a great idea for a cake decorating company, in return for my $10 I get emails that tell me how they are getting on an a recipe a month for 12 months.

As I got involved in the site I started thinking that this might be an interesting model for companies to get seed-corn funding from their employees. The concept is that ideas would be put forward and employees asked to put a small amount of investment – probably £1 - £5 – in the projects that they thought would ‘fly’.  This concept brings together a couple of interesting ideas – the Wisdom of Crowds ideas where the mass of the company will tell you which they think is a good idea by putting their cash behind it, and secondly they will be engaged in the success of their chosen projects. And secondly the concept of crowd sourcing of ideas and knowledge.

The concept would be that the idea would need to be fleshed out to a point where it could be taken forward with a small amount, typically £10,000 or less, of cash. The idea would be put on a web site, either owned by the company or a third party, or made available to the workforce. The amount required would be shown and people would then choose to invest or not – no money would be taken until the target had been achieved. This gets round the problem of having to give money back etc. and reduces the possibility of fraud etc.

Having this sort of initiative in place would also, I believe, encourage people to put their own ideas in to the mix, as it provides a way of giving permission to people to ‘do’ something, particularly if they see other people who they know get funding.

The bit I haven’t worked out yet and would like some thoughts on is how to do the ‘pay-back’ – what would be the equivalent of the recipes?  One idea could be that the ‘investors’ would be entered into some sort of competition maybe for a prize draw at the end of the year.

Clearly there are a lot of questions that need answers and things to sort out but it seems a great way a getting that much needed seed-corn funding as well as engaging with the workforce in a positive way.

If you are interested in exploring further please get in touch – or if you have ideas about how to ‘pay-back’ I would be interested in your views.