How to Teach and Manage ‘Generation Net’
November 30th, 2008 | Posted by innovEditor’s note: This is the fifth in an eight-part series (BusinessWeek.com, 11/17/08) of Viewpoints by author Don Tapscott—who draws on the $4 million research project that inspired his new book, Grown Up Digital—to explain how digital technology has affected the children of the baby boomers, a group he calls the Net Generation.
A few years ago, I delivered a speech designed to provoke my audience, a distinguished group of university presidents. The prevailing model of education, I said, made no sense for young people today. This model revolves around the sage on the stage, the teacher who delivers a one-size-fits-all, one-way lecture. This model, designed in the Industrial Age, might have been a good way to condition young people for a mass-production economy, but it makes sense neither for young people who have grown up digital nor for the demands of this digital age.
Later, sitting down with the distinguished educators, I asked why it was taking them so long to change. “The problem is funds,” one president said. “We just don’t have the money to reinvent the model of pedagogy.” Models of learning that go back decades are hard to change, another said. “I think the problem is the faculty,” still another educator said. “Their average age is 57, and they’re teaching in a ‘post-Gutenberg’ mode.”
A very thoughtful man named Jeffery Bannister, who at the time was president of Butler College, was seated next to me. “Post-Gutenberg?” he said. “I don’t think so. At least not at Butler. Our model of learning is pre-Gutenberg. We’ve got a bunch of professors reading from handwritten notes, writing on blackboards, and the students are writing down what they say. This is a pre-Gutenberg model—the printing press is not even an important part of the learning paradigm.” He added, “Wait till these students who are 14 and have grown up learning on the Net hit the [college] classrooms—sparks are going to fly.”
Bannister, a wise man who, sadly, has since passed away, was absolutely right, and he was able to make some progress at Butler after our encounter.
The old model of pedagogy—teacher-focused, one-way, one-size-fits-all—makes no sense to young people who have grown up in a digital world. Members of the Net Generation, as I call those who turn 11 to 31 this year, have different mental habits than their Boomer parents have. They expect a conversation, rather than a lecture, and they’re used to working in groups, rather than toiling alone. Digital immersion has even affected the way they absorb information. They don’t necessarily read a page from left to right and from top to bottom. They might instead skip around, scanning for pertinent information of interest.
In universities across the country, the smartest students often don’t go to lectures. One Stanford student said to me recently: “The thing around here is to get an A without ever attending a lecture.”
This shakes up such old style professors as Mark Bauerlein, who wrote the book, The Dumbest Generation, arguing that “the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes out future.” Educators like Beuerlein are uneasy with the change in power reflected in how information is dispensed and knowledge is obtained. Sadly, these old-style educators—locked into models that go back centuries—end up heaping abuse on the students who are revolutionizing the model of pedagogy.
Net Geners clearly need a different model. The education system should revolve around the student, rather than the teacher. And teachers, instead of lecturing, should interact with students and help them discover lessons for themselves. Schools should customize education to fit each child’s individual way of learning, and they should let students collaborate, instead of isolating them in an out-of-date model.
Yet old paradigms die hard.
The Industrial Age model of pedagogy is so embedded in the everyday practices of America’s schools that it will take time to truly change. Consider an example from a 2007 study of the quality of students’ experiences in 2,500 U.S. elementary school classrooms. It found that students were spending the vast majority of their classroom time listening to the teacher or working alone on low-level math or reading worksheets.
Education obviously shouldn’t be confined to schools and colleges and universities, either. We’re now faced with the fast-paced world of the information age, where, as jobs change, you can’t take the time to send workers back to school for retraining. We have entered the era of lifelong learning. In some technical areas of study, half of what you learned in your freshman year might be obsolete by the time you graduate.
Learning has to be part of work. Rather than maintaining separate training programs, companies should make learning part of a Net Gener’s job. For example, some companies are making it compulsory for young employees to blog, so that they learn more about the company’s approach and start thinking about big ideas. We try to do this at the nGenera Insight, a community of thought leaders, researchers, and experts working to help companies adapt to the Net Generation. All employees are required to blog regularly as part of their jobs. Each of them (and they’re mainly Net Geners) must think about important issues facing our clients, and—ased on their research—formulate opinions for public presentation. The blog delivers value to our clients and the market and, as part of their work, our employees learn from it. Work and learning—the same thing.
Lots of employers are understandably worried that employees will disclose important company information in blogs or other writings on the Internet. To guard against this risk, employers need to explain the rules to new Net Gen employees, says Danah Boyd, a researcher who recently released the results of a three-year study> of digital youth. “You have a guideline on it,” says Boyd (who likes to render her name in lower case, as danah boyd). “You have to make it very, very clear that there is zero tolerance for sharing company information, with the penalty of being fired for cause. No one knows discretion until you teach them.”
Training has to change, too. Some companies are using game-based training to update employees on short-term projects. DirecTV (DTV), for example, needed to boost sales of its sports programming package, so it created a simulation game to place the call-center agent in an interactive environment. The agent must deal with realistic characters voicing frequently asked questions about DirecTV and its programs. By playing the game, the agent practices active-listening skills, learns telephone etiquette, and is familiarized with the benefits of DirecTV’s popular sports programming package. The scoring mode on the game gives players instant feedback on how well they’re doing as sales representatives.
Education—at school and on the job—needs to be revamped to cater to young people who have grown up digital. The old model, the sage on the stage, needs to be abandoned, and schools and employers need to look at education as an interactive, collaborative venture that lasts a lifetime.
What Obama Needs to Know About Innovation
November 26th, 2008 | Posted by innovNow that the election is over, it is abundantly clear that Americans everywhere want “change.” Unfortunately, the forces that prohibit change in the federal system are well documented and mounting. I am reminded of a comment made to me recently by a former Speaker of the House in response to my inquiry about where to start in getting the federal government to embrace innovation: “I wouldn’t have any expectation that you could get Washington to embrace innovation,” he said. “Washington is broken.”
Clearly, President-elect Obama has a tough job in front of him. Faced with massively failing systems in health care, social security, and education, coupled with an unfolding disaster in the financial markets, Americans are clamoring for leadership and creative ideas to aid a rescue. Energy policy, infrastructure, and regulation all require serious retooling in order to maintain relevancy and integrity for the long term. With massive deficits looming based on U.S. involvement in its wars as well as the recent financial bailouts, what’s required is radical innovation, not mere incremental “change.”
For this to happen, the process under which solutions are derived needs to change, too. How great would it be to change the typical political process from bureaucracy, hype, and inaction to real-time co-creation that involves everyone from the politicians and agency leadership down through private stakeholders and the core population? How great would it be to build and test prototypes before committing our nation to decisions with the possible cataclysmic ramifications we’ve seen with our recent self-inflicted financial meltdown?
But who will enable and lead this effort day-to-day? Will a center of gravity for government innovation emerge? I must say the Democrats have many smart folks in their party, but few are known as innovators. President-elect Obama’s Web site is a breath of transparent air when it comes to understanding the direction the next administration is taking, but there’s clearly a long way to go. What can Obama’s team learn about innovation from other environments? Here are some ideas:
We must compare failed attempts at innovation to successful efforts of similar complexity. What is missing? What is different? What can and can’t be applied to government policy? The goal would be to offer a set of recommendations for new processes and tools that enhance success rates based on knowledge of what has worked in other profit and nonprofit settings. Projects to study might include the development of GE’s (GE) SupportCentral collaboration and workflow environment, sponsored by GE Senior Vice-President and CIO, Gary M. Reiner. This system supports 400,000 global users in 6,000 locations around the world, all working in a Web 2.0 interface. Users have created more than 50,000 communities with more than 100,000 experts signed up to answer questions and manage information. On a smaller, but no less important scale, the American Heart Association just set up an online tool to create e-mailable shopping lists to interested parties of heart-healthy foods.
Has anyone attempted to catalog what environment for innovation exists within government agencies? It is popular to blame policymakers for ineffectiveness, but we also know huge bureaucracies exists, and they can be one of the biggest impediments to innovation. Since change management is one of the most difficult challenges known to large organizations, their experiences could help to support change where the work ultimately gets done. Having recently transformed a plethora of management practices at the General Accounting Office (GAO), David M. Walker, currently President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Comptroller General, would be a great person to call on for insight. Under his leadership, GAO went from an “at risk” agency in 1998 to being currently viewed as one of the best and most effective agencies in the federal government.
What can we learn from policymakers in other parts of the world? There are some powerful examples of effective innovation from Britain, Scandinavia, and Asia. Inland Revenue, New Zealand’s government agency that collects taxes and administers a number of social support programs, manages 150 project management and service design professionals. It is currently working on 230 design initiatives that include critical projects such as improving a system that helps people file tax returns. Inland Revenue’s design agenda is driven either by legislative changes or by opportunity for operational improvement. All innovators need inspiration. And there is much to be gleaned for how governments have fostered innovation beyond our shores.
My parents always taught me there is responsibility attached to conjuring up hope. Recognizing the levels of change and innovation required to satisfy the expectations raised by President-elect Obama, let us offer this man and his team support and patience. But let’s be clear: without an informed approach to the practice of innovation along with an innovation tool kit, they will probably fail to meet expectations.
November 24th, 2008 | Posted by stockNews is still breaking regarding C, with some reports of a restricted dividend rate. Currently C has a $0.64 annual rate ($0.16 quarterly). Its last dividend went Ex-div on 10/30 and is payable Friday, 11/26. AIG was in a similar situation when it obtained financing (dividend declared, past ex-date, with pay date upcoming) and was permitted to pay its 9/19 $0.22 dividend.
C started the year as the 3rd largest dividend payer, $10.78B, and reduced its rate in Jan ($2.16 to $1.28) and Sep ($0.64). It closed Friday as the 14th largest payer ($3.48B), yielding 17%. Each $0.01 C dividend payment is equal to $0.006232 S&P 500 dividend; therefore, their current $0.64 rate has a $0.40 impact on the index dividend, or 1.45% (4.27% as of 12/2007) of the total payment. As of the close of Friday, the S&P 500 indicated dividend rate was $27.16, with the indicated yield being 3.39%, and the average paying (376) issue yielding 5.01%.
There has been 50 dividend cuts YTD, amounting to $-34.4B, with Financial issues accounting for 41 of them, and $-31.8B. S&P will monitor the situation for additional information.
Currently,
The 2008 S&P 500 dividend payment is estimated to be $28.05, vs. $27.73 for 2007
The Q4,’08 over Q4,’07 dividend payment is expected to decline 10% – the worst quarterly change since 1958
2009 estimate is under review
How to Hire the Net Generation
November 22nd, 2008 | Posted by innovEditor’s note: This is the fourth in an eight-part series (BusinessWeek.com, 11/17/08) of Viewpoints by author Don Tapscott, who draws on the $4 million research project that inspired his new book, Grown Up Digital, to explain how digital technology has affected the children of the baby boomers, a group he calls the Net Generation.
As companies restructure to survive this recession, they have an opportunity that could make them significantly stronger in the future. Managers now have a chance to lower the age of their workforce by hiring the best young people they can find. Once the recession is over, the smart companies that have hired top young talent will be in a prime position to survive the next war: the war for talent. As one of my clients said to me, “A recession is a terrible thing to waste.”
The question now is: How do you find the best young people, and how do you keep them?
The Net Generation, as I describe the young people under 30 who’ve grown up digital, are challenging for traditional companies to hire and retain. They have different expectations, attitudes, and skills from boomers like me. They want to have fun at work, and work off-site or at odd hours, if possible. They are more likely than their parents were to balance work and family life, or to demand that their job be reconfigured to fit their needs. They like to collaborate, and won’t necessarily respect the lines of authority to do so. And they won’t necessarily be loyal to their employer. If another firm offers more money or a better deal, they’ll go.
Although some employers complain that Net Geners are spoiled brats who want all the perks without the effort (an opinion I do not share), employers need them. It’s a straight issue of demographics that a recession cannot alter. In the next 10 years, as baby boomers retire, there won’t be enough young people to fill up the management spots recently vacated. The war for talent may be temporarily eased by this recession, but it won’t last forever, and when it ends, the competition for the best young people will be fiercer than ever.
To hire them successfully, employers need to abandon the old human resources model—recruit, train, supervise, and retain. Young people who’ve been conditioned to expect a two-way conversation won’t stay for long in a world run this way. Instead, employers need a new modus operandi. I sum it up this way: initiate, engage, collaborate, and evolve.
If you consider just the business of hiring, you’ll see it’s a whole new ball game. To find new people, companies used to place a classified ad or turn up at a college career day. Yet traditional advertising to attract young people is a complete waste of time. The smarter way is find young recruits online—with engaging and informative Web sites, with blogs and podcasts, plus some attractive multimedia material to distribute on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and/or the social network Facebook.
Studies show that online sites now hold 110 million jobs and 20 million unique résumés—10 million of them on Monster.com (MWW) alone. Some entire job search engines, such as www.hirediversity.com and http://naacp.monster.com, are devoted solely to diversity job recruitment. Savvy organizations will position themselves as an attractive Net Gen employer by providing authentic, uncensored blogs by Net Gen employees, a Hiring FAQ page in the form of a wiki, and a customer-service-like mechanism for answering candidates’ questions in real-time chat.
No one is suggesting that social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn will replace your HR departments. But as my nGenera colleague Mike Dover puts it, “Any firm that does not deploy them as a recruiting tool, especially in the initial tracking stage, will find itself at a serious disadvantage.”
What happens when you get a prospect in the door? Old-style job interviews need to be replaced by a two-way dialogue. The Net Generation wants to make sure company values and corporate culture align with their own values and style. They’ve probably checked out the company online before the interview.
To keep Net Geners in your company, you have to see employment as a two-way engagement between employee and employer. It starts right away, during the traditional 90-day probationary period during which new recruits are assessed for their suitability. Nowadays, the company is on probation, too. Young employees regularly use this period to decide whether the employer is worth working for. Employers need to expose the new recruit to various leaders, work situations, and work content. Companies that make the effort will benefit from less turnover, shorter ramp-up periods, higher levels of engagement, and earlier and greater returns on their investments in young employees.
Supervision may be on the way out, too. Brad Anderson , chief executive of Best Buy (BBY), puts it this way: “The Net Geners we hire have enormous knowledge, unprecedented information, and facility with tools that in some areas is superior to their seniors.” So the job of management is more to create the context whereby they can be successful, rather than to supervise them.
Retention over the long term may not be realistic either. You can’t expect a Net Gener to stay with you forever. In one Canadian study of 18- to 34-year-olds, the average young person held five full-time (nonsummer) jobs by age 27. Yet these Net Geners can help you after they leave—as the alumni of great universities do. If you rehire them, you’ll save money. Rehiring them costs half as much as it does to hire a brand-new person, and rehires are 40% more productive in their first quarter at work, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Net Geners can be challenging and even infuriating as employees (when they repeatedly ask you for feedback, for example). But the companies that hire them and adapt to their new ways will be able to learn from them the collaborative styles of working that could help them to survive now and in the future.
Don Tapscott recently led a survey of 11,000 young people around the world. He has written 12 widely read books on the impact of the Internet on society. His 1996 book Growing Up Digital defined the Net Generation and the sequel, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World, was recently published in Britain.
November 21st, 2008 | Posted by innovEveryone is familiar with financial leverage. It is a powerful way to improve performance when times are good. The danger, of course, is that financial leverage magnifies the impact of downturns in demand as well. It can literally kill a company, as we are witnessing in the financial-services industry.
But there are other forms of leverage. And executives should be searching for them in order to navigate the current crisis and allow firms to continue to create economic value, rather than becoming a victim of the destruction in value unfolding around us.
Capability leverage, for instance, seeks to connect with the resources and capabilities of a large number of other companies to deliver even more value to the marketplace, without requiring significant up-front investments for organic growth or acquisitions. Companies like Li & Fung in China have built a global network of more than 10,000 business partners that access a broad range of specialized capability in the apparel industry. The company has enjoyed double-digit growth over the past couple of decades, as well as return on equity in excess of 20%—an impressive achievement in a low-growth industry known for razor-thin margins.
Learning leverage goes one step further. This form of leverage builds scalable relationships across large numbers of companies that help to accelerate the development of all participants. When done right, it creates powerful opportunities, rapidly increasing the value delivered to the marketplace and allowing all participants to reap increasing rewards.
Open innovation is an important step in this direction, but prominent examples of open innovation, such as InnoCentive and GoldCorp (GG), tend to focus on short-term transactions to access outside capabilities. Learning leverage requires the development of scalable, long-term, trust-based relationships across a large number of participants. It is more challenging but it is also far more rewarding. SAP’s (SAP) developer ecosystem illustrates this potential (BusinessWeek.com, 7/23/08) —it mobilizes more than 9,000 companies and engages more than 1 million individuals in sustained interactions on its online discussion forums.
Effectively harnessing capability and learning leverage requires another form of innovation—institutional innovation. Companies will have to redefine governance structures as well as the roles and relationships required to effectively mobilize and coordinate activities of large numbers of firms. There’s significant complexity in trying to scale the number of participants in networks and conventional rules might not apply.
This institutional innovation should be pursued in rapid increments. Rather than reimagining from the ground up a fundamentally different way of organizing activities across thousands of participants, companies need to find pragmatic ways to move from where they are today in ways that generate near-term financial returns. The well-known case of Procter & Gamble’s (PG) “Connect and Develop” program illustrates some of the opportunities that can be reaped by building broader networks to source promising product ideas. Nearly 50% of P&G’s products today have benefited from some form of external collaboration. Other companies might follow this example to position themselves to pursue even more powerful forms of capability and learning leverage, especially once the economy recovers.
The bottom line is that innovation should not be an afterthought in times of financial and economic pressure. Innovation can be reconceived to provide powerful economic (rather than financial) leverage at a time when there is an imperative to do more with less. Simply cutting headcount or programs while demanding that the remaining employees do more may work for a while, but it is a diminishing-returns game. The challenge, and opportunity, is to find ways to generate increasing returns. The insights generated from these efforts will serve companies well not only during the downturn, but in more prosperous times as well. In fact, the companies that harness this potential will develop a new edge, positioning themselves as long-term
t harness this potential will develop a new edge, positioning themselves as long-term winners.
November 20th, 2008 | Posted by innovChâteauneuf du Pape offers enormous diversity in styles. At its best, it’s a wine that has a deep ruby/purple color, a sumptuous texture, full body, and can evolve over 10 to 15-plus years. It often smells like an open-air marketplace in Provence, with the aromas of lavender, fennel, licorice, black truffles, pepper, nutmeg, smoked meats, and copious quantities of sweet black cherries and blackberry fruit. Very appealing in their youth because of the sweetness of their tannins, Châteauneuf du Papes are remarkably flexible with an assortment of foods. Here are some of the excellent 2006s that are just hitting the marketplace.
89 points
2006 Paul Autard Châteauneuf du Pape
This deep plum/garnet-hued 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape exhibits lovely berry fruit notes intermixed with scents of underbrush, licorice, roasted herbs, and plums. It is a delicious, soft, beautifully concentrated red that is best consumed over the next seven to eight years. $45
90 points
2006 Bois de Boursan Châteauneuf du Pape
The 2006 vintage is a very strong one for Bois de Boursan, and its regular cuvée of 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is outstanding. With rich, attractive, earthy notes, and plenty of floral and spice box characteristics interwoven with dark, ripe red and black fruits, lavender, and oodles of Provençal typicity, it is full-bodied, fleshy, and already gorgeous to drink, but promises to evolve for at least a decade or more. $35-$42
90 points
2006 Les Cailloux Châteauneuf du Pape
The 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape from Les Cailloux displays the vintage’s distinctive, explosively earthy, spicy, peppery, garigue-dominated essence of Provence-like aromatics. The fruit takes a back seat to the spicy, earthy component. This full-bodied, supple-textured effort is already seductive and round. Enjoy it over the next 10 to 12 years. $35-$42
90 points
2006 Raymond Usseglio Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Girard
Raymond Usseglio’s 2006s are beautiful wines. Between his two traditional cuvées, the 2006 Girard—the cuvée imported here to the U.S. by Peter Weygandt—is richer, deeper, with more meat, lavender, and licorice, although both are very fine wines. The Girard gets the edge in points because tasting proves there’s more there. $48
91 points
2006 Domaine Grand Veneur Châteauneuf du Pape
A sleeper of the vintage, the 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape from Grand Veneur is a seductive effort offering plenty of earth, tapenade, and spice as well as black cherry and cassis fruit. Deep, full-bodied, rich, chewy, and totally seductive, it can be enjoyed over the next decade. $40-$45
91 points
2006 Vieux Donjon Châteauneuf du Pape
Vieux Donjon’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape reveals the vintage’s peppery, earthy spiciness along with notes of forest floor, root vegetables, black cherries, and meat. This rich, medium- to full-bodied effort possesses moderately soft tannin as well as good body, depth, and richness. It is a strong effort that should age nicely for 15-plus years. $55-$60
93 points
2006 Charvin Châteauneuf du Pape
Charvin’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape has turned out to be one of the vintage’s top efforts. Lovely sweet notes of glove leather, roasted meats, spice box, ground pepper, kirsch, and raspberries are present in this deep, full-bodied 2006. More evolved than the 2007, with copious concentration, elegance, and a Burgundy grand cru-like complexity as well as freshness, it should be enjoyed over the next 12 to 15-plus years. $65
93 points
2006 Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf du Pape
This dense purple-colored 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape, 80% foudre-aged grenache and 20% syrah and mourvèdre aged in small barrels, offers a beautiful bouquet of blackberries, roasted meats, sweet herbs, and new saddle leather. Full-bodied and superconcentrated with no hard edges, it should drink beautifully for 12 to 15 years. $45
95 points
2006 Château Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape
Beaucastel’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is performing even better from bottle than it did last year. Its dense plum/ruby/purple color is followed by a big, sweet perfume of black truffles, camphor, earth, incense, new saddle leather, and loads of peppery, blackberry, and herb-infused, meaty, black cherry fruit. Deep, full-bodied, and dense, with sweet tannin, this explosively rich Châteauneuf is a stronger effort than the 2005, 2004, or 2003. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2028. $85
98 points
2006 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf du Pape
The 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is one of the two or three candidates for the wine of the vintage. An extraordinarily great wine, the 2006 is far superior to the 2005, which was amazing, and while made in a different style, is as great as the 2003, and such legends as 1990 and 1978. Fashioned from a minuscule 21 hectoliters per hectare, and tipping the scales at 15.2% natural alcohol, the 2006 boasts a dense ruby/purple color to the rim, in addition to an extraordinary bouquet of melted licorice, spring flowers, raspberries, black currants, spice box, and earth. In the mouth, it is utterly profound—full-bodied and multidimensional with astonishing purity, length, equilibrium, and intensity. This is a superb vintage for proprietor Vincent Avril, and he deserves accolades for producing a wine of such incredible intensity and complexity. Think of Clos des Papes as a Châteauneuf du Pape with the complexity of a top-notch grand cru Burgundy from the Côte de Nuits. $85
November 18th, 2008 | Posted by innov“The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, usually do.”
–Think Different campaign, Apple 1984
With the economy in a recession and your customers relentlessly distracted with falling 401(k) values, layoffs, and a seemingly never-ending stream of bad financial news, the importance of innovation as a differentiator in the marketplace has never been greater.
You consider yourself a leader, yes? Well imagine that you are the CEO of a company driven by innovation. Obviously, you realize it is critical to have a highly functioning innovation team. What follows from that are two things:
1. You need to find just the right person to run it. You need to fill the seat of chief innovation officer (CIO) if you haven’t already.
2. You need to determine who is going to work on this team (and who is expendable as the recession worsens).
Because the position of CIO is so critical, let’s start there.
When it comes to innovation leadership, there is of course the common image that the perfect person is the loner with an off-kilter approach to both life and the problems that need to be solved. Innovation leaders are the “crazy ones” who choose to recreate systems while others are focused on refining the old ones. The ones who envision a completely new product while their counterparts only see incremental change. They question convention, always believing there is a better answer, and they are relentless in discovering it.
Well, from our experience, the most effective innovators are not as crazy as one might think. Infusing experts into our innovation process has afforded us the immense pleasure of brainstorming with hundreds of brilliant innovators over the years. These experts come from all walks of life: inventors, anthropologists, strategists, trend experts, scientists, engineers, writers, dreamers…
As you might imagine, we’ve thought hard about what makes them so special when it comes to the art of RE-creation (by the way, if you ever wonder if innovation should be fun, take a good look at the word recreation).
So here, based on our experience, are four criteria for choosing a great CIO, or, “The Most Innovative Person in the World.”
The Balanced Innovator
Crazy does not necessarily equal creative. People seem to think the best innovators are mad scientists, tortured 24 hours a day by what could be. While Thomas Edison may have had his Van Gogh moments, from what we have been told most great innovators are wildly innovative at work yet still know when it is time to go home. The best know about balance.
John McCain for CIO?
One of our favorite parts of the Presidential election campaign was hearing John McCain tell the world he was a maverick. We love mavericks. Innovation requires mavericks. Mavericks have the guts and the ability to buck trends.
Look at companies that are innovation leaders—Apple being the most obvious choice, of course—and you will notice that most successful new product or service launches are led by a person who doesn’t mind leaning into adversity. Since innovation by definition is meeting a need in a new way, it requires leadership from someone who welcomes the idea of doing things differently. And doing things differently means swimming against tradition and politics, a tough challenge for most. That’s why seasoned mavericks usually make excellent innovators.
You can’t lead an innovation crusade without a spreadsheet. Nobody famous said this. It’s just true. There is far too much risk in business today to invest money in an uncalculated dream. For an innovation initiative to gain the support and maintain the momentum, the product or service you are developing must have to actually get to market. You must show the board the money you are going to make. That’s why your CIO must be able to segment the opportunity, build strategy, and basically do the math. He or she must be able to be as innovative with mathematical modeling as he is with marketing concepts.
The joy of curiosity is at the heart of innovation. It propels you to discover new things and enables you to hear old ideas in new ways. We are all full of wonder as children, but it is something we seem to lose as adults. Do your company a favor. Find a CIO who still finds joy in being curious. There is no more important trait for the role.
This leads us to another brutal reality. Lack of curiosity and the corresponding absence of optimism is a deal breaker. Innovation simply can’t stand up to a team of cynics and know-it-alls. If you have a cynical leader, fire him immediately. It has been said that if you want a happy team, fire all the unhappy people. If you want an innovative team, fire the cynics and incurious. This is the best way to tighten the belt in your innovation group—recession or no recession.
Great innovators—whether they serve as your CIO or are “just” a member of the team—are not crazy; they just see the world differently. Great leaders have learned to identify, respect, and harness this magic. There are still some in senior leadership who don’t believe in this type of thinking but we suspect most of them will soon be unemployed.
November 17th, 2008 | Posted by innovEditor’s note: This is the third in an eight-part series (BusinessWeek.com, 11/10/08) of Viewpoints by author Don Tapscott, who draws on the $4 million research project that inspired his new book, Grown Up Digital, to explain how digital technology has affected the children of the baby boomers, a group he calls the Net Generation.
When Alison Fetherstonhaugh was 15, her father, Brian, who is chairman and chief executive of OgilvyOne Worldwide, asked her to keep a diary of her media activities. What she recorded back in 2005 was startling—at least, for anyone in the traditional advertising business. Half of the TV she was watching wasn’t live. She zipped through TV ads. She didn’t read newspapers. After hearing the same story from Alison’s friends, Fetherstonhaugh realized that the advertising industry had underestimated the impact of the Internet.
Figures showing the percentage of disposable income spent online did not tell the full story. “I knew from other sources that teenagers don’t spend a lot of money online,” says Fetherstonhaugh, whose company is a global leader in managing customer relations. “E-commerce hasn’t really caught on, in large part because teenagers don’t have credit cards. What I learned from Alison and her friends is that they spend a lot of time online, researching products they end up buying in stores. They always consult the Internet before making a purchase. This sort of behavior doesn’t show up in the cold, hard e-commerce data. The Net Generation’s arrival means that many of marketing’s fundamental tenets must change.”
He’s right. In business schools they still teach the Four Ps of marketing—product, price, place, and promotion. To market a product effectively, you create products and define their features and benefits. You set the prices. You select places to sell products and services. You promote aggressively through advertising, public relations, direct mail, and other in-your-face programs. You control the message. We, the consumers, just have to listen and buy.
But the Net Generation—as I call the young people aged 11 to 31 who have grown up immersed in digital technology—is changing this game. They won’t accept this one-way approach, not when they’ve been immersed in two-way communication from childhood. They were raised in a world of marketing and advertising, so they can detect a sales pitch with heavy topspin in a second. While they are not impervious to the power of advertising, they are more adept at filtering, fast-forwarding, and/or blocking unsolicited advertising than previous generations were. They can compare the company line with other versions of the story, and they have plenty of ways to find out from a wide variety of sources—including critics of the company.
The Net Generation has the power to change the way goods and services are bought and sold because they’re an enormously powerful segment of consumers. In the U.S., students earn almost $200 billion a year in part-time or full-time jobs, and in 2006, they purchased $190 billion worth of goods. What’s more, they influence their baby boomer parents. Net Geners age 21 and under influence 81% of their families’ apparel purchases and 52% of car choices. Even younger children have powerful sway, with those between 5 and 14 influencing 78% of total grocery purchases. And, as they age, their direct purchasing power will soar. In 2003, only 5% of cars were purchased by people born between 1980 and 1995; by 2020, this will climb to 40%.
As shoppers, the Net Generation are tough customers. They usually go online to scrutinize a product—both its features and its price—before setting foot in a store. They expect plenty of choice and high-speed service. They think fun should be embedded in the product. They’re not satisfied with one-size-fits-all items that can be bought only in certain places and at certain times. They want something that fits them—where, when, and how they want it. They’re no longer passive consumers of the broadcast model. That’s yesterday’s news. They aren’t just consumers, either. Some Net Geners are eager to contribute to the brand—something that wouldn’t have occurred to most boomers.
Traditional TV advertising doesn’t work well for this generation. They turn to their friends for shopping advice online—a small circle of best friends, a larger circle of acquaintances, plus the world. It’s a puzzling change for marketers who are trying to be a “friend,” but this is where the action is now.
I think the Net Generation will cause marketers to rewrite the rules of marketing for this generation, and ultimately for the future. Companies will play by ABCDE rules of marketing—Anyplace, Brand, Communication, Discovery, and Experience. Net Geners want to buy things Anyplace, where and when they want. They’ll help shape the Brand, and the product. And they won’t tolerate a lecture, however amiable. The standard ad will be replaced by Communication, a two-way conversation. As in any relationship, integrity will be one of the key building blocks of this new interactive brand. Since Net Geners research the product and its price online, they’ll negotiate the price. I call this the Discovery of Price. And finally, they expect products to be at the same time an Experience.
Marketers, in other words, will have to change the way they operate in order to reach this generation.
Peter Schiff vs. the World, 2006 to 2007
November 14th, 2008 | Posted by stockThis video is fascinating for two reasons:
1. Watch as Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital — in 2006 and 2007 — describes with amazing precision the very crisis that unfolded in the past two months.
2. Watch the reaction of reporters and especially other market pundits. It’s not just that they disagreed, it’s that they obviously had no idea what Schiff was talking about.
A caveat: What’s unnerving to me about this video is how certain both Schiff and his critics are that they are right. Obviously Schiff was proven right, to his credit.
But at the time, you could agree with Schiff’s general critique of the U.S. economy (that the country is too indebted, for example), but you could find little evidence that it would get as bad as he predicted.
That’s one reason everyone else looks so baffled on this video: At the time, Schiff (who I’ve interviewed) often sounded like he was from another planet. His view of the world so differed from both the market consensus and from certain supposedly objective measures of the U.S.’s financial strength.
I don’t think the lesson of the financial panic of 2008 is “always listen to Peter Schiff” or “we need better prognosticators.” It’s “you never really know what’s going to happen,” and “pay attention to evidence, not predictions.”
(via Andrew Sullivan)
November 13th, 2008 | Posted by innovThe year 2006 was an excellent vintage for pinot noir in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The warm summer and almost ideal harvest season (a rarity in this part of the world) produced supple, fruit-driven pinot noirs that still remain under the radar for many Americans. Here my colleague, Dr. Jay Miller, recommends some of the best 2006s.
90 points
2006 Brick House Wines Pinot Noir Select
The 2006 Pinot Noir Select is the entry-level wine from this estate. Medium ruby-colored with a fragrant perfume of red cherry and raspberry, this layered, easygoing wine has excellent concentration and a silky finish. This crowd-pleasing effort will drink well for another five to seven years. $29 www.brickhousewines.com
90 points
2006 Ponzi Vineyards Pinot Noir
The 2006 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley from Ponzi is medium ruby-colored with an expressive perfume of spice box, earth notes, cherry, and raspberry. Friendly and easygoing, it also has good concentration and depth leading to a lengthy, fruit-filled close. Drink it over the next eight years. $35 www.ponziwines.com
91 points
2006 Adelsheim Vineyard Pinot Noir Elizabeth’s Reserve
The 2006 Pinot Noir Elizabeth’s Reserve offers up a lovely perfume of cedar, red fruits, and earth notes. Delicate yet concentrated, this velvety wine is reminiscent in style of a Dujac Premier Cru (at a fraction of the price). Common sense says to drink this feminine effort over the next several years, but its impeccable balance may carry it for a longer ride. $50 www.adelsheim.com
91 points
2006 Antica Terra Pinot Noir
The winemaker/partner at Antica Terra is Maggie Harrison, who worked at Sine Qua Non from 1998 to 2006. The winery purchased a 40-acre property in 2005, and 2006 is the first vintage. The 2006 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley includes some contracted fruit. Medium ruby-colored, it has an attractive bouquet of spice box, wood smoke, and red fruit compote. This leads to a mouth-filling wine with layers of sweet fruit. It has excellent concentration, depth, and a lengthy finish. Drink this tasty effort over the next eight years. $46
91 points
2006 Domaine Serene Pinot Noir Evenstad Reserve
Domaine Serene’s 2006 Evenstad Reserve is a blend of over 70 lots. Medium ruby-colored, it offers notes of cedar, cinnamon, clove, cassis, and raspberry. This is followed by a medium- to full-bodied wine with layers of complex red fruits, enough structure to evolve for three to four years, excellent integration of oak, tannin, and acidity, and a lengthy finish. Drink it from 2010 to 2018. $58 www.domaineserene.com
91 points
2006 Panther Creek Cellars Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard
The 2006 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard was aged for 16 months in 30% new French oak. Dark ruby-colored, it has an enticing bouquet of spice notes, pomegranate, and assorted black fruits. On the palate, earth notes and cola make an appearance. Nicely structured with good depth, concentration, and balance, the wine should evolve for two to three years and drink well through 2020. $40 www.panthercreekcellars.com
92 points
2006 Argyle Winery Pinot Noir Reserve
Argyle’s 2006 Pinot Noir Reserve is medium ruby-colored. Its superb bouquet is already complex with notes of spice box, earth, cherry, and raspberry. This leads to a smooth-textured, elegant, ripe wine with vibrant acidity for the vintage and excellent overall balance. Drink this outstanding effort over the next eight years. $35 www.argylewinery.com
92 points
2006 Cristom Vineyards Pinot Noir Louise Vineyard
The 2006 Pinot Noir Louise Vineyard is medium ruby-colored with a superb bouquet of pain grillé, mineral, cranberry, cherry, and rose petals. Layered and plush on the palate, it has loads of savory fruit, complex flavors, and a silky-smooth finish that lasts for 45 seconds. Give it three to four years in the cellar and drink it from 2012 to 2020. $50 www.cristomwines.com
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