Articles About Differentiation Search Results
- Do Improv Comedians Make the Best Design Thinkers? .
A teacher of design thinking at Dartmouth uses improv set-ups to boost his students' creativity.
Big design firms such as IDEO and Smart Design have made millions on their "design thinking" and "human-centered design process." Which is good for them, but doesn't necessarily teach you how to crib their mojo for your own endeavors. Peter Robie, an Engineering professor at Dartmouth, has an answer that would make Dunder Mifflin's Michael Scott: Copy improv comedy classes.
Apparently, in his Design Thinking course, Robie has students act out how people use the objects around them. It's a technique learned from experience. According to The Dartmouth Engineer:
"This class on improv is a tool for brainstorming," he explains. "I've always thought that the quickest and smartest folks at the brainstorming phase of design have been those who do standup and improv. They never say no. They never miss a beat. Improv requires players to accept what they are given, build on the ideas of others, and encourage wild ideas..." ..."Everyone thinks that they know how to brainstorm, but in fact, brainstorming is usually plagued by problems like self-censoring, competitiveness, and ridicule," says Robbie. "Improv is a great way for students to learn to defer judgment."Robie goes on to offer some pretty sharp nuggets about what human-centered design actually boils down to, and why it actually matters:
"In the period of scarcity after World War II in America, companies could essentially sell anything they could make because people were happy to have whatever they made," he says. "But since the explosion of competition globally, design has become the best way--or only way--that companies differentiate their products. It has developed into a key aspect of innovation and a requirement for success.... "...because "good designers are astute observers of human behavior," he sends students out in the field as anthropologists to notice, question, and analyze what they might otherwise ignore.If you're at all interested in design thinking, read the entire article. It's excellent.
[Via Core 77]
(03/10/10 09:00 AM)
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- Niche: Rainbow Roses.
Are you a florist? Do you need a product to differentiate you from all of the other flower shops in your community? Have you heard about rainbow roses?
Rainbow roses, the brainchild of Dutch flower shop owner Peter Van de Werken, are colorful roses that are made by injecting die into the stem of [...]
(03/05/10 09:00 PM)
- Rockabilly Salon Stands Out.
Rockabilly Salon Stands Out
ShareRockabilly Salon Stands OutThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing The idea of differentiation and standing out in whatever industry you are in is such an important concept that I take the opportunity to write about it frequently. The key is to find something that makes it very easy for people to see you’re doing something different [...] (03/01/10 09:00 AM)
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing - 5 Questions You Should Ask Every Customer.
5 Questions You Should Ask Every Customer
Share5 Questions You Should Ask Every CustomerThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Constantly seeking feedback from your customers is a great way to learn how to market your business more effectively. If you’ve never done this before, do it immediately as it is one of the best ways to discover what you do that actually differentiates [...] (02/08/10 09:01 AM)
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing - Is Your Sales Team Creating Real Differentiation?. Salespeople rely on strategies such as "sell the value" or to "value-add"?neither of which produces sustainable advantage. They do so because it's hard to achieve genuine differentiation based on something the customer values. But suppose salespeople were able to create highly differentiated offerings that provide real value that competitors can't ...
(01/19/10 09:00 PM)
- Is Your Marketing Head in the Sand?. It seems most marketers, at times like this, are retrenching and burying themselves ‘in what they know’. Or they're being asked to. Managers are afraid to tee up new social marketing ideas to senior execs, since "6 programs just got cut". The CFO is asking to cut any marketing that can not be proven to be accretive to current ROI figures. That’s all understandable, but now is not the time to bury your head in the sand, for your career or for your business. Three reasons why: Assume everyone else is doing that (burying heads in the sand). Don’t you (as a person and business) want to stand out and differentiate? Don’t you want to go where your competitor is not? Don’t you want to be stronger and smarter than competition with social marketing activities as we come out of this recession? Aren’t customers even MORE wary of traditional marketing and advertising, turning to each other more for authentic advice. User generated content is growing at times like this – in both creation and consumption. 8 out of 10 shoppers consulted reviews before buying their holiday gifts. 70% of Twitter accounts were created in 2008. Facebook is expected to grow to 200M (from 150M users) by the end of this year. And I’ve seen no slow down in customers posting user generated content through our clients.Don’t fall back when the rest of the market is moving forward. Take this opportunity to take advantage of sleeping competitors. Be the light for...
(02/24/09 09:00 AM)
- Social Media Marketing Best Practice Tip.
I'm fond of saying that social media doesn't have 'best practices' per se, we just have 'current practices'. Those things that we know are working right now with very, very limited play in a real market. That said, I see that Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation, has started a blog meme on pulling together the best practices and has challenged bloggers to write one post. I also see that Toby has already contributed some outstanding insights. Here's my take
Social Media Best Practice Tip:
Alignment: Yes, that's it. Alignment. If your organization is considering (or is well on their way) pursuing social media in your tactical marketing plans. It (social media) MUST be in complete alignment with your strategy and differentiator as an organization and in complete alignment with what you're already doing in your marketing plan.Strategic & Differentiation Alignment:
If you've not yet read Seth Godin's book, Meatball Sundae, I highly recommend you check it out. In a nutshell, it gets after this very issue. If you're in charge of marketing for any organization that does not (and is not likely to in the future) embody openness, sharing, trust and all of those things that are required in a customer-owns-your-brand world that is social media, this might not be a strategic fit for you. Should you change, perhaps, but that's not the issue here. Just as I would rarely advise a B2B startup client to advertise on network television, there are some companies that aren't going to align on social media. One last thing - even though your company has some aligning characteristics...if your legal department doesn't, your social media marketing plan may have a hard time getting off the ground. I'm just sayin'...Marketing Plan Alignment:
This one's a bit easier, but still a challenge, and we're still talking about alignment. If you decide to setup a Twitter account because it's cool, but you're not blogging and you're expecting things to just explode for you, that's unrealistic (but, you already knew that...) You need to align social media vehicles with that you're already doing and plan appropriately for their launch. If you have a customer database but you've never sent an email, maybe do that first...then put up the videos, then email your customers again, then get the blog going, then seed you customers with that and get the real conversation going... I'm still bullish on data and collecting it on prospects and customers (RSS subscribers and video viewers are not success metrics in the end) and employing that data in your marketing and social media efforts.[UPDATE] One more thing... This 'social media thing' is new, and it's not...you know what I mean...right? Well, here's what I mean. Companies that do well in social media are those same types of organizations with the criteria identified by Jim Collins in Good to Great. They would meet the test of social media readiness. Examples of that criteria include: humility, acting as a servant leader, being able to accept brutal honesty, availability, a willingness to share credit (ideally, give full credit to others) and take sole responsibility and blame for failures.
(02/24/09 09:00 AM)
- Is Your Marketing Head in the Sand?. It seems most marketers, at times like this, are retrenching and burying themselves ‘in what they know’. Or they're being asked to. Managers are afraid to tee up new social marketing ideas to senior execs, since "6 programs just got cut". The CFO is asking to cut any marketing that can not be proven to be accretive to current ROI figures. That’s all understandable, but now is not the time to bury your head in the sand, for your career or for your business. Three reasons why: Assume everyone else is doing that (burying heads in the sand). Don’t you (as a person and business) want to stand out and differentiate? Don’t you want to go where your competitor is not? Don’t you want to be stronger and smarter than competition with social marketing activities as we come out of this recession? Aren’t customers even MORE wary of traditional marketing and advertising, turning to each other more for authentic advice. User generated content is growing at times like this – in both creation and consumption. 8 out of 10 shoppers consulted reviews before buying their holiday gifts. 70% of Twitter accounts were created in 2008. Facebook is expected to grow to 200M (from 150M users) by the end of this year. And I’ve seen no slow down in customers posting user generated content through our clients.Don’t fall back when the rest of the market is moving forward. Take this opportunity to take advantage of sleeping competitors. Be the light for...
(01/16/09 09:00 PM)
- Social Media Marketing Best Practice Tip.
I'm fond of saying that social media doesn't have 'best practices' per se, we just have 'current practices'. Those things that we know are working right now with very, very limited play in a real market. That said, I see that Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation, has started a blog meme on pulling together the best practices and has challenged bloggers to write one post. I also see that Toby has already contributed some outstanding insights. Here's my take
Social Media Best Practice Tip:
Alignment: Yes, that's it. Alignment. If your organization is considering (or is well on their way) pursuing social media in your tactical marketing plans. It (social media) MUST be in complete alignment with your strategy and differentiator as an organization and in complete alignment with what you're already doing in your marketing plan.Strategic & Differentiation Alignment:
If you've not yet read Seth Godin's book, Meatball Sundae, I highly recommend you check it out. In a nutshell, it gets after this very issue. If you're in charge of marketing for any organization that does not (and is not likely to in the future) embody openness, sharing, trust and all of those things that are required in a customer-owns-your-brand world that is social media, this might not be a strategic fit for you. Should you change, perhaps, but that's not the issue here. Just as I would rarely advise a B2B startup client to advertise on network television, there are some companies that aren't going to align on social media. One last thing - even though your company has some aligning characteristics...if your legal department doesn't, your social media marketing plan may have a hard time getting off the ground. I'm just sayin'...Marketing Plan Alignment:
This one's a bit easier, but still a challenge, and we're still talking about alignment. If you decide to setup a Twitter account because it's cool, but you're not blogging and you're expecting things to just explode for you, that's unrealistic (but, you already knew that...) You need to align social media vehicles with that you're already doing and plan appropriately for their launch. If you have a customer database but you've never sent an email, maybe do that first...then put up the videos, then email your customers again, then get the blog going, then seed you customers with that and get the real conversation going... I'm still bullish on data and collecting it on prospects and customers (RSS subscribers and video viewers are not success metrics in the end) and employing that data in your marketing and social media efforts.[UPDATE] One more thing... This 'social media thing' is new, and it's not...you know what I mean...right? Well, here's what I mean. Companies that do well in social media are those same types of organizations with the criteria identified by Jim Collins in Good to Great. They would meet the test of social media readiness. Examples of that criteria include: humility, acting as a servant leader, being able to accept brutal honesty, availability, a willingness to share credit (ideally, give full credit to others) and take sole responsibility and blame for failures.
- Career Tip #12: Take Bigger Risks. If change is not happening in your organization, it’s 99% probable that the company is on the decline. And if you’re the only one who knows this, start preparing your resignation letter now. Executives who land a high level position, play it safe, and clutch onto high salaries, need to be flushed out of corporate America. They have the triple impact of holding back innovation, sucking profits from bonuses, and demotivating great people who eventually leave. And, by definition, these executives reach a plateau. Whether you’re an executive or not, I suggest you take bigger risks to move your career forward (and for fun). Make big plays. Take initiative for change at a strategic level. Bigger risks help your career because you stand out, differentiate, and accomplish great things. Whether you’re an individual contributor or manager, anyone who takes initiatives and risks can become a leader. They are the ones who are break through the next level. Their reputation is lasting and their contributions are recognized and rewarded over the long haul. Plus, the accomplishments create great soundbytes! At Dell I led a small ‘big change’ team. We were responsible for Dell’s consumer CRM strategy, customer centricity, retail competitive strategy, Hispanic marketing, customer segmentation, and other large projects. All of these initiatives were not part of day to day operations. They had to be invented, sold, implemented and finessed into company operations over time. The challenge for each of team member, from a career perspective, was to get the perspective...
(01/17/07 09:00 PM)
- Secret product differentiation in a public world. Michael points us to: BBC NEWS | Business | 'Product sabotage' helps consumers. I don't buy the sabatoge part, not at all, but it's interesting to see how the BBC outed Starbucks on one of their secret menu items. (thanks,...
(08/25/06 09:03 PM)
