Jobs-to-be-done | Three tests ALL ideas must pass
People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill… they want a quarter-inch hole. Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business School professor You’re awash in ideas. Ideally from running targeted campaigns, but you may be seeing them from other quarters as well. Great, then what? A key activity in the process of innovation is determining which of many […]
The fallacy of averages
A discussion with a portfolio company CFO reminded me that statistics are a dangerous thing and averages are misleading. “There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Most businesses analyze their performance using overly simplistic tools. For an extreme example, imagine a scenario where the average customer produces monthly recurring revenue […]
The Dangers of Doing What Works
Why is it that in the enterprise 2.0 and social CRM (and probably many other) spaces that we always try to offer a prescription to organizations problems based on what other organizations have done? We always hear about blanket statements such as, “there has to be a center of excellence to manage these efforts,” “the […]
Lowering Risk at Decision Points
I’ve actually got the chance to catch up on a little blog reading this morning, and I just got to digest Sameer Patel’s wonderful post entitled, “Innovation 1.0, served here.” The bit that really hit home was this (emphasis mine): “By organizations embracing and encouraging innovation, that really doesn’t equate to every factory worker walking […]
How To Make The Right Decision Without Seeing Every Option
Image via Wikipedia Here’s a fascinating little mathematical tidbit, courtesy of an entertaining article about the mathematics of gambling in New Scientist: Suppose you are told you must marry, and that you must choose your spouse out of 100 applicants. You may interview each applicant once. After each interview you must decide whether to marry […]
