Hutch's posterous

Hutch's posterous

Hutch Carpenter  //  VP of Product for Spigit (http://spigit.com). Father of two young 'uns who misses running marathons. San Francisco, CA. I blog regularly about innovation and social software at I'm Not Actually a Geek

 
Apr 5 / 12:36pm

Three key elements of customer co-creation initiatives #cocreation #innovation #voc

What Most Companies Now Do Well in Planning for Customer Co-Design

What we find is that most “enlightened” companies now do a few things right:

1. They have high-level buy-in to run one or more customer co-design activities.

2. They have a full-time, experienced and respected person in charge of the activity (this is usually someone in a manager or director role, whose day job centers around gathering customer requirements and input).

3. They connect the customer co-design/requirements gathering to real, funded projects/initiatives so there is an execution engine in place.

 

By Ronni T. Marshak on Patricia Seybold's blog, Outside Innovation.

Filed under  //  cocreation   customer-centric   voice of the customer  
 
Feb 18 / 7:48am

Good example of the current state of consumer-led innovation #jtbd

Media_httpimagesfastc_lqhkd
via fastcompany.com

In a separate post (http://bhc3.com/2012/02/16/its-the-jobs-to-be-done-stupid/), I wrote about the tendency of companies to be feature-led when it comes to innovation. Structurally, there are many reasons for this.

This cartoon brings in another aspect. The "machinery" of companies for seeking innovation includes focus groups. But how well does getting a group of people together in an unnatural setting work? What insights are really going to be delivered? I'd hazard a guess that they won't be too different than what cartoonist Tom Fishburne depicts above.

Filed under  //  innovation   jobs-to-be-done   voice of the customer  
 
Feb 11 / 8:09am

Crowdfunding becoming a disruptive business model

Hi HN, Casey from the Elevation Dock project.

People use the term disruption pretty loosely, I think crowd-funding is really doing it. Goodbye middlemen, sayonara to the massive traditional barriers to entry. Hello bootstrapped projects like this that would otherwise never see the light of day.

via news.ycombinator.com

This is a Hacker News thread. Kickstarter just had two projects get over $1 million in funding within 24 hours (http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/24-hours). The comment above is from a guy behind one of those projects.

In classic "disruptive technology/business model" terms, I think he's right.

(1) What is disrupted? Existing means of accessing capital (banks, individual investors, corporations).

(2) It's coming at it from the low end of the market. Small little projects getting funding, nothing that hits the bigger players' radar. But slowly, it starts to grow in terms of volume, and funding project size.

(3) It's addressing an end of the market that was really underserved by mature sources of funding.

Based on all this, I would say crowdfunding is disruptive, with Kickstarter leading the way.

 
Dec 28 / 7:29am

ReWired's @bmoesta turns the 9x adoption problem into job-to-be-done customer insights

In the framework below (from this HBR article), ReWired Group's Bob Moesta lays out a four-point structure for analyzing customer jobs to be done:

Rewired_jobs_to_be_done_framework
The four elements:

  1. Push at the situation
  2. Pull of the new situation
  3. Allegiance to the existing behavior
  4. Anxiety of the new solution

The "push" of needing to solve an existing problem, along with the "pull" of a new product must outweigh the wariness of mainstream customers, and their comfort levewl with a solution that provides certainty for providing some value.

This is very similar to what Harvard professor John Gourville outlined as the "9x" adoption problem:

9x_effect
The subtle difference between the two is that in Bob Moesta's formulation, customers know they have a job-to-be-done, and are interested in finding solutions for it. In Gourville's analysis, companies are the ones who face these adoption hurdles for their new products. The two frameworks address a similar issue, but come at it from different perspectives.

 

 

 

 

Filed under  //  innovation   jobs-to-be-done   voice of the customer  
 
Nov 14 / 6:01am

Jeff Bezos is a customer-first CEO, not a competition-watcher.

Bezos: For better or worse, it is really not a part of our culture to look at things defensively. We rarely say, “Oh my God, we’ve got to do something about that existential threat.” Maybe one day we’ll become extinct because of that deficiency in our nature. I don’t know. We look at things through a different lens. We say, “Oh, here’s this incredible phenomenon called social networking. How can we be inspired by that to make our business better?” I hope we find something.
via wired.com

I really, really like this philosophy of Jeff Bezos. Start with your customers, weave new ideas into that. Do not rush headlong into doing something out of competitive reaction.

Filed under  //  amazon   bezos   customer-centric   innovation  
 
Jul 20 / 9:31am

Graphic: 9x Effect. The challenge of new product adoption #prodmgmt #innovation

Media_httpwwwspatiall_ihebk
via spatiallyrelevant.org

Good framework for considering an innovation. How does it compare to incumbents? Can it pass the 9x benefits test?

Filed under  //  innovation   product management  
 
Mar 28 / 12:12pm

Tangible example of what market disruption feels like #innovation

This is missing the point. The problem isn't that some designers are losing work to 99designs. The problem is that spec work devalues the entire design industry.

reply

23 points by run4yourlives 4 hours ago | link

No, actually you are.

I hate to break it to you but you as a seller do not get much of a say on what value your product has in the marketplace. This is as true for design as it is for anything else.

The value of a product is exactly what buyers are willing to pay for it. Saying things such as "spec work devalues the entire design industry" suggests clearly that your definition of value is not in line with your customer's definition.

When this is the case, you basically have two options:

1. Demonstrate an increased value to the customer that you bring that they are willing to pay for, or;

2. Lower your price to compete.

Walling off your industry to preserve profits that aren't in line with the real value of the product might be desirable but it is unsustainable in the long run in today's modern world. Ask the music industry.

via news.ycombinator.com

I love this exchange on Hacker News. Why? It encapsulates the way disruption feels in a market. The incumbents fight hard against new models. But the market is ultimate arbiter of what holds value, and what models make sense. Just ask the integrated steel mills.

Still, doesn't make it any less painful for the incumbents.

Filed under  //  design   disruptive   innovation  
 
Mar 27 / 7:55am

Large firms - like Google - need to embrace small ideas, get away from the Innovation Olympics Syndrome

Make it very clear that good, small ideas matter.

This is so important.  One of the things I heard over and over was “If your product isn’t a billion-dollar idea, then it’s not worth Google’s time.”  This message sucks.  What you’re saying is “your great idea that might make millions per year is less important than a small tweak to ads or search”.  Even if it’s true, you need to foster innovation of much lesser initial impact.

Google acquisitions of companies in the $5-50mm range means that at some level, small businesses are valued.  Make this very clear.  It sucks to have someone say “your $5mm idea isn’t big enough” on the one hand, and then watch Google buy up companies for $5mm each. This is bad precedent.

via slacy.com

From an article about Google. I found this passage fascinating. First, the reluctance to take on small ideas inside Google. Sounds like Google has fallen into the trap that bedevils large companies. Namely, that only big, HUGE impact ideas are worth any focus.

Second point is that Google may not put much stock in its employees' small ideas, but will quickly snap up start-ups whose addressable market isn't all that big.

Large companies need to get out of the Innovation Olympics Syndrome (only BIG ideas matter). As this post illustrates, it's a morale killer.

Filed under  //  employees   google   incremental innovation   innovation   radical innovation  
 
Mar 25 / 12:42pm

Congrats! Your customers "Facebook Like" you....NOW WHAT? > Ad in USA Today #spigit #overstock #scrm

Yes, this is a Spigit ad, running in USA Today. Still, love the sentiment.

*Why* does it matter you have all those Likes?

Click here to download:
usatoday_fb_03112011.pdf (5.53 MB)
(download)

 

Filed under  //  usa today   ad   overstock   social crm   spigit