Where Is the Puck?

Know-Wow! (6): DeQ (Delight Quotient) in Three Dimensions!

2007-03-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

Part 6 on KNOW-WOW!: the art of delighting to achieve success in business.

DeQ is a three dimensional representation of your success in delighting. Its result is not a single number, but rather a matrix consisting of three numbers from 0-9. The ideal score would be: 9, 9, 9.

Your DeQ can be determined by using three questionnaires, to be filled out by company’s internal and external “clients” (i.e. employees, customers, community stake holders and residents).

To learn your company's DeQ - fill out the questionnaires that will be presented in the next few posts.

Know-Wow! (3): Delighting = Giving

2007-02-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

Part 3 on KNOW-WOW!: the art of delighting to achieve success in business.

The best way to delight is to GIVE: give more than your customers would normally expect.

This is actually the tough part. We have been taught that business success is all about receiving or TAKING. Right? Think again. Those who have learned the art of giving proved to be the best "receivers". The business is the dynamic balance between giving and receiving.

Don't wait to become success to start giving... If your goal is to "receive" (money, reputation, status...) then START with giving! The same principle applies both on individual and corporate level. Remember the golden rule?

Know-Wow! (5): What Is Your Delight Quotient (DeQ)?

2007-03-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

Part 5 on KNOW-WOW!: the art of delighting to achieve success in business.

Are you perceived as a giving company? Are you delighting your customers? Are you admired in your community or among your employees? The good news is:

There is a way to measure your success in delighting
There is a way to improve your DeQ (delight quotient) over time

Delight Quotient (DeQ) is the measure of your success in delighting in all three most important dimensions in your business: relationships with your customers, relationships with your employees and relationship with your community.

You may now be wondering how can DeQ be measured.... or what maximum DeQ is...or even what your DeQ is! If so, keep reading... check out this blog in few days!

Know-Wow! (2): Delighting is the Three Dimensional “Game” Based on THE GOLDEN RULE

2006-11-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

...Part two of the story of KNOW-WOW, delighting and business success

To really delight, you need to constantly have in mind and apply the golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated!

Customers

Do unto your customers as you would have them do unto you! Remember: always try to be nice to your customers. It will come back big time!

Employees

Do unto your employees too, as you would have them do unto you. Remember, only respected employees will be able to respect your customers. Happy employees are more likely to create happy customers. There is no magic way of making your customers happy through un-happy employees.

Community

Do unto your fellow citizens as you would have them do unto you. Remember, customers don’t make their purchase based on your last advertising campaign solely. They tend to favor products and services from those organizations that have been helping improve the life of the community they live in.

Know-Wow! (1): Your Future Depends on Your Ability to Delight!

2006-10-31T00:35:00.000-08:00

KNOW-WOW: Part 1

In the extremely competitive business environment today meeting your customers’ expectations and needs is required; however it is no longer enough. In order to survive and win you have to go the EXTRA MILE. You have to go beyond people's expectations: you have to be loved! You have to WOW them!

MARKETING is great business philosophy. It instructs us how to discover and satisfy the needs of our customers. Unfortunately, however, marketing is too often manipulating rather than meeting customer's wants and needs. At the same time, many new business theories and approaches such as e-CRM, e-business, ERP, web office or "wiki" intranet... are focused on leveraging technology ("hi-tech") to improve productivity thus often creating more and more pressure and frustrations for everyone. Are we blinded by "hi-tech" and forgetting to focus on the "hi-touch"?

Let's stop this race for a moment. Let's go back to basics; back to common sense. Think for a moment: what do great brands such as Starbucks, Apple and Google have in common? What makes them so successful? Here is my simple answer: All of them managed to DELIGHT in all important aspects of their business. They are passionate about what they do; they go the extra mile. Their brands are loved, their companies are admired.

It is time to "pour your heart into the business" as Starbuck's CEO Howard Schulz advises. No wonder Starbucks' market value ($28.0 bil.) is 800% of their assets ($3.5 bil.); Apple's market value ($ 55.5 bil.) is 482% of their assets ($ 11.5 bil.) and Google's market value (of over $ 100.0 bil.) is 980% of their assets!

Think about General Motors on the other hand. Do you get ever excited about GM's products? Do you just LOVE them? Do you enthusiastically tell your friend about the brand new Chevrolet or Pontiac? Probably not. No wonder GM's market value of $ 12 bil. is only 2.5 % of their assets of $ 475 bil.!

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that delighting works. It gives you free PR; it gives you many loyal customers and brand evangelists. It pays big time. But the bad news is: it won't work unless it is real and sincere. It is either 100% true, or it is easily perceived as just another marketing gimmick.

To be true, delighting can't be one-dimensional. You need to excel and delight in all important dimensions of your business life: relationships with your customers, with your employees and with your community. You need to be LOVED by all three groups or it just won't work.

In addition, you have to plan strategies and design systems to make sure you do delight and go over people's expectations over time.

This is the foundation of the new business philosophy or technology. I call it "KNOW-WOW". It is providing the management tools to help you integrate the "wow" factor in whatever you do.

This is part 1 of my story on delighting and business success. I will be posting here more thoughts on "The three dimensions of delighting and GOLDEN RULE", "The ten commandments of WOW!" and on measuring "Your own DeQ (Delight Quotient)" in the coming days. In the meantime, check out this video.

Your thoughts and comments are very welcome.

Know-Wow! (4): The Low of Wow (or the "10-300 Principle")

2007-02-28T17:21:00.000-08:00

Part 4 on KNOW-WOW!: the art of delighting to achieve success in business.

You all know of Pareto’s 20-80 principle. It says that 20% of your input (products, markets, customers) will bring you 80% of your overall output.

Well, the input-output imbalance holds true here as well. Actually, this imbalance proves to be even more dramatic, as there are human emotions involved. This principle could be called the “The Law of Wow”, or, if you will, a 10%-300% principle. Let me try to phrase it:

“If you invest 10% more effort in trying to wow your customers, you will stand a 300% better chance to win prospective customers than your competitor”.

How come? Well, imagine being "only" 10% taller than anyone else around you. Who will stand out and get attention of ALL? By being 10% better (faster, less expensive, prettier...) you will get attention of ALL your prospective customers and thus far better chance to convert them into your real customers. It takes only 10% of your extra effort!

Post Your Own Ideas About New Trends Here

2007-02-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

Would you like to comment any of the previous posts? Or maybe you have your own ideas about future trends? Please post it here

Have You Gone Virtual?

2007-01-12T10:30:00.000-08:00

More and more businesses are discovering the power of “virtual”. Fifteen years ago business magazines in North America started writing about “VIRTUAL COMPANY”. Virtual company became reality and proven business model particularly in the Internet age. Today, we often refer to it as “networked” company: company that does not have the traditional structure and resources (employees, offices, manufacturing facilities) but it is rather outsourcing most of of its operations through network of partners. In fact, my own company (www.ipowerstrategy.com) is quite virtual: my contractors sit in four countries and we meet online only; my clients are both in Europe and in North America but I have not met quite a few of them in person yet. My web hosting is done through my strategic partner in Toronto and my office is also “virtual (shared) office”…But the model works: it gives me better efficiency, flexibility and freedom.

In addition to “virtual company” today we have gone one additional step toward the virtual extreme. We have created completely VIRTUAL BUSINESSES. Like www.secondlife.com
(“3D virtual world”) or www.weblo.com. EVERYTHING is virtual there, except money. You can create your second virtual identity (virtual character), buy your own “property”, get fashion “clothing”, new “car” or even new education for your virtual character. You can even find you your own virtual wife or husband… This all sounds just like fun, but many are taking this as a very serious business. Nyla, fashion designer from BC sells digital fashion items ranging from $0.25 to $6.00 and her virtual sales already account for one third of her real world income. Corporate world is getting this opportunity, too. In fact, IBM and Toyota already joined. Even universities like Harvard University and University of BC are planning to open their virtual campuses on Secondlife.com.

Check out Secondlife.com. You never know – you may even end up opening your own virtual store... Oh, by the way, there are now 2.5 millions online residents of this virtual world. They spent1.29 million US dollars last 24 hours only…

iPhone – Great New Product with the Poor Brand Name

2007-01-31T16:25:00.000-08:00

I just can’t resist to comment Apple’s new Internet phone: this is just another example of fantastic marketing job by Apple. Great and exciting new product with great potential… No doubt people will LOVE iPhone. To me Apple and Mr. Jobs are probably the world champions of marketing today (although it is tied race with say Japanese Toyota).

However, one piece of marketing puzzle is not done well! It’s the name : iPhone. :(

I understand Apple’s intention to own the “i". Yes, they probably were among the first ones to use “i" : iMac, iTunes, iPod… Yet, “i" has become too generic. It stands for the Internet and it never belonged to any particular company and it never will.

In addition, the word “Phone” is too generic, too ordinary. It’s not exciting and it is not new. Apple’s product is way beyond an ordinary phone, and this message had to be communicated more clearly. Remember, Apple’s mp3 player was not called iPlayer, but iPod. New name and new category will always create more buzz. Apple has just wasted an excellent opportunity.

Let alone Apple’s legal battle for the rights to use the name… It seems as if this time Apple’s executives were too focused on negotiation and on legal issues (how to get the name), rather than on creative ideas.

Hmm... Maybe it is not too late to change their mind. This name change (before the launch) would still be way less expensive than wasting huge marketing budget to convince people that this is more than just an "ordinary" phone with the Internet access. This name change could actually be an additional opportunity to create buzz! And of course this would resolve their legal battles...

The Future of Marketing – As Published on American Marketing Association Web Site

2007-01-31T17:52:00.000-08:00

Gian Fulgoni, founder and chairman of comScore, did a survey specifically for the AMA and Mplanet 2006.

Check out this article here. Some of the facts and predictions that caught my attention:

- Broadband Internet users now spend $224 per month online
- Consumer online spending should total $170 billion by the end of the year. $53 billion on travel
- Internet ad revenues are up 36% over a year ago, and search is 40% of that total revenue
- Google controls at least 45% of all searches
- The revenge of the bricks-the-mortar retailers: their online growth far outpaces that of the pure-play Internet retailers
- Social networking (youtube.com, myspace.com, craigslist.com) rapidly growing
- Tremendous future for advertising on user-generated content sites

Google Trends – Great Interactive Tool to Research Trends

2007-02-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

Check out one of the newest interactive tools for trend discovery and trend tracking. The tool is still in its development stage: it can be found on Google Labs (http://www.google.com/trends). The underlying assumption here is that the trends can be identified based on what people search for on the Internet. The more searches for particular product, the higher interest or even “demand”… The nice thing about this tool is that it also helps you compare trends.. Compare for example: “german cars” / “Japanese cars” or “HD DVD” / “Blue Ray Disc”…

Google's Top Searches Reveal New Trends

2006-12-26T14:56:00.000-08:00

Can you spot trends just by learning what people search? Yes, according to Google. Google processes all searches on its search engines worldwide and produces a report called “The Zeitgeist: general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era'':

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html

Here are four of the top ten most popular search terms that got my attention:
* "MySpace" (social networking)
* "video"
* "radioblog"
* "wiki" (user driven web content)

FYI, Google performs just under 50% of all today’s web searches according to Nielsen / Netratings.

Executives Give Their Prognostications on Technology Innovations

2007-01-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

Four predictions regarding technology innovations as published in Fortune (December 29th issue, article “The Next Big Thing” by Lee Smith, underwritten by Nasdaq):

1) ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: with China leading the way
2) WEB will be even more central in people’s lives due to changes in consumer demand: consumer will demand information accessible everywhere, edited and personalized
3) Rapid CONNECTION of the physical and digital world: more and more devices connected to the Internet (from today's 2.5 billion to 14 billions by 2015)
4) Changes in electronic consumer products , particularly expended MULTIMEDIA capabilities of the cell phones and its spread to broader segment of the population (note the trend of the doubling of the world's middle class - the largest consumers of such devices - in the near future)

Top 7 Marketing Trends in 2007 According to Rohit Bhargava

2006-12-30T22:40:00.000-08:00

Great overview of Marketing, or I should say Internet Marketing Trends for 2007. The 7 trends according to Rohit are:

1. Sharing a Corporate Personality
2. Widget Marketing
3. Social Media Optimization
4. AutoTagging and AutoSorting
5. Human Filtered Search
6. Contentcasting
7. Online Identity Shifting

Note the trend #5 - "Human filtered search". Another name for what I called "wiki-based" search in previous post. Great article.

Introduction - About This Blog

2006-10-30T23:49:00.000-08:00

This blog is greatly inspired by Wayne Gretzky's success philosophy. When asked what made him stand out from many other hockey players, Gretzky responded: "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be".

The purpose of this blog is to help you think about the future. How is business going to change in the future? How will we manage organizations of the future? What new trends can be expected in our society? What new technologies and products are going to be available? What do we need to do or learn to prepare today to be more succeful tomorrow?

Various comments, thoughts and essays can be posted here describing the anticipated changes in business and society. The ultimate goal of this blog is to help you succeed today and tomorrow.

Ivan

The Future of Search (2): Wiki-Based Search

2006-12-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

The Future of Search: Part Two

In my previous post dated Dec 22^nd, I described the discovery engines as the future of web search. Another new important development has just been announced by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia (user edited online encyclopedia). Mr. Wales revealed his intentions to build “wiki” based search engine in 2007 (“Wiki” = user edited web content). The future search engine, called “WIKIA”, will allow users to create and influcence search results. Wales promotes WIKIA as "a new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot”.

Very interesting! And possibly challenging for Google. Wiki trend mustn't be ignored. According to Garner group, half of all U.S. companies are expected to use wiki internally by 2009. No wonder both "wiki" and "wikipedia" were among the top ten most popular searches on Google in 2006.

The Future of Search: Discovery Engines

2006-12-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

It all started with Amazon and its now famous recommendation engine: “Customers who bought items in your shopping cart also bought…”. It was so intelligent marketing strategy. But most importantly, customers loved it!

Many other web sites have followed, for example:

www.pandora.com: customized online radio station (“your personal DJ”) helps you discover music songs and artists that suit your music preferences.
www.whattorent.com: a web site that helps you discover movies that fit your interests and personality type (based on personality test)

According to Jeffrey M. O’Brien (Fortune, November 27, 2006) discovery or recommendation engines are “sprouting on the web like mushrooms after hard rain” and “the web is leaving the days of search and entering an era of discovery”. So it seems that the next Google is not going to be search engine at all! The main rationale for discovery engines is that we actually don’t always know what EXACTLY we are looking for. So, discovery engines are more like a friend who is recommending you a new book, rather than a bookstore clerk who is helping you find certain book on the shelf.

Discovery engines are coming. Are search engines like Google going to disappear? Probably not. They are more likely to upgrade their algorithms to be able to provide various “discovery” tools for different needs.

Trends and Hottest Ideas for 2007 – According to Entrepreneur Magazine

2006-12-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

Is you currrent or potential business considered “hot” for 2007? Maybe it is time to redefine your business to make it hotter? Remember, you need to reinvent your business every five years or so. Review these trends and ideas as published by Entrepreneur magazine:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/hotcenter

Enjoy!

Advertising Just Changed: Advertainment and YouTube

2006-11-25T11:10:00.000-08:00

Advertising just changed thanks to the broadband Internet, particularly YouTube.com and similar video file sharing web sites. In addition to classic 30 seconds video (TV) commercials, advertising agencies are now creating new type of commercials for their clients. Here is how these commercials are different:

They are created specially for web audience, and uploaded on free peer to peer social networking web sites (like YouTube)
They last longer than TV ads: at least 3-5 minutes
They are always entertaining (“Advertainment”) and sometimes viral
They are often “hiding” their true advertising nature, at least at the beginning of the movie. They look like video files uploaded by "us" (regular web site visitors), and not by companies with huge advertising budgets

Check out this GREAT ad about guy called Hal who is having all kind of problems with his server. Gues what, this funny video file is actually smart commercial, created by Symantec for YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auigfj06aQE

Advertising just changed thanks to YouTube! Call it "Advertubing" if you want…