Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Making Internal Social Media Work
Now let’s try it internally
When I joined Lawson Software in 2006, it was merging with another software company, Intentia. Both companies had roughly 2,000 employees. Lawson was headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota and 95% of its revenues came from the United States. Intentia was based in Stockholm and 95% of its revenues came from Europe. We were merging two regional companies to create one global company.
I was responsible for merging the two marketing departments. I found employees scattered all over the globe and no shortage of ideas on how we should integrate and communicate the “new Lawson”. I met people as quickly as I could and asked for suggestions on how to build an internal infrastructure, integrate marketing operations, share the best ideas from around world, and re-brand the combined company.
One idea I heard frequently was, “Let’s launch a wiki.” So we did. Marketing staff could share ideas and get acquainted through a global marketing wiki. We found some free software, organized it minimally, and launched it. I sent out an e-mail endorsing the idea and inviting everyone to participate.
Then I stood aside. I was familiar with the traditional wisdom that, “The surest way to stifle innovation is to let the boss speak first.” So, instead of participating actively, I let others take the lead. I assumed that was the best way to bring out creative ideas that we could mash up into effective innovations.
The wiki launched with a surge of enthusiasm. But it didn’t last long. Some people dominated the conversations; other people shied away. Conversational threads spun off into infinity. I thought the wiki would be an excellent place to share ideas and processes. As it evolved, mostly it was a place to share opinions – sometimes heatedly. Ultimately, it sank into irrelevance.
I could have saved a lot of time and effort, if only I had had McKinsey’s new report on social media as an internal integrator. McKinsey notes that many companies have invested in social media for external use but that, “…internal applications have barely begun to tap their full potential.” McKinsey also notes that companies could unlock up to $1.3 trillion in annual value through “products and services that enable social interactions in the digital realm.”
How to unlock that value? McKinsey suggests we follow four basic principles:
Add value, not complexity – the best social technologies “… become central to the organization and complement (or, ideally, substitute for) existing processes.” Our little wiki at Lawson was one more thing to do, not one less.
Provide essential organizational support – identify your objectives, select a technology, and then figure out what support and encouragement is needed to make it work. One of McKinsey’s clients used “Connections Geniuses” to encourage people to use the social technology. At Lawson, I thought the wiki was simple enough for everyone to use. Actually, it probably was but I forgot the need for ongoing encouragement.
Experiment and learn – as Tom Kelley points out in another context, treat everything as an experiment. Experiments only fail if you don’t learn anything from them. As our wiki sank into obscurity, we just let it go rather than learning from it and trying again.
Track impact and evolve metrics – when you’re experimenting, you’re not always sure what the best metrics are. Don’t jump the gun and commit prematurely – you may be measuring the wrong thing. Rather, let the experiment proceed and then decide how best to measure its impact.
Water Bras and Multiple Sclerosis
It’s not a water bra.
It’s a cooling vest.
When we discuss brand extensions in my branding class, we like to look at both successes and failures. Successful brand extensions include Honda lawn mowers, Hershey’s chocolate milk, Jeep strollers, and Dove shampoo. Failures include Harley-Davidson wine coolers, Kleenex diapers, and Bic perfumes.
Perhaps the most notable failure that we discussed this quarter was the Evian Water Bra. Yes, Evian actually designed a bra that you can fill with water – Evian, one supposes. Why Evian did this, no one seems to know. The company has been skewered on many branding and marketing websites. Everyone who can write a snarky sentence seems to have done so. When I first saw the bra, I thought, “What were they thinking?”
Then I considered mashup thinking and multiple sclerosis. It may seem like an odd combination but, well … that’s the point of mashups. As Frans Johansson notes, the best innovations come from the intersection of very different ideas.
People with MS don’t process heat very well. They become overheated quite easily. They often need to wear cooling garments to disperse the heat and keep their MS symptoms under control. And those cooling garments are often filled with … water.
My friend, Cathey Riechers, maintains an online store to sell cooling vests and similar garments. Roughly three-quarters of those who live with MS are women, so many of the garments are in women’s shapes and sizes.
Cooling garments work well but – let’s be honest – they’re not very fashionable. They’re like orthopedic shoes. They’re helpful but you wouldn’t want to wear them to the prom.
I’ve occasionally wondered why we couldn’t design fashionable cooling garments. As I pondered the Evian water bra, it struck me that Evian has done exactly that. Only they called it a water bra. That’s bad positioning. Let’s re-position it as a fashionable cooling garment for women who have MS. There’s a market there. And perhaps it’s the tip of an iceberg … perhaps there are many other women who don’t have MS but still would like to stay cool.
Here’s my proposal. Let’s ask Evian if they will re-position their product and allow it to be sold as a cooling garment. This could be a huge PR bonanza for Evian. They can take something that was widely mocked and convert into something that helps millions of women. It was a product searching for a problem to solve. Now we’ve found the problem.
If Evian will do that, I’m sure that we can find distribution and sales outlets throughout the MS community worldwide. We probably can’t pay much for the licensing but we can sure talk up Evian and buy lots of Evian product.
So, what do you think Evian? How about it?
Vuja De
I’m having déjà vu and amnesia at the same time.
I tell my students that, if they want to be more innovative, they need to improve their observational skills. I encourage them to think like an anthropologist – to carefully observe what’s going on around them and how people interact with each other. Observing complex social behavior is no different in Denver than it is in, say, Papua New Guinea.
To practice their observational skills, I ask students to notice something new when they commute to work. They’ve driven that route hundreds of times but I’m sure that there are many things they haven’t noticed. So I ask them to make a special effort to notice something new each time they drive to and from work. I also ask them to keep notes on what they’ve newly noticed – that is, what they’ve been missing.
We then discuss what they haven’t seen. Students typically report that they’ve missed seeing an entire category of things or people. Perhaps they missed certain types of buildings or businesses. Perhaps they hadn’t noticed people waiting at a bus stop or the way people dressed for different weather.
Students often ask me, “How can I notice what I don’t notice?” I typically advise them to ask their spouse. After doing something together, ask your spouse what he or she saw. You may be surprised at how different your observations are. For instance, I tend to miss green stuff – plants, flowers, trees, etc. I’m sure that my wife never does.
By and large, my students are surprised at how much they’re missing. It’s a fun exercise as well as being useful. I feel like I’m helping to prepare a bunch of amateur anthropologists – or maybe police detectives.
It was only last night, however, that I discovered that there’s actually a term for noticing what you haven’t noticed. I heard Tom Kelley, one of the founders of IDEO, give a presentation at the University of Denver. He noted that we’re all familiar with the term déjá vu – we see something for the first time but we sense that we’ve seen it before. He suggests that we turn the term around – vuja de – to describe something that we’ve seen so many times that we fail to notice it.
As an example, Kelley described watching an in-flight safety demo. He’s seen it thousands of times. But recently he noticed that the air mask that drops down in an emergency really does need to be redesigned. As he pointed out, you can’t tell if it’s working or not because the bag doesn’t inflate. The only way you can tell that it’s not working is by passing out. That’s probably not the best human interface.
We miss important clues simply because we see them so many times. They’re hidden in plain sight. By improving our observational skills, we can learn more about the world around us and find many more opportunities to innovate. It’s as simple as vuja de.
(To find Tom Kelley’s books, click here, here, or here. They’re all good).
Are Green Companies More Innovative?
Mashing up green and innovation.
By now, you probably know that I like to mash things up in the pursuit of innovation. Mashup thinking is also a good way to do research and discover interesting correlations.
With that thought in mind, I decided to mash up Boston Consulting Group’s compilation of the world’s most innovative companies with Interbrand’s list of the Best Global Green Brands. Both studies identify 50 companies in rank order. Both tables are compiled annually; I used the 2013 list.
I first merged the lists and found that 74 unique companies occupy the 100 total slots. I divided these companies into three lists. Here’s how they break down:
- 26 companies – the “greenovators” — appeared on both lists; that’s 35.1% of the 74 unique companies. (These companies are listed in alphabetical order below).
- 24 companies (32.4%) appear on the innovation list but not the green list.
- 24 companies (32.4%) appear on the green list but not the innovation list.
The degree of overlap increases as you go up the scale. Looking at the top ten companies on each list reveals a much higher degree of correlation than is found throughout the rest of the list. On the innovation list, eight of the top ten companies also appear on the green list (not necessarily in the top ten). Similarly, on the green list, seven of the top ten companies also appear on the innovation list.
So, there’s a high degree of correlation between being green and being innovative. There are at least four plausible explanations here:
- Innovative companies are forward thinking and, thus, also interested in being green.
- Green companies need to innovate in a number of ways to reduce their environmental footprint. The innovation spills into other areas as well.
- The two lists are actually measuring the same thing.
- Some third factor is causing many companies to be both green and innovative.
We clearly don’t have enough evidence to reach a conclusion as to cause-and-effect. However, the second hypothesis seems the most logical to me. To be green, a company needs to change its business processes. In other words, it needs to innovate. It seems logical that stimulating innovation in one area of a business would have ripple effects on other areas.
Additional findings are also intriguing:
Car companies dominate the greenovator group – of the 26 companies that appear on both lists, nine are car manufacturers (34.6%). It’s the single largest industrial segment in the list. Why would car companies lead the way? It could be that green is a good marketing tool. It could be that car companies learned their lesson in the 2008 meltdown. It could be that government mandates for higher gas mileage lead to green innovation.
Some non-green companies disappoint me – three of my favorite companies are Amazon, Apple, and Google. Only Apple makes the greenovator list. Similarly, UPS makes the green list but FedEx doesn’t. Why wouldn’t these companies want to be seen as green? That’s disappointing.
These are great brands – I recognize all of the 74 unique companies. Indeed, I’m fairly familiar with most of them. These are valuable brands and I’m sure that being seen as leader in innovation or green or both only burnishes their reputation. In fact, I think my next mashup may be a three-way: brand value mashed up with innovation mashed up with green.
In the meantime, if you can help me sort out whether green causes innovation or vice-versa, I’m all ears.
Greenovators: Apple, BMW, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Daimler/Mercedes, Dell, Ford, GE, Honda, HP, Hyundai, IBM, Intel, KIA, Microsoft, Nestlé, Nike, Nissan, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Shell, Siemens, Sony, Toyota, VW
Innovative, Not Green: Amazon, Audi, BASF, Bayer, Boeing, BP, Dow, Exxon Mobil, Facebook, Fast Retailing, Fiat, GM, Google, Lenovo, LG Electronics, P&G, Renault, Softbank, Target, Tencent, Tesla, Unilever, Virgin, Wal-Mart.
Green, Not Innovative: 3M, Adidas, Allianz, Avon, AXA, Canon, Caterpillar, Citi, Colgate, Danone, H&M, IKEA, J&J, Kelloggs, L’Oreal, McDonald’s, Panasonic, Pepsi, Santander, SAP, Starbucks, UPS, Xerox, Zara.
On-Demand Innovation?
Unless you turn the innovation engine off.
It’s not easy to innovate. Many companies make it even harder on themselves by trying to turn the innovation engine on and off. Turn it on when a crisis erupts. Turn it off again when things are rolling along smoothly. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. Innovation tends to be all on or all off. You can’t just turn it on when you need it. You have to bake it in to everything you do.
Samsung is my favorite recent example of “all-on” innovation. Samsung recently rose to number two in Boston Consulting Group’s annual ranking of the world’s most innovative companies. According to BCG, Samsung is ahead of Google and only slightly behind Apple. Samsung’s mantra – which they apparently repeat at every meeting – is “Change everything but your spouse and your children.” In other words, everything must change. No wonder they make such cool refrigerators.
I was reminded of Samsung as I browsed through Rita Gunther McGrath’s book, The End of Competitive Advantage. McGrath identifies six warning signs that your innovation engine is broken. In general, all six signs have to do with turning the engine on and off. Here are McGrath’s big six:
Innovation is episodic – it’s the on/off switch. Would you bet your career on a project that might be switched off? Maybe not. In the environment that Samsung fosters, you don’t have to make that bet.
Process is invented from scratch – each time we turn on the innovation engine, we act as if it’s never been done before. Time for a brainstorming session! But there’s a lot to be learned (even on this website) about the nature and processes of innovation. Why re-invent the wheel?
Resources are held hostage – as Rosabeth Moss Kanter has pointed out, if you’re trying to finance innovation out of the “regular” budget, you’ll fail. Too many people already have dibs on the funds. McGrath writes that too many companies don’t play to win but rather play not to lose. To innovate, you’ll need to gamble. You’ll need a person with the authority to gamble and some funds for her to do it with.
Innovations placed in existing structures – if you turn the innovation engine on and off frequently, where would you place an innovative project? After all, it’s likely to be temporary. So, just make it a “bag on the side” of the existing organization. But innovations require new processes, not just temporary homes.
Judging innovations by “historic” criteria – perhaps the worst example of this is to measure the ROI of innovative new products. ROI works best when there’s some consistency and predictability in the mix. An innovation has no history. Applying standard financial metrics to an innovative product will simply stifle innovation. In an “all-on” environment, you can afford to develop innovative metrics for innovative products. In an on/off environment, you can’t. (For some non-traditional metrics, click here).
Holding the innovation to plan – of course, you’re going to create a plan for the innovation. The danger comes in sticking to it and holding people accountable for the plan as originally created. Things change. Some innovations fail. You’ll need agile leaders rather than by-the-book managers. Punishing an executive for failing to stick to the plan will eliminate any incentive for other executives to innovate.
Moral of the story: once you get the innovation engine running, never switch it off.
My Social Media
