Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

Marketing Innovation – Part II

December 21st, 2009

At my course at UC Berkeley on Innovation, Creativity & the Entrepreneur we had an eye-opening class on “Marketing Innovation” -  how the marketing profession/role has dramatically changed in the past 10-15 years, the impact of various technologies on Marketing globally, and current innovations in marketing, ranging from research, to advertising, to promotion, price, product and channel/place (the “Marketing Mix” as taught at the Haas School).

I challenged our 46 students to each go out on the ‘Net and find the best examples that they could on “Marketing Innovations” – both technology-driven and “old media with a new twist”.  Results were FANTASTIC as we collectively found over 90 examples of all forms of creativity and innovation in today’s marketing.

Wanted to share the top trend-setting blogs & sites for Marketing Strategy:

  • Visionary Marketing blog – created by an international set of entrepreneurs/marketers, provides and excellent Blog Roll of many other great spots for Marketing Innovation on the Net.
  • Business Week blog on Innnovation – This blog covers “new innovations in marketing from new tools to how people rethink how to get their messages out.  Marketing Innovation is part of Business Exchange, suggested by Tracy Zhang.
  • Tim Brown’s Design Thinking blog (thank, you, Kavita) – Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, offers his cutting edge views on design and innovation. His posts tend to take a deeper dive into areas such as creative culture and how purpose creates a strategic advantage in the area of innovation.
  • Adam Richardson’s blog (thank you, Kavita) – The Creative Director at Frog Design’s blog on the intersection of design, business, technology,and culture. His posts focus on ways to integrate creative and strategic thinking and approaches to any problem.
  • Online marketing blog (thank you, Angus) – Internet marketing blog on the intersection of social media, digital public relations and search engine marketing. Tons of interesting info. and some interesting overlaps with Seth Godin’s blog – try typing “marketing is ,” or “marketing innovation ” in Google search … makes you think.
  • Future Lab – blog by global agency, FutureLab with lots of entries on strategy and innovation
  • Seth’s blog (thank you, Angus) – Marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog which doesn’t hold punches. Godin founded of Squidoo (http://www.squidoo.com/) which is a user-generated- website that uses the concept of a lens to filter information (like blog posts but within a subject).
  • Web Strategist (thank you, Deval) -  Jeremy Owyang is a web strategist whose target audience is Marketing professionals and CMOs. He writes for Forbes as well.Very practical advice on how to leverage social media for your company.

I’d like to hear about additional sites on the strategic/general topic of marketing innovation…

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Posted in Functional Creativity, Marketing, website

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Freedom to Fail – Part 1

September 23rd, 2009

This past month, I was struck by something that Vinod Khosla brought up at the Haas School while accepting a “Lifetime Achievement” award, and have been turning it over in my mind many times… Khosla is responsible for major successes at Daisy Systems, Sun Microsystems, huge portfolio wins at Kleiner Perkins (KPCB) over the years, and is now responsible for at $1+ billion new fund at Khosla Ventures. What would you guess contributed most to his success: an eye for technology? Luck? Choosing the right teams?

Khosla’s secret to success

When asked what most contributed to his success over the years, Vinod boils it down to this: the Freedom to Fail. According to Khosla and many others, if we feel that we have the freedom & ability to push ourselves to the limit, create new ideas, and start companies we believe in – we are more likely to succeed. An entrepreneur who allows FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) to creep in about his/her abilities and leadership, and fears failure is more likely to fail. More on this in a video of Vinod from SDForum awards 2 months prior.

Lessons from Early Yahoo

As part of the original Yahoo team, I observed this first-hand. There as a general feeling among the team that “hey, if this doesn’t quite go the way we imagined, we’ll fix it and try something else.”  If the worldwide web (or Yahoo)  didn’t quite take off, some of us would  just go back to their happy lives as grad students at Stanford and continue on.   Of course that didnt’ happen.  And, it was later on, after the company tasted big success that fear of failure crept in.

So, I have been wondering: what’s the link between “freedom to fail” and creativity in a start-up?  Do most successful entrepreneurial environments include this element? Is Freedom to fail learned or are some of us born with a certain “chutspah” that keeps us from thinking about failure? Can an entrepreneur deliberately set up a “Freedom to Fail” culture?  (More next post –>)

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Posted in Creative People, Entrepreneurs, HR /Culture

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