Knowing what to do

December 8th, 2010

GOAL
Where does it come from, the feeling of knowing what the right thing is to do?
When you’re presented with various choices, what do you choose? On which criteria? Based on what expected outcome?
I often find myself struggling to choose right instead of wrong, and I’ve found a great “tool” that helps me in making the right choice: having a very clear notion of what you want to accomplish!
By having a very well defined goal I can test the different options up against that goal, and I can make the choice that brings me closer to my goal.

Sounds simple enough? Well, it is (not exactly rocket science)…but it requires that you have a well defined goal which isn’t always that easy. It’s important to set the right goals as well, though, so be visionary but try to be realistic at the same time!
First you have to overcome some of the typical obstacles for setting your goal:

    a) thinking “how will I/this fit in with what I/we do now?”
    b) believing that the road to your goal is too difficult to follow
    c) lack of self confidence: “other people are better than me” *

* NOTE: True, there are people that are better than you, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for you. And it especially doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything interesting to offer.

OK – got your goal set up? Great.

Now to a very important part: try to visualize your goal.
So for example if your goal is to code and release a Top10 featured iPhone app, you should be able to close your eyes and visualize your app on that Top10 list, see the star ratings and the number of positive reviews, read the “1$ for a limited time only” price tag, see the “top downloaded app” badge etc. etc. And most importantly: try to actually feel what it feels like to have accomplished exactly that.
I know it sounds a bit like something taken out of a self therapy handbook…and it probably is. But I know it works. It makes you more goal oriented.

The final step is easy: look at your options and evaluate against what will get you just at tiny bit closer to your goal – and make the right choice!

Good luck :)

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Design for behavior change

September 30th, 2010

824202_flying_basketIn one of my early blog entries (“Small car? Half priced parking!”) I talked about finding the right incentive to change people’s behavior. The case was cheaper parking for smaller cars.
Now, it seems, there’s an emerging field called ‘design for behavior change’. This field touches upon the exact same thing: finding the right incentives as a motivation for a new behavior.
This is very exciting stuff – not only when looking at mass behavior change (like getting kids to wash their hands in kindergartens and schools) but also looking to change the behavior of your customers.

A good example is something that has existed in web sales for a very long time: sites giving away free shipping if your purchases reaches a certain amount. I for one, find myself filling the basket until I reach the free shipping limit, and to me this proves, that it’s possible to work with incentives that motivate certain purchase behavior.
I’m sure this could be exploited in many new ways especially if combined with some of the social media services.

But I think there’s another part of ‘design for behavior change’ that could be equally exiting. It could be a great mission for product design companies to make products that have built in incentives towards the purchase (e.g. the purchase contributes to global causes, or to local community causes like a new playground) and at the same time motivates the customers to a certain new behavior through the design of the products (e.g. doing something great with your kid, getting more exercise, reduce waste or conserve energy). Of course the product should also fill a need and meet a market, but that goes without saying.

Maybe this could be a path to success for some?

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Eight quick social media tips

June 22nd, 2010

I stumbled upon this great video by Lewis Howes that – in all its snappiness (5:48) – has eight excellent tips to help you get started doing self promotion/personal branding using social media…and I assume the tips work equally well if you’re promoting your company and/or concepts. The video is almost a year old but was recently promoted by Guy Kawasaki which is probably why it surfaced in a blog entry on Harvard Business Review (great site btw – Elisabeth, thanks for the recommendation).

For those of you reading this at work (or other places where playing a video with the sound on is not a very good idea), I’ve extracted the eight tips:

  1. You gotta be yourself
  2. Get active on at least the top three major social networking sites: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
  3. You gotta provide awesome, awesome content
  4. Be smart with your time
  5. Be consistent
  6. Promote others
  7. Connect face-to-face with individuals
  8. Thank others as much as possible

This is great stuff for those of you who are just beginning to use social media strategically.
Anyways, here’s the video – enjoy :)

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The importance of gut feeling

January 30th, 2010

six_sigmaI was reading this very inspiring article at Harvard Business Review the other day (I actually instantly bought the book as well…one more for the shelf…).
In the article Roberto Verganti talks about user-centered-innovation and how he disagrees with the approach.
After working with six sigma a couple of years in my previous job, I have sort of come to the same conclusion. In the Six Sigma scheme the overall (simplified) goal is to move away from ‘gut feeling’ and towards data based facts and decision making. As we said to our clients: “Gut feeling is evil” :)
In the same manner user-centered-innovation is an attempt by businesses to verify their concepts. By user involvement they hope to create products, services etc. that the users demand.
As much as I acknowledge user involvement in general, it just isn’t the right approach when what you’re creating is genuinely an innovative product – especially if the product fills a yet un-adressed market. In that case you are creating a completely new demand.
And to be honest, I’d rather follow my own gut feeling than asking several other individuals about their opinion about something they haven’t yet thought of.
I thank Roberto Verganti for putting intelligent words on this. Looking forward to read his book.

Posted in Blog, Business, Design, Inventions | 1 Comment »

How to be (a bit more) professional

October 12th, 2009

Cash flow graph

If you’re the type, like me, who likes numbers and plans (*), here are some tips from the top of my head…

Guide to creating good business cases:

  • do proper market research
  • find realistic market numbers
  • be specific about your assumptions
  • build a proper model that can be reused for future products
  • build various business cases based on the model

Now, insert your business case numbers into your overall business plan:

  • be specific about your different cost elements
  • create a profit & loss (P&L) model
  • build a cash flow model in order to track your financial situation
  • create a sales model with input from your business cases

…go sell!


:)



*) and even if you’re not, you should seriously consider reading into these things if you’re a start-up company – feel free to ask me questions using the comments feature!

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