Yes, you read that title correctly. Let me explain.

The other day, I was getting (what I thought was) a routine haircut. As the hair stylist and I were shooting the breeze, she told me a little bit about a three-month trip to her home city – Moscow.

While she was there, she needed to (ironically enough) get her hair cut. Opening up the directory of hair stylists (yep, they have their own directory), she called one – expecting to simply set up an appointment and go in. But that’s not what happened.

This is where the story gets interesting.

When she called for an appointment, instead of saying, “See you then!” they asked her, “What time do you want us to pick you up?” Confused, she tried to explain she’d get there herself, yet they insisted – emphasizing that the pick up was included in her fee (which was about $25 in our terms). So sure enough, a half hour before her appointment, a car service arrives to taxi her away.

But that’s not all.

Apparently, they kept her waiting at the salon a little longer than anticipated. So how did they handle it? Instead of a simple, “We’re very sorry,” they instead asked, “What would you like for lunch?” – at no additional cost. So for the price of one (pretty reasonable) haircut, my stylist got car service and free lunch to seal the deal.

The surprising thing to me was hearing about such innovation in a place not typically known for it. Yet it’s amazing how intense competition triggers innovation. Taking a look at the Russian economy in the last ten years, you’ll find that the cosmetics industry – and that includes hair salons – is one of the fastest growing sectors. In fact, 15-20 new hair salons are opening each month – and that’s only in Moscow.

I’d say the competition is fierce.

But what I love about this story is the way it shows a new-old approach to differentiation.

Many smaller companies believe they don’t have enough money, man power, or momentum to effectively differentiate themselves from their competition. Now, I’m not saying everyone needs to start sending a car service to their clients (and really, I’m not convinced about the profitability of such offerings), but what I want to emphasize is that in today’s world – in markets driven by the need to “humanize” or get closer to customers – there is still one simple (and potentially free way) to differentiate: DELIGHT your customer!

Seth Godin says it best here (emphases mine):

“A few organizations have figured out how to turn customer service into a marketing opportunity and thus a profit center. They figure if they’ve got your attention, if they’re talking to you at a moment when you care a great deal, they can turn that into an opportunity to delight. And being delighted is remarkable and worth talking about.”

To bring us back to the story, the truth is that my hair stylist friend wasn’t even that crazy about the haircut she received that day. Her stylist was a little new and inexperienced, and gave her a “so-so” haircut. But did she care? Not really; in fact, she was delighted. This salon thought raised their competitive edge – and even with so-so results, they differentiated themselves enough to secure a delighted customer.

I’d say that’s something we’d all like to attain (hopefully with better than so-so results, of course).

• Do you have any stories about a time when a company delighted you with their customer service?
• What ways have you sought to differentiate yourself in the market?
• Have you ever used the delight-strategy to set yourselves apart from the pack?

Are you riding trends or are you setting them?

Even more importantly: have you even asked yourself that question lately?

Sure, it’s easier to jump on a bandwagon of the latest trend, but that’s not the entrepreneur’s way. The entrepreneur must seek to stand out in the crowd – a head above the rest. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

Think to yourself: When was the last time you heard/read/seen something that was setting a trend? When was the last time you were in a position to set the trend?

Recently, I’ve been struck by the amount and scope of trendsetting going on in the world. Have you noticed it too? I think it’s important to highlight these stories because they are so different from each other. It’s inspiring – reminding me that trendsetting can come in all shapes, sizes, and spheres. Paying attention to the different types of trends can help us pick apart what exactly it takes to be a trendsetter, no matter the business.

Trendsetting in Quality

CNN Money ran an article about Trader Joe’s, the crunchy grocery store chain known for their neighborhood-grocer feel and eclectic collection of food. The article states: “Trader Joe’s doesn’t pick up on trends – it sets them.” In their case, they set the bar of quality so high that customers don’t mind that the store has, say, only ten different kinds of peanut butter (as opposed to a regular grocery store’s 50 brands) because their customers trust that the quality of the product will be good.

• Ask yourself: How can I raise the quality of my product/service so that my customers trust me MORE?

Trendsetting in Innovation

FastCompany recently highlighted Nike’s newest innovation: the sock shoe – officially called, “Flyknit.” After interviewing athletes (in other words, their customer base), Nike found that what these customers wanted was a shoe that felt like a sock. Nike’s director of footwear innovation, Tony Bignell, explained, “A sock fits great, feels snug, goes unnoticed, and you get no irritation… So the idea was, how do you engineer a sock into a high-performance shoe?” In order to get this product to the shelves, Nike had to develop an entirely new way of engineering a shoe design. Just do it? Oh, they did.

• Ask yourself: How can my customers help me innovate things THEY want?

Trendsetting in Production

Yet another article from FastCompany highlighted what could possibly be the next wave of trendsetting in publishing. Alan Goldsher wrote and published an e-book on Jeremy Lin in 72 hours. That’s 15,000 words ready-to-read in 72 hours. I’m still scratching my head over the reality of this type of production (no doubt this guy has a Keurig station within arm’s reach), and I think it’s worth noting as more and more consumers will expect their products/services to be produced faster.

• Ask yourself: How can I produce my products/services in a more timely and efficient manner (without sacrificing quality)?

So why highlight these three types of trendsetting? If you emphasize the quality, innovation, and production of your service or product – and if you’re asking the right questions along the way – you’re on the right path to being a trendsetter.

There is, however, one more vital ingredient: selling to the right customer. You need to get your product into the right hands. When asked if one could predict what would become a new trend, Henrik Vejlgaard, author of Anatomy of a Trend, recommended looking to the major cities. Since we’re more focused on trends in marketing and business than in fashion, think to yourself: What are the “major cities” of your business that help spread products to other businesses? The vital customer/hub will be different depending on the business, but it’s your responsibility to figure out who and where they are, and into whose hands you need to get your product.

Although it can seem daunting to think about trendsetting in an age of Apple, Google, and Facebook, it’s important to stay on top of your business and try to be on the forefront of the next big trend.

• What other questions do you think are vital to becoming a trendsetter?
• What other inspiring trendsetting examples have you heard of recently?

It just dawned on me the other day: the Keurig coffee system is everywhere. In my home, in my office, in my clients’ offices, at the gas station, in the convenience store, at the mall – everywhere! It seems that wherever I am, I can look up and see a Keurig single-cup brewing station beckoning me to brew a cup.

Perhaps you’ve experienced this phenomenon. Maybe you could even look up from your computer right this second to glance at a Keurig coffee maker (it wouldn’t surprise me).

But what I want to know is: When did all this happen? When did a seemingly niche-market coffee maker become ubiquitous?

Sometimes in the business world, an idea is so well-anticipated that it’s an instant smash (most anything by Apple, for instance). Other times, you have a product that’s more of a “stealth hit.” The Keurig is just such a stealth hit – slowly creeping its way into our lives and suddenly ruling the coffee world. That’s not hyperbole, either. I truly believe that the Keurig is redefining how we consume coffee, and this is something to pay attention to (especially if you’re selling coffee).

Think about it. Surveys tells us that 73% of coffee in the US is made at home. That’s not news. And Starbucks has thrived in spite of this. However, consumers want what they want, the way they want it, inexpensively – and they want their coffee fast! In hard economic times, superfluous trips to Starbucks are the first to go. Keurig couldn’t have stealthily cornered the market at a better time.

Still not convinced? While in-home coffee maker sales have grown only 1% annually over the last 7-10 years, 2010 total revenue for Keurig brewers hit $330.8 million – a 67% gain over 2009. Developed in 1998, these single-cup coffee systems are now in 7% of households (and this doesn’t include all those offices with these coffee makers – 200,000 office installations in 2010 alone). This is incredible growth for a product introduced 15 years ago!

In fact, Keurig (which, it should be noted, was bought out by Green Mountain Coffee Company in 2006) is staking such a claim on the coffee industry that even Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks are producing K-cups for the brewers. That’s right – the coffee giants are teaming up with the little guy – who, by all accounts, doesn’t appear to be so little any more.

This type of success begs the obvious question:
What did Keurig do right?

That’s actually easier to answer than you might think. You see, Keurig is a near-perfect example of an I³ Value Proposition in action (see related post), and therein lies its success:

• The Keurig is Innovative: The Keurig entrepreneurs took a few simple ideas – that every cup of coffee should be fresh, and that everyone should choose what type of coffee they want, whenever they want – and made it happen in a clearly innovative way. The innovation was in the engineering to make these objectives easily attainable.
   
• The Keurig is Indispensable: With 2.5 million Keurig beverages made each day, I think we can safely conclude that the K-cup is indispensable to its owners – a part of their everyday lives.
   
• The Keurig is Inspirational: Keurig has come up with the type of product that consumers (and business professionals) are consistently interested in – even after using it day in and day out. I can easily marvel out loud at a Keurig in action, in any office – and have those around me join in. This is after we’ve all seen it do its thing hundreds of times. It’s still a “wow!”

So what’s next? We know they’ve made a great product, as well as countless great cups of coffee – but what will this niche coffee giant come up with next? Also – isn’t there an environmental concern with all those K-cups?

More thoughts on that next time…

Meanwhile:

• Is Keurig just dominating in-home coffee maker sales – or will it begin to impact Starbucks and other destination shops?
• How else do you think Keurig has changed the coffee business in the last ten years?
• Do you use a single-cup brewing system at home or at the office?
• What other “I³” ideas do you see cornering their markets?

Recently, there’s been lots of news covering Research in Motion, the Canadian-based company behind Blackberry. Although Blackberry has entered the lexicon as a standard reference to smart phones – frequently referred to in movies, TV shows, etc. – the reality is that for the last five years, Blackberry has been losing market share, and losing its position as the definer of email-enabled phones to iPhones and Android.

What must be particularly galling to Research in Motion, more so than the iPhone’s success – which was a truly groundbreaking product (which RIM tried to imitate with their touch product) – is the onslaught of Android, coming at the market from a completely different angle and making major headway. All in all, it has not been a good couple of years for Research in Motion.

So, what’s the lesson here for us?

Well, there are a couple. One is that when trends start shifting, you have to look down the road to see what’s really going on, and what you might need to do to respond.

The fundamental problem with the iPhone being better than the Blackberry was that it wasn’t really better, at least by many measures. Some people prefer a physical keyboard. Some people thought (and for a while it was quite true) that for corporate networks, Blackberry email had much more advanced security than Apple’s initial offering, and more so than Google’s Android system.

Where Research in Motion dropped the ball for Blackberry, however, was not looking at the trajectory of things. What was happening was that people were taking to the touch model very easily, and so that became a major new trend. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, they were looking at the empowerment of a large screen. Third, consumers become almost instantly enamored with having an almost infinite array of creative applications at their fingertips. So in many ways, the App Store and all the things related to customizing your experience were what set apart the iPhone, and later Android-based phones.

Look down the road at where your competitors are going. This is especially true in a highly-competitive market, and particularly if you are a leader in a category. Do not be dismissive of what the new competitor’s bringing to the table. Instead, ask yourself, What really changes, if I could fast-forward where they’re taking this? What is possible? What has been impossible for us, but maybe is possible for this new model – and can we adapt? Can we “join in”?

Without asking those questions – and it’s not likely that RIM’s executive suite were asking those questions, because that’s what happens when you’re on top – it’s easy to look down your nose at everything else that’s coming. It’s easy to only see the deficiencies of those players, missing where their strengths could develop, given enough time.

Given that this was Apple and later, Google, entering the market, it was arrogant to be dismissive of their ability to hammer away at a potential advantage, and make it the actual point of differentiation of their value proposition.

Apple didn’t just represent email, but functionally – from a user interface point of view – better email, and not just phone, but equal phone capabilities. The iPhone doesn’t just have download-able widgets – which Blackberry already had in some interesting little applications – but formed an entire ecosystem of completely flexible applications, that would not feel like, look like, or function like everything else that was previously available.

It was truly groundbreaking stuff, which of course is Apple’s strength. For all of us not competing against an Apple-caliber corporation, there still is a lesson to be learned about really “fast-forwarding” your competitors’ advantages to Where does that leave us – one-, three-, five years from now?

If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t much matter which direction you take the organization. Objectives are necessary in order to have a clear and clean cut view of where the organization is going.

There are strategic and tactical objectives, which document the future of the firm or a specific market roll-out. They should be built around concept of messaging must be central, so both strategic and tactical objectives support the validation, communication and execution of the product’s Value Proposition– representing a set of promises that your target market will agree is innovative, indispensable and inspiring.

Strategic objectives are the high-level goals that drive strategy and long-term direction. These include corporate goals (which lay out the major, grand-scheme plans of the organization), financial goals (the key financial metrics that drive the firm’s success), and market impact goals (the key metrics that will allow you to measure your position or success in the marketplace, such as market share, markets served, number of customers, etc.)

Tactical objectives aren’t tasks, per se, but are more immediately tangible than strategic objectives. They reflect the key areas of project management, overall efficiency and time management, and translate easily into “to-do list” items for your Action Plan, and benchmarks for your timeline.

Keep objectives as clear and specific as possible. Use time-bound targets that are as measurable as possible. For example: Sell 100,000 units by May of 20xx for revenue of $$$ million.

IT Industry research leader, Gartner, Inc. comments on the importance of tying goals to actionable strategy and results: “Aspiring ‘to be the market leader’ or ‘to be seen by our clients and partners in their success’ is admirable, but lacks the specificity and clear linkage to action and measurable results to propel go-to-market efforts.”

Do you know where you’re going? Have you established major strategic objectives as well as tangible tactical objectives? Are these goals clear, specific, and measurable?

As you formulate and refine your value proposition, the best thing you can do for it is to simplify. There are few practical steps will help you get to the “pearl of great price” of your offering, and really let it shine. By this, I mean highlighting and not hiding the true main point (the net-net “goodness”) that proves most compelling to prospects.

Simplify by reducing the number of features or benefits in your story. Obviously, don’t reduce the actual features that make up your offering, but do reduce the number of features you communicate. Even this may seem counter-intuitive, in that it is easy to feel that “more is more.” However, given the crowded marketplace and ever increasing levels of market noise, it is a strategic imperative to deliver a simply understood story to your market.

I find that the more complex the product, the less effective it is to deliver the proverbial “fire hose” of information to an already overwhelmed audience. The point of reducing the number of features communicated is twofold: to force you to evaluate which features really matter to prospects, and to enable you to deliver those points more clearly.

Simplify by reducing the number of words you use to communicate a feature. Use simpler language such as “this means…” and “this doesn’t mean…” to frame key points. There is a time and place to introduce the twenty-page PDF with detailed schematics and charts… it just isn’t at the front end of the communication and sales process.

Simplify by reducing the use of jargon and dense wording. I don’t mean language that’s simplistic or condescending— I do mean language understood by a non-technical executive who understands business terms and concepts.

Finally, simplify by reducing the number and depth of slides in your PowerPoint presentation. The old adage of “tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them” is a simple and still effective way to approach any presentation. The middle part is where many business product and services companies fall into their own snare of complexity.

PowerPoint is a wonderful tool to capture and share new ideas—and is also a collector of “dust balls” of too many ideas and details. We’ve all sat through (or given) one-hour PowerPoint talks that left everyone, including the speaker, more confused than when the talk began. You can clarify and simplify any presentation (or document) by taking this simplification test:

• Can I capture my essential offering in one slide? You can state your Value Proposition (using the Offering Concept Statement) and add a few short clarifying bullets—but that’s it!
• Can I describe what my product does in one slide of less than 50 words (adding up all the bullets)?
• Can I describe, on one slide, what our product/service brings to the market that is new, useful and exciting (your offering’s I3 dimensions)?
• Can I describe, on one slide, what in our company’s history points to our distinct ability to deliver this specific value proposition (credibility from your corporate foundation)?
• Can I describe, on one slide, a way of looking at our offering financially that is compelling—emphasizing a key financial benefit or dynamic unique to your offering (Cost Effectiveness from your Corporate Foundation)?
• Can I describe, on one slide, what in our present people, processes and resources points to our distinct ability to deliver this specific value proposition (Capability from your Corporate Foundation)?

Be direct. Be clear. In short—keep it short. Your prospects will appreciate it and understand your story better as a result.

In my last post, I included a video in which Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, suggests that while some choice is a good thing, a lot of choices might not be.

If you look at how Japanese automotive companies established their beachhead in terms of small car sales when they first came to the United States in the 1970s, there were some cultural and economic factors that were in their favor, such as the cost of gas and so on, but the other part of it was that they just had a simpler line-up.

They radically simplified the number of varieties you can have of a particular car model and that made it much simpler for a consumer to say, for example, “I think I want to buy a Honda.” Your head didn’t have to explode in making that decision.

General Motors, on the other hand, is the perfect example of what happens if you offering is too spread out. For years, GM had all these brands– Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, etc… –and none of them were particularly good or reliable (IMHO)! Now, they’ve finally gotten rid of a bunch of lines they previously could never bring themselves to shoot down (forced to do so by their recent bankruptcy and reorganization).

Once again, the lesson to be gleaned from this is to examine your desire to provide variety – and do what marketers like to do – which is to stratify a market to capture little pieces of everything along the continuum. Does that actually undermine your opportunity to create a distinct beachhead in a given market, with a superior offering for that market?

It’s counter-intuitive in a lot of cases. Naturally, you’d say, “Well, I want to offer a different color for everyone’s taste, so I can sell more stuff,” but go back to the example of the iPhone again. You can’t get an iPhone 4g other than with a black back. They don’t have the option of a white casing, like the previous incarnations did. Now, perhaps that could have been a manufacturing thing, whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is, that’s it! It’s black. That’s what you’re going to get. Moreover, it’s cool. They sold you on it, and that’s how it is.

As much as we intuitively think variety and freedom of choice are good, we gravitate towards companies and products that FOCUS the variations offered and the choices we have to make. Does your company offer a lot of options? Too many? How could you simplify your offering, and streamline your customers’ decision-making process?

It’s a familiar scene– a guy walks into a Starbucks looking for a cup of coffee, looks up, and stares at the menu like a deer in headlights for five minutes, overwhelmed by all the choices he has to make before he can pay $4 for his delicious beverage. Cappuccino, frappuccino, macchiato, americano, mocha, latte or brewed coffee? What size? How many shots of espresso? Hot or cold? Regular, decaf, or half-caf? Skim, whole, 2%, or soy? Do you want a flavor in that? Whipped cream? For here or to go?

We’ve all turned on the TV, flipped through 500 channels and gave up and turned it off because “there’s nothing on.”

It may seem counterintuitive, but freedom of decision often leads to indecision. In this video clip, Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, talks about this puzzling phenomenon, and suggests that while some choice is a good thing, a lot of choices might not be. (It’s a little long, but worth watching!)

I couldn’t agree more with the central idea that one can offer too many choices. In fact, a great case in counter-point is Apple. Apple has refined the art of reducing options without making consumers feel constrained. Compare them to, lets say, a company who’s lunch they’re eating (IMHO): Research in Motion. RIM keeps coming out with a new model seemingly every day, and it makes it hard to make a Blackberry decision.

If you want to buy an iPhone, the only decision you really have to make is how much memory you want. There’s not a whole lot of other options. You can argue that the choice between a 3GS and a 4G is a choice, and it is, of a kind, but fundamentally, the way you’re going to interact with the device is identical. Whereas Blackberry offers phones that flip open, one that slides out, one that doesn’t even have a keyboard – and all these things are things that make you wonder if you’re making the right choice. On top of that, Blackberry (and Apple will soon follow) is offered on many networks, with phone varieties that are carrier specific.

In the case of the iPad, again, there’s really only two decisions: Do you need 3G, or WiFi? That’s the big decision (the other is 16GB, 32GB or 64GB – which is less complex) and I know all about that choice, because I went through that very decision when my wife surprised me with an iPad on my birthday. She said she wasn’t sure which I needed, so she got the WiFi model, but I could exchange it for the 3G version if I wanted.

I found myself paralyzed between desperately wanting to open up the box and tear off the cellophane wrap– but knowing that once I did that, because there’s a big restocking fee, there would be no turning back– or I had to get to the mall to get the other one.

I wrestled with that decision for nearly an hour, debating what I should do. That choice made it hard for me. I ended up, like most boys with toys, choosing to tear open the cellophane and enjoy my iPad immediately. Immediate gratification won out. I don’t regret that decision, for a variety of other reasons, but the point is, choices make it hard.

What do you think? Is it better to have more options, or to keep it simple?

[Stay tuned for part two]

We tend to think of “mission” in the singular. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” and such. As a marketer, however, your mission is two-fold – you have both the corporate mission, and your product’s mission to consider.

The corporate mission is your company’s overarching mission – why you are in business. Most likely, some version of this is already spelled out somewhere, in a “Mission Statement” or similar declaration of purpose and/or vision for the organization.

Your product’s mission is, similarly, why it exists.

This isn’t a recitation of what your product does, but rather, why your company funded its development, and what the overall expectations and requirements for it are. These expectations are at least financial, market impact (share, prominence) and organization (reduced cost to deliver, replace older technology, etc.)

Look at both of your statements and ask yourself, “are these aligned?” – do they look like they belong together? It doesn’t matter whether you are in a position of authority to change your corporate or product mission – what matters is that you note the degree of or lack of integration – and start thinking about the ramifications of these distinctions.

A tightly aligned corporate and product mission (and by “product” I mean product and related services that together make the “offering”) can just mean that your company is newer and has fewer product extensions… or … your company has a very tight overall focus.

A loosely aligned mission profile isn’t necessarily “bad”, but could mean challenges ahead for acquiring resources to fulfill your product’s mission. An example of this would be a packaged software vendor launching a Software as a Service (“SaaS”) offering. The culture and norms in such an organization could be at sharp odds with a nascent product group – pushing the envelope and making everyone uncomfortable. However, if this company’s Mission was tied to delivering Business Process enablement via technology, services, “any means necessary,” – the new product offering might actually be a very consistent and meaningful addition to the company’s capabilities.

The point here is to be aware of both your larger corporate mission, and specific product mission, and how they fit together. How much sense does this offering make in light of the company’s general mission? What impact does this have on your go-to-market strategy?

“Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing.”
—Seth Godin, author, “Purple Cow”

Product excellence and possessing stellar sales teams are “givens” in today’s B2B world. Existing business literature and marketing “science” have created a global economy in which product and sales excellence are now considered the baseline or “table stakes” for business—the minimum for companies to enter the game.

In a world where most players are aware of the baseline for competition, you need to meet that baseline level of performance to simply close the first deal or attract any market interest at all. Promises of excellent customer service or product excellence, by themselves, just don’t cut it as differentiators, even if you are strong in those areas (as demonstrated in the video in my last post). They’re the foundation of good business, but think about it<— you lay the foundation of a building, and what do you have?

A well-fortified hole in the ground.

You don’t stop there, of course— you keep building on that foundation. It’s what you do above the ground—beyond the minimum prerequisites of good customer service and basic functionality —that people notice.

These givens are the “infrastructure” of current business practices, which serve to elevate the importance of strategic messaging to a higher plane.

The entire organization and its culture must center upon the message of the company and its product. While at first blush, this might sound like a dangerous disregard for those fundamental, “real” aspects of business value— quality, features and support— it actually affirms these attributes.

By pulling the entire organization together around the message the company wants to communicate, “disconnects” in quality, features and support become even more evident and urgent. As champion NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham put it, “Everyone should feel as if his signature is on the finished product.”

• So, what should the business product or services vendor do?
• How do you make messaging— the communication of value to the marketplace— an integrative process (vs. simply another functional process)?
• How do you build your go-to-market process and plan around your messaging?

My friend Kathie posted the following on her Facebook page and I just wanted to share it here. It’s made the rounds and you may have seen it – but’s it is worth a second look.

(The comedian is C.K. Louis, who’s material is usually a lot more “blue” than this bit).

However, this take on modern life highlights just how demanding our consumer-driven world really is.

Marketers beware – bring your “A” game.

“Innovation, as a goal, is overrated.”

Wait, what?

Jonathan Fried of 37 Signals made that bold claim in a recent Inc. Magazine video blog post, and I think there’s actually a lot of merit in what he’s saying, as a general rule.

To be new, or to be flashy, just for the sake of being new and flashy is not, in itself, of benefit to the customer. However, to solve a problem in a fresh new way would mean that until now, the problem had been “solved” in an inadequate fashion, or somehow suboptimally. It’s not just putting the same solution in a new box, but actually thinking through how to make this or that work any better.

Fried’s own company, in their flagship product, Basecamp, took the idea of project management and team collaboration, and made it simpler, faster, and less expensive, and in that way brought some new ideas to the familiar one of teams working together. Now, ideas like teams being able to document their discussions, and or being able to manage a product plan on a big whiteboard, had existed long before Basecamp. But what Basecamp brought to it was speed, elegance, and simplicity, in a web-based solution, that was new to many people who could discover it and reap the benefits.

So innovation as a goal IS overrated, but having said that, innovation as a challenge for an organization or product manager, to really think it through and come up with a true new, better way to solve an existing problem, IS a desirable goal.

It’s not enough by itself, of course. It has to provide utility, as Fried points out, or usefulness over time, which I often refer to as Indispensability. Then, what grabs the attention from a marketing point of view is that it does so in some way that somebody who understands what that product or product family is would actually be impressed by it– the “wow” factor, or the Inspirational factor.

All three together would yield an I3 Value Proposition, something that’s truly new and fresh, something that’s very useful, and something that’s done with some art to it. Those three together form a value proposition that at least grabs the attention of your intended audience, and makes the case to them that they should at least be considering what it is that you’re offering.

Today, I’d like to offer something a little more “essay like” than my usual posts. Think of it as a declaration of optimism in a sea of gloom. Here goes…

When I look out to what the future might offer… I see a bright future! I see a world made simultaneously very small and unimaginably vast – a world of opportunities for whoever can connect people’s passions and powers to the creation of new products and services.

It doesn’t have to be fancy and complicated to make an impact. Think about the humble light bulb, the mundane aspirin or the any of the many modes of communication and transportation we use every day. Where would we be without them? Yet, we take them for granted.

Consider, for example, the simple pen. Whether writing inspiring words, drawing nature’s beauty or designing an airplane, the pen has brought comfort to many and given expression to countless ideas – and someone had to make it and sell it!

Victor Hugo, author of “Les Miserables” and a keen observer of life and human nature wrote, “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”

Whether it is Hugo, Carnegie, Edison, or Steve Jobs, the mind of man (and woman), has only begun to unfold the canvas of innovation that our children and we will one day see and enjoy. Not a perfect world, and certainly not one without pain… but one where ideas truly shape the very world we live in.

I am a salesman and marketer proud of it – because those roles help people generate great ideas – bring those ideas to life and bring those ideas to market.

It’s a music video! It’s an iPhone ad! It’s… well, the internet-dwellers aren’t quite sure what it is, but this somewhat-enigmatic YouTube video features the band Atomic Tom performing a catchy tune on a New York City train… entirely on their iPhones!

My last post promised that this one would look at an example of clever marketing. “But!” you might exclaim, “We don’t even know if that video IS marketing?!”

Well… maybe…

We’re not certain who was really behind the video– whether it was, as claimed, just the band and friends producing it independently, or if Apple was stealthily involved – but either way, it was definitely marketing. Furthermore, it was good marketing, for both the band and the iPhone.

That is the power of subtle marketing. It’s being clever, not depending on brute force – really just using a simple idea and executing it well.

Atomic Tom certainly got quite a lot of publicity from this stunt, including nearly four million views on YouTube, appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live (view full episode), the Today Show, and on FastCompany.com, among others, but the iPhone got its fair share of the spotlight from this as well.

A recent article at techdirt.com asked if the video was “A publicity stunt or viral ad – or just a band connecting with fans?” Now let’s assume, for the moment, that Apple did sponsor this. The bigger question, or the bigger observation to be made here, that might be more beneficial to marketers it this: Apple– by stepping out of the way and not putting their brand front and center – but making this appear to be an organic happenstance– gets much more mileage out of it than if they put together a professional or polished-looking video touting their wares.

Of course, they’re very good at doing “polished”, as anyone who’s seen the recent Macbook Air commercials on TV or online knows. Tight, focused, and beautiful, is something Apple does particularly well. Gritty, real-world, and natural, however, is something, (if, in fact they’ve actually sponsored this activity,) – it would appear – they’ve also done equally well. Both are important.

The difference is, the first is something that you can throw money and professionalism at. If you put enough resources behind coming up with a professional-looking video, you will get a professional-looking video. But coming up with something that looks organic, natural, and spontaneous, is much harder to do. You have to be careful that you’re not too polished, where people start doubting that what you’ve done is organic and real. People who can do THIS well, will connect to their audiences at a much more visceral and meaningful level.

It comes down to understanding your audience. In this case, the subtle point is how cool (yes, I am old enough to think saying “cool” is cool) these phones are. So instead of just saying how desirable and versatile they are– “we have a million apps!” – they show you a drum, a piano, a guitar, and a bass guitar happening on these phones, so you just know how versatile they are, without them waving big arrows saying “look at me!”

The only way you can pull that off, is if you’re really in tune with your audience. You have to really understand what will actually make them interested in what you have to say, and then you have to say it in a way that isn’t in their face. This is especially true the more youth-oriented your pitch becomes – they just don’t want to be sold.

Making something that will “go viral” is a subtle art, and you can’t just dial in “viral” and expect results on demand (notwithstanding the many companies who claim to be able to do just that). Very few organizations, companies, or agencies have been able to do that consistently, and it’s hard to do! A brainstorming session might yield five or twenty seemingly good viral ideas, but only a fraction (if any) will actually catch on and join the ranks of “Internet sensations.”

The point is, that being subtle and clever, really trying to visualize what would be interesting to your target audience, and the willingness to make the subtle and not so obvious point, is something that many marketers have yet to master.

Did Apple? Who knows? Atomic Tom maintains that the idea and production was solely theirs, but Apple is certainly going to try to capitalize on the clip’s success, if they weren’t in on it to begin with.

• How do you connect with your best customers?
• Do you know what makes them tick?
• Have you thought about it for even 15 minutes in the last 30 days?

To be successful, you have to be perceived as valuable. To be perceived as valuable, you have to, in fact, be valuable.

There are three dimensions to that value. The first is that you’re bringing something new to a market that hasn’t seen it before–new in a way that’s meaningful to them. Second, it’s something that is very useful over an extended period of time. That means its not a fad, it’s actually utility over time. Third, for somebody in the field, who appreciates it, it’s a little bit of a “wow!”–it’s exciting.

People want to be excited today by the things they work on. That’s why, if you go to a Williams-Sonoma, the kitchenware place, they’ve got the coolest ice cream scoopers, and garlic presses, and they’ve actually engineered simple things like that, to create a net-new value proposition. They’re creating a net-new experience over things that have been around for hundreds of years! And why is that?

Because the consumer today, whether its a customer buying a consumer product or somebody buying a business service, is actually looking for something that, again, is actually net-new. They want something that does it better, faster, and cheaper than ever before, does it in a way that’s useful, and does it in a way that shows an attention to detail that excites them.

So what gets me cranked is when people try to figure out new ways to solve real problems–new ways to really bring a distinct and special and new value to things. That’s exciting to me. It’s people solving other people’s problems.

This is a way that I can profit if I solve somebody else’s problem. In the old days, when capitalism was basically an extended version of the land barons, people just grabbing things from one another, but that’s not the way it is anymore. You could argue otherwise– watch any conspiracy movie, and you’ll see if somebody invented a way to make an engine that would run on olive oil, the big oil companies would kill them, right? Maybe. (Doubtful, but maybe.) If that sort of thing happens nowadays, it’s the exception rather than the expectation.

But by and large, things work. Apple works, Microsoft works, Starbucks works, because they actually bring something of value to a market that wants that valuable thing. They do it consistently enough, and in a special enough way, that it enables people to really see the value, and be willing to pay a premium for these things.

Therefore, it creates wealth for the people who bring the service or the new offering, and creates a fair exchange–nobody’s putting a gun to your head to buy a $4 Starbucks coffee. Why do you do it? Because you perceive it’s worth more to you to experience that $4 coffee than the $4 in your pocket. It’s a very basic idea, but that excites me, how people figure that out.

Now, there’s another part that excites me. It’s the cleverness of approach. In other words, in the beginning is the offering. It’s what it is–the what you’re offering, to whom, and why they should care. You have a product on a shelf. It’s in a box, it’s on the web, it’s somewhere. But now you have to get that message to as many of the people you need to get to, as cost-effectively as possible. If you make $500 profit on every sale of your thing, but it costs you $800 in advertising to get that one buyer, that is not sustainable. So how do you do that? And that excites me, to see how people cleverly figure out new ways to get to market.

To be successful, you need to find new ways to solve problems, and new and clever ways to get to market.

We’ll look at one such clever approach in the next post!