The Journal of 2020 Foresight

“It’s Been a Long Road Behind Me, and It’s a Long Road Ahead”

2006-10-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

“It’s Been a Long Road Behind Me, and It’s a Long Road Ahead”

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

The Journal of 2020 Foresight

Since beginning-less time people traveled to the ends of the earth seeking the foresight to know where life will take them.

Today with time running out, 78 million Baby Boomers ask themselves in the wee hours of the night:

Who have I become?
What will my life add up to?
Do I want to be remembered as the person I have been up to now?
Is it too late to put more meaning in my life?
Where will I be and what will I be doing in the next five years?
Will economic cycles support or defeat my plans?
Will I be forced to live a lifestyle I didn’t choose or work in a job I hate?
Will my energy, vitality and health slowly drain away?

What about you?

As you map out the rest of your journey, which direction will your life take? What kind of legacy do you want to leave?

And, will you finally follow your dreams?

“The painter stood
Before her work
She looked around everywhere
She saw the pictures and she painted them
She picked the colors from the air
Green to green
Red to red
Yellow to yellow
In the light
Black to black
When the evening comes
Blue to blue
In the night

It's a long road
Behind me
It's a long road
Ahead
If you follow every dream
You might get lost
If you follow every dream
You might
Get Lost.

She towed the line
She held her end up
She did the work of too many
But in the end
She fell down
Before she got up again

I keep my friends eternally
We leave our tracks in the sound
Some of them are with me now
Some of them can't be found

It's a long road behind me
And I miss you now

If you follow every dream
You might get lost
If you follow every dream
You might
Get
Lost.”

Neil Young, "The Painter"

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Which Direction Will Your Life Take?

2006-10-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

Which Direction Will Your Life Take?

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“Nothing is more important than the wisdom required to transform customers. Being in the transformation business means charging for the demonstrated outcome. Without wisdom people find aspirations difficult to achieve."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Here’s what they’re saying about The Journal of 2020 Foresight.

“A must read for every savvy Baby Boomer male and female. Assists Baby Boomers in a world where traditional expectations have been obliterated by lightening fast realities of the economy”

“It’s a goldmine of valuable advice and knowledge.”

“Original insight into the marketplace changes that affect the U.S. workplace in this new fast-changing economy.”

“A candid assessment of the trials and tribulations facing the Boomer family – from their elderly parents to their graying spouses, brothers and sisters to their coming of age children in their 30s and 20s and to their grandchildren.”

New life strategies for a flattening world you won’t find anywhere else. How do you:

Become a master of your own fate?
Locate your possibilities for growth and change?
Discover what is missing and forge new directions for an engaging new life?
Find new passion and purpose?
Convert a job change or downsizing into previously unheard of opportunities?
Redirect your life to leave the kind of inspiring legacy you want?
Reinvent your life and renew your relationships with those most important to you?

“Discover new maps for a generation journeying through life at the same time. Confront the major issues of each life stage. Customize your own life cycle.”

“The Journal of 2020 Foresight is grounded in the career, business and life realities that make being a Boomer so complex today. Laid out in journal entry fashion are the facts, trends, myths and fears.”

“A work of revelation as an entire generation embarks into uncharted territories – from Gail Sheehy’s ‘Fearless 50s’ to the ‘Age of Integrity and Influence.’”

“The Knowledge Labs delivers insights borne out by extensive original research and application in the real world. Fresh findings that allow us to make sense of our own lives by understanding others like us.”

“Uncommon wisdom and guide to self-renewal.”

And in the end Grey Owl asks which direction will your journey take?

"After Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, arranged the other six directions -- East, South, West, North, Above, and Below -- one direction was still left to be placed. But since that Seventh Direction was the most powerful of all, the one containing the greatest wisdom and strength, Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, wished to place it somewhere where it would not easily be found. So it was finally hidden in the last place humans usually think to look -- in each person's heart.”

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Lenses for 2020 Vision: New Insights Turning Hindsight into Foresight

2006-09-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

New Lenses for 2020 Vision: Insights Turning Hindsight into Foresight

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The individual buyer of the transformation essentially says, 'Change me.’ Elicitors may use any one of the four realms of experience for a transformation. When the offering becomes more intangible the value becomes more tangible.”

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. We’re bombarded with what seems like a 24-hour surround sound of noise – especially if you still live with teenagers. “CrackBerries” addict us to constant distractions.

We’ve become a society of barely functioning Attention Deficit Disorder multi-taskers. The half-life of an engineer’s knowledge -- to stay current without becoming totally commoditized and obsolesced in the marketplace – may soon be measured in months instead of years.

It takes uncommon sense to keep your wits about you.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: We’ve covered a lot of territory since we started this journey -- and this journal recording it -- barely seven months after our whole world was turned upside down on September 11, 2001.

It’s only fitting that we end it with more direct links to context, concepts, resources, tips and tools to help you find the right combination as you take your life out for an authentic SPIN.

Look for news about our Field Guide and up coming Book. Until then, share a FREE link with a Boomer, or someone who knows one!

INSIGHTS

Entering or Leaving Transformational Adult Passages

Welcome to the emerging demand for transformational coaches. The last wave of Baby Boomers in Gail Sheehy’s “Flourishing 40s” are navigating an “Early Midlife Crisis” on the way to their “Age of Mastery.”

The middle and advanced wave of Baby Boomers well into their second adulthood -- the “Fearless 50s” or “Flaming 50s” are journeying from “Mortality Crisis” and “Meaning Crisis” to their “Age of Integrity.”

Roughly 78 million Boomers over the next two decades will be asking – What will my life add up to? Is it too late to put more meaning in my life? Do I want to be remembered as the person I have been up to now?

You Are Not Alone

Here’s the paradox. In your life, you have to figure it out for yourself and, yet while highly personal, the struggle with meaning and mortality is itself a universal story that has been told throughout the ages. It is now experienced simultaneously by millions.

Lifework and Worklife

Today we live in a smaller and a more dynamically interdependent world.

While our spiritual and life experiences occupy the center of our own life, we are surrounded by forces that impact our home, work and community relationships.

The trick is to work through our “crises” at each life stage, extract some meaning from the experience and then apply what we’ve learned to mastering the challenges ahead.

Lifework

Now more than any other time before, the opportunities available to us for doing what we love in a community we prefer have never been better.

And, we now have a better understanding of the types of organizations the future will demand and how we can target them as employers, clients, customers, partners and alliances.

The UnInterview

Which means we can increase the probability of fit between our passions, values and experiences and their vision, mission, challenges and culture.

If you choose the employment route to do what you love, we’ve uncovered an intelligent approach we call the Uninterview.

It can be followed to create your own job – which is the most rewarding conclusion to your hard work -- even where no job existed before.

One critical way to demonstrate your value is to propose how a commoditized product or service can be reinvented to increase revenue and margins – especially in a destination resort of your dreams.

High Premium, High Value Offerings

By shifting the conversation away from the costs and your fees or the salary you command, you are better able to negotiate a better deal as a function of the value you bring.

How do you do that? You can spark creative ways to “experientialize” stale and underperforming components of your offerings.

And you can determine ways to increase customer experience on the front-end while streamlining ways of supporting those delivering the experiences by streamlining the back end operations.

Criteria for Choosing Your Ideal Community

Likewise, you can narrow down potential ideal communities you might want to relocate to by considering our list of factors.

But, remember every ideal location comes with trade-offs that don’t show up on the realtor or chambers of commerce websites.

Some become obvious when you visit or begin tracking news from and about the communities you’re investigating.

Others can be detected through inference by considering how outside forces will increase or decrease the attractiveness factor in the short-term and long-term.

Best Return on Resort Investment

In the western United States you might consider any one of a number of communities uncovered on our journey.

Depending upon your preferences for the best fit, you might consider communities in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico or California.

Worklife Demand for CROs -- Chief Reinvention Officers

The need for CROs in mature companies to reverse the slide driven by Flat Earth commoditization into a declining spiral will become more obvious.

CROs lead an eclectic team of competing tribes to reinvent products, service and experiences.

Developing Organizational Capacity to Trigger Competitive Breakpoints

CROs advocate knowledge creation, innovation and organizational learning as core competencies to guarantee ROI on its reinvention process – realignment, resilience and radical innovation.

Taking Advantage of Reversing Cycles

How do you lead the reinvention initiatives? By evaluating the market and industry indicators, diagnosing the current and next stage challenges and adapting leadership and management strategies.

78 Million 46-63 year olds at the Cross Roads

What's their secret for finding the right opportunities? By choosing among 3 sets of career options (11 total) and future-proofing 4 Personal and 4 Organizational Talent Scenarios using an 8-step methodology.

Which one fits you: 20 different Baby Boomer Lifestyles describing 46 to 63 years olds.

What do we have in common? Boomer family profiles living through an unraveling cycle followed by a crisis.

How do we select ideal communities for the right investment fit -- by the trend-setting lifestyle profiles they keep.

Fit: Sweet Spot of Overlapping Life, Community, Organizational, Economic and Generational Cycles

Finding your sweet spot by integrating lifecycles -- anyone can zero in on opportunities to do what they love in a business, social, and quality of life climate that they’ll thrive in.

Of course, shifting economic cycles, bursting bubbles and political events help or hinder our ability to capitalize on those opportunities.

In the 16 lifestyle neighborhoods, how do you evaluate six types of real estate opportunities -- when to buy, how long to hold, and when to sell?

Transplant your business, practice or knowledge company after evaluating seven market cycle indicators. Now, unlike in the past, you can develop multiple income streams that are not dependent upon the local economy.

Take the Mark Twain approach to escaping the Trapped and Permanently Temporary box for 50 and 60 year olds.

HINDSIGHTS

The Big Blue Marble’s Deep Past

Ultimately you come to appreciate that you’re just a particle of sand on a beach in the great expanse of time on planet earth.

Or, all you need do is to gaze at Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon-- the pillar of rocks beginning to form 10 million years ago when the earth was created to shift your everyday perspective.

Or, visit the Grand Canyon as many tourists do and reflect just on the layers of rocks demarking the Earth's history dating as far back as 2 billion years ago and to a more recent era nearly 250 million years ago.

Or read a report during a moment of reflection that scientists discovered 40,000 year old footprints in Mexico on Yahoo!

The Locals: 1200 B.C. to 12th or 13th Century

In “Four Corners Region” while Native American people were present in the region about 12,000 years ago, little remains to describe what they experienced, how they lived or what had happened to them.

The Anasazi lived for roughly 700 years in Mesa Verde, having migrated from the Four Corners region, but in the 12th or 13th century, over a period of one or two generations, the Anasazi vanished from this Mesa Verde region entirely.

First Illegal Immigrants: European Trade Routes, Voyages and Explorations

Maps show where the Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, English, and French staked claims to what today is the United States between 1513 to 1776. Native American maps show where tribes east of the Mississippi River lived before and during American colonization.

Following the conquistadors’ search for the cities of gold, Father Escalente in Colorado and Father Serra in California did their level best to spread Christianity to the heathens.

But, roughly 100,000 Native Americans early inhabitants were nearly obliterated by European diseases, colonization, settlers and prospectors over the 350 years of Western expansion across North America.

The Opening and Closing of the Wild West in One Lifetime 1803 to 1890s

Lewis & Clark launch the Corps of Discovery Expedition. "In 1802, Thomas Jefferson had read Alexander Mackenzie's published account of his journey across Canada to the Pacific in 1792-1793” which jolted the third president into action.

He put in motion the “training of (Meriwether) Lewis in the scientific and medical arts of the day and made a January 1803 request to Congress to provide $2,500 for the expedition.”

Between 1804 and 1811 competing fur companies follow the Missouri River and branched out into new (to them) territories bringing back lucrative furs, tall tales and maps and journals detailing their adventures.

Network of Trading Outposts Starting and Ending in St. Louis

For about 100 years, St. Louis, Missouri evolved from trading post for the early fur trappers to a launching pad for the river-based expeditions to a gateway for wagon trains, pony express and stagecoaches migrating to the Rocky Mountains.

Almost a decade after and Hunt's adventures and Henry's expeditions, on behalf of the competing fur companies roughly from 1820 to 1830, Jedediah Smith was the first to open the coastal trade route from California to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.

The golden age of expeditions in the 1830s to 1840s made American heroes out of John Fremont and Kit Carson. Less well known, Charles Wilkes also published his sea adventures, the “Great United States Exploring Expeditions”

In 1843, the Great Migration, a party of one thousand pioneers headed west from Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail, guided by Dr. Marcus Whitman, who was returning to his mission on the Columbia River.

The Mother Lode and The Comstock Lode

Captain John Sutter received a large land grant along the Sacramento River and set up his outpost known as Sutter’s Fort. On January 24, 1848, one of Sutter’s foremen noticed a few shiny yellow flakes at the bottom of the South Fork of the American River.
In 1849 the gold fever spread to ship crews, farmers, and everyone else who dreamed of abandoning their mundane life in pursuit of their own “El Dorado.”

Roughing It Through the Tribal Territories

A decade before the coming of the railroad, Mark Twain chronicles his stage coach journey from St. Louis to Carson City Nevada and the Comstock Lode in his novel, “Roughing It”

Manifest Destiny: Native American Extermination Wars

In the mid-1840s, it became an "obvious (or undeniable) fate." Thanks to John O'Sullivan, a wave of propaganda described it as a “divinely-inspired mission to expand itself and its system of government from ocean to ocean and to the western frontier.”

As the Civil War winds down, military attention under “The Great Warrior” (as he was known to Native Americans) William Tecumseh Sherman turned to the “Indian Issue.” In 1862 General (“Star Chief”) James Carleton declares war on the Navajos as an overreaction to events that unfolded in the two previous years.

In Colorado, according to Dee Brown, “Through political pressures they persuaded the Indian Bureau that the Utes were a constant nuisance -- wandering everywhere, visiting towns and mining camps, and stealing livestock from settlers. They said they wanted the Ute placed on a reservation with well-defined lines, but what they truly wanted was more Ute land."

Utes Must Go! Agrarian-Based Union Colony Must Stay!

After the end of the Sioux wars in 1877 Governor Federick Pitkin and William B. Vickers, a Denver editor-politician who despised all Indians, especially Utes, began drumming up a propaganda campaign to have all Utes exiled to Indian Territory, thus leaving an immense amount of valuable land free for the taking. Nathan Meeker, seeking to convert Chief Ouray to Christianity took them up on it.

The Utes jumped the reservation to hunt in eastern Colorado. In response, the governor, then Alva Adams, sent the Colorado militia to punish the Utes. Even though Colorow's band returned to Utah, the militia wanted to finish what they had started. The only thing standing in the way of an attack on the reservation was the badly outnumbered Buffalo Soldiers, who managed to stop the militia.

The Ghost Dance Ends the Wild West, But the Show Goes On

In October of 1890 after nearly three decades of Indian Wars, after Sitting Bull's return from Canada, after his infamous speech cursing all whites in his native tongue in 1883 for the Northern Pacific Railroad's celebration commemorating the driving of the last spike in its transcontinental track, and after his triumphant theatrical tour with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, he receives Kicking Bear, a Miniconjou from the Cheyenne River agency and sets in motion a chain of events leading to his death.

Meanwhile, 500 Years of War Reveal Generational Cycles

William Strauss and Neil Howe detected a pattern tied to four generational personalities -- Prophet (or Idealist), Nomad (or Reactive), Hero (or Civic) and Artist (or Adaptive). Each responds differently to passages between an Awakening and a Crisis. They describe a High as an era between a Crisis and an Awakening. An Unraveling is an era between an Awakening and a Crisis.

Western heroes – Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith and John Freemont – and before them Benjamin Franklin of the Founding Fathers were the "first Boomers." However, the current 80-year cycle began in 1943.

American Archetypical Preference for Heroic Breakthroughs

The Western archetype formulated within the context of this history operates almost on a “DNA” level in our society today. Without consciously thinking about the premise, most people are in agreement about the common superiority of the United States. We want to make the big leap, to achieve the big breakthrough, to chase the impossible dream. It’s the stuff of heroes. You know – shoot-first-ask-questions-later.

Recent Past: 20th Century – Triumph of Second Wave Industrial Revolution

When a new technology is being used to do something more easily or efficiently or better than what is already being done without it is called classic use of the technology.

The alternative is to use the capacities of the new technology to do previously impossible things, and this second use can be called expressive. A truly new technology refuses to stay classic.

Even if it was first created for a classic function, it eventually becomes expressive and reshapes the function. The success of the automobile created so many new conditions that society had to be reshaped to accommodate them.

Bubbles and Economic Depressions

Post “bubble” recoveries in the past -- ending in 1901, 1929, and 1966 -- to the most recent bubble at the end of 1990s shaped the values and perspective of generations.

Automobiles were much cheaper and better in 1920 than they had been in 1905. The boom in 1929 gave way to very high government deficits, deflation and the great depression period of the 1930s.

Against that backdrop, the Bob Hope generation formed their values and adult perspectives. They fought and won World War II and birthed a generation beginning in the mid- 1940s and lasting until the 1960s.

After a depression that lasted a decade and a five-year war, the US economy enjoyed significant productivity gains from the late 1940s through the early 1970s

'70s & '80s Economy

Coming into the early ‘70s, US companies faced little foreign competition at home. The industrial revolution hit on all cylinders producing great quantities of products destined for the mass market. But supply outstripped demand, so prices fell with increasing competition.

The recession in 1970 didn’t help. It was a classic over-reaction to the over valuation of stocks. Not too long after the US encountered the first oil shocks when OPEC decided to control the flow of oil to the West.

And that period was followed by a long downturn--from 1973 to roughly the mid-1990s -- in profit and productivity in the US.

Trend Reversal of the Great Westward Migration

From the beginning of the 1800s when Lewis and Clark explored and charted the West, a broad migration pattern headed as far as it could go -- to California.

For the last 60 years, since officials started tracking the statistics, more people each year acted on their “California Dreaming” impulses.

This isn’t just a trend reversal, but as a scenario indicator, it signals something else is going on. Since the mid- 1990s most of the demographers – experts who track this kind of thing – had predicted outflows, but just assumed they would taper off.

But, more California signed up to join the other 22 million U.S. citizens who moved from one state to another.

Why should I care?

Will it continue?

FORESIGHT

The Future in 10 Sets of 10 Trends and Predictions

What are the brand new trends and forces? Which are the ones growing in importance? Which current forces are loosing their steam? Which have peaked or are reversing themselves? Which are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us in the future? From future work and social and economic drivers to the demographic migration shift to warm resort destinations.

Boomers Past, Present, Future – Spending Waves, Disruptions

Marketers have tracked the legendary Boomers as they redefined every age segment they passed through. The current stage for the boomers is the transition into the power structure of business and industry between ages 40 and 60. All the workplace rules and structure change to fit their tastes and values -- roughly a 20-year spread in age and a 20-year time frame for the last segment of the generation to exit the peak spending and earning stage.

Monitoring Indicators, Big Bang Decisions

Will the second half of this decade follow the same pattern as previous decades? Which sets up the projections for the next five-year period between 2009 and 2014. Will the pattern of growth and good times be followed by a recession? If so, will the recession last for only five years?

Arie De Geus' Scenario Approach at Royal Dutch Shell with 350 Year Old Company Case Studies

We can use the same decision making and scenario learning techniques adopted by companies that had been in business for 100 years or more. “As wars, depressions, technologies, and political changes surged and ebbed around them, they always seemed to excel at keeping their feelers out, tuned to whatever was going on around them.”

Short-, Medium- and Long-Term Scenarios: Track the Indicators

The current 5-year plan, for 2003 to 2008, is to acquire wealth and to figure out how to protect your nest egg for a decade, while you take advantage of buying opportunities in a prolonged recession lasting for at least the last two of our 5-year time frames: 2009 – 2014 and 2015 to 2020.

The terrain ahead isn’t smooth like on paper or in plans and in models. It’s more three-dimensional. Over the next two decades from 2003 to 2020, just in terms of an economic climate, we anticipate a correction, boom, bubble, burst, bust, correction, and that long bear / depression. More like another roller coaster ride. Taking us uphill, then screaming downward again for quite a ride, until 2020.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Finding the Right Combination for an Authentic SPIN

2006-09-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

Finding the Right Combination for an Authentic SPIN

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Welcome to the commoditization of experiences: 'Been there, done that ...’ HR departments must stage real auditions. Your success relies on picking the right people to play the parts. People take on roles, but they act out character. The individual characterizations must fit within the entire ensemble."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Your survey should yield the types of challenges you most enjoy and you’d love to sink your teeth into in the resort location of your dreams. Convincing your target decision-maker that you’re the one to deliver the results may require a little SPIN. By shifting the conversation away from the costs and your fees or the salary you command, you are better able to negotiate a better deal as a function of the value you bring.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: I have to keep reminding myself, that this survey is really non-job search-related. And, that it is conducted in a low stress situation that can help make you comfortable with the knowledge gathering process.

Explorer: And, let us re-emphasize that if you want, you can even take someone with you.

J2020F: So in a destination resort community, what happens next?

Eagle: After completing your survey, you should be able to describe your new career objective by filling in the blanks:

I would like to use the following blend of enjoyable and marketable skills ...

Using my present (or future) interests, experiences and expertise in (or with) ...

On projects with objectives fulfilling these goals and values ....

Working most closely with these kinds of people ...

In a work setting with these characteristics ...

At this level of responsibility and salary range ...

At an organization located in this geographical area ....

Explorer: When you either get called back because of something you uncovered in a survey interview with a potential decision-maker, or you decide to approach your target organization with a proposal, you can take advantage of SPIN

J2020F: Spin doesn’t have a positive association for many people.

Explorer: Many sales people put together a “Call Plan” before they contact their potential customer or client that is designed to advance a sale – which is certainly your goal in each subsequent meeting, right?

Eagle: SPIN refers to questioning techniques and agenda topics to cover in each meeting, described in “SPIN Selling” by Neil Rackham.

J2020F: So, it’s an acronym?

Eagle: Yes, coming from the broad approach known as solution selling or relationship selling. S stands for Situation.

Explorer: It may also be known as a situational analysis and some people spend too much time on this topic during a meeting, which is only natural because of how much investigative homework you've done in preparation for the meeting.

J2020F: How should you budget your time?

Explorer: Your goal is to spend more time with P and I, or Problems and Implications than on the situational analysis. More on that a little later.

J2020F: O.K. Fair enough. So what’s your goal in the brief situational section of SPIN?

Eagle: In the beginning you only want to discover any missing facts you need, to set up the problems and implications portion of the meeting.

J2020F: Problems, but “I don’t got no stinking problems.” What’s the focus in the problem section of the agenda?

Explorer: By Problems we mean problems that might exist and that we can solve (with our most enjoyable and marketable skills and expertise).

Eagle: We aren’t surfacing any other problems. Only the ones tied to what we love to solve. We only need one, but anticipate and question for three problem areas.

J2020F: So, like an attorney, you don’t want to ask a question on the witness stand, unless you know the answer?

Eagle: Right. Once you confirm with the decision-maker that a problem exists, then you want to coax out the indirect Implications.

J2020F: So while there’s no “I” in team, there is an “I” in SPIN? What are indirect implications and why are they important to the agenda?

Explorer: Well, for one usually there are costs associated with the problem, that ripple out into other functions and people dependent on the information, materials or products delayed or defective caused by your problem.

J2020F: So indirect implications means hidden costs. Kind of like opportunity costs or costs for not addressing the problem.

Explorer: You’ve got the idea. You go through a series of questions to identify key stakeholders who have a vested interest in the solution of the problem, are impacted by it and would be able to do their jobs and functions more productively after they buy your solution.

Eagle: One easy way is to surface the internal customer and supplier chain of relationships to identify critical interdependencies.

J2020F: So, you can then give them an estimate of what the total cost of inaction is?

Explorer: Actually, we’ve found they will resist a number coming from the outside as being inflated. By getting the decision-maker to guess what the total cost is for the whole supply chain they become your advocate.

J2020F: How so?

Eagle: They’ve stopped and figured out a cost – benefit ratio that they never had the time to calculate before. Often times the number they arrive at is much larger than the number you could have guessed at.

J2020F: And, the strategy must be that what they will offer you as an employee or as a consultant is a very small percentage of the total cost they’ve just arrived at?

Explorer: And that makes this whole advance-the-sale easier because you shifted the framework from cost to one about the value you bring.

J2020F: By following the situation, problem and indirect implications agenda, you cannot only advance your sale you’ve just changed to framework through which you’ll be seen as a highly valued contributor.

Explorer: That’s the general idea.

Eagle: All of a sudden the salary range you want, bracketed just under the upper limits of their range and extended to the figure you want, or the cost of your consultation or product seems more like a valuable investment than another cost to be justified.

J2020F: If the implications shift the initial problem's cost at say $100,000 to a total cost of $2 million, then what your asking seems more than reasonable because of the value you bring?

Explorer: And, by having the decision-maker come up with the estimates, not only are they more reliable, the total figure frequently is much higher than you could have guessed.

J2020F: If you had started with a figure like that in the situational analysis stage, you probably would have been viewed as just another job seeker or salesperson. I know I would have concluded that as a decision-maker. What’s next?

Eagle: Now, you've exposed an explicit “Need” which you hope to develop further.

J2020F: Talk more about that.

Eagle: A need that may have been lying dormant or less important and urgent until seen through the implications lens.

J2020F: How do you get ready for this approach?

Eagle: As preparation you can fill out a worksheet that asks you to take what you offer -- your expertise, skills, and talents -- and to break them down into characteristics like you would of a product, service or experience in one column and the problem that this solves for the buyer.

Explorer: Or you can work backwards to the problem by working on two columns -- explicit need and implied need.

J2020F: What is the difference?

Explorer: The explicit need is a description of how your solution is superior to the competition.

Eagle: The implied need is a list of problems that your solution could solve.

J2020F: And of course by addressing the agreed upon, serious and urgent need, you are in the position to offer customized benefits in the form of you, right?

Explorer: Exactly.

J2020F: Realistically the SPIN approach occurs over time. Are there any direct links to the context, concepts, resources, tips and tools to help you find the right combination as you take your life out for an authentic SPIN?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jargon Translations: the Last Thumb Filtering for Fit

2006-09-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

Jargon Translations: the Last Thumb Filtering for Fit

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Street performers draw people in, amaze them, and then ask for money. Seemingly improvisional, street performers in fact stabilize their scripts. Every performer must have practiced bits to use as opportunities arise. A street performer's bits cannot be picked fully formed out of a hat. Improv theatre involves new-to-the-world performances. If you're 'winging it,' you're doing improv."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. In the UnInterview, you have to translate your skills and accomplishments into their dissatisfactions, their priorities, their values, and their jargon as their implicit needs surface within their concerns or problems. You can figure out what their challenges may be ahead of time by following six rules of thumb.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: One of the easiest ways of learning the jargon is to complete a survey of knowledge-gathering interviews, isn’t it?

Explorer: It sure is, because the last rule of thumb is all about translation – especially if you are changing careers or industry niches.

Eagle: Using their language you may refer to problems as "an area you probably are planning to move into" or "a concern of yours" or "a challenge facing you."

Explorer: Our survey approach is a way of gathering inside intelligence about a particular organization or career direction by talking to people.

J2020F: One of the things that I like about this approach is you are NOT looking for a job – and you truly mean it.

Explorer: And truthfully, by following our approach, you are narrowing your career search from the very broad to the very specific.

Eagle: And remember. YOU ARE THE SCREENER, here. Survey interviewing serves two purposes.

J2020F: O.K. I’ll bite, what’s the first one?

Eagle: First, it expands your network of contacts, and second, it provides you information about potential jobs and allows you to become more focused in your career goals.

J2020F: Whom do you talk to?

Eagle: Begin by identifying the organizations and people that at least appear to do what you want to do.

Explorer: You may start by finding somebody who does something close to what you want.

J2020F: How do you find the first one?

Explorer: You can obtain names from directories of all kinds -- online -- and in paper form, such as the Chamber of Commerce, newspaper and magazine articles, even your holiday card list.

Eagle: You already have a network of friends. If they aren't doing what you think you'd like to do, they may be able to refer you to someone who is. Or, when all else fails, try social networking services like Linked In.

J2020F: What do you do when you make contact?

Eagle: When calling someone you were referred to (your secondary sources), you may not get through to the person on the first try.

J2020F: That’s happened to me many times. How do you handle the screened call?

Eagle: If asked the nature of the call, just give the referral source and state that the call is personal.

J2020F: Then what?

Explorer: When you reach your party, cover these points.

1. The name of your referral source.

2. Your major interest -- the briefer, the better.

3. A face-to-face appointment you want to schedule.

Eagle: As a general rule of thumb you should ask for about 15 minutes of the person's time, although you will usually end up with more than this.

J2020F: How does the interview unfold?

Explorer: Be genuinely interested in the other person.

J2020F: Rather then only as someone who might have an opening now or can get me a job?

Eagle: Remember that this is a human being who has a career and may be passionate about their work – or, maybe just as importantly is dissatisfied. Either way this information can help you make decisions about what you want to do.

Explorer: So, in the interview ask:

1. How did you get into this field?

2. What do you like most about the job?

3. What do you like least?

4. What are your primary responsibilities?

5. Do you know anyone else I might benefit from talking to?

J2020F: Do you follow an agenda like the one you described with the decision maker?

Eagle: Well, here are some guidelines:

1. Plan a manageable agenda, with four or five key open-ended questions.

2. Let the person interviewed talk freely.

3. Ask answerable questions that are open-ended.

4. Focus on the person.

Explorer: People love to talk about themselves, and most want to help you out.

Eagle: We all feel flattered when asked for advice or for our opinion.

J2020F: I can see how in a survey framework, following up later with what happened when you followed their advice is very powerful.

Explorer: It almost always guarantees a second or third meeting without any awkward feelings attached to either party.

Eagle: And, remember that the world is really a dynamically changing set of events. Returning for a second or third time will almost always result in a new list of introductions or key inside information.

J2020F: What about follow-up to build the knowledge-sharing relationship?

Explorer: I’m glad you asked. Remember to keep a record of everyone you talk to in journal or contacts database, and ALWAYS send a thank you note.

J2020F: What if I feel intimidated. I mean I’m moving to a new resort location and I don’t really have a network already established.

Explorer: If you're shy try a practice interview by talking to a person who shares a mutual enthusiasm, like skiing or mountain biking or glass blowing or 3-D puzzles.

Eagle: You can also talk to somebody at a place that fascinates or interests you, such as a television station, museum or sports arena.

Explorer: Or, pick someone who works on an issue that fascinates or interests you like global warming or global heritage history sites.

J2020F: After I follow the six rules of thumb, how do I persuade someone that I'm the best fit for my ideal position?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

CNN with Your Six Thumbs Agenda

2006-09-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

CNN with Your Six Thumbs Agenda

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Proper characterization turns service activities into memorable performances. No element is too small to contribute to contribute to the creation of character. Getting into character provides a sense of purpose. Acting 'as if' goes to the heart of characterizing a role. Understand how to turn every interaction into an experience. The act of acting differentiates memorable experiences from ordinary activity."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Whether you want or need to create a position or just want to gain the upper hand on your competition, pay attention to the career needs of the people in your survey. Find ways to circle back with progress reports and information – and better yet – inside business intelligence they might find valuable.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: If you are going after a known title, for which you might have any number of internal candidates targeting it as part of their succession and developmental plans, you lower your odds of succeeding, right?

Explorer: Not only that, but you face competition from any number of professionals -- hundreds or thousands -- searching for similar positions in the public job marketplaces.

Eagle: So, while it seems logical you spend your time more efficiently going after known positions, the odds are stacked against you.

J2020F: That’s why every traditional career manual and coach extols the virtues of networking.

Eagle: But, most people use that approach pretending not to be looking for a job, when in fact they may be desperately looking and hoping. How does your survey approach differ?

Explorer: Well, you get a better understanding of the marketplace. Think of it as being more like a CNN reporter on location following a story or like conducting a marketing focus group.

J2020F: In what way?

Explorer: Our survey helps define how you might fit the requirements as defined at other companies, so you have a thorough understanding of how to sell yourself.

Eagle: Of course don't overlook referrals from each of your interviewees, and do promise to circle back with the results of your survey, so they may benefit in their own career too.

J2020F: Circle back with business intelligence?

Eagle: If you pretend you aren’t looking for a job, you tend to think only about yourself and your immediate needs.

Explorer: That’s the fatal flaw of most networking schemes.

J2020F: How is the survey approach different?

Eagle: Remember, no one has all the time and energy to stay on top of their own daily problems and challenges and the time to get inside information from other colleagues in their field.

J2020F: So you represent an easy way for them to accomplish both?

Explorer: Right. And you have a reason to re-contact them even though you haven’t found a job.

Eagle: Which is a problem most people encounter with the flawed networking approach.

J2020F: What do you mean?

Eagle: I mean, most people feel uncomfortable calling people back when they haven’t found a job – which is the answer to the frequently asked question by someone – how’s your job search going?

Explorer: Contrast that to suggesting you meet again to update them on your survey, and to share some information they might find valuable because they told you about their career hopes and dreams and current challenges.

Eagle: And, when you return with your proposal, you can pitch it to them indirectly by asking for their opinion and advice.

J2020F: Why?

Eagle: Who knows, they may hire you. You are already a known commodity. Especially if you have been forwarding interesting articles and news items about your mutual interests.

J2020F: That seems like a more authentic approach.

Explorer: It is, and in the course of your survey it becomes easier to gather information about detailed needs and problems facing the type of organizations you target from people who know and trust you.

J2020F: What kind of information are you going after?

Explorer: Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind. If it is a large organization that interests you, you don't have to discover the problems of their whole organization.

J2020F: You don’t?

Explorer: No. You only need to discover the problems that are bugging the person-who-has-the-ultimate-responsibility-to-hire-you.

Eagle: Don't assume that the problems have to be huge, complex or hidden.

J2020F: Really?

Eagle: Really. The problems bothering the decision-maker may be small, simple and obvious. All you may need to do is discover why the boss was dissatisfied with the performance by the person who vacated the opening.

J2020F: But don't have to educate the decision-maker?

Eagle: Instead your task is to read your potential boss or client's mind.

Explorer: Your bright idea may have already been tried and discarded because of politics.

J2020F: So the rule of thumb is not to assume anything.

Explorer: Right. You are there to test and to probe.

J2020F: So how do you do that?

Explorer: Here are six ways to discover what's top of mind. The first is by analyzing the organization at a distance and making some educated guesses.

J2020F: Tell me how you do that, and what you look for.

Explorer: If the organization is expanding, then they need more of what they already have; or more of what they already have, but with different style, added skills.

Eagle: Or other pluses that are needed; or something they don't presently have -- a new kind of person, with new skills doing a new function or service.

J2020F: That makes sense. What about the second?

Explorer: The second, if the organization is continuing as is, then they need to replace people who were fired -- find out why and what was lacking.

Eagle: Or to replace people who quit -- find out what was prized about them.

Explorer: Or to create a new position -- yes, this happens even in organizations that are not expanding due to old needs which weren't provided for, earlier, but now must be.

J2020F: Even if they have to cut out some other function or position or revamping present assignments?

Explorer: Stranger things have happened before.

J2020F: What about the third condition?

Explorer: If the organization is reducing its size, staff, or product or service then they have not yet decided which staff to terminate, i.e., which functions to give low priority to -- in which case that is their problem, and you may be able to help them identify which functions are "core functions".

J2020F: Really?

Explorer: Yes. Or have decided which functions or staff to terminate (in which case they may need multi-talented people or generalists able to do several jobs, i.e., functions, instead of just one.

J2020F: How about analyzing the problems of the decision-makers by talking to them directly?

Eagle: As we said earlier, you may place yourself in their path -- at a religious institution, restaurant, cultural event or recreational venue.

Explorer: You want to listen carefully and take what they say seriously as they discuss their problems.

J2020F: What else? I sense you guys are on a roll.

Eagle: How about analyzing the decision-maker's problems by talking to their counterpart in another organization similar to one that interests you?

J2020F: With your survey.

Explorer: Or, you might find the person who used to work at the organization and for the boss you want to approach.

J2020F: Obviously, nobody knows the problems bugging a boss so much as someone who works or used to work for them.

Eagle: If they still work for them then you need to be discreet.

Explorer: Ex-employees are not necessarily any longer under that sort of pressure.

J2020F: Can’t you use your network contacts to find someone who knows the organization that interests you?

Explorer: You can, or knows someone who knows; knows the decision-maker or know someone who knows; knows who their counterpart in a similar organization or someone who knows…. Linked In turns out to be a great source for this kind of sleuthing.

Eagle: Or who knows your predecessor, or knows someone who knows; knows your "opposite number" in another organization -- a competitor -- or knows someone who knows.

Explorer: Finally broaden your research from your target organization to one similar to it, the decision-maker, and their counterpart in another organization.

J2020F: So that leaves one more rule of thumb, doesn't it?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Creating a Position: the Most Rewarding but Hardest to Buy

2006-09-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

Creating a Position: the Most Rewarding but Hardest to Buy

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Every action contributes to the total experience being staged. Business performances must rival those featured on Broadway and in ballparks. Theater is not a metaphor but a model. Whenever employees work in front of customers, an act of theatre occurs. Managers must leverage some service dimension to stage memorable surprises. Frequent purchase programs serve to commoditize offerings."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. The most enjoyable job for you is one you create in the quality-of-life community you’ve chosen and now call home. You must do all the heavy lifting required to translate your passions and most enjoyable skills into a compelling ideal description, to identify emerging trends, needs and economic opportunities, and then to craft a proposal.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: What if there isn’t any job available in the resort community I’ve targeted – or for that matter in the second or third region I’m interested in?

Explorer: You may have to create it.

J2020F: How do I do that?

Eagle: The entire process can be summed up with the answers to six simple questions:

1. What skills do I have and enjoy?

2. Where do I want to market those skills, in terms of the highest premium value I can command – in changing industries, markets and types of customers, clients or users?

3. What kinds of organizations can I focus on in terms of my goals, passions and use of my skills in my geographical area of preference?

4. What are the names of those potential organizations?

5. What are their problems at the level I want to work?

6. Who there has the power to hire me? Who do I know in my growing “rolodex” who can introduce me?

Explorer: As you zero in with answers to those questions you'll find one of three options.

J2020F: One has to be that you can find a position in one of your targeted companies, right?

Explorer: And if not, you may find a position that doesn't exist in your target, but does at other companies, or better yet at one of their competitors.

Eagle: And one that doesn't exist yet but you can create. The hardest, yet most rewarding option is the third. We call it being an intrapreneur – an entrepreneur inside a company with a de facto internal customer base.

J2020F: Now that makes sense. But If I wanted to, how would I go about it?

Eagle: It’s a matter of timing. An executive team is in the early stages of recognizing the need for reinvention, but doesn’t quite know how to pull it off and wonders if they’ve got the right set of talent tribes in place, for instance.

Explorer: So, you’ve got to make a lot of educated guesses and dig deeper into information about your target organization to better customize your approach.

Eagle: And you'll need to think through how to present your strategies in a simple to understand (and buy) manner.

Explorer: And how to persuade the decision-maker -- often a visionary or early adopter -- to take a risk with you by collaborating on cost/ benefit calculations together.

J2020F: All of that research, presentation and preparation is for a build-from-scratch-job creation. Isn’t there another way you mentioned?

Explorer: For your second option, frequently in your survey of contacts, you will be able to find another organization that already has the type of position, by title, you want to create in your target organization.

Eagle: You still must convince the decision-maker to create a new position, but you can point to a competitor's success as a proof point.

J2020F: You said from a survey?

Explorer: Of course, you're looking for introductions to someone who is already doing what you plan to propose to your target.

J2020F: So, what you are saying is networking can turn into a survey of jobs already in other organizations, but not yet in the one you are targeting?

Eagle: Just change your perspective slightly as you interview for inside knowledge and business intelligence. Your role is to interview that person to identify specific challenges and problems that are currently being addressed.

J2020F; You'll want to find out what is working and what isn't, so you won't have to reinvent the wheel, if I get the point of this “survey”?

Explorer: Yes. And, most importantly you'll want to find out where they came from before the position, how they sold themselves into the position, and where they see their career going in the next several years.

J2020F: Why?

Eagle: You will still have to sell yourself with a proposal, but now you can frame your presentation based on the results of your survey.

Explorer: You can show how other organizations found the role less risky than they first imagined, so you bring value based on your survey to your target organization.

Eagle: You can also emphasize that you and your target will encounter less resistance when you implement your bright idea, because you know all about the landmines and pitfalls that the other company paid their executive to learn in their “knowledge lab.”

J2020F: I can see that the third option – finding a publicly advertised opening --feels more comfortable, but in reality has the most competition because it is known.

Eagle: Exactly. Creating a position is the most rewarding, but most difficult to sell. Finding someone else already performing it in another company you surveyed makes it easier and faster to approve.

J2020F: But, isn't all this networking stuff just a smoke screen? Doesn't everyone else know you're just looking for a job?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Negotiating a Soft Close Takes a Village

2006-09-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

Negotiating a Soft Close Takes a Village

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“Collaborative customizers work with their customers to determine what they need and then produce it for them. Adaptive customizers offer one product designed to let users alter it themselves. Cosmetic customizers present a standard good or service differently to different customers. Transparent customizers provide a tailored offering without customers knowing that it is customized for them."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. While not common, the following may occur on the spot so be prepared. Your target will want you even more and will be thinking in terms of the top salary he can afford. But, the top might not be adequate for you so your target might start informal negotiations to lower your expectations.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: What should you do? With your emphasis on long-term opportunity, your target begins thinking that you're the type that will come through and will naturally want more pay, or is that just day dreaming?

Explorer: Not at all. The more you produce the more your target will conclude there are not budget constraints on productivity and results. So your goal to stimulate that kind of thought process.

Eagle: Your target will already be thinking about bonuses, promotions, options, etc. Which obviously works in your favor.

J2020F: So, the three questions – ”Why are You Here,” “Precisely What Can You Do for Me” and “How Much Will it Cost Me” – all must be covered, right? And then you close?

Explorer: You must deal with them in any interview, since they are going on in the mind of your interviewer.

Eagle: However, your target won't be able to make you an offer right there on the spot.

J2020F: I knew there must be a catch. Why?

Explorer: Because the interview went so much better than your target expected, he or she will have to get the Human Resources machinery in place to make you an offer and will close by thanking you and telling you when to expect the next contact.

Eagle: Now comes the most important part.

J2020F: Oh no.

Eagle: You must send a written note that night.

J2020F: Oh, you scared me. You must have a boilerplate for this too, right?

Eagle: It is very simple: a line about thanking for the time, another one about what particularly impressed you about what your target said, and a closing saying you are looking forward with pleasure to hearing from her again within the time your target specified.

Explorer: One thing that goes without saying is to have your references already chosen and contacted -- five friends who can give a composite picture of you: your expertise, your values, your private life as a human being.

J2020F: What kinds of references? Who should they be?

Explorer: In the best case they are substantial citizens, well known in their community -- senior business executives, bankers and others.

Eagle: In this mobility-driven era, see if you can get a general-purpose letter of recommendation from them. More people have been using the endorsement feature of Linked In as a variation on this principle.

Explorer: And, I would add, to save them time, you can give them an outline of the kinds of things that will help them.

J2020F: And, then I schedule my start date?

Explorer: Not necessarily. After the interview, things will drag on and you must be prepared for the eventuality.

Eagle: A month isn't atypical due to travel schedules and all sorts of things over which you have no control.

J2020F: A month?

Eagle: Yes. If the time frame has already elapsed plus one week, then it is time to figure out a way of getting back in touch.

J2020F: By then, I can’t imagine what I would say to keep the deal alive.

Explorer: You might say, "I've of course been thinking further about our conversation, and it occurs to me you may be interested in the attached article on this subject."

Eagle: Or, "An additional detail on the proposal seems to me important enough to call to your attention...."

Explorer: Or, "I have had a change of address, and I assume that may be why I have not heard from you, so here it is....”

J2020F: So be creative.

Explorer: Be creative by circling back to your contacts who introduced you in the first place.

Eagle: You can’t rest on your laurels, so review your journal and list of other targets and potentials. Now is a good time to update your web of relationships.

J2020F: Things change, right?

Eagle: Exactly. It’s amazing how many opportunities can be discovered by applying “what you know now” to your early targeting strategies and initial research.

J2020F: What if there isn’t any job available in the resort community you’ve targeted – or for that matter in the second or third region you’re interested in?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Making it Easy to Buy Your Brilliant Ideas

2006-09-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

Making it Easy to Buy Your Brilliant Ideas

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"To enter the Experience Economy, first customize your goods and services. Mass customizers modularize their goods and services. Companies can disclose, reveal, or conceal all combinations of goods and services. Customers don't want choice; they just want exactly what they want.”

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. As you present your proposal in the UnInterview you won’t know everything, because you are on the outside looking in. You will encounter new information about the situation and challenges that you hadn’t anticipated. But all is not lost. Probe. Ask intelligent questions. Uncover what they’ve already tried, but discarded as unworkable solutions.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: So the target decision-maker at this stage will want to see your mind in operation.

Explorer: That’s right and this is where you can't clam up.

Eagle: Just act as though you were already on the team.

J2020F: That sounds easier than when you are in the interview and fielding questions.

Explorer: The idea is to discuss your own idea. Ask where your target thinks there might be a problem, if any.

J2020F: Oh, I get it.

Explorer: You will learn more about the company as the conversation continues, so look for what factors that you didn't anticipate.

J2020F: What if the decision-maker asks touch questions about information I didn’t anticipate?

Eagle: Field them. What new light do they shed on your idea?

Explorer: And, remember, your expertise doesn't consist, at this point, in producing brilliant solutions, but in asking perceptive questions.

J2020F: So, the more intelligent questions I can ask, the better?

Explorer: Exactly. And, also remember that the longer the interview lasts the happier you should be.

J2020F: Why?

Eagle: Your target has the power to terminate it at any time.

Explorer: Hence the longer it lasts the more your target is attempting to sell you on joining the organization.

J2020F: So far I’ve endured the first phase – Why Are You Here? – and the second – Who Better to Carry it Out Than Me? -- what is the third phase?

Explorer: The third phase is, “How Much is it Going to Cost Me?”

J2020F: I should have seen it coming. Obviously, this is the next logical question.

Eagle: Equally obviously your target has no right to ask.

J2020F: What? Why not?

Eagle: When your targets want to buy they should bid first.

Explorer: So much, in theory.

J2020F: Now, you’re confusing me.

Explorer: In actual fact, of course targets successfully get away with reversing the roles because the whole human resource system in this country has everyone terrorized.

J2020F: So, you are going to have to give an answer?

Explorer: Before answering, however, you must have several things firmly in mind -- you must know what the general salary level is for the kind of position you're shooting at or asking your target to create.

J2020F: Got you. And?

Eagle: Or if your aiming to hired as a consultant -- what is the appropriate level for such services?

J2020F: Or?

Explorer: Or, if you’re viewing your target as a potential client or customer for some entrepreneurial product or service, what this should cost.

J2020F: So, you really must do your homework. You always want to find yourself at the highest differentiated and highest degree of relevance end of the range, so you can charge value-based high premium fees.

Explorer: There are no two ways about it. You must understand that your target doesn't have a flat figure in mind, but does have a range in mind.

J2020F: A range?

Eagle: It is important for you to bargain, therefore -- from $2500 to $5000 is worth bargaining for.

Explorer: If you don't you will be seen as naive at best.

J2020F: How does it work?

Eagle: You bargain by playing the range game right back at your targets.

Explorer: It consists in two parts of equal and overwhelming importance; and you cannot even draw breath between these two.

J2020F: So you must have a script, right?

Explorer: Using your own words, the first part goes something like this -- Well, based on my survey and as a result of looking at some other situations, almost as interesting as yours, I would be amenable to something between $___ and $ ____ (which is a range that overlaps the target's in the following manner: your minimum is just below the targets maximum.

J2020F: And the second part?

Eagle: And then you say immediately, however, I want you to know one thing. I am not half as interested in the starting amount, as I am in the intellectual challenge and the long-range opportunity.

J2020F: And, then I start on Monday?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

The UnInterview: Presenting Business Intelligence to a Receptive Executive

2006-09-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

The UnInterview: Presenting Business Intelligence to a Receptive Executive

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"A simple cue can heighten an experience through a single sense. Many experience stagers start with a list of impressions and then develop the theme. The transition begins when you give away experiences in order to sell existing offerings. You're not truly selling an experience unless you charge admission. Your experience won't be worth an admission fee until you stop giving it away for free. Not only retail stores but entire shopping malls will charge admission. The history of economic progress consists of charging a fee for what once was free. In business-to-business situations, stage experiences where customers pay you to sell to them."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. You've been invited by a senior person -- a decision-maker who can employ you or purchase your products, services, experiences or transformations -- for a specific purpose. That purpose is to discuss the mutual interest you both share and to hear about your proposal based on solid information and your thorough research.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: If your agenda is an outline for presenting your proposal, how does it flow?

Explorer: Smoothly.

J2020F: If I follow your advice?

Explorer: Right! You've uncovered something you can do for the target, a problem you can help solve, some need the target knows about and doesn't consider a problem yet -- which you nevertheless can meet.

J2020F: Such as?

Explorer: How do we know, you did the research!

J2020F: Smart aleck!

Explorer: It might be: cost reduction, sales increase, growth, new applications of their services or products, bringing in an entirely new approach, increased prestige, efficiency, etc. or some opportunity you can create that your target has never thought of.

Eagle: Of course that something starts with your strongest and most enjoyable skills.

J2020F: Ah, I like this already. What happens first?

Explorer: You will encounter three phases in a quality interview, although no two will be alike.

Eagle: Within the framework of your general enthusiasm, what is the great idea that you have to contribute toward solving the target's problems?

Explorer: The target may decide the proposal is so sound it doesn't need much further discussing.

J2020F: So, that’s the first phase. I like it even more. In the second phase?

Explorer: You answer the question, who can carry it out?

Eagle: Who better than the person who thought it up?

J2020F: You took the works out of my mouth.

Explorer: Your target may be satisfied that you have the necessary functional skills to carry it out, so you won't spend too much time selling your specific experience.

J2020F: Really?

Explorer: Really, because you’ve already shown initiative by approaching her and doing your homework.

J2020F: Now, I’m loving this approach. What happens in the third phase?

Explorer: The third phase, usually meanders as if the target is beating around the bush. It is really about figuring out what kind of person are you.

J2020F: Like what exactly?

Eagle: He means like, can you work with others using imagination and creativity?

Explorer: Do you have a big picture of the world today?

Eagle: Are you conversant with changing technical and social trends?

J2020F: Whoa. That may be way too open ended for me.

Explorer: Not if you are prepared.

J2020F: Prepared in what way?

Explorer: Prepare for the interview by asking what does the target need to know in order to make an intelligent decision about you?

Eagle: Make it easy to buy you.

J2020F: Oh, I get it. If I were on the other side of the table doing the interviewing, I'd want to know the answers to some key questions, right?

Explorer: Right. Three types of questions: Why are you here?

Eagle: He doesn't want to hear because I want a job or because you invited me.

J2020F: Darn. That’s where I was going.

Eagle: She doesn't want to hear about you, he's only thinking about his own intelligent self-interest.

Explorer: She wants to hear a variation of the following script, but in your own words:

As you have learned from our earlier communication with each other, I am fascinated by what you do (if it isn't true, you shouldn't be there).

As is true for you, the _____ field (or market or industry, etc.) has been one of my passions all of my life.

During the last few years, I have become increasingly interested in (an aspect of the field, etc. that you want to talk about, and why).

J2020F: O.K. So I can see this is where the research about the community, the industry, the company all of it pays off.

Eagle: And, now you are beginning to set up your passions, experience, knowledge and interests in the form of a value proposition. The script continues:

I have, of course, kept a pretty close eye on developments in this, and the more I studied it the more convinced I became that the key to the solution lies in (here you introduce your proposal).

As this conviction grew in my mind, I began conducting an exhaustive investigation of every single leading organization that was active in our field, like (name others, name the targets).

Because while the key to the problem is, as I have indicated, relatively simple, it's going to take some extremely intelligent, open-minded, forward-thinking people to get it through.

The outcome of my survey was the discovery that in my estimation you and your people stand head and shoulders above everyone else in this field.

I believe you are the group best qualified to do it, and that is why I am here.

J2020F: Wow. On the one hand that seems like a very bold approach. And, yet on the other hand it seems very systematic and logical. Now what?

Explorer: You have to prepare for the next question – one that follows from the first: Precisely what can you do for me?

J2020F: Gulp!

Eagle: There’s no gulp about it. You effortlessly transition to the next script:

You say, specifically, your _____ needs tightening up, as we both know.

The type of thing that I think would be invaluable in (reducing costs, or whatever problem you are zeroing in on) is _______.

It would, I think, result in ______ (be totally specific here).

J2020F: What if you are self-employed and therefore offering a product or service instead?

Eagle: You will of course adapt the above to fit your particular situation. But the approach is basically the same.

Explorer: And regardless, if you've done your work thoroughly your target will be fascinated with this brilliant idea of yours.

Eagle: And the conversation will change its focus from you, to it.

J2020F: But what if they’ve already tried what I’m proposing and it crashed and burned in a big explosion?

Explorer: Hopefully, some one in the chain of introductions will have alerted you. But, you bring up a good point. There will, of course, be factors that you could not possibly have known about from the outside, and hence possibly flaws in your brilliant idea.

Eagle: But your target will be thinking: with a mind like that, based on the information you've gotten on the outside, what could you do if you were on the inside?

J2020F: By my count, you covered two out of three questions, what's the third?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

What’s the Sound of Two Hands Clasping?

2006-09-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

What’s the Sound of Two Hands Clasping?

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The experience must leave an indelible impression. Companies must introduce cues affirming the nature of the experience. Different kinds of experiences rely on different kinds of impressions. Experience stagers eliminate anything that distracts from the theme. Too many haphazard cues can ruin an experience. People purchase memorabilia as tangible artifacts of experiences. The price point is a function of the value of remembering the experience. The more sensory an experience, the more memorable it will be."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. It is time to develop your approach once you've discovered which interests you have in common with each of your individual targets, and what problems each one faces that your skills, talents and experience can help solve. In short, you’re zeroing in on an opportunity that represents the best fit for you.

Journal 2020 Foresight: We’re at the point in this whole process of finding gainful employment or at least one or more income streams where you find yourself face-to-face with the one problem that remains: how do you get in to see each target?

Eagle: And, what do you say, when you do get in, right?

J2020F: You mean I’m not the first one to ask?

Explorer: There are at least four tried and true ways.

J2020F: There are?

Explorer: Of course, the best is through an introduction by a mutual friend – that old “Birds-of-a-Feather-Flock-Together” approach.

J2020F: Is there a special way of being introduced?

Eagle: Turn to your network of contacts to surface someone who knows one or more of your targets.

Explorer: Attempt to have that person introduce you, at best, or suggest that you use their name when you make your contact.

J2020F: What if you can't find anyone?

Explorer: You can set up an appointment without an introduction.

J2020F: My anxiety begins to rise. Isn’t this the dreaded cold call?

Explorer: It’s a little warmer, because this is where knowledge of a common ground or a shared interest helps, or both.

Eagle: At the very least, if you've done your homework you already know about a problem they face that your skills can solve. Which is far better than a mass mailing without doing any advanced research.

J2020F: This sounds like a sales approach most businesses employ.

Explorer: It is. You want to discuss some problems that you feel your product or services can help solve – maybe service or product reinvention.

Eagle: You are on sturdier ground this way. Simply calling and telling your targets that you've made a study of their organizations and have learned something that will be of benefit to each of them may be all you need to set up the first appointment – how to increase profits and margins, for instance.

J2020F: Even if there is no one to refer or introduce you?

Explorer: Even. While this approach may feel intimidating, it can be if you haven't done your research homework first and don't have a few ideas to begin with.

J2020F: Makes sense. Is there a third way that might be easier?

Explorer: You may want to try the third -- a letter to warm things up.

Eagle: And the fourth way is the most fun way, if you feel more creative.

J2020F: More fun?

Eagle: Sure. Place yourself unobtrusively in each target's path.

J2020F: How?

Eagle: Everyone is a creature of habits. This is a more subtle way that capitalizes on a social, non-work avenue when fewer defenses are up.

J2020F: For instance?

Eagle: It might be a restaurant, a drinking establishment, a hobby or recreation pursuit or church, any and all social settings.

J2020F: I like this one a little better. It feels more like an adventure.

Eagle: It is. Let yourself be seen a number of times by your targets so each feels a familiarity with you before you make your approach.

Explorer: If done well, your targets will feel they found you instead of the other way around.

J2020F: That’s more like it. So, now let's say you are conducting an interview with your first target. What do you do?

Explorer: Put yourself in your target's shoes.

J2020F: How?

Explorer: Realize that something about you interests or intrigues your target, or you wouldn't have gotten to this stage.

Eagle: Whether it was a golfing buddy or co-volunteer -- a mutual friend -- something you mentioned about the organization or problem the target faces in letter, email or by phone – it doesn’t matter, but you need to know it.

Explorer: And, you've got a pretty good idea of what the common interest is, so this is your meeting and you've set the agenda -- versus the all too common “fishing expedition” which has been compared to being interviewed with a “blindfold on in a bat cave.”

J2020F: To mix metaphors! But, why do you call it the UnInterview?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Building a Web of Relationships One Strand at a Time

2006-09-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Building a Web of Relationships One Strand at a Time

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The richest experiences encompass aspects of all four realms. Set the stage by exploring the possibilities of each realm. The first step is envisioning a well-defined theme. Theming an experience means scripting a participative story. The richest venues affect the experience of time, space and matter. Strong themes create multiple places within a place. A theme should fit the character of the enterprise staging the experience."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Breaking into new communities is a process similar to infiltrating tribal clans. Outsiders will be kept at a distance until someone decides to sponsor them and to initiate a chain of introductions. And, usually those introductions follow a path of common interests.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: What we’re really talking about is an invisible web of people in a tightly knit community. At some point, if you build your network seeking referrals and introductions from one person to the next, you’ll find enough key connections, right?

Explorer: Yes. You'll find that over time some of the initial people you meet may not provide you with what you think you are looking for, but as you progress they may prove to be invaluable later on.

Eagle: And, it might not just be a matter of trust.

J2020F: What do you mean?

Eagle: You might not have been clear enough in your request. You may have asked questions using jargon or phrases that seem foreign in this particular community.

Explorer: And, while it’s true that we all know 200 to 500 people, we don’t recall every person who matches your request.

J2020F: So, doubling back is a good idea?

Explorer: It’s a great idea. Remember it’s a two-way street. Look out for their best interests during their survey. Touch base with them to update them on things they don’t have the time to pursue, but are of interest to them.

Eagle: You’d be surprised by how excited people get when you tell them that you actually took their advice and how their lead unfolded to where you are today on your journey.

J2020F: So they suggest new people to meet?

Eagle: Exactly. You’re building relationships over time.

Explorer: And, your update might trigger a connection I forgot or had occurred to me after you left, but I got side tracked by a phone call or another distraction and didn’t make the effort to call you.

J2020F: If I’m looking for employment isn’t it better to find several opportunities at the same time?

Explorer: That’s right. You'll end up with several ultimate targets instead of just one. This way you'll avoid disappointment for reasons beyond your control.

J2020F: And it will allow you to choose among several attractive offers in the end.

Explorer: Yes. At this stage of the game you'll want to record information.

J2020F: Information about what?

Eagle: About your live targets. The key is to identify ultimate individual targets at each of these organizations.

J2020F: Individual targets?

Eagle: That’s right. That person is the one official who shares your major passion, enthusiasm or interest.

Explorer: The one who has primary responsibility for the activity that you are eager to undertake for that organization, and has sufficient authority to hire you, employ you as a consultant, or to buy your product or service.

J2020F: So at the very least for efficiency purposes, in my database or spreadsheet I need to start with the full name, correctly spelled, and title and then find some something I share, right? How do you do that?

Eagle: Often it helps to construct a complete resume on them based on what you can discover by Googling them or through your chain of introductions triggered with Linked In and by reading the profiles for each person.

Explorer: That’s true. The more important these people are, the more information there is about them in public – local online papers and newsletters or at a library.

J2020F: So I can enlist the help of a friendly reference librarian, if I need to use directories?

Explorer: Or, you might uncover enough information by contacting the company's public relations department if the website doesn't provide enough detail.

Eagle: Don’t forget if you've befriended a reporter at the local newspaper -- or a business editor -- and if you can't search archived issues by the Internet, you might ask what articles they might have on the key person.

J2020F: But, again if this is for a job --all I’m looking for is some shared interest to begin with: same military background, college background, past geographical location, avocation, sports, church, professional membership, mutual friends, etc.

Eagle: Beyond that, you want to find out about the details of their function or operation including recent achievements, problems or challenges -- which becomes invaluable when you make your approach later on.

J2020F: Approach? How do you do that?

Explorer: Experience has proven that there are three avenues of approach to this task.

J2020F: What’s the first?

Explorer: Start by identifying precisely that organizational group actively engaged in the sort of function you find most enjoyable.

J2020F: Got it – from my targeting research. Then?

Explorer: Then find out who is in fact the most senior person responsible.

J2020F: Back to aiming higher? What if I haven’t been able to figure out who it is in a smaller town or exurb community?

Eagle: If this doesn't work, you have to make an educated guess, since in some large companies that kind of information is even unknown to people who would appear to be in the know.

Explorer: Remember, they may call the function a different name unique to their organization.

Eagle: At any rate, you may have to figure out which larger group your function may be a part of and target the person in charge. You should always aim higher if you're in doubt. If not the VP, then list the President.

J2020F: But, how do you get past the screening process?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

What’s In Your Quiver? Targeting the Inner Circle with the Right Arrows

2006-09-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

What’s In Your Quiver? Targeting the Inner Circle with the Right Arrows

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“The guest of an escapist experience actively participates in an immersive environment. Escapist experiences are not just about embarking from, but voyaging to. In esthetic experiences, individuals immerse themselves but remain passive."

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. You’ve completed a listing of all your likes and dislikes to identify trade-offs for finding your potential ideal locations. You’ve gathered intelligence about those potentials and narrowed your list of considerations. You will investigate your top three geographical areas to aid in your decision-making by conducting a field survey. Eventually you will approach the decision-maker -- potential employer, customer, client or non-profit NGO -- with a proposal based upon what you discovered.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: How do you go about setting up interviews before you travel?

Explorer: You can contact people ahead of time by explaining variations of the following outline:

Begin with the truth -- you've selected their city, exurb or destination resort above all others you've considered as the place where you want to locate or stay permanently.

Diplomatically mention a few of the more pleasant cultural or economic aspects of their community that met your priorities and led to your choice.

Tell them since you plan to settle there you would appreciate them providing detailed information on specific conditions like schools, recreation facilities, etc.

Eagle: In my experience, you will almost invariably receive a courteous reply and a considerable amount of useful information.

J2020F: This part of the communication process seems ideally suited for Linked In.

Explorer: That’s true. In your letter, through Linked In or by email, add another paragraph to the effect that you are too young and vigorous to ever rest solely on your previous accomplishments, and you therefore intend to contribute your skills to some dynamic local concern needing the unusual qualifications that you have to offer. But, use your own words.

J2020F: If you’re looking for a job to ease the relocation transition I can see, with any kind of luck, you may succeed in stimulating invitations to interviews by local firms through this initial contact.

Explorer: It happens more than some people think. Having announced your intentions, ask them to give you all available data on the type of business firms and organizations in the area.

J2020F: What if you know enough already about which firms particularly interest you?

Explorer: Say so. Add any pertinent summary of your abilities or experience that you wish. Close by thanking them for their courtesy and expressing the hope that you may be able to call on them in person in the fairly near future.

J2020F: This almost sounds like you are conducting a business or marketing plan.

Explorer: What you are doing is a systematic targeting process. You’re always keeping in mind that you’ll want to find ways to add-value. Where do some of the potential targets fall on the premium, relevant, high margin continuum?

Eagle: You've already begun collecting information about a select few geographical areas, and a number of potential organizational targets in order to learn whether or not they merited further investigation for your purposes.

J2020F: So this is an ongoing process, isn’t it?

Explorer: Right, those that still fit your objectives become your live organizational targets with target decision-makers in each of them.

J2020F: What if I’m not looking for a job in my resort destination?

Eagle: If you want to be self-employed, then "targets" are customers who might buy products from you.

Explorer: If you want to be a consultant, then 'targets" are places which need your services.

Eagle: If you want to coach wealthy Boomers through a transformation, then “targets” live in destination resort communities who need to become who they aspire to be.

J2020F: And If did want to work for someone, then, of course "targets" are those places where you might enjoy working, because they are pursuing your interests and fit your ideal job specifications, correct?

Explorer: That’s right! Next your task will be working your chain of introductions.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Make a Spectacle of Yourself: Gather Inside Intelligence to Follow Your Nose

2006-09-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Make a Spectacle of Yourself: Gather Inside Intelligence to Follow Your Nose

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Staging experiences is not about entertaining customers; it's about engaging them. Entertainment is passively absorbed through the senses. With education experiences a guest absorbs the events unfolding before him while actively participating.”

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. The next step is to consider the factors that are the most important to you, and then decide for each factor what kind of information do you need to collect at a distance and later in person.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: I like this approach. By gathering in order of priority, you can make a quality decision even if you run out of time, right?

Eagle: Correct. We like to practice the 80/20 Rule. Focus first on the 20% that you rate the highest. Then, before you visit on a vacation, for instance, dissect the community.

J2020F: Dissect it? How, why?

Explorer: Your goal is to know all there is to know about the top three regions and communities of people and organizations found within them.

Eagle: Let’s say you compared at Sperling’s Best Places all of the key dimensions on your list of tropical locations and sorted through those that fit Harry Dent’s innovation, early growth, mid-growth, late growth and late maturity categories to land on Oahu as a choice.

Explorer: You’ll already have comparison information, but you can use Wikipedia, Google and Topix.net to dig in deeper.

J2020F: What kinds of questions do you ask to get at the knowledge you need?

Explorer: What are they doing, what activities are they involved in, how are they making their livings – in which industries and how diverse is the economy surrounding the destination you’ve chosen?

Eagle: Remember that many people are in fact doing unexpected and fascinating things in places where they are hardly supposed to be. So the usual categories of information may hide what you’re really after.

Explorer: Your task is to discover where they are, and who they are, because you do not want to carelessly overlook any individuals or groups who could be of great interest to you.

J2020F: So, on your vacation you can schedule key appointments, and yet leave some time to enjoy yourself.

Eagle: Right. When you visit, go with your eyes and ears wide open and adopt the curiosity of a child following your whims and interests as you ask things of people.

J2020F: This sounds a lot like networking, information interviewing – techniques for finding the hidden job market, right? But on vacation, you aren't on a mission to find a job, especially if you’re planning to retire.

Explorer: That’s right, but it the same approach. You are there to uncover information that will aid you as a decision-maker in deciding where you want to go in the time to come.

Eagle: Keep a journal. You’ll make your best discoveries and gain key insights after the fact. After you’ve had time to digest your experiences and the data and advice you’ve accumulated.

J2020F: So, be organized with a good contact system, but make it an adventure.

Explorer: Especially if you’re looking for the best fit. You’ve earned it. Make it fun and follow your nose.

Eagle: Read nameplates on office doors, Look at directories in buildings that fascinate you for organizations listed that intrigue you. Go in and ask whoever is in charge just what he or she is doing.

J2020F: What do I say?

Eagle: Tell them you are intrigued by their operation as you are going about making a survey of this particular community.

Explorer: Talk to any and everybody. Taxi drivers, interesting or friendly people on the street.

J2020F: What if I walk in on an organization that looks interesting? You say that I’m supposed to ask for the head honcho?

Explorer: Talk to both clerks and head honchos. Aim high.

Eagle: You may get thrown out or shined on, but chances are 90% or better that you’ll get in because each person enjoys meeting interesting people just as much as you do.

J2020F: I guess I’m just so conditioned to expect high stress interviews or to encounter bullet-proof screeners. I have to remember that this is a journey, right?

Explorer: Right. It’s fun. You’re being introduced to one interesting person by one interesting person you just met. Remember, wherever you go, talk to every social strata and kind of profession -- social workers, editors, doctors, bankers, lawyers, clergy, etc.

J2020F: I assume it’s good practice to exchange business cards, get the name of each person, and ask for any informational material they may have.

Explorer: That’s right. Because, at the end of the day write the briefest of thank you notes -- no more than one or two lines is necessary.

Eagle: Get in the habit.

J2020F: Why?

Eagle: Hardly anyone extends the courtesy these days, so you will stand out as you build your list of contacts.

Explorer: And, later as you build synchronicity, it will be people in your network of contacts who will remember you, what you are investigating and who will refer people, further information, and opportunities to you.

J2020F: It seems from what you two have been saying that a software tool like Linked In is beneficial to build you network and expand it quickly.

Explorer: Yes, but it doesn’t replace the face-to-face onsite visit to build relationships in your community of choice. It takes time to prove that you are trustworthy enough to be introduced into the inner circle of a community as an outsider.

J2020F: Unless you happen to intersect a tourist cell, like we did in Cabo.

Eagle: True. But it can help you before and after you go, to identify people in organizations for introductions in the towns, if you search by zip code.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Internet Logging Tools for Thinning the Forest to See the Trees

2006-09-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

Internet Logging Tools for Thinning the Forest to See the Trees

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The Internet is the greatest force for commoditization known to man…. Manufacturers must experientialize their goods…. As the experience economy unfolds, many experience stagers won't stay in business.”

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. During the research process expect to experience the extremes – from knowing very little about the three regions at the top of your list to becoming swamped with too much information. It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: How do you go about a field survey?

Eagle: The simple answer is to identify factors about a place to live that are important to you. List and discuss with your mate, family and friends the things you liked or disliked about the various places you have thus far lived.

Explorer: Visit the Sperling Best Places Website and consider the Ten Best Places lists. They’ll help you as you make two lists: one of your likes and the other of the dislikes.

J2020F: Do either of you – or for that matter does Pathfinder – have idea-sparks?

Explorer: To get you started you might consider any of following categories: climate, weather, temperature, rainfall, winds, dust, seasons, humidity, pollution, topography or terrain and open space.

Eagle: Also – status and affluence, ethnic groupings or communities, the pace of life, congeniality of people, and cost of living -- food, housing, clothing.

J2020F: Or – the political or legal climate, corruption or its absence, crime rate would be on my lists.

Explorer: Consider -- the arts and educational facilities or entertainment available. Compare closed-ness or openness of the community, accessibility, or remoteness.

Eagle: Weigh urban versus rural, most hospitable to entrepreneurs, access to the country or to city, to mountains or to beaches.

Explorer: Also architecture, degree of sophistication, cosmopolitan, high or low-rises, safety of streets, heaviness of traffic.

J2020F: What about the standbys: school system, libraries, churches, medical system, and other services?

Explorer: Certainly. You might consider: public transportation, freeways, rapid transit, family health services.

Eagle: I include: parks, camping, sports, skiing facilities nearby, water nearby.

Explorer: Or private golf, tennis, beach or skiing communities.

J2020F: Perhaps the kind of help available, expensive or inexpensive and costs, and free things to do?

Eagle: Sure. Also population density, turnover, the degree to which people know each other. Types of restaurants, friendliness of the people, proximity to friends. And if it has a variety of things to do. Like, the number of Starbucks?

Explorer: Especially a variety of activities that match your interests.

Eagle: What about community indicators like: town identity, unity, cohesion, attitude of people toward civic responsibility.

J2020F: For my wife --department stores and shopping malls.

Eagle: And finally a catchall: color, excitement, neighborhood or community where your lifestyle didn't matter or did; miles between home and work, t.v. radio, and f.m. stations.

Eagle: A place with a sense of history, or not.

J2020F: For investment purposes: growth; controlled or uncontrolled and the impact on tax rates and property values.

Eagle: Of more importance, lately -- a liberal or conservative community.

Explorer: I have more mundane items I’d consider like mail service, cleanliness of the streets; garbage disposal system, pest control and types of housing.

J2020F: I’m sorry I asked. Are we almost done?

Eagle: We are. And here’s the good news. You don't have to use all of these factors, just the ones that interest you so you can discover what make a place good for you, or bad for you and your loved ones.

J2020F: What do we do with our lists?

Explorer: Choose a method to rank your priorities in each list -- your likes and your dislikes. Most important likes go to the top and your dislikes go to the bottom.

J2020F: And, then what?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Mining Your Silver Lining on Google’s Earth

2006-09-14T06:18:00.000-07:00

Mining Your Silver Lining on Google’s Earth

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Experiences are as distinct from services as services are from goods. Services are intangible activities performed for a particular client. Goods are tangible products that companies standardize and then inventory. Commodities are fungible materials extracted from the natural world.”

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. You might want to take advantage of the rising demand for rental property in urban and suburban areas after late 2008 and for retirement home purchases following the migration pattern towards exurbs and small towns, many of which will continue to hold most of their value through the decade-long downturn. In preparation for your next chapter, is it time to cash out or hold on, move and rent out your paid-off home?

Journal of 2020 Foresight: With so many things to consider, how do you go about making the right decisions that you won’t regret?

Eagle: Well you can start with broad regions – tropical, in the Western or Southern U.S. like we are, for instance. And mark out your prime geographical target area and zoom in on detailed maps of various sections within it.

J2020F: Like we did in Colorado?

Eagle: Yes. And, since we didn’t care too much about the state lines, we included the northern part of New Mexico too, as we passed through the Four Corners region.

Explorer: Like us, you may want to contact the local chamber of commerce for names of different sections and neighborhoods and most importantly, their zip codes.

Eagle: I prefer Google maps, especially their “Google Earth” application, for switching back and forth between graphical maps and satellite images – it gives me an added dimension for sorting through regions of interest.

J2020F: So, getting zip codes seems to be the key to a lot of information.

Eagle: More so than ever on the Web. It’s today’s equivalent of maps to buried treasure – where “X” marks the spot. Like the story Mark Twain told about the Whiteman fortune near Mono Lake.

Explorer: That was hilarious. In larger metropolitan areas, though, with multiple zip codes, check out the Claritas lifestyle profiles to determine which neighborhood you'd prefer to live in.

J2020F: You’ll want to consider neighborhoods where you’ll find clusters that match “Premier Resort”, “Maturing Resort”, “Resort Suburbs”, or “Distant Exurbs” or their counter parts in wealthy suburban or urban areas like “Exurb Society”, “Affluently Elite”, “Digitally Mobiles” and “Portfolio Locals”.

Eagle: Hey, what about me? I’d target the “Small Town Burbs”, “Satellite Cities”, “Rustic Eagles” and “Rural Country” – especially in the beginning of my search.

J2020F: If I weren’t going to live there, but wanted to invest in urban areas about to undergo a renaissance – then, I’d consider finding communities with “Interim Middle Managers”, “The Cutters”, “Urban Trapped”, and those “Starting Over” renters.

Explorer: Next decide how many miles you would care to commute from there, to work, each day. Or how far you’ll need to travel for doctor’s visits, shopping trips and recreational amenities.

Eagle: Add one half again, as a safety factor to allow for possible changes in your plans later.

J2020F: So in the previous era, when maps were printed and folded up if you possessed a certain amount of dexterity, you’d draw a circle surrounding your probable neighborhood with the commuting distance as the radius.

Explorer: Now there’s a memory. It's as if you used a compass from elementary school.

Eagle: Sure. You measured the distance on the map corresponding with your commuting distance and stuck the sharp pivot point on your new house and twisted the compass to draw a circle with the pencil on the second leg of the compass.

Explorer: The entire circle, then, represents your prime geographical area.

J2020F: What’s next using your virtual compass and virtual map?

Explorer: Your goal, like a detective, is to gather every bit of intelligence available on every economic activity operating within that circle -- and as quickly as possible.

J2020F: Like what?

Eagle: This means not only the obvious kinds of organizations, but also the variety of human activities that take place within such entities as:

Local governmental agencies,

Educational institutions,

Professional and other associations,

Private entrerpreneurial kinds of operations.

Explorer: You want particularly to learn about the different types of organizations or operations in your prime geographical target area. Can you find the right fit for your talents? How many start-up, rapid growth, sustained growth, mature, declining or reinvention opportunities can you find?

J2020F: How do you gather such information?

Explorer: Ferret it out from all available information sources, traditional and on the web.

Eagle: You’d be surprised what’s out there: directories of business firms in the area, of R&D firms, of government agencies, of educational institutions, of not-for-profit institutions, of associations, etc.

Explorer: These can be found on the internet or directly available from Chambers of Commerce locally, from city, state and county government agencies, from private firms, from Planning Boards, from Economic Development agencies, from trade and professional associations, Boards of Trade, etc.

J2020F: I take it you two aren’t opposed to asking your local librarian for help.

Explorer: Of course not. Use the Yellow Pages on the web and in the form of a telephone book.

Eagle: It's useful as a method for figuring out the scope and range of the economic activities in your chosen area.

J2020F: What about the subscribing to the leading local newspaper in your chosen area and or receiving it online?

Explorer: You won’t be looking so much on the front-page for news, as in the business and community news pages for clues and leads to interesting activities in town.

Eagle: One of the resources I’ve found very helpful is Topix.net – Local News for the World.

J2020F: How does it work?

Eagle: You can search by ZIP or chose from their list of local news channels. Not only do they pull content from local providers, they also grab it from any other source commenting on the community you are investigating.

Explorer: I’ve set up RSS Feeds – Really Simple Syndication – so I’ve designed my own news channel made up of all the different communities I monitor.

J2020F: Which means?

Explorer: Which means I don’t have to log on to Topix.net every day.

J2020F: I imagine you will inevitably learn vital facts about local expansion plans of certain organizations, right?

Explorer: Yes, and development plans to introduce new types of activities which might well be of vital interest to you later.

Eagle: Topix, like Sperling’s Best Places, has added a forum feature still in it’s infancy. Together they might just give you that reason to move or to remove that location from further consideration.

J2020F: So, most of this kind of information can be gathered at a distance first, can’t it?

Explorer: True, but you must make every effort to visit at least your top geographical preference whenever possible, before you get started on your actual job search, career change, entrepreneurial, real estate investment or retirement campaign later.

Eagle: Take a vacation trip there, or better yet plan on visiting during different seasons of the year. Nothing can be so useful to you as your own personal on-site reconnaissance mission.

J2020F: What about talking to a banker at the town headquarters?

Explorer: Good point, they’re better informed with the kind of information you need that they at a branch office.

Eagle: Talk to the reporter on the local paper, preferably the business editor. Other possible conversations to conduct: with the mayor, plus city and county department heads; the heads of rotary, Kiwanis, and the Lions kinds of clubs.

J2020F: So, while your map might show that “X” marks the spot, you’ll have to actually dip your pan into the stream there to find the “knowledge nuggets” you value most.

Eagle: And that “X” in these days can be found where the four overlapping circles – the current and future economic business cycles, your own stage in your lifecycle, your future employer’s or client’s lifecycle and the quality-of-life community’s lifecycle -- you’ve defined reveal your very own sweet spot! Where the rainbow meets the road!

J2020F: Or your vein of silver? Your very own silver lining?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Rediscover Your Drive Running Into the Sun

2006-09-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Rediscover Your Drive Running Into the Sun

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"'A typical company has forty to fifty components,' (Laurie) Tropiano explained...'so what we do is identify and isolate these forty to fifty components and then sit down and ask (the company), 'How much money are you spending in each component? Where are you best in class? Where are you differentiated? What are the totally non-differentiated components of your business? Where do you think you have capabilities but are not sure you are ever going to be great there because you'd have to put more money in than you want? When you are done, said Tropiano, you basically have an X-ray of the company, identifying four or five 'hot spots.' One or two might be core competencies; other might be skills that the company wasn't fully aware that it even had and that should be build up."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Has the mass migration of empty nesters begun? What’s in store for the Boomer extended family in this post 9/11 world? If you are shopping around for the ideal resort location where you can invest, change careers, retire, start or continue a new business, now is time for you to research the economy of your chosen geographical area, placing top priority of your time and effort on your first choice. In similar fashion investigate your second and third choices.

J2020F: What should I look for? When should I cash in my equity and move out? How can I protect my nest egg, while increasing my profits and margins in my business – or after I move how can I pick the right job or clientele?

Eagle: If you’re like most people bent on upgrading their quality of life your location should offer abundant open space, a village-like atmosphere to maximize quality of life and pleasant human interaction, and shared recreational, educational and cultural facilities.

J2020F: Is this the right time? Trailblazer cautioned us that after this boom ends, deflation is almost certain to ensue for at least a decade and possibly into the early 2020's.
.
Eagle: He cites Dent’s projections and “silver-lining” approach to turning an economic threat into an opportunity – albeit a prolonged recession – depression.

J2020F: How?

Eagle: Dent says owners who decide to sell their homes at their maximum value, sometime before late 2008, will be able to buy excellent property at a lower price and lower interest rates once the deflation era begins.

J2020F: So there are some long-range trends in real estate that we should keep in mind?

Eagle: The first of three trends Trailblazer and I are monitoring is a broad migration pattern towards exurbs and small towns, many of which will continue to hold most of their value through the downturn.

J2020F: The second trend?

Eagle: A strong and consistent rise in retirement home purchases.

J2020F: Makes sense, but for how long?

Eagle: Trailblazer believes baby boomers will drive the market for this kind of property from 2006 into around 2030.

J2020F: What about the third long-term real estate trend?

Eagle: This one you want to take advantage of after late 2008 -- the rising demand for rental property in urban and suburban areas.

J2020F: Why?

Eagle: Trailblazer explained it this way to me. The most important insight here is that there are seasonal trends to monitor because they clearly favor some sectors of investments and disfavor others.

J2020F: Seasonal trends?

Eagle: Two very different booms and two very different busts that follow the same four-stage life cycle that new products and technologies do.

J2020F: Like the 80-year cycle in which new economies emerge and mature which occurs with every other generation?

Eagle: Yes. Trailblazer believes that Dent’s seasonal projections are correct in that these four " seasons" represent long periods of time wherein the fundamental economic trends will generally go in one direction

J2020F: So which season are we in and where are we headed?

Eagle: The second phase of the Growth Boom we're now in will continue until late 2008 or early 2009.

J2020F: So, now is time for you to research the economy of your chosen geographical area.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Opening Gates to New Ideas, Technologies and Best Practices for Prosperity

2006-09-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

Opening Gates to New Ideas, Technologies and Best Practices for Prosperity

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"What all these leaders confronted was the irrefutable fact that more open and competitive markets are the only sustainable vehicle for growing a nation out of poverty, because they are the only guarantee that new ideas, technologies, and best practices are easily flowing into your country and that private enterprises, and even government, have the competitive incentive and flexibility to adopt those new ideas and turn them into jobs and products. This is why the nonglobalizing countries, those that refused to do any reform wholesale -- North Korea, for instance -- actually saw their per capita GDP growth shrink in the 1990s, while countries that moved from a more socialist model to a globalizing model saw their per capita GDP grow in the 1990s."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Harry S. Dent, Jr. says businesses will succeed, prosper and ride the last great economic boom by targeting wealthy Baby Boomers and by offering greater customization.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Dent agrees with Pine and Gilmore about the best way to build a high margin and profitable business is to reduce customer sacrifice by personalizing your offerings to wealthy customers.

Explorer: I believe you are referring to what Dent calls his Power Wave Principles – the numbers of peak earning boomers who occupy leadership positions in corporations.

Eagle: At a time in their career when they invest in timeshares, vacation and second homes.

J2020F: And, yet his prescriptions don’t work in your typical top-down organization?

Explorer: That’s right. I call it going horizontal -- instead of organizing by hierarchy organize from the customer back.

J2020F: And shift your offering from mass customization to staging experiences using the design principles of escape, education, aesthetics and entertainment?

Explorer: He hasn’t gone there yet, but he says you do need to design your business around the needs, costs and priorities of your best customers.

J2020F: In what way?

Explorer: Treat every significant customer segment as a business – with its own customer satisfaction metrics and profit-and-loss statements.

J2020F: So he’s focusing on the 20% of customers who generate 80% of the revenue by breaking out their care and feeding as if it was a separate entrepreneurial business?

Explorer: And he advocates the practice of empowering frontline “concierge people” to coordinate and integrate back office products and services -- automate backline decisions with real-time response capabilities.

J2020F: Which dovetails nicely with Pine and Gilmore’s collaborative, adaptive, cosmetic, or transparent customizations – but with an emphasis on procedures and technologies to make it a reality?

Explorer: Yes. The feeling of exclusivity is the key, as in memberships with special privileges.

J2020F: Membership has its rewards.

Explorer: Yes. Think of pre-set Airline profiles for meal-choices, seating preferences and choice of first or second-class service. The sacrifice addressed is a repeat-again with predictable process characteristics.

J2020F: So, if I decide to fly from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California to Fort Myers International in Florida, my profile spares me the hassle of choosing from a long list of options.

Explorer: The approach is a tailored offering without the customer’s knowledge that the product or service is customized just for them.

J2020F: Eliminate my hassles and I’m a happy tourist or business traveler. So, the nature of the value is indiscernibly fulfilled.

Explorer: Yes. The nature of the offering is not packaged, like the cosmetic method of customizing. Instead it is pack-able, your profile can be taken with you wherever you go.

J2020F: So Dent advocates targeting the well-off Boomers with premium services and experiences?

Explorer: Yes. He says your focus must be on your customer's highest value added solutions -- in the best interests of your end customer (integrity and transparency to build trust and long-term loyalty).

J2020F: How does he say to take advantage of globalization or technology solutions?

Explorer: You need to focus only on what you do best and what adds the highest value.

J2020F: And, outsource the rest to those best and most efficient in their supplier field?

Explorer: Exactly. Provide total solutions with ongoing service and recurring fees -- rather than one-time products in re-selling relationships.

J2020F: So he hints at staging experiences to appeal to the senses – figuring out ways to eliminate customer sacrifice while injecting surprise and suspense?

Explorer: Well, he’s moving in the right direction when he recommends that you need to anticipate your customers' needs even before they do, certainly before your competitors do.

J2020F: Doesn’t he also recommend ways to take advantage of technology by automating to free up high-value-added human service, allow customization and improve quality?

Explorer: He’s a big believer in the efficiencies of technology to create real-time production and service systems for on-demand responsiveness -- eliminate waste, inventories, time delays, obsolete products or environmental impacts.

J2020F: We should use technology to link everyone as necessary in real-time communication to cut down on bureaucracy and speed real-time decisions, right?

Explorer: Or, as a commoditization strategy.

J2020F: How?

Explorer: By becoming the source for outsourcing to you -- making the practice more feasible and sustainable to your best customers.

J2020F: And, if I plan to relocate to a premier resort I can customize my offerings to wealthy customers, right?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Experiencing the Round Worlds of Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow

2006-09-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

Experiencing the Round Worlds of Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Rule #4: The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more businesses will be done through collaboration within and between companies, for a very simple reason: The next layers of value creation -- whether in technology, marketing, biomedicine, or manufacturing -- are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone.... 'What we are seeing in so many fields,' said Joel Cawley, the head of IBM's strategic planning unit,' is that the next layers of innovation involve the intersection of very advanced specialties. The cutting edge of technical innovation in every field is increasingly specialized.'"

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Pine and Gilmore say that when we delve deeper into the experience economy we find that by appealing to our senses, goods become props and we can charge for admission.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Let's take it a step further into the experience economy. How do reinvention teams collaborate to engineer engaging experiences?

Explorer: The goal is to stage wholly new experiences to commoditize the competition. So you need to brainstorm and one way to get you out of the box is to consider all the different ways you could charge admission.

J2020F: What kinds of questions stimulate the kinds of ideas we’re looking for?

Explorer: What could you do differently? Can you eradicate a practice you already have -- giving things away for free as an incentive to sell more products and services – as Netscape did in its infancy to commoditize Microsoft’s operating system?

J2020F: The line of questioning runs along the lines of …?

Explorer: Think through how new experience elements can be added to your product or service to increase demand. Or which goods or services will command higher prices?

J2020F: What about those goods or services with higher potential?

Explorer: Think about how to reposition your goods as props and services as stages to support new experiential offerings.

J2020F: How do you do that?

Explorer: You identify the experiential elements you may be overlooking.

J2020F; Like?

Explorer: How can you enhance your present offerings to appeal to the senses? Which negative cues can be eliminated or positive cues added? How can you move your customers from sacrifice to surprise and suspense?

J2020F: When you’ve exhausted a laundry list of brainstormed items, what do you do with them?

Explorer: You examine them for patterns. How can you set the stage by theming the experience? Can you integrate customer impressions into a new engaging theme? How can you mix in memorabilia and engage all five senses?

J2020F: What else?

Explorer: Think about how your THINGS can be ING-ed as a way to enhance your customer experience.

J2020F: Are there any guidelines for theming and ING-ing?

Explorer: Pine and Gilmore direct you to a set of categories.

J2020F: Like?

Explorer: They work in four categories of themes we discussed -- entertainment, education, escapism or esthetic realms to develop an engaging theme.

J2020F: As you consider each theme, what are you shooting for?

Explorer: Well you can use their five principles -- altering a guest's sense of reality, altering space, time and matter and integrating the experience into a cohesive whole.

J2020F: Maybe we should go through them one at a time to generate ideas you can apply.

Explorer: Sure. First principle, altering a sense of reality can be done by changing the temporal age, geographical location or environmental condition from familiar to foreign or from risky to safe -- or the social affiliation or self-image.

J2020F: Wow, that’s a mouthful. What about altering the temporal age? What do you mean?

Explorer: Here are some examples, ten different types of staged experiences: Status, Tropical Paradise, the Wild West, Classical Civilizations, Arabian Fantasy, Urban Motif, Fortress Architecture, Surveillance, Modernism and Progress, and Representations of the Unrepresentable like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

J2020F: O.K. that’s better. What about altering space, time and matter?

Explorer: Is there a way you can from two dimensions to three-dimensional spaces? Maybe multiple TVs for cheering broadcasts; or intermingling real, fake and animated versions.

J2020F: If I come up blank, then what?

Explorer: Try imagining how your theme might be stimulated by history, religion, fashion, politics, psychology, the physical world, popular culture or the arts.

J2020F: O.K. Now, what about the third principle?

Explorer: For the third principle – integrating the previously brainstormed elements into a cohesive whole – Pine and Gilmore say you may try storytelling, narratives and authentic period settings.

J2020F: Give me some examples to consider.

Explorer: How about some of the following as possibilities for harmonizing the total experience:

Time -- traditional, contemporary and futuristic representations of the theme;

Space -- opposites such as urban / rural, / East / West, North / South, home / business, indoor / outdoor representations;

Technology -- hand-made / -- machine-made or natural / or artificial

Authenticity -- original or imitative.

Sophistication -- Yielding refined / unrefined or luxurious / cheap.

Scale -- representing the theme as grand or small.

J2020F: What about the fourth principle?

Explorer: That would be multiple places within a space -- such as or Five Biomes of the American Wilderness Experience; videos and simulated rides, or Club Disney, or the Discovery Zone.

J2020F: Some of these ideas, it strikes me, you can charge admission or a fee, right?

Explorer: Now you’re getting the idea. These are engaging themes for which others have charged a fee:

Period demonstrations -- armor making, glass blowing and book binding

Crafts that guests perform themselves -- brass rubbing, candle making or calligraphy.

J2020F: I imagine the list is almost endless with the proper perspective, but for those of us perspective-challenged, what can you suggest?

Explorer: Other potential fee-charging engaging themes could be variations of:

Games, contests and other challenges for prizes -- archery, a giant maze, or climbing Jacob's ladder.

Human and animal-powered rides -- elephants, ponies, or cabriolet.

Food -- turkey legs, apple dumplings, Florentine ice;

Drink -- beer and wine, soda and coffee.

Shows, ceremonies and parades -- magicians, puppetry or jousts.

J2020F: I get it. All we have to do is call you. What about the last principle?

Explorer: The fifth principle emphasizes that the experience must be within an engaging theme that fits the organizational character -- its brand. Something that is concise, compelling and a storyline crafted to captivate the customer.

J2020F: So at the end of the day, the best way to build a high margin and profitable business is to use these design principles to reduce customer sacrifice by personalizing your offerings to wealthy customers.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Engaging the Four “E’s” of Experience Engineering

2006-09-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Engaging the Four “E’s” of Experience Engineering

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"In this same vein, as a compassionate flatist, I would like to see a label on every electronics good state whether the supply chain that produced it is in compliance with the standards set down by the new HP-Dell-IBM alliance. In October 2004, these three giants joined forces in a collaborative effort with key members of their computer and printer supply chains to promote a unified code of socially responsible manufacturing practices across the world. The new Electronics Industry Code of Conduct includes bans on bribes, child labor, embezzlement and extortion, and violations of intellectual property, rules for governing usage of wastewater, hazardous materials, pollutants, and regulations on the reporting of occupational injuries."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Unless you earn your living as a coach, the promise of the transformation economy still lies over the horizon for you. It’s far better to focus your reinvention efforts on commoditizing your competition’s services. How? You can use one or more of the four categories of themes -- entertainment, education, escapism or esthetic realms to develop an engaging, memorable experience.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: So for those reinvention teams tasked with capitalizing on the next viable niche, how do you design a memorable experience?

Explorer: By considering four active or passive experience realms that can be staged separately or in combination.

J2020F: Active or passive?

Explorer: Yes. The two passive realms are esthetics and entertainment, while escapist and educational are more active realms.

J2020F: How do you design for esthetics in mind?

Explorer: Pine and Gilmore say by considering answers to the following questions:

What makes your guests want to come in, sit down, and hang out?

How can the environment be changed to be more inviting, more interesting or more comfortable?

J2020F: I notice that the engaging theme requires no active participation on the part of your customer.

Explorer: That’s right. Likewise, entertainment only requires a response -- nothing more active from your customer, so it too is a passive realm.

J2020F: So, their response to the experience is enjoyment or laughter?

Explorer: Yes. And in the design you’re asking yourself, what can you do to get your guest to stop and stay? How can you make the experience more fun and enjoyable?

J2020F: What about the third experience realm?

Explorer: Unlike the first two, escapist is an active realm that requires an immersion.

J2020F: You’re looking for their active participation?

Explorer: Yes. You ask questions, like: What should your guests do? How can they become more immersed in activities? How can you get them to become active participants in the experience?

J2020F: Seems straightforward in terms of the questions. The answers may be tough until you are more comfortable with this process. What about the last category?

Explorer: The fourth realm is the second active realm -- education, or learning by full participation.

J2020F: O.K. The fact that this is active, well, it surprises me. Am I thinking about being a student in a classroom? Is this something different?

Explorer: Yes. It is different. You’re trying to identify what do you want them to learn from the experience? Likewise, what information or activities will help them in the exploration of knowledge or skills?

J2020F: So, the answers to these design questions will help you stage experiences that will commoditize your competition?

Explorer: It certainly will and it will help you further differentiate you products and services so that you can charge a premium for which you customers will find both relevant to their needs and connected to you at a deeper level.

J2020F: Something I forgot, the difference between absorption and immersion?

Explorer: Of the four realms of experience, entertainment and educational fall within the absorption category, while esthetic and escapist within the immersion category.

J2020F: So we have the interplay between active and passive as well as between immersion and absorption?

Explorer: Yes. Education is both an active and an absorption experience, whereas entertainment is both a passive participation and an absorption experience.

J2020F: How do you define immersion?

Explorer: An immersion experience can be a passive participation experience like an esthetic or an active participation as in an escapist. Passive customer interactions do not change the performance at all.

J2020F: They observe or listen?

Explorer: Yes. The environmental relationship or the connection unites customers with the event or performance.

J2020F: In what way?

Explorer: Customers absorb the entire pageantry taking place in and around them at a distance, from the grandstand, say while those in an infield close to the action become immersed in the sights, sounds and smells that surround them.

J2020F: Let's say I'm leading a team to apply this model to our service -- can you give me some tangible thought-starters?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Masters of the Youniverse: Who Do You Need to Become?

2006-09-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

Masters of the Youniverse: Who Do You Need to Become?

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"We too have to do things differently (as President Kennedy did when establishing the new Manpower Development and Training program to train displaced workers from the shift required to compete with the Russians who launched Sputnik). We are going to have to sort out what to keep, what to discard, what to adapt, what to adopt, where to redouble our efforts, and where to intensify our focus."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Even experiences can also become commoditized as they progress through further customization to transformations.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: In the agrarian economy the major function was to extract commodities. In the industrial economy tangible goods were made. In the service economy intangible services were delivered.

Explorer: And, in the experience economy memorable experiences are staged.

J2020F: What’s left?

Explorer: Plenty. In the transformation economy more effective individuals are guided through transformations.

J2020F: Say what?

Explorer: While personal experiences are revealed over the time of an event, the “elicitor of transformations” guides the aspirant through the transformation sustained through time.

J2020F: So that’s a fancy way of saying event-driven experiences last momentarily, while transformation is the real deal?

Explorer: Yes. We’re talking about the nature of offerings during an economic era. How value is created by something new, something done, improved or applied.

J2020F: I see. The nature of the offering progresses from a fungible commodity, to a tangible product, to an intangible service, to a memorable experience and finally to a more effective individual?

Explorer: Yes. Likewise, the factors of demand progress from characteristics of a commodity, to features of a product, to benefits of a service, to sensations of an experience and finally to traits of the transformation.

J2020F: Traits of the transformation?

Explorer: Think of it this way. Unlike offerings of materials, products, operations or events the transformational offering is the individual for which new aims are determined.

J2020F: The individual becomes the product or service or experience?

Explorer: In a way.

J2020F: What about a problem or correction -- instead of a service reaction triggering a customer-satisfying response or a forgetting triggering a preserved memory – what happens with a transformation?

Explorer: A relapse in a transformational relationship triggers stronger resolve and the application of persevering connects deeper with each aspirant.

J2020F: I resolve to do better next time!

Explorer: And your coach or mentor will hold you to it until you reach your aspirations.

J2020F: If I'm not a transformational coach, but I want to engineer experiences how do I go about it?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Intangibles of Service Staged as Memorable Experiences

2006-09-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Intangibles of Service Staged as Memorable Experiences

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"We are in a world that has a system that now allows convergence among many billions of people, and we had better step back and figure out what it means."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Today the third progression of economic value – as an era – is in full swing. Unlike during the agrarian and the product economies, in the service economy intangible services are customized and delivered. The four success factors for creating value -- origination, execution, improvement and application shift to support service operations.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: One of the biggest differences I notice with the service economy is that there are no products to be inventoried.

Explorer: That’s true. Instead, the method of supply for service providers is to deliver on demand to clients who crave benefits instead of just features.

J2020F: Sell product features and benefits to potential customers is the mantra I can still hear in sales courses around the world.

Explorer: Here, the emphasis has to be on benefits.

J2020F: Why?

Explorer: Because services are intangibles. The offering is no longer a material or a product.

J2020F: How is it “produced” then?

Explorer: Through an operation that ensures delivery with new procedures.

J2020F: What your talking about is different than inventing, mass-producing, continuously improving and mass commoditizing.

Explorer: But it follows the same steps of developing, linking, modularizing and renewing since we are customizing.

J2020F: Remind us what the steps are.

Explorer: Sure. Exploring, experimenting, packaging and personalizing.

J2020F: When a problem arose in manufacturing, a solution to a problem in the manufacturing process was sought. How about in the service economy?

Explorer: A correction by service providers doesn't involve searching for a new commodities source, or fixing a product mistake. Instead, it triggers a response in a direct interaction with clients.

J2020F: And the goal is to eliminate and further prevent customer sacrifice?

Explorer: Yes. And from that “experience” of customization, customers who demand premium, high margin services usher in the next era.

J2020F: Which is the experience economy, right?

Explorer: Yes. Through further customization the progression of economic value moves from commodities, goods, and services to experiences.

J2020F: How is an experience different from service?

Explorer: The experience economy is all about staging memorable personal experiences revealed over the duration of the event.

J2020F: Rather like a vacation to Cabo San Lucas, or Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show?

Explorer: Definitely yes on the first part, I suppose on the second part.

J2020F: Buffalo Bill Cody took advantage of his reputation -- or his brand -- as made up in the dime novels written about him and the exaggerations he promoted.

Explorer: Wasn’t it Ned Buntline who figured out it was more profitable to spin yarns and easier to manufacture stories about “heroes” in melodramas crafted for Eastern newspaper readers?

J2020F: Yes. Cody’s Wild West Show touched the hunger for the Old Wild West experience – a romanticized nostalgia that no longer could exist for urban industrialized audiences – or for anyone else after the 1890s.

Explorer: Excellent example.

J2020F: These are staged experiences, right?

Explorer: Yes. The seller manages the mix of sensations demanded by the guest, in contrast to a provider selling a benefit to a client.

J2020F: Hmm. As each new season came around Cody had to come up with new attractions or story lines.

Explorer: How so?

J2020F: He began with a core theme that resonated with his audiences, according to Louis S. Warren’s “William Cody and The Wild West Show.”

Explorer: Which was?

J2020F: The triumph of civilization over savagery and all of the other sub-themes operating almost subconsciously in his audiences.

Explorer: Like?

J2020F: Like the triumph of domestic order, the salvation of the settler's cabin, so the melodrama's core plot was the rescue of the virtuous woman and her restoration to the home.

Explorer: So, saving white women from Indians represented the triumph of civilization before the Industrial Revolution commoditized the Agrarian Age?

J2020F: And something else. The real life hero’s appearance – Sitting Bull, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane, in these theatrical performances authenticated the collective fantasy already bubbling up, according to Warren-- even before the audience “saw'” them stage “famous” battles in the show.

Explorer: It sounds almost as if the audience was in collusion with Cody who easily evoked a memorable experience. That’s a fine example of what separates staging experiences from providing services.

J2020F: It does?

Explorer: Yes, Service operations produce new procedures for delivering services while the stager of experience events develops new scripts.

J2020F: So following the same process for customization in products and services – developing, linking, modularizing and renewing …

Explorer: Buffalo Bill would have improvised, created a platform theater production, matched the shows acts to cheering fans, and come up with new practiced bits as further opportunities arise to engage, amaze and get paid.

J2020F: Well, for thirty years he traveled throughout the United States and Europe doing just that. And, each time his troupe passed through a community his former customers would return for one more show.

Explorer: So his enduring or flagging appeal hinged on how well he succeeded in the customized experiences method of correction -- forgetting triggers a memory preserved. Repeat business hinges on it.

J2020F: Warren says the show company came to represent “America itself, its dazzling mix of races sprung from a frontier past, welded into a thrilling performance, and making their way through the world via the modern technologies of railroad, portable electrical generator, telephones, and brilliantly colored publicity -- an entrancing vision of the frontier-born, newly mechanized, polyglot United States in the Gilded Age.“

Explorer: By the way, was Cody really a pony express rider?

J2020F: Well, according to Warren even during his lifetime it was hard to determine if he was a hero or a charlatan – in fact part of Cody’s genius was to promote the blurred line so the audience would want to pay to see him so they could decide for themselves.

Explorer: So, I guess no matter how truthful his branded entertainment was, he became a savvy entertainer.

J2020F: And Warren says what seems to have been overlooked is his show “provided a means for rural westerners, including cowboys, cowgirls, and especially Lakota Sioux Indians, to claim a new future for themselves by reenacting a version of the past.“

Explorer: So it appears he stepped back and saw the opportunities driven by the convergence of the Industrial Age.

J2020F: During the “Flat Earth” challenge of his day, the subject of Larry McMurty’s novels -- an unromantic look at the real West in transition -- he figured out how to provide venues for the “Trapped and Permanently Temporaries” to get paid for their obsolete skills in higher margin markets.

Explorer: Contrast that to a service reaction triggers a response, or a product problem triggers fixing a mistake, or for a commodity business -- depletion launches exploration at a new site.

J2020F: Buffalo Bill Cody was a man well ahead of his times. Even Mark Twain penned a fan letter and according to some sources encouraged Cody to tour Europe.

Explorer: Both Cody and Twain demonstrated what the application of an experience is all about in a new era.

J2020F: An encounter that connects with a guest in a memorable way?

Explorer: Right. In terms of a dominant economy, experiences are only now emerging as customized services, but expect experiences to also become commoditized in the decades ahead.

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Value Creation: Something New, Done, Improved or Applied

2006-09-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Value Creation: Something New, Done, Improved or Applied

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"No wonder there is not a major company that I interviewed for this book that is not investing significantly in research and development abroad. It is not 'follow the money.' It is 'follow the brains.' 'Science and math are the universal language of technology,' said Tracy Koon, Intel's director of corporate affairs, who oversees the company's efforts to improve science education. 'They drive technology and our standards of living. Unless our kids grow up knowing that universal language, they will not be able to compete. We are not in the business of manufacturing somewhere else. This is a company that was founded here, but we have two raw materials -- sand, which we have a ready supply of, and talent, which we don't.'"

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH: We've moved through a progression of five economic offerings, each customizing a current offering to progress to the next and at the same time commoditizing the previous.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: So, let's recap. In this “The-World-Is-Flat” thanks to “Globalization-Enabled-by-Technology” our jobs become commoditized. The products we produce or offer become commoditized, the companies and organizations we work for or have as clients become commoditized and decline -- what’s the world coming to?

Explorer: Invention and reinvention teams from around the world are shifting their offerings from the second wave manufacturing of products to creating more value and higher margins through services.

J2020F: Which in turn is in the process of becoming commoditized by the offering of experiences.

Explorer: Because services become more customized and personalized to eliminate customer sacrifice.

J2020F: To move from customer satisfaction, to customer surprise and customer suspense, right?

Explorer: Yes. We've also examined mass customization of products as a platform to customize services. And we used the same approach to customize a higher premium with service strategies.

J2020F: And lastly we explored the commoditization of service with the customization of experience, right?

Explorer: True. Every economic era has four things in common, according to Pine and Gilmore: A point of origination or creating value from something new; an execution component or generating value by getting something done; an improvement process or increasing value by correcting something; and application or producing value from how something is used.

J2020F: I imagine that the more entrenched or widespread the former economic era is or became, the more difficult it is for the old dogs to learn new tricks?

Explorer: Right. Each new wave ushers in a whole new paradigm – or changed background on a grand scale.

J2020F: So, the ingrained habits -- how origination, execution, improvement and application were practiced in a mature economic era -- almost always blinded the “practitioners” to the disruption about to commoditize their livelihoods.

Explorer: The progression of economic offerings began with commodities in the agrarian economy with its unique set of ingrained habits.

J2020F: As we discovered on our trip across the West– with the story of the Hudson’s Bay Company, one of the oldest, still active companies in the world, was almost 200 years old when Canada was created in 1867, roughly 20 years after the California Gold Rush.

Explorer: That’s right, and the core function is extracting natural resources that are stored in bulk once removed from the ground.

J2020F: Once word got out about fortunes to be made in mining and land to be had in the West to farm and raise cattle, the settlers migrated in at a ferocious pace to strike it rich and create their own value.

Explorer: What they didn’t consume themselves they traded. The seller of commodities is a trader on the open market to buyers looking for certain characteristics of the material offered.

J2020F: For years, while the fur trade flourished – getting hides back to St. Louis, or at least to trading posts as an interim step to exchange for next season’s supplies– became a major challenge.

Explorer: Which created the opportunity of bringing the market to the trappers – with the Mountain Men Rendezvous.

J2020F: It seems like for the earlier part of the Western history, all the trappers and mountain men did was to constantly search for new and untapped beaver “communities.”

Explorer: They not only had to survive the terrain and weather, but they had to make it back to market in one piece traveling through Native American territories.

J2020F: As did the miners who came west for the California Gold Rush and stopped in Virginia City to work the Comestock Lode – as Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain did.

Explorer: It was one thing to discover the mother lode and quite another to bring it to market – depending where it was discovered.

J2020F: And, as happened in almost every mining town that struck it rich, a boom turned to bust.

Explorer: And that is a key point. A key success factor is discovering new substances, especially when a poor or depleted site no longer supplies demand in the market trades.

J2020F: So according to Pine and Gilmore, in the Agrarian economy the material needs to be discovered, the execution is the process of extracting the material from above or below the ground, and a correction occurs when a poor site triggers further exploration to find a new site and finally, the application comes in the form of a trade which connects the material to the market.

J2020F: Or else?

Explorer: Or else get used to a hardscrabble life unless you can find a way to “swim upstream” to higher economic value.

J2020F: You’re talking about Pine & Gilmore’s second progression of economic value?

Explorer: Yes – the making of goods in an industrial economy.

J2020F: When the pelts made their way back to St. Louis to be manufactured into top hats for customers on the east coast and in Europe, right?

Explorer: Yes. And, later on when the steam engine showed up as a way to extract more ore in mines and then replace mule trains for transportation in the form of the railroad.

J2020F: The whole industrial revolution, second wave.

Explorer: Exactly. The economic function is making tangible products through a standardized process that are inventoried after production.

J2020F: Beaver pelts become top hats, buffalo hides become clothing, metals become steam engines, etc.

Explorer. And the manufacturer sells the product to a customer who looks for specific features of the product.

J2020F: Or until a different material is discovered to create a new demand or a more efficient process? As was the case when silk from worms replaced the demand for beaver pelts?

Explorer: Yes. While commodities are discovered, new inventions are developed for the manufacture to make.

J2020F: Any problem triggers a solution intended to fix a mistake in the manufacturing process?

Explorer: Right. The focus shifts to improving the efficiencies of manufacturing processes instead of searching for new sources of commodities.

J2020F: And, finally the buying and selling transactions connects manufacturers with users of their products – as has been the several-hundred-year history of The Hudson’s Bay Company. Up next? Intangible services and memorable experiences just around the corner?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Winging It: Improvising the Reinvention of Customer Experience

2006-09-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Winging It: Improvising the Reinvention of Customer Experience

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"And this quiet crisis involves the steady erosion of America's scientific and engineering base, which has always been the source of American innovation and our rising standard of living.... The U.S. today is in a truly global environment, and those competitor countries are not only wide-awake, they are running a marathon while we are running sprints. If left unchecked, this could challenge our preeminence and capacity to innovate."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Each of the profit paths to higher margins uses an approach that eliminates customer sacrifice – the gap between what customers expect and what they perceive they receive. Each step up to the next level of value-added (increase in relevance, differentiation and premium price offered) varies two customizing characteristics (changed or unchanged). Each (customizing goods and customizing services) follows the same sequence -- first developing, then linking, modularizing and then renewing the previous offering.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: How does this model apply to the customization of services into staged experiences?

Explorer: The short answer? Through the interplay of dynamic or stable performances and scripts.

J2020F: So it closely resembles the way a company can mass customize a product, but in this model performance replaces product and scripts replace process change?

Explorer: Yes, that’s right.

J2020F: And, so I imagine where before we started in the upper left hand corner with invention for products and exploring for services, we start in the same place for staging experiences?

Explorer: Yes, in the double dynamic stage -- for both performance and scripts -- the world of Improv Theater. Think back to when we visited Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado or downtown Aspen.

J2020F: Both were very vibrant street scenes. You never know what will happen, it is nearly always fresh and spontaneous -- a new-to-the-world performance every time.

Explorer: The performance and scripts develop into stable theater. In the first anything goes, including customer participation.

J2020F: What happens?

Explorer: In this stage customers are afforded little direct interaction. Once you've seen the act, it changes ever so slightly until the stable performance links back to a more dynamic script in which some customers and performers interact dynamically over and over.

J2020F: So you’re describing a play or a presentation that we would normally associate with an audience. And then, it might morph into the Drew Carrey show. The audience suggests situations and the performers improvise scenes.

Explorer: That’s right.

J2020F: Then?

Explorer: Next the script re-stabilizes while the performance varies a lot in the modularized stage.

J2020F: What do you mean?

Explorer: Here the scripted bits can be rearranged to suit the audience -- the whole purpose of the performance is to capitalize on opportunities to engage and amaze the customer.

J2020F: When we went back to Pearl Street for a second time – I noticed examples of that.

Explorer: The performer allows the audience to dictate which module of script will be performed through their reactions to previous modules. So, on the second night what you saw were bits, but in a different sequence than the first night.

J2020F: And, the whole cycle renews itself with a return to dynamic performance and scripts. It just seems that the more entrenched or widespread the former economic era is or became, the more difficult it is for the old dogs to learn new tricks. Where are we today?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reinventing Customer Service: Explore, Experiment, Gratify and Discover

2006-09-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

Reinventing Customer Service: Explore, Experiment, Gratify and Discover

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Compassionate flatists believe that this is no time to be sitting on one's hands, thinking exclusively in traditional left-right, consumer-versus-company terms. Instead we should be thinking about how collaboration between consumers and companies can provide an enormous amount of protection against the worst features of the flattening of the world, without opting for classic protectionism. 'Compassionate capitalism. Think it sounds like an oxymoron? Think again,' said (Marc) Gunther. 'Even as America is supposedly turning conservative on social issues, big business is moving in the other direction.'"

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Removing customer sacrifice opens the door to customization and higher margins in much the same way that mass customization is achieved through the interplay between dynamic and stable product and process states.

Journal 2020 Foresight: According to our earlier discussion, products commoditized the value of commodities, and service commoditized products, and now experience commoditizes service, right?

Explorer: Yes. And the strategy for service providers to increase margins and profits is to customize their service while at the same time commoditizing their competitors.

J2020F: Which leads to experience?

Explorer: And, by customizing experience the highest relevance for customers will be their personal transformation. Which looking backwards will eventually commoditize experience.

J2020F: But as an economic era, we aren’t there yet, right?

Explorer: True, but we are in coaching professions and in commercialized religion already – those tribal clusters in the Academic professions – Brand-as-Experts and Traditional Institutions.

J2020F: What can we expect in terms of ushering in a new economic era?

Explorer: I’d expect it to come from those sharing the border with the Agents – those Professional Practice Academics or University Research Center Academics who might end up collaborating with the Agent Thought Leaders or R&D Laboratories.

J2020F: In any rate, say you’re the Reinvention Chef – or Chief -- challenged with mobilizing a reinvention team in a service organization facing a major decline -- how do you reinvent service into experience?

Explorer: In much the same way that we did in the mass-customization model.

J2020F: With stable and dynamic product or process changes?

Explorer: Not exactly. Same kind of model, though. We develop, link, modularize and then renew. This time, however, it is between changing and not changing the service as well as its representation.

J2020F: How does it work?

Explorer: You start at the same place, as you did last time with reinvention. In the upper left hand box, you begin with an exploring experience in which you offer either-or options.

J2020F: So this is like a decision-tree? If customers choose this, then the path takes them here. If they choose that, then the path takes them there?

Explorer: Yes. But, you are using something like a structured set of choices in an initial interview. You and your customers collaboratively determine what they need through these guided choices – and then you produce it.

J2020F: In this model, I see there’s interplay between a product or service change and a representation change.

Explorer: That’s right. Sometimes it’s necessary to produce a different service and in other cases the service stays the same, but how it’s represented changes.

J2020F: What about in this first case, exploring what the customer needs?

Explorer: You are changing both -- its representation and the service itself -- to meet the outcome of the either- or choices.

J2020F: I see that as in the previous mass customization model, you now move to the bottom left box when you develop a product or service.

Explorer: When you know what customers want you move from a change service stage to a both a no change service and no change representation and you develop what they want.

J2020F: How is that customization or personalization?

Explorer: You offer one product, and allow users to alter it to fit their needs in an experimenting experience. Typically, they adaptively sort-through how they want to change the product to better fit their needs.

J2020F: I need help understanding this one.

Explorer: This box differs from the exploring experience. Together you and the customer make decisions about the product or service and then produce the product to those specifications.

J2020F: Right. I get that. How is this “sort-through” different?

Explorer: The product doesn’t change in its final form, but it can be one of many that are chosen, based on the options or features a customer sorts through to get there.

J2020F: Maybe an example would help.

Explorer: Take Grey Owl’s “BOF Knowledge Base.”Clients sort through their preferences for a town or a neighborhood in a town, their own “Greendale,” that meets most of their key criteria having completed Basecamp – skiing, 20 miles to a university, low cost of living, growing job base, a lifestyle profile similar to the one they enjoy now, and within a certain age range – say, the F1- Accumulated Wealthy who are mostly college-educated, white-collar Baby Boomers living in sprawling homes, for instance.

J2020F: Yes.

Explorer: The town that is returned as a result of their search – the “product” in this case doesn’t change as a result of the process. It isn’t custom-produced. Instead, the “search path” to it may change by sorting through different competing criteria.

J2020F: Got it. The customer can see if the town based on its description is the best fit or not. If not, – say in this case Del Mar offers everything but local skiing -- the customer tweaks the criteria slightly, say to Rocky Mountains and a different product – or town materializes.

Explorer: The next change, from a no change in the product's representation to a change is linked to the customer gratification experience in which you offer them one standard good, but differently to different customers.

J2020F: You move to the lower right box.

Explorer: Here you eliminate customer sacrifice, but in a different way. Even though the product hasn't changed, the gratifying experience is sold through a cosmetic change in representation.

J2020F: How would that approach differ from the other two?

Explorer: Let’s say in the Knowledge Base a town in Colorado called Durango exits. Different customers will find it, visit it and will experience it slightly differently based on what gratifies them.

J2020F: How is this different?

Explorer: Durango can be found in the Knowledge Base as a result of focusing on age-group segment alone. If you want to hang out with Gen Y exclusively – then Durango is your town.

J2020F: If I’m an avid snowboarder, Durango is my town.

Explorer: If you’re a Baby Boomer looking to invest in a second home that has the potential for reasonable real estate appreciation and you can rent it out until you move, Durango is your town.

J2020F: So the product or service – in this case, Durango can be – and is – offered and packaged slightly differently to a different category of tourist or potential resident or investor, right?

Explorer: Yes, and when Durango can be modularized we now can tailor offerings without customers knowing that they what they are experiencing has been customized for them in a discovering experience.

J2020F: Now, we’re talking about the upper right hand corner.

Explorer: Yes. The customer experiences a transparently elusive discovery process that can be repeated again.

J2020F: How does that work.

Explorer: In our conversation, you tell me you are looking for something in a vacation home and I magically sort through the Knowledge Base mentally or with you present and offer Durango as the best of three choices.

J2020F: What if Durango is not the best fit after I visit?

Explorer: You tell me why. I tweak your profile of preferences based upon our conversation and give you two or three different locations – Pagosa Springs, Colorado or Angel Fire, New Mexico.

J2020F: So this way of eliminating customer sacrifice is in person?

Explorer: No, not necessarily. By saving your choices and preferences to an online profile, you can screen out all the possibilities in Grey Owl’s Knowledge Base that will never fit, and filter in only those that do.

J2020F: So your customer won’t have to sort-through hundreds of choices. And, as that customer you probably don’t care that there are thousands of towns from which you can choose. You don’t want to bother, right?

Explorer: Why would you? And the whole process to eliminate customer sacrifice can be renewed for further customization in the exploring experience again -- when you determine what they need and then produce it.

J2020F: Develop, link, modularize and renew! Does it work the same way when you customize experience?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Customer Suspense: Untouchable Interplay Between Mystery and Nostalgia

2006-09-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

Customer Suspense: Untouchable Interplay Between Mystery and Nostalgia

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The way I like to think about this for our society as a whole is that every person should figure out how to make himself or herself into an untouchable. That's right. When the world goes flat, the caste system gets turned upside down. In India untouchables may be the lowest social class, but in a flat world everyone should want to be an untouchable. Untouchables ... are people whose jobs cannot be outsourced."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. If you don’t want your business to become commoditized by your competitor, you must close the customer satisfaction gaps with the most relevant offerings as perceived by your best customers.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: You’ve been talking about degrees of relevance as perceived by the customer. Isn’t that just customer satisfaction?

Explorer: According to Pine and Gilmore, that’s the foundation or the lowest level of relevance. And mass-customization closes the customer satisfaction gap.

J2020F: O.K. Now I’m a little confused. We already concluded that mass customization provides several options from which customers can choose, but it is not totally personalized or customized to their needs.

Explorer: Right. Let’s start with what it means.

J2020F: By it, I mean customer satisfaction.

Explorer: Customer satisfaction is the difference between what customers expect to get and what they perceive they get.

J2020F: And you already said it occupies the lower rung with customers and is the most vulnerable to commoditization.

Explorer: It becomes the industry standard. If you don’t provide it, you don’t make it as a viable enterprise. But meeting that standard only allows you to charge what the market will bear – a commodity price.

J2020F: So in the same way that making goods commoditized, well, commodities competitors who offer better service will commoditize your offerings as well. What can you do about it?

Explorer: Highly personalized offerings move the customer from sacrifice, to surprise to suspense – and with each move you can charge more.

J2020F: What do mean by sacrifice, surprise and suspense?

Explorer: Customer sacrifice is what customers want -- exactly -- minus what they settle for.

J2020F: So, if I call my bank for some account information and they put me on hold while they check into it I won’t mind too much.

Explorer: Unless it takes longer than you are used to waiting – even if you’ve been spoiled by a business that is not even a bank. The longer it takes past the time you expected the wait would be, may put you over the top. You feel like you’ve had to sacrifice more in waiting than what you got in return.

J2020F: Don’t get me started. I recently renewed my driver’s license after visiting my credit union. My credit union eliminated all the paper work I need to fill out to make a deposit or withdrawal, so I can zip in and out. Only to spend the time I saved in line for nearly an hour at the DMV. What about surprise and suspense?

Explorer: Customer surprise is the difference between what customers get to perceive minus what customer expect to get.

J2020F: So, if I’m going to a movie and don’t think I’ll particularly like it, because I haven’t heard or read any reviews, but it has non-stop action and technical scenes I’ve never witnessed before and I’m amazed?

Explorer: You’re getting it. Or, if you had stood in line, first for hours at the department of motor vehicles, before you went to your credit union for the very first time, the contrast would have been significant. You would have been pleasantly surprised. And, then you’d be eager to tell all your friends and co-workers, right?

J2020F: I would have expected DMV treatment. So, what about the last type, customer suspense?

Explorer: That’s the difference between what customers do not yet know and what they remember from the past.

J2020F: So, try this out. This happened the other day. I’m walking through a mall and I smell caramel popcorn from a nearby cart and almost immediately recall nostalgic moments from my childhood with my parents at a circus. I had no clue that I’d be drawn to buy some.

Explorer: And, you’ll tell someone else – especially if that cart managed to stage your experience with some theatrical elements.

J2020F: It did.

Explorer: And, you’ll come back and pay double for the experience and fond memory associated with it – plus you’ll bring some of your friends. Let’s go! I can drive.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Custom Reinvention Process: Develop, Link, Modularize and Renew

2006-09-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

Custom Reinvention Process: Develop, Link, Modularize and Renew

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Economists often compare China's and India's entry into the global economy to the moment when the railroad lines crossing America finally connected New Mexico to California, with its much larger population.... (A)ll the people in New Mexico say those people -- Californians -- will wipe out all our factories .... Sure, there is fear, and that fear is good because that stimulates a willingness to change and explore and find more things to do better."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH: Any enterprise has a choice when it comes to setting a price for what it produces. It can choose to have the market set the price. Doing so forces the company to face stiff competition based solely on the lowest price. But, there is a better way.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: What if you can’t compete with the flat earth Wal-Mart of offshore, outsourced producers?

Explorer: Then you have to rethink and reinvent your pricing strategy in terms of your relevance to your customers’ needs and the degree of differentiation you can demonstrate. The future belongs to those who can personalize experiences to transform their customers.

J2020F: Even today, you have to provide the highest perceived value versus your competitors to increase your margins and profits, right?

Explorer: Yes. The ability to charge premium prices and thus enjoy higher profits is a result of providing a product or service that is highly differentiated and is the most relevant to the needs of your customers. But, you have to begin with where you are in the customization – commoditization food chain.

J2020F: What about for a product manufacturer?

Explorer: You need a talent team that can manage four variables.

J2020F: How does it work?

Explorer: We've covered the themes already, in our discussion of the four talent scenarios and how they meet the challenges of each successive stage of growth.

J2020F: But now for a little more detail.

Explorer: We identified how a company moves between divergent and convergent stages.

J2020F: A period that is more dynamic and one that is more stable or more in control?

Explorer: Yes. Well in this model we have a slightly different four-box model defined by a change in the product – its feature or function, or a change in the process – how it is made and improved.

J2020F: O.K. I’m with you.

Explorer: And, we can have either a dynamic or a stable state for both product change and process change.

J2020F: Maybe it will become clearer as you continue.

Explorer: In the box where we have both a dynamic product and dynamic process change something is invented or reinvented. That’s why the upper left square has a red background signifying its Agent influence.

J2020F: In other models an Agent does the inventing in the start-up phase of an organization’s growth or reinvention in the later stages, right?

Explorer: Yes. In the start-up invention begins with the Breakpoint Inventors and Commercial Innovators. In the decline-prevention stage reinvention begins with the Thought Leaders and the R& D Laboratories who discover new product niches and breakthrough products.

J2020F: Gotcha. What’s next?

Explorer: And, just as we followed the path from Agent to Athlete as the product proved its worth and became mass-produced with help from Associates in the Growth Phase, a similar path occurs in this model.

J2020F: What is it?

Explorer: The dynamic (organic, experimental) invention evolves to both a stable product and stable process change when it is developed and mass-produced.

J2020F: On, yes. I see it. We start in the upper left hand corner and move to the lower left hand corner – the square with the green background.

Explorer: During the reinvention stage, we’re following a similar counter clockwise rotation, but on the inner circle -- involving the Operationally Excellents to outsource non-core competencies.

J2020F: Then, what?

Explorer: The product can’t stay unchanged and the process used to make it can’t stay in a stable state forever. A growing customer base won’t allow it.

J2020F: This is after the Athletes have figured out how to apply all the emerging knowledge they’ve gained and the Associates begin improving on it, since they’re the ones charged with sustaining the innovation, right?

Explorer: Right. Once in the market place, whether from a start-up or from a reinvention beginning, the stable product moves again to a dynamic incremental configuration in the manufacturing process.

J2020F: And then what happens?

Explorer: Once again the dynamic process, yet stable manufacturing product moves to a dynamic product, but stable process.

J2020F: So the path is from lower left to lower right, and now to upper right on the chart – to the “Professionals,” the more commercial Academics, whose task it is to finish modularizing it by capturing and circulating the new proprietary best practices.

Explorer: That occurs when the Associates conspire with the Academics to figure out how to modularize and mass customize product changes. On the inner circle of the reinvention path, Internal Change Agents – having collaborated with Operationally Excellents -- modularize the product in preparation for mass customization.

J2020F: And what is the advantage in all of this?

Explorer: Customers can choose any one of several options, but while each option seems like it has been customized for them, in reality the product is not totally personalized or customized to their needs.

J2020F: So it allows the enterprise to increase their price without a major disruption – moving from making goods to delivering services?

Explorer: That’s right. They get to step up to the next level of value while they increase their margins and force their competition to drop theirs until they’re customers follow suit.

J2020F: Which accounts for the last arrow – Renew. I can see how the product reinvention process must become a core process itself. Otherwise a mature organization will face decline again. Right?

Explorer. True. But wait, there’s more!

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Ultimate in Personalization: Staged Experiences to Transform Customers

2006-09-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

Ultimate in Personalization: Staged Experiences to Transform Customers

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"And always remember: The Indians and Chinese are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top -- and that is a good thing! They want higher standards of living, not sweatshops; they want brand names, not junk; they want to trade their motor scooters for cars and their pens and pencils for computers. And the more they do that, the higher they climb, the more room is created at the top -- because the more they have, the more they spend, the more diverse product markets become, and the more niches for specialization are created as well."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. In the future, according to Pine and Gilmore, even experiences will become a commodity when customized uniquely to the customer who will pay a premium to the most differentiated competitor who can transform -- provide the highest form of relevance -- that customer.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Where will it end? And, like my kids would ask on vacation, are we there yet?

Explorer: In much the same way that organizations grow through transitional and transformational phases, individual customers do too.

J2020F: What does that mean?

Explorer: We’ll go into more detail later, but think about the process as a metamorphosis from one life stage to another. It may be event-triggered or an adult development maturation process.

J2020F: So a coach or mentor assists the person who changes or matures? Like taking an amateur tennis player to the next level -- on the professional tour?

Explorer: Yes. The “customers” develop into a more fully functioning and lasting version of themselves. While a staged experience, like a play or a trip through Main Street in Disneyland or Disneyworld, may be entertaining, educational or provide an escape, its effect is temporary.

J2020F: O.K. And?

Explorer: Thus, the staged experience can be commoditized when customers become transformed. But, not every company is as far along as the theory would have you believe – as the answer to the second part of your question – the one your vacationing kids ask.

J2020F: So, then where are we today in this march from commodity to customization and commoditization?

Explorer: Most product manufacturing industries experience shrinking margins unless they shift to outsourced contractors, use software to link and synchronize their off-shore supply chain and look for strategies to combat the commoditization threats from service providers.

J2020F: What are they doing about it?

Explorer: Their reinvention talent tribes are working through the adjustments required to mass customize their offerings to resemble a more personalized service.

J2020F: So, there is a strategy that can be effective for them?

Explorer: Yes, they succeed when they master the interplay between dynamic and stable product and process changes.

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Stepping Stones for Rebuilding Mountains Out of Flat Earth Mole Hills

2006-09-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

Stepping Stones for Rebuilding Mountains Out of Flat Earth Mole Hills

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"How do we deal with the fact that those eighty knowledge workers from China will be willing to work for so much less than the eighty knowledge workers from America? How will this difference get resolved?"

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. In the lower right-hand corner of Pine and Gilmore’s model, from “The Experience Economy,” is where the lowest valued offerings can be found – at the intersection where pricing (premium or market-determined), needs of customers (relevant or irrelevant) and competitive position (differentiated or undifferentiated) converge. The lower right position corresponds to the lowest valued skill and experience offerings in the “Doing-What-You-Love Scenarios,” the “Trapped and Permanently Temporaries”

Journal of 2020 Foresight: One of the parallels you can draw from our models is, just like physical commodities and manufactured goods, skills and work experiences become obsolete and commoditized too – especially for the “Urban Trapped,” “The Cutters,” those “Starting Over,” and “Interim Middle Managers.”

Explorer: Pine and Gilmore’s model explains the cause for the “Trapped and Permanently Temporary” scenario. In severe cases entire communities, just like the 550 mining ghost towns in the Sierras find themselves unable to compete on the world stage.

J2020F: They’re trapped in a negative economic spiral that feeds upon itself -- the interplay of undifferentiated, market determined and irrelevant skills in the region’s workforce.

Explorer: In metropolitan areas you find the “Urban Trapped” living in the undesirable and rundown neighborhoods. Their rural counterparts, “Rustic Eagles,” live off the grid on country back roads.

J2020F: Pine and Gilmore say that over time packaged goods can be customized to better meet customer needs. When that happens in an industry the process of making goods becomes commoditized. Today, all things being equal, in terms of quality, customers don't care as much about which products they buy, right?

Explorer: I think that depends on if they know anything about the products. Even with the Internet as a resource, I hear a lot of people complain about how much of an expert you have to become to tell if you’re getting a good deal or not.

J2020F: There are just too many choices.

Explorer: For many everyday products, people will shop at Wal-Mart or Costco, to your point.

J2020F: But for the others requiring the research?

Explorer: Shoppers take their savings on price and, because they care more about the experience of owning, say a computer, consumer technology or entertainment system, they’ll be willing to pay a higher premium to service providers who can chose the right product for them, set it up and train them –-- in its use or specific application for their enjoyment.

J2020F: So, just as packaging and producing products commanded a higher margin when products commoditized what was extracted from the ground, so too services will commoditize products?

Explorer: That’s right. We’re jumping to the next stepping-stone to the left in our model. Delivering services customizes the goods-making process, so that the high margins the goods-makers swiped from the commodity extractors move in a similar fashion closer to the customer (to the upper left) as services are delivered.

J2020F: We even noticed an example during our travels, in Utah I believe.

Explorer: What do you mean?

J2020F: The fur trapping and trading business was extremely difficult to run – as their expedition journals recount -- especially when the mountain men had to haul what they collected after a season’s worth of work to the trading posts and merchant centers.

Explorer: Oh yeah. All that changed, though when the merchants and traders came to the trappers on the banks of the Green River– an enterprising idea accredited to Jedediah Smith – a Baby Boomer Transcendentalist.

J2020F: Rather than forcing the fur traders to traverse all the way down the mountain passes to trade their wares at the way stations, forts and trading posts set up along the overland trails from Independence, Missouri, the merchants came to their customers.

Explorer: The essential whole supply chain comes to the point of purchase – or trade – as the case may be, thus eliminating middlemen.

J2020F: In today’s flat earth with the advent of synchronized technologies connecting worldwide supply chains the making goods becomes a commodity and should be outsourced, just ask local manufacturers. Or IBM. Is that the end of the road?

Explorer: Not at all.

J2020F: It feels like it. What’s next then?

Explorer: According to Pine and Gilmore those competitors who differentiate themselves by staging the experiences customer’s value even more can customize service delivery. It’s all about the experience of personalization.

J2020F: Which is what a Rendezvous became for a few decades – a chance to re-supply, swap stories, party and play games of skill and chance.

Explorer: And, what Buffalo Bill figured out during the last few decades of his career.

J2020F: So as the interplay continues between customization and commoditization -- services, like products and raw materials become commodities.

Explorer: And that’s what’s next for the reinvention teams.

J2020F: What's next?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Wild West Tales and Products More Valuable Than Commodities Extracted

2006-08-31T06:56:00.000-07:00

Wild West Tales and Products More Valuable Than Commodities Extracted

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The flattening process relentlessly trims the fat out of business and life, but, as Ken noted, fat is what gives life taste and texture. Yes, the consumer in us wants Wal-Mart prices, with all the fat gone. But the employee in us wants a little fat left on the bone, the way Costco does it, so that it can offer health care to almost all its employees, rather than just less than half of them, as Wal-Mart does. But the shareholder in us wants Wal-Mart's profit margins, not Costco's. Yet the citizen in us wants Costco's benefits, rather than Wal-Mart's, because the difference ultimately may have to be paid for by society."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. The history of the West– and indeed for a much longer time before the opening and closing the West in the 19th Century – is a story of living off of the land, first for self-sufficiency and then for profit in trade.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: With hindsight we can look back and see successive eras of economic development.

Explorer: Most of our journey together throughout five of the eight western states revealed local stories about how Eastern whites explored and mapped the territories unknown to them (but home to Native Americans) – as they trapped fur and became sophisticated traders.

J2020F: That’s right. The world economy sought the products of the fur trade, but the customer purchasing a beaver skinned top hat could care less how the fur, a commodity, was trapped or by whom.

Explorer: It didn’t matter if you were John Colter, Jim Bridges or Kit Carson. An undifferentiated competitive position means the market sets the price because what you offer carries no brand value, loyalty or relevance to the ultimate customer.

J2020F: And, wasn’t the market price set in St. Louis?

Explorer: The fur trade put St. Louis on the map – literally. The trappers and traders exchanged pelts there, but as an outpost for the east coast and European aristocracy, St. Louis established the prices. Which became even more painful for trappers when silkworms replaced beaver pelts as “the thing to buy” in top hats and the bottom fell out of the fur trade market around the 1840s.

J2020F: Almost fifty years later, didn’t Buffalo Bill Cody sense his life straddled a “customized – commoditized” economic era?

Explorer: Yes. His Wild West show toured for three decades throughout the United States and Europe once he realized how to stage tall tales and the mythology of the western experience.

J2020F: One of the ironies was his troupe of entertainers relied on the railroads and other turn of the century industrial inventions to travel efficiently from one venue to the next.

Explorer: The industrial revolution put the West out of business. And, yet he sensed that his audiences hungered for the experience that could be no more.

J2020F: He made a better living at the higher end of the premium priced, customer-relevant, highly differentiated value chain glamorizing what was in reality a hard scrabble way of life scratching the dirt for an undifferentiated commodity, usually extracted from the ground, grown in the ground as in agriculture or raised above it as on cattle ranches, for instance.

Explorer: Throughout Colorado, Nevada and California extracting commodities in the mid-1800s provided prospectors and miners a living, but by mixing and processing commodities, the higher priced offering moved up the value-chain to those making the goods from the metals mined.

J2020F: They could charge a higher price and make a higher margin on what they produced.

Explorer: It was something Mark Twain experienced and wrote about in “Roughing It” as the first “Trapped and Permanently Temporary” drifter trying to strike it rich in gold and silver, but instead found a more valuable profession by spinning yarns and reporting about others like himself in booming Virginia City, Nevada.

J2020F: In severe cases entire communities, just like the 550 mining ghost towns in the Sierras, that couldn't adjust found themselves unable to compete on the world stage.

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Customize Before You’re Commoditized: Premium, Differentiated and Relevant

2006-08-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

Customize Before You’re Commoditized: Premium, Differentiated and Relevant

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"'While we sympathize with any grieving family, Yahoo! accounts and any contents therein are nontransferable' even after death, Karen Mahon, a Yahoo! spokeswoman told the AP. As we get rid of more and more paper and communicate through more and more digitized formats, you better sort out before you die, and include in your will, to whom, if anyone, you want to leave your bits. This is very real. I stored many chapters of this book in my AOL account, feeling it would be safest in cyberspace. If something had happened to me during my writing, my family and publisher would have had to sue AOL to try to get this text. Somebody, please, sort all this out."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. The rules of the game have dramatically changed. Finding your sweet spot -- the best fit for you based upon the divergent or convergent requirements for a particular phase of organizational growth, the economic or business cycle it operates in and your talents and abilities -- is one thing. A whole other trend towards relentless commoditization now practiced globally is quite another.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: The significant challenge facing the unique blend of talent tribes tasked with reinventing their corporation is – reinventing it as what? Where can they find a new niche capable of generating the kinds of margins and growth opportunities required to sustain and grow the mature business?

Explorer: Agents worldwide, now – not just in the U.S. – keep on introducing disruptive technologies that when combined with lower overhead operations suck the margins out of what used to be very profitable businesses.

J2020F: So what can reinvention teams do who witness their bread and butter products becoming a commodity?

Explorer: What we’re really saying is you have to keep one eye on what is relevant to the needs of your customers or your organization's customers and another on the differentiation of your competitive position from everyone else in your industry – or else.

J2020F: Or else you are road kill?

Explorer: Yup. Here's a clue that has to do with broad trends in the marketplace to help reinvention teams determine a new direction – or for a way for you in your career to regain your marketability if you’re looking for a job.

J2020F: Bring it on.

Explorer: Obviously the best competitive position is to be highly differentiated and highly relevant to your best customers' needs so you can charge premium prices.

J2020F: You’ve got my attention because, if the marketplace forces me to keep cutting costs and prices, how can I stay in business? Go on.

Explorer: While the whole secret to success in each stage of an organization's growth is the interplay between divergent loosening and convergent tightening, so too do we see an interplay.

J2020F: And it is?

Explorer: This time it is between the commoditization of your offering while you customize your next – as has been happening since prosuming hunters and gatherers traded for what they needed and then cultivated crops and mined metals out of the round earth.

J2020F: And that is the story we encountered throughout our journey West embodied in the Hudson’s Bay Company history over hundreds of years.

Explorer: That’s right. They “stepped up” to the next higher margin offering by customizing or personalizing what they had been selling successfully as one era ended and the next emerged.

J2020F: As did some of the fur trappers and Mark Twain?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Every Organization Has a Stage, Pick the Right Cast for the Next Act

2006-08-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

Every Organization Has a Stage, Pick the Right Cast for the Next Act

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"Something else is absolutely going to have to be sorted out in a flat world: Who owns what? How do we build legal barriers to protect an innovator's intellectual property so he or she can reap its financial benefits and plow those profits into a new invention? And from the other side, how do we keep walls low enough so that we encourage the sharing of intellectual property, which is required more and more to do cutting-edge innovation?"

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat“

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Armed with the knowledge that whatever has worked in the previous phase of an organization’s growth is exactly 180 degrees opposite of what is required for success in the next phase, you can sell your value proposition confidently.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: If we revisit the bell-shaped curve again for a moment, is there some sort of short-hand way of sizing up needs of a potential employer, client or customer from a distance – some sort of educated guess?

Explorer: You bet there is cyclical expansion or contraction periods. Moving back and forth between loosening and tightening of controls and between divergent and convergent management practices.

J2020F: Tied to economic cycles? They can come and go regardless of what state an organization is currently in, right?

Explorer: Sure. We see cyclical swings back and forth between diversification and consolidation.

J2020F: I'm guessing as the economic cycle contracts the organization consolidates its product offerings, while they diversify their product line when it expands.

Explorer: That's true. Each of the typical turning points between innovation and efficiency, or between expansion and contraction corresponds to a loosening divergent or a tightening convergent organization strategy.

J2020F: Divergent in what way?

Explorer: Usually away from a structured, centralized, or coordinated organization structure and decision-making approach.

J2020F: To what?

Explorer: Towards a more unstructured, decentralized hierarchy designed to deal with the competitive environment changes and increased complexity. This is the innovation-driven, adaptive period.

J2020F: And the opposite?

Explorer: The reverse begins with a convergence away from an autonomous organization and decision-making process and moves to a more coordinated, centralized structure -- designed to economize on scarce resources.

J2020F: This same kind of divergence to convergence and visa versa occurs even independent of economic or market conditions, right?

Explorer: Let's recap. The start-up phase favored by Agents is an organic, creative and collaborative phase that ends in a crisis of leadership.

J2020F: The ticket to the next stage is management -- a tightening or convergent approach -- just the opposite of the first and favored by a combination of Agents and Athletes.

Explorer: But when a functional organization reaches its end state it is a crisis or autonomy that requires a loosening approach found in divisional structures, favored by Athletes and Associates.

J2020F: When the strength of the divisional organization over extends it reaches a limit and a crisis of control requiring a tightening approach ends in a matrix -- structure favored by Associates and Academics.

Explorer: But that runs its course in a red tape crisis requiring a loosening network organizational structure, favored by unique combinations of Academics and Agents.

J2020F: And by learning lessons from the core competencies assembled from Agents, Athletes, Associates and Academics to pull off a reinvention strategy organization masters the timing of shifting from loosening or divergent approaches to convergent or tightening approaches to divergent and loosening again with less resistance.

Explorer: The most difficult lesson is to begin the reinvention efforts during a time when major growth dominates the collective mindshare and budgeted resources among Athletes and Associates but before Agents are about to depart to prevent major shock to the organization’s system further down the path.

J2020F: But, let's say I'm the Chief Reinvention Officer for my organization, on this flat earth with relentless commodization, how do I pull a rabbit out of the hat?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Internal Change Agents: Not Too Tan, Not Too Red to Reinvent on a Flat Earth

2006-08-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

Internal Change Agents: Not Too Tan, Not Too Red to Reinvent on a Flat Earth

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"As you sort out and weigh your multiple identities -- consumer, employee, citizen, taxpayer, shareholder -- you have to decide. So you prefer the Wal-Mart approach or the Costco approach? This is going to be an important political issue in a flat world: Just how flat do you want corporations to be when you factor in all your identities? Because when you take the middleman out of business, when you totally flatten your supply chain, you also take a certain element of humanity out of life."

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. So, bottom line – this is all about finding the best fit for you in the same or different geographical location. You can target one of four types of organizations. Or one or two phases in an organization’s growth that fit you best in a way that increases your career equity and marketability.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: We began these series of discussions about the second half of a different model – the “right hemisphere” which is all about “Work Life.”

Explorer: That’s right. Both you and Eagle described how to do what you love and how to future-proof your life plans.

J2020F: All about what we’d call the “left hemisphere” described as the extended Boomer family making decisions about life, love and quality of life communities.

Explorer: Of the four scenarios you described, the most disturbing as a future for Boomers was the “Trapped and Permanently Temporary.” The decision boiled down to finding the right fit for employment in the same or a different location.

J2020F: That’s true. No matter where you look in a geographical area, if you know which stages of growth – start-up, rapid growth, sustained growth, maturity and decline or reinvention-- appeal to your strengths and you can determine which phase a new employer, client or customer is in or about to begin, you will find the right fit.

Explorer: The trick to working for others boils down to a matter of understanding if you fit in one of the Agent, Athlete, Associate or Academic tribal communities. What’s more important to you – a fast pace or a methodical pace? Can you become a loyal company man or woman, or do you crave independence?

J2020F: Then what do you do about it?

Explorer: If you are more of an Agent – then you’ll shine in the start-up phase and in the initial stage of emerging growth. Depending upon the degree of affiliation you require – you may discover that you have a flair for intrepreneuring or collaborating with change agents in the reinvention stage.

J2020F: Or you may want to pursue the lone eagle path to join a rapid-prototyping or an R&D outfit, a think tank or a commercial product laboratory in a pristine or resort community.

Explorer: I think that the most difficult choice is for former Academics – those overly specialized professionals who get caught in the reductions in force from mature organizations spiraling into a decline. They make up the ranks of Interim Middle Managers, those Starting Over or the Portfolio Professionals and Digitally Mobile looking for a new job.

J2020F: Their contribution, that keeps them employed along the reinvention path, is harvesting proprietary best practices generated from a skunk works, right?

Explorer: True. They tend to take on more entrepreneurial Athletic characteristics and thrive on the loosened organizational structure – more so than their more traditional Academic counterparts.

J2020F: Don’t they have a lot in common with the Athletes, who share Academic characteristics?

Explorer: They do, because decisions have to be made about what to keep and what to throw out – or outsource to suppliers.

J2020F: And, to have the systems in place to monitor the supply chain and partnerships required to produce products and services efficiently.

Explorer: But the glue that holds the reinvention path together comes from the Associate-Agents who become internal change agents. They have to thoroughly and intimately understand the old culture – where the points of major resistance lie and how to interpret new niche discoveries and their resultant breakthrough products in a way that the status-quo advocates accept in the time required.

J2020F: I guess if I were a new executive in my first one hundred days, I’d want to match my leadership style to the needs of the organization. What are my options?

Explorer: Well you have four options depending upon if you conclude you have the time to revitalize or renew or need to take more direct action to restructure or realign. For larger organizations you’ll want to develop a reinvention capacity before you need it so you can cause your major competitor to react to you rather than the other way around.

J2020F: Since every organization has a stage, all I'd have to do is pick the right cast for the next act, right?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reinvention Chef: Mixing the Right Talent Ingredients in Recipe for Growth

2006-08-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

Reinvention Chef: Mixing the Right Talent Ingredients in Recipe for Growth

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"On December 7, 2004, IBM announced that it was selling its whole Personal Computing Division to the Chinese computer company Lenovo.... Talk about horizontal value creation: this new Chinese-owned computer company headquartered in New York with factories in Raleigh and Beijing will have a Chinese chairman, an American CEO, an American CPO, and a Chinese CFO, and it will be listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Would you call this an American company? A Chinese company? To which country will Lenovo feel most attached? Or will it just see itself sort of floating above a flat earth?"

Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. It’s one thing to force the “jump to a winning reinvention path” through a major restructuring of people, processes, technologies and organization rearrangement. It’s quite another to develop the competency in-house to do it over and over again as needed.

J2020F: You’d think that mature organizations want to prevent the total disruption restructuring brings by acting at an earlier time. Is it that the emotional commitment is not sufficient to overcome the resistance to change?

Explorer: Yes. Recognizing the external signals of impending decline and acting on them requires foresight. Mature organizations excel at hindsight. So recognition and execution usually only occur after it is too late to mobilize in time to avoid a decline.

J2020F: Why?

Explorer: Like a lot of things, we’re really talking about 5 percent analysis -- finding out what has to be done-- and 95 percent of time and effort creating a demand for and executing change.

J2020F: It seems logical that the more time a mature organization operates with the “Red Tape” mentality, the longer it takes them – years even -- to shed their old habits and acquire a different set of competencies?

Explorer: Think of it as a chef would in a gourmet contest. The recipe requires four parts Academic, two parts Associate, two parts Agent and part Athlete.

J2020F: But, the active ingredients that account for the winning flavor are four parts Academic? I find that hard to believe.

Explorer: No, they’ve lost their power at this stage to the unique blends of ingredients missing from their shelf. They have too much of a vested interest in mastery – slowly building an expertise of embodied knowledge.

J2020F: So they become highly resistive to change?

Explorer: Yes. To changes in demand for the systems they built and the organizational structures they maintain. They create unintended consequences by professionalizing every function, and then having every function optimize their own processes and procedures according to external professional standards.

J2020F: How so?

Explorer: The mature organization’s system of professional functions
– each competing for more budget and influence according to their profession’s standards sub-optimizes the enterprise’s capability to respond to dramatic shifts in their market, industry and customer base.

J2020F: To change metaphors, if you add an “i” to Chef, you get “Chief”. So, in reinvention stages what you’re telling me is a new talent tribe is required – something that most organizations don’t have in house, or if they do not in great supply?

Explorer: That’s right. To change metaphors again, what you need to “make or buy” is a Donnie and Marie combination of talent.

J2020F: Huh?

Explorer: You know, a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. A cross-talent team drawn from Agents, Athletes, Associates and Academics – but found closer to the center of the model where innovation and knowledge intersect – more adaptive and flexible than their counterparts on the outer ring. If you have time you can grow your own, if not you must recruit or acquire them.

J2020F: Not exactly disruptive innovators and against-all-odds marketing teams, but rather a mix of internal change agents and knowledge managers is what you’re after to reinvent the enterprise and breathe new life into old procedures and processes relevant as the newer proprietary best practices – right?

Explorer: You’ve got it! You need Agent-Associates (“R&D Laboratories”) producing breakthrough products; Athlete-Academics (“Operational Excellents”) to improve operations and outsource non-core competencies; Associate – Agents (“Internal Change Agents”) to create the demand for change and to execute strategies to minimize resistance; and finally that unique combination of Academic- Athletes (“Professional Practice”) to capture and embody proprietary best practices.

J2020F: Wait a minute. According to this model the combinations you just described lie along the path of highest resistance.

Explorer: Yes, that’s right. Usually those combinations represent polar opposites in identity and pace and that’s why no others can master the reinvention process in the inner circle.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Avoiding Red Tape Decline for Crash-Test Dummies

2006-08-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

Avoiding Red Tape Decline for Crash-Test Dummies

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"It is this triple convergence -- of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration -- that I believe is the most important force shaping global economies and politics in the early twenty-first century. Giving so many people access to all these tools of collaboration, along with the ability through search engines and the Web to access billions of pages of raw information, ensures that the next generation of innovations will come from all over Planet Earth. The scale of the global community that is soon going to be able to participate in all sorts of discovery and innovation is something the world has simply never seen before."

Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Mature organizations have vested interests in the way things were. While not overtly describing themselves as status quo advocates, many long-time Associates and Academics resist disruptive changes required to “jump paths” out of a declining trajectory.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: So, this is yet again a classic pattern. What brought you to the dance, practiced too much precludes you from learning the new steps that the audience now craves.

Explorer: Or if all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

J2020F: What we’re talking about sounds a lot like what Trailblazer called the Old Game Strategy, an organization's response is to resist, so they don't initiate any internal changes. They believe that they can still be successful depending upon their ability to contain the change forces.

Explorer: That’s what they hope as they assume the ostrich position. But as anyone knows who has taken a popular change management class, abrupt change triggers a more radical disruption. And that gut-wrenching crisis forces everyone to accommodate it to survive, whether they want to or not.

Explorer: In reality, what is required is rapid, focused, specific change. As always with discontinuous change, there are severe limits to the change in behavior and beliefs that can be accomplished in the time available.

J2020F: Trailblazer says that companies often in a reinvention situation are there because they were unable to respond early when the forces of change were weaker.

Explorer: That’s right. And, the excessive tightening with the matrix organization in the mature stage that overcame divisional looseness, sets the stage for more trouble.

J2020F: The next major bonking?

Explorer: Yes, only this time the bonking is more like the car crash test of those safety dummies into the wall, but without their seatbelts fashioned.

J2020F: Or, driving down the street in your SUV and falling into a huge hole, again?

Explorer: Instead of taking a different street – in a hybrid vehicle – embracing the loosening required and the foresight to capitalize on a new niche.

J2020F: To break out of Red Tape Crisis requires the acquisition of or the return of the last two “red” Agent innovator tribes -- “Thought Leaders” and the Product Leader “R&D Laboratories” who produce new niche breakthrough products, right?

Explorer: Exactly. They’re the masters of collaboration tools and they participate in all sorts of discovery and innovation through their worldwide web-like networks.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Injecting Disruptive Reds: The Art of Skipping Tracks to the Inner Circle

2006-08-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

Injecting Disruptive Reds: The Art of Skipping Tracks to the Inner Circle

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"The old voice platform (phone) did not lend itself well to innovation. But when you put voice on an Internet platform, all sorts of innovative options for collaboration become possible.... Companies will compete over SoIP (services over the Internet protocol); who can offer you the best videoconferencing while you are talking over your computer, PDA or laptop; who can enable you to talk to someone while easily inviting a third or fourth person into the conversation; who can enable you to talk and swap document files and send text messages at the same time, so you can actually speak and work on a document together while talking."

Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. The prescription for decline, usually purchased during advanced stages of the “Mature Matrix” disease, is to bring in a new management discipline and the talent that can re-capture breakthrough product innovations while outsourcing non-core competencies.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: It looks like as we follow the path of least resistance around the edges of our Agent, Athlete, Associate and Academic model, we come full circle to the red quadrant.

Explorer: Yes. By now the original two Agent talent tribes, the “Breakpoint Inventors” and “Commercial Innovators” vacated the premises a stage or two ago. And, most likely three of the four types of Athletes “Marketing Athletes,” “Resilient Project Teams” and “Core Business Groups” followed them out the door, but at later dates.

J2020F: Is it probable that the “square” along the bottom of our chart is vulnerable as well?

Explorer: Highly probable. The “border” Associate sub-talent tribe, the “Agile Tiger Teams” next to the Athletes – who introduced exceptional products when rapid growth got too out of hand – are indeed next in line to look for better opportunities.

J2020F: I find it highly improbable that you will entice any of the disruptively innovative agents or the rapidly prototyping Agent-Athletes back into the fold, so the model breaks down here, doesn’t it?

Explorer: Actually, it dives straight down and circles like a spiral from left to right, as you’ll see a little later. Agents? Yes, but a special kind of Agent and that’s not all.

J2020F: So, with the exception of returning to our “starting red square” we completed the squares connected to the “outer black circle” in our model. Can we pull out of the Decline?

Explorer: Yes, but if the organization continues to extend what they’ve always done, but get much better at doing it they fall victim to what Joel Barker calls paradigm blindness.

J2020F: Oh, not the “P” word!

Explorer: I know. It’s similar to phenomenon Danny Miller wrote about – how an over-extended strength becomes a fatal flaw. The point is the organization can’t see what is necessary to pull out of its decline. And the longer it takes for leaders of the organization to recognize that they are on the path to disaster, the more disruptive the solution becomes.

J2020F: So, you’re saying that it takes a new path beginning with a new niche discovery and into the inner circle to recover in time to grow?

Explorer: Exactly. And timing is everything!

J2020F: Or what, you decline into a sea of red tape?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Matrix: Tightening and Controlling Complexity with Expert Systems

2006-08-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

The Matrix: Tightening and Controlling Complexity with Expert Systems

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"'In this world you better do it right -- you don't get to pick up and move to the next town so easily,' said Dov Seidman, who runs a legal compliance and business ethics consulting firm, LRN. 'In the world of Google, your reputation will follow you and precede you on your next stop. It gets there before you do....'"

Thomas L. Friedman, "The World is Flat"

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Agents faced their “Leadership Crisis” by recruiting Athletes to bridge the gap between organic and functional structures. Athletes bridged the “Autonomy Crisis” by loosening what Athletes tightened with the assistance from Associates. The resulting divisional structure eventually outlasts its usefulness when it triggers the “Control Crisis” that Academics help bridge by tightening and centralizing operations in a complicated matrix structure featuring data-driven methods and systems.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: As more functional departments proliferate the Agents disappear, not fitting into cultures built to reward affiliation and mastery. And, the days of the maverick, do-what-ever-it-takes team loyalty -- highly rewarded for fire-fighting heroics become numbered. What contributes to the Athlete-unfriendly culture?

Explorer: They don’t appreciate becoming “just a number.” With growing maturity, size and complexity dictate that the “new market athletes” leave in favor of the complex system specialists and their emphasis on fact-based decision making and problem solving throughout the enterprise. Just as the diagonal line between Agent and Associate identifies the path of highest resistance, so to does the line from Embodied Knowledge (Academics) to Emerging Knowledge (Athletes).

J2020F: This is the time of transition from a purely Associate to a more Academic organization?

Explorer: Yes, The “tightening bridge” provides a path from divisional “redundancies” brought about by local decisions to complicated central control offering efficient deployment of resources throughout the enterprise.

J2020F: So, by following the path of least resistance, the organization begins to tilt in favor of professionals often certified by “Traditional Institutions” in the methods of managing complex systems and advised by “Brand-As-Experts about best practices on the other side of “the border” from Associate “Analytical Specialists?”

Explorer: Yes. But as in all things in life, too much of a good thing over long periods of time -- over “professionalization” without the innovators or the go-to-marketers -- sets the conditions for decline as former loyal customers sense it’s time to move on, as well.

J2020F: Why?

Explorer: At this stage of development most of the focus by the organization is on inside operations and not enough on customers – their care and feeding. It’s as if the customers – frequently in large numbers – are taken for granted.

J2020F: And that sets up yet another opportunity to bonk?

Explorer: You bet, as we will see.

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Associates Multiply and Agents Leave Divisions for Redder Pastures

2006-08-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

Associates Multiply and Agents Leave Divisions for Redder Pastures

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.’ But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ‘Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.'"

Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. To mature and survive, an organizational brand needs to be accepted ideally by the majority of the total available market. Associates maintain that reputation. The optimal mix favors a growing Associate and Athlete talent blend, while the Agent tribal members feel devalued by the shift in emphasis.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: That's why a loyal, affiliated talent culture is needed?

Explorer: Yes, through their behaviors they develop a trust mark that keeps bringing long-term customers back again and again. “Agile Tiger Teams”, “Loyal Survivalists” and” Analytical Specialists” gain in political stature.

J2020F: So as we follow our path of least resistance around the outside ring in our model and then turn the second corner, you’re saying the power shifts once again?

Explorer: Yes, in the same way that “Marketing Athletes,” Resilient Project Teams,” and “Core Business Groups did while the start-up Agents lost clout. The sequence moves from disruptive innovation to emerging knowledge and now to sustained innovation.

J2020F: As an organizational brand, they can offer multiple products and services, each one being unique. But, they will be well received under a larger brand umbrella, true?

Explorer: Exactly. Individual Associates willingly subordinate their own identity to the collective good. They take pride in their organization's brand and in their role delivering on the brand promise to their customers.

J2020F: What does the loosening “bridge” translate into once the organization addresses the autonomy crisis?

Explorer: A division structure aimed at returning control to local, smaller units more capable of responding to customer demands.

J2020F: Since this is largely a time for the Associate tribes to shine and they embrace affiliation and mastery, is this the time for development also?

Explorer: It certainly is. They go hand in hand. The authority to act is delegated to the field while development efforts groom more associates to take responsibility for results.

J2020F: It’s easy to imagine that the autonomous field managers and division leaders get used to running their own show.

Explorer: They do. They take ownership without coordinating their plans and decisions about revenue, technology, hiring and developing with the rest of the organization.

J2020F: What you’ve described sounds like just the opportunity that the Trapped and Permanently Temporary groups -- Interim Middle Managers, the Starting Over, the Cutters and the Urban Trapped long for.

Explorer: Certainly in the same geographical location – especially if the training and development programs help them to boost their career equity and acquire more marketable experiences.

J2020F: Since this lifespan is about sustaining innovations and further developing teams in a more formal way to support multiple products and services -- what happens to or with Agents?

Explorer: By the time the organization passes through the threshold to mature growth, the “Breakthrough Inventors” and “Commercial innovators” fill a diminished role in the success – most of them leave for greener pastures.

J2020F: Don’t you mean “redder pastures?”

Explorer: Touché. Remember, they’re the ones who feel the need for speed and savor an independent identity.

J2020F: Too much all-for-one and one-for-all feels claustrophobic to them?

Explorer: Yes. And the ironies of all ironies, their timing comes at a time when a mature organization looking back wishes it had retained them to avoid the plunge on the other side of the bell curve into decline.

J2020F: So much for foresight?! Are we about to encounter another crisis?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Loosen to Groom More Chiefs As a Bridge Over Autonomous Waters

2006-08-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

Loosen to Groom More Chiefs As a Bridge Over Autonomous Waters

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"In-forming is the individual's personal analog to open-sourcing, outsourcing, insourcing, supply-chaining, and offshoring. In-forming is the ability to build and deploy your own personal supply chain -- a supply chain of information, knowledge, and entertainment. In-forming is about self-collaboration -- becoming your own self-directed and self-empowered researcher, editor, and selector of entertainment, without having to go to the library or the movie theater or through network television."

Thomas L. Friedman, "The World is Flat"

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. As the organization grows, it becomes more complex. Loose organic states evolve into tighter functional organizations. Functional structures evolve into looser divisional structures. Divisions tighten into matrix organizations that loosen into network organizations.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: During rapid growth, if independent project team members leave, the organization will be too thin in bench strength to meet its customers’ demands, correct?

Explorer: Yes. If the organization doesn’t recruit Associates, they’ll sew the seeds of their failure.

J2020F: Failure?

Explorer: Failure to make it out of a one-product or service company category into a mature organization known as a trusted brand.

J2020F: They’ll be doomed to run in place with constant turnover, while their competitors take market share from them and with it their once loyal customers, right?

Explorer: Exactly. So the talent branding efforts shift to find the right mix of Athletes and Associates, rather than Agents and Athletes.

J2020F: What about the bonking challenge?

Explorer: The other opportunity for failure arrives during a period of strength.

J2020: How so?

Explorer: Having weathered the challenges of rapid growth, the organization plateaus with significant advantages: size, financial resources, well-developed systems, and an experienced, competent staff.

J2020F: So what’s the problem?

Explorer: Top managers find it extremely difficult to switch from directing to delegating and waiting.

J2020F: Unlike the “bridge” over the “Leadership Crisis” which required tightening, this “bridge” is about loosening?

Explorer: Yes, the 180-degree different practice favors innovation, divergence, and adaptability – approaches similar to the organic start-up stage.

J2020F: So it’s only natural that those Athletic tribal team members who ushered in the tightening functional structures would resist this “bridge.”

Explorer: Especially when they accomplished so much, but it is an old story according to Danny Miller – when a strength is overused, it becomes a weakness and maybe a fatal flaw if left unchecked.

J2020F: What happens to the Agents?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Looking Into the Eye of the Tiger or Bonking at the Border

2006-08-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

Looking Into the Eye of the Tiger or Bonking at the Border

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"What Google's success reflects is how much people are interested in having ... all the world's knowledge at their fingertips. There is no bigger flattener than the idea of making all the world's knowledge, or even a big chunk of it, available to anyone and everyone, anytime, anywhere."

Thomas L. Friedman, "The World is Flat"

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Athletic organizations in early to growth stages can’t afford to staff up with more bodies. They contract with experts to eliminate the extra financial burden of benefits, but Athletes guard their organization’s core competencies while quickly managing increasing degrees of complexity.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Athletes recruit Interim Managers, “Digitally Mobiles” and “Portfolio Locals” on a independent contractor basis to eliminate the extra financial burden of benefits. But, doesn't that put them in a bind? What happens if key contractors take permanent work elsewhere or become too busy on someone else's project?

Explorer: Exactly. You've described their dilemma. Project managers have to reveal just enough proprietary secrets for contractors to perform their project tasks quickly and efficiently, but not too much -- otherwise their newly learned secrets walk out the door.

J2020F: And, if the market demand explodes won't Athletes want to hire and keep key performers in the fold? Finding key people in new industries doesn't happen overnight, right?

Explorer: You are right. So, the rapid growth organization creates a “Core Business Function” for further tightening. On the path of least resistance they share a “border” with the Agile “Tiger Teams,” an Associate talent tribe that more closely resembles Athletes.

J2020F: In terms of what?

Explorer: Degree of affiliation, but less speed and more mastery. “Core Business Function” Athletes bond with their team or function primarily. “Agile Tiger Teams” develop loyalty to the team-of-teams culture -- to the organization.

J2020F: What do the “Core Business Function” Athletes tighten further?

Explorer: They develop the tools and manage the process of multiple new product introductions. They have to optimize the availability of internal and external team members – rolling people in and off of projects as the critical path for each product dictates.

J2020F: Doesn’t that “shared border” with the Associate tiger teams also define the next opportunity to bonk?

Explorer: It does, but for the opposite reason than what kept the Agents in their “start-up box” until early growth Athletes opened the garage door and stopped the “head banging.”

J2020F: How does the organization survive the crisis without a swelled head?

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

No More Head Banging: Tightening Operations Opens the Garage Door

2006-08-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

No More Head Banging: Tightening Operations Opens the Garage Door

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

"UPS maintains a think tank ... which works on supply-chain algorithms. This "school" of mathematics is called "package flow technology," and it is designed to constantly match the deployment of UPS trucks, ships, airplanes, and sorting capabilities with that day's flow of packages around the world."

Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Marketing structure, repeatable processes and robust high volume ramp-ups dominate the rapid growth stage. A new set of tribal talent combinations capable of learning from their mistakes and improving their go-to-market processes grabs the baton from the Agents for the next leg of the race.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Emerging knowledge that Athletes learn by developing "the formula" reduces the amount of the random experimenting required in each real world learning cycle, right?

Explorer: Athletes help tighten up operations by setting up functional operations. They extend, improve, and modify the central formula. At the same time they rapidly discard what doesn't fit.

J2020F: So they bring some order out of chaos necessary to handle higher growth demands?

Explorer: Yes. Breakpoint Inventors and Commercial Innovators, even with the help of Marketing Athletes can still bonk when faced with the Leadership Crisis that results from their organic, creative and collaborative organization structure.

J2020F: By standardizing procedures, policies, product lines and methods of production and distribution, Athletes – “Resilient Project Teams” -- position an organization to efficiently grow larger in its second phase, right?

Explorer: Yes. By following the path of least resistance towards the next phase of growth Athletes, more so than any other of the 12 tribal talent clusters, place a premium on emerging functional team roles.

J2020F: So in a phrase, then, Athletes select and recruit new talent based on team fit, a process focus, and an opportunistic attitude?

Explorer: Sure. Their dominant aspiration is the financial payoff traditionally associated with establishing a big company, but without all the unnecessary bureaucracy.

J2020F: They don’t want to become an Academic organization, right?

Explorer: Right. Academics move too slowly and identify with well-established professions and benchmarked practices studied at mature organizations.

J2020F: And I imagine that the Athletes who focus on tightening the organization’s business model don’t welcome the fees that Academics command and charge for their services?

Explorer: That’s true also. This stage is all about speed. Athletes harness and leverage their newfound momentum from the emerging knowledge their repeatable processes yield.

J2020F: In an earlier discussion, Trailblazer pointed out that Athletes need to guard their organization's core competencies while quickly managing and learning from increasing degrees of complexity. Can you say a little more?

Explorer: Well, Athletic organizations in early to growth stages can't afford to staff up with more bodies. As you pointed out, they have to manage their financial costs. So that means they need to become excellent project and product managers. They constantly have to ask themselves, “How much proprietary know-how should I reveal in order for contractors to complete their assigned tasks?”

J2020F: And, if they don’t yet possess those project management skills their situation might be just the opportunity Interim Managers seek who “Used to Be Somebody” under different circumstances.

Explorer: Or for the “Digitally Mobiles” and “Portfolio Locals”, as well.

J2020F: What's the right mix of talent for functional tightening given the growing complexity?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

It Takes Resilient Athletes To Turn the Corner on High Growth

2006-08-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

It Takes Resilient Athletes To Turn the Corner on High Growth

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“Then the cheerleaders all came out, but they looked different. They had camouflage outfits on, raggy, dirty camouflage. They had bandanas in camouflage and war paint on their faces. They were waving a big camouflage flag with a black monkey wrench on it. Sun looked at herself: she was dressed in camouflage, too. She had a little army hat on and a bandana around her forehead, war paint on her cheeks. The Imitators started playing and Sun picked up her megaphone.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Critical success factors in the start-up stage are 180 degrees different from those that must be mastered to generate demand and meet that demand efficiently.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Isn’t one of the dirty little secrets that once the enterprise becomes an enterprise – the Agent founder with the vision and unlimited faith needs to step aside.

Explorer: Yes. We call it the Leadership Crisis. The Agent founder swimming upstream all that time against the naysayers – receiving 99 “no’s” for every 1 “yes” -- needs to get out of the way for the enterprise to bridge the chasm from the start-up to emerging growth stage.

J2020F: That can’t be easy. It must be like giving your infant up for adoption.

Explorer: Except they have an exit strategy. Along the way angel investors will have insisted on more control to protect their investment then founders want to relinquish. But it takes green, as in money and as in Athletes -- “The Marketing Athletes” or the evangelists, to create demand and “Resilient Project Teams” to tighten up how operations are run.

J2020F: So, once out of the garage and across the threshold into the “next box” the founder may need to be replaced or reassigned to develop R&D strategies?

Explorer: Yes because, just the right blend of the two talent “tribes” -- Athletes and Agents --has to be optimized if the enterprise is to successfully meet the challenges of survival, stabilization and rapid growth.

J2020F: Isn’t it the Athletes – “Resilient Project Teams” who then figure out the formula for taking a prototype and turning it into a product on a repeatable basis?

Explorer: Yes, because the period of high creativity, organic and fluid organizational collaboration must give way to focused, practical execution.

J2020F: So without them, the enterprise can’t really “turn the corner” to ride the wave of accelerated growth by continuing on their path of least resistance?

Explorer: I’m sure you just broke the rule about mixed metaphors, but in essence you are right.

J2020F: Of course I am, but what about the next set of challenges?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Leadership Crisis: Bonking into the Closed Garage Door

2006-08-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

Leadership Crisis: Bonking into the Closed Garage Door

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“She was dreaming about a high school play…She was onstage. There was a big cardboard house on the stage, looked just like the Double E. There was a light coming out of the window where Sun’s window was. There was a yellow light coming out and it shone down on her on the stage. Grandpa was sitting on the porch in his rocking char. On the other side of the stage there was a cardboard jail. Jed was sitting there talking to Officer Carmichael. Sun’s cat walked across the stage.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. Early application breakthroughs delivered by the joint collaboration between the two start-up Agent talent tribes -- “Breakpoint Inventors” and “Commercial Innovators” -- generate the dramatic competitive advantage that visionaries seek.

J2020F: But, it’s not all downhill from there, right?

Explorer: Unless you count falling into the chasm between start-up and early growth stages the kind of downhill you favor.

J2020F: Not hardly. What’s the typical scenario for the “garage start-ups”?

Explorer: Theirs is a tricky proposition. If they come up with a discontinuous technology whose sole benefit is to lower cost and improve productivity within a well-worn application arena, they have essentially an unmarketable opportunity.

J2020F: Why?

Explorer: The reason is that conservative consumers – the mass market -- simply will not tolerate “paradigm shock,” nor will they invest in helping vendors reduce that shock over time.

J2020F: They follow the herd and won’t abandon a tried and true approach, right? Buzz equates to career or customer risk in their minds?

Explorer: Right. The conservatives only buy into a new technology after the pragmatists, who in turn only buy new technology when it can give them significant breakthroughs in workflows, have vetted it.

J2020F: So, not every start-up makes it to the next stage.

Explorer: The longer it takes to convert visionary influence into early pragmatist orders tests the start-up’s capacity for survival.

J2020F: It has to generate enough cash initially, and then stabilize its business by eliminating cash flow problems?

Explorer: And that my friend is the crux of the problem. Meeting the challenge we’ve described is typically not the strong suit of the Agent tribes.

J2020F: So the start-up bonks? It can’t get out of the “garage”; it hits the closed garage door?

Explorer: Yes in the vast majority of the cases. Most of the time the start-up doesn’t find a market niche or can’t produce a viable product of service. But, it can still bonk when the fiercely independent “chief” fails to relinquish control and sets up the “Leadership Crisis.”

J2020F: What do enlightened chiefs do to bridge the crisis?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Start-up Tribes: Breakpoint Inventors and Commercial Innovators

2006-08-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

Start-up Tribes: Breakpoint Inventors and Commercial Innovators

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“There was a strange red glow in the back. He noticed it, but he forgot about it so fast. He though he heard a noise in the engine, though … the engine was making funny sounds. The windshield wipers weren’t working right. They were flying up on Highway 1. Earth was sweating. Sun was peacefully asleep, with her head resting on his shoulder, not a care in the world. She was dreaming.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. In the start-up phase those “Breakpoint Inventors” and entrepreneurs with a new disruptive innovation need people, “Commercial Innovators,” capable of defining and delivering a rapid prototype of the new product category.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Triggering the path of least resistance, Agent tribes (whom Trailblazer called the “Para-doxy Morons”) look at a well-established, mature market from an offbeat perspective and notice how limited a traditional business model, branch of science, innovation, technology or business model solves a really complex set of problems.

Explorer: What we used to call an AGENT-Agent tribe catalyzes disruptive innovation. “The Breakpoint Inventor” (our newer name) excels at going from 0 to 1. But, it takes somebody else to go from 1 to 1000.

J2020F: And, other tribal combinations, if they survive, to fill in the white space – the blanks on our chart?

Explorer: Yes. They need to turn to the correct combination to manage the “crises at the border” between stages.

J2020F: If they turn to a standalone organization, that someone would have a blend of Agent and Athlete in them – the “Commercial Innovator.”

Explorer: That’s right. And, we’ll see later that they’ll need “more of the green” – more Athletic Tribal members to move the start-up out of its formative stage “box.”

J2020F: Why? Is it that in early survival mode Agents love to find out, in the most creative and inventive way, how to operate and structure their fledgling enterprise– which may not be even clearly defined at the earliest stage?

Explorer: That’s the major reason. This is an organic, entrepreneurial faith driven stage. We all witnessed celebrated cases – during the dot-com meltdown, where high tech organizations populated with a small core of agents discovered to their dismay that the "paradigm shock" associated with their disruptive innovation was too high and the benefit was too low.

J2020F: Why?

Explorer: Typically because applications for the new technology hadn’t been proven – beyond their “new economy cool factor”. This stage, populated by the two types of agents – Breakpoint Inventors and Commercial Innovators -- is the realm of pure science, buggy technology and prototypes.

J2020F: Geeks and nerds only? The ones who thrive on technology-driven speed and independence?

Explorer: While politically incorrect, there is some truth to the stereotype. Only technology enthusiasts are interested. Here’s the rub. Their market niche emerges too slowly for them. In the early stage it is built up around one or more visionaries who see the potential for the new technology and fund the first proofs-of-concept.

J2020F: They evangelize to their trusted circle of friends and opinion makers and entice them to view what they’ve discovered, right?

Explorer: That’s the buzz building stage. It infects early adopters with a compelling vision of the future. The adrenalin rush transfers to the adopters and entices them to join in the organic web of insiders who know about and have to have the newest and greatest.

J2020F: That's how it is suppose to proceed in theory, but what happens more often then not to the "Garage Entrepreneurs?"

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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Talented Crisis Management: Leadership, Autonomy, Control, and Red Tape

2006-08-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

Talented Crisis Management: Leadership, Autonomy, Control, and Red Tape

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“So Sun met Earth Brown in John Lee’s bar. Earth was fascinated and captivated by her beauty, the symmetry of her moves. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. While he was watching her, the Devil came up behind him. He saw that Earth was drinking some Alaska water, from the glaciers.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. If you consider the lifespan of an organization that has any sort of history – say over two generations or 40 years -- you can see which talent competencies come in and out of favor. You’ll witness it as it evolves and leaps forward in predictable stages from infancy start-up through growth to maturity and decline and from simple to complex over time.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Not all organizations even make it that far -- 40 years, right?

Explorer: The infant mortality rate is a decade. To your point, Arie De Geus says 40% of all newly created companies don’t last that long. Regardless of size, the average in Japan and Europe is 12.5 years.

J2020F: So hanging on to the wrong talent combinations at the wrong stage accelerates the decline?

Explorer: You bet. And, by not attracting, developing and retaining new talent to move from one growth stage to another stage dramatically shortens an organization’s life expectancy.

J2020F: But, it isn’t simply cloning what you already have is it?

Explorer: Each stage presents unique challenges that require specific talent combinations to meet. Because each new stage – on the other side of a threshold -- requires a different and opposite formula for success.

J2020F: The organization requires a different and opposite talent combination to succeed.

Explorer: And, so Boomer leaders must consciously introduce planned structures that are 180 degrees different than what worked in the recent past to move the organization’s performance ahead.

J2020F: If they don’t plan to introduce those changes with a little foresight, then they can expect to travel the path of highest resistance to their initiatives, right?

Explorer: Yes, and even if they follow the path of least resistance they will still encounter disruption. But, they will be able to learn and grow through the experience without as much fear, uncertainty or doubt about their future viability -- or as severe an impact on revenues, profits or market share.

J2020F: Take us through the “make or break” crisis sequence.

Explorer: Briefly the start-up stage sets up the first crisis – “The Leadership Crisis.” You won’t survive if you don’t change the talent balance. The second, the “Autonomy Crisis” signals when the organization must shift talent combinations again or it won’t survive the turning point from hyper growth to stable growth.

J2020F: If the organization survives those disruptive turning points?

Explorer: It must negotiate the final two crises, the “Control Crisis” which resolves the “Autonomy Crisis,” but eventually triggers the near death “Red Tape Crisis” that precedes the Decline stage.

J2020F: If you don’t bridge the gap between stages (boxes), then what?

Explorer: You bonk.

J2020F: You what?

Explorer: You hit the wall and bounce back only to repeat the same or an earlier stage over and over again until you get it right.

J2020F: Which might be why you are interviewing for an executive opening. They’ve been bonking when they should have been managing stage transitions.

Explorer: And, as you launch your 100-day initiative you’ll need to assess the talent you’ve inherited to figure out if you’ve got the right blend to be successful.

J2020F: Are all four Agent clusters necessary to organically start an organization from scratch?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Circling the Borders for the Path of Least Resistance

2006-08-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

Circling the Borders for the Path of Least Resistance

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“He started thinking too much, second-guessing. Nothing happened that he didn’t question and then question again. His thirst was overwhelming. He and Sun were in the Alaskan camper, headed north on Highway 1 to Alaska. Earth stopped at a convenience store and bought several cartons of water. He kept about a dozen bottles in the front seat and put the rest of it in the back.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. The talent model reveals several ways that Baby Boomer leaders, job-seekers, entrepreneurs or consultants can first diagnose issues that hinder growth and then provide solutions that stimulate success at each organizational lifespan.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: The path of highest resistance in your model follows the arrows from corner to corner moving in both ways through the center.

Explorer: That’s right.

J2020F: How can you use the talent model to find a path of least resistance to your initiatives and goals?

Explorer: Picture the model as a chessboard. We move around the borders. Boomer leaders, when introducing new changes, follow this path of revitalization as opposed to resistance, renewal, restructuring or realignment.

J2020F: So the path of least resistance for changing talent cultures is from disruptive innovation to emerging knowledge?

Explorer: Yes from the Agent to the Athlete quadrant.

J2020F: And from emerging knowledge to sustained innovation?

Explorer: Yes, from Athlete to Associate.

J2020F: And from sustained innovation to embodied knowledge?

Explorer: Yes, from Associate to Academic.

J2020F: And, let me guess. From embodied knowledge to disruptive innovation – or from Associate to Agent! If I'm a new executive, how can I take advantage of this model for talent management? Is there anything else I need to know?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

Encountering Support or Resistance to Your 100-Day Initiatives

2006-08-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Encountering Support or Resistance to Your 100-Day Initiatives

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“The Devil put some devil dust in Earth’s bottle of water, just dropped a little in there. The water started glowing, shining, turning red and then it turned silver. The Devil poisoned Earth…. Earth was still watching Sun dance. Shadows were all over the place. It was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. He walked right up and introduced himself and they left together for Alaska…”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH. As any organization grows through a bell-shaped curve -- from start-up, to growth, to maturity and to re-invention or decline – two “tribes” usually manage the political agenda to the exclusion of others. They are the talent clusters whose members represent the 20% who produce 80% of the results. But, the mix of the two tribes changes at each growth transition.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Let’s continue our “fun with fit” discussion. You walked us through the sixteen ways to increase your career equity and marketability by finding the sweet spot between doing what you love, where you’d love to live and then targeting one of four standalone organizations – Agents, Athletes, Associates or Academics -- that would bring out the best in you. And, based on the continuously changing conditions of technology, demographics, economics and political climates organizations operate in and we live in today, you eliminated ten of the sixteen sub-clusters, because they held the most potential for becoming the least marketable. But, wait there’s more …?

Explorer: Yes. No one wants to become “Trapped and Permanently Temporary” so my advice is to whittle down your list of positions to six and if you are like me, down to the final four. And that goes for standalone organizations or over the lifespan of an organization.

J2020F: So once you’ve landed a new position or added a new client there are a few more things you should know?

Explorer: Of course. You should know that in any growth period there is a certain amount of resistance to new ways from the status-quo advocates.

J2020F: They’ve held onto the power – maybe controlled the budget or accounted for the lion’s share of the revenue?

Explorer: Right. But to better meet the demands of the marketplace or industry turning points, a new stage is entered into and the internal political dynamics change.

J2020F: Or, the organization may “die prematurely”?

Explorer: Right.

J2020F: So, what does this mean?

Explorer: Well first of all, you can find like-minded talent clusters throughout certain life spans of organizational growth.

J2020F: Which helps when you try to land a position through networking from one introduction to another, right?

Explorer: Each phase will emphasize the contributions of the innovators over the community-focused sustainers or the team-against-all-odds over the analytical specialists, for instance.

J2020F: So, if you know “your type” and you know the stage of the potential organization, you can determine if you’ll find a fit, or not?

Explorer: And in your first 100 days on the job, you’ll be able to identify where you’ll find support or resistance to your success.

J2020F: Let’s take resistance first.

Explorer: In our model the diagonals between the four corners represent the path of highest resistance is along those dimensions – pushing through the center to the opposite quadrant.

J2020F: So, from an Agent’s disruptive innovation passing into a sustaining Associate organization?

Explorer: Or visa versa. And from an Athlete’s path of emerging knowledge into the Academic’s quadrant of embedded knowledge.

J2020F: And, visa versa. Now, what about a path of least resistance?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.

16 Ways to Increase Your Career Equity and Marketability

2006-08-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

16 Ways to Increase Your Career Equity and Marketability

Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“She was looking at it from her pickup truck, very happy with herself for making a statement. For an 18-year-old to make a statement like that is a great feeling. And she was proud of herself. She decided to go into Greendale and see Jed in jail, see how he was doin’, talk to him, take him something. I’m sorry I wish it had been a happier story up to this point. But we still have youth. Like I said before, I don’t think there can be a better feeling than youth making a difference.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Greendale”

DOUBLE NICKEL RANCH: Four types of organizations with 16 mix-and-match combinations will be emerging over the next five years -- based upon the analysis of current trends and future forces shaping the human capital landscape.

Journal of 2020 Foresight: How does this information help you if you're experiencing mid-life issues and have begun, by choice or by chance, to activate your five-year plan? What if you need to work for an employer or deliver a product, provide a service, or create an experience to a more sophisticated customer or client?

Explorer: It is a matter of finding the best fit. The four quadrants represent four different types of stand-alone organizations -- some that have been around for a while and are familiar to most people.

J2020F: And others?

Explorer: Some that have sprung up because larger organizations have outsourced what used to be an internal function.

J2020F: Give us an example.

Explorer: Let’s start with some basics.

J2020F: Like where do I fall on the main axis?

Explorer: And, where do you feel most at home in the four boxes and on the “diagonals” – of disruptive innovation or sustained innovation and emerging knowledge or embodied knowledge.

J2020F: What about the other fundamental axis – doing what you love or hate and relocating to a better community or staying in your neighborhood?

Explorer: Sure, in the case of Agents – “Breakpoint Inventors,” “Thought Leaders,” “Commercial Innovators” or “R&D Laboratories” -- with an independent identity and a drive to discover a disruptive innovation, the organization may be more virtual in the form of web-enhanced collaborators than face-to-face.

J2020F: Because of the technology trends?

Explorer: Sure. While inventive agents may work for a think-tank with a physical location, they are more likely free to live where they please -- some place that inspires them, but with enough gear to do their tinkering.

J2020F: What if independent, disruptive innovation choices don’t fit you and what if IPO or micro cap commercial companies feel too risky?

Explorer: You'll want focus on cities and their suburbs that have and will continue to support mid-size regional divisions of national and global organizations aspiring to grow and to sustain their growth to the next level.

J2020F: What’s your role there?

Explorer: If your discomfort isn’t with the pace of doing business, or with the use of technology to a high degree, but it has more to do with loss of affiliation needs then your first choice may be an Athlete organization.

J2020F: So, I might fit best with “Marketing Athletes” or “Resilient Project Teams” if I feel the need for speed?

Explorer: Or those Athletic talent clusters that support them, but operate at a moderately fast pace.

J2020F: Like?

Explorer: Like those “Operational Excellents” or “Core Business Groups.” The second craves organizational affiliation more than the first.

J2020F: What if it is the fast-pace that triggers the discomfort?

Explorer: First of all that sends up a red flag for extended Boomer familiesin this “World is Flat,” Unraveling-to-Crisisand Third Wave transformational era. So, my advice is to target the “vertical column” just to the right of the independent identity and organizational affiliation arrows.

J2020F: Starting at the top with “University Research Centers,” “Professional Practice”, “Internal Change Agents” and “Agile Tiger Teams?”

Explorer: Exactly. They all share the same degree of mastery needs and aren’t the slowest movers -- who risk becoming obsolete and only to fall into the category of “Trapped and Permanently Temporary.”

J2020F: Those would be the ones in the Academic and Associate column to the far right?

Explorer: Yes, the “Brand-as-Experts,” “Traditional Institutions,” and “Analytical Specialists” or “Loyal Survivalists.”

J2020F: Since job security is out forever, which of the 16 total talent clusters in the four kinds of standalone organizations provide better career moves, if you want to continuously increase your career equity and marketability?

Explorer: First, I’d eliminate the last four from my list. In an Academic organization, I’d also eliminate “University Research Centers’” but keep “Professional Practice” on it.

J2020F: Why?

Explorer: Because, except for job security as a function of tenure, the others don’t keep you in touch with the marketplace as well as the “Professional Practice” talent cluster. In that column of moderate speed, but with increasing degrees of affiliation I’d risk targeting “Internal Change Agents” and “Agile Tiger Teams” in Associate organizations.

J2020F: So you wouldn’t eliminate all the Associate talent clusters?

Explorer: With your experience you may add value by re-organizing, restructuring, re-vitalizing or renewing their operations.

J2020F: In a change agent role, or by finding newer markets for their portfolio of niche businesses, or by right-sizing the talent pool to optimize the combination of long-time contributors with outside specialists to support the growth?

Explorer: Yup.

J2020F: What about the “columns” to the left of the mid point – the two that begin with Agent and independent identity at the top and end in Athlete with organizational affiliation at the bottom?

Explorer: As a rule of thumb, the newer standalone and higher-valued business talent clusters are the “Marketing Athletes,” “Resilient Project Teams,” the “Operation Excellents” and the ”Core Business Group.” So, they stay on my list.

J2020F: Any in the “red zone?”

Explorer: Unless you fit the higher risk profile of paradigm shifters, the “Breakpoint Inventors” or the think tank “Thought Leaders,” more practical roles to target in the Agent organization would be “Commercial Innovators” and “R&D Laboratories.”

J2020F: If I’ve followed you, you’ve basically eliminated the whole top row from “Breakpoint Inventors” to “Brand-as-Experts” and the whole right column from “Brand-as-Experts” to “Loyal Survivalists.” That leaves 9 talent clusters in the four types of standalone organizations, right?

Explorer: For me personally, based on your criteria to increase my career value and marketability, I’d explore six and probably focus on four.

J2020F: The six?

Explorer: They form the center of the chart after you eliminate “Thought Leaders” and “University Research Centers”

J2020F: You’d keep “R&D Laboratory” Agents, “Operational Excellent” and “Core Business Group” Athletes, “Professional Practice” Academics and both “Internal Change Agent” and “Agile Tiger Team” Associates.

Explorer: And, in priority order I’d target “R&D Laboratories”, “Operational Excellents”, “Internal Change Agents” and “Professional Practice” talent clusters.

J2020F: Is there a way I can take advantage of this model after I land my dream position?

Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.