bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

Stop moaning because it didn’t happen today. Nothing happens in a day. Everything is the conclusion of a prior set of events. That lunch you had, was cooked by the chef outback, who used the pre-prepared food, which came from the farmers markets, the butcher earlier that day, that came from farms, that were grown (or bred) over the past 12 months, that was cultivated land, that was cleared from scrub. Heck food has come a long way to get to you!

It’s exactly the same on any journey, focus on the bigger picture, have fun along the way (ie enjoy the journey, if you’re not, quit and try another journey), you’ll get there and it’ll get better. Just keep making the small iterative changes, be proactive, you can probably get there faster than you think (even if it’s not overnight).

Gartner visualises the Hype Cycle, it’s excellent.

I often discuss this, as it’s during the Hype Cycle that we get distracted.  Like email it’s easy to go off on a tangent but what’s important today?

Like the diffusion curve, understand where you lye on this.

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Thanks to RWW for bringing this to my attention.

As innovators we spend all our time just beyond the edge of the curve, in that unknown space, tearing things apart then rebuilding them and getting them along the curve.

Often though we forget our place, there’s a reason that it’s not taken off yet, it hasn’t moved along the curve.

I remember when Yahoo Voice was awesome back in 2000, it took a few years for the equivalent Skype to really take off.

Or the GroupOn (deal a day) craze has taken off, people have been trying that for years, you see you have to see where you lye of the curve.

Know your place and understand how you’re going to talk to the rest of the curve.

A lot of arguments, lack of business resources could be solved just by understanding the curve and your position on it.  Go check it out on WikiPedia: Diffusion of innovations.

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Thanks to Babak_Bagheri for the image.

In the past, firms sponsored a tv show by advertising on the ‘spots’, that is when the tv show first airs.

The secondary market (and lower rating) market was on repeats.

You matched up the shows audience with your target market.  Ie financial products advertised during a financial tv show.

The reason this arose is that content became ‘disposable’ once the latest episode of Lost had previewed it only decreased in value, till no one would advertise then it was released on dvd.

However leaving these online, opens up a whole new form of monetisation, hot videos will continue to be watched forever.  People will discover a show and watch the whole back catalog in a matter of months.  And the best thing? Companies can sponsor all of them.

Flipping this, for content producers, what if you develop a niche tv show, shared on YouTube.  Let’s say Gardening, in the future when you sell an advertiser you can sell them not only new episodes but also the whole back catalog (the long tail) and essentially double your revenue.  A whole new market!

It’s not quite there yet, but the market is fast moving that way, so get generating content now – for it’s those whole new networks of videos that are created that will inevitably replace tv.  And you have the opportunity to be in on the ground floor.

Why? Because it’s unusual.

Don’t be afraid of irrationality, it can be the defining difference between you and your competition.  And often all you need is a slight edge to bring your cause to the forefront of someones mind when they hit a problem.

Richard Branson knows this, his publicity stunts help get Virgin that extra bit of coverage and attention.

Being the one that bubbles to the top is often all it takes to get a foot in the door.

That is, the website or blog may be free.

The iPhone app costs a couple of bucks.

Or the Kindle stream costs you a few bucks amonth.

Or you still get the printed copy.

This is where content is going, pay for how you receive it, just the same as water.

Water from the tap is free unless it’s bottled or carbonated or served at a restaurant.  People will pay, in the right place, in the right form.

That is questions that provide a different perspective, stimulate not only the recipient but yourself.

Questions that flip the perspective, provide more insight and potentially shine the light on new opportunities.

Get beyond the standard questions and delve deeper.  You not only owe it to yourself but to whom whose precious time you have requested.

You’ll know you’re getting it right when you hear “I’ve never heard it put like that” or “I’ve never thought of that” or most importantly “I like the questions you ask”.

You see questions aren’t give and take, the right question can give to both parties.

That is create the habit of zagging when others zig, even if it’s exploratory.

Often my business partner Duncan will bring up a topic and I will take the opposing side (even if I agree) as it forces us both to evaluate the decision from all angles.

It’s a fanstastic habit for better decision making… consistently.

Ensures you get the most unique learnings.  Unique learnings that give you an advantage over your peers.

It also prepares you for anything that’s thrown your way.  Again moreso than your peers.

And it means if you have to repeat that path, you’ll do it faster and better the second time, providing another edge.

I’m not saying you should always do it but realise the importance, different is better (more often that you think).

We were driving through Samoan villages early evening, just before dusk, as the air temperature was cooling down kids were coming out to play.

A few scenes struck out to me as we drove through, one was of a group of kids playing volleyball, island style.  They didn’t have an official net, more something pulled together by one of the locals and they didn’t have any poles for it.

Instead they had two of their team mates holding the poles up! The kids would alternate but someone had to always be holding it up.  What you would initially think is, that must be the worst job, but those kids had the biggest grin from ear to ear, they were close to the action playing the game.  That’s real teamwork.

In order for the whole team to have a good time, someone had to hold the net up, not the greatest job in the world but a necessary part to keep the game going.  And that’s what teamwork is about, working together, each doing your own part towards a common goal – having fun!

I was chatting to the CEO of Ricoh New Zealand last week around leadership and I picked up on an interesting point.

He was talking about the little things, make hundreds of little changes and the net effect they had.

You see the little things, firstly they’re hard to identify, so hard to replicate but also the unique combination of them makes the little things a strong competitive advantage.

Reminds me of Tom Peters book, The Little Big Things, an excellent read.

You don’t really need permission to do anything online, if you want to write about a topic, do it, disagree on a point, say so.

Don’t like a topic? Stop reading it.

The internet really is a world without permission, you can do what you want with essentially no barriers.  And this is a world that Generation Z is growing up in, I suspect consumers are going to get much much pickier over time.  Whether that’s for the better or the worse? Too early too tell but it’s definitely speeding up innovation (which is very very cool).

Just keep this in mind, as I suspect this a major point of tension between generations, different expectations of the world around us.

Touching on them, finally asking those hard to ask questions are what moves us forward.

Improves the status quo.  Changes the now.  Makes the impossible a possibility.

Unfortunately too many of us stop asking them after the first couple but just so you know it does get easier, just like failing, you learn to roll with the punches.