You may have seen my interview with author and business expert Carl Moe on differentiated value and its impact on sales revenue.   If we can put our value in terms of what the customer gives up by not having our DV, we can make a better selling proposition.

It got me to thinking about the broader topic of how we define uniqueness in today’s business environment.  In other words, what’s the X-factor when it comes to an organization’s long-term success... 

09-16-2011 Differentiated Value – Interview with Carl Moe

There are probably hundreds of songs that end with, what musicians commonly call, the “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits” ending.

Hard to illustrate in text but in vaudeville days a song would close with a common musical phrase that when put to those words gave you a cadence – “Shave and a Haircut [pause] two bits”...

08-26-2011 The New Wild West

As a kid I guess I was a bit of a “band geek”.   In “band” or “Orchestra” there are always multiples in each instrument section -- 8 Violins, 10 flutes, 6 Tubas etc.  For the non-musicians, this is not simply to get more volume, rather, a broader mix of notes from an instrument that improves the music you receive in your ears.

 

Each instrument section (like the clarinet section) is organized by “Chairs.”  First chair clarinet leads the section with the most dominate notes you hear, while the other chairs harmonize to broaden the musical quality of the piece...

07-19-2011 Silos are Landscape Antiques

United States of your Federated IT Systems

“We, the multiple systems that make you successful,

in order to form a more perfect union of internal and external technical capabilities,

establish a best-in-breed IT delivery approach...

06-21-2011 Could Better Data Mean Better Care?

I’ve been thinking about the barriers to innovation within larger companies.   As an outsider, it seems like resources are vast but the time required to build, test, and deploy new things makes capturing the opportunity illusive.

 

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, “The Ambidextrous CEO” the authors discuss how large organizations with legacy business technology and practices need to focus the responsibility for innovation at the top rather than cede to core-business division heads...

 04-26-11 Choice Design

There was a point in time, perhaps in the 70s, when the automobile began to run self -diagnostics to prevent really bad things from happening to your car.  We are on the cusp of a similar time for healthcare...

 03-29-11 Innovate or Die

03-09-2012 Shave and a haircut two bits – the value of finding a close

 03-01-11 EOS with Mike Paton

I wasn’t a jock.  Not that I didn’t play sports, I just wasn’t built to be a star athlete.  However, you didn’t need to be a jock to understand the importance of focusing on your position and not getting in the way of other players on the team.

What is a “supply chain?”  A supply chain is simply a map of positions that make up the delivery of value to the end user -- like a stream of contribution.  Along the way there can, and often is, competition to perform a certain function.  In many industry supply chains there are companies that declare a core-competence in performing a specific function (contribution) to the end product or service...

 02-01-11 Innovation Capital with Peter Birkeland

01-18-2011 No Wimps

You know the sign with the word circled and a red slash through it. I was thinking of that sign while I watched a showing of The Pacific. The scene was that of marines slogging it out in a muddy, disease ridden warzone. These WWII soldiers were fighting, and often dying, in terrible conditions, against a determined enemy. Incredible.

 

As a forty-something, my generation of American has never really felt this level of primal challenge. In fact, it’s probably a multi-generational phenomenon. Not to sound trite but let’s be honest, not having satellite TV or a current generation PDA is almost considered undue suffering nowadays...

01-04-2011 Top Three New Year’s Resolutions for Business Success

12-01-10 RAIN Makers Conference

11-01-10 Securing Funds

10-01-10 Team Building

09-01-10 Accelerator Blog Introduction