By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge Growth Hacking. Depending on who you listen to, it's either the fastest growing "new" field of marketing or one of the most over inflated of buzz words. My take as a "classically-trained marketer" is this: It ain't nothing new. It's just a form or better yet an updated framework for direct response advertising. That being said, I do think that term can be / could be useful as a short hand term for: "A super-focused, super-aggressive form of Direct Response Advertising where your ass, your paycheck and your company's survival is on the line everyday, and whereby the marketing campaigns that you develop and run must be done so on a compressed time scale with a limited to non-existent budget." Other than that, Growth Hacking can be said to be the same "stuff", different pile.
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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge We hear so much about the supposed power of innovation and creativity. That these qualities or skill sets are somehow both unique and scarce. And at the same time, a lack of innovation and creativity is often quickly blamed for the downfall or underperformance of a company or organization. But is this really true? And more importantly, how much impact do innovation and creativity or their lack thereof really have on an organization? Here's the real deal: Innovation & creativity are highly overrated and badly misunderstood. If these were so vitally important, then Xerox PARC would have been and still would be the most successful company in the world while Microsoft would perhaps be the least successful. But it didn't turn out that way because... Well, because innovation and creativity are both meaningless and worthless without the ability to productize them. And productization is both meaningless and worthless without the ability to monetize it. And monetization can't happen without a strong leadership. Strong leadership is required to allow, enable and drive an organization to productize and then monetize its innovation and creativity. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Over the last twenty years, and accelerating in the last 7 years, not only Japan but the entire world has begun to question Japan's ability to innovate and create as companies such as Apple and Samsung rule Japan's former stomping grounds and gleefully gorge themselves on Japanese companies' bento boxes on a daily basis. Meanwhile, once mighty and innovative Japanese firms like Sony and Panasonic bleed red and constantly try to slough off workers while peddling a staid if uninspiring set of "me-too" and "also-ran" product lines. How far has Sony fallen? Well, it's gotten to be so bad that if Sony founder, Akio Morita, were to magically re-appear today and venture over to the front entrance of Sony Japan, he wouldn't recognize the place. Worse, if he then decided to apply for a position, not only wouldn't they hire him, they'd most likely call security and have him escorted off the premises. But all is not lost. In our No Box Thinking™ (Volume 3), entitled "How Struggling Japanese Companies Can Beat Silicon Valley's Fast-moving Startups At Their Own Game" we go through exactly what has happened, what has changed and how, in a short time and by using some talent management adjustments, Japanese firms can again perform at our above that of their competitors. Pinterest, Box, Splunk & Millennial Media @ Mitsubishi Estate's EGG/Tokyo 21C 2014 Shinnenkai1/27/2014 Fun night at Mitsubishi Estate's EGG/T21C New Year's Kickoff Party (Shin-nen-kai). Had great presentations from the Japan Country managers of Pinterest, Box, Splunk and Millennial Media. By James Santagata Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge It seems like the peddling of the old standby Myths & Memes is on the rise once again in the Valley. As this is often a lagging indicator of both the Valley's, and even the wider Tech Industry's financial state, it tells me that we're in a very frothy if not overheated market since people are now letting their hair down and apparently gleefully throwing themselves onto the politically correct bandwagon. But they should be careful, lest they find themselves thrown beneath it. Still, it's my guess that whatever problems or disasters may rear their ugly heads in the future due to blind belief and adherence to these Myths & Memes, the folks most involved are betting that they'll be able to quickly paper over it with the waves and waves of cash that are flowing so freely now. But not everyone believed let alone followed these Myths and Memes and amazingly, they didn't fail or turn into a pumpkin or a toad. What a perfect example of a person who broke every one of these Myths and Memes? Try Steve Jobs. Yep, Steve Jobs. And Apple Computer under his guidance during his second tour of duty. The fact is, no one can deny that, under Steve Jobs, Apple was a smashing success. All the metrics are there: market cap, profits, amazing hit product after hit product. iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone. You name it. Wow! And for the record, I am by no means an Apple fan nor am I a Steve Jobs / Apple Computer apologist. I'm simply a reality-based thinker and I call it the way it is, not the way I wish it were. That said, I'm a very serious student of Steve Jobs and I'm not afraid to look at what really made him successful. I can tell you, it wasn't following the Valley Myth and Memes and it wasn't being politically correct. In fact, Steve Jobs did the exact opposite of what most pundits and social engineers are preaching. And the reason it worked for Steve Jobs is because Steve Jobs and his communication style was perfectly aligned with the way the world and humans work. What is most interesting, though perhaps very disconcerting to the social engineers among us, is how Steve Jobs did it. We're told that if a person studies hard at the "right" schools, gets a "good" education and makes the "right" connections they'll be well positioned for success. Beyond that we are told, especially in the Valley, that an organization will perform best when it is openly transparent (both internally and externally), when there is diversity, when there are women in senior leadership positions and when we have an open environment of respect and perhaps kumbayahism in the office. Going even further, we are told that we should be investing and building all kinds of new tech that people have never seen. And by "new tech" I mean core tech, not making sexy cases, new form factors or tinkering with some incremental derivative product like the iPod. And yet, if we look at Steve Jobs and his management style during his absolutely, amazing and record smashing second run we find something that is completely at odds with what the pundits say is necessary for success: 1. No diversity at Apple (as defined by the politically correct sense of skin pigmentation / reproductive organs). 2. No women in senior leadership positions (see also: Apple Vows To Find Women & Minorities For Board Directors). 3. No Indians in senior leadership positions (see: Why Indian presence in Apple's senior management level is next to nil). 4. Few minorities (see: Apple Facing Criticism About Diversity Changes Bylaws). 5. Steve Jobs didn't go to a "top" university. 6. Steve Jobs didn't even graduate from a four-year college. 7. Steve Jobs was not transparent. At best, he could be characterized as a benevolent dictator, at worst a tyrant. 8. Jobs/Apple was not open -- you leak new Apple products, you'd be hunted down & sued (see: Apple Sues To Stop Product Leaks). 9 Jobs/Apple could be downright nasty, even engaging in potentially illegal activity, if the "no poach" collusion allegations are borne out. 10. Steve Jobs even used his money to find a loophole in California vehicle code so that he wouldn't have to get license plates and had an apparent penchant for parking in the handicap spaces. And yet again, while Steve Jobs just turned a blind eye to all of these supposed business and organizational "requirements" his results were phenomenal. Can we in any way argue with Steve Jobs' success? It seems that few prominent members of the Valley tech community question his success so I guess not. Next time, we'll dig a bit deeper and explore why Steve Jobs was so successful, time and time again. The results may surprise you. Lastly, as quick exercise, we should ask ourselves is Apple really lacking diversity? Or is and has Apple always been diverse but in a more mature manner, such as defining "diversity" with regard to value, thought patterns and productivity rather than with regard to skin pigments and reproductive organs?. It can easily be argued that a man and women studying the same subject matter from Princeton (not to pick on any school) will be more alike than two men, one of which studied electrical engineering and the other who studied marketing at two different schools in two different states or countries. Think about it. Think. Different. No Box Thinking™: How To Beat Silicon Valley's (and other) Fast-Moving Startups At Their Own Game1/11/2014 By James Santagata Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge “Core competencies are different for every organization. But every organization needs one core competence: innovation.” - Peter Drucker
Secret Silicon Valley: Deconstructing Silicon Valley While Exploding The Myths & The Memes1/10/2014 By James Santagata Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge Business Is Simply Warfare Without The Pleasantries and Veneer of the Geneva Convention
By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge Select, develop, deploy & manage your people right & you can have the advantages of a high-tech economic center right at home. Simply hearing the words Silicon Valley can evoke an image of cutting-edge innovation advanced by an army of daring, if not slightly mad, entrepreneurs who feverishly seek to develop the world’s next technological marvels. But what exactly makes Silicon Valley so successful and, more importantly, can it be replicated? China has Zhong Guan Cun, India has Bangalore. Where is Japan's “Silicon Valley”? Japan, the third largest economy in the world, still lacks any type of large, formal tech epicenter like the one in California. Does this even matter for business success in the 21st century? Many people, including Silicon Valley industry insiders, will immediately and perhaps misguidedly say yes. A more reasoned and introspective analysis, however, demonstrates that this type of success is not about location but more importantly about talent. And even more specifically: it is not just about talent, but about how that talent is selected, developed, deployed and managed. To create a Silicon Valley atmosphere, a company needs employees who possess these three skills: 1. Business acumen to identify huge opportunities; 2. Leadership to seize those opportunities; and 3. The ability to select, develop, deploy and manage talent to quickly exploit these opportunities. Once we understand this, what then are the core skills that we should be focusing on when developing talent that can rise to and perform at the level of Silicon Valley’s? If we look closely, it’s clear that this boils down to five core skills, all of which can be readily developed in our existing employees: 1. Leadership: The ability to take risks, to develop a vision and to lead others to the successful path. This is not just for senior leaders, but for all key players so that they can learn how to lead across all levels: from senior management to their peers or to those below them. And it includes the ability to reframe what are commonly perceived as failures as mistakes and missteps with important lessons to learn. Steve Jobs had success in a variety of diverse areas and products, from the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iTunes and Pixar. This wasn’t accidental nor was it surprising, as each of these areas was ripe for a true leader to identify and then pluck the low hanging, yet massive fruit. His move into iTunes alone was pure leadership as he had to overcome the lawsuit Apple had lost to the Beatles record label prohibiting engagement in music-related businesses. His success with iPod was further made possible by Sony’s reluctance to move its Walkman franchise forward into developing solid state devices including technologies such as microprocessor chip, crystalline semiconductors and RAM. 2. Communication: The ability to clearly communicate through a variety of media ranging from one-on-one and group meetings to formal reports and presentations to business emails and video conferences. Very often, the best ideas as well as the pulse of the market comes from those closest to the customer – support engineers, sales and customer service. And yet, most often this information does not get captured and clearly communicated back to product managers and the executive staff (see also Ogushi Matrix Communication lines). 3. Influence & Persuasion: The ability to get others to want to support a project or, if they won’t actively support it, to at least make sure that they don’t actively resist it. Previously we mentioned the need to capture and clearly communicate opportunities and obstacles a company may face or is facing. Yet, there are plenty of instances where even a clearly communicated issue or opportunity falls on deaf ears, such as Kodak’s need to move from film-based to digital cameras. There are many reasons for resisting opportunities or ignoring warnings about obstacles, including that this information or proposed shift in business may benefit the company but specifically expose or harm one person’s or department’s operations, ego, status or bonuses. For this reason, clear communication is only a starting point. Beyond this, influence and persuasion must be utilized as well. 4. Negotiation: The ability to negotiate not only externally but, often more importantly, internally. This is critical during situations such as when a green light is needed for a feasibility study, to request funds and resources for product development or to get approval and buy in for the launch of a product that will potentially cannibalize an existing cash cow product. Influence and persuasion can only take us so far, and at some point it can be expected that we will need to negotiate. This requires the ability to craft a win-win solution as well as to ensure that the other party sees it that way. It is not only possible but extremely common for a win-win to be misperceived and subsequently blocked, simply because the other person has become psychologically opposed resulting in a classic “cut your nose off to spite your face” scenario. In these scenarios everyone loses including employees, managers, shareholders and customers. 5. Assertiveness: The ability and confidence to speak up and share opinions or ideas or to challenge another’s opinions or ideas in a professionally affirmative manner. Assertiveness (often confused with aggressiveness) is a critical skill that is especially important for those who may have key insights and knowledge, such as engineers or service people, but not the personality or interest in speaking out nor the title or standing within the company. Instilling this skill in a firm’s employees can unleash great productivity and opportunity while also identifying problems or obstacles before they become dangerous or expensive. By developing these 5 core skills sets and Valley Values in your existing talent you will ensure that your employees’ inherent creativity and innovative nature do not go to waste and that the people with these ideas have the tools and skills needed to bring this forth to their peers and superiors and ultimately to the market place. By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge One of the frequent topics we discuss besides the myth and meme that "Necessity Is the Mother of All Invention" is the fact many of Silicon Valley's most vaunted startups are all post-tech businesses. Yes, you read that right. Post-tech. They surely use technology in their day-to-day operations just as UPS does, the Hilton hotel chain or even Walmart. However, many of these startups may actually use even less tech than these brick and mortar firms. Examples of such startups and ventures include Airbnb, Uber and Zappos which is analogous to an online Nordstrom in terms of the customer service experience. What does all this mean? As we've discussed many times before, this means that what many of these startups will face (are facing) as their primary challenge is human in nature not technical. Specifically, the markets that post-tech startups will want or tend to target or those which are massively inefficient (and have huge profit potential with tepid or ossified competition) due to the use of regulatory capture by rent-seeking incumbents. The transportation industry is a perfect example of this as seen in the TechCrunch article below (although the writer seems oblivious to what this term or concept) whereby these rent seeking incumbents are using regulatory capture to have the French government force more efficient and consumer desired transportation services to artificially extend customer wait times by 15 minutes (apparently the average wait time for some of these alternative car services is only 7 minutes). You can't make this up. But it is should be expected, not just in the tech world but especially the post-tech world. Uber, LeCab And Others Now Have To Wait 15 Minutes Before Picking You Up In France Posted by Romain Dillet (@romaindillet) At first, it was just an idea, but this bill is now very real — urban transportation services like Uber and LeCab will now have to wait 15 minutes in France before letting a customer in the car. Back in October, the French government mentioned this piece of legislation as these new services would hurt traditional cab drivers. But nothing was set in stone until the AFP spotted the new bill today — and this news comes as a surprise. In France, you have to pay a hefty price to get your taxi license. As a payback, the taxi industry is very regulated in this country, and drivers can expect to get a healthy influx of clients. Yet, when the young and fearless startups appeared, many taxi drivers protested against LeCab, Chauffeur-privé, SnapCar, Allocab, Voitures Jaunes and Uber. While the French law calls these companies “VTC” services (car services), taxi drivers think that they are direct competitors — and smartphones certainly make Uber and others act like taxi services. That’s why the government sided with taxi drivers and talked about creating the 15-minute rule. Shortly after that, Allocab, Chauffeur-privé, LeCab and SnapCar put together an online petition against the project. Then, nothing happened. It was like the government had forgotten about this idea. In November, French heavyweight LeCab raised $6.8 million (€5 million) in Series B funding. At the time, I wrote that it was “a good time for it to raise” with the impending changes. Last week, the Competition Authority (Autorité de la concurrence) even wrote that the 15-minute delay was a bad idea. “This competitive imbalance is not necessary to protect the taxi monopoly on this market. Moreover, it potentially contradicts the objective to improve free traffic flow,” the report says. By James Santagata Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge Ask the average person to think of Japan and then to share with you the first thing that pops into their mind. I can guarantee you that they'll almost certainly read back from one or more of these several powerful and well-established myths and memes: 1. High-Tech Japan: A High-tech and Cyberpunk culture and society comprised of very polite albeit non-thinking and undifferentiated robots and drones all clothed similarly in their business or school uniforms and all marching off to the office or to school. Visitors find themselves amazed by the high-tech, 20-function paperless Toto toilets, the jaw-dropping variety of merchandise dispensed by ubiquitous vending machines, the automated, elevator-driven parking structures, auto-opening doors, sensor-controlled escalators and so on. 2. Old Japan: The nostalgic view of Japan found in Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai" and other movies before which focuses on the picturesque Japan. The culture and the style. The polite, disciplined demeanor of the people. The attention to detail and quality. The lacquer ware artisan, the sword craftsman. Mount Fuji (富士山), Kyoto, Nara and Kamakura. Geisha. Sumo. Onsens. Samurai. Ninja. Swords. Shamisen. Kimono. 3. Modern Japan / Culture Japan: The exporting of top talent in baseball as well as having its players picked up by European soccer clubs. The deep stable of world-class swimmers, gymnasts, wrestlers and figure skaters. Beyond this, the delicious, healthy cuisine of Japan: sushi, sashima and various other staple dishes of Japan. Karaoke, manga, anime, video games. Modern Japan is about talent and culture. 4. WWII Japan: Banzai human waves attacks, Kamikaze pilots, rapacious invasions of civilian cities along with soldiers and civilians who would rather toss themselves off the cliffs at Saipan than surrender. 5. Basket-case Japan: 20 years of economic malaise, a deflating economy, aging population, declining birthrate, a broken self-image and the inability to create or innovate as China continues to eclipse Japan in terms of GDP all while the world waits for Japan to sink into economic obscurity and irrelevance. I've discussed and hopefully skewered a few of these myths and memes in detail, in particular: 1. Japan May Be Able To Compete Globally But Not Yet 2. Can Japan Compete? You Betcha And Here's Why 3. Japan's Problem: Severe Lack Of Leadership Not A Lack Of Innovation Or Creativity We've also discussed these topics in detail (articles and podcasts) over at FirstPoint Japan. The FirstPoint Japan Expert Interview Series may be of interest to you. The New York Times' Martin Fackler (see below) wrote a nice piece on some of the startup activity happening in Japan, however, I think it still misses some of the key points of where Japan has been, where it is, and what it needs. In a nutshell, over the last 30 years the Japanese economy has been held captive by the power wielded by ossified electronic giants such as Panasonic and others, as well as the very real monetary, career and social risk that entrepreneurs face in Japan which is only compounded by the huge amount of regulatory capture found in Japan. Surely Japan has had world class entrepreneurs before, such as Akio Morita who founded Sony, Soichiro Honda who founded Honda,Konosuke Matsushita who founded Panasonic (formerly known as Matsushita) and Kiichiro Toyoda who took his families Toyoda Loom Works and transformed them into an automotive powerhouse called Toyota. The point remains, though, that if Morita were still alive today, he wouldn't recognize Sony as it stands today, and worse, the suits currently running Sony would never, ever hire a maverick entrepreneur and genius like Morita. Akio Morita was Japan's Steve Jobs, except that he was Steve Jobs, before Steve Jobs even got out of his diapers. How aggressive and prolific was Akio Morita? Well, in terms of fights. he didn't not shy away, not only co-penning the somewhat acerbic book "The Japan That Can Say No: Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals" (and see Amazon) but also refusing to bow to arm-twisting by the US content industry that wanted to ban his Betamax recorder. Morita fought this case all the way to the US Supreme Court (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc) and won!, making this not only a victory for Morita and Sony but for all other electronic manufacturers after them and especially making this a victory for us lowly consumers. If you look closely at Japan, you'll find that it is usually during absolute or relative social or economic chaos that such dynamic entrepreneurs have risen. Mind you, this is not because "necessity is the mother of all invention" but because the chaos at had had broken or cracked the social conformity or regulatory capture just enough for a few green shoots to sneak through. These green shoots, these entrepreneurs and creators and makers, the were always there. They always had the ability to perform. But they were choked out. By a combination of social conformity and most importantly rent-seeking incumbents. In recent years, perhaps over the last three or four years, Japanese entrepreneurs and startups as well as entrepreneurs and startups in general are getting media attention (thanks in part to the visibility of Steve Jobs / Apple / iPhone and Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook among others). And with that, it has slowly become "okay" to be an entrepreneur again while at the same time the immediate financial and social risks are greatly reduced and even longer term social and career risks are lower. In other words, currently, huge momentum is building in Japan, it's under surface and it's not just Japanese entrepreneurs but foreigners as well, many of whom have relocated in Japan from tech hot spots in the US including Silicon Valley, New York and everywhere in between. These startups are critical to put further pressure on the ossified Japanese corporations to either compete and streamline their business OR die a quick, brutal death and then be composted, releasing and recycling their talent and know-how back into the pool of Japanese labor, intellectual property and financial pool. It's exactly that intra-industry competitiveness and dynamism that is a hallmark of Silicon Valley's constant success in the world technology markets (and post-tech as well) and conversely it was exactly that lack of intra-industry competitiveness and dynamism that was the death knell for Detroit's once vaunted auto industry. Japanese Start-Ups Channel Samurai Spirit
By Martin Fackler Published: December 25, 2013 TOKYO — The 20-somethings in jeans sipping espresso and tapping on laptops at this Tokyo business incubator would look more at home in Silicon Valley than in Japan, where for years the surest signs of success were the gray suits of its corporate salarymen. But for those hoping the nation’s latest economic plan will drag Japan from its long malaise, the young men and women here at Samurai Startup Island represent a crucial component: a revival of entrepreneurship. ... The signs of that comeback are still new, and tentative enough that the statistics on start-ups and initial public offerings have not caught up. But analysts and investors report that hundreds of new Internet and technology-related companies have sprung up in the last two to three years, creating an ecosystem of incubators like Samurai Startup Island and so-called accelerator new venture investment funds, which invest in early-state start-ups in hopes of cashing in. ... For years, sagging entrepreneurial spirit has been cited as a major reason for Japan’s inability to save itself from a devastating deflationary spiral. The nation that produced Sony, Toyota and Honda has created few successors. ... When he started investing in new companies six years ago, Mr. Sakakibara was lucky if two would-be entrepreneurs approached him in a week to seek financing. Now he gets two such queries a day, he said. He and others closely watching start-ups attribute the increase in interest to cultural shifts that have slowly chipped away at Japan’s famously insular culture. Having grown up immersed in an online world that stretches beyond national borders, young Japanese appear more willing to draw inspiration from foreign role models like Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. And having seen Sony cede market share to South Korea’s Samsung, many no longer share their salarymen fathers’ belief in the permanence of established corporations or lifetime jobs. “In a world where everything is risky, it’s better to be your own boss, in charge of your own destiny,” said Yoshinori Fukushima, 25, whose year-old Internet company has grown to 14 employees. ... Some warn that Japan has a way to go to become a hotbed of break-the-boundaries venture behavior. Noriyuki Takahashi, who specializes in entrepreneurship at Tokyo’s Musashi University, pointed to comparative global surveys that place Japan at the bottom among leading Western and Asian economies in social acceptance of entrepreneurs. ... |
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