Greetings!
Many of us function as consultants, either as an internal corporate resource or as an external service provider. When one speak with prospective clients about their needs, we should ask them to describe success. It may be the single best question any consultant can pose to a customer. Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
The Single Best Question
Greetings!
Many dramatized mysteries include a "Eureka moment" where the protagonist achieves a moment of supreme clarity that enables him/her to solve a particularly perplexing puzzle. Does this happen in real life? Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Waiting For Your "Eureka" Moment?
Greetings!
Project advocates who informally "pre-sell" their proposals with internal stakeholders prior to formal presentations can substantially enhance their success prospects. Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Pre-Sell Your Ideas with "The Meeting Before the Meeting"
Program managers typically prepare for big proposal presentations by gathering and organizing their facts, figures, charts and tables into a cohesive and persuasive whole. They anticipate likely questions and prepare to either pre-empt them or devise answers for them if they arise.
Greetings!
An idea is only as valuable as its ability to be actioned. So why is it that creative ideation sessions often require participants to screen and rank ideas according to their relative attractiveness without also considering their relative feasibility?
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
How Valuable is Your Great Idea?
Greetings!
There are few things in life stronger than an entrepreneur's passion for his fledgling business idea. While this commitment is admirable and often essential in order to persevere through a new venture's trials and tribulations, alone it is an insufficient success determinant.
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Greetings!
Corporate innovators may need to gather information on prospective external technology and service partners without prematurely revealing their company's identity and possible strategic interests. So, what do they do? They mobilize their Cyrano De Bergerac.
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Have a Nose for Info Gathering?
Greetings!
In previous newsletters, I've discussed the differences, relative advantages and limitations of technology scouting versus networked intermediaries...often casting the two problem solving approaches as alternatives. For certain types of problems, they can be. For others, they should be highly complementary. With this in mind, I propose a tantalizing hybrid.
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Greetings!
Prospective clients and I often have very different views on the financial terms for service engagements. Should we?
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
An Offer I Can Refuse
Greetings!
Every few months, I introduce readers to a new innovation that I am representing to potential customers. You might be curious as to the current status of some of these candidates. Even if they aren't relevant to you or your business, this update can provide a glimpse into the (new business development) world in which I live.
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Greetings!
Recently, I saw a television commercial depicting a situation that I considered implausible, until I experienced a version of it in real life. In my case, the stakes were not as high as the one depicted in the TV spot, but the situation was sufficiently similar that it made an impression. Allow me to share...
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Taking Care of (Your) Business
Greetings!
We all want and need strong ideas to create opportunities and solve problems. Yet, most group ideation sessions fall far short of expectations because they aren't engineered to produce better outcomes. Whether the creative inputs come from an in-house team or from an online "crowd" (as discussed last week), the approach we take to tackle problems can be critical to the effort's success.
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Want Better Ideas? Here's How!
Greetings!
The worldwide web is enabling the growth of online service marketplaces that leverage the power of crowds to generate viable solutions for technical challenges. Crowd sourced contests, like most endeavors, have strengths and limitations.
Curious to learn more? Read on, dear friends...
Do Innovators Love Crowds?