Reading Time: 4minutesSteven Johnson discusses concepts in his book Where Good Ideas Come From. Here is his speech to the TED conference. I learned from Steven that the coffee shop came along in Europe at a time when most folks drank wine or beer with everything. He joked about how sobering up around Benjamin Franklin helped and brought folks together for dialogue. He said Sotheby’s was first a coffee shop that grew into an insurance company.
I just spent two days with some of the coolest marketing experts. Here are some of the folks I met and links to their work.
Barry Schwartz, author of Practical Wisdom and The Paradox of Choice, spoke to the group about the negative effects of having too many and not enough choices.
After hearing a few speakers, there were some conflicts, but the past few days were very mind-stretching. These would not have been people I would typically seek out to listen to, which is one reason I love what I do. People pay me to cover their events, and I hear people outside my interests who stretch me.
Julie Ask is the VP and Principal Analyst for Forrester Research. Julie talked about the key consumer and mobile technology trends, highlighting the opportunities to engage our customers and explore an approach to developing and deploying a mobile strategy that supports business and marketing objectives and delivers value to our customers.
Julie Ask stated that mobile is quickly becoming a major player in the market. At this point, only about 23% of phone users are using their smartphones for most of their computer needs, but she sees this number growing.
Aiden Tracey is the CEO of Mosaic Sales Solutions, one of North America’s fastest-growing and leading privately held agencies. He discussed how old marketing rules are rewritten by new technology and empowered consumers. Marketers must closely examine their current go-to-market strategies to evaluate the approaches that truly deliver ROI.
Aiden Tracey showed how the introduction of technology changed marketing and business. This graph shows the resulting impact of the introduction of radio, TV, Cable, and the web.
Tom Asker, Author and Brand Strategist, discussed unlocking hearts and minds in today’s idea economy. At the core of his thesis is that there are invisible metaphysical doors to people’s hearts and minds. More importantly, some specific keys and designs will unlock these doors.
All the speakers addressed the idea that we no longer live in a commodities market. We live in an experiential market. While some even talked about how the entire Walt Disney World is an experience and not so much a commodity, they pointed to more and more things that today drive higher sales growth are linked directly to an experience the company provides. A good example of this is Starbucks. One presenter commented that he heard the CEO of Maxwell House say that nothing new had happened to coffee in the last 15 years. The CEO was still thinking about the commodity of the coffee itself and not the experience that Starbucks had brought to the industry.
David Butler, VP Global Design, The Coca-Cola Company, talked about how design is used to create competitive advantage. He used the example of how kids need to brush their teeth for 2 minutes, and they found a product that played a 2-minute song that his daughters would use to time their brushing. This creative solution was a system that addressed an issue. Coke’s new 100-plus flavor fountains are something Coke has created to help create a system that offers variety for the customer.
Take what your company does that ends in ING and make a list of it—things like roasting or cooking. Then, think of new words you have not considered about your company, and make up a new word with ING. I might write photographing, capturing, and things related to taking pictures. Then, I would create new words like “storying,” “vizwording,” and so on. This is how I see myself helping folks tell their stories by combining words and visuals.
You can tell from the expressions of the attendees at the conference that this was an enjoyable experience.
If you want to be the next Starbucks, Google, or Facebook business success, study them, and you will discover that they are all creating experiences and are not just commodities. What kind of experience are you making for your customers?
Everyone was eager to collaborate and interact with each other.
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