Dumb Ways to Die: perfect case of Social Media

Dumb ways to die. I absolutley love this little tune. Impressive to think of it has nearly 22 million views in less ten days. Even more so, when you realize this is a public information campaign by the Australian Metro service. Bravo!

One of my students mentioned this video earlier this week. Next week I’m giving a keynote talk on Winning in Social Media. Hence, I’m doing extensive research into leading ideas in social media marketing.  I have to tip my hat off to the Australian Metro. This is a perfect example of new generation thinking in communications and social technologies.

The campaign uses an integrated social strategy. The .com website and youtube channel are the two main plattforms. But the campaign also uses Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter to generate viral effect. It is a perfect case study in integrated social technologies.

The traffic on Twitter alone is worth studying indepth for its global reach and viral chatter. Amazing, really.

Developed by John Mescall, Executive Creative Director at Mccann Australia, the campaign has been picked up in the global press as it goes viral. But this is a perfect example of a marketing/communication campaign designed to go viral. Dumb Ways to Die; a case study in the future of marketing communications.

 

…Kolumbus could learn a thing or two….

Finn.no gets innovation

Statoil ASA and Snøhetta Design are listed as Norway’s two most innovative companies*Now, Finn.no is aiming to top both of them for the title of “one of the world’s most innovative companies”.

Finn.no has a long history of innovation. The company was founded on the very idea of disruptive innovation itself. The idea that the newspaper industry was facing a significant disruption in the market for ads. While the realization hit management back in 1996, it was not until the year 2000 today’s business model was launched.  Resistance to launching what came to be called Finn.no was originally stiff, as it would cannibalize an existing cash cow for many of Norway’s leading newspapers. According to sources close to the process, “Finn.no just barely made it past the decisionmakers ”. Yet, as Clayton Christensen frequently says, “If you don’t have to courage to disrupt yourself, somebody else will”.

In Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Solution”, he recommend “that organizations develop internal innovation programs, which operate independently within the organization for the purpose of creating disruptive innovations, even if they will eventually undercut their main business. Better to disrupt yourself than to have someone else do it for you”(Gamme, 2006).

For the founding newspapers, this of course, was just what happened. Today, Finn.no is both a shooting star and cash cow with 44 % profit margin on revenues of NOK 1.1 bn. I don’t think you’ll find a lot of Newspapers with that kind of result margin these days.  Today, Schibsted’s more traditional newspaper business units (Norway and abroad) hover between 2 % and 18 % profit margins.

Finn.no’s amazing numbers are all thanks to innovation.

Since 2006, Finn.no has been working to define and strengthen its innovation process. (recommend reading this excellent blog post by Eyvind Larre, Finn.no head of innovation lab).

Today Finn.no is building its innovation engine further. Jens Hauglum was hired as Innovation Manager in May. on June 14th, the company took out an ad for the position of Innovation Catalyst.

It’s this ad that got our attention. 

We meet a lot of companies that talk about innovation. Some hire for innovation. But this ad is perhaps the most insightful innovation job posting we have ever seen in Norway. Many CEOs could learn from it.

In our upcoming paper “Where’s Your Innovation Academy?” we map out a holistic model for building a truly innovative company. Analyzing Finn.no using this model reveals just this kind of a highly innovative company.

The holistic model for innovation has the following steps:

Why: Strategic Context

Finn.no er et av Norges mest lønnsomme og mest besøkte nettselskaper, og er ledende i verden innen sitt forretningsområde. Finn.no er derfor en av spydspissene i Schibsted-konsernet innen online-virksomhet.

(Finn.no is one of Norway’s most profitable web sites, and a world leader in its field.)

To stay grow further, innovation is an absolute requirement (our comment)

What: Vision
“FINN har ambisjon om å være blant de mest innovative selskapene i verden’’ (Finn’s ambition is to be among the world’s most innovative companies)

How: three enablers (people, culture and processes)

“Dette skal vi få til ved å etablere innovasjonsprosesser og innovasjonskultur i verdensklasse’’(We’ll acheive this by establishing worldclass innovation processes and innovation culture)

Speaking for the people side; the CEO is ‘’ Passionate about innovation and people development”. The company has a number of people working on innovation processes. And Finn.no is ranked as Norway’s #1 Great Place to Work. 

Knowing there’s a strong link between employee engagement (measured in GPTW) and innovation capacity, it’s reasonable to assume a strong people-practice for innovation at Finn.no

Based on our work in Norway, Finn.no should be a candidate for one of the country’s most innovative companies already.

We’ve allowed ourselves to paste the entire ad below. We will be showing this to a lot of Norwegian HR-directors. There’s no need to be based in Silicon Valley to develop the innovation engine for tomorrow. Finn.no is doing it right here, right now. Well done!

Finn.no seeking Innovation Catalyst
(see the full ad here)

FINN.no har på sine 12 år rukket å få praktisk talt hele Norges befolkning som fornøyde brukere. Det er vel ikke utenkelig at akkurat du har svidd av en time eller tre her også? Slikt blir det fornøyde eiere av, og etter hvert 330 engasjerte medarbeidere som sitter samlet i Oslo sentrum. Markedsplassen vår er en braksuksess, men vi har ingen planer om å bli late og fornøyde av den grunn. FINN er en viktig del av mediekonsernet Schibsted og består av markedene FINN eiendom, FINN bil, FINN jobb, FINN torget, FINN reise og FINN oppdrag.

FINNs verdier som preger oss i alt vi gjør:
SULT – PRESISJON – TAKHØYDE – HUMØR

Innovasjonskatalysator

FINN har ambisjon om å være blant de mest innovative selskapene i verden. Dette skal vi få til ved å etablere innovasjonsprosesser og innovasjonskultur i verdensklasse. Innovasjon er en kjernekompetanse i FINN og sammen skal vi skape de beste markedsplassene, både nye og eksisterende. Sentralt i arbeidet med å oppnå dette er teamet som jobber med FINN Way of Innovation. Teamet eier målet om innovasjonsprosesser i verdensklasse og er sentral i arbeidet med å sette retning for, og implementere, måten FINN jobber med innovasjon på.

Vi er nå på jakt etter en ny kollega. Du skal, som stillingstittelen innebærer, være en katalysator for innovasjonsarbeidet i FINN. Du vil også være en viktig kulturbærer for innovasjonsarbeidet. Stillingen rapporterer til leder for innovasjon.

Arbeidsoppgaver:

Gartner: sørge for at det er jordsmonn, næring og hageredskap nok til at ideer sås, spirer og gror. Dette innebærer bla. at man skal eie prosesser og verktøy knyttet til idegenerering og verktøy, både online og ved hjelp av workshops og kreative teknikker. En viktig oppgave blir å hjelpe markedsplassene med å kjøre idekampanjer, verdiøke, prioritere og score ideer

Los: hjelpe nye og eksisterende markedsplasser med å implementere innovasjonsprosesser og verktøy. Dette innebærer bla. å være subject matter expert på innovasjon og ha sterke prosesslederegenskaper. Du må samtidig være dyktig på å bringe lærdom fra markedsplassene tilbake til den felles utviklingen av innovasjonsarbeidet i FINN

Kvalifikasjoner:

• Erfaring fra innovasjonsarbeid, helst i større virksomhet
• Erfaring fra å drive Idea Management prosesser, gjerne med erfaring i bruk av verktøy
• Fasiliteringskompetanse og people skills
• Prosess- og prosjektledelse
• Metodekompetanse innen innovasjon
• Gjerne erfaring fra startups
• Erfaring fra konsulentvirksomhet vil bli vektlagt

Vi kan tilby

• Konkurransedyktige betingelser
• Gode pensjons- og forsikringsordninger
• Bedriftshytter og leiligheter
• Fri avis, telefon, nettbrett og internett.
• Treningsmuligheter med eget treningsrom
• Kontorer sentralt i Oslo sentrum
• Et stimulerende, sosialt og utviklende arbeidsmiljø med dedikerte mennesker.

* note
Listed as in being the only two Norwegian companies in the most widely used international rankings. These include BusinessWeek’s , Fast Company’s MIC50, CNN/Fortune Magazine, and more.
Other rankings might provide other results. Valid as of time of writing.

Management innovation at Young in Aibel

Recently I was invited to give a talk at a Young in Aibel workshop. Little did I know that I would meet a highly passionate, multicultural crew of young leaders. Our upcoming book is titled “Strategy Tools For The Next Generation”. The young crew I met at Aibel is just that Next Generation.

Young in Aibel is the brainchild of Marcus Hølland Eikeland, a project manager and business developer at Aibel. Used to making things happen, and seeing a need for a greater network amongst young employees, Marcus got the ball rolling on Young in Aibel. Hoping to see 30 members by end of October 2011, the Linkedin Group is 117 member strong and quickly growing.

Young in Aibel’s innovator-in-chief, Marcus Hølland Eikeland

It was this engaged group who was willing to stay after work on a Friday afternoon to join the workshop, “Innovation at Aibel”.

Young in Aibel: Innovation@Aibel

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Special pre-print edition of our upcoming book
For Aibel we had the unique opportunity to provide a special, custom-made, pre-print edition of our upcoming book, “Dream Bigger: Your Personal Innovation Sketch Book”. Project manager Marcus Hølland Eikeland wrote the perfect introdution:

“Someone smart once said: ‘Life starts at the end of your comfort zone’.This is what ‘Young in Aibel’ is all about. Meeting new people, pushing ideas, and challenging the status quo.
Bring your ideas to life by drawing, writing or sketching them in this notebook. Together we shape the future. – The Young in Aibel Crew.”

This kind of young, self-organized, highly engaged group of people from Norway, Brazil, India, Venezuela and Sweden is something most firms would love to have.

Management innovation in the making
Young in Aibel – and programs like it – has all the characteristicas of Management Innovation. The program is bottom-up. It got kick-started by Marcus. It has no formal organizational structure or unit. It just comes together. The group uses open social media plattform, Linkedin, rather than corporate e-mail to communicate. It is a community of passion, not a formal project. And it is spreading like wildfire to other parts of Aibel’s organization.

But what is Management Innovation
Through our teaching and consulting, people frequently ask us “what is management innovation?”
Using Birkenshaw, Hamel and Mol’s definition: “We define management innovation as the invention and implementation of a management practice, process, structure, or technique that is new to the state of the art and is intended to further organizational goals” (Management Innovation, Academy of Management Review, 2008:33) .

A more straight forward defintion is “reinventing management”. Because few firms, few scholars and few employees believe today’s managment model is helping us get the best out of people and organizations. Of all nine levels of innovation, management innovation is the least developed, but this is slowly changing.

Management innovation has been covered in Harvard Business Review in “Moon Shots for Management” (2009) and “Why, What, and How of Management Innovation” (2006).

Hamel and his crew of renegade scholars have also developed a set of “moonshots for management”.

Management innovation coming soon to a company very near you
Over the past few months I’ve had several lectures and talks covering management innovation. Using Google as a case study at BI Norwegian Business School, leads students to define “G-Leadership” – a suggestion for explaning what Google is doing, that the existing models for management (transformational leadership) does not explain.

A recent talk I gave to a group of financial controllers highlighted examples of management innovations. Using the Innovation Pyramid, the examples ranged from “using social medias as a leadership tool” to the big question “Do we really need managers?”. Again, this is very early in a new paradigm for management. But seeing the growing trend, watching the level of engagement on the MIX – Management Innovation Exchange – makes us confident in predicting Management Innovation is coming soon to a company very near you.

One such management innovation is excactly what Aibel is doing. And I believe it is truly exciting.
How do you light a creative spark under your young people, your next generation of leaders? How do you enable them to take charge, seize the moment and help push the creative thinking in the firm? This is excactly what Young in Aibel is doing. ….

The challenge for all firms: How do we reinvent management? How do we become management innovators? How do we create strategy tools for this next generation?

Update:
While we were writing this blog post Harvard Business Review published Gary Hamel’s latest article on management innovation “First, Let’s Fire All the Managers”. This December 2012 edition of Harvard Business Review has a great case study on how Morning Star Company generates $700 million in revenue with 400 employees – and no managers. We’ll cover this indepth in an upcoming blog post.

Altibox: Busting Business Models

Last week I had the great pleasure of visiting Altibox´s offices. Wow, was I impressed!!

Why does a TV have to be a TV?
Why should the TV channel decide what I watch?
Why can´t I watch any program, on any device, at any time, at any place?

These are just a handful of the questions Altibox is asking – on its way to disrupt a range of industries, from television, movies, broadband services, gaming and communication. Simply put, Altibox is potentially reinventing your digital life.

We´ve longed argued that Norway, with it´s small population and high digital proficency is a great test market for next generation digital services. Telenor has been fairly fast, but outside of that, we´ve not seen an impressive range of groundbreaking digital services. That is, untill now.

Altibox and the mother company Lyse came on our radars some months ago. Recently their energetic and passionate Sales Director Stian Røisland held a guest lecture at BI Norwegian Business School. His presentation was more Sillicon Valley start-up than mature energy industry. My strategy students were wildly impressed. I was curious. Here was a company not only using the 30/30 rule in strategy (30 % of the participants in the strategy process should be under 30 years old). No. At Altibox closer to 80 % are under 30 years – and everyone´s taking part in the strategy process.
While some firms struggle to recruit at University level, Altibox is running a unique High School recruiting program. “We recruit for attitude, then train them for skills”, says Røisland, fielding through more than 100 applications for ten open positions. Taking a page from pro football, Altibox recruit them young, then develop them in-house, including paying for business school as they develop. If Kobe Bryant can join the NBA at 17, why can´t Altibox recruit next generation leaders at 18?

Making your digital home a reality

While recruiting for the future is one thing, developing digital services for the future is truly another – and Altibox is hard at work. Today I witnessed the smart house of the future. Combining existing software and hardware, Altibox´s team of innovative technologists have made the digital home a reality. Currently field testing 19 houses for the elderly in Stavanger, the company combines light, doors, temperatures, video calling, TV, security, health check-ups and more, all into one device, all running on one plattform. Now, your grandmother can watch her grandchildren play on your floor from the comforts of her couch, while opening her front door without having to get up. And home nursing services can check in on her using video conferencing. While none of these are new technologies in themselves, Altibox´s team has put these together into one user-friendly app running on the iPad (android coming shortly).
With field testing well under way, deployment can´t be far off.

Gunnar Crawford, innovative Senior Business Developer at Altibox

Changing the game…and reinventing your television

Having dug Norway´s fastest fiber broadband to customers, the company is now developing digital services to make use of the capacity. This, of course, opens for innovative possibilities.

How would you like to watch six football games at once, on six split windows on your TV, all in HD. And if you have to get up and leave the couch, you can continue watching on your iPad as you move into your office..

Or how about choose any TV program you want, then watch it when you want, at what pace you want and fast forward whenever you get bored. No need to follow the TV schedule, because there is none. No need to tune into Grey´s anatomy at 21:45, beacuse you can get it whenever you want, on any device you want. And hey, perhaps you can choose whether to pay .99 cents for it, or watch a bit of advertising and get it for free.

TV, of course, is only part of the services being rolled out. High Defintion Video Calling using Cisco Ümi is another service. Social gaming over Altibox´s platform is another. Integrative e-learning, combining video lectures, twitter feeds and slideshows in multiple windows is yet another.

Radical business model innovator

The Norwegian book industry has chosen to stand by and watch the digital revolution. Altibox is leading a massive push to reinvent the TV-industry and the many layers of services potentially following your future TV usage. While the company still is small in scale, the ideas are big.

For most radical innovators, getting the business model right is the big challenge. Finding the right streams of cash flow for the right level of services at a time the market is ready to buy requires finess, insight and more than a little bit of luck.

Altibox had many open questions. But the company also had some emerging answers. Integrated vs. stand-alone, purchase vs. subscription-based, slow growth or massive scale-up. Yes, questions only begets more questions. But finding the right mix of business models will happen through trial, experiments and innovation close to the customers. It will be interesting to watch as Altibox puts their various business models to the test.

Putting the Innovation Pyramid to work

Analyzing Altibox using the Innovation Pyramid reveals a telling picture. The company is hard at work on radical business model and radical industry innovation.

Altibox Innovation Pyramid

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While most firms we look at struggle just to develop innovation at the product and process level, Altibox is racing ahead. While a lot of firms are satisifed with 3, 5 or 10 % of revenue from services less than three years old, Altibox is working at a whole different level.

While most firms are pleased with a balanced level of incremental innovation, Altibox is really pushing the envelope in terms of bringing innovations to the market. Not small, safe, incremental innovation, but big, bold, potentially massively disruptive innovations. Innovations that can change how people use technology both at home and at work. And this is not something that can happen some years from now. It is happening. Today. At Altibox.

Watch this company. I believe this could be a growth case to follow. And first step is finding the right mix of business models.

Stian Røisland, highly engaged and relentlessly positive Sales Director at Lyse

It’s people like Gunnar and Stian that’s making innovation happen. Thanks.

——-Update———
This blog is driving a new record of hits on our blog. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sharing.

Google has X-Lab; What have you got?

A recent NY Times article revealed some of the inner workings of Google’s X-lab. It is a fascinating read. For those of us who’s been keeping track of Google for years, it comes as no surprise. Rather it is a delightful example of how one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies stays innovative.

X-Lab is where Google’s team of dreamer s and doers develop the future. Today you’ll find work on self-driven cars, space elevators or self-ordering refrigerators. This is where Google’s top 100 moonshots happen. While some critics view this as being outside the core business, “investing in speculative projects is an important part of Google’s DNA”, states one spokeswoman. Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin is even clearer, stating“…we hope (this) will graduate to important key businesses in the future”.

Now reading about Google and X-Lab is fascinating. But the bigger question is; What have you got? When you look at the average firms’ innovation capability. When you look at the average firms’ innovation processes; how wildly creative and innovative are these? How wildly creative and innovative is your firm?

OF course, most simply aren’t. Sadly so. Most firms focus too much on what scholars Govindarajan and Trimble call “Manage the present”. While they should evenly balance what the authors call “Selectively abandon the past” and “Create the future”.

The two repeatedly state “Business organizations are not designed for innovation, they are designed for ongoing operations. And there are deep and fundamental conflicts between the two”.

Yet, Google’s X-lab shows one glimpse of how one company is organizing itself for more innovation. Google’s innovation philosophies are more complex than this, but the X-lab is one highly visible effort – and it is one most firms could – and should – copy with urgency and pride.

Eventyret Apple: Foredrag i Stavanger Næringsforening 8. desember

Foredraget Eventyret Apple, Stavanger Næringsforening 8. Desember

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Apple er et innovasjonssenter. Apple har blant verdens mest engasjerte kunder. Apple fullstendig overgår konkurrentene i omsetning pr. kvadratmeter butikkgulv. Og Apples butikker har blitt inspirasjonsskilder for designere, etnografer og bank arkitekter. I juli 2011 hadde selskapet til og med en større kontantbeholdning enn USA.

Vi inviterer deg til et spennende foredrag hvor vi ser på Apple som en stor eventyrhistorie. Et eventyr som kan analyseres, tolkes og forstås. Et eventyr andre kan både lære av og bli inspirert av. Foredraget vil være faglig forankret i strategi, men vil være av interesse for alle som jobber med salg, marked, ledelse, strategi, innovasjon og rett og slett alle som er nysgjerrige på å forstå eventyret Apple.

Foredragsholder:
Christian Rangen
Høyskolelektor, Handelshøyskolen BI
Partner Engage // Innovate.
Christian underviser i strategi, innovasjon og ledelsesfag. På BI jobber han mye med utvikling og gjennomføring av bedriftsinterne program.

Møteinformasjon
Dato: Torsdag08.12.2011 Kl. 11:00 – Kl 13:00
Sted: Rosenkildehuset

Påmeldingsfrist: 07.12.2011
Påmelding her.

Leadership in Action: ”A fresh look at strategy”

Leadership in Action; Strategi med andre øyne. – Christian Rangen

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(in Norwegian)

Lecture given at BI Norwegian Business School’s Leadership in Action program. This is a ‘different’ look at strategy, innovation and thinking differently. This is the first public apperance of the Dinosaur Theory in Norwegian. More work is forthcoming. English language edition is forthcoming by December 2011.

If these accountants can innovate; so can you

“We have an average age of 27, but we have roots in tax and assurance,” says U.S. chairman Bob Moritz, using the industry jargon for auditing and related functions. “So how do you make this place feel like a Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) or a Facebook? A place that feels leading-edge?”(Fortune Magazine, Oct 14)

That’s the kind of innovation challenges we love to hear about. That’s the kind of big, brave, daring questions every leader should ask him or herself.That’s the question PWC asked themselves. How do you recruit, retain and develop talent when the incoming generation expect to be, well, fun, daring and innovative?

Enter PowerPitch, a firm-wide innovation competition launched by PwC november 2010. Designed to boost “Idea generation from a new generation” PowerPitch became PWC’s innovation challenge engine.

Structured as a global crowdsourcing program, Powerpitch was designed by Mitra Best, their U.S. Innovation Office Leader.
Called “the next generation’s way of thinking”, PowerPitch is a great example of making innovation happen.
If an accountancy can do it, so can you!

We urge everyone to read the great tale of PowerPitch in Fortune magazine.

Watch PWC Chief Innovation Officer, Sheldon Laube talk about PWC’s innovation aspirations. Does your senior leadership sound like this yet?