Customer Service - Cultural Innovation

I'm including two links. One is the Businessweek article on their top 25 service champions. The second is a Podcast with the writer sharing some of the surprises in her research.

Great customer service is a cultural mindset as much or more than a business strategy. I recently heard Jules Williams, a Principal from Jacobs (engineering and architecture), share that their goal is not just satisfaction, exceeding expectations or delight. Their goal is amazement.

Amazement requires a deep understanding of the other person's need, desires and expectations. That demands time, reflection and empathy. It is the most relational mindset I have run across in business. Pleasant surprise is not an accident - it is highly intentional.

Amazed clients are willing to pay more, remain loyal and refer others. When you create a virtuous cycle like this you can afford to take the time, invest the energy and stay focused on your client relationships.

Jules said that 90% of their business comes from repeat and referred clients. We all know the cost of going out to find a new client or replace an exisitng one.

This 90% factor is the difference that makes a difference.

Click here for the article.

Click here for the Podcast.

The photo is Jules Williams - Principal at Jacobs - Washington, DC Office

Hillary Cottam - Changing the World Through Design

"My policy colleagues say they went into politics because they wanted to challenge the status quo and make things better for ordinary people. That's certainly why I went into design. So maybe design is more political than you think." - Hillary Cottam

"Embodying ideology Monuments to political (and corporate!) ideologies are all around us in the design of buildings, goods and services. A few years ago, a team of architects, policy makers and educationalists from the Do Tank looked at redesigning prisons. Prisons are a powerful example of the way design reinforces and makes manifest political ideology. In the 19th century, the dominant ideology in criminal justice was of power through surveillance, control, punishment of the psyche and awe of the state. Architects then designed their prisons to oppress and remove any sense of autonomy or personal identity. The most extreme of these designs is the panopticon, a circular format with a central watch tower which allows an observer to observe all prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not: the architectural equivalent of Big Brother. These designs punished indeed, but did nothing to rehabilitate their subjects. In fact, surviving examples of panopticons are known to create psychological trauma in their prisoners. " Jennie Winhall

Click here for a link to the whole article.

What assumptions are embodied in our:

• Offices
• Schools
• Libraries
• Churches
• Government buildings
• Health facilities

What are the assumptions about the people coming in; about the leadership inside, about the organization"s relationship to its immediate community, about its legacy, about its interaction with the public?

"French philosopher Michel Foucault describes power as distributed and ubiquitous--embedded in our daily lives. The spaces we inhabit, the tools we use and the systems we interact with are all mediated by design, and so design, then, operates as part of that power. It is, whether we like it or not, being used to shape society--but by whom?" - Jennie Winhall

Many of the challenges we face as a society find their expression in design. Design is the outward expression of our philosophy, theology and worldview.

Edward Deming - transformation through a new system of reward

Innovation requires transformation - said no better than in this presentation by Edward Deming.

Click here - to see the video.

Welcome to the Human Network

The mindshift for innovation is incredible. Here is a 60 second commercial from Cisco that nicely captures several of the mindshifts taking place.

Click here for the video

A world:

“where people subscribe to people, not magazines”
“where books rewrite themselves”
“where you can drag and drop people where you want them to go”

"where a phone doubles as a train ticket or a lift ticket"
“where libraries travel across the world”

“where we’re more powerful together than we ever could be apart”

Welcome to the human network.

Thanks to Ideas and Thoughts.

Some Wow, Pop and Pizzaz

The rules for communication are transforming. We will all need to learn the grammar and syntax of multi-media, multi-sensory, interactive and dynamic information.

Please take a look at a few sites and consider the possibilities:

• Gapminder
• Maurmushi News Map
• The Brain - take a tour
• Visual Thesaurus

Cult of Busyness

Here is a wonderful excerpt a good friend sent regarding our efficient lifestyle trap. What does this have to do about innovation? Everything!!!

"Everybody who's observed American culture, beginning with de Tocqueville, has said that Americans are uneasy with leisure. . . . New technologies make it easier [to channel] those impulses.’

“The cult of busyness and the advent of new technologies have also reshaped our leisure time. In a society that lives by the "work hard, play hard" philosophy, workaholic excess is rewarded with an excess of self-gratification. We console our aching bodies and distract our racing minds with indulgence in food and drink, shopping, entertainment -- anything to anesthetize us to the reality of the daily grind and rescue us from our long-neglected inner thoughts. When they threaten to intrude anyway, we use music, talk radio, and television to keep them at bay. We can shower to the accompaniment of a waterproof radio, watch television in the car or in an airplane, and even hike on a remote mountaintop to familiar tunes playing on our iPods.

“Even when we are not watching television, surfing the Web, or jamming with the iPod, we tend to fill our hours with nonstop action and sensory stimulation. Experts have lamented that our free time has become so highly programmed and crammed with endless diversions that families no longer have an opportunity to simply be together and children are no longer learning the art of conversation. Parents feel pressured to fill a child's every waking moment with action, achievement, and entertainment. As a result, many children no longer know the idle pleasures of a carefree summer or the challenge of fending off boredom by inventing imaginary friends or scouring the neighborhood for playmates whose parents did not already book them for a formal playdate.”

Colleen Carroll Campbell

Go out and walk, relax or chicken wrestle.

Valentine's Mindset Shift - Flower Innovation

The perfect Valentine's story! You may be surprised at how these gifts of sentiment and meaning actually get from point A to point B.

Flower Confidential portrays the Flatworld of Flowers. It describes how the Internet and transportation have turned this into a global commodity and how florists must find ways to add-value by becoming niche players.

Sustainabililty - A Business Tipping Point

We've reached a business tipping point. Sustainability has gone from good PR to good Strategy.

This Businessweek Podcast (click here) provides a compelling look at the tipping point. The link will take you to the web page and from there you will need to click again to listen to the interview. To see the slideshow (click here).

Take a look too at Innovest's list of the Top 100 Green Companies (click here).

What do you have in your Green Wallet? Can you walk the talk? Can you even talk Green?

Link to the article text (click here).

Debra Dunn - HP Sustainability Czar

Debra Dunn, former head of Hewlett Packard’s sustainability initiative talks about responsible corporations and on the challenges of entrepreneurship

For the audio interview - Click Here

Debra is on the board of the Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs.

Project Mindshift's mission will bring systemic change to delivering commercial real estate improving the business, social and environmental bottomline.

MTV and Sustainability

You will want to watch this video on sustainability - trust me.

Click Here for Video.

IBM CEO Annual Report on Innovation

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." John Cage

IBM Report - Click Here

The IBM CEO report on innovation surveys over 700 top executives, their concerns and their strategies for innovation.