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Letter from God to Man

January 19, 2010 · Posted in mindset · Comment 

This video answers these common questions and complaint.
Why doesn’t God do something about these problems? My God would not let this happen. There can’t be a God because there is so much evil.

When we complain about all that is wrong and point the blame at others, or give up saying it’s just the way things are, or nothing can be done to change it, how often should we look at ourselves as the cause of the problem and preventing the solution?

Deep down we all know the source of the evil and we recognize our guilt. There are four ways of dealing with guilt:

  • deny
  • blame
  • ignore
  • repent
  • forgive

Which one will you choose?

Original Source

Lyrics

Hey There, how, how’s it going?
Long time no see.
I know I haven’t been around much lately
But…it didn’t seem like you wanted me to be
The last time I sent down a message you nailed it to the cross
So I figured I’d just leave you to it, let you be your own boss
Read more

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Where to Start? Always Start With Customers!

March 11, 2009 · Posted in business, economics, entrepreneurship, innovation, mindset · Comment 

I recently taught a short introduction to Predictive Innovation class for a group of design students at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). One of the students listed his biggest problem as, “not knowing where to start.” He had a product idea and hundreds of ways to approach it but he didn’t know how to begin to get it to market.

I must apologize to that student because I did not clearly answer his question. The correct answer of where to start is always, “Start With Customers!”

Outcome diagram the customers’ desires. Find the most pressing must be satisfied outcome then base your product and marketing around that desire. Make sure there are enough customers you can reach and who will pay for the product or service you plan to offer. If you can, pre-sell your product to them. Use their up front commitment to get financing to develop the product. That might mean actually having them pay or it might mean showing the width and depth of demand to investors.

Figure out what products the customers already own or use and try to use those as resources to develop your product. If they already own items that perform 80% of the tasks then its much easier for you to be an add-on rather than reinventing the wheel. For instance if they have a laptop with a USB connector then you can get power for your device from their laptop battery. Or you can use the keyboard and screen of their laptop to see and change settings in your small USB device.

Figure out all the desires that your product or future or generations of your product could satisfy. Look at the lifetime value of the customer relationship.

If you’re planning to partner with another company to get your product to market they are your customers as much as the end consumer. Draw the outcome diagram for all the desires related to buying and selling your product. Make sure you satisfy those outcomes.

The particulars of manufacturing or a design alternative over another are just details. The most important thing to remember, “Start With Customers.”

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Who will pay for Frozen Food Innovation?

December 28, 2008 · Posted in competition, mindset, strategy · Comment 

When looking for prospective clients I ask the question, “how many direct innovations are available?” I personally prefer indirect innovations but it’s much easier for new clients to understand and accept direct ones. This makes my value to the client more apparent so they are happy.

So I recently came across contact information for an executive of a company that makes frozen foods. I plugged a little information into the Predictive Innovation Method and in 2 minutes came up with one extremely valuable direct innovation for that industry and a simple way to make it. This innovation could save the company millions of dollars, possibly save lives and be a great product differentiator.

Even better this innovation has been publicly available for over 20 years. No R&D is needed. Plus there is an even better improvement to the idea that they could release later.

So now my question is, how do I make money from this? One way is to hint that I know something that will save the company money and could be used as a brand differentiator and possibly prevent serious legal damages. Then hope they will pay me to tell them.

That doesn’t sound very promising. But maybe I could offer the same information to all the competitors in the market, maybe that would increase my chances of success. There are about five big brands I could try. Maybe I can increase the urgency by telling each that I am making the offer to competitors.

Or I can employ my favorite type of innovation, the indirect alternative. I can approach attorneys for food born illness cases and tell them that I have proof these companies deliberately did not take reasonable measures to protect the health and safety of people eating their food. This information would likely drastically increase damages possibly being worth millions of dollars.

The information is worth exactly the same amount to the attorney’s as it is the food company but it costs the attorneys much less to act on the information. The food companies need to change their manufacturing process, plus the small cost to each item. The attorney’s only need to present the information in court or a settlement meeting. And the fact that the food companies made an economic decision to risk the health and safety of the public would be very damaging in a court case especially if the media reported on it. That type of information would make the attorney’s job much easier.

If you are paying attention you will see that I can find many other types of people who could benefit from this innovation or just knowledge of the innovation.

Short list of types of customers for the innovation:

  • Suppliers of the actual innovation (at least five)
  • Shippers of the food (at least one for each frozen food company)
  • Stores that sell the food (at least 5 major companies)
  • Companies handling non-food frozen items (hundreds)

You might also realize that I can make money from all of the possibilities. The possibilities aren’t OR each one is an AND. So I turned that one opportunity into over 20. That is a possible increase of return on investment of 2000%

This type of strategy is only possible if you can reliably generate focused innovations on demand. Notice that I did not do an Intellectual Property expansion on this innovation. The Predictive Innovation Method reveals there are at least 105 different ways to achieve the same result of that one innovation. So if either of those potential customer’s want to pursue the innovation I can quickly find the lowest cost lowest risk way to achieve the highest profit.

Let’s see who will Pay for It.

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