31 January 2011

Never in the field of human economics



UK GDP growth has slowed to the pace of South Eastern train passing through London Bridge, unemployment is proving to be stubborn, especially for young people, inflation appears to be uncontrollable by the cadre of venerable olds that run monetary policy and the pound is as popular as fart in a space suit.

All roads seem to be leading to some kind of stagnation, although politicians will use wording that won’t panic the masses of home owners for whom the margin between what their home is worth and what they owe on their mortgage continues to narrow.

There seems to be several solutions being peddled endlessly with out a taker. The Banks should lend more money to more people, everyone working within the banks ecosystem should not take bonuses and the Government should give up on their endless march to return the public sector to a size more aligned with the value it can really deliver. Each repeated with gusto daily in the press and broadcast media, none that can be seriously executed without seriously affecting another part of the economy.

Surely there hasn’t been a time for the need of some Herculean innovation since we were led by Winston Churchill into the field of human conflict.

So what would I do if sufficient people had failed to read their ballot papers and voted to me in charge? Well a part from taking a leaf our of Mr Berlusconi’s for being entertained by talented young meteorologists, incentivise innovation.



Details in my next blog.

28 January 2011

Incremental not breakthrough

If you're truly innovative in what you offer, brilliant at what you do and good at communicating that, surely you won't have any competition.’ This approach is at the core of Seth Godin’s book the Purple Cow, and of course he is correct.

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with some stellar senior people about innovation projects my colleagues and I delivered in 2010. Rather proudly, half of the 10 initiatives were instigated or delivered by me (the relevance of that little nugget is purely for my ego and not the substance of the blog).

For me, I thought the value of our dialogue wasn’t in what we had delivered or even the ‘outcomes’ of delivering the initiatives. Although some are pretty sexy. No, the real value is in how the initiatives had been originated, implemented and overcome the challenges.

As I talked through initiatives that had cost from virtually nothing up to a million dollars, I reinforced that most projects were incremental to what we were already doing have therefore been more widely adopted, and those that were more disruptive, while attracting more interest, have not been adopted without on going intervention.

Sadly, what these global senior leaders, and I think most leaders in general, fail to appreciate is, incremental, all other things being equal, is more sustainable than breakthrough. And that most important. in achieving an incremental approach to innovation, organisations should enable everyone in the organisation to originate, implement and overcome challenges.

Innovation is not the exclusive domain of the guy in the corner with the iPad and job title, it should be in every colleague’s job description, annual objectives, scorecard or whatever format you use. Everyone should be charged with continually innovating, not to break through, but to incrementally improve our offer, deliver it better and communicate it more effectively.

26 January 2011

Good schools, healthy bodies and now leaders in innovation.

It’s not often you see Government doing something that makes you think, wow, ‘I’d like a piece of that.’

I am continually in awe of what the social fabric Scandinavian countries have weaved for their citizens; mixed with a concern for how sustainable they can continue to be as globalisation increases.

In any case, these high taxation economies are renowned for their high standards of living, education and healthcare. And now, they are appearing to be streets ahead in innovation too.
Read this well written comment from Monday’s London Evening Standard and tell me you don’t wish the UK had a Nokia.

Oh, as someone that has been on the end of their ‘commercial’ policies, the dig at the Ordnance Survey made me smile too. http://tinyurl.com/6ck9jug

24 January 2011

Who's that Brit?


Despite trips to the supermarket (due to Mrs’ Ryan’s aversion to shopping brought on by being the size of the Ocado mother ship), ferrying the youth to rugby/cinema and a 9 year old sleep over, I managed some quality time this weekend.

My favourite part of the whole lot was nearly 4 hours of unbroken Piers Morgan. Let me qualify that, I’m not his biggest fan; in fact he is clearly up himself. But let’s face it, we had seen the best of Larry King, and to see a fellow countryman taking on a US broadcast institution is a big deal. When interview no.3 (Condoleezza Rice) was asked if she knew who he was, could only manage “Of course, he’s a Brit.”

My suspicion this was a slur was confirmed when she went on to say “We all know the Brits can make the telephone directory sound intellectual when they read it.”

Putting that aside, the interviews with America’s largest media icons, Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern, were fantastic. Both difficult to interview for different reasons, both with their own constituencies these were difficult interviews. Taking them on first was with hindsight stroke of genius because he pulled it off, but had it gone the other way would have been foolhardy.

I wish the best of luck, and sincerely hoe he goes onto be an icon of the US media that rivals his first two interviews and the greatest talk show host of the all, his predecessor.

23 January 2011

One top shop and being done up like a kipper


If 2010 didn’t bring enough change; I expect 2011’s to be even more far reaching. Anytime in the next few weeks will see the arrival the newest addition to our family, a baby.

Relax, I’m going to use this opportunity for a stream of emotional consciousness on becoming a father, but I would like to reflect on the phenomenal capital investment such a project is extracted from the un initiated. Determined not to fall into the trap of insisting that everything is the best money can buy, in spite of this being my first born, and of course not wanting to do everything on the cheap. The current Mrs. Ryan and I settled on Mothercare.

Mother care is a specialist UK retailer for all things baby and crossing all price points from what my Mum would 'call cheap and nasty' up to what my Dad would simply call 'you're joking!

For a start, I have to say the shop does exactly what it says on the tin, it really does have everything you need, and I think having spent an hour there, we now have everything we need, but also quite a few a lot we don’t need. But with all such brand experiences, it isn’t the store, stock, price or product that will stay with us, but the charming lady that stopped what she was doing to help us drain our credit card. Let’s call her Val.

With the charm of a young granny and the experience of a celebrity TV nanny, Val steered us around the store setting out only simple decisions for us to make at each stop, each one we felt was considered and informed. But none of this, remarkable, most good retailers can provide such service, in fact I was having the same discussion with a colleague about John Lewis and procuring a vacuum cleaner.

No, what made this experience stand out is the way we were snared. Our charming Mothercare protagonist, Val, who only entered our theatre of consumption because was asked a simple question about delivery, reeled us.

“How long do you have to go?” she asked innocently.

“About three and half months.” Was Mr’s Ryan’s honest answer.

Big intake of air sucked across the lips of a lady in her late 50’s with those tell tale lines that give away she once smoked, “Not much time then, we’d better get on.”

And so we proceed to live the Mothercare marketing team’s dream of clients that see them as a one stop shop. It’s only once we had paid and she booked out delivery Val’s cunning and guile become apparent,

“Well that should all be delivered in 4 days dears.” She said innocently

“Oh great” I said, knowing full well I had just doubled the hammering our flexible friend had already received thanks to Christmas and that a contender for Kent’s most glamorous gran’s had just done me up like a kipper.

20 January 2011

Resolution Two.


I share resolution number 2 with a number of colleagues and long suffering fellow commuters, read more fiction.

I am a ferocious consumer of white papers, especially on emerging areas such as business change, marketing, branding d social media. Some of these, while engaging, could clearly be put into the fiction category.

A lawyer colleague sent me a slide deck a consultant had put together for their team on social media. Full of generalisations and characters it essentially summed social media up as mean and risky, completely ignoring the commercial and social benefits of the channel. I accept the author had shaped the document for his audience; it was hardly balanced or especially insightful.

So to balance my frustration with some of the drivel peddled by those claiming to be thought leaders and solution providers, I’m going to spend the last few moments of being awake each day reading the same page 4 times just before gravity wins the fight with eyelids to stay open.

19 January 2011

Wobbly legs

Reflecting on all the subjects I wanted to address in the New Year, I felt compelled to share a story from this year. Please indulge me on a quick look back at how most of our working years end, with a Christmas office party.
Just as I was leaving my company’s version of this festive routine I witnessed my favourite December late night London sight. This example happened to be carried out by a senior colleague. He was battling the gravitational pull of a Moorgate payment brought on by a dysfunctional inner ear and wobbly legs.
My colleague's wobbly legs weren’t the only ones I had seen in this season, but they were all the sweeter as I was close enough to hear him giving instructions to a mini cab to find him that was only in the next street.
Of course, it’s easy for me to say; I came through this year’s Christmas office party with my dignity intact. 
Unlike the video of me break dancing at my wedding that leaked into the work place. A dance move commonly known as the caterpillar that my wife has renamed the slug when I perform it.

18 January 2011

New Year's Resolution.

At the risk of boring you, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about my New Years resolutions.

While I can list scores of ways I could enrich my own life by doing things better, faster, cheaper, more often, even less often and not at all; I’m settling for two I can measure and take simple steps to address. The logic of my approach is this year is simple, incremental changes are more sustainable than big bang breakthroughs, and if it can’t be measured by outcomes (not just activity) it doesn’t get done.

So this blog represents resolution number one – blog regularly.

I enjoy the process of writing blogs, I enjoy the feedback I get back and gives me an excuse to shut myself away with a small libation and some soft music. The observant among will have noticed there has been a pause between this blog and the last piece of drivel. The pause was largely caused by circumstance:

August we moved house, September we settled the kids into new schools and got married, October was endless decorating, November I celebrated mine and 2 close friends 40th birthdays and December is, was December does.

Resolution two in my next blog.

02 January 2011

Incentivise innovative small businesses


Following on from my Frazeresque (Dad’s Army, not Seattle) rant on the state of the economy on Monday, I thought I would set out my simple and innovative approach to saving the economy.

It is pretty well proven that
• Small businesses can generate employment faster than large enterprises;
• Small businesses will seize on opportunities faster than large organisations can bring together a cross departmental working group to even write 2 sides of A4 on what their ‘terms of reference are;’
• Younger people save less and spend more as they start to build a home for themselves and think buying anew car is somehow an investment;
• Iced on top of these universal truths are political leaders that proclaim how to remain competitive the UK must be leaders of the knowledge economy and we have a greater number of graduates today than we have had at any time in the past.

So now, more than anytime in the past 30 years, the Government should use fiscal policy to generate a massive shift in their own and investors approach to small companies that can innovate. What does this mean?

Well, any company that employs less than 100 people should be able to hire up to 1 employee per 10 already employed on a 24 month fixed term contract. As long as they are under 25 years old at and paid least twice the minimum wage (around £23.5k). In return the Government will let them deduct the total tax take for that individual from the company’s corporation tax (around £3.5k excluding NI) for the first or second year as chosen by the employer.

These are generous terms that would contribute to increase the UK’s aggregate demand, generate growth from spending, reduce unemployment and the long term burden on Government spending.

More importantly than benefiting the economy as a whole, is the lasting effect on companies that innovate in a tough environment that will gain the most. These organisations would be able to access bright young talent more cost effectively with a manageable risk profile and have a global advantage to go on and innovate even more.