Kanban made easy with Covey’s 4Disciplines

Being on the Kanban path this week took me back to thinking about the 4 Disciplines of Execution by Franklin Covey. This training is one of the best workshops I have ever attended and overall some of the best training I have ever received. It is staggering some of the numbers that they quote such as:

What is happening in your organization?

1. How many people on your work team know the organization’s most important goals? 58%
2. How many people on your team know how they’re doing on those goals? 35%
3. How many people know exactly what they are supposed to do to help achieve the organization’s most important goals? 54%
4. Does your team consistently plan together to achieve their most important goals? 47%

This is a video preview of Store 334, a video featured in FranklinCovey's Leadership and Execution workshops. Grocery Store 334 had its share of troubles. When manager Jim Dixon got everyone clear on the store goal, he thought his work was done. But only when everyone was accountable for the goal and empowered to make decisions did things start to change. To learn more please visit: http://www.franklincovey.com/.

The premise of the 4 Disciplines of Execution are…

1. Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important - Human beings are wired to do only one thing at a time with excellence. The more we narrow our focus, the greater the chance of achieving our goals with excellence.  Discuss what must be done or nothing else will matter. Using a tool called the Importance Screen, learn how so identity and narrow all of the possible goals down to 2 or 3 critical things that must be done with excellence. Learn how to create a " line of sight" from your goals to the company goals.
2. Discipline 2: Create a Compelling Scoreboard - People play differently when they're keeping score.  Work through a process of identifying specific measures for those goals that have been identified in Discipline 1. Understand the difference between "leading" and "lagging" indicators. Using a tool called the Measurement Builder, create a team "scoreboard" that informs and motivates everyone contributing to the achievement of the goal(s}.
3. Discipline 3: Translate Lofty Goals into Specific Actions - To achieve goals you've never achieved before, you need to start doing things you've never done before. Using an entrepreneurial model, challenge the group to identify new behaviors that will result in new (better) outcomes. Learn the methods for finding the best behaviors by identifying where they might already exist in your or other's organizations, or by brainstorming and then creating the best behaviors that don't currently exist anywhere. These new behaviors are then translated in to very specific activities on a weekly basis which, when completed, will help to achieve the larger team goals.
4. Discipline 4: Hold Each Other Accountable - All of the Time - Knowing others are counting on you raises your level of commitment. Understand where you and your team are on the "scale of commitment" regarding the goal, and what you can do to increase the level of commitment to the goal. Address the actual practice to be used (WIG Session) in keeping the team engaged and focused on the top goals. Focus on four critical elements of this process; 1. Meeting is about the WIG's, 2. "Triage" Reporting. 3. Finding 3rd Alternatives, 4. Clearing the Path for each other.

My reason for reviewing these principles is it simply made a great outline for creating a Kanban and the daily meeting. The team scoreboard became the Kanban board, the daily meeting focused on the WIG and held everyone accountable and the Goals were the Stories broken down into story points and further into the specific actions. This outline for me provided clarity when taking a marketing function or campaign and converting to a Value Stream and eventually to a Kanban or maybe even a Scrumban.

Bottom line is start with the CD, The 4 Disciplines of Execution (Revised Edition): The Secret to Getting Things Done, On Time, With Excellence.

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Technorati Tags: Kanban,Scrumban,Marketing,Value Stream Mapping,Discipline

Theory of Constraints in Innovation

Mike Dalton was my guest on the Business901 podcast . Mike is the founder of Guided Innovation Group, whose simple mission is helping companies turn their new product innovation into bottom-line impact. The Guided Innovation System™ , their unique TOC-based approach to rapid innovation improvement is helping companies slash time to market in half and nearly double new product profits.

His new book, , Simplifying Innovation: Doubling speed to market and new product profits - with your existing resources, is the first to apply the Theory of Constraints for high leverage innovation improvement. You can learn how to get more impact from your innovation by visiting the Guided Innovation website or visiting Mike’s blog for a wide array of reports and other free innovation resources. There is a sample chapter download available at http://www.SimplifyingInnovation.com/chapters.

The podcast was filled with so much information that I broke into three parts. The first part included below overviews the principles of applying Theory of Constraints. Part 2 will post tomorrow afternoon and will cover the Customer Value Lens, Part 3 will cover Alliances and Tools used in innovation. As you can tell, I enjoyed the podcast, innovation, through-put does it get any better!

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Utilizing the Theory of Constraints

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Lisa Lang on the Business901 Podcast. She is considered the foremost expert in the world in applying Theory of Constraints to Marketing and currently the President of the Science of Business. She recently served as the Global Marketing Director for Dr Goldratt who is the father of Theory of Constraints and author of The Goal. This is a transcription of the 2-part podcast.

Utilization of the Theory of Constraints

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Technorati Tags: theory of constraints,marketing,mafia boot camp,manufacturing,machining,velocity

Seven Fascinating Triggers

THE SEVEN FASCINATION TRIGGERS
MYSTIQUE – Why we’re intrigued by unanswered questions
LUST – Why we’re seduced by the anticipation of pleasure
ALARM – Why we take action at the threat of negative consequences
POWER – Why we focus on people and things that control us
VICE – Why we’re tempted by novelty and “forbidden fruit”
PRESTIGE – Why we fixate on rank and respect
TRUST – Why we’re loyal to reliable options
Each trigger adds a different type of attraction. Mystique, as we know, adds curiosity. Trust adds
stability and comfort. Lust adds warmth and humanity. Power adds respect, or fear. Alarm adds a
sense of adventure, or immediacy, or even danger. Vice adds irreverence.

6701 Fascinate -

Long been a fan of ChangeThis and I encourage you to subscribe. I have for over 5 years and maybe longer, can’t remember. And I still look forward to their issues. This book is available at Amazon: Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation.

ABOUT CHANGETHIS: ChangeThis is a vehicle, not a publisher. We make it easy for big ideas to spread. While the authors we work with are responsible for their own work, they don’t necessarily agree with everything available in ChangeThis format. But you knew that already. ChangeThis is supported by the love and tender care of 800-CEO-READ. Visit us at 800-CEO-READ or at our daily blog.

Related Posts; Is your customer willing to pay for your marketing?

Technorati Tags: marketing,fascinate,changethis,jagermeister,triggers

Sustaining Lean in Manufacturing

Lonnie Wilson, the owner and principal of Quality Consultants is an expert in Lean Manufacturing techniques and applications. He not only instructs management professionals in the applications of these lean techniques; he is an on-the-floor-implementation professional. His new book, How To Implement Lean Manufacturing, was released by McGraw Hill, August 2009.

This is a transcription of a 2 part podcast. What was unique about this discussion Lonnie focused on the hardest of all subjects, sustaining. He furnished sound practical advice that I found unique in this day of technology. No magic button, no new software, straightforward, roll up your sleeves, this is what you do advice. I found that refreshing!

Sustaining Lean Ebook

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Technorati Tags: Lean,Lean Manufacturing,Standard Work,Quality Consultants

In your Prospects Circle of Trust?

In the movies, Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers the soon to be Father in Law, Jack, so brilliantly played by Robert DeNiro had a Circle of Trust that Ben Stiller, Greg, so desperately tries to become accepted into. Greg just keeps stumbling as he tries to penetrate that invisible barrier. As you sit back and look at the different things that happen; the cat’s tail, the truth serum and the babysitting adventure you may be able to create an analogy of your own trust building attempts with prospects. Have you ever tried being a little more than you are? Have you ever attempted to disguise the truth? Probably not, but have you ever told a prospect what you really thought of them?

We many times talk about partnering; being close or a term I like to use is to be intimate with our customers. In essence, we are really after gaining their acceptance, exactly what Greg Focker so valiantly tries. Have you ever felt like your prospects are checking you out in their own control center and sometimes even unfairly? No matter what size of sale though, you do have to crack that circle of trust. Fortunately, seldom do you have to gain the trust of such a skeptic like Jack.

I find it interesting that many of us struggle in this area; I certainly do on just defining what trust might mean to our customers. That word “Trust” how do you define that? Do you believe trust emerges from meeting obligations or just being open with a prospect? That's probably part of it. But these alone will not build trust. To leverage the power of choice in interpersonal relationships, trust must be built into the fabric of the relationship through continual reinforcement. It must be focused, manage, nurtured, and rewarded. Before someone decides to grant trust in a working relationship, a calculation goes on in the mind. The person granting your permission into their Circle of Trust can be simplified around these four dimensions:

• Confidence: Does the person have the skills necessary to accomplish the past?
• Reliability: Does the person deliver what is expected, when it is expected and in the form it is expected?
• Open/Honest communications: Is the person forthright in his or her dealings?
• Caring: Is this person willing to defend the interests of the other, even when that interest may affect his or her own interests?

According to the book,The Strongest Link: Forging a Profitable and Enduring Corporate Alliance, if the person scores are low on any one dimension, trust is difficult to achieve. The higher the person scores in each dimension, the stronger the trust. If someone is confident, reliable, honest, and willing to risk their career for you, what's not to like about them? Ask anyone about these dimensions of trust, and they usually place confidence, reliability, and honesty on the list. However, caring is a different issue. We asked people in a business relationship how they show caring for their counterparts, he had some interesting answers. Typical responses you should listen to the prospects views, think about issues from their perspective, and include that person in all decision-making. But that answer does not go deep enough. Carrying in a business relationship means taking risk even risks that threaten one's own standing in the firm. That is where true trust lies.

It would be great if your salespeople could develop this kind of trust. However, stop for a second and ask; does your organization build this kind of trust, internally and externally?

Technorati Tags: Sales Cycle,Marketing Funnel,Value Stream Marketing,Trust

Alliances and Tools in Innovation

In part 3 of this 3 part podcast Mike Dalton the founder of Guided Innovation Group, discussed Alliances and tools used in Innovation. I think you might be surprised with some of the answers.

In Mikes recent book, Simplifying Innovation: Doubling speed to market and new product profits - with your existing resourceshe discussed the Guided Innovation’s unique TOC-based approach to rapid innovation improvement is helping companies slash time to market in half and nearly double new product profits.

Whether you are struggling to get more sales impact from your new product and innovation investment or are growing strongly but still interested in taking your innovation performance to the next level. Customer Value Lens and much more. The book was just released in January and has received some good reviews.

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Lean Startup Lessons Learned

Kiss Metrics founder is participating in the Start-up Lessons Learned Conference Friday, April 23, 2010 from 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM (PST) San Francisco, CA. The goal for this event is to give practitioners and students of the lean startup methodology the opportunity to hear insights from leaders in embracing and deploying the core principles of the lean startup methodology. It is also being Simulcast across many locations.

Kiss Metrics: http://www.kissmetrics.com/

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Technorati Tags: Lean startup,Start-up,Lean,Kiss Metrics,Lean Marketing

Quit Listening to your Customer’s Heartbeat with a Stethoscope?

 

John Mariotti of Small Business Trends wrote an interesting article titled “A Hazard of Innovation: “Falling in Love With Your Own Ideas” on the American Express Open Forum. John states:

There seems to be widespread agreement that innovation is the path to profitable growth and competitive advantage.  If that is true (I think it is true), then why aren’t more people doing it?  And why do so many new products fail.  I know of no “hard statistic” other than the generalized one “that over 90% of new products fail.”  But again, I ask, why?

Here are a few proven methods to make your idea more successful and prevent its premature failure: First and Foremost - Focus Outside, Not Inside

If such common and deep-seated beliefs that lead to new product failures, (and they aren’t limited to products—it could be new processes, new acquisitions, new…whatever), what can you do to guard against this?   How about getting some independent outside opinions?. Here are a half-dozen more “safeguard tests” that can be used to enhance the likelihood of success and reduce the chance of innovation failures.

1. Market Research
2. Focus Groups
3. Surveys
4. Consumer Panels
5. Test Markets
6. Truth Tellers

Trust, but Verify is a term used in delegation and management.  When a group of New Product, Marketing or Sales people is exuberantly proclaiming the greatness of a product, investigate more deeply.  If these proclamations are coming in the face of lackluster performance in any of the above six “safeguard tests” dig deeper, and fast.  Verify that this is not a group who has “fallen in love with their own ideas.”

Don’t give up too easily or quickly—but don’t be afraid to “cut your losses” and move on.  Innovation is wonderful, powerful, intoxicating and exciting.  Failure is devastating.  Use every means you can to prevent failure and improve the chance of success.  Often, a small change, a minor difference in pricing, promotion, features, packaging, or placement is all it takes to transform a potential loser into a winner.

This is crux of the article and I encourage you to read it in its entirety. He explains each of the 6 points and the picture is worth the click. However, this article outlines many of the reasons that has driven me to start utilizing the Agile, Lean Product Development methods in marketing. Involving, Verifying, Creating and Scaling as early in the process as possible is imperative in today’s marketing. The motto: Fail often and Fail early approach is much better than hoping that you will be in that 10% of successes. I mean, really are you batting 900? If you wait for the perfect product there may be to much invested to change. The tools are there to facilitate early customer involvement but are we utilizing them? Are we even participating in our customer’s communities that will allow us to do this?

It is very difficult to get many organizations to listen for that heartbeat. They want to monitor the process but keep it inside to the last possible moment. If you think about your organization and the marketing of a new product is it your internal structure of marketing, engineering and finance that drives the process? Should innovation and development not be more centric to sales and customers? Developing better methods to hear the Voice of the Customer is essential. Is your organization still listening to your customer’s heartbeat with a stethoscope or have you moved on to an ultrasound?

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Implementing Lean

Lonnie Wilson, the owner and principal of Quality Consultants is an expert in Lean Manufacturing techniques and applications. He not only instructs management professionals in the applications of these lean techniques; he is an on-the-floor-implementation professional. His new book, How To Implement Lean Manufacturing, was released by McGraw Hill, August 2009.

He is well versed in problem solving skills. He is an expert in statistical problem solving as well as logical techniques such as Kepner-Tregoe methodology. He is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and he not only utilizes the Six Sigma tools but he is an active Six Sigma trainer. He is very comfortable in the classroom and even more so on the factory floor. He is equally adept at working with top management as well as the line worker. He is an aggressive problem solver and with his 39 years in industry, Mr. Wilson has developed the ability to reduce complex problems to simple workable solutions.

In addition to his work in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, Mr. Wilson has developed and taught classes in a wide variety of topics including many statistical tools such as DOE, SPC MSA, QFD and human relations skills such as Advanced Facilitation, Hoshin-Kanri Policy Deployment and Team Based Problem Solving, to name a few.

This is actually part 2 of 2 of the podcast I had with Lonnie. I found his description of Standard Work, Audits, Quality and Leaderships of such value that I wanted to publish this episode first. So, don’t be surprised that I jump right into the conversation on Standard Work after the introduction.

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I found it very interesting how some of Lonnie’s thoughts so closely reminded me of my podcast with Michael Balle

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Technorati Tags: lean manufacturing,implementing lean,lean transformation,standard work,problem solving,Kaizen

What happens when the factory goes away?

The other day Seth Godin had a post titled , The factory in the center. He said: Old time factories had a linear layout, because there was just one steam engine driving one drive shaft. Every machine in the shop had to line up under the shaft (connected by a pulley) in order to get power. I really enjoyed the chocolate factory video of Lucy and Ethel that he included with the post.

I liken that to the Marketing Funnel or Hourglass concept used by so many Info Marketers. When you look at that concept you will see people placing marketing products next to the different stages of the funnel. Each one depicting the opportunities that they have or the marketing action they use in that particular stage. An example is included in a previous post of mine. It is the way I was taught. The marketing funnel concept is just a step by step progression through the marketing process. When you review that concept, does it not seem dated? Is that not just another way of pushing products?

Reviewing many of my own writings from yesteryear (I have always liked that word), I notice the lack of customer pull that I think is required for successful marketing. The products were based on continuing funneling a person through stages to get to the ultimate buying stage. After that, referrals and up-sells are initiated. Though the concept makes it easier to explain, it really serves little purpose in defining what works in today’s marketing and is in fact downright misleading. I use an hourglass as a way of demonstrating a constraint but as an extension of the marketing funnel, I find it misleading as referral strategies should be introduced much earlier and often in the typical marketing cycle. Think about it, how many of your referrals come from customers? Most come from people that you associate with that may never be a customer.

I really prefer looking at marketing in a much more cyclic fashion and somewhat more of an iterative process. Spending time defining your customer needs and how your organization reacts to those needs is the essence of marketing today. This approach can make your marketing more effective and reliable by reducing your marketing variability. Marketing is simply becoming more about problem solving and addressing customer needs, not what I call the caveman approach; “You need to buy this!” Instead I like to use the term Value Stream Marketing!

Back to Seth Godin’s Post: Now it doesn't matter where you sit. Now it doesn't matter whether or not you're adding to the efficiency or productivity of the machine. Now you don't market to sell what you made, you make to satisfy the market. Now, the market and the consumer and idea trump the system.

Suddenly, the power is in a different place, and the organization must change or else the donut collapses.

Is your Marketing Funnel or Hourglass working?

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Marketing Funnel

Technorati Tags: Marketing Funnel,Marketing Hourglass,Value Stream Marketing,Problem Solving

Product Development at Xerox with Agile

This is a transcription of the podcast that I had with Helen DeNero and Patrick Waara, both an integral part of the training team at Xerox Corporation on Agile Product development and the Lean Six Sigma Process. A great short read on the basics of Agile, but some key facts are included on just how a large company would go about the implementation of Agile in conjunction with DFSS. 

Instead of reading you can choose to download the podcast at the Business901 ITunes store or listen to it in the above player. 

Agile Product Development at Xerox -

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Technorati Tags: agile,agile product development,scrum,lean six sigma,dfss

Lean in Manufacturing

Lonnie Wilson, the owner and principal of Quality Consultants is an expert in Lean Manufacturing techniques and applications. He not only instructs management professionals in the applications of these lean techniques; he is an on-the-floor-implementation professional. His new book, How To Implement Lean Manufacturing, was released by McGraw Hill, August 2009.

Listen to answers like this in part 1 of 2 of the podcast;

Joe:  What makes sustaining them so difficult for people? You put a process in, this is what we are going to do from now on. What makes that tough?

Lonnie:  Boy, I'll tell you ‑‑ now that is a great question and I get asked that question frequently. It seems to be almost obvious that people would say "Well, OK, we made this gain, now let's sustain it." It's a whole lot better to build on progress than deterioration. The truth of the matter is that people in real life ‑‑ people have tremendous, tremendous problems sustaining the gains. I think the single, biggest thing that I can put my finger on is the business' attitude towards problems. I find, particularly in the West, and I don't like to make a Japanese/Western dichotomy, but at some level there is.

I find, in the West, that we look at problems as a royal pain in the "tush." We don't want them. The fewer problems we have, the happier we are. Some of my Japanese clients, when they find a problem they almost celebrate it. They recognize they found a weakness in the system. The system is, therefore, deficient and now we have got a way to improve it.

They look at problems as opportunities to make their system better, and I think that carries over into then, how they finish up those problems. Once you have solved the problem ‑‑ to sustain it, there's a whole series of activities you need to do. You need to maintain it. You need to standardize it. All of that is just good old‑fashioned hard work.

To me, that is the most fundamental thing that I find that makes people ‑‑ makes companies ‑‑ shy away from sustaining issues, is first, how they view the problem. I think the second thing is that once a problem gets fixed, it's very easy to jump to the next problem, because you don't have any more symptoms.
What happens is you take on the next problem. Everybody's interested in progress, so they want to make more and more progress. They forget that the last thing they fixed maybe isn't fixed completely. It's fixed enough so they don't have any current symptoms, but it's going to reappear at a later date.

That discipline that it takes to think through the possible future problems, put fixes in place for things that haven't even gone wrong; anticipate what might happen. That just isn't quite as sexy as moving onto the next problem and solving it.

The third thing that I find that really prevents sustainability, is our system of goals and objectives. You'll very often find out that companies have all kinds of production and financial goals and profits, and those are far more important than quality goals. One quality goal we implemented in one place that was particularly progressive, was the goal of zero for things we really didn't do that well.

They made a list of the problems that reappeared and put them on the list of "things we didn't do really well." Then they made that a highlighted issue within the company. That company was the very best of any that I've ever worked at in my 40 years at sustaining the gains.

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.Part 2 of the Podcast: Implementing Lean

Technorati Tags: Lean,Lean manufacturing,Standard Work,Manufacturer

Constraint is in the marketplace, Do this!

My guest this and week was “Dr. Lisa” Lang. She is considered the foremost expert in the world in applying Theory of Constraints to Marketing and currently the President of the Science of Business. She recently served as the Global Marketing Director for Dr Goldratt who is the father of Theory of Constraints and author of The Goal. Dr Lisa has a PhD in Engineering and is a TOCICO certified expert in Theory of Constraints. She is currently serving on the TOCICO Board of Directors.

This week podcast centered on applying the Theory of Constraints externally or when your Constraint is in the market place. Dr. Lisa offers some great ideas on how to market utilizing the Theory of Constraints and creating that all important "Mafia Offer." If you would like to learn more about the Mafia Offer, go to Dr. Lisa's website the Science of Business.

Dr. Lisa is the author of 3 books: Maximizing Profitability, Achieving a Viable Vision, Increasing Cash Velocity, and Mafia Offers is due out in May 2010. Science of Business specializes in increasing profits of highly custom businesses and applying Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to sales and marketing, having developed the Mafia Offer Boot Camp, Velocity Scheduling System, and Project Velocity System.

Before becoming a consultant, Dr Lisa was in operations, strategic planning, purchasing, R&D, and quality while working for Clorox, Anheuser-Busch and Coors Brewing. She is known for having developed the Anheuser-Busch plastic beer bottle. In addition to consulting, Dr Lisa is a highly sought after Vistage/TEC speaker on “Maximizing Profitability”. Dr Lisa also provides professional keynote speeches and workshops for organizations like: TLMI, ASC, NTMA, MCAA, NAPM and private events for corporations like: TESSCO, Bostik, GE, Pfizer and Sandvik Coromant.

P.S. The Mafia offer is only as good as what you have created using the Theory of Constraints internally. Listen to Part 1 of this podcast first, Theory of Constraints equals Focus and Leverage

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Technorati Tags: theory of constraints,marketing,mafia boot camp,manufacturing,machining,velocity

Improve your Marketing copy using MoSCoW

With a lot of help from Wikpedia: MoSCoW is a prioritization technique used in business analysis and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on the delivery of each requirement - also known as MoSCoW prioritization or MoSCoW analysis.

The capital letters in MoSCoW stand for:

• M - MUST have this.
• S - SHOULD have this if at all possible.
• C - COULD have this if it does not affect anything else.
• W - WON'T have this time but WOULD like in the future.

All requirements are important, but they are prioritized to deliver the greatest and most immediate business benefits early. Developers will initially try to deliver all the M, S and C requirements but the S and C requirements will be the first to go if the delivery timescale looks threatened. The plain English meaning of the MoSCoW words has value in getting customers to understand what they are doing during prioritization in a way that other ways of attaching priority, like high, medium and low, do not.

I use this technique in creating marketing copy. It is an easy way to prioritize what needs to be said, how much space might be needed (which may assist you in your delivery method), and even make plans for follow-up and/or additional marketing copy to support the main message.

Must have requirements labeled as MUST have to be included in the current delivery. What has to be said in the message in order for it to be a success. If even one MUST requirement is not included, the copy would be considered a failure (note: requirements can be downgraded from MUST, by agreement with all relevant stakeholders; for example, when new requirements are deemed more important).

Should have requirements are also critical to the success of the project, but are not necessary for delivery in the current delivery. This may be additional copy, follow up such as another direct mail piece, autoresponder, phone call, etc. SHOULD requirements are as important as MUST, although SHOULD requirements are often not as time-critical or have workarounds, allowing another way of satisfying the requirement, so can be held back until a future delivery.

Could have requirements labeled are less critical and often seen as nice to have. A few easily satisfied COULD requirements in a delivery can increase customer satisfaction if known. Used many times if filler material is needed or if space allows for little extra cost

Won't have (but Would like) requirements are either the least-critical, lowest-payback items, or not appropriate at that time. As a result, WON'T requirements are not planned into the process for delivery. WON'T requirements are either dropped or reconsidered for inclusion in later copy. Sometimes this is described simply as "Would like to have" in the future and the initial copy may assist in increasing the importance of these WON'T have. I still believe this is important to list these items, without doing this you may miss some opportunity during your evaluation process.

P.S. Some suggest it should be MuSCoW (to more accurately reflect the words behind the acronym),

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Big Book of Marketing interview with Author Anthony Bennett

I had the pleasure of interviewing Anthony Bennet editor of the new book, THE BIG BOOK OF MARKETING released in January 2010 by McGraw-Hill on the Business901 Podcast. The book is based on material developed for one of Georgetown University Business School’s most popular marketing courses, THE BIG BOOK OF MARKETING is a unique and comprehensive guide to essential marketing practices from the world’s best marketers. The 86 companies represented in the book are industry leaders representing a range of goods and services, high-tech and low-tech industries, and industrial and consumer fields. Each chapter offers their real-life lessons and practical takeaways on every topic necessary for marketers to master today. This is a transcription of that podcast.

Big Book of Marketing Ebook

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Technorati Tags: Marketing,Brand,Busienss Development,Indistry,Marketing Practice

Content Marketing Strategies utilize Blended Learning Techniques

In today's marketing, we use Content Marketing as one of our number one lead generating sources. This content tends to be educational in nature. Since the content typically is both online and off-line it very much resembles the training model defined as Blended Learning. Blended Learning is a training model that integrates multiple delivery modes and learning activities, generally a mix of e-learning, classroom exercises, coaching and project based applications. A well-designed blended learning package combines complementary learning activities that will attain a defined level of subject matter mastery. Is this not basically what we're asking our marketing to do?

I discovered a study (while reading The Blended Learning Playbook published by MoreSteam) by the Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology of Lancaster University. It suggested that there is a wide use for networked learning for the following reasons:

• Students found a high degree of interactivity and flexibility when combining online tools with other virtual activities. 54% of survey respondents reported feeling more in control of their learning over time and location.
• The variation of interactive options(discussion forums, classroom activities, cats, study halls(encourage more interaction among students in situations where those opportunities did not exist.
• Students in organize blended programs experience more reflective learning, while facilitated deeper processing the material. They felt that they were better able to respond to content or afforded the opportunity to the sword it over time, rather than respond immediately, as is often the case in a traditional classroom environment.
• Recorded discussion and e-learning leaves a permanent record. In a classroom, when the instructor has finished their remarks, most of the instruction is also finished. When e-learning is used as the primary delivery mode for content, it can be re-access as often as a surrogate for refresher in just-in-time learning.
• Network learning provides richer opportunities for peer learning. Particularly in deployments where students are not co-located, tools like discussion forums and project management applications foster more communication within cohorts. Students find great value in the strength of their new network. 79% of respondents to this case study felt they had learned from the contributions of fellow students.

MoreSteam also put a small chart in the book explaining Blended Learning which I thought could serve as an excellent outline for a content marketing strategy. I have used parts of it below to outline the reasons for developing a content marketing strategy:

• Less expensive, more flexible and more effective
• Don't believe design integration of live and online materials and methods
• Designed to have scheduled meetings with trainers, technicians and sales.
• Rooted in best practices as identified in adult learning theory
• Designed to be delivered as needed and in harmony with work schedule
• More scalable, allowing redirection of personnel resources
• For a variety of experience and levels of technical savvy
• Highly interactive exercises and activities
• Opportunities for team members in leadership to manage project workflow and receive Information on demand

Blended Learning is being proven as a very effective way of learning and for the adult population it may be the most effective way of learning. I encourage before developing a content marketing strategy of your own to review some of the principles of Blended Learning. MoreSteam is a great resource and offers a wide variety of resources at www.moresteam.com

If we are talking about Blending, I have to include a Will it Blend Video in lieu of a picture: How about one for marbles?

By the way, how blended is your marketing?

Technorati Tags: Blended Learning,Content Marketing,Educational Marketing,E-learning

Understanding your Customer’s problem

Your product or service solves a problem for the customer, right? Does your customer understand the problem you're solving? Have you been able to put or involve numerical relationships in this problem-solving process?

Go back-to-school for a second, maybe even as far back as grade school and think about solving mathematical word problems. Remember word problems, each problem described a situation that involved numerical relationships. However, the situation and those relationships had to be first interpreted and understood. That was really just a matter of simple arithmetic computations needed to be performed to get the answer. But, how good were you at it?

Many of the computations were simple and even the use of algebra or other formulas were not required. The problem required that you understood and spelled out precisely the situation that was being described. Once a problem had been set up properly in arithmetic, it was typically very easy.

Here's a take-off for solving math word problems that simply could be applied to solving your customers problems:

First things first, don't try to do it alone. Do your analysis with a partner, the customer. This is a joint effort, so blasting your message in the hope someone will understand does not work.

Try to do all of your thinking as part of a conversation lot. Communicate all of your thoughts, decisions, analysis, and conclusions. Communicate how you're starting the problem, questions you're asking yourself, steps you're taking a break in the problem in parts, conclusions you are drawing -- everything. If you perform any mental operations even translating an unfamiliar word, or visualizing a picture of a relationship, communicate these operations. Letting each other know what you're thinking is just imperative.

Use step-by-step analytical procedure. Use the techniques that good problem solvers use, break a problem into parts. Work one part accurately and then move on to the next part. Translate unfamiliar phases into your own words and/or visualize or make diagrams of the relationships presented verbally. Simplify problem by substituting easier numbers, making a table of successive computations, or referring to an earlier problem.

Be extremely accurate. Continually check your thinking. Your thoughts should drive questions like: Is that entirely correct? Is that completely accurate? Never work so quickly that leads to errors. Give efficient time to all parts of the problem. Never just give up on the problem and get some answer. Always try to reason the problem out.

While your customer is working through the problem, keep checking the accuracy so that you will learn to think with more precision and thoroughness. In addition, in your own mind contrast the methods with the way the problem was attacked. How might you break the problem down more completely into some problems? What other steps might you take? How might you visualize or diagrams or relationships making it more effective? Would you work more carefully? In other words, try to imagine ways in which you might attack the problem more effectively.

If your customer uses inaccurate information or computations that lead to wrong answers or maybe does not spell out situations with full understanding try showing them a table or diagram which illustrates, step-by-step, the relationships between the facts in the problem. Stopping your customer and requesting a full explanation of certain computations is your responsibility in helping both of you to fully understand the problem.

Related Posts:

A Little more on applying Little’s Law to Lean your Marketing!
A Little Law applied in Lean Marketing
Mirror Marketing search on Business901

Ok, how good are you? John can run 7 feet in the time that Fred runs 5 feet. How far will John run in the time that Fred runs 15 feet? Show your work?

Reference for this post and a great book for learning Problem Solving & Comprehension techniques.

Technorati Tags: Word Problems,Problem Solving,Customer Questions