Leading Lasting Change
High impact and lasting change can be fast, effective and fun. First–Create a “vision story” for the future to engage a critical mass of people. It taps into multiple levels of knowledge-emotion-creativity and yields a shared sense of the future that is aspirational, inspirational, logical and exciting.
Then, charter a small, carefully chosen client team to design and conduct a process to gather information and knowledge and to make sense of the issues and conditions at hand. They will translate this learning and insight into potential strategies. The team then delivers events that spread their learning to others in the organization utilizing highly engaging educational and work shop activities.
Finally, teams implement waves of short-duration (60-90 days), high impact projects that move the organization toward the vision. This offers opportunities to bring others into the expanding process of building the future. Recognizable and measurable success in projects yields progress, energy and enthusiasm. These factors combine to yield change that has impact and lasts.
Media’s Cloudy Strategic Future
Media consumers no longer plan their days around program schedules developed by TV and radio broadcasters and the whims of their sponsors and advertisers. Time shifting, on-demand streaming and other, emerging channels, coupled with the explosion in media-capable devices and platforms, have changed the game forever.
Behind the scenes of this consumer-driven trend lies an ever-changing, diverse, and complicated collection of moving parts through which media can be created, produced, distributed, viewed…and monetized.
Traditional media firms rightfully feel threatened by the sheer complexity of this techno-menagerie. How can they best develop consumer-centric, infinitely flexible “media-verses” without breaking the bank?
Enter cloud computing.
Virtually all of the functional elements necessary to create and move media from its source to the end user can be found in existing cloud computing archives. Analogous to a box full of assorted Lego blocks, these elements can be assembled an almost infinite variety of ways to address virtually any media delivery situation. In practice, media firms need only identify the appropriate elements and…connect the dots.
Want to move your music video to PC’s, TV’s, Smart phones, and gaming platforms… there’s a collection of elements for that. Need to enable web-TV but restrict viewing to subscribers only? There are elements for that. Seek to create an on-line outlet for new musical performance artists?… Just connect the right dots… in the cloud. Can’t find a key element? Build it yourself to gain strategic advantage… or just wait a while. In much the same way that smart phones have attracted droves of freelance app developers, the cloud provides an environment that will encourage and reward entrepreneurs chomping at the bit to create solutions that meet strategic needs.
In a recent speech, pundit, John Gauntt put it best; “Cloud computing is simply the best single, strategic and tactical platform for exchanging and evolving media for multiple audiences using multiple devices in multiple contexts under multiple business models.”
Media does indeed have a very cloudy and very exciting future.
The First Light Leader
In times past, CEOs kept close counsel, sharing their nascent strategic ideas or concerns with a narrow cadre of confidants. Fortunately leading CEOs have rejected this behavior. Now the best share ideas early and often. The goal–to inspire collaboration; to shape and hone these ideas; to improve them.
We call these new century CEOs, “First Light” leaders. That is, as soon as an idea begins to form, the CEO moves it into the organizational dialogue. This works well within the broad leadership team. Not only does it serve the objective of improving ideas through the interaction, it builds commitment to the eventual decision. Involvement in the early stages deepens commitment.
First light dialogue works especially well for a CEO interacting with the Board of Directors. Picture the CEO stepping away from the formal agenda and spending a moment or two on a white board sharing an early strategic initiative, such as a possible acquisition, then discussing the candidate over time as the idea moves from early thought to possibility. Through this process the Board will have challenged, added and even understood the rationale. Typically the Board only has an opportunity to react to a polished presentation with little early dialogue. Such a Board is compromised. Not so when the CEO adopts the first light approach.
Adhere to Basic Principles for Venture Success
Books on venture development advice could fill an entire library. While many of these capture one or more of the important lessons, they often take thousands of words and circuitous paths to describe what most successful entrepreneurs could describe in a single paragraph.
Starbucks entrepreneur and current (re-turning) CEO, Howard Schultz, recently summarized his years of venture experience is one such paragraph. To wit:
In our experience, adherence to these basic principles, coupled with a sprinkle of luck, will increase the odds of success of any venture, dramatically.
Engaging the Board in a Strategic Dialogue: 6 Secrets for Success
Recent governance reforms intensify the role of the board of directors, mandating increased involvement and contribution. Coupled with the sharp rise in merger and acquisition activity, directors are drawn deeply into the strategic dialogue.
Leveraging Advanced Media in Law Firm Marketing
Once branded as the “social sandboxes” of high schoolers and college undergrads, services such as Facebook, Twitter, and others have begun to emerge as viable new marketing tools for businesses ranging from Consumer Products companies to Professional Services firms. In addition to these, new techniques in Search Engine Optimization, Blogging, and Business Intelligence software have amplified the business development effectiveness of web sites, professional networking and advertising.