Thursday, August 26, 2010
The political chemistry of oil spills: Lisa Margonelli on TED.com
High impact content presented dynamically. It will make you angry, [cynically] amused and better-informed -- all at once. There are many marketing lessons we can learn in this -- most of them associated with bad examples of social responsibility
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Next Big Thing . . .
. . . is finally the Right Thing.
Call it a by-product of growing up during the "Age of Aquarius," or just too many years in The Business, but I'm really liking the fact that I can now apply the skill, knowledge, insight, hard knocks, and occasional bursts of E.S.P. I've developed to make a bona-fide Difference (with a capital D). A positive Difference in the lives of People, the health of the Planet and the Prosperity of our society.
God, I love marketing -- or, to be accurate, Environmental Marketing.
Be honest. How many times have you looked into the eyes of an irrational executive, who has just announced he expects you to provide coverage on all the major networks -- plus Fox and CNN -- for the launch of some fabulous data parsing application, designed exclusively for the data management market? What was going through your head -- immediately after stifling the urge to pour his Smart Water(tm) in his lap, that is?
At those moments, I consistently found myself growling something like, "In the name of Ogilvy & Mather and all that's holy, this isn't exactly the cure for cancer! In fact, it isn't even much of a cure for bad data parsing -- whatever the hell that is."
Thanks to the viability of sustainable industries in our economy, I now find myself working with innovators who have turned their creativity, brilliance and passion toward solving the biggest problem we face as human beings: literally saving the Earth.
And how wild is it, that a notion like SAVING THE PLANET doesn't sell itself? Every step toward achieving that goal actually has be marketed! It's good to needed.
But, why are we needed when the benefits of saving the planet are so obvious? This question provides the perfect segue to the wonders of Disruptive Innovation and Diamond's Law.
Disruptive Innovation: Over a decade ago Clayton Christenson (Harvard Business School professor and co-founder of Innosight) wrote "The Innovator's Dilemma" and defined for the business world, the nature of disruptive innovations or technologies. In short, disruptive innovation is the advent of a new way of doing something that changes the tried and true methods dramatically, thereby causing disruptions (and a little chaos) in businesses, industries and markets. A commonly used example is the Internet's effect on USPS mail and communication of almost every kind. Disruptive innovations drive transformation of industries and create markets.
Diamond's Law: Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but after studying several catastrophic scenarios (the Anasazi, early Easter Island civilization, etc.), as well as several societies that averted ecological and economic catastrophe, Professor Jared Diamond of UCLA confirmed that to avoid societal collapse, economic, social and ecological systems must all sustain, create and enable each others' success and survival.
(If you already see the relationship between Disruptive Innovation, Diamond's Law and the value of Marketing, we're on the same wavelength. If not, no worries, more on this later).
In the meantime, I just read an interesting article that actually calls this the "Era of Diamond's Law." Check it out at http://conscienceandcommerce.com/?p=71. I'm not sure about the entire premise of the article -- in fact, I hope we're not circling the drain to that extent -- but I do see the upside in applying Diamond's Law sooner, rather than later.
And even a humble marketing maven, such as I, can play a role in that. This blog is dedicated to helping you do the same.
Stay tuned and welcome to The Environmental Marketer.
Call it a by-product of growing up during the "Age of Aquarius," or just too many years in The Business, but I'm really liking the fact that I can now apply the skill, knowledge, insight, hard knocks, and occasional bursts of E.S.P. I've developed to make a bona-fide Difference (with a capital D). A positive Difference in the lives of People, the health of the Planet and the Prosperity of our society.
God, I love marketing -- or, to be accurate, Environmental Marketing.
Be honest. How many times have you looked into the eyes of an irrational executive, who has just announced he expects you to provide coverage on all the major networks -- plus Fox and CNN -- for the launch of some fabulous data parsing application, designed exclusively for the data management market? What was going through your head -- immediately after stifling the urge to pour his Smart Water(tm) in his lap, that is?
At those moments, I consistently found myself growling something like, "In the name of Ogilvy & Mather and all that's holy, this isn't exactly the cure for cancer! In fact, it isn't even much of a cure for bad data parsing -- whatever the hell that is."
Thanks to the viability of sustainable industries in our economy, I now find myself working with innovators who have turned their creativity, brilliance and passion toward solving the biggest problem we face as human beings: literally saving the Earth.
And how wild is it, that a notion like SAVING THE PLANET doesn't sell itself? Every step toward achieving that goal actually has be marketed! It's good to needed.
But, why are we needed when the benefits of saving the planet are so obvious? This question provides the perfect segue to the wonders of Disruptive Innovation and Diamond's Law.
Disruptive Innovation: Over a decade ago Clayton Christenson (Harvard Business School professor and co-founder of Innosight) wrote "The Innovator's Dilemma" and defined for the business world, the nature of disruptive innovations or technologies. In short, disruptive innovation is the advent of a new way of doing something that changes the tried and true methods dramatically, thereby causing disruptions (and a little chaos) in businesses, industries and markets. A commonly used example is the Internet's effect on USPS mail and communication of almost every kind. Disruptive innovations drive transformation of industries and create markets.
Diamond's Law: Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but after studying several catastrophic scenarios (the Anasazi, early Easter Island civilization, etc.), as well as several societies that averted ecological and economic catastrophe, Professor Jared Diamond of UCLA confirmed that to avoid societal collapse, economic, social and ecological systems must all sustain, create and enable each others' success and survival.
(If you already see the relationship between Disruptive Innovation, Diamond's Law and the value of Marketing, we're on the same wavelength. If not, no worries, more on this later).
In the meantime, I just read an interesting article that actually calls this the "Era of Diamond's Law." Check it out at http://conscienceandcommerce.com/?p=71. I'm not sure about the entire premise of the article -- in fact, I hope we're not circling the drain to that extent -- but I do see the upside in applying Diamond's Law sooner, rather than later.
And even a humble marketing maven, such as I, can play a role in that. This blog is dedicated to helping you do the same.
Stay tuned and welcome to The Environmental Marketer.
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