Contributed by Sarah Gibson, President, Accent Business Communication
(See complete bio below the article)

As employees, we all want to be seen as team players, but when a change is introduced to our teams at work, most of us cringe internally. In order to minimize the stress innovation and change can cause to our psyches, we each need to keep in mind what we risk losing when a new idea is introduced.

One approach to understanding our response to the change process is to look at change through a generational perspective. This short piece will help you see change as a three-step process and give you some perspective on how each generation may view innovation and change.

William Bridges approaches change as a three-phase process—the end, the in-between and the new beginning. Ultimately, we go through all three phases simultaneously, but the end goal is to realize change is a new beginning.

Here’s a quick example. When I started my own business, I had to acknowledge the end of a steady paycheck, friendships at work and corporate backing. During my in-between phase, I would vacillate between “I love owning my own business” and “Was I nuts for doing this?”. During the new beginning phase, I realized that my thinking had shifted to completely accept the change and embrace the idea of working on my own.

Since we go through all phases at once, I still have days where I experience loss and wish I had my corporate career, even though I’ve shifted to really loving being on my own.

The same is true for change for each of us. However the key to moving you and your work team to the new beginning phase is to accept the end of your previous processes before change and innovation took you to a new beginning.

From a generational perspective, we have to acknowledge what each generation loses during change. In essence, if we introduce a new idea, we’ve asked them to let go of something important to one’s generational framework.

For example, a WWII person is asked to give up his sense of loyalty to a product. Or perhaps he is asked to give up knowing where he fits into the chain of command.

A Baby Boomer facing change has to let go of the energy, recognition and dedication she put into a product. Sometimes she may also feel that she has to give up her competitive edge and expertise when an innovation comes her way.

A Gen Xer feels threatened because change asks her to give up a sense of independence and flexibility.

A Millennial struggles least with change because he has become so accustomed to change that adaptability has become key to his skill set. Still, he may feel a loss when his friendships at work are weakened when a process pulls him away from those friends.

Ultimately, the best way for us to become team players during change is to acknowledge both what we risk losing during change and what others risk losing. If you are introducing a new innovation, consider your audience. What are you asking them to say goodbye to during the end stage of change.

From there, you can move toward the new beginning of acceptance using the strengths each generation brings to the workplace.

Contributing writer: Sarah Gibson

Bio:
After identifying a need for written communication and generational issues training in the Midwest, Sarah Gibson founded Accent Business Communication in 2004. She has offered her classes to a variety of companies, including Harley-Davidson, Metavante and the Wisconsin state government. Beyond her organizational training programs, Sarah also teaches for the evening MBA program at UW-Madison.

Sarah holds a Master’s degree from North Dakota State University and has been teaching in academic and corporate worlds since 1998. In addition, she’s a member of Madison Area Business Consultants, Society of Human Resource Management, and the American Society of Training and Development.

This article is part of the April 2008 issue of BrainWaves E-magazine on Innovation and Ideation

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Contributed By Darin J. Eich, Ph.D.

We hear from many organizations that they desire a positive culture of innovation within their organizations that relies on the collaboration, contribution, and shared leadership of all employees. At BrainReactions, we have created a program to achieve positive outcomes in this area. During the final three years I worked on my doctoral dissertation studying high quality leadership programs, I was also creating and testing an innovation program for BrainReactions. This was a leadership program designed to help participants learn and engage in ideation and innovation for real purposes.

Like many companies, we highly value creating and sustaining a positive culture of innovation in our organization. Achieving this requires an intentional approach to develop the people of your company as exemplary creators, innovators, and leaders. Our vision with our leadership training program at BrainReactions involved moving from brainstorm sessions to a front end of innovation leadership program. This moves from just generating the ideas to also including training and development of the people who innovate.

In addition to the research of high quality programs, which included interviews of 62 stakeholders across four different exemplary leadership programs, the researcher developed and tested a new innovation program and individual program sessions with BrainReactions brainstormers. During a three-year period of research and testing, approximately 100 sessions where conducted, assessed, and improved accordingly. Sessions were qualitative and consisted of 5-12 individuals per session. Sessions were recorded, transcribed, and assessed for participant engagement, idea quantity and quality. The researcher employed the constant comparative method, an analytic induction grounded theory data analysis technique, to explore the data and construct a theory.

The theory of high quality leadership programs developed in the dissertation study is grounded in those programmatic attributes that, when enacted, contribute significantly to enhancing learning and leadership development. The data analysis revealed 16 attributes of high quality leadership programs organized into three clusters: a) participants engaged in building and sustaining a learning community; b) student-centered experiential learning experiences; and c) research grounded continuous program development. Through the program attributes, participants learn about innovation, leadership and themselves in the course of engaging in the leadership process while reflecting on and applying their new learning and skills in collaborative action with others.

The results of this multi-case grounded theory study of high quality leadership programs could be applied and adapted to enhance leadership development and innovation in a wide range of organizations. This theory will allow organizations to enhance their programs and participants’ leadership development by helping participants improve themselves through self-discovery, personal development, reflective practice and collaborative leadership action with others. This leadership action and learning can be directed towards idea generating for innovation to meet changing needs and opportunities for the organization though helping individuals contribute to and share leadership in an organizational culture of innovation.

To be a high quality program involves anchoring the systems and program in research, both what has happened elsewhere and what you have discovered internally. Our high quality leadership program for innovation that has yielded numerous positive individual, organizational, and client outcomes involves three clusters of attributes for program development. Both the diverse and engaged participants cluster as well as systems learning for continuous program improvement cluster are leveraged for development in addition to the individual centered experiential brainstorming experience cluster.

In essence I recommend more organizations to implement a leadership program that allows all employees to contribute to a positive culture of innovation through participating in innovation together. Programs can be constructed and facilitating using the identified clusters of attributes that matter most for learning and development.

There is a report identifying attributes of high quality leadership programs and how BrainReactions put these attributes into practice for their own innovation program and programs they develop for clients. Email Darin Eich at darin.eich@brainreactions.com for more information or to receive the report.

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Contributed by Anand Chhatpar

I had the chance to interview Dominick Martinetti, CEO of Slappa Distribution, a small but rapidly growing company that is making a great name for itself among DJs and music junkies as an innovative product company. Dominick is an inspiring young man, and I have shared in this article, excerpts from our conversation that reveal his thinking and journey into market leadership.

Slappa has been in business for four years now, and it started with an initial product range consisting of CD cases. It was not a particularly “sexy” business to get into. CD cases had been around for 15 years, and the CD business was not growing aggressively any more. DVDs, computer software and video games still used CD cases, but the margins had been declining for most companies in this space. Also, brands before Slappa had commoditized the product — there was no real choice available to the consumers. Most of the people using these disc cases were forced to not have choices… outside of cosmetic colors, no one was building quality and variety into the cases. Therein lay a problem with CD cases from the consumer’s perspective, which Dominick was able to spot.

To conduct his market research and with an Open Innovation mindset, Dominick went to online bulletin boards and chat rooms for audio professionals like Audiophile, Audio Asylum and Audioreview.com. He sought advice on what these target consumers needed from the ultimate CD case.

He heard back two major things from them:
1. More Protection: A majority of CD cases available in the market were not providing any real level of protection for a person’s disc collection. People wanted to protect discs even while moving formats towards MP3. They wanted to protect their investment. An individual’s music collection alone can amount to anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000 over 15 years depending on whether one is a general consumer or a DJ.

2. People wanted to keep their discs and covers together: People did not like jewel cases because they cracked and then one could not keep their CD artwork (cover) together with the disc.

Dominick created a series of prototypes and sent them to influential journalists who write product reviews for well read magazines and blogs and asked for their feedback and advice on the design. He kept iterating and improving the design based on feedback from these reviewers. After 2 years of prototype iteration, Dominick finally heard “Its perfect!” from several reviewers and he knew he had a winning product in his hand. Dominick had designed the D2 patented pocket system which has a rear pocket for the disc and a front pocket for the cover along with a 5-7 mm opening. The shell for the D2 was made out of X-EVA, a fire resistant, water resistant material.

Launching the product now became much easier for Dominick. He put up a website at slappa.com and told all his friends and the product reviewers he was in contact with that his product was now available for purchase. The reviewers wrote rave reviews of his $49.95 CD-case next to reviews of top of the line $2,000 music systems. Slappa’s products achieved very quick acceptance among the “Pro Audio” market, and Dominick has expanded into distribution via retail, mail order, catalogs and other media where people can pay attention to details of the product.

Dominick’s inspiration is the Fossil Watch Company that made people think they were getting a better deal with a $79 designer watch from Fossil in a tin can than with a $20 watch from Walmart. He already has plans to expand his product line into backpacks, high end bags, and other products, while also expanding distribution globally.

When asked about why Slappa’s customers become huge fans of the company, Dominick says, “We’ve made ourselves a customer focused company. Each customer is our most important customer. You CAN please everyone, in a million ways. You just have to find a different way for every person.”

1 Comment | Innovation Techniques, Generation-Y wants, Gen-Y ideas, Marketing to college students, Marketing to young women, Open Innovation, Voice of the customer, New Concepts & Ideas, BrainWaves Emagazine | Email Article | Share on Facebook | del.icio.us | digg this

Facebook is an incredible social phenomenon that I am sure most of you have heard about. If you have not yet experienced Facebook, consider joining it at http://www.facebook.com

BrainReactions has recently launched an application within Facebook called the “Most Creative People“. It allows you to view and connect with the most creative people on Facebook and vote for your friends who are very creative. You can join the application and nominate any of your friends from Facebook to provide them further global recognition for their creativity.

The application is available at
http://apps.facebook.com/fbcreative/

Our network now consists of over 35,000 highly creative people from 142 countries. If you’d like to leverage our network for brainstorming with your target market, product testing with a particular demographic, online focus groups, product launch marketing, or any consumer-focused needs, please contact us here.

No Comments | BrainReactions News, Creativity & Brainstorming, Generating Ideas & Ideation Techniques, Managing Ideas, Innovation Techniques, Generation-Y wants, Gen-Y ideas, Marketing to college students, Marketing to young women, Open Innovation, Voice of the customer, New Concepts & Ideas, Corporate Innovation, BrainWaves Emagazine | Email Article | Share on Facebook | del.icio.us | digg this

Reaching GEN Y and keeping their attention is one of the greatest marketing mysteries of our generation. Young people today are very fickle and are constantly changing what they consider to be “cool” and “hip”. As a current summer camp counselor and college student, I have had the chance to experience this up, close and personal. It is quite amazing that the amount of knowledge our young people today have on current culture, products, and lifestyle. That is very important to remember when marketing to GEN Y — never take them for granted or assume they are not capable of understanding complex situations or products. GEN Y is one of the smartest, tech savvy and idealistic generations of our time. They know what they want, but they do not always know how to get there, and that is where market research, focus groups, BrainReactions brainstorms, and other tools come in handy. It is important to not just understand the wants, likes, and dislikes of GEN Y, but also who they are and where they want to be in the future. The youth of today love to discuss themselves and they want to the world to know they are here to stay. Our generation has grown up knowing mostly that as long as they dream big and work hard they can achieve and get anything they want. Now, that is a tough group to create for and sell to, but with the amount of money GEN Y controls, either their own or their parent’s, companies cannot make the mistake of not listening and understanding their concerns.

GEN Y is always searching for the next big tech item, clothes, shoes, etc. to jump unto and call their own. Youth of today love the idea of interchangeable products, such as multiple shoe designs, backpacks that do more than just hold books, and they are very primitive to the art of multi-tasking, more so than past generations. They are used to playing XBOX, doing their homework, chatting and texting w/friends, and planning their schedule for the next day better than the best of us. Due to the globalization of our culture and economy, companies cannot wait for their competition to create the next big thing — being on the cutting edge of product research and development is vital to the growth and expansion of products/services marketed towards GEN Y. There are truly no perfect ways to keep the attention of GEN Yers, but there are some techniques that can be utilized to increase outreach and interest of youth in a company’s products or services. Along with these eight techniques, I would also like to say the most important way to learn from and market to GEN Y is to simply listen to them. They want to be heard, but they do not always have an applicable outlet to have their voices, ideas, and concerns heard. Your company’s future can be bright when it comes to targeting GEN Y, but only if you show GEN Y that you are ready to open up and listen to them.

1. Utilizing Buzz Marketing/Word of Mouth Marketing: Young people are very open and vocal about a product or service they see as useful and innovative and will not hesitate a bit to tell their friends. Buzz marketing can be a commercial that a GEN Yer saw on TV/Youtube that was hilarious and it had some memorable slogan or quote, or it could be an interesting product name, or it could be totally something created in a GEN Yers mind from personal use of that product or service.

2. Creating fresh and innovative products or services: GEN Yers were born in a generation where new products/services are created everyday. Everything from iPods to clothing. GEN Yers expect unique creations that stretch their imaginations to new heights and offer the creativity of new technologies we are used to seeing and envisioning in our everyday lives. GEN Yers also expect simplicity of use and function, but at the same time something out of this world!

3. Make Our Lives Easier: GEN Yers expect products/services that make our hectic lives a little less fast and more relaxing and organized. GEN Yers are used to working, going to classes, and being super involved in school clubs & sports, all at the same time. In addition, anything created to make things more integrated is a plus. That could be a music player that has a scheduler/calendar or a cell phone that is also a picture taker and moviemaker. GEN Yers expect multi-function capabilities in almost any new product created aimed at our generation.

4. Attach Product/Service to a good cause: GEN Yers love companies that help good causes. Most young people volunteer according to recent studies and are more attracted to companies who have the same giving philosophy. When they know that by buying a pair of new shoes or clothing, part of the proceeds go to an important charity, they are more likely to purchase from that store and the opposite is true for companies who do not engage in charitable causes. GEN Yers care about helping those less fortunate and expect the same ideals from companies they spend their money on.

5. Style/Image Branding: Style and image are everything when it comes to product buying by GEN Yers. If a new product or service is not deemed cool or something they can tell their friends about the next day, then that product has lost a chance to make that very important first impact on a young person. GEN Yers can either be brand loyal or fickle, so companies must regularly ensure that the way they design and package new products fit in the realm of what GEN Yers expect. GEN Yers expect sharp, creative, and innovative styles and creations.

6. Advertise/Market Where GEN Yers Are: Most young people spend countless hours and days in front of their computer, at the mall, and in the movies. So placing ads before popular youth market films will reach the GEN Y audience very well. It is important that any ads speak the language of young people. Young people feel more comfortable seeing ads with actors that can relate to their age group. Unique and funny ads are essential for creating buzz for a new product or service and giving something young people can tell their friends about. In addition, advertising in popular youth magazines is a vital way to reach the GEN Y market. Furthermore, most GEN Yers have computers and access to the Internet, so advertising and collaborating with popular youth sites, like MTV.com, is an awesome way to reach the GEN Y market.

7. Street Teams/Peer-to-Peer Marketing: This is one of the best ways to reach GEN Yers. GEN Yers trust what their peers have to say, more than they do someone not their age. Street teams are an awesome way to rally youth around a new product or service and to get young people excited and engaged. It is important to ensure potential youth buyers trust the messenger. Young people are very smart and intelligent and can smell a fake ad or message a million miles away. Once a company loses that trust factor, it is very hard to regain that customer back. Street teams also are a good away to initiate buzz marketing.

8. Innovation/Incentives: Its important that a company marketing products/services to GEN Y consistently come out with new and innovative products on a regularly basis. GEN Yers expect continued new ideas and inventions on a regular basis, considering that we are used to such happenings from birth. GEN Yers also respond well to incentives, discounts, and free stuff. By utilizing a combination of those or all three, your company is sure to create a good initial buzz and interest in what you are trying to sell.

No Comments | Generation-Y wants, Gen-Y ideas, Marketing to college students, Voice of the customer, Managing Generation Y | Email Article | Share on Facebook | del.icio.us | digg this

We saw in the ad campaigns for the Super Bowl the first real push to get consumers to come up with marketing campaigns for products. This was a very successful approach for the companies involved as they not only produced innovative, consumer driven ads, but also received secondary publicity from the contests.

I’d like to see companies take this a step further and begin introducing contests in which the consumers come up with ways to make products more environmentally friendly. This would not only allow the eco-conscious among us make the world a little greener, but it would also provide secondary publicity not only from the contest itself, but also from news stories about the company’s environmental friendliness.

So many of us in Gen-Y want greener products and would respond positively to a company and their products given the knowledge that they are trying to innovate to provide a greener world.

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Opening the latest Vogue or GQ, readers are flooded with images of Uma Thurman, Matthew McConaughey, and Lindsey Lohan telling you that their product makes you a star or is what the new hip thing. But in all reality, is this an effective way to advertise anymore?

As a college student, most of these types of items are out of reach and otherwise, the celeb is not someone I would like to associate myself with. What happened to the plain Jane model, why does every product need to be paired with a certain Hollywood star? If anything, the fact that stars like Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt get paid millions of dollars to be in a 30 second ad and endorse a product turns me off and makes me think that the company has run out of creativity choosing the overused celeb endorsement. Campaigns that are clever (e.g. the Truth campaign, iPod dancing people) are few and far between. It’s a fine line between projecting an image of cool by using a celeb and reflecting that it is simply something that a normal person would never look good in.

With all the computer technology that now allows a billboard or ad to literally change a person’s appearance to be more ‘appealing’, how can a person trust an ad in general? (Check out the transformation of a model from before makeup to billboard at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=v3YvvFbsj94) Do advertising campaigns ever think of the societal impact they can create in the minds of their target market? Is Mischa Barton really the best example of a normal young adult for a clothing line?

Basically, celebrity endorsements show laziness or create unreal views of how the ‘normal’ person should look like. Most people don’t find them realistic; yes, I wish I had lips like Angelina Jolie and a butt like Jennifer Lopez, but that isn’t real. What happened to the creativity seen in the Levi’s commercials in the mid 90s or cool Propel fitness water ads of people appearing from drops of water? Companies need to bring the ad campaigns back to reality and give people some fresh ideas to inspire new product consumption rather than the surrealism of a celebrity image.

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I am a recent college graduate and soon will be looking for my first “real job” in the US (currently I am an English teacher in Korea). During my time in Korea I have had a plethora of free time for self study about different career paths and random opportunities. The internet has been invaluable for this because it has allowed me to search for books on amazon, read the wall street journal, listen to podcasts on various topics and find out what type of job I am interested in.

Here is my problem:

I have finally started narrowing down my ideas for what type of job I want but now I need to think about companies. I believe we are in a unique position as Gen-Y youth because with all this information available to us we should really be able to find a company that works with our lifestyle.

For example: I love the prospect of work, but I also love to travel. There is no website (that I know of) that ranks businesses (most likely big) on the amount of travel time it gives their employees.

Take it a step further. I want a website that ranks different companies in several ways from 1. job perks, 2. management styles, 3. a place for current employees to freely, candidly and anonymously criticize (for better or for worse) their company. I also want to know what kind of medical insurance, travel time, overtime, salary and just about anything else that the company does.

Then I want all of this data to be collected and used under many different areas such as 1. best companies to work for, 2. best companies to work for in different fields, 3. I want to be able to compare different companies so that I can truly gain insight into different companies.

For example: In my perfect job website I will be able to compare different companies on one or many different variables. Therefore, I can use salary, travel time, and employee welfare (filled out by employees from the company) as the variables. I can then choose companies I have heard of and compare them, or have the website find the best companies to compare with those variables.

This will be a powerful tool for the employee. The world is changing and so is the business world. People are different, and companies all have different cultures and various factors that make them better or worse. Why just find a job when you can find a job that fits you?

I believe that with a tool like this people will find jobs that they truly care about, and as I know personally and have heard: If you care about what you are doing you will do a much finer job in the long run.

Hope this wasn’t too long.

Eric.

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It seems that its about time for me to weigh in again about the sorry state of marketing geared to Gen Y individuals. Granted, I can be a very judgmental individual, but there are so few really quality marketing campaigns out there that I often find myself telling my friends that there needs to be a group that has to approve all marketing campaigns and ads to save us from having to watch some of the truly awful ones.

On that note, I’d like to propose an option for companies looking to market to Gen Y and college students. Marketing firms should be making use of the internet to put together focus groups who watch the ad campaigns via streaming video or evaluate print ads on some website. By mining the data on social websites like Facebook and MySpace, companies could identify individuals that they want to be part of the focus group and invites could be sent to those individuals with a promise of compensation for participating.

I’m sure there must be online focus groups already in operation, but aside from using the social websites to identify individuals to take part in the group, my other innovation for this undertaking would incorporate a device to monitor physiological responses from the individual watching the ad. I remember a West Wing episode in which a focus group watching Bartlett giving a state of the union address were monitored using a simple dial that they adjusted in response to what Bartlett was saying. A simple extension of this approach would be a device that is shipped to the individual in the focus group. The group members would hook this device up to a USB port on their computer and before watching the ad, they would place their hand on the device, which would measure electrical and physiological responses to the ad. A baseline could be taken by also showing the group members ad campaigns that the company thinks are ones they either want to emulate or not emulate.

This approach would allow marketing firms to reach the ever so important Gen Y demographic in a very controlled manner and would also provide more information than they would get from a simple form that group members would also fill out after watching the ad campaign.

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The web offers us a vast array of sites to connect with our friends and others with similar interests. The number of options out there (Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, etc.) can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, the ability to connect with friends when you’re on the go is underwhelming. For instance, if you’re logged on to one of the sites at a coffee shop, there’s no way to know if someone in your network is in the vicinity. Also, the ability to discover if someone with similar interests is in the same coffee shop is lacking.

Given these two situations: 1. So many sites for social networking and 2. No way to find out if your friends or possible friends are around, I propose Connecting On the Go (or, as I have just now decided to call it, COGO) to rectify the situation.

Here’s the basic idea. First, the software/site would allow you to enter your info for any networking/friend/profile site. It would also allow you to pick one picture to associate with your combined profile that would come from all the different sites. It would act as a master repository for all your likes/dislikes/interests and friends. It could also conceivably incorporate information from say your mp3 collection or google news profile. The purpose of this master repository is to allow the consumer to connect with friends or people with similar profiles on the go.

The ever so important connecting would happen in the following manner using either a laptop or web-enabled digitial device (pda, mobile phone, etc) and blue tooth. The software associate with the site would occasionally scan other blue tooth devices in the area. When it finds a device with an associated profile of either one of your friends or someone with a profile that matches your criteria (say a single female who likes Van Morrison) you would be notified of the opportunity to connect via a pop-up, text message, etc. with the profile picture of the person, his/her name and the fact that they’re in range. This information could then be used to go chat with a friend in the area, or make a new friend.

I imagine that this service could become extremely useful as more and more folks have web enabled phones. Imagine the utility of being out in a bar or a coffee shop, just drinking or reading and getting a notification that the girl/guy of your dreams is in the bar and getting a picture of that person to guide you right to her/him.

2 Comments | Generation-Y wants, Gen-Y ideas, Open Innovation, Voice of the customer, New Concepts & Ideas, Corporate Innovation | Email Article | Share on Facebook | del.icio.us | digg this