Leveraging Success- The Online Paradigm

I have been bombarded with this concept lately, and it isn’t a new one. It’s been popping up in books I’m reading, mentioned over and over in podcasts I listen to, and mentioned by business owners I work with. It’s an idea as old as the hills, yet it’s still the topic of conversation all across the business spectrum. The concept is leveraging other successes to create your own success, and it is everywhere online.

In Eric Qualman’s book, Socialnomics, he gives one example of a facebook app created by a travel company that allows users to track where they have been and share it with their friends. Along comes a programmer who sees how it can be improved, and he creates another facebook app, very similar to the other app, and his app outperforms the first app. Then along comes TripAdvisor. They see what this programmer has done (he has almost a million users) and they want in. They offer to buy in, but the programmer’s offer is more than TripAdvisor wants to pay (the offer was $3 mil). So, what does TripAdvisor do, they hire an application developer for around $15,000 and build an even better version. As of today, TripAdvisor’s travel app, Cities I’ve Visited boasts 4,869,881 monthly active users! Imagine how much it would cost to acquire those leads in a tradition method. I’d be willing to be you’d shell out more than $15,000. Now of course there is maintenance and upgrades to the app, and costs associated with that, but the figure for acquiring the leads is still super cheap. Even if it cost TripAdvisor $100,000, that’s still only $.02 per lead!!!

This type of action is happening everywhere, and it’s happening fast. Really fast. It’s so commonplace online, that we’ve become used to it. Think about Search Engines. There was Alta Vista, then Netscape, then AOL, then MSN, then Yahoo!, now Google is number one and MSN has create Bing to attempt to recapture market share. In the future, perhaps Social Media engines will even top Google as the number one way to search the web. Each business was able to leverage success on the back of an existing company. Search wasn’t a new idea when Google came along, but Google did it better, and cut down barriers between users and what they where looking for. The concept of leveraging success is in every corner of business, online and offline. I think of it as the birthplace of innovation; or maybe it’s innovation’s point of conception.

How can you and I, as business owners, leverage success? A great way to start is by studying the success of others. By analyzing what other business owners have done, we can begin to understand what happened to make the innovation a success. I think it requires an open mind and the ability to ask the right questions. The ability to see the opportunities surrounding your company, and the ability to act when the time is right. What are other companies in your market doing that could be improved upon? What are barriers between you and your clients/customers that can be lifted to shed resistance? What are other companies outside of your market doing that can be adapted to your business to improve your client/customer’s experience?

How will you leverage success?

Glyphs: The Latest in Offline to Online Interactivity

You may have noticed a lot of glyphs popping up lately. OOORRRR, you may not even know what a glyph is. Here’s an image of a glyph I took out of the latest copy of INC. magazine:

This particular glyph was created for an advertisement for hotels.com. I have no affiliation with hotels.com, nor do I particularly favor them over expedia, travelocity or any of the other sites (although I do like William Shatner for some unexplainable reason) so this is no plug for travel sites.

ANYWAY, glyphs are generally used with augmented reality apps, as a sort of key; taking a symbol of some sort in it’s analog form (offline) and converting it via webcam to a digital “key” which then allows the use to interact with the software online.

Here is a GE video showing you how augmented reality can work:

It’s still a bit early to tell now consumers will react to the glyph concept, but next time you see a cryptic black and white symbol, try taking a picture of it with your iPhone, Droid, or other smart phone if you have augmented reality capabilities. You could print out the image i took above and go to virtualvacay.com and follow the instructions there. I tried it out and it was pretty cheesy, but the idea of where it could go is definitely interesting. You can print out the glyph once you get to the site also.

There are other augmented reality sites which use the horizon, your position and some other factors to show you nearby restaurants, bars, shopping, even other people on Twitter and such. These augmented reality apps often do not require a glyph and are pretty sweet. The app Layar (which is available for both the iPhone and Droid) is an example of this technology which, if nothing else, can certainly be entertaining.

What do you think of augmented reality? You can always tweet me your thoughts to @rbrianforrester

Don’t Squash Creativity

Your business is your baby.  You’ve nurtured it from the beginning, and you may be a bit reluctant to hear any ideas that aren’t your own.  I can hear you now, “I listen to other people’s ideas all the time!”  Yeah, you may be placating your team members or employees, but I’m always surprised by the amount of great ideas that staff have that often go unheard.  And it’s not for lack of trying to get their ideas out there, it’s because the business is YOUR baby and because it’s your baby, any ideas that aren’t yours can easily be dismissed.

There are a couple of problems that can occur because of this that, as a business owner, you may not see.  

The first problem is missed opportunity.  How many time saving, cost saving, productivity increasing innovations are you missing by not hearing the creative thoughts of your employees?  It’s important to remember that as your company has grown, by necessity you have removed yourself from certain daily operations which are now being done by your employees.  The people that now do the work you were doing, may very well find a faster, smarter, better way to get it done.  Instead of shooting down their ideas, hear them out.  Create a forum for creativity if you will.  Create a process for the submission of ideas.  This empowering of your employees is an often missed and invaluable business asset.  Which brings me to the second problem that can occur by stifling out ideas.

This problem is often overlooked, but is probably a much bigger issue than the missed opportunity issue.  What is it?  Demotivation and devaluation of employees.  Employees who feel their opinions and ideas are not heard stop giving them willingly.  Not only that, they may start doing their work begrudgingly.  They may lose the passion for what they do that makes them valuable and in turn, may start doing sloppy work–may stop caring about the quality of their work altogether.  

The ripple effect that is caused by a disgruntled or unsatisfied employee can have a lasting imprint on your entire business.  I saw a company recently lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because one disgruntled worker (who repeatedly had ideas shot down and felt demoralized by the boss) “poisoned the well” at her office.  The customers could see it and responded by going elsewhere, the quality of her work went down the crapper, and she was constantly bad mouthing the employer and making everyone else question why they worked there.  Months later the company is still trying to recover from this one employee.

The simple fact is that employees who feel empowered perform better.  If a team member feels like they have a voice, they are much more likely to be passionate about what they do and perform at highest level.  

Does this mean every idea a team member has is a good idea?  Absolutely not.  I’m not talking about letting the employees make the rules either.  But many a grand innovation has come from an employee, not the employer (you).  Be open to new ideas from within your company.  Create a company culture that embraces creative thinking without restrictions.  Let the ideas come to the table and then nourish those ideas with potential.  Your team will feel more connected to you and to their work, and you will feel better as your company grows and flourishes.  

Remember, your entire company started with an idea.