Innovation, Creativity and Research & Development (R&D)

Wednesday 26th April 2006 is World Intellectual Property Day - an occasion to reflect on the role played by intellectual property in stimulating & safeguarding the forces of innovation and creativity. Research & Development (R&D) is the activity of both innovation and creativity. R & D is an extremely important activity as this is where you gain the edge and differentiate against competition. At its peak, a whole new market can be created –

"Value innovation is about making the competition irrelevant by creating uncontested market space. We argue that beating the competition within the confines of the existing industry is not the way to create profitable growth." W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy

So what sprouts innovation and creativity? and what drives R&D? The simplest and hardest answer is this year’s WIPD theme: ‘It Starts With An Idea’.

Mistakes

A question to think about here. When people make mistakes in their work, do you blame the people or do you blame the company system? Is it a case that the mistake made was due to person’s carelessness, irresponsibility, unskilled or is it that there is not a good system/structure set up within the company to ensure that people work to the best of their capability?

Before you blame the next person because of something that he/she has done wrong; have a think about this question. Can you make the person learn from his/her’s mistakes and become better or can you improve the way people work so that errors are reduced and them producing better work?

Carnival of Marketing

Its my blog's turn to host this week's carnival of marketing here at marketing journal. Okay, here are my top 7 marketing posts:

1. Mary Schmidt talks about the tyranny of many choices where less choice for the customers can actually lead to more and quicker sales.

2. Jennifer Rice tells you the importance of aesthetics, an important core need that can differentiate you and others.

3. Willie Crawford talks about how you can increase sales by proving to customers that they really have a problem by actually letting them feel the pain.

4. Jack Yoest tells you that commodities and brands are made valuable because of marketing activities. Just as how Peter Drucker said that innovation and marketing were the only competitive advantages the USA needed.

5. Pamela slim asks that if you speak marketing nonsense in your presentation. You should get a gang member coach to remind you how not to bullshit and speak in a language where people understand.

6. Jim Logan asks if you get milk for free, will you still buy the cow? What if you gave your client everything you know? What if you made all what, why, and how information freely available? Does your worth go down or does it go up?

7. Harry Joiner shares with you the top 5 traits you should look for in a candidate for any marketing job.

Next weeks Carnival of Marketing will be hosted at Brains on Fire and you can contact Spike Jones to submit your articles. If you want to submit a post to other future carnival, articles can be entered on the blog carnival submission form.

Carnival of Marketing

I will be hosting the carnival of marketing starting tomorrow (02/04) for the rest of next week. Well, this is really kind of a late notice (have been really slack!). However, please send me your marketing articles to my email if you have any.