Hidden in Plain Sight

Jim McCann, CEO of 1800Flowers.com, on "Hidden in Plain Sight"

Join 1800Flowers.com CEO Jim McCann and Vivaldi Partners CEO Erich Joachimshtaler as they discuss Erich's bestselling book, "Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Find and Execute Your Company's Next Big Growth Strategy." In the book, Erich explains how companies often miss obvious marketing opportunities.

Jim and Erich will introduce you to the demand-first innovation and growth model that will show you how to become an unbiased observer of people’s consumption and usage behaviors. Refining this skill helps companies like 1800Flowers.com generate organic growth through new products, services, solutions, and experiences that truly enhance peoples’ lives.

Jim McCann
Founder and CEO
1800Flowers.com

Erich Joachimsthaler
Founder and Chief Executive
Vivaldi Partners

Location:
Hilton San Francisco Financial District
750 Kearny St
(Between Washington and Clay)
San Francisco, CA, 94108
415-433-6600

Date and Time:
Thursday, Nov. 15th
6:00pm - 7:00pm Registration and Networking
7:00pm -8:00pm Program and Q and A

Cost:
$35 members
$50 non-members
$20 student-members
$30 student-non-members
($10 additional for on-site registration)
Hors d'oeuvre, coffee, tea and desert, cash bar provided

Feedback from recent events and upcoming speaking engagements

[Posted by Hattie Elliot, [email protected]]

I just wanted to take a moment to update you on some exciting recent as well as future events going on with Erich. Last week Erich was in Scottsadale, Arizona speaking at the CASRO conference, the premier yearly event for leaders of survey research companies. Following his speech I was bombarded with emails praising his speech, below is one excerpt from an email from the conference organizer (Dave Richardson) to Erich:

“What a rock star! As for fulfilling the role you came here for, I’m repeating myself and everyone else when I say you did just what we wanted.  It’s a pleasure to have a colleague who delivers as you did.”

Following the CASRO Conference Erich had dinner with a very prominent C-Level exec from a leading retail electronic store chain. He was so impressed after reading the first 50 pages of HIPS and having dinner with Erich that he immediately texted his compatriots with the comment that he wanted to reorganize to do more of an outside-in look at the business, and had a number of other thoughts stimulated. 

Following the dinner, Erich flew to Atlanta to speak at a Trademark conference, where he received equally glowing reviews and yet again, my inbox was flooded with letters of praise and inspiration regarding his speech.

Next week Erich and I will be in London and Munich where he will be the key note speaker at some phenomenal events as well as being interviewed by journalists from some of Europe’s top magazines and publications; Marketing Week London, Brand Strategy and W&V. Below are a list of the up coming events, if you have any colleagues or contacts you would like to invite to the IESE Alumni event in London, please let me know and I will send them additional information and add them to the guest list.

London/Munich events:

October 23^rd: Speaking Engagement at New Solutions Dinner,  London

October 24^th: Key Note Speaker at IESE Alumni Event, Munich

October 25^th: Key Note Speaker at IESE Alumni Event, London

October 26^th: Speaker at Harvard Burning questions conference, London

GPhone: The Best and The Worst of Times

We live in the best of times and in the worst of times. Thanks to Apple and Google and a host of other great companies we live in the best of times, and I for one relish these times. Apple does have everyone worried about what’s next with the iPhone and while there is little that leaks from the famously secretive company, there is much speculation around the GPhone. One strand of speculation has handset manufacturers worried with their device-centric thinking whether Google actually will design and manufacture a phone? Another strand of speculation comes from telecom operators with their network-centric thinking which has them wonder whether they will be able to control their networks and keep hoping that they can make money off mobile phone advertising? And of course there is the third strand of speculation that suggests that Google is up to creating a linux-based open software that will disrupt the Windows operating system for mobile devices from Microsoft.

These are the best of times because Google has got everyone worried. By some innovation theorists, this is all about disrupting innovations, by another it is about challenging the orthodoxy and still to others it is about beating competitors and making incumbents irrelevant.

In my opinion, it could be all of the above, and it really does not matter what it is. I say we miss the key point altogether. This is why we are also in the worst of times. By now, we should know that it is neither about handsets nor about the operating systems nor about mobile advertising on the small screen. It is about the consumer.

This has me worried because I just finished reading an article in the New York Times that describes the competitive dynamics around the GPhone. I counted the number of times the consumer was mentioned. The answer is just twice, as in: if the GPhone takes off…. suggesting that every incumbent will be in trouble and everyone has to loose. There was just one mention of the word: customer, in reference to: … the relationships with telecom network and cable operators. What customer relationship I might ask?

The analysis of Google’s ambition with the GPhone is very simple if one looks at it from the outside-in perspective and demand perspective. In my book: Hidden in Plain Sight, I suggest that these incumbents can not see the biggest opportunities in plain sight because they look at everything with the biases of their own products, handsets, software and network investments.

If you look at it from the demand perspective and what the GPhone will do for consumers, we all should rejoice. If only Google succeeds, it will link the very insular world of telecom to our rich PC-centric and internet-centric world. It will help consumers do what we already do on our PCs also on mobile devices and more. Consumers win. Incumbents will loose one thing: control. But if they think and act from the outside-in, they will ultimate benefit. They will benefit from a better customer value proposition, not just from control of access to the network. They will benefit from an acceptable model of advertising, not the variety the telecoms are thinking of right now. That model has not worked until today and so it will not work in the future. What is most powerful, Google with its hefty market valuation at a stock price of now over $600 can even lead and entire transformative experience of how we communicate much like the Apple did with the iPod and transformed the way we manage our music, our videos, our photos and potentially our digital life in the future.