Traditional consulting is being pressed to offer a meaningful fresh face to its added value.

* It’s now almost assumed that creative ideas are what consultants are good at. Clients are no longer excited by mere “idea mills” churning out brainstormed concepts.

* The crippled economy, perennial corporate downsizings, and nonstop advances in technology have swelled the ranks of displaced impromptu consultants. These often insightful “basement creatives” can be long on gray matter, but have scant expertise in execution and nearly no experienced staff to build a substantial idea from the ground floor in a reliable, efficient way.

* Even experienced, full-service consultancies now find these opportunities restricted because they lack either a penetrating network within the financial community’s capital pools or a dedicated, ongoing investment banking partner. This access delivers the 360° implementation capability clients find so painfully lacking in consulting support today.

The leadership guru Warren Bennis once observed: “There is a profound difference between information and meaning.” In the last decade, the combined impact of information technology and communication have driven home this difference more forcefully than ever. The value of information pure and simple has become even more negligible. Uninterpreted information is a nuisance, not an advantage.

The first blog in this series described how manufacturers and retailers are changing as clients. To serve them, strategic and marketing consultants have to deliver what Bennis terms “meaning” in a new way. They don’t just articulate solutions. Breakthrough consultants are now active partners in creating new businesses.

Ironically the financial sector is bulging with capital resources these days. On June 23, the New York Times reported, “Private equity firms, where corporate takeovers are planned and plotted, today sit atop an estimated $500 billion.” And the clock is ticking at a whirlwind pace. “Private equity funds generally tie up investors’ money for 10 years,” the article continues. “But they typically must invest all the money within the first three to five years of the funds’ life. For giant buyout funds raised in 2006 and 2007, at the height of the bubble, time is short. They must invest their money soon or return it to clients.”

Financiers, on their own, are not a solution for companies who want to grow their brands.

* They are impatient with the necessary development work, even more so than brand-owning companies; and dealmakers are reluctant to immerse themselves in the myriad of project details.

* Good at measuring quantitative targets, investment firms can be shortsighted in how pressure points in a project should be met and too anxious to trim expenditures essential for long-term quality.

* The reputation of the financial sector is tarnished by all too many opportunists who make lavish upside promises to venture partners and never deliver. Parts of the culture are still mired in exploitative, untrustworthy, anything-to-make-a-deal commitments. The business model cries out for responsible, logical investment management by experts with a blend of strategic, conceptual, implementation, and financial savvy.

* It’s often considered a “snap” to raise capital on the heels of a successful, established business strategy. Smart money knows differently. It takes intelligently discriminating networking. That’s the only way to identify financial partners who are an energizing pleasure to work with over the long haul of a venturing association.

The new face of consulting couldn’t be more activist. A “meaningful” consultant goes well beyond being a thoughtful cheerleader. He suits up for the game and digs his cleats into the playing field as well.

Tags: 360° implementation capability, basement creatives, brand-owning companies, crippled economy, displaced impromptu consultants, financial sector, gray matter, idea mills, impact of information technology and communication, manufacturers, perennial corporate downsizing, retailers, The leadership guru Warren Bennis, the value of information, Traditional consulting.

• A big idea sets a fresh direction. A blockbuster idea is somewhat like a deep-space probe. You have no idea what you’ll hear back . . . where from . . . or when. But, a tiny, imaginative flicker on the screen could change the whole course of history.
  

• A big idea sets a fresh direction. A blockbuster idea is somewhat like a deep-space probe. You have no idea what you’ll hear back . . . where from . . . or when. But, a tiny, imaginative flicker on the screen could change the whole course of history.

• A big idea has traction. It moves forward by attracting and attaching the input of others. Vibrant ideas have an almost organic grip. Think Lego plastic bricks. One reason they’re so reliable in modeling both structures and ideas is because they have what’s called “clutch power.”

• It can be communicated with a minimum of words; and as much as possible, through simple and compelling visual images. A big idea is tangible. You can feel it throb, but not like a headache. Your prospects of ever hearing a response to your idea rely on how simply and effectively you communicate it. (The same awareness prevailed when Carl Sagan and his crew deliberated so carefully about the contents of the Golden Record sent aboard the Voyager spacecrafts.)

• Big ideas crackle with energy. A vigorous idea activates positive energy, even – maybe especially – when it tackles a negative issue. What can we do to make something better? A big idea is ever on the prowl for high-potential solutions to nagging problems.

• It has the structural robustness of a good foundation. Visualize massive load-bearing strength. We may be amazed by the height of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest structure. The real knockout number may be the more than 100,000 tons of concrete pumped into its foundation. Now think of a big idea rocketing through cyberspace. It may need incredible thrust for lift-off. Consider this analogy: The solid fuel booster used to launch the space shuttle only functioned for 124 seconds but this foundation weighed more than a million pounds!

• A great idea has plenty of “surface area” which can be prospected and developed. You don’t have to walk down a tedious, detailed path of intricate reasoning or personal research to get to a conclusion. In this sense, a big idea is more like a dirigible than a streamlined spaceship. Imagine a huge blimp cruising, its skin upholstered with a massive message board and legions of people posting thoughtful comments to solve important problems.

• A good idea’s provenance is absolutely unimportant. Who thought the idea up – the label on the package – doesn’t matter at all. Idea originators of the past spent a great deal of time developing authority prelaunch. The opposite is now true. The real evolution happens out there. It’s not incubated in the brain of the person originating the idea. The new world of ideas is democracy at its very best!

Tags: 7 Vital, Big Social Idea, blockbuster idea, Body Building, Burj Khalifa, Carl Sagan, clutch power, cyberspace, deep-space probe, democracy, Dubai, fresh direction, Golden Record, good foundation, high-potential solutions, incubated in the brain, intricate reasoning, label on the package, legions of people, lego, message board, organic, originators, positive energy, posting, provenance, real evolution, simon says, structural robustness, surface area, traction, vibrant ideas, Viral Traits, visual images.

Ideas go in and out of fashion.  Any fool knows that.
A far more interesting premise: It’s not just ideas that lose their shine. A certain species of idea may be on the rise or decline.
Through the twentieth century, thinkers specialized in A-to-Z idea packages that tied together a consolidated picture of something with a neat little bow.   We had the Theory of Relativity and Keynesian Economics .  .  . Nouvelle Cuisine and zone-defense football . . . not to mention political philosophies galore.
Civilization has favored handing out medals for complete systems of thought.
Not any more: The big idea of today is fundamentally open-ended.
Today’s big ideas are crowd sourcing friendly.
That’s not to say crowd sourcing is a totally new approach. Back in 1714, for instance, the English parliament created a Longitude Prize. It offered enticing rewards for seafaring apps and handed out thousands of pounds for easy, reliable methods to compute a ship’s longitude and improve shipping safety. Critical advances resulted.
The Longitude Prize was a way of asking the right question, but the parliamentarians didn’t have Web 2.0 to put the question out on everyone’s screen. Modern technology makes asking exactly the right question what big ideas are all about.
Today’s platinum-grade idea is an engaging platform that can be shot into cyberspace and whirl around in millions of minds. Aggregations of kindred ideas germinate at lightning speed into kaleidoscopic thought constellations.
Wikipedia . . . the iPhone . . . or, the millions of beta-testers Microsoft crowd sourced to refine Office 2010.
Wikipedia is an unbeatable example.
Between March 2000 and the end of 2001, Wikipedia exploded from being a novel idea to a reality with entries in 18 languages. By August 2009, Wikipedia was adding an average of 1,300 articles a day. It has amassed an estimated 15 million entries today.
As a comparison, the French philosopher Denis Diderot labored with limited collaborators for some 22 years – often pitted against police censors – before the finals volumes of his groundbreaking encyclopedia appeared in French in 1772 with 70,000 articles.
The critical difference between Diderot and Wikipedia: The ability of technology to harness the efforts and passions of thousands and thousands of volunteers to fill in the blanks.
Behind-the-scenes people are increasingly the heroes on the modern idea landscape.  However, it takes a new breed of pioneers – like Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger – to ask the right question and issue the invitation.
Have a big idea? Terrific! Have another. You probably can. Fixation is likely the result if you don’t keep cooking in the idea kitchen.
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have,” wrote another French philosopher, Emile Chartier. A caution worth heeding.

Tags: A-to-Z idea packages, beta-testers, constellations, crowdsourcing, cyberspace, Denis Diderot, Emile Chartier, engaging platform, fashion, iPhone, Jimmy Wales, kaleidoscopic, Keynesian Economics, Larry Sanger, Longitude Prize, Microsoft, modern idea landscape, Nouvelle Cuisine, platinum-grade idea, police censors, political philosphies, simon says, Theory of Relativity, wikipedia, zone-defense football.

Several years ago, Steven Spielberg made a fetching film about the anti-hero con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. Titled Catch Me If You Can, it starred Leonardo Di Caprio. The consummate chameleon, Abagnale’s knack was once celebrated this way:

“Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it ‘U.R. Hooked’ and cash it at any bank in town, using a Hong Kong driver’s license for identification.”Abagnale, now a security consultant, was a virtuoso identity manager. His mindset is making a comeback . . . and not in criminal circles either.

The roots: We’re well along in knowing when it’s smart for me not to be me. When junk mail comes spiraling our way, we sidestep. That is, we understand at an early age how to customize our identity and create templates that better able us to control our time and the quality of our experiences.

Social networking has profiled us to a fare-thee-well.  Like helpless drones, we find our identities indelibly, hammered and soldered through every datum we upload and link. A localized site such as Foursquare intensifies and rewards sculpting a personalized identity to an incredible extent.

However, as public certainty about people and the details of their lives rises, a vanishing sense of mystery is a consequence. Not to mention a fundamental decline in joy in life. Being such an expressly known commodity is at odds with how people grow and learn. A lot of life is spent trying on and sizing up fresh identities – be they heady philosophies or airy fashions. X-raying teenage behavior is ever worthwhile. It usually spotlights where society would stake out new directions, were it not saddled with controls and obligations. For today’s teenager, being in the neutral zone is really cool. Not saddled with a fixed identity, exploration is both easier and more rewarding. Maybe it’s a fictitious “you” . . . but it’s a you that you’re willing to accept, if only to learn the thrills, consequences, and challenges of certain behaviors.

We’re all conscious of identity theft, but identity trashing is also on the rise.Assuming an “a.k.a.” alias, people drop into a site and create a vibe in a world you can’t control, but you can influence in marked ways. If you know what to do, you can both assert yourself and step back.

Anonymity has another angle and can work in a different direction. What happens when a highly regarded and influential organization – such as MENSA International – weighs in on an issue of the moment? Here we’re talking about individuals with stellar credentials who, in this application, gather authority through anonymously being a part of a greater whole. This sort of bigger-than-one group weight is somewhat like those 10 Nobel laureates who signed the Einstein-Russell Manifesto challenging nuclear proliferation.

Having too clear and predictable an identity is out of step with the character of a warrior pioneer.That’s another aspect of our new nomadic selves. Constantly leaving clear tracks is out of step with staying flexible and fluid. Perhaps when you document yourself so exactly, you spend more time defending what you’ve become than experimenting with the richer, broader person you could be.

We hear so much about brands profiling consumers. Are their manufacturer success stories that do just the opposite and engage consumers to be experimental and free-spirited?

What personal-experience tips can you offer about assuming an identity to gather information about competitors?

Do companies do enough to appeal and stimulate a consumer’s sense of fantasy and exploration?

Tags: anonymity, brand profiling, Catch Me If You Can, Einstein-Russell Mainfesto, Frank Abagnale Jr, identity theft, identity trashing, Leonardo DiCaprio, MENSA International, neutral zone, Nobel laureates, social networking, Steven Spielberg, U.R. Hooked, warrior pioneer.

When Copernicus reasoned the earth moved around the sun, he made some bold assumptions. It’s hard to match one for elegant simplicity: “Nothing prevents the earth from moving.”

Many marketers have yet to reason that perceptively about consumers. Too often, they assume shoppers are sitting ducks. Well, literally nothing prevents today’s consumers from moving around in every sense of the word. The First Principle of Marketing Dynamics bears repeating:

Today we’re all nomads, more or less . . . hacking our way through a thick underbrush of information.

The cellphone just shattered a key threshold in its short life span. According to a New York Times article earlier this month, “the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.”

We still think of the sidearm we pack as a phone foremost. In a few months, we may size it up much differently. Two years from now will we even call that gadget a cellphone or smart phone? Of course it will do voice communication, but that task is headed for a much lower rung. These Star Trek-style communicators will also be our undisputed information portal to the world in every respect.

A Wikipedia entry offers a potent perspective on the numbers:

“Mobile phones out number TV sets by over 3 to 1, and PC based internet users by over 4 to 1, and the total laptop and desktop PC population by nearly 5 to 1.”

It’s easy to make a simplistic adjustment: Sure, consumers are on the go. Being able to be mobile means that people are spending time and making decisions in new ways and places. That includes business people as well as shopping civilians.

Stern + Associates offers these stats from Demand Gen’s “BtoB Buyer Transformation Survey:

* 20% of buyers connected directly with potential solution providers via social channels.

* 37% posted questions on social networking sites looking for feedback as part of their research processes.”

Purchasing decisions are today being managed in unprecedented ways.

A brand on a jar. A brand on a box. A brand on a shelf. How many dusty marketing icons are headed to the dump!

Push-out marketing is not just in twilight. It’s in total and permanent eclipse.  When consumers dismiss ads as interruptions and intrusions, they really mean it. The challenge:

Have your case presented – increasingly not by you directly – when the customer is enmeshed in the heat of decision-making.

When customers go radically mobile, they manage their time to support decisions with a much faster tempo. Social networks and Googled information are potent influences.

Many marketers sharp enough to follow the new maps still fail to apply basic “call-to-action” principles that will truly spur even their ardent supporters through the decision-making tree.

Your trailblazing experiences are shaping the style of decision-making in this emerging world right now. You’re heartily invited to share them:

* What was the most impactful buying decision you ever made using your smart phone?

* Looking back, what kind of information and opinions – especially of an unexpected sort –  helped crystallize your decision?
* Which one manufacturer or service provider is doing the best and the worst job of on-the-go customer support and why?

Tags: be mobile, BtoB Buyer, call-to-action principles, decision-making tree, Demand Gen's, Googled, Marketing Dynamics, marketing icons, nomads, smart phone, Social Networks, Star Trek-style communicators.

An enticing lure in modern shopping – and you can bet, it will gain prominence – is offering customers the chance to design and personalize the products they really want.

Will a top be monogrammed?  Embroidered?  Rhinestoned?  Beaded?  Or, studded with crystal lollipops?     It’s up to you.

Sort of.

The vision has arrived. We’re getting the hang of creating customizing products in truly efficient ways.       But manufacturers and retailers have a long way to travel. The destination: Widespread empowerment of customers through delivering precision-tailored goods that are the genuine extensions of individuals.

Consider the impact this has for retail:

* Yesterday’s “store-that-has-everything”  overwhelmed you with colossal assortments

* Even huge variety in a store is now likely to disappoint. (Walk through the average regional mall,              and one easily recoils at the overstuffed stacks of sameness.) Heavily assorted and inventoried stores offer an enormous amount of merchandise, but how often do they have exactly what you want?

* The store-of-the-future spotlights representative samples, so that you can get a real-world feel for looks and textures; but it will also rely on easily manipulated computer simulations to enable shoppers to engage themselves in custom design

* How will the customer navigate more effectively and enjoyably to an ideal outcome? One thing is sure. Giving you what you want won’t equate to shoveling a bigger bunker of inventory in your face.

* And, no doubt, more “stores”  will be mortar-less, virtual extensions of the notebooks on our desks.

More supple, streamlined stores also appeal to our growing ecological awareness. Who needs a bloated stacks of pre-made product on wastefully squandered real estate?

With broadband overtaking dial-up as our principal connection with the Internet, a subtle though powerful change has taken place in the geography of our thinking. We expect the Internet to be there at our fingertips.

In a speech at the end of last year, Jeff Cole at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, offered a perceptive observation about this transition. With 24-7 broadband, the computer has shifted from remote recesses of the home to the very heart  – especially “the kitchen, the most heavily networked room in the house.”

In a store . . . or at home, we are increasingly comfortable with – indeed reliant on – a computer-like resource to be available to answer customer questions.

American industry – so accustomed to conspicuous consumption and high volume – is having to adjust to an utterly contrary way of thinking.

This massive shift has huge implications for customer service. Retail service once meant being indulgent to customers when something went wrong. Now the front-end service expectation is getting it right by delivering the ideal product in the first place. The only way to do this economically is to master the design of easily modified templates and platforms for customer use in advance.

Our reflex is to regard templates as the cornerstone of cookie-cutter repetition. Templates – seen properly – aren’t repetitive limitations. To the contrary, they’re defining tools which establish the guidelines for what is executable. In imaginative hands, templates are the platforms enabling one stellar innovation after another. Operationally, as one example, Facebook and other successful social networking sites are fundamentally templates for human interaction.

Another advantage of well-tooled templates is to allow customers to instantly actualize their imagination. Call it the Intuit-and-DO IT! flash mentality. People want to be engaged in the act of creating surprise . . . and even in surprising themselves.

The trickiest aspect of fashion today is reliably predicting timing and product cycles. A good template foundation relieves considerable pressure on manufacturers, because customers will spin out and evolve products in many categories at their own pace.

And, who can forget the bottom line? Coupling solid foundations with a well thought-through system for customer embellishment is a viable road to justifiably attractive margins.

Doing business is no longer about driving strategy toward a preconceived, Aren’t-I-smart? end. Some manufacturers and designers are going to suffer a devastating ego price when customers invade the previously elite world of taste-making.

The high probability for businesses run the antique way: The price paid in lost sales and loyalty will be far more painful than a wounded ego.

Getting the process right for customer-initiated design is what the apps-design enablers at tech titans like Apple have learned so well. Intriguingly, the techno-world is a veritable university to teach rag-merchants new fundamentals in the world of fashion.

An inevitable question arises: Why didn’t this appetite for individualization and less-is-more simply take off with the “flower-power” rebellion of the seventies? The vision was surely there, but the information-technology backbone was a mere embryo compared to today’s IT universe. And, what we know about IT today may seem nothing short of primitive five years from now!

YOU’RE INVITED TO WEIGH IN:

* Everyone knows Build-a-Bear. In which merchandise categories do you think consumers most want to exert design initiatives?

* Are there categories of goods where consumers traditionally give poor design input? Why is this so?

* Does the emerging customer-initiated world of design imply new skill sets for consumers, including socially responsible behaviors? If so, what are these aptitudes?

And, how can they be best taught and advanced?

Tags: Build-A-Bear, customer-initiated design, customer-initiated world of design, Facebook, Intuit-and DO IT, Jeff Cole, templates for human interaction, The store of the future.

As a society, we’re doing a better job of managing the economics of a better life. That includes taking a sharper look at the price-tag when we want to splurge on upscale things.

Reading labels with a gimlet eye has opened the floodgates for house brands and generics helping us to land better value for a buck. This same reasoning has spelled predictably dark days for traditionally branded products unable to justify their top-heavy prices.

But, this attitude cuts both ways. And that may offer huge upticks for companies willing to work hard to deliver genuine value.

A recent New York Times article caught my attention when it framed the question: “Why Does This Pair of Pants Cost $550?” The goods in question are “luxury chinos” – “cotton gabardine khakis, sold at Bergdorf Goodman” fashioned by Scott Sternberg under the Band of Outsiders label.

Nutty pricing?

Article author Eric Wilson scrutinized the economics from the “jump iron” mold to $54 in “fabric cost” to $56 in domestic hand labor. According to the article, Sternberg applies a standard keystone margin, and “the retailer adds another markup, typically a factor of 2.5, which brings us to $550.” But these pants have, for one thing, “split waistbands” that are a cinch to alter.

We may live a t-shirt-and-jean lifestyle, but the wardrobe stars in the closet are increasingly a couple of pairs of those precision-fitted bottoms. For things that matter and that are central to our experience of everyday life, we are recalibrating the abacus of appropriate pricing.

Consider the high-utility, low-glamour array of things we carry, well, to carry other things. We are increasingly willing to shell out good money in exchange for durable superior performance. The lifetime-warrantied Harveys Seatbelt Bags (which include totes, hobos, satchels and day-packs) aim to match that appetite.

The core of experience-focused merchandise is highly practical; but some items just pluck our heartstrings by excelling for us in very personal ways. In one of his YouTube talks, Seth Godin mentions a yoyo that costs a sticker-shocking $112 . . . “but sleeps for 12 minutes.”

Godin also extols the French bread perfected by Parisian baker Lionel Poilâne. The artisanal cheeses that have caught our fancy fit the bill equally well. Americans are developing a much better sense for when a higher priced product truly merits the additional cost.

Starbucks was a great trendsetter and bellwether of how people are sizing up experience in a far more European latté-sipping way.

There is a narrative that goes with this experience.

To sell this sort of product today, you need to tell how it was touched and made, and – most importantly – why it’s worthwhile that it exists in the first place. The insider information is part of the experience we’re looking for before we part with our money. We hunger for behind-the-scenes stuff.

So, in answer to the question: Few people will part with $550 for a pair of chinos . . . and, none but the obscenely wealthy will, unless they know twenty pairs of hands meaningfully touched the garment to help create its durability and adjustability.

That’s an answer, but it’s just one answer, and you’re invited to chime in:

· As a reader, do you believe such premium experience-driven utility products are a reality or a ruse?

· Is there one product or category – the next hobo, chino, or yoyo – that’s crying out for this level of tender loving care?

· Premium utility products focus on durability, precision, and adaptability as leading traits. What other characteristics are either ignored or underestimated by product designers?

Tags: New York Times, Premium utility products, Seth Godin, Starbucks.

Living in NOW has its own very exacting economics.

Focus is imperative to getting it right. You have to discriminate between what is important and what is not. This criterion is essential for small businesses wanting to connect with a changing marketplace and a capital pool that has badly evaporated.

The NOW world is percolating with opportunity; but, without focus, you will vanish in it like a pebble in a tar pit. Target only those areas where personal passion is matched by the ability to execute.

That brings us back to the quest for brand DNA in your business. If you analyze this well, you have a far-better grasp of the opportunity costs. Impose non-DNA-supported qualities on your offering, and you discredit yourself. Poring over the future in a greedy, quantitative way will drive you further afield from your business’s authentic skills and credibility.

Look at NOW as a test to be passed as much as an opportunity. Surrender the false assumptions and expectations you may have accumulated about your brand and your business. Indeed the spectrum of opportunity has never been richer. . . that is, if you’re strong. To become a strong player, you may have to shrink your business, if your brand DNA has already been badly diluted or compromised.

Those are some fundamental economics which businesses should consider as they approach the market.

What about the other side – the economics of how the consumer is approaching businesses?

In March, James Surowiecki presented a powerhouse article in the New Yorker. In it, he said: “Companies like Ikea, H. & M., and the makers of the Flip video camera” have an edge “not by selling products or services that are ‘far better’ than anyone else’s but by selling things that aren’t bad and cost a lot less. . . . they’re engaged in what Wired recently christened the ‘good-enough revolution.’ For them, the key to success isn’t excellence. It’s well-priced adequacy. . . . Brands matter less,” and he points to up-to-date Nielsen research finding “that more than sixty per cent of consumers think that stores’ generic products are equal in quality to brand-name ones.” Larger brands are becoming less successful, especially if they carry complex preconceptions from the past and if they harbor the illusion that they, not the consumer, will call the shots.

This new economic pragmatism is how the consumer intends to finance the “luxury” lifestyle of timesharing special experiences . . . by cutting back to “good enough” on category after category.

This is a time to examine the ribbon of your thinking and to get in touch with NOW – its speed, its dynamics and its economics.

And, if you don’t . . .

Well, that’s what becoming a part of history is all about.

Tags: Flip Video Camera, H&M, Ikea, timesharing.

Hockey great Wayne Gretzky played the game with a wonderful attitude: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,” he once said. This puck-and-action-centered thinking is a liberating GPS outlook for NOW entrepreneurs to adopt. Its detachment and selflessness are priceless advantages. Personal identity is interruptive to success. Great athletes relinquish their sense of self to merge themselves with the next moment, the sharing of experience, and the importance of the team in achieving the overriding objective. Sports titans literally become a part of the play and play better for it.

Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi is the leading expert on positive psychology and the concept of flow and being in the zone. Going with the flow causes our obsession with self to recede and allows genuine creativity to emerge. “If the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence,” Csíkszentmihályi maintains, “we must educate them to be original as well as competent,”

People in the zone lose their sense of time and of themselves. Many who dedicate themselves to altruistic causes experience similar bursts of energy and insight. Getting in the zone can do great good, and that’s a wonderful boon. But, what about the bottom line?

The paradox at work here should not escape those entrepreneurs who may not be so high-minded in their objectives. Being selfless is often the most reliable way to getting what you want. The hard truth is this: Selflessness is not about promoting good, it’s just that it works. A good effect can be as viral as a bad effect.

Operating in the zone is experiencing NOW at the highest level. If the new model for leadership is being a facilitator and enabler who is steadfastly anchored in the NOW world, one of the great grand masters of this art was the designer Coco Chanel.

· She rejected the whalebone corsets which imprisoned women of the Victorian Era and favored soft, comfortable fabrics.

· Her short, chic hair style was easy to manage after an eon of prissy tresses.

· She was bold enough to declare: “A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”

Did Coco Chanel dream these things up? She was far smarter! She listened to the world around her and articulated the vision everyone yearned to have. She enabled and facilitated a fashion cyclone that was gestating in the collective soul of her time. We’re all witnessing the same events; but, as is usually the case, it takes genius to detect the significance of what’s happening.

The collective mind is not an invitation to create self-made heroes.

The Coco Chanel icon might seem driven by the satisfaction of personal achievement. In fact, it’s far more supple. If there’s a craving for recognition, it’s of a very different sort. Not: “I was able to impose this change. Aren’t I smart?” Instead: “Did I hear what the world was saying, and did I help provide the means to help it respond?” When you think in those rather selfless terms, you leverage unimaginable energy on behalf of the solutions you want to enable.

We have entered the Age of Agile Enablement. The exit ramp of imposing directive, proprietary solutions is fading out of our rear view mirror and fading fast.

Tags: Age of Agile Enablement, Coco Chanel, GPS, NOW entrepreneurs.

Niche marketing doggedly pursues a single minded target.

What kind of person are you and how do I serve you best?

NOW-niche marketing expands the question.

What kind of person are you NOW and how do I serve you best at this moment?

The operative question isn’t: Who are you? It’s: Who are you when?

We have entered a world which could be likened to “resort living”: Our lives are a series of experiences.

· In your career, you crave being an insightful manager.

· As a parent, you prize your status as an open and trusted guide for your children, prepared to offer meaningful advice as they explore the world and how it works.

· Among guests, you want to assert your skill as a commanding host or hostess with culinary flair and impeccable taste.

· As a free-time adventurer, you might scale rock-textured walls or chalk up your hands to solve the intricate problems of bouldering.

You want to be all of these things. Why not? And why not be able to alternate these multiple roles with split-second speed?

Why is this, in a sense, resort living? The pattern of our lives is rapidly acquiring a new texture . . . not unlike stakes in multiple and virtual timeshare condominiums. Ownership is fractional, and the emphasis is not on each property as an asset but as one venue among many in a series of explorations.

Total ownership of anything is binding and often becomes confining. What we own ends up owning us.

This is becoming how we shop as much as how we live. Consumers, particularly younger ones, want to change roles, peek into different worlds, and be stimulated by the excitement of fresh experiences. At first glance, this might seem like a “costume culture” – bent on superficial, chameleon-like changes. It’s actually much more profound. We are beginning to find that experiencing a full life entails having the versatility to agilely move from one high-level experience to another.

What has allowed us to become confident enthusiasts in this new ever-shifting world? Gaming may have plenty to do with it. Using a tool like Xbox Elite, your virtual skateboard can “shred” through tunnels one moment, and, in the next, you’re munching a Mocha Frappuccino-bar in the quiet confines of your pothos-lined cubicle.

We game for variety and to develop competence in a vast array of skills. We revel in being fast . . . and sure . . . and dexterous.

Our taste for gaming has predictably invaded the way we message each other. Texting, surely a gaming offshoot in many ways, has changed the tonality of writing and even talking. Superfluous, formalistic communication instantly makes us impatient.

Almost all of this interactivity is going on in another universe beyond the world of work. The work world has a long way to go to catch up with the live-wire positive energy of seeing and shaping experiences through virtual dialogue. (The email world of work is quite a different universe, usually barking orders through a voiceless command-and-control intercom rather than enticingly inviting participation.)

Human beings thrive on alternating play with work. Entrepreneurs and marketers, hang on to your hats, because that’s where you’ll find your payoff. The opportunity to do creative work is a powerful drive behind people throwing their body and soul into developing apps. Through flexing themselves in the creative “What if?” of forging apps, they have the chance to innovate as they are rarely permitted to in the workplace. We’re learning to influence the world in our social moments, and if you catch the brass ring, maybe you even find yourself a new career or found your own business.

For cash-strapped firms anxious to outboard their R&D, how can you beat this deal?!

Tags: Gaming, Mobile living, Niche marketing.