We all agree that innovation is the only way to survive in an ever more
global, competitive business arena. We're talking basically anything
that will get consumers spending, and preferably the kind of spending
that involves sustainable goods, services and experiences.
The link between INNOVATION INSANITY and consumer trends? As focused
as we are on emerging consumer trends, we never tire of pointing out
that trends are only good for one thing: inspiring you to innovate, to
come up with new goods, services and experiences for (or even better,
with) your customers.
Three more thoughts on innovation:
-
Innovation is not necessarily about people in white coats
puttering about in R&D labs. In our current experience economy,
marketing innovation is equally important, and often trumps technical
innovation.
-
Furthermore, as consumers' wants are sometimes frivolous, new products and services can be, too. Really, innovation doesn't have to be so earnest all the time.
-
Thirdly, doing or starting something new doesn't have to cost
the world. Many of the innovations featured in this briefing thrive on
nimbleness and creativity, not huge budgets.
READ MORE: 67 INNOVATIONS
Source: www.trendwatching.com
. One of the world's leading trend firms,
trendwatching.com sends out
its free, monthly Trend
Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.
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Future Environmental Scanning vs. SWOT
Most organizations start their entire planning process at the wrong place -- today, with a SWOT process that analyzes today's current state.
Instead they need to start with the Future Environment in a more rigorous and future-oriented formal Future Environmental Scan Program. This includes looking out three-to-five years (the length of your Strategic Plan as a minimum) using the SKEPTIC Framework. Then, the organization can begin working backwards from the Future Scan to develop more in-depth implications for the Opportunities and Threats of today (the external part of SWOT).
For large organizations, we recommend creating Scanning Teams of six-to-seven management volunteers under each Framework Letter (SKEPTIC), led by a Sr. Management Team Champion who naturally has this as his/her functional responsibility. Smaller organizations and nonprofits may assign this activity to members of the Board, as well as key personnel.
More frequent meetings on the results of this Environmental Scan (preferably every three-to-four months) is critical. During these meetings, each Scanning Team Champion presents a one-page report on the trends related to their Framework Letter. This has the added benefit of educating all team members who are now advocates of change due to their educated views of the future environment around your organization.
Tip #3 - Identify Your Key Success Measures.
Once you've done your research, identified your target audience, the social media sites they use most frequently, and how actively engaged they are in creating and using the tools, you need to determine your own measures of success for each audience.
What will determine that your strategies are working? Customer comments? The number of people that link to your information, your websites, your blogs? A percentage increase in sales or customer satisfaction?
Only you can determine what these measures should be, and they are critical to helping you gauge how successful your social media strategies are.
Once you've identified these measures, you can set up a system to track results. Google Analytics offers detailed analysis of traffic to your website(s) and blogs. Facebook also provides great analytics if you use Facebook Ads to pull traffic.
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