100 blogs in 50 weeks. Horizon 1 target achieved.
I set myself a target exactly a year ago. Two blogs per week: 100 blogs published in 50 weeks. Allowing for the inevitable slip in output around the year end, I did it.
Setting a strategic target and marking out baby steps worked. Of course it worked. I was committed to the plan. I was incentivised to hit the target and I’m invested in the overall direction of travel room44 is on.
After 100 blogs (it’s actually 109 at https://room44.co.uk) we’ve accumulated some interesting feedback about our customers and the pain they feel before recruiting us.
Here are some of the typical comments we get during conversations that lead to working with you:
- I talk about having a five-year plan and could probably cobble something together if I had to, but actually I know what is going to happen until June (it’s March now).
- I leave our ideation sessions sometimes thinking, is that really as good as it gets here?
- Who can possibly know what we’ll be doing in twenty years? I don’t know what I’m doing next week.
If this is you, we can help. If you’re a CEO or senior manager who wants a better idea of what you should do, now, to make your product or service viable in a future market, talk to us.
- Maybe you sense a change in the market but can’t put your finger on it.
- Maybe you can see technology coming that you’ll need to keep up with, but can’t see a way of paying for.
- Maybe you have intelligence that suggests your competitors are branching out in a way that your board doesn’t believe yet.
- Maybe there’s a new kid on the block who’s worrying you.
- Maybe your EBITDA stretch target just looks like a dream/nightmare.
- Maybe you’re thinking about retiring but would prefer to build a succession plan first.
Whatever the situation you find yourself in, we suggest that you will benefit from an innovation strategy. Here’s a new way of thinking about it. It may seem simplistic but, from a bird’s eye view, most companies actually function in a fairly similar way.
We advocate developing a view of your future that you can believe: one that has looked at the various scenarios that you face, and made a judgement between them. It’s this market that you are aiming to be active in.
From here on, you can declare your intent and watch what happens. Your colleagues will lean in and you’ll find that the strategy is deployed without very much effort on your part. It’s worth watching my video “Plan an innovation strategy like you plan a holiday” to see why this is.
In any event, you must stay vigilant. Review and test are watch words in the Design Thinker’s lexicon.
So, here we are. One hundred blogs in and back where we started.
We believe that every company needs an innovation strategy that is discrete and that stands apart from other functions, but which directs every other function’s plan. One thing we know is that listening is the best research method, so we’d love to talk to you about the way you do this.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.
Drop a line to me here to find out how we can help you use future forecasting and innovation as your tools of choice for growth or book a time here. Talking to me is completely risk free and totally confidential.