Sometimes it’s worth breaking your usual habits. This is a recurring message that we at SIT share. We decided to take our own advice, and make an exception to one of our (infamous) customs – we proactively set out to advertise our services. Our saving grace was that, at least, we wouldn’t do it in a conventional manner.
We recruited Eliyahu, a young MBA student, who has found an interesting way to make a living: Eliyahu promotes advertising campaigns on his shirt. While seemingly a familiar concept (after all, don’t most of our shirts have company logos and advertising messages on them?), Eliyahu took this banal idea and gave it a twist: You can literally buy the shirt for his back. For a fee, Eliyahu sells a “day” in his calendar on which he’ll wear a shirt sent to him by the procurer of his services. Eliyahu films himself wearing the shirt and then uploads the video to youtube along with a post about the brand/event/message in his blog, Twitter, and Facebook. There is already a hype around his t-shirt campaigns, and his follower base keeps growing.
Theoretically, Eliyahu’s advertising idea is perfect for small companies with tight budgets. But there is actually a hidden opportunity for larger companies as well, especially if they spread “Eliyahu’s” word to the masses. Think of the impact if an established Fortune 500 company would hire Eliyahu’s services, rather than the corner falafel store or Joe’s Printing Services (no offense intended). This has the Continue reading ‘The “wear about” of marketing innovation’
Members of Amdocs senior leadership got together for an innovation camp that began with an impossible mission - to create the Creativity and Innovation Center in Sderot, in the south of Israel, all within less than 20 hours!
The center in Sderot is now part of the “Tachlit Center“, which serves over 70 youth at risk that have dropped out of conventional educational establishments, and through this work exerts positive influence on the entire community in various ways.
SIT was the prime facilitator for this innovation camp.
It often seems that being innovative is a privilege of the wealthy. Those who have the time to invent and innovate are most probably not busy with everyday survival. Or are they?
Constraints enhance creativity. When resources are limited or have been exhausted, constraints have a ball; and so does creativity.
For example, lack of access to safe drinking water is a critical problem in poor countries around the world. Every year, thousands of people die from infectious diseases, brought on by polluted water. PlayPumps International has come up with a successful, creative solution to the problem: a merry-go-round that pumps water into a storage tank, while children have fun riding it round and round. What is so brilliant about this idea is its simplicity. Kids at play spin the merry-go-round anyway, so the system uses an existing resource to achieve a new objective, improving the quality of life for the entire village.
Apocalyptic newspaper headlines cause panic. Panic induces paralysis. The media is overloading us with evermore information and commentaries about “the situation”: poorer quality of life, higher unemployment, pay cuts, zero real growth, etc. Most companies in the market usually react alike. Companies start operating on ‘automatic pilot,’ or, in the worst-case scenario, they act on impulse, adopting clichés which are not necessarily rational, like laying off workers, cutting wages, putting trainings on halt and such.
Inventive thought and innovation are usually seen as a prerogative reserved for markets in times of growth, while, in fact, during slowdowns and recessions, there are plenty of good reasons to be creative, to invest in innovation, develop innovative strategies and even launch new products.
It makes sense that accidents often lead to good ideas, such as Post-it notes, Viagra and chocolate chip cookies. During ‘normal’ thought processes in search for ideas, we are locked in fixedness, beliefs, habits and criticism. Accidents easily bypass these obstacles. They just happen.
The first challenge, therefore, is intentionally causing accidents; and the second, no less complicated, is identifying them as opportunities for innovation and not as failures. We’ll start with the second challenge.
Let’s take, for example, business cards. Those usually white rectangles, usually 2X3.5 in., with the name of the card’s holder, his/her position and contact information. The font is ordinary, the color scheme – common – and the practice is gray and predictable.
At conferences or meetings with multiple participants, I often receive a bunch of such cards and by the next day (or even an hour later) I cannot remember who gave them to me. All the cards look the same.
If you’re studying political science, there’s a chance you’re going to become a bit of a paranoid. Your mind, striving for knowledge, finds itself flooded with conspiracy theories, false consciousness and the inability to think for itself. Big Brother’s eye—watching, analyzing and most importantly, guiding—seems much more realistic from the high windows of the academic ivory tower.
When you leave the academia and join the ‘evil forces’ of the free market, the paranoia releases its grip a little and you start to understand, consent, and even collaborate.
