Notes on "Business Model Generation"

OUT-THE-BOX-DEFINITION:

A business model is like recipe for a creative manager.

What are we cooking today?

IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS:

-Narrative Coherence: The business model holds a story of moving a business from one opportunity to another.

• Incoherence/Components misaligned = Long-term failure.
• Strong narrative = Positive changes

-Business Model 2.0: Based on the potential of the web.

• Collective intelligence
• Self-improving systems
• Networking

-Complementarily: To find good partners, the business models of both have to fit together.

(Some) BUSINESS MODEL TYPES:

-Long tail: Small amounts to many, many clients (Niche markets + Good Channels)

-Multiplatform: Bring together different groups of clients and rise value of their interaction.

-Gratis! (For free): Three subtypes:

• Get one free, pay for another (Evolution of “Bait & hook”)
• Service/Product paid by Advertising/Sponsors. (Traditional Media)
• “Freemuim”: Pay for the full version

-Open: Create value by collaborating with clients and partners. It can be applied inwards or outwards. (?)

TOOLS TO INNOVATE ON BUSINESS MODELS

-Customer insight: Empathy. Know, think and feel like the customer.

-Ideation: Have a multidiscilinar group analyzing and brainstorming on the project.

·        Focus on finding problems and solutions (Create plan B, C, D…)

·        *Rules: No early-judging, respect, be visual, embrace craziness…

·        *Any of the 9 blocks can work as a starting point for the innovation (Resources, Product, Clients, Finances…).

-Visual Thinking: Use pictures, diagrams, outlines, post-its (more immediate), create a tag-cloud, a moodboard…

• Back of the Napkin (See visually, imagine visually, show ideas visually >> SIMPLIFY)

-Prototyping: Helps exploring ideas by making the more tangible. Do several different prototypes for the same business.

-Storytelling: A good story gives strength to any idea. There’s a natural resistance (reluctance) to change and the unknown. a strong story can make more familiar any new idea. It helps when telling the stakeholders (Alternatives: Talk, Video, Play, Text+Image, Comic…).

-Scenarios: Set out and consider different specific scenarios of how the business can evolve. This way is easier to figure out where to go (Develop plan B, C, D…). Observe your environment, detect trends and apply them to your ideas.

STRATEGIES TO CREATE AND MANAGE BUSINESS MODELS

-Evaluate the environment of the model (the forces that affect it):

-Analyze constantly the business model (through checklists, SWOTs…) to Validate or modify each of the 9 building blocks.

-Blue Ocean Strategy: Create your own uncontested market.

• Eliminate useless factors that the industry takes for granted.
• Reduce some factors below the industry’s standard.
• Raise some factors above the industry’s standard.
• Create those interesting factors that the industry has never offered.

-Work out: Practice managing several models. Learn when to integrate them to create synergies and when to separate them to prevent conflicts.

• Similarity of the building blocks + potential for synergy - potential for conflict = Recommended level of Autonomy

PROCESSES TO CREATE A BUSINESS MODEL:

-Mobilize: Set the stage for a successful business model design project.

-Understand: Research the elements needed for your business model design.

-Design: Generate various options and test them to select the best ones.

-Implement the chosen business model idea in “real life”. Execute what you thought.

-Manage: Modify your plans according to “real life feedback”. Evolve.

• A business plan tends to be static (it’s like a script).
• A business models reacts and is dynamic (it’s like Impro).

The future of the Third Sector

Almost everyone would agree that NGOs are a good thing, that Cooperation is positive and that Development Projects are necessary. That's why many of us think about donating money to an NGO, but then various kinds of criticism come to join our natural reluctance to give money away. Even when we trust  that a NGO is not corrupted, and that they really want to make a difference, we keep on worrying about "what are they going to do with the money". 

Well, we all should realize that our criticism of the Third Sector has a totally mistaken focus. We have thought that non-profit Companies shouldn't work under the same rules as the rest. That Marketing, Business Models and Investments are evil tools that the Third Sector must avoid.

This video is a must if you ever thought this. It tells the five ways in which we are judging the Third Sector the wrong way:

But it’s also true that in many NGOs is needed a change in the way things are done. Many of them manage enormous amounts of money and their impact is either small (the money is useless) or negative (they create dependency).

In this other talk, Ernesto Sirolli sets the key of NGOs efficiency when it comes to development projects: Listen to the local entrepreneurs:

If both the people around and the people inside NGOs follow this simple yet effective tips, the future of the Third Sector can be very fruitful. I'm convinced that a change in this direction will lead to finally see non-profit organizations making a big difference.

So please, share it: http://notjustmarketing.blogspot.de/2013/03/the-future-of-third-sector.html

29 ways to stay Creative

How Loyalty works?

This beautiful and simple infographic (created by the brand new Portugese branding agency "WHY") shows the two parts Consumer Loyalty is composed of:

Some experts will add, in the part of the company "duties", its behavior (Call it Responsibility, Ethics, Authenticity...) and some others think that loyalty doesn't exist in a market where most consumers just care about the price.

All this depends on the actual behavior of the consumers. Do consumers care about what's behind the companies they buy from? And even more important: Are consumers aware of how powerful their purchasing decicions are?

Leave your Comfort Zone, expand your Boundaries

Here is the video of the talk Martina Flor shared last Feb. 21 on the monthly meeting of the Creative Mornings in Berlin. The talk by the Argentinean designer had the title "Stepping out of your comfort zone". And, very beautifully presented, it explained how advisable is to confront bravely the challenges we find in our professional life.

She exemplified it with her own experiences. The method she suggested to achieve better projects was simple: Just do it and then show it.

It was a nice coincidence the title of the talk and the day it happened. Because just a couple months ago I wanted to spread a new "tradition": I find so important to leave our safe spaces regularly, that I started to "celebrate", on the 21^st of every month, the "Out of the comfort zone" Day.

So it was an even nicer coincidence that last 21^st I was taking part on something so estrange as a “Virtual Interactive Seminar”. The people from WorldAfterMidnight have created a virtual world to carry out any kind of educational or collaborative meetings. It was a really nice workshop about the innovation in the business world and, as we could interact, we were working with a very useful model for problem solving. These seminars are for free and take place every month; highly recommended.

Stepping out of our comfort zone is very useful for those moments in life (or at work) when life puts you in a difficult position. It's really easy to just don't do it. But when you step usually out of your comfort zone it starts being even funny!

And you? Do you step regularly out of your comfort zone? What totally new thing, or same thing on a totally different way, are you going to do on the next 21^st?