Co-working spaces: the new-age office that best cultivates innovation

Make your workspace work for you — create a space that encourages innovation

We spend ~160 hours working in a given month. For the majority of us, this time is spent in an office meant to foster creativity, communication, and ultimately a better business. Technology has revolutionized many pieces of our daily lives and has too impacted the concept of an office. As needs of employees change, employers must shift the manner in which they best support their employees to produce their best results.

Personally, I find that my best work is accomplished when it also aligns with my passions; work that fulfills a personal purpose cultivates personal happiness and joy. In a Ted talk I recently watched, I was drawn in by the idea that the physical space in which we work plays a significant role in the joy we have. Joy, among other things, impacts the work produced and the level of innovative thinking possible. 

Inspiration and motivation come from within, but also come from our surroundings.

– Ingrid Fetell Lee states in her Ted talk, “Where joy hides.”


So how exactly can companies encourage innovation while being flexible with their employees needs?

Create a spin-off of a co-working space

Co-working spaces are no longer a space for start-ups and entrepreneurs. As work continues to be digital-focused, employers are shifting the concept of what it means to ‘come to work.’ For many people, it’s important to leave the house to get into the right mindset of working effectively (away from noise or other distractions). For others, going into work is effective in accomplishing this need, however their environment may not be as conducive to inspire innovative thinking as it could be.

Regardless of the space where work is being accomplished, ways to stimulate productivity and creativity remains consistent.

1. Height creates a sense of ‘no limits,’ and creative problem solving

Like your business potential, you want your employees to feel there are no limitations in what they can accomplish. The concept of limitations is perceived by our physical space.

“People perform better at tasks requiring creative problem-solving skills under ceilings 10 feet or higher compared to eight-foot ceilings” (details). Glass ceilings and other boundaries that project a feeling of being boxed in, should not be existent. Things should feel taller than they are. For example, when decorating, choose a tall bookshelf versus a short bookshelf. Alternatively, select decor with vertical stripes. 

Our mental space stands in direct proportion to our perception of physical space.
– Medium  

2. (Visual) Distance supports creative thinking

Construal level theory (CLT) is a mental model in which the interpretation of distance is affected by interpretation and contextual understanding. According to CLT, the observation or perception of things being far away stimulates abstract thinking.

The greater our perception of something being in the distance, the more inclined we will be to idea formation; early stage ideation (brainstorming, sketching, drafts) relies on abstract, big-picture thinking.

For example, if you are planning where your business will be in one year, versus 5 years, you are more likely to think of more impactful, creative, opportunities and goals when discussing a 5-year plan versus a 1-year plan; 5 years is farther in the distance so thoughts will be more focused on ‘what could we do,’ versus ‘how do we do it.’

Closeness in proximity prompts detail-oriented thinking, whereas distance prompts open-minded, unbiased, free thinking.

3. Neutral colors create a sense of relaxation

Color choice plays a vital role in giving a feeling of comfort and relaxation. Cooler colors (blue, green) are more soother than warm colors (red, orange).

By decorating or painting walls with warm colors, your initial level of energy will spike, however it will also quickly fade due to being over stimulated. Soothing, earth colors, encourage relaxation and make people feel as though there is more space, opposite of warm colors which make people feel closed in. Exploratory thinking will increase in spaces with more neutral tones, so choose your colors wisely. 

4. Let there be l i g h t

“People who work in windowless spaces get ~46 minutes less sleep on work nights, experience lower-quality rest, and are less physically active during the workday than colleagues who are afforded adequate exposure. Additionally, medical scientists report higher levels of depression, anxiety, delirium, and even psychosis among patients lacking access to outside views in healthcare facilities” (details).

Dim-lit, natural space encourages exploratory thinking, whereas bright spaces encourage rational, logical thinking. 

Finding a balance between the two is challenging, but with natural lighting from windows and dim to medium-lit lights will provide balanced thinking required for creative, efficient work. 

5. Smell the plants 

Awaken your brain through smell. Scents like eucalyptus and citrus help people feel alert, and lavender helps people remain calm. My personal favorite place to work is somewhere where I feel as if I am outside surrounded by nature. A balance of earthy colors and greenery from plants, combined with fresh scents from things found outside like flowers makes me feel at-ease. 

6. Make the coffee and food spots your hang-out spot

Whether coffee, tea, or water, make the space people frequent a place inspiring to communication and collaboration. Food and drink are a social activity, so why not encourage communication in the office by making the space where food and drink are consumed are also a place people enjoy – feel relaxed, creative, and open-minded.

Food and drink feed your body, so why not feed your brain at the same time?

7. Inspire through storytelling

Remind people why they do what they do. Whether through written phrases, photos, or paintings, reminding employees of the goal they are working toward inspires their work. Whether a start-up focusing on growth, an advanced company encouraging innovation, or a co-working space explaining the value they provide to members, storytelling is an extremely effective tool for encouraging big-picture thinking.

Being creative and innovative is a lot about surroundings — feelings of freedom, relaxation, and time foster limitless, innovative, thinking. As you build or design an office for your team — remember that what works best for them, will work best for your company’s success.

Why diversity matters

Learn about the importance of diversity in the workplace from a young female in tech (me).

Without challenge, there is no change, and without change there is no long-term success.

To be successful, change through innovative thinking and decision making is inevitable. One way to stay innovative is by having a diverse team.

I have experienced being part of diverse, and not-so-diverse, teams throughout my educational and career development, and have seen the positive and negative repercussions on business failure or success resulting from the level of diversity within a team.

This post defines diversity, outlines the importance and challenges of diversity, as well as documents ways to create a thriving, diverse team.

 

What is diversity?

Diversity comes in all shapes and sizes; diversity can be found by educational background, sexual orientation, income level, religion opinions, values, geographical location, communication style, language, and much more.

In May, I attended the PODIM conference in Slovenia and spoke on a panel called, “Winning Team, Winning Company” which  focused on the importance of diversity in the workplace. 

When we kicked-off the discussion with a panel solely of women (a man did join the discussion later; there were supposed to be two men on the panel), we had to address the elephant in the room – how can a diversity panel only have women? It was simple, 

What makes us different, is not always visible to the naked eye.


Why does having a diverse team matter?

In teams without diversity, you’ll find little differentiation in opinion or thought. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

This quote relates to teams which have had little conflict in decision-making, which is why there is a tendency to hire those with similar opinion and thought; similar opinions simplify discussion around decisions.

That said, just because  decisions will be simplified, this does not necessarily mean they will be the right decisions. One of the greatest challenges that goes hand-in-hand with having a diverse team, is conflict.


My experience with diversity

To level set, I am a college-educated female and currently work at one of the top technology companies in the world. The companies and people in the following stories will remain anonymous; these stories are not about where or whom with these situations arose, but rather these stories help illustrate a few challenges of diversity.

I remember meeting two people working at a small company. After sitting down and asking a couple questions about their business, the man paused as if something was wrong and said,

“I’m sorry, when I heard [we were meeting], I was expecting to meet an older, white, man.”

There was a bit of an awkward pause – I truthfully didn’t know whether he was joking or not – so I laughed off the comment, and continued to ask questions about the business. As we continued our discussion, I continued to question whether he was indeed joking or not; when I provided business recommendations, even after sharing my educational and professional background to earn trust, there was a lot of push back.

A few days later when we met in person among a group of men and women, this person sought advice about his business problem from an old white man whom provided the same advice as I had days prior which he then agreed to.

Take-away 1: Cultural differences are not an excuse for cultural norms.

I shared my experience with a group of friends, and the following day after sharing my story, a friend pulled me aside and said,

“I’m so happy you shared that story. I see and hear things like this all the time, that I didn’t realize I had gotten so used to it. I stayed up all night thinking about it, and spoke with my mom about it the next day. I don’t like that I see this, and don’t say something – knowing how you felt, is not something we should accept as okay.”

In another situation, I was working with two men and a woman to meet a male and female business partner. After about 10 minutes into the conversation, the female business partner began speaking about the business and one of the men I was working with cut her off mid-sentence and began speaking over her, stating, “[we shouldn’t do that, we should do this].” The woman’s face looked white as a ghost when he cut her off and for the remainder of the three-hour meeting she did not speak; the men spoke with the men. 

This feeling of sexism was further augmented when – throughout the meeting – I noticed the male with which we were meeting made eye contact only when speaking with the other males at the table. While this example is of a small behavioral trait that can easily be brushed off, I felt it is important to note; there are cultural differences and some need to be understood in a manner of difference in cultural norms, but there is also a level of disrespect which cannot and should not be considered acceptable as a cultural norm and brushed off as if it is acceptable behavior.

Without respect for each other and the differences among us, we cannot be successful.


Take-away 2: Sexism can occur between the same sex, as well as the opposite sex

During a meeting, when seeking to understand business objectives and clarification, a female told me that “[this was none of my business and to just do the work].” I felt immediately disrespected as I felt I was inquiring about a business decision. I was further criticized by my comments and received feedback it was not my place to ask questions — and it was my place to do the work. I felt completely disrespected and questioned why I was hired at a company where I was not allowed to bring my knowledge to a team to help make better decisions. A very similar situation occurred at a different company with a male counterpart. 

Always seek [and work] to get your team on the page with your strategy and strategic goals, otherwise they will not respect you as a peer or as a leader. Effective leaders understand each person’s strengths, weaknesses, and differences and encourages and supports conflicting points-of-view.

While creating a thriving, diverse team likely seems – understandably – impossible and challenging, it is not.

 

5 Ways to create and support a thriving, diverse team

1. Be open minded; listen
As expected, when people come together with differing opinions, there is conflict. While you may be stubborn in your ideas, it’s important to make sure others feel respected and heard. 

Carolyn N. Spencer of Amazon promotes diversity in her environment by supporting people to openly express their thoughts and feelings.“This is the only way to truly grow – personally and in business.”  – Diversity Matters

Take the time to listen to the other person’s point of view, and allow them to explain their reasoning for wanting to move forward with the recommendation they suggested. By listening, you may realize they had thought of something you did not.

2. Speak up; respectfully challenge others’ point of view

This one is not easy; in moments we can all get emotionally responsive. It’s important to step back, asses the situation and how your comments may come off and adjust your body tone and behavior accordingly.

If you disagree with someone, or want to share your point of view and know it will be controversial – pose your idea in the form of a question – lead the person there by helping them think differently.

Example: “I am sure you have already thought about XYZ, but XYZ.”

This type of conversation comes across less judgmental and threatening, eliminating potential tension between you and the other person speaking.

3. Be aware of acceptable and non-acceptable cultural differences
While we are diverse in many ways, cultural differences can impact communication styles and therefore impact interpretation of the level of respect received.

Be cognizant and educate yourself on what cultural differences exist around you. Note and communicate if something makes you feel uncomfortable or disrespected; there could be a simple misunderstanding.

4.Give feedback, and teach others to encourage diversity
Without acknowledging that teams are diverse, and therefore will run into situations where people disagree and a decision is made which others do not support or understand.

If people do not support or understand why a decision was made, then you cannot be a successful leader or have a successful team.

5. Work with each other to get the best result
At the end of the day, your goal is to be successful. If in the face of differing opinions and stagnant conversation, find a place of agreement or way to make a decision.

For example, if your business replies on customers to purchase products, then you pick whichever is the best decision for your customer.

Summary

At the end of the day, it’s most important for everyone to acknowledge that there is bias in the workplace; the worst thing you can do as a company is pretend like there is no discrimination; while we do not encourage or support it, often times discrimination is sub-conscious.

In simplest form, every company should have mandatory diversity training. While we can’t control people’s background or biases and beliefs, we can however encourage and have low tolerance for disrespect. By creating a mandatory diversity training at work, you acknowledge there can be bias in the workplace but most importantly how to address or escalate inappropriate behavior or respect between others.

Diversity drives change. Without change there is stagnation and little-to-no innovation. Support diversity in your workplace to drive business success.

For more discussion and inspiration on diversity, check out this Ted Talk by Janet Stovall called, “How to get serious about diversity and including in the workplace.”

 

Disclaimer: This post does not reflect the views of opinions of my employer, Amazon, the PODIM conference, or SwissContact Entrepreneur in Residence (SwissEP) program. Copyright, Carolyn N. Spencer.

4 Changes Affecting Product Managers

 

4 changes affecting pms_4

Today, Product Managers are managing more than products.  Product Managers are responsible for listening to their customers, paying attending to trends and developing products to meet their target audience’s evolving needs.  With the introduction of new management tools and methods, Product Managers are challenged to prioritize and balance their time appropriately.

Increased Social Presence
With continued importance around digital branding, Product Managers reap the benefits of representing and promoting their product in a positive light online.  They are responding to product issues and questions and sharing relevant content about their company and product on social networks. 

Technologists who rock @intuit

A social media presence is mutually beneficial; Product Managers can more deeply understand the end user’s needs, while customers can openly express their product questions and concerns, thus increasing product loyalty and awareness among end-users.  An open and engaging presence is a win-win for everyone.

Increased User Education and Engagement Demands
Gone are the days of simple customer support.  With constant (almost bi-weekly) changes to software, companies are partnering with popular third-party apps Intercom, Pendo and Inline Manual to achieve product and company relevant goals (e.g. increase product engagement or increase client retention, post onboarding). 

“Intercom allows us to ‘scale authenticity’ and foster a passionate community of users.  By A/B testing message format and content, we see open rates above 75% for all of our onboarding emails,” Ben Jordan, VP of Customer Experience, Invision.

Of course, with this demand comes the question of resource management and how to properly balance product and business goals.

New Internal Communication and Management Tools
Real-time responsiveness is key, and with new tools such as AHA! and Slack, Product Managers can quickly and easily communicate with their stakeholders. 

While Jira used to act as the primary platform for adding, editing and prioritizing new features and bugs, the introduction of AHA! provides separate management and communication methods specific to a subset of end-users.

AHA! is great for requirements gathering, prioritizing and roadmap planning, approval and sharing.   The visual heavy aspects are immensely helpful for teams that may not connect with the PM org on a daily basis, such as the sales, marketing, and account management teams; instead of constantly answering one-off questions around what’s on the roadmap and when will it be released, Product Manager’s can easily share a link to the most updated roadmap. 

aha!
While the combination of AHA! and Jira are useful for roadmap communication, Slack combines the most necessary daily communication functionalities into one platform.  Product Managers can create project or team based Channels specific to whom they wish to communicate with (e.g. Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Scrum Team, etc.).   Slack’s integration with Jira is especially beneficial; PM’s can receive ticket updates from Jira simultaneously in a Slack Channel.

Whether it’s through Jira, AHA! or Slack, Product Managers are expected to readily answer product related questions at the drop of a hat.  Dependent on the end-users and the size of the company, multiple communication and management platforms may be the best way to answer those questions in a scalable manner.

Specialization
Product Managers are specializing in multi-disciplinary educations (e.g. technical PM or design-savvy PM) to align with new HR requirements.  This was pulled from a recent Google Product Management job description,

“Minimum Qualifications: BA/BS in Computer Science or related technical field… Preferred Qualifications: Product management or design experience with a focus on software products and technologies.”

Since Product Managers work with the design and engineering teams on a daily basis, it’s helpful to understand how each team functions.  From a startup perspective, Product Managers can more easily market themselves as a technical or design focused Product Manager — the knowledge they have can eliminate previously required resources. 

At the end of the day, Product Manager’s roles, much like products, are constantly changing.  With continued learning and application of design, engineering and communication trends, Product Managers can get ahead of the game and set themselves, their business and their product apart from the crowd.  The question remains that remains is how to properly balance time executing tasks versus learning new management tools and methods. 

Cyber Law: Coming Your Way?

As the internet evolves, so do the challenges encountered in the marketing field. Looking back, Web 1.0 was a place where people read HTML, but Web 2.0 has evolved into a place for writing and sharing content. It is a place of converging ideas, thoughts, cultures, languages and ultimately, information. With the rise of user generated content being shared, there is a direct correlation to news topics and stories regarding its regulation in the cyber world. The “legal implications of the Internet’s rapid development are rendered even more complex by the specific features of its relationship to existing laws, regulatory frameworks, and the ideas that underpin them,” (Flew, 2008). Issues that have been brought into mainstream conversation lately regard legalities and legal ramifications of the cyber world. Marketers must be aware of cyberspace laws as they are becoming issued, especially laws regarding their extent to free speech and their use of intellectual property.

Increasing knowledge and content from citizen marketers has recently brought about the topic of free speech online. As citizen marketers criticize companies and generate and publish their content for the world to access, they are facing issues regarding the extent their information is deemed okay under free speech laws, and where it isn’t. For example, in response to BP’s oil spill in the Golf of Mexico in 2010, citizen marketers created an account on Twitter called #BP Public Relations, (“Twitter,” 2012). The cite has numerous contributors, and over 157,000 followers who continue to add content and remark about BP’s oil spill and the after effects and response, as seen in the screenshot below, (“Twitter,” 2012).

https://twitter.com/#!/BPGlobalPR

Unfortunately, the invisible lines that currently run the cyber world explaining what the extremes of free speech are not completely defined the same across platforms, thus there the confusion of where the lines are and where lines should be drawn. The question I pose is, if no one is in control or regulating content, will there soon be laws dictating the extent of a person’s free speech online that must be adhered to?

Similar to the confusion of one’s free speech online, citizen marketers and journalists are also facing copyright issues pertaining to the use of intellectual property. In many popular websites and social media sites under their privacy and conditions section, there is information about how the content published on the site can be used. Since many people do not bother to read through this information, they do not realize what they are signing away by agreeing to the terms and conditions.

  Wait… I am agreeing to what?

This case study that has recently been in the news is the new internet phenomenon, Pinterest. An article was released explaining that a lawyer interested in photography looked into the Pinterest’s copyright laws and found that under their terms and conditions that,“YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES AND SITE CONTENT REMAINS WITH YOU,” (Shontell, 2012). Thus meaning that each pin that is uploaded must be original or give credit to whom it originated from. The story goes on to say that she closed her Pinterest account in fear. After the article was released, Pinterest co-founder, Ben Silbermann admitted that “there are issues with Pinterest and the fear of claims of copyright infringement,”(Shontell, 2012). On Youtube’s video, Pinterest and your rights- Tech Tonic, they bring up the idea that the “traditional copyright model is dead,” (ReutersTV , 2012).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWMRbgrINe0&w=560&h=315]

ReutersTV (2012, February 27). Youtube.com. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch v=PWMRbgrINe0

If traditional copyright is dead, what will be the newly adapted copyright laws?
With the evolving use and dependency on the internet for information, the problems marketers face are legal. What was once known as free speech is slowly becoming limited speech. Those among the marketing industry have to be careful of what they say and how they communicate online. Unfortunately, since the internet is a public domain there are little laws and enforcements as of today being done regarding these issues.As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and as we can see now, this is being applied to the cyber world; there is no such thing as free speech or free content.

References: 

Flew, Terry. (2008). New media: An introduction. (3 ed., pp. 207-210). Victoria,
   Australia: Oxford University Press.
Freepress. (2012, February 23). Retrieved from    
   http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main
ReutersTV (2012, February 27). Youtube.com. Retrieved from
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWMRbgrINe0
Shontell, A. (2012, February 28). Business insider. Retrieved from
   http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-copyright-issues-lawyer-2012-2?
    nr_email_referer=1
Twitter. (2012). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/#!/BPGlobalPR

Collective Intelligence in Marketing

The proverb, “two heads are better than one,” relates to the idea of collective intelligence.  Henry Jenkins defines collective intelligence as, “the kind of knowledge and understanding that emerges from large groups of people,” (2008). In industries that rely on creative and novel ideas, such as the marketing industry, people are now using the collective knowledge of consumers. While the field of marketing has evolved to focus more on relationship building, the role of consumers has drastically changed from the former, when consumers either liked a product or did not, to idea generators and product creators. In creative industries, like marketing, it is important to remain innovative within the business, which is why it is crucial for marketers to appreciate diversity and listen to consumers and use their thoughts and ideas, ultimately their collective knowledge, to create new products and evolve their business plans and strategies according to consumers wants and demands.

As humans evolve, industries follow in their footsteps, which remains to be one of the great marketing challenges: to market to an ever-changing population. In the era of social media, there is now a significantconvergence of ideas among a diverse population. Like any business professional, marketers must understand the population and learn to use their many resources and combine their knowledge with others, to somehow create revenue-generating marketing campaigns and strategies. As Jenkins said, “the greater diversity of inputs into the process, the richer the output,” (2008). One company who finds the importance of diversity and creative collective intelligence is Proctor and Gamble. P&G creates teams who attempt to solve business challenges, who “tap into their own unique gifts, [but] also harness the collective intelligence of a diverse multifunctional team… [which] impacts the way [their] teams view the world, work and interact,” (P&g, 2011). Collective intelligence “recognizes that there are diverse forms of expertise and that we learn more if we draw on as many different minds as possible rather than placing our trust in singular minds” (Jenkins, 2008). Gathering and merging information from diverse sources and a mixture of populations, we can become more knowledgeable of target demographics within the world, especially within certain marketplaces, which is key for marketers when creating and adjusting their marketing strategies, products and brand image.

In an industry that is embraces creativity and uniqueness, it is essential to use open and collective networks, platforms and other sources to collect information about how people feel towards a brand or product to then enhance or alter those feelings. “Collective intelligence has turned age-old marketing principles upside-down… the flow of information about a company is almost entirely in the hands of consumers…. But the smartest brands are embracing this openness and involving the consumer as never before,” (Montgomery, 2008). Pierre Lévy’s Youtube video on Collective Intelligence Literacy, says that collective intelligence “can enhance our perception… also our ability to collaborate, cooperate, to dialogue, to accumulate collectively some memory,” (Howardrheingold, 2011).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kCV4EEy2IE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kCV4EEy2IE

Being knowledgeable about the market, consumers and people in general, is essential to the job of a marketer and a marketing agency. Having one view or idea of something does not permit creativity when brainstorming new ideas for marketing strategies and campaigns. One company who embraced collective intelligence and utlizes their consumers as a resource was Mountain Dew. They created a marketing campaign that allowed customers to collectively contribute their names for the next Mountain Dew flavor. One campaign to collect the populations information and ideas was called “DEWmocracy 2,” (“dewmocracymediahub.com”). On this site, consumers were able to contribute and vote on their own, as well as other contributor’s ideas. This social media initiative put a “call to action to get fans of the brand to use social media to tell Mountain Dew why they should be selected to help the company craft a new flavor,” (Van Grove, 2010). After the ideas were contributed, Mountain Dew chose the top flavors and launched the products. This marketing strategy saw immediate results through due to word of mouth communications. Mountain Dew products saw changes in their social media numbers, with their Facebook fans increasing from 800,000 “from the time [the program started] in June 2009 until today, where we are at 920,000 Facebook fans,” (Wong, 2010). Although Facebook fans may not directly correlate to profits, Mountain Dews’ marketing strategy captured consumer’s attention and communicated to consumers that they aim to please consumers, whether they are already customer or not.

While marketers face the continuous challenge of understanding and communicating with their target audiences, they should first aim to understand the diversity among them. Understanding consumers is key to today’s marketing environment, because consumers are now idea and product generators for businesses. Reacting to this change, marketing professionals must use collective knowledge from within the industry and outside the industry to create new products and evolve to fulfill the wants and demands of consumers. Combining a diverse set of knowledge, will also help marketers gain multiple perceptions from their consumers, which will help to build their relationship with their target demographics and other potential consumers. Since knowledge is one of the largest resources we as humans have, why not collect the information and knowledge we have and use it productively?

Appreciate Diversity                                Listen To a Diverse Set Of Consumers


              Combine Your Knowledge and Others Knowledge For The Best Results!


Resources:
Dewmocracymediahub.com . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.dewmocracymediahub.com/

Howardrheingold. (2011, March 05). Youtube.com. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kCV4EEy2IE

Jenkins, H. (2008, February 04). Sharing notes about collective intelligence [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://henryjenkins.org/2008/02/last_week_my_travels_took.html

Montgomery, G. (2008, June). COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE. Campaign: DIGITAL ESSAYS 19.  Retrieved February 28,
2012, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1515722221).

P&g. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/purpose_people/ diversity_inclusion.shtml

Van Grove, J. (2010, April 20). Mashable.com. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2010/04/19/dewmocracy-2-flavor-
nations/

Wong, E. (2010, June 16). Adweek.com. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/what-
mountain-dew-learned-dewmocracy-107534

Diffusing Innovation And Marketing

The concept of innovation has been on the forefront of business’s minds with every minor advancement in technology that hits the marketplace. Since businesses aim to remain at the top of their market sector, they are continually facing the dilemma of diffusion of innovations, which is the rate of adoption [and] spread of innovation in the social system through communication via particular channels-influential individuals, related businesses social networks (Flew, 2008). The obstacle marketing agencies and employees have to overcome relating to the diffusion of innovations is being able to properly predict which technologies will be the most beneficial in effective communication and profitability, as well as adopting these new and advancing technologies as rapidly as their customer’s demand them.

Before marketing professionals and companies adopt new channels to market, they have to extensively research and consider the advantages, and potential challenges, to each new marketing opportunity. As seen in many circumstances, becoming the first to adopt a new piece of technology, can dictate the success, or failure, of a company down the road. The problem however is, that marketers have to know what pieces of technology, for example, social media websites, consumers use and somehow convert that knowledge into marketing strategy to either increase sales, maintain their current customers, gain new customers or explain a new way to use their product or service. Unfortunately marketers face another dilemma trying to predict what will be the new innovative ways they can communicate messages with society. David Norman discovered and labeled what is known as the technology S-curve, which can relate to the diffusion of innovations. Adoption of new methods in the beginning, related to social media marketing in this scenario, is typically slow, because marketers can not predict the future and know that one social media platform will be used more, or will be more effective, than another. This only adds to the challenges that marketers incur; they want to be ahead of the game, but it is challenging to know what new forms of communication will be adopted by consumers and other marketing professionals. Since profitability is key, a marketer does not want to waste time using a new method of communication, when it may not be the most effective form. As seen in the chart below (“Wikipedia.com,” 2009), the majority, about 64 percent, are the mainstream and late adopters, who lie in the middle (Flew, 2008).

                               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diffusionofideas.PNG

This provides statistical evidence for the dilemma faced by marketers; if they use a new form of communication, they may not know if the communication will be effective or not until they have already invested a significant amount of time and funds into it, since others may not adopt new methods as rapidly as they are.

Once marketers have decided their new strategies they wish to adopt, they have to then use such methods quickly and appropriately to satisfy consumer demands. According to Moore’s Law, [the diffusion of innovations] does not actually define the rate … but rather how fast [something is] demanded.” (Malone,  2011). Businesses, like marketers, have to be able to listen to what their consumers are demanding and act accordingly. For example, many industry professionals are now “tweeting,” on Twitter and publishing blogs about the most recent industry news. It has been said that social media platforms are, “the marketing of the future,” (Engle, 2009). With this key insight, businesses have been responding to the demand for a larger presence on social media webpages and have become users of Twitter, Facebook and blogging websites to stay connected to their consumers. Businesses are working with their strengths and listening to their customers, overcoming what is known as the innovators dilemma (Flew, 2008). Companies have numerous new social media marketing channels to choose from, but the key is to choose which will be the most effective to communicate with their desired target market and target audience. By keeping up with what consumers are demanding via internet marketing channels, they can show their customers that they are at the top of their industry.

No matter the industry, a company must evolve and quickly adapt to consumer needs and demands. Businesses, such as marketing agencies, have to listen and observe the way in which the marketplace is shifting and adjust their business plans to fit these changes demanded by consumers. For now, marketers may feel comfortable using social media platforms to communicate messages, but the question others, among myself now ponder is, what will be next? 

References:

Engle, Erika. (2009, August 23). Twitter is business and marketing tool for realtor. . Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.bond.edu.au/pqdlink?vinst=PROD&fmt=3&startpage=-1&vname=PQD&did=1842032231&scaling=FULL&vtype=PQD&rqt=309&TS=1327920052&clientId=21143

Flew, Terry. (2008). New media: An introduction. (3 ed., pp. 207-210). Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.

Malone, Michael S. (2011, May 08). Moore’s law lives: the future is still alive [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2717143/posts

Wikipedia.com. (2009, December 10). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diffusionofideas.PNG