Innovate! (last session of SMPS Build Business 2012)

Innovate! (last session)

Susan Murphy – moderator

Carolyn Ferguson – President, WinMore Marketing Advisors

Bernice Bako – Director of Marketing, Turner Construction Company

Ed Hannan – Principal, HannComm

Mike Reilly – Principal, Reilly Communications

Julie Luers – Director of Marketing, HGA - Architects and Engineers

All panelists were moderators for the Creativity, Promotion, Position, Respect, Differentiate sessions.

Innovations don’t have to be huge. Think of Walt Disney – he saw that the straight lines we wait in exacerbate the sense of waiting. He figured out that if you curve/snake the line and provide some entertainment, people won’t feel like they’ve been waiting in a long line (even if the wait time is 60 minutes). Little innovations can have huge dividends.

And on the other extreme are people who want to innovate the heck out of everything handed to them – even if it is working just fine.

And in another direction, how can you innovate with nothing? On Susan’s walk from her hotel to the conference every morning, she noticed all of the homeless people. They were incredibly innovative – about storing food, about keeping the pigeons out, about figuring out where to sleep. These were people with limited/no resources, being innovative out of necessity.

The best way to get innovative is to look around and notice other things that are innovative. Be inspired. Don’t dismiss things as being too superficial, silly, or ignored by others/leadership. If you USE it well, it is innovative.

What did the group/panel sessions learn at this conference, related to innovation?

Julie Luers – Creativity Panel

1)      Don’t force the need to be creative. Look at those blank moments where your mind is able to relax and rest. Those are the moments where creativity comes to the forefront. Chanel the times you wake up in the middle of the night and capture those “great ideas”. Your mind has been at rest, and is supplying you with good stuff.

2)      You don’t have to be clever. Clever can help grab attention, but so do good ideas.

3)      You need a blended team – the person who comes up with the idea needs others to kind of challenge it, and certainly to implement it, and others to review the value. If you all think the same way, have the same thought, it will be totally vanilla.

4)      (Susan) Be sure everyone knows who came up with the ideas. It is VERY motivational to reward creativity. You will generate MORE.

Mike Reilly – Promotion Panel

1)      A common problem in our industry if clients becoming more fee-focused. And a common thread was that each firm was sort of allowing the clients to do that. We are just conceding the point. So the innovations…

a.       Go out to the client to find out what would be the most memorable, valuable, innovative to them. For example, the firm met with 10 clients as a focus group to find out about the topic they want to know about, what questions to ask, and what they hoped to learn. Then they asked 500 clients in their survey: Is LEED still relevant? Controversial, engaging, simple. They will publish the results, and do speeches, etc. And their clients WANT the results they find out.

b.      Another firm has an interactive iPad. It is loaded up with whatever a person would need to talk to a client. And they let the client look around it at what is available, the YouTube videos, etc. The client is engaged, clicking on things of interest, and the firm person is learning what the client is drawn to, etc.

c.       Another firm interviewed students at a campus about what they liked (and disliked) about their library experience. It was the first video the firm showed in the interview, and they won the job. Client asks for the video repeatedly, because it gives them the end-user perspective of what they want from the project.

2)      Take something you’ve learned from outside the firm and bring it back. What would change?

Ed Hannan – Position Panel

1)      Think about how you position in everyday life. For example, where are you sitting in the conference room? And why did you pick that seat? Practical? Or psychological?

2)      Think about how you position yourself in your work. Do the job you have, work towards the job you want. Prove yourself in the position you have/max yourself out. If you are constantly looking for the next job, everyone will see it; you are not “present.” If you are a high performer in your current job, you will be given the next challenges.

3)      Clear is the new clever. Just be direct with the client. Don’t worry about the spin, because the proof will be in the results.

Carolyn Ferguson – Differentiation Panel

1. Think about relationships. Carolyn is all about building the relationships. She tries to know people, on a personal level, first. If she can’t identify what is different about herself, how can she identify what is different about her firm?
2. Build a memorable experience. [She is wearing jeans today and asking everyone to sign them. A memorable, personal connection with everyone in the room.] Build a memory – make it easy for the client to remember you, because they associate you with something fun, wonderful, quirky, whatever.
3. Be persistent. “The Fortune is in the follow-up.” It took 8 years with one client before Carolyn saw any work.
4. Have a goal, and have a plan. How many people are wandering around aimlessly, looking for a leader and a path to follow?  Just having the idea and a path, even if it ends up being the wrong path, is different.

Bernice Bako – Respect Panel

Respect is about who we are at our core.

1)      Being good at your job makes you bland. You have to be great at your job. Be passionate. Be amazing.

2)      Be polite, believe/trust, empower the people you work with. Your respect to others will flow back to you. Give praise. Give encouragement.

3)      Be vulnerable – open yourself to diversity, different ideas. Expose yourself to “the new, different, uncomfortable” of the world.

4)      Be a good partner. Balance your work with your personal life. Carry the leadership/power of work to home – they are your constituency every day. Give them the best of you, too, so they can easily respect you.

Audience members then shared innovations at their work, charities, and personal life. It was pretty interesting, but nothing I felt I would take home and implement (either at work or home). It was the kind of information that, given unlimited time and some munchies, would have turned in to an amazing tips/tricks exchange. I see some lunches in my future, to stimulate with colleagues these very conversations.

It seemed a fitting end-session for the conference. It was a nice summary of some of the insights and themes built throughout the previous three days.

• Juggling – tackle one ball at a time.
• Don’t ignore the little stuff; there’s potential innovation there.
• Keep doing what you’re doing, believing that the result will come. Because it will.
• Keep assessing and course-correcting what you’re doing, because blind repetition will just make you blind. [If you’re in a hole, stop digging…]
• And probably the most interesting common thread – be true to who you are. Be authentic. Be yourself.

I spent most of the past four days introducing myself as “Katherine Robinette. Yes, Frank’s Katherine.” I found that incredibly flattering – that Frank had spoken of me so often, to so many people, over the past year that people felt they knew me on sight. There was no slight in my mind. I felt immediately welcomed into this giant family of SMPS, because Frank has been telling stories about me. Frank and I are a TEAM, in the truest sense of the concept. We are different, we are complimentary, and we are ourselves. And the stories about me/us, reflected that. His public compliments and comments at the events were touching, sincere, and humbling.

And then, one person at this last session changed everything... I had sat next to this woman at several networking moments, and I knew her first name, and some of her thoughts/beliefs. I really wished we could have spent more time together because I thought we were very similar, and yet that I could learn a lot from her. She said to me… “I can hardly wait until we hear about YOU, not as “Frank’s Katherine,” or anyone else’s anything, but as Katherine. What you’re going to do… It’s going to be amazing.”

Wow. One voice. One comment. One game-changing moment. Thank you, Melissa Rysak, CPSM, for that. I am honored, humbled, and inspired. Curse it that you are on the East Coast and I am on the West…

And yet…

Bring it on, Monday.