Creativity

Find out What Your Customers Want and Give it to Them

April 22, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

“Nobody asked the dogs what they wanted”

Once upon a time, a pet-foods company struggled to sell a new dog food product they’d recently introduced to the market.

The company’s CEO called the department heads together to discuss why the new product wouldn’t sell.

The head of production said he’d done everything right; it wasn’t his department’s fault.

The heads of the sales, advertising, finance, packaging, shipping, and distribution departments had done everything right. None of them were to blame.

The CEO demanded, “Darn! What happened? Why won’t our new product sell?”

A junior staffer shouted from the back of the room, “Sir, it’s just that the dogs simply won’t eat our doggone food. You see, nobody asked the dogs what they wanted.”

Idea for Impact: Customer Focus Drives Company Success

Your research and development efforts will be successful only if they’re driven by a thorough understanding of what your customers want. Engage your customers. Pay close attention to their needs in every phase of product/service design including idea generation, product design, prototyping, production, distribution, and service. Remember Peter Drucker’s dictum that “the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.”

Stuck on a Problem? Shift Your Perspective!

March 11, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

The World’s Second Funniest Joke

In 2001, Richard Wiseman led an international humor experiment to find the world’s funniest joke. He had internet users submit and rate 40,000 jokes. Of these, the second-funniest joke was the following (the world’s funniest joke is here.)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, Holmes wakes Watson up.

Holmes: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce.”

Watson: “I see millions of stars and even if a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like earth, and if there are a few planets like earth out there, there might also be life. What does it tell you, Holmes?”

Holmes: “Watson, you idiot, somebody has stolen our tent!”

Fixation: an Impediment to Successful Problem Solving

The joke suggests the psychological concept of fixation. Fixation occurs when you view a problem from only one perspective preventing you from seeing the obvious or breaking from a routine way of thinking.

To change an entrenched pattern of thinking, try to shift your perspective—literally or metaphorically. A shift in perspective can change your physical position and thus alter your point of view in a literal and sensory way, or it may change the way you think about or define the problem at hand.

The fields of arts and the sciences are replete with examples of how a different frame of mind can offer creative insight. As I cited in my article on the start of Picasso’s Blue Period, many artistic styles develop when artists feel the need to change the way their art represents the world. The new style therefore presents an alternative perspective.

Idea for Impact: Get Creative by Shifting Your Perspective

Shifts in perspective are fundamental to many facets of the creative process. As I stated in my previous article on reframing, the solution to many difficult problems can be found merely by defining or formulating them in a new, more productive way.

If you’re stuck on a problem, stand back and apply a different lens to break away from your current perspective.

Alternatively, simply take time away from your problem. A relaxation of effort may help you see something that is obvious after the break, but was previously overlooked or taken for granted.

Serendipity and Entrepreneurship in the Invention of Corn Flakes

February 5, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In previous articles about Johnson’s Baby Powder and Picasso’s Blue Period, I discussed serendipity as a rich phenomenon that is central to entrepreneurial and artistic processes. In this article, I will discuss another case study of ideas born by chance and reinforced by casual observation and customer input.

One of America’s Favorite Cereals was Invented by Fortuitous Accident

Will Keith Kellogg invented corn flakes in 1894 at a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. Will worked there as an assistant to his brother Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and helped research patients’ diets.

One day, while making bread dough at the sanitarium, Will accidentally left boiled wheat sitting out overnight unattended. When he returned to roll the wheat into dough, he discovered that it had dried out and was flaky. Interested to see what would happen, Will passed the flaky dough through the bread rollers and baked them to create a crunchy snack. He seasoned the flakes with salt and fed them with milk to the sanitarium’s patients. The wheat flakes were an immediate hit. Indeed, after some patients left the sanitarium, they ordered Kellogg’s flakes by post.

Will Kellogg’s Entrepreneurial Ingenuity

Will Kellogg then tinkered his recipe for wheat flakes and ultimately settled on using corn in place of wheat as the flakes’ main ingredient.

In 1906, Will Kellogg launched “The Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company.” In addition to inventing corn flakes, Kellogg had a genius for business and marketing. He was a pioneer in testing markets, sampling products, using multi-color print advertisements, and developing innovative marketing campaigns.

Kellogg was keen on using slogans to promote his company’s products. In 1907, he introduced a marketing campaign that declared, “Wednesday is Wink Day in New York.” Every woman who winked at her grocer on a Wednesday received a free packet of corn flakes. Corn flakes sales skyrocketed.

Will Kellogg was also a prominent philanthropist and, in 1934, started the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

The company Will Kellogg founded eventually became Kellogg Company, a prominent cereal and convenience foods multinational.

How to Become a Broad-thinker: Principles and Methods

December 18, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Success depends on understanding basic principles as well as on developing and practicing workable methods.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, recently advised in his Reddit AMA, “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree—make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
Harrington Emerson, a prominent management consultant and efficiency expert during the early 1900s, is understood to have said that the key to becoming a broad-thinker is to focus on the principles: “As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” (This quote is often incorrectly attributed to American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.)

Principles are the fundamental set of philosophies, propositions, assumptions, laws, and rules concerning a topic, problem, or circumstances. The principles can teach you why something works the way it does.

Methods, on the other hand, are merely devices to apply those principles in a particular circumstance.

While principles are immutable, Emerson reminds us that there can be many methods to interpret and apply those principles.

Principles and Methods

Given the time-pressure induced by the hurried world of work, we are often so tempted to implement ready-made or handed-down methods that we forgo the necessary examination of underpinning principles.

By delving directly into methods, we can find some reliable direction and save a great deal of time, but we may be neglecting many factors that can affect the outcomes of our methods. These circumferential issues, second- and higher-order effects, and peripheral relationships may not be readily apparent at the outset. They will emanate only from a knowledge of the underlying principles.

Idea for Impact: To be an effective thinker, develop a broad understanding and appreciation of the principles before you develop or deploy methods.

Picasso’s Blue Period: A Serendipitous Invention

November 27, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Soup, 1902 by Pablo Picasso (from his Blue Period)

In October 1900, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) moved to Paris and opened a studio there at age 19. Shortly thereafter, Picasso was deeply affected by a close friend and fellow artist’s suicide. Art historians believe this event marked the onset of Picasso’s Blue Period (1901–1904,) during which he produced many stoic and sentimental paintings in mostly monochromatic shades of blue and blue-green. The Art Institute of Chicago remarks,

Picasso’s Blue Period … was triggered in part by the suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas in 1901. The works of this period are characterized by their blue palette, somber subject matter, and destitute characters. His paintings feature begging mothers and fathers with small children and haggard old men and women with arms outstretched or huddled in despair.

Perhaps Picasso’s Blue Period is an instance of serendipity. Legend has it that one day Picasso had only blue paint to work with. When he started toying with the effects of painting with one color, he discovered the potential to produce interesting paintings that conveyed a sense of melancholy.

In what would become the hallmark of this greatest artist of the 20th century, thanks to serendipity, Picasso leveraged an apparent constraint into an unintended creative outcome. As such serendipity goes, the confluence of many factors helped Picasso initiate a new art genre showcasing themes of alienation, poverty, and psychological depression that, though now considered marvelous, then kept potential patrons away.

How Johnson’s Baby Powder Got Started: Serendipity and Entrepreneurship

November 24, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Making Fortunate Discoveries Accidentally

Alexander Fleming, the Scottish biologist famous for his 1922 discovery of penicillin, once said, “Have you ever given it a thought how decisively hazard—chance, fate, destiny, call it what you please—governs our lives?”

Serendipity is the accidental discovery of something that, post hoc, turns out to be valuable.

The history of science is replete with such serendipitous discoveries. “Happy findings” made when scientists accidentally discovered something they were not explicitly looking for led to the discovery or invention of the urea, dynamite, saccharin, penicillin, nylon, microwave ovens, DNA, implantable cardiac pacemaker, and much more … even the ruins of Pompeii and Newton’s law of universal gravitation. (I recommend reading Royston Roberts’s Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science)

In each of these instances, the crucial role of discovery or insight occurred in accidental circumstances. Therefore, we must understand serendipity’s role in terms of the circumstances that surround it.

Serendipity has also played a pivotal role in establishing many successful businesses. In fact, serendipity is a rich idea that is very central to the entrepreneurial process. As the following case study will demonstrate, many experimental ideas are born by chance and are often reinforced by casual observation and customer input.

Johnson & Johnson Got into the Baby Powder Business by Accident

In 1885, entrepreneur Robert Wood Johnson was deeply inspired by a lecture of Joseph Lister, a British surgeon well known for his advocacy of antiseptic surgery. Johnson started tinkering with several different ideas in an effort to make sterile surgery products.

A year later, Johnson joined his two brothers to establish Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Their first commercial product was a sterile, ready-to-use, medicated plaster-bandage that promised to reduce the rate of infections after surgical procedures. As business developed, the Johnson brothers compiled the latest medical opinions about surgical infections and distributed a booklet called Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment as part of their marketing efforts.

Within a few years, a doctor complained to J&J that their bandages caused skin irritation in his patients. In response, J&J’s scientific director Dr. Frederick Kilmer sent the doctor a packet of scented Italian talcum powder to help soothe the irritation. Since the doctor liked it, J&J started to include a small sample of talc powder with every package of medicated bandages.

By 1891, consumers discovered that the talc also helped alleviate diaper rash. They asked to buy it separately. The astounded J&J’s leadership quickly introduced Johnson’s Baby Powder “for toilet and nursery.” Over the years, J&J built on that huge initial success and created the dominant Johnson’s Baby product line with creams, shampoos, soaps, body lotions, oils, gels, and wipes.

J&J Got into the Sanitary Protection Products Business Too by Accident

Serendipity also played the key role in establishing J&J’s sanitary napkin business. In 1894, J&J launched midwife’s maternity kits to make childbirth safer for mothers and babies. These kits included twelve “Lister’s Towels,” sanitary napkins to staunch post-birth bleeding. Before long, J&J received hundreds of letters from women who wanted to know where they could buy just the sanitary napkins. In response, J&J introduced disposable sanitary napkins as part of its consumer products line. J&J thus became the first company in the United States to mass-produce sanitary protection products for women.

Clever Marketing Exploits the Anchoring Bias

November 17, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In the ’70s, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman were the first to study a cognitive phenomenon called “anchoring” and its influence on decision-making. Over the decades, extensive research on anchoring has explained that the way and context in which we receive information profoundly influence how we synthesize it.

The effects of anchoring are very visible in marketing, sales, merchandising, and product pricing as it profoundly influences consumer behavior. By offering clever price contrasts, marketers can shape customers’ purchasing decisions. For example,

By offering lower prices and promotional sales, department stores induce customers to compare the sale price against the original price—the “anchor”—and think they’re getting a bargain.
By displaying shiny, expensive new cars in the showroom, car dealerships encourage customers to accept the prices displayed on their used cars or less flashy models.
Patrons at restaurants tend to order the second least-expensive bottle of wine in an attempt to avoid looking cheap. Therefore, restaurants tend to put the highest markup on that very bottle.

The Case of the $429 Breadmaker

Anchoring Bias: Williams-Sonoma $429 Breadmaker Customers are usually more likely to purchase a product when competing alternatives are included, as opposed to having only one product option.

Consider a classic example of this “single-option aversion” phenomenon. A few years ago, Williams-Sonoma couldn’t get customers to buy their $279 breadmaker. They cleverly added a spiffier-and-slicker deluxe breadmaker model to their product line for $429. While Williams-Sonoma didn’t sell many of the new and expensive breadmaker, they doubled sales of the original and less-expensive model.

When the $279 breadmaker was the only model available for sale, customers couldn’t tell whether the price was competitive because there was nothing to compare it to. By introducing a better product for a higher price, Williams-Sonoma provided an anchor upon which its customers could compare the two models; they naturally sided with the $279 model as an attractive alternative.

The Case of the $69 Hot Dog and the $1000 Chocolate Sundae

Usually, absurdly expensive premium goods are less of publicity stunts and more of strategic marketing tactics.

Consider the case of Serendipity 3’s menu anchors. In 2010, the popular New York eatery introduced a $69 hot dog called “Foot-Long Haute Dog” with dressings as exotic as medallions of duck liver, ketchup made from heirloom tomatoes, Dijon mustard with truffle shavings, and caramelized Vidalia onions to justify the high price. Of course, Serendipity 3 gained plenty of publicity when The Guinness Book of World Records certified this hot dog as the most expensive wiener of all time.

The true purpose of these ridiculously priced premium items is to make the next most expensive item seem cheaper. Customers who were drawn by the Haute Dog’s publicity gladly ordered the menu’s $17.95 cheeseburger. Even if $17.95 was too pricey elsewhere, Serendipity 3 customers deemed it reasonable in comparison to the $69 hot dog.

A few years previous, Serendipity 3 similarly offered a $1000 “Golden Opulence Sundae” that was only available with a 48 hour-notice. They sold only one Sundae per month. Nevertheless, this was just a shrewd marketing ploy to convince customers to spend more on high-profit margin desserts such as the $15.50 “fruit and fudge” confection or the $22.50 “Cheese Cake Vesuvius.”

Unsuspecting customers ended up paying too much for other meals at Serendipity 3 while believing they were getting a great deal.

Idea for Impact: Be Sensitive of Anchoring Bias

In both the above case studies, even if the companies sold almost none of their highest-priced models despite the publicity they generated, the companies reaped enormous benefits by exploiting the anchoring bias to induce customers to buy cheaper-than-most-expensive high-profit products.

In summary, anchoring exploits our tendency to seek out comparison and our reliance on context. The anchoring bias describes our subconscious tendency to make decisions by relying heavily on a single piece of information.

Call to Action: Sensitize yourself to how anchoring and anchoring bias may subconsciously affect your decision-making. If you’re in marketing or sales, investigate how you could use anchoring bias to influence your customers.

For more on cognitive biases and behavioral economics, read 2002 Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s bestselling Thinking, Fast and Slow. Also read Nir Eyal’s Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products on how to influence customer behaviors and build products and offer services that people love.

Make a Difficult Decision Like Benjamin Franklin

October 30, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Benjamin Franklin, American inventor, journalist, printer, diplomat, author, and founding father Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was renowned for his lifelong quest for self-improvement, as he thoroughly documented in his “Autobiography” (1791.)

In my previous article on Benjamin Franklin’s “Plan for Conduct,” I noted that Franklin had a methodical mindset.

As a young adult, Franklin developed a method for making complex decisions. At age 66, in a letter to his close friend Joseph Priestley (a London chemist who, in 1774, isolated the element oxygen,) Franklin described this method.

In this letter written on September 19, 1772, Franklin mentions one of the key challenges of fact-collecting and decision-making:

In the affair of so much importance to you, wherein you ask my advice, I cannot for want of sufficient premises, advise you what to determine, but if you please I will tell you how. When these difficult cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because while we have them under consideration all the reasons pro and con are not present to the mind at the same time; but sometimes one set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of sight. Hence the various purposes or inclinations that alternately prevail, and the uncertainty that perplexes us.

Make a Difficult Decision Like Benjamin Franklin - T-charts

Then, Franklin describes how to weigh the “pro et contra” (Latin for “for and against”) in any situation:

To get over this, my way is, to divide, half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns, writing over the one pro, and over the other con. Then during three or four day’s consideration I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives that at different times occur to me for or against the measure. When I have thus got them all together in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out: if I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I strike out the three. If l judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of farther consideration nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. And though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, yet when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less likely to make a rash step; and in fact I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or prudential algebra.

Ben Franklin’s humble tool for decision-making is now known as the T-Chart. It is widely used to examine two opposing facets of a topic, object, situation, circumstance, or event under consideration. T-Charts are particularly helpful for analyzing advantages and disadvantages, as well as strengths and weaknesses.

Recommended Reading: For a great collection of the writings of Benjamin Franklin, including his “Autobiography”, see Walter Isaacson’s “A Benjamin Franklin Reader”.

Reframe Your Thinking, Get Better Answers: What the Stoics Taught

September 29, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The solution to many a difficult problem can be found merely by reframing the problem, thereby changing or adjusting your perception of the issue.

Reframing is a very effective technique to shift your view of a specific problem, event, or person. When you approach a situation from another perspective, you are likely to reevaluate your intentions and find alternative, acceptable solutions to your situations.

Reframing helps in two ways:

Reframing allows you to consider a problem within a positive—rather than a negative—context. For example, if you’re trying out a diet, you can reframe it by asking yourself “What are some foods I like that I should eat more of? What new foods can I experiment with?” rather than wondering, “What foods must I give up?” Reframing can help turn a problem into an opportunity, a weakness into a strength, an impossibility into a work-around, and a conflict into a mere lack of understanding.
Reframing can also broaden a problem’s context, thus helping you recognize its systemic contributors. In other words, by reframing, you look at a problem within its larger context. For example, you could reframe an individual issue, “Why won’t Tom gel with our team?” to a systemic problem, “What are the attributes of our team that make Tom feel excluded?”

“Redirect your prayers … and watch what happens”

The great Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote in “Meditations” (trans. Gregory Hays,)

Either the gods have power or they don’t. If they don’t, why pray? If they do, then why not pray for something else instead of for things to happen or not to happen? Pray not to feel fear. Or desire, or grief. If the gods can do anything, they can surely do that for us.

But those are things the gods left up to me.

Then isn’t it better to do what’s up to you—like a free man—than to be passively controlled by what isn’t, like a slave or beggar? And what makes you think the gods don’t care about what’s up to us?

Start praying like this and you’ll see.

Not “some way to sleep with her”—but a way to stop wanting to.

Not “some way to get rid of him”—but a way to stop trying.

Not “some way to save my child”—but a way to lose your fear.

Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens.

Idea for Impact: Reframe, Always Reframe

If you find yourself stuck with a problem or difficult situation, try reframing your view of that problem. Consider alternate perspectives, revise your goals, and reconsider how you see the way forward.

To reframe, simply step back from your present viewpoint and alter the “lens” through which you perceive the reality. Discover your unspoken assumptions, challenge your beliefs, change the attributes of your perception of the problem, and downplay or emphasize various elements of the situation. By “looking at it another way” you can derive new meanings and define different courses of action.

Creativity & Innovation: The Opportunities in Customer Pain Points

September 15, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Opportunities in Customer's Pain Points

Ellis Paul Torrance, the American psychologist who devoted his career to researching and teaching creativity, observed that “the process of sensing gaps or disturbing missing elements and formulating hypotheses” is pivotal to the creative process.

This is especially true of solving customer’s problems. Many innovative ideas are born of a reliable formula: prudent attention to and empathy with customers’ experiences, as well as applying resourceful imagination to solve customers’ pain points.

Many an innovator—either as a provider or as a consumer—develops deep empathy for customers’ pain points and sees an underexploited customer-need for convenience. The innovator contemplates, “This customer’s experience does not have to be expensive, protracted, hard, or inferior, as it is with the incumbent provider.” The innovator then uses his/her imagination to convert that understanding into a business idea with broad potential.

Consider the following cases of innovation that could be traced back to customer pain points:

Crispy Potato Chips. Legend has it that in the 1850s, Chef George Crum of New York’s Saratoga Springs created potato chips. A cranky customer at Moon’s Lake House frequently sent Crum’s fried potatoes back to the kitchen complaining that they were mushy and not crunchy enough. To appease the customer, Crum sliced the potatoes as thin as possible and deep-fried them. The customer loved them. Before long, “Saratoga Chips” became popular throughout New England.
Airtight Packaging for Potato Chips. When potato chips were first mass-produced for home consumption, they were packaged and distributed in metal containers, in which the chips would quickly go stale. During the 1920s in Monterey Park, California, Laura Scudder conceived of packaging potato chips in sealed bags. Scudder’s employees ironed wax paper into the form of bags and fill them up with potato chips. This airtight packaging not only kept the chips fresh and crisp longer, but also reduced crumbling. After the invention of the moisture-proof cellophane wrap by DuPont a few years later, chips were packaged in polymer bags. Then, nitrogen gas was blown in to prevent oxidation, extend shelf life, and prevent chips from being crushed as they were handled and distributed.

Netflix. At the video rental chain Blockbuster, customers who were paying the most in late fees were also the company’s most prolific renters. Even as they continued to patronize Blockbuster, these customers vented their frustration to Blockbuster’s employees, as well as to other existing and potential customers. In fact, in the ’90s, almost $300 million or 20% of Blockbuster’s pretax profit came from late fees. In 1997, Reed Hastings, one devoted Blockbuster customer, was charged $40 in late fees on a VHS tape of the movie Apollo 13. Frustrated by his fees, Hastings started Netflix, a mail-distribution movie-rental service. As soon as the business caught on, Hastings eliminated late fees. Netflix grew quickly, drove Blockbuster into bankruptcy in 2010, and is now valued at $50 billion.
Google News. After 9/11, Google engineer Krishna Bharat and his teammates repeatedly visited ten to 15 news sites looking for a wide range of news reports. Using Google’s legendary “20% Time” policy that allows employees to spend one day a week on side projects and collaborate beyond their immediate teams, Bharat wrote an artificial intelligence software to crawl thousands of news websites, cluster news articles based on topics and keywords, and aggregate a summary. Other engineers at Google loved Bharat’s prototype software and joined the effort to build Google News.
Corning’s Gorilla Glass for Smartphones. By 2007, cell phone makers and consumers were frustrated with the screens on their cell phones. The plastic screens broke too easily when the handsets were dropped, and keys and other objects left deep scratches. Sensing a business opportunity, some engineers at Corning dug into their corporate archives. They dredged up the formulation of a super-strong, flexible glass, Chemcor, which was unsuccessfully prototyped for automobile windshields during the 1960s. The engineers spent $300,000 to produce a trial run of Chemcor and discussed the results with cell phone manufacturers. The resulting cell phone glass was called Gorilla Glass and was widely adopted by Samsung, LG, Motorola, and other cell phone manufacturers. Gorilla’s thinness, strength, and resistance to scratches became the defining feature of touch-screen operation. Later Gorilla Glass became a core component on the iPhone, smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices. For Corning, Gorilla Glass has become a significant revenue stream.

Uber. In 2008, during a snowy night on a trip to attend a tech conference in Paris, American entrepreneurs Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick had trouble getting a cab. Garrett purportedly said in frustration, “Why can’t we just tap a button and get a ride?” Before long, during a brainstorming session on ideas for new startups, Camp and Kalanick thought of starting a taxi company with a smartphone app to summon taxis. Instead, they built an app to hail taxi-rides on-demand and opened their app for use by established taxi companies as well as by casual autonomous drivers. In 2010, they launched UberCab in San Francisco. Uber is now worth $50 billion and operates in over 300 cities around the world.

Idea for Impact: Transform Customer Pain Points into Customer Delight

Customer pain points are a consistent pointer to potential opportunities not least because customers are usually willing to pay a premium to have their frustrations with a product or a service resolved.

Discover what opportunities may exist in your customers’ pain points. Examine product- and service-features that your customers find inadequate, more urgent, unpleasant, frustrating, or otherwise troubling. Consider how you could transform those product- and service-deficiencies into innovative features.

Don’t just satisfy customers; delight them by becoming more sensitive to their problems and reducing or eliminating their pain points.

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Creativity

“Nobody asked the dogs what they wanted”

Idea for Impact: Customer Focus Drives Company Success

Wondering what to read next?

The World’s Second Funniest Joke

Fixation: an Impediment to Successful Problem Solving

Idea for Impact: Get Creative by Shifting Your Perspective

Wondering what to read next?

One of America’s Favorite Cereals was Invented by Fortuitous Accident

Will Kellogg’s Entrepreneurial Ingenuity

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Principles and Methods

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Making Fortunate Discoveries Accidentally

Johnson & Johnson Got into the Baby Powder Business by Accident

J&J Got into the Sanitary Protection Products Business Too by Accident

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The Case of the $429 Breadmaker

The Case of the $69 Hot Dog and the $1000 Chocolate Sundae

Idea for Impact: Be Sensitive of Anchoring Bias

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“Redirect your prayers … and watch what happens”

Idea for Impact: Reframe, Always Reframe

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Idea for Impact: Transform Customer Pain Points into Customer Delight

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