Tag Archives: Strategic management

July 12, 2012 · 9:56 am

Sports And Social

Some news this morning from the folks at Trendrr about social interactions with TV.

English: The iPad on a table in the Apple case

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On today’s list of not-so-surprising findings:

Sporting events continue to dominate in terms of social TV: ABC was given a boost by the NBA Finals, which accounted for more than 13.5 million social interactions. This made ABC the “most engaging” broadcast network in June.

Well, YEAH!  Sports is, and has always been, an extremely social activity.  In fact, when you think about the various ways in which people consume sports, it’s pretty obvious that without social something fairly big is missing.  The best sports viewing experience is in your living room.  Big screen TV, comfy chair, hundreds of people working very hard to make sure you see every detail of the game, supplemented with statistical insights and brilliant analysis.  Except if you’ve ever watched a game alone you realize it’s not as much fun as watching with a group.  Social is missing.

The other extreme is at the game itself.  It’s the best social sports experience.  You’re surrounded by thousands of other people who are doing almost nothing but socializing about the game, even before it begins (even before you get into the stadium in many cases).  It’s great, except you don’t have a lot of replays, you don’t get the insightful analysis, you  can’t see the perfect angle.  Social is there but obviously something is still missing.

To me, the ultimate sports experience is a sports bar.  Perfect game presentation, great social experience.  Social apps that we can use even when we’re alone help to bridge that gap and put us closer to that sports bar experience.  What Trendrr has reminded us is that the technology by itself is only part of the story – it facilitates something that has always been a major part of the sports experience.  It’s a good point to remember about your business: you can’t confuse the business with the technology.  I think activity around sports in these social areas is huge only because social has been a natural part of sports for a long time.  It doesn’t need to be manufactured.  Think about that as you contemplate using some new piece of tech.

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July 5, 2012 · 9:31 am

How To Make Better Decisions

I played in the annual July 4 scramble golf tournament yesterday.

A golf ball directly before the hole

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For you non-golfers out there, this is a team competition in which each member of the team hits a shot, the team selects the best one, and everyone then hits the next shot from that position. Once on the green, hopefully with more than one ball, the team chooses from which ball position to putt and everyone gives it a go from there. If the team is playing pretty well, there are often a few decisions to make. Do we forsake some distance for a better lie? Do we putt the shorter putt or the straighter one? Do we chip a ball that’s off the green but close to the hole or putt a ball that’s way on the other side of the green?
Your thinking is influenced by your particular abilities. I’d always rather putt than chip, and while distance isn’t usually a problem for me, it might be for the other members of the team who’d rather hit out of the rough if they can be 25 yards closer to the green.  And of course, this raises a business point too.

There’s a good piece today in Lifehacker about how as part of beating back confirmation bias (the tendency to listen only to the data or opinions that confirm our own) we need to take the other person’s perspective – walk a mile in their shoes – as we consider their opinions.  It works for research too – who funded it, what might the researcher’s biases be, etc.  Most importantly, when we’re asking for advice, taking the person’s perspective along with the advice helps overcome the blindness confirmation bias can instill.  This is a good article on that phenomenon.

The ability to get past your own beliefs in considering outside information is a key to being successful.  It goes with the ability the synthesize and communicate your thinking effectively.  We won the tournament yesterday so I’m very happy with how we communicated and thought as a group, even when my opinion was overruled.  Even when our shots weren’t perfect, our thinking was awfully good.  How’s yours?

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July 2, 2012 · 8:19 am

Stock Photography

A picture is worth a whole bunch of words.  We all know the expression and it’s true: it’s often easier to show than to tell.

Flower Stock Photography

Flower Stock Photography (Photo credit: Carlos Lorenzo)

Visuals make presentations (and blog posts) more interesting.  Way back in the days before we all had access to everything (that’s before the Internet for you youngsters), stock photo houses made a pretty good living as photo resources.  When you only needed a generic image to reinforce a point, the photo house was your first stop.

The photo I’ve used could be used to illustrate flowers or spring or gardening.  The point about stock photos is that they are generic products.  They are used multiple times by different people for varying purposes.  They don’t really have any distinctive personality.  Why start the week with this?

More of us seem to be in the business of stock photography than we believe.  What I mean is that we are making products that are stereotypical.  Web sites look the same in terms of layout and functionality.  There’s way too much “me too” and not enough of a focus on what makes us unique or better.

The companies that get it right take what could be something stock and make it their own.  Apple did it with the iPod, which wasn’t the first MP3 player.  Amazon did it with online commerce – they were far from being the first store but they have taken the notion of a store and made it very much their own.

I could go on about this but you get the point.  Sure, generic products made and sold less expensively have their place.  They’re low margin and don’t inspire much loyalty (a low price point is a hard-to-defend place since anyone can lower their price if they want to sell at a loss).  We need to take our own photos and not buy from the endless supply of generic stock.  We need to constantly ask what makes our product or service unique and better.  All of us in business are better off when that happens.

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