TV pilots, especially the successful ones, are a great analogy for how to conduct product concept demos. At least, that is the insight I gained as I was watching the pilot episode of House M.D. You see, I am working with an early stage startup who’s getting ready for their demo to secure more funding. So, my goal is to get some creative juices flowing and get connected with my muses for more creative powers… So, lets take a look at how to build a successful product demo by dissecting a pilot episode.

First, you gotta start with a compelling concept. This does not mean you spend the next 20 minutes lecturing someone in the coolness of your technology. But, it is about focusing on the problem that you are solving, and succinctly explaining how your product solves it and why people will buy it. The key is to highlight your unique differentiation, your original angle, so it captures interest and makes people curious.

Once you got the interest, next is your story line. As you are putting your story together, keep the focus on what makes you and your product unique, as well as what its key selling points are. Remember, it is not about showing every single feature of your product, but more about incorporating your purpose and your compelling concept into your demo. If you say everything, you end up saying noting at all… So, build a story line around what matters, such as your users, and make it fantastic.

You also need to build in drama and diversity. Remember, to make it stick, you gotta make it simple, concrete, credible, emotional and bring unexpectedness with each story (Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.) What will make the show catchy so people will tune in week after week, season after season? So, talk about the state of the industry, where things are heading, who are your competitors, why they can’t copy you and how you plan to sustain your competitive advantage. Make it exciting as you talk about the commercialization potentials of your product, what you will leverage and how. Most importantly, make it stick!

What about the special effects? Certainly who you are, the brand and the image of your company and product, needs to come through loud and clear during the presentation. However, have you ever seen a pilot episode having a better special effects than even the first season release? Make the quality of your presentation (images, graphs, …) as great as possible, but don’t forget about what really matters the most.

Lets not forget your cast and crew. After all, chemistry and ability to work together on and off the set is just as important as the artistic credibility of the individuals. So, highlight your team and their background. Especially if you have exceptional skills and experiences in the team. Remember, you gotta be credible! Not to forget truthful and passionate about what your are doing. You can’t tell it; you have to show it and mean it!

Lastly, don’t forget to study your audience before the presentation. Think about it, pitching The Man Show to Lifetime Movie Network makes as much sense as Chewbacca living on the planet Endor. So, research the backgrounds of the individuals you are meeting with and tailor your presentation to deliver to their requirements. Be confident and comfortable with your audience.

This covers the key elements of building your demo. Now, your script also needs to deal with your business model. The amount of time you need to spend on it during your demo will mainly depend on two factors: 1) how far along you are in your business; and 2) your audience. For early stage startups, many investors look at the business model as a moving target. So, with that, your story, the problem you are solving, how you are solving it and what you have prototyped is far more important than any 5-year projections.

However, that doesn’t let you off the hook. You need to have a clear understanding of your business and be able to sell them on your elevator pitch. So be ready with an executive summary of your business plan that not only they can walk away with, but also compels them to take action. In a way, this is the rolled up summary of your presentation that is clear, to the point and exciting. And, not to forget realistic.

With that… Lights, camera, action!

Technorati Tags: business pitch, product demo, chewbacca

Here are few articles that you might find valuable. Note, registration may be required to access content.

• (updated)From strategy + business: Booz Allen Hamilton’s Global Innovation 1000 study — the Global Innovation study started in 2005. Each year a different, yet related, hypothesis is tested by Booz Allen. Previously, their research showed that there is no statically significant linkage between R&D spending and corporate success. And that, you can be a highly efficient innovator without a heavy spending in R&D, i.e. high-leverage innovation (2006 study). 2007 focus was on innovation strategies and customer involvement in the innovation process. You can read about their findings and classifications of innovation strategies (Need Seekers, Market Readers and Technology Drivers) here.
• From Harvard Business Review’s January 2008 edition: “Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” — revisit the Porter’s five forces.
• From strategy + business: “Blue Print for Strategic Leadership” — change is inevitable. This article highlights the critical elements that are required to build a company’s capacity for change: the commitment to the company’s purpose; the makeup of the top management team; the capabilities and motivation of people throughout the organization; and a sequence of focused, well-chosen strategic initiatives that can take the company forward.
• From The McKinsey Quarterly: “Corporate Transformation Without A Crisis” — it is one thing to lead a change under crisis, but how about when there is none? This article discusses the key principles of transformation: everyone is both actor and observer, each individual crosses a threshold of conviction and of experience, the process balances redundancy and control. The authors also highlight how to build your own transformation story.

I recently had the pleasure of experiencing Apple’s customer service. Think about it, what percentage of the population would actually use pleasure and customer service in the same sentence?

For their customer support and service, Apple has created multiple venues. One of which is their Genius Bar at an Apple Store. Ok, referring to something as ‘genius’ is a little presumptuous, but what are the other options, “Geek Squad?” My experience at the Genius Bar for diagnosing/acknowledging my MacBook issue was straightforward. First, you make an appointment online. Second, as soon as you walk in the door, they check you in to your appointment. At the Bar, they have large flat-screen monitors that regularly shows the names and the schedules of customers waiting for service. And if that’s not enough, someone will shout out your name when you get to the top of the list. So, I was in-and-out of the store within 30 minutes.

Since they weren’t able to resolve my issue at the Apple Store (lack of parts), I opted for Apple’s Mail-In Service. What an amazing experience! Less than 24 hours after calling Apple, DHL dropped off my Mail-In Service Box. Over the weekend, I packaged my laptop and called DHL for a pick-up, which went out Monday mid-afternoon. Tuesday morning, I received two emails. First one was the notification that they received my laptop. The second email, which came late in the evening, indicated that my laptop was fixed, shipped and that I should receive it in 2 workdays. Next morning, Wednesday, FedEx dropped off my laptop at 10:30am. In another words, within 2 days of leaving my house, my laptop arrived back at home.

Unfortunately such customer delight stories are rare in the industry. Yet, there are so many opportunities and touch points that are available to create value and competitive differentiation for the firm. Value in this sense refers to the amount the customers are willing to pay for what a firm provides them. A firm/product is profitable if the value it delivers exceeds the cost of developing and delivering the product.

Lets take a look at some of the generic models for examining various touch points for exploiting value for a firm. For a firm that revolves around delivering value to its customers, they will find innovative ways to create value in all aspects of these models.

Porter’s Generic Value Chain

Michael Porter introduced the concept of generic value chain model that describes a sequence of activities that are common to a wide range of firms. As shown in the figure, a value chain includes all the activities a product goes through, which also adds value to the product.

Note that each of the activities in the value chain is also linked. High quality assurance processes during technology development reduces the support/service costs in the field. This is also true from the perspective of procurement, where high quality assurance processes eliminate faulty parts, reducing the costs associated with debugging and maintenance later in the value cycle.

Note that no two firms, even in the same industry, making the same products, have identical value chains. So, how well a firm manages its value chain and its linkages determines the value they deliver and competitive advantage they gain in the industry.

Value Delivery System

Porter’s value chain concept can be extended beyond just an organization to describe the value systems. A value system includes the value chains of all the ecosystem players that collaborates to deliver value to the customers.

Think about the challenges of working with other internal groups in your company, and project it to your ecosystem of partners, suppliers, alliances and all. Don’t forget to factor in the cultural and value differences as well as conflicting priorities and goals. However, a firm’s position in this value delivery system will again differentiate it from the rest of the pack.

Customer Life Cycle

Customer life cycle describes the steps a customer goes through when selecting, purchasing, using, and all the way through disposing of a product or a service. As simple as it sounds, getting a potential customer’s attention in these days is quite a challenge. Given the availability of competing options and transparency of product information/reviews, firms need to pay extra attention to capturing the potential customers and turning them into paying and loyal customers.

Recently my husband discovered that Office Depot offers pre-paid electronics recycling boxes. You buy an empty box at the store (small, medium or large), fill it with old electronic devices, then bring it back to the store for environmentally friendly disposal. This service is certainly unusual, but for an eco-friendly person with too many old electronic gadgets and gizmos, it is certainly something worthy of TWO 40-minute drives.

Technorati Tags: value creation, Porter’s value chain, customer life cycle

reflections,
originally uploaded by binnur gul.

Amazing! Yet another year is done, when does it end? Wait, don’t answer that… Frankly, if it wasn’t for the calendar telling me otherwise, to me it is still 2007. Normally about this time of the year, I reflect on the past, wonder and plan for the future. Since every part of my senses still believe I am still in 2007, I have to manually kick start the reflection and pondering process. After all, it is part of the rejuvenation and renewal cycle.

Looking back, in my early years, I almost felt proud of the fact my brain was constantly on. Something about the phrase “I think therefore I am”… However, when I started meditating regularly, I became aware of how noisy and cluttered my thoughts are. Zen teachers often refer to this as having the monkey brain. Quite appropriate…

Is our mind our worst enemy? Think about it. What we see, observe and think is shaped by our life experiences and by our environment. How we respond to life changes and events is based on what we already consciously or unconsciously learned, know or intuitively observed. Our mind is our vessel for all of that knowledge and experience. It can move mountains or cause us to lose wars before the battle even begins.

Our brain is an amazing machine… Can I really, confidently define what is real and what is not? “If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business has a quote from Francis Crick:

“What you see is not really there; it is what your brain believes is there… Seeing is an active construction process. Your brain makes the best interpretation it can according to its previous experience and the limited and ambiguous information provided by your eye.”

The authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip and Dan Heath, talk about the curse of knowledge. This is the paradox (or pair of ducks, as hubby would say ) where the increased knowledge and expertise creates an undetectable containment field that interferes with our ability to create and innovate, and break out of the rut. (Quack, quack, quack…)

It is in our nature to classify and generalize. As a matter of fact, our economy is built on our ability to identify the target market and customer, and then exploit it to its fullest. Don’t get me wrong. This ability to classify and generalize is an important function of our survival. Through this amazing skill, which we fine tune through our life experiences, we can problem solve and intuitively deduce how to behave, respond and communicate. Yet, this amazing ability can also create invisible walls that can take a lifetime to break, if then…

Zen teachers talk about the importance of having a beginner’s mind. It is this openness, the attitude of possibility, curiosity and childlike brevity to question, wonder and doubt that enables us to see things as fresh and new. Next time you have the opportunity, just follow a child through his day, you may be amazed at the possibilities.

So, how is all this tied to innovation and technology management? Quite simple actually. Thru self-awareness and realization it is possible to reinvent oneself. And, I truly hope reinvention is not just limited to near-death experiences as the Forrester blog highlights. The reinvention, rejuvenation and renewal are all necessary aspects of innovation and creativity. Through persistence it is possible to move mountains, where we can even put a man on the moon.

As departing thoughts, also take a look at Think Simple Now’s article on 7 habits of highly innovative people. If some of the items make into this years resolutions, be sure to make them SMART.

Happy New Year everyone!

Technorati Tags: beginner’s mind, reinvention, rejuvenation