Spigit vs. Jive Software vs. BrightIdea a Decision Makers Guide

Thomas Edison’s most important achievement was the development of an effective incandescent light bulb.  Most people believe he invented the light bulb but in fact he improved upon a 50 year old idea.  50 years to create what we now know to be one of the most important inventions of the 19th century. 

Imagine if he was armed with today’s innovation management tools.  Imagine if everyone were.  It’s fair to say that perhaps Humphry Davy (the first to invent the electric light) would have emerged the father of the light bulb had he been given access to the wisdom of the crowd.

The Innovation Management Players

While it doesn’t take 50 years to bring new products to market anymore, it still takes much longer than it should.   The innovation management companies Spigit, Jive Software and BrightIdea are looking to cut down an idea’s time to market while simultaneously surfacing the best ideas.  Between the three of them, they have a lot of success stories that make the case.

The Innovation Management Guide 

		Innovation
In 6 words or less	Behavioral science meets innovation social network	Social community driven innovation	Full Lifecycle innovation Management
Key customers	Cisco, Southwest Air, Pfizer	Chordiant	Adobe, American Express, Philips, Emerson
By the Way	Amongst its portfolio, they have the only SMB focused solution	The most recent innovation entrant	The oldest of the group, this company was started in 1999
Search Buzz Meter*
Web Traffic**	30k/month	10k/month	48k/month
Cloud/SaaS enabled?	Yes	Yes	Yes
The Videos	Spigit	Jive Innovation	BrightIdea
Known for?	Algorithmically discovers winning ideas and people	Community, Community, Community	Being the first to market
Modules	·         Enterprise ·         Contest ·         Prediction Market ·         SharePoint ·         WE for SMB	Ideation	·         Product ·         Marketing ·         Process ·         Organizational
Target Market	Enterprise & SMB	Enterprise	Enterprise
Strengths	Easy to use, many tools on their website to demonstrate the power of their software.	Can leverage the Jive SBS platform to increase value of innovation module	Has 300+ customers and good enterprise traction
Weaknesses	Maybe spreading themselves a little thin with additional focus on SMB	Needs a more specific focus like point solution players	Needs more social media traction. Should work with E2.0 group to get more exposure
	* from Google insights & trends. Jive meter for innovation module only.	**Est. traffic from Google  Adplanner. Jive Traffic for innovation module only.

Why you need Innovation Management

I’ve written about BrightIdea and Spigit before (here and here), and have been studying the innovation market for the past 6 months.  While the natural inclination of most companies is to cut R&D spending in a recession, they should be doing the opposite.  Lean times require innovation for growth. 

Harnessing the wisdom of your employees, customers and suppliers allows you to find the best ideas, improve upon them and bring them to market. And don’t forget internal improvements as a result of executing on employee ideas.  Both are a huge competitive advantage that will help position your company to better take advantage of better economic times. With innovation management solutions, it’s easier than ever before. 

Enterprise Champion Recommendations

Every company looking to improve their financial situation through innovation should evaluate at least one of the solutions above.  If you believe your company has a leg up on the competition already, be prepared to have your top competitors use one of these solutions to keep pace or try to surpass you. 

Be equipped to enter a new era of the Red Queen effect.  In other words, “it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.”   Your company will need to evolve through innovation and innovative practices to maintain a competitive edge.   

I realize not every company is ready for innovation management solutions.  So find a department or division that is and give it a shot.  Start small and focus on progressive innovation.  Meaning improve a process or idea and execute on it visibly.  Learn from the experience and look for other areas to introduce the solution. 

It takes guts to introduce change. It’s worked for me (mostly), but you need to have the stomach for it. If you do, there's always room for more change agents. 

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Technorati Tags: brightidea,spigit,jive Software,innovation management,red queen

What’s the BrightIdea?

 

Around 1200 AD a Chinese-Mongol engineer came up with the idea of adding a silk shirt underneath their leather armor.  The resulting insulation drastically cut the injury and death rate of Genghis Khan’s army from arrow wounds.  Because the loose silk shirt would trap arrow heads and stop them from penetrating the skin.   

If the arrow happened to penetrate the skin, Mongol warriors and doctors could easily pull the arrow from the wound, because it was wrapped in the silk cloth.

It was this small idea that turned the Mongol army into a undefeatable force.  An idea that may never have been realized had it not been for a visionary (but ruthless) leader named Genghis Kahn. 

Getting more ideas through the pipeline

According to Vincent Carbone of BrightIdea, it’s the small ideas that are lost in the Enterprise.  And over time these small ideas can add up to significant revenue generation or cost reduction opportunities.  

If you haven’t heard of BrightIdea, it’s worth a look.  They facilitate the entire innovation management process from idea to product launch.  They look at the entire innovation lifecycle and help companies develop a more holistic view of the organization’s idea initiatives. 

BrightIdea’s key value proposition is getting more of the best ideas to market (or internal). 

BrightIdea At a Glance

Founded	Year: 1999
Employees	50
Locations	San Francisco, New York
# of Customers	300+
Key Customers	Adobe, Experian, Emerson, Hewlett Packard, Ireland
Top Competitors	Spigit, Jive Software
Value Prop in 7 words	Bring the best ideas to life quicker
Core Market	Medium to large Enterprise customers
Key Differentiator	Solution adds value at every step of the ideation lifecycle process. Idea Project Management.

What about Ideation Adoption in the Enterprise? 

According to Carbone, adoption equals more communication programs.  It also means having the system in place to implement the best ideas or communicate why they are not being used internally or brought to market. 

In fact, BrightIdea believes through their research that the #2 reason employees leave their companies is because their ideas aren’t being heard.  Carbone emphasizes that companies need to execute and implement the best ideas.  By far execution outweighs everything else.  It send a message to the company that they are making a difference so continue to participate.

The Executive View

Carbone insists the best approach to bringing innovation management tools into the organization is a bottom up approach.  Yet, having an executive view into the entire innovation process is critical to keeping the decision makers engaged and funding the best ideas.

It’s also important that strong Executive Management exists to have the courage to bring these ideas to market.  Like Khan 800 years ago, some of the best ideas may be coming from your engineering teams.  Unlike the Mongols however, your staff may feel it’s a waste of time to bring these ideas up because there’s not a good support system in place to bring them to market. 

As they say, everything has a limit, ideas can’t be developed into products without strong executive support.    

Why every idea should be treated like a sales lead

If every company treated their ideas like they treat their sales leads, corporations would be vastly more innovative.  According to Carbone, companies are just starting to reorganize  themselves around this future reality.  They are asking their employees for ideas on what to develop next.  They have a system in place to analyze, track and report on the idea, then they bring it to market. 

BrightIdea therefore is trying to build a CRM platform for ideas.  Like CRM, they want to report on an idea’s deal size (market potential), who’s developed the idea and metrics around the success rate.

If BrightIdea succeeds in building a IRM (innovation relationship management) solution, their concept may have some legs.  I see some challenges with this approach (namely the organizations ability to organize change management teams) to bring ideas to market both internally and externally, but the IRM platform approach does look interesting. 

Enterprise Champion Recommendations

Expect a lot of resistance to adoption of these types of tools.  Have a well thought out adoption map that starts at the divisional level and expands into other departments before going enterprise-wide. 

Some Key Takeaways 

• Make sure the first couple of ideas get implemented fast and publicly.  Falling down here will set you back months.
• Publicly recognized the best ideas and shower attention on the idea owners.  This will encourage others.
• Get executive support for moving past the pilot phase.  Set a few high level goals and after success get an executive sponsor to help move your innovation management model to other departments or divisions.
• Report on any cost savings or revenue increases as a result of your ideation program.  Saving money or increasing sales always receives a lot of attention. 

Remember, introducing new solutions into most companies is hard.  You’re putting your reputation at risk.  Yet, not taking advantage of opportunities is worse.  With a careful, well thought out plan, you can make a significant impact on your organization by introducing innovation management tools like BrightIdea into your organization. 

Like Khan’s army however, be prepared to take a few arrows. 

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Technorati Tags: brightidea,review,enterprise 2.0

The Art of the Enterprise- The Ovation

 

“You simply must fire that guy, he’s after your job!”, said the CFO.  “He’s had it in for you since he brought in that ERP system against your wishes.”

“I’ve had enough of him. I am going to embarrass him in front of the board next week,” said the CEO.  '”He’s pulled one too many tricks on me and he’s going down.” 

The Visionary CIO

The Chief Information Officer’s name was John Grand.  Grand was a big picture guy with extraordinary execution skills.  Employees loved him because he solved their problems.      

Grand’s first week at the company was spent surveying each of the business units and gathering requirements for his first 90 days.  He had an innate sense of mission and duty to the business unit leaders and they knew it.  Knew that Grand was a guy that was looking out for their best interests. 

Grand quickly determined that the company’s ERP system was insufficient and not serving the needs of the enterprise.  It was  a mixture of disparate systems wrapped together with digital duck tape. 

The entire customer order to fulfillment process was broke and orders took much longer than the industry benchmarks.  Making matters worse, inventory was at an all time high due to the inability of the organization to forecast sales.  The company operated on spreadsheets that were strewn across the organization like a cluster of unconnected dots. 

Something had to be done. 

 

When Grand proposed a new ERP system at the next Executive meeting the CEO and CFO balked.  “The current system is fine John, we don’t need to spend the money,” said the CFO. 

“I have to agree,” said the CEO, “the company is operating at peak performance.”

“With all due respect, our business unit leaders disagree,” said Grand, “they are growing more and more frustrated at the extra time everyone is putting just to take orders and ship product to customers.  Their best employees are quitting to join our competitors. Worse, we don’t have any visibility into our fulfillment process.”

“We’ve done just fine without it John,” said the CEO, “we’ve grown to a $200 million company without a new ERP system and I don’t think we need one now.”

Grand sat perplexed.  He had showed the executive team every conceivable ROI calculation and reasons for needing the new system.  He had shown how he was going to help two of the five business units grow their business by 35% in just two quarters and he was going to have the new system in place in less than six months.  He was that good. 

Grand didn’t get the ERP system but he did get the complaints. In fact the CEO had made sure the complaint department was open 24 hours.  He claimed it was in the best interest of the company to “share the pain” and that Grand needed to step up.  Grand was on call. 

But after several customer shipment disasters and lackluster growth, the board decided to step in and authorize the purchase of the ERP system.  The CEO and CFO were livid.  “How dare Grand interfere with the board,” they conspired, “is he trying to get us fired?” 

Grand delivered the open source ERP system in six months as originally promised. 

The Disaster

The company’s largest supplier was the CEO’s best friend. They had attended the same college and chased the same girls. The supplier supplied the main parts for the company’s flagship product.  One week without the parts and the company would incur significant losses. 

The supplier was slow in fulfilling the company’s orders and their quality of product was deteriorating.  If they were six sigma rated, their level would be less than one.

Before the new ERP system was implemented, detecting these changes over time was impossible.  But Grand’s new ERP system made detection far easier.  The system helped manufacturing determine that their largest supplier was hurting.  A few more financial checks and they realized the supplier was headed towards bankruptcy.

Grand recommended the company find a back-up source for the supplier and start ordering from them pronto.  A back-up supplier was found, but at a price that was 20% more than their primary supplier.  Grand recommended they start purchasing anyway. 

When the CEO and CFO found out about the new arrangement they were apoplectic.   “How dare he do that to me!” said the CEO, “they have been a loyal supplier for years. We golf together, I will be embarrassed at the club ”

“Grand is a fool,” said the CFO, “he recommended manufacturing spend 20% more for the same parts? He’s got some nerve!”

The CEO and CFO were of one mind.  A business relationship of little quality and no sense of mission. To them the act of management was neither fun nor tedious.  It meant nothing.  They had heard that the CEO made decisions and the CFO watched the treasury, and so they did.

“I’ve had enough of him. I am going to embarrass him in front of the board next week,” said the CEO.  '”He’s pulled one too many tricks on me and he’s going down.” 

Later that week the CEO got a call from his friend.  His friend explained how sorry he was but the supplier’s company was taken over by the authorities because he hadn’t paid payroll taxes in 2 years.  He said he would have warned the CEO had he known, but he hadn’t any notice. 

The CEO’s friend said nothing of the impact the lack of parts would do to the CEO’s company nor how his friend would help him resolve the issue.  His main supplier and friend, was bailing on him.  

The Board Meeting

The CEO didn’t go in with his original script.  In fact the script changed dramatically.

The CEO started: “Some weeks ago I instructed the IT department to research the performance of our supplier base and ensure that each were in a sound financial position. If they found a suboptimal supplier they were told to either replace them or find a back up supplier.  Fortunately, we found out during this check that our main supplier was in trouble.” 

“I then instructed manufacturing to find a suitable replacement.  They found a back-up supplier but they were 20% higher than our main supplier.  I checked with our CFO and he gave me the green light to proceed in giving them up to 50% of our part supply needs.  The increase in price was worth mitigating the risk of losing our main supplier. Had I not anticipated the supplier issue and subsequently made the decision to bring on another supplier, we would have lost millions in sales,” he said.   

The Board of Directors sat motionless and didn’t have a single question.  But then something astonishing happened. They clapped.  A standing ovation for the CEO.  Something never before witnessed in the board room.

“I do believe we should ask for the resignations of the persons responsible for this near disaster,” quipped the CEO, “I’ll circulate the names for you shortly.”

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• The Art of the Enterprise: Marketing Shrugged (seekomega.com)

Technorati Tags: art of the enterprise,e2.0,enterprise 2.0

The Art of the Enterprise: Marketing Shrugged

It happens everyday.  You need a solution to a problem that can’t be fixed by mere mortals.  You need the IT department.

The problem is, your IT department is run by an IT Director that believes in hording control and resources.  We’ll call him William Mocking.  Mocking won’t let his team work on any line of business projects unless he is involved.  No quick resolutions, no updates to the ERP system, no excel spreadsheet macros unless he gives the green light. 

 

Mocking had become so alienated from the rest of the business units that they referred to him as a fanatic.  He loved to show how smart he is and how you’re not.  A bureaucrat that answered every question in every meeting so contemptuously that it appeared to him that you were working extra hard to remain stupid.

Everyone knew he needed to be fired but no one did.  He had the keys to the empire.  Keys that unlocked every IT door.  He gave them out to his team but quickly got them back after an approved task was performed. 

Mocking’s reality existed because internal policy dictated that all software and corporate technology solutions be decided by IT.  Because of this, the company’s IT infrastructure was 5 years behind their competitors’. 

But then Marketing did something remarkable.  They shrugged. 

The VP of Marketing purchased a SaaS solution from Salesforce.com without IT involvement.  The company held its breath. 

And Mocking went ballistic.  He screamed at the VP of Marketing in such an excruciatingly shrill voice that easily could have shattered a few windows were they nearby.  He then set brushfires of doubt in the executives’ minds.  “Our data will be stolen, our business is going to be compromised, our ERP system won’t integrate with it, our our our…”

He also put such fear in the employee base that 90% of them didn’t use the new system.  Employees knew the system made their jobs easier and more effective but didn’t use it for fear of IT retribution.  The system sat cold for weeks. 

Then the VP of Marketing did something else remarkable.  She  boycotted IT.  She refused to have anyone in marketing have any contact with them.  No ERP, no email, nothing.  Her team started to use GMail,  Google Docs, Open Source Wiki’s, document sharing software and of course Salesforce.com to complete their work.  All were outside the firewall and out of Mocking’s reach. 

And they were successful.  At far less cost.  Which caught the eye of the CEO. 

Mocking wasn’t fired.  But he did give up the keys.  He later quit to start a CIO consulting company.  Surely to recreate his ‘bottleneck in an Enterprise’ trick. 

Maybe you’ve seen him?   

 

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Technorati Tags: art of the enterprise

Technorati Tags: art of the enterprise

The FourSquare Spy Guide – Customer Dashboards for SMB 2.0

I’ve been writing about FourSquare for business recently by promoting the potential benefits to businesses with customer foot traffic. 

Now with their release of a Customer Dashboard for businesses, they’ve taken the concept of social location-based networking to a whole new level.  A level that businesses need to understand as it will significantly impact their bottom lines (both negatively and positively). 

(courtesy of the New York Times)

Why it’s important

Because I now have a very detailed customer dashboard about my customers and their networks.  Let that sink in for a second.  Never before has any consumer facing  business so easily understood their customers and their social circles. 

Businesses can now interact with their customers, offer them specials, get feedback from them and encourage them to invite their friends.  For example, If a restaurant is light on reservations during the week, they can instantly kick off a promotion to invite their customers back.

With the FourSquare API, businesses can now discover where their customers are located and where they work.  For instance, let’s say a lot of Qualcomm employees are spending money at your establishment.  With the API and dashboard, you are now able to contact Qualcomm and set up special deals and promotions. 

You didn’t have that level of detail before without expensive research. And that research was stagnate the day is was completed.   

But now you do.  How will you capitalize?  

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Technorati Tags: foursquare,SMB 2.0

What Enterprise 2.0 vendors can learn from FourSquare and a CIO about Adoption

It struck me in a lengthy discussion with an old CIO friend of mine this weekend at Big Bear Ski Resort.  As the great Mark Twain once said, “All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.”

Brandon Matthias wasn’t aware of FourSquare or Gowalla or even Google Buzz. 

Not surprising given how recent these tools have become popular with the early adopters.  But after I explained the social geo-location networks and Mayor concepts he brilliantly suggested that companies do the same. 

He believes companies should create a “Mayor” concept for the company where enterprising employees earn the right to become departmental or functional Mayors.  

In other words, create content or knowledge experts that are socially elected by their peers based on the frequency and quality of the knowledge shared.   

So in addition to expert search, you create an environment where experts self-proclaim - motivated by social recognition. 

Lesson Learned: Wisdom can be found in the oddest places.  Even places too.

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Technorati Tags: foursquare,gowalla,google buzz

Venture Capital 2.0 – Five Reasons Why First Round Capital is Better at Social than Your Company

99% of all Venture Capital websites are tributes to themselves. 

The typical Venture Capital website is full of former investments, some good some bad.  A virtual brochure and usually nothing more.

Not so with First Round Capital.  Most corporations can take a page or two out of their social playbook.  Some may need to borrow the entire guide. 

It’s starts with their tagline: “First Round Capital is a seed stage fund dedicated to helping talented entrepreneurs build remarkable companies. Read More”.  Music to any start-up CEO’s ears.  And, if they practice what they preach, then they’ll rise above their peers. 

A quick check of The Funded reveals the firm is well liked by prospective entrepreneurs but may be more difficult than others in securing favorable deal terms. 

 

But for our purposes, let’s focus on what they are doing in social media that is relevant to you.  With their new website, they’re basically saying we have nothing to hide and we want to connect with you. 

To their competitors, they’ve upped the ante by widely disseminating their aggregated content front and center on their home page.  Risky? Maybe, but the strategy is remarkable. 

So, here are 5 reasons why you should emulate First Round Capital in their new social media strategy.

#1 Transparency: To most entrepreneurs, Venture Capital companies are a closed book and a case study on how not to do business.  Not so with First Round Capital.  They’ve turned the industry inside out by exposing everything.  Portfolio company news, blogs, twitter streams and location information from FourSquare are all integrated into a master stream on their home page.  

Question: Are you brave enough to do the same?

#2 Connect with prospective entrepreneurs: Imagine your a young start up CEO that’s grown up in the Facebook/Twitter culture.  You run across this VC site then you click over to First Round Capital’s site. 

Questions: Which is speaking to the young CEO with the billion dollar idea?  Now do the same with your competitors.  What have you learned?

#3 Make it easy to digest information about your company: First Round has made it extremely simple to follow all of their information via a single RSS feed.  That allows their prospective customers to easily stay connected with First Round. 

Questions: Have you done the same? Do you even have a blog?

#4 Stand out in a crowded field: Their new site will make them stand out amongst their competitors/peers.  They will be perceived as innovators, creative and daring - in short remarkable. 

Questions: Are bloggers & journalists writing about your social media strategy? Do they cite your website when they point to the best in class in your industry?

#5 Increase your brand equity: Your not in control of your brand anymore.  You can influence it but it’s gone forever in the new age of the internet.  Your brand is measured simply by the feeling or impression it gives your prospective customers.  And, your website is the first brand impression they see in some cases.  When I view First Round’s, I get the impression they are innovators, open, transparent and will promote my company.  Exactly what I want in a Venture Capital firm.

Questions: Have you done a voice of the customer? Do you know how you are perceived by your current and prospective customers?  What do they think of your web site?

How do I emulate First Round Capital’s site?

First you need to find a web team that has implemented similar solutions.  Usually you’ll find activity streams being used internally at companies, rarely do you find them used by companies externally. 

If you have already employ a decent web team, have them check out Yonkly or Status.net for starters. 

Then build a strategic plan but keep it short.  It needs to be flexible.  Make sure you understand the how and the why you want to connect with your current and prospective customers.  Then implement, test, measure and tweak as you learn.

Furthermore, the more you rely on your website for your business, the more you need to connect with your customers on the home page.  Above is a good start, but take some risks to find out how you best connect with your customers. 

It’s worth being unique, it’s worth being remarkable, it does pay off. 

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Technorati Tags: first round capital,yonkly,status.net,venture capital 2.0

The Art of the Enterprise: Seize the Enterprise 2.0 opportunity in your company

My first experience as a manager was leading a team in striving to win a large contract from UPS. We worked around the clock in preparing a knock your socks off proposal complete with diagrams, graphs, and complicated ROI analysis that showed a 25 to 1 return. 

I insisted we use some new proposal process and graphic creation tools that I had introduced into the organization.  With the aid of the new technology and process, we created a proposal masterpiece.  The quality and detail was much better and we created it in half the time. For this reason, our team was optimistic that we’d win the UPS deal (worth $15 million dollars). So optimistic, we were calculating how to spend our bonuses. 

The next morning I got a call from our intern asking me if I was sure I wanted to overnight the proposal to UPS.  I was irate, “Yes, ship the damn thing!  You should have shipped it last night! We are going to miss the deadline!”

“Well,” she said, “I hope you’re not upset with me but I didn’t want to overnight a proposal to UPS using Fed Ex as the delivery service. Your proposal process automatically ships our proposals via Fed Ex.” 

My head start spinning as I realized my mistake.  It seems that I had not thought through all of the use cases before implementing the new technology driven process.  Thank God this unpaid intern had caught my mistake before it was too late.  She saved the company from losing a major deal and saved my job.

The next day as I was typing out an email I noticed that every time I hit the ‘U’ key it autocorrected to “Lose $15m by not shipping with UPS”.  The team programmed my keyboard for future reference.  It is a valuable lesson that I still remember today.

Fighting for Your Ideas

I understand how difficult it can be to introduce new ideas to an organization especially when the ideas are labeled ‘social’.  Your boss doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter and he’s certainly not going to allow employees to waste time fraternizing on a new solution that the company is asked to spend money on. 

But you know it will work.  So why don’t you fight?

Are you afraid your boss will embarrass you? Are you afraid you’ll screw up and the company will fire you? 

I still have that fear to this day.  But my fear of being average is even stronger.  I don’t want to be another cog in a factory.  And neither should you. 

The Art of Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Solutions

First of all know that you are not alone. There are many successful Enterprise 2.0 implementations.  Take the time to review the examples that are similar to your industry.  Connect with your peer group and ask for their experiences.  Then do the following:

#1 Find out if introducing an Enterprise 2.0 solution will align with a departmental or corporate initiative.  If it does you’re half way home.  If not you have an up hill battle; but with hard work you will convince the decision makers.  Learn the language of your executives and learn what keeps them up at night. 

#2 Map out the political landscape inside your organization

Do you have a lot of political capital or are you seen as a loose cannon?  If the latter then you need to make your idea everyone’s idea.  No really.  You need to get key influencers involved in your plan to make it ‘our plan’.  This does two things.  First, it insulates you from personal attack, second, it shows a united front to executive management.  

#3 Why do you need an Enterprise 2.0 solution?

Every organization is different so I can’t help you out here with specifics.  But do the internal research necessary to uncover the issues that Enterprise 2.0 addresses. I do internal surveys.  I ask provocative questions that demonstrate key weaknesses that an Enterprise 2.0 organization addresses. Then I present the results as part of a story. 

#4  Review Jacob Morgan’s article 50 Enterprise 2.0 Case Studies and Examples 

Study the pros and cons, lessons and pitfalls.  Why are these companies succeeding?  What are the benefits?

Now that you have an idea of how others have benefited from Enterprise 2.0 it’s time for you to craft your story.  You can’t just write down a few bullet points you need a story that will resonate with decision makers.

#5 Develop a presentation story arch.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a story is worth a thousand assurances.  Remember to follow this story arc guide: 

For ideas on how to present a story, I suggest the “Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam.  You want to create a story that will appeal to both emotions and logic. 

#6 Practice, Practice and Practice Your Presentation

Introducing a game changing technology can literally change your career.  I have seen some really bad presentations for worthwhile projects that ended up dead on arrival.  I’ve also seen some incredibly stupid presentations receive internal funding because the pitch was remarkable. Lesson learned: Be remarkable.   

Use a lot of images and unique charts to describe your vision.  Even if the decision makers don’t see it your way they’ll see the remarkable you.  You’ll be given other opportunities in the future.

#7 Position yourself and your team as the Enterprise 2.0 champions

Maintain control of the project.  This is your chance to shine.  Adoption of the technology is important here so read Oscar Berg’s article on Adoption strategies to maximize your early success.  Measure the results and report to management.  You need to stay visible but promote your team as the reason for the project’s success.  

Seize your opportunity

This is a unique moment in time.  This is an opportunity to make an impact on your company and career.  You know more than your executive team does about connecting to customers and uncovering hidden opportunities.  You owe it to the company and yourself to introduce these concepts in a compelling and interesting way. 

The difficult part, the part that gets your idea approved, is understanding how to present an enterprise solution in an authentic and remarkable way. 

You might be afraid, but being ordinary is worse.

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Technorati Tags: the art of the enterprise,guide,jacob morgan,back of the napkin