January, 2008 | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Frost & Sullivan Keynote: Siisi Adu-Gyamfi

Siisi’s keynote on finding a balance between growth and profitability was interesting. He’s with Textron. One of his opening points was about the futility of businesses continually squeezing suppliers for lower costs. For example, if GM squeezes its suppliers too much, they can’t be profitable and will no longer be a supplier. Instead, you need to think creatively about value creation.

In this model of seeking new business, you create a Reference Value based on the price your competitors are currently charging for their product or service. Then you think creatively of alternatives that can meet the customer need differently. Add the economic value of positive differentiators, where you are creating extra value. Subtract the value of negative differentiators, where your offering doesn’t quite provide what the competitor does. If you do it right, you’ll create a Total Economic Value (TEV) for your potential customer that’s higher than the Reference Value, and can charge a price that splits the difference.

Siisi used the example of Snap-to-Connect hydraulic connectors, which are an alternative to threaded connectors. Instead of taking 60 seconds to connect, they take 3 seconds. Multiplying that 57-second difference by $50/hour times 160,000 connections, the savings per connection is $.87, for a product that costs $.50. Not hard to see why sales have gone to $100 million over the last eight years.

Kevin Hoffberg, who is moderating the blogging panel on which I’ll be serving tomorrow, has detailed notes here. He’s also leading our next session, a Peer Counsel roundtable.

Change in Plans

“Wait a sec… I think I just… Yeah, I just had an idea.”

– Lloyd Christmas, Dumb & Dumber

A funny thing happened on the way to Phoenix. As I was sitting in the airport in Rochester, Minn. I had finished a post previewing a series on using Facebook for qualitative market research, and promised that my next few posts would flesh out this concept step-by-step. But some First Class brainstorming on the flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix has caused me to think more expansively. I have some more details to work out, but as I do I will return to that concept of Facebook Focus groups as part of the the broader framework.

So here’s a review of my Sunday travel experience, and a look ahead to the Frost & Sullivan conference, from which I plan to be blogging.

Goofy TSA moment: It might not be exactly a TSA responsibility as much as a general transportation regulation issue. As I disembarked from the tiny plane that had made the puddle jump from Rochester to Minneapolis, most of the passengers were gathered around the door where the luggage that had been checked planeside (mine included) was about to be delivered. The area was packed, and I didn’t want to block the doorway, so I set my laptop bag in one of the chairs just inside the waiting area near the gate. The gate attendant noted that I had broken the plane of the doorway (as Marion Barber, III just did to give the Cowboys a 14-7 lead over the Giants), so as I popped back in she said, “Sir, since you left the gate I’m going to need to have you show me your boarding pass.” Me: “You’ve got to be kidding.” Answer: “I’m NOT kidding. Regulations say that when passengers leave the gate area, they need to show their boarding pass.” This wasn’t a big deal. I pulled it right out of my coat pocket and it was quickly resolved. But to the extent that devotion to regulation enforcement has trumped common sense (she knew I had been on the plane, and watched me walk up the ramp and set my laptop bag 18 inches outside the gate and step back in), it’s a sign that Mark Steyn is right. If we’re entrusting our security to aggressive enforcement of the gate regulations instead of, say, the porous borders through which the next 9/11-type terrorists could enter, that’s a losing proposition.
Upgraded Seating. What led to my first-class brainstorming was being in, well… First Class. I had just gotten notification that I had achieved Silver Elite status with Northwest Airlines based on my travel for 2007. Our Carlson Travel group assistant had noticed that I had been booked in a middle seat, and sent my assistant a note saying that with Silver Elite I could book premium seats at no charge through NWA.com anytime before the flight, and had changed me to aisle seats. I’m still not sure exactly how I ended up in First Class. If anyone can fill me in on how this Silver Elite thing works and what I need to do to have the best chance of getting upgrades, I’d welcome the explanation, because I’m really new at it, and it was nice to not be crowded, and to get an omelette instead of Pringle’s.
Spiritual Social Media. Because my first flight was at 7:15 and I didn’t arrive in Phoenix until 11:20, I didn’t get to go to church. I watched a John Piper sermon on my video iPod. I’ve written previously about how I appreciated what Dr. Piper and the Desiring God Ministries team have done with podcasts through their radio without radio initiative. Now R.C. Sproul, another of my favorites, also offers his daily radio program as a podcast.

After Dr. Piper’s sermon (and finishing another good book I’ll be reviewing soon), I was in a great frame of mind for heavy-duty brainstorming. I look forward to sharing those ideas as I refine them further. Meanwhile, the Frost & Sullivan conference is about to begin, in an hour or so, so it’s time to hit the showers after having gone for a run here at the Wigwam Golf Resort & Spa. It’s a really nice place, and the weather is fantastic.

My next few posts will be about what I’m learning here. I attended another of these Frost & Sullivan events last July and blogged about it. I expect this one will give me lots of material, too.

Facebook Focus Groups: Prologue

I’ve written previously about how Facebook can be used disruptively to provide souped-up pictorial directories for churches and other organizations, how it can serve as an on-line booster club (complete with video and photo highlights and links to newspaper coverage) for high school and youth sports teams, and other “off label” uses of Facebook and Twitter. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to see how it also could challenge sites like classmates.com or reunions.com, particularly as people of the Stayin’ Alive generation (who have stayed alive) move into Facebook.

Facebook has some market research features that are part of its paid offerings, but there’s another way companies or organizations could conduct qualitative research among current or potential customers or members. These could be either short-term focus groups, or ongoing customer panels.

In my next few posts I’ll take a step-by-step approach to creating these groups in Facebook. I’m attending the Frost & Sullivan Sales & Marketing conference in Litchfield Park, Ariz. over the next few days. I’ll be part of a panel on blogging, and blogging about what I learn there, but I think these qualitative research methods using Facebook that I’ll be describing could be an immensely practical and cost-effective way to interact with current or prospective customers or members.

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Shel Holtz has tagged me in this meme, and I’m glad to join. Like him, my life is pretty much an open book since I’ve been blogging, especially since I have used my blog to send Christmas/Thanksgiving family newsletters last year and this year. And those who are my Facebook friends have had yet another window into my world.

But while both of our lives may be open books, Shel’s has definitely been checked out of the library more often than mine has, with him being a podcasting rock star and all. So for anyone who’s new to my blog, I’ll mix a few things regular readers might know with some never-before-disclosed items, starting with…

I’m going to be a Grandpa! Actually, I didn’t know that about me until yesterday, when my daughter Rachel called to tell us that she and her husband Kyle are expecting in September. My Dad was 55 when Rachel became his first grandchild; my wife, Lisa, and I will be 45 at the Borg baby’s birth. We met and became engaged at 18, married at 21 and had Rachel when we were 22 years, 8 months. That’s almost exactly the same age Rachel will be when she delivers.
We have an unusual family (see above.) I think we’re in about the 99th percentile for family size, with six children. That’s three times the U.S. average. Three boys and three girls, but without the Brady Bunch blended family model. We got them all one at a time. Although we’re of German and Norwegian descent, two of our daughters are Irish twins, born 50 weeks apart. They’re in the same grade in school: one born Sept. 14, the the other Aug. 31, just three hours before the enrollment deadline. Not that it mattered when they were younger, because…
Lisa has homeschooled all six of our kids, at least until they reached 9th grade. Two (Rachel and Jake) waited until they were high school juniors to start public school, and at that point took advantage of Minnesota’s Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program, which lets students get both high school and college credit for the same courses. They have both now graduated from UW-La Crosse; Jake turns 21 in March, and Rachel turns 22 a week from today.
Our kids are living proof that you shouldn’t make snap judgments about athletic or academic ability. Rachel walked at nine months, but she’s one of our three non-athletic kids. Bekah wasn’t even rolling over at that age, and didn’t walk until she was 14 months old, but she was our earliest bike rider and made the high school volleyball and basketball teams as a sophomore. Ruthie couldn’t read until she was seven. Within a week she had progressed to reading chapter books, and I’ve blogged previously about her memorization abilities. She just scored a 31 on her ACT and made the 99th percentile on her PSAT. Joe, our middle son, walked when he was 10 months and 9 days old. We remember that not because it was particularly early or late, but because he walked the day O.J. walked.
I played in the Minnesota Boys High School Basketball State Tournament, back in the days when basketball shorts were and Kool & the Gang was. We were 24-1 in my senior year, losing in the championship game. You can see my personal highlight reel by becoming one of my Facebook friends. I got this VHS tape thanks to the generosity of a friend whose brother was among the 1 percent or so of people who actually owned a VCR back in 1981, when they cost more than $1,000. My, how times change. We didn’t get to see video of our games until we made the state tournament, although we occasionally would get home in time to see highlights on the 10 p.m. news; now I post video highlights of every one of my daughter’s regular season games on Facebook.
I’m a self-taught computer programming geek. I took one computer class as a high school junior, where we waited in line to write programs over a modem hooked to a mainframe at Mankato State University. We also had a couple newfangled Apple II+ computers with monochrome monitors and 64K. I spent about a decade tinkering in BASIC after I got out of college, then got a Mac and 4th Dimension programmable database software, which I used for more than a dozen years. Since I got my managerial job in Mayo Clinic media relations, I’ve gotten away from the computer programming. But now, with Facebook’s platform and FBML, it’s time to start experimenting again.
I ran for State Representative in 1984, when I was 21. I didn’t win, but it led to a 14-year career in politics and government at the local, state and national level, ending as a congressional press secretary.
I used to dream of being George Will, writing a couple of columns a week to be read all over the world. Blogging has made that dream come true. Well, except for not being featured in the Washington Post or appearing weekly on ABC ‘s This Week. Then there’s the absence of best-selling column compilations, too. But it is kind of a kick to have made blog friends in Houston, Virginia, Chicago and foreign countries like Hong Kong, Australia, Egypt and California.

I’m tagging Rachel, Kyle, Ben Martin, Aruni Gunasegaram, Daniel Rothamel, Rick Short, Dennis McDonald, and Janet Johnson.