 | | | | |  | | TED - All about Value Creation | | | by White Space Strategy on
| Chris Anderson's curation of the TED conference has been spectacular. Simply by making TED Talks available online he's created value that previously was restricted to only those who could attend. Now we can all profit, in the best of ways, from the value TED creates by exposing new and creative thinking from the best minds on the planet.
The TED talks themselves, each and every one, are about some form of new value creation - be it how to teach children about the value of good food, or how to properly measure what really counts in life - Every TED talk creates value in itself and presents a topic that is value creating in itself.
I strongly encourage all the white space, value creation thinkers out there to take the time to find a great TED talk every day and participate in the value creation that TED embodies for the world.
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| | | | | | | Lean Start-Ups and White Spaces | | | by White Space Strategy on
| The new emphasis on lean start-ups both creates and captures new white space opportunities. The customer-centric rapid iteration process that has become a part of the lean start-up methodology is and ideal way to accurately discover and define the new value that customers want to fill a current white space. WHen a lean start-up discovers and delivers this new value it creates a new set of market rules that define the white space and capture it. At the same time, the lean start-up approach's drive to deliver only the core value that's required to meet the current customer expectations can also lead to "undershooting" the true market requirements for a new CVE (Compelling Value Equation) and therefore leave the startup vulnerable to a whole new raft of start-ups that take a wider view of the required CVE.
This is why it's critical to also apply White Space Strategy principles in a lean start-up environment. Without considering ALL the enablers available in technology applications, value chains and business models, it's very possible to overlook key value elements that customers want, but can't tell you they want.
The power of the lean start-up model is substantial and it going to provide a strong new group of lean companies. The jury is still out, however, on how sustainable their unique value propositions will be, and whether challengers with more fully developed CVEs will eventually triumph in the markets they create. | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Social Media Self Aggrandizement - How to NOT Capture a White Space | | | by White Space Strategy on
| It never ceases to amaze me how the social media juggernaut has gotten so far out of control, and how the self proclaimed gurus of the space have multiplied. There is no question that there is a huge white space (actually multiple white spaces) in the social media markets. We're all still learning what it's about, how to use it, and when, where and how it really works. But there's certainly no dearth of people who want to tell you they know the answer.
Here's a quote from a blog that I just couldn't avoid using:
"Let's be honest about social media. We are all struggling with the sweet spot between how to socialize and share generously with our communities and how to sell. At the end of the day, we do want to "sell”our ideas, our products, our services, our consulting. But, in my mind, there is a correct-albeit slower- way to do this. You meet people on a social networking site like LinkedIn. You talk to them, get to know them and even trust them. If you want to carry that relationship further, the best way to do that is to direct them to your blog and/or website. Once there, they can join your opt-in box and you can continue the conversation through a weekly ezine or the odd email."
And what comes next? - "[The author] Nicknamed the female David Ogilvy, ____ is known for her vast communications knowledge, original thinking and commitment to excellence. [She] recently completed a book called [ Yet Another Book On Mastering Social Media ]. The book, an essential read for mid to upper-level executives, was released in Europe and the US in the summer of 2009.
That quote came from a blog purporting to be "humble".
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| | | | | | | Social Media White Spaces | | | by White Space Strategy on
| | With the rapid rise of social media and the concurrent increase in the power of the consumer, a very important area of value creation has emerged as a key differentiator - namely customer experience. With the wealth of products and value propositions emerging in markets today, user experience is becoming a value creation White Space that can spell the difference between rapid acceptance and total failure.
Today's user experience involves not only the product-user interaction, but the product-user-social media interaction as well. Let's take a minute to look at all the elements of today's user experience: - Recognition of Need
- Search and Evaluation
- Purchase
- Taking Delivery
- Set Up
- Learning
- Use
- Maintenance and Support
Every one of these steps can be impacted by not only the product itself, but the entire environment in which it takes place, of which social media had become an integral part. - Recognition of Need - From Twitter to Facebook recommendations to friends needs are often discovered in social media interchanges
- Search and Evaluation - The plethora of recommendation sites, plus social media recommendations all contribute to search and evaluation
- Purchase - Even the purchase process can be directly influenced by social media. Comments on retail outlets can influence a buyers choice if both where and how to buy.
- Delivery/Performance - Stories of horrible experiences with delivery and set up have plagued many manufacturers for years. Now that the social web makes it even easier to spread the word, the problem is instantly multiplied. United Airlines very quickly discovered this after the viral spread of the "broken guitar" video.
- Set Up - Similar stories of not being able to set up a device, finding the documentation unusable, or missing parts spread just as virally on the web and can completely compromise a product in minutes or hours at most.
- Learning - Social media can be both a help or a hindrance for learning experiences. On the plus side, the wisdom of the crowd can be tapped to provide free support for new users. On the negative side, if the materials provided with the product is insufficient, again, the negative word will travel fast.
- Use - Again, social media makes soliciting successful use cases on the web much easier than ever before. And again, it can be a double-edged sword. Problems with use can spread like wildfire.
- Maintenance and Support - Here's an area where the negatives outweigh the positives. Poor maintenance spreads like wildfire on the social web.
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| | | | | | | Mint.com - A White Space Success Story | | | by White Space Strategy on
| Mint.com is an exceptional Web 2.5 success story as documented by a great article in Slate on Friday. In a scant 2 years since their launch they grew to over 1.5 million users, and their free money management software became Quicken.com's key rival. Last week they were acquired by Intuit in a $170 million all cash deal. How did they do it? Slate attributes their success to what they call Web 2.5 - companies built on Web 1.0 and 2.0 infrastructure. However, a little closer look shows that applying the fundamental principles of a White Space Strategy are what really led to Mint.com's success.
Mint capitalized on multiple key market creation enablers to create new value and establish it's own unique market space for a free, thrift focused and easy to use money management application. First, Mint capitalized on the emerging market space created by the recession and a new focus by consumers on thrift. The external environment created an emerging and unmet demand for new value in the form of a free, cloud-based, personal finance tool. Here, a quick "market extents" analysis that identified the differences between edge-case quicken.com users and non-user near-customers could easily identify a value gap that needed to be filled - free, easy to use, thrift focused personal money management.
Second, Mint redefined the business model in the market by creating an agile and lean model that capitalized on enabling technologies and services in the cloud to run their business. In order to be a free service and offer compelling new value, Mint had to take advantage of new business model elements. Instead of huge ad campaigns, MInt used free social media and piggybacked on "popular new communications technology" - Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Their largest marketing expenditures lie in purchased search engine terms and moderate sums spent on analytics. They run their web site on Wordpress, use Google Analytics to track it and Zoomerang to conduct surveys - all free services that enable their new, low cost business model.
Finally, Mint redefined the value chain to create new value in its emphasis on thrift and adding value to the user experience through helpful hints, alerts and identifying opportunities for their users to save.
Yes, Mint's success was built on the infrastructure of Web 1.0 and 2.0 but it was even more built on fundamental white space principles - Enabling technologies, business models and value chains focused on real, relevant market needs for new, previously non-existant value to create new market spaces.
(Disclaimer: For those who may misunderstand, Mint.com is not a White Space Strategy client, but an excellent example of the application of White Space Strategy principles. We chose to use Mint.com as an example of how White Space Strategy principles can be applied and apologize for any misunderstanding.)
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| | | | | | | Walkman vs. iPod - Technology Outruns Applications | | | by White Space Strategy on
| A BBC Magazine article this morning chronicles the "travails" of a 13 year old Brit who traded in his iPod for a 30-year old vintage walkman for a week. One of the most interesting statements in the entire article (well worth reading, by the way) was his statement that "I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born". Having been the owner of a "14-Transistor RCA Pocket Transistor Radio" when I was 13, I must admit, I was sufficiently fascinated by the power of the technology that came before that I became an Electrical Engineer. However, my education quickly taught me that "the majority of technological advancement" had yet to be defined.
In 1964, we were fascinated by the application of the transistor to products like the radio. At the same time, the integrated circuit was in the labs and being used for aerospace applications. By the time we saw the IC in consumer products, the microprocessor was already on the drawing boards and so on - in short, we were already outrunning the applications with the technology.
The same is true today, though now we have names for the phenomena like Moore's Law and Metcalf's Law. But application still lags invention, and new technology appplications lead to the creation of new white spaces on a daily basis.
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| | | | | | | The White Space Imperative | | | by White Space Strategy on
| White Space Strategy isn't just an offensive weapon, it's imperative for companies to avoid being suddenly and decisively marginalized. Every day companies who "had a lock" on their markets suddenly find a new entrant taking advantage of an emerging opportunity to create new, highly relevant value for their customers and making significant incursions into their markets. Therefore, pursuing a White Space Strategy approach to your business is not only a highly effective approach to growing your markets and revenues, but a necessary defensive technique to prevent you from being blindsided by a competitor who comes out of nowhere with a value proposition that "minimizes" your own.
The iPod instantly marginalized all the other mp3 players by providing the highly relevant value of massive storage and the much simpler, more elegant and effective click wheel interface to make that "thousand songs in your pocket" easily accessible. Salesforce.com instantly marginalized the vast majority of CRM software, especially for price sensitive buyers, by providing a new "pay for use" paradigm in it's software as a service offering.
No company can afford to ignore the formation of white spaces within and around their current businesses and markets except at the peril of suffering the same kind of fates. It's an imperative that your company have an active program to monitor evolving customer needs and wants both within and at the extents of your markets as well as the potential evolution of the core technologies, business models and value chains upon which your strategy is built.
It's simply not enough to keep pushing the current foundations of your bussiness toward "more" - more features, more product variations and options, more "speeds and feeds" - and not actively montor the potential for fundamental changes that create compelling new value. In today's markets in particular, those companies that are actively seeking out and capitalizing on white space opportunities to create new, less competitive and more profitable markets and address them with new, compelling value, will be the big winners. And those who cling to the safety of a scaled down, recession driven version of "business as usual" will be relegated to "also rans".
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| | | | | | by White Space Strategy on
| An article in today's Wall Street Journal, "In Recession Specials, Small Firms Revise Pricing" points out one of the fundamental levers of White Space Strategy - pricing. Pricing is a major contributor to business model innovation that can capture opportunities both within and around your existing markets. Pricing has an innate value that is, as we see today, very closely tied to the prevailing economic environment.
It pays to remember that the basic tenet of White Space Strategy is creating NEW compelling value to fill in a value gap. The WSJ article points out a number of ways of creating new value through pricing that capitalize on the white space opportunities created by today's economic environment.
Pricing and Service Segmentation
Towerstream, a high speed internet access provider cited in the article, found that its $999/month, eight megabit per second offering was becoming harder and harder to sell. After offering a mid-range product priced at $500/month and 5-Mb/second they had a record first quarter. Clearly there was a white space in the market for a lower price, lower performance offering.
Similarly, Lone Star Limousine of Palo Alto was suffering from declining use of limos for both economic and image reasons. The addition of a van to its fleet of limos and high-end SUVs provided both a different value proposition and a lower price. This not only provided the new, less ostentatious, value that corporate users wanted, but engaged an entirely new client base in wedding venues, lodging and destinations such as wineries.
Adding New Value to Current Services
Mr. Transmission in Georgia, also mentioned in the article provides yet another angle on the "creating new value" element of white space strategy. By adding food and gasoline vouchers for customers who had to have pricey transmission overhauls, Mike Cook, the owner, added highly relevant value to his product and increased sales by 60% compared to last year.
Similarly, CouponCabin.com, after adding grocery coupons to its traditional offering of soft goods such as clothing and home goods has seen a 300% increase in visitors to its site. Once again, a white space created by the new needs of a recssionary economy when filled with relevant new value created substantial growth for CouponCabin's business.
These are just a few simple small business examples of the Value of Price in our current economic environment, but a wealth of opportunities abounds. We all need to ask ourselves several questions:
- Are our price/value ratios and value propositions appropriate to the current environment?
- Are there ways to add and/or create relevant new value in our product offerings that can capture more of our existing markets and enlarge and extend those markets by drawing in new market participants?
- It there an opportunity in the current market environment to create a whole new market defined by the new needs, technologies business models and value chains that we can apply?
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