The Anti-Marketer

Recommended Books

This note is mostly for my regular readers who might not notice small changes I've made.  I want to draw your attention to a new feature I've just added to my blog that you can link to from the sidebar. For quite some time I've told people that I would be reviewing important books that I recommend, and a couple of you have actually written to ask what books I think are important in a given subject area.

Unfortunately, doing a proper review takes a lot of time, and I haven't added any in several months. Given that there are dozens of books that I've meant to tell you about, this is definitely a case where a good solution is better than a perfect solution, so I've created a page with almost all the recommended books (more will be added in the near future), and any books that I've mentioned in postings, and made it easy for readers to order them if they're interested.

You'll see the Anti-Marketers Bookshelf icon at the top of the sidebar.   Each listed book has a few lines of mini-review/recommendation so you can decide if the book is of personal interest to you, and link to Amazon if you want to find out more. For your browsing pleasure, I've also organized them by category because it's quite a long list.

If you do decide to read any of these recommendations, I'd love to hear what you thought about them. I will still be doing occasional full-blown reviews, but they'll be only selected items with important content that is relevant to themes I'm writing about.

Enjoy.

How to Get Disrupted

I've been asked by a few people who've sent me emails exactly what it is that The Disruption Group does, whether our services would be of benefit to their organization and how to engage with us.  My posts to this point have mostly focused on the causes and effects of disruption -- case studies and analysis that people might find generally useful, instructive and interesting.  Today, I'm going to take a time-out and actually do a bit of selling.  I promise it won't hurt.

The reason that everyone wants to create disruptive innovation is that it catches competition off guard, and leaves them without adequate response.  A quote which is famously attributed to Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player ever, to explain why he intuitively was always in the right place at the right time (the quote was actually coaching advice his dad Walter gave him when he was a young boy on the backyard rink) is applicable here. "Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is."

The trouble is, how do you know where the puck is going in your industry, or in your business?  And, if everybody thinks they know where the puck is going and goes to the same place, how is that better than going to where the puck is now?  Apart from the natural resistance that many have to stepping out of line and being different, this is what is so challenging about disruptive innovation.  Regardless, to be disruptive, you have to hit the competition "where they ain't" (see "Wee Willie" Keeler), and do it in a way that isn't possible for market incumbents to match easily.

The principle benefits of applying disruptive concepts in your business that our clients have identified include:

• creation of new revenue streams
• faster time to market
• much higher than average margins

And, if you achieve those things, you also create the positive perception of being a trendsetter, an industry leader, and a supplier who is better able to serve your customer's needs.

To give a little more insight into the first two questions posed at the beginning of this article, namely what we do and whether our services would be of benefit, I've inserted a YouTube clip below which is excerpted from a presentation that TDG's CEO, Mike Urlocker, gave at a recent Conference Board change management conference.  In it, he discusses warning signs of disruption to look for in your business, and looks at the direct benefits that can be achieved by anticipating or creating disruption.

Mike Urlocker on the Benefits of Disruption

The 3rd question, how do you engage with us, is pretty straightforward.  We've created primer workshops on disruption that we can deliver to your business.  You'll find them of immediate value as you learn to understand innovation from your customer's perspective, and gain an appreciation of which innovations are valued and which aren't. And these are excellent ways to get started and evaluate whether a bigger custom services engagement would be of benefit.  The two options are:

• half day workshop (pdf 35.0K) to help your team deliver the innovations that customers value and pay for
• two day workshop (pdf 37.2K) which will boost your organization's competitiveness by identifying disruptive opportunities, creating new ways to get closer to customers and steering clear of fatal pitfalls

For information about other Disruption Group services, click here.  If you have questions, feel free to send me an email, or call me directly at 770-216-9922.  You can also visit our website at http://www.thedisruptiongroup.com for more information.

I look forward to hearing from you.