September 10, 2015

Original Melding Of Ideas - Your Own System

There's an episode of Seinfeld where Mr. Lippman opens a muffin store (Top of the Muffin to You) ... at one point, Elaine is thoroughly exasperated with Mr. Lippman, and proclaims (click here), "You stole my idea" ... then Mr. Lippman responds, with an earnest condemnation of innovation ... "these ideas are all in the air, they're in the air."

Well, sure. Go ahead and copy the experts. Happens all the time. Especially in my industry.

For many, it is prudent to let somebody else absorb all the risk, waiting to see what works and what doesn't work (ask Apple - introducing a stylus after Samsung does - introducing a large phone after Samsung does, introducing wearables after others introduce them).

On my analytics podcast, I am working through a series about having an analytics "system" or a "program" ... much like Oregon in college football or Green Bay in professional football  or Oakland in baseball or Houston in professional basketball our Southampton in the EPL ... a way of doing things that is unique/different than everybody else ... a methodology that creates a competitive advantage.

In my case, you come to me because my system is different than what you find elsewhere. No campaigns - annual analytics. If your business is down 10%, somebody might tell you to "be more omnichannel" or to "be social" or to "leverage digital" or "take advantage of Big Data" or "use overlay models from the co-ops". Those are the solutions that work within their system.

I'm going to take a different approach. I'm going to identify issues other people miss ... well intended experts will tell you that they are copying what I'm doing, but they're going to miss a lot of stuff, because they don't run my system. But to be fair, because they have their own system, their own way of doing things, they have the potential to find things I don't find. That's what is great about having your own system - you identify things other people do not identify.

In the next several blog posts, I'm going to talk about my system, my way of doing things. Let's think about how our systems influence how we approach problems. I strongly recommend that you create your own system. Why imitate somebody else? What's the point? You can most certainly borrow from others, picking and choosing what works for you - no problem with that - but ultimately, you need to pioneer your own system. We'll talk about my system over the next several days. You'll think about your system during this series of posts. Sound good?

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