Jeremy Gutsche – Exploiting Chaos and Seizing Opportunity

Posted by Kevin Boon. Follow me on Twitter.

Last week I had the opportunity to hear Seth Godin and Jeremy Gutsche talk at the Communitech Leadership conference in Waterloo Ontario.

Here are some highlights which I have divided into two parts.

Part 1 - Exploiting Chaos and Seizing Opportunity

Jeremy Gutsche is the CEO and Founder of Trendhunter.com, the world’s largest community for trend spotting, ideas, creativity and innovation. Jeremy started by saying the main challenge for consumers and businesses is how we learn to manage and make sense of all the chatter and noise on the web.

He says inspiration has become distracting and the noise too much.

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

In order to compete effectively companies need to find ways to rise above the noise with innovative messaging, a better understanding the customer and a willingness to take risks. Jeremy touched on what he calls adaptive innovation where he says the Internet and social media have changed the rules for customer engagement. Today creating culture is the best way to attract customers and says when planning your business, culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Risk is Good

He encourages companies to let go of rigid controls that hinder innovation and develop more of a gambling philosophy. This worked for the BBC as they struggled for years with rigid controls when they took a risk and produced the hit TV show, the Office.

Jeremy says learning to fail is a good and his motto win like you are used to it and lose like you enjoy it!

Success Leads to Complacency

He used the analogy of Smith Corona who in 1989 sold $500 million in typewriters and by 1995 were bankrupt after being unwilling to adapt to consumer demands and opportunities for new technologies (like computers).

He says, success leads to complacency and encourages companies to talk with customers, listen and be open to the complete possibility of what could be.

Supercharging your Message for Results that Creates Impact

When marketing for the web he says create a message that is simple, direct and supercharged. When Sarah Palin was running for Vice President, one simple change from Female Vice Presidents to Hot Vice Presidents garnered a million more hits to his website. Another was for a hamburger franchise, Fleurburger who took the term the world’s most expensive hamburger and supercharged their message to the $5000 hamburger resulting in increased hits.

Observations

I came away from this presentation with a feeling that every rule I ever learned about business has changed forever. The Internet and New Media are like the Wild West, everybody's carrying a six shooter and who knows going to live, die or take all the gold.

How we attract business will require creativity, innovative thinking and leadership from all levels within an organization. These are exciting times and an opportunity for average people and companies to create incredible wealth and rise way above the noise...

I will leave you with a video from Jeremy’s website.

Next Post: Seth Godin and the 21st Century Industrial Revolution.

Comments

[Debra]

Sounds like there were lots of interesting, thought inspiring nuggets to take away from the conference, Kevin. Good stuff.

My favorite line; Jeremy's motto:
"Win like you're used to it and lose like you enjoy it."

For me this says winning is a given. We deserve it. It happens so often it's natural. We expect it as much as the sun rising each day. We can count on it.

And losing? It's cause for celebration. We enjoy it because it tells us volumes. It's an informer. It's message is prophetic in that it is the telling of one end that sparks the birth of another new, shinier, more evolved beginning. Losing is our opportunity to grow, get bigger, get better...become even more of who we are...reach even higher for our greatest potential.

Funny that we call it losing. There's nothing to lose. It's all about perspective!

Transforming a loss into a win...now that's when it gets really gooood.

Thanks Kevin.

I'm looking forward to your post about what Seth Godin had to share. He's one of my all time favorites. He just keeps getting better; Tribes, his latest book resonated so right on for me.

Did he talk about Tribes? :0) OK...I'll wait for the next post!

In Harmony...Debra
(@debsoul on Twitter)

[SpiritintheVillage]

Thanks Debra...

Both talks were exciting and touched on common themes about too much noise, getting beyond the clutter and taking risks.

And yes Seth did talk about Tribes. I'm reading it now.
Kevin