Can you deal with velocity?

Lots of people don't understand the massive rate of change which is occurring within every industry, profession, business model and product / service models.

Here's a neat trick -- go dig out your old marketing textbook, and look at the chapter on product lifecycles.

Sit back and think about just how ridiculously old-fashioned such a concept is.

There are no product lifecycles -- there is just 'agility in time to market.'

Do you have that?

Maybe not. That's why I've come to use the word "velocity" to put this into perspective. When thinking about innovation and the future, and your ability to stay ahead of the innovation curve when it comes to what you do, and how you do it, ask yourself these questions:

• do you know the rate of change -- the velocity of change -- that impacts you, your industry, your products?
  
• are you meeting the requirement for operational excellence that your customers, suppliers, business partners and everyone else expects of you?
  
• are you properly positioned for velocity, in terms of your agility to do things at the pace required?
  
• does your culture support high-velocty change, or are you almost keeling over from organizational sclerosis?
  
• do you have the feedback and innovation mechanisms in place to deal with high-velocity change, and can you learn from them?
  
• are you planning at the leading edge, or are you still reviewing what you were planning last week?
  
• are you evolving markets/products at the pace required, or are your customers marching on because you are stuck in a slow time-to-market rut?
  
• are you at the curve of expectations of customers needs -- do they think you've got the right stuff when it comes to velocity?
  
• are you anticipating customer solutions before they know they need them?
  

Four Sources For Trends And Ideas .....

It seems BusinessWeek has noticed my comments on trends, the future, and innovation. They've posted my blog as one of four sites to check out for insight into trends and ideas....

Welcome!

If you are looking for the sandcastle blog item mentioned in the magazine, it's here.

If you are looking to start at the top, start here.

If you want to see a squirrel that doesn't deal well with change, go here.

Next big home entertainment trend? Dive-in Movies!

We're still having a bit of a stretch of warm weather, and tonight promises to be great.

With the early sunset, it is time for another 'dive-in movie!" -- a unique outdoor experience I've been doing with my family through the summer.

I've got an old set of Logitech 5.1 surround sound speakers strung around the pool with a subwoofer; we place a projection screen on the deck, and hang a big sheet on the patio.

Start the DVD, jump in the pool, grab a floaty thing, and we're off to the movies!

In my "It's In To Be Out!" outdoor trends overview, I suggested that "Gen-Y takes tech outside : The “Nintendo Generation” redefines their outdoor environment through a wide variety of new hi-tech devices that enhance the outdoor experience." That' precisely what we seem to be doing here.

I think the entire concept of the outdoors is set to be transformed as people re-engineer the outside world with the technology and tools that are becoming a part of their daily lives. From iPods in the planters to Wi-Fi to the garden shed, there's a lot of unique technologies that are set to emerge.

I've alerted/warned the neighbors about the movie.

They are very nice and tolerant of the volume, and me.

10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills

There's been a lot of talk about the skills crisis lately. Most of it is focused on the wrong thing -- people seem most worried by the fact that a lot of baby boomers are set to retire, and are taking their skills out of the economy.

That's a big issue, but that's not the big issue.

If an organization is to survive the high-velocity economy, it needs to be doing a lot of innovation with the 10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills:

• skills are more specialized. Rapid knowledge growth means that it is increasingly difficult for people to keep on top of what they need to know. That means people need to specialize; knowledge niches are the reality for most professions and careers. As they specialize, simple supply/demand reduces skills availability, leading to skills inflation. It's going to cost more to get the right specialized skills -- that's a big problem.
  
• skills are disloyal. A recent survey out of Belfast indicated that 36% of people indicated that on their very first day on a new job, they were already thinking about looking for another job! I don't think that's unique to the Irish -- (and I am of Irish descent....) -- I believe that it confirms that a massive philosophical shift towards a "job" and "career" is underway. The death of corporate loyalty means an increasing difficulty to get the right skills.
  
• skills are degradable. The half life of knowledge is decreasing at a furious rate. Most organizations are discovering that the skills they do have are becoming increasingly useless as knowledge obsolesence takes hold. Skills are ready to walk out the door as soon as they arrive -- and if they hang around, their value decreases rather quickly!
  
• skills are renewable: Fortunately, out of date skills can be given new life. if people and companies can develop the ability to generate just-in-time-knowledge -- a phrase I coined over a decade ago -- they'll learn how to adapt and evolve.
  
• some skills have no urgency: The challenge is that a lot of skills don't really worry about the points above. Some professions, and many staff in organizations, simply don't think about the reality of skills extinction as a real trend. They have no desire to upgrade, enhance, or change their capabilities. The lack of urgency leads to a sclerosis that impacts the overall ability of the organization to change, innovate and create.
  
• skills are disposable: The unique thing about skills today is that companies clearly don't need staff anymore -- they simply need the right skills at the right time for the right purpose. After that need has gone, they will need different skills for a different purpose. In the high-velocity economy, the idea of a permanent skills base is a quaint concept from the 20th century.
  
• skills are increasingly portable. That's the good thing we've learned with globalization: with the depth of the emerging skills crisis, it doesn't really matter anymore where the skills are -- as long as you can get them, that's all that counts!
  
• skills can be transferable: the boomer retirement issue is real. Smart organizations are spending big money to ensure that important knowledge is captured, retained and archived.
  
• skills should be experiential. This goes back to my '21st century capital' post: I think that one of the most important assets a company requires is the depth of it's experiential capital -- that is, the knowledge is has learned through innovation, risk, failure and success. Boost that skills capability and you've done something that flows onto the bottom line.
  
• skills are generational: We're going to have a lot of active 80 year olds in the economy as the end of the concept of retirement draws near, at the same time that companies seek skills from bright, knowledge aggressive 15 year olds. We are going to have the longest life-span economy that has ever existed. If we prepare for that culturally and organizationally, we've got a good strong plan for dealing with the skills challenges of the future.
  

Some months back, in an entry I wrote a blog entry on the concept of "21st century capital". One item I included was the concept of capital including a "strong skills accessibility capability", noting that "talent, not money, will be the new corporate battlefront .... "

That's an important battle, and it's going to require a lot of innovation and creativity in terms of solutions.