Audio and Notes from On-Line MVP Clinic Oct 23-2013 on Social Software

John Smith and I did an MVP Clinic for Social and Community Apps on Oct 23. We took notes live in a PrimaryPad (an EtherPad derivative application). What follows is a cleaned up version of notes that we took and the audience contributed to. You can see MVP Clinic for Social/Community Apps Wed Oct 23 for more background information.

Or download directly from http://traffic.libsyn.com/skmurphy/MVPClinic131023.mp3

Terry Frazier is Principal and Senior Competitive Analyst at Cognovis Group. He has been studying, writing about, and consulting on competitive and industry issues since 1998. His work has been used by both Fortune 1000 businesses and international analyst firms. Today he writes at http://CompetitiveThinking.com. He offered the following as background for the discussion:

• Situation: I am working on a structured service/educational offering to create lasting competitive advantage and reduce competitive risk for the mid-size enterprise. The offering takes proven principles and techniques that have been used for decades by the Fortune 500 and packages them into what I call the Competitive Management Process which makes them accessible, affordable, and attractive for smaller companies.
• Challenge: The best source of competitive information any company has is its own middle management and field staff. Yet very few companies have any structure for harnessing and directing this resource, much less channeling it into long-term competitive advantage. In most companies competitive strategy and competitive decision making are deemed to be the sole responsibility of senior (usually C-level) management. There is reluctance, on both sides, to engage lower-level managers and staff in an ongoing collaboration that challenges assumptions and feeds real-world perspective into the process. This barrier to meaningful ongoing exchange is something I need to overcome with almost every prospect.

Notes on Terry’s Discussion Plus Audience Questions

Change within a company required to use competitive tools. Technology as enabler and hindrance to improved competitiveness? Two kinds of tools:

• technology for data collection, feeds, screen scraping, etc
• conversation for contextualizing, sense-making (the challenging.part; Human intelligence is lacking. )

Sean: companies see it too much as a data/technology problem, not enough as a conversation, inquiry problem Lack of structure in conversation is a problem so “war games” strategy helps organize thinking. Role-playing in a game forces people to adopt a perspective. Example: Michelin Run Flat tire failure due to channel / ecosystem from “Wide Lens” by Ron Adner Key hypotheses –

• How can I explain to firms what effective competitive intelligence looks like?
• What is the smallest possible intervention (a taste of the experience)?

Q: how can you spend time with key personnel (who are the important actors in the marketplace in the company: suppliers, regulators, customers)

Q: What are instances of effective action / positive deviants already in place you could use as acorns or seedlings?

• Where is this already working?
• Are there existing meetings or teams you can focus on for insertion?
• General pattern not available: so start looking at an individual company to pursue the seedlings to learn about the conversations that exist.

Terry has been looking at existing forums: sales managers (line level up to senior VP of sales). Have not located online watering holes where such people meet. No clear titles / water holes – need an existence proof.

Q: this is a key hypothesis to test – where are some aspects of these conversations already taking place? For example industry organizations or executive offsites. 

Q:  Is the question how to find the prospects? Or how to convince them they need field level competitive data? What are the tools for gathering the field managers’ perspective?

• Yes: find the prospects (previous work based on job titles, which is not quite the criterion Terry wants). prospect needs to be influencer not so much decider.
• Yes: convince them that they need this.
• Launching a new product into a new or adjacent market (with a 70% failure rate)

Terry: Fancy tools not needed for this. E-mail and blogs are enough. Finding perspectives and the people who hold them is the challenge.

Q: Find out the response to the explainer videos.

Q: Sounds like the war games process is the situation when Terry gets to harvest understandings from people across the organization? I wonder how this process might become the basis for a more ongoing conversation?

Q: Consider inviting people from outside the organization as participants in the gaming.

John: In consulting knowledge transfer is often the “afterthought” sacrificed at the end of a project. Companies need to internalize the skills to have these conversations.

Q: Is the question how to find the prospects? Or how to convince them they need field level competitive data? What are the tools for gathering the field managers’ perspective?

Q: Have you considered a short “explainer” video?
Terry: Yes, please see http://competitivethinking.com/

Q: Sounds like the war games process is the situation when Terry gets to harvest understandings from people across the organization? I wonder how this process might become the basis for a more ongoing conversation? It seems like there are community-building techniques that might be woven into Terry’s existing process…

Dixie Griffin Good is director of Shambhala Online, a global learning community connected by the meditation teachings of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. For 15 years she consulted with local, state and national education organizations on the educational use of technology. She has a masters in Future Studies and enjoys managing and studying change processes.

• Situation: We’re developing a series of online courses that I’d market beyond the Shambhala to broader communities
  • The Product: Way of Shambhala Online courses, 8 courses; 5 to 6 weeks long
  • Meditation In Everyday Life, Contentment IEL, Joy IEL, Fearlessness IEL, Wisdom IEL
  • Basic Goodness Series (3 courses).
• Challenge: Marketing beyond our organization — going out.
• Context: Shambhala and shambhala online. http://shambhalaonline.org/ many centers of various sizes.
  • Undercapitalized–like many startups.
  • Offering live webinars to online courses beyond.
  • 12,000 members 200 centers or groups

Key hypotheses or criteria.

• ID Most likely courses (what are the door openers)? Dixie: mediation in everyday life
• experiment: live event free and recording for a price?
• Local centers offer the same courses live – so almost competitors
• What’s the synergy between the local centers and Shambhala Online?
  • Online as Gateway to local center?
  • Criterion: “how far from a local center do you live?” establishing more centers and more members as a desired outcome.
• Goals/impacts for Shambhala Online going forward:
  • income
  • synergy with local centers
  • more interest/ signups for advanced programs
• Assets:
  • reputation
  • local centers
  • alumni?

Notes on Dixie’s Discussion Plus Audience Questions

John: is Shambhala Online as a “smart pipe” for delivery or does it contribute to content creation?

• Could it be an asset for teachers / experts / masters ?
• deliver feedback on audience reaction to talks?

Sean: consider flipped classroom model: basic tools are available, but face-to-face plays its role. What is the relationship with local centers: how do you create as much synergy as possible and minimize competitive overlap?

John: Who is the voice or carrier on Facebook? who looking for? Role of local centers? minimize conflict or maximize collaboration / mutual support. Dixie’s strategies:

• Newsletter not just for upcoming programs
• Meeting of center and group leaders (use 10 minutes to inform and enlist support)
• Advertising  template carries message

Sean: look beyond “spiritual” aspirations to determine real pain/need. Can you discern patterns in who’s attracted, stage of life, other characteristics.

Current demographic skewed toward elders but  target market is younger professional people in their 30’s or earlier.

Centers on college campuses? May need to use intermediate generations. Look at new members in last 2-3 years.

John: mechanism talk re Facebook is important, but the important stuff is prior experience in growing a community with 12,000 members.

Sean: 12-step programs are worth focusing on if they are currently a source of folks interested in mindfulness and meditation today.

Q: maybe instead of “war games” in Dixie’s context, situation , the metaphor might be “scenario planning”

Greg Heffron (Technology Leader, Shambhala Online): We’ve been looking into Facebook marketing. I’m curious if others have used FB marketing to expand into new markets.

Dixie: great idea about understanding the data we already have. I’ll make a point of searching our database for demographic info on recent members.

General debrief from both sessions in MVP Clinic

• John: time required?
• Terry: like format, conversational style. useful to hear questions
• It’s hard because the early MVP phase is very much about sense-making in a fog, so things tend to ramble a little bit
• Dixie: surprised that these ideas hadn’t occurred to me before. Very different perspectives. appreciating the questions.
• Dixie: visual thinker: would appreciate faces, diagrams, drawings.
• Sean: MVP conversation is inherently tentative and entrepreneurs are at a loss for words. Can’t just calculate the derivative of a formula to find the answer.
• to audience – if you want to take part let us know
• consider a repeat session with Terry and Dixie: what have you learned in the last 90 days?

My key take-away from the session: when you are in the middle of defining your MVP things are often very confused. It’s not immediately obvious what insights are valuable. Just because you are wandering around trying to map  a new market does not mean you are lost.

You have a lot of conversations that are tentative and exploratory and you often find yourself at a loss for words. And that’s why we tried this format as a way to walk around the issues. There is not a simple formula for moving from point A to point B with a new product. I thought the session captured the process of groping toward insight.