Tag: startups

Change the currency

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I heard a great little story today about how to overcome barriers when pitching business, changing minds or influencing in general.

Changing worldviews is hard, often impossible. But there are two possible routes we can take when trying:

Route (A) We can try and change peoples view on a topic- change the unchangeable.

Route (B) We can change the currency. – This route is invariably more successful because it re-directs peoples perspective.

Car sales people do it all the time. Once the negotiation is close to reaching a stale mate on price, they then bring in the optional extras: Items removed from price. Although they do have a value, it changes the view point of the negotiation. It’s a change in currency. And the discussions can progress to a close.

When trying to reach an agreement, or change a mindset, we need to re-invent the currency of what is being discussed.

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Loyalty Schemes Vs Gamification

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In many ways Gamification is an evolution of the long lived Loyalty Scheme. But so much better, and the evidence exists even at the simplest level – the words themselves.

Loyalty Scheme: Firstly the word loyalty seems very one way. It was / is as if the company expects us to be loyal to them. And although one might argue that loyalty is a two way street, the second word of the phrase is the giveaway – ‘Scheme’. Yep, sounds like some kind of a trick to me. A scheme to make us believe we are getting a good deal, when in truth we are just a number on some kind of cost / benefit analysis spreadsheet. Intuitively, schemes feel like there is a winner and a loser.

Gamificiation: Games are fun. We spend most of our childhood playing them and find as many excuses as possible to play them as adults. ‘Who wants to come to the football this Friday night?’ A game needs at least two willing parties or organisations to play. Sometimes we can collaborate and form teams and clubs and divisions and theme songs and have awards nights and weekend getaways. We can celebrate wins together and lament the losses, either way we like to return to the game and try and win, or even better our own score, although it’s collaborative, it’s also personal. The game is the ‘thing’, not the result of it. Games contrive all of the important human emotions that make our hearts beat.

Play is human. Great games even turn into industries.

Yep, it feels to me that gamification facilitated via Moore’s law is here to stay.

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Bees can't fly

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

A popular story in science folklore is that the aerodynamics of bees suggest that they should not be able to fly. It was hotly debated in at a time when human flight via aircraft was being mastered (around the 1930’s). Because physicists and aerodynamic specialists had started to develop theory of ‘predictable flight’ with machinery, they believed their knowledge applied to all forms of flight.

(Hand drawn by Sarah Cameron)

Of course bees do fly. A bee is very small. And, at that size, air acts as a much more viscous fluid than it does for airplanes and helicopters. So the laws of aerodynamics are quite different for bees and other insects. But it took some time before this was understood and that new theoretical models were developed relative to the size of the thing of flight.

The point for entrepreneurs is important, especially at a time when technology is challenging existing business models. So the next time someone tries to put the kybosh on your new idea or startup remember that based on yesterdays knowledge, bees can’t fly.

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The art of pitching

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I had a catch up with a well known pitch doctor yesterday. He reminded me of some of the most important factors, and regular mistakes we make while pitching.

Biggest mistake: Wasting time talking about ourselves. They already know enough about us, or they wouldn’t be in the room. The right amount of time to allocate talking about ourselves is close to zero.

Biggest Opportunity: Leave some questions unanswered. (counter intuitive I know) This creates the opportunity for real conversation. When we converse, we see how each party thinks. It also enables us to determine if we have the right chemistry to work together.

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The rate of change

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Yesterday I was reading through the business and tech sections of the huffington post. There were so many new stories on new business ideas, new technology, upcoming research, recently funded startups, and product launches from tech giants that I had to stop and take a breath. I realised that there is no possible way to keep up with everything happening in the business world. It was a bit deflating to read it all. I felt out of touch.

With exponential change happening we’ve got to stop trying to keep up. It’s a waste of time. Instead we need to remember no one is responsible for all this innovation, and the only way to be part of any of it, is by focusing on the tiny segment which is right in front of us.

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The human movement, movement

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I was really impressed by how some of the smarter Skiing resort operators are using GEO-locating to enable a deep interaction with their customers. What some of the resorts have done is used their new electronic ski lift tagging systems as a social engagement tool. Skiers can register on-line via the resorts facebook page so they can compare how many kilometers, ski runs, hours they do on the mountain for the day, week season and compete amongst friends. It’s even got a nice gaming element to it. It’s a nice iteration taking ideas from the likes of run keeper. You can read more here about what ski resorts are doing to tech-up.

The thing that is clear to me is that there is a human movement, movement. It’s so much more than companies being able to track what people are doing, it’s actually about companies creating forums where we can actually track ourselves. So we can know more about ourselves and change the way we move and interact with others and personally. It takes away the privacy concerns, and moves us into a space where we co-opt information sharing for mutual benefit.

The question entreprneurs and marketers should be thinking about is, how can we help our people track their movement to get more out of when they move. It’s only just the start.

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