Beyond LOHAS: Marketing to the other 84%
34 days ago
Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability – LOHAS – is a widely cited acronym that describes a market segment for green products. Unfortunately, the number of people who fall into this set -16% of American adults- is too small to save the world. We need to figure out how to market benevolent products to the other 84% who won’t buy a product simply because its good for the planet.
Many sustainability advances can be done behind the scenes because they provide cost savings that any rational operations person should take advantage of.
But deeper changes require new consumer use behaviors, such as using a Zipcar rather than owning a car outright. Or soaking beans instead of buying them in a can.
For these kinds of products, companies have all-to-often simply focused on those well-meaning, kombucha-drinking Bikram junkies that genuinely get a kick out of helping the planet. But if green businesses just focus on serving the needs of their own, will we ever reach critical mass?
Beyond resource efficiencies and preaching to the choir, what market strategies exist for fast-tracking sustainable business? Or do we need a genuine cultural shift to power the sustainability revolution, such that more people join the LOHAS set? Is there a business opportunity in facilitating such a cultural shift? Obviously I have more questions than answers, but I’ll be on the lookout for green businesses that DON’T rely on LOHAS as their core customer segment.
Serve Customers, Don’t Push Products
42 weeks ago
Only a few paragraphs into reading Peter & Donnelly’s Preface on Marketing Management, I learned something. Marketing is NOT about finding people to buy your widget. The task of a good marketer should begin before a product or service is even designed. We need to start with observation- “What do our customers really need?” If they don’t really need your Acme Widget Pro, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle trying to sell them. It seems that many companies – especially the large, entrenched ones- try to hold on to their existing product line and scheme clever new ways to repackage them.
More nimble and agile firms acknowledge that their offering is only a best current approximation of how to meet a customer need. Patagonia has to do very little advertising because their product so effectively serves a customer need.
In similar fashion, Michael Porter smacks some sense into us with his essay, “What is Strategy?” He reminds us that despite common practice, leadership is not about orchestrating campaigns to make the company operate more efficiently. Business leadership is -first and foremost- about putting a stake in the ground, and clarifying the compelling purpose of the company, and then designing an enduring strategy for how to fulfill that purpose. On the path to meeting that goal, leaders will have to make trade-offs that will either reinforce or weaken the core identity of the company. These are strategic decisions- like IBM selling its PC-manufacturing division to focus on high-level IT consulting.
My gut reaction is that the business-as-usual approach (hustle products and streamline operations) is common because managers are not actually passionate about their work. Many companies do not have a genuinely compelling purpose that employees can really get behind and pour their hearts into. However, this doesn’t mean a box-maker can’t have impassioned employees. Zappos is a model of corporate culture, and they just sell shoes!
My main personal goal at BGI is to clarify my own compelling purpose as an individual- perhaps when more of us are clear about what we really want to do, we’ll create more companies that are clear about why they’re in business!
Listening: the Forgotten Half of Communication
32 months ago
It can be very difficult to express a foreign, not-well-understood viewpoint to a hostile crowd. And yet, it is across such cognitive divides that the most important and needed communication can take place. The common tendencies are to shrink down, and sugar-coat a message, or righteously stand up in defensive fervor. I would argue that neither of these reactions results in increased understanding across the divide.
Perhaps we’re focusing too much on the agency of the speaker, and not enough on the responsibility of the listener.
One speaks much more fluidly and understandably when there is an attentive, engaged listener present. Valuable communication happens when the listener receives an idea, fact, insight or sentiment from the speaker that was a “missing piece” in their own understanding of the world. When the speaker has an insight that would benefit the listener, this is a new connection that “wants to be made.” Does the quality of listening somehow help the speaker navigate toward an expression that makes a new connection for the listener? And does the presence of this unique listener change the self-editing of the speaker such that he may arrive at his own revelations through the process of re-framing his thoughts to be more digestible to his listener?
In the “broadcast” culture (television, movies, etc.) the emphasis of communication was one-way, focusing on the content of the message. In a post-broadcast culture, multi-directional communication (the social web) leads us toward focusing on optimizing our listening as well. Customized content channels like RSS feeds, email list serves, Facebook groups are all tools for tweaking the knobs of what we listen to. The Occupy movement is rooted in a flat communication culture where all voices have the chance to be heard without structural bias. Open innovation and crowd-sourcing are examples of companies sincerely listening to their customers.
The human mind is wired to sift though an overwhelming stream of sensory input to find coherent patterns. The mind then changes its own structure to reflect these patterns. Likewise, deep listening requires us to be truly open to changing our assumptions about the world.
Sometimes its not the content of the words that is the most important message. Perhaps when even listening to someone spout ignorance, we can listen to the texture of the frustration and confusion behind the words.
As we head deeper into the relationship economy (emphasis on the interaction between things, rather that the things themselves) high-quality listening enables mutual value to be created more readily. So perhaps one day a job application may ask about your “intuitive and logical listening skills” rather than your “verbal and written communication skills.”
Does systems thinking fall into a reductionist trap?
42 months ago
Over the past few weeks I’ve been grappling with a tension between the fluid, dynamic, living complexity-rich ecosystem paradigm portrayed by Fritjof Capra and the contained, diagrammatic snapshot models we are being asked to create as part of our systems analysis project at BGI. The idea is to create a neat diagram that maps the flows of a system and shows the reinforcing and balancing feedback loops involved, as well as delays in effect. We define semi-arbitrary boundaries to make our system coherent enough to diagram in a finite manner. We spend a lot of energy trying to fit our system into this format.
This process has been challenging, partially because our team has kept changing our core problem statement. I’m starting to wonder if our inability to choose a simple, discreet problem might actually indicate that we are thinking too systemically. I don’t necessarily think that problems are the only filter to use when attempting to make meaning through system mapping. When we cut boundaries off, and over-simplify issues for the sake of making a neat map, I worry that we are repeating the old habit of dissecting parts, and thus changing the picture of the whole. I worry that we are looking at systems from a linear-reductionist vantage point. We’re trying to make them fit into something finite and understandable. I thought the main insight of the systems approach was to maintain the full, rich complexity of the system as much as possible. Perhaps the complexity threshold is set low because it’s our first foray into systems dynamics.
And thats ok. Its understandable. The whole-systems approach is a relatively young entrant into the formal academic framework.
When we choose to put something outside the boundary of the system, this is by nature a reductionist process. And at the same time I realize that we can’t infinitely gaze into infinity, trying to understand all the relationships. In some ways what I’m getting at is an issue of cognitive capacity. Computers can analyze data, but the human mind is uniquely capable of noticing patterns in the world. Our data-input ability (i.e. the five senses) is finite, and our time time ponder and analyze those patterns is also finite. So I’m wondering if we should spend less time creating maps, and spend more time simply observing and allowing new data and patterns to integrate.
Donella Meadows says the highest leverage point in a system is not just a paradigm shift, but transcending the need for a paradigm all together. What is a paradigm if not a map of the universe? So is it possible to use the systems approach without having to create maps that will be outdated as soon as they are written? How can we hold more information, relationships, and patterns in our mind without committing them to a final place on a contrived map? How can we experience systems more natively without the intermediary of a cognitive crutch?
Public vs. Private sectors- a False Dichotomy?
22 months ago
The debate about the balance of influence between the private and public sectors is very prominent right now. The Tea Party wants less government, Occupy Wall Street wants less corporate profiteering. But is this dichotomy a complete picture of the choices available?
The tension between the individual and the collective is archetypal; it takes form all around us- from teenagers expressing their independence to fish seeking shelter in a school. More often than not, there is never a clear winner for long, but rather systems fluctuate between the safety of the collective and the freedom of self-actualization.
In economics, the question is around how much action the government should take in matters of economic growth- bailouts, economic stimulus, etc. Mostly these are all different flavors of the same tactic- increasing the money supply. Keynesian economists say that the government can fix a recession by pumping cash into the economy, and thereby getting people spending again. Classical economists say the government should just let the market self-correct, and let the private sector do what it does best. But are these the only to options on the table? I don’t feel like either of those models are comprehensive enough, nor do they have any heart or vision behind them.
In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of “The Third Sector” – civil society, yes, but also an emerging class of social ventures:hybrid organizations with the heart of an NGO and the rigor of a business. Social enterprises are proving that there is a business model for solving social needs.
Big companies are finding that the Millenial Generation favors employers who are doing something meaningful in the world. More and more, companies are beginning to see the multiple crises facing humanity less as the governments’ problem, and more as chances to roll up their own sleeves and get to work, and earn an honest buck.
The role of the government is beginning to morph in the digital era. Before computers, broadcast media was a one-way conversation, but now people can easily get their voice out onto the communication commons. The internet allows us to think seriously about the future of government- is direct democracy possible? Voters in San Francisco are beginning to have more active voice in granular budget decisions. Iceland crowdsourced their new constitution, co-creating the document with its citizens over Facebook. Might these be early steps toward a government that is more agile- more of an institution whose purpose is to create mutual benefit rather than mutual compromise?
I’m interested less in how much money should go into the government or big companies, and more interested in the spaces between these institutions. How might wealthy people look at their taxes and their investments as one in the same? Are there more effective forms of organization beyond our traditional sense of public and private interests?
Lets move beyond this stalemate, outside our comfort zone and start building the future we all hope for.
