As many of you know, I am a Seth Godin fan. Nicholas Bate has similar thoughts. His blog on Jagged Thoughts certainly hits home.
In a me-too industry like telecom (and now cloud), where there are 1000 companies offering VoIP, what is the bare minimum you have to do as a company to survive 2013?
For me, "focus on people, purpose and possibilities." "Fresh ideas are vital." You have to encourage a culture of new ideas, where employees aren't punished for offering new ideas. That punishment can include rejection of the idea; ignoring the idea; or piling on work to the idea generator. Most employees are looking for recognition and a pat on the back.
"Creativity appears in the gaps between busyness." Employees need some quiet (non-busy) time in order to come up with ideas.
Why do you need ideas? "What everybody else is doing is the least of what you might consider doing." Their is a baseline of minimum requirements. After that, you need differentiation. What makes you stand out? Your employees have a unique viewpoint on this, so ask them.
Bates writes, "Chase the edges: it's where interesting things are happening." Chris Anderson wrote the Long Tail. It's about verticals, silos, niches. It's too expensive to race to the middle.
You need to be flexible to.
Comcast needs tens of millions. The RBOCs need tens of millions. Everyone else just needs tens of thousands. (The rule of two thousand like M5). Those are the edges. You can thrive at the edges.
