Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ellen Di Resta on December 23, 2008 at 11:23pm

Alex this is great! I'm going off the grid while traveling for the Holidays, but have printed this out and will bring along! I'll input my markups and other thoughts when I return. Have a happy!!

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on December 23, 2008 at 11:37pm

Thanks Ellen. Looking forward to the inputs of an "early adopter" of the hub ;-) Wish you wonderful Holidays!

Permalink Reply by Alan Smith on December 23, 2008 at 11:53pm

The first impressions:


DISLIKES:
The personas. They are friendly and nice background, but I question if they're needed. Do they limit the audience of the book? Do they alienate more than they connect?
Wishes the "outlined content" on pages 11,13,15 was included with this chunk.

LIKES:
Really like that it's friendly and approachable overall.
The "Why Bother" is key for anyone who didn't buy the book themselves or already know about the work. Very good start.
Also enjoying that some thinking as to the hierarchy of the text/messaging has been given, as well as first stabs at images, and gives a basic feel for how this stuff will work.

THREE PIECE STRUCTURE:
Great!! Want to see more of each piece. Although Design+Patterns seem somewhat similar. That some of this content has yet to be outlined may contribute to this. How does it wrap?

CHANCES FOR SUCCESS BASED ON THIS OUTLINE:
As an outline, it makes me want access to the rest. Now. That's a good sign! If the rest of the chunks can deliver more solid content and exercises that readers easily understand and put to work, it will have the raw material to be a success. Many more factors such as the design, marketing, promotion, and ongoing value proposition will have to be met too, but I think it's well on its way!

Best,
-Alan

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on December 24, 2008 at 12:16am

Alan, thanks for the precise content. Indeed, we should have added the content structure on pages 11, 13, 15. It's something we can add before tackling the 2nd chunk!

The personas are up for discussion. I am trying to find a way to show that business model innovation is an important topic today by making it concrete...

As to Design & Patterns, I think a more detailed outline of the content will make the difference clearer.

Great input. Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Peter Froberg on December 24, 2008 at 12:02am

HI Alex
Procrastinating before gift wrapping, thought I would give you my 2 cents

I love the design feel of the layout. I am a big fan of presentation zen and it seems that you guys are working in that direction, yet with “a business feel”.

A couple of things that stuck to my mind

1 The personas in the beginning
If they are real people, fill in with facts, if not- find real people. Personally i think it would make the case more appealing.

2 The Canvas
I really like the small symbols that illustrate the different fields. Personally i would really like to have colours, to illustrate the different areas. A bit in the same way that De Bono uses colours on the “six thinking hats”. I don’t care much for his methodology, but i love the way he illustrates a concept with colours and the symbol of a hat .

Maybe the value proposition box could be smaller. this would leave more room for the 4 surrounding boxes. The value proposition is usually only one or two post it’s

good stuff, have fun with the next chunks

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on December 24, 2008 at 12:19am

Peter, I agree with you on the personas. They are still up for discussion as I mentioned previously to Alan. When we get to the design we will also take into account the colors.

Thanks for the rapid input and enjoy the gift wrapping!

Permalink Reply by Steven Devijver on December 24, 2008 at 12:34am

Alex,

First quick remarks:

1) I think the two people at the start have to be real. It they're not real stories there's nothing emotional to learn from them. Stories are meant to feel the choice that is made. Also, there isn't really a choice in these two sections so there's not even stories.

2) they "why would he work with you?" question in the value proposition box on the canvas doesn't seem to belong there. First of all it's an emotional question (why) - not a cognitive one - which only that customer can answer. It's also the only emotional question on the entire canvas. Secondly, I argue the entire business model should be convincing, not just the value proposition.

I'll be back with more later.

Steven

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on December 24, 2008 at 12:40am

Steven, thanks for these first rapid inputs!

Permalink Reply by Steven Devijver on December 24, 2008 at 12:47am

Alex,

About the iPod business model, it seems to me the "Apple brand" does not belong in key resources. A brand generates an emotional response and I don't like to think about an emotional response as a resource. It seems the "Apple brand" belongs in the customer relationships box, depending what you mean with relationship. If it's a relationship between a person (customer) and a company it's the worst kind of relationship any person can have. If the "Apple brand" stands for certain Apple people - which it doesn't - then it could go under customer relationships.

It's clearly an emotional response - a value that gives meaning to buying and owning an iPod - and it's not a resource (to me at least) so somehow does seem to fit in the customer relationship box, however strange it feels. I think there's something going on with the "customer relationships" box. Does it refer people who can't seem to stop themselves from buying an iPod. Or does it refer to customer service?

I think I'm confused now. What do you think Alex?

Steven

Permalink Reply by Mike Lachapelle on December 24, 2008 at 4:14am

Hi Steven

Though I agree with you that brand is key to relationship management. It is critical to differentiaing your business and can be influenced by all the interactions with customers. However, I also see that your brand identity can be a key, intangible resource. The brand can be used to pre-position new products and is a resource used in marketing and communications activities. A strong brand identity can be a building block for a lot development activities.

Permalink Reply by Steven Devijver on December 24, 2008 at 1:25pm

Hey Mike,

I thought about this some more and I'm now convinced that the title of the "customer relationships" box is misleading, or rather irrelevant. I propose a new (working) name: "emotional".

People ask the same thing about every business model: why? And when people ask why they're expecting an emotional answer. A business model can't therefore be all formal and descriptive. It also need to contain an emotional component and for me what's now called "customer relationships" should be that answer. The value proposition can entice emotional reactions too, but it might also be "dig a new coal mine".

Again, looking at a brand as a resource really doesn't make any sense to me. What you're talking about are emotional responses people have to Apple or Google or BMW or GM. I think it's important to have a formalized canvas structure where similar things always go in the same place. That's why I suggest to put brand under "emotional", even though some people might think of it as a resource. But what are positive, activating emotional reactions to your brand? They're of course a "resource". But what if the response to a brand is negative? Is it a resource too?

The "emotional" box is the place where people can stick in all the emotional stuff: the good and the bad. At least, that's what makes the most sense to me. And by calling it emotional it can contain more than "customer relationships", but also stories, values you want to talk about, people, leaders, personal relationships, ... .

Steven

Permalink Reply by Mike Lachapelle on December 24, 2008 at 2:30pm

Nice

Your perspective on the 'emotional' factor of relationships with the customer can be critical to success, no argument. However, I don't agree CRM is tightly coupled to the emotional component of brand identification. It is broader than that, so I can't support the idea of renaming the component.

The innovation level of discussions tend to see things at a high, if you will, strategic level. However, in my very humble opinion, the meat of the relationship component is in the mechanisms one uses to manage that relationship. It's not just about the type of relationship you have with the customers, more importantly, it's about how you build and maintain that relationship.

In my current project the deparment of the federal government I am working with has a complex set of relationships with other departments. One component of the CRM is 'brand' identification of services provided by my department (unfortunately not too good right now). The more important struggle is to ensure the mechanisms for assessing and managing the relationship are in place at multiple levels of the business as a platform to improve the relationship and its management.

This is where the ontology has its greatest strength, I believe. The nine components provide an extraordinary view of the business, but driving down through each of the component's levels of extraction provides a way to focus discussions to help understand the intricacies of the business and better position the management for the innovation discussion. Gary Hamel (The Future of Management) use a phrase I like very much - the pre-adaptve phase. Understanding the business' mechanisms for CRM is likened to the pre-adaptive phase for change.

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