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A Thought Over Coffee... With A Lawyer

One of my favorite "blogs of the minute" is Jason Duncans "A Thought Over Coffee":

"Follow me through my journey towards opening Cafe Evoke. From my final semester at Belmont University in Nashville, TN to opening day in Bozeman, MT I will share my expirences with writing the business plan, doing the research, and opening the cafe."

In amongst the commentary on the fun and games that are taking place as he attempts to establish his new cafe (Evoke), Jason offers lots of great quotes, lessons and other cool links.  Today he pointed me to this article on Jeffrey Hughes:

Thirsty for justice? Jeffrey Hughes' two Legal Grind cafes in the Los Angeles area offer "Coffee and Counsel" to those who may not otherwise seek legal advice. Through his innovative venture, Hughes has worked hard to both provide a valuable service to his community and change the public perception of attorneys.

It's Starbucks meets LA Law, and it's great stuff:

Over a dozen lawyers work out of Legal Grind on various days, generally between 3 and 6 p.m. For example, on the first and third Monday of every month, attorney Michael Goldstein offers a $25 "Coffee and Counsel" session on employment rights, worker's compensation, wrongful termination, sexual harassment, personal injury and civil/business disputes between 5 and 6 p.m. Another lawyer simultaneously offers advice on landlord/tenant disputes, auto accidents, restraining orders and small claims.

During the day, before the various experts come in, people can use the document preparation service, pop in to get something notarized or drink coffee while browsing the self-help books on the shelves, including "Your Divorce Advisor."

Coffee.  His point of difference is as simple as coffee, good coffee of course:

"We don't want to serve bad espresso, because then people will think we'll screw up their divorce"

It's a great story and is another example of what can happen when you really think about what your customers would really like from you, and it is almost an example of how Chris Carfi's "Transaction to Community" model works.

I don't know that you can ever feel like you are part of a lawyer's community, but at Legal Grind it is about as good as it is going to get.

Why don't we have Big Ideas anymore?

Why don't we have any big idea's anymore?

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Einsteins theory of relativity.  And 1905 was a big year for ideas, says Peter Watson in the Observer- Matisse and Cezanne were at their peak, Lenin, EM Forster and Freud were all publishing seminal works, and the first regular cinemas opened.  In the face of such change, the year 2005 "can't begin to compete with 1905 in terms of important innovations."

Hmm.  We probably try to kid ourselves otherwise, but I kinda agree with Watson when he says that our present world is "nowhere near as interesting and innovative" as it thinks, especially when compared with past ages.  A view that is confirmed probably because I am currently reading Bill Bryson's excellent "A Short History of Nearly Everything" in which every page is full of discovery and great idea's.  It is an incredible read that reinforces how amazing some of our early thinkers like Einstein were.

Sure, we might have all of our new mobile phones, iPods, internet and DNA advances, but do these things fundamentally change the way we think?  Think about it.  Not really.

As Watson suggests, just stop and think about some of the real innovations of the past; the introduction of crop rotation, the adoption of Hindu numerals, the introduction of the factory and the steam engine and the theory of evolution.  But since 1950, what have we got?  Well,  only the pill and the internet are or comparative importance. 

Maybe it is simply a quirk of modern capitalism, we all get to "sample the fruits of earlier innovation" so we don't do much of it ourselves anymore.  We just don't see the need to

Without a doubt these are fast moving, ever changing and very interesting times, but they don't seem to be the times of big ideas.

Thoughts?

Where are all the Australian Entrepreneurs?

An excellent question is posed by Stephen Mayne in the weeks Reader, about why Australian has so few successful young companies:

"Australia is a relatively young country, so why is it that so many of our biggest and best companies are so old?  A quick look at the top 20 Australian public companies reveals lots of old incumbent players like Coles Myer, the Big Four Banks, Telstra, BHP, AMP and Foster's- all of which have been around for decades- and hardly any new ones."

That is a very true observation; Australia doesn't have any new corporate champions coming through. 

I reckon that we (Australians, our Governments and other regulators) have made it too hard for all of our budding entrepreneurs to shake off the bad smell left behind by the rouges of the 1980's like Alan Bond, Christopher Skase and Jack Elliott.    We don't like corporate risk takers in this country any more.  We are adverse to risk, and don't have a culture that readily accepts that failure is all part of the game, part of trying, part of learning.

And of course we have turned chopping down "tall poppies" into a national sport.  A sport at which we (shamefully) excel.

In the US if you go broke having "a go" you don't seem to cope the same level of condemnation as you do here in Australia.  They have a far greater tolerance for things like bankruptcy and business failure.So is it any wonder that the US has produced billionaires from booming companies like Yahoo, Google, Dell and eBay.  And we have... well, not much.  Except for a few infrastructure companies with Government contracts, Child Care centres that rely on Government subsidies and airlines and telco's that make bucks because they operate in cosy little duopolies.

Add to that the barriers for entry into many of our growth areas are too high, and the level of Government support and encouragement for our genuinely innovative risk takers and innovators is too low. 

You are better off just getting a nice, secure job with one of the big, old, unoriginal companies.

The Great Oral-B Sampling Campaign

I pick up the Herald Sun each morning on my way to work.  I toss the Indian bloke in the 7-11 a dollar coin and off I go.  But this morning he made me stop and gave me 50c back....He uttered something about a mini-tooth wiper thingy being inside. 

Hmm.  Apparently, Gillette, which is in the process of merging with Proctor & Gamble to create the world's biggest consumer products company, came up with the idea of spending several million dollars on Australia's biggest ever single day sampling exercise by funding a halving of the cover price of papers including the Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser.  That gives them a reach of more than 2 million people, who all got a sample an Oral B mini tooth wiper.

As Stephen Mayne at Crikey said today, "I never imagined buying a dead tree splattered with filthy ink and then taking something out of it and cleaning my teeth, but it happened this morning."  Sure did.

They are an innovative lot over at Gillette.

When they launched Mach 3 in Sydney, everyone who went through the Sydney Harbour Bridge toll for a day was paid for by Gillette, resulting in a stack of press coverage. More recently they painted a Virgin jet to look like a razor to promote the launch of a new power shaver.

Why do this?  It is a fact that internet and viral marketing is on the rise as television and newspapers decline, prompting the marketeer to try more and more crazy concepts to stay in the game with the big-spending global consumer giants.

A Wake on Wheels

Remember Seth's little gem from last last week:

"Figure what the always is. Then do something else"

OK, let's apply that to a funeral: 

Once the church ceremony is completed, the mourners follow a hearse from the chapel to the cemetery in their cars. Because it is impossible for the whole family to ride in the hearse, and to have one last trip with their loved one, they too, jump into the motorcade.  And off they all go,  lights ablaze, four  mourners per car.  Then they all file out to attend the graveside service, and jump back in their cars, and off to the wake.

That is what always happens.  So an enterprising Australian funeral house (Tobin Brothers) has decided to do something different.

They have built a family funeral bus.

It will cater for up to a dozen mourners, who will be able to pile into the bus, fire up the DVD player, crack open the mini-bar, or have coffee and biscuits as they travel to the cemetery in style.

The bus' interior took four months to transform and features soft lighting, chrome handrails, tinted windows, pop-out cup holders and plush upholstery with leathers seats for the mourners.  They will be able to choose everything from what is stocked in the bar fridge, which DVD is screened to what is heated in the Microwave (no cremation jokes please) and whether the tinted screen between to family and the coffin is up or down.

They spent A$200 000 on the bus, and hope that it will help them keep up with the trend towards choice and more personalised funeral services.

Different.  Innovative.  Unique.

Well done.

Doing the Always

This from Seth Godin:

Figure what the always is. Then do something else.

Toothpaste always comes in a squeezable tube.
Business travelers always use a travel agent.
Politicians always have their staff screen their calls.

Figure out what the always is, then do exactly the opposite. Do the never.

Nice.  Simple.  Clever.  As usual from Seth.

Innovation through Acquisition (2)

Engineer2Entreprenuer has a post talking about the trend towards Lazy Big Co. buying innovation from Fast-Smart Little Co, and offers this idea:

"Something that could help those big sterile companies is to support incubators so people with ideas can get together and try to make something new. They would take on the role of angel investors or VCs but they could also or instead provide office space in underused building and some of their salvage equipment that still works, old desks, chairs and the like."

Will never happen though....makes far too much sense.  Fancy making something new when you can just acquire a company that has something new and bolt it on (and then sit back and watch it fail).

The Boss 101

In last weeks (excellent edition) Australian Financial Review's Boss magazine they published a list (I know!) of 101 ideas; a sort of collection of snippnets they have gleaned from interviewing and profiling different leaders and thinker over the last five years (from Peters to Porter, Branson to Walton).

Here are some of my favorites:

• Tradition Sucks.  Look at the success of screw-top wine bottles.  Why spend time and money doing things the old fashioned way when modern technology can make things functional and stylish
• Plain Talk
• Obesity.  Fat clothes, fat leisure, airline seats for fat people. There's a market out there for those savvy enought to cater for the growing population (ahem) in prosperous countries who eschew the equally buoyant market in diets and wellness
• Water Engineering.  Desperately seeking more H2O, we'll also be keen on new technical answers
• Simplicity.  As Albert Einstein said (and I love this quote): "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
• Gossip.  There's a lot of it about as work becomes the new social hub.  Savvy employers will nurture the interactions and colonise the conversations.  (Weblog's anyone?)

But my (as an unashamed capatilist who has some problems with certain CSR models):

• Backlash. Against Coroprate Social Responsibility, that is.  Michael Moore, do NOT come on down.  The Economist magazine got in first with a multi-page special abouth the "industry" of CSR and its potential to distract bosses from capatilism's real task- discharging responsibilities to shareholders.  Picking up on an emerging analysis of the "misguided" advocates of CSR, the magazine argues that while capatilism needs public intervention- such as taxes and regulation- and its bosses need accountability, CSR is not the way to achieve those ends.  But it is clear that even if CSR is out, business ethics are in.  Big time.  If your company isn't doing something worthwhile, quit now.  Otherwise focus on creating shareholder value.

But will this arguement wash with the citizens?  Thoughts?

Joe Trippi's Latest Trick

Regular readers of my blog will know what side of the political fence I sit. 

But I am a big admirer of Joe Trippi- the man behind the failed, but nonetheless very innovative Howard Dean for President campaign.  Trippi is straight out of the Cluetrain mould; a visionary who understands that the Internet and all it's small places (loosely joined, of course) is where future campaigns will be fought and elections won or lost.

Whilst his candidate- Howard Dean- failed (by a long way) in his bid to secure the Democrat Presidential nomination last year, the "Blog for America" campaign was far from a failure.  Dean and Trippi ran America's first presidential campaign organised primarily through the Web, attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters to their grassroots movement, and amassed more than $15million in campaign monies.   

Sure, the White House remained elusive, but the campaign did manage to turn an obscure ex-governor into a real presidential contender. It was anything but politics as usual.  It was great stuff.

And now Trippi has outlined his next trick:

"At the Politics Online Conference at George Washington University,   Joe announced he is planning to release a website that will ask grassroots donors for their email address and a pledge of $100 for the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign. Here is the catch. Those pledges are only going to go to the first Democratic candidate who promises they will NOT take contributions of more than $100."

WOW!  This is true campaign finance reform, funded and controlled by the voters.

But more than just handing over your dollars, Joe wants his pledgers to help.  He wants them to come up with some criteria -- some guidelines as to what thresholds they think a candidate should accomplish for them to feel comfortable that their pledges would be going to a legitimate contender and to make sure that it is not tampered with and the true intent is upheld.

This is really great stuff, and as much as I hate to say it, I can't imagine any Conservative Party coming up with such an exciting idea.

So, if you thought Howard Deans Internet and blogging campaign was the future, stay tuned!

Who needs innovation when you can have am Acquisition Manager

Oligopoly Watch points to a Wall Street Journal article that looks at the current boom in corporate mergers and big eating small acquisitions; "Bosses Prefer Buying Businesses To Building Them", 2/17/2005). The author sees the following points about the current boom:

1. Many big companies are flush with cash right now. Many have used that money to pay down debts, buy back stock, and increase dividends. The next logical place to put that money is into acquiring new companies.
2. While the world economy is doing better than it was after the Internet bubble burst, the actual growth in capital spending is increasing at a modest speed, and that looks likely to be an upcoming trend. Therefore, expanding through internal growth is getting harder.
3. Corporate heads are more optimistic than ever about mergers and acquisitions, in spite of the relatively high valuation of suitable targets. But the key is investors. In contrast to some of the thinking before, investors have been rewarding a number of skillful acquirers with high stock prices. Since execs get highly compensated (options, shares, incentives) when stock prices go up significantly, there's a good reason. (Of course, we often see executives get highly rewarded when stock prices go down, so that may not be the sole motivator.)

Whilst it's all good and well for the Big end of town to swallow up whatever and whoever they want, in the end it strangles many new ideas and innovation that generally only occur "down the other end of the street." 

What tends to happen is that Big Slow Corp (who is too lazy (dumb?) to do something WoW itself) buys Fast Little Company in order to latch onto and eliminate what might become a threat to them; which they simply see- from afar- as being the systems, technology, people, reputations etc within the Little Co. they are eying off.

But they always forget that it was the company culture of Little Co that nursed and encouraged the innovation that allowed the Little Company to be so fast in the first place; enabling it to leverage its systems, technology and people.  That culture (= the real, inimitable source of the competitive advantage) is inevitably killed off following the acquisition (Just ask Tony about trying to be innovative in a Big Company), because the Big Co isn't really interested in maintaining a culture of innovation, they just buy other peoples.  So why do they need creative people?  They don't, just Acquisition Managers.

But the potential threat to Big Co has been killed too; so they win anyway.

But if it works, then Big Co still wins:

"Exploiting a product that someone else has made by giving it the big company treatment in marketing, sales, and distribution is a lot less painful than finding ways to make serious and effective internal changes For all the talk of re-engineering the company, most companies would rather just buy another one. That move is high-concept, ego-gratifying, and relatively straightforward. Rethinking a corporation is complex, painstaking, and often tedious."