Good Morning, SuperForest!
For decades we have been told that innovation is the “ultimate source of advantage” when it comes to business or pretty much anything in life. We’ve been told that at its basic core, innovation equals success.
This is why I was particularly shocked to find this “fundamental truth” being argued in an article on Harvard Business Publishing. Written by Umair Haque (director of the Havas Media Lab, a “new kind of strategic advisor”), this article claims that innovation is outdated, that it is a “relic of the industrial era”. What should take it’s place instead, you might ask?
Awesomeness!
And he describes it all beautifully in “The Awesomeness Manifesto”
To boil it down, the Awesomeness Manifesto argues that there are three reasons why we need to be “innovating innovation”. Economically speaking…
- Innovation relies on obsolescence.
- Innovation dries up our seedcorn.
- Innovation often isn’t.
Instead, he argues that a better concept for the 21st century is awesomeness. And he explains it wonderfully when describing its four pillars.
Ethical production. Innovation turns a blind eye to ethics — or, worse, actively denies ethics. That’s a natural result of putting entrepreneurship above all. Buy low, sell high, create value. That’s so 20th century. Awesome stuff is produced ethically — in fact, without an ethical component, awesomeness isn’t possible. Starbucks is shifting to Fair Trade coffee beans, for example. Why? Starbucks isn’t just trying to innovate yet another flavour of sugar-water: it’s trying to gain awesomeness.
Insanely great stuff. What is innovative often fails to delight, inspire, and enlighten — because, as we’ve discussed, innovation is less concerned with raw creativity. Awesomeness puts creativity front and center. Awesome stuff evokes an emotive reaction because it’s fundamentally new, unexpected, and 1000x better. Just ask Steve Jobs. The iPhone and iPod were pooh-poohed by analysts, who questioned how innovative they really were — but the Steve has turned multiple industries upside down through the power of awesomeness.
Love. You know what’s funny about walking into an Apple Store? The people working there care. They don’t just “work at the Apple store” — they love Apple. Contrast that with the alienating, soul-crushing experience of trying to buy something at Best Buy — where salespeople attack you out of greed. (Or, as editor extraordinaire Sarah Green put it, “where you wander around for a full half-hour unable to find anyone to help you before you finally get the attention of some blue-shirted 12-year old who turns out to know nothing about the products she sells and ultimately end up committing hara-kiri with a Wii controller”). Their goal is to sell; the goal of Apple Store employees is simply to show off their awesomeness, and let you share it. Love for what we do is the basis of all real value creation.
Thick value. It’s the most hackneyed phrase in the corporate lexicon: adding value. Let’s face it: most value is an illusion. Nokia, Motorola, and Sony tried for a decade to “add value” to their phones — yet not a single feature did. Food producers and pharmaceutical companies claim they’re “adding value,” but mostly they’re just mega-marketing.
The vast majority of companies — in my research, greater than 95% — can only create what I have termed thin value. Thick value is real, meaningful, and sustainable. It happens by making people authentically better off — not merely by adding more bells and whistles that your boss might like, but that cause customers to roll their eyes.
Let’s summarize. What is awesomeness? Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful — value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off. That’s a better kind of innovation, built for 21st century economics.
Makes sense, no?
When I was in Switzerland over the summer, I had an interesting discussion with a cousin of mine who drove over from Germany to visit. He said that the company he works for was intrigued by how often Americans used the word “awesome”. And that in conference calls between his office in Munich and offices in the States, his colleagues and him would even keep a tally of how many times they used that word. I didn’t think much of this, I figured “awesome” is a common word people toss around often (though I did find it strange that people would frequent use of the word in the workplace). After reading the Awesomeness Manifesto, I realized maybe they weren’t all that unprofessional after all. Maybe they were just ahead of the curve. Maybe they were simply awesome.
Have a wonderful and yes, awesome day,
Carla
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