The Hindu Business Line : What is a ‘big’ idea?

About ten years ago, a newlywed couple wanted to start an independent business. “After a process of idea sourcing, they had lots of ideas centred around the concept of wedding,” narrates Bernd H. Schmitt in a new book from Harvard Business School Press.

The couple’s customer insight was that to many women (and men), ‘wedding conjured up planning chaos, anxiety attacks over invitation etiquette and dress selection, and to-do lists that never seemed manageable.’

One idea cluster seemed particularly promising, continues Schmitt. It was about ‘creating a groundbreaking online meeting place for brides-to-be where they could plan their weddings and exchange stories and advice with like-minded women everywhere.’

Thus was born ‘TheKnot.com’ of Carley Roney and David Liu, recounts Big Think Strategy ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

But what is a ‘big’ idea?

Check against three criteria, advises Schmitt: creativity, business impact, and communications impact.

Creative solutions are new, innovative, or unprecedented against a comparison point, he explains. “In evaluating whether an idea is creative, start by comparing it with what has been done in the past.”

How did Roney and Liu, for instance, realise that their idea was new? “The multibillion-dollar wedding industry consisted of magazines that remained overtly focused where they had been for decades,” they noticed.

These magazines catered to ‘twenty-three-year-old women, many of whom did not work, who were not paying for their own weddings, and who wanted to hear how things were supposed to be done within fairly rigid boundaries,’ and ‘people with different lifestyles were largely ignored.’

Finding that the magazines were not giving any new ideas, “The Knot Inc took communications out of the tired old hands of the wedding industry and gave consumers and trendsetters a place to create and communicate new ideas about weddings. It gave advertisers fresh, direct, dynamic access to the wide range of soon-to-be-wed consumers.”

Did the idea pay off?

“Nine years after launching, The Knot had become a publicly traded company exceeding $50 million in revenues,” notes Schmitt. “It is the most visited wedding Web site in the US, with syndicated columns in more than 70 US newspapers, a top-ranked gift registry, and numerous briskly selling book titles.”

Suggested ‘big’ read, therefore, to help you leverage bold ideas and live happily thereafter!

The IT medicine

In Egypt, it is not the doctor but the pharmacist who is a key player in the health system. As in many developing countries, the pharmacist in Egypt is the first responder to individuals seeking medical advice and assistance. Thus documents a case study in a recent book by Esta de Fossard.

“There are over 33,000 private pharmacists throughout the country. The population can access their services for free through the day and night. Much of the population visits the pharmacist before seeing a doctor. Sixty-one per cent of pharmacists reported that they offered medical advice to customers.”

But why should I know all this, you may ask?

Reason: the case study is an example of how IT (information technology) played an important role in making health services better. The ‘Ask, Consult’ distance education programme, as it was called, aimed at assisting pharmacists in responding ‘correctly and adequately to family health needs.’

The Web-based initiative provided pharmacists with the knowledge and support they needed for responding to client inquiries regarding their health, recounts the author in Using Edu-Tainment for Distance Education in Community Work ( www.sagepublications.com).

The programme included a complete LMS (learning management system) to deliver realistic scenario-based educational content. “Because the material is placed on a single computer server, content can be changed in one place for everybody at the same time.”

More than 10,000 pharmacists and 3,000 physicians voluntarily participated in the ‘Ask, Consult’ health network activity. “The Egyptian government promoted this network with the aim of improving the credibility of its membership through programme education.”

The Internet is the road to the future of distance education, Michael Bailey declares in a different essay included in the book. “Even in countries where IT is not universally available, the Internet is gradually being introduced as a way of delivering course outlines and materials to institutions that can then use them for local students.”

Recommended study for the learning-avid.

Tribal power

Birds flock and fish school. What about people? They ‘tribe,’ says a new book by three authors from CultureSync.

“Every company, indeed, every organisation, is a tribe, or if it’s large enough, a network of tribes – groups of twenty to 150 people in which everyone knows everyone else, or at least knows of everyone else,” write Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright in Tribal Leadership ( www.landmarkonthenet.com).

“Tribes are more powerful than teams, companies, or even CEOs, and yet their key leverage points have not been mapped — until now,” the authors observe solemnly.

The book is the result of a ten-year field study of 24,000 people in two-dozen organisations, informs Warren Bennis in his foreword.

“This work addresses several intriguing questions. Why do great leaders often fail in a new environment? Why do average leaders sometimes seem better than they really are? Why do great strategies fail more often than they succeed?” The answer, according to the authors, is all about the relationship between leaders and tribes.

“The members of your tribe are probably programmed into your cell-phone and in your e-mail address book.” And the ‘150’ number is from Robin Dunbar’s research, one learns; it was “popularised in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. When a tribe approaches this number, it naturally splits into two tribes.”

Tribal Leaders make the difference to performance. “If they are successful, the tribe recognises them as the leaders, giving them top effort, cult-like loyalty, and a track record of success.”

Divisions and companies run by Tribal Leaders set the standard of performance in their industries, from productivity and profitability to employee retention, the study finds. Tribal Leaders are “talent magnets, with people so eager to work for the leader that they will take a pay cut if necessary.”

More importantly, “The leader upgrades the tribe as the tribe embraces the leader. Tribes and leaders create each other.”

Prescribed addition to the leader’s shelf.

Tailpiece

“Whenever it’s my boss calling…”

“You stand up?”

“Also, I adopt a melancholic mood, aided by a special doleful ringtone.”

dmurali@thehindu.co.in