August 30, 2008

MADE TO STICK



My latest reading has been Made to Stick, a mandatory book for CEO's, managers, businessmen, professors, educators, politicians, journalists, and anybody who struggle to make their ideas “stick” in their audiences.

I've just finished a couple of days ago at the country house (located in Boston) where I'm staying for three weeks with old friends.


The house where I'm staying was built in 1827. And after a few refurbishments it still keeps the charm and the feeling of living in the 19th Century.


It takes me 30 minutes by bike to go from the wood to the ocean where the Kennedy's uses to go for swimming and sailing.


Yesterday was the famous Labor Day in the US, when children enjoy the last day of the summer at the beach. Today, you can see them in their uniforms going back to school. Poor things!


Last week I went to the Plimoth Plantation, where Native Wampanoag and Colonial English men and women live their lives, as if it were the 1620s.


This is not a painting, but a real picture that I took of one lady at the Plimoth Plantation.

August 22, 2008

THREE DAYS IN MEDELLIN (COLOMBIA)

Yesterday I arrived again to Miami from Medellin, where I gave three conferences invited by ACEF (http://www.acefantioquia.com/). The first one was in the Medellin Intercontinental Hotel to around 50 members of the association, leaded by its President, Jorge Enrique Múnera Durango, and its Executive Manager, Nohemy Patiño Lemos.

The audience was plenty of managers of leading companies in Colombia: Servicio Nacional de Chocolates, EPM or Bancolombia, among many others.

Click here to download the presentation:
http://www.box.net/shared/jp8kokndgt

After lunch, I had a session with managers from Corbeta, and then another with managers from EPM (http://www.eeppm.com/epm/institucional/index.htm).


After the conference, with part of the board of ACEF.


With José Gustavo Jiménez, Finantial Manager in EPM, and Nohemy Patiño. Gustavo took us to this restaurant with a delightful view of Medellin, after showing us the spectacular EPM headquarters:


The EPM flag building at night.


The EPM building is located in the middle of Medellin valley.

August 17, 2008

From Delray Beach to Uruguay

After a weekend in Delray Beach, where I swam at the Ocean under a huge thunderstorm (it was impossible to take pictures of this experience, but it was delightful anyway), I went to Uruguay to keep on working with Lolita-Masstige in the transformation process that we started last February.


Michel Cohen, Margarita Silveira, Miguel Veresqui, Alvaro González-Alorda, Eliana Hodara and Lorena Suárez, after the third meeting of the Transformation Process Committee.


Saturday morning in La Rambla (Montevideo).


With Federica Fontana, my sister Marías's best friend, her husband, Esteban, and a friend, Adolfo de Bernardo.


Sunset in "Rosaire", the house where I spent the weekend with friends in Delray Beach (Florida).


At the front door, barefoot and relax.

I've just arrived to Miami this morning, where the weather is sunny and humid, as usual. On Tuesday, I will travel to Colombia to give a conference on innovation and to have meetings with some companies.

August 6, 2008

Identifying jobs to be done



Today, reading by the Ocean, I found awesome a chaper of the book I'm reading, The Innovator's Guide to Growth.

The main concept that this chapter stands for is that customers "hire" products and services to get jobs done in their lives.

The jobs-to-be done concept can dramatically change the way you think about new opportunities. It forces you to see the world from your customer's perspective, and to understand not just what they are doing, but why they are doing it.

By the way, Miami North Beach was cool today. Really cool.

August 4, 2008

The Innovator's Guide To Growth

Whenever I start a seminar, a class or a conference, I often say that innovation is much more than an idea that you happen to find in a yoga posture. Innovation has to do with creating a different and profitable business model. But day to day job is overwhelming and time consuming for managers as well as for employees. My experience advising companies from a variety of industries is that innovation can be managed. All you need is:

>>Methodology to develop an innovation process within your company.
>>And the right allocation of resources (money and time).

This week I'm reading a powerful book, The Innovator's Guide to Growth (http://www.innovatorsguidetogrowth.com/). It’s plenty of tools and frameworks that may help you to overcome the traps that stands in the way to successful innovation.


I'm trying to be innovative reading such a book, and I've found a pleasant way to do it: reading it while walking in the ocean with water up to my knees.


I row with a kayak every day in the lake in front of the house I'm staying in.


Yesterday I went snorkelling with some friends to Key West Florida. It's unbelievable the amount of fish that you can see around corals. All kind of colours and sizes. It's definitively deserves more visits.


There is one positive thing about finding iguanas at Coral Gables when you are walking around. It's being told that they never attack you. Thank God!