SCHMITTblog

The end has come

I started blogging seven years ago when it was “cool.”  More than 200 blogs later, I will stop.

Technology has moved on; thus, SCHMITT has to move on.  We will leave the blogging to the professor who discovered it just recently.

Please find (as long as these technologies last):

My videos at www.YouTube.com/MeetSchmitt.

My videos, photos, and text at www.facebook.com/MeetSchmitt.

My short views on things at www.twitter.com/MeetSchmitt 

And all sorts of information at my web site, www.MeetSchmitt.com

This blog will be left as a historical document.

 

Do consumers view technology as magic?

More than a hundred years ago, sociologist Max Weber wrote that secularization—or the "disenchantment of the world"—lay at the heart of modern society. He argued that due to the industrial revolution and advances in science, the modern world had become less mysterious and more predictable to individuals, and society as a whole had become more rational and bureaucratic.

Last week, in a talk here at Columbia, Russ Belk, professor at York University in Toronto and a leading consumer culture researcher, argued that consumers view new technologies – computers, the internet, and nowadays social media – at first, before they get used to the technology, as—magic.   His argument is quite intriguing. As evidence, just watch the resurrected video of Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh – appropriately dubbed “the magic moment” by TextLab, the discoverers and restorers of that film. 

Belk points to the possibility that our modern world never fully rationalized, that there was always an emotional and magical undercurrent, and that the "theme  of magic" now, paradoxically, manifests itself in consumers’ admiration of the very device that was supposed to erase it—technology.

BRITE Rocked

...and now you can rock, too.

Go to the BRITE Conference homepage to check out the content from the event.

Innovation in Curation

For decades, curating a show in a museum meant putting the works of art together and displaying them (for example, hanging the paintings on the wall with some consideration on where they should hang and perhaps putting some introductory note at the beginning of the show, written in “high brow” art-history lingo). There are still too many shows like that. But the really good ones today are quite different.

 

Like the brilliant show on Spanish Painting & Sculpture 1600-1700 in the National Gallery in London, which I attended yesterday. The show is titled “The Sacred Made Real.” For innovation in curation starts with the name: “Spanish Painting …” is the subtitle; the “Sacred Made Real” is the main title, providing a theme for watching the show. The audio guide, rather “audio program,” is superbly done and really enriches the experience. It is easy to use, includes interviews with the curator and others; allows you to play music of the time, and so on. What else is on? Not only the usual lunchtime talks but also “The Making of a Spanish Polychrome Sculpture,” which reveals the technical process in creating such sculptures.

 

All of this is experiential and customer oriented. That’s why I ask my EMBA students in the Munich program to go to the museums there. As museums have adopted a customer orientation and are wiping off the old dust, managers can learn a few lessons from them about how to innovate in a business in which there had been little change for too long.

Something that would Change Everything

I was recently asked to submit a short piece to the student newspaper ("The Bottom Line") focused on "something that would change everything."

Here's what I wrote:

IF WE COULD READ EACH OTHER'S MINDS ...

my world, and yours, would no longer be the same.  We’d talk less; why bother? Lectures might turn into meditations. Thoughtlessness might be true leadership.

Professors would be hit particularly hard: it would be tough to appear smarter than your next door neighbor.

Would it be a world where everybody would be honest, and friendly, where you can “exchange love for love … [and] … trust only for trust”? (Surprisingly, that quote is from Karl Marx).  Actually, trust would be instant, and thus quite meaningless because we could not abuse it.  We wouldn’t need exams or student honor codes.

We might see more action, and not just talk.  Mentally, however, it would be a boring world. A world without seduction.  A world without secrets, without pretense, without phoniness. Plain vanilla.

A world not worth living in.

Lots of Creativity, Little Innovation

Carlo Fei, as he dropped me off with his Audi back at my hotel, after a dinner and ride through Milan, made a great off-the-cuff remark, “There’s lots of creativity here, but little innovation.” He’s so right about this distinction between creativity and innovation, and Milan this week is a perfect showcase.

I had been giving a couple of presentations at Bocconi, the business school, to students and executives on experience. I had also stopped by briefly at parts of the Salone Internationale del Mobile, perhaps the most important design and furniture trade show in the world (http://www.cosmit.it). Lots of creativity there, especially outside the big trade location at the cutting-edge Zona Tortona, or in the inner city where fabulous projects happened between retailing and designers. Creativity, yes. Installations, thought pieces, animations of ideas – really weird, sweet, stylish stuff; but little innovation in actual furniture design.

I also stopped by, as I always do when in Milan, in the retail fashion district (Via Monte Napoleone, Via della Spiga, you know). Still all branding, and little customer experience! Moreover, luxury brands have extended their lines into furniture (stores), and flowers (stores), and chocolates (stores), and hotels, and some have done all of it (see Armani). There are brand accessories stores (see Ferrari), flagship stores, pop-up stores. But they are all stores (or, alright, hotels) plastered with the brand name, designed by this-and-that designer—yet, with the usual opening hours and salespeople and merchandise. Frankly, there has been far more innovation in customer service, customer interactivity, and in merchandising by mass-market retailers than luxuryretailers. Think of some of the classics: Apple Store, Whole Foods, American Girls Place. Luxury brands have been, sadly, followers of mass-market brands; shouldn’t they be leading? Not surprisingly, the research that Carlo conducted with his firm on the retail experience shows that many luxury stores in key cities (not just Milan) fall short of providing a great customer experience.

Recommendation

Check out:  www.Commoncraft.com

They have great simple tutorials for all sort of new technologies (from podcasts to twitter).

BRITE conference (this week)

I will be speaking this week on Big Think, and leading an interactive session for CMOs on sourcing big ideas, as part of the BRITE '08 conference and CMO summit on branding, innovation, and technology, at Columbia Business School, this Thursday and Friday, Feb 7-8th.

BRITE '08 is part of a major initiative by my Center on Global Brand Leadership at the school.  The event will bring together big thinkers from business, technology, media, and marketing to discuss how technology and innovation are transforming the ways that companies build and sustain great brands.

Topics include: social networks, user-generated content, viral campaigns, B2B branding, driving innovation inside and outside the organization, ROI for online marketing, TV 2.0, online content platforms, brands that thought big in 2007

Fellow speakers include:
    * Marty Homlish (Global Chief Marketing Officer, SAP)
    * Craig Newmark (Founder, Craigslist)
    * Patia McGrath (Global Director of Innovation, GE)
    * Bob Greenberg (Global Chief Creative Officer, R/GA)
    * Andrew Miller (CEO, Quattro Wireless)
(full speaker list)

Conference registration is here.  There is also a BRITE blog, wiki, and more fun things to explore.

I hope you can join us!

-Schmitt

Kill your sacred cow

Just contributed a blog, called "kill the sacred cow" to Columbia Business School's new blogging site.   Check it out here.

-Schmitt

Product Endorsement: Spotme

I normally don’t do product endorsements, but this innovative device is terrific. Spotme is a convenient PDA for conference participants.  I had the chance to experience it last week while speaking at Ascent, the Siemens Business Leadership conference. 

Spotme keeps the conference audience up-to-date in real time about the agenda and presentations.  It also allows you to send messages and exchange business cards electronically. Its coolest feature is this: at the start of the event, you can choose who you would like to meet from the list of attendees.  Then, throughout the event, whenever one of these people comes nearby to you, the Spotme device spots the person, and you get a vibrating alarm sound, with their picture.  Love it!