Recently I provided this contribution to Patrick Stähler’s blog that forms part of fluid minds, a think tank and consultancy for strategic and disruptive innovations. They focus discussions on their very distinctive version of the Business Model and its design.

This was on some thoughts on how to explain your business model through a story or your business narrative. The original post is here

The hard part comes after designing your new Business Model when you have to explain it.
You have come to the end of a fairly long week. You have finally finished your Business Model Canvas. Finally you have a working hypothesis of something that is going to challenge some of the existing business models around. You should feel pleased; it took a lot of hard work to get to that point.

Laid out on one piece of paper is something that could have real business value yet although you can see where the dots connect, you begin to wonder if others will see the same compelling value, to invest in it, to back it, to simply support it and encourage you to continue.

Completing a business model and identifying its critical parts is only that first step, the hard part is getting it off the ‘drafting board’ and making it something tangible and potentially commercially viable for those around you to engage with.

What is the next step in executing this potential game changing business model?

Each new business model needs a compelling story – a narrative.

We really need to learn how to craft a story, to tell the narrative around why your business model idea stands out and is worth other people’s time and consideration.

This business model narrative along with your business model you are potentially better placed to test it, to talk about it, to validate it, to make it ‘sing for others’.

You are out to get engagement and contributions everywhere, from everyone, as you tell the story, describe your potential new business model you gain from their reaction and improve your understanding of the real need for your idea.

So we need to think about the art of narratives and storytelling

So first things first, with setting about building your business narrative, we need to get comfortable, as each of us, in our own way are unique in how we would set about the initial thinking through of the business story.

We can certainly brainstorm, or free write, and it is certainly worth to complete some essential brain warming up exercises. All of these get that brain whirling again around your new business model but in a distinctly different way, as you are focusing this on the best way to communicate your story to others. You do need to really think about this, as it needs to appeal to them, even if you feel it is the best thing ever!

We need to find our own ways of doing this warming up. We are not warming up to figure out the business model, we have completed that; we are priming our brain to start structuring our thoughts to turn them into our narrative (about our business model story).

This can take as long as you feel it is useful. For me I take my time, I like to gather around me lots of my reference papers, all sorts of scribble notes and triggers to make a fairly exhaustive first ‘cut’.

Then I set about circling or highlighting them with a yellow highlighter all the main themes, the important parts of what, why and how my business model came about.

Working through some useful but measured steps is the key

The question you need to ask is: “I certainly have to find within these notes a range of critical aspects that will make my business model story stand out”

Let’s go through these seven steps.

Firstly 1) you have to describe what your business model will do – even if this is still at this stage where it needs to be truly tested, what is it all about. You need to allow for action words that can be understood, keep it simple but on ‘message’ for others to quickly grasp the big idea.

2) What makes this business model special – I mean so special that it can resonate with others; they can see what it is going to do to change or challenge something they know. It needs to address identified needs but all the parts are seen as connected.

Then we move to the customer side
3) who is it for?– who are those customers that will show initial interest, the potential market place you see this addresses and listen to the reaction back- does it resonate with those listening?

4) what does your business model resolve – those famous pain points or jobs-to-be-done you feel that need resolving or will be valued to overcome existing constraints you feel there is within existing offerings. Are you getting that nod of agreement, that confirming back or increasing questioning?

So far so good we are building our story, we are telling our story, we are getting valuable feedback and identification. Now we need to reflect on the part that gives the real growing confidence

5) Why you are thinking beyond the immediate– some of your longer term goals and ambitions and the way you are setting about this and what the listener can do to help.

6) what do you envisage are the resources and actions needed that will get this going and led you beyond just the idea and turning this into something real and valued by others.

If this remains unclear to the listener then you are beginning to flounder, you might be losing their attention. Maybe your business model or narrative is missing some important learning points.

You are testing your initial hypothesis in the real marketplace and getting the feedback you need to stop and rethink or it validates your original thinking.

Then there is one final part, our No.7

As you search through your notes, full of highlighted points being ticked off as you go.

That is the most important one, our number 7) you are looking to summarize why you will succeed
This summary ‘ wraps up’ your solution; it provides the story behind your thinking, the final piece, it brings it all together. It is conveying why the business model you see, is valuable. It transmits the value of your idea, sitting on one sheet of paper.

Now this is not the easy part, it is the ‘call to action’, the real identification you are asking of others to value and invest into your business model, to identify with it.

The tighter the story, the faster you get feedback and identification
This narrative needs to be a really compact synopsis, the real kernel of your business model, it forms the basis for the narrative and why your story is valuable to the one listening.

Irrespective your business narrative need to spark action
It is the story that makes the sense of your business model. It conveys its value, its sense of mission, your personal visions, it offers the place where you communicate and connect the business model with the listener.

By talking about it you are generating and testing a market-making narrative, to hone your thinking, to win over others to your solutions and ideas. You are testing your business model in the real world.

Your story narrative will be significantly tested and will change I am sure.
Each step or new iteration is a ‘smart’ step forward if it builds and learns from the last one. It becomes more and more compelling until it resonates and translates into a new, valuable business.

Your business model is closer to filling a real market need from this consistent telling of your evolving story.

The business narrative is essential to your thinking.

The post Getting the Business Model Story Right. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I think Patrick’s business model lends itself to this constant focus on value. Patrick runs fluidminds, based in Zürich, Switzerland. fluidminds helps its customers to think by challenging existing business rules, offer structured thinking and different perspectives on the strategy process and support the execution.

Patrick wrote his thesis about Business Model innovation in the digital age and from this emerged his unique ‘take ‘on working through the business model. Patrick has been dealing since 1997 with questions around how the web changes Business Models and how Business Model innovation should and could look in the digital economy.

fluidminds wants to create new businesses and to shape industries with business model innovation, with a large part of Patrick’s practice centered  on German speaking markets but he has consulted across numerous English speaking ones as well.

So in my guest post I put forward this three point view of value.

Knowing where to start in designing a business model or simply just even trying to describe it to others can be difficult. You need to explain its value. The great advantage of explaining this through a business model canvas that looks for value constantly does help.

fluidminds approach to exploring and explaining the business model does just that- it focuses on focusing the mind –  on the value within the business model.

The first value point is in the Value Proposition

Naturally we all look to the Value Proposition to explain the business model but like a car you should always look ‘under the hood’ to see the engine and what gives a car its performance. Equally you should stand back from the proposition and ‘take in’ all that makes this up. For a car it is the styling, the design, the promise and what or who is behind it. We look to buy on a given ‘promise of value’ and in having the benefits explained it allows us to believe and ‘see’ the potentials. A business model, well designed and described, does just that. It confirms the (new or existing) value that makes up the new business model.
The value proposition shapes much; it identifies and defines where this business model is providing new offerings that advance on existing benefits to customers. The fluidminds business model canvas seeks out the customer and the customer benefit- it is looking to provide value by identifying where there is a clear fresh, new proposition.
We do have to recognize a value proposition is not just looking to resolve the known jobs-to-be-done. In many new business models can be bringing together often fragmented parts of existing offerings and combining them in new ways, or deliberately and completely disrupting existing businesses through adapting new insight, technology advancements or understanding, into new business models.
We only need to think of Apple and how it combined different technologies, revolutionary design and applied new materials into stunning, game changing products that changed our thinking of the actual jobs we thought about into totally different ones, which totally undermined existing business value or perceptions. Those become game changers.
Equally, a value proposition can emerge from those creative minds; again think Steve Jobs, where totally new business models become constructed upon a strong, clear vision or even different strands or inklings that something can be simply changed as the elements that were needed became available to make this happen. Yet they only happened from the dedicated hard work that came from purposeful design and detailed understanding of the possibilities.
No, value propositions come not just from known jobs-to-be-done but also from the unknown that can be identified through observation, research or ethnography how something is being completed. These come often from fertile, inquiring mind to see new combinations, different discoveries and then piece them together, in a business model that delivers new promise. So think beyond ‘just’ product and services, think always new business potential and then set about its design as the starting point, don’t constrain yourself initially.
Using a business model design approach that offers us a ‘fresh’ canvas structure where we can construct or even deconstruct the existing, might lead to completely revolutionary thinking when it comes to seeking out clear and exploring new value in any business propositions.

The second value point is in the Value Architecture.

For me, the architecture of the Business model is what and where something is going to deliver on the promise identified in the Value Proposition. Although much of the architecture of any business model is not seen, it is the ‘heart’ of what delivers the value. We can’t ignore or gloss over the value architecture, we must address it fully.
Fluidminds business model approach devotes much of its ‘canvas’ to this part. The initial questions of clarifying the offer, the value chain, the need for identifying core capabilities, for explaining the distribution and communication channels and who the (potential) partners are, all are initially raised specifically within the canvas to be addressed.
So many of these begin as open ended questions, not just when you are building from scratch a new business model but when you want to ‘challenge’ an existing one. Architecture will always ‘raise its head’ to be fully addressed. It is vital.
It might not be the sexist part of a business model but it is the ‘guts’, the performance engine, which can deliver the respective parts for ‘the promise’.
Addressing what makes up this part might leave some open questions to be resolved later but I’d recommend starting on the architectural design purposefully from the moment you begin, this makes for better and valued on-going conversations. You don’t need to get bogged down in the actual nitty-gritty of the exact design but you do need to sketch out the design and that is the role of the business architect, the orchestrator of design.
This is the place you seek and clarify understanding for that value. You operate often in three thinking minds here, to be fluid, agile and adaptable. You need to layer into your thinking a strategic view, a business design one and begin to work through the implementation actions and possible implications. You design and sketch. You need to begin to think layers of abstraction, a flow cycle approach.
The thinking around each part of the Value Architecture needs to grow within your thinking – the purpose, the performance you need, the possible processes that can support this, the level of preparation this will require and the level of commitment your people need to apply to this, so as to underpin and support the emerging business model or needed to change the existing one, all arise.
This is where the real value comes into play within the Value Architecture part. The deepening of thinking to achieve a shared thinking of what is possible, what needs further work to achieve the ‘value’ being looked for out of the business model.
So value architecture is the place for identifying the ‘value creation’ points, the rules and emerging governance that needs to be put into place. It is a large part of the fluidminds canvas as it requires multiple conversations to continually build the design to deliver on the ‘promise seen’.

The third value point is in teams and values

Anything new has controversy as it is pushing the known and accepted into the unknown. It raises fears, it whispers possible failure but for those that ‘unite’ and can see new possibilities a shared business canvas becomes the bonding point, the point where ideas come together and form within the team.
The canvas becomes the focal point where the energy flows. The value of bringing into any discussions on designing or redesigning a business models early enough those different opinions, is of huge value. This brings you around the canvas to agree where you are going to spend your energy, your days in the future, your commitment, your passion.
You begin to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the group; you begin to explore each other’s known and often surprisingly unknown competencies.
You also begin to spot gaps but you are working ‘collectively’ in resolving each other’s values and understandings of what ‘makes up’ the essence and worth that you perceive the new business design can bring, that ‘collective difference’ that allows you as a team to keep constantly questioning where the value lies by combing the efforts. You together as a team design-in value.

Having ‘value’ as central to your business model design is critical.

The design of the fluidminds business model canvas purposefully ‘looks’ for the value points. It provides a structure that asks for a value proposition, seeks out the value architecture and looks to the team to define their values and what values they need to pursue.
So why should your new business model exist? Because it seeks out new value, pure and simple, irrespective if you are an entrepreneur, someone just starting out for the first time or an existing business questioning its existing business approach. A new business model in its design, in its proposition, in its approach does need to seek out the value points constantly to get the best out of any new emerging business concept.
Are you exploring value constantly within your business model approach?

The post Knowing the Value within your Business Model is Vital first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Here are some of my thoughts, some a little raw, others well-baked, even some half-baked!.

Running your own business is full of uncertainty, doubt and risk. Equally, though, you have a level of independence and this does permit you to respond quickly.

It can offer higher degrees of flexibility, allows you to pursue what you think clients really want, not what others above you are imposing as template solutions, or their personal views.

Finally, you can explore the options to deliver, as in my case,  services, in your own unique style that often work far better for clients needs.

You are not accountable to anyone, apart from the wife and the bank manager, always looking a little harder at you, that small business owner needing to deliver.

In between these two ends of independence and the uncertainty from the dependence a few clients you might be relient on constantly moving the goal posts, there are quite frankly, lots of raw emotions.

The best part, for me, is a growing confidence that I am operating many times in the ‘zone’ of client needs, that they require out of innovation.

The downside I have to admit is there is an awful lot of hard work that needs to go into this so as to get you there.

My Business Model gets a constant bashing.

I really believe in working the business model hard but as you initiate your execution, not only is it about “getting out of the office” (the Steve Blank cry) but trying to constantly work the relationships that are growing trying to understand what potential customers want. Equally you do need to look hard at what Steve suggests is the customer development manifesto .

Steve also suggests we can get caught up in the 9 deadliest start-up sins and although this is written specifically for start-ups I think many of theses can apply to all businesses. These ‘sage’ pieces of advice are not just for start-ups as I’m well beyond a start-up but I find them incredibly useful as critical reminders as I evolve and change my business model.

It is also about managing the incredible ‘flow’ of knowledge, insights and latest thinking that comes into you constantly every single day.  You struggle to read, absorb, relate too and translate these often breaking thoughts, into your own thinking and propositions.

Of course, much as you find out is not so much leading edge but simply a rehashing of existing ideas, yet still even in these, they have specific experiences attached to them and these are useful to learn from or be reminded.

The innovation forge to shape and form

I’ve been working in the innovation forge arena for fourteen or more years, designing, shaping and learning about innovation, trying to translate this into value for clients and their innovation challenges.

I seem to know where I want to go for my future innovation work but balancing the ‘inflow’ of knowledge with the necessary customer ‘insights’ is not easy, especially when you want to have as much paying work as you can.

No, running your own business is hard. The ‘fun’ is managing the inputs, working the absorption process, producing your own distinct outputs, let alone achieving the required outcomes you need through attracting  clients and achieving engagement.

Over the years my own business model has evolved

My business model has increasingly moved more towards a ‘trusted’ adviser, where I coach, council and mentor on innovation. I constantly look beyond today and work at identifying leading practice, methods and tools.

Of course pure consulting features but I genuinely believe working with a good counselor or confident have a vital roles to play for understanding the value generating and impact points.

This works towards addressing certain problems or challenges being individually faced, yet you are consciously seeking out the dynamic linkages within the broader innovation work.

This is to partly strengthen what is available and already in place, partly to accelerate resources into applying innovation knowledge, at a different, more organized, coherent level.

So I’m working far more towards a facilitator and adviser by design and choice to those responsible for building innovation capacities, so as to promote, stimulate and exchange thinking in innovation thinking and design.

The end result, is to contribute to exploring emerging and leading practice understanding for integration into an organizations thinking and innovation models.

To this end I have ‘contained’ my service offerings deliberately. These I can sum up this way, as:

Agility’s focus of innovation work (unpaid advert)

• I look to provide leading edge advice on the premise you want to improve your present innovation performance.
• The focus is all about bringing new forms of innovation competency or capability into the world of everyday thinking for clear impact and return on the investments made.
• The result is to deliver a more holistic, understanding of what is required in innovation, unique to each client & their challenges, tailored to their needs to accelerate performance
• These are based on finding solutions for the future, deliberately forward looking to overcome today’s challenges & supporting the future innovative growth, not looking to stay caught in a legacy of past, out of date design.

The pivoting we need in any emerging business model is really hard to do.

I often get caught in the customer segment pivot. You believe you have the solutions to solve real problems within innovation but actually identifying often the ‘hidden’ real customer that this is planned for, then getting them engaged is the hardest part.

As Eric Ries nicely puts it in his lean start up methodology, the hypotheses are confirmed but only partly, until you can find more of those often ‘hidden’ customers within the organizations, that are needing these solutions and applying them.

It does get frustrating when you believe you can make a positive contribution to many organizations, still struggling to articulate, frame and determine their needs and  understanding for innovation.

Applying a selection of solutions to one, does not mean it will be valid to another, as often the context is significantly different. It is a process of reiteration, of understanding the differences and reworking solutions, blending in and capitalizing on the DNA that reflect the uniqueness.

Searching for learning, growth and impact

Hence, well for me, the constant need is for exploring all the different streams of new understanding, these become essential, these become learning milestones and new building blocks.

These can also play mind games on you though, as they can  confuse me at times, on what is offering those real engines of growth, as I adjust to these new learning’s.

Clients have a growing need for ‘leading edge’ not old past ‘best practices’, that are often never really applicable to their circumstances anyway. I much prefer to focus on ’emerging’ practices’ as these tend to be more forward looking.

The growth comes from the need to reflect where the potential challenge is for the client but it also has to be more future-orientated enough to move challenges through to decent lasting solutions. Looking at solutions that are often not working for many others is not the answer.

This changing and building a new business model is no walk in the park, especially when you are in such a crowded competitive market space of consulting and advising on something like innovation as it is constantly evolving.

Actually I’ve found that the catalogue of pivots suggested by Eric Ries I must have somehow worked though most of his suggested pivots. It is no fun this pivoting lark! It often hurts when you want to push thinking and concepts that seem to be highly relevant and needed in the market place, pivoting and adjusting as solutions are nearly all unique.

I know I need more validation, more conversations, more observations to keep the engine humming well. Come on all you hidden innovators searching for a resolution to your current problems and barriers within innovation, show yourselves, I really think I can help!

So in moving forward I’ve been actively revamping my work

Today I have ‘settled’ for two business entities both relating around innovation advisory provision.

www.agilityinnovation.com – “the focus is upon bringing out the new forms of innovation competency or capability into clients work”.

www.hocaconsulting.com – a focus upon the Work to be done that is needed for our future growth and well-being to be derived through innovation activities.

My supporting activities are critically important

I complement these by what I discuss under this blog  www.paul4innovating.com  or have been able to get published on leading innovation sites. I want to explore and build the DNA of innovation as part of this need to understand innovation (my way) and offer a more (comprehensive) picture of what is needed for innovation to work well.

I have even gone off and created a dedicated website which is exclusive to my evolving ‘fitness dynamics for innovation’ as a theory I believe allows us to capture and relate to the capabilities and capacities needed to achieve innovation within each organizations unique ways to pursue innovation. This is under www.innovationfitnessdynamics.com  

To sum up

For me, establishing the ‘new’ often means moving beyond often the already ‘known’, it is to experiment with sometimes the untried, so as to learn, too achieve faster and improving results, too evolve. This needs fresh perspectives and dedicated innovation knowledge. I attempt to provide those insights and guidance in the emerging areas of innovation.

The issue is still the classical one of convincing clients to explore, to experiment and apply some of these, as they really need too get out of specific ‘ruts’. I think far too often innovation as they have designed it or managed it, is failing to deliver on its initial promise.  

Risk is the partner to innovation so I’d argue (as you would expect) that you need to push the existing boundaries a little more.

Yes, I’m aiming for transformational in results, from my own learning to relate into clients’ challenges and problems, yet I’ve often reminded this evolving practice of innovation is equally applying more and more to my own innovation design.

Innovation is an uncomfortable place to be yet it is exciting as it evolves and keeps pushing us towards the future.

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The post Finding our true purpose first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

After swirling around in this maelstrom of articles, tweets, new publishing, advanced announcements I had to gain some high ground to recover my breath and think a little more. Catching my breath, here is my clarity take and prediction for the BMC.

Ignoring lots of early warning signs

Maybe I should have seen this coming earlier but sometimes you hear a distant rumble but you simply shrug your shoulders and get on with your own work.

This week it hit me so I spent some time piecing together different aspects around the shifts taking place on the Business model canvas that has been going on in different parts of the world for my prediction:

2012 is the BMC tipping point year

From what I can see is the Business model is about to go through a really important (further) tipping point and cross that chasm (thanks Geoffrey Moore) into mainstream adoption. Why?
The convergence of so many things seem to be coming about to make this about to explode. Let me try and piece these together. Those on the inside will knowingly just smile while those that didn’t know they were on the inside and those positioning themselves to ride on the crest of this wave will all just nod their heads and recognise their parts in this pending explosion, but it is a set of events that is bringing this all  together.

Firstly the Macro events- those outside our own control but happening now.

1. Key Trends– the foresight part. Society, Technology, Socioeconomic are all shifting or altering shape. We use technology more, we are being challenged more in society and the rapid behavioural interactions of individuals and groups through social capital and social “markets.” The formation around the new social norms of Facebook, twitter and numerous other social media is disrupting much of the existing norms
2. Macro-economic forces have changed dramatically. Global market conditions are very much living on the edge, capital markets are drying up by the day, money is going under the mattress more and more, banks are stopping to lend to business, Economic infrastructures are tottering on the brink, commodities and resources are dramatically dwindling or becoming more scarce that prices are rising way out of the old norm (gold for instance).
3. Industry forces– the incumbents in many markets are being challenges. The difficulty of letting go, of being ruthless, of radically altering the existing business models is moving to slowly. New Entrants, those insurgents, are beating at the door and blazing new paths. The supplier and accepted value chains are being attacked and altered. Stakeholders are demanding more and more and the amount of substitute products and services abound.
4. Market forces are altering. The traditional market segments are altering before our eyes, new needs and demands are expected to be satisfied at break neck speed. Market issues rise and fall catching many slow to respond in the net of destruction. Switching costs are falling, like stones around organizations necks dragging them down and dramatically altering the revenue attractiveness of many.

Now let’s go climb into the micro stuff- getting down and dirty.

The current business model everywhere is under these powerful macro attacks. Business models need to become slim lined, leaner, rapidly ready to be bundled and then quickly unbundled, to react at speed. They need to be quickly seen for what they offer so they can attract the attention of others and show you (or me) where the value is.

Business models need to shout “show me the money”  and “show me the reason” in these times so we do a swift sweep of the approaches to Business models and the Business model canvas comes quickly into view to help in this.

Each business model has its time- BMC is entering its time.
So why do I think we are entering a new tipping point for the BMC? A ‘potted history’

The amount of seeding that has already taken place
If you follow Alexander Osterwalders travels you will see he has been on a crusade to spread the gospel of the Business model and why his (and Yves Pigneur’s) canvas works. It has been going through a classic adoption curve.

Firstly the curious who worked on a collaborative book with him (about 470 people from 45 countries) in different shapes and contributions with an amazing end product on the revolutionary design of these labours- the Business Model Generation book, published in 2009. This was firstly self published and then picked up by Wiley (smart move that).

Alex is spreading the word according to the BM gospel, that the Business model needed a common voice, a common language. He demonstrated everywhere the ease of the BM canvas so ‘all around’ were recognizing the value of this tool in many different situations as valuable, so a BM can be understood, easily and quickly.

He demonstrated this could be a major advance on what we presently use in having to explain our business models and took his message out across the world last year and seemingly continuing in 2012 but perhaps a little more focused.

Finding a common language is one of the critical tenets that Alex has been arguing with his Business Model Canvas approach- I think we are getting close on this. Here is some of the events merging to make this happen.

Then we had a set of different Epiphanies

The realization by Steve Blank (www.steveblank.com) that the Business model could be incredibly useful for his area of work on the customer and venture capital investment sides. The BMC suddenly was manifested into something of more meaning and value.

He went about wanting to find a solution stack for Entrepreneurship. He combined his work on customer development and Business Model Design. He argued the canvas needed to be moved beyond a tool for brainstorming hypotheses and it needed more formal ways to test them.

He then alongside Alex, saw the canvas could be a wonderful scorecard for visually tracking iteractions as they changed. Others not so deeply involved could use this as a change dashboard of seeing real learning as a Business model evolved.

Lastly, when you are pitching for funds the canvas provides a top picture that others can quickly see and appreciate the why and how- they ‘see’ the value and the $$ potential and how it constantly evolves as the entrepreneur learns from exposing the business concept.

Then enters Eric Ries and the famous “pivot” that enters our main stream thinking for business and political explaination of what we are doing and why we made a change.

Eric Ries is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology and the author of the popular entrepreneurship blog Startup Lessons Learned and provided us one of the more exciting books “The lean start up”( http://theleanstartup.com/book  ) on how today’s entrepreneurs sse continuous innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.

As Eric explains the concept of the pivot, is the idea that successful startups change directions but stay grounded in what they’ve learned. They keep one foot in the past and place one foot in a new possible future. Over time, this pivoting may lead them far afield from their original vision, but if you look carefully, you’ll be able to detect common threads that link each iteration.

By contrast, many unsuccessful startups simply jump outright from one vision to something completely different. These jumps are extremely risky, because they don’t leverage the validated learning about customers that came before.

So these events have brought together customer development, start-ups, the entrepreneurial environment and the lean/agile movement- a set of giant leaps and validations for the BMC but we needed more.

Continuing in our convergence

Then we are faced with the arrival of ‘plug-ins’ – a beginning of a set of toolboxs for working with BMC. Firstly for the iPad that combines “the speed of a napkin sketch with the smarts of a spreadsheet”. This app enables you to map, test, and iterate your business ideas — fast.

As the iPad app was released and is now available on the iTunes App Store and for those with questions, challenges or comments, Alex and his team have created a forum for discussion around the iPad Business Model Toolbox to learn from and develop beyond.

As an additional add-in post post I forgot to mention that AO and his team have shifted their (software) company name to Strategyzr. The reason is that they have a vision beyond the business model: the goal is to integrate all the best (visual) tools and weave them together to an integrated toolset.

Something that Steve Blank would call the solution stack. That’s their breaking vision.
The site of Alex’s is www. http://businessmodelhub.com and it is been undergoing a quiet reconstruction to structure the different aspects of the BMC concept to make it more ‘holistic’ where you can go for tools, knowledge, about the book, forthcoming events, blogs, a forum and a place for a growing community.

For example back on Dec. 31, 2008 they had 148 members. By book publishing that grew to 470 members and recently they welcomed the member # 5’300 on Nov. 19, 2011! All busy contributing to the evolution of the BMC, all building knowledge and getting involved.

Michael Lachapelle, an administrator on the Business Model Hub but actually far, far more,  recently commented  that for some time now he has been experimenting with a couple of plug-ins to help clients work out the details of their value proposition in the business model.

He has used the Value Mapping tool from the Board of Innovation, and the Whiteboard value map that is described in Cooper & Valskovitz’s Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development. He also experimented with some of the approaches in Ash Maurya’s Running Lean; in particular, identifying three key problems and three solutions. So ‘Apps’ are rapidly becoming the new muscle for BMC.

He goes onto comment “one of the best approaches I have plugged into the customer-value proposition analysis is the ‘job-to-be-done’ approach of Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson”.

Then we enter late 2010 and early 2011 and connect some seperate parts.
In early 2010 Mark Johnson, a cofounder of Innosight published an alternative book for solving Business models, called “Seizing the White Space”. It is a very different book to Alex’s but it comes from a very different perspective- one that is written by a strategic consultant that looks at the challenges from a larger organizations perspective to Business models.

Mark offered a most helpful four component model for every successful business model exploring a compelling customer value proposition (CVP), a winning profit formula and key resources and processes. He raised the critical area of jobs-to-be-done and why it was important to focus on unmet jobs customers want to get done. He linked existing core space in existing enterprises and offered thoughts and approaches to exploring these white spaces.

Recently I heard that Alex and Mark have been exchanging thoughts on how and where there are fits and ways to collaborate together. That piece of convergence was or is important. It brings some excellent skill sets together if it can be worked out.

Early January 2012 a new plug in prototype

In the first few days of January of this year Alex provided his next step where he has been thinking even more about “plug-ins” that complement the Business Model Canvas for a while. One concept he had been looking at more closely over the last few weeks is the invaluable “jobs-to-be-done” approach.

In his work-in-progress he is wanting to turn this concept into a visual approach like the Business Model Canvas (BMC). The result is a prototype conceptual tool, the Customer Value Canvas v.0.8., that he present in this blogpost  http://bit.ly/zXiTb7

He explains that he originally set out to design an ultra applicable, simple, and visual Canvas for the (customer) jobs-to-done-concept with his  motivation to create a dedicated and complementary Canvas that helps organizations sketch out and analyze the fit between their value propositions and the customers they target in a more granular way than the Business Model Canvas mapping does.

The result is his endeavour at a prototype conceptual tool, the Customer Value Canvas v.0.8. He has been testing this out over several iterations of prototype concepts, test runs with workshop participants, try-outs students, applications with my own team, and several conversations with my #bmgen site buddies and co-author of the book Yves Pigneur.

It seems he has arrived at a result turned out to become a mash-up of several approaches from various different thinkers but trying to absorb the JOBS canvas concept, where he started.

So far so good- now to moving more into 2012 and the ongoing BMC roll out
Saul Kaplan of Business Innovation Factory fame (http://businessinnovationfactory.com ) or BIF has written his book, due out in April 2012. Saul suggests Business model innovation is the new strategic imperative for all leaders. Today, all organizations must be capable of designing, prototyping, and experimenting with new business models.

His book The Business Model Innovation Factory provides leaders with the survival skills to create a pipeline of new business models in the face of disruptive markets and competition

Saul’s observation is exactly right. Business models don’t last as long as they used to. Historically CEO’s have managed a single business model over their entire careers and that is just not going to be the case in the future or even know.

Self-reinvention is the new imperative

As Saul pointed out in October 2011, in his article “Five Reasons Companies Fail at Business Model Innovation (  http://bit.ly/r1xCJX ) for the Harvard Business review blog where he suggests companies routinely fail at self-reinvention because they are so busy pedalling the bicycle of their current business models they leave no time, attention, or resources to design, prototype, and test new ones.

Saul & Alex are combining on Friday Friday, September 21, 2012 following the BIF-8 Summit, so those that participate in the BIF can get their hands ‘dirty’ with Business Model Innovation collaborators, Saul Kaplan and Alex Osterwalder, in an exclusive Workshop digging into the challenges and opportunities of business model innovation, “an emerging but still poorly understood discipline” as suggested by the promoting of this event.

Their aim here is for developing and experimenting with new business models that  transform how a company delivers value (while continuing to drive the performance of your current business model) as this is one of those real exceptionally difficult points.

The argument is to compete in a world where the “shelf life” of business models is shortening, leaders need the tools, skills, and experience to envision, test, and implement new business models. Moreover, successful organizations will establish an ongoing process to explore new models for delivering value—even those that are disruptive to current operations.

Business Model You hits the stands! Get your copy.

Changing Times, Changing Business Models- enter Business Model You. Much of today’s job market turbulence is driven by factors beyond our personal control: recession, sweeping demographic changes, intensifying global competition, environmental issues, and so forth and enters the one page model for re-inventing your career. Go to the preview here http://t.co/gZy4CiUF

Then we have the meeting in Berlin in November  2012 (dates to be fully confirmed)

This is ‘billed’ as the Business Design Summit. This is where a group of invited (?) parties come together to understand, design, rework and find better ways to implement Business models. The emphasis will be on greater use of new web applications, the growing input of design into BM’s and perhaps where the Business model generation comes together, to create the future.

So I just see much is merging, combing and making BM the talking point of 2012.

The arguments for BMC are getting compelling; there are a lot of forces at work. We are moving well beyond mobilization of the Canvas we are in the era of the buy-in. Of course we all have to get comfortable before any ‘bar’ is lifted.

The reality is the goal posts have dramatically shifted on the need for new Business models than ever before. Just go back and read the macro analysis here again.

The build will occur thoughout 2012 and this meeting in Berlin will consolidate as well as push out I’m sure.

Reality will dictate we are facing multiple industry breakpoints in 2012.
There is a once-in-a-decade or our lives set of events heading our way. Can you spot the signs? There is a growing possibility that there will be falling demand for standard and existing products, they will need some radical overhauls.

The pressure on declining margins and sources of sustaining profit are drying up, competition is going low cost, low price in many areas. The application of new technologies continues to disrupt existing approaches to business, we have more (over supply) of sources of supplies and new entrants are pushing new value curves supported by completely different economics. It all is getting disruptive and this will cause new behaviours that will make it even more disruptive.

There is a time, a certain time, when we all have to reach for the napkin, sketch out as new business model or dozens of them and then set about validating them. As the speed of disruption ‘kicks in’ even more the Business Model Canvas and all the growing associated tools, techniques and methods will be needed more than ever.

I’d recommend getting going on knowing this BMC framing device inside out to keep in pace and touch with considerable change in the need for new business models.

Shifting perspectives

We have seen a significant shift from internalizing to externalizing through open innovation. In seeking differentiation, businesses have had to loosen up and give up some of their ‘control’ in these face changing times.

The world is heading for an even  more dynamic and complex place where you have to find a unique position in the market, and one that quickly builds on competitive advantage seen through the eyes of your customer not from within your four walls.

For me there is something intuitive about the BMC approach.  We all must simply empower everyone, to go out and seek increased value from new BM’s, often seen but not captured in its interpretation.

We need to simply communicate this quickly, on one page and well that’s the real power of the Business Model Canvas, for any organization, large or small.

Business Model Canvas will become adopted as a main stream need, it will explode (or implode) in our thinking- one way or another in 2012– as we deal with so much change about to occur.

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