Starbucks wants its coffee to be the first thing you grab in the morning — from your own kitchen.

“Last week, Starbucks introduced the aisle to a group of journalists in a loft in New York City. The fixture, which has the look of a truncated grocery aisle, was done up in colors and textures reminiscent of a Starbucks cafe. A lone sconce in warm yellow hung in one of its corners, below the large, green mermaid of Starbucks’ logo.”

See on www.huffingtonpost.com

How do you cope when faced with complexity and constant change at work? Successful leaders do what jazz musicians do: they improvise.

“musicians get innovative ideas, and learn whether their playing is up to par. Organizations need to create similar room for jam sessions as Steve Jobs so deeply understood. They need to deliberately design for serendipity, to encourage happy accidents and unexpected discoveries. The key to this in organizations is opportunistic conversations. Great insights occur in the context of relationships and exchanges, as people share each other’s work and ask questions.”

See on edition.cnn.com

1. Develop a successful Marketing Strategy

2. Create and maintain a powerful website

3. Generate more Traffic

4. Convert Traffic to Leads

5. Convert Leads into Sales

6. Measure Everything

I can hear the Wow! emanating from the offices of small business everywhere. Hire a full time employee with benefits etc to do Social Media? That is exactly what I’m suggesting and if you don’t you may find yourself so far behind in marketing and customer relations to the big companies that your only hope for growth is to merge with someone else.

Times are different then just a few years ago and, the need to be quick on your feet to innovate will only continue to grow. Hiring a Person to be the Swiss-Army-Knife of your social and content marketing efforts makes more sense then ever.

Managing for both growth and engagement on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ alone could take someone hours everyday to be successful. Add in frequently updated information on your website and interacting with customer needs and questions and your Social Media Manager has just worked a full week at least. Oh sure you can hire agency’s to do much of the work but do you really want someone who is not working in your office, someone who is not interacting with your other employees, someone who is not participating in meetings with the rest of the staff, of course not.

I think the best way at least in the beginning would be for Agencies to place a body in your business to do the job.The agency than can monitor that person using their expertise and also can make suggestions and keep the employee up to speed with what’s going on and what’s new.

Check out the Infographic below for some interesting numbers about how business views and interacts with Social Media.

My

Can you remember if you were cautioned not to make mistakes or where instead encouraged to see beyond artificial boundaries of thought. When it comes to Innovation being afraid of making mistakes can be a project or idea killer, it can mean never allowing yourself or your team the latitude to find the next big thing.

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, no it was fear of making a mistake that did in the poor risk adverse feline… Be curious and check out Fast Company’s 30 Second MBA series

There are a couple of ways to approach any project, the first is to plan the heck out of it using lists, mind maps and focus groups and at the end cut cut cut until it fits into category of simple and useful. The 2nd way is to simply create it with no bells ans whistles in the first place, decide if it does the job and then send it out into the world. Both strategies can be difficult but I believe the simple path is easier to learn and offers more value in the end to both the creator and to the user.

Innovators and those interested in Innovation in all its permutations will find some fertile ground for sparking thinking and conversation just by stopping by the #innovation #hashtag page on Twitter, but before you go check out our infographic painted by the monthly #Innovation numbers.. Tell us what you think..

infographiccreated with visual.ly

Over 58,000 uses of the #Hashtag @Innovation in just the past month, Wow! Over 2500 uses on it’s busiest day, that is some serious thinking going on in the world of Innovation. More Resources:

Ad Agencies, Social Media Powerhouses, App Developers, and even New Wave Chef’s will create over the top nonsensical slogans to convince you of their prowess.

• Game Changing DI
• Taking DI To A New Level
• Innovation Fueled With DI
• Not Just Innovation – Disruptive Innovation
• DI Mindset for Your Success

Most of the talk about Disruptive Innovation uses the phrase to mean “game changing” invention. Apple’s iPad fits into this definition along with their iPhone. The problem is most small business will never create a game changing device or roll out an idea so radical that a new market is born and their profits expanded into the stratosphere.

The other definition of DI is creating an innovative way to produce and sell a  product cheaper then anyone else. Capture the bottom end of the market with a dramatically cheaper widget and you’ll disrupt the market keeping your competitor awake  for many nights. This version of DI is perhaps the original version and not nearly as sexy for agencies to promote but for small business it may be the most important definition.

Recently I came across a new company that has nailed Disruptive Innovation. The video is humorous and at first seems like a skit from Saturday Night Live but it’s not, it’s a real company. watch the video and visit the website. Dollar Shaver Club

Additional Resources:

Both of these are a must for anyone in business. I think many will find the first one does a wonderful job of crystallizing an understanding of Disruptive Innovation and the second video naturally extends the understanding.

1. Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and the world’s most influential management guru according to the Thinkers50, lays out his landmark theory. Disruptive Innovation Explained.

2. An interview with Scott Anthony, President, Innosight. Disruptive innovation occurs when an innovator brings something to market that is simple, convenient, accessible, and affordable.