Archive for July, 2014

Get Connected

Wednesday, July 16th, 2014

Get Connected!
By Roger La Salle

The most valuable companies
In the world today, courtesy of the internet and the communications revolution some of the most valuable companies in the world are Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like and in reality what these companies do it little more than connect people.

What’s in a brand?
There has been some dialogue recently in one of the chat forums about the big brand consultancies and prominent academic institutions. Is it their brand or their capability that sets them apart? This is a wonderful question indeed?

Some Examples
It was announced on the weekend that the former head of the largest industrial union in Australia has joined one of the big four consulting firms as a Director. Some writers are indeed querying just what special skills he brings to that business. Has he ever worked in consulting, or in fact ever run a business?

In recent years a former Premier of Queensland retired as the Chairman of another of Australia’s big four consultancies, but from his vast political background, what special insights did he bring to the consulting game – little one may argue.

In past years some of our major telecommunications equipment manufacturers have “head hunted’ people from the large telecom companies, again one may ask, what special insights do these people have in the manufacturing business – the answer is probable none at all.

In all of the above cases it’s the contacts and connections of these people that matters.

Just as the top internet connectors are the most valuable in the world, so too are the most well connected people.

What’s the message?
I now have many thousands of people on my database and over the years have developed first class personal relationships with people and businesses in more than 28 countries. These connection have proved invaluable!

Folks – build your network and get connected.

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Roger La Salle, is the creator of the “Matrix Thinking”™ technique and is widely sought after as an international speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria (INNOVIC) as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panelist on the ABC New Inventors TV program. In 2005 he was appointed to the “Chair of Innovation” at “The Queens University” in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to Deloitte, one of the world’s largest consulting firms. www.matrixthinking.com

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The Time is Now!

Monday, July 7th, 2014

The time is now!
By Roger La Salle

Years end – or Years start?
For many businesses the year has ended flat, to say the least. The stock market is flat and confidence is low. Now is the time to be different, time to take advantage of those that view the glass half empty, it’s time to seize the opportunities that many are overlooking as they struggle to rise from the doldrums.

“Opportunity Capture” is the new wave. Opportunity precedes innovation and innovation is what powers business.

This is powerful stuff
The opportunity matrix asks us to look at the big picture by observing human and business activities. There are only five activities we need to observe, these are called the Seeds of Opportunity.

Observation is the key and for this reason we define opportunity as “An observed fortunate set of circumstances”. If you use the Seeds identified as the search methodology you will see opportunity abound.

Some stunning insights and solutions
A quick scan using the opportunity matrix has revealed:

• Worldwide there are approximately 6 million megawatt hours of power used annually to charge mobile phones (Energy consumption we did not even consider some 15 years ago)
o Solution – provide everybody with a $2.00 solar cell with a new phone

• We all love out text messages, (most of which are frivolous) and yet whilst many worry about green initiatives there are close to 100 MWatt hours of power used annually in sending these texts
o Limit texts to what is needed, not what is fun – Twitter may be one answer, but by no means the best!

• In Istanbul alone (just one major world city) approximately 200 MWatt hours of electricity are used every morning just on car stop lights. Double that to add the afternoon peak.
o Use LEDS to reduce this by a factor of 10, flashing the lights at a 50% duty cycle halves it again.

• In Australia alone we use approximately 440 tonnes of staples annually just to staple credit card invoices to receipts and 730,000 km of paper just to print the receipts.
o Put it all in the cloud as an e-receipt

• In Australia alone close to 36,000 tonnes of CO2 is realised annually from Coca Cola
o Drink low fizz drinks or use the “Fizz Straw” to aerate the drink as you drink it

• There are approximately 500,000 dinner parties in Melbourne every week
o Use this knowledge to access the complementary products market

• There are approximately 80 million toothbrushes sold annually in Australia
o Make the package easier to open and steal your competitors market

• A bank has millions of customers, their “channel” – but they never leverage it?
o Fulfil a common need of your “tribe”

What Now
The above are just some of the stunning insights that Opportunity Capture can reveal, and it takes just seconds.

You too can do this and be first to see the opportunities that others are simply missing, it’s fast, simple and rigorous.

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Roger La Salle, is the creator of the “Matrix Thinking”™ technique and is widely sought after as an international speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria (INNOVIC) as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panelist on the ABC New Inventors TV program. In 2005 he was appointed to the “Chair of Innovation” at “The Queens University” in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to Deloitte, one of the world’s largest consulting firms. www.matrixthinking.com

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