The Business of Encounters

When physics professors do market research, I think it makes sense to pay attention. Russell Stannard wanted to publish an entertaining introduction to Relativity for youngsters. His first stop was the local library, where he looked through the date stamps to find out the post popular childrens’ books. He found that they had certain characteristics: illustrations, lots of dialogue, humour and short chapters. So that’s how he developed Black Holes and Uncle Albert. Courtesy of Jurgen Wolff.

I’m still taken by Rolf Jensen’s notion that there are only six markets. Here they are, with some examples:
1 The market for adventure – lastminute.com, Ann Summers, Boardman Bikes, , Cisco, Virgin Atlantic
2. The market for love and belonging (togetherness) – BBC Worldwide, Wickes, Centreparcs. National Trust
3. The care market: To care and be cared for – Guide Dogs, Body Shop, babeswithbabies, BUPA, Hilton, Fairy
4. The who-am-I market: defining ourselves – The Economist, London Business School, , Sunday Times
5. The market for peace of mind: feeling safe and secure – UPS, Pfizer, Bosch, Zurich, AA, Sage, Eddie Stobart
6. The market for convictions: having opportunities to demonstrate them – The Medical Foundation; BBH; Liberal Democrats

Or perhaps this only does a good job at defining which category you’re in? Perhaps you get interesting when, having established your category credentials, you begin to taste of something else: c.f. Eddie Stobart or UPS, where peace of mind is essential, but you’re really buying like the taste of adventure, expansion and possibility. To be continued.

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Lovely new 4m film from my sometime collaborator Jethro Skinner (he’s the board guy.)

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My good friend John Higgins (we lumbered through Ashridge together) has a very different, psychologically informed view of what it means to be a leader. In becoming one, you become an outsider. Fascinating. “>