The Institute of Glorious Failures

Many of our clients struggle with the same question : how to give valuable ideas the elbow room to develop properly; how to protect fledgling ideas from ‘short term’ budget and performance pressures.

What to do if they don’t ‘fit the mold’ or are harder to quantify? What if you need partnerships ‘with the outside’ to develop and monetize them? What if they seem strange but feel right? Read the rest of this entry »

Rooftop Garden coming up…

Last week I visited the ‘Nationaal Sutainability Congres’ in The Hague. The largest sustainability event in our country where around 700 people came together to discuss, to learn and to inspire. A bit more of the first than the latter perhaps, but it’s very comforting to be in a room full of people working (and talking) on sustainable change!

Two main conclusions stayed with me after the conference.

The first was stated quite clear and shared by all people present: It’s time to stop talking and start doing. Which is kind of a dual message in a room full of people talking about the topic. But still.. Read the rest of this entry »

Creative Company Conference 2009 - Amsterdam

This week, I visited the Creative Company Conference in Amsterdam. A number of speakers was very interesting, including mister Amnon Levav of the Israeli firm Innovation SIT who spoke inspiringly about how innovation is often stimulated through challenges or discomfort, and usually found at the end of the path of MOST resistance. His analysis of structural, functional and relational ‘fixedness’ traps was a minor breakthrough to me.

The undisputed highlight of the day however was Sir Ken Robinson, who lectured about the importance of changing the way we look at education, chilling with Paul McCartney and his wife’s love of Elvis. I intend to read his new book “The Element” soon.

All in all, the event was fun, and I left inspired. I feel that in this day & age however, a conference like this should have wi-fi. Interestingly, there were rumors of a TedX event to be organised in Amsterdam soon. Let’s hope we can get a program together that deserves the ‘accolades of Ted-ness’.

You think people love Apple now? Watch them scream 25 years ago

You can find Steve Jobs’ first big presentation from 1984 online. Hear the crowd soaring. When we at Fronteer talk about smart brands, we talk about Apple (sometimes). The thing is, this brand is built in a quarter century. It was carefully constructed and nurtured over the years.

When you have people screaming for more at your first real introduction, and 25 years later still… what can we add to that? Read the rest of this entry »

Innovation: where east meets west

A while ago one of the experts in a Rooftop session dropped a question “So all people are connected… and then what?” It seemed quite bold at first, but he actually was so right, asking for the reason WHY you would want to be connected, why would you want something… just for the sake of wanting it?

It got me thinking about the role of asking ‘why’ in the innovation process. As a child you were always asking why? why? Just to get a grip on things and try to understand things. And even though I still ask this question quite often, I noticed that you often stop asking this and just deal with a situation as it comes along. But how wrong can you be! Read the rest of this entry »

Cute Cute Cute

Japan is the country of Kawaii - meaning cute (amongst others). Doing some pretty serious retailing research in Japan we found out that even grown up businesses are heavily influenced by this miraculous little word.

Women determine what is bought and what not. Men get pocket money. Cars, food, travel goods, clothes,  anything really, bought by women. What do women want? Colour and pretty curves basically. This means that entire categories have to adopt to this and that foreign brands have to be well aware of the impact it has on their ranges. This combined with a very strong hype culture makes doing business in Japan tricky to say the least. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome on board - Or rather not?

The Joys of Airline Travel - published in Second Sight Trend magazine. Sorry - only in Dutch

Verdoemenis in het Inferno van Dante? Een zondagse wandeling in het bos – met pannenkoek! – vergeleken met het lot van een hedendaagse reiziger.

We gaan er even vanuit dat we niet bij de 5% “sorry overboekt” horen die met een McDonaldsbon het riet in worden gestuurd, noch dat onze vlucht wegens omstandigheden (niet vol) wordt gecancelled.

We hebben dan na de dame van de marechaussee nog precies een uur en achtendertig minuten om bij de gate te komen – en die hebben we nodig ook, want het is naar C99 nog 8 kilometer lopen. Snelwandelend geven we nog even 9 euro uit aan een flesje water. Read the rest of this entry »

Sure…We had a new idea only 2 years ago

Take 20 seconds and think about this:

What’s the last time your company introduced something new?

Chances are, you will be as unpleasantly surprised as many of our clients. It’s only natural really; companies are usually designed to do more or less the same thing over and over. That’s basically how you improve performance and increase margins.

Unfortunately though, there’s usually someone out there in the market who’s ready to make the first move. New feature. New widget. Better performance. Better Price. Consumers tend to like that kind of thing. Read the rest of this entry »

GREAT! Another consulting firm…

JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDED

Actually, no. Fronteer Strategy isn’t ‘just’ another consulting firm, but one with a clear idea of why, how and what. The ‘double e’ is a conscious typo (thanks for warning me though, mum) that refers to our backgrounds: engineer, marketeer… and anthropologist. We apply our wide variety of interests and experience to develop clutter-cutting marketing strategy: innovation, co-creation and brand development. Read the rest of this entry »