My Upcoming Book Has a Title! Outside Innovation!

Titling a book is like naming a product. You’re creating a brand as well as, hopefully, a self-explanatory description. Customers.com worked well for my first book—it said it all: Customers and the Internet. The subtitle—“How to Create a Profitable Strategy on the Internet and Beyond”—was a mouthful. But the tag line really stuck: “Make it Easy for Customers to Do Business with You.” My second book was titled The Customer Revolution: How to Thrive When Customers Are in Control. I can’t even remember the tag line. For this upcoming book, we were directed by our publisher, Harper-Collins, not to use the word “customer” in the title. They’re afraid it will get buried in the hundreds of books with “customer” this and that. Probably good advice.

   

This new book—due out in September 2006—was originally titled “Outside In.” But we were scooped by Barbara Bund of MIT, whose book The Outside In Corporation was published in October. (Stay tuned for my review of her book—it’s quite useful.) So, through the usual creative brainstorming process, we tried lots of alternatives and finally settled on “Outside Innovation.” We like it. It says what I plan to convey: that true innovation—the innovation that will keep you ahead of the curve forever—is customer-led innovation. The subtitle is currently Let Your Customers Co-Design the Future of Your Business. We’re still in search of a catchy tag line, so please give us your suggestions. Maybe you’ll come up with the equivalent of “make it easy for customers to do business with you”--a phrase that I owe to my semantics coach, Marilyn Darling. Your prize? How about a stimulating dinner together at a mutually-agreeable location, my treat?

Comments

[Patty Seybold]

Dana,
You're right, motive IS important.. It's all about what I need/want to do (what I call a Customer Scenario) and the Experience of getting that done... It turns out, of course, that some times I want to play/explore/learn--not do something directed. Or, even if I have a task in mind, like buy a gift for someone, to use your Amazon analogy, I want to have fun doing it.. Increasingly, having fun means getting to do it MY way.. creating or customizing something.. or having fun means interacting with others.. as in this blog experience..

So thanks for the link to Mark Pesce's Playful World site. He has a great site to support his book of the same title.. really nicely designed and interactive.. unfortunately, since the book was published 5 years ago, the book site has been taken over by folks who have posted pornographic stuff and some of the links no longer work, but it's a great lesson in how to let readers follow along in your research/thought processes...

Happy New Year to you!
Patty

[Dana]

Hi Patty - Happy New Year Patty- and Happy New Year to all you brilliant folk what read this brilliant site...its way cool...Patty you honor me by being so thoughtful and thorough in your responses. Our research is in the realm of CRM so your postings on that have really been helpful, thank you. Kurzweil is kind of cool - I also like Mark Pesce ("A Playful World") http://www.playfulworld.com/ simply because it seems to me that much of what we are dealing with at all times is MOTIVE. Establish the motive, move the motive, now we say that we are allowing the customer to get into the game in a formidable way, via the technology, which is true...but actually - Pesce has a very real point...the motive is the fun of it all- to a large extent, wouldn't you agree? I mean - we tend to lose sight of how much fun it is to dial out to Amazon, get that gift - have it arrive- and everything be great- without the hassle of going to a store? But also...our technology is fun...and that's a factor it seems to me...and hence Pesce hit it on the nose I believe...anyway...deeply appreciate the links...am using them like a big dog..even though I be a pup...

-Dana

[Patty Seybold]

Dana,
Thanks for the clarification. That will make it easier for me to read/digest Ray's latest oeuvre. Connectedness and the seamless connection with technology is definitely a huge enabler of customer innovation. I am seeing it everywhere--from the girls school in Uganda http://urdt.net/where previously illiterate 12-year olds are now posting tips on organic farming online--to the designers who win the Threadless T-Shirt design competitions http://threadless.com/--to the "freeformers" who prefer to borrow and lend from one another via Zopa http://zopa.com/ZopaWeb/, rather than from their banks. All of these customer innovation capabilities aren't just enabled by technology, but they only work because technology and the ability to connect via technology has (finally) become seamless enough that it's in the background--just part of our infrastructure. Good point!
Thanks...
Patty

[Patty Seybold]

Bill,
Thanks for the tagline suggestion. It's pretty close to what we seem to be gravitating towards.. You're right that the tagline needs to capture the inevitability of this trend! Yours does that nicely...

I wonder where Expedia's customers will take you next? Possible book fodder??

Thanks for the private email tip re: your wife, Jeanne Bliss, upcoming book, Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action. I can't wait to read it!

Thanks, too for the link. I've already pre-ordered it. (I love One-Click!)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787980943/qid=1135726241/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-0957526-0308158?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[Bill Bliss]

Here's a tagline suggestion for you... "Let your customers take your business where they want to go." The "they" could be italicized or perhaps even all caps. Happy Holidays!

[Dana Richardson]

Merry Christmas Patty- I'm such a newfer to this blogging business...but want to attempt to do an answer...hope it will be useful?

Great question and counterpoint - the phase that Dr. Kurzweil is explaining touches the consumer in many differing ways. Connectedness is likely one of the metrics which we observe, as the totally seamless interaction with technology; as it comes into being. It is with such indicators (as Kurzweil points them out) in mind that it seems prudent for those of us who use, examine, research and report on the current state of the technology, to do so with as well informed and wide angle a viewpoint (regarding the potentials for the future of that technology) as we are able to bring into our methodology. You are right about Kurzweil being a bit daunting - but, other than Naisbitt, Kurzweil is as accurate in his appraisal of the future as predictability, seemingly; allows for. It is his science approach which I find fascinating. So to bring your question to point and focus, it seems to me that connectedness and the seamless nature of what we are arriving at technologically, is where I see customer innovation being a dominant factor in the singularity. Hmm, there is an article subject in there somewhere... now if I could just write that pup and sell it....

-Thanks for being a considerate author..

-Dana

[Patty Seybold]

James,

Thanks for the offer of being a reviewer! I would love to take you up on that. In particular, I'd value your input re: the open source collaborative model and how you see it being applied outside of the software realm.

Patty

[James]

If you are seeking reviewers for your manuscript, me and my coworkers will gladly provide you with candid feedback...

http://duckdown.blogspot.com/

[Patty Seybold]

Dana,
Thanks for the link to Ray's book. I haven't read it. It looks fascinating but daunting. Before I wade into it, what's the connection that you see between Singularity and Customer Innovation?

Patty

[Dana Richardson]

In your literature search did you take in Kurzweil's book on the singularity being near?