Lean Marketing House » Vision

Spontaneous Marks help you think – Doodling

admin — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:33:00 +0000

A doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes. Stereotypical examples of doodling are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, drawn by students daydreaming or losing interest during class. Other common examples of doodling are produced during long telephone conversations if a pen and paper are available. –From Wikpedia

Could this be the most non-factual statement in Wikpedia? you might want to ask Sunni Brown. She says: Doodlers, unite! She makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen.

Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we’re caught doodling in a meeting?

I look at doodling as a precursor to many storyboards, designs and prototypes. I will admit that seldom do I not throw away a page of doodles a day. I mean what would life be without them? I wonder though is there an App for this?

Another Gemba Talk with Womack on Lean

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 02:30:00 +0000

Listen to Dr. Womack discuss Lean in the 2nd part of a 2 part podcast. Part 1 of the podcast was A Gemba Talk with Womack on Lean. We discussed his new book Gemba Walks and many of the problems in implementing Lean. Just the intro and ending was repeated, about 2 minutes on each end.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Download Podcast: Right Click and chose Save As: Gemba Talk, Part 2 or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.

Other Books by Dr. Womack:
Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation
Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together
The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production

Have you taken the path of your customer?

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:35:00 +0000

One of my steps in working with a client is that I like to put together their Marketing calendar to understand what they have on the table, events, conferences, advertisement, fliers, etc. They usually have some type of marketing in place, and we are looking at improving the system not dismantling it. After the marketing calendar has been constructed, I start moving, sometimes just the post-it-notes from a chronological order to a marketing flow stream based on the customers’ viewpoint. We could even call it an assessment, but initially I am just on a fact finding mission, in Lean terms = Current State Map.

However, this week the procedure took a strange turn. I completed the process but I happen to know one of the client’s customer very well. So, after constructing this hour glass with the new client, I was able to sit down with his customer and my friend and map the process from the customers’ point of view. Voice of Customer seems to an over-used word in our industry but this was one of my best experiences. We actually pulled the clients file from the customers file cabinet, reviewed the folders on his computer including e-mails and bookmarks. I then laid out all the marketing material that had accumulated, highlighted and even taking note of the bent corners in the catalog. This was all followed by an interview.

Of course, my sample size of 1 is not a good indicator. The key to this process was the awaking to the client and myself on what the customer valued and what his procedure was in making the decision. His process was simply different. We talk about going to Gemba and walking the walk from the customers’ point of view, but do we? How much non-effective marketing could you save by doing this? How much effecting marketing could you implement?

P.S. Use a larger sample size.

Is your Value Stream Mapping backwards?

Mirror Marketing E-Book

Another word for Marketing – How about Voice of the Customer?

Technorati : Marketing Calendar, Value stream Mapping