Why The Tumult of Johnson and J.C. Penney Is Less About Innovation, More About Commoditization

This story by Abram Brown a Forbes staff writer on the continuing woes of J.C. Penney is remarkable. A few months ago one of the top stories on Forbes was of former Apple store innovator Johnson would wave his magic to transform competitors to little more than usurpers. The article was dead wrong. One can't disdain Johnson of dispassionate innovation. A lesson for the proliferation of innovation aficionados forgetting that in a world of intense competition there is innovation and there is effective innovation. However, the money isn’t in the innovations it is in salivating customers who remind their friends hw great you are. 

Hence, J.C. Penney chief Ron Johnson's problems aren't innovation. I repeat. It’s commoditization stupid. The most feared enemy of business. I'd appreciate your comments. Jim W

J.C. Penney’s decision to return to gimmicky promotions—a sale for friends and family, 2o% off!—reflects how mightily that company is struggling under the direction of new CEO Ron Johnson.

Starting this week, the 110-year-old department store chain will bring back some of the sales that it swore off last year, the Associated Press reports. Meanwhile, J.C. Penney will feature new price tags next to merchandise that shows how much customers save by shopping there.

It’s exactly what Johnson said he wouldn’t do. He pledged to give up promotions, part of an grand scheme that would change nearly every aspect of the company. The reversal shows he misunderstood J.C. Penney’s customers at the start and that his ambitious plan isn’t taking hold.

What else has gone wrong? By scrapping sales—coupons too—J.C. Penney alienated its core customer base. The middle income shoppers who went to J.C. Penney no longer feel comfortable there. Nor will they recognize the place soon. Johnson plans to dramatically renovate J.C. Penney’s 1,110 stores, widening aisles and adding flashy technology. Coffee bars will, perhaps, make it a hang-0ut spot. Yoga classes and hair salons, too.

All this hasn’t gotten J.C. Penney far. It probably just booked its fourth consecutive quarter of losses. Sales have fallen, too, likely off more than 20% in the past year. Shareholders wiped away half the company’s value in a year, the debt downgraded to junk status.

Continue the article via forbes.com

 

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How To Innovate Fast

72% of employees detest their jobs. Here is how to make your company a Best Place to work.

Write this on your wall with a red bold Sharpie!

"As my employees go so goes my customers. As my customers go so goes my company. 

If my employees are ever treated less than partners I stand the risk of my customers receiving less At all times I will remember the names (including spouses) and birthdays of my employees as I do my customers. 

Effective leadership in great companies is not a "seat of the pants activity." Jim 

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Dilbert Simplifies The Mystique of Innovation and Management Hyperbole - Jim Woods

Courtesy Scott Adams

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Jim Woods is principal and founder of InnoThink Group. Jim is a business turnaround expert and personal coach. His story is riveting. He has worked with government, U.S. Army, MITRE Corporation, Pitney Bowes, Whirlpool, and 3M. Jim W experiences, extensive research on competitive strategy and innovation have given him a fresh perspective on improving individual and organizational performance. Jim is a prolific speaker on strategic innovation, creative leadership, uncertainty and competitive strategy. Speak with us for consulting or speaking engagements call 719-266-6703 or click here for more information. Follow Jim on Twitter. Follow Jim on Facebook.  

How to Grow in Hard Times - The World is Booming

It’s never-ending winter in the developed Western world, or so it appears to almost everybody trying to make a living in the region. The ground is frozen. The snow is deep. The winds are bitter. And whenever spring beckons, another storm blows in.

The macroeconomic environment has not been as hostile to growth since the 1930s. The International Monetary Fund has argued that crises like the one we have just been through — crises that are synchronized across the developed world and driven by financial calamities — tend to be both deeper and longer than normal recessions, perhaps “two to three times as deep and two to four times as long.” And that is before you throw political risk into the equation.

The euro zone is proving to be incapable of dealing with the contradiction at its heart: the single currency cannot work properly without more centralization of decision-making but European countries are unwilling to cede the authority to make that decision-making possible. And the United States is proving to be equally incapable of dealing with a fiscal deficit that is eroding its long-term competitiveness. The Republicans refuse to raise taxes while the Democrats refuse to cut spending. Japan has now endured almost two decades of stagnation, thanks to its dysfunctional political system. There is a strong possibility that the same thing will happen to the West.

Microeconomic conditions are equally hostile: governments have responded to a succession of crises by imposing much tougher regulations on the corporate sector. America’s share of the global IPO market fell from 67 percent in 2002, when Sarbanes-Oxley passed, to 16 percent today. But the damage done by Sarbanes-Oxley is likely to be dwarfed by Dodd-Frank, a monstrously complex piece of legislation that entwines the entire American corporate sector, not just the financial companies that were at the heart of the crisis, in red tape. But for all their faults, regulation-spawning governments were only doing the people’s bidding. Even if the Occupy movement is fading, the 99 percent continue to regard companies as malefactors of great wealth.

Western consumers are likely to be strapped for cash for years to come. The consumer boom that powered Western economies in the 1990s and early 2000s was built on a mountain of debt. People spent like drunken sailors despite the fact that Americans’ median household income was stagnant and European unemployment was high. But those days are gone. The American housing bubble has burst. And European governments are raising taxes and cutting back on benefits. In many industries — cars are an obvious example — we are likely to see a return of the old-fashioned Marxist crisis of overproduction as too many products chase too few consumers.

The two most common responses to tough times — increasing efficiency and turbo-charging innovation — are proving to be less efficacious today than they were in the past. Most companies have done so much to fine-tune their operations — re-engineering their core functions, slimming their work forces and tightening their supply chains — that there are no obvious efficiencies to be gained. Innovation has become the corporate mantra de jour in much the same way that re-engineering was in the 1990s. Hardly a week passes without a new book appearing on the subject. But the problem with innovation is that it’s incredibly hard; for most companies it remains a pious hope rather than a key to success.

And what happens if you manage to turn that key? What happens if you produce some brilliant new product or process? Banks are reluctant to lend to small companies. Big businesses are sitting on huge piles of cash — perhaps $2 trillion worth in the United States. The McKinsey Global Institute predicts that there could be worse to come: the share of the world’s financial assets that are invested in publicly traded equities will fall from 28 percent today to 22 percent by the end of the decade. This is being driven by two profound trends: the shift of global wealth to the emerging world and the aging of Western populations. Both investors in the emerging world and older people in the emerged world are more inclined to keep their money in banks than in equities. This will significantly raise the cost of equity while forcing companies to rely ever more on debt.

How can companies grow in these dismal conditions? What strategies should they adopt? And what corporate forms should they assume? Chris Zook and James Allen of Bain & Company calculate that only 9 percent of global companies have been able to grow at 5 percent or more over the past decade. How can companies escape from this slow-growth trap in what is likely to be an equally challenging environment in the years ahead? Before doing anything else, they need to work on their attitude. Winston Churchill once said that the difference between optimists and pessimists is that pessimists see difficulties in every opportunity and optimists see opportunities in every difficulty. The more difficult the environment becomes, the more companies need to focus on spotting opportunities in difficulties.

There are lots of opportunities out there. The emerging world is booming. In particular, India and China have a long way to go before they fall into the middle-income trap. The Internet economy is thriving; the likes of Sharon Sodeberg, Facebook’s COO, complain that the biggest problem is finding enough high-quality people to drive the growth machines. The market for nanotechnology is growing by 15 percent a year — small is clearly beautiful. The white biotechnology industry (which puts living microorganisms to industrial use) is growing at 10 percent a year. Traditional companies can also thrive in slow-growth environments. Japan’s lost decades have certainly not been lost for 7-Eleven. Zara has turned itself into a global fashion powerhouse despite Spain’s dismal business climate.

Hard times can also be surprisingly good for start-ups: the collapse of established giants can free up resources, in the form of unemployed scientists and vacant offices, that new companies can buy at bargain prices. The list of companies that were started in recessions or even depressions is a long one. Revlon was founded in 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression. FedEx and Wal-Mart were products of the malaise of the 1970s. Microsoft was founded during a recession. If hard times make it more difficult for also-rans to survive, they also provide room for dynamic newcomers, with inno-vative business models, to expand rapidly.

The most important thing that companies need to do is to identify and exploit mega-trends. The rise of Asia provides opportunities for all sorts of companies outside the charmed circle of global multinationals. Berry Brothers, a British wine merchant that sits in the heart of London’s club land, has been supplying wine to the British upper classes for centuries. But the company is now creating high-end wine salons in China. The aim is to educate the Chinese palate in fine wines (and thus build a core of Berry Brothers loyalists) rather than just make a quick killing by selling overpriced plonk to the nouveaux riches.

The rise of Asia also provides Western companies with new ideas for products: frugal products that dispense with fripperies but nevertheless do the job. Some Western companies have already embraced the new climate of frugality: Aldi of Germany, Wal-Mart of the United States and online retailers galore are pulling ahead of the pack. (“We are moving into an area of the frivolous being unacceptable and the frugal being cool,” said Andy Bond, the former boss of the Wal-Mart subsidiary Asda). But Western companies have much more to learn from the East — both from emerging-market companies themselves and from Western multinationals that have invested heavily in the region.

Tyler Cowen, an economist, has argued that the United States is consigned to low growth because its economy has harvested all the “low-hanging fruits.” But there are plenty of low-hanging fruits available in India and China when it comes to frugal innovation. Tata Motors has produced a $2,500 car, the Nano. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications sell handsets for less than $20, connect people to networks for free and charge only 1 cent a minute for phone calls. Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital in Bangalore, India, can perform heart operations at a fraction of the cost in the West.

Many of these products are beginning to find their way to Western markets. G.E. is selling cheap electrocardiograph units in the United States that it developed in India. Nestlé is selling its brand of dried noodles, Maggi, that it invented for rural Pakistan and India in New Zealand and Australia. Dr. Devi Shetty, the man behind assembly-line heart surgery in India, is building a 2,000-bed hospital in the Cayman Islands to serve the American market. But this is only the beginning: Western companies can reinvent entire industries by plugging into Eastern innovation machines or by embracing the frugal mind-set. Most budding business executives would learn more by spending a few months in Mumbai than a couple of years in a Western business school.

The growing crisis of the Western approach will provide huge opportunities for savvy companies. Western governments are being squeezed by two mighty forces: the need to reduce their astronomical debts and the need to care for an aging population. European governments have begun to reform themselves; even Italy has adopted ambitious pension reforms. The United States will eventually have to follow suit or face a crisis of confidence in the global capital markets. But the reform will have to go much further: governments will have to deal with the fact that productivity has been flat (or even negative) in the public sector for the past 20 years while it has doubled in the private sector. This will create a huge wave of privatization and contracting out. Ross Perot’s E.D.S. turned itself into a giant by providing computer services to the public sector. There will be many more E.D.S.’s in coming years as Western governments desperately try to save themselves from bankruptcy.

The thing that is driving this crisis more than any other — the rapid aging of the population — also provides opportunities dressed up as problems. The so-called silver market (goods and services for people over 60 years old) is now worth more than $700 billion worldwide and provides a source of growth for companies in sectors as diverse as cosmetics and financial services. Older people can also provide a valuable source of employees; they are often more stable and hard-working than younger employees and are frequently more accommodating and flexible. Retail giants like Asda in Britain have redesigned their timetables around the needs of older workers, providing “Benidorm leave” (named after a beach resort in Spain) for winter holidays, for example. The manufacturing giant Daimler-Benz has redesigned its production lines to take into account aging bodies, providing comfortable chairs and better lighting.

Besides looking out for mega-trends, companies need to invest in long-term growth. This might sound counterintuitive. But the lessons of history are clear: just as hard times provide opportunities for start-ups to hire cheap talent, they also provide opportunities for established companies to invest in the future. During the Great Depression, a praetorian guard of American companies — DuPont, I.B.M., Chrysler and General Motors in particular — laid the foundations for their extraordinary postwar success by outspending their rivals on product development or marketing. DuPont brought up cheap scientists and developed nylon and radial tires. I.B.M. responded to a collapse in the market by investing in producing the next generation of business machines on the grounds that companies would need to become more efficient. Procter & Gamble won the brand wars by employing an army of women who went around the country singing its praises.

The trouble with investing in long-term growth is that it is long term. What about more immediate results? And what about start-ups that are trying to survive rather than planning for the next 20 years? Innovative business models give start-ups a chance to revolutionize their industries and rising companies a chance to build long-term defenses. Look at the way that Bharti Airtel slashed the cost of phone calls by sharing cell towers with other companies. Innovative business models in big companies can also create huge business models for smaller companies. via kornferryinstitute.com

Jim Woods is about helping companies and people engage innovate and grow in all the areas important to them. Jim is a professional speaker, author, coach, and strategy consultant based in Colorado Springs, Co. Follow Jim on Twitter @innothinkgroup, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/InnoThink Group or check out his company website http://innothinkgroup.com for more tips and strategies effective leadership, engaged employees, increase growth, and customer effectiveness through innovation. To arrange for Jim to consult or speak at your event email Jim.

Innovate to Win or Else

Believe in Innovation to Win

It's viewed as a leading indicator of future growth and profitability, so why don't all companies innovate? The culture has to be born and bred in the company

There is no doubt most companies today are big believers in the idea of innovation. Its importance is heralded in corporate visions and mission statements. The chief executive officer speaks its glory in almost every speech, and its importance is celebrated on internal posters as well as in the company's marketing materials.
It's simple: Wall Street believes innovation is the leading indicator of future growth and profitability. There's even an index fund that just invests in what it thinks are the country's 20 most innovative companies. So how come we're not being overwhelmed by innovative new products and services? Unfortunately, that's simple to answer as well.
Saying you believe in something is one thing. Living what you believe is another. Let's not fool ourselves. Even the biggest "glass-is-half-full" optimist has to concede the reality: Most companies don't believe in innovation enough to do much more than pretend.

Three Common Approaches

You can see the proof of that in three approaches companies typically take to try to show the world they're innovative:
1. The big sweeping announcement. "Five years from now, we will get 50% (or some other big number) of our revenues from products that don't exist today," the chairman announces with great fanfare. Everyone applauds, and then absolutely nothing changes about the way the company does business.
2. Let's make a list. The company hires an ideation company to help it brainstorm all the things it might want to add innovation to, and then nothing happens—due to turf wars over resources or a lack of commitment to the idea by people who say, "I would have loved to do something with that list, but I had to keep doing my day job."
3. The innovation drive-by. The organization hires a company like ours to help it create a new product quickly. But like anything new within the company, it ends up being mired in internal politics, bureaucracy ("Whose budget do we charge for this?"), and turf wars. It really shouldn't be so hard to get a product out the door. No wonder there are only 20 companies in the innovation index.
Why don't companies make innovation an essential part of the way they do business? Because it's hard. Because it requires an unwavering, wholehearted leap of faith—backed by a major investment, not only of money, but of people, processes, and infrastructure. It requires audacious goals, evangelism, consistency, education, training, diversity, expert tools, expert processes, and an environment conducive to creating sustainable innovation results that are aligned with financial outcomes.

Transforming a 100-Year-Old Product

Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) are the obvious examples of companies that actually do this, of course. But let's keep it real; if your company didn't start out like Google or Apple with innovation firmly implanted in its DNA, then you might believe radical innovation within your company is unrealistic.
But it doesn't have to be. Consider the Sterno Group (a client of ours), the company that invented the "safe, portable fire" category a hundred years ago and continues to dominate the category to this day.
They demonstrate how you can turn around a "battleship"—if you want it enough. via businessweek.com
________________________________________________________________________

If you're not irate in the first 10 minutes of reading, if I don’t provoke you to revolutionize your management and leadership from think to execute, if you aren’t teetering on the brink of reaching for the Maalox, if you don’t innovate like a banshee, then I have failed you. 
To learn more about how uncanny abilities can increase your competitive advantage and top line growth contact us for a consultation. 
Jim Woods CEO & President, InnoThink Group
A leading strategy, innovation and hypercompetition consultancy.
www.innothinkgroup.com
719-649-4118

How to Instantly Become More Confident

Second guessing yourself is a common practice. We walk with our head. Haltingly speak in meetings only to extend more praises to others than to ourselves. We give everyone the benefit of the doubt except the one person needing it most: us. 

A few ideas on how to obtain more of the things you want. Ask yourself: 

1. How would a supremely confident person stand?
2. How would a supremely confident person walk?
3. How would a supremely confident person sit and enter a room?
4. How would a supremely confident person inflect their voice?
5. Act as if you already p[possess the habit or behavior.
6. If you were absolutely confident what type of resume’ would you submit?
7. Associate with people who are confident. Watch how they do it.
8. Smile when needed with direct eye contact. This is born more out of self respect than intimidation. 

Lastly, when daydreaming, do so in color with emotion. The brain is very active during our daydreaming. The time when we co-create who we are. jim

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Innovation, Growth, & Hypercompetition Consultant/Speaker/Business Coach

 Website: InnoThink Group

Request a consultation: Office: +1 719.649.4118 or complete our form.  

 

Innothink Group is a strategic management, innovation and business coaching consultancy. 

Our Guarantee. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting nearly two thirds of our fees at risk subject to hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships with shared responsibility. See a few of our clients.   

We provide broad ranging advice covering innovation, commoditization, competitive advantage, business policy and strategy, as well as global strategy and implementation. 

3 Things Professional Women Should Stop Apologizing For | Fast Company

While chatting with a business colleague yesterday, she made a statement that I hear all too often from my female friends. As an independent contractor, her client asked her to do a significant amount of additional work that was not part of their original deal. Instead of asking for more compensation, she said she would probably just put in the extra hours, because she felt uncomfortable launching into the money conversation. In fact, she even apologized to me about how she hesitated with her client and was worried there would be repercussions.

Just recently, I finished the New York Times best seller, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by Lisa Bloom, an insightful read about how women are leading the charge in many areas, such as outperforming men for the first time ever in employment in urban areas, but still spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on the "wrong" things. While the book centers on our obsession with pop culture and beauty, what I took away from it was the need for women to start saying "no" more and to stop apologizing for doing so.

"Women need to stop apologizing for routine workplace events," Bloom shared with me in an email. "Ladies, every time the word 'sorry' is about to fly out of your mouth, think: Have I actually done something wrong? Or has this just become a verbal tic?"

Here are three things that women often apologize for and what we can do to stop, today.

1.  Our financial expectations. Ever since women entered the workforce en masse, there have been reports revealing that we make less on average than our male counterparts. Although this gap is lessening, there is still much progress to be made. Yes, talking about money can be an uncomfortable endeavor. However, if you're armed with good ammunition to back up your demand, you'll feel more confident and ready to engage in that dialogue. In other words, be clear what you want, and don't leave until you get it (well, within reason). Moreover, when in contract negotiations for any job or project, engage an advisor so that you have a second set of eyes on the details and can work out what's acceptable and what's not with someone well-versed in the small print.

2.  Our physical appearance. Earlier this week I did a little tally of how long it took me to prepare for one of my other jobs, working as a national TV host on a business news network. The night before our shoot, I spent two hours with my clothing sponsor picking out my wardrobe for upcoming shoots. The next morning I spent two hours getting my hair done, two hours getting my nails done, and 30 minutes in makeup just before the show. Almost a full day, and I haven't even started my job, compared with my co-host, who literally grabbed a clean shirt and was ready to go (yes, he's male).  

While I understand that the demands of the broadcast business insofar as appearance are significant, that same pressure does exist in the average workplace and requires added time for women (time most of us don't have). I have heard women apologize countless times if they're not looking runway-ready at work, due to everything from pulling all-nighters to get a job done or battling sleep deprivation due to taking care of a sick child. Sure, it's important to look professional in the workplace, but it's time to lessen the pressure we put on ourselves to look perfect. Oh, and while I'm on this subject, let's try to band together a little more to support our female colleagues who might not always be in season with the latest fashion or who are not the perfect size 6 (or is it 4 now?). Instead, let's focus on what's important--what we achieve.

3.  Our professional accomplishments. "Women are trained to be sensitive to everyone's feelings, not to be selfish, and not to brag," Bloom explains to me when I ask about this culture of saying sorry. "These are good traits to have. Be we also need to understand that sometimes it's not appropriate to apologize--like when we haven't done anything wrong."

When I was starting my career as a television journalist in my 20s, I'll never forget an experience I had with my male boss. I rushed into his office to share with him that I just got asked to be a national technology expert on a popular news program. He looked up at me and said, "Fantastic, it's just a matter of time before you'll be on the cover of Playboy!" I kid you not. Instead of standing up for myself, I shrunk into myself and tried to battle his sarcasm with a muted apology about how this was a big deal because I'm from a small town, worked really hard, and such an offer meant a lot to me. Ugh, if only I could turn back time and take Bloom's advice, "In the workplace we need to take responsibility for our mistakes, sure, but also for our successes," she says. "Many women can do the former but not the latter."

Read more Work Flow advice from Amber Mac. 

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[Image: Flickr user TheeErin]

via fastcompany.com

Hire Jim Woods to Speak to Your Organization

Innovation, Growth, & Hypercompetition Consultant/Speaker/Business Coach

 Website: InnoThink Group

Request a consultation: Office: +1 719.649.4118 or complete our form.  

 

Innothink Group is a strategic management, innovation and business coaching consultancy. 

Our Guarantee. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting nearly two thirds of our fees at risk subject to hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships with shared responsibility. See a few of our clients.   

We provide broad ranging advice covering innovation, commoditization, competitive advantage, business policy and strategy, as well as global strategy and implementation. 

Seven Powerful Ways to Gain More Confidence in Your Creative Work | Lateral Action

One of the biggest problems creative people face isn’t a lack of time or money. It’s a lack of confidence.

If you love writing, drawing, composing, designing, or any other creative activity, you might have started out doing it simply for the pleasure of creating. Once you start looking beyond that – to building an audience, and even making money from your art – a lack of confidence can be crippling.

Low confidence might be pretty obvious, when you keep thinking “I’m not good enough” or “No-one will want to read/view/listen to this”. But it might also feel like a deep-seated Resistance to create, or constant procrastination when it comes to putting your work out there in the world.

I work with a lot of writers, both in one-to-one and group situations. Some of those writers have huge amounts of talent … but very little confidence. I always want to wave a magic wand and open their eyes to their own skills and abilities. Sadly, I can’t do that for them, or for you. But I can offer you seven powerful ways to grow your confidence.

Photo by Yuri Arcurs via BigStock

 

1. Show your work to a professional

This might seem like a scary one to start off with … but it’s one of the best ways I know to get a reality check on your writing. If you’ve got any sort of contact with professionals in your field, find someone (preferably someone known for their kindness rather than their brutal put-downs!) and ask them to take a look at a small piece of your work. Ask for their honest opinion. Is it at a publishable or produceable standard? Do they see any key strengths in the work – or any weaknesses that could be improved?

You’re unlikely to get feedback telling you that your work is pure brilliance. But you may be surprised to find it’s better than you think. And hopefully you’ll get some suggestions for areas that need a little more development: this helps build your confidence by giving you clear and specific ways to grow.

2. Enter competitions

Whatever your preferred medium – words, pixels, paint, notes – you’ll find plenty of competitions to enter. Even if you don’t get as far as the short-list, simply the act of entering can help build your confidence: you’ll have a clear deadline and, often, some sort of subject matter to help you think inside the box.

If you do manage to get placed in a competition, it’s a huge confidence boost. You might not walk away with first prize – but a second or third prize, or your name on the shortlist, is a clear indication that your work has real merit.

3. Don’t rush your process

If you’re pressuring yourself to get your creative work out there as quickly as possible, then you may be uncomfortably aware that it’s not as good as it could be. Perhaps you’ve had some disappointing feedback, or you simply feel that you’re not very proud of your work.

Taking a little extra time at each stage of the process means you’ll at least be able to have confidence that you’ve done a good job. That might mean allowing more time for planning or research at the start of a new project – especially if you tend to jump at new ideas, only to give up when they prove more difficult than you expected. It could mean giving yourself time to create plenty of rough sketches of a planned painting, or to edit your first few drafts of a short story.

4. Get paid for creative work

Although money might not be your first goal as an artist, getting paid for your work can give you real confidence. Even if you’re not getting paid for your ‘real’ creative project – so you’re writing magazine articles, say, instead of a novel – you’ll still know that your fundamental skills are good enough that someone wants to pay you for them.

There are all sorts of different ways to get paid for something you’ve created. You could work as a freelancer, producing designs or jingles or articles to order. You could create a micro-product to sell online. You could run an event, and sell tickets. Don’t fall for the lie that ‘there’s no money in art’ – find a way to make it work.

5. Take a course or class

Although I’ve had a lot of writing-related education over the past few years (including formal degrees and more informal courses), I still attend conferences and classes on a regular basis, particularly for my fiction-writing. Yes, I’m now pretty confident with all the fundamentals – like creating engaging characters, writing dialogue, and setting a scene – but I find that it’s often good to have a reminder of the things that I should know but occasionally forget.

If you want to learn something new in your field, or if you just want a bit more reassurance that you do already know the basics, a course or class should help. That doesn’t need to be anything expensive or time consuming: you might be able to find a simple day course or a series of evening classes in your area, or you could look for an online program to join.

6. Track your progress

When you’re in the trenches with your creative work, it can be hard to think back or think ahead. In the moment, you might be struggling with an aspect of your work-in-progress – and you may fear that you’ll never get it right.

By tracking your progress over time, you can easily look back and see how far you’ve come. You might want to list specific achievements, especially any “firsts” – like the first time you entered a competition, or the first time you showed your work to someone who wasn’t a family member or close friend. You could also record your feelings at different stages of a project (you might realise, for instance, that you inevitably go through a period of doubt at the almost mid-way stage, before everything gets much easier).

7. Push yourself to try new things

Finally, keep on trying new things. Yes, this can be terrifying – but successfully getting through a new challenge is a great way to grow your skills and your confidence. You won’t be perfect first time (no-one is), but you probably will realise that it wasn’t as bad as you were expecting.

This could mean trying a new area within your current field of creative work (perhaps writing poetry as well as short stories) or it could mean experimenting with a new form of creativity. I’ve started working with video and audio in my online teaching materials; it was really tough at first, but now I feel much more confident with using new mediums, and I also know that if I can get through the initial discomfort and fear, things will always get easier.

I know that none of these tips are easy. If there was a quick, painless fix for lack of confidence, none of us would have any problems! But by taking a step forward – even when it’s scary – you will find that you gain the confidence you need to progress with your creative work.

Over to you

Which of these tips resonate most strongly for you?

What has given your creative confidence the biggest boost to date?

Any other tips you’d like to share?

About the Author: Ali Luke is currently on a virtual book tour for her novel Lycopolis, a fast-paced supernatural thriller centred on a group of online roleplayers who summon a demon into their game … and into the world. Described by readers as “a fast and furious, addictive piece of escapism” and “absolutely gripping”, Lycopolis is available in print and ebook form. Find out more at Lycopolis.co.uk.

--> via lateralaction.com

Hire Jim Woods To Speak to Your Organization

CEO & President 

Innovation, Growth, & Hypercompetition Consultant/Speaker/Business Coach

 Website: InnoThink Group

Request a consultation: Office: +1 719.649.4118 or complete our form.  

 

Innothink Group is a strategic management, innovation and business coaching consultancy. 

Our Guarantee. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting nearly two thirds of our fees at risk subject to hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships with shared responsibility. See a few of our clients.   

We provide broad ranging advice covering innovation, commoditization, competitive advantage, business policy and strategy, as well as global strategy and implementation. 

We help clients to: 

·                      Build strategic supremacy through disruption and dominance

·                     Predict customers’ emerging needs and translate them into a breakthrough value proposition.

·                     Establish new rules of the game to challenge evolution

·                     Define a clear role for innovation based on understanding its hypercompetitive contribution.

·                     Exploit competitor’s weaknesses

·                     Build rapid short term advantages for long term profitability.

·                     Tackle the challenges of collaboration, both internal and external, as a driver of innovation.

·                     Reduce costs by increasing innovation and competitive advantage into the core of your business

·                     We provide continuous innovation and competitive advantage support

 

Innovation: In the Netherlands, all-in-one product image studio removes the need for a photographer | Springwise

In the Netherlands, all-in-one product image studio removes the need for a photographer

iShopShape’s new StyleShoot suite enables the production of high quality in-house fashion imagery using a flatbed device instead of a photographer.

The expense of professional-looking product photography is a problem we’ve seen many startups tackle in the past – most recently Yoopia, with its innovative business model that provides high quality images to brands for free in return for the rights to sell the product. iShopShape’s new StyleShoots suite is another – this time enabling the production of in-house fashion imagery using a flatbed device instead of a photographer.

The company claims that StyleShoots includes all the hardware and software needed to produce product images ready for marketing purposes quickly and with ease. Items are placed onto the 69in x 45in backlit photo table and a preview of the shot can be viewed on the iPad and pre-loaded app that comes with the suite. After tweaking the image for correct brightness settings, a camera positioned above the table then takes multiple shots. The device produces a high-resolution image with a plain white background, allowing for precise cut-outs and custom backgrounds. The video below demonstrates in further detail how the device could be used:

 via springwise.com

Jim Woods

CEO & President 

Innovation, Growth, & Hypercompetition Consultant/Speaker/Business Coach

 Website: InnoThink Group

Request a consultation: Office: +1 719.649.4118 or complete our form.  

Innothink Group is a strategic management, innovation and business coaching consultancy. 

Our Guarantee. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting nearly two thirds of our fees at risk subject to hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships with shared responsibility. See a few of our clients.   

We provide broad ranging advice covering innovation, commoditization, competitive advantage, business policy and strategy, as well as global strategy and implementation. 

We help clients to: 

•  Build strategic supremacy through disruption and dominance
• Predict customers’ emerging needs and translate them into a breakthrough value proposition.
• Establish new rules of the game to challenge evolution
• Define a clear role for innovation based on understanding its hypercompetitive contribution.
• Exploit competitor’s weaknesses
• Build rapid short term advantages for long term profitability.
• Tackle the challenges of collaboration, both internal and external, as a driver of innovation.
• Reduce costs by increasing innovation and competitive advantage into the core of your business
• We provide continuous innovation and competitive advantage support

Innovation: In the Netherlands, all-in-one product image studio removes the need for a photographer | Springwise

In the Netherlands, all-in-one product image studio removes the need for a photographer

iShopShape’s new StyleShoot suite enables the production of high quality in-house fashion imagery using a flatbed device instead of a photographer.

The expense of professional-looking product photography is a problem we’ve seen many startups tackle in the past – most recently Yoopia, with its innovative business model that provides high quality images to brands for free in return for the rights to sell the product. iShopShape’s new StyleShoots suite is another – this time enabling the production of in-house fashion imagery using a flatbed device instead of a photographer.

The company claims that StyleShoots includes all the hardware and software needed to produce product images ready for marketing purposes quickly and with ease. Items are placed onto the 69in x 45in backlit photo table and a preview of the shot can be viewed on the iPad and pre-loaded app that comes with the suite. After tweaking the image for correct brightness settings, a camera positioned above the table then takes multiple shots. The device produces a high-resolution image with a plain white background, allowing for precise cut-outs and custom backgrounds. The video below demonstrates in further detail how the device could be used:

 via springwise.com

Jim Woods

CEO & President 

Innovation, Growth, & Hypercompetition Consultant/Speaker/Business Coach

 Website: InnoThink Group

Request a consultation: Office: +1 719.649.4118 or complete our form.  

Innothink Group is a strategic management, innovation and business coaching consultancy. 

Our Guarantee. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting nearly two thirds of our fees at risk subject to hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships with shared responsibility. See a few of our clients.   

We provide broad ranging advice covering innovation, commoditization, competitive advantage, business policy and strategy, as well as global strategy and implementation. 

We help clients to: 

•  Build strategic supremacy through disruption and dominance
• Predict customers’ emerging needs and translate them into a breakthrough value proposition.
• Establish new rules of the game to challenge evolution
• Define a clear role for innovation based on understanding its hypercompetitive contribution.
• Exploit competitor’s weaknesses
• Build rapid short term advantages for long term profitability.
• Tackle the challenges of collaboration, both internal and external, as a driver of innovation.
• Reduce costs by increasing innovation and competitive advantage into the core of your business
• We provide continuous innovation and competitive advantage support