The Four Ps Critical to Business Innovation

A few weeks back, I attended the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) conference, an annual conference designed to foster connections across North America and discuss best practices for lottery marketing. And though it’s taken me awhile to digest it (Western Idaho Fair time is a busy season), I figured I’d write up a quick post about my favorite session, led by former Microsoft “Chief Xbox Officer” Robbie Bach.

The focus of Mr. Bach’s talk was on the three things a business needs to create change: purpose, principles, and priorities. He then described six examples of significant recent innovations in business, experience, and technology through the lens of the three p’s. Specifically he called out iTunes, Pokémon Go, the iPhone touch, Uber, Encarta (remember that one?), and Xbox Live as innovations that disrupted their industries by changing the way we interacted with products.

My greatest takeaway from his talk, though, wasn’t his main point about innovation. Instead it was a nice external confirmation of my gut instinct: the importance of great people to all of these breakthrough business moves (which, coincidentally, should have been his fourth “p”).

It’s up to everyone to start a breakthrough. Not just leaders or creatives, or even self-described visionaries—but every member of the team. At CLM, we pride ourselves on hiring well, and are always looking for ways to involve everyone in growing and developing the business. And as I think about my career going forward and how I hope to grow professionally in marketing, I know it’ll depend in large part on my CLM team and what we manage to accomplish together.

Luckily, when it comes to a work family, I really have hit the lottery.

 

CLM | Aug 30, 2016