The opossum is a strange animal.  Its principal line of defense against potential predators is feigning death.  While an ingenious and innovative psychological deterrent, this has at least two significant risks if not followed up by subsequent innovations. 

First, it banks on predators’ tastes not changing over time.  But what if a stiff, carcass-like appearance eventually becomes an appetite enhancer and not suppressant for savage beasts? 

Second, the opossum’s ploy can only work as long as other animals of similarly low rank on the food chain don’t decide to imitate it.  Because if every creature in the path of some leopard or a wolf pack started to mysteriously drop dead, those predators sooner or later would begin to get mighty suspicious, and the cover would be fatally blown.

So, is your business like an opossum? Does it have a clearly distinct and unconventional strategy and market offering? And, are you continuously refreshing and re-imagining what you do, in order to stay relevant to your target audience?

#innovation #transformation #leadership #creativity #strategy

I had a really fun conversation with Brendan McGurgan, Director and Co Founder of Simple Scaling, as the guest of his Podcast show.

The episode has just been published, and I invite you to listen to our hard hitting and faced paced banter on how to re-imagine boundaries, engage creativity and turn crisis into opportunity for your business:

http://scalexinsiderpodcast.libsyn.com/gabor-george-burt-how-to-reimagine-boundaries-and-develop-creativity-when-scaling-a-business

#entrepreneurship #highgrowth #transformation #leadership #lifelonglearning #smartstrategy 

When pursuing meaningful innovation, you don’t need to invent anything outright. Rather, you can take the Innovation Shortcut: Seek out fresh combinations of already existing components to generate unprecedented customer value.

As a comic example, and a way of perhaps inspiring investment near Tonga after the devastation of the recent tsunami, let’s consider the International Date Line and its possible application for creating compelling new value within the work space rental market. Essentially, by crossing this imaginary line you can gain or lose an entire day. By building an office complex right on it, a real estate developer could offer the new combination of two enticing components: An exotic, off-shore location, plus a flexible solution for effective time management. 

Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean would certainly be exotic. And on the Date Line, whenever overwhelmed with work or hopelessly behind schedule, office occupants could simply walk over to the part of their office that was on the other side of the line, and immediately have an extra 24 hours to catch up. Conversely when having little going on, they would just step across the line in the other direction, and would instantly find themselves one day in the future.

#businesshumor #leadership #strategy #transformation #innovation #tonga

When pursuing meaningful innovation, you don’t need to invent anything outright. Rather, you can take the Innovation Shortcut: Seek out fresh combinations of already existing components to generate unprecedented customer value.

As a humorous example, consider the International Date Line, and its possible application for creating compelling new value within the office rental market. Essentially, by crossing this imaginary line you can gain or lose an entire day. By building an office complex right on it, a real estate developer could offer the new combination of two enticing components: An exotic, off-shore location, plus a flexible solution for effective time management. 

Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean would certainly be exotic. And on the Date Line, whenever overwhelmed with work or hopelessly behind schedule, office occupants could simply walk over to the part of their office that was on the other side of the line, and immediately have an extra 24 hours to catch up. Conversely when having little going on, they would just step across the line in the other direction, and would instantly find themselves one day in the future.

#businesshumor #leadership #strategy #transformation #innovation

One of the key attributes of the SLINGSHOT Framework is its universal applicability. Organizations of all sizes from start-ups to multinationals operating in any market or industry can benefit from its intuitive logic and powerful methodology to re-imagine boundaries and shape the future of their environment.

In contrast, consider a business philosophy with far less applicability. There was once a well-known shepherd in the Alpes who would go to the top of high mountains to buy sheep from the mountain dwellers, then bring his collected flock down to the valley and sell them for a healthy profit at village markets. He would always pontificate that the secret of his success was to “buy high, sell low.”

#innovation #businesshumor #strategy #transformation #leadership #businessgrowth