Are We Too Old To Be Creative?

Are We Too Old To Be Creative?

Are we too old to be creative? I don’t even know you, but I know the answer.

No!

When I reached 30, I was really bummed. Over the hill. No great mathematician, so they said, ever had a significant discovery after age 30.

But then, I was no mathematician. But still, was life over?

Be Creative

Actually I have never been more creative and productive than over the past 20 years. And I’m way past 30, now. And The New York Times this month ran an article with some proof that creativity does not necessarily end at 30. It leads with a 94-year-old inventor.

It states, “There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that late blooming is no anomaly. A 2016 Information Technology and Innovation Foundation study found that inventors peak in their late 40s and tend to be highly productive in the last half of their careers. Similarly, professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Hitotsubashi University in Japan, who studied data about patent holders, found that, in the United States, the average inventor sends in his or her application to the patent office at age 47, and that the highest-value patents often come from the oldest inventors — those over the age of 55.

Keep reading. Try new things. Learn a different language. Go for new experiences. Ask questions.

Marketing

 

Speaking of geniuses. Did you hear about the TV advertisement that instructed your Google Home (OK Google) to search for ingredients of its sandwich? There is another reason not to have one of those devices that is always listening to you. The other being Amazon Echo (Alexa, buy a book…). I do not have one installed. There is one disconnected in my closet. Here’s a New York Times article on the ad and one from TechCrunch.

The question is how obnoxious do you need to be to be an effective marketer?

I hate, Hate, I say, those pop-ups on Websites. And all the other tricks I see to get you to click. Ever seen those things at the bottom of the WeatherBug app? Even the marketers know that most clicks are due to error. People are frantically trying to click the vanishing X that makes the ugly thing go away. Then they click the ad and get carried off to some place they don’t want to go.

But Website owners need money. Marketers will pay well even for obnoxious, accidental click ads. The poor users, well, we just get a degraded experience. No wonder we don’t go to the Web like we once did.

Digital Thread

Can HMI/SCADA Software Be the On Ramp to the IIoT Digital Thread?

Craig Resnick, vp at ARC Advisory Group wrote a provocative article on the role of HMI/SCADA and the IioT.

These are interesting comments about the state of manufacturing software, “The Digital Thread often combines manufacturing software that provides real-time, role-based HMI dashboards with Ethernet networking technology, using Big Data, HMI/SCADA and analytics software, sensors, controllers, and robotics to help optimize industrial asset performance and availability in an edge to cloud world. This enables end users and OEMs to collect and analyze asset performance and operational data in the network, often from connecting disparate systems, from the factory floor to ERP, providing an ‘industrial-strength’ data analytics solution that combines role-based manufacturing HMI dashboards with real-time manufacturing KPIs for decision support.”

“The Digital Thread has, for example, driven the convergence of HMI/SCADA and MES platforms. Increasingly, these converged HMI/SCADA and MES platforms help users visualize both key automation and business metrics and KPIs, such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and energy savings, to help maximize the productivity and profitability of their businesses.”

This idea of things converging around MES is intriguing. There are so many applications gaining traction, along with interesting standards for data transfer, databases, analytics, visualization. All this, and I’m not sure where the money-making places are right now. Maybe writing smaller communication apps and mobile apps that can be sold to big companies?

Imagination for Planning: Run the Play With Your Mind First

Imagination for Planning: Run the Play With Your Mind First

“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” — Albert Einstein

A good salesperson runs through the entire interview with her client in her mind while she’s still in the car.

A great college football running back viewed video of his best plays and then ran the back in his mind.

A speaker visualizes his performance while off stage before anything begins.

People make lists of New Year’s Resolutions and then file them away–undone. Years ago I gained a shred of wisdom when I realized I was just copying last year’s resolutions and reprinting them in the front of my planning diary (before it was all electronic). Why go through the exercise only to feel guilt at the end of the year? Or the first of February?

Albert Einstein made his mark in physics not through his knowledge of math but through his imagination. He imagined gravitational pull on planets and stars, and light traveling through time. That told him which equations to work out and how to work them.

Instead of lists (which I love for remembering things to do or for brainstorming) why not try imagination? Imagine what your year could be like and what sort of person you will be.

  • Imagine joining a group that promotes a cause you admire. See yourself there. Then call someone next month.
  • See yourself reading two books a month for personal growth. Then download several books for your tablet app. Or visit a bookstore and buy a few books. Put them in a visible place. Read for an hour every morning or evening. You’ll be amazed.
  • Visualize time with the family.
  • See yourself at the gym every morning or evening. See the entire process of getting there, your workout, the sauna, the shower, feeling refreshed.
  • What can you imagine for yourself? There are no limits in imagination. Let it loose and follow it where it goes.

Who sees the irony of my making a list of suggestions? 😉

Happy New Year.

PS:  I have mostly taken the week off for thinking and imagining. So my December stats will suck. I’ll be back at it next week with more connected manufacturing coverage, leadership thoughts, and occasional marketing tips.

Manufacturing Marketing Matters

Manufacturing Marketing Matters

Manufacturing Marketing InstituteAnd now, a brief interlude to discuss marketing. I have helped a few companies (actually way too few) focus their marketing efforts over the years. Through a mutual friend, Rebecca Geier, I met Bruce McDuffee, Director of the Manufacturing Marketing Institute.

He recorded an interview with me about marketing for manufacturing. It’s a podcast where I’m the subject. Some good ideas for marketing people on my list. But also interesting for the people on my list who buy things. Perhaps you could lend some insights on how not to reach you. And maybe what you’re looking for when you’re searching for information about products and services.

Here is a partial list of topics:

  • Marketing is difficult, not only for manufacturers but for everyone.  Learning how to put it all together is challenging.  Developing a strategy is a good first step.
  • Sometimes the leader just doesn’t understand marketing because they have an engineering, science or sales background.  Marketing is much, much more than developing collateral and setting up trade shows.
  • Those manufacturing companies that can advance the practice of marketing to a strategic, revenue producing function will have a significant advantage over their competition.  The CEO should have a trusted advisor who knows the discipline of marketing, but more often than not, this is a missing advisor. [9:00]
  • Huge disconnect between marketers who know how to market in the modern age and the leadership.  Some leadership demands ROI for marketing activities, but it is not a clear black and white attribution. [11:00]
  • In order for manufacturers to advance the practice of marketing, the CEO has to be affected somehow. A cultural shift from product focus to audience focus has to start from the top down. It is very difficult for this change to take hold from the bottom or grass roots level. [14:00]
  • An audience focused marketing strategy that shares expertise (content marketing) can, by itself, be a differentiator in the market place. [18:00]
  • Check out Rebecca Geier’s book, Smart Marketing for Engineers, for more information about content marketing and inbound marketing when your target audience is engineers.
  • One company Gary mentioned makes it mandatory for every executive to spend a full week shadowing a customer and reporting back what they learned. [22:20]
  • Automation Direct,  example of success with marketing and understanding the target audience. [25:45]
  • Gary’s blog is The Manufacturing Connection
  • Gary’s podcast is Gary on  Manufacturing

By the way, I reviewed Rebecca’s book, Smart Marketing for Engineers. It gives some insight, also, into my frustration with press releases that say nothing. Oh, there are many words. But meaning sort of evaporated as the marketing committee edited it in order to maximize number of buzz words per square centimeter.

Support for Crowdfunded Product Development

Support for Crowdfunded Product Development

KrowdsterLet’s take a look at a product development process today. My pool of things to write about has shrunk recently. I’m stretching out a little.

I will be at the ARC Forum next week. If any of you are going, look me up. Or stop me in the hallway to chat.

Have you ever participated in one of the crowd-sourcing investment projects? I invested in a Kickstarter project one time. Got the product eventually. Don’t use it now. But that’s OK. Have you ever thought about funding a new project through Kickstarter or something? These companies are proliferating.

A notice recently came through about a service for people crowdfunding. Krowdster is a big data powered web app for crowdfunding campaign optimization and promotion. It recently announced the addition of two new features to make it easier for crowdfunders to find targeted influencers and trending content in their industries.

In the past, crowdfunders may have hired expensive marketing or PR firms to do the job for them, but thanks to technology and big data, there are now tools that do the heavy lifting for you and make information accessible that has previously been impossible to access.

Influencer Search is a keyword search to discover influencers, journalists and bloggers in any niche, who have a following and who can help to get exposure for your crowdfunding campaign.

Trending Content is an easy way to discover blogs and news sites with trending content in any crowdfunding niche. Input search terms relevant to your campaign and discover content that is going viral on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google. This information can be used to build targeted media lists of the blogs and news sites that are writing about similar topics.

Both of the new tools work for all donations or rewards crowdfunding campaigns as well as the newly approved equity crowdfunding types “Regulation A+” and “Title III” of the JOBS Act.

Optimize & promote crowdfunding product development

Other features:

  • Find Backers and Super Backers on Kickstarter and Indiegogo
  • Build a highly targeted and engaged following on Twitter
  • Get a professional Press Release written and distributed
  • Reach influencers, journalists, and bloggers in your niche
  • Discover viral content in your niche
  • Optimize your campaign page setup
Media Landscape For Engineers

Media Landscape For Engineers

My new boss was chatting with me in his office. He turned to a shelf with notebooks and pulled one off the shelf. Opening it to a tab, he removed a section and told me to copy it and start my own notebook.

The contents were articles clipped and copied from trade press, B2B, magazines. He had given me a new position as program manager in product development. These were articles on project management and program management. This was my introduction to the trade press.

I subscribed and read a variety of publications over the course of the next 20 years collecting useful articles. Some of the magazines were quick reads. Articles were by people whose titles were “marketing manager” with the contents reflecting that point of view. Some were written by engineers or other practitioners with useful information.

When I became a trade press editor at Control Engineering in 1998, the media landscape was unchanged. It consisted of magazines delivered by the US Postal Service on a more or less regular basis.

Wow, but do we have so many ways of getting information these days. There remains the inevitable tension within the trade press of writing what advertisers want to see in print versus focusing on useful information for readers. Information availability moved rapidly from print to Web to email to Twitter to LInkedIn and Facebook.

Advantages and deficiencies

Web–I always had trouble “bookmarking” Websites to return to and read. Or to develop a regular system to go to my Websites to read what was new. It was usually impossible to see what was new, anyway. On the other hand, the Web is a great place to store large amounts of information whether for media companies or for technology suppliers. What I have always desired is a push notification telling me not only that something changed, but also directing me to what changed.

Pop-up ads and enticements, pop-overs, cluttered pages, proliferation of ads all serve to destroy my motivation to go to media Websites to read articles. The race to create as much ad revenue as possible has reached the point for me that I hate to visit to try to read an article.

You also have to beware the “listicle” article. Many devices are designed to get you to click–top 10, view three ways, here are 6 things you didn’t know about. Sometimes they even make you click each one individually. Know why? The publisher needs to improve page views and therefore ad impressions. I have mostly quit getting suckered in.

What I will do is go to an “advertiser” site for a good technical or business white paper or other such information. Today you are more likely to get the kind of information there that I used to copy into my notebook. Oh, and today, my notebook is Evernote.

Twitter–Initially a great conversation tool, now there is so much noise that I seldom look at the stream. The tools I used to sort through the flood often were killed by Twitter. This killed much of my enthusiasm. I still Tweet. Some people actually find them.

Email–Believe it or not, emails remain the best way of notifying people with reasons to visit a Website or otherwise send information. Maybe someday there will be a ubiquitous chat app (Messenger or Snapchat or Slack?) that would take the place of email–but wouldn’t it just be another form of email? In the meantime, it’s not email but the misuse of email that is annoying.

General media–I’m seeing many more articles in Forbes, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other such general media publications that once would be seen only in trade press. Coverage of the Internet of Things, for instance, may be stronger there, as well as coverage of safety and security.

The Future

For the curious, check out the recent Notifications Summit put on by a couple of technology luminaries John Borthwick of Betaworks and Steve Gillmor who is a long-time reporter and analyst of technology. Many hours of video were recorded. They were great presentations and conversations about the developing technologies and uses of notifications.

Start with John Borthwick.

Or go to TechCrunch and search for Steve Gillmor.

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