Make it...accessible

into

Blue Ocean Strategy...focusing on/traversing uncontested market space (i.e. where innovation plays).

I haven't blogged since January 19th (roughly about a month and a half) because ladies and gentlemen...breakthrough ideas are not easy to bring to market. Sometimes it requires unplugging, regrouping and then pushing forward after taking some time to get a better (and more realistic) perspective of where you are, where you're going and how to get there. 

For a number of different reasons I took some time off from being online (sometimes it's energizing to unplug). In the process I've focused our efforts more on the physical world than the digital. Sometimes it is necessary to let the digital rest for a bit and fully engage the offline world of (flesh and blood) people to people interactions  to push forward with, as my good friend Mike Bonifer often says, productive games that bring you closer to your goals.  One thing though that continues to bubble to the surface of my thoughts, conversations, and actions is...

I'm using the idea of blue ocean (and simplicity) because both play so well into the whole point behind this post, which was inspired by a conversation I had with my good friend and colleague Michelle James (who actually shared with me the idea of taking oceans and putting them into a drinking glass (albeit using it slightly differently).

As discussed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne "blue oceans" are about wide open, uncontested market space. You're playing in waters where few others are. The challenge with that, though, is that often those waters are unfamiliar and no one else really wants to sail along with you. It's big, open, vast,  and unchartered space. And for many that's intimidating, frightening and in many ways - flat out unappealing.

Blue Oceans need to be able to fit into drinking glasses. New/innovative possibilities need to be able to be put into terms, language and formats that people can wrap their minds around. Complexity simplified. New, untested, creative, innovative ideas that are mentally, visually, intellectually and emotionally accessible. No complex jargon. No 70 page business description. No flowery language that sounds beautiful, but means nothing. None of any of that.

What's the kicker though is that this is very difficult and challenging. And few can do it well. As Leonardo da Vinci once said "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Over the last month and a half, we've been in the midst of learning valuable lessons on what it takes to build a sustainable business that sails in blue oceans (and we're still learning). It's been challenging for the company and the issues we've faced you probably won't find being tweeted, posted on youtube videos or being liked on Facebook. On so many levels it's simply been good old fashion blood, sweat and tears; building a business one conversation at a time (no matter how challenging, arduous and frustrating those moments are). 

[Useful] innovation is about the painstaking efforts to make the incomprehensible, accessible. Simplicity at all costs.