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Red Fish . . . Blue Fish — Marketing Reinvention ROI
An associate emailed me saying that his business partner was heavily into the philosophy expressed in “Blue Ocean Strategy” and wanted to know if I thought it was useful or a waste of time.
“Blue ocean . . . red ocean . . . red fish, blue fish . . . one fish, two fish . . .
I’m not a fan of cutesy business metaphors. They’re too much like an adult businessperson’s version of Dr. Seuss and just the type of thing that two college eggheads would concoct.
Given the track record of most professors (heavy on theory and no real business experience), I’d frankly seek out the material from people who live by what they teach and send theoretical business books to my competitors . . . with my complements, of course <evil grin>.
As a quick, related side note: did you every wonder just how college professors get to teach in “business schools” without ever actually having owned at least one successful business?
I don’t know which group is more delusional — the professors themselves, the schools that hire them, or the students/parents who pay the overpriced tuition without checking out the professors’ qualifications to teach business best practices.
That very lack of checks and balances allows the cycle to perpetuate.
There may be something to the book, but I’ve only heard it discussed in a peripheral way. But you know, there comes a time when one needs to quit reading the latest business theory of the week du jour and actually do something — to actually **execute** a coherent plan of somethings.
And with the book’s approach to “competitor-free markets” and exhorting readers to “swim for open waters” — I don’t think the first is realistic and the second begs the comparison to swimming so far into “open waters” that you’re totally alone. No competitors, but no buyers either.
Just reading their “Nine Key Points of Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS)” made my eyes cross and provided the day’s first WTH? moment.
In English, Herr professors . . . please.
Btw, there’s a very good reason business folk don’t talk that way.
I prefer the old marketing metaphor of “Where’s the best place to fish? Where the fish are.” or “What’s the best bait to use? What the fish will eat.”
If your focus is on “open waters” because of the authors’ philosophies, then do they qualify the “open waters” approach? I hope they do. If not, it could explain why little has been heard about the book after the initial splash last year.
Who still remembers what they did after someone moved their cheese?
If I were in your shoes and my fortunes were tied to this guy because he’s my business partner in a venture - I’d want to know what his plan was and what he was hoping to gain from his current pattern of reference material.
There’s a pattern of behavior here. I’m interested in where you think he’s going with it all.
Btw, what are you doing with this all this contrarian information I’m feeding you? Is it leading you to ask better questions? Make sharper distinctions? Examining behavior with a more critical eye? Spotting the disconnects between words and actions?
Hope this latest installment of “War & Peace” is useful.”
If you must get the book anyway, then by all means — click the link.
By Walter |
Topics: Client Top Secret, Inside The Mind, Pro Analysis |