While Yahoo struggles to find a new strategy for its search business, a couple of startups are launching innovative technologies that will change how we search for information online.  Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently reported on Zeebox and its app that “scans TV closed-captioning services for words related to a program and searches the Internet for related material.”  As consumer’s online behavior is shifting from searching for things they already have in mind to exploring new things that are relevant but new to them, discovery tools like this will add values to existing search engines.

Consumers and companies now embrace content creation, Over 4 billion hours of videos are watched each month on YouTube. Although the search engines are doing a great job crawling and analyzing articles, they are behind in providing an easier way for users to find the video or audio contents they are looking for. Crawling the titles and descriptions limits the quality of the search results, especially for long-form contents. Veezio, a French startup, has technologies that can read text in the video, automatically generate keywords and tags as well as extract context, people and places mentioned in the content.  Because it can help index videos down to the second, users can find the exact moment they are looking for instead of having to watch the entire program.  Because it feeds the extracted text or expanded meta-tag to Google, it means that your videos or podcasts could have a better chance of been indexed or been found in the search results.  French media companies are already jumping on the bandwagon and taking advantage of Veezio’s technologies.

It has been too long that we see a break-through in the search business.  Veezio may be a great example of what is to come.

  Since the Slow Movement stared in 1986, the business environment has become even more complex and fast-paced. Has the movement failed or is the explosive pace of change finally driving businesses and consumers to embrace the movement and deal with our addiction to speed?

This show is for trend watchers who are looking for new opportunities and those of us who want to take control of our lives and reboot our business results. I will speak with Carl Honoré, author of “In Praise of Slowness” and “The Slow Fix”, about organizations that are adopting the philosophy of the Slow Movement and companies that are taking advantage of the trend to grow their businesses. Listen to the discussion now or download the podcast to listen on the go.

Although there is a common knowledge that games are attention grabbers, few have spent the time to understand why they are so effective and why some games are more addictive than others.  Those were the questions that got me interested in learning more about gamification. As I talked with Mario about this, I realized how games are filling a void that many corporate leaders have missed the opportunity to fulfill.

• Clear Goals - With video games, there is no confusion which targets you need to hit and what goals you need to achieve. Gallup had interviewed  tens and thousands of great managers who had built high-performing teams and came up with a list of things that great managers have in common.  On the top of that list is setting clear expectations for employees. It sounds like a no-brainer and yet many managers fail to take the efforts to do so.

• Timely feedback – Games always let you know how you are doing.  When you make a wrong move, something blows up right in front of you.   And you know your score or which level you’ve achieved at the end of each game. Sure, companies offer performance reviews to provide feedback for employees, but it usually takes place only once a year.  With so much on their plates, many managers don’t take the time to sit down with their director reports frequently to provide on-going suggestions and encouragement between annual performance reviews. By the time they do provide feedback at the annual performance review, months have gone by and the employee can no longer remember what exactly happened nor have the opportunity to do something differently to fix it. The keyword here is timeliness.

• Positive Reinforcement – Games make sure you see your score card and cheer you on when you hit certain goals. If you are hitting the right target, it provides loud and enthusiastic sound effect to celebrate your success. That’s not the case at work. Even when the managers provide feedback, they tend to focus on areas for improvement. What gets left out is feedback about what employees did well. The book, “First, Break All the Rules“, outlines the results from the Gallup’s study on what greatest managers do different to drive performance. One of the top 5 approaches they take is providing recognition frequently.

• Unlock the passion – Most games provide only social rewards. It’s amazing how it could be so captivating without any monetary rewards. But incredible things happen when you can tap into one’s passion. That’s what games do best. When assigning a project to a direct report, you need to answer the question of “Why should the employee care?” Ask yourself how the project aligns with the employee’s personal values and core competencies.  A great manager cares about the employee as a person and takes the time to understand what they are good at and what motivates them so you can provide them with opportunities to do what they do best.

Gaming may be around for only a few decades, but when you really break it down, it leverages human psychology that  organizational development experts have known for many years. The success of gamification serves as a reminder for us to put these timeless leadership lessons into practice.

Analysts expect the company to report 68% growth in sales for the first quarter this year compared to 35% for Facebook. LinkedIn shares are up 315% since its IPO in 2011, while Facebook value has dropped by 29% a year after it went public.

On the other hand, Facebook is facing user fatigue and lack of interest for shopping on its site. Instead of serving consumer needs, Facebook is hoping to change consumer mindset when socializing with friends, which turns out to be a difficult sell. Social selling may not be for everyone, or should we say, not for every occasion. That’s why new apps, such as Soldsie, might provide a new way to think about how to help generate sales on Facebook when it is appropriate.

 Mark Winter, Senior Director at X Prize Foundation, will join me to discuss the potential impact and vision for the $10 million global competition to stimulate innovation and integration of precision diagnostic technologies. Listen to the interview now or download the podcast to listen to it on the go.

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In his new book, Retail Revival – Re-imaging Business in the New Age of Consumerism, Doug offers refreshing insights and recommendations for the retailers. To survive the retail revolution, retailers must transform their business models from distribution of products to distribution of experiences. Some of the innovative stores are already doing so. New York’s A Startup Store features merchandise from startups. The store changes products and physical designs every 4 to 6 weeks, taking the concept of Zara to the next level. Another example is Guest Chef, a restaurant in Oakland, California, that hosts a new chef every 2 weeks to create a sense of surprise for the patrons.

“The purpose of retail will no longer be to solely convert every customer into a buyer of goods but rather transform them into disciples of the brand itself.  To begin a relationship – a dialogue that may play out in any number of buying channels; online, in-store, mobile or elsewhere”, said Doug Stephens. Physical stores are less about transactions but increasingly about building a pre-sale and post-sale relationship with the customer.  “Stores will become media, and media will become stores.”

“Consumers aren’t merely buying what you do or how you do it.  They’re also buying why you do it”, Doug pointed out in his book. Retailers have to ask themselves why they exist and what they stand for because that’s why customers buy from them. When you create a reason for consumers to want to go to your store, they will become your media. Traditionally, retailers have to launch a marketing campaign to drive traffic to their stores. In the future, the store will need to create a clear brand to attract customers who would then become their marketers when they are impressed with they see.

The purchase path is becoming unpredictable.  Doug argued that retailers will have to deliver remarkable in-store experience in order to stay competitive.  Being average is no longer an option.  Doug predicts that “at high-end merchants, stock clerks, cashiers and inventory counters will be the replaced with technology. The front line salespeople, however, will be higher performing professionals who are paid considerably more money than today.” To learn more about the implications for the CMOs, COO, and CPOs, download the podcast or tune in to the discussion online.

I’ll speak with Kelli Richards, President & CEO of The All Access Group LLC. She’s a former Apple executive and a pioneer of digital music and entertainment. Kelli will provide rare insights into the secret ingredients of Apple’s innovation and the future of the music industry. She’ll also offer advice on how to succeed in the ever-changing industry.

Please join us for the discussion on Monday April 22 at 4 pm Pacific Time.  You can also download the podcast after the show or check out previous episodes from the show here.

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In this episode, I’ll speak with Mario Herger, Senior Innovation Strategist at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, about how companies are incorporating gamification into their business strategies. He’s the author of an upcoming book, “Enterprise Gamification: Exploiting People by Letting Them Have Fun”.  Tune into the discussion on Monday April 15at 4 pm Pacific Time for great insights on gamification.  The podcast will also be available on iTunes after the show.  For a list of the previous episodes, click here.

When I was a first grader, I used to walk to school by myself. It was a time when it was still safe for kids to walk around the neighborhood on their own. Every day after school, I navigated through winding alleys, finding new routes to get home. It was sort of an urban expedition for a little kid. One day I was so lost I almost didn’t make it home. Then there was another day when I got bit by a dog. But most of the time, I had a chance to explore and be curious, and I managed to find my way home.

I didn’t know it then, but it helped me feel comfortable to operate in the unknown and get excited about it. Like most children, I knew I had no control over my environment but I would always be okay in the end. It helped me understand what it was like to approach life’s adventures with a completely open mind, as if I were on a treasure hunt – not knowing where the clue for the next step would be coming from, but nonetheless, very determined to find the treasure.

Steve Jobs said in his 2005 speech, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Ironically, we lose the sense of wonder and the sense of freedom from boundaries and predictable processes as we age. One of the biggest challenges for leaders is how to manage the innate desire for control during the process, to achieve their goals and reinvent the future.

In the early stage of a start-up, the entrepreneur often has to wear multiple hats and oversees everything in the business to stretch every dollar.  But as the company grows, the one-man-show approach is no longer effective. One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs as their businesses expand is learning how to delegate and build a new organization structure to support the growth.  It’s part of the growing pains.  Only 25% of small businesses in the U.S. generate more than half a million dollars in annual sales.  That percentage drops to 18% when it comes to women-owned enterprises, according to a new report by Womenable.  Only 2% of women-owned companies have more than $1 million in revenues. While many struggle to grow their companies beyond the $500,000 threshold, the women-owned companies in the $10 million segment are experiencing rapid growth.  In a recent interview about women entrepreneurship, Linda Alepin, Founding Director of Global Women’s Leadership Network and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University, pointed to the leaders’ ability to take risks and to transform their roles from doers to enablers as the keys to sustainable growth. Entrepreneurs who are able to let go of control and find a new way to derive a sense of achievement, other than being hands-on, are more likely to continue to expand their companies after the initial success.

Peter Drucker, who is considered the father of modern management, once said, “Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.” When we continue doing what we are doing, we continue to live in the present. To find the future is to let go of the present.

I had the chance to be a child again when I worked in Tanzania to start a food sufficiency project. I was aware that I knew nothing about Africa and agriculture. I was prepared to move forward with a stronger sense of discovery and more openness than on a typical job.

International aid programs had created a huge dependency problem in the larger cities so I was determined to go to the underserved villages where traditional values upheld. I thought about teaching them how to start small businesses but soon scrapped the idea when I witnessed the severity of the food shortage problem during one of the worst droughts in Tanzania’s recent history. Although I had received suggestions from several agricultural experts in the city about what I could do to help, I decided to hold a “town hall meeting” under the trees with the impoverished farmers in the mountainous village to design a program with them that would best serve their needs. I knew we had to find a way to address the immediate food crisis while trying to create a long-term impact. I understood that to make a sustainable change, I needed the participation and buy-in of the villagers.

At first, a couple of men asked for oxen. It would take three years to raise an ox and most oxen in the village were bony. I had a feeling that they would not be able to keep the oxen healthy or alive, especially in a drought. I encouraged them to come up with more ideas. Other men threw in different ideas. Finally a woman spoke up.

“We need knowledge!” She said in Swahili.

“Mhum.” Several other women concurred.

“That’s right! We don’t even know how to raise pigs.” Another woman chimed in. Almost every family in the village had pigs.

“We can barely feed our children with what we could grow. We need knowledge!”

That’s how we decided on providing agricultural and husbandry training programs for the farmers. But when we returned to the village a few weeks later to kick off our program, we were confronted with protests from the village leader.

“We don’t need training! We know how to farm and raise pigs. We have done that all our lives. What we need are oxen! Many villagers are upset that you are not providing us with oxen. “ He threatened us, “No one is going to come to your class today!”

We were shocked by his warning and baffled by the change of heart. What we didn’t know at the time was that the leader had been receiving bribes from the veterinarian to give immunization shots to the oxen. Having more oxen would mean more money for the leader from the veterinarian. On the other hand, I was more concerned about creating dependency with free handouts and the survival rate of the oxen. I refused to change the program agreed to by the farmers during the last visit.

What was happening in the village mirrors some of the challenges in the corporate world where  misalignment and conflict of interests are also commonplace. The challenge for leaders is how to help achieve company or community goals while managing conflicts that arise when the company’s interest could inadvertently negatively impact individuals in the group.

When I walked out of the village leader’s office, there were only few people outside waiting for our class.  Our trainers began to have doubts about my approach of not handing out cash incentive to lure farmers to our class. I was very sure that I didn’t want to create a sense of dependency on donors, but for a brief moment I also started to question whether I had listened carefully enough to the farmers’ input last time. I wondered if I missed something.

We postponed the meeting for an hour, but still there were very few people for the class. It was very disappointing. My trainer and I had just survived a landslide in order to get to the village. I was enthusiastic about helping the farmers help themselves. So I had a vested interest in seeing the project succeed. But then I realized I had to leave it up to the villagers. Their future was in their hands. I was very clear that if I couldn’t solve their problems, I was not going to add dependency to their crisis. I held my ground about not giving handouts, while “surrendering” the decision about the training to the villagers.

Leadership is not about the leader. It’s about the people you lead. It’s more about creating an environment conducive to success.

Reluctantly, I gave the trainer the go-ahead to start the class despite a small turnout. But over the next 45 minutes, more and more farmers came to the class, even after we ran out of pens and notebooks.  We all gathered under the trees at the top of the mountain. The farmers had chosen their future.

Connecting the dots as I look back, what I learned on that day was humility. I learned not to assume that we are better than or have control over the people and environment around us. Instead, the lesson was to trust in one’s own ability not simply to influence other people, but more importantly, to believe in their ability to contribute to and co-create the future. What we do have control over is how we define the meaning of the situation. Humility helps leaders be open-minded and courageous. Only when you’re willing to be vulnerable and authentic, can you allow for self-reflection and space for growth. At times, it might seem that some of the efforts were not leading to anything promising, and the path to success was not clear. But keeping a learner’s mindset and a clear focus on the goal helped me explore options and continue the pursuit.

An IBM study on global CEOs showed that more than 80% of the respondents expect greater complexity and uncertainty in the future but only 42% know how to manage it successfully. CEOs believe that “thinking creatively” is now the most important leadership quality. The report indicates, “Creative leaders embrace ambiguity and take calculated risks that disrupt the legacy business models. They rely less on old hierarchical style of leadership and are more open-minded in expanding their management style to engage the new generation of employees, customers and partners.”  The most successful organization co-create products and services with customers and key stakeholders.

Embrace complexity and ambiguity with an open mind. Be curious and inventive. As Steve Jobs would say,

“Stay hungry.  Stay foolish.”