Two Great Things That Go Great Together...Beer & Innovation
Strategies and Techniques for Change Agents, Strategists, and Innovators
“Longneck, ice cold beer never broke my heart” — Luke Combs
Every once in a while, you see something new, and you just say “of course!” Of course this is a better way. I was in New Orleans last week to give a keynote at an insurance conference, and had time to have a beer with a layover in Dallas.
I deserved a cold one!
That’s when beer and innovation, two of my great loves, came together in a eureka moment.
Friction
I talk, write and help companies spot friction as an input to improving the customer experience and operational improvement. I often discuss the typical experience at Home Depot or any big box retailer. The item I need to purchase is someplace in this store, I just need to wander around, like a zombie, trying to find the item I need. Even when I am in the right aisle and am standing in front of where the item is, it is typically difficult to find the exact item I am looking for. This is friction.
The tricky thing about friction is that it is difficult to spot, because friction is often just the typical way it works and is the industry norm. We are blind to friction. Until someone shows you a flat out smarter approach. Here is a prior Digital Leader Newsletter about Friction…
Bottoms Up Beer
Beer is poured from a tap located above the glass, into the glass — using gravity, with a bartender there to turn on and off the spout. It’s worked that way for a long, long time. It’s just the way beer is poured. There is probably no better way to do it. The bartender needs to pay attention to the beer being poured and often needs to tilt the glass and do multiple small pours so that there is not too much foam.
What if…
What if the beer was poured from the bottom of the glass up, instead of from an overhead tap? The customer would get a perfect beer pour, the bartender could be more productive, and the restaurant could increase revenue as the staff could serve more customers with higher productivity.
Bottoms Up Beer Systems delivers this mind blowing innovative experience and solution. Watch this video
(you may want a beer after watching this … but hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere)
A Triple Threat
For a concept, an idea, an innovation to be a truly great winner, a game changer, it needs to be a triple threat concept. A triple threat concept needs to offer three clear types of benefits:
Customer experience improvement
Operational and employee experience improvement
A clear financial business case
There are many examples of great innovations which offer two of these, but if you can get all three, you’ve got a true winner. The website for Bottoms Up Beer Systems does a great job framing the value proposition of their triple threat
Join Me in Seattle on June 1 —
Value Creation with Generative AI
In all of my recent keynotes I have been discussing Generative AI and the business value creation opportunity for existing companies. The exercise I see proactive business operators doing is thinking through how they might double knowledge worker productivity over the next 18 months.
My colleague Trent Gillespie and I are hosting an in-person event in Seattle on June 1st from 3 to 5 PM to explore further. And yes, you can get an ice cold beer.
Learn more and register HERE.
Your Homework
Is there friction in your business? How can you innovate and create a triple threat benefit?
Onward!
John
About The Digital Leader Newsletter
This is a newsletter for change agents, strategists, and innovators. The Digital Leader Newsletter is a weekly coaching session focusing on customer-centricity, innovation, and strategy. We deliver practical theory, examples, tools, and techniques to help you build better strategies, better plans, and better solutions — but most of all, to think and communicate better.
John Rossman is a keynote speaker and advisor on leadership and innovation.
Learn more at
https://johnrossman.com