Four Ideas for Promoting Innovation In The Workplace

By Cristiane Namiuti
Innovation in the workplace is often stifled by a desire to see productivity increase above all else, which can lead to creative individuals feeling as though their contributions are not appreciated. To avoid this situation, companies need to actively promote innovative thought. Here are some tips on how to do that:

Engage Employees
If employees do not feel connected to their places of work, they are less likely to commit time to coming up with new ideas that may benefit their companies. To counter this, companies need to keep their employees informed about the latest developments, whether this involves changes in internal structures or new products that are going to be soon introduced to the public. By encouraging active participation and employee engagement, businesses can gain access to ideas that their specific teams may not have considered.

Incentivize
Many companies incentivize high performance in what are considered practical areas. This is most commonly seen in the sales environment, where salespeople are rewarded based on the volume or quality of their sales. Similar plans need to be put in place to let creative thinkers know that they play just as important a role in the company. By offering incentives, such as internal recognition for creative thinking, companies give employees more reason to think outside the norm. A key component of this is that businesses should also avoid punishing people for ideas that don’t take off. Not every new concept will be a winner and punishing those that fail discourages an innovative work environment.

Accept Risk
To follow on from that previous point, companies must recognize that risk will always be attached to innovation. Trying something new is intimidating, particularly for businesses that have experienced success with established or traditional methods. This can result in a lack of tolerance for new ideas or, more accurately, little tolerance for the risk involved in exploring new concepts. This discourages creative thinkers and may prevent them from introducing new ideas to senior management. The company needs to support help its employees and help them feel confident to explore and present new ideas in spite of the risk of failing. Because as long as everyone can learn from each failure, failure breeds success. As IBM’s Thomas Watson said: “The fastest way to success is to double your failure rate.”

Focus On Action
Innovation is only effective if the company puts plans in place to follow up on the ideas presented. This requires dedicating time and resources to the exploration of new ideas, their feasibility and how they can be implemented so they stay in-line with the business’ brand strategy and marketing goals.

About The Author: Cristiane Namiuti is a brand marketing professional with more than ten years of experience managing consumer brands for companies like Unilever and Bare Escentuals.

Source:
http://www.thehrobserver.com/10-ways-to-promote-innovation-at-the-workplace/

Cristiane Namiuti - Healthy Living with Attainable Goals

By Cristiane Namiuti

Understanding the process of living a healthier life can be dizzying with the barrage of weight-loss programs, diet plans, exercise regimens, and so on. Luckily, with just a few small and meaningful steps, we can create significant changes in our body chemistry that promote weight loss, stress reduction, and an overall better quality of living.

• Devote a small portion of each day to exercise. This can include walking to work, biking to the grocery store, or twenty minutes lifting weights at the gym. Whatever your preferred form, make sure to move your body every day.
• Cut down on sugar. In high quantities, sugar can cause energy levels to spike and crash. The crashes can be difficult to push through, and the body’s natural response is often to consume more sugar or caffeine to “re-stabilize.” This includes natural sugars, too. Consuming five or six pieces of fruit or numerous glasses of juice in one day has the same effect. Opt for one piece of fruit and a glass of water instead.
• Consider getting a blood panel done by your doctor to see what sorts of supplements might be of use to you. It’s difficult to know exactly what your body needs because we don’t always show noticeable symptoms in regard to a specific deficiency.

About the author: Cristiane Namiuti is a marketing professional who is devoted to helping people live healthier and happier lives both inside and outside of the workplace. She is currently building a technology startup in collaboration with the Butler Venture Accelerator Program at Babson College.

Marketing Research is Crucial for Business Success

By Cristiane Namiuti

Successful businesses across the world understand the importance of conducting marketing research for the achievement of business goals. Through marketing research, a business stays informed of changing market trends and works to retain its competitive edge. Whether your business is a large company or a small startup, marketing research enables you to understand the significant aspects of your target market to increase ROI, revenue, and overall success.

In its simplest form, marketing research is an information gathering exercise that enables you to determine the feasibility of something. If you have a product or service you would want to launch, marketing research enables you to determine whether your offering is relevant for your target market.

Rather than relying on ‘gut feeling’, undertaking marketing research helps you to make more informed decisions. The good news for marketers and business managers is that conducting marketing research is not an unachievable process. In fact, if you’re already into business, you’re already conducting some form of informal research when you talk to customers, read print publications, or watch TV for the latest trends and information.

Marketing research takes two forms: primary and secondary research. Whenever you undertake direct interviews or information gathering exercises with customers or the competition, you’re engaging in primary research. Secondary research relies on research performed by other organizations or people, but whose results are useful in your situation. The latter is the most cost effective way of undertaking research that can be helpful in learning more about the industry.

About the author:

Cristiane Namiuti is passionate about marketing and brand development. She has more than ten years of experience managing leading consumer brands in Brazil and the US.

Use Marketing and Social Media to Your Advantage

By Cristiane Namiuti

Establishing and running a profitable business venture is not an easy thing, regardless of the type of business run. If you are running a one-man operation or have a few people to help out, chances are you will be handling many different roles. While you won’t always know everything, it’s a good idea to try and educate yourself on what you don’t know, and reinforce the knowledge on what you do know.

Marketing and social media, especially in an age of technological advancement and the Internet, are some of the areas many business managers struggle with. When properly handled, however, they have the potential to take your business to the next level.

Marketing

As your business’s premier salesperson, you will be charged with branding and marketing your offerings to audiences out there. You have to know what you are doing, and have a marketing plan to support and direct your actions.

The first thing would be to have a marketing strategy, one that outlines your marketing goals and objectives, takes into account the type of market you are dealing with, and the marketing arsenal at your disposal. All this necessitates copious amounts of time spent on research well before you create the first flyer or brochure advertising your business.

With proper research, you can never go wrong. You’ll have a picture of your target market, what they like/dislike, their buying preferences, as well as marketing avenues that work. Of course, some efforts will not be a success, so you have to know when to learn from your mistakes and move on.

We live in a new school, technology-driven world. Online marketing can bring enormous benefits to your business, so find out which online marketing tactics can work for you. Offline tactics still work, but a good number of consumers use the Internet to search for and review products and services way before visiting a store.

Social media

Social media is such an expansive topic, but here’s a short primer on how to effectively use it in your business:

• Use social media for much more than marketing; make meaningful connections. Keep the “buy my product” posts to a minimum in favor of informative posts on current affairs, international events, business events, and so on. Your customers will view you as a resource on great information, which will improve your credibility making it easier for you to convince them to purchase from you.
• Before going into social media, do your homework. Not every site will work for you, neither is every business in social media for the same reasons. Find out your strengths and weaknesses, particularly in regards to the timing of your posts and your responses to customer feedback.
• Set realistic expectations. The more specific and realistic your goals are (get 100 loyal followers by the end of the year, increase website traffic by 15% in 6 months, and so on), the easier it is to achieve them.

Most importantly, be proactive when it comes to marketing and social media because it helps you stay ahead of the curve and handle issues effectively.

About the author:

Cristiane Namiuti is a brand marketing professional with more than a decade of experience building and managing top consumer brands. She is passionate about product innovation and brand communication.

What New Entrepreneurs Should Know When They Get into Business

By Cristiane Namiuti

Very often, stories of successful entrepreneurship fail to touch on the untold rejections and harsher realities that are representative of entrepreneurs’ journeys. The reason for it could be that stories of despair, hardship, fear, doubt, and anxiety aren’t really inspirational. Or quite possibly because few people want to hear about the struggles first-time entrepreneurs face and their occasional desire to quit.

In reality, entrepreneurship starts out with a lot of insecurity and numerous surprises. Much like searching for true love, there are many things to uncover along the way before a calming assuredness of success sets in. The following are some of the issues new entrepreneurs should brace for.

Finances will rarely be enough

Many new entrepreneurs get it wrong right out of the gate when it comes to finances, mainly because they don’t accurately determine how much money is required to launch the idea. Those who do so quickly realize that money is a big factor to success, and maintaining sufficient cash flow or raising adequate capital is a tough endeavor.

In this day of venture capitalists and angel investors, your idea may be good enough to get meetings with investors. But you’ll always need a strong team and a sound business model validated by real customers to convince them to invest in your idea.  Early in the ideation process you have to do the math and come up with an accurate picture of how much you need to develop and get your idea into the market.

School has taught you little

The business knowledge you acquire in school is by all means vital to your development, but you will soon realize that it doesn’t prepare you for everything you will face as an entrepreneur. The only way you will learn to handle the issues and pressure of entrepreneurship is by going out and becoming an entrepreneur.

In the same vein, you have to acknowledge that you don’t have all the knowledge. Overconfidence hurts a lot of new entrepreneurs. Be humble and accept that there are some things you have little knowledge of. That’s when your strong team makes the difference allowing you to delegate to people you trust.

You may need help

Understanding that you can’t get everything done on your own leads to the reality that you may need a partner to help out. Having a reliable partner can ease the pressure and reduce the responsibilities on your plate. Besides, shared ownership can motivate you to become better and is a good way of attracting talented individuals. Partnerships also mean giving up some level of control and ownership – something many new entrepreneurs find hard.

People want you to succeed

The fear of failure is what prevents many people from becoming entrepreneurs. What many first-time entrepreneurs realize quickly is that everybody wants them to succeed, so all stakeholders will work towards success and rally during tough times. Mistakes and failure will happen along the way, but use them as opportunities to learn and correct.



To Learn more, Visit : https://about.me/cristiane.namiuti
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274743

Brazil Among the Most Miserable Nations

By Cristiane Namiuti

The Cato Institute just published its annual Misery Index ranking of nations. Professor Steve H. Hanke of Johns Hopkins Universitycalculated the indexesbased on data from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The Misery Index calculation follows a simple formula:

Misery Index = (unemployment + inflation + bank lending rates) – GDP’s percentage change.

The highest indexes are associated with the most miserable nations.

According to Hanke’s Misery Index for 2015, Venezuela continues to occupy the first place as the most miserable nation for the third consecutive year.And Venezuela’s situation in 2015 was much worse than 2014: the country’s Misery Index went from 106 in 2014 to 214 in 2015, increasing more than 100%.

Ukraine rose two positions, going from fourth place in 2014 to second in 2015, with a misery index of 82.

Brazilearned a Misery Index of 67, appearing as the third most miserable nation in the world1 (after Venezuela and Ukraine) and second in the Americas2 (after Venezuela). The Brazilian economy has been deteriorating over the last few years. The country is struggling with a high level of government debt, high inflation and very high interest rates. Most of these aspects directly affect the country’s Misery Index.

Bender, Jeremy.“Most Miserable Countries in the World”
BusinessInsider.com Jan. 2015.
<http://www.businessinsider.com/misery-index-cato-institute-2016-1>
2Hanke, Steve H.“Economic Headwinds: Big Players, Regime Uncertainty and the Misery Index”
Cato Institute, Feb. 2016.
<http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-headwinds-big-players-regime-uncertainty-  misery-index>

Cato Institute’s Misery Index scores for 2015 were only calculated for nations with up-to-date data at the EIU. Some countries, like for example Syria, were not included because they did not have current data available.

You can check the latest Misery Index rankings here:

Most Miserable Countries in the World
http://www.businessinsider.com/misery-index-cato-institute-2016-1

Misery Index Scores per Region
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-headwinds-big-players-regime-uncertainty-misery-index

Social Media Transforming Advertising

By Cristiane Namiuti

The Internet and the massive adoption of mobile technologies are changing the way we relate with the world around us, and redefining how we consume (anything and everything): brands, products, services, information, entertainment etc. Thanks to technology, we now have immediate access to all types of information. And this new paradigm has transformed, and still continues to reshape, what once was the “Traditional Marketing”.

 

In a world where there are more mobile phones than people, we tend to spend more time on social media than watching TV or reading magazines. In this scenario, brands are adapting to our new media habits, and creating new ways to connect with consumers and convey their messages.In 2013, Airbnb released its first global campaign with an innovative movie produced leveraging crowd-sourcing and social media. This was the first movie directed via Twitter and entirely shot with Vine. The director, Ben York Jones, created the storyline and tweeted Vine directions of the scenes. Following his instructions, people from all around the world created their Vine videos, and tweeted them back to Ben. After a week of editing, “Hollywood and Vines was Born” with the objective of conveying Airbnb’s mission: “an artful story about travel, adventure, and finding your place in the world.”

The final film is four minutes and thirty seconds and was first released in 2013 on the Sundance Channel and later online.

You can watch the movie Hollywood and Vines here: 

About the Author:

Cristiane Namiuti is a brand marketing professional who has strong interest in innovation and technology. She is particularly interested in following the newest technology trends and analyzing the impact they are making on consumers’ lives.

Cristiane has more than ten years of experience building and managing top consumer brands. She is passionate about developing brand communications and product innovation based on consumer insights. Throughout her career Cristiane has successfully launched hundreds of consumer brands and products. Her projects have generated stronger brands and business growth for large corporations such as Unilever and Bare Escentuals, as well as small businesses and startups. While at Unilever, Cristiane’s projects received multiple awards, including: “Best Creative Media”, “Best innovation Project” and “Best Integrated Communications Plan” by Unilever Awards. She holds an MBA in entrepreneurship from Babson College in Wellesley, MA and a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Advertising from ESPM in São Paulo.

Illustrations by freepik.com