Words from Larry Hochman

"Collaboration is the hallmark of Value Creation"

Larry Hochman.

Photography by Conor McCabe from whitespace.ie,

I recently attended Larry Hochman's excellent presentation hosted in Dublin by Marketing Age.  The theme was customer relationship management in an information age.  To get an idea of the quality and content here's a video

The presentation left me with as many questions as it did answers.  

• What does it mean to be more compeditive in a changing world?
  
• Is agility more important than planning?
  
• Is collaboration where the real value creation is?
  
• What is the "promise gap" of my business?
• What are we doing to increase loyalty
• Are our own customers our biggest competitors? 

In searching for the answers to these and many other questions he did offered some clues (it would have been a bit depressing otherwise):

• In order to adapt and change you must  be free of denial, nostalgia and arrogance
  
• You must meet the customers real demands
  
• There are no longer passive customer but co-creators
  
• You need to create "platforms" to give them a voice.
• Ethics will determine your fate

We were left with a challenge "What will you do as an individual to make a difference?"

Larry is a great speaker and your feel the sincerity in his words.  I took away quite a few ideas and even put one or two into practice.  If you get the chance hear him speak.  To use one of the quotes from the day:

"The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas- but to make them forget the old one" - John Maynard Keynes