Stop Talking. Start Doing.

By Joseph Carbonara, Editor in Chief -- Foodservice Equipment and Supplies, 1/1/2008

Joseph Carbonara

IBM has a great ad campaign running at the moment: "Stop Talking. Start Doing." The ads poke fun at the latest corporate buzzwords of ideation and innovation. One ad has a group of employees from the same company lying on a conference room floor participating in what they describe as an ideation session. Like members of a cult, they lie there waiting for the idea comet to deliver the next great idea to them.

Another one of my favorites has a guy walking along wearing a superhero costume that features a big "I" on the chest. When stopped by a colleague, the cape-wearing gent informs his colleague that he's now known as "Innovation Man" and he's off to a very important meeting. Innovation Man proceeds to tell her of his plans to lead the innovation and ideation charge that will most certainly lead to the next big thing, whatever that is.

Beyond poking fun at the latest corporate jargon, the ads have a simple call to action: They encourage business leaders to stop talking and start doing. Reflecting over a year's worth of business travel, I've come to realize that this advice applies to more than hightech companies. This call to action reflects the general rut that most businesses, foodservice included, find themselves in these days.

Everyone seems to keep looking over their shoulder waiting for their suppliers to develop the next innovative solution that will change the industry. For their part, suppliers seem to be honest and diligent in their efforts to develop innovative ideas to present to their customers. And it's at this point in the process where things seem to break down, I believe.

As the IBM ads cleverly point out, the next great idea will not come about by lying on the conference room floor with your colleagues. Nor can it happen under the big top of an industry trade show or conference with hundreds or thousands of people strolling past.

Innovative ideas come about by spending more meaningful time with your customers and suppliers and getting to truly understand what makes them tick and what opportunities exist to make their lives better. Understand their financial models. Get to know what prompts their customers to buy from them and the resulting chain of events.

Princeton University's WordNet defines innovation as the creation of something resulting from experimentation. To develop something that truly meets the spirit of this definition, individual players need to drop the "we" and "they" mentality that permeates the supplier and customer relationship, and instead, come to the table for honest, open dialogue. Just as importantly, they need to look toward the future together to identify larger trends both inside and outside the industry that they will need to collectively address moving forward.

Speaking of looking to the future, traditionally January represents our forecast issue, which you will find on page 18. But in preparing this issue, we went a step beyond our normal routine and engaged various members of the industry in a futuristic exercise. In doing so, we asked them to gaze into their crystal balls and articulate what they see the industry looking like 20 years from now. You can read their thoughts on page 28. Why do this? The intent was to get people to look beyond the tasks they have at hand and spark some different dialogue between channel partners. There were no right or wrong answers, just food for thought. Hopefully, this gives you something to chew on as we enter the new year.

Joseph M. Carbonara, Editor in Chief