Right Brain vs. Left Brain and other wrong-headed myths...

Recent neurological research debunks the long-held belief that the human brain functions according to left and right hemispheres. This is great news for those of us who can't remember which half is creative and which half is analytical. It's not so great news for management and training consultants who have built their careers referencing charts and diagrams of the hemispheric human brain, much the way the earliest explorers charted the regions of a flattened world complete with dragons at the periphery.

Neuroscience makes understanding human behavior, including purchasing decisions and the buying cycles of organizations, all the more constructive and myth busting. Take for example, the growing notion that complex industrial buying decisions can be entirely guided nowadays online. This is the implication Global Spec makes in their reference to a recent a Frost and Sullivan study about the buying habits of engineers. The study conveys how online content aggregators, such as Global Spec, can guide a buyer at every step of the buying cycle, leading a prospect and an organization to select both product and supplier; the only exception being (according to the study), that for industrial products, "procurement" is made face-to-face at the end of the buying process, ostensibly to confirm that there is a trusted human at the end of this otherwise virtual transaction.

This new charting of the engineering mind sure sounds simple. It's not much more evolved than prevailing notions of the hemispheric brain or the long-ago representations of a flattened earth, except to make the logical observation that highly cultivated online content, supporting a prospect's buying cycle, is important. It certainly is. But ultimately, your relationships with your best customers are built face-to-face, not just email-to-email.

You can spend tens of thousands of dollars building a website, and the content for an online aggregator site, but the human side of business relationship development teaches that if you don't build your company's brand identity with a human touch along the way, it's a wrong-headed approach.

jb
www.centrifuge-now.com

America's next industrial revolution...

America's 21st century industrial manufacturing revolution will not be born out of new technology, balanced trade, or less government intrusion alone. It will come from new leaders having new wisdom regarding the interdependent disciplines of branding, marketing and organizational change.

Looking back on 20th century industrial manufacturing, technology was a big driver, but it's been the many generations of MBA managers that have driven our businesses. These managers have helped organize, direct and control a range of organizational activities including engineering, manufacturing, and sales – all guided by the go-to-market principles known as the 4P's (product, price, place, promotion).

Looking ahead, America's industrial base will not be built by managers alone, but by industrial leaders who will pick up where generations of managers have left off. Here is how they will lead the 21st century American industrial revolution:

1. The successful industrial manufacturer will build an internal brand identity.
2. Brand identity development will forge internal alignment on value definition.
3. Alignment on value definition will enable strategic, efficient, full value delivery.
4. Full value delivery to the marketplace will bring full external value recognition.
5. Value definition and value recognition will build a winning industrial manufacturer.

And a winning industrial manufacturing base will make for a stronger America.

jb
www.centrifuge-now.com