Guy Kawasaki: Make Meaning | ire's morning|

Guy Kawasaki: Make Meaning | ire's morning|: "Now, exactly what does making meaning connote? And how can we do it?

Making meaning implies adding significance or value to something; doing something that is novel, relevant, appropriate, worthwhile and highly useful.
For example, in the context of Bangkok, you probably agree that opening another spa or internet cafe does not create much value, while coming up with an innovative traffic and transport concept for the metropolis represents a significant value proposition. As Guy Kawasaki points out, making meaning is all about making our world a better place. We can achieve this noble objective by following one of three paths toward meaningful value creation:
- increase the quality of life
Many truly great innovations in the history of humanity greatly increased the quality of people's life. Can you imagine how our daily lives have changed by the invention of the personal computer? What about mobile phones or the internet? How about air conditioning or electricity, not to mention airplanes, cars, and other means of transport. We need to ask: How can we increase the quality of life of our customers with what we're doing? Over 100 million products sold testify to how the iPod has increased the quality of life for music lovers around the world.

-Right a wrong
Take note of problems you encounter as you go through life on a list and look for ways to turn these problems into business or innovation opportunities. What annoys you and needs to be fixed? What does not work as well as it should? What is poorly designed and needs improvement? What unmet and often unarticulated need has not yet been addressed by the market? What really sucks and could be changed for the better by you? Online music is a good example: P2P-sharing services allowed people to easily find their favorite songs online. In October 2003, Apple righted another wrong by offering a legal way to acquire songs online with the opening of the iTunes Music Store.

-Prevent the end of something good
As the world changes, people vary in their perception of which of these changes are good and bad. Is there something good, beautiful, or wonderful that is about to come to an end due to changes in the environment? If you just cannot stand the fact that something good is about to end, turn the problem into an opportunity to start a business, an innovation project or a social movement. For example, in Africa, national parks with premium safari lodges help to preserve the beauty of the African wilderness while creating job opportunities for the locals and tourism income for the country and its entrepreneurs.

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