W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne first published Blue Ocean Strategy in 2005, and have revised and updated the best seller ever since. It remains a staple for business schools the world over as a strategy to identify new markets, free of excessive competition. Like most business models, particularly those formulated by academics, it has received criticism for research design and on the ground applicability. But it’s useful for getting you out of old ways of thinking and focusing too much on your competition, and get you into looking at new markets and ways to connect with new clients and opportunities.

Blue Ocean Strategy offers methods to identify, and exercises to connect with, potential customers outside of your current loyal and repeat customer (aka new market segments). You do this by thinking about who they are and what they might need – not groundbreaking at all, but something we all sometimes overlook. The closest of these market segments may be occasional customers of yours or users of a competitor’s product, and should be within easy reach with the correct offering and communication. Or customers with a similar problem but currently using a different solution. Blue Ocean Strategy helps stimulate a deep consideration of not only what they need, but also about what you have to offer.

An example from our world: Sunshine Creative Agency grew out of freelancer Sunshine Chen and his Storybuilding process. For years, Sunshine successfully used this process to create videos that identify the core story of an organization, then present that story to the world. We still do this and it is wonderful for helping many clients to share their vision, achievements, and future goals with funders, clients, potential staff and the general public. However, we realized that what went into the creation of these videos was a unique offering in and of itself; namely, helping organizations to clearly identify their core reason for being and to help explain this to themselves.

This is not marketing per se. The creation process helps the organization identifying the transformation that they have gone through over the years, and focus on where they want to go in the future. The video is a valuable document of this growth, but our clients told us that the awareness of change was equally as useful in helping them move forward with clarity and confidence.

Therefore, now we offer the Storybuilding process as a stand-alone process. We can then work with the client, our team, and other partners to express this story in any variety of mediums: video, podcast, experiences, online interactions, and business activities. We bring our unique skill set of uncovering story by identifying emotion and energy, then build multiple avenues of communicating this to your clients and users.

Blue Ocean Strategy may be a bit passé with respect to current business thinking. But it is still a gold standard for opening up the mind to new products, potential clients and innovation. So grab a copy from your local library or used book store and give a skim through one more time. I promise you’ll think of at least one new idea.

Yours in smooth sailing

Linda