DEMS (Digital, Ethical, Millennial, Sustainable) Leadership Model (SMART 100)

Show your support for this innovation. Tweet it. Like it on Facebook. Leave a comment.

The following SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity. More about the SMART 100.

DEMS (Digital, Ethical, Millennial, Sustainable) Leadership Model (ACT)

This innovation initially came to life when…

Tripping through Europe, I came across the growing economics of “collaborative consumption” and an article in Time magazine about returned US servicemen and women from Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the time I was busy writing about video game mechanics and their application to leading Gen Y and Digital Natives.

Suddenly I had three solid schools of thought that, when married together, formed a very relevant, practical and easy model for leading upcoming generations.

Successful leadership is about executing with the right context in mind. Gen Y+ didn’t have that context until my Eureka moment!

WHAT & HOW

The purpose of this innovation is to…

Revive stale academic motivational theories and constrain their interpretation to become relevant in the pursuit of more effectively leading Gen Y and Digitial Natives.

It does this by…

Focussing upon the psychological re-wiring of Gen Y (typically) through playing video and digital games, and combining that with a changing shift in values caused by world events of the last decade, notably 9/11 and the GFC.

PURPOSE & BENEFITS

This innovation improves on what came before because…

It resuscitates sound, but completely boring, well-worn and “oh, that’s nice to know but it’s completely impractical for me to implement” theories in a way that results in a certain combination of psychological factors which make for compelling motivation in those being led.

Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…

A “pracademical” understanding of what makes Gen Y tick and, importantly, why; and using this to lead the Gen Y tribe in an ethical, sustainable and millennial way, taking cues from video-gaming and changing global economic behaviours.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

In the past, this problem was solved by…

Hours, days or weeks of sound, impractical and potentially irrelevant leadership development. Emphasis was on the individual attacking a discrete element, or elements, of leadership theory without much consideration to its holistic application. Sexily-titled workshops such as “Transformational Leadership” and “Authentic Leadership” sold well, but often proved nugatory, as leadership is what it is.

Its predecessors/competitors include…

Discussion of moot points as it simply doesn’t exist to my — and my book editor’s — knowledge!

TARGET MARKET

It is made for…

Anyone needing to know how to effectively engage and retain the follower-ship of a Gen Y or Digital Native group, including fellow Gen Y leaders.

Too much bad press is out there disparaging Gen Y; they’re not well understood despite the body of work and academic studies that exist analysing that social generation.

The target market is someone who’s savvy enough to know they don’t know what they need to know (ha!) to effectively lead Gen Y+, but who realises current academic theories are discovering their limits without a new story being told to make them relevant again.

DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

It is available for sale through…

In-house and public workshops, professional association conference presentations, professional magazine articles, and publishing of both a chapter in a new book in mid-late 2012, and a new book dedicated to the model in 2013. Paid webinars, anyone?

Our marketing strategy is to…

Our strategy is loose and unstructured — code for “we don’t know just yet.” Pumped-up Anthony Robbins-like sessions; traditional publishing house channels; snippet publishing through sites like Anthill and Inc.; ballsy direct approaches to progressive CEOs and MDs in companies that would highly suit implementation of the model. As I said — loose!

SUPPORTING IMAGES

SHARE THE LOVE

You can show your support for this outstanding Australian innovation in three ways:

  1. Tweet it: Top left of each page
  2. Trigger a Reaction: Facebook ‘Like’, etc.
  3. Leave a Comment: Anonymous comments excluded.

More about the READERS’ CHOICE INDEX.

Similar Posts

  • Blurb Maker (SMART 100)

    Over a period of some 10 years, I wrote sales copy for product vendors. I saw that most vendors require professional quality copy, but don’t have the budget for it. Instead, they write it themselves or don’t use copy at all. In late 2010, I came up with an idea for automating the creation of property descriptions for real estate agents and vehicle sales copy for car dealers.

  • ENEdropp (SMART 100)

    As we all get old, cataracts is an issue most of us will see. Applying the correct prescribed drop dosage is important for the healing process. After interviewing some patients at the hospital and observing my grandparents, I found that there were numerous hurdles to applying a compliant dosage of eye drop with the conventional packaging. I then set out to design ENEdropp.

  • Imaginabox (SMART 100)

    We gave our eldest son a cooking set but he didn’t have a play oven to accompany it. With quick thinking, I turned the box the cooking set came in, into a cooktop by sticking some paper hotplates to the box — problem solved and he absolutely loved it! I started to think about what other inexpensive toys could be created from a cardboard box…then came the idea of moving plastic parts to make them even more realistic and interactive, some stickers to make it more authentic…and the Imaginabox product line was born!

  • Start-up & Go (SMART 100)

    As a digital solutions company, we noticed several similarities in our clients’ requirements even when they belonged to different industry sectors. They had full-service agency needs, needed to be trained and had comprehensive delivery requirements but low budgets. We built a service package from scratch that could provide all these services but in a process-driven system at a price that they could afford.