Summary

You have considered whether customers are out there waiting, or whether it is your value proposition and the ability to persuade people of its value that creates the market. Some truly innovative products do create markets. For example, Apple didn’t completely invent the idea of a smart handheld device that can also communicate, but it did create the app-based ecosystem that dominates mobile telephony. We cannot all be Apple, but it may be useful to think about how your product or service creates an audience.

In this digital age it is difficult for us to think about how we communicate with our customers without thinking about digital channels. The suggestion that ‘the medium is the message’ asked you to consider what the medium you chose to use to reach out to people says about your business. You were also asked to think about how the medium, its norms and conventions shape the content itself.

Then you looked at how to simplify all the questions about sending and receiving messages (of noise and interference, of hidden meanings, of communication as listening, and the issues of miscommunication) into a simple question: Who is having the conversation?

It is far easier to think through your communication if it is from person to person – if you know where you are talking from and who you are talking to, and if you know who is talking and who is listening. These exercises will complement any work you are doing to clarify your customer segments and the channels of communication you use. If you are working through Developing your business model it will help you to refine your ‘Value Proposition Canvas’. As you look to establish the fit between the offer and the needs of the customer, think through the ways you communicate and develop value through your communications.

We also asked you to think about who your stakeholders are, and where and how you communicate with those whose support you need to grow and develop your enterprise. Listening is required throughout the enterprise, and is often part of the way we understand the market and engage with our customers. You were asked to think about listening as a form of communication, in particular listening to those you are attempting to persuade to be a part of your enterprise through investing in you and your business.

You have also been encouraged to think about the meanings hidden within our communications, from the language we use, to the degree to which we adopt or challenge conventions, and the extent to which the idea represents a radical departure from existing approaches. It was suggested that the need to be alive to those hidden meanings is not just an issue for our external communications but also our internal communications, as the team grows from its core to include others.

These are certainly not new ideas – after all, this is a tour of ‘the classics’ – and you have probably noted how many of them are implicit within our understanding of how to communicate. All we are trying to do in this unit is to take those implicit assumptions about ‘the way we do things around here’ and examine those norms, just like any entrepreneur would do.