Frenemies or Froes ? ? ?
OK, as co-inventor of the term brainswarming (and proud of it!) I am probably the last person that should be pointing out new jargon, but here's some that has even my tongue in a knot.
Frenemy? Froe? Ouch!
Note, though, that the terms also originates from EAST of the Atlantic, not the oft-maligned (for jargon invention) US of A ... and from one of the top minds in the strategy business. That is: Sir Martin Sorrell, founder + CEO of global marketing and communications giant, WPP.
A very sound idea underneath, too. Read Bill Taylor's Harvard Business article The New Language of Competition to see why. Bill is former CEO of Fast Company. His book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win
"... the most striking insight came from Sir Martin’s discussion of the competitive dynamic between his firm—a global marketing powerhouse—and digital powerhouses such as Google. One participant wondered: Are the new Internet giants allies of or rivals to marketing giants such as WPP?
Certainly, Google is a business partner of WPP, Sir Martin replied. (In fact, WPP is Google’s biggest customer.) At the same time, he explained, Google aspires to play a bigger and bigger role in how advertising works, from print to radio to the Web. In other words, the Internet giants are both friends and foes—or “froes,” to use Sir Martin’s phrase. They are both friends and enemies—or “frenemies,” to use his other phrase.
Froes. Frenemies. Those clever little terms capture a huge transformation in competition."Think about it:
Do you have competitors whose absence would harm your business? Perhaps because of some relationship that your firm has with them; equally possibly just because they are there, influencing the market in their own way? So much corporate strategy is premised on blunt "win-lose" assumptions. In the race to "win," synergies and cooperative dynamics (that adversarial competition often kill) are overlooked. In today's complex and ever changing world, that's myopic. Today's competitor, all so often, is tomorrow's ally.
On second thoughts, maybe the terms aren't quite so bizarre after all ...
Hmm - I think about it. Best wishes...