Gamechangers. Fisk Peter

a practical strategy for business success – what it means in terms of market and brand, innovation and marketing, business model and customer experience, resources and metrics. But all of this comes later, and often flows easier, once you have found a big, inspiring idea.

      BE A REALITY DISTORTION FIELD

      Steve Jobs provokes and inspires in equal measure. From his early days as a ‘silicon kid', the geek in the garage that loved Bob Dylan, making games for Atari and a gadget to make illegal phone calls, to a visit to Xerox PARC where he was inspired by their graphical interface, set up his Mac team of pirates, and soon got fired.

      But entrepreneurs don't give up. From the super computers of NeXT, he was soon in dreamland at Pixar and $1 billion richer. From Toy Story emerged his jelly bean iMacs, iPods and iPhones with the help of iTunes and AppStore, Leerjets and Coldplay, and $400 billion.

      Love him, or hate him, he changed the world.. visionary and obsessive, pedantic and dismissive, inspiring and impossible.. distorting reality, disrupting possibility.

      Most strategies in business search for absolutes – the perfect vision, defining priorities, setting limits. But markets are dynamic, volatile and unpredictable, and plans are never perfect. Businesses rarely implement the strategy they agonize over. But for Jobs, there were no straight lines, passion and intuition were better guides, making sense of complexity. Keep looking left-field, embracing every experience and seeing the bigger picture.

      Innovation processes seek to codify a human, creative experience. Processes improve efficiency, maybe even speed, but they rarely deliver the right answer. Market research delivers average insights. Apple believed different. People don't know what they want, so innovation is a human, intuitive discipline, nurturing creativity and bringing ideas together in new ways. Design is much more than look and feel, it is about how things work – simpler, better, magical.

      Brands are the identity systems that make you stand out from the crowd, articulate your difference and superiority. From ads to adwords, social media and relationship marketing, brands seek to build awareness, interest and demand. Steve demanded that Apple's brands should do more. Brands must enchant people – aesthetically, emotionally, and inspirationally. They sell dreams not products, create unconditional desire, enable people to achieve more, and reflect who you want to be.

      Leadership is typically about inspiration, but in a positive way – bringing people together, respecting and encouraging, supporting and developing – building teams that are stronger than their parts, empowering them, and sharing rewards. There is no space for compromize in business – for less than the best people, and performance below greatness. Social niceties, and compromize, do not change the world. With really great teams you can be direct, difficult and brilliant.

      Steve Jobs was at his most inspiring on 12 June 2005, in a rare public address to graduates at Stanford University, and at a time when unknown to others he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. ‘Stop spending your time living someone else's life, and live your own. Decide how good you really want to be, and commit yourself to absolute excellence. Spend each day, as if it were your last.'

      Make the change, but also, be the change.

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      WIN.. WINNING AS A GAMECHANGER

      THE GAMECHANGERS AND WHAT THEY DO

      CHANGING THE WORLD, RIGHT NOW

      ‘Gamechangers' are the next generation of brands and businesses who are seizing the opportunities of change, not to do things a little better, or a little different, but to change the game. The game of how the market works, who the customer is, what they really want to achieve and why, how to make money, and create a lasting positive impact.

      What makes gamechangers more significant, numerous and influential today is the breadth and diversity of change in our world. They ride with the shifting power and new technologies. They reach across a flatter world, but selectively focus on the fragmenting niches that emerge. Whilst many of the products and services we buy have become more similar, because of the ubiquitous supply of components and speed of imitation, they know they have to work much harder to stand out, to engage the best customers.

      This is why gamechangers win.

      From Alibaba in China to Al Jazeera in Qatar, Air Asia in Malaysia to Ashmei in England, Ashoka in Canada to Azuri in Kenya, we searched for the busineses who were shaking up their markets. We asked peers to nominate others in their sectors, we stretched out across the world to ensure we covered every sector and continent.

      What emerged were 100 fabulous stories. New start-ups, small businesses, local incumbents, global corporations are all learning to change the game and play a new one, to adapt and respond, anticipate and innovate.

      Let's meet some of them.. famous people, and others just like you.. who are making and shaping markets in their own vision. At a time of relentless change, the winners know that every day counts. Here are just a few, at one moment in time:

      06:00 Los Altos, California, USA

      Anne Wojcicki, the scientist-entrepreneur, is up early in Los Altos to see how many 23andMe ‘spit tests' have arrived in the morning post. With that DNA sample and $99 she can tell you all about your ethnic heritage, and future health.

      08:00 Bogata, Colombia

      Luis Genaro Muñoz sips his first Juan Valdez coffee of the day whilst meeting with leading Colombian coffee growers to explore the international expansion of the brand which they created together, including their quirky, distinctive coffee shops.

      08:00 McGregor, Texas, USA

      Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, champion of Tesla electric cars, and dreamer of the Hyperloop between LA and San Francisco, is out early. He's preparing for the next launch of his Space X spacecraft destined for the International Space Station, making space travel work in a way in which NASA never succeeded.

      09:00 Buenos Aires, Argentina

      In 2006 Blake Mycoskie wanted to help the thousands of street kids he saw running barefoot around the city. He got the local factory to make simple alpargata which he branded Toms and shipped to the USA. For every pair he sold, he gave a pair to the local kids. He has now given over a million pairs to kids in 40 countries.

      10:00 New York, USA

      In his Upper East Side apartment, Australia's Bank 3.0 author and entrepreneur Brett King is pacing the floor, working on the next phase of launching his innovative online banking concept, Moven, innovating at break-neck speed to make his ideas happen in reality.

      10:00 Sao Paulo, Brazil

      Cristiana Arcangeli sips from her Beauty'in lychee and white tea whilst enjoying the morning sunshine in Ibiraouera Park. Having trained as a dentist, she is now an entrepreneur and TV presenter. Her range of ‘alimetic drinks' and candy bars, tea and chocolate promise to make you more beautiful and feel better from the inside out.