Shortly after NASA’s Kepler mission confirmed its first planet in the “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface, corporate strategy types convened in secret sessions to ask: will we soon face competitors from other planets?

The newly confirmed planet - imaginatively named Kepler 22b - could potentially support not only life, but also companies. Do Keppler 22b residents also have to press 3 for tech support?

What if everyone on Kepler 22b communicates telepathically? Wait - I’m getting a message! (False alarm, it was the phone.)

Scientists don’t yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, or if ATMs there can remember after 1,119 transactions that you speak English.

“This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin,” said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Kepler’s results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA’s science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.” 

Namely:

1.) Will NASA continue to be funded?

2.) Are banks on Keppler 22b also refusing to loan money?

As for the corporate strategy braintrusts, they determined that Kepler-22b is located 600 light-years away, which means companies have plenty of time to prepare for new competitors. Unless they started heading for Earth 599 years ago…

The moral of this story might be: clear your mind, stretch your body, and flourish even in a horrible economy. But it’s not.

At lululemon (LULU), customers and employees drive innovation and new products. Think community, and you get the idea.

lululemon sells technical athletic apparel for yoga, running, dancing, and “most other sweaty pursuits.” Based in Vancouver, they now have 151 stores in North America and Australia.

Let’s start with the numbers.

For the thirteen weeks ended July 31, 2011:

- Net revenue increased 39% to $212.3 million.
- Gross profit increased 52% to $122.1 million.

To my eyes, lululemon is selling premium products at premium prices in a bad economy. What’s their secret?

lululemon’s local store in Westport, CT feels like a local store. There’s a giant, professionally-taken photograph of Merri Mueller, who teaches yoga locally. Online, they also link to Merri’s site. The employees know the local instructors. Sometimes you walk by the store and there’s an instructor in the window, doing yoga.

As the firm’s site explains, “Each city with a lululemon location hosts design team meetings. At these meetings, our design team or representatives meet with local yoga instructors, athletes and design-savvy people in our communities to gain their feedback on the function and design of our products.”

lululemon helps customers find the best spin classes. Click to see.

lululemon tries to practice what it preaches. They pay for all employees to attend yoga classes in the community, which not only benefits the employees but also fosters close relationships between employees and local instructors.

In each local community, lululemon works with local athletes and yogis for their feedback on products, and they often hold in-store community classes.

Libby Russell at Communispace wrote a post that raved, “More than any other, this athletic brand continually grabs my attention. After only a short ‘retail relationship’ with them, I can say with confidence that it’s not just their tangible products that have me keeping a close eye on them. Instead, it’s the way I became a valued member of their customer community the second I stepped foot in one of their stores, and visited their website. I wasn’t just a ‘shopper’, I felt like an individual that was going to influence the future success of the brand by simply living the lifestyle they promote and stand for.”

lululemon’s site includes advice about how people can focus their intent.

At company headquarters, there is a yoga studio with daily classes. In the summer, “staff are encouraged to hike one of Vancouver’s local mountains before heading into the office or the stores. Staff are also encouraged to jog/bike/walk to work.”

To save space, here’s a link to Ashley’s post about a lululemon SoHo “quick Marathon fashion shopping trip, short test run, and then focus group session.”

lululemon says their goal is to “train our people so well that they could positively influence their families, communities and the people walking into our stores.”

This is one smart company.

From John Mauldin, Editor, Outside the Box:

I am a big believer in innovation. We try and use the latest technology we can to enhance service, increase productivity, and cut costs. But innovation is not just about using some fancy piece of new tech or software. I think the most important innovations are in marketing. The right marketing innovation can make all the difference in the world between mere survival and prosperity. I have learned that lesson time and time again and have seen it done hundreds of times. And there is almost no limit to the possibilities of marketing innovation that you can access. Many actually reduce your costs, especially in cost per sale (while you sell more people more things, more often). And that funnels right into your bottom line.

I’m equally reminded of two staggering quotes from legendary business guru Peter Drucker. I’ll paraphrase both, for brevity.

Peter said: Marketing and innovation are the only two factors that generate business. Everything else is an expense. He also said innovation refers to anything (technology or otherwise) that brings greater advantage, access, impact, interest, connection, trust, and buying motivation to the customer.