Category: Innovation

I was reading some of the posts over at Mike Sansone’s CoverStations blog (thanks to Clay Parker Jones for the link) and got carried away with some of the ideas there.

Then I ended up over at Logic + Emotion reading a quote of the day — and got caught by this quote from Guy Kawasaki:

“it’s one thing to write about, or read about, a successful company after-the-fact and analyze how it achieved success. It’s another to build that successful company from scratch. Everyone knows that the innovator’s dilemma is to find a tipping point in order to cross the chasm. The question is not “why?” but “how?”.

It is a great quote because it encapsulates many of the issues that marketers and business innovators struggle with — if only we had hind sight! Of course, innovation is HARD work … and the reason WHY is the HOW that Guy Kawasaki is talking about.

Innovation is hard because it comes down to making ideas happen. The ideas themselves are cheap … but the ability to implement them, to take a concept, sell it (to supporters), fund it, build it, get people excited about it and then take it to market … all without putting a foot wrong! Well THAT is hard work. There are many decisions to be made, many competing agendas to connect and limited attention. But in a startup situation, the challenge is all the more acute.

So I began to think about the HOW of a startup.

There are plenty of opportunities for startups to maintain their innovation and cockiness early on. But as they become successful, as they start to generate income rather than buzz, and as they begin to formalise some of the fluid processes that made them successful, there are many “solidifying” temptations to resist. The venture capitalists may want a steady hand on the tiller … the other investors may want more governance … and the banks may want a more conservative financial controller.

But of course, internally, there has also been a lot going on … lessons have been learned, teams have become fixed and their speed has increased. The rough and ready are now silky smooth. They can take two steps at a time rather than one. And this is where innovation starts to decay.

Johnny Moore has a great post here explaining some of this type of thinking. Johnny is revisiting a book by Ellen Langer called Mindful Learning. He quotes from the book:

When people overlearn a task so that they can perform it by rote, the individual steps that make up the skill come together into larger and larger units. As a consequence, the smaller components of the activity are essentially lost, yet it is by adjusting and varying these pieces that we can improve our performance.

I had never really considered innovation in this way before! But then it started to make sense … the slow connection of ideas, the sequencing of small acts into a unified whole … an organisation geared towards the generation of ideas and their implementation. It was starting to resemble some of the work I was doing at IBM many years ago — focusing on some of the key, small, innovative programs, processes and approaches that yielded significant commercial or competitive advantage and sharing them with the rest of the company.

It is easy to think that innovation is BIG … but for every big idea, my guess is that there are thousands of smaller innovations that have been meticulously put in place. Innovation is hard because we are always looking for a big idea … when really we just need a small one to kick us along.

S.

Sometimes we have to work hard for an idea, and at other times ideas can just come streaming into our consciousness. But once we have an idea, how do we turn it into something?

When you work for yourself, or you own a small business, the time between idea generation and implementation can be very small. You can think it, then do it. But when you are in a larger organisation there are many reasons that prohibit ideas being tested in your market … and you have probably experienced this before:

1. Your boss doesn’t like it
2. There isn’t budget for it
3. You don’t have the time
4. It is too big and you can’t get the help you need

There are plenty more.

BUT there is a more important question — have you actually asked anyone about your idea?

You see, it is easy to kill off an idea before it even gets to someone else. Many times WE (the person who plucked the idea from their imagination) actually stop an idea before it gets too big. WE are the ones who talk ourselves out of it … and then never get around to suggesting it to someone else. By talking ourselves out of it, the idea never gets to see the light of day.

Does this make it a bad idea? Of course not. It just means that we don’t have faith in the idea. We don’t have confidence in our ability to gather the resources, harness the team and build the idea into something worth showing others, talking about or selling. REALLY what you have done, is kill off your idea by THINKING!

Well if this sounds like YOU … take a look at this post by Seth Godin.

It is a great post because it refocuses the questions that you ask around idea generation and innovation … not why could it FAIL, but what would happen if it did FAIL? What is the worst case scenario?  (Then, of course, you could ask what if it was a crazy SUCCESS?)

Which ever way it turns out, you are going to create a GREAT story. You are going to LEARN. And next time you will do it better.

Is it still a risk? You bet! But what is the alternative?

Thanks again to Spell with Flickr!

S.

I love this post on Johnnie Moore’s blog. It has a great quote from Lisa Haneberg:

"A leader is most effective when people barely know he
exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, his troops will feel
they did it themselves." Lao Tzu …

How do you select, hire, measure, and retain invisible leaders? Now
that’s the rub. Well, if they love what they do (and they’d have to)
retention is probably not the issue. Finding invisible leaders will
take more work and a whole new mindset toward hiring criteria. The
behavioral interview, so popular today, might not work to find the best
invisible leader.

I always like to think that I work this way … but if I don’t, it gives me good reason to think about my approaches.

Any other suggestions are welcome!

S.

Chuck Frey over at Innovation Weblog consistently publishes thought provoking articles, hosts discussions on the topic of innovation and points us all to presentations, books, articles and videos by leading innovators. He has a great summary of a video on innovation at Google … with links through to the video of Marissa Mayer’s seminar at Stamford.
It is a great video if you have 50 minutes or so to spare. But if you don’t, check out Chuck’s summary of the 9 principles of innovation at Google.
Take a look at Chuck’s list and let me know your favourite … mine is "Creativity loves constraints".
S.

I was listening to the radio on my way to work this morning and heard a couple of words that made my ears tingle! The words were "organisational renewal".

A few years ago, when I worked at IBM, I was particularly interested in "organisational change". I was fascinated by the complex play between work culture, technology, business and process … and mostly by the power of words to help implement and achieve the type of change that we were aiming for.

I like the sound of organisational renewal. I like the sense of momentum it holds and the potential for positive change that it suggests. Mostly I like the way it repositions the concept of "organisational change" which tends to sound very institutional rather than part of the life of a company.

What do you think?

S.

OK … I know you have heard me before on this … and really I should file this under RANT rather than the kindly "innovation", but I must agree with Seth Godin on the use of focus groups.

A focus group is not going to help you plot your way forward. They are not going to give you the answers to your serious business or marketing challenges. They may, at best, help knock some rough edges off your tactical efforts. They will answer your questions within the framework parameters that you specify — but if you want more from them, then you are wasting their time and your money.

There is NO shortage of good ideas, but there really is a shortage of capability in delivering upon them. Wherever you look you will find an endless conga line of consultants, marketers and agencies all vying for your attention. But can they deliver? Are they flexible enough to be able to change direction mid-stream? Save your research money and plough it into planning and implementation then be prepared to learn fast.

And leave focus groups to the dinosaurs.

S.

It is important to have a story to tell. It is great to know that you have an audience. But once you know these things, you also need to know where you want to LEAD your audience. How will your story evolve as you begin to interact with your audience? And what is the difference between interacting with, and ACTIVATING, your audience?

All these questions began raging through my mind as I read Johnnie Moore’s excellent summary of current and future projects over at the BBC. It is clear from the list that the BBC face many challenges, but are building a strong web platform that not only allows for interaction, it activates their diverse audiences. From online games to digital broadband, and from issue-oriented discussion/blog forums through to digital archives and mobile Internet … the programs under development (or already active) are using technologies in the way that PEOPLE want to use them.

I love the way that they are not just using the technology to tell their own story … but also allowing others to tell personal stories or to create new modes of storytelling. Something to watch as it evolves!

S.

We all know that meetings can be a waste of time. We also know that sometimes they can pave the way for significant insight and innovation.

Johnnie Moore is looking at the concept of "presence" in meetings and whether such an honest position for participants yields better outcomes. I presume, of course, that the meetings are supposed to be collaborative and that you are working within (or trying to work within) a team structure.

There are some interesting approaches that can be taken that borrow directly from the theatre. Fundamental to these approaches is RISK.

For performers (and we all are, really), every performance requires the balancing of risk and the acceptance of trust. You need to trust in the script, the director, the lighting etc — and you need to trust your fellow thespians to perform well, say their lines, give you the correct cues and jump in when you forget your lines. But there is also significant risk … you are displaying yourself to the world in an unusual way, you have to decide how long to wait for a cue before jumping in, you can expect criticism (sometimes in print or web), director’s notes and a thousand other things.

Now, of course, the theatre has workshops and rehearsals, cold readings and line runs and a whole series of techniques that have been devised to support an actor’s performance. But then, the actor has to deliver a "true" or a "believable" peformance. In my limited (but intense) experience, this will only occur when the environment and the preparation is right — and that is when everyone feels safe enough to risk it (whatever "it" means to that person).

Just like in meetings — if everyone feels safe, then you are most likely to achieve a sense of presence or "being in the moment". However, there are also ways of using presence (on the part of one person) to breakthrough the politics of meetings. I will write more on this later (thanks to Johnnie Moore for starting this stream of thought for me).

S.

Isn’t it funny the way that smaller, innovative companies change as they grow. With the trappings of success come legions of consultants who will help you to "grow your business". And while there are serious advantages to developing strong processes and internal systems, it is also easy for these processes and systems to stamp out the thing that made your company unique.
Often it starts with a new "mission statement". Then comes the offsite strategy meeting (or "love in"), the hiring of a fleet of MBAs and a renewed focus on "innovation". Suddenly, being "creative" simply does not come into your business day.
Does this sound famillar? Guy Kawasaki has a way of rating the level of "bozosity" in your company. Want to rate your company? Do an evaluation online.
Remember, it is not your score that is important, it is what you do about it that counts!
S.