Tag Archives: Innovation
Make recombination part of your business strategy
“Everything we create is just a product of recombination.”
What’s the inspiration behind the Air Jordan 2010?
The ability to see through your opponents and keep your intentions hidden. Just like in the world of design, in the world of Air Jordan’s the word inspiration comes up a lot. It’s safe to say that every single new Air Jordan has a distinct feature that borrowed from previous models to create the new one, and that is a key to their business strategy:
They’ve mastered the art of recombination.
Not only do they do it with the newer models but also with all the other extensions they’ve build around the Air Jordan’s such as the retro’s, TEAM and individual player models. I think the Jordan Brand is to the sneakers industry what Apple is to the tech industry mainly because both companies set out to reinvent whatever they do. Jordan’s reinvent the basketball shoe and Apple reinvents mmm well everything it comes into contact with.
Jordan’s are also about performance and with every new model there’s some innovation in that department but this focus on recombination has made Michael Jordan the first athlete to $1 Billion dlls. If you don’t believe me check out the history of the Air Jordan’s and you’ll see what I mean, a lot of transformational inspiration.
If there’s one thing you can learn from Air Jordan is they borrow ideas from themselves and from other sources and then combine them to come up with something entirely new all while maintaining a focus on style and performance.
Ask yourself: How can I make recombination part of my business strategy? Who can I borrow ideas from that can help me reach x objective?
Must read innovation posts of the week: Don’t innovate. Just be better
Good beats innovative. I agree with this statement. You don’t really say ‘there’s a more innovative way’, you say ‘there’s always a better way’. As Scott Berkun says:
Instead of asking "How can we be innovative?", a toothless and vague question with mostly useless answers, we should be asking "How can we make great things?"
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Creating a Culture of Innovation: Learning From the Best – OPEN Forum
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Why CEOs Don’t Get Innovation – BusinessWeek
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Stop saying ‘innovation’ by Scott Berkun – The Economist
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An Innovation Manifesto – Innovation Leadership Network
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Selling innovation to your boss – Innovate on Purpose
Failure is an idea not an outcome
We are all failures – at least, all the best of us are. – J.M. Barrie
As a society, what keeps us from creating anything worthwhile?
FEAR.
Rock climbing requires a tremendous amount of focus by keeping your emotions in check in the ever present fear of falling to your death. If don’t control your fear you die, it’s that simple! For climbers falling isn’t failing, falling is just part of succeeding.
In innovation the idea of failure is being wrong.
Compared to business where losing your money and your pride is not the same as losing your life, this seems crazy. Yet in business where we have so much more freedom to do great things we still choose to take the safe route. Not innovation just more of the same…
Innovation is tied to failure but it’s not tied to death. Why do we fear innovation then?
Think about it, will you lose your life in business? In the short term you might lose comforts but in the long term what you gain from failure is a sharpened sense of freedom. To do as you wish and not letting others set rules by which you have to operate. Innovation is freedom to do as you wish. Thinking about what you want to see in the world and then going out and creating it, that’s innovation.
A great many people in the history of humanity have pushed fear out of their system and went on to create the world we know see, hear, taste, feel, smell and use. The fear of being wrong, the fear of losing, the fear of rejection. All of these contribute to closing ourselves from the limitless potential each of us has to changing the world.
When you learn to accept that fear is present in all of us, a big door is open and you’ll see the world through a different set of eyes. And when you get to this point you’ll realize that you don’t have to wait for permission to innovate, you can take matter into your own hands.
UNDERSTAND: Failure is often an idea, not an outcome that stands in the way of successes. The greatest enemy we have as humans is fear. Root it out of your system as soon as you can, attack it. Don’t just do it for you, do it for humanity because we need innovation.
P.S. If you’re serious about ‘taking on your fears’, I recommend you read The 50th Law by Robert Greene and 50 Cent. This book follows 50 Cent’s journey from a drug dealer to the person he is right now, once you read it you’ll see 50 in a whole different light!
For breakthrough ideas read the unreadable
Chaos, where brilliant dreams are born.
Do you ever get this feeling that when you read the same stuff over and over and then you try to read something completely unrelated you become bored very easily? Well that’s a very bad problem to have if you want to get into the business of ‘doing innovation’ because breakthrough ideas rarely come from looking in the same place.
You want some new ideas everyday? Read stuff that’s unrelated to your field. John Jantsch calls this ‘the single best way to discover innovation’ and he’s right, the best ideas come from the intersection between ideas from different domains. (more…)
Why should people learn to innovate?
In my entrepreneurial journey I’ve come across people who pretty much don’t care about ‘innovation’ but what they do care about is how they can extract (notice I said extract and not create) more value from their customers. It’s fair to say that those of us who preach the ‘there’s always a better way’ gospel run into this type of thinking all the time.
Yet how do we explain to these people that they too should learn to wield the sword?
Here’s my answer:
Because innovation is change and change is better.
We all have the innate ability to be creative and therefore with help, collaborate towards something better. Innovation is a team sport and is something we must constantly be doing and not outsource it to a special few. Anybody can and should contribute and I believe it is our job (leaders) to bring them with us.
Sure there’s risk involved but then again when has anything worthwhile been done without risk? We don’t have to minimize risk, we have to manage it to push us forward.
Bottom line is innovation is something that results in something that is bigger than ourselves and this in turn brings society together in new ways towards progress.
What say you?
Innovation: respect the process
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Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play. – Charlie Parker
Some say innovation is predictable, I agree. But to a larger degree it is not because you can’t really tell where it’s going to come from and who will be holding all the cards. Right now you’re probably in the ‘innovate or die’ mindset, you’re also probably feeling frustrated because you’re reading blogs, following innovation consultants on Twitter to try and do innovation but you are not getting anywhere.
Let me help clear things up for you, innovation takes time. It needs to be nourished, it needs to be practiced, it needs to be mastered. (more…)
Must read innovation stories of the week: A culture of innovation starts with us
Any change we want to see in ANY domain starts with the man in the mirror:
I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change
Guess who said that…
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How To Be An Innovative, Not Just Business, Leader (Forbes)
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How Google sets goals and measures success (Don Dodge)
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A Culture of Innovation Starts with…Us. (Zane Safrit)
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How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation (Social Media Examiner)
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How to spot – or avoid – innovators (Innovate on Purpose)
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Break the rules to reveal innovation opportunities (Innovation Tools)
