in Innovation
It all starts with the question: How can I make this better?
Framing is important and when talking about innovation that usually means deciding between incremental and radical change. Yet for most businesses, they don’t want to hear about change. They want the world they exist in just the way it is, especially if they’ve had some level of success.
But which is the more practical approach? Better or different?…
in Creativity, Innovation
Yesterday @JuhaLipponen shared his post on how gathering people from diverse backgrounds to brainstorm breeds new and fresh insights. This idea of bringing in outsiders to shake things up isn’t new, but it’s definitely one that you don’t find being practiced more widely.
And this brings me to an important point about innovation: Where all think alike no one thinks very much.
You can start seeing this on the web where the tools we use to communicate and find information (Facebook, Google, Twitter) play into our biases of familiarity. The more we use them, the more they know us and become personalized for us.
If in the past you hadn’t thought about this, today it’s even more imperative that you do. Why?…
in Innovation
A few weeks ago I reviewed Peter Sims new book on experimental innovation, Little Bets. Since then I’ve received emails from friends asking me for concrete examples of businesses doing experimental innovation as well as why this is a better approach to innovation.
For those of you who haven’t read Little Bets or want to familiarize yourself with the concept, Tim Kastelle wrote a great write up about how little bets work.
With that said, internet companies are exemplary of taking a little bets approach. Because of the nature of the net, internet companies can do trial and error in real-time. And because of the size of their user base, they can get results very quickly.
Two of these companies are Google and Mozilla.…
One of the problems of measuring an organizations innovativeness is R&D spending. If you ask people: Who’s more innovative between Apple and Microsoft? They’ll say Apple. Yet if we measure them based on patents and R&D spending, most people don’t know what they’re talking about. Microsoft blows Apple out of the water on R&D.
Yet, the reality is that Apple is more innovative than Microsoft.
Spending huge on R&D does not equal innovation.
You can spend all you want on innovation, but you can’t guarantee success. In fact, the most innovative companies are not necessarily the biggest spenders, according to Booz & Company’s recent global innovation study. What matters instead? The ability to build the right innovation capabilities to connect with the overall business strategy and other critical capabilities.
But what the heck does that mean?
These lists make for good conversation, but they also prove to be worthless if not approached with objectivity. Why?
As Jason Cohen points out, organizations (and humans) have an unhealthy fixation to emulate #1:
We tend to fixate on whoever is #1, in business as with sports, tacitly assuming that the contest is mostly skill and therefore the tournament has selected the rightful leader. But I’m not so sure we know that skill/luck proportion. I’m not so sure we can assume the contest (marketing, sales, product) and tournament (the marketplace) picks #1 based on repeatable, codify-able skill-set. Same with #2 or anyone else.
That number #1 is dictated by a system, a market, not people. On top of that, if you give people a list of the most innovative companies; they’ll want to emulate #1. It’s that simple. We’re suckers for it.…
in Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
This post isn’t about Steve Jobs, it’s about emotion and how to create it with your product.
When I was a kid I would spend endless hours reading magazines at supermarkets or bookstores. From PC Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Game Pro, National Geographic, Road & Track, SLAM, you name it. At one point I had subscriptions to 15 different magazines that I got in the mail, my mom wasn’t too happy about it. And she also wasn’t happy because I kept them all well after I read them.
Out of all the magazines I read, the one’s I look more forward to reading were the ones about cars. I just loved (and still do) reading Road & Track’s car reviews because of how they described their car experience, I can still remember some of the words used in the review of the McLaren F1.
Words like: ‘staggering power’ when pushing the accelerator, ‘stratospheric’ when talking about horsepower, ‘opera-esque’ when describing the sound of the engine, ‘astonishing’ when describing the car…you get the picture. So what’s the big deal? Well the fact that I’m telling you about it today and remember it is telling. Emotions are hard to forget and even though I’ve never driven these cars, the vivid descriptions make me feel as though I almost did.
I know what you’re thinking, we already know benefits trump features. Yup, but how?
Focus.
Jeremy Clarkson, host and source of Top Gear, is a like a little kid when talking about cars. It’s all emotion. Even if you aren’t a car fanatic you’ll love them after hearing Clarkson, just like in the video below where he drives the Ferrari Enzo. Tell me it doesn’t get your blood moving?
Did you notice how he mentions the word ‘focus’ to the describe how the car’s interior doesn’t distract you from driving? If you own and iPod, iPhone or iPad then you know what I mean. Steve Jobs is the master at creating emotions for Apple products. He makes it sound so genuine because his products satisfy him. So when he gives a keynote speech, he’s like a little kid talking to you about his new toy. Emotional!
Google did the same thing with Chrome. It’s laser focused on enabling us to browse the web faster. The user interface has only what’s necessary to browse and it makes you almost feel like the browser isn’t even there. That’s focus!
Another example I’ll give you to chew on is how Super Bike Magazine describes how the new Kawasaki ZX-10R ‘Ninja’ makes it’s driver feel: confident. Confident that you can get the best lap times and win the race. That’s what they really care about.
And with that last paragraph I get to the intent of this post: Focused products are more emotional. People don’t care about your products features, they care about what it does for them. And the way to do that is by making your product laser focused on satisfying that job.
In the Enzo’s case the job is driving, in the iPod’s case it’s carrying all your music in your pocket. They eliminated all the things that can ‘distract’ from satisfying that job.
Thoughts? Do you think products that are laser focused on satisfying a specific job more emotional?
in Creativity, Innovation, Strategy
Quickly, think of as many white things as you can in ten seconds. Now think of white things in your kitchen. Did the more constrained prompt spark more ideas? Yes.
Recent research on the best approach to creating novel things says that the number one key to innovation is scarcity. In other words, constraints help you focus on what matters.
Apple knows that embracing constraints helps them focus on what matters. Google is popular for using constraints to fuel their design and development process which have resulted in ‘perceived innovations’ in user experience. The ever popular 37 Signals, maker of online business management apps, pretty much runs their business on constraints.
So, how does placing constraints to fuel creativity look like?…
in Innovation, Leadership
After seeing Scott Berkun’s post on innovation vs usability in numbers, I decided to do my own search on Google’s Ngram Viewer and compared four words: innovation, creativity, management and leadership. Graph below or click through to page:
As you can see, in the last decade ‘management’ (green) is becoming less relevant in books. Incredibly so is ‘leadership’ (blue). What’s more interesting still now with hindsight is how from 1960 – 2000, mentions of management went to the stratosphere while leadership stayed more or less the same.
Why such discrepancy?
My take is that part of our education system (as well as workplace) is focused on creating managers. The whole industrial revolution was the major cause in this shift. My parents drilled this into my head also and I know a lot of my former classmates desired to become managers and still do. Managers are ‘the boss’ they say. That’s a flawed logic (fixed mindset) in the context of innovation because managers are like the nuts that keep the tires from spinning off the car while it’s moving, they keep the wheels moving. Steady as she goes. Whereas in the creative pursuit the tires will change a lot more than planned for. Hell, the nuts, bolts and structures will change too.
This is what’s taught in most schools: strive to become a manager because you’ll be the one to tell others what to do. Get an MBA from a reputable business school of mba in canada and be the boss.
I guess the economic reset put that notion into submission.
Have you ever counted how many leaders vs managers are in organizations? Lots. That needs to change to a healthy balance. My argument is not that management shouldn’t exist, it’s just how it’s perceived that is the problem. By creating more management (structure) we’re alienating others and our own freedom to create. We need more leaders not more managers.
Thoughts?
P.S. Just noticed that since I’ve been writing this blog I’ve never created a ‘management’ category for posts. Will keep it that way. That tells you something 
