Defying Categorization by @nilofer
10 Divergent Strategies – Break through the Box! by @RobynMcMaster
How Hot Is Your Next Innovation? – HBR
How Can We Build a Culture of Disruptive, Heretical Innovation? via @greenadvantage
Tag Archives: Innovation
Imagination: one of the most important qualities of an innovator
in Creativity, Innovation
If one of the most important qualities of an innovator is the ability to imagine, it is hardly surprising that children should be among the world’s most important innovators.
Bingo!
A few days ago I was on a train when a mom and her two children (both girls about 5 and 7 years old) sat next to me. One of the girls (the 5 year old) asked the other: What phone number do you want when you grow up?
The other girl gave her answer. It was looong number.
This whole interaction brought a smile to my face. To a typical adult, this is a kid being a kid. Asking dumb questions. But if we want to innovate, these are precisely the types of questions we should be asking and the type of ‘what if’ attitude we should be encouraging and practicing.
Imagine if we could choose our own phone number. Wouldn’t it be cool? This attitude brings up all kinds of questions and interesting thoughts. Just imagine if we could personalize our whole life.
What if our clothes, cars and everything we use daily would be personalized for us?
We could go on and on with this exercise and find all kinds of ideas that we could turn on their head. The point is to think without constraints and let your imagination free. Ask yourself, why, what if and why not.
Every once in awhile think like a kid and start asking dumb questions, the world needs you to.
Innovation posts of the week: #1 reason companies don’t innovate
Can you copy business models and transfer them to successful clones? via @business_design
Nussbaum: 3 Reasons You Should Treat Creativity Like A Game – Co.Design
Is your organization built for innovation? Try this audit tool – Customer Think
No Innovator’s Dilemma Here: In Praise of Failure – Wired
The No. 1 Reason Companies Don’t Innovate by @dscofield
Failure isn’t enough – HBR
Don’t look for examples, be the example
I have a client who has (so far) the only SaaS payroll management solution for small businesses in Mexico. This is both great and bad. Let me explain…
In our initial meeting I was told they used Workday as an example to follow. Their reasoning was that Workday has a very simple to use and intuitive interface, plus they are the ‘leaders’ in the field. The studied them rigorously and brought the same principles over to their solution.
This hasn’t worked as planned.
Workday has and used a distinct set of capabilities that my client doesn’t have (development experience in new technologies for one). Plus the customer is also different. And Workday’s cluster of capabilities go beyond simple copy and paste design, look and feel.
These cluster of capabilities have to solve the customers problem, make his life easier. Ultimately that’s what matters.…
Innovation Book Review: Disrupt by @lukegwilliams
in Innovation
I just finished reading Disrupt: Think the unthinkable to spark transformation in your business by Luke Williams. When there are almost and infinite supply of books and texts on ‘how to innovate’, Disrupt is the most intuitive and practical I’ve read. Ever.
One of the problems with books on innovation is that the majority of authors give you a big picture view of how it is that organizations innovate but don’t really explain it in practical terms. There’s no hand holding.
What makes Disrupt different is it takes the opposite approach, it’s Step-By-Step Innovation.
Luke is a former innovation practitioner at Frog Design and you can tell he worked hard to bring the innovation process down to earth. Providing methods and tools to guide you through the whole process, including a chapter on how to craft and pitch your idea to others. In doing so, he gives you the essentials to start disrupting in a week. And no, I’m not kidding.
Clear and focused, I highly recommend this book to you and anyone who wants to shake things up but are mind boggled on how exactly go about doing it.
Related articles
- HOW TO: Develop Ideas That Will Disrupt Your Industry (mashable.com)
Another reason why benchmarking against competitors is stupid
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.…
Innovation posts of the week: Why Companies fail to innovate
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Design Fundamentals: Tools and techniques to foster innovation – Technology Review
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10 ways to know you are with a real innovator by @bankervision
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When to Gamble — and When to Fold? Innovation Strategies for a New Economy – Knowledge@Wharton – via @ralph_ohr
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Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities – HBR
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Rainbow Organizations: Redefining work with a Generalist workforce – Management Innovation Exchange
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Leadership Hall of Fame: Why Companies Fail to Innovate – Fast Company
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Necessity, not Scarcity, is the Mother of Invention – HBR