Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Co-founder and Principal at Information Architected.

Today, the topic is Business Model Innovation – White Space and You.

In this episode, I am interviewing Mark Johnson, the author of a new book, Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal.

Mark is chairman of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore, and India, which he cofounded with Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen. He has consulted to Global 1000 and start-up companies in a wide range of industries—including health care, aerospace/defense, enterprise IT, energy, automotive, and consumer packaged goods—and has advised Singapore’s government on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mark’s most recent work has focused on helping companies envision and create new growth, manage transformation, and achieve renewal through business model innovation.

Find copies of his new book, Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal, at your favorite online or brick and mortar book store. The official website for the book is www.seizingthewhitespace.com.

Key Concepts Covered on White Space Innovation

We cover several of the key concepts, including a deep dive into the Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and the “job to be done” mindset that Innosight typically uses in their work, which is part of an overall trend in innovation management that focuses on the outcomes that customers are searching for, rather than the products, services, or solutions-based approach, which is rapidly becoming a dated and dangerous approach.

We also discuss several aspects of innovation maturity – both from the standpoint of innovation practices, product innovation vs. process innovation vs. white space or business model innovation, as well as maturity in skillsets and personnel to execute on a variety of innovation initiatives.

Listen now!

Listen to the Interview: IAM Talking with Mark Johnson – Business Model Innovation – White Space and You

Reference Materials for White Space Innovation

For reference, two of the figures or graphics referenced from the book, can be found below.

The Four-Box Business Innovation Model

And the Stages of Business Model Implementation

Closing Review

Whether you are just getting started with innovation management, or are already a seasoned innovator, I would readily recommend Seizing the White Space as a worthy addition to your innovation toolkit. Business Model Innovation may be the latest flavor of innovation to get air time, but not without good reason. By re-thinking the fundamentals of at least SOME aspect of your innovation portfolio, to make way for White Space Innovation opportunities, you will be in far better shape than your “head in the sand” competitors.

Is your Information Architected for Innovation? for White Space discovery?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can put in place systematic tools, techniques and yes, technology to make the most of the strengths of the people within your organization

More details on our practices related to Collaboration and Innovation can be found at:

• Innovation Management Workshops and Coaching/Consulting

Look around – is there waste in your organization? Is it time, paper, bits of plastic, scraps of wood, nuclear active material …? Of course there is waste , and often projects are focused on eliminating or minimizing waste – of all kinds. What do you do with it? Carefully dispose of it? Recycle? How about turn it into product? Given the right creative mindset and approach to innovation management waste can be viewed as opportunity. The approach isn’t new – just ignored too often.

Quick – what is Henry Ford known for? Most of you are likely thinking the automobile and/or the moving assembly line. But, how many of you thought “charcoal briquettes”.  That’s right, Henry Ford invented charcoal briquettes. When Ford noticed the amount of scrap wood and saw dust that came at the end of his car assembly line, his creative mind and business acumen could not tolerate the waste. He wondered if there wasn’t a market for the waste. Voila – he created the charcoal briquette, which he eventually sold off to a man by the name of Kingsford (name ring any BBQ bells?)

Today, I read an article that made me recall this part of Ford’s life. Artist Matthew Mazzotta is turning waste into both art and fuel. In this case the waste is the ultimate form of waste – animal waste – known to many as “poop.” Apparently Mazzotta is not the first one to think this way – tough he is the most artistically creative. There are farms, and entire communities in the Netherlands that are powered from the waste of herds of cows, horses and chickens, and projects underway in several countries to turn many forms of farm waste into energy. Brilliant.

While the article made me think about Ford’s briquettes, it also made me think about innovation management as a process, and how far too many companies fail to use it. Eureka moments  like those experienced by Ford and Mazzotta can be instigated in your organization. You just need to discipline yourself and your co-workers to think outside the box systematically, to look at something like waste as an opportunity, not a cost of doing business. Its not serendipity. It is disciplilne, a way of thinking about and viewing different situations. Tools such as SCAMPER and Morph Matrix, for example help to expose these opportunities. These tools, among others, as well, as related team building and process disciplines are the focus of IAI’s innovation workshops.

So again, I ask you, look around, what waste do you have? Is it crap – or an untapped resource? Let us show you how to change the way you look at that. Will have you saying – holy crap that’s innovation.

Have you ever watched the TV show, Are You Smarter Than a 5^th Grader? Adults subject themselves to humiliation – demonstrating how their intelligence – measured by their ability to answer questions on a variety of topics, does not match that of a group of 5^th graders.  Well, last Saturday I witnessed something even far more powerful and eye opening.

Last Saturday Dan Keldsen and I attended the New Hampshire State Tournament for Destination ImagiNation (DI).  I love and am inspired by this organization, but I have to say I do not like their name. There is far more than “imagination” going on. This is not just dreaming and imagining – its real problem solving and engineering. (Note the picture to the right – taken at the event.) What is most amazing is that the people behind all this “imagination,” problem solving and engineering are children, affectionately known as “DI kids”, in grades K – 5 (and beyond in some cases).

Its inspiring to watch the kids solve complex problems, building any number of contraptions and solutions using amazing levels of perseverance, ingenuity and problem solving. My favorite part was watching teams set up their “solutions” only to find something had gone wrong. The agility with which they came up with “fixes” was inspiring to say the least.

But, while inspiring, it is also frustrating.

Why? Because you cannot help but wonder why this level of creative problem solving, ingenuity, and innovation (right – not imagination) is lacking in many business settings.

I have to admit that I attended the NH tournament for a selfish reason.

The DI program is the foundation and genesis of the DICor corporate innovation training that I took, and that IAI is certified to provide.

I was there to promote the corporate innovation workshop to the parents of these brilliant innovators. I am always amazed how adults, business people, even those that are raising brilliant innovators, are often hesitant to embrace innovation – especially being trained to be a better innovator.

Before I took the DiCOR worshop, I too was a skeptic.

Innovation – that is a skill set you are either born with or not. Right?

You cannot really practice it and fine tune the talents you have – the way you would a musical instrument, a sport, or a foreign language.

Boy was I wrong.

We have had some great successes in training other adults on how to be as “smart as a 5th grader.”

The workshop includes many hands-on challenges. I have yet to see an adult team beat the records held by the DI crowd (of kids), but they come close.  More importantly, the “adult challenges” set in business issues always clearly illustrate that the application of some simple tools and a mental discipline can radically improve practical creative problem solving.

So come on – I challenge you and your co-workers. It’s the year 2010… Are you smarter than a 5th grader?  The innovation workshop is guaranteed to improve your problem solving skills and meeting productivity by a minimum of 25% – what have you got to lose except maybe a bit of pride?

(BTW – an average of 20% of the cost of the Innovation Workshop is given to DI to support the kids program of the non-profit organization – any way you look at it, it’s win-win for the current generation *and* the next generation)

Take the Innovation Workshop Challenge…
and Join Over 200 Companies and 5,000 Business Professionals that Have Radically Increased Their Innovation Capabilities.

Recently both BusinessWeek and Fast Company published their respective 50 most innovative companies list.  I have “mashedup” both lists in the chart below and edited the lists a bit. (Where there is overlap I indicate the difference in ranking order between lists.)  There was much to garner from these lists, beyond the corporate rankings individually.

What struck me first about these two lists was the degree of difference. Only 15 companies made each list; meaning each list had 35 different named companies. How could that be? Well its perspective, and I call this out because it is analogous to what we teach as the importance of corporate culture to an innovation practice. How does your company view innovation? What is considered innovative? What “gets the bosses attention?” These issues  dramatically effect the way innovation is executed and valued.  In the case of Fast there seems to be greater emphasis (though not exclusively) on disruptive innovation. There is a bit more focus on entrepreneurial start-ups, smaller companies doing new and different things in a market. This list uniquely includes companies such as First Solar, Spotify, Alidi Sud, Glam Media and Quantcast.

BusinessWeek appears to be (again not exclusively) more focused on established larger corporations that are doing incremental innovation to strengthen market dominance.  This list uniquely includes companies such as Toyota, Nintendo, Sony, Nokia, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Exxon Mobil, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan Chase and Ford.

What struck me second were the 15 companies that made both lists  (i.e., Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM, HP, Walmart, Amazon, GE, BMW, Disney, Cisco, Intel, Facebook and Nike). Of these, all but 2 are US-based firms. Even amongst the companies that did not make both lists, there is a respectable percentage of US-based firms. Despite much press of late to the contrary, the US, at least short-term,  based on these two lists, is not lagging in innovation.

The third thing that struck me was the degree to which many of these companies appear year after year. There were several other articles in each of these magazines that I encourage you to read, as well as others, including this one that discusses a study conducted by Bringham Young University on why innovation happens.  These articles point out that while most companies readily state that innovation is critical to success, few, in reality, do anything proactive about it. Few companies have a specific focus on innovation: a team, do training,  and practices etc.  IAI’s survey on innovation in 180+ companies supports this observation. Our study found that While 68% stated their organization believed that innovation should be managed as a corporate asset and process, only 49% have put in place any formal process to manage innovation. Similarly, only 49% have any form of executive management presiding over innovation.  More shockingly, perhaps is the fact that 46% of the organizations do not specifically reward innovation.

Too many business leaders believe that creative problem solving and innovation skills are inherent, either you have it or you don’t, but research seems to suggest otherwise. Jeff Dyer the conductor of the research at Bringham Young University stated “”I always thought creativity was genetic — that some people have it, some people don’t, and there’s not much you can do to get better at it,” But after conducting the study, Dyer thinks differently.  We at Information Architected agree.  In fact we dedicate a major part of our practice to dispelling that idea, and dare you to prove us wrong. We can show you how to change your corporate culture (and how to determine if it needs to be)  and how to instill a proactive innovation practice, complete with tools that hone each individual’s innovation skills and establish innovation as a corporate competency. We will take on any organization’s challenge and guarantee results. Come on – I dare ya. Learn more .

And here is a link to that chart I referred to:  InnovationTop50

Information Architected Market Alert (IAM Alert):
Invention Machine (headquartered in Boston) announced yesterday the availability of Invention Machine Goldfire 6.0 with integrated collaboration and expert identification technologies to further accelerate product innovation. (see press release from Invention Machine)

Beyond Individual Innovators

Historically, Invention Machine’s Goldfire has been oriented towards providing an individually focused innovation “workbench” for the lone researcher or inventor. The offering combined (and continues to offer) advanced techniques and technologies such as semantic search capabilities, process modeling (typically in support of the assembled artifact of a product), knowledge mining, and knowledge re-use to decrease the amount of time it takes for individual engineers (much of the environment is modeled in support of physical rather than intellectual property inventions) or inventors/innovators to analyze a particular problem or set of problems, and uncover the ripest areas to go forth and solve the problem.

The offering has been and appears to remain one of the most advanced convergence of these technologies and techniques that we have seen in the innovation management space, and in many ways, is truly a solution with no direct, out of the box, commercial competition.

This is both a blessing and a curse, as markets are not typically made up of a company of one, but an ecosytem of competing products.

Innovation Market Maturity

As the company and it’s offerings have matured, and frankly, as the general awareness of innovation management has matured as well, there has been more of a push, alongside the rise of Enterprise 2.0 (meaning in most cases, collaboration) to support team-based or collaborative efforts at digitally supporting and scaling innovation capabilities.

With Goldfire 6.0, Invention Machine has added the collaboration-oriented ability to:

• Automatically identify and connect innovation workers with domain experts within their network
• Empower the community with precise “innovation intelligence” (similar to the “relationship intelligence” brought about by social network analysis and social computing I’d begun writing about in 2004 – see “Death of a Salesman? Birth of Relationship Intelligence” – now read over 4,000 times on Scribd) by leveraging undocumented expertise from problem-sharing dialogues, capturing and processing those discussions as reusable corporate assets.

From the managerial (top-down) aspect of Innovation Management, v6.0 provides:

• The ability to measure company-wide innovation initiatives and trends in real time.

With this third component, they have now begun to straddle three distinct layers – tools providing benefits to individuals (the original offering), to teams, and through to managers/executives.

Trend Watch

This offer is indicative of a two-part growing trend, collectively defined as “convergence”:

1. The convergence of tools to deliver value to individuals up through the executive suite (traditional enterprise software tends to focus on only one extreme or the other)
2. The convergence of process, information, content, knowledge and search techologies into a unified and pre-packaged business application (as opposed to a technology focused on a specific issue/problem)

Keep an eye open for areas where these trends are surfacing as business needs within your own organization, as this convergence is happening more and more, particularly as the realities of competition in the current economic environment continue to be challenging.

Combine those trends with the rising trend of innovation management maturity, and we’re (finally?) witnessing a triple convergence for business innovation.

Your Thoughts?

If you are a current or prospective user of Invention Machine, or any innovation management related solution, please weigh in with your feedback. Are current offerings serving your needs? Running ahead of where your organization is? Where your budget is? Just right? If not using Invention Machine’s Goldfire, but solving similar problems, what solution are you using?

How We Can Help

These trends, and solutions such as Invention Machine’s Goldfire 6.0, are an argument and opportunity for the explicit focus of our business practices and expertise, which is in creating strategies to provide for flexible information architectures and applications (technologies) that support the business architecture (roles, goals, people, processes, skills and culture) that, when combined, can deliver significantly greater value than a single business problem and isolated tool by itself. We call this an Innovation Architecture.

If we can be of help via our assessments, consulting or workshops, contact us now to schedule a private 30-minute executive briefing on how we can most effectively work together.

Schedule a private executive briefing now

Yesterday I tweeted (@carlfrappaolo) about a Boston Globe article on ECM search company, Endeca. I was going to let it go at that; congratulations Endeca for getting the attention of the Sunday Globe and for having the popular press cover the fact that search is more than just findability and Google, that search can be used as a form of business intelligence (BI).

But then this morning, serendipitously I heard a story on NPR about the dramatically changing world of television watching and the impact that is having on the services provided by Nielsen.  For decades Nielsen has had a monopoly on this market; reporting on the “popularity” of television programs based on eyeballs on TV sets at a particular time.  This data is extremely valuable because it provides potential advertisers with insight on how much a spot on a given program is worth, and to which audience. But television watching just isn’t what it used to be (echo newspapers and magazines).  Television content consumers have  alternative ways to access content (e.g.TiVo and Hulu) via alternative viewing devices that include smart phones and laptops, to name just a few.  (I know my kids are forever watching TV without the TV on.)

The viewing audience, including the way they view is changing. Nielsen customers (i.e. advertisers) are demanding that Nielsen keep pace and monitor these viewing habits. The television ad market is not dying – it is morphing and as a result is potentially more valuable.  Through ECM-based technologies,  it is possible to compile BI on multiple consumer habits, at unprecedented levels of granularity. In the case of television viewing, for example, not only what viewers are watching, but also when, where, what was skipped, re-played and shared.  As Nielsen’s president Steve Hasker put it. “”We’ll be able to tell what type of video they watch, what type of sites they go to, how they interact on those sites, what they buy on those sites, what types of news articles they’re reading.”

That is BI at a far lower and wider level of granularity than Nielson provides today.  Now think this new proposition through. Advertisers, using more ECM-based technology (e.g. e-publishing and DAM) advertisers can deliver more personalized and granular messages, in a timely manner – ads in context. Yes, once again, CONTEXT is king, and BI is the keys to the kingdom.

ECM is at the foundation of great new opportunities and challenges for organizations. I recently completed an article for Ron Miller in which I focus on the circle between ECM, KM and Innovation Management. This triumvirate will soon become a requisite to remaining competitive in virtually any  market. The article discusses this concept in some detail, more than here. Here, I draw attention to the tie between Innovation Management and ECM (in that order). In a phrase: get innovative with ECM.  As highlighted in this blog post, the integration of new content types and new means of content distribution and consumption, coupled with new approaches to BI creates amazing opportunities; truly personalized real-time publishing, contextual publishing and a constant loop of feed back (including web 2.0 emergence) that allows the content provider to continuously fine-tune the presentation and make-up of content.  The future for advertising and marketing is ripe with positive change, and ECM is at the foundation of this.

Last week, like hundreds of others, I attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. In this blog post I provide an overall impression of the conference, that in-turn lends insight into the state of the Enterprise 2.0 market in general.

After attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last June, I blogged that for me, the show came down to an acronym –  CIT, which stood for Culture, Innovation and Twitter.

This time the conference is summed up in an even shorter acronym – ER.

No I am not referring to the popular use of ER as in Emergency Room, inferring that the show needs resuscitation – FAR FROM IT.  In this case, ER stands for Energy and Reality.

ENERGY

I could not help but feel it; volume levels, packed halls and a sense of excitement that seemed to top that of all previous Enterprise 2.0 conferences.  Overall attendance was basically the same I was told.  Maybe it was just the location on the west coast versus the east coast – but no – right? I mean we all know that west coasters are supposed to be more laid back then us east coast “rat-racers.”  Maybe it was linked to the fact that the conference was held in tandem with the VoiceCon event.  If so, kudos to the  TechWeb team for doing so.  Either way the energy level was noticeable. Some sessions were literally had attendees spilling out into the halls. The questions asked were many and hard-hitting. Attendees were interested in going beyond the basics and theory and into issues of implementation war stories and ROI. That in fact brings me to the second letter of the acronym – R for Reality.

REALITY

This conference was marked by a far greater level of discussion and presentations by practitioners of Enterprise 2.0 within end-user organizations.  There was far less time spent debating the reality of Enterprise 2.0, and whether it would take hold, if it merited the 2.0 generational label, etc.  That seemed to be behind us.

Indeed, Steve Wylie, the conference chair, noted how the show floor was no longer the exclusive domain of start-ups and pioneers, but now included the likes of OpenText, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe among others. It was really quite a show floor.

Andy McAfee stated he felt the market was at its tipping point, the first time I have ever heard him be so bullish about the movement he labeled a few years back.

In her keynote, Tammy Erickson, President, nGenera stated she believed that 2010 is going to be the year of “A-ha”, referring to the turnaround in senior executives who now “get it” and will move forward. (Not only do I agree, but also it is interesting to recall that in our research from 2 years ago, we found that while most executives believed E2.0 was critical to business success,  most executives also did not know what E2.0 was. The level of awareness and understanding of Enterprise 2.0 is now catching up with the intuitive sense that it matters. That is the Aha.)

But more powerful than any of these facts  was the number of presentations and panels given by end-user practitioners – speaking from the trenches, which I referred to earlier.   These were not sales people, marketers or academician theorists (Yes there were still enough of those to go around). These were folk who had their sleeves rolled up, successful projects behind them and the scars to prove it.  Among the many, my two favorite were the presentation given by Bevin Hernandez who shared her amazing success at Penn State, where she waged a strategy that was more about culture and behavioral change management than technology; and a panel entitled Case Studies in Enterprise Micro-Blogging, in which real-world use of micro-blogging in the enterprise was discussed ala the good, the bad and the ugly – but not the theory. Participants spoke freely of misplaced efforts and failures, as well as what it takes to get real value out of micro-blogging inside the firewall.

Finally, the maturity of the Enterprise 2.0 market was punctuated by the coming out of the 2.0 Adoption Council, many of whose members were speakers at the event as well. As I blogged about months ago, Dan Keldsen and I executed a market study with this council. The results were the focus of our keynote at the event.  The findings are compelling and insightful and I encourage downloading the initial report, but again, it is the sheer existence of the council itself that provided further evidence that E2.0 has come out of the theoretical closet and into the reality of the boardroom. The council is comprised of (at present) 115 individuals representing major global organizations. Each individual is a senior level manager, a full-time job managing Enterprise 2.0 within their respective organization.  Each manages a substantial budget ranging from the 100s of thousands to tens of millions of dollars. They are beyond the pilot stage of deployment, into production, effecting literally thousands of end-users in each organization.  Each is a real-world major case study. Collectively, as “the council” they truly mark the turning point in the Enterprise 2.0 market.  Congratulations to Susan Scrupski for her execution in putting together this council.

Before I wrap this up, let me be clear.  While the acronym de jour is ER, CIT (culture, innovation and Twitter) was certainly still a part of the conference.

Culture was still frequently talked about as a major component to Enterprise 2.0. I gave an entire session on just this issue, using 4 different clients of mine as case studies. As I mentioned earlier, the case study presented by Bevin Hernandez of Penn State focused predominately on culture and change management. In fact, when asked if she could have accomplished all she had, if not for the technology she was using (ThoughtFarmer), she eloquently and politely opined that the technology made a difference and made many parts of the rollout easier, but that at least in her case, it was the strategic change management that really made all the difference.

Innovation came up several times, but perhaps most impressive was the risk that TechWeb took in allowing IAI to provide a ½ day version of its innovation management training as one of the pre-show tutorials. Although not as popular as some of the more mainstream E2.0 topics, the training pulled a fair number of attendees and was well received.  Those that attended understood that if Enterprise 2.0 is about leveraging technology and practices to facilitate and invigorate collaboration, then one likely end game is the facilitation and acceleration of innovation, which is a practice to be managed in its own right.

And as for the big “T”, Twitter, oh it was prevalent all right, but no longer novel. Again testament to how quickly some of these tools are being adopted.

In conclusion, kudos to Steve Wylie and his team at TechWeb for a job well done, and kudos to the Enterprise 2.0 community for a well done performance. We at IAI were very proud to be a part of it and look forward to hopefully seeing most of you at the Boston 2010 Enterprise 2.0 conference.

Yesterday I was preparing for an Innovation Management training session I will be doing later this week. The sponsor, after reviewing my credentials asked “How you make the leap from information and knowledge management to coaching/developing innovation
skills?  … Your background seems to be IT.”

I provided what I hope was not too lengthy a response. In essence it stated that I view Innovation Management as a fully ingrained component of KM, and IT as a strategic facilitator of both. It’s interesting, but to many friends, family and colleagues my background appears disjointed. To me it is completely synergistic and logically intertwined.

Well, this morning I saw an article that pulled it all together.  It seems that the State of Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) has initiated what it calls “The Developers Challenge.”   This program facilitates the creation of new applications for public transportation riders, utilizing newly released state-owned data.  Several challenges exist. One for example calls for the creation of a mobile phone/web-based app that makes it easier to navigate the Boston subway system – or “T”.

Eureka I thought, – this is the perfect blend of IT (apps) in the form of Enterprise 2.0 technologies (mashups), in a collaborative and knowledge sharing environment (More E2.0 and KM), being used to foster and drive innovation – in an emergent fashion (again E2.0).  The challenge even leverages one of the basic tenets of KM – Incentivization (the  winner of each challenge gets free T rides for a year.)

To today’s casual user of “apps” it may just seem like a tool – but for me it is my life, my  career, the perfect blend of IT, KM, E2.0, ECM, information management, collaboration, information architecture, findability, taxonomies, user interfaces, process management …

Last Friday’s cover of the Boston Metro proclaimed “ How recession is forcing creativity in entertainment.”
It’s an interesting article on how the current economy mixed with the advent of Web 2.0 is affecting the entertainment industry, but the title held a different appeal for me.

Serendipitously, I am working on IAI’s soon to be released whitepaper on Innovation Management. The whitepaper includes the results of a 180 respondent survey on how innovation is managed in the enterprise.

In line with today’s headline, it came as no surprise that 70% of those surveyed felt that the current economic conditions increased the perceived need for innovation in their organization. As is the case with much of the market research work we do however, the interesting findings came from cross-correlation and analysis across questions and responses. Despite “heightened need”, most organizations aren’t doing anything proactive about accelerating and nurturing innovation. While 68% stated their organization believed that innovation should be managed as a corporate asset and process, only 49% have put in place any formal process to manage innovation. Similarly, only 49% have any form of executive management presiding over innovation.  More shockingly, perhaps is the fact that 46% of the organizations do not specifically reward innovation.

Innovation is not serendipity or discovery. You cannot wait for it to happen to you.  It is a process that you have to nurture and manage as a major asset.

Innovation Architected will publish a whitepaper that details all the findings of the study later this month, and hold a webinar to discuss the findings on October 29 at 2pm ET (-5 GMT). To pre-order a copy of the whitepaper and/or register for the webinar go to the registration page.

There is no charge for the whitepaper, as it was partially underwritten by DiCOR, Imaginatik, Brightidea and Spigit.

You can also learn more about how we train organizations to proactively manage their innovation.

Arguably there is no important time than NOW to ensure that your organization has an innovation strategy.

After all, without a strategy, how are you going to making the changes to your business that you need to make, in order to survive the economic storm, and (if you move quickly and intelligently) to be well positioned to blow past your competition as the economy improves?

But strategy isn’t enough…

Yes, companies need an innovation strategy – and ideally, that innovation strategy is no different from the business strategy at large.

As very smart, and quite wealthy friend of mine once said in doing the upkeep on his home – “if you aren’t fixing it up, it’s breaking down.” And that most certainly applies to businesses and business models as well as it does to homes.

So, innovation strategy should either be your business strategy, or a sub-set of the overall organizational strategy, but strategy, even very deep, extremely well planned strategy will not do a SINGLE thing to move your company forward.

Execution is what counts – the rest is theory

There is an IBM commercial from the early 2000s that I frequently reference, that goes something like this:

A business managers has a room full of his team, and he’s proudly showing off the 3-inch thick paper binder with the “strategy that took us 12 months and 3 million dollars to create. It’s the most cutting-edge strategy we’ve ever had, and we’re extremely excited by this. My question to all of you is… can we do it?”

(dead silence for 10 seconds)

No! Absolutely not! No way!

(the manager is stricken, deathly pale as the team lampoons the strategy)

Strategy needs to connect to reality

By connecting to reality, I mean that while the goal may be to “think out of the box” – you need to take into account how your business operates now, what skills, technical capabilities, existing technology investments, partnerships, clients, etc. exist RIGHT NOW.

Connecting the dots between the current-state of the business, with the future-state of the business, means that the hard work to actually walk that path from here to there, needs to happen, and THAT is all about execution.

Is your team ready? Is your business ready? All of it? A certain piece of it?

Humans are adaptable creatures by nature, but some are more adaptable than others – which is why recommend taking a more scientific approach to understanding which people are equipped to create the brilliant, disruptive ideas, who can run them to actually delivery as a new product or service, who SHOULD be paired up to solve problems, who absolutely should NOT be working on similar teams, and so on. Measure their problem-solving and decision-making strengths, and take the best of the best for each type of problem that comes up, and the odds of successfully solving and executing on the solutions are that much more likely.

While it’s far easier to identify the weaknesses of teams or business models, leveraging the strengths is for many, quite difficult. And while some companies can “turn on a dime” or instigate rapid change throughout the organization, more often, there is a leading and a trailing edge to certain areas of the organization that are likely to make the jump to the future first.

Lead and Pull

Leverage the adapative leaders and pull-through to the rest of your organization, and you just might be able to make your innovation strategy turn into reality.

Interested in finding out how to equip your team with the tools to make innovation happen?

Learn More Two Innovation Training and Assessment Offerings are available