Monthly Archives: January 2010
How do you prove something that hasn’t happened yet?That’s the challenge facing innovative ideas inside many companies. Innovation, by definition, is a leap into the unknown. But for organizations that increasingly look to past history/results and data to determine future steps, quantifying the likely success and/or risk with an innovative idea can be tricky.Or, as Roger Martin and Jennifer Riel put it in their recent Business Week column:”Innovation is killed with the two deadlies words in business: Prove it.”They continue:”We use existing information to understand the issue at play. But for breakthroughs, there is no rule or pool of past data to provide certainty. So when a CEO demands evidence that an idea will succeed, he is driving innovation away.”Martin and Reil ultimately recommend innovators use pieces of past history, results, research and logic to stitch together a case for innovation based not on direct past evidence, but clues to … Continue reading
Some great conversations have sprung up around my previous articles on the rumored Apple Tablet (iSlate). In the past I focused on what innovation Apple’s potential tablet device might offer and whether or not Apple is likely to make the rumored first year sales projection of 10 million units.A recent comment from “Marketing Department” brought up the topic of subsidies and whether or not Apple might be on the verge of introducing another business model innovation. So, in this article we’ll dig a little deeper into that possibility.When Apple launched the iPod, they introduced the iTunes business model innovation which turned the music industry on ear, quickly followed by the television and movie industries. Then Apple launched the iPhone and introduced the App Store business model innovation and introduced a new way for people to purchase software that the competition quickly rushed to copy. Now, what could Apple create with … Continue reading
One of the great problems with the Western education system is that it teaches that for most questions there is one correct answer. Examinations with multiple choice questions force the student to try to select the right answer and avoid the wrong ones. So when our students leave school they are steeped in a system that says find the “right answer” and you have solved the problem.Unfortunately, the real world is not like that. For almost every problem, there are multiple solutions that may solve the problem with varying degrees of effectiveness. In other words, in the real world, there is more than one “right” answer. We have to unlearn the school approach and instead adopt an attitude of always looking for more and better answers.To be really creative, you need to generate a large number of ideas before you refine the process down to a few to test out. … Continue reading
Most people think brainstorming sessions are all about ideas – much in the same way that Wall Street bankers think life is all about money. While ideas are certainly a big part of brainstorming, they are only a part. People who rush into a brainstorming session starving for new ideas will miss the boat (and the train, car, and unicycle) completely unless they tune into the some other mighty important dynamics:1. INVESTIGATION: If you want your brainstorming sessions to be effective, you’ll need to do some investigating before hand. Get curious. Ask questions. Dig deeper. The more you find out what the real issues are, the greater your chances of framing powerful questions to brainstorm and choosing the best techniques to use.2. IMMERSION: While good ideas can surface at any time, their chances radically increase the more that brainstorm participants are immersed (i.e. focused). Translation? No coming and going during … Continue reading
Top Left: January 2010 edition of Harvard Business Review, Top right: Michael G. Jacobidesby Kevin Roberts”The play’s the thing” may be from Hamlet but the subject is from Michael Jacobides, an associate professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School who appears in the new issue of Harvard Business Review with an article Strategy Tools for a Shifting Landscape.His starting point is the breathtaking speed at which customers and competitors transform – and the turbulence this creates. Traditional strategy frameworks aren’t working, he says – they simplify rather than taking account of complexity and changing boundaries; they produce “still pictures of the future.” Jacobides puts forward the playscript – a narrative in which “words are more powerful and flexible than value curves.” Playscripts “consider how a company could succeed by reinventing its role as reality changes.” His method involves characters and their roles, storylines and connections, links … Continue reading
A general observation of collaborative work is this:”The larger and more diverse are your personal network of contacts, the higher the quality of your ideas and project work.”In the enterprise market, the opportunity being seized by companies is to better connect employees. The sheer size of these firms makes it obvious that they are not optimizing collaborative activities. Social software plays an important role in helping that. SunGard’s CEO has a great take on this issue in the New York Times.But what about small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs)? Do they have issues with maintaining connections? We’ll tackle that issue in a second. First, however…The Challenge of Growth: Traditional Collaboration Modes Don’t ScaleWhen a small company starts out, it’s rather easy to stay on top of what colleagues are doing. There just aren’t too many of them. You easily banter, bounce ideas off one another and contribute your part to projects.It’s … Continue reading
