Monthly Archives: January 2011
I love blogging, and I love blog comments even more. I get a chance to interact, at least from a short text perspective, with people who agree, and who disagree with my writing and points of view. There’s nothing better than a dispute or debate over ideas. One of the comments on my recent post “Why Innovation makes Executives Uncomfortable” asserted that I have a bias that innovation is an unqualified good. That statement, and the issues that arise with it, are worth more than a blog post, but that’s all I’ll have time for today. The key question is: Is innovation an unqualified good, and do we innovation consultants have a bias that leads us to think all innovation is “good”? Let’s unpack, shall we? First, I believe in Schumpeter, who defined capitalism as creative destruction. But even more, I think innovation itself is creative destruction, …
In 2011, I will be a regular contributor to the American Express OPEN Forum on the topic of innovation. Here is the second one of the year: Ideas are easy; innovation is hard. Ideas are exciting, but innovation is scary because it is all about change. The changes required by minor innovations are easier for customers and organizations to absorb. But the large changes generated by major innovations often disrupt not only the market, but the internal workings of the organization as well. This requires organizations to become increasingly flexible and adaptable. And companies that successfully innovate in a repeatable fashion have one thing in common: they are good at managing and adapting to change and complexity. People often fail to imagine just how the change injected into organizations by innovation ebbs and flows across the whole organization’s ecosystem. Innovation creates a complex web of change not just for customers, … Continue reading
In this week’s class we talked about Jeff Bezos’ TED talk. When I think about innovation, to me the central part of the process is connecting ideas. As I keep emphasizing, once we’ve done this, we then have to work like crazy to execute them well, and to get them to spread. But we need to start with great ideas, and we get these by making novel connections. I like this talk because there are several great examples of the importance of connecting in innovation. The first example of connecting works at the meta level. This is a great example of confronting an uncertain business situation (what do we do about the internet?) through the use of analogy (trying to find the most comparable set connections out of several possibilities). In this case, Bezos takes on the idea that the internet was like the gold rushes of the 19th century. … Continue reading
1.”Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2. “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth — not going all the way, and not starting.” – Buddha 3. “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” – Meister Eckhart 4. “All great ideas and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” – Albert Camus 5. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu 6. “Beginnings are always messy.” – John Galsworthy 7. “When there is a start to be made, don’t step over! Start where you are.” – Edgar Cayce 8. “So many fail because they don’t get started — they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.” – W. Clement Stone 9.”Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” … Continue reading
Non-profit organizations need innovation every bit as much as for-profit firms. Some might argue they need it more because they lack the resources and cash flow of large commercial firms. Non-profits need innovation in: Fund Raising Expanding their reach Mission delivery Resource utilization The need for innovation in the non-profit sector is widely recognized. Awards, grants, and other forms of recognition for innovative programs help stimulate managers to be more aggressive. While the need is recognized, the approach to innovating non-profits is not. These organizations should use the same methods found so effective in corporate innovation. Structured methods based on patterns inherent in inventive solutions can be applied to the non-profit business model just as effectively as the for-profit model. A method like S.I.T. can help an organization “break fixedness” about its role, resources, and process, thus opening new possibilities and approaches. Here is how I would do it. Start … Continue reading
Last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics went to two professors from the University of Manchester for groundbreaking experiments with a material called graphene. Graphene has the potential to one day make your iPad feel about as dynamic as a brick. It’s thin (one atom thick), strong (100 times stronger than steel), light, transparent and conducting. It could be used for things like touch screens, solar cells, gas censors, DNA sequencing, faster computer chips and bendable electronics. A one meter square hammock made from graphene could hold a four kilogram cat, and would weigh as much as one of its whiskers. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in October for being the first to pin this “two-dimensional” material down and tell us about it. And what I like most about this story is their reputation for playfulness as a way to discovery. Where others failed, these guys … Continue reading
