Monthly Archives: March 2011
Few people argue with the value of creating regular content – more prospects, more Web traffic, more thought leadership and a better-educated set of prospects are just a few of the benefits regular bloggers enjoy. A primary hurdle I hear from many would-be bloggers and innovators is content or solution inspiration. So where do you find new blog post ideas? The answer is all around you. Experienced bloggers will tell you that they’re bombarded with possible blog topics. Their challenge isn’t finding topics, but choosing the best on which to focus. But this article isn’t just for content creators, but innovators as well because these sources for inspiration apply to innovation as well. Here are ten sources of blog post and innovation inspiration I use most often. Some I do actively seek out, but all of them take very little time and produce an ongoing source of inspiration and content. … Continue reading
I had the honor of keynoting at the Imaginatik Innovation Leaders Forum at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City. But, I also had the privilege of hearing great innovation leaders speak from a diverse set of organizations including: Chubb, NYSE, Bombardier, Medco and the General Services Administration (GSA). One of the best stories at the event was from Mike Hatrick and David Wooten of Bombardier about the early days of their formal innovation effort and one of their employees and his little black book. Unrequited Innovation Typically when organizations start a formal innovation effort and begin soliciting ideas from people inside (or even from outside) the organization, there is a spike in the number of ideas submitted within the first few days of the effort and then the submission volume begins to tail off. This is because in every organization there is backlog of innovation ideas … Continue reading
I learned about wants and needs in probably one of the best ways possible: through the rapid growth and fiery crash of a startup. There’s no better way to learn to ascertain what people WANT new products and services to do, and what they NEED to live their lives with less pain, less stress and less aggravation. I ran marketing for a firm that segmented and analyzed the behaviors of customers. We had very good algorithms that helped us group people into very small segments based on the way they “behaved” – how they actually used the product or service. From that we extrapolated new offerings, new products and new services these small, tightly clustered segments would want and need. We thought we could offer new products based on what we understood people wanted and how those wants and needs were expressed. Boy, …
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past 20 years, I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “get out of the box.” It’s everywhere. Whole industries have sprung up around it, including mine. No one can deny that getting out of the box is a good thing to do. Seems like a no-brainer, eh? Kind of like helping little old ladies cross the street. Or tearing down the Berlin Wall. But before you start planning your heroic escape, answer me this: What the heck is the box, anyway? What is this so-called thing that keeps us so contained, confined, caged, trapped, claustrophobic, and otherwise unable to succeed? Let’s start with the basics. A box has six sides, including the top and the bottom. If we can understand what these six sides are, we’ll know what we’re dealing with — and this knowledge will improve our chances of getting out. … Continue reading
Many leaders of small firms focus on making their business work efficiently and on delivering high-quality customer service. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these objectives. They are both essential aims. However, if they lead to rigidity and the exclusion of variation then they can undermine the key advantage that small businesses have over large businesses – agility. If you run a small business then your large competitors can outspend you. They have more resources than you do. But they cannot move as quickly as you can. The great thing about running a small business is that you can have a new idea today, try it tomorrow and see the customer reaction the next day. If it works you can reinforce and develop it. If it does not work then you can adapt it or drop it. You can introduce innovations in products, services, messages and …
Like any good managing director, I regularly watch what the competition and others in our field are up to. One thing I have noticed over recent months is a tendency to turn corporate innovation into a highly complex system involving numerous processes, approaches and models. Such systems are being promoted by consultants who, not surprisingly, charge by the hour for implementing and teaching their systems. Unfortunately, when firms decide they need to implement an innovation strategy and meet with such high priced consultants, the firms are scared by the complex systems that must be implemented. When different consultants preach different systems, it only makes matters worse. The problem is, corporate innovation need not be horrendously complex. Indeed, highly complex systems can actually stifle creativity. And since innovation is the result of successfully implemented creative ideas, it is clear that systems that stifle creativity are not going to maximize innovation. Quite … Continue reading
