Where do great ideas come from? Obviously they come from many sources, which means that your systematic innovation process has to support and sustain multiple efforts at ideation in parallel. In the following article we will explore some promising ways that you may be able to find ideas that will take your own business forward.
Your greatest innovation opportunity may be right in front of you. The problem is you don’t see it. Every day for the last decade of your life this problem has annoyed and frustrated you. Its solution is worth billions of dollars and would open up a totally new market. The problem is, like the millions of other people who have this problem, you don’t think of it as a problem anymore. You’ve been desensitized. You’ve lost your ability to innovate because of something called habituation.
As the market becomes saturated, it becomes difficult for many businesses, especially startup enterprises, to stay on top of their competitions. Technology has paved a way for firms to revolutionize their marketing and management strategies. Another tried and tested way to infiltrate their specific markets successfully is to inspire innovation within their offices, from employees to their brand.
With so much focus on establishing corporate innovation incubators and accelerators, more attention needs to be paid to maintaining effective employee connections back into the business units that will support the newly formed ideas.
Before any organization can reap the economic benefits of open innovation, it must overcome a number of legal, operational and cultural challenges. In this article Peter von Dyck addresses the top three obstacles to open innovation: managing intellectual property issues and other legal risks, processing ideas quickly and establishing an efficient internal structure.
Many innovation leaders tend to be tactically driven, but their corporate leadership is looking for more strategic planning and analysis. This tension often contributes to high turnover in innovation management roles, based on a misalignment around leadership’s expectations. In this article Anthony Ferrier suggests perspectives and actions that should be considered part of your innovation strategy plan.
With the increase of, and dramatic improvement in, mind mapping software and its emergence as a value-adding toolkit conveniently available for use on our computers, laptops, tablets, etc. signifies that mind-mapping can be used within an every-day working environment. Jamie MacDonald takes a closer look at six uses for mind mapping in business situations that most of us engage in on a frequent basis.
Arguably, the principle of Open Innovation was utilised for the first time by Professor James Murray in 19th Century Oxford, England. In the time that has passed since then, this concept has become infinitely easier to implement thanks to the development of Innovation Management technology, however some companies are yet to wake up to its potential.
Dr. Stephen Sweid has conducted more than a hundred structured group brainstorming sessions in recent years, as well as many one-to-one discussion sessions as a consultant and trainer. He has observed a number of common patterns related to timing and evolution of the brainstorming process.
Apple, Google and General Electric success stories centre on groundbreaking characters and geniuses. But 99% of companies worldwide are unlike any of these. Most organisations are made up of people like you and me: reasonably proficient in innovation management but surrounded by innovation agnostics. People who can share with us the tough, yet stirring mission of pushing boundaries to shape a bit of future.
Turning ideas into numbers and knowing the characteristics of the Ideal Idea (0.00iur) is like having a compass and knowing the safe harbor where the minimal risks of innovation converge. Mathematically identifying desired ideas by users, extracted from simplified mathematical formulas, is the Holy Grail that eliminates uncertainties and passionate discussions, which are unhelpful in choosing ideas.
Jos Tissen of Unilever, based in the Netherlands, and Shawn Heipp of Elmer’s Products, based in Ohio, USA, have something in common. Each manages his company’s corporate innovation portal, the website used to encourage technology solution submissions from external customers, suppliers, inventors, and businesses. Tissen and Heipp describe their unique portal implementation choices and their results to date.
Innovation without borders means that you’re no longer concerned about where your next great idea comes from – you’re only concerned with it being great. It means that there is no job title, mission parameter, or geography that curtails creativity or delivering on that creativity.
We are moved by goals. The resolve to reach the finish line pushes us forward: at work, in life. Why then do we keep idea management initiatives alive when it’s not clear what results they deliver (if any)? And how often have we yearned for a formula that definitely makes it all happen?
A 2012 study by the Harvard Business Review surfaced several interesting findings about the practice of innovation for the enterprise, including the innovation ambition matrix, which details how “firms that excel at total innovation management simultaneously invest at three levels of ambition, carefully managing the balance among them.”
