Focused on learning about innovation as a discipline – article could be an explanation of a term or concept, for example, or an overview of how to start an innovation program.
The key to innovation success is simple---innovation is nothing without exploration and exploitation.
Senior management is without a doubt a tough job. If you’re one of the few executives at the top of a large organization, there are likely hundreds of people; customers, employees, partners, and the list goes on; who are all looking for your attention regarding an endless sea of different topics and initiatives.
Measuring innovation is one of the most ambiguous tasks when engaging in innovation management. Because of the complex nature of innovation, finding the right metrics is far from being simple.
The internet was revolutionary in that it democratized the spread of information and ideas at a much faster rate than any other channel in. With the increased adoption of computing, we’ve also tracked the rise of “distributed knowledge” databases like Quora or Wikipedia. What is interesting is how powerful these specialized knowledge bases can prove to be in the context of innovation.
The ideation platform marketplace hasn’t really changed that much in the past 7 years or so. There was an early burst of innovative design and alignment with user needs, but at this point the sector seems to have stagnated in terms of how they add value. Call it reaching middle age, or perhaps they are having a 7-year itch?
In an article by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the authors addressed a recent study from the Bridgespan Group that identified an innovation in the nonprofit sector. Although 80% of nonprofit leaders consider innovation an imperative, only 40% of those leaders consider their organization ready for innovation. SSIR went on to discuss the six characteristics that empower nonprofit innovation.
If your job is to get your company, team, or community to innovate, you know how organizational forces can make it hard to even try something new. Visualizing the resources available is an effective first step in overcoming some of those organizational forces. Simply being able to see, and show, what you have allows you to make a compelling case for marshalling resources and even spark some initial interactions in that direction.
Everything is derivative. Take advantage of that. “New” ideas are the next step in an extensive network of existing people and ideas. If we can get the data and reconstruct the network, we can analyze it and understand where branches of a network have the potential for innovation. Great ideas do not need to be created. They can be discovered.
Innovation requires collaboration, but collaboration is stuck in a rut. Data science can help us climb out. It can increase the scale, the intentionality, and the nuance of how we collaborate. With the right data and algorithms, we can set our teams up to do something innovative.
Locked with the President of my country, Cyril Ramaphosa, in what was already a ‘do-not-disturb, bromance-in-progress’ kind of moment, he must have developed an on-the-spot inkling that our intimacy stands to grow by leaps and bounds if he were to somehow ask me what I do for a living. And in not so many words, I said what I say to just about anyone – from Long-Rich Sales Reps – to Twitter Bios – right up to C-Suite level, thick-necked folk: “I chase rats for a living.”
Innovation must become your business routine and corporate culture to renew creative energy. Digital innovation has a broader spectrum and the hybrid nature. It comes in the variety of flavors and there are many opportunities in an enterprise to taste it. The companies who get the most from innovation effort have the right ambition, open leadership, and culture quintessential.
Adventurous as the word innovation may sound, an innovation consultant’s job consists for a large part in de-risking the innovation process. In order for innovation to be a viable undertaking for any company, the outcomes of the innovation need to be maximized, while the risk involved needs to be contained as much as possible.
Over the past few months I have been spending time with a range of Australian companies, getting to better understand their business models and approaches to innovation. After working with US / European organizations for many years, it’s been refreshing to see the actions and impact of innovation in this market.
A lot of innovation programs have naturally grown out of research and development groups, but most true innovation is a departure from what’s come before so what role does the “research” in “research and development” play in innovation?
If you’re in charge of innovation, it means that you’re constantly being surprised. Not just because technology and trends are emerging that are impacting your business in new and unexpected ways, but almost every project that you’re working on continues to evolve and improve over time.
