Blogging Innovation

Amazon Gets an 'A' for Innovation

2009-11-08T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Steve McKee

Retail sales are projected to decline this holiday season for the second year in a row, an occurrence unprecedented in the entire history of the federal government keeping statistics on such things. Online retailers will continue to face stiff pricing pressure, as they have for more than a year. Free shipping has become almost the ante in such a competitive environment.

That's why Amazon's shipping program, Amazon Prime, is so impressive. For a company that ships 100 percent of its products, finding a way to neutralize pressure on shipping costs is no small thing--especially when it's competing with Walmart, which offers its online customers 97 cent shipping on many products, or the option to pick up their orders at a nearby store for free.

Two million people have become members of Amazon Prime, paying $79 for automatic two-day shipping on all of their purchases. Not surprisingly, they tend to be Amazon's most frequent customers, which means they're still getting a pretty good deal. But the program helps ensure they'll turn to Amazon first when they have a new purchase occasion, and the numbers indicate they increase their spending with the company some 20 percent after signing up.

Just goes to show you that innovation isn't the exclusive purview of the R&D department. While many online retailers have thrown in the towel on shipping charges, Amazon found a way offset them while increasing order flow. The company took one of its biggest lemons and turned it into a refreshing beverage.

Makes me wonder about the bitter aspects of my industry and how how my company might do something to sweeten them up. What about yours?

Steve McKee is a BusinessWeek.com columnist, marketing consultant, and author of "When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What To Do About It." Learn more about him at www.WhenGrowthStalls.com and at http://twitter.com/whengrowthstall.

Arguing for Innovation - Patrick Lencioni

2009-11-08T02:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrea Meyer

Point: Teams that create the best innovations know how to disagree about ideas without interpreting the disagreement as a personal affront.

Story: "I feel good when I see that engineering, advertising and manufacturing are really surfacing and talking about their differences," said the VP of Technology at a successful $100 million firm. "It's my job to keep the dialectic alive."

When we see companies moving swiftly, anticipating changes in the marketplace and developing new products or services to meet the change, we're tempted to think of the company as moving in harmonious agreement toward that new product or service.

But the surprising fact is that companies that innovate the fastest are actually those that invite debate over ideas. It's not a destructive conflict, but an airing of different views on a topic. Whereas conflict based on personality differences is destructive, healthy conflict focuses on refining a proposed idea. Healthy conflict gets a team out of group-think. It tests and challenges assumptions. Team members share different points of view. As Patrick Lencioni, speaking at the 2009 World Business Forum said, “productive debate over issues is good for a team." Disagreeing on issues make things uncomfortable but it builds clarity. "If you don't have conflict on a team, you don't get commitment," Lencioni said. "If people don't weigh in, they won't buy in." When team members challenge assumptions and point out the flaws of an idea, they improve the idea; the end result is a more robust idea.

To ensure that the conflict stays at the level of idea, not personal attack, Lencioni advises using a team assessment. Using an instrument like Myers-Briggs, team members learn their own communication styles and the styles of others. Knowing each other's personality style helps avoid personal conflict. If you know that Joe is generally quiet or that Jane always bulldozes in, you're less likely to take offense at what is actually that person's communication style.

Action:

Don't suppress or circumvent conflict - the best ideas are forged during the "working out" of such conflicts.

Give the team an assessment tool like Myers-Briggs to help member understand each other's styles communication styles, strengths and weaknesses

Encourage healthy debate. Peter Drucker recounted how Alfred P. Sloan, legendary CEO of GM, handled this:

"Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here," Sloan said. After everyone around the table nodded affirmatively, Sloan continued: "Then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about."

Author of more than 450 company case studies and contributor to 28 books, Andrea Meyer writes & ghostwrites about innovation, IT and strategy for clients like MIT, Harvard Business School, McKinsey & Co., and Forrester Research. Follow her at www.workingknowledge.com/blog and twitter.com/AndreaMeyer.

Do Ten Things, Do 100 Things

2009-11-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Ikea OGLA chair – made from 100% post-consumer plastic waste

by Kevin Roberts

I wrote a few weeks ago about Do One Thing, the Saatchi & Saatchi S initiative to personalize sustainable actions. Real change requires a ground swell of action, but as companies we can take decisive steps that have impact.

Walmart recently discontinued issuing paper checks to its employees in favor of electronic payments. By that stroke alone it will save some 257,572 pounds of paper a year.

Tesco in the UK has announced that it is now diverting 100% of its waste from landfills. This is no small feat, since it encompasses all of Tesco's 2300 stores and distribution centers in the UK.

Marks & Spencer has pledged to meet 100 separate commitments to reduce impacts within a five-year time-frame, and has already achieved 39 of those within the first two years.

Here are ten things Ikea did to be more sustainable:

Replace polyvinylchloride (PVC) in wallpapers, home textiles, shower curtains, lampshades, and furniture - PVC has been eliminated from packaging and is being phased out in electric cables;

Minimize the use of formaldehyde in its products, including textiles;

Eliminate acid-curing lacquers;

Produce a model of chair (OGLA) made from 100% post-consumer plastic waste;

Introduce a series of air-inflatable furniture products into the product line. Such products reduce the use of raw materials for framing and stuffing and reduce transportation weight and volume to about 15% of that of conventional furniture;

Reduce the use of chromium for metal surface treatment;

Limit the use of substances such as cadmium, lead, PCB, PCP, and AZO pigments;

Use wood from responsibly-managed forests that replant and maintain biological diversity;

Use only recyclable materials for flat packaging and "pure" (non-mixed) materials for packaging to assist in recycling.

Introduce rental bicycles with trailers for customers in Denmark.
At Saatchi & Saatchi, we're setting goals relating to optimal management of our buildings, and doing less traveling. And individually our employees each declare what their DOT is.

There's an interesting exchange on the post I published a few weeks ago on DOT - a reader claiming that the "incremental steps" model does not achieve transformative change. Adam Werbach responds to this and other views on this, and how he believes the "bottom-of-the-pyramid" actions on the part of the general population have a major effect on decisions made by companies and governments. More on this to come.

Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.

Search Engine Tweet Ranking Algorithms

2009-11-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Hutch Carpenter

Anyone remember when Loic LeMeur had the temerity to suggest Twitter rank its search results by the number of followers people have? His post, with 109 comments and reaction from Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble and many others, clearly struck a nerve.

Fast forward to the past couple weeks. Both Microsoft Bing and Google announced deals to provide tweets in search results. Let me say that again: Google and Bing will be providing tweet search results!

Bing's version is the first out the gate. In light of the earlier brouhaha, this may come across as insensitive...but I have to ask:

How should tweets be ranked in Bing and Google search results?

I hope your answer isn't, "I wouldn't." Because that's contrary to what made Google such a global powerhouse used by billions every year. And why Microsoft is working hard to increase Bing's market share. Google and Bing built their business by presenting search results based on the authority of websites. This system of authority (e.g. PageRank) makes the results relevant to users.

So what about running searches for tweets? Should their presentation be utterly devoid of any authority ranking? Does it make sense to just show the latest tweet containing a given term? After all, that would simply be imitating what Summize (aka Twitter Search) does.

First, a good question to ask is, why do people want to search tweets? How does this differ from web search?

Why Are You Searching Tweets?

To my mind, there are three use cases where people will search for tweets rather than search for websites:

Find people

Find latest on a subject that won't show up in search engines yet (lack of indexing, lack of authority)

Jump into conversations on something

Find people: You're interested in a topic, and want to find others who can either improve your knowledge on it or with whom you want to connect. This is using Twitter as people search. The model for all of here is, you are what you tweet. It's what makes you findable to others.

In this case, my sense is that people will have an desire to find those who would have the most authority on a given topic.

Find latest on a subject: The appearance of an article or blog post in the search engines can take a while. That contributes to the challenge of finding the latest. But the more pressing issue is the display of new articles in the search results. A good article or post on a subject, such as Enterprise 2.0, is likely not going to be ranked very high in the Google or Bing search results. No one links to the article yet, and it competes against a bunch of other incumbent articles in the search indexes.

If something shows up on the third page of Google's search results, does it really exist?

This issue is even more pernicious for current events. The San Francisco Bay Bridge has been closed for several days now. It seems every estimate about when it will reopen has been wrong, meaning we all have to scramble to figure out our commute for the next day. To get the latest on the Bay Bridge, I searched Google, including the aggregate news results. Everything was too old when I did that, reflecting previous pronouncements. I needed what people knew right now. I went to Twitter, and found tweets that told me the latest status. Very helpful.

To find the latest on topics, I think there is a role for leveraging some sort of authority. People who have established credibility can be good first filters on what's relevant and useful. For Enterprise 2.0, what is Dion Hinchliffe tweeting? For the Bay Bridge, I most trusted the KTVU tweet I saw.

Jump into conversations: This is Twitter as water cooler. You know something is going on. But how do you connect with people? Searches are good for this. Hash tags for conferences or big stories. Take the recent fraudulent #balloonboy story. It definitely captivated everyone. But even now, you'll see tweets like this:

Watch top quality streaming Movie -> Up here http://cli.gs/dpNT5N Make $ From Home #mileycomeback #balloonboy

What is that? That's someone taking a popular hash tag and polluting the search stream with spam. Again, a case where adding some authority to the tweet search rankings will help.

Tweet Authority Criteria

Keep in mind that "authority" is used in the context of Google and Bing searches. Of course web searches miss many authorities on subjects, but they work pretty well for giving relevant information.

I categorize the bases of authority in three buckets:

Relevancy of tweet stream to a subject

Crowdsourced signals of authority

Effectiveness in providing relevant content

As a point of reference, Bing's initial measure of relevance was reported to be the number of followers a person has. Let's look at the three categories of authority.

Relevancy of Tweet Stream to a Subject

The first basis for authority should be...does someone tend to post about a given topic? Frequency of posts are a good marker that a person has something of interest to share. If someone is going to be deemed an authority on a subject, I'd expect a fair number of tweets related to it.

One twist that would make this better. A semantic basis for linking terms. For example, if some one searches on Foo Fighters, consider people whose tweet streams include posts about "music" frequently as having higher authority.

Crowdsourced Signals of Authority

What does the crowd think of a given person or tweet? Let's start with a single tweet. If someone posts something on a given topic, and it gets retweeted a lot, that should count hugely in terms of its authority for a given topic.

OK, now for the general stats. How many followers does someone have? Yes, it's getting gamed. So the presence of a high number of followers isn't an automatic definition for authority. But it does have relevance in constructing authority.

The benefit of computing this for users is that the authority of those who follow a person can be an input into his or her own authority.

Next... Twitter Lists. Number of followers is not the end of the story. Lists have two characteristics that can be used to compute authority. First is the number of Lists one is on. Tim O'Reilly is on over 2,500 Lists. No surprise - he really made 'web 2.0' ubiquitous in our culture.

But an even better indicator of authority is embedded in Lists. How does the crowd characterize a person? Those Lists are valuable for granting higher authority for a given topic.

Effectiveness in Providing Relevant Content

When someone tweets, how do people react? Robert Scoble has a good take from his blog post:

Number of retweets of that tweet

Number of favorites of that tweet

Number of inbound links to that tweet

Number of clicks on an item in Twitter search

I particularly like that #4 item - number of clicks. Once these tweets are in the Google and Bing search results, the clicks can be measured. These are powerful bases for measuring someone’s authority.

I'd add a measure for how often a shared link is clicked; say bit.ly's click information. While the actual number of clicks tracked by bit.ly is wrong, let's assume it's wrong in a similar fashion for everyone. So the bit.ly clicks counts can give a measure of relative effectiveness in providing content.

What Do You Think?

That's my somewhat exhaustive description of inputs for ranking tweets in Google and Bing search results. There's more that would be needed. I can think of incorporating some element of time decay in how tweets are presented as well. But this post is long enough.

What do you think? How would you rank tweets in the big search engines?

Hutch Carpenter is the Director of Marketing at Spigit. Spigit integrates social collaboration tools into a SaaS enterprise idea management platform used by global Fortune 2000 firms to drive innovation.

What do you really mean?

2009-11-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Mike Brown

Many (okay, let's be real, nearly all) corporate visions, missions, values, BHAGs (you name it), sound alike. They either extol bland concepts (i.e., "our associates will be the best") or meaningless ideas (i.e., "our human intellectual capital will leverage world-class synergies").

If you have boring or confusing strategic statements in your business, here's an approach to correct it: ask the questions below to help simplify and enrich the language in your strategic statements:

How would customers describe what we're talking about in ways very meaningful to them?

If we were telling somebody who knows nothing about our business about why this idea is important to the company's success, what would we say?

How would we communicate this in a way that really inspires our employees to greatness? How about potential employees?

What are more emotional words to describe this statement?

How will we talk about it when we've accomplished this goal?

How would one of our mothers proudly tell a relative about what we're trying to do?

If we had to explain this to children, what would we say so they could understand it and be able to act?

Give these questions a try with your management team or on your own. Take the words and phrases you imagine and start turning strategic corporate speak into language that moves the hearts, minds, and actions of everyone in your company!

Mike Brown is an award-winning marketer and strategist with extensive experience in research, strategy, branding, and sponsorship marketing. He's a frequent keynote presenter on innovation and authors Brainzooming!

Join our Innovation Discussions on LinkedIn

2009-11-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

I created the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn five months ago and it already has 1,290+ members getting together to share innovation articles, discussions, and job postings.

Blogging Innovation's mission is to make innovation and marketing insights accessible for the greater good, and the LinkedIn group is another way for us to help facilitate conversation, collaboration, and education.

LinkedIn groups don't require people to join yet another social network and build yet another profile (most people are already members of LinkedIn - or should be). LinkedIn is part of many people's routine, and if it's not they can sign up to receive a daily or weekly digest of group activity by e-mail.

So if you have a news article you'd like to share, a best practice you'd like to share, a question to ask of the group or a job you'd like to post, please come join us in the Continuous Innovation group.

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Which Countries Are Losing Their Innovation Capabilities?

2009-11-06T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently discovered reasons to take my innovation perspective to a national rather than a corporate level. The questions that went through my mind were like this:

What if the behaviours of the citizens in a country determine the corporate ability to innovate?

What if such behaviours directly hurt the corporate ability to innovate?

A capability that is so important for the future of companies as well as countries.

Or what if the behaviours hinder the chances of taking innovation to the next level?

The country I have in mind is my own, Denmark. I have long argued that Denmark does very well on innovation. Danes believe in flat hierarchies and that authorities and common beliefs should be challenged.

This is a good outset for innovation and we have always been pretty good at taking existing technologies or ideas, give them a little twist and then come up with new ways of using this.

This has worked very well for many years, but things are changing so fast and innovation is becoming an open and global process. Being open to new input and being tolerant towards other cultures and perspectives are keys to future success.

Personally, I travel a lot and I try hard to stay open to other cultures and perspectives. However, I might not be as open-minded as I think I am and perhaps it is even worse with many of my countrymen. I was told this by a German friend who has lived in Denmark for many years. Danes are not open and tolerant. On the contrary, Danes are viewed as being quite self-sufficient.

My German friend made me think and I now begin to see some answers to questions that have puzzled me for a while.

Why are Danish companies not on the forefront of open innovation?

Why do Danish media not cover open innovation better than they do?

I have always believed that Denmark has all what it takes to benefit from the shift towards open and global innovation. Could I really be so wrong? I am sad to say, but I think this is the case.

Nevertheless, I want to thank my German friend for opening my eyes and getting a new perspective on open innovation. This also raises other important questions.

Which other countries stand to lose just as Denmark might do?

Which countries stand to win on this?

I view countries such as France, Italy and Japan to be quite inward-focused. Will they lose out on innovation? If my perspective on this holds true, the U.S. definitely will be a winner. China? Not sure. They have a little of everything in them, but I believe they will come out as a winner as well.

Enough for now. Your thoughts?

Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

Innovating with Task Unification and Social Media

2009-11-06T00:30:00.000-08:00

by Drew Boyd

Embracing social media and the myriad of Web 2.0 tools is more challenging than just setting up a Facebook account or adding a "Follow Me on Twitter" link. Organizations struggle with how to take advantage of the power of Web 2.0. Where do you start? How do you tie these new tools in with your current website? How do you make sure your current constituents are happy while moving the organization to a more networked world?

For this month's LAB, we will use the innovation template called Task Unification, one of five templates of the corporate innovation method called S.I.T.. To use Task Unification, we take a component of a product, service, system, etc., and we assign an additional "job" to it. For this exercise involving Social Media, here is how it works. Imagine your company has a large base of employees in the field. For example, suppose your company has a large sales force or an extensive network of delivery or service people. Consider the U.S. Postal Service, for example, with an army of postal workers and letter carriers at over 32,000 post offices. A key question for these organizations like the USPS is: how do we get more value out of this fixed asset? Let's use Task Unification.

I start by visiting a site that inventories all the social web tools: GO2WEB20.NET. I randomly pick an application from this list. Then I assign the internal field resources to "use" this application to increase revenue/profits for the company. Using our example of the postal service, I create this statement: "Postal delivery staff have the additional 'job' of using XXXX (web application) to increase USPS performance." This is our Virtual Product in the S.I.T. method.

The key is to use the non-obvious applications for creating new, innovative services. You have to literally force yourself to imagine the corporate resource using the inherent aspects of the Web 2.0 application to create revenue or cut costs. Here are examples I created using Task Unification:

ParkWhiz:

"ParkWhiz helps people park their cars quickly and efficiently by providing them with the tools to make an informed decision. Instead of driving around to find parking, you can use ParkWhiz to get the best parking to suit your needs."

Idea: The postal workers have a role to play by spotting empty parking spots and annotating this in real time using a mobile, GPS-enabled device to indicate the location of the open spot. Subscribers go online to see what parking spots might be available in their vicinity.

Gist:

"Gist helps you build stronger relationships by connecting the inbox to the web to provide business-critical information about the people and companies that matter most."

Idea: Postal workers have a role of feeding information about traditional mail that is sent and received to your key contacts into the Gist system to help inform you about these contacts.

Walkscore:

"Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc."

Idea: Post workers have the additional job of providing information about what to see or experience between any two walking points. The information is real-time, so it includes weather, crowd information, safety issues, etc.

YowTrip:

"YowTRIP is a social network site that connects you with other world travelers in your town or wherever you're traveling. Find people like yourself who are planning to or have traveled, live or have lived, anywhere in the world. YowTRIP's goal is to promote cultural exchange by connecting world travelers and enabling them to share their travel experiences on this online community."

Idea: Postal workers have the additional role of collecting and reporting tourism-related information to the YowTrip system to inform tourists of local sightseeing opportunities.

Orchestrate:

"Orchestrate is an online workforce scheduling application that allows Operations Managers to schedule qualified personnel and tasks with ease. Features include qualification requirements for staff, locations, logins for managers, staff and clients, compliance reporting and visually beautiful schedules."
Postal workers have the additional job of feeding in critical job site information into the Orchestrate system to allow better scheduling of crews and tasks.

Companies have an enormous stockpile of Web 2.0 business model ideas sitting and waiting to be leveraged. Their challenge is to take advantage of the discipline and structure of innovation templates to lead them to new, useful, and surprising opportunities.

Drew Boyd is Director of Marketing Mastery for Johnson & Johnson (Ethicon Endo-Surgery division). He is also Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati and Executive Director of the MS-Marketing program. Follow him at www.innovationinpractice.com and at http://twitter.com/drewboyd

The Importance of Consistency and Consensus

2009-11-06T00:01:00.001-08:00

Interview - Steve McKee of "When Growth Stalls"

I had the opportunity to interview Steve McKee, the author of "When Growth Stalls" about the challenges companies face when they lose focus, lack consensus, or fail to maintain consistency with their innovation efforts. We also discuss a variety of other innovation topics including: barriers to innovation, education, and metrics.

Steve McKee is president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, a full service marketing communications firm, is a BusinessWeek.com columnist and has been published or quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, Advertising Age, Adweek, Investor's Business Daily and The Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on CNBC, ESPN2, CNNfn, Bloomberg radio, and network television affiliates across America.

Here is the text from the interview:

1. When it comes to innovation, what is the biggest challenge that you see organizations facing?

The biggest challenge is consistency. People tend to look at innovation as an occasional thing - a lighting bolt of inspiration - rather than the result of a disciplined process. Sure, major innovations don't come along every day, but if you're not steadily on the prowl for them you'll never catch one. And not all innovations need to represent significant breakthroughs. Sometimes a small innovation in a rote process can produce tremendous benefits over time. Innovation efforts shouldn't have an on/off switch. They should be steady state.

2. Of the reasons that cause growth to stall, which is the most damaging to the organization?

They can all be damaging, but the most insidious is a lack of consensus. The reason is simple: until your management team is aligned, none of the other issues can be addressed. It's kind of like a marriage in which a couple is always fighting - about money, chores, in laws, whatever. Those are often not the real issues; the real issues deal with more fundamental things like trust and communication. You have to address the root issues first, and once you do all of the other problems can be addressed in turn.

3. Of the reasons that cause growth to stall, which is most difficult for the organization to recover from?

A loss of focus may be the toughest. If there's a commitment to finding consensus a company can usually get there, and a loss of nerve can be turned around on a dime if the circumstances are right. Inconsistency can only be overcome over time, but with a steady hand it can improve day by day. But when a company loses its focus it can face a great deal of difficulty in overcoming the consequences.

I read about a resort hotel general manager who said, "It takes two minutes to cut your rates and two years to get them back." He's right (and it might take a lot more than two years). In order to overcome a loss of focus a company may have to divest a division, trim staff, reorient its brands, or do a host of other things. It can be expensive, painful and time-consuming.

4. How do you help your organization see that it is time to switch from defense to offense?

Since you used a sports analogy, I'll continue it - you never want to play defense. That doesn't mean you don't have to sometimes, but the cliche is true: the best defense is a good offense. In business there's no reason why you can't be playing offense most of the time. When you drop the ball, recognize it and do everything you can to pick it up again right away.

5. What are some good examples of companies that you feel had their growth stall and then got it restarted?

I have to give Walmart its props. I took the company to task in When Growth Stalls for losing its focus when a few years ago it announced it was going to try to broaden its customer base. Of course, many retail analysts thought it was brilliant. I knew it was a mistake, and I'm happy to say I said so at the time in my BusinessWeek.com column.

Circumstances bore that out, and it didn't take long for Walmart to regain its focus on "people who live paycheck to paycheck." While the recession has been good to Walmart, the company isn't sitting on its hands. It's pouring billions of dollars into additional advertising, store remodels, IT infrastructure enhancements, etc. Walmart will benefit from its renewed focus for a long time to come.

6. What are some of the biggest barriers to innovation that you've seen in organizations?

One barrier is the need in modern business to measure things. Sometimes we get so preoccupied with ROI that we think if you can't measure something it's of no value. I would counter that by asking, "how much do you love your wife?" Love is impossible to quantify, but that doesn't mean it's not there - and in great supply. Anyone can paint by "the numbers," but the best leaders have wisdom and good judgment that goes beyond what can be reduced to a spreadsheet. As someone once said, "no one ever asked for a microwave oven." Or an iPod, for that matter.

Innovation efforts are not unlike venture capital investments (when you think about it, that's exactly what they are) - you're going to have a lot of flops between hits, but you can't know ahead of time when you're going to come up dry and when you're going to find a gusher. The key, as I said above, is consistency. You either believe in innovation (and put your money and time where your mouth is) or you don't.

7. What skills do you believe that managers need to acquire to succeed in an innovation-led organization?

Curiosity, of course. A desire to pioneer and break new ground. Patience. Willingness to fail. And an understanding that activity and productivity are not the same thing. I tell my staff "you gotta look up before you look down." In other words, sometimes you need to gaze at the clouds before you can reduce something to paper or proposal. Take time to think, instead of always "doing", and you'll find that your "doing" is much more productive.

8. If you were to change one thing about our educational system to better prepare students to contribute in the innovation workforce of tomorrow, what would it be?

One word: privatize. What better way to demonstrate the power and value of innovation than by having students experience its benefits in their own educational environment? We're trying to teach kids about the realities of competing in a global economy and the need for innovation, yet we're doing it in a plodding, bureaucratic, unimaginative and restrictive system. Doesn't make sense, and it's hurting the kids.

My book review of "When Growth Stalls" can be found here.

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Are you an Innovation Venture Capitalist?

2009-11-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Paul Sloane

The most innovative leaders have a mindset like that of a venture capitalist. They take a portfolio view of innovation projects. The venture capitalist will invest in a basket of different start-up companies, fully knowing that most will fail. A few might break even and one or two might be successes. But one big success can pay back the costs of all the failures. Even though he is smart, the VC does not know at the outset which ventures will succeed and which will fail so initially he backs them all. As time goes on he cuts funding for the failures and gives more to the winners.

It is the same with prototypes in business. The leading innovators run many different pilots and measure progress carefully. They chop the losers but pour more resource into the successful trials. That way they are first to market with the real winners.

VCs use a portfolio approach so that they balance the risk of losers with the upsides of winners. They are comfortable with the knowledge that many of the ideas they back will fail. They are also comfortable with quantity. They receive hundreds or thousands of business proposals every year from all sorts of diverse sources. Many of these have already been rejected by several other VCs but that does not matter.

The VC sets his own criteria and selects several ideas to support and put into his portfolio. If the business plan then misses its targets or milestones or the customer reaction is poor or the technology fails to deliver then the VC is sanguine about pulling the plug on this investment. He wants to put more resources into the portfolio ideas that are working and he is quite relaxed about strangling the losers. If he can cut his losses and get out early he will.

Contrast this with a typical corporate environment where a small number of new business proposals are considered. A handful is eventually selected and then every effort is made to make them succeed. Failure is abhorred. Extra resources and efforts pour into the CEO's pet project even when the market is screaming that this one won't fly. Emotion and egos come to the fore.

Think like a VC and remember these key points:

Quantity is good - we want lots of ideas

If an idea has been rejected before, we are happy to consider it again

We will select the most promising on objective criteria

We want a return on our innovation portfolio as a whole

We know that many of the more radical ideas will probably fail

We will focus our resources on the winners and cut resources on the losers

Why not get a venture capitalist to speak at your next executive meeting?

If you enjoyed this post, check out Blogging Innovation's book review of "Innovation Tournaments" and its interview of co-author Christian Terwiesch.

Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan-Page.

Influencing Your Innovation Potential

2009-11-05T01:00:00.000-08:00

Interview - Steve Todd of "Innovate with Influence"

I have the pleasure of knowing Steve Todd (the Rockette on the left), a Distinguished Engineer for EMC Corporation with a hand in generating over 140 patent applications and billions of dollars in revenue. Steve has a great sense of humor and is the author of "Innovate with Influence - tales of a high-tech intrapreneur" - a new book that tells the story of his intrapreneurial adventures and quest for innovation. I had the opportunity to interview Steve about innovation, influence, and needs of the innovation workforce.

Here is the text from the interview:

1. When it comes to innovation, what is the biggest challenge that you see organizations facing?

Some organizations struggle to identify and tap into the expertise that exists outside of their organizations. Individual employees are at their innovative best when they can learn and collaborate outside of their own teams. Unfortunately, the working reality for many employees is to focus on productivity solely within their business unit. Corporations can help by encouraging employees to lift their heads up and explore new areas of interest. Ultimately, however, it's up to the employee to take a few risks of their own.

2. Any other tips you have for innovators on how to build their influence?

My quick tip for innovation is an easy-to-remember mathematical equation: Innovation = Productivity + Initiative + Collaboration. Always be productive on whatever tasks you are given. Get them done early and then take the initiative to learn something new. During your learning process, seek out experts and collaborate with them on new ideas.

3. What are some of your favorite tips for limiting your meeting participation?

I typically don't bring my laptop (or any other device that is web-enabled) to any meeting. I do this to give my full attention and engagement to the topic at hand. If I am tempted to bring my laptop, this means that I'm not very interested in the topic, or that I have more productive ways to spend my time. In this case I will double-check the agenda with the meeting organizer, and often ask them to post their agenda on an internal forum and add my comments in lieu of attending. If I can't wiggle out of a questionable meeting, I will attend remotely, set my phone on mute, and get some work done in parallel.

4. Do you have suggestions for effective cross-border virtual collaboration?

I use my corporation's social media toolset (known as EMC ONE) and shy away from corporate email. I've been working with St. Petersburg, Russia and Shanghai, China on some new product ideas, and I always attempt to make those conversations public. Somebody else in the world is always interested and has a unique perspective that can only be brought to the table using EMC's intranet. Since I work in EMC's Corporate Headquarters (Massachusetts, USA), I will usually try to entrust project ownership of the collaboration to my foreign co-workers. They like nothing better than to deliver something that they dreamed up in the initial stages.

5. Do you ever feel that you've limited your influence by limiting your executive visibility?

No. I'm in my third decade of delivering innovation and my lack of executive visibility has rarely limited my influence. I rely on building strongs bonds between my manager and his/her superior. THEY are the ones that have executive visibility; my team and I are the ones that deliver the end result to the customer. If this "chain of three" (myself, my manager, and his/her superior) are united in building an idea that brings great value to a customer, then selling an executive on a new idea is fairly straightforward.

6. What are some of the biggest barriers to innovation that you've seen in organizations?

The biggest barrier to innovation is the relegation of research into "ivory towers". Large corporations that sponsor dedicated "innovation centers" are often removed from the pain of customer problems. Ideas that flow out of a research center are often rejected by the developers in the trenches. Everyone has the passion to create. Innovation expectations should not be limited to people that work in a specific research facility.

7. If you were to change one thing about our educational system to better prepare students to contribute in the innovation workforce of tomorrow, what would it be?

I would encourage teachers to search out opportunities for global student collaboration. Partner with students in China, Russia, South America, etc. Students are used to this type of dialog with their friends; get them used to doing it in the classroom. Focus on world-wide issues that are important to our times, and encourage the students to propose their own ideas to their global peers. Students will quickly realize that they cannot innovate to the fullest in the workforce of the future unless they participate in global collaboration.

My book review of "Innovate with Influence" can be found here.

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Book Review and Innovation Summary - "Innovate with Influence"

2009-11-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I received "Innovate with Influence - tales of a high-tech intrapreneur" by Steve Todd in the mail. "Innovate with Influence" is a short (134 pages), easy, and pleasant read - almost like sitting down with Steve over a cup of coffee. Given that most innovation books are written by innovation consultants, it is rare to get a a first-person account from the innovation trenches, direct from an actual intrapreneur.

As an intrapreneur, Steve (and the book) don't concern themselves with a lot of theory, but instead on how you go about getting innovation done. And if you harbor the illusion that you have to burn the midnight oil to innovate, Steve has generated over 140 patent applications and billions of dollars in revenue for EMC from the solutions he has worked on, and still managed to leave at 5 o'clock along the way.

The book gives a first-person account of Steve's career, the projects he has worked on, and his approach to innovation. His keys to success?

Getting things done early

Building and leveraging influence

Actively managing his career

Actively managing his visibility

Managing work-life balance to maximize creativity

Combining expertise, customers, and adjacencies to create innovation

Doing the important things first

So, if you'd like to get a different perspective on innovation, and see what it looks like through the eyes of an innovator, I highly encourage you to check out "Innovate with Influence". I'll leave you with one final concept from the book that speaks to the potential innovation that corporations leave on the table every day.

Many companies don't actively managing their portfolio of innovation potential across their divisions and business units, to look for new opportunities from combining new discoveries and capabilities spread across the organization. Steve refers to this idea as corporate potential energy and defines it like this:

"Corporate potential energy is the product innovation stored within corporate employees that has the potential to be converted into other forms of product innovation."

My interview with "Innovate with Influence" author Steve Todd can be found here.

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Innovate or Die - Tactics #1-16 of 110

2009-11-05T00:02:00.001-08:00

by Tom Peters

Recession or no recession, deep recession or not, the challenge to add more and more value grows, and the importance of innovation, and a culture of innovation, grows exponentially. A "culture of innovation" covers "everything." There is no halfway. There, of course, are "first principles." Or are there? I started a list of "stuff" that's imperative to creating an innovative enterprise. The list of 10 or so grew to 25, then 45, and at the moment includes no less than 110 "tactics." Of course you can't do all of them. Or must you? Well, you can't do all 110, or maybe even half that number, but the absence of any one or two or three or six weakens and perhaps even imperils the entire structure. Use what follows as you will.

Trying Stuff. Screwing Stuff Up. Fast.

Tries. Darwin rules. More stuff goin' on, more interesting-good stuff happenin'. Innovation is to a large extent a "numbers game": He-she who tries the most stuff wins. (Astonishingly true.)

Culture of "Try it! Now!" Culture! Culture! Attitude! Attitude! Mindset! Mindset! "The way we do things around here." "Around here, we try things first, fix 'em fast, try again, talk about it later, when we've got something to talk about."

Philosophy/F.A. Hayek/"spontaneous discovery process." Firm as market economy. New stuff emerges "spontaneously" from lots of trials and lots of errors. The innovator's life is life on the run, zigging here and zagging there - but always hustling.

Failures encouraged/celebrated/cherished. Failure is the key to success. Period. Fast failure is the key to fast success. And so on. This must be "cultural" to the core.

Transparency. All info on all these tries and cock-ups available to all to inspire, to chew over, to add to, to attract adherents and champions, etc.

Connection/Ubiquitous. No barriers! Across-the-wall communication is as normal as breathing!

MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. An informal, in touch, high-camaraderie, on the move atmosphere underlies the "try it"-"screw it up"-"learn from it"-"fast" "culture."

Fail to share yields "death penalty." Sharing-transparency are the innovation organization's lubricant; therefore those who hoard must get the boot.

Fast prototyping/Serious play. Prototyping skills-attitude are more central than almost anyone can imagine. Entire organization as "playpen" with "playmates" gathering spontaneously to try stuff. Quickly. Quickly.

Tempo/OODA Loop mastery/RFA. "Ready. Fire. Aim." is the premier cultural trait. Try it-learn from it-try it again-spread the news-recruit adherents-etc. The organization has a high metabolic rate ("metabolic management"), a rapid tempo. The Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle, invented by military strategist John Boyd, is quick and the quickness per se confuses one's competitors.

FFFF/Find a Fellow Freak Faraway/"The Sri Lanka Strategy." Try cool-scary-risky stuff out in the boondocks, well away from HQ and typical HQ stuffiness. Find a playmate in "Sri Lanka" ready to give your idea a whirl; eventually, the network of Champions-from-the-boondocks become the premier carriers of the innovation.

Demos/Heroes/Stories. Tries and screw-ups and sagas of bold champions become the "stories" that animate the organization - and induce everyone to climb aboard, play with vigor, or lose out.

Social Networks. The emerging social networking tools become the accelerator for the process described and implied in these first dozen ideas. Nothing automatic about this - must be thought through, overseen (but also loose-as-a-goose, not judgmental). Emergent leadership from hither, thither, and yon becomes the de facto "leadership for innovation" in the organization.

Discipline. Accountability. Execution.

Department of Sanity/"Dreamers with Deadlines"/Fiscal responsibility/Budget skills. Warren Bennis called hot groups of innovators "dreamers with deadlines." Innovation is not pie-in-the-sky, "let's all have a blast, yo my man, cool, eh?" in nature. There is a compelling and disciplined "execution" thread that is central to the innovating organization. The innovating organization is focused on "new stuff," "cool stuff" - but is pragmatic to a fault. The project "budget and milestones guru" is as honored as the true believer-dreamer-champion.

Department of Sanity/Accountability. Screwing up, for instance, is essential to innovating. But there is as much accountability around screwing up as there is around inventory management in a traditional outfit; that is, the innovator takes responsibility for the screw-up and for insuring rapid learning and dissemination of lessons learned and for mounting the follow-up experiment posthaste.

Department of Sanity/Implementation training. Execution and Implementation are paramount skills, highly rewarded and cherished. Bunkmates to the end.

Tom Peters is the author of "In Search of Excellence" and twelve other international bestsellers, and a consultant, columnist, seminar lecturer, and more at the Tom Peters Company

Announcing our Newest Contributor - Tom Peters

2009-11-05T00:01:00.001-08:00

We are happy to announce our newest contributor to Blogging Innovation - management guru and best-selling author - Tom Peters. In the weeks to come, we will be bringing you the best of Tom Peters' thinking on innovation and other topics relevant to Blogging Innovation's mission to make innovation and marketing insights accessible for the greater good.

If there are other authors you would like see here on Blogging Innovation, please let us know.

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Innovating for Fun and Social Good

2009-11-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

by Braden Kelley

I came across this on sitsite.com's blog and had to share it. After all, we could all use a little more fun in our lives, and if some social good can be achieved in the process, all the better!

It is from a Swedish site advertising a contest that will award a 2,500 Euro prize for the idea that best exemplifies the premise that:

"something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it's change for the better."

To see more examples or to enter the contest, please visit The Fun Theory site. The campaign and competition are sponsored by Volkswagen - Smart move!

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Another Value-Driven Social Media Example

2009-11-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

Click above to Enlarge
by Braden Kelley

Following up on my previous article - The Right Way to do Social Media - I wanted to share another value-driven social media example:

Wisk's facebook application called WiskIt.

"We thought perhaps we could take our stain-fighting heritage, and take it online to Facebook," according to Elisa Gurevich, Brand Manager for Wisk.

It's a great comment from the brand manager, and it is the way that every marketer should be thinking.

What value could we deliver to customers online that is consistent with our brand and our marketing strategy?

After all, despite what most people think, you don't really need a social media strategy that stands apart from your marketing strategy.

Though your approach to social media might be different than other communication channels, social media isn't this separate thing with mystical powers.

Social media should be an integrated part of your overall marketing strategy and something that every marketer has already educated themselves on how to use properly. Though it is never too late to learn!

What other examples of well-executed social media campaigns would people like to share?

Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

15 Traits of a Great Leader

2009-11-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Mike Myatt

Today's post will make the case for leadership development. While much has been written about the traits and characteristics that form great leaders, the truth is that leaders come in many different varieties. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for leadership. That said, all good leaders all possess certain core qualities, and great leaders simply develop said core qualities to a higher level than their peers. Put simply, a leader's shelf life will be equal to their ability to leverage their leadership traits through solid execution, and influencing their constituencies in alignment with the corporate vision with values. If you want to insure longevity and success as a leader, focus on developing your leadership acumen by prioritizing your efforts on the following list of 15 leadership traits:

1.Integrity

Always do the right thing regardless of sentiment, and never compromise your core values. If you cannot build trust and engender confidence with your stakeholders you cannot succeed. No amount of talent can overcome illegal, immoral or otherwise ill-advised actions. A leader void of integrity will not survive over the long-haul.

2.Excellent Decision Making Skills

As a leader you will live or die by the quality of the decisions you make. When you're the leader good decisioning is expected, poor decisioning won't be tolerated, and great decisioning will set you apart from the masses.

3.Ability to Focus

If you cannot focus, you cannot perform at the level necessary to remain in leadership for very long. The ability to do nothing more than understand and lock-onto priorities will place you in the top 10% of all leaders.

4.Leveraging Experience

Inexperience, a lack of maturity, needing to be the center of attention, not recognizing limitations, a lack of judgment, an inferior knowledge base, or any number of other common mistakes made by rookie leaders can cause your house of cards to fall. If you don't have the experience personally, hire it, contract it, but by all means acquire it. Great leaders surround themselves with tier-one talent, and the best advisors money can buy. They don't make uniformed or ill-advised decisions in a vacuum.

5.Command Presence

Great leaders possess a strong presence and bearing. They are unflappable individuals that never let you see them sweat (unless of course it serves a purpose). Everything from how they carry themselves to how they speak and dress, messages that they are in charge.

6.Embracing Change

Great leaders have a strong bias to action. They don't rest upon past accomplishments, and are always seeking to improve through change and innovation. In today's fast paced and competitive environment those leaders who don't openly embrace change will often be shown the door prior to the expiration of their initial employment contract.

7.Brand Champions

Great leaders understand branding at every level. They seek to build not only a dominant corporate brand, but also to leverage a strong personal brand. Leaders that are not well branded on a personal basis, or who let their corporate brand fall into decline will not survive.

8.Boundless Energy

Great leaders have a boundless amount of energy. They are positive in their outlook, and their attitude is contagious. A low energy leader is not motivating, convincing, or credible.

9.Subject Matter Expertise

Great leaders have a deep understanding of their subject matter, and a strong orientation toward achievement. Great leaders possess what often appears to be a sixth sense, or an almost instinctive feel for what the needs to occur in order to leverage their knowledge into a competitive advantage.

10.People Acumen

Great leaders have a nose for talent. They understand how to recruit, develop and deploy talent focusing on applying the best talent to the best opportunities. They also know when it's time to make changes, and to cut losses as needed.

11.Organizational Acumen

Great leaders know how to engender trust, when and how to share information, and are expert listeners. They develop strong and positive team/organizational cultures driven to performance by aligned motivations. They can quickly diagnose whether the team/organization is performing at full potential, delivering on commitments, and whether the team is changing and growing versus just operating.

12.Curiosity

Great leaders possess a powerful motivation to increase their knowledge base and to convert their learning into actionable initiatives. They question, challenge, confront and are never accepting of the status quo.

13.Intellectual Capacity

Great leaders are also great thinkers...both at the strategic and tactical levels. They are quick on their feet, and know how to get to the root of an issue faster than anyone else. I've never met a great leader who wasn't extremely discerning.

14.Big Thinkers

Regardless of the physical or geographical boundaries of their current role, great CEOs think big and add a zero. Limited thinking results in limited results. Whether global thinking is applied to capital formation, supply-chain issues, business development, strategic partnering, distribution or any number of other areas, those leaders who don't grasp the importance of thinking globally will not endure. Great leaders are externally oriented, hungry for knowledge of the world, and adept at connecting developments and spotting patterns.

15.Never Quit

Great leaders refuse to lose. They have an insatiable appetite for accomplishment and results. While they may reengineer or change direction, they will never lose sight of the end game.

Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

When Wal-Mart Enters the Funeral Business

2009-11-04T02:01:00.000-08:00

The Funeral Business is About to Change

by Idris Mootee

Will Amazon.com Follow? What's The Latest Innovation In The Funeral Business?

Some survey stated that the average person's greatest fear is having to give a speech in public. That's not it for me, but I am sure it is for many. I remember one guy telling a story about how he when he was put on stage in front of 800 people, the dead silence was like death itself. Giving a speech in public ranked higher in the survey than death (third on the list). So, you're telling me that at a funeral, most people would rather be the guy in the coffin than have to stand up and give a eulogy?

The first baby boomers are entering their mid-60s, and the death rate in the U.S. is expected to rise from 8.1 people per thousand in 2006 to 9.3 in 2020 (according to the National Center for Health Statistics). Yet the traditional funeral industry is hardly healthy: The Federated Funeral Directors of America, an accounting firm for independently owned funeral homes, found that in the past 20 years, its clients' profit margins have been cut nearly in half. Some 44% of funeral home directors, up from 28% in 2006, blame the increasing popularity of cremations and alternative burials for sinking profits. Some funeral homes have responded by more innovation such as themed funerals, from backyard barbecues to mini concerts.

The $11 Billion industry is forced to innovate when Wal-mart enters the business. Wal-mart has started selling coffins online at prices that undercut many funeral homes. People can choose from fourteen different models, from the $895 "Dad Remembered" steel model, to the exclusive "Sienna Bronze" model for $2,899. Why did Wal-mart decide to enter the coffin market?

Well, in fact this is a response to Costco's move to sell coffins online (not in bulk thank God) with delivery within twenty-four hours. I guess people don't want to wait for this category. I think it is a good idea. The funeral home industry is overcharging and often people don't know what these things should cost. With Wal-mart you need only to pay $1,000 versus three or four times more through a funeral home.

The funeral homes industry has reason to be concerned. I am sure their argument is these funeral homes can provide full service (like gas station) and ability to provide comfort and empathy, but it comes at a price. If it works for Wal-mart, the next one to join would be Target. They would invite Stella McCartney or Phillipe Starke to design caskets that costs just a little more, but with a lot more style. Amazon.com will follow with online customization that you can pick your favorite patterns or engraved your family crest on it. And for those creative types who are big thing art lovers, forget the traditional wooden box, you want something very special. A company called Crazy Coffins can pretty much order any design you want. There isn't a lot they can't make. The bespoke coffins are made by two carpenters and costs between $3,000 and $10,000.

And when you decide to spend more on a coffin, may be you should consider an upgrade to Louis Vuitton or Karl Lagerfeld. And for those die hard rock fans, they used to sell a KISS goodbye with the "Kiss Kasket". It is decorated with the logo and pictures of the band members; plus: it is waterproof. The Kiss Kasket went on sale in 2001 until 2006 and now it's no longer available from Kiss' website. I'd like to see a Beatles one.

Idris Mootee is the CEO of idea couture, a strategic innovation and experience design firm. He is the author of four books, tens of published articles, and a frequent speaker at business conferences and executive retreats.

Can social media take the place of marketing automation platforms?

2009-11-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

Our October Innovation Contest winners won a signed copy of "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis" by Bill George and the right to have their article re-published here on Blogging Innovation. Here is the second of the three winning entries:

by Barrett Coakley

The Corporate Learning group at Harvard Business Publishing currently uses Eloqua as our marketing automation platform (MAP). Eloqua is very robust and does everything we need and more. However, I have been thinking lately as social media applications mature do they have the potential to be a free marketing automation platform, especially for a small business? Already today there are services that you can use to do some rudimentary tracking. For example, if I use bit.ly to shorten my URL and post a note on Twitter about a free article on my site I can track click throughs and retweets through bit.ly's tracking capability. I can then use Google analytics on my site to gain even more information.This certainly is not as robust as an Eloqua, but it certainly gets the job done, and it's free.

Another important aspect of social media that can't be replicated by a MAP is highlighted by the findings in the recent Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey as seen in the chart above. The survey found that recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising. Ninety percent or consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.

"The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last couple of years means consumers' reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don't, has increased significantly," says Jonathan Carson, President of Online, International, for the Nielsen Company."

Marketing is all about building trust and being relevant to the consumer. I know I regularly look at recommendations on sites like Best Buy before I purchase any electronics. I do not know these people, but it goes back to James Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds theory, "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." Social media has a much greater advantage over a marketing platform because a Tweet to people who follow you is more likely to be taken more seriously than an email from a campaign.

Think of the power of some of the services below and compare them to how you would react to items posted there versus an email in your inbox from a vendor that you may have a passing knowledge of but no real relationship. What do you trust and believe more?

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Digg, Stumbleupon, etc.
revver, knol (yes, knol), etc.
Gist
Meetup
Youtube
Hollr

What other services are out there that have this same power? Do you think that social media could eventually be the defacto MAP as the technologies mature and people start building applications to track items (like Metricly)?

Barrett Coakley is currently a Senior Product Marketing Manager for the Corporate Learning Group at Harvard Business Publishing.

Innovating Every Day

2009-11-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

by Holly G. Green

Who doesn't recognize the need to constantly innovate today?

After all, just look around at all that is new in our world in the past few years.

Are you twittering? - 30 million+ others are.

Do you have a product or service video on YouTube? - 25 million+ people do.

And are you LinkedIn or participating in SecondLife?

These are just a few of the new social media innovations that are dramatically changing how people connect and get work done. Now think about other areas that are changing just as rapidly: technology, diversity, competition, products, etc. It can be a bit mind-boggling and certainly intimidating to ponder how to keep us these days.

What does innovation look like at work today and do you need to spend millions for a research and development department to come up with the next great product or service? How can you more actively incorporate new thinking, new products, and new options including getting more done with less into your day to day activities?

Today innovation needs to be about:

Challenging the ways we do things even when it has always worked well

Continually creating new products, services and ideas that have value for stakeholders

Trying different and novel ways to deal with ongoing challenges

Constantly seeking and implementing new and better ways to achieve results

Innovation is more than brainstorming or idea generation. To be truly innovative, you have to DO something different. And for businesses, whatever it is you do must have value for at least one of your stakeholder groups (employees, customers, suppliers, partners, etc.).

Key actions you can take to be more innovative include:

Develop awareness & understanding of your own assumptions, beliefs and biases

We all have a lot of them. They are the thoughts that pop up as soon as we see someone, hear something or even smell a particular scent. Making assumptions about possible solutions to a problem can limit creativity, causing difficulty.

At the beginning of any project or when faced with a tough situation, pause for a moment and note your assumptions. What do you believe to be so and could it be different? Learn to recognize when the strongest thoughts appear in your head and stop for a moment. Ask yourself "What if...I am wrong...There is something else...It could be interpreted another way...There is more I know/do not know about this?"

Ask the right questions

Focus on where you want to go (versus where you are or what is in the way). Give yourself a clear target by describing, as clearly as possible, what it looks like when you achieve success. Think about which beliefs you need to move out of the way or suspend (i.e. "That's not the way we do things here...our customers will never accept X..."). Jot down the most interesting questions you can come up with to encourage thinking differently and make your questions open ended and future focused.

Consider different angles

Pose questions to prompt your brain to look at the same data in a new way. "What would our competitor invest in if they were us? What one thing do our customers really want us to change? What do our employees think would provide the most fuel for our success?" Questions help you look at challenges from different perspectives. They help change our perception so that the same data has different meaning.

Stage your field of vision

Get the right things in front of you. Adult humans are very visually driven creatures, but today there are more distractions than ever competing for our time and attention. Make sure your targets are visible to you as much of the time as possible. Get them on the wall in your office; have them pop up on your task list on your computer and PDA. Make sure they are visible to everyone involved as well. If it is not in front of you visually, you probably won't do it, so take the time to fill your working area with the visuals that help keep you focused on success.

Connect the dots in new ways

Figuring out patterns forms a large part of our intelligence. Your subconscious mind likes closure. When faced with an incomplete picture, it works to complete the mental image by inferring the missing information. Your mind works the same way on an unsolved problem or challenge; it loves to dive right in and get the job done by using what you already know or expect.

So, look for successful approaches that can be applied to your situation. What products, services and/or companies are incredibly successful right now? What can you adapt from what they are doing? Original ideas can come from recognizing new connections between familiar things and transforming them into something new.

In many ways, our own brain gets in our way the most and minimizes our innovation. We can learn to leverage the power of it by pausing every now and then to:

define excellence up front (don't do it over, spend the time to do it right the first time)

consider different perspectives and angles

ask simple questions to trigger a new way of perceiving

ponder the impossible

Holly is the CEO of THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc. (www.TheHumanFactor.biz) and is a highly sought after and acclaimed speaker, business consultant, and author. Her unique approach to creating strategic agility, helping others go slow to go fast, will change your thinking.

Innovating with Constraints

2009-11-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Our October Innovation Contest winners won a signed copy of "7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis" by Bill George and the right to have their article re-published here on Blogging Innovation. Here is the first of the three winning entries:

by Tim Kastelle

I've been giving further thought to the issue of public sector innovation which I discussed briefly last week. John and I do a lot of work with people in the public sector as that makes up a fairly big part of Brisbane's economy, and I know that people often find it difficult to be innovative in that area. However, it is essential that we have good public sector innovation because large parts of our economies are in the public sector, and these parts are often very important. We just can't afford to have industries like health and education stagnate - innovation is critical in these fields, as it is in the other areas that fall within the public sector.

So what's the problem? There are a few. One is that overall, the public sector is not viewed as being very dynamic. Consequently, it does not attract a lot of attention from those of us that are interested in innovation. The Australian government is currently undertaking a review to try to devise strategies to improve public sector innovation. The website for this project includes a list of links to resources on public sector innovation (at the bottom of the page) - and you can see that there are not a lot of resources available (the project has a twitter feed too which updates new resources as they find them). This reflects a lack of interest at the levels of both research and policy.

The second issue is that government departments are often fairly risk averse - which makes innovation challenging. This issue is consistently raised by people in our innovation classes that come from the public sector, but it is a common issue for many people in other sectors as well - particularly middle managers that don't have much scope for action. When I talk to people in this situation they often say that the only way they can be more innovative is if they get more support from top management. It is true that top level support generally helps improve innovation. However, if you are waiting for increased upper management support before you start trying to innovate, in most cases, you're likely to be waiting for a long time.

There are a few things you can do to get out of the straightjacket. The main thing is to figure out how to try things. Experimenting is the key to innovating.

"The secret of fast progress is inefficiency, fast and furious and numerous failures." - Kevin Kelly

Now, obviously, failure is not a very popular idea within most government departments. The key to the whole idea though is to figure out ways to generate ideas and discard the ones that don't work as quickly and cheaply as possible. There are three steps here.

The first is to generate ideas.

"The secret to having good ideas is to have a lot of ideas, then throw the bad ones away." - Linus Pauling

Usually, this isn't the problem. People are naturally creative, and the number of untapped ideas that are in your organisation will probably surprise you. One way or another, you need to figure out how to tap into these. If you want some place to start, go to the Tom Peters site and download the Innovation Tactics paper that he has there.

The second step is the tricky one in public sector organisations - you have to select which ideas to try out. The central idea here is to look at how much authority you have. This might be as simple as signing authority - if you can authorise items worth up to $100, then what new ideas can you try to implement for $100 or less? What if you can't authorise any expenditures? The two jobs in which I've been the most innovative have actually both been in the public sector. In the first, I worked out at the start 47 ideas that I thought might make my section run better. Over 18 months, I tried out 45, at a total implementation cost of $0. At the end of that time, my section was just under 20% more effective in turning enquiries into new students, in part as a result of some of those 45 ideas that we tried. Not all of them worked, but a lot of them did - and some of the simplest had the biggest impacts. My bosses weren't too enthusiastic about new ideas when I started, but they were very enthusiastic about results. Most bosses are. So the second step is to figure out what you can get away with, and start trying things that fall within your scope of power. That's how select the ideas to try - you may have to wait on the big ones that will change the world, but if you succeed with some small ones, you may eventually get to try those out too.

The final step is getting the ideas that work to spread.

"Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I look for things that went right, and try to build off them." - Bob Stone

You need a strategy for amplifying the good ideas. Part of this is selling them to the people around you. To do this, you need to figure out which of the ideas are working. An important activity here is measurement - if you're able to measure the outcomes of your ideas, it is easier to gain support for trying more things.

Innovating is always hard. It's especially hard if you don't feel supported. But the key to innovating when you have constraints is to try things. Try as many as you can, figure out what works, and do more of that. It's a formula that you can follow in nearly every work setting. Instead of telling me why it won't work in yours, why don't you spend the time figuring out a new idea to try yourself instead?

"We have a 'strategic plan'. It's called doing things." - Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)

(photo from flickr/djwudi - creative commons licensed)

Tim Kastelle is a Lecturer in Innovation Management in the University of Queensland Business School. He blogs about innovation at the Innovation Leadership Network.

How a Blizzard Saved the ATM

2009-11-03T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Stephen Shapiro

"Build it and they will come." We hear that mantra a lot. But with innovation, it is often more like, "Solve a pain and they will come." The ultimate success of the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is a great example of this.

The other night I was having dinner with someone who in the mid-1970's worked with Citibank, the second largest bank at the time. He shared with me the story of the birth of the ATM, at least from his perspective.

In 1977, after investing hundreds of millions of dollars in ATM technology research and development, Citibank decided to install machines across all of New York City. But at first, they were not very popular. The technology was confusing to first-time users, the machines were not always accurate (they sometimes dispensed the wrong amount of money), and they were impersonal. I was told that customers who used ATM machines were so frustrated that many closed their accounts.

The ATM may never have been an instant hit if it weren't for a natural disaster.

January 1978 will always be remembered for a blizzard that dumped as much as four feet of snow in the Northeast. In New York City, nearly two feet of snow brought the city to a halt. Banks didn't open. Instead, people got their money from supermarkets. But most of those quickly ran out of money.

This created a massive 'pain'.

Where did people turn? The ATMs. It is estimated that during the storms, use of the machines increased by over 20%. Soon after, Citibank started running TV ads showing people trudging through the snow drifts in New York City. That's when the company introduced their wildly popular slogan, "The Citi Never Sleeps." This was the real birth of the automated teller machine.

I found an interesting Fortune article that corroborates his story. The article claims that by 1981, Citibank's market share of New York deposits had doubled. A lot of this growth could be attributed to the ATM.

This story illustrates an innovators dilemma. Brilliant innovations are not necessarily taken up by the masses. Some ideas just need time to incubate and gain acceptance. But can your business survive long enough to see the success? Too many ideas, like Webvan, could not endure the incubation period. Sometimes your innovations need a little boost.

As I have pointed out in previous blog entries, people take massive risks to eliminate their pains, but play is safe when it comes to adding convenience. ATMs were primarily about convenience. What did it take for them to become a success? A pain caused by a natural disaster.

Are your new ideas solving a pain? Or are they just a nice to have? If they are just a convenience, what can you do to create a pain - without having to rely on a natural disaster?

Stephen Shapiro is the author of three books, a popular innovation speaker, and is the Chief Innovation Evangelist for Innocentive, the leader in Open Innovation.

7 Reasons I Joined the Local Chamber of Commerce

2009-11-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Matt Heinz

Last week I finally joined the Kirkland Chamber of Commerce. I've attended a few events over the past year, but it was time for me to become an active member.

I know in an age of Twitter and LinkedIn and all kinds of alternatives to business networking, joining the local Chamber can sometimes be seen like less of a priority. Many young businesses believe there are better uses of their time and money.

I disagree. It may have taken me longer than it should have, but joining the Chamber was an inevitable no-brainer. Here are seven reasons why:

1. Pipeline Development

For our clients, everything we do is about helping them accelerate sales & revenue. Everything is measured based on its contribution to sales & revenue growth. The way I operate my own business is the same. So reason number one for joining the Chamber is sales pipeline - meeting and acquiring new prospects and clients for us.

My pipeline already has businesses met both directly at Chamber events as well as referrals from Chamber introductions. Two weeks in, and if one of those clients converts, it more than pays for the Chamber membership. That's already good ROI (and we're just getting started).

2. Networking

Every business owner needs to devote a significant amount of time to marketing, and in my business that means a lot of networking. Networking with prospective clients, as well as fellow business owners who either might be clients or who know, work with, live with or otherwise associate with prospective clients.

Networking is a numbers game, in which you treat everyone equally. Everybody knows somebody (or is somebody), and the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. A big part of joining the Chamber is having more opportunities to network at a local level.

3. Peer Group

Other Chamber members are a lot like me. They have a business they're trying to make a success, and grow bigger/better than it is today. We all do different things, but we're struggling with many of the same issues - growth, operations, product set, sales channels, etc. Sometimes the best new ideas I apply to my business come from someone in an entirely different industry, selling to a very different customer. The more you spend with fellow business owners, the smarter you'll be about how to operate, optimize and grow your own business.

4. Credibility

As a growing business, being a member of the local Chamber establishes credibility. It just does. It demonstrates to other businesses and prospective clients that we're a real business, and willing to invest time and money to be an active member of the business community.

If I'm going to be a member of the local business community, I consider it an obligation to do what I can to foster health & growth for that same community. The rising tide will lift all boats. The health of the local business environment is a big part of why I'm in business today, so it's my duty to both give back and actively contribute to that community.

5. Introductions

My participation with the Chamber has already created introductions for myself and our business to community, government and business leaders I otherwise would have either never had, or taken much longer to gather. Those new relationships are with influencers, "connectors" as Malcolm Gladwell would describe them, people who can open up huge new doors and opportunities for our business.

If what you're doing or selling as a business has value, and you can clearly & succinctly articulate what that is, others who get it and need it (or know people who need it) will help you identify new opportunities for growth as well. That's what influencers and connectors can do. And you'll meet them through the Chamber.

6. Belly to Belly Relationships ("LinkedIn is not enough")

I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn and other social networking tools. They make creating and fostering a network faster and more efficient than ever. But they're no replacement for getting out there and meeting people live. They never will be.

Some of the smartest social media people in the world make a point of telling their followers to step away from the computer and get out to actually see people. They know that networking, at its core, is about people meeting people. And there's simply no better way to do that than belly-to-belly, looking at the whites of another person's eyes, and demonstrating in real time the value, credibility and trust you (and your business) represent.

7. Opportunities I can't even think about yet (but will discover and create)

I mentioned above that networking is a numbers game. You meet some great contacts and occasionally some clunkers. Inherent in that belief is the knowledge that enough contacts will net you revenue-producing opportunities. Also inherent in that belief, I believe, is the knowledge that completely unexpected opportunities will come your way when you seek them out, keep an ear open for them, and explore them when they materialize.

If I'm not a member of and active in the Chamber, I'm missing an opportunity to discover something I can't even fathom yet, an opportunity that could significantly change my business and my life.

I can't afford to miss that.

Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Inspiring Your Team with a Chief Innovation Officer

2009-11-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

by Robert F. Brands

Who inspires your team?

Who develops the ideas, promotes an environment that fosters creative camaraderie, nourishes espirit de corps - and steers the organization toward greatness?

In short, who is your Chief Innovation Officer?

Every organization that grows by creating new products or services or aspires to out-class the competition needs a Chief Innovation Officer, or CIO.

In Robert's Rules of Innovation, 'Inspiration' is the first and most important of the ten imperatives. Inspiration drives everything else - from ideation to new product development to risk-taking itself.

Yet the selection of the CIO, and the definition of his or her tasks in seeing that these challenges are skillfully mastered, can make the difference between innovative success and failure.

Here is what a Chief Innovation Officer does:

1. Shows Support From the Top

Ideally, this position is held by the organization's chief executive or president - someone who leads by example and "walks the talk." Alternatively, and in a larger organization, he or she may be a "Crown Prince" - someone hand-picked by the executive leadership to oversee the task of inspiring greatness from within the team. It's important that if the CIO is not the CEO or president, that he or she has the blessing of the senior executive. Otherwise, his or her ideas, inspirations or suggestions might be rebuffed.

2. Communicates Overarching Goals and Progress

The imperative should be to overcommunicate and under-promise. Such communication keeps the organization focused on the vision, successes and failures.

3. Builds a 'Communication Corridor'

This practice of two-way traffic enables ideas to flow freely for equal consideration and sharing throughout a trusting enterprise. The open-door policy gives every participant a voice and motivation to say what needs to be said - even if they believe the project at hand is a losing proposition. Fear of retribution should never discourage people from speaking their minds.

4. Connects the Silos

Better yet, he or she demolishes them. Knock down the barriers that keep silos apart by creating cross-functional teams.

5. Commissions Cross-Group Stakeholders

These "champions across projects" should have the authority and budgets to test, learn and lead multiple groups through the process and assure ownership across groups is achieved. Bullies need not apply. These champions should encourage buy-in so innovation isn't stymied or blocked.

This isn't just for Fortune 500 corporations. Smaller organizations have more to gain from installing a Chief Innovation Officer. This helps send the message that the position - and the commitment behind it - are vital to the organization's long-term growth.

Whatever the size of the organization, inspiration is only valid if it's derived from the vision, mission or strategy of the company - and driven by an executive empowered to see it through.

Robert F. Brands is President and founder of Brands & Company, LLC. Innovation Coach Robert Brands has launched a new site - www.RobertsRulesOfInnovation.com - to complement his upcoming book.

Up or Down - Innovation and Value are Key

2009-11-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

by Rowan Gibson

A couple of years back, when the economic barometer was pointing upward, all the talk in company boardrooms was about growth, innovation and value creation. Today, with the global economy lingering in the doldrums, corporate strategy is shifting inexorably back to the safe haven of operational efficiency. Now you might argue that this reaction is both inevitable and understandable, and I would accept that at some level. But remember this: something far deeper and more significant than these episodic upswings and downswings is the fact that we've entered a new kind of economic era - an era where cost-cutting is no longer enough. Whether it's currently an 'up' economy or a 'down' economy, we now do business in a value-based economy. And innovation is the only sustainable source of value-creation we have left.

What organizations need to understand is that, at the macro level, productivity - which of course is central to profitable economic growth - has always been determined by two elements. On one side, it is determined by the efficiency with which companies use their inputs - how much labor and capital it takes to produce their goods and services. On the other side, productivity is determined by the value that customers place on the outputs.

For most of the industrial era, the predominant focus was on efficiency as opposed to value. Yet when we look at the companies that are creating most of the new wealth today, we find that they are not doing it by eeking out the last few percentage points of efficiency from their business processes. They are doing it by creating things that bring incredible new value to customers.

Think about Apple, or BMW or Porsche. What we find is that, while these companies are highly efficient in their operations, they do not necessarily enjoy the largest economies of scale. It's their ability to deliver value - to create things that are compelling, exciting and wonderful - that has made them enormously effective engines of wealth creation. BMW and Porsche, for example, command the highest margins per vehicle in the world. Contrast this with the meager performances of GM and Ford and we find that huge economies of scale do not per se deliver an advantage. If a company is not capable of combining low operating costs on the one side with high value-creation on the other, it simply becomes incredibly efficient at making the kind of products customers don't want.

On the whole, large companies have spent about a hundred years building a 'hyper-efficiency' mindset into their organizations. But, until recent years, they have given very little thought to the other side of the productivity coin - how to build a mindset around creating 'hyper-value' for the customer. That's why innovation goes so much against the grain in most companies. It has to fight against a whole set of management principles, processes and systems that are basically set up to deliver something else.

Creating value requires a deep understanding of unarticulated customer needs. It requires enormous creativity. It requires a degree of messiness - i.e. recursive cycles of experimentation and learning. It requires radical thinking in terms product configuration or value proposition. But the industrial age has given us organizations that are not very good at doing any of that. It has given us organizations that treat variety as the enemy - that believe variance from a quality standard, or from a budget, or from a production schedule is a fundamentally bad thing. Yet creating value for the customer often entails challenging and deviating from these norms.

To use the language of complexity theory, most companies have been operating predominantly at one end of the spectrum - "the ordered regime" - and hardly at all at the other end, which scientists refer to as "the edge of chaos." It is this 'other' end - the messy, creative, experimental end - that is so vital for value creation, wealth generation and long-term growth. Indeed, in his book, "The Hacker Ethic", Pekka Himanen wrote that, in today's economy, the "most important source of productivity is creativity." This is the sort of mantra that becomes popular when the economy is growing; when companies find themselves drawn naturally toward the innovation end of the spectrum. But the big challenge comes when things take a downturn and there's pressure to cut costs again - which is exactly the situation we're in now. Organizations must ensure that the pursuit of radical, value-creating innovation does not get neglected as they pull back reflexively toward the 'ordered regime'.

As Charles Simeon, a pastor at Cambridge University in the 18th century, profoundly observed, "The truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes." The same could be said of operational efficiency and innovation. Now more than ever, organizations need to learn how to operate equally well at both extremes - they need to be both highly innovative and highly efficient at the same time. In a value-based economy, companies must be able to continually dream up products and services their customers wouldn't want to live without, yet they must simultaneously have the capacity to deliver those things with brutal efficiency.

Rowan Gibson is widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on enterprise innovation. He is co-author of the bestseller "Innovation to the Core" and a much in-demand public speaker around the globe. On Twitter he is @RowanGibson.