clair075

Everyone's talking about innovation, which could be a good thing.  Except that while they are talking about it, they are often talking about the wrong things, or defining innovation too narrowly, or are too focused on tools rather than outcomes.  Sometimes, rather than doing something they are simply talking.  Talking about innovation is exciting, I'll grant you, because most corporate types don't get to do innovation, let alone talk about innovation.  They eat, sleep and dream about efficiency.  As Andy Cohen said at our conference they've Six Sigma'd the opportunity and then leaned it and then made it agile, then applied Six Sigma again.  Just to talk about innovation is a relief. But when people talk about innovation they talk too expansively and without good definitions.  Innovation always reverts to whatever Apple did recently, whatever cool new technology or product someone produced.  We need to move beyond talking about innovation to actual...

Sorry I've been a bit lax about keeping up the blog posts.  Between an open innovation webinar , a planned trip to Dubai to speak on innovation and a very successful innovation conference , (not to mention some customer work) I've been a bit busy lately.  But it was something I saw at our conference, and something I read today about Target that prompted this blog post.  Because I'm becoming convinced that you can't impose innovation from the top, it only gets exposed through internal cultural beliefs. Lowe's at the Conference We were fortunate to have a team from Lowe's (home improvement not grocery) speak at our conference.  This was the second year that a team from Lowe's provided us with insights on the opportunities and challenges of doing innovation in a large, distributed retail environment.  I liked the fact that the Lowe's team talked a lot about customer experience, starting their innovation activities with the customer's needs and jobs in m...

I was asked recently to speak about innovation in a webinar and at a live conference.  These requests left me in a somewhat reflective mood.  When I'm asked to speak I want to provide the audience with valuable, useful insight, and that often requires ensuring a shared foundation before taking the audience where I think innovation is likely headed.  In my thinking for these two programs, I've developed a five step evolution for innovation in most organizations. With tongue firmly planted in cheek I'll relate these evolutionary steps to famous Hollywood productions.  Perhaps you'll recognize your organization in one of these phases.  I'd love to hear about other innovation evolutionary phases that you've been through. Lone Ranger The "Lone Ranger" stage is one that many companies must pass through - in fact most startups and entrepreneurial firms are founded by Lone Rangers. These are people, like Steve Jobs, who have amazingly clear insight into what ...