Dana Dolan: innovation

Moving CollaborBlabber

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:32:29 GMT

Correction - the latest postings will be found at http://www.collaborblabber.com. It may take a day before you can access it, due to DNS updates.

CollaborBlabber has Moved

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:39:47 GMT

The latest postings can be found at http://collaborblabber.blogspot.com/ (I've been meaning to do this for months - probably years, actually, but been too lazy/busy. When I upgraded my Radio Userland software recently, the WYSIWYG editing no longer worked. Lazy/busy won out yet again, but this time it was easier to move the blog.)

Innovation categories: my scorecard

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:25:09 GMT

I've seen innovation successes and failures in all five of Bob Rosenfeld's innovation system categories. With only a cursory understanding of these, I tried to think through examples of each from my personal experience, keeping a mental talley of successes vs. failures. The results were surprising - first here's my quick scorecard...

1. Originator-assisted - a process that helps employees transform their own ideas into business opportunities (usually driven bottom-up). It's hard to remember how many ideas I've had myself that I immediately dismissed as too hard to implement in the given organizational culture. I can't even begin to imagine what the numbers would be like across an entire organization. I've had the most successes when my area of expertise was unique within an organization, allowing me to present ideas that others couldn't second guess, and that didn't threaten their areas of expertise. Wins: a handful; Losses: a universe full.

2. Targeted innovation - a process for developing solutions to meet a specific need (usually driven top-down). I've personally seen this fail once, and never seen it succeed. The effort, which was scoped as a turn-around project, was a noble attempt. It pulled in management-identified thought leaders from across the organization with heavily promoted customer input. It was well funded, with an executive champion that was well respected guiding the project. So what happened? A number of new processes were suggested to elicite creativity which ended up having an opposite affect. The thought leaders involved became so focused on doing the thing right, that they forgot to do the right thing. Since the project had a limited time span, it ended without producing the desired turn-around results, and the organization returned to business as usual. What might have happened if that funding had been invested into creating and seeding a permanent innovation processes, rather than as a short-term effort? And what if we simply picked the wrong people to participate? Wins: 0; Losses: 1.

3. Internal venturing - a launching process for new businesses that do not fit the company's current lines of business. Years ago I worked for a consulting services company which was a wholy-owned subsidiary of a major software vendor. More than likely, this was an acquisition, and given the huge differences in overhead structures it made sense to keep the businesses separate. ,More recently I worked for a non-profit with a membership of companies. Over the years they spun off two other non-profits, one with a membership consisting of US States, and another that served the public interest (no members). None of these organizations would have been viable as extentions of "parent" organization's lines of business. They all exist today so I will list them all as wins. Wins: 3; Losses: 0.

4. Continuous improvement - a process for incremental improvements that, in their aggregate, lead to cost savings or increased quality. This one is tough because the results of incremental improvements can be hard to notice. In government contracting, the client's requirements are what pushes innovation. It's less common to see these companies turn their attention internally, but I've seen efforts at . At the non-profits, on the other hand, change is slow. I'll rank an organization where I saw efforts resulting in any kind of positive outcome as a win. Where I saw no effort applied at all, I'll rank count it as a loss. But if I saw effort applied, and no positive change at all, I'll be generous and rank it a tie. Wins: 2 (both unremarkable); Losses: 3; Ties: 2.

5. Strategic transfer - a process of transferring technology or knowledge from one point to another for the purpose of leveraging capabilities. This type of innovation is pretty common in my experience, but like the previous category, tends to go unnoticed - it's just an expected part of the business. I racked my memory for some remarkable examples, but none come to mind.. Wins: numerous (yet unremarkable); Losses: a handful.

Based on this rough analysis, we should focus on increasing the success rate in the first category, which is the goal of most ideation-based innovation processes. Secondly, we need to increase attempts in the third category, internal venturing. One aspect of this is to increase our awareness of alternative businesses models. Perhaps it's time to buy that book on my Amazon wish list?

Top City Wannabees need Work/Live/Play strategies

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:57:55 GMT

"Besides wanting the usual attributes of low crime, great schools, and a thriving job market, members of the creative class want to be in a place that is exciting and challenging, is open to new ideas, and values them as individuals." says Blogger Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, and public policy professor at George Mason Univerisity, in an interview by Realtor Magazine Online (Nov 1, 2006).

Top spots include San Francisco; Seattle; Boston; New York; Chicago; Denver; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Austin, Texas; and the Research Triangle in North Carolina, or see the more recent list of Fast Cities from Fast Company. What can a Wannabe City do to move into these lofty ranks? In his speech on IT Conversations, Dr. Florida makes the case that it's not as easy as creating a good job climate..

OK, Wannabee City, take note: the triad of work-live-play can't stand without all three of its legs. Take a look London, Canada's Creative City Task Force for a bit of inspiration on improving culture.

The Value of Irriation, or, Of Oysters and Pearls

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 22:03:16 GMT

"...irritation is what allows oysters to create pearls." says Scott Adams. He's not talking about innovation (or strategy for that matter), but about humans, yet in the end, isn't it all the same anyway? Surely, irritation with the status quo is one of the most influential emotions that drive creativity and innovation.

Or maybe you perfer the old adage that "necessity is the mother of invention". But that doesn't explain things like YouTube, you might think, unless people all over the world actually "need" a free place to post home movies of their friends dressed up as Presidents, racing across the field during a Nationals baseball game.

On the other hand, irritation actually IS what drove the initial development of YouTube:

'All Chad Hurley and Steve Chen wanted to do was share some videos from a dinner party with a half-dozen friends in San Francisco. It was January, 2005, and they couldn't figure out a good solution. Sending the clips around by e-mail was a bust: The e-mails kept getting rejected because they were so big. Posting the videos online was a headache, too. So last February the two buddies got to work in Hurley's garage, determined to design something simpler. '

What is the Value of Irritation? In this case, $1.65 Billion.

Get innovative by embracing your inner irritated child.

Innovation must fit the Strategy

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:04:29 GMT

Today's overused buzzword, innovation might be defined as the constant quest for "the next big thing," but is innovation always a good thing? Maybe not, if it's not placed right where it belongs, under the watchful eye of strategy. Michael Porter's Big Ideas article in Fast Company is a refreshing reminder, despite the fact that it was published in Feb. 2001. Here's a clip from the conclusion:

If people in the organization don't understand how a company is supposed to be different, how it creates value compared to its rivals, then how can they possibly make all of the myriad choices they have to make? Every salesman has to know the strategy -- otherwise, he won't know who to call on. Every engineer has to understand it, or she won't know what to build.

The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy. They go out to employees, to suppliers, and to customers, and they repeat, "This is what we stand for, this is what we stand for." So everyone understands it. This is what leaders do. In great companies, strategy becomes a cause. That's because a strategy is about being different. So if you have a really great strategy, people are fired up: "We're not just another airline. We're bringing something new to the world."

Tom Peters on experimenting: fearless or reckless?

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:21:46 GMT

Tom Peters is whacked, and he'd probably be pleased to hear it. Without a doubt, he provokes my thinking. For example, in recent article (by Charles Babcock, InformationWeek, 12 Sept 2006 ), he tells us to...

'"Experiment fearlessly," he advised. Strategic plans, which extend present operations forward in sustained growth, "work brilliantly under conditions where you don't need them." Use a strategic plan "called doing things," he recommended.'

Quit thinking about it and planning it and Just Do It, he's telling us. And he's even modeling the behavior, with a slight twist, as Just Say It. Let people react to his provocative words! Tom will continue to experiment fearlessly, learn from his experiences, and revise his approach as he deems appropriate. But let's be clear on what "It" is - for Tom, it's words - thoughts - ideas. The risks are mostly to his personal credibility.

But where is the line between "fearless" and "reckless"? I think Tom often crossed it, but that's his style to provoke thinking outside the box. Organizations, however, need to differentiate more carefully between the two: of course we should think and plan, but we should balance this with the risks at hand. An innovative idea with small risks might deserve a "Just Do It" approach, but one with medium to high risk might include a concept stage, a pilot stage, and based on the results, a "Now Do It" stage. And don't forget to include feedback loops. Most projects I've worked on last a heck of a lot longer than one of Tom's speeches. Things can change substantially given a bit of time.