August 27th, 2010
There are three upcoming innovation events that you can take advantage of.
1. Gaining Competitive Advantage through Innovation Workshop.
To be held in London on Thursday Sept 16th. This is a one day workshop in which you practise and learn creativity and innovation methods. It will help you to develop new products and services.
2. Innovation Unit Meeting on Open Innovation.
A half day event in London on Tuesday 5th October. The Guest Speaker is David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open. This is an interactive meeting where we review and discuss best practice in Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing.
3. Master Class on Innovation in the Public Sector
This is a one day workshop on Wednesday 13th October in London. It will focus on the leadership, culture and processes for innovation with emphasis on government agencies and the public sector.
I hope to see you at one of these events.
Paul Sloane
Tags: crowd, event, government, Innovation, open, public, sector, workshop
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August 17th, 2010
Most businesses look for new opportunities in obvious places, adjacent to their current position. They typically ask two questions:
1. What new markets can we sell our existing products or services into?
2. What new products or services can we sell to our existing customers?
These are perfectly valid questions. You should ask them and you explore the possibilities that the answers bring. But don’t stop there. If you do then may miss other and more exciting possibilities. Look for some distant relations as well as close cousins.
Caterpillar was a well-established leader in heavy earth-moving equipment. Then in 1996 they started selling ‘Cat’ branded work boots. These were successful with young consumers who would never use or buy heavy Caterpillar machinery. By 2000 they were selling over 25 million pairs of boots. They have now branched out into other kinds of clothing and toys to exploit the Cat brand.
Disney Corporation was a leader in cartoon films before it made the bold choice to go into theme parks. There were some synergies but it was not exactly an adjacent space in the market. It was a great success and Disney subsequently branched into other areas such as musical shows (such as the Lion King) and stores selling related Disney products.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Group takes this principle to extremes. They deliberately break the marketing rules about only choosing adjacent markets or products. Virgin, having started in music, has launched companies in airlines, trains, banking, cola, wines, bridal wear and so on. Indeed Richard Branson has founded over 200 separate companies. The only thing they have in common is the brand image of aggressive innovators and upstarts.
How can you find distant relations? Watch out for unexpected customer orders or compliments. Look for skills, strengths, extra services or by-products that your business has today but is not commercialising. Ponder what you are really good at. What is it that you can get passionate about? Ask employees and customers for ideas and suggestions. Above all, keep an open mind as regards possibilities.
Paul Sloane
Tags: caterpillar, disney, Innovation, virgin
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August 10th, 2010
The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will take place on the morning of Tuesday 5th October in central London. It will focus on Open Innovation and it will be interative and instructive. It will be led by David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open, a consultancy that focuses on Open Innovation.
Topics include
Open Innovation Accelerator
- Why open innovation can get you better ideas, faster, cheaper
- Opportunities in crowdsourcing, corporate collaborations and customer co-innovation
- Pitfalls in open innovation and how to avoid them
- Collaboration mindsets – how to develop Business Empathy
The meeting is open to BQF members and to non-members. You can see more details and register here. I look forward to meeting you if you come.
Paul Sloane
Tags: collaboration, extenal, Innovation, open, resources, workshop
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July 27th, 2010
Paul Sloane
Just how innovative is your organisation? What is holding you back from being truly agile?
The BQF Innovation Healthcheck is a proven method of improving innovation. It examines key indicators, determines strengths and weaknesses and identifies ways of improving innovation
throughout the organisation. The healthcheck is undertaken through a web-based survey followed by a one-day workshop on the your premises and is completely confidential.
The benefits are as follows:
• Clear identification of issues and obstacles to innovation
• An action plan to resolve the issues
• A better understanding of what is needed to inspire positive change
• Higher levels of motivation and innovation throughout the organisation
• The ability to implement fresh ideas to generate revenue or reduce cost
• The opportunity to improve the culture and process of innovation within your business
I facilitate the workshop which enables you to improve the culture and process of innovation in your organisation, to unlock the creative talents of your people and to build an innovative, entrepreneurial organisation that welcomes and initiates change.
Paul Sloane
Tags: innovation healthcheck audit capability
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July 23rd, 2010
Stefan Lindegaard is recognised as a leading writer and thinker on innovation. In this book he takes on the hot topic of Open Innovation (OI) which he defines as bridging internal and external resources to make innovation happen. The early chapters are excellent. He clearly explains the need for OI and how to approach it. He argues that it is more important to get the right people in place than the right process in place. He shows how to identify and develop the people who drive OI. His sections on why CEOs do not get OI and how to overcome the roadblocks to OI are particularly cogent.
His style is very personal and directive with many first-person comments. There are various interviews and case studies in the book – some are excellent. I like the way he summarises the key takeaways in each chapter.
In the chapter on Radical Innovation he throws out a provocative statement – Radical Innovation is too difficult for most companies and they should play it safer. He then discusses the point and largely proves that it is true unless your business can meet the stringent guidelines that he develops.
In the later chapters he diverges from the main subject and covers topics such as knowing your personal values, managing time and polishing your personal brand. This is standard self-help stuff which really does not belong in this book. He returns towards the theme with a chapter on corporate business plan competitions which is packed with useful advice which applies to internal more than open innovation.
The book has many powerful examples, stories, tips and guidelines. Despite the diversions it stands as a valuable and practical addition to your innovation bookshelf.
Paul Sloane
Tags: Innovation, lindegaard, open, revolution
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July 14th, 2010
We ran the Ideas Jam meeting yesterday and it went well. It was an intensive idea generation session. There were 18 participants from various companies who each brought a challenge from their business – e.g. How can we communicate our new strategy to thousands of people? The morning worked like this:
After an initial ice-breaker we had 45 minutes of ‘speed dating.’ Each person met another person for 3 minutes and acted as a consultant for their challenge. The consultant asked questions and made suggestions (which could not be rejected or criticised). Then the roles were reversed. After the six minute date people moved on to their next date.
Next we divided into three groups of six. Each group choose one challenge and then used the ‘nominal’ brainstorming method to quickly generate 60 ideas. We used the Novel, Attractive, Feasible criteria to select the best ideas from each group and then presented back.
We formed new groups of six and used ‘Reverse the problem’ to generate ideas for another challenge. Finally we used Pass the Parcel to come up with really radical ideas for a further challenge.
Each delegate then chose the best idea(s) for their challenge and identified the benefits and next steps.
The feedback showed that the participants went away with great ideas and some powerful new tools to improve idea generation and implementation in their businesses.
Paul Sloane
Tags: brainstorm, creativity, idea, ideation, Innovation, jam
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July 7th, 2010
Billions of dollars are spent on developing and launching new consumer packaged goods (CPG) products each year, and some companies see tremendous success while others – don’t. Why? One secret appears to lie in the degree of senior management involvement in the creative process, according to a study by The Nielsen Company.
Nielsen’s research of the innovation processes at 30 large CPG companies operating in the U.S. reveals that companies with less senior management involvement in the new product development process generate 80 percent more new product revenue than those with heavy senior management involvement. Companies that employ this and other best innovation practices derive on average 650 percent more revenue from new products compared to companies that do not.
Nielsen’s research shows that simply being physically near corporate headquarters can stifle new idea generation. In fact, it turns out that having no Blue Sky innovation team at all is better than having a team on-site at corporate headquarters. The best place for your breakthrough innovators? Far, far away. According to Nielsen, companies with an off-site Blue Sky innovation team report 5.7 percent of revenues coming from new products, compared to 4.8 percent from companies with no Blue Sky team at all. Companies with Blue Sky teams on site report just 2.7 percent of revenues coming from new products.
“One of the keys to successful new product innovation is to manage new ideas lightly,” said Tom Agan, Nielsen MD. “While we don’t dispute senior management’s strengths and good intentions, they are often too quick to get involved in the creative process, especially when things are not going well, and their mere presence can stifle free-thinking and boundaryless ideas – which can doom the new product development process to failure.”
Senior management needs to play a different, more important role in new product development. Nielsen’s research shows that another important key to success is for senior management to precisely manage the new product development process, not the ideas themselves. According to Nielsen, CPG companies with rigid stage gates – - decision points in the process where a new product idea must pass certain criteria to proceed forward – - average 130 percent more new product revenue than companies with loose processes.
“New product development success comes down to two important principles – - managing ideas lightly while managing the process precisely,” said Agan.
Paul Sloane
Tags: CPG, developmnet, Innovation, management, new, nielsen, product, study, success
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July 2nd, 2010
I recently helped facilitate a corporate innovation camp for Amdocs, a $3B software and services company that supplies mobile service providers. It took place over four days: the first two were spent on a bewildering variety of crazy creativity activities. These included blowing huge soap bubbles, a giant pacman, wacky physics experiments, lateral thinking puzzles, improv theatre and music etc. You can get a flavour of what was going on from this video on youtube. There were 75 Amdocs participants, 9 customer delegates and a number of outside helpers and facilitators including me and Dimis Michaelides, a Cypriot magician and creativity expert.
Despite the frivolity there was a hard edge to the event – its purpose was to generate ideas for new business ventures that would generate at least $100m. We used a number of different brainstorming methods to come up with hundreds of ideas. We whittled these down to 85 and then to 15 using criteria described in more detail in this article on Businessweek.
Tal Givoly, Amdocs Chief Scientist & organiser of the event
The customers then reviewed the 15 best proposals and using their feedback we selected three for development into business plans. Three teams of 25 people worked for a full day on each of the three ideas and created detailed demos and presentations which were shown to a group of senior executives. This was the climax of the camp. Two ideas were approved and funds released for further prototyping work. One was sent back for further work. The remaining ideas were not lost; they will be examined in more detail.
Overall it was an exciting and enjoyable event. The early wacky activities helped break down barriers and release people’s inhibitions. This assisted us to be much more radical in approaching the real business issues.
One of the customers was David Amazallag, Chief Scientist of BT 21CN who said ‘I was inspired by the innovation camp. The first two days were highly valuable, full of creative sessions and enabled the participants to be “distilled” from their every-day work and to focus on creating new ideas. This concept was very fruitful and full of business potential.’
The participants certainly went away energised and motivated. Time will tell whether the ideas deliver on their promise.
Paul Sloane
Tags: amdocs, business, camp, creativity, Innovation, new, venture
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June 24th, 2010
If you want innovation then think about these two words – pain and slack. They can lead you to innovation success.
Wherever there is a pain there is a need for innovation. So if you are looking to create new products or services look for the pain points. Study your customers and their everyday activities. Where do they have difficulties in using the product or services that you and your competitors provide? What inconveniences them? What costs them time and effort? What slows them down? What is awkward or clumsy?
People have been taking their pet dogs for a walk for as long as the dog has been man’s best friend. In all that time people threw sticks or balls for their dogs to chase and retrieve. It seems a simple process with no pain point. Then some product designer noticed that it was awkward for people who did not throw well. Also there was the inconvenience of picking up a muddy ball. So the ball thrower was invented. It is a flexible piece of rubber that allows you to grasp a ball in the device and then to easily flick it a fair distance. Now when you go for a walk in the park you see many people using their ball thrower to amuse and distract their dog. Find the pain point and you have the starting point for an innovation that people need.
If you want your team to be creative and to turn creative ideas into prototypes then you have to cut them some slack. People who are working flat out all day on their normal work cannot find the time or energy to experiment with promising ideas but that is exactly what is needed for innovation to happen. You do not get innovation for free. You have to allocate time, people and money. You should allocate some time for your staff for the following activities; thinking about problems, well-facilitated brainstorm meetings, research , experimentation, prototyping and testing. 3M were leaders in this area with their famous precept that any engineer or scientist could spend 15% of his or her time on any research topic they wanted. They did not need to get their manager’s permission to pursue an interest but they did need to keep their manager informed. Google go further with their renowned allowance of 20% of time for all employees to explore any business topic that interests them. You do not have to be equally generous – a smaller amount of time can pay dividends. Give your people some clear challenges that need creative thinking and then give them some slack time to tackle these problems. You will be surprised at the results.
Increase your innovation capability by focusing on pain and creating some slack.
Paul Sloane
Tags: 3M, customer, google, Innovation, need, pain, slack, source, space, time
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