

11 Ways to Successful Innovation - herrherr
http://timeinfeldt.com/11-ways-to-successful-innovation/

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RiderOfGiraffes
Does anyone else get a mostly red background with white vertical stripes? Does
anyone else want to tear out their eyeballs rather than read this?

Here's the text - it's not bad. Same about the web page.

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11 ways to successful innovation

As an interim summary of the last term in the E-Business and Innovation
programme, I compiled what I consider some of the important factors for taking
innovation beyond the buzzword. The keywords after each section are meant as
starting point for further research.

1\. Know the difference between invention and innovation.

Before thinking about successful innovation, it is important to understand
what innovation is, and what it's not. Innovation is an evolutionary process,
not a product of Gyro Gearloose's workshop. Innovation combines a new idea
with the question of what is feasible. An innovation should always be linked
to a tangible market opportunity. Some innovations fail because they are ahead
of their time; others fail because they never got beyond the stage of
invention. Don't be fooled by the hordes of companies who put innovation in
their mission statement without having a clue of the underlying principles and
theoretical concepts. Like every other business process, innovation has its
own set of rules and factors that decide over success or failure.

 _Keywords: invention, innovation, invention vs. innovation_

2\. Listen to your Pain

Many companies are obsessed with market research to find the next big thing.
But oftentimes opportunities for innovation are closer than you think. Look at
the current processes or ask employees and there will be some degree of pain,
something that could be incrementally or radically improved. The obvious step
here is solving that pain to improve the current processes and improve
efficiency. But do not stop there. If you feel this pain, there will be others
that feel it too. Try to view the solution isolated from its current usage and
think about the value it provides. The stronger the pain it solves, the more
likely it is that other people are willing to pay a premium to get rid of the
same pain.

 _Keywords: user innovation_

3\. Know your Assets

For companies that produce tangible products from materials and machinery it
is relatively easy to see available assets. For knowledge-intensive firms
(KIFs), individual assets are harder to grasp as the supply-chains in
consultancies or agencies are less visible and transparent. Nevertheless,
getting an overview of the individual parts that are used every day can be a
great source of innovation. A piece of code whose functionality could form a
new application by itself, a methodology that can be applied to a different
sector, a business model that can be utilised for a different type of product.
Viewing assets out of context and thinking about (unconventional) re-usage
opens new, innovative perspectives.

 _Keywords: small pieces loosely joined, code repository, asset management_

4\. Orchestrate the Pieces

This is partly related to the previous point, but with a more global
perspective. Today's opportunities, especially in the software sector, are not
restricted to what happens inside of a company. A major part of innovation is
about combination, not creation. When thinking about innovative links, always
consider both internal assets and externally available pieces. Open-source
software, open APIs, existing data and secondary research play a crucial role
in innovation. Don't reinvent the wheel. If something already exists, use it
and focus on creating new value with it. If another organisation has its core
competencies in something that you require, ally with them instead of wasting
resources on duplicating.

 _Keywords: API, orchestration, open-source, core competencies_

5\. Use Lasers, not Shotguns

When pursuing innovation, especially in products, it is easy to get carried
away by possibilities and features that could extend the core idea. In
reality, thinking too broad oftentimes dilutes the innovation and eventually
renders it impractical for both the innovator and the target audience.
Restrict yourself to a small, focused idea instead of feature overload. You
probably won't create the next iTunes, YouTube or Twitter. You don't need to,
either. Instead of fighting these platforms, make use of them. The scale,
tools and ecosystems around these established platforms should be considered
opportunities, not threats. Want to create a service for classifieds? Build it
on top of Twitter instead of competing with Craigslist on your own,
proprietary platform. Focus on your niche within the market and make smart use
of dominant designs.

 _Keywords: dominant design, KISS principle_

6\. Think Intrapreneurship, not Entrepreneurship

When describing entrepreneurs, media coverage regularly restricts itself to
drawing an image of the young, lone, visionary thinker who changes the world
over night. Not only is this image plain wrong, it also creates unnecessary
confusion in corporate innovation. For many employers innovation simply means
"I will lose employees and intellectual property". Yet the concept of
innovation is not restricted to tiny garage startups. An established
organisation has its unique set of advantages to facilitate innovation.
Resources, core competencies and established networks are only three examples.
Instead of keeping employees away from innovation in order to retain them in-
house, embrace innovation as continuous process to stay competitive.

 _Keywords: corporate entrepreneurship, change management, virgin's corporate
culture (Richard Branson)_

7\. Prepare to Have Your Ideas Changed

Note that the headline does not say "prepare to change your ideas". When
coming up with innovative ideas, it is most normal to react nervous when the
innovation is not being used as intended. Resist the urge to educate people
about "the right way" to use your innovation. Instead, pay close attention to
the ways your innovation is used and let it influence your strategy. In most
cases, a market comes up with ideas so diverse that you can't possibly think
of them all. Allow some flexibility for market influence and user innovation
and make your users a remote part of the development team. There is no right
way in innovation. Whatever works, works. Besides, letting users steer (a bit)
is a great way to establish long-term customer relationships.

 _Keywords: flickr history, feedback mechanisms, user innovation_

8\. Foresee Diffusion

In Innovation, diffusion is a combination of how, why, and at what rate a new
idea or technology spreads. In other words, successful diffusion means that an
innovation "took off" in the market. Even though an innovation has made the
first step into public awareness, immediate absorption is not guaranteed.
Internally, missing a unique selling proposition, wrong positioning of the
innovation towards its target market (or entirely missing it), insufficient
quality or wrong communications can hinder diffusion. In the outside world,
cultural aspects, existing competitors, strong existing standards (e.g. QWERTY
vs. DVORAK), governmental regulations or lack of demand from target groups can
cause a fail of diffusion. Diffusion is hard to predict up front, but key
factors can be identified in order to avoid some of the mentioned pitfalls.
Take a critical look at the current stage of the innovation and ask yourself
what would have to change to push diffusion forward. While diffusion is a
complex dialogue between innovators and the target market, identifying
specific barriers is crucial.

 _Keywords: diffusion of innovations, the tipping point_

9\. Know the Key People

Innovations that diffuse follow an adoption curve. This curve can serve as
tool to not only create milestones, but also to determine the key influencers
of the diffusion process. Look at the individual consumer groups and analyse
who fulfils these roles for your particular innovation. Who are the lead-users
that we have to convince? What is the critical mass that takes the innovation
into major adoption? The more precise you can define these key groups, the
easier it is to target them. Look at similar innovations and evaluate who
their key customer groups are. The S-curve is a useful and simple tool to
quickly segment a target market. Don't expect to find the same customer groups
at all stages of the diffusion curve. It is likely that entirely different
groups have to be targeted at different points in time.

 _Keywords: diffusion curve, s-curve, adoption cycle_

10\. Keep it Lean

Although it might seem handy to have massive resources to throw at innovation,
keeping the process lean has significant advantages. Innovation requires
regular re-combination of knowledge and re-configuration of structures, which
is why the underlying process should be as streamlined as possible. In fact,
following some of the previous points will already result in a rather lean
development process. By taking advantage of available assets and restricting
yourself to simple, straightforward ideas it is possible to innovate with much
less waste. Allowing for a pull-mechanism from the market, rather than
aimlessly pushing things into the market, is another characteristic of lean
production. Whenever there is a chance to reduce waste or simplify a part of
your innovation process, do it.

 _Keywords: lean production, Toyota production system, kaizen, lean startup,
agile development, extreme programming_

11\. Facilitate Collaboration

If there is one direct action to take, this is it. Whoever the people in your
organisation are - employees, partners, your mentor - make sure they have the
tools to collaborate. This can be as simple as installing a Wiki on your web
server or creating a collaborative document on Google Docs. Not only reduces
collaboration the amount of waste and inefficiency in your communications, it
also makes sure that no innovative idea is lost because of bad infrastructure.
Many companies still hesitate to employ collaborative tools, although the
advantages are obvious. The more diverse the user input, the higher the
frequency of innovative ideas. Since innovation is about new combinations, it
is important to bring all parts of an organisation together in one centralised
place.

~~~
herrherr
I told him, the issue should be fixed.

