Instinctual Innovation versus Intellectual Innovation

One of the best Twitter names that I've come across recently is @ShowerThinker. It's an account for an inventor that makes post-it notes for the shower called Aqua Notes.

This Twitter name captures a well-understood fact - that a lot of great ideas (and ultimately innovations) come to us not from brainstorming, but from the connection to our subconscious that occurs in the shower (or pretty much anywhere else in the bathroom). If so many great ideas come to us when our active mind is elsewhere, then why is such little attention paid to this source of innovation.

A lot has been written about creativity and the brain, left brain vs. right brain thinking, and how often the brain just needs to get out of its own way for creativity to occur as there is no single creative area of the brain.

In my own cuarto de bano moment, I came up with this contrasting phrase to help us frame the conversation - Instinctual Innovation versus Intellectual Innovation.

Intellectual Innovation begins with active efforts to capture and develop ideas using techniques such as brainstorming, greenhousing, etc.

Instinctual Innovation springs forth from a collection of sometimes un-connected information that collects in an individuals brain. Often ideas that form the basis for instinctual innovation rattle around as part of a collection of problems in search of solutions for a long time before emerging.

I've created this table to lay out some of the differences:



Innovation has garnered a lot of attention in the press over the past couple of years, and many executives have the word rolling off their tongues quite easily now. In some organizations this has translated into employees being trained to be better intellectual innovators, or into creativity consultants helping stimulate the organization's intellectual innovation for a particular project.

But much less attention is being paid to instinctual innovation. To build sustainable instinctual innovation you have to train members of your organization to be business innovators. You also need to provide members with a set of clear and actionable innovation goals along with a simple visual framework to decipher them. And, most importantly you have to invest in the organizational change necessary to create a culture of continuous innovation.

Then, and only then, will instinctual innovation be best able to emerge from any part of the organization on its own timeline and integrate with the intellectual innovation that is also going on at the same time.

Intellectual innovation can help drive the short-term growth of an organization. But, when combined with instinctual innovation, the two together can create an innovation engine to power the organization now and into the future.


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Did you miss Dan Ariely at the World Innovation Forum?

If you happened to miss Dan Ariely's talk at the World Innovation Forum (which was quite good), I managed to find two videos from TED that taken together comprise most of the talk he gave.


Video #1 - "Dan Ariely - Are we in control of our own decisions?"




Video #2 - "Dan Ariely - Our buggy moral code"




You can find my Top 10 Insights from Dan Ariely's talk at the World Innovation Forum along with the slides from the presentation.


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Seth Godin on the Tribes We Lead

You may have heard about Seth Godin's concept of tribes. Well, here is a video from the TED conference that lays it all out:



As we move on from the mass marketing epoch of history, we move into an epoch where there will be many tribes, organized around different interests, that will be looking for leaders and ideas that they believe in and actually want to promote.

When you are looking to affect change - Can you find the heretics? - The people who are not "sheepwalkers" (half asleep and following along) that will help to lead a movement


The flow of the tribe methodology boils down to:

1. Telling a story to people who want to hear it
2. Connecting a tribe
3. Leading a movement
4. Making change


Properly pulled together, you will be left with a product or service that has a story to tell. A story that the consumers of that product or service will love to tell for you.

How to Change Everything

When looking to affect change you must ask these three questions:

1. Who are you upsetting?
   (If you're not upsetting anyone, you're not changing the status quo)


2. Who are you connecting?
   (A lot of people are only in it for the connections)


3. Who are you leading?
   (Without a clear focus on this, change won't come)

Tribal leaders CHALLENGE the status quo, they build a CULTURE (defining who's in or out), they have CURIOSITY, they CONNECT people, they have CHARISMA (this comes from being a leader), and they COMMIT to the cause.


So, what do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

World Innovation Forum Posts (updated)

I recently updated some of my World Innovation Forum (May 5-6, 2009) posts to add slides for some of the presentations.

You can also download the World Innovation Forum Executive Summary from our site - lovingly assembled by business analysts from ExecuNet.

The conference lineup included - Paul Saffo, CK Prahalad, Vijay Govindarajan, Clayton Christensen, Fred Krupp, and Dan Ariely

Here is a list of all of the posts from my World Innovation Forum trip with the posts that have been updated with slides at the top:

• Paul Saffo (updated)


• Vijay Govindarajan (updated)


• Clayton Christensen (1st Session) (updated)


• Dan Ariely (updated)


• ?WhatIf! Innovation Field Trip (Apple Store and OZOlab)


• Interview with CEO Alexander Tsiaras of TheVisualMD


• Brightidea visit with Co-founder Vincent Carbone


• CK Prahalad


• Clayton Christensen (2nd Session)


• Fredd Krupp

A thank you goes out to HSM Americas and the presenters for the slides.


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Interview and Book Review - Ric Merrifield, Author of "Rethink"

I had the opportunity to interview Ric Merrifield on camera about his new book "Rethink" and here are the questions I asked him:

1. What inspired you to write Rethink?


2. What is the key insight you want to share with this book?


3. What is the most common mistakes people are making in cost cutting mode right now in this recession?


4. What is the most common barrier to innovation that you encounter in your work?


5. In your opinion, what recent innovation (or area of innovation) has the most intriguing potential?

"Rethink" arrived in my mailbox a couple weeks ago and after completing it, overall, I would give it a thumbs up.

For me, the second half of the book was the most interesting part. The case studies were good, and I felt they brought the book's thesis to life. While I found myself thinking about core competencies and value curves when I was reading the book, I could also see how creating 'what' heat maps would integrate quite nicely with other business frameworks like these. They all fit together.

Looking back at my experience of reading the book, my favorite chapter was the 'Key Concepts' chapter. Personally I feel that all too often, the authors of business books spend too much effort expanding a single insight to the requisite thickness, only to omit a proper summary or useful cheat sheet that the reader can go back to for easy reference. The 'Key Concepts' chapter also gives you a glimpse into the level of detail and complexity that these 'what' heat maps actually deliver in practice. I had the opportunity to see one in all of its glory in Ric's office, but there are supposed to be some examples in color at http://www.rethinkbook.com.

So, if your organization is seeking to escape the 'how trap' and refocus its energies on identifying the 'what' changes that will have the greatest impact, I encourage you to check out "Rethink" by Ric Merrifield.

I would be interested to hear what you think of the interview and of the book. Please post a comment with your thoughts.

Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Interview - TheVisualMD.com founder Alexander Tsiaras

I had the opportunity to meet up with thevisualmd.com founder Alexander Tsiaras on May 7, 2009. We had a fascinating conversation about healthcare and the work that Alex's company is undertaking. Here is a video excerpt from part of our conversation:




Here are some of the key insights that bubble up from our conversation:

The Internet is an interactive medium, and if you want to be successful you have to learn to tell a story. Storytelling has a huge impact in fundraising, the outcome of politics, the behavior of consumers, etc.

Yet, most of the content on the Internet remains about gossip and commerce (even today). There is still a shortage of quality, deep content.

With thevisualmd.com, Alex and team are trying to tell interactive stories. If thevisualmd.com were a print publication, they would aspire to be LIFE magazine - beautiful pictures with good captions that together tell a story for those who want to browse, but with deeper content for those who want to explore the topic further.

Thevisualmd.com is of course an Internet site, and it has beautiful visuals that allow people to go through the story linearly or explore non-linearly. Alex is always trying with his team to think about the best way to use digital technology to have an impact on the people who consume the content.

For most companies, when it comes to utilizing digital technology, they tend to create cool graphics instead of using the technology to tell an impactful story. Many traditional companies are still intimidated by digital technology and provide tactical, unimaginative, and restrictive briefs as a result. The end result? Companies often blame their agencies for the lackluster outcomes from their digital presences.

In healthcare, one of the greatest tests is to achieve improvements in wellness. The biggest problem that wellness programs face is compliance. Patient compliance is dependent on three key things that most patients can't visualize or easily understand:

• Causes


• Consequences


• Solutions

Another challenge the healthcare industry faces is the defensive, cautious mindset of most healthcare organizations (especially big pharma). You could see this difference if you were to attend the TED conference and observe the level of collaboration and sharing of information that occurs there, and then attend the TED Med conference and observe the quiet distance between attendees.

Realizing the full promise of electronic medical records and potential behavioral changes from integrated wellness programs will require overcoming this combination of healthcare organizations' mindset and the patients' inability to visualize.

That is why we need to create solutions that provide a constantly updated wellness and treatment profile so that patients are more aware of the causes and consequences and can make changes in their behavior to improve their wellness.

Sensors built into mobile phones that can contribute real time data and the broad adoption of electronic medical records will provide the necessary data foundation, but there will still be a need for someone to provide the stories and visuals that link the causes, consequences, and solutions that will ultimately result in the necessary behavioral changes.

TheVisualMD tells great visual stories and feels it has an important role to play in our more-connected medical future.

What do you think?

Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Moving Forward by Moving Back

As you may know, I love chocolate milk and occasionally blog about it. Today I'm a happy man. I finally found a new chocolate milk worth drinking after Wilcox Farms quite making it (they made one of the best chocolate milks ever).

This new chocolate milk is from a semi-local dairy called Twin Brooks Creamery that does things the old-fashioned way:



Best of all it comes in a glass bottle for smooth, cold drinking. The bottle has a $1 deposit on it, so I'll have to be sure to rinse and return it. Even if it is a little bit of a hassle for the store to gather the returns (and for the customer to bring them back), it definitely helps to encourage repeat business (and recycling).

Some might see the lack of homogenization and glass bottles with a hefty deposit as backwards steps, and marketing mis-steps, but I think these product characteristics will actually resonate with people in these back-to-basics times.

What do you think?

Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

24hrs of Innovation - Creating a Culture of Continuous Innovation

In this economic downturn there is more pressure than ever on executives to find new sources of growth, and as a result leaders are increasingly talking about innovation. In some organizations the leader may say "we need to be more innovative" or "we need to think out of the box" and stop there. While for other organizations it may become part of the year's goals or even the organization's mission statement. Only in a small number of cases will there be any kind of sustained effort to enhance, or create, a culture of continuous innovation.

By now everyone has probably heard of six sigma and continuous improvement, and maybe your organization has even managed to embed its principles into its culture, but very few organizations have managed to transform their cultures to support innovation in a sustainable way. For most organizations, innovation tends to be something that is left to the R&D department or that is thought of on a project basis. Some organizations create new innovation teams, but it is rare for an organization to invest in transforming their entire culture. There are many reasons for this:

1. Support from top leadership is required


• Challenge: Most executive teams are focused on short-term results and transforming organizational culture is a long-term investment of financial and leadership resources.


2. Clear goals and guidance are needed


• Challenge: This is a bigger barrier than you might think. Most organizations struggle to understand how to set innovation goals and to provide a vision for employees on how they might get there. Goals to 'be innovative' or 'think outside the box' are not specific enough to be successful.


3. Every organization is different


• Challenge: The starting place, needs and barriers to creating a culture of continuous innovation are different for every organization - making easy implementation of best practices impossible


4. Most companies lack a shared vocabulary for innovation


• Challenge: People in different parts of the organization use different terminology, methodologies, frameworks, and have different understandings of what innovation is. The lack of a shared vocabulary prevents organizations from achieving shared success.


5. Change is painful


• Challenge: Creating a culture of continuous innovation threatens the power base of a critical few, and disrupts the way people think about their jobs and the organization. Even if change is for the better, people tend to want to avoid change.


6. Change needs to be managed


• Challenge: This means pulling employees off of their day jobs or hiring consultants to commit to the leadership and communications surrounding the change effort. This investment may prove challenging in the current economic climate.


7. Change takes time


• Challenge: Organizations seeking to create a culture of continuous innovation must realize that the transformation will not happen overnight. People can only absorb so much change at once. The transformation will likely have to be broken up into separate phases with discreet goals (don't try to do it all at once).


• Make sure to stop and share the successes of each phase, and also to identify what you've learned that can be implemented in the next phase.


8. Visualize the outcomes of participation


• Challenge: Often people withdraw and choose not to participate in organizational transformations because they don't believe that their participation will positively impact their daily lives. If those who choose to participate don't see an impact from their early efforts, might choose to disengage as the process continues.


• You must celebrate participation and highlight the impact of individual contributors throughout the process.


9. New systems and processes may be required


• Challenge: To innovate continuously, you need to be open to receiving great ideas from anywhere in the company, and must have systems and processes to manage idea gathering, evaluation, and development. Often this requires a financial and personnel investment.


10. Change efforts require lots of communication and storytelling


• Challenge: You have to bring the change to life for employees. This requires involvement of employees early and often in the communications surrounding the goals and outcomes of the cultural transformation


• Create a story that is easy and fun to tell - this will make it easier to cascade the change downwards through the organization

This should give you a better idea of why very few organizations embark upon the difficult work to enhance or create a culture of continuous innovation. It may not be an easy or a short journey, but creating a culture of continuous innovation is the only way to increase your chances of avoiding organizational mortality.

Successfully creating a strong culture of continuous innovation also represents a huge opportunity for an organization to attract the best talent, to lower costs, to continuously add new revenue streams, and to better achieve competitive separation.

If you'd like to explore some of these issues and discuss them further, please join our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.

In the LinkedIn group and in future articles and white papers, we will further explore how to overcome some of these challenges to achieving a culture of continuous innovation.


Is your organization ready to invest the hard work towards achieving the rewards of a culture of continuous innovation?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

World Innovation Forum Wrapup

Stu Miniman tagged this photo with Twitter identities

I recently had the opportunity to attend the World Innovation Forum (May 5-6, 2009) and a couple of pre-conference events on May 4, 2009 - the ?WhatIf! Innovation Forum and the Paul Saffo Workshop. I was invited to blog and tweet from the balcony at the World Innovation Forum as a member of the BloggersHub (sponsored by Pitney Bowes).

The conference lineup included - Paul Saffo, CK Prahalad, Vijay Govindarajan, Clayton Christensen, Fred Krupp, and Dan Ariely

I did a lot of live-tweeting at the event and have now finished up my blogging this week in David Letterman fashion with a series of Top 10 Insights posts. To wrap it up, here are my Top 10 World Innovation Forum Experiences (including private visits I scheduled while in NYC):

1. The infamous Cinco De Mayo dinner


2. Dan Ariely


3. ?WhatIf! Innovation Field Trip (Apple Store and OZOlab)


4. Clayton Christensen (2nd Session)


5. TheVisualMD visit with CEO Alexander Tsiaras (blog entry coming soon)


6. Making Boris Pluskowski laugh at my tweets


7. ?WhatIf! Innovation Breakfast


8. Brightidea visit with Co-founder Vincent Carbone


9. BloggersHub Pizza Lunch


10. Paul Saffo Workshop

Here are links to all of my Top 10 Insights posts:

• Paul Saffo


• CK Prahalad


• Vijay Govindarajan


• Clayton Christensen (1st Session)


• Clayton Christensen (2nd Session)


• Fredd Krupp


• Dan Ariely

It was good to finally meet the other innovation bloggers in person and to hear a lot of great speakers. The BloggersHub helped to extend the reach of the event to thousands of people around the globe who followed the tweet stream and blog posts, and several of the online conversations around points made by the speakers had me laughing out loud.

In the end, I came away with a few key insights that will help to shape my business, and a couple of thoughts for new white papers that I hope will advance our collective understanding of what it takes to successfully and continuously innovate.


Have you found this conference coverage useful?

Do you think more conferences should model the BloggersHub concept?


NOTE: If slides from any of the talks are shared with me or posted somewhere, then I will update my posts with embedded versions or links.


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Top 10 Dan Ariely Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled the 90 minutes with Dan Ariely down into these Top 10 Insights:

1. Dan Ariely suffered extensive burns when he was younger and what he learned about prolonged pain (and removing lots of bandages) is that while going quickly (to get it over with), you also need to take breaks and recover (the mind can only absorb so much pain - or change - at once)


2. Optical illusions are an analogy for how our intense focus causes us to miss key indicators of change


3. Why do some countries have more organ donors than others? It's as simple as using opt-out instead of opt-in.


4. The way we ask questions causes people to reflect differently on how they answer


5. Not all choices are there to be picked - some are there for comparison - to make picking other choices easier (a dummy choice being present can actually change the choices people make)


6. Just because people are switching tasks more these days, it doesn't mean they don't still lose a great deal of productivity doing so


7. Ariely did research into cheating and found that most people cheat - and they tend to cheat just a little bit - amount of reward and probability of being caught did not matter


8. Getting people to sign at the top of form that they are telling the truth increases accuracy more than bottom


9. The more steps a choice is removed from real money - the more likely people are to cheat or steal


10. We design to overcome physical limitations - we know we're not supermen - with mental limitations - we think the opposite

Finally, I'd like to end with a couple of bonus fun facts from Dan Ariely on cheating:

• Cheating across countries is constant (once all parties agree that something is cheating)


• Between bankers and politicians - Bankers actually cheat twice as much

Updated May 24, 2009 - Here are the slides from Dan Ariely's presentation at the World Innovation Forum:

Dan Ariely - World Innovation Forum

View more Microsoft Word documents from Braden Kelley.

Updated May 28, 2009 - Added some videos of Dan Ariely speaking at TED


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Top 10 Fred Krupp Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled the 90 minutes with Fred Krupp down into these Top 10 Insights:

1. We are pumping pollution into the air like there is no tomorrow - and if we don't change, there might not be...


2. There are now more wind power employees than people mining coal


3. The solar energy business market cap is over $100 Billion - Who knew?


4. Brazil and Indonesia are #3 and #4 in CO2 emissions - after #1 USA and #2 China


5. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) created an online community to spur innovation


6. Fred Krupp is not a supporter of the Pickens Plan - he thinks it ties us to natural gas powered electric cars and trucks


7. Fred Krupp showed a video of a guy making things out of sugar and then criticized the technology because it can push food prices higher (I love it when people aren't afraid to weaken their own proof points)


8. Conrad Burke of Innovalight and their printed solar cells was another interesting topic


9. Will the world approve a cap-and-trade agreement by December 2009 in Copenhagen when Kyoto is revisited?


10. Fred Krupp is a huge fan of implementing a cap and trade system

Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from Bernie Karl that personifies the entrepreneurial or innovative spirit:

"I never let lack of money or education stop me, I believe they are my two strongest assets."


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Bonus - Top 10 Clayton Christensen Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled the second 90 minutes with Clayton Christensen down into these Top 10 Insights (primarily about health care and education):

1. Disruption drives things towards convenience and accessibility


2. Clayton Christensen believes that the key to healthcare is pushing care farther from the center towards nurses and users and local devices


3. There is a tension between people's different learning styles and the need for standardization


4. When Clayton Christensen writes a book, he draws a diagram. Then he writes a chapter to describe the diagram. That's how his brain works.


5. Clayton Christensen believes that over time teachers will become tutors and all instruction will eventually go online


6. Schools struggle to keep kids engaged because the kids are looking to feel successful and to have fun with their friends


7. Instead of telling Andy Grove of Intel what to think, Clayton Christensen told him how to think - and then Andy Grove could draw his own conclusion


8. We tend to frame problems incorrectly, often lack a common language to discuss the problem, and usually don't take time for re-education before proceeding to try and solve it


9. The tyranny of delivering the numbers tends to make great innovation ideas homeless


10. We should build cheap, limited electric cars aimed at teenagers - parents don't want teens going far or fast

Finally, I'd like to end with a quote I heard recently from an unknown origin:

"Minds on the margin are not marginal minds"


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Top 10 Clayton Christensen Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled the first 90 minutes with Clayton Christensen down into these Top 10 Insights:

1. Largest markets don't represent the biggest growth opportunity - non-existent markets are key


2. Sustaining innovation improves product past what people need - disruptive innovations often win by being inferior but closer to customer needs


3. Low cost strategy only works when you are fighting against a high cost competitor - prices fall if only low cost competitors exist


4. A good disruptive strategy creates an incentive for leaders to exit the contested area and focus on higher margin businesses


5. Biggest opporunity in China isn't low cost labor, it's the untapped market of non-consumers


6. Clayton Christensen believes that green energy opportunities are not in high tech solutions but in low tech developing world instead


7. Be careful about outsourcing too much of your operations - you can end up creating competitors (Compaq/Flextronics example)


8. Good companies survive by setting up separate businesses with an unfettered charter to kill the mother company


9. Clayton Christensen doesn't seem to believe that listening to customers is key to innovation


10. Listening to customers doesn't necessarily tip off leaders to possibilities of disruptive innovation

Finally, I'd just like to say that if you've never seen Clayton Christensen in person, he is a gentle giant with a calm demeanor, and surprisingly funny.


Update May 24, 2009 - Here are the slides from Clayton Christensen's presentation at the World Innovation Forum:

Clayton Christensen - World Innovation Forum

View more Microsoft Word documents from Braden Kelley.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Top 10 Vijay Govindarajan Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled 90 minutes with Vijay Govindarajan down into these Top 10 Insights:

1. Most companies spend too much time on Box 1 thinking and not enough on Box 2&3 thinking


• Box 1 is about closing the performance gap and restructuring


• Box 2&3 are about Closing the Opportunity Gap (projects for 2020) and Renewal


2. Strategic Intent is about dreaming big (other people call this a BHAG) - not creating a mission statement that nobody reads


3. Every company needs a growth playbook for three horizons:


• Horizon 1 - Core Business


• Horizon 2 - Adjacent Space

Horizon 3 - Entirely New Space


4. Horizon 3 projects are 95% assumptions and Horizon 1 projects are 95% knowledge


5. People at the top "Think" - People in the middle "Make Sure" - People at the Bottom - "Do" - If you want transformation - You must engage the "Doers" at the bottom


6. Huge entry barriers to keep competitors out can also prevent you from getting out of the fortress you've built when it's disrupted


7. Because the message is simple - It does not mean that it is easy to do - The future is now


8. India and China went from 55% of World GDP to less than 5% because they missed several productivity revolutions


9. Innovation in emerging markets coming to USA will be hard for American companies to compete against because low margins won't be attractive


10. Be the change you want to see in the company - If you get fired for it, find a new company

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a link to a Vijay Govindarajan webinar (Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators) where you can listen to a lot of the content and follow along with many of the slides.


Updated May 24, 2009 - Here are the slides from Vijay Govindarajan's presentation at the World Innovation Forum:

Vijay Govindarajan - World Innovation Forum

View more Microsoft Word documents from Braden Kelley.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Top 10 Paul Saffo Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled my time with Paul Saffo down into these Top 10 Insights:

1. There are times when the uncertainty is so great that you shouldn't even forecast at all


2. Google becoming richer as people 'contribute' search strings - Where else do you think you are consuming but actually contribute?


3. 2/3 of Roomba owners give them a name - 1/3 take them with them to friend's house or on vacation


4. Innovative ideas often take about twenty years to succeed - If you find something that has been failing for almost 20 years, pay special attention


• LucasFilm Habitat failed 20 yrs ago, others followed in failure, then Second Life took off


5. People tend to substitute forward velocity as a measure of succcess


6. Sometimes bad management is what allows innovation to happen


7. The innovators' trap is mistaking a clear view for a short distance


8. People talk about innovations as an S-curve. Most people look at the inflection point. Look at the flat spot instead.


9. Forecasters tend to over-estimate the short-term and under-estimate the long-term


10. If you want to make sense of the future, look back - Look back twice as far as you are looking forward

Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from Mark Twain:

"History doesn't repeat itself, at best it sometimes rhymes"


UPDATED May 24, 2009 - Here are the slides from Paul Saffo's presentation at the World Innovation Forum:

Paul Saffo - World Innovation Forum

View more Microsoft Word documents from Braden Kelley.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Top 10 CK Prahalad Insights - World Innovation Forum

Taking a slightly different approach than other World Innovation Forum bloggers, I've distilled 90 minutes with CK Prahalad down into these Top 10 Insights:

1. Companies achieving competitive separation will be focused on 'next practices', not best practices


2. Managers must focus some of their attention on volatility and discontinuities, because if not actively managed, discontinuities become disruptions


3. To manage volatility you must address two contradictory requirements:


• Strategic Clarity and Consistency


• Operational Agility and Resilience


4. Avoiding commoditization from now will require the creation of personalized, co-created experiences (possibly using multiple vendors)


5. Only when you try to get rid of variable costs do you realize they are fixed


6. Our new business reality requires systems capable of enormous volatility and scaling up and down rapidly


• How do I create capability of anticipating the future?


• How do I enable real time reconfiguration of resources?


7. Four billion people want to be part of the global marketplace - this will have a profound impact on sustainability


8. The question is not whether I can invest big, it is whether I can learn fast


9. Innovation requires speed and stamina along with clarity of direction


10. Don't start where you are in determining strategy - you will only get extrapolation from present - and you will only get budget-oriented approaches


• Position yourself in 2015 or 2020 and then fold the future in


• Strategy is about folding the future in, not about extrapolating


• You imagine the future and then you determine the short steps inbetween to get there

Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from CK Prahalad's mother:

"Never accept silence as agreement because you'll regret it later."


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Interview - Brightidea Co-Founder - Vincent Carbone

I had the opportunity to meet with BrightIdea co-founder and COO Vincent Carbone on May 7, 2009. We had a fascinating conversation about the last ten years of innovation, and the history and future vision of Brightidea.

Brightidea was founded by Matthew Greeley and Vincent Carbone in 1999. Matt was interested in evolution and the shift from physical to mental evolution and he was very interested in exploring how mental evolution could be accelerated. There was a belief that by getting people to more openly share ideas, groups of people could create better ideas.

Brightidea started as an openidea exchange at brightidea.com with a broad set of topics that people could contribute ideas to - the structure being modeled loosely on the DMOZ project. The original model was advertising-supported. Individuals from all around the world submitted ideas on any topic of their choice, and then other members of the brightidea.com community voted on the ideas.

To entice people to participate in the community by submitting ideas, there was a certain amount of revenue-sharing with the people who submitted the ideas (based on the amount of ad revenue an idea generated). The more page visits an idea got, the more revenue there was to go around. The brightidea community had everything from teachers sharing lesson plans to housewives sharing cleaning tips. The concept was doing really well and growing....

But, then the internet bubble burst, additional venture capital became scarce (especially for ad-supported ventures), and advertising revenue decreased substantially. This left Brightidea re-evaluating what to do next.

Looking around, one thing Matt and Vincent saw that there was a trend of decreasing manufacturing costs and increasing digitization. This was causing the 'what' to make, to become more important than the 'how' to make it. As a result, Brightidea changed its name to General Idea and decided to build systems for organizations to help them decide what to make. They went out and asked companies if they could use a system to manage ideas internally. The US Army had one of the oldest suggestion systems in the country at the time and they were very receptive to the idea. So, General Idea helped the US Army to automate their paper system and it really took off.

In 2001, Gartner coined the term 'Idea Management' and named General Idea as one of the key companies in this 'new' sector. After overhauling their product offering, General Idea began to grow again, and things really took off after 2006. As you can see it took a long time for companies to start feeling comfortable soliciting ideas from their employees, and only recently are companies beginning to feel comfortable extending their idea solicitation outside the organization.

Companies like P&G, Starbucks, and Adobe have made this leap outside their organizations and more are starting to follow suit. Before long the opportunity might even present itself for Brightidea to re-launch the brightidea community. Organizations and individuals might finally be ready to engage in open innovation on a large scale.

Companies don't just see innovation as being about coming up with new products and services. Harley Davidson is using software for things like improving factory safety and American Express has a "Recessionomics" initiative. During the downturn, organizations are adapting idea management systems to focus on cost saving ideas as well. Even President Obama is soliciting government employees for cost saving ideas - there must be a plan for managing and evaluating these if the call to action is to succeed.

Currently, according to Vincent, the #2 reason for employees leaving organizations is that they feel their ideas are not heard - #1 is inadequate compensation.

This is leading to idea generation and management finally becoming widely understood as a necessary part of the organizational infrastructure. As a result, Brightidea is positioning themselves for rapid growth over the next two years. At the same time, you see other organizations like Innography adding things like idea evaluation tools to the portfolio of available innovation tools, and Vince sees no reason why the tools won't expand to idea development as more data comes online.

The goal of Brightidea's software is not replace any decision making processes, but instead to enhance them. Their ten years of experience has taught them that the wisdom of the crowd bubbles up from simple +/- voting followed by secondary evaluation of top ideas using specialized custom scorecards.

Ultimately, organizations want to know earlier and with greater certainty whether or not something will succeed so they can allocate funding to the ideas that are most likely to succeed and have a large impact on the organization. To achieve this, Brightidea is trying to create a flexible platform that allows organizations to distribute idea generation and management to smaller and smaller organizational units while allowing for increased sharing of information and ideas. This is partially achieved through new features like ad-hoc challenges, twitter-like functionality, facebook-like functionality, and improved reporting.

So what is the future?

People understand the need for continuous improvement, disruptive innovation, blue ocean strategy, and more open innovation. Now there is room for new thought leaders to emerge and drive organizations forward from understanding the need for innovation, towards building continuously-improving innovation processes and systems.

Companies don't have an inherent right to be immortal. As innovation cycles compress, the companies that will win in the future are not the companies that come up with one great idea and diffuse it into the marketplace, but the companies that can create an innovation wave with peaks that continue to get closer together.

Let the mental evolution continue.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Vincent and it has triggered a couple of insights in my mind that I plan to combine into a white paper to post on the site soon.

Please sign up for my monthly newsletter if you'd like to receive a link to this when it becomes available.

What do you think?

Braden Kelley - @innovate on Twitter

A Conversation with OZOlab

I had the opportunity to tag along to the first part of the ?WhatIf! Innovation Field Trip on May 4, 2009. This event began at the Apple Store SOHO, which was then followed by a conversation with OZOlab.

OZOlab was founded by Jordan Harris and Roo Rogers, a blending of Virgin branding experience and economic development experience. The two got together to try and have a positive impact on the world through business. One of the things they realized early on is that companies in the green space do a very poor job of branding (exemplified by the poor audience recall of 'green' brands when asked).

OZOlab's first venture is OZOcar - a black car service in New York City that uses only Toyota Priuses with WiFi and AC Power Adapters. OZOcar went from idea to business in six months and was launched on the back of the Green Car to the Red Carpet movement. They did their first fashion show in September 2005, and now have a profitable business servicing celebrities, corporate accounts and individuals. They have run into a lot of challenges that they did not expect in greening the car service business, but feel they are doing a lot of good. The most frustrating thing has been corporate clients' reluctance to give up the traditional paper voucher system for a more efficient (and more green) paper-free system.

OZO is designed to be an umbrella brand focused on green values and good design and they are currently working on a couple of other product line ideas. One is OZOhome - a cleaning system shipped to stores without water. The second is OZOwater - a water system based around stylish bottles and a series of filtration, enhancement, and flavor discs. OZOwater is the farthest along the product development process. OZOhome was started on first, but they didn't make the product real soon enough and lost a bit of momentum on the project (they are trying to pick it back up now).

Along the way OZO Labs has said no to a lot of ideas, including OZOvodka, OZOfertilizer, and creating their own green-focused retail stores (a Green Depot idea).

It will be interesting to see if OZO can change our water drinking habits and our cleaning habits, but I wish them the best. The OZOhome cleaning system is something that has to happen sooner or later. We just can't keep shipping water all around the country if the consumer can add it at home at the end.

I wish OZOlab every success with these challenges in changing behavior.

What do you think?

@innovate on Twitter

An Inside Look at the Apple Store

I had the opportunity to tag along to the first part of the ?WhatIf! Innovation Field Trip on May 4, 2009. This event began at the Apple Store in SOHO.

The Apple Store session began with an Apple Store GM recounting of the predicted failure of the Apple Stores when they first opened back in 2001. Apple for their part wasn't seeking to create just a retail store. They wanted to create a place to gather. Their first goal was to get brilliant real estate, and then integrate the store into the community if possible.

The Apple Store started with four products (two laptops and two desktops) - this was before the iPod. They designed the stores to have flexible space - to be flexible to customer needs. In addition to the space being flexible, they've been flexible in creating new roles (e.g. Concierge, Creative, etc.) as a need was recognized.

Apple Stores hire for customer service and train new hires on the technical skills. They also try to look ahead at people's potential and move them around for the best fit. The reason for this is as follows:

1. The Concierges and Floor Staff are about creating the relationship
2. The Studio is about deepening the relationship
3. The Genius Bar is about repairing the relationship if anything goes wrong

To connect with each other before starting the day, employees participate every day in a morning huddle. Employees are also empowered to make suggestions. No suggestion is too crazy.

Apple Store employees seem to believe that they exist to provide information and provide a good ownership experience first, and then if they happen to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of product, so be it. They seem to take pride in each store having its own personality and local decision making capabilities because they want the store to be a gift to the community. Along those lines, Apple Stores have summer camps for kinds and school nights where teachers can bring in their students.

Apple believes that investing in the customer experience will pay off in the future. After all, people's lives are on these computers, and sometimes people need to have live support available, so Apple Stores provide that. They want to be able to provide the right solutions to people.

While other retailers might get bogged down in features, Apple tries to focus on benefits and orient them towards solutions that resonate with customers. The personal shopping service grew out of the desire to be able to offer busy people a way to schedule time for their questions about Apple products instead of having to wait to speak to someone.

Another solution they decided to offer that didn't exist when Apple Stores began opening was One-to-One. Apple discovered customers were looking for instructions/advice at the Genius Bar and so they created the $99/yr service (up to one appointment per week) that includes advice on professional apps like Final Cut Pro. The goal of One-to-One is to help customers know how to enjoy their computer at home.

Customer success stories are shared with teams and there is also a section on the One-to-One Portal for success stories. Two examples are a girl that learned how to use Final Cut Pro in the SOHO store and just got a movie into the Tribeca Film Festival, and a 5-foot tall model that wrote a book on the computers on the floor that has since been published.

Question: If One-to-One customers are a losing proposition after maybe session number two, how did you sell it to corporate?

Answer: You have to look beyond the direct cost to revenue comparisons. A service like this creates loyal, happy customers that help to convert other consumers into Apple customers.That's not easy to measure, but they know it happens. You can't quantify everything. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing. Ultimately Apple wants to exude passion to create passion.

Not everything succeeds though. The iPod bar was taken out to create the Studio for One-to-One. They continue to experiment in the stores, including the upcoming ProLabs.

The Apple Store GM described the relationship between corporate and retail as linear not vertical. Product managers and developers pay visits to the store to hear the voice of the customer first-hand, and store employees often get called to Cupertino to work on special projects.

Finally, they have a saying in the stores:

"With every Apple computer comes an Apple Store."

What do you think?

@innovate

Live Coverage from the World Innovation Forum

Hello all,

Next week I will be attending the following events and live blogging and tweeting from them:

1. May 4 - ?WhatIf! Innovation Field Trip to the Apple Store and OVO
2. May 4 - Paul Saffo Workshop
3. May 5/6 - World Innovation Forum
4. May 7 - Field Trip to TheVisualMD headquarters to interview CEO Alexander Tsiaras

I will also have my video camera and hope to record some segments for YouTube's Survival of the Fastest and for the Innovation Interviews section of my site (coming soon).

If you'd like to be interviewed on camera at the World Innovation Forum about the innovation efforts at your company, please DM me on Twitter. If you live in the UK, I am especially interested in interviewing you for potential Survival of the Fastest segments.

Or if you'd just like to meet-up at the event, then please also DM me on Twitter.

In addition to yours truly:


@innovate (Braden Kelley, http://blogginginnovation.com)


The following individuals will be joining me in the Bloggers Hub at the World Innovation Forum:

@reneecallahan (Renee Callahan, http://www.innoblog.com)

@donpeppers (Don Peppers, http://www.peppersandrogersgroup.com/blog/)

@Pauldunay (Paul Dunay, http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/)

@HelenWalters (Helen Walters, http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next)

@AndreaMeyer (Andrea Meyer, http://workingknowledge.com/blog/)

@chrisflanagan (Christine Flanagan, http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/weblog)

@pinnovation (Jeff De Cagna, http://www.principledinnovation.com/blog/)

@yourboot (Julie Lenzer Kirk, http://blog.julielenzerkirk.com/)

@katiekonrath (Katie Konrath, http://www.getFreshMinds.com)

@dominicbasulto (Dominic Basulto, http://endlessinnovation.typepad.com/)

@FHInnovation (Kathie Thomas & Stephanie Susman, http://innovation.fleishmanhillard.com)

@LeftTheBox (Samir Balwany, http://www.leftthebox.com)

@Stu (Stuart Miniman, http://nohype.tumblr.com/)

@SteveTodd (Steve Todd, http://stevetodd.typepad.com/)

Other bloggers covering the event live include:

Idris Mootee, http://mootee.typepad.com/

Howard Wright, http://www.howardwright.com/

Bernie Gracy, http://www.pbconnect.com/

Michael Lee Stallard, http://www.michaelleestallard.com/

Robert McNeill, http://www.thoughtbright.com/?q=blog

I look forward to meeting all of my fellow bloggers and other conference attendees May 4-7 in New York City.

All the best,

Braden
@innovate

The 24 Hours of Innovation on May 15-16, 2009

Would you like to follow innovation bloggers around the world for 24 hours as they post innovation insights for the 24 Hours of Innovation on May 15-16, 2009 (10:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M. (CET))?

Blogging Innovation will be contributing a special post to the "My half time pep talk for 2009" blogging event at 2:35PM CET (5:35AM PDT - West Coast Time) on May 15, 2009. This should be a lot of fun and very educational. You can confirm your interest and participation on the LinkedIn event page.

The 24 hours are divided in time slots, each one featuring an exciting innovation ranging from an innovation award to creativity sessions, an innovative auction, start-ups, and interviews with global thought leaders. Everyone can follow and join the 24 Hours of Innovation on www.boardofinnovation.com, and from there the event will be covered cross-media on blogs, traditional media, twitter, slideshare, ustream, coveritlive, flickr, scribd, vimeo, etc.

I'll see you at 5:35AM PDT on May 15, 2009!

@innovate