Having Fun with Innovation

Interview - Scott Christopher of "The Levity Effect"

I had the opportunity to interview Scott Christopher, co-author of "The Levity Effect" about the importance of fun in the workplace, and about how beneficial it can be. But how important is fun to innovation?

A contributing author of the bestseller "A Carrot A Day", a regular columnist for Workplace HR and Safety magazines and a distinguished consultant on recognition, Scott travels the world speaking to leadership groups at conferences, conventions, and on-site customer meetings.

Here is the text from the interview:

1. When it comes to innovation, what is the biggest challenge that you see organizations facing?

Boss-employee relationships. Look, all the truly useful, great ideas come from the workforce because they're the ones that have identified a need and can actually see themselves implementing them. An engaged employee is ten times more likely to contribute his or her time, effort and energies into innovation, but too many managers are missing the engagement boat. They simply assume that, particularly in a rough economy, a paycheck is all the incentive people need to work harder and better while still devising ways to improve the company.


2. Why is it so important that organizations teach their leaders to embrace fun more?

Thanks for asking that because it beautifully wraps up the incomplete response above. Easing the tension and pressure with levity is fundamental to getting the most from your people. Studies show that there is a direct correlation between being physically relaxed and motor skill acuity, task completion, team interaction, idea generation, creativity, and the list goes on and on. You don't have to look much further than a high school basketball coach who reminds his players to "have fun out there guys!" If they're tense and nervous, they simply won't be at their best. It's usually the team who "has nothing to lose" that ends up shooting lights out from all over the floor, while the top-ranked Bulldogs, for example, feel the pressure of all the expectations and suddenly forget how to make a simple layup or pass the ball out of bounds.

There is also just too much evidence to ignore that humor and fun at work are no longer optional, but critical to building a satisfying, engaging workplace which drives performance.


3. Why do some people fight against fun in the workplace?

Because there is a stigma associated with levity - it's inappropriate in a professional work environment. Plus, the fear that somehow everyone with a lifelong yearning to be the next Jim Carrey or worse, Don Wrickles, will suddenly rear their ugly, obnoxious heads and you'll have an office filled with offensive, discriminating jokes courtesy of a new army of Michael Scott clones. A lack of credibility is often associated with levity, which is patently erroneous. Many of the world's greatest leaders had and have wonderful senses of humor. Even Mahatma Gandhi once said, "If I didn't have a sense of humor I would have committed suicide long ago." You remember when Bob Dole lost the 1996 presidential election? His whole image was serious. His monotone delivery, his grave responses, his reputation as a wounded war veteran all shaped his image to voters. After he lost, he was on Leno and Letterman laughing at himself and displaying an uncanny and often hilarious sense of humor. Where was that during the campaign? Fear of not being taken seriously, evidently, was his reason for choosing to only display one side of his whole persona. Too bad, he might have won if people had seen the real Bob - credible, courageous, appropriately serious, experienced, AND able to laugh and joke a little.


4. What most impedes organizations from having fun?

Probably the misconception that it's going to take a lot of time and planning and that no one's going to like it anyway, so what's the point? Lightening up at work begins and ends with the individual. It's just a simple shift in your personal paradigm. Smile more, laugh more, unfurrow your brown, unclench your jaws, keep perspective and be the same person at work that you are at home or golfing or at church. Having said that, it can only help to "program" some levity into your department or team. Plan a couple of parties or an offsite outing. Celebrate birthdays. Go see a Friday movie premiere. Go bowling during lunch. There are of course a million ways to have some fun at work, but ultimately just allowing people to be themselves and laugh more and enjoy a good Youtube video now and then is the least complicated or time-consuming way to getting there.


5. Since the book was published, have you come across other organizations that have transformed their organizations to be more fun?

Absolutely. There are levity champions tucked away in cubicles and offices all across the globe and when they read the book it arms them with the validation they've been seeking to take it up the chain. And then they usually have me come in and speak to their leadership group or even the entire company to underscore the company's determination to "lighten things up around here." It's not an overnight cure, by the way. As with any organizational change, it requires time and effort. Many companies have adopted 'fun' or 'sense of humor' as one of their core values or guiding principles, which instantly legitimizes it and can speed up the transition. Levity's effect is not easily quantifiable, but the results are usually evident in things like engagement scores, employee retention, and customer satisfaction.


6. What advice to you have for managers who work in an organization that doesn't have fun?

Buy the book!... and make a personal, confidential goal to commit to the levity concepts for one year. Keep a journal or log of your efforts and what you perceive to be the results, either immediate or long term. Describe in as much detail the current state of your team to compare against later. You will likely not get through the first few months before your work is noticed and possible opportunities to broaden your goal to others become evident. By the end of the year compare and contrast your relationship with your employees, morale, productivity, and financial goals with your starting point. It may take the whole year, but you should have observed tangible, meaningful changes to keep you committed to levity's path.


7. What advice to you have for employees who work in an organization that doesn't have fun?

First, make an issue of it, but don't overdo it. At least let it be known that "gee, we don't have much fun around here." Or "we should laugh more." This may even include a comment about it to your boss in a review or even just shooting the breeze (if that's allowed.) Second, create your own fun. You can still develop and exercise your unique sense of humor and have fun on your own. You don't need permission, or at least you shouldn't, to have a smile on your face, a look of mirth in your eyes and an itchy laughter trigger finger. Re-record your voicemail greetings - put a smile on your face or make yourself laugh right before you record... people will hear levity in your voice. Make your email "voice" a little less formal, maybe subtly change a font, color, or signature. Humanize the copy some; write like you talk. Listen to your favorite comic on satellite radio or your Ipod on the way into work. Get laughing in the car and share one of the jokes with the first person you greet at work.


8. If you were to change one thing about our educational system to better prepare students to contribute in the innovation workforce of tomorrow, what would it be?

A comfy place to nap.


Be sure and check out our review of "The Levity Effect" and summary of the main innovation points here.


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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Video Interview - Dan Pink - Author of "Drive"

by Braden Kelley

I had the opportunity to interview Dan Pink, author of the new book "Drive" at a biznik event last night. If you're not familiar with biznik, it is an online community for entreprenurs and the independently employed. Instead of just stopping there, Biznik organizes several in-person events and an annual conference called Seattle BizJam (which I spoke at in 2007), and allows members to organize their own free or fee-supported events. I think Biznik is great and they are headquartered here in Seattle.





Dan Pink was interviewed on stage during the event by Warren Etheredge and some of the highlights from my tweets last night included:

• "A good book is a basket of ideas that is refined and spread through conversation."


• People are more likely to donate blood for altruistic reasons than for cash. Offering people money moves things from the social realm to the economic realm and behaviors and expectations change. Same is true when you begin imposing a fine on parents picking their kids up late from day care instead of people feeling obligated to be there on time.


• There is great absurdity in how open source developed if you look at it in terms of economic motivation, but the mastery drive is so strong that people participated (even without an economic incentive).


• Even though biznik has an even male-female split, more women turn up for the in-person events than men.


• People who sculpt their jobs to broaden them beyond narrow responsibilities, find more autonomy and job satisfaction.


• "Annual performance reviews are dumb. People need more frequent feedback. Imagine professional athletes only getting feedback on their performance only once a year."


• The carrot-stick approach is the wrong approach when it comes to creative, thoughtful work - non-algorithmic work.


• Using the carrot-stick approach with teachers or students is wrong. Dan Pink's solution for the education problem would be to raise teacher base pay and make it easier to get rid of bad ones.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Who are the real thought leaders?

by Mike Myatt

Thought Leadership...What is a thought leader, and what does thought leadership mean in today's business world? As much as some people wish it wasn't so, a thought leader is not someone who simply restates someone else's views and positions. Furthermore, beyond uniqueness of thought, a true thought leader's positions also challenge established norms and conventions. Moreover, the true litmus test for a thought leader is when their unique ideas are implemented in the marketplace, they tend to create disruptive innovation, and often change the way we view the world. In today's post I'll examine the subject of thought leadership in an attempt to separate fact from fiction

It is certainly much easier to look back in time at world leaders, Nobel laureates, religious scholars, philosophers, and captains of industry to identify historical thought leaders than it is to identify today's visionaries. This is due to the fact that thought leadership was once a term reserved for a limited few. Regrettably the label of thought leader has evolved to become a self-bestowed title for anyone who has something to say or promote, often without regard for qualitative issues. Some would say that the term thought leader, once synonymous with futurist and innovator, is more closely aligned with snake-oil salesman today. Don't get me wrong, true thought leaders still exist; they are just much harder to spot these days.

Let me begin by stating that authentic thought leaders, the real deals, are not created via great marketing and PR alone. While they are oft published, quite outspoken, and many times represented by marvelous publicists, they are not merely contrived, self-promoted legends in their own minds. Rather true thought leaders are born out of real-world successes, achievements, and contributions that have been recognized by their peers and competitors alike. Their work is widely regarded as being innovative, disruptive, and market altering. They are not the posers, but the players. They are not spin masters trying to make it, but are the undisputed market leaders that have already arrived.

It is also important to draw a distinction between personal or corporate branding and thought leadership. While thought leaders often become well recognized brands, there are many well crafted brands that have messaged thought leadership where none exists. Don't allow yourself to get caught-up in the spin and hype associated with great marketers who will gladly accept compensation, but will leave you woefully disappointed when it comes to living-up to their billing. Look for real results based upon market leadership, and not just brand leadership alone.

The best example I can give you about discerning the difference between brand leaders and thought leaders is that of large consulting companies. I would challenge the brand perception that McKinsey or Bain are the true thought leaders in their sector. I would submit that you will find the true innovation and thought leadership taking place at the smaller consultancies. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that there is almost an inverse relationship between size and thought leadership in the consulting world in that the bigger a firm is, the less likely they are to be innovators. Rather it is those firms chasing the big brands that must innovate to survive, and that often employ today's thought leaders. I have walked into many businesses over the years that were branded as market leaders that hadn't come up with a new idea for years. The fact of the matter is that the more institutional a firm becomes, the harder it is to maintain an entrepreneurial edge driven by a culture of innovation.

While I don't want to belabor the point and unfairly pick on large consulting firms, I think it's important to go a bit further with this train of thought. You see, the legions of twenty and thirty-something consultants employed by Accenture, McKinsey, Bain, Booz Allen Hamilton etc., haven't lived long enough to even form their own thoughts much less become thought leaders. One of the problems I have with large consultancies is that they often label themselves as thought leaders (strike one). They repurpose generic materials across industries and sectors and spin "old" as "innovative" (can you say best practices? strike two). They have regrettably become pimps of mass merchandised mediocrity (strike three).

As noted above, espousing 'best practices' propaganda has nothing to do with thought leadership, but has everything to do with creating mediocrity. What I have witnessed time and again is that these purported thought leaders have in reality weakened businesses, damaged brands, and commoditized competitive advantages for many entities, which ultimately adversely impacts their profitability and sustainability. I know my perspective may appear jaded, but I'm so tired of reading the drivel of people that don't have anything unique to say, who have been deemed as brilliant up-and-comers that I just want to scream.

I have nothing against the term thought leader, however it is my opinion the label should be reserved as an honor to bestow upon a select few, and not a title to be adopted by the masses. Dilution has the opposite effect of scarcity in that it diminishes value. Can you remember when the title of Vice President or Managing Director actually meant something? I can.

Bottom line...judge people on their actions and results, not their rhetoric. Don't accept conventional wisdom as gospel unless you can validate proof of concept, and then only accept it if you can innovate with it, or around it. Challenge everything in business by looking to improve upon the status quo and differentiate yourself from your competition. I don't advise my clients to adopt the practices of their peers, but rather to be disruptive with their innovation such that they create or widen market gaps between themselves and their peers. Lastly, when you run across a real thought leader, you'll clearly recognize them as such for there is something truly unique in both their words and deeds.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Twitter Lists Now Live - Some Tips

Surprise, surprise...

Twitter Lists have been talked about for some time, but are now live.

I've created an innovation list here:

http://twitter.com/innovate/innovation

Please feel free to follow along, or make your case for your own favorite innovation tweeter (or yourself) to be included in the list by stating your opinion as a comment on this blog post.

For those of you creating your own lists, the easiest place to add people I've found is in the list of people you are following



And here is an interesting use of Twitter lists on a web page by the Huffington Post.

Finally, you might want to check out Listorious - a new and interesting service built off of the Twitter list functionality. I've created a Listorious list here: http://listorious.com/innovate/innovation

Happy Innovating!

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Content is No Longer King (Part 2)

by Stephen Shapiro

In an earlier blog entry on content, readers provided a number of interesting comments. If you haven't already read that article (and the comments), you may want to do so in order to understand this new article.

Many did not agree with my point of view. And that is great. I only wanted to stimulate some conversation.

Let me first address some of the comments (and I appreciate the time that everyone took in writing comments). The comment is in italics with my response following.


"I wonder if the Kindle model requires a subsidy to offset the upfront cost of technology development and/or design manufacturing." Two thoughts come to mind. 1) No one has an issue paying $150 for an iPod even though the cost of the music is pretty much the same. 2) As new generations of eBook readers hit the market, prices will drop. Several are now on the market for under $200.


"The reason distribution appears to be the source of value isn't distribution itself but the monopolistic nature of new distribution channels." Indeed. And that's my point. Those who aggregate are the ones who create positions of power. The content creators are not the power players. And the individual publishers certainly aren't.


"If content was truly losing its ability to create value, Comcast would not try to purchase NBC - they might instead bid for Netflix or for a content delivery device company like Roku." Great point. The reason why I mentioned Comcast's acquisition of NBC was not to say that it was a good or bad move. I was only trying to point out that a few years ago, the networks were the ones doing the acquiring. Now the distributors are in a position to buy the content creators. It will be interesting to see what this Comcast deal does to Hulu.


"It's the publisher that is not essential anymore - the content creators are also becoming content publishers due to technology." Indeed, the publisher is now playing the role of middleman and is going away in many respects - or needs to play a very different role. As you suggest, content creators do have the option to go straight to the consumer now. And we are seeing a democratization of content. Having said that, content creators will still want to push their content to content aggregators - the source of the eyeballs. The reason why Google is so successful is that they are currently a significant player in how content is found.


Some interesting things have evolved in the past week since I wrote the first article. It appears that the big innovations are being developed by the content aggregators (not that that is surprising).

Google Digital Books: Google is offering eBooks on out of print books that are no longer subject to copyright restrictions. They scanned nearly 2 million books and will be offering them in digital form for about $8.

HP/Amazon paperback books: Soon after Google's announcement, HP and Amazon.com indicated that they will offer print on demand paperback books for these out of print books. A 250 page book from their library of 500,000 can be purchased for about $15. A single copy can be printed in a few minutes.

Book Pricing War: Wal-mart, in an effort to crush Amazon.com, is offering 10 new release books for $10. Well, that was until Amazon said they would offer those same books for $10, at which point Wal-Mart dropped the price to $9. Target joined the price-war, dropping the price to $8.99. This caused Wal-Mart to drop the price to $8.98. According to the WSJ, "The publishing industry is also watching warily to see if the price war will have lasting impact on book pricing and the contracts that publishers sign with authors."

BN Nook eBook Reader: Barnes and Noble, announced the release of their 'Nook' eBook, intended to take on Amazon.com's Kindle. One account says that the Nook is "closer to a printed book than its precursors in some respects, (in that it) allows users to lend their copies of electronic books to any friend who has installed Barnes & Noble's e-reader application on a mobile device or personal computer."

Comcast Premium Channel Streaming: Comcast announced that by end of the year, you will be able to watch popular cable television series such as HBO's "Entourage" and AMC's "Mad Men" on your computer without paying extra. They are reported to be the first cable TV operator to "unlock online access to a slate of valuable cable shows and movies, aiming to replicate what's available on television through video on demand."


Please don't get me wrong. Content is necessary. As an author, I sure hope there is value in what I do. Amazon.com, iTunes, Wal-Mart, Barnes and Noble, and Comcast would not exist without content. So yes, content is important. I just wonder if it is still king.


P.S. As an aside, Andrew Odlyzko published an article entitled "Content is Not King" where he contends (according to Wikipedia) that "1) the entertainment industry is a small industry compared with other industries, notably the telecommunications industry; 2) people are more interested in communication than entertainment; and 3) therefore that entertainment content is not the killer app for the Internet." I realize it is a different topic altogether, but it is interesting nonetheless.

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Stephen Shapiro is the author of three books, a popular innovation speaker, and is the Chief Innovation Evangelist for Innocentive, the leader in Open Innovation.

Can Brilliance be Borrowed?

by Mike Brown

I attended the KC Small Business "Think Bigger" luncheon recently when guest speaker David Kord Murray discussed his new book, "Borrowing Brilliance." The tome covers 6 steps (defining, borrowing, combining, incubating, judging, and enhancing) to build from others' ideas.

While several people afterward expressed frustration with Murray's presentation and demeanor (some of the frustrations were very justified), he shared a number of valuable points. Here's my take on the highlights he covered (thus the designation of this piece as a guest post of sorts):

• To get to a core issue, Murray suggests asking, "What's the problem above the problem we're considering?" This is a different and helpful way of expressing the question, "What are we trying to achieve?" He cited an old, but relevant, example. In the 1920's, Ford defined the issue as building the cheapest car. GM identified a more fundamental issue: making cars affordable. Its problem definition led to auto financing's introduction.


• Murray expressed a clear disdain for unfettered brainstorming, claiming stronger ideas emerge when more judging is involved. He has a point, in that once you've moved from divergent to convergent thinking steps, solid evaluation approaches do push you closer to more readily implementable ideas.


• In using different perspectives to look for analogous ideas, Murray shared a borrowing continuum to look for ideas in Same, Similar, and then Distant domains (i.e., your industry, a related industry, a radically different industry). This concept has been discussed frequently in Brainzooming (and the "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" ebook is structured similarly), yet this was a new, actionable way of expressing the approach.


• He talked about "aha moments" occurring in the shower so frequently because we've typically minimized conscious thought, allowing the sub-conscious to sift through raw materials it's been fed. I haven't tried scheduling a group creative team meeting in the shower yet, but it again emphasizes the value of changes of scenery and activity in ideation.


• Murray passed along an interesting factoid: Walt Disney conceived Disneyland not as an amusement park, but as a movie starring the park's guests. Instead of "rides," mini-movies were then developed in which guests star for a few minutes. I'd never really thought about it, but it makes perfect sense. It's also a great example of selecting a rich core concept and using it throughout the innovation process to create strategically consistent implementation.

All these are helpful insights. Now here's one for new authors (i.e., David Kord Murray): when a well-known local bookstore (i.e., Rainy Day Books) helps co-sponsor your appearance, maybe your closing book slide should feature its logo along with (or even instead of) the major online bookseller brands you chose to feature. Just saying.

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Mike Brown is an award-winning marketer and strategist with extensive experience in research, strategy, branding, and sponsorship marketing. He's a frequent keynote presenter on innovation and authors Brainzooming!

Content is No Longer King

by Stephen Shapiro

We often hear that content is king. But I wonder if this is still true.

Let's take some very simple examples.

I am sure most of you know that the iPod was not a revolutionary invention. It was merely a new spin on the already existing MP3 player. The real innovation was the integration of the iPod with iTunes. This changed the game. Using this model, the distribution of content became as important as the creators (the musicians) and the publishers (the record labels). Apple is now one of the most powerful and profitable players in the music industry.

I now own an Amazon Kindle. I have to admit, I love it (I'll blog about that another time). But what strikes me is that we are seeing the same 'content distributor as king' dynamics unfold again. In the book business, the author's royalty is a pretty small slice of the pie. I should know because I just signed a two book deal with Penguin's Portfolio imprint.

Here are some illustrative figures for a printed book (kept very simple using made up, yet not far fetched numbers):

• An author can expect about 10% +/- of the retail price of the book. So if the book retails for $25, the author gets $2.50.


• The retailer expects roughly a 50% discount and then they sell it for whatever they can get. If they sell it for a 20% discount, they gross approximately 30% of the price of the book (about $7.50). Their profit is quite a bit less due to overhead costs.


• Finally the publisher gets the remaining 40% or so - about $10 a book. By the time the publisher has covered all of their costs, books that sell poorly can lose them money because they need to pay the editorial staff, the various designers, the printers, and the shipping companies.

As you can see, the creator of the content (the author) gets a small slice. The publisher of the content gets a small slice. And the distributor gets a small slice. The rest of the money is eaten up in various costs.

Enter in the digital age.

Book on Kindle sell for $9.99 as a rule (we'll make it $10 to keep it simple). Let's look at an illustrative breakdown now.

• The author gets 5% of the retail (eBooks typically get a lower royalty) - $0.50. As you can see, an author can make 80% less with a Kindle book.


• The publisher and Amazon split the rest in a way I am not privy to.


• The publisher's costs are lower because they don't need to pay for shipping and printing. They still incur the upfront design and editorial costs.


• Amazon's costs are close to zero. They only need to pay a small amount to Sprint to provide mobile services. No overhead (except maybe some computer servers). No distribution. No warehouses.

In this model, I want to be Amazon. Everything sold is nearly pure profit. The content creator (me) is definitely not the financial king in this model. The publisher does fine. But the distributor appears to be the one in charge.

This concept of distribution as king appears in all areas. I was speaking with a seasoned consultant from the retailing industry. He indicated that a few years ago, the power shifted from the manufacturers to the retailers. Wal-Mart has the lion's share of power in the industry and they now call the shots.

You could argue that Google has a similar position, although their financial model is a bit different (AdWords accounts for most of their profit). But like other distributors, they don't create content. Instead they aggregate content from a variety of sources into one distribution system.

I just read on Friday that Comcast may be buying a 51% stake in NBC from GE. This shows how the power is moving from the creators of the content (the writers) and the publishers of the content (NBC and their production staff) to the distributors of the content - Comcast.

Are you a content creator or you a content publisher? Does someone else control distribution? Or, are there new entrants who might control distribution? Beware. The current and future distributors/aggregators of your content could be one of the most serious threats to your business.

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Stephen Shapiro is the author of three books, a popular innovation speaker, and is the Chief Innovation Evangelist for Innocentive, the leader in Open Innovation.

Innovation Tournaments Interview

Interview - Christian Terwiesch of "Innovation Tournaments"

I had the opportunity to interview Christian Terwiesch, one of the co-authors of "Innovation Tournaments" about how to create and select exceptional opportunities. We also discuss a variety of other innovation topics including: barriers to innovation, education, and metrics.

Professor Terwiesch teaches MBA and executive classes in the areas of operations management and product development at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a visiting appointment at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

Here is the text from the interview:

1. When it comes to innovation, what is the biggest challenge that you see organizations facing?

Innovation is seen as an art and organizations believe that the best way to nurture innovation is to simply create the right organizational culture and environment for people to become creative. Open floor spaces, many meeting rooms, x-functional collaboration, etc. But it is not enough to rely on culture and the passion of individuals. You need to put processes in place and you have to equip people with the right tools of innovation. Innovation is NOT an art, I can teach you the basics of innovation in a day. I found innovation tournaments to be one great tool for people and organizations to move to a more process driven approach to innovation.


2. From your experience, what are some of the keys to increasing variability to help get the best ideas?

Variability is key in innovation and in innovation tournaments. The more diverse the set of ideas, the better are your winning ideas. But I find that many companies have a hard time coming up with high variability ideas. Those in charge of innovation always turn to the same people for ideas, they listen obediently to their bosses and to their customers. That kills variability. I'll give you another example - In some of our most recent research, we look at how brainstorming meetings function. Many of us are taught to build on other people's ideas in such brainstorming meetings. But our research shows that while this might make us feel happy and collaborative, the resulting ideas are actually less innovative. At least at the ideation step, you have to just break a lot of norms and existing molds.


3. What metrics do you usually see organizations using to measure innovation success?

Organizations need to measure innovation - what you don't measure, you do not manage. Talking to companies, I often see them struggle with measuring innovation - often I get asked "what measures should we track?". Organizations often don't know what they should measure. And so they measure what is easy to measure. Number of patents, percentage of revenues generated from new products, R&D spending, etc. You should not measure just for the sake of measurement. Before you measure, you first need a game plan, a strategy.

Let me give you an example. For managers, measures are what the dashboard is for a driver. They give you information about the way the process operates. Now look at the dashboard in your car. You are driving 60mph, your engine spins at 3000rpm and you currently get 20 miles per gallon. So what? These measures are meaningless unless you have some targets in mind. Is your goal to quickly drive from A to B? Then focus on speed and ignore the fuel efficiency. If you care about the environment, get into a higher gear (I like to drive with a manual transmission...) so your rpm's come down at the same speed and maybe you want to slow down to 50mph. Every performance measurement system needs to be custom built to fit your business needs. You cannot just ask a consultant for the "right measures".


4. If you were to change one thing about our educational system to better prepare students to contribute in the innovation workforce of tomorrow, what would it be?

I like to say "Fail quick, fail cheap, fail often". Innovation is all about failures. In an innovation tournament, you have 100s of 'losing' ideas for every winner. Our educational systems do not provide candid feedback to students. Every little project is praised as being great and every student is told that they did a 'good job'. So when these students graduate, they think that everything they touch is great. But they fail to understand that every great innovator loses far more often than they win. Innovation is not about avoiding failures, it is about recognizing a failure early and then learning from it.


My book review of "Innovation Tournaments" can be found here.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Improving Innovation Collaboration

I first met Keith Ferrazzi at the incentive2innovate Conference at the United Nations. Keith is the author of the best-selling "Never Eat Alone" and the new bestseller "Who's Got Your Back." When his book tour stopped in Seattle the very next week, I had the opportunity to ask Keith on camera about the impact of relationships on innovation and collaboration. Here is what he had to say:





As many of you know, innovation often comes as a result of triumphing over fear - fear of failure, fear of rejection, etc. By creating effective peer support groups in your organization (especially amongst innovation teams), much of this fear can be replaced with trust. As you can imagine, immense power comes from making this substitution.

"Who's Got Your Back" is a book all about the importance of building an inner circle of deep, trusting relationships that create success and won't let you fail. These kind of peer groups can be built both by individuals for personal and professional development, but can also be consciously built within organizations to increase collaboration and team success.

To improve innovation and collaboration it is important to build peer support teams that can reach out to each other for candid feedback - teams who aren't afraid to challenge each other, in order to help the team succeed. Of course people have to feel that it is safe to challenge each other and learn that challenges come not from an intention to criticize, but from having each others back.

Keith Ferrazzi claims that in order to create effective peer support teams, you need to assemble and teach teams of 3-4 people the four core mind-sets, outlined in the book:

1. Generosity


• "This is the base from which all the other behaviors arise. This is the commitment to mutual support that begins with the willingness to show up and creatively share our deepest insights and ideas with the world. It's the promise to help others succeed by whatever means you can muster. Generosity signals the end of isolation by cracking open a door to a trusting emotional environment, what I call a 'safe space' - the kind of environment that's necessary for creating relationships in which the other mind-sets can flourish."


2. Vulnerability


• "This means letting your guard down so mutual understanding can occur. Here you cross the threshold into a safe space after intimacy and trust have pushed the door wide open. The relationship engendered by generosity then moves toward a place of fearless friendship where risks are taken and invitations are offered to others."


3. Candor


• "This is the freedom to be totally honest with those you confide in. Vulnerability clears the pathways of feedback so that you are able to share your hopes and fears. Candor allows us to begin to constructively interpret, respond to, and grapple with that information."


4. Accountability


• "Accountability refers to the action of following through on the promises you make to others. It's about giving and receiving the feet-to-the-fire tough love through which real change is sustained."

Allowing oneself to be vulnerable is incredibly difficult. One of the tools presented to help people achieve vulnerability was 'The Eight Steps to Instant Intimacy':

1. Create an Authentic Environment Around You


2. Suspend Your Predjudices


3. Project the Positive


4. Share Your Passions


5. Talk About Your Goals and Dreams


6. Revisit Your Past


7. What's Keeping Your Up at Night?


8. Future Fears

Being successful at candor is also very difficult. Here is a list of things from the book to keep in mind when you're trying to elicit candor:

1. Find People You Respect


2. Create the Opportunity


3. Make It Clear Any Feedback You Get Is a Gift


4. Acknowledge Your Faults


5. Tell the Other Person What You Plan to Do with the Advice


6. Don't Tell Them What You Want to Hear


7. Ask Specific Questions


8. Take It or Leave It - but Deliver on Safety


9. Paying Them Back

There are a lot of good examples in the book and a lot of good information that brings all of these points together. Managers will definitely create increased innovation and collaboration if they can do a good job of engaging and recognizing employees, while also creating innovation teams that collaborate with vulnerability, generosity, candor, and accountability.

Will your innovation teams be able to find their safe place and have each others' back?


What do you think?

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Braden Kelley is the founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Who is the Best Innovation Author?

Thanks to all of you, Blogging Innovation has experienced incredible global growth (even in Portuguese). To better serve you, the Blogging Innovation readers, I have decided to open up this blog to publishing the best innovation and marketing strategy insights from around the web.

While I will still be writing articles for the blog, I will now become more of an editor and caretaker of Blogging Innovation and the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn. I will be focusing on publishing only the highest quality global innovation and marketing strategy insights from ad hoc and regular contributors. I've got a few re-publishing agreements in place but am looking for more.

If there is an innovation author you think I should approach about writing for Blogging Innovation, please contact me or post a comment below. I am seeking:

Articles - for Blogging Innovation (guest author example)
Videos - for Innovation Interviews, YouTube, or Vimeo channels

Or, if you are an innovation practioner and have a thought leadership piece, interesting case study, or a great e-mail or video interview that you would like to share with the world, please contact me, post a comment, or send me an @reply on Twitter.


I look forward to bringing you even more exciting new content!


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter) - Editor of Blogging Innovation


NOTE: Potential authors - Unique material is ideal, but I am happy to re-publish a great article from another blog. Embedded video and pictures are fine as long as your inclusion of this material complies with copyright laws. I won't be able to publish every submission, so I apologize in advance to those not selected.