Innovation Can't Wait

by Jeffrey Phillips

One of my partners, an electrical engineer, let out a loud cry a few minutes ago. He was responding to an article I sent him about a new electical gizmo that monitors eletrical usage in the home. He was upset because he came up with a very similar idea about a year ago, but he assumed it was safe to put on hold for a while.

This points up an innovation fallacy, and a separate truism. First, the fallacy. Good ideas are rarely conceived in isolation. Even really good ideas often happen in several different places relatively simultaneously. So while you may think your great idea is unique and original, there's a good chance it isn't. The truism that follows is that it's not the individual or team that conceives the idea that wins, it's the individual or team that commercializes that wins.

Let's look at the fallacy first. As is fairly well documented, Newton and Leibnitz conceived calculus at roughly the same time in history with no interaction. Alexander Graham Bell and another inventor applied for patents for the telephone on the same day. Good ideas to solve seemingly intractable problems or address emerging opportunities are rarely unique. Simply ask yourself - have you ever seen a new product or service and thought "I thought of that years ago". There are enough smart people reading the same news and watching the same events unfold as your team, so many ideas are likely to be spawned simultaneously in a number of geographies or in a number of different companies.

This places all the more emphasis on commitment to your ideas. If you have a good idea, then you need to move as quickly as possible to prototype it, pilot it, assess it and gain customer feedback. Don't assume you have time on your side, or that your idea is significantly unique. The latter is a fallacy and the former is a trap. Time is not on your side. As people become more aware of opportunities or challenges and attempt to create their own solutions, more people will try to innovate a robust solution. Some of those firms won't have the scruples to evaluate, test and refine their ideas. They'll stick an idea out there, gain feedback and learn from their products and mistakes.

Innovations wait for no man. Since it's easy to show the same ideas are often conceived by disparate groups at roughly the same time, you need to be prepared to move on your ideas as soon as possible. This means you need a process or methodology to enrich, nurture and develop ideas quickly, and a piloting or feedback loop to gain customer feedback. Once you've received the feedback, you may then decide the idea is too nascent or the needs still too undefined for your idea, and place it on the shelf. Otherwise, someone else is likely to beat you to the punch, and leave you yelling at your monitor that you had that idea a year ago.

The race goes not to the swift or the battle to the strong, but success in innovation goes to the confident team prepared to act on its ideas.

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Jeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of "Make us more Innovative", and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.

For Better Innovation - Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap

by Jim Estill

Companies need to be encouraging of failure. Too often people are disciplined for trying things that do not work. I advocate the opposite. Praise those who try - even if they fail.

Fail Often

• Much of success is just a numbers game. Try more things and you are more likely to find a winner. Innovation is like sales - you never know which idea will be the winner until you try things. A big obstacle for anyone reluctant to try something new is being afraid to fail. Thomas Edison for example had to make thousands of attempts at the electric lightbulb before getting it right. Don't give up after your first challenge. Our most successful leaders and entrepreneurs have often had to make at least a few attempts before they began to thrive.

Fail Fast

• One challenge many companies are faced with is being slow. Using the Fail Fast approach the motto is 'Just Try It - Now'. Many companies suffer from analysis paralysis where often the best choice is to just try it. It is often better to make an imperfect decision quickly than to not make a decision while trying to be perfect. More companies (and people) lose from perfection than lose from speed. Being able to fail fast can often mean getting a head start over the competition. In many cases you can work on the actual implementation later on and make changes as needed.

Fail Cheap

• Of course failures need to be affordable. This means thinking downside and risk. Risk what you can afford. Companies that thrive take 'manageable risks'. Be creative with ways of keeping risk low, perhaps you can test a product with a focus group instead of over-producing. Try to negotiate a deal first before accepting all the terms and conditions. Leverage the power of information and talent. Failing cheaply means you can get back on your feet more easily than someone who overextended themselves.

Having failures does not make you a failure. Not trying makes you a failure.

So Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap. Use failure to innovate.

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Jim Estill is a venture capitalist, author and business consultant. He sits on the board of RIM. He is a blogger at www.jimestill.com or follow him on twitter @jimestill.

Need for Speed

by Mike Myatt

The need for speed is something that all CEOs need to keep at the forefront of their minds. In the world of athletics there is widely accepted principle that states: "Speed Kills." In most sporting events speed will prevail over strength, and often times speed will end-up being the deciding factor between victory and defeat. As important as speed is on the field of play, it has been my experience that it is even more important in the world of business. While there is little debate that speed can create an extreme competitive advantage, it is not well understood that the lack of speed can send a company (or an individuals career) into a death spiral. Agility, fluidity, decisiveness, commitment, and focus all lead to the creation of speed. In today's blog post I'll discuss why you should feel "The Need For Speed."

General George S. Patton said it best: "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow." The pursuit of perfection is one of great adversaries of speed. In fact, at the risk of being controversial I’m going to take the position that perfection does not exist. I hate to break it to you, but those of you who regard yourselves as perfectionists simply exhibit perfectionistic tendencies in an unrealistic attempt to achieve what cannot be had. The pursuit of perfectionism does not result in an increase in quality, but it will result in time delays, cost overruns, missed deadlines and unkept commitments. I would suggest that rather than seeking what cannot in most cases ever be achieved that it makes more sense to seek the highest standard of quality that makes economic sense relative to the constraints of an ever shifting marketplace.

Time to face the facts...we live in a digital world where the speed of engagement, response, interaction, communication, delivery etc., was once a unique competitive value proposition, but is now a requirement for survival. There are those that would argue that speed in synonymous with undisciplined decisioning, but I would caution you against confusing speed with reckless abandon...I'm a big proponent of planning, assessment, analysis and strategy, but only if it is concluded in a timely fashion. 'Analysis Paralysis' leads to missed opportunities and failed initiatives. Speed is your friend...embrace it...leverage it...win with it.

Earlier in my career I served as Director of Internet Strategy for what was at that time the world's largest web-enablement firm. While serving in that position I coined the term 'e-velocity' which we trademarked and used to describe the influence that technology was having on the pace at which business had to be conducted in order to remain competitive. It used to be acceptable to take 12 to 18 months to roll-out an initiative, but in today's world you better be able to do it in 90 days or it will be obsolete before it gets to market.

When I first started in business it was usual and customary to produce 5 and 10 year business plans, but today I work off of rolling 90 day tactical business plans. The latest advances in Business Process Management (BPM) have seen a reduction in the planning and budgeting cycle from 120 and 90 days to 45 days. But, is 45 days good enough? How many days constitute a responsive cycle time? Many believe the right number is between 5 and 10 days. Why is cycle time reduction important? Because shorter planning and budgeting processes facilitate greater flexibility and responsiveness.

In today's competitive business environment you must quickly be able to assess risk and make timely decisions. You cannot be successful being guided by fear and hesitation. When in doubt, remember that "Speed Kills" and that "he who hesitates is lost."

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

Keep Your Cool. Speed Can Kill.

by Steve McKee

I recently came across an interesting quote from Michael Schumacher, the seven-time Formula One champion. He said, "To perfect things, speed is a unifying force. To imperfect things, speed is a destructive force."

Business, like auto racing, is a world of imperfect things. Always has been. But as the pace of change continues to increase, both the danger and the likelihood of a company hitting the wall grow exponentially greater. Strategic mistakes that in the past might have required a pit stop now could be fatal.

A lot of companies are learning this the hard way during the protracted downturn. We've all read about Lehman Brothers, GM and Washington Mutual, but a number of lower profile yet still well-known names have also joined the bankruptcy club, including Six Flags, Crunch Gym and Nortel. According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, business bankruptcies in the first half of 2009 are 64 percent higher than they were in 2008. More than twenty thousand corporations have gone belly up since the beginning of the year.

What does this mean to those of us that are still in the race? We have to stay calm, stay focused, and keep a tight but responsive grip on the steering wheel. The pace of change requires that we drive faster and faster, but bumps in the road and the inches that separate us from our competitors can change in an instant and send us careening into the wall. As Adam Hartung, author of Create Marketplace Disruption, puts it, "When a new technology can go from invention to market in weeks, adaptability becomes far more important than size."

Adaptability. The true test of today's environment isn't simply which companies have enough cash or market share to ride things out, but which can best adjust to the changing environment--both outside and within their organizations. While power has always been important, smart strategy is more vital than ever. This challenging race calls for cool-headed drivers.

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Steve McKee is a BusinessWeek.com columnist, marketing consultant, and author of "When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What To Do About It." Learn more about him at www.WhenGrowthStalls.com and at http://twitter.com/whengrowthstall.

Speed or IP Protection?

by Mike Myatt

While the security aspects of intellectual property ("IP") are often sacrificed for speed to market considerations in today's world of mash-ups and knock-offs, I believe when it comes to IP it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. The protection of all forms of intellectual property ("IP") should constitute common sense and require no real explanation, however the courts are littered with case law precedent that has been decisioned against some of the largest and most sophisticated companies on the planet. What should be routine business 101 protocol, can easily turn into major financial and operational debacles if you don't have a solid grasp of IP law. In today's post I'll discuss the basics of identifying and protecting your intellectual property.

The issues surrounding IP are basically three-fold:

1. What actually constitutes intellectual property and what doesn't?


2. What is the best method to protect what is deemed as IP


3. Is intellectual property worth protecting?

The answers to the aforementioned questions really lie in the eye of the beholder...Some companies take a very aggressive stance on attempting to classify virtually everything as intellectual property in an attempt to create competitive barriers and gain a competitive edge. Other firms only consider IP as it applies to protecting proprietary technology, while other firms almost ignore the concept of IP altogether (some out of ignorance and some by design).

As to cost...well sometimes protecting IP is absolutely worth the costs involved, and in other circumstances any dollars sunk into protecting IP is more akin to a frivolous investment that can actually show a strong negative return.

I have witnessed companies invest human and financial capital to adopt a trade name without doing their research only to receive a cease and desist letter, or even worse, to be sued for IP infringement. I have watched other firms invest the time and resources into protecting a piece of intellectual property via the appropriate form of registration, but not be prepared for the cost associated with defending their mark against an aggressive and better capitalized competitor.

I have observed other companies who made a valid attempt to protect their IP, but chose the wrong form of protection only to have better IP counsel exploit their flawed strategy. I have watched yet even more firms lose control over their IP to employees or contractors because they did not understand the ramifications of not using work for hire, non-compete, or non-circumvention provisions.

A company's intellectual property can be virtually anything (tangible or intangible) from a trade name, product or service name, technology, business process, marketing copy, images and the list goes on...Companies can protect their IP through the use of a variety of legal mechanisms and registrations of which the most common types include:

• Patents


• Copyright


• Trademark


• Know-how


• Trade Secret


• Mask Works


• Contract

Without going into the details surrounding all of the above protection alternatives, and to keep things simple, let's use the example of a corporate website as it applies to copyright protection (keep in mind that certain things within a website can also be patentable, trademarkable or protected by contract). A basic website is composed of a multitude of copyrightable elements including textual content, graphical content, source code, custom applications, and numerous other items.

Although as an entrepreneur or senior executive you might personally draft some of the text for your website, your internal staff or outsourced agency/contractor usually edits and refines your draft text, creates the graphics, source code and applications. Who owns what? Are you protected? Do you care?

It is important to have proper written language incorporated within your employment agreements and vendor contracts to assure your right to move your site, modify it, and not have it held hostage or taken offline. Ideally, your contracts and agreements should specify that you own the copyright for the graphics, source code, applications, etc., but at a minimum you need a license to use those materials and to create derivative works.

Lastly, in addition to cost considerations there is also the potential for financial upside to a well conceived and protected piece of intellectual property. IP can produce revenue, be carried as an asset on the balance sheet, add to corporate valuation, or produce a personal income stream to an individual that licenses IP back to the entity.

Bottom line...IP considerations should be incorporated into your business strategy and tactics in a fashion that provides you with the greatest possible benefits while managing your risk. In order to achieve the balance between risk and reward you should retain the services of a reputable IP law firm.

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

What Next?

by Rowan Gibson

It's not just a good question. It's THE question. Think about the sheer speed of change in the external world. Think about the intensity of global competition. Think about the bargaining power of today's customers. Then think about your company. How much of your business model has remained essentially unchanged for, say, five years or more? When was the last time you fundamentally overhauled your competitive strategy? How fast are you currently renewing your products and services?

In a world where what you do now can quickly lose its value and become irrelevant, the issue is increasingly what you do next. What makes or breaks you in the new Innovation Economy is whether you're capable of continually rethinking and reinventing your company - and your industry - as fast as the world is changing around you.

Thinking about "What next?" is a difficult challenge. Most of us are having a hard enough struggle trying to keep up with "What now?" Here's why: in the time it took you to read those two sentences, somebody - somewhere on this planet - added some new bit of change to the world of business. Sure, that contribution could be just a ripple on the ocean. But it could also turn into a tsunami.

To illustrate the point: MySpace went from 0 to 100 million users in just 3 years. In 2000, nobody had heard of podcasting. Today, there are more podcasts worldwide than radio stations, and circulation is growing at 20% per month. In fact, there are ten times more podcasts available online than DVD titles. Or consider Blogs. They were nowhere a decade ago. Now there are well over 60 million Blogs online, and 75,000 new Blogs are created every single day (that's about one a second). Many companies are already using these new forms of media - social networking sites, podcasts and Blogs - to reach out to customers and attract new talent. That's how fast things are changing. You blink and you miss it.

The message here is that you can't stand still in world that is moving at light speed. As the pace of change and of business accelerates, the pace at which you develop foresight about industry evolution, about incipient trends and about new technologies - and the pace at which you invent new products, services, strategies and business models - must accelerate accordingly. There is no option B.

Look around the world today and we see entire industries whose business models have gone belly up. Is it because the companies in those industries didn't see change coming, or is it because they chose to ignore it? In many cases, managers sit in denial for years and wait for their companies to go through a near-death experience before they wake up to the need for rethinking their core business strategy.

Ask yourself: is our organization already committing enough energy to innovation and strategic renewal? Will we be overtaken by what's next or will we create it? Could our senior executive team clearly articulate the three to four strategic ways in which we intend to reinvent our company and our industry over the next few years?

Organizations typically devote most of their energy to improving what they are already doing, rather than to learning about the future and creating what's next. Whenever this happens, a company is living on borrowed time.

What we need to do is siphon away some of the time, effort and bandwidth that usually go into execution, and reallocate it to understanding deep change and to generating new ideas and opportunities for growth. We need to put learning, creativity, and innovation at the top of the business agenda.

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Rowan Gibson is a global business strategist, a bestselling author and an expert on radical innovation.