GUEST POST from Steve Todd

This is the second of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Thinking about the future: what big innovation do you expect within 10 years?’. Here is the next perspective in the series:

by Steve Todd

I believe that the biggest innovation coming in the next 10 years will be “how we relate to digital information”. If you believe this IDC report, the pace of digital information growth will not slow between now and 2020.

You can choose the bank that you put your money in, but do you know where the actual bits that represent your money are physically located? And do you know how well protected those bits actually are? If you did, would you choose to bank somewhere else? Does any of this matter?

How about the explosive amount of personal information you will be forced to administer? Where will you put all of your pictures, videos, and tax records? Will you have control over your health records? How can you effectively search your personal information to find what you are looking for? (hint: Google is not the answer)

Will corporations start tracking their information as a monetary asset? Will they be audited on where there information is and report on who has looked at it? Will they need to make sure that their digital bits never “cross the border” into another country?

Many different universities, corporations, and individuals are starting to suggest innovation in this interesting area. For example:

1. MIT Media Lab: Take a look at the information ecology group at the Media Lab, and read about the great ideas they come up with when considering ways to “connect our physical environments with information resources”. Perhaps my favorite is the proverbial wallet, which contains a hinge that tightens when the balance in your electronic bank account drops!
2. Corporate Intrapreneurs: some of the most interesting research on personal information search is occurring at EMC Research Beijing. These intrapreneurs have recognized that private, locally-owned personal information cannot be effectively searched using Google-style page rank algorithms. They are claiming that the best way to search vast amounts of information would be to use associative memory techniques. Read the paper to learn more.
3. High Profile Tech Bloggers: one of the top bloggers in the area of high-tech information is Chuck Hollis. He theorizes that information may become an asset like gold, or diamonds. The big difference, of course, is that we know the physical location of our gold and our diamonds, but not necessarily our information. We may see the rise of new, innovative tools that can be used by an informationist.

Over the next 10 years, the amount of innovation that will occur in the area of information management and interfaces will be huge. If you want to watch many of these innovations develop, consider subscribing to the MIT Media Lab RSS Feed.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles from the different contributing authors on ‘Thinking about the future: what big innovation do you expect within 10 years?’ by clicking the link in this sentence.

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GUEST POST from Steve Todd

This is the ninth of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘How should firms collaborate with customers and/or value chain partners to co-create new products and services?’. Here is the next perspective in the series:

by Steve Todd

Customer Innovation via Corporate Portals

“Innovate With Influence” provides several examples of how interaction with customers can result in breakthrough new ideas. The examples in the book, however, highlight customer engagements initiated by one person: the intrapreneur. While intrapreneurial intent is a valued trait, one intrapreneur can connect and interact with only so many customers.

What is also needed is a corporate mechanism for engaging, brainstorming, and co-creating with customers in a more scalable way.

At EMC Corporation, social media experts have created an online portal for that purpose. The portal can serve as a clearinghouse where customers and intrapreneurs can collaborate on the latest problems and technologies. The innovation portal is characterized by the following capabilities:

• One person runs the ship. A corporation needs a contact person who is the over-seer of customer/corporate innovation. For EMC’s portal that person is Dr. Burt Kaliski.
• Lectures by corporate intrapreneurs and customers are advertised regularly. These lectures enable live cross-talk and are downloadable after the fact. The lectures often cover strategic directions that are in the minds of customers and/or corporate intrapreneurs.
• Activity at global, corporate research centers is highlighted. This advertisement allows customers around the world to collaborate directly with local researchers on problems specific to their country or region (e.g. research centers in China and Cambridge).
• Recorded videos from intrapreneurs directly address important topics such as sustainability in engineering.
• Customers and partners are invited to directly participate in innovation contests and coding challenges.
• The results of internal corporate innovation conferences are publicly posted for perusal by customers.
• Early access (and support) to emerging technologies is shared with those customers that join the innovation portal.

Each of these areas is of course undergirded by social media capabilities such as comments and tagging.

Innovation portals are an excellent one-stop shop for bringing together customers and corporations for the purpose of co-creation.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles from the different contributing authors on ‘How should firms collaborate with customers and/or value chain partners to co-create new products and services?’ by clicking the link in this sentence.

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GUEST POST from Steve Todd

This is the first of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘What is the most dangerous current misconception in innovation?’. To kick it off, here is Steve Todd’s perspective:

by Steve Todd

Who Needs Permission?

The most dangerous misconception that I often see in potential innovators is their belief that they need permission to innovate. Or approval. Or funding. Or a specific job title, for that matter.

Some innovators may be living in a culture where personal innovation is discouraged. Not to worry. Start a skunkworks and apologize later.

Most innovators, I fear, are waiting for someone to tell them to “go innovate”. When this type of mentality is held by the majority of the corporate masses, the treadmill of incrementalism will take its toll on creativity.

It’s a worthwhile exercise to compare the need for permission against my favorite equation:

Innovation = Productivity + Initiative + Collaboration.

Productivity

Do I need permission to be productive? Absolutely not! Productive people earn the right to innovate. When an employee not only meets but exceeds their corporate goals, they’ve given themselves the right to explore new opportunities. So go ahead and get started. The worst thing that can happen is that management might be surprised to see your extra effort (hopefully they’ll be pleasantly surprised). Managers are also likely to be forgiving if they know that you’re someone who delivers.

Of course, lack of productivity works against you. If you can’t do your day job effectively, who’s going to believe you when you propose something innovative?

Initiative

If productivity is the foundation of building an innovative career, initiative is the stairway out of the trenches and into creativity. When you find a problem that you’d like to sink your teeth into, and you can’t think of a ready solution, take the initiative to learn more. Search for adjacent technologies that you feel may be relevant.

Do you need permission to take the initiative to learn? Of course not. Yet many employees fret that their managers might catch them learning about something that’s not directly related to their day job. Remember: you’ve earned it because you’re productive.

Collaboration

Your ability to innovate multiplies exponentially when you pull experts in to help solve your problem. Experts frequently appear as part of your learning process. You may read a paper, or join a forum, or post a question. Discussions occur and your learning accelerates as you connect directly. Do you need permission to connect with experts in adjacent spheres? Of course not. But your involvement and engagement is about to grow to a whole new level.

The collaboration stage is where the rubber meets the road. You’ve been productive in your day job. You’ve found a problem that you’d like to solve. You’ve taken initiative on your own, and you’ve made connections on your own. Your manager has either looked the other way or supported you because of your productivity.

Do you need permission to proceed any further?

The likely answer is “Yes”.

So before you get started, you might want to make sure that you’re working on a problem that solves a deep and compelling customer need. Because ultimately you will need permission from your company to deliver your solution into the hands of customers.

Delivery is the difference between an inventor (generates ideas) and an intrapreneur (generates and deliver ideas).

Want to innovate? Go ahead, you have my permission.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles from the different contributing authors on ‘What is the most dangerous current misconception in innovation?’ by clicking the link in this sentence.

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GUEST POST from Steve Todd

This is the first of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on the following question:

“Where should innovation reside in an organization, and who should ‘own’ or manage innovation?”

To kick it off, here is ‘Trench Innovation’:

by Steve Todd

Where should innovation reside in an organization?

For many decades the answers have ranged from ‘dedicated research facilities’ to ‘globally distributed research teams’. Hewlett-Packard has HP-Labs in Palo Alto. IBM has eight distributed research teams.

The highest executive levels within a corporation have looked to these teams and asked “where do we go next?”

These research teams often ‘hand off’ the latest innovative ideas to dedicated development organizations.

A recent article in the NY Times is questioning the efficiency of dedicated corporate R&D labs.

The truth of the matter is that innovation cannot solely reside in these organizations any more.

Innovation should reside in the corporate trenches.

Innovation by Pain

Consider a salesperson that loses a deal to a competitive rival, or a field engineer being raked over the coals for a product bug or feature deficiency. Are they motivated to come up with an innovative solution?

Consider a software engineer with a legacy software architecture that’s hard to maintain. Consider a manager leading a team with a seemingly impossible deadline. Think about the pressure they feel when sales and support report the urgent laundry list of problems. Are the developers motivated to come up with a better way of doing things?

The people in the trenches are feeling the pain, and they operate with a sense of urgency that maximizes productivity. If innovation is all about the delivery of ideas, then the trenches is where innovation truly belongs.

Employees in the trenches are not motivated by solutions coming from a corporate R&D lab. They often view the research facility as an ivory tower.

My message to the trenches is this: you don’t need permission from your corporation to innovate. Just do it. But it’s a lot easier if the corporation knows how to leverage intrapreneurs. Here are two ways that a corporation can ‘own’ or ‘manage’ trench innovation.

“What are you working on that I don’t know about”

Line managers working for a company with a ‘trench innovation’ mentality should be regularly asking their employees the above question. They should challenge their direct reports to pursue answers to pressing customer needs by researching creative solutions in a skunkworks fashion.

Some managers will punish their employees for working on solutions that are outside of their core job. I’m suggesting that managers encourage them to do just that. This is the most direct way to ‘manage’ innovation.

Corporate Ownership

Ownership of this type of innovation should be loosely coupled. A central monitoring entity should exist, typically in the office of the corporate CTO. They should be innovation ringmasters under the big tent of corporate, academic, and industrial circles.

The final piece of corporate ownership is a strong social media strategy. There needs to be a corporate backbone that enables collaboration between corporate intrapreneurs, academia, industry, and customers. Managers and employees should ‘bubble up’ their ideas through this mechanism.

When the highest levels of corporate executives asks “where do we go next?”, they should look to their innovators in the trenches.

They’re the ones standing right next to the customer.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles published so far from the different contributing authors on “Where should innovation reside?” by clicking the link in this sentence.

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GUEST POST from Steve Todd

This is the second of several ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on The Importance of Innovation Strategy. On the heels of Braden Kelley’s kickoff, here is another perspective:

by Steve Todd

If a corporation lacks a cohesive and well understood innovation strategy, can it still be productive and creative? I believe the answer is yes. Individual pockets of innovation can result in new products and services that significantly add to the corporate bottom line.

The downside of this approach is the amount of potential corporate energy that gets left on the table. Corporate intrapreneurs should be aware of and rallying around a well-defined innovation strategy. If they are not, then the company is missing out on a great opportunity to generate (and deliver!) breakthrough innovation.

The Role of an Innovation Strategy

I like this simple definition of a corporate intrapreneur: an innovator that conceives and delivers an idea at a large corporation. Every business unit has these types of individuals. They are uniquely creative, they are extraordinarily productive, and they collaborate well. They have successfully guided their idea through the hands of marketers, designers, testers, documenters, and salespeople. They are influential.

And their business units want to keep them right where they are.

Without a corporate innovation strategy, that’s right where they’ll stay. They will continue to innovate within their stovepipe and grow their core business.

A corporate innovation strategy must unite intrapreneurs by encouraging collaboration among them, without undue disruption to their respective business units!

Best Practices in Creating the Innovation Strategy

A corporate innovation strategy that effectively leverages intrapreneurs has the following characteristics. If implemented properly, it:

• searches for, identifies, and engages corporate intrapreneurs
• enables corporate (and global) relationships via social media tools
• provides a career growth track that rewards intrapreneurial collaboration
• gathers intrapreneurs for idea submissions and innovation summits
• provides opportunity for external collaboration with industry and university experts
• sends them to customers for bi-directional conversations

This strategy should be “loosely centralized” within a corporation, and is often funded as part of the office of the CTO.

Integrating Innovation and Corporate Strategies

This type of innovation strategy establishes a strong intrapreneurial community. When critical changes in corporate strategy occur, new directions and edicts can be directly presented to the most influential innovators in the corporation. They can collaborate amongst themselves and brainstorm new ways to combine technologies and meet market needs. They can recommend the creation of new business units with new processes. They know how to get “new things” done and can influence their co-workers to implement the strategy.

Intrapreneurs become stifled when they remain in their stovepipes. Get them to collaborate across boundaries and expose them to corporate direction.

And most importantly, get them in front of their customers.

You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives‘ articles from the different contributing authors on The Importance of Innovation Strategy by clicking the link in this sentence.

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