Category Archives: Innovation

Key Innovation Terms

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Key Innovation Terms

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Innovation is a term that is often used in the business world to describe new ideas, processes, and products that can be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization. The term is constantly evolving as new technologies and ideas are developed, so it is important for business leaders to stay up to date on the latest innovation terms.

The first term to understand is disruptive innovation. This is the process of introducing a new product or service that completely changes the way an industry operates. For example, the introduction of the smartphone has completely changed the way we communicate and access information.

Another key innovation term is incremental innovation. This is the process of making small, iterative changes to existing products or services to improve their performance. For example, a company might introduce a new feature to an existing product or improve the user interface of a website.

Innovation also involves experimentation. This is the process of testing out new ideas and technologies to see what works and what doesn’t. Experimentation is important in order to discover new solutions to existing problems and to gain insights into potential new opportunities.

Finally, the term innovation ecosystem is used to describe the network of organizations, people, and resources that are required to create and sustain innovation. This involves the collaboration between multiple organizations, such as suppliers, partners, and customers, as well as the development of a culture of innovation within an organization.

These are just a few of the key innovation terms that business leaders should be aware of. As technology and ideas continue to evolve, it is important for business leaders to stay up to date on the latest innovations and understand the terms associated with them. This will help them to stay competitive in an ever-changing market.

Image credit: Pixabay

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The Leading Country for Innovation for 2020 is…

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The Leading Country for Innovation for 2020 is...

The latest Bloomberg Innovation Index is out (2020 edition), and Germany has risen to first place, breaking South Korea’s six-year winning streak, while the U.S. fell one notch to No. 9.

“Innovation is a critical driver of growth and prosperity. China’s move up the rankings, and the U.S. drop, is a reminder that without investment in education and research, trade tariffs aren’t going to maintain America’s economic edge.” –Tom Orlik, Bloomberg Economics chief economist

The rankings are based on dozens of criteria centered around seven metrics:

  • For patent activity
  • For research personnel concentration
  • For tertiary education
  • For technology company density
  • For productivity
  • For manufacturing value added
  • For research and development expenditures

2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index

The Bloomberg Innovation Index tries to measure and rank countries on the ability of their economies to innovate, which will be a key theme at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland taking place Jan. 21-24.

While spending on research and development continues to be important, shifts in productivity and education effectiveness (among other factors) will continue to encourage significant changes in the index from year to year.

What do you think?

Does Bloomberg get it right or are there other innovation rankings or indexes that do a better job?

Which is more important to the relative innovativeness of a country, efforts by the government or by industry?

Which countries do the best job of achieving successful public/private partnerships to encourage innovation?

Click here to see the full 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index rankings

Image credits: Bloomberg


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Time Travel Innovation

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Time Travel Innovation

Is it really possible to travel back in time? What about traveling into the future, have we finally figured out how to do that? Well, you’ll have to read on to find out…

But before we explore whether someone has finally figured out how to successfully time travel and recruit you to join me in investing in their pre-IPO startup, I’d like to introduce one of the most important visualizations from the world of innovation that many of your have probably never seen – Neri Oxman’s Krebs Cycle of Creativity from January 2016.

If you’re not familiar with this incredibly important visual artifact from the work of Neri Oxman from MIT’s Media Lab, you should be because it does an amazing job of capturing the interplay between Art, Science, Engineering and Design in the creation of innovation. It builds on John Maeda’s Bermuda Quadrilateral from 2006:

John Maeda Bermuda Quadrilateral

And Rich Gold’s Matrix, also from 2006:

Rich Gold Matrix

While Rich Gold’s visualization builds on the logical bones of John Maeda’s Bermuda Quadrilateral and introduces the concepts of speculative design, speculative engineering, and the contrast between moving minds & moving molecules, it lacks the depth of Neri Oxman’s Krebs Cycle of Creativity visualization. But the Krebs Cycle of Creativity does lose Maeda’s expression of the linkages between science & exploration, engineering & invention, design & communication, and art & expression. But even without these assertions of Maeda, the Krebs Cycle of Creativity still captures a number of other powerful tensions and assertions that can benefit us in our pursuit of innovation.

Time Marches On

The Krebs Cycle of Creativity can be viewed from a number of different perspectives and utilized in a number of different ways. But, one way to look at it is as if it were a watch face. In this context as time moves forward you’re following the typical path, a technology-led innovation approach.

Using the Krebs Cycle of Creativity Canvas in a clockwise direction will help us explore:

  • What information do we have about what might be possible?
  • What knowledge needs to be obtained?
  • What utility does the invention create?
  • What behavior do we need to modify to encourage adoption?

It begins with the invention of a new piece of technology created by the usage of existing information and a new perception of what might be possible within the constraints of our understanding of the natural world, or even by expanding our understanding and knowledge of the natural world using the scientific method.

Neri Oxman Krebs Cycle of Creativity

You’ll see at 3 o’clock in the image above that it at this point in time that most organizations then hand off this new knowledge to their engineers to look at this new understanding of nature through the production lens in order to convert this new knowledge into new utility.

Engineers in most organizations are adept at finding a useful application for a new scientific discovery, and in many organizations this work is done before designers get a peek and begin to imagine how they can present this utility to users in a way that drives behaviors of adoption in a way that the behaviors of using the product or consuming the service feel as natural as possible and as frictionless as possible.

And unfortunately the artists in any organization (or outside via agency relationships) are called in at the eleventh hour to help shape perceptions and to communicate the philosophy behind the solution and the to make the case for it to occupy space in our collective culture.

Pausing at the Innovation Intersection

The way that innovation occurs in many organizations is that Science and Engineering collaborate to investigate and confirm feasibility, then Engineering and Design collaborate to inject viability into the equation, and then Design and Art (with elements of marketing and advertising) collaborate to create Desirability at the end. This may be how it works in many organizations, yet it doesn’t mean that it is the best way…

Feasibility Viability Desirability for Innovation

Traveling Back in Time

But as we all know, water can run uphill, the moon can eclipse the sun, and yes time can run in reverse. Viewing the Krebs Cycle of Creativity in a counter clockwise direction and pushing the hands of the watch backwards will have you following a user-led innovation approach instead.

Using the Krebs Cycle of Creativity Canvas in a counter clockwise direction will help us explore:

  • What information do we have about what is needed?
  • What behavior should we observe?
  • What would create utility for customers?
  • What knowledge must we obtain to realize our solution vision?

It begins with the identification of a new insight uncovered by the investigation of existing information and a new perception of what might be needed within the constraints of our understanding of our customers, or even by expanding our understanding and knowledge of our customers by using ethnography, observation, behavioral science and other tools to enter the mind of your customers, employees or partners.

You’ll see at 9 o’clock in the image above that it at this point in time that user-driven organizations after having their business artists use their perception skills to investigate the culture and philosophy underpinning this new understanding of behavior and pass it off for their designers to look at through the production lens in order to convert it into new utility.

Designers in many organizations are adept at finding a useful application for a new behavioral understanding, and in user-driven organizations this work is done before engineers get a peek and begin to imagine how they can build this utility for users in a way that creates new knowledge in a way that will differentiate the products or services of their organization from those of the competition.

And in user-driven organizations scientists are called in as needed to help overcome any barriers engineers encounter in realizing the solution that best satisfies the users’ identified needs, while leveraging new scientific perceptions that help shape our understanding of nature and empower new philosophical beliefs about what’s possible.

Conclusion

While we haven’t torn any worm holes through the fabric of the space-time continuum with this article, hopefully we have expanded your repertoire with some new tools to facilitate conscious choices around whether you are going to pursue technology-led innovation (clockwise) or user-led innovation (counter clockwise).

Hopefully we have also shown you a better way of visualizing where you are in your innovation journey and where the turning points in your innovation pursuits lie as you seek to take a quantum leap and transform your past into a bright, shiny future.

So now it is time to answer the question you had at the beginning of this article… Is time travel possible?

Well, nearly a decade ago NASA ran an experiment that proved elements of Einstein’s theory of relativity, specifically that the fabric of space-time warps around the earth in response to gravity. Read about it here

And yes, time travel is theoretically possible, or at least time is not theoretically constant as described in this NASA article.

Neither of these indicate that it is possible to travel backwards in time (despite what Superman physics says), only to affect how time advances, but if anyone wants to invest a million dollars in my time travel startup, I’ll cash your check. Because who knows, maybe your check is what will finally make time travel possible!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

 

Image credits: Neri Oxman, MIT Media Lab; Rich Gold; John Maeda; Pixabay

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What’s Inside the CEO’s Innovation Playbook?

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What's Inside the CEO's Innovation Playbook?Recently I received an advance copy of “The CEO’s Innovation Playbook” – the latest white paper from Mastercard and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. For the effort they interviewed a dozen CEO’s highly innovative companies including Citigroup, Lyft and Coca Cola.

The paper spends most of its real estate on captured quotes straight from the mouth of CEO’s, distilling their inputs into a few key themes, several data points from their broader research effort “Innovators Become Leaders” and some key insights for leaders to consider.

So, what should be in the innovation playbook of a CEO?

Well, the subtitle says it’s 50 actions to spark innovation accelerate growth.

Here are some of the highlights:

Five Distinct Traits Foster Successful Innovation

  1. Speed
  2. Data-Driven Decision Making
  3. Leadership Commitment
  4. Entrepreneurial Culture
  5. Relentless Focus on the Customer

In the introduction Ajay Banga, the President and CEO of Mastercard, argues for a sixth trait – Diversity.

1. Speed

I think most of our community would agree that moving at the speed of innovation is important, and their research found that:

“96% of innovation leaders say their organizations bring new ideas and solutions to market quickly.”

Whether you believe in first-mover advantages or not, I think nobody would disagree that once you’ve proven that a potential innovation is desirable, feasible and viable YOU MUST be able to quickly scale it, BUT NOT BEFORE. They don’t speak to the fact that going big too soon is a problem, but it is definitely something that can burn through millions of dollars needlessly.

2. Data-Driven Decision Making

The key point here is that smart companies make use of data to better understand where opportunities lie with their customers and use data to understand which opportunities are most promising and worthy of scaling. The research highlight for this section was that:

“Nearly three-quarters of innovation leaders use multiple internal and external data sources and advanced analytics to inform decisions around innovation.”

The key thing to remember of course is that you only can leverage the data that you choose to collect, so choose wisely. You need data that can be turned into useful information that can be turned into valuable, actionable insights.

3. Leadership Commitment

According to the report, three-quarters of leaders agree that innovation is a contributor to their financial performance.

“CEOs interviewed for this report demonstrate their commitment to innovation in ways that would be hard for their employees to miss, from providing tangible rewards for innovative behaviors to expressly voicing the idea that failure, within boundaries, is not a loss but a learning opportunity.”

4. Entrepreneurial Culture

Successful innovation leaders recognize the importance of encouraging productive conflict, creating a culture of curiosity and courage, and building a management team that is comfortable with employees challenging the status quo.

“84% of innovation leaders say their organizations test a broad pipeline of ideas with the expectation that many will fail.”

5. Relentless Focus on the Customer

Because innovation is all about identifying and delivering new sources of value that are unique and capable of replacing the existing solution. In order to understand what new sources of value are needed or how to increase existing sources of value in a meaningful way, you must also understand your customers sometimes better than they understand themselves.

“72% of all the executives surveyed agree that consumer insight is a vehicle for innovation.”

Knowing your customers is different than asking them what they want. Innovators always walk this delicate line successfully without falling off.

Conclusion

Let’s close with a series of questions for your to ponder:

Is your organization running fast enough to keep pace with the innovation expectations of your customers?

Are you gathering the right data to help you find the right insights to create the right range of potential innovations and select the right ones to scale?

Are you as a leader signaling clearly your commitment to innovation not just with your words, but reinforcing them properly with your actions and the actions of your team?

Are your demonstrating that an entrepreneurial culture is necessary, valued and supported in your organization?

When was the last time that you spent time with a customer? Do you catch yourself when you start to pretend that you’re the customer WHEN YOU ARE NOT?

And finally, are you injecting the right level of diversity in people and perspectives throughout your innovation process?

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Click here to download “The CEO’s Innovation Playbook” to read it for yourself.
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If you’re serious about building a continuous innovation structure, you can read all about how to do it in my first book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, available at libraries and fine booksellers everywhere.


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Are Innovation and Empathy in the Cards?

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As part of the leadership team for a new human-centered problem-solving offering for select Oracle customers, I’m always on the lookout for new tools to integrate into our flexible problem-solving process to help clients innovate, grow or transform.

Because our dynamic team of experienced professionals has a diverse range of knowledge, skills and abilities we’re able to co-create solutions to a wide range of business challenges and leverage a wide variety of tools. This means I’m always on the lookout for new tools to better serve our clients, in addition to pursuing my hobby of creating new tools and methodologies in my spare time throughout my career.

My passion for empowering others to succeed in overcoming their business challenges has led to the publishing of two business best-sellers Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire (John Wiley & Sons, 2010) and Charting Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and the creation of the powerful, visual and collaborative Change Planning Toolkit™, my Nine Innovation Roles™ card deck, and the Human-Centered Innovation Toolkit™ (featuring tools like The Experiment Canvas™).

I create new tools, methodologies and frameworks when I see opportunities to make people more efficient and effective in their jobs and leverage the work of others when I find others have created good solutions. I leverage the Business Model Canvas for business model prototyping, I leverage The Play-to-Win Strategy Canvas v3.0 to help people work through strategic choices, along with other tools when the challenge is appropriate.

Recently I have been looking at a variety of card decks to evaluate their suitability to use alongside design thinking and other methodologies that form the basis of the Oracle FUEL approach.

Here are a few I’ve been evaluating lately:

Killer Questions Cards

1. Killer Questions – Volume 1 from Phil McKinney, author of Beyond the Obvious and CEO of CableLabs
(More info at https://innovation.tools/)

Brainstorming is a fairly useless exercise the way that most people facilitate it. There are much more effective ways to get ideas and most of the approaches that work better share at their core a more targeted and collaborative approach. The Killer Questions card deck is composed of just that, a collection of questions if left unanswered or unexplored, could lead to blind spots and disruption opportunities for new entrants (or your competition). The questions are categorized into three types:

  1. Who
  2. What
  3. How

And the questions include things like:

  • Who does not use my product because of my assumptions about their skill or ability
  • What emotional, psychological, or status benefits could people derive from using my product?
  • How could users avoid interacting with my product or service but still get the same value?

But the cards don’t just contain a single question. These are examples of guiding questions on the front of a few cards, but on the back of each card you will also find 3-5 supporting questions to help your team explore the guiding question more fully.

Overall, I consider the cards a useful tool for groups including: product teams wanting to continuously stretch themselves as they revaluate product direction, or for expanded innovation teams looking to broaden their search horizons.

Innovation Deck cards by Andrey Schukin

2. The Innovation Deck by Andrey Schukin, CTO at Interprefy AG
(More info at http://www.innovationfast.com/)

Where the Killer Questions deck is organized around questions, The Innovation Deck is organized around topics/tactics and triggers. For each topic/tactic there is either a set of instructions or a set of questions.

The Innovation Deck is composed of three different types of cards that will help you:

  1. Examine
  2. Explore
  3. Evaluate

Examine Card example:

EMOTION

  • People don’t buy things they need. They buy things they want.
  • How do you make sure that the product will trigger an emotional response from the customer?
  • What elements of your product will make the customer want to use it?

I would almost include the triggers cards as a fourth card type, because instead of a topic and questions the cards have a collection of words to see if any of the words inspire thought or conversations rather than giving people a guiding topic or tactic.

Overall, I consider these cards as a useful tool for product teams looking at a product to challenge or stretch the existing product direction for the future.

Nine Innovation Roles cards from Braden Kelley

3. Nine Innovation Roles – a card deck by Braden Kelley, author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire
(More info at http://9roles.com)

The following is an excerpt from my book that explains some of the thinking behind The Nine Innovation Roles™:

“Too often we treat people as commodities that are interchangeable and maintain the same characteristics and aptitudes. Of course, we know that people are not interchangeable, yet we continually pretend that they are anyway — to make life simpler for our reptile brain to comprehend. Deep down we know that people have different passions, skills, and potential, but even when it comes to innovation, we expect everybody to have good ideas.

I’m of the opinion that all people are creative, in their own way. That is not to say that all people are creative in the sense that every single person is good at creating lots of really great ideas, nor do they have to be. I believe instead that everyone has a dominant innovation role at which they excel, and that when properly identified and channeled, the organization stands to maximize its innovation capacity. I believe that all people excel at one of nine innovation roles, and that when organizations put the right people in the right innovation roles, that your innovation speed and capacity will increase.”

The Nine Innovation Roles™ are:

  1. Revolutionary
  2. Conscript
  3. Connector
  4. Artist
  5. Customer Champion
  6. Troubleshooter
  7. Judge
  8. Magic Maker
  9. Evangelist

To make my Nine Innovation Roles™ framework accessible to as many people as possible inside organizations all around the world to explore and improve innovation team dynamics and success, I am happy to announce that I have now made the print-ready files for the cards available here for FREE download, and you can either work with the vendor I use – adMagic – or work with a local printer in your part of the world.

LPK Roadblocks Cards

4. LPK Roadblocks by LPK, a brand and innovation consultancy
(More info at https://roadblocks.lpklab.com/)

The LPK Roadblocks deck is focused on innovation roadblocks and helping organizations whose innovation efforts might have stalled, get unstuck. There are six kinds of cards in the deck:

  1. Voting cards
  2. Question cards
  3. Create Your Own Roadblock cards
  4. Organization Roadblocks
  5. Project Roadblocks
  6. Idea Roadblocks

There are two main ways to use the cards, with selection and voting integrated into both:

  1. Root Cause Discovery
  2. Beginning, Middle and End

Organization Roadblocks include things like “Unrealistic Revenue Hurdles” and “Lip-Service Leadership,” while Project Roadblocks including things like “Untested Assumptions” and “Unclear Objectives”, while Idea Roadblocks include things like “Risk/Reward Imbalance” and “No Route to Market.”

Overall, I find these cards to be a useful tool when you run into a client that says they are struggling to innovate or that they’re not innovating as much as they’d like.

Questions & Empathy Cards

5. Questions & Empathy – a card deck by SubRosa, a brand strategy and design practice
(More info at https://www.questionsandempathy.com/)

SubRosa’s Questions & Empathy cards are composed of seven empathy archetype cards and a set of exploratory questions for each archetype. The seven archetypes are:

  1. Sage
  2. Inquirer
  3. Convener
  4. Alchemist
  5. Confidant
  6. Seeker
  7. Cultivator

Overall, I find these cards to be a useful tool for better understanding yourself and your own empathetic style and over time they could help you approach empathy from more angles than you would without them, but I struggle to see as is how they can actually help you practice applied empathy. The archetypes are useful, but I think I might create my own question cards to help my team better apply empathy within the empathize/understand phase of design thinking.

Conclusion

Whether you’re trying to innovate or just to build up your empathy muscles, I hope you see that there are some great, extremely portable resources to help with either. Of course, there are other card decks out there, but these will give you a few to explore and see whether there is a fit for your design thinking or innovation undertakings. If you’re pursuing a digital transformation or business transformation you can:

If you missed the links to the cards decks above, here they are again:

  1. Killer Questions – Volume 1
  2. The Innovation Deck
  3. Nine Innovation Roles (English/Spanish/Swedish)
  4. LPK Roadblocks
  5. Questions & Empathy


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What is Open Innovation?

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What is Open Innovation?

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Open innovation is one of the most talked-about developments in the world of business today. It is a concept that encourages collaboration between businesses, academics and other stakeholders in order to develop new products, services and processes. The concept has been gaining traction in recent years as businesses look to leverage the creativity and expertise of external sources to drive innovation.

Open innovation is based on the idea that traditional approaches to innovation have become too isolated and inward-looking. By opening up the innovation process to external sources, businesses are able to access a larger pool of ideas and resources. This allows them to develop new products and services that are more competitive in the marketplace.

At its core, open innovation is about collaboration between different stakeholders. This includes businesses, academics, government, and other organizations. Through collaboration, ideas and resources can be pooled to create something new. This could be a new product, process, or service. Companies can also leverage the expertise of external sources to develop new technologies that can be incorporated into their own products.

Open innovation also has a number of benefits for businesses. It can help to reduce costs by providing access to cheaper resources and ideas. It also reduces the development time of new products and services. By leveraging external sources, businesses can quickly develop and launch new products or services.

In today’s rapidly changing business world, open innovation is becoming increasingly important. By opening up the innovation process to external sources, businesses can access new ideas and resources to stay competitive. This allows them to remain at the forefront of innovation, while at the same time reducing costs and development time.

Image credit: Pixabay

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How Artificial Intelligence Defines Innovation

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How Artificial Intelligence Defines Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

“An innovation is an idea, method, or product that is new or different. It is the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or business models that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.”
– Art Inteligencia

Innovation is an essential part of human progress. It is the process of creating something new, or improving something existing, in order to make life better. The world is constantly changing, and innovation is the key to staying ahead of the curve.

Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes. Some of the most common types of innovation are product innovation, process innovation, and business model innovation. Product innovation involves creating a new product or improving an existing one. Process innovation involves improving the way a process is done in order to make it more efficient or cost-effective. Business model innovation involves changing the way a business operates in order to create new revenue streams or increase profitability.

Innovation is critical to the success of any business. Companies need to be constantly innovating in order to stay competitive and remain relevant in a rapidly changing market. This means that companies need to be constantly researching and developing new products and services, as well as tweaking existing ones. They also need to be willing to take risks and try new things in order to stay ahead of the competition.

Innovation also means taking advantage of new technologies and trends. Companies need to stay up to date with the latest developments in order to remain competitive. This means embracing new technologies and trends, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things.

Finally, innovation also means staying ahead of customer needs and expectations. Companies need to understand what their customers want and need, and then adapt their products and services to meet those needs. This requires a deep understanding of customer behavior and the current market, as well as the ability to anticipate trends and changes in customer preferences.

Innovation is an essential part of progress and a key to staying competitive. Companies need to constantly be researching, developing, and adapting their products and services in order to stay ahead of the curve and remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.

The FutureHacking™ methodology leverages 20 tools at the very front end of innovation, with a full human-centered innovation toolkit coming soon!

Image credit: FreePik

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Harnessing the Power of Diversity

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How to Leverage Different Perspectives in Innovation

Harnessing the Power of Diversity

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

Innovation is essential for any organization to stay competitive in today’s ever-changing business landscape. Companies need to learn how to empower their teams to come up with creative solutions to challenging problems in order to remain ahead of the curve. Harnessing the power of diversity is a proven way to spur innovation and drive positive outcomes. A diverse team offers multiple perspectives, enabling them to develop creative, out-of-the-box solutions.

Organizations should be committed to creating an inclusive work culture that promotes collaboration and innovation amongst its employees. They can do this by establishing strong values for diversity and inclusion that encourage different opinions and ideas. Companies should also encourage employees to share their own knowledge and experiences; creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust.

With that in mind, here are some tips on how to leverage different perspectives within your organization to drive innovation:

1. Encourage diverse teams: When forming teams and project groups, aim to have a diverse team of individuals who can bring different skills and perspectives to the table. Having a variety of views will foster more creative solutions and lead to better problem solving.

2. Foster an environment of open dialogue: Allowing people to openly discuss their ideas and experiences encourages idea-sharing amongst team members. Create a safe environment where everyone is open and willing to express their ideas and point of view.

3. Promote flexible working arrangements: Allowing for flexible working arrangements enables individuals to work remotely or in different locations, thus leveraging different perspectives. Making sure that everyone can stay connected and access all the resources they need is essential for collaboration and innovation.

4. Leverage technology and tools: Organizations can use technology to promote collaboration and idea-sharing across different locations. Utilizing tools such as video conferencing, online collaboration software, and cloud-based communication platforms will enable team members to exchange ideas effectively and stay connected.

In conclusion, diversity is a powerful source of creativity and innovation. Harnessing the power of different perspectives can lead to improved problem solving and productive solutions. By promoting an inclusive and collaborative work culture, organizations can best leverage different perspectives to spur innovation and drive positive outcomes.

Case Study 1 – Proctor & Gamble

Proctor & Gamble showed the power of leveraging different perspectives when launching their Swiffer mop product. In order to best assess the potential for Swiffer’s success, P&G assembled an R&D team made up of both men and women with varied experience in both household chore and chemical engineering. The team was able to identify potential issues with the product’s use within households and developed creative solutions, ensuring the success of the product in the market.

Case Study 2 – Microsoft

Microsoft showed the power of embracing different perspectives when developing their Kinect game console. Microsoft brought together a diverse team of engineers, designers, and software developers from a variety of cultural, educational, and technical backgrounds, and tasked them with the challenge of developing the console. The team was able to identify opportunities and potential pitfalls of the product, leading to the successful launch of Kinect.

Conclusion

Both of these examples demonstrate how organizations can effectively leverage different perspectives to develop innovative solutions and spur growth. By encouraging open dialogue, embracing flexible working arrangements, and leveraging technology and tools, organizations can best leverage the power of diversity and reap positive outcomes.

One of the great tools I haven’t mentioned that is very useful for increasing the effectiveness of innovation teams is The Nine Innovation Roles created by Braden Kelley, which has been translated into multiple languages and are used by innovation professionals in companies all around the world.

Image credit: Pexels

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Understanding the Basics of Business Model Innovation

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Understanding the Basics of Business Model Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Introduction

Business model innovation is the practice of applying creative thinking to develop an improved way of doing business. It has become increasingly important in today’s competitive environment as companies strive to remain ahead of the pack. While there are many different approaches to business model innovation, understanding the basics is essential to developing a successful model. In this article, we will discuss the fundamentals of business model innovation and highlight some case studies as examples.

What is Business Model Innovation?

Business model innovation is the purposeful adaptation of an existing business model to create new or improved products, services, and customer experiences. This approach requires that companies use creative thinking to develop creative solutions that will help them to differentiate themselves from their competition. By applying this process, companies can create more value and gain a competitive advantage.

Benefits of Business Model Innovation

Business model innovation can open up a range of possibilities for businesses. Firstly, it can improve the efficiency of a business by reducing costs or increasing revenue. Secondly, it can create competitive advantage by developing unique products and services. Finally, it can improve customer experiences by introducing new technologies or processes.

Case Study 1 – Apple

Apple is a great example of a company that has successfully applied business model innovation. When Apple was struggling in the early 2000s, its main focus was to differentiate itself from its competitors. To do this, they developed the Apple App Store, the iTunes Store, and the Apple Music streaming service. These services allowed them to create new revenue streams and capture a larger market share.

Case Study 2 – Netflix

Netflix is another great example of successful business model innovation. Originally launching as a DVD rental service, Netflix saw an opportunity to offer a streaming service for movies and television shows. In doing so, they disrupted the traditional television system and created a new way for customers to consume media. This innovative approach has allowed the company to remain a leader in the industry.

Conclusion

Business model innovation is an important tool for businesses that are looking to remain competitive in today’s market. Understanding the basics of this approach is key to successfully applying it to develop a more effective business model. By utilizing creative thinking and adapting existing models, companies can create more value and gain a competitive advantage. The two case studies highlighted above provide great examples of how successful businesses have used business model innovation to remain ahead of their competition.

Image credit: Strategyzer

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How to Craft a Strategic Innovation Plan

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How to Craft a Strategic Innovation Plan

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Cross-sector partnering and collaboration amongst organizations have been seen as an effective means to achieve greater innovation that can help propel businesses further. A strategic innovation plan is a comprehensive document that lays out goals and processes for project execution and explains how the company can leverage its resources to make its innovations successful.

In this article, we will explore how to craft a comprehensive innovation plan that leverages organizational strengths and allows businesses to reach their business objectives.

1. Identify Desired Outcomes

The first step in crafting an innovation plan is to determine what the desired business objectives are. Be as specific and detailed as possible, outlining Phase 1, 2, and beyond requirements. This will determine how the company will measure and reward its key players and how it will navigate the stakeholder process.

2. Assess Strengths and Weaknesses

Have a clear understanding of the company’s strengths and weaknesses to guide your innovation plan. This includes internal resources, such as personnel and technology, and external resources, like partner organizations, funding sources, and opportunities. This will also help you identify any potential pitfalls that might derail your plan or areas that need to be addressed in order to maximize success.

3. Evaluate and Analyze Business Risks

With the desired outcomes and resources in mind, it is important to identify potential risks associated with the innovation plan. This includes operational, technological, financial, competitive, political and legal risks. The analysis of these risks will help the company understand what to prioritize during the innovation process.

4. Define Team Composition and Roles

Assess the skills and capabilities of the team members to ensure they are well-suited to bring the innovation plan to life. It is also important to define roles and responsibilities. A structured team with clear responsibilities will result in a better engagement and communication across the organization.

5. Establish an Action Plan

It’s time to set out the action plan to bring the innovation to life. Define milestones, assign tasks, and set out deadlines as needed. Have regular meetings with the team in order to track progress and provide feedback.

Case Study 1 – Johnson & Johnson

One company that successfully implemented a strategic innovation plan was Johnson & Johnson. The company created an innovation team from its R&D, marketing, and supply chain departments to develop new products and services that leveraged the its vast existing resources. The team identified risks associated with the project, used customer feedback to hone the innovation, and created a detailed action plan to bring the project to fruition, resulting in a successful adoption of the new products and services.

Case Study 2 – Frito Lay

Another company that has successfully implemented an innovation plan is Frito-Lay. The company identified its core assets and mapped out a detailed step-by-step plan that defined the objectives, timelines, and team roles for their innovation projects. This blueprint provided a hands-on approach to ensure each innovation initiative was successful and brought value to the company’s customers.

Conclusion

Crafting a strategic innovation plan is an essential step for any business that wants to unlock its potential and unleash creativity. By taking the time to map out the desired outcomes, assess strengths and weaknesses, evaluate business risks, craft team roles and assign tasks, and create an action plan, businesses can ensure their innovation projects are successful. Leveraging the case studies provided in this article, businesses should be well-equipped with the tools to craft an effective innovation plan.

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