Aussie Rules

Innovation is not just about brand new products. There are many places where you can be innovative and often the context helps define innovation.

The six focus areas for innovation are:

• Product — what we produce and sell
• Service — exceeding customer expectations
• Process — continuous improvement of how we do things
• Management — business strategies, systems and structures
• Open — working beyond boundaries and collaborating globally
• Value —  creating unique value that eliminates the cost to compete

Looking through this list, consider where you need to focus your innovative efforts right now and write down a couple of project ideas/potential focus areas. Is there anything you would add to the list?

You are standing there, watching the sea of black suitcases go around the baggage carousel. Then suddenly you spot it.

Tied in a multitude of knots, around the handle, is the yellow ribbon, signifying “my suitcase”. You instantly pick it up, knowing that you have the right bag.

Often it is just the way it is tied or located. It could be the type of ribbon or, in my case, one of my husband’s neckties, ceremoniously cut up. It is amazing how one little point of difference can stand out and instantly help you claim your luggage.

Alternatively, to stand out in an ocean of black suitcases, you could always buy a hot pink or bright orange suitcase — take yourself out of the black ocean completely!

You can apply the same strategy to help your business stand out.

Kim and Mauborgne, in their book Blue Ocean Strategy, recommend that you get out of the red ocean (the known market space, where cutthroat competition turns the ocean blood red) and enter the blue ocean of deeper, clearer water — where demand is created rather than fought over.

The key is value innovation — something that creates simultaneous value for you and the company.

Take 30 seconds to ponder “What point of difference can I apply in my life/business?”

“Where can I use the old ‘ribbon on the suitcase’ trick?”

Think that we in Australia are not doing enough of our own innovation? Well, a review of the Australian National Innovation System has just been released.

“This report stands for the proposition that we [Australia] should arrest the slide in our performance and seize the opportunity that our recent prosperity gives us to begin building a more innovative productive world in which our children will live, to which they will contribute and which they will pass on in their turn.”

Some might find the 224-page report, “Venturous Australia — building strength in innovation”, a quick cure for insomia (the above sentence has 53 words in it!), but it does make for some interesting reading.

Apart from the predictable recommendations to support research in universities and establishment of various committees, the report recommends that the R&D Tax concession be changed from a tax deduction to a 40 percent tax credit for large firms and 50 percent credit for companies with an annual turnover of less than $50 million.

Interestingly, it also recommends that the government create an advisory committee of web 2.0 practitioners to propose directions as they experiment with web 2.0 technologies and ideas.

You can download the full report or just the recommendations and individual chapters here.

Are you struggling to get your innovative project approved? Been chopped off at the knees halfway through a project with all funds withdrawn? It may be that you are missing a core piece in the puzzle.

The top 8 capabilities critical to innovation success are:

1. Developing a deep understanding of customers and their preferences
2. Partnering effectively with suppliers and others for new ideas
3. Ensuring executive-level sponsorship of projects
4. Enforcing timelines and milestones
5. Earmarking sufficient funds for projects
6. Moving quickly from idea generation to initial market entry
7. Balancing risks, time frames and returns across an entire portfolio of projects
8. Fostering a corporate culture that promotes innovation

Interestingly, from senior executives’ perspective, speed and discipline are the most commonly identified weaknesses, where deep customer understanding and executive support are the most commonly identified strengths (of course they would say that).

From my experience working with innovation change agents around the world, the feeling is that the biggest weaknesses are (1) lack of executive support and (2) insufficient funding.

This creates a huge gulf and can undermine the success and support of innovation projects and perceived Return on Innovation.

Take time out to think these through and address these issues as part of your planning and/or next project review — you will be surprised at how a shift in perception can make or break a project.

Source: BCG 2008 Senior Executive Innovation Survey

Computer giant HP described their organisation as a “garage” in their 1999 annual report in honour of the place where the company founders, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, created their first product. Their “rules” of the garage remind us how to stick to the basics and focus on being real:

• Believe you can change the world.
• Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work wherever.
• Know when to work alone and when to work together.
• Share — tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
• No politics. No bureaucracy (these are ridiculous in a garage).
• The customer defines a job well done.
• Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
• Invent different ways of working.
• Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
• Believe that together we can do anything.
• Invent.

What rules do you have in your “garage”?

I am sitting in a conference room in Singapore listening Tony Buzan’s views on creativity, memory, innovation and good thinking. Buzan, the inventor of Mind Maps and author of 98 books, brings unique insight into how our brain works and how to get the most out of it. Here are some examples:

Creativity is your main thinking tool, helping you solve problems on a daily basis — if you don’t know how creativity works and its serious underpinnings, you can’t have good thinking.

If you apply the wrong formula, just like using all your strength to get out of quicksand, you will go down faster.  Thinking is the same — most of us use the wrong formula.

“Knowledge Management” is all the rage these days, but perhaps it’s more important to manage the manager of knowledge — ie, your brain.

So what is the correct formula? Here are a few instructions that should go into your brain’s Operator’s Manual:-

• Play imagination games.
• Normal is not natural — reawaken your child-like fascination for things. In creativity tests carried out in Utah in the US, Under 5s scored 95% while adults with degrees scored 10%.
• Develop your multiple intelligences — creative, social, spiritual, personal (these three are considered emotional intelligences by Goleman and Gardiner), physical and sensory intelligences, as well as the traditional IQ: verbal, mathematical, spatial.
• Learn how to learn and invest in your personal intellectual capital. Learn a new skill/subject every year.
• Healthy body, healthy mind.  Good Food = Good Brain. Junk Food = Junk Brain.
• Explore the universe in your head by playing imagination games and daydreaming.

What would you add as a “must have” in your brain’s Operator’s Manual?

In tough economic times, should you innovate? “Yes!” was the unanimous message from the speakers at the Australian innovation conference, InnoFuture 2008.

Key messages from Day 1:

• Increase your return on imagination — give people time to think. (Tom Wujec, Canada)
• Increase granularity — dis-aggregate data to find new opportunities. (Mehrdad Baghai, USA)
• Collaboration 21st-century style (Web 2.0 contributing and sharing) is affecting how we innovate — but corporates still don’t get it. (Peter Williams, Australia)
• The imperative to reduce our carbon footprint is driving innovation — applying natural capitalism principles will deliver competitive advantage. (Hunter Lovins, USA)

Want to get people talking about innovation in your organisation? Emulate the World Café concept by getting your people chatting in “InnoPods”. At each break, participants got into groups of nine or so and discuss topics, such as:

• What are the barriers to innovation?
• How can we make innovation actually happen and stop just talking about it?
• How can we build a culture that supports innovation — when your title is not CEO?

Here are the 8 steps to running a successful InnoPod:

1. Gather people for say 20 minutes
2. Define the focus/topic
3. Give everyone 1 minute to write down one idea per post-it note
4. Discuss ideas for 5 minutes, putting post-it notes on butcher’s paper as the ideas are shared
5. Nominate a scribe to capture key thoughts/discussions
6. Summarise the thinking into Top 3 Ideas/Thoughts (Creating a 3-course Take Away Menu to go with the Café theme)
7. Collate and share the thinking with others
8. Take action — support people in taking their ideas further

Creativity really is simple as 1, 2, 3 (and 4, 5, 6). It is a common misperception that you have to be born creative or a real maverick in order to think creatively. Creativity is a process and rule followers are generally more successful in creativity sessions.

Marketing guru Alex Osborn, who coined the term “Brainstorming”, together with Dr Sid Parnes, developed the creative problem solving model: the 6 Steps to cre8ive problem solving. Here they are:

1. Objective Finding (or Mess Finding): Sensitise yourself to issues that need to be tackled.
2. Fact Finding: Gather information about the problem.
3. Problem Finding: Convert a fuzzy statement of the problem into a broad statement more suited to idea finding.
4. Idea Finding: Generate as many ideas as possible.
5. Solution Finding: Generate and select an evaluation criteria and develop the short-listed ideas from Idea Finding.
6. Acceptance Finding: How can the suggestion you have just selected be put into practice?

I was lucky to meet Syd and his wife Bea at the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) conference in St Paul, Minnesota, a couple of years ago. Now in its 54th year, CPSI is a great training ground for anyone wanting to learn the fundamentals of creativity.

What other elements would you recommend?

“Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime”.

Have you ever wanted to scream “No, please catch the fish, cook it, serve it up on a platter with a fresh salad. Oh, and could you cut it up for me as well”?

Me too. I am 40 (+GST) and, while can’t live without my iPhone, I have absolutely no patience with having to learn new stuff (stuff that never seems to do what it’s supposed to anyway).

Should innovation be put on trial for our harried lives? With the pace of change getting so much faster, do we have time to figure out how the latest gadgets work, and what Web 2.0.153-8 is?

Tips on how to be a successful COE (Chief of Everything):

• Breathe … and make time to meditate. Rather than being stressed, take time to look at the big picture and think it through logically.
• Flip it … keep the positive aspects/benefits top of mind.
• Be inquisitive … and open to new ideas. Read widely, ask others, check out what people are using, doing, learning.
• Ask for help … create a network of mentors — a computer geek, a marketing expert, a home handyman, and of course, another COE.
• Take time out to learn something new … the more you learn, the more comfortable you will be with learning more.
• Learn to touch type … while you may slow down initially, it will payback big dividends.
• Be persistent … the core quality of all great leaders is persistence. Stick to it.

What survival tips would you add?

This is one of the key messages from “Innovate 2008: Is the Tide Turning?”, a report on innovation released by Boston Consulting Group.

“It is worth pointing out that only 20 percent of companies considered a shortage of great ideas to be the problem… Most companies, in fact, have an abundance of good, even great ideas. But having ideas and turning those ideas into cash are two entirely different things. Innovation is often equated with the former, when in reality it’s all about the latter.”

In conjunction with its companion report “Measuring Innovation 2008: Squandered Opportunities”, this global BCG senior management survey is a must-read, particularly in today’s tough economic climate. “Rising dissatisfaction with the return on their investments in innovation may be taking a toll on companies’ willingness to spend.”

What are the most significant barriers within industries, according to the report?

• Idea selection is the biggest hurdle for technology and communications companies (39%)
• Manufacturing companies struggle most with a lack of insights to customers (31%)
• Consumer products companies are hindered most by a shortage of great ideas (29%)
• Automotive companies wrestle most with an inability to market and publicise their innovations (32%)

What factors are hurting companies’ innovation returns?

• Lengthy product development times (36%)
• A risk-averse corporate culture (36%)
• Difficulty choosing the right ideas to commercialise (33%)
• A lack of co-ordination within the company (33%)

Interestingly, these are four of the major factors that prompted the re-innovate challenge to help Australian businesses to drive innovation (See (Re)Innovate.)

Thanks to Bill Jarrard, Chief Imagineer, www.mindwerx.com, for his input to this blog.