A few weeks ago I spoke to a high level manager in a financial institution. We talked about his (truly) impressive activities in the field of innovation, and then he surprised me somewhat by saying: “In 2009 we plan to freeze innovation activities.”
Since the company is not a client of ours, I wasn’t directly affected by this decision, but still, I was curious to understand what stood behind it. Another victim of “the Situation”, I said to myself, but to my surprise he went on to explain: “We have so many good ideas now that we need to pause with innovation and focus on implementation.”
This approach is, in my eyes, a symptom of one of the biggest and most common misconceptions in the field; that innovation is all about coming up with ideas of what to do (products, services, whatever it is you do). The corollary is, obviously, that once you have these ideas you don’t need to be bothered with innovation any longer, all you need is to “just” implement.
In reality, the situation is nearly the opposite. Continue reading ‘No innovation please, we’re too busy.’
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Last week I attended and spoke at an interesting conference in Stavanger, Norway (www.innotown.com). The last session I
listened to before I left was, for me, the most thought provoking. The session’s title was “Innovation is not what innovators do… it is what customers adopt”, and it was delivered by Michael Schrage, of MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business.
First, I was happy to discover that the catchy title reflected only a small part of the content that Michael chose to share with us, and second, that contrary to what the title might suggest, we were not submitted to yet another “listen to your customers” sermon. To learn about Michael’s ideas, you are invited to his website. But meanwhile, for a very imprecise (non-authorized), partial, quick and subjective list of some points I found insightful and helpful:
Continue reading ‘Insights from Innotown’
Posted in Insights categories |
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Last week I had a conversation with a VP of the local office of an international ad agency in Europe. The topic was, no surprise, “the situation”. We started with some obvious observations such as:
a. Everyone is worried
b. No one knows what will happen
c. Their CEO had just emailed to stop all expenses immediately so they don’t know if they will be allowed to engage in a project
d. Next year all their clients will probably advertise less, so they are afraid that billings will drop and they will have to fire people.
But then we moved on to some other points, some obvious as well and some less (to me, at least) about the opportunities (no cynicism, this time) inherent in the crisis:
Continue reading ‘Innovation and “the situation”’
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A few months ago, we were invited to take part in a conference, near Washington DC, called Greener by Design.
Our theme there – we gave one plenary session and several of what we call “Innovation Flashes” in between the other sessions - was Sustainability & Innovation. When they hear the title, cynics often say “this year’s buzzword and last year’s.”, and I have to admit there is something in this remark. Still, for most companies, both them and their clients do want products to be sustainable, and competition does demand that offerings be more innovative. So in the end, not much choice these days but to aim for both S and I.
But why do we sense that a tension exists between innovation and sustainability?
Continue reading ‘Sustainability & Innovation : a love-hate relationship?’
Posted in Greenovation categories |
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Last week I visited MSR - The Israel Center for Medical Simulation –in the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, and met with Dr. Amitai Ziv who heads it. We talked about innovation and simulation and possibilities for cooperation, and following the meeting, Amitai referred me to a recent interview (published in the McKinsey Quarterly, March 2008) with Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, apparently one of the leading and innovative medical institutions in the US.
© iStockphoto.com/Steve Luker
The interview’s title was “Innovation in health care”, and indeed innovation was the central theme. Dr. Cosgrove mentioned three “seismic shifts” (his expression) in health care, on which Cleveland Clinic was taking the lead. What struck me about them was, more than anything, how these three trends, touted as the absolute cutting edge of novelty, were exactly what any grandmother with common sense would probably have recommended. Please judge for yourself:
Continue reading ‘Your grandmother, the innovator, and second-order innovation’
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