Innovation, ecosystems, platforms and the promise of more to come

September 24, 2016Posted inAdvancing innovation, gaining innovation momentum, Innovation Ecosystems, Leading innovation

Digital Transformation

Jeffrey Phillips and I are launching our fourth collaboration together, this time we are exploring innovation ecosystems and the growing impact they are having in the business world through their ‘conecting and collaborating difference’ that can lead to vastly different final customer experiences.

I just want to reaffirm what he has written on this, originally over on his site.

This is what he wrote:

Innovation, ecosystems, platforms and more

“I’m pleased to announce that Paul Hobcraft and I will be working together on a number of posts that relate to some discussions we’ve had about innovation, more specifically how innovation must evolve from creating interesting but incomplete solutions to understanding how customers want to have interesting, seamless experiences.  Over the next few weeks we’ll be writing posts on a new shared website that examine the state of innovation, and provide a reason we think so many innovation outcomes fail to achieve their goals.

Getting out of the Building, Going Cross-Industry for Seeking Out Radical Ideas

September 20, 2016Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Polymers

get-out-of-the-building-2We all value those times when we can slip away from our desk, from the computer or phone and just simply step outside.

Some do this because of a necessity of topping up their nicotine levels or finding a few moments for having a chat, others just simply want to step away, relax a little and freshen up.

Another reason to get out of the office is when it comes to thinking differently within the business, going out  to seek out different, often radically new ideas. This offers the chance of seeing something completely differently, by being simply aware and open to new possibilities, detaching yourself from your own (comfortable) environment .

So how do you manage exploiting and exploring for Innovation?

September 7, 2016Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Shifting dynamics in innovation

Innovation Exploit and Explore to TransformSo how do businesses organise their structures to be able to simultaneously manage the needs to exploit and explore innovation?

In this post I wanted to explain my thinking through on this ability to be ‘ambidextrous’, knowing the difference of when to exploit and when to explore as essential to leveraging innovation, in all its forms and watching out for some of the traps in not managing this well.

Managing this, in all honesty, though, is hard to get the balance right but highly valuable if you do achieve it, it can transform the business. Many of our organisations struggle to manage both successfully as they tend to focus more on separation mostly in organisational structures alone as their attempt to become ambidextrous. It is far more than ‘just’ this.  Get the balance right across the organisation’s design and in its leadership management, it becomes a very powerful mechanism for accelerating performances by delivering significantly new innovation and equally sustaining and leveraging the core business you have today.

Recently I contributed a blog post over on the Hype Innovation Blog ” Balancing Exploitation & Exploration for Changing Performance” that opens up the subject but then extensively dives into three examples of Apple, GE and Google that are working in highly ambidextrous ways, pursuing exploiting and exploring in their own unique ways.

Making a compelling business case for an integrated innovation framework

September 1, 2016Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, innovation execution delivery, Tackling innovation7 Comments

How do we manage future discussionsAs innovation becomes a more consistent requirement rather than an occasional exercise, it must align to strategic goals and become part of the planning and execution cycle in more aligned ways.  

An increased focus on innovation as a consistent discipline requires significant reflection on what needs changing, what impact this change will have and how do we proceed to implement it. This requires senior management attention because of the significant organisational impact.

The leadership within an organisation provide the linkage into the strategy, provide the framework and set this in the context of the vision and goals needed to be achieved. You, as the innovator, seek out the synergies between strategy and innovation, between innovation and capabilities, between culture, the environment, the process, structure and routines and how it all should be governed.

The compelling value is in having an integrated innovation framework