Building the innovation stack

May 19, 2023Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Business Ecosystem Understanding, Business Platforms and Ecosystems, Fresh thinking, Innovation Ecosystems, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Value Creation Dynamics, Value Designing2 Comments
The need to think of innovation stacks for new design concepts

Developing the innovation stack takes the view that innovation is a series of building blocks stacked on top of each other with different layers to work through. These stacks follow an established logic, such as working through idea discovery, relating to given problems, exploring solutions, and determining the final model or design and the execution delivery to achieve this. Combining these “building blocks” modularly in innovation stacks creates a unique design that adapts to your specific needs and goals.

Today, innovation processes are partly designed this way but are more rigid and hold knowledge often as “islands” within a possible solution. We can mix and match different emerging or established innovation approaches but sometimes miss valuable points and due to this lack of “being connected up” we lose flexibility, sometimes meaning and miss some of the potential value as the parts are not as well interlinked or dynamic; we screen out more than we add-in. Our approach today is to reduce complexity as early as possible and make decisions perhaps too early; we often stop the additional learning by further probing and gathering.

I believe in approaching innovation differently by combining the ingenuity of human and artificial intelligence in a more modern way, through the application of building blocks delivering specific API solutions, and innovation stacks that connect it all up, based on a technology platform that flows across all our innovation processes.

Cross-sector collaboration for Innovation Ecosystems- summary of summaries

May 12, 2023Posted inBusiness Ecosystem Understanding, cross-sector collaborations, Innovation Ecosystems, Knowledge Ecosystems, Network & Collaborating Effects, Sustainability, Value Designing

I wrote a four part series on cross-sector innovation ecosystems in April and I felt it was worth summarizing these into one, so I engaged my new office partner, ChatGPT to deliver this in a series of summaries. I can’t argue with these and decided to post these as a valuable initial referencing point on a growing area of organization need, in cross.-sector collaborations innovation ecosystem thinking.

The four-part series on cross-sector innovation ecosystem collaborations emphasizes the importance of collaboration in tackling complex challenges. The series discusses the skills, tools, and processes required for successful cross-sector collaborations, including interdisciplinary thinking, co-creation processes, project management, cultural competence, intellectual property management, and data analytics and visualization tools.

Recognizing the Building Blocks of Innovation

May 9, 2023Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Business Platforms and Ecosystems, Ecosystems, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum1 Comment
Recognizing the value of having building blocks of innovation underrstanding

I finished my last post, “Are we EVER going to embrace innovation?” With the argument, we need to change the innovation narrative and significantly update the innovation approach and processes to meet today’s and tomorrow’s business challenges.

I am working through what I think this should become in design and application, involving providing the key innovation building blocks as components of the innovation stack, using the innovation stack to guide platform development and the platform to support this innovation stack.

It is the “fit” of this framework that needs more of my time as we need a new powerful innovation engine that leverages the strengths of each but to ensure innovation flows across organizations transparently and openly so collaborations can utilize all that we have in proven innovation thinking to take advantage of and build this out in new ways of thinking and design.

To look forward, I would argue we always need to look back and account for the progress made in managing innovation over the years. The need today is not to dispense with this but to link it fully up.

So this post reviews many great contributors to advancing innovation over the years.

Are we EVER going to embrace innovation?

May 3, 2023Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Business Ecosystems, Ecosystems, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Innovation Ecosystems, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Value Creation Dynamics, Value Designing2 Comments

Why have we not embraced innovation?

I will not apologize here; this will partly be a “rant” and then begin to suggest a way forward on embracing innovation fully.

I was thinking of having the headline “Innovation as our eternal doom or shame” or “innovation groundhog day”. Let me begin in why.

I really am fed up with constantly seeing claims that “innovation is core to our business” and that we are “constantly seeking fresh growth” Both of these are simply bullshit statements from the vast majority of our businesses.

Is managing innovation too complex or fragmented? Do organizations have a clear understanding of their innovation activities?

How many people are full-time employed in the innovation team, and how many in driving strategic growth? Ten, twenty, perhaps fifty out of thousands in medium to large companies.

In the bigger scheme of things, thousands within large organizations are working on innovation. These are from different functions such as R&D, Engineering disciplines, Technologists, Designers, Application and Digital. Do they work on standard innovation platforms or individually, left over from a legacy position or have they individually found a given application more suited to their specific needs?