Approaching innovation through the lens of innovation ecosystems

Approaching innovation through the lens of innovation ecosystems is a strategic and holistic way of fostering creativity, collaboration, and value creation within a complex network of interdependent players.

This perspective shifts the focus from isolated efforts to a more interconnected and dynamic approach where multiple stakeholders—such as businesses, governments, academic institutions, entrepreneurs, and consumers—work together to drive innovation.

I have spent a far amount in different posts on the importance of Innovation Ecosystems and this post is simply a prompter of its value points

Key Concepts of Innovation Ecosystems:

1. Interconnectedness:
   o Innovation ecosystems emphasize the importance of connections among various actors. These connections can be in the form of partnerships, collaborations, or even competition. The idea is that innovation is rarely the result of a single entity’s efforts; rather, it emerges from the interplay of different players with complementary resources and capabilities.
2. Co-evolution:
   o In an innovation ecosystem, all participants co-evolve. As one participant innovates or changes, others in the ecosystem must adapt, leading to a continuous cycle of innovation. This dynamic process allows for the emergence of new ideas, products, and services that might not have been possible in a more static environment.
3. Resource Sharing and Synergy:
   o Ecosystems allow for the pooling and sharing of resources, whether they are knowledge, technologies, or financial assets. This resource sharing can lead to synergies where the combined efforts of different players produce greater outcomes than the sum of their individual contributions.
4. Open Innovation:
   o Open innovation is a key feature of innovation ecosystems. It involves leveraging external ideas and technologies while also allowing internal knowledge to flow out to others. This openness accelerates innovation by expanding the range of solutions and opportunities available to ecosystem participants.
5. Diversity and Specialization:
   o A healthy innovation ecosystem thrives on diversity, where different players bring unique perspectives, expertise, and capabilities. This diversity fuels creativity and helps address complex challenges from multiple angles. At the same time, specialization allows each player to contribute their strengths to the ecosystem, creating a robust and resilient environment for innovation.
6. Platform-based Ecosystems:
   o Many modern innovation ecosystems are platform-based, where a central platform (like a digital marketplace or technology standard) connects various players. These platforms facilitate interactions, transactions, and collaborations, making it easier for innovations to scale and reach the market.
7. Value Creation and Capture:
   o Within an innovation ecosystem, value is created through collaborative efforts, but capturing that value often depends on the strategic positioning of the participants. Companies or entities that control key resources, platforms, or channels within the ecosystem are often better positioned to capture a larger share of the value created.

Examples of Innovation Ecosystems:
• Silicon Valley: Perhaps the most famous innovation ecosystem, Silicon Valley brings together tech companies, venture capital, academia, and government support in a way that continuously fuels innovation.
• Biopharmaceuticals: In the biotech industry, ecosystems consist of pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, startups, and regulatory bodies that together drive the discovery and development of new drugs.
• Smart Cities: Urban innovation ecosystems involving municipalities, tech companies, citizens, and NGOs collaborate to create smarter, more sustainable urban environments

Benefits of Approaching Innovation Through Ecosystems:

Needing to find out more? Well, explore these posts:

Firstly, take a read of this post “Pitch me on why Innovation Ecosystems are better than my present open innovation approach”

Also “Recognizing the distinguishing points of Innovation Ecosystems

Or “Let’s be clear about Innovation Ecosystems”

So what are the benefits?
• Increased Innovation Speed: By collaborating within an ecosystem, innovations can move from idea to market faster due to shared resources and knowledge.
• Resilience: Ecosystems can adapt more readily to changes in technology, regulation, or market demands because of their dynamic and interconnected nature.
• Sustainability: The diverse, co-evolving nature of ecosystems can lead to more sustainable innovation outcomes, as the reliance on a single entity is reduced.
• Market Reach: Ecosystem players can tap into each other’s customer bases and distribution channels, expanding their market reach more effectively.
Challenges in Innovation Ecosystems:
• Coordination and Governance: Managing and aligning the interests of diverse participants can be challenging. Effective governance structures are needed to ensure smooth collaboration.
• Competition vs. Collaboration: While collaboration is key, participants must also manage competitive tensions, as not all ecosystem members will have aligned goals.
• Dependency Risks: Heavy reliance on certain key players or platforms within the ecosystem can create vulnerabilities.

Conclusion:
Viewing innovation through the lens of ecosystems allows for a more comprehensive understanding of how innovations emerge, scale, and create value in today’s complex, interconnected world. This approach not only accelerates the pace of innovation but also enhances its sustainability and impact by leveraging the collective strength of all ecosystem participants.

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In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, innovation is paramount for organizations to thrive and achieve sustainable success.

Traditional approaches to innovation, often isolated and siloed within a single organization, may not be sufficient in addressing the complex challenges and opportunities presented by the modern business environment.

Organizations must embrace innovation ecosystems to harness the power of innovation and drive transformative change effectively.

What are Innovation Ecosystems?

Innovation ecosystems are dynamic and interconnected communities of individuals, organizations, and institutions collaborating to accelerate the development and commercialization of new ideas, products, and services.

They foster open innovation, where participants share knowledge and resources freely, leading to exponential growth in the generation and implementation of innovative solutions.

Why Embrace Innovation Ecosystems?

There are numerous compelling reasons why organizations should embrace innovation ecosystems:

1. Accelerated Innovation: Innovation ecosystems foster a collaborative environment where ideas are exchanged, cross-pollinated, and refined, leading to a rapid pace of innovation.
2. Broader Perspectives: Innovation ecosystems promote a more comprehensive range of perspectives and approaches by bringing together diverse stakeholders from various sectors, enhancing problem-solving capabilities and the likelihood of breakthrough innovations.
3. Access to Talent and Resources: Innovation ecosystems provide access to a pool of talented individuals, experts, and resources that may not be readily available within an individual organization. This can greatly accelerate the development and commercialization of new ideas.
4. Shared Risk and Cost: Innovation ecosystems allow organizations to share the risks and costs associated with innovation, making it more feasible to pursue ambitious projects that may not be viable for a single organization.
5. Reduced Market Entry Barriers: Innovation ecosystems can facilitate access to new markets, customers, and partners, expanding the potential for growth and revenue generation.

Key Benefits for Organizations

By participating in innovation ecosystems, organizations can reap a multitude of benefits, including:

1. Enhanced Innovation Output: Organizations can achieve a higher rate of successful innovation by tapping into the collective intelligence and expertise within the ecosystem.
2. Accelerated Time-to-Market: Shorter development cycles can be achieved through shared resources, expertise, and streamlined processes.
3. Expanded Market Reach: Access to new markets and partners can drive growth and diversification of revenue streams.
4. Improved Competitive Positioning: Innovation ecosystems can help organizations gain a competitive edge by fostering a culture of innovation and adaptability.
5. Enhanced Brand Reputation: Participation in innovation ecosystems can strengthen an organization’s brand image as a forward-thinking and innovative leader.

A Roadmap for Embracing Innovation Ecosystems

To effectively integrate into innovation ecosystems, organizations should consider the following steps:

1. Identify Relevant Ecosystems: Assess the organization’s strategic priorities and identify innovation ecosystems aligned with those goals.
2. Build Relationships: Actively engage with ecosystem stakeholders, establish partnerships, and participate in events and initiatives.
3. Contribute Value: Offer the organization’s unique expertise, resources, and insights to the ecosystem, forging mutually beneficial collaborations.
4. Foster Open Communication: Maintain open and transparent communication channels with ecosystem partners to ensure alignment and collaboration.
5. Continuously Adapt: Adapt strategies and approaches as the ecosystem evolves and new opportunities emerge.

Moving Forward

Innovation ecosystems offer organizations a powerful platform to accelerate innovation, expand market reach, and gain a competitive edge. By embracing the principles of open innovation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing, organizations can harness the collective power of the ecosystem to drive transformative change and achieve sustainable success.

Move away from thinking of your innovation solutions only; think about how a collaborative, co-creative, open ecosystem of a rich diversity of knowledge, insights, and different market perspectives can combine into a dynamic innovation ecosystem.

Please find out more by contacting me through Agility Innovation or here, on how we can help you accelerate your transformation to Innovation Ecosystems.

The post Are You Embracing Innovation Ecosystems for Enhanced Competitiveness first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

We are possibly at a series of inflexion points in our current business environment. Here’s one you will be required to address.

What seems to be occurring increasingly in many different market spaces is defining an opportunity that directly impacts the current status quo and then seeking to make some radical moves to achieve that differentiation. Technology is a fundamental disrupter or enabler; it is the catalyst for making this change.

Markets are changing significantly, and collaboration and partnerships are rapidly forming and coalescing around the concept of Ecosystem thinking and Platform design. This potentially is a radically different business entity design.

These might already be happening around you, changing the accepted market space or definition. Still, you are reluctant to recognize their impact or be ready to make the level of change needed to ‘ready yourself’ for all the potential disruption or different thinking these Business Ecosystem designs require and bring. Shifting to a different business model or business design is hard, complicated and systematic work. The last thing it needs is to be rushed.

So often, we all get caught out by looking at market conditions through the established lens and not the different ones we need. So often, the entrenched player, who has so much vested interest and legacy, chooses to ignore the growing reality. Often it is simply “the fears of the unknowns.“

The emergence of Business Ecosystems is one of those potential areas to understand the future impact.

The emergence of Business Ecosystems ( links to my dedicated Ecosystem posting site) is upon us; it is coming in different ways and at different speeds. The underlying technology platform (backbone) forms the growth engine of transactions that lead to discovery, creativity and new value creation. Transaction in knowledge exchange and flows, partnership collaborations or access to common applications and process designs. It has the necessary right platform that scales and can adapt.

It recognizes the change in business model, changing how we operate and what and how we focus in different, more open ways that need pulling together; otherwise, others will steal the momentum and the market shifts, and you are left behind—the market reforms around a different type of solution that offers greater value to the buyer.

Ecosystems will change the nature of business activities. Let me take four of these:

• Ecosystems will have the potential to expand capabilities and enable experiences beyond anything possible today in the present world that most of our business organizations operate in, ones that are operating in their own ‘disconnected’ world, internally focused, constrained by limited technology connection and resources.
• Ecosystems open up the world. They connect it for richer access to diversity and different sets of discoveries not possible within one organization’s current capabilities or capacities. It is highly collaborative and interactive.
• Gaining a network of thriving relationships. This very nature of opening up, interacting, and building a growing relationship interdependence is driving the new innovation potential. One is looking to create and explore new greater business value by acting and collaborating together, having a position appreciating common and shared goals, which offers the potential for outcomes to be greater than the sum of the individual parts.
• An urgent need to coalesce around complex challenges. As our world becomes more complex, ecosystems offer ways to coalesce around those sorts of challenges, bringing together within the ecosystem community the potential to build, solve, share and exchange goals and concepts that help solve these complexities,  achieved in highly collaborative ways.

Tackling potentially disruptive business models, changing revenue streams, and the process of how to operate in a more open, connected and collaborative environment with partners is potentially as big as it can get. How do we overcome the fear and see the pathway to new possibilities?

Understanding Ecosystems and how they work is becoming essential for us all to understand

Recognizing ecosystems is vital; combining humans, technology, and data allows us to pursue multiple possibilities, explore them faster than before, evaluate them in quicker, smarter ways and scale those that show promise for all of us to be more efficient, considerate and respectful of finite resources. Ecosystem designs allow us to undergo a change from individualism to revaluing community and supporting each other in resourceful ways and respecting all that is around us needs to be more balanced.

We can search for and build entirely new capabilities by connecting technology and different people.

The power of ecosystems can allow us to innovate differently, and be more designed for a sustainable future as we connect, learn and leverage diverse knowledge, experience and discipline mindset.

Business Ecosystem thinking and technology Platform design needs a well-thought-through approach, it needs depth in understanding what this all means. This is an inflexion point in transforming our business to radically open up, collaborate and build stronger, deeper networks and relationships.

I can only urge you to ‘invest’ in understanding all of what this potentially means before you are forced to embark on the level of change you will be called upon to make in the coming years, irrespective, so make it early to fully understand what is involved and what will be possible impacts.

The post We are possibly at a series of inflexion points. Here’s one first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I started posting my thoughts on innovation in August 2010. I have written on this site alone, www.paul4innovating.com, by just coming up to a milestone of 700 posts focusing on innovation thoughts and opinions, so I just wanted to pause and think about all the different places I have tried to get the innovation message(s) out.

I always find the post-New Year to be a reflective part of the year of reviewing, deciding, and then setting new goals. This is a post about the sources of my knowledge that feeds my innovation passion.

Let me start. I often wonder whether the posts and articles I’ve written have been hitting the right buttons, helping solve the needs of those involved in innovation; I hope so. I have pushed out and explored various aspects, learning myself as I go. I have followed a number of great innovation thinkers and read different books on the areas of innovation.

It amazes me. How much is talked about, advice offered and sometimes that deep down nagging feeling, innovation understanding does not really change; it is the people managing it as they often seem to be simply passing through this innovation period onto other things or vanishing in pursuit of different career interests.

During this time, I have adopted and sometimes improved many innovative tools and methodologies or simply explored all the different ways to look at and investigate innovation. Reading and even contributing to different innovation books that have come out has added experience and contribution, but I do so often wonder that innovation seems not to have changed as much as I would have expected.

Innovation application and practice seem to have stayed stuck, largely due to how it is organized. The software has been increasingly proven and improved, mostly at the front end of the innovation process,but the whole innovation process or system stays in pockets of disconnected knowledge and fails to fully leverage the collaborative potential, insights or experiences of all involved if the innovation discovers to commercialization was open and supported by a clear ecosystem approach and strong, dedicated platform and technology-enabled environment.

Even with all the countless advice, ideas and concepts written by many, innovators still stay marooned on individual islands, lacking insights, alternative opinions and broader diversity in thinking. I wonder if innovation management has made the level of progress or remains still a little steeped in mystery and the big “big ah-huh” moment, often so vital to breakthrough innovation.

How can you just trigger multiple “ah-huh” moments? Having those insights are the wonderful moments of magic, and they still hold such power over our innovative thinking, sometimes unfairly judging our innovation process as “ad hoc”, but we must not deny us all to find ways to open up to a different way of innovation management through open, collaborative innovation engagement.

For me, it is necessary to grasp what Ecosystem thinking, and Platform design can do through all the connected technology and human collaboration this approach can provide. This is my primary focal point today.

I have doubled down on innovation more to prompt others.

More specifically, in my investigative travels, I developed a number of my own tools, frameworks or methodologies, or in numerous collaborations, especially with Jeffrey Phillips, a great sparring partner, the dialogues and exchanges have produced some good framing tools (in my opinion). Jeffrey has been writing articles and posts since 2005 and can be a great source of inspiration at Innovate on Purpose.

Equally, if you go to my dedicated page where I keep many of my tools and methodologies for easy reference here in this posting site insights and thinking, you get a fair amount of knowledge, collections and insights pulled together on this one tag or page. You can “search” on keywords and see what comes up.

I have with pride been constantly quoted, referenced or acknowledged as an innovative thinker and shaper, appearing for ten out of the last twelve years in the top 40 innovation bloggers, run and collated by Braden Kelley, who focuses today on Human-Centred Change and Innovation with a lot of good, helpful tools on his website.

On the academic side, I have been referenced 94 times in different papers, especially at Academia.edu. I have written for numerous organizations tailoring innovation to their specifics, be that Energy, Digital, Industrial and Software related on different length contracts commissioned. I like to equally contribute to different innovation practice references such as Future Shapers, occasionally Digital Transformation People run by Tim Ellis and consistently for BusinessInnovationBrief. I constantly feature posts or articles on LinkedIn and Medium as well. For my Energy Transition work, focusing on where innovation fits, I contribute to Energy Central, which has around 200,000 global power industry professionals visiting the site.

I run different innovation-related posting sites for my own innovation thinking, as innovation remains my core. I need to break out different parts of it to better focus a reader’s mind (and my own!)

I decided to try and separate my innovative thinking into more focused activities such as Ecosystems, the Energy transition, the Future of Work, Digital Technology, and of course, Innovation, so I can offer choice, greater depth or find a more selective place to write or clarify aspects of my work.

This one of paul4innovating.com, my core site, then one focusing specifically on ecosystems and platforms at ecosystems4innovation.com, one for where innovation fits within the energy transition over at innovating4energy.com where we are undergoing a transition in all of our lives.

I have two business advisory offerings, agilityinnovation.com, my main business offering that looks to find value creation, growth and impact from the advisory, coaching and mentoring work and hocaconsulting.com, more for the future of work or in my specific focus of work-to-be-done.

Lastly, I wanted to have (simple) reference sites to delve into quickly; these are thinking4innovators, my advocating coaching and guiding site of Guide4innovating.wordpress.com and a final one that focuses on the dynamics of innovationfitnessdynamics.wordpress.com which clarifies where individual, groups or organizations are positioned on the innovation landscape for capabilities, capacities and competences.

I see myself as an innovation journeyman, learning and sharing.

I simply enjoy innovation in all its forms. I got ‘hooked’ twenty-plus years ago. I work as a transition advocate and advisor for innovation, and ecosystems, focusing today more on those massive transformations being undertaken across the energy system and industry 4.0, requiring radical changes, new designs and innovative solutions.

I relate content to context to give greater knowledge and build the transition narratives we are all undergoing. For this, I love the notion of walkabouts for learning and testing ourselves.

The value and insights come from researching much of the need for innovation; in society, businesses and institutions need to constantly look to develop novel innovation solutions and frameworks that add new value.

My primary role is advising, mentoring and coaching within these areas of innovation needs.

For me, innovation needs to enter the DNA of our organizations and our own individual makeup. What I do is deliberately set out to help grow and extend the body of knowledge on innovation.

I have taken this pathway or learning journey around innovation as it fascinates me.

Why have I written this?

Well, It is not just my journey but yours to share and gain from. The sharing of knowledge and insights provided for others to gain makes this dedicated focus worthwhile and keeps me ticking along in business advisory, coaching and mentoring around innovation when asked for advice or engaged in work on a client’s behalf.

Are you leveraging all the resources available and mentioned here? Take a look, explore, and then ask if something needs clarification or is missing from your perspective. I learn from the ask.

Contact me, and we can design your innovation journey tailored to your individual needs.

The post Helping discover your innovation pathway first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Innovation often fails to align with strategic needs. It is a known, well-discussed fact. This is often not the fault of the innovator but the very people designing but not sharing the strategy or failing to recognize all the implications this might mean in shifting resources, investing money or simply under-appreciating the complexities that often lie with innovation to conceive, validate, contribute and deliver the contributions into that strategy.

Sadly many innovators are simply happily working away with no specific guidelines, apart from the general remit of “we need to be more innovative”, and this lack of coherence merging from the boardroom, failing to cascade down the organisation leaves this strategic part that innovation should plan as far to vague. They are not drawn into the need for change and its implications from an innovative perspective. Alignment should be a rigorous evaluation.

Building our capacity to innovate needs understanding and reflects the organization’s business activities. Innovators need to grasp the value creation aspects that will deliver the necessary capital-efficient and profitable growth and then ‘go in pursuit’ to achieve their contribution to these goals.

Even the basic questions often remain unclear: “How are we looking to grow revenue, save costs, reduce working capital or improve our fixed capital?” What is specifically being deployed or recognized needs to change and to get into the necessary detail becomes essential.

Managing our innovation activities thoughtfully and in alignment can help in all of these goals set in strategic direction or even mission purpose. Often the CFO is guilty as they want everything but are not prepared to reassess and reallocate the essential funds to unleash a new wave of innovation.

Shifting strategy always has significant implications, and the real need to understand whether it fits with what we have available generally makes deliberate questioning of the eventual role of innovation’s contribution and ability to deliver.

Then where equally does risk fit into the strategic equation for innovation?

Innovators often lack the clarity or governance guidelines to know if they can or can’t ‘push’ for groundbreaking innovation.

Risk is kept vague, often not as well articulated as it should be in guidelines or limitations deemed beyond the scope and areas to explore. Without real clarity, innovators, as with many other functions, often go beyond their imagination and explore the unknowns associated with any different innovation in the belief that this fits with the strategy. They are not deep into the strategic evaluations and are often ill-equipped when second-guessing.

Sometimes it even becomes ‘the art of avoidance’ by the person who wants innovation but not the associated risks, so the decision is “let’s not talk about it”.

Innovation is not the usual.

I recall a report some time back written by PA Consulting report called “Innovation as Unusual.” They were suggesting the innovation spend just in the UK alone is flushing some £65 billion down the drain each year, as nearly half the organizations waste good ideas, are far to risk-averse and fail to invest boldly around more ground-breaking ideas.

From my perspective, does the Strategy of Board guidelines clarify acceptable risk levels, or do they simply wait to see how the organization responds to a general idea?

So we are still seeing the majority of organizations struggling with innovation. In the process, they are losing out financially, forgoing huge opportunities in not achieve future competitive positions or foregoing the chances to alter their market position radically. It seems innovation remains incoherent within many organizations still.

PA Consulting suggested five innovation killers – fear, lack of focus, innovation engine failure, the wrong ROI and a natural reluctance to truly invest in building the right innovation capabilities. Pretty bad, I think? So we end up with costly failures.

So, where do we start in gaining Coherence?

Changes in Strategic direction or re-assessments of organizations’ goals always have significant implications. For me, a handy number of analytical or visualization tools applied to where and how the function and design of innovations fit help deepen the understanding and “bubble up” to the board the right questions they need to address in support of their decision for change.

Maybe we should all start visualizing first, all eventually arriving on the same page.

XPLANE, visualization thinkers who apply a design thinkers approach, produced brilliant visualizations of the organizations needs. They suggested visualizing the Cost of Confusion and the other as the Value of Clarity. Imagine having these as your starting point for establishing the innovation direction, resourcing and contribution directly in engagements with the board

Leveraging the power of the three-horizon methodology for innovation

I greatly favour the three-horizon methodology to work through to achieve this coherence in understanding. The three horizons offer an excellent framing technique to bring this ‘coherence’ that we need from our ‘here and know’ activities and future innovation efforts.

Dedicating time to knowing your innovation capability fitness

I have constantly been working away at what constitutes the dynamic capabilities for innovation that are needed for new innovation and those, shall we say, as more static and simply in place for the repetitive innovation renovation. It is identifying and seeing the difference and then knowing how to apply those that are dynamic and highly valuable to obtain against those that require a little dampening down. A significant resource calibrating can be taken by knowing the essential differences.

Take a look at www.innovationfitnessdynamics.wordpress.com. for some triggers

The question is, which are critical, which naturally occur when others begin to be put into place, which seems to have limited or no real effect on changing the dynamics of innovation?

The need to diverge and converge to reshape innovation activities

The alignment to the strategic direction (and importance) with any capabilities available needs to be understood. What present activities diverge away from the new strategic core and identify those that are converging?

The diverging ones need to have a real emphasis on improving performance or be “junked,” to question how they are managed for cash or releasing of precious investment capital to sell or be .disposed of eventually. Then those that are converging onto the new ‘known’ core of the business to grow and expand have potentially more capital and resource ready to be put to work on new concepts that fit.

So by recognizing these, and that is not easy in itself, you are beginning to know and identify the capabilities you need to have in place to fix today to make it as healthy as possible, alongside those new capabilities that will create a new winning set of growth and value propositions that give the ‘promise’ of what can come by applying different mindsets, resources and thinking.

Deciding that capabilities can be better leveraged requires separating exploitation and exploration.

Then we need to figure out the future core and start moving towards it. We should leverage the two dynamics of exploitation and exploration for our innovation and future growth.

Today we need to exploit and explore, and our capabilities need to be built fit for one of these two purposes.

Exploiting is today’s business need to leverage and improve on the existing business and simultaneously explore for tomorrow’s new business growth.

We certainly need bolder investments in knowledge and insights to begin inquiry that leads to the changes around the make-up of innovation capabilities and those shifts.

I certainly believe there is a real call for fresh and bolder investments in knowledge in infrastructure that focuses on activities that spur new approaches that lead to innovation. These are not just the traditional ones based on managing today’s core.

It is finding those innovations that provide the necessary new value. This new generation activity is occurring from recognizing how we can build, yes build for further exploitation (extending the life of valuable contributors that enable a better-financed transition) and exploration (new understanding) and manage each as separate risk evaluation exercises with different metrics of progress.

Identifying and finding new capabilities has potential hiring implications, the ability to fit with the existing, providing the tools and environment, and spelling out the future of where these capabilities fit.

We also need a deeper innovation grounding of internal workings and alignment.

What I feel we need is a deeper grounding in what is happening inside organizations within their innovation activities, how these align with the needs of strategy, and what is clearly missing. We start here as it gives us all this clarity and coherence, missing in much of our existing understanding.

Dialogue is essential

It is mastering this new ‘black box’ of actual innovation activities, exploring and exploiting the necessary innovation capabilities that are required to be ‘going on’ in organizations to achieve a closer coherence, one that can radically improve innovation performance.

We have a real opportunity today to find new ways to combine the four emerging forces of knowledge, technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, which will drive the growth models of tomorrow. It is these that are forming the new innovations ‘black box.’

I have plenty of ideas, frames and methods built up to help you make innovation fit and be more coherent in its contribution in times of strategic change.

I strongly advise not to carry on as usual, or innovation becomes the drag to strategic change and reinforcing the image that “our” innovation is a drain on capital, not the NEW source of growth, capital renewal and the key to changing strategic direction through supporting its delivery.

The post The needs of Innovation Coherence first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Innovation has a very tough job of attracting the necessary money to take a concept or idea all the way through to commercialization. There is always that constant asking about the economic return and the associated risks.

Financing game-changing investments, replacing something existing or simply providing something new have tough financial questions always to be answered.

Here I am taking an innovation need in a different way than most are used to reading about. So what are right conditions to invest and realize innovation?

The Energy Transition is one of the toughest innovation challenges ever. We must remove fossil fuel as a source of energy, decarbonize our planet and replace it with clean energy alternatives of solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear and green hydrogen solutions. To make the transformation in just under 30 years is a massive task. So far, we are doing a poor job of this as markets, solutions, opinions, and financial support are all highly fragmented.

Tacking emerging and developing markets is even harder to achieve an energy transition.

Can you imagine what it is like in a developing country that lacks sufficient energy and infrastructure yet is faced with the sizable task of expanding its economy to meet growing population expectancies and the need for rising incomes to give that essential potential for growth that having energy available can provide?

I re-visited an excellent report from IEA, “Financing Clean Energy Transitions in Emerging and Developing Economies“, written in 2021, and I have sustainably drawn down from this report in this post.

Today most developing countries are facing the real challenge of finding the development models that they are increasingly required and encouraged to find, to avoid high-carbon choices, locking themselves on a path that conflicts with the pressing global need for solutions that are built upon clean energy. They are caught as the needed financial support is not provided at the levels needed.

Choosing lower emission pathways for growth and prosperity has great opportunities in Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Middle East to avoid significant decarbonizing like the Developed countries. Today developing and emerging economies account for two-thirds of the world’s population but only one-fifth of investments in clean energy and one-tenth of global wealth.

Global economics, moving towards a global recession, the war in Ukraine and higher energy prices today are undercutting the prospects of any substantial shift being well-funded due to these economic changes and those providing more evident returns on projects are more likely to achieve financing. How can developing countries raise their equal priority to achieve a more sustainable path towards building clean energy solutions?

The need for deliberate, stronger action to contain future emission growth and transform the energy systems in these developing and emerging markets is essential. They come in different forms or challenges and need strong financial support and governance, often with higher risks and uncertainty.

It is estimated that to put developing counties on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the need is for at least an annual spend above USD 1 trillion. Today we spend USD 150 billion per year.

With Electricity consumption growing by around there times the rate of advanced economies in developing countries, the urgency of investing in clean power (wind, solar, etc.) gives energy efficiency and electrification the best chance to avoid emissions and decarbonization caused by replicating the path of developed countries and their reliance on fossil fuel and the higher costs of change.

To achieve this, access to finance becomes essential.

In the parts of the world where extraction of essential minerals, coal, oil and gas takes place, fossil fuel is entrenched in infrastructure, achieving lower cost extraction returns, and the ongoing reliance on hydrocarbons conflicts with the “need” for replacing this with renewable solutions, primarily untested, immature, needing variable scaling options for ‘right sizing’ or yet to be fully commercialized or tested in different environments and conditions. This is where fresh financial thinking needs to be applied to recognize the different issues and seek to find imaginative solutions.

Affordability, Reliability and Sustainable must be embedded in any modern energy solution. We need to solve the estimated 800 million people who still have no access to electricity and often water. 2.6 billion don’t have access to clean cooking options and rely on charcoal or wood, which exposes them to potential health issues.

We have a world where 15 out of 25 most polluted cities are in emerging, and developing countries and air pollution often is dangeruôusly high and a major cause of premature deaths.

So we need to mobilize capital on a massive scale.

We need to find a private sector role alongside a more enhanced one for international and development financial institutions. Clean energy investments need to come far more from private sector finance. In contrast, the public sector, including state-owned enterprises, must focus more on taking the financial lead of grid infrastructure and kick-starting emission-intensive sector switches.

We need imagination and creative and innovative solutions.

Global investment capital is available but needs the (magic) mix of sound projects, incentives and adequate returns to balance the risks. Today many emerging or developing economies do not yet have a clear vision of a clean energy pathway and a comprehensive road map of supportive policy and regulatory changes that can provide the environment to drive and catalyse rapid energy transitions.

Many promising projects fail as the risks associated are not well-underpinned or clarified enough, and the concerns for the ongoing creditworthiness of the parties and all the enabling resources these need remain unattractively too high. Many concepts don’t fully consider all the essential parts of the infrastructure and support mechanisms or the very real political struggles and local constraints.

There is often institutional weakness, licence and acquisition constraints, foreign direct investment restrictions, currency risks, less than robust local banking, and a lack of local capital avenues. The debt burdens of those operating today of (government-owned) utilities, the chronic under-investment in network infrastructures and sheer difficult economic and resource conditions of limited fiscal and mobilizing the understanding and limited specialised resources are significant barriers.

We need to mobilize the capital to finance clean energy solutions or transitions.

Cop 27, held in Egypt in November 2022, had a breakthrough in getting developed countries to recognize the loss and damage built up by the pollution from these countries. The impact and future risk are to minimise severe floods and overcome droughts, rising sea levels and harsh storms. This recognition needs “hard” cash, not just pledges. I hope that negotiators from developing nations don’t spend valuable time looking back but put their creative energy into looking forward.

The IEA stated in a report two critically important areas of forward-looking focus.

“The focus should be building imaginative and creative solutions that include measures to enhance financial markets, improve the visibility of public policies, remove distortions from energy markets, enable grids to integrate renewable power better, empower local entrepreneurs to develop smaller-scale clean energy solutions, as in energy efficiency, and build models for universal access to modern energy” (IEA)

“The massive scale of the challenge requires rethinking how we approach it – and major efforts from international financial institutions, their donors, multilateral development banks and many other actors. Many institutions are already seeking to do more, which I (Dr. Fatih Birol, CEO IEA) welcome. But when we look at the numbers globally today, it is clear that we are nowhere near mobilising the level of funds that will be needed. This is why one of the most urgent recommendations is that governments give international public finance institutions a strong strategic mandate to finance clean energy transitions in the developing world“. (IEA)

It is the suggestion of IEA in collaboration with the World Bank and World Economic Forum to build a suggested framing of how to bring developing markets up to a better market-ready condition, based on a growing awareness and understanding of technologies that are both mature but equally at adoption stage for renewables and energy efficiencies that lay the ground for the necessary integration of new technologies.

Finance models need to be highly adaptive and innovative to individual needs.

The suggested priorities are ten broad areas of scope. This list, drawn from exploring case studies from Brazil to Indonesia and from Senegal to Bangladesh, offers the potential pathway forward of finding innovative solutions based on new technologies emerging or fully validated understood in cost, return and necessary infrastructure and local policy support to attract capital and institutional support.

Innovative projects that need to be housed or grouped in a (universal) structured approach

This grouping allows for the beginning of collective investment accordingly. It allows metrics and standard criteria to be established to become global in selected focus areas, emerging into comparable standard practice and making financial assessments more systematic. Categorizing, giving focus, expertise and emerging financial models that tackle the groups mentioned below:

*Harness the readiness of investors to back renewable power
*Ease the delivery of reliable and clean power by expanding and modernising grids
*Enhancing the financial performance of utilities
*Build equitable and sustainable models for universal access to modern energy
*Embed high efficiency and connectivity into all new buildings and appliances.

*Leap ahead to invest in more efficient and electrified mobility solutions
*Recast the development model of producer economies
*Lay the groundwork for scaling up low-carbon fuels and industrial infrastructure
*Boosting innovative strategies to transform emissions-intensive sectors
*Accelerate the shift away from coal while ensuring a people-centred transition

The list above begins the Priority actions for financing clean energy transitions in emerging and developing economies. These can be summarized as providing the necessary frameworks and activities for the investment communities to “pull together” and begin to structure their financial risk, reward and mobilization around the need to achieve global agreement.

– Redouble international support
*Give international public finance institutions a strong strategic mandate to finance clean energy transitions.
*Boost and improve the delivery of international climate finance.
*Enhance the deployment of blended finance to mobilise additional private capital.
*Incentivise international capital markets to fund a broader range of clean energy investment opportunities in emerging and developing economies
–Tackle cross-cutting issues that affect investment risks and returns
*Make it easier and cheaper to develop viable new clean energy projects.
*Improve domestic access to capital through more robust banking and capital markets.
*Remove distortions in markets and prices that work against sustainable investments.
*Put state-owned enterprises, especially utilities, on a firmer financial footing with sustainable strategies.
*Empower local entrepreneurs and small/medium-sized enterprises to drive change.
*Harmonise sustainable finance frameworks and improve reporting on climate risks.
–Scale up private capital rapidly for clean power, efficiency and electrification
*Build equitable and sustainable models for universal access to modern energy.
*Harness the readiness of investors to back renewable power.
*Ease the delivery of reliable and clean power by expanding and modernising grids.
*Embed high efficiency and connectivity into all new buildings and appliances.
*Leap ahead to invest in more efficient and electrified mobility solutions.
–Focus already on the hardest aspects of transitions
*Recast the development model for major producer economies.
*Lay the groundwork for scaling up low-carbon fuels and industrial infrastructure.
*Develop innovative strategies to transform emissions-intensive sectors.
*Accelerate the shift away from unabated coal while ensuring a people-centred transition.

The key here is to mobilize funds by providing the basic framework and desire for financial capital to find higher visibility for enabling investment returns in innovative solutions in a stronger institutional design.

We need to begin structuring investments in developing and emerging countries. Each country needs a plan and a recognition of what it is clearly missing and the constraints, nationally, locally, and at a district level, to begin the ‘honest’ assessment of all of what needs changing, preparing and then exploring so support at Government or International and development institutions alongside the role of private sector investment and what each needs.

Clean power is central to the development and any transition strategies but needs transparency of all those investing and realistic time scales and return expectations and that is extra hard in many political, social and current environments facing economic constraints and qualified people to deliver.

The major resource for this post IEA, “Financing Clean Energy Transitions in Emerging and Developing Economies“, report written in 2021.

The post Innovation comes in different forms and problems, all requiring financial support. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Transformational innovation is increasingly needed to cope with the change needed in many organizations to find a new or repositioned value proposition.

Transformational innovation is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, to achieve. When you are required to become (really) different at the core, you face the inherent conflict that making change is where clear leadership can only bring about, guiding the changes required through this highly disruptive period and providing the compelling story of the compelling future that provides a fundamentally better state than the one occupied today.

We have many innovation outcomes to choose from, including incremental, distinctive, radical or disruptive. Today we focus more on open innovation where a greater external diversity combines with internal expertise to generate the potential for something fundamentally different. Today we have technology as an enabler and applying innovation ecosystem thinking in designing open platforms so this network of experience can be exchanged, shared and developed.

Yet transformational innovation does require something really different.

To become different, you have to go beyond adding innovation at the periphery, bolting new concepts onto the existing core, you need to dismantle the core fundamentally.

To become different has some ‘wicked’ inherent conflicts; to undo the ‘known and established’ into many parts of a potentially unknown end outcome requires a boldness of leadership. Championing transformational innovation needs a compelling story or narrative to be built, told and retold so that over a given time, you convince and persuade management and your organization to see the value, the time and commitment and potential to moving towards this different value proposition.

In the past few decades, we have seen so much disruptive change, in markets suddenly disappearing, products or services suddenly being rendered obsolete and replaced by these radical, highly disruptive models. These are the ones that change how we work, undertake business, or combine what was previously separated into a new business model to undertake a different way of working or thinking.

Smartphones have changed so much of our lives; we have rapidly adapted to combine all the different needs to travel in a one-stop/shop business model, where and how we decide on a business or leisure trip and all the options of where we can stay that cater to our individual needs. The solutions based on combining technology and human ingenuity have transformed our lives. They confront, conflict and compel change.

Confronting this level of challenge and change in business propositions requires this radical transformation within individual organizations to adapt quickly or die rapidly.

Adapting to these evolving realities within many marketplaces required transformational leadership. Leaders must spot, try to understand the emerging story and build the narrative to successfully guide the organization onto a different pathway to the future.

The hardest challenge is to persuade people to change, to bring together different groups to suddenly work together, each recognizing this compelling need to change. The status quo needs to be totally abandoned, and the potential rewards of embracing a new future must be sketched out within any story.

The value of analytical thinking becomes paramount.

Any compelling future needs to engage the full analysis of the changing landscape, the environment changes, the industry shifts, and alternatives of how to move from the existing position through steps or stages into a new one. We need to recognise that competencies and skill sets will change and what and how these will be acquired and blended into the ones that need to be kept, and how they will replace many of the existing ones.

The level of the change narrative becomes extensive.

The alternative choice of chasing cheaper, quicker and keeping the fast adapting mantra has only a limited “shelf life,” a transitioning one to allow greater time and learning to make the necessary fundamental changes.

Disruption passes through stages; it provides stepping stones to the emerging future. Yet it is anchored in two absolute essentials- the move towards a new customer logic and value and that the journey and story logic continue to evolve and be validated for a new business model to keep driving the changes needed.

So transformational innovation is built on a set of narratives that others can listen to, appreciate (or reject), assess their contribution and appreciate its coherence and logic. A narrative that builds on passion, courage, imagination and commitment to undertake needs to be highly compelling.

Have you ever listened to a good story or narrative of the need for an organization to make a radical change? In that case, you pick up fairly quickly on the central idea, the direction of travel, or it becomes the unexpected discovery at the end. Is it believable or not? You recognize many of the issues that form the potential plots, blockages or barriers. You feel the ‘spark’, the sense of change, and you identify this is a story happening around you. The identification brings all listening towards the understanding of the need to form a (new) community to build the change momentum. Otherwise, you reject it and become part of the blockers to change.

To build something up, you often have to make space and undo something existing. That letting go is really hard, but recognizing that there is a need to move towards a different compelling future and knowing you are sharing in this (ad)venture empowers. Transformation is scary, but it lies within us all.

Ingenuity is our fertile land for innovation.

We as humans do not want to stagnate; the idea of not growing or evolving is actually alien to us, it is just many don’t recognize their need to change; they need convincing. We actually thrive on this need to evolve in making progress. This gives us ingenuity, that fertile land where innovation grows.

Organizations cannot rely on improving incrementally alone; they must seek clear differences, which requires a more radical approach. To have innovation outcomes that are distinctive, radical and disruptive. Incremental innovation has a shortened lifespan than ever before.

Yet so often today, we need to face transformational innovation, doing something fundamentally different increasingly, even sometimes at an unrelenting pace. We are seeking different, often highly connected and networked products and services. To seek disruptive growth, we often need to change internally, in our organizations and within ourselves. We have the capacity; we need the leadership, guidelines, encouragement and support, a clear “sense of direction” and validation of our own beliefs this is necessary and right to do.

The Leader of the Organization becomes the storyteller.

The narrative of any transformational journey is becoming a compelling part of getting ‘all’ to see a different compelling future. The storyteller, often the CEO or board members, need to look at the world to see what is constantly emerging, what can give opportunity beyond the current order and evaluate the risks, the potential, relate the disruption this can and will cause, with the growth, impact and value transformational change can make.

This is where true leadership lies today, grasping the transitions eventually we are all being forced to make as technology, and the world is in constant transformation. Innovation provides much of the long-term survival; the more radical and transformational we are, makes us the hunter, not the hunted.

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**So much of Steve Denning’s work on storytelling and narratives have been influential for me over the years.

The post The need for Transformational Innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I am on a personal mission to convince innovation software providers, corporations and innovators to change how they undertake innovation.

In some recent posts, I argued that we need to adopt a broader innovation ecosystem thinking and design. I stated in one recent post, “We must promote more dynamic environments and the constant desire that organizations and their people have to be fit for innovating purposes, adaptive and fluid in such highly challenging and confusing times.”

I do think we need to restate the current barriers to innovation.

These barriers do not ‘magically’ change by delivering what I believe moves us to a better system for innovation, that of an ecosystem and platform architecture. Still, barriers do need to be consciously built into any new thinking as ones “to be resolved” in any new solution design.

Recognizing the present and ongoing barriers to innovation needs solutions to be built into any future design. Let me outline many of these here, building further the case for necessary change.

Today most organizations have barriers towards creativity, ideas and innovation.

Many of these barriers to innovation lie in attitudes and perceptions at the leadership level but also can run through the organization’s design. The overriding tendency is to reduce risk and stifle the creativity that challenges the status quo or current design. In today’s world, nothing seemingly ‘stands still’, and organizations, business models and market approaches are in constant flux. They need a more fluid, highly adaptive design. Today we have far too much rigidity within our designs.

Those common workplace barriers of immovable forces confronting potential change agents, judgements made that often ridicule what is not often fully understood, the fixation of policies and procedures pushing away new creative processes or thinking and simply misunderstanding by many who don’t find they can be creative, and the different type of work innovating and the creative process require in hard, thoughtful and often uncertain work.

Innovation is one of those activities that constantly “swim against the currents of the dominating culture of the organization”. We cripple our creative process as it is often not visible or transparent; the innovative process can be seen as a “black box” by many in the organization; they only can judge the end result. We do need to recognize innovation carries more risk and uncertainty and should have a much “higher share of voice” in the organization for constant awareness, engagement and being informed.

Today innovation does not have a fully connected process, it has many highly developed parts of a process, but it lacks connectivity; this transparency is often not given the dynamic environment where ideas flow, concepts are exchanged, and people and specialists fail to connect and leverage each others expertise and knowledge fully.

Applying technology across a connected platform environment begins to change that.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. Any proposed solutions need to account for resolving current restrictions or barriers.

Firstly, I need to return to today’s barriers to be fully recognized and then begin to see these differences from a new perspective. A practical, innovative environment needs resolving these and a significant new set of barriers in any newly designed innovation ecosystem.

Here I provide six root cause-and-effect barriers that stifle innovation that need addressing.

1. The pressure of pace and time. The need to respond to unexpected business attacks, changing competitive positions, and the inability to ramp up fast enough to take advantage of consumers’ rising expectations risks a real-time-to-market issue. Organizations are often too early or too late to market. The mechanism to manage time and pace in a highly dynamic, response way is often missing. Innovation is far too linear in its approach; it can be different.
2. Alignment to Strategy and Corporate Goals. Innovation requires fresh competencies and skill sets; it lacks consistent upgrading, often not actively pursuing new or fresh knowledge and insights. Alignment to the organization’s mission is often not fully accounted for in concepts or ideas that link to those ambitions in initial screening and idea evaluations and pursuits. Often knowledge stays in silos, often unaware that the available knowledge has value or contribution. Competencies to execute are often lacking as those deciding strategies are so often not involved in the innovation process, so it often lacks resonance or sync poorly with stated needs or desires. The result is misalignment or unbalanced portfolios or funding misalignment.
3. Enabling technology and processes. Innovation often sits outside the core processes and business structures; many intellectual property opportunities are missed by innovation being treated separately. Separating innovation discovery or exploration from the core leaves significant gaps in identification and relating to realities or actual business needs. The capturing of relevant knowledge can be random and ad hoc; it is not as systematic as it should be, with innovative software solutions not integrated, proven or tested as accepted organization methodologies and often continue to shut out the external collaboration process, as “new value creation” is risky in sharing and losing “exclusive” ownership or revenue. So innovation lacks an integrated innovation platform, often not part of the enterprise architectural fabric and not as systematic as it should be.
4. Rapidly altered environments. Today’s and future market complexities need a different approach and design. In many ways, innovation software is still low-cost pervasive technology not yet as robustly built on the trend towards increasingly ubiquitous connected computing sensors, devices, and networks that monitor and respond to identified needs. Design is becoming more often unique, not as repeatable, and needs a growing unique set of solutions. Scale and complexity are constantly shifting; success has become more unpredictable, and dealing with the constantly changing dynamics of market power is giving greater volatility. Throwing in that amplified scrutiny required in good, robust business governance makes it even harder. This growing complexity increases the need to be “highly adaptive.” We need to recognize how ineffective the innovation process is, in its often isolation, robustness in definitions, and execution.
5. A lack of real awareness of appropriate innovation tools and methodologies. A master craftsman needs access to all the best tools available to do the best possible job. Organizations often restrict innovation in accessing these tools or the latest methodology thinking, relying on a limited ‘universe’ of insights due to time and resources. The innovator has a limited premium of available time to investigate and research outside of their domain, quickly reading the latest posts but often not searching in a structured way. The ability and need to share, the effective leverage of networks and collaborators, and the necessary investments to experiment and explore are all currently constrained. How far has innovation management and its capacities come? How can open knowledge be shared more effectively?
6. The shift in the need to invest in technology enablers. The ability to build into innovation processes the growing need for big data/ advanced analytics, virtual modelling/ simulation, virtual workplaces, augmented reality, collective intelligence, cognitive, and self-learning systems all are a work-in-progress in organizations, primarily placing the investment and understanding of these enablers within the operation and manufacturing environments. Why do we not have these technology enablers embodied in the innovation process? Innovation software providers are moving towards these but perhaps not in a holistically designed way.

Are organizations actively in pursuit of designing a more robust innovation management process?

End-to-end innovation needs to focus on three primary innovation needs. It requires a transparent intelligence process that requires a fully digitalized, connected process. It needs access to the best tools and techniques for foresight and interaction as equally critical and needed to build into any robust systems of the future. Are we allowing innovation that digital technology access, linked across an ecosystem and platform environment that it should have?

Organizations, in my view, woefully under-invest in innovation. Innovation should have the same high-level organisational focus as manufacturing, operations, the supply chain or the financial systems in infrastructure, connected systems, resources and investment and funding capital. Innovation is the future lifeblood, the work-to-be-done need of the organization, yet it remains ill-equipped to build the future value and growth organizations talk about. Why?

We have multiple roadblocks that need breaking down and resolving

Many of today’s innovation limitations are within the legacy systems we still have for innovation. We still have not enabled an integrated end-to-end comprehensive innovation ecosystem designed structure.

We create our barriers to innovation, there is a cause, and you do get the effect of limiting your results, value and potential by operating in sub-optimal innovation systems. We can change this, but it needs designing for intelligence, foresight and interaction to shape different outcomes.

Today, our innovation systems are inadequate and not fit for the job. Not addressing this innovation ecosystem design will continue to provide innovation disappointments and restricted top management engagement and deep involvement. Can we afford to let this continue?

The post Barriers to innovation, the cause and effect. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I was recently working through a set of older presentation files and came across this extract concerning innovation again and thought I must share this. Sadly, it rings true as much as it did those  (many) years back.

“Strategy is useless without innovation; innovation is directionless without strategy”.

Below is an extract from “Reinventing Innovation” by John J Kao. For me, it is sadly as relevant today as when I first came across it, some years back. Are we making real progress in our innovation activities?

Read this slowly, can I ask you to linger over its implications, its questioning and its suggestions. The extract offers much for any innovation pathway we might be considering.

The Innovation Pathway

” Innovation fits with a designer’s definition of design: the ability to move from the existing to the preferred.

Innovation is the path by which we seek the future we prefer. Not the future that we’re going to get, but rather the future we want.

Today, there is a vast gap between the aspiration for innovation and its reality. Innovation practices that are in step with the speed, uncertainty, and volatility of the new economy are still a promissory note, in this day and age.

Until we have practices that go beyond brainstorming on the one hand or simply tweaking a new product development process on the other, we will never arrive at the promised land of strategic innovation. Few if any can point to systematic practices that realize corporate innovation in a reliable and continuous fashion.

If you take innovation seriously within an organization, it touches every aspect of how business is done. It’s about leadership, organizational structure, knowledge management, corporate purpose and values, norms regarding collaboration, and strategic foresight processes.

Innovation touches everything. An innovation system requires an examination of the organization in a holistic kind of way, which is why most organizations have a tough time grasping the agenda.

We have to talk about the hard work of creating deep capabilities within the organization, capabilities that once established with tremendous effort don’t go away and confer a competitive advantage over long periods of time

The economies of scale organization are hierarchical and control focused, as is the mindset of its managers. Economies of discovery, on the other hand, which in my opinion are characteristic of the new economy, work quite differently.

Instead of efficiency, we strive for originality, for what will change the game. Instead of hierarchy and control, the focus of management must be on collaboration and enabling what is new.

There must first be an intimate connection between strategic thinking and innovation. Strategic planning must co-exist with strategic foresight. Innovation becomes an answer to a set of strategic questions. Strategy is useless without innovation; innovation is directionless without a strategy. Second, we must develop robust innovation processes

We also need a new sense of the scope of innovation, to look far beyond products and services of seeing things and shifting perspective, so that a new vision, a new set of possibilities can emerge.”

The extract is from “Reinventing innovation” by John J Kao, The Idea Factory.

This simply needs re-reading and recognizing what John said then, which still applies today. Do you agree?

The post The lost innovation pathway first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Delivering Future Impact on Performance

As demand is more volatile today what becomes more important is the work to be done, not the work done.

Surprisingly Adam Smith identified this important difference back in 1776.

This can be explained as the work done is the accumulated knowledge, which has built up and been embodied in the firm’s results with the innovations achieved in the past and is seen as the tangible capital.

The work to be done is how well it can adapt to change. In the past century, we operated in the mass production era, with systems with standard goods and stable market conditions, the work done was equivalent to the ‘work to be done.

In today’s global market, with its rapid technology diffusion, disruptive and constant change with an emphasis on servicing the work to be done is more important than the work done and intangible assets are fundamental to this.

The work-to-be-done provides the intellectual capital to react to changing demand for the required future value creation that needs to be sustaining, to be done.

Work to be done is the need for our future growth and well-being to be derived from innovation activities. These so much made up of intangible parts will provide the new wealth of organizations in the knowledge sharing economy of today and the near future.

We need new forms of evaluation to measure the real asset wealth of the organization to understand the points of intensity, their connected dynamics and what is required to reconfigure the changing capabilities and capacities needed to grow in the future

You do need to find out more about the emerging Work to be done approach as it is a far more dynamic place for innovation to happen.

The Work-to-be-done is focused on connecting to the emerging areas of Organizational need being faced in today’s rapidly changing markets and diminishing resources

We need to focus on the points of value that come from growing understanding

* The new Work-to-be-done in organizations

* The future of work is through exploiting the systems of engagement.

Connecting Dynamics

We are entering the world of innovation ecosystems where broader, more complex innovation challenges, through greater collaborations can be achieved. So to help, there is a dedicated site to building the arguments and exploring options for your future here in collaborative designs and you have found it! This is where the future of work will be undertaken. The need to learn to collaborate, to extend and exchange knowledge is of vital importance

Collaborative Ecosystems are forging a new direction and momentum that requires the capabilities of more than one to deliver what is becoming increasingly possible through technology and the network effect we see through our growing connections.

For many today, business is simply not working, it remains a disappointment for a variety of reasons, especially for those leading organizations required to be seeking out new growth, operating in increasingly volatile and tough markets where disruption and copying are increasing the pressures. Something has to change and it is this recognition that it can come from managing in highly collaborative ecosystems that can provide part of the answer.

We are finding ourselves in a race to the bottom when it comes to maintaining a competitive edge. As soon as the product is available within an ever-decreasing time, it is being copied and any advantage has vanished. Can we continue to chase our tail?

We require a different way of thinking.

This is more centred on building a more robust, sustaining value undertaken through ecosystems.

We all need to explore ecosystems, understand the delivery mechanisms of platforms along with other collaborative methods and push towards the new need of today, to deliver a seamless total solution that provides customers what they are constantly asking for, to solve their needs and give them greater engagement and experiences.

This thinking is driven by a need for new products and services and experiences, otherwise, we believe customers will continue to turn away from discrete, disconnected products and services increase over time

Shaping and introducing new ecosystems in thinking and design is not easy but it has enormous potential to transform competition and deliver on this ‘seamless experience’ that will be valued and recognized by its unique set of offerings. It can become the unique competitive positioning due to this connected ecosystem of collaborators, it offers an advantage to all engaged in its potential as it has diversity, dynamics, differentiation and distinctiveness in its  design and delivery

Future Building

Why ecosystems have come of age in the business world.

To explore and exploit ‘the new,’ we have the opportunity to combine technology and leverage relationships to extract ‘greater’ meaning. Building a network of contacts, we are scaling and developing a more productive potential for something new.

We can, through data and exchanges, link up the real world and relate the physical and data worlds. Actually, we are building a digital-physical twin as we understand what is going on, explore how we can change it, and then compare this back in the digital world, that mapping back for all participants to work upon and extend it out. We are creating value by combining technology and relationships in any ecosystem design.

The value of Ecosystems thinking is critical today

I focus on Ecosystem thinking, many of my thoughts can be found on a dedicated posting site ecosystems4innovators, where I explore much around ecosystem thinking and platform designs

The ability to delve into or broaden our thinking gives us these opportunities to extend what we have or create something new. In any ecosystem evolution, ‘something’ or ‘someone will exploit a gap, a niche, and utilize this. It takes time if it cannot build on its capabilities in that space, it needs to build up its environment around it.

We often limit our capabilities and capacity because we do not ‘stray’ from the knowns into the unknowns. Ecosystems that encourage pushing frontiers lead us often to find that unexplored point. The combined realms of digital and physical meeting points allow us to do this in faster ways than ever before. We can reach wherever we want to go.

Taking the time to focus on the critical resources for our future will determine the impact you can achieve- in the marketplace, for shareholder return, for a vibrant future

–The impact areas need to address:

– New structures, skills and competencies

– The need to network and have greater collaborative sharing

– A climate that fosters constant, ongoing learning

– A real intellectual capital understanding of the value and its worth

– The ability to seek out value creation and extraction activities so as to provide the impact areas for future competitive performance

We can help in exploring these with you. We all need to dive deeper to expand our hidden horizons and open our thinking to new possibilities.

Undergoing any transformation must be for a reason as it can incur a lot of pain before you get to the real gain. Moving closer to this future coming faster to us need we can see digital transformation everywhere, it is actually all around us.

Customers today feel growing empowerment, in choice in personalization, in knowing the products or services they are buying are meeting their needs and they are becoming increasingly intelligent to meet these choices they are making.

Companies need to increasingly interact with customers, as close or actually in real-time to learn, adapt and deliver to their evolving needs. This requires a company to become far more ‘highly automated and adaptive’ than a listening organization.

The alignment of technology, the use of increasing levels of connectivity and evaluations can deliver significant news ways to assess what is valuable and what can be innovated to provide increasing value back to your customers.

Learning to be responsive and adaptive becomes key

To get to this transforming point we need to build in a faster adaptation of business strategies and turn out faster innovative and creative outcomes that meet these needs as the key to this.

Our transformation journey needs to embrace the cloud, mobile, data and networks and increasingly reliant on higher levels of analytics to interpret and translate information, turning this into insights, into ideas, into innovation that delivers fresh growth and adds a greater impact that delivers increased value to your customers.

Relationship and Network Management

Today we need to build more alliances and networks to enhance our abilities to ‘connect’ to the world so we can tap into the sources of knowledge that lie outside our own organization.

By looking outside we open up. More and more demands are being placed on us via our customers, suppliers, our regulators and a host of other stakeholders all wanting to contribute to our existing knowledge.

We struggle to adapt to these new external pressures but our structures, processes and systems need to adapt and support these changes. We need to acquire, anchor and transform this flow of new knowledge into future new worth.

We all need to be more flexible, adaptable and agile so our resources grow their capacity to absorb and strengthen the competency and capability in new more dynamic ways.

Providing Future Thinking

I provide future thinking as part of my advisory work. My dedicated website www. hocaconsulting.com takes the positioning of “the future of work starts here” and these views expressed here form part of the offering to position organizations for a different “future impact”

The post Transforming What? Delivering Future Impact first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.