Innovation Thinking and Resources - Exploring Dynamics Within Innovation Landscapes

9 Stages for building innovation fitness

By @paul4innovating February 3, 2015Dynamic capabilities, Fitness Landscaping Regimes, Outcomes & Expectancies6 Comments

Achieving innovation fitness is a journey- to get there we often have to manage the switchbacks as we build our capabilities and capacities to innovate.

Getting Started – Understanding the Needs & Imperatives of Innovation Fitness

Why we must travel this critical path for Innovation.
The meaning of dynamic capabilities and innovation fitness landscapes
Merging the theory with practical reality to produce new outcomes and positive results.
Focusing on resources and performance – why is this important
The problem is knowing what we have and what we really need

Do you know where your distinct innovation capabilities come from?

By @paul4innovating February 3, 2015Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Mapping & Rugged Terrains, Outcomes & Expectancies2 Comments

The dynamics that make up innovation capabilities

Just begin to work through these ‘thoughts’ to begin to evaluate the value of knowing your innovation fitness so as to find out what makes up your distinct dynamic capabilities:

By firstly mapping out your innovation capabilities to the task at hand enables you to understand and relate to what is needed – we call that the context for innovation.

Innovation Fitness Landscapes helps in this task by identifying the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts‐ and apply the appropriate resources to navigate the terrain or challenges you are facing.

The greater understanding of the ‘fitness points needed’ can transform your innovation landscape potential, or in business parlance, achieve your goal.

Achieving this fitness accelerates your opportunities into final tangible outcomes. Here is a little bit of the theory: you look for those critical factors that will give higher value potential or ‘peaks’ that are more valuable to your needs.

Defining Innovation Capital

By @paul4innovating February 3, 2015Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Outcomes & Expectancies3 Comments

My definition of what makes up innovation capital:

“Innovation capital is the sum of all that promotes the development and changes required for achieving innovation outcomes, within one organization or its broader networked environment, for market place advantage”

“These are made up of the resources, processes, knowledge and capabilities, that are constantly evolving and highly dynamic to build greater innovating capacity.”

“These build upon the capabilities of ‘sensing, seizing and transforming’ to build new capital that focus more upon the dynamics within innovation, that provide the true value creation in successful outcomes in final product, services or executing within business models”

We need to value both “stocks and flows” in equal attention to build innovation capital

The ‘stock’ of innovation capital can render different productive value outcomes, is a bundle of the firm’s resources/assets and holds the renewal capabilities and they possesses attributes that make it a “strategic asset”

Innovation capital is made up of many different assets that are often context specific and interconnected and this makes it hard to build without taking a broader, more holistic approach to developing your capabilities, capacities and competencies to innovate. You ‘map’ and align these to fit your strategic goals and aspirations.

The last five yards – the really hard part

By @paul4innovating February 1, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Tackling innovation

It seems so simple doesn’t it – “bringing final ideas to market”. So easy to say, yet it does seem so very hard to achieve.

Everything we should be aiming towards boils down to the judgement of a ‘successful execution’ or not.

It is this last, hard five yards of all the work that went into something, which can make or break so much of the efforts that have gone into this emerging ‘commercial life’ of our new innovation activities.

We should regard the back-end of innovation as the rugged part

Understanding that innovation capital becomes your new core

By @paul4innovating January 30, 2015Absorptive Capacity, Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Outcomes & Expectancies

Much of my focus within my work is to move organizations towards recognizing and expanding their innovation capital or stock.

The hard part for many organizations is that many of the key elements of innovation capital consist of many intangibles as well as tangibles and this needs deeper understanding and appreciation. These intangibles are in most cases non-technological and embodied in the organizational routines and thinking of the employees.

It is focusing on building the stock of this innovation capital as well as making the flow more dynamic, ever evolving, adapting and changing to the different conditions being presented to the company.

Some of the critical elements that need to be considered can be described as follows:

We need the engagement platform for translating big data learning

By @paul4innovating January 25, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Innovation strategy, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation2 Comments

Big Data is knocking very loudly on our door, how are you going to let it in and manage it?

How can we liberate that creative energy we have within our organizations, how can we achieve higher engagement?

How can we learn, share and transform the knowledge that is all around us, simply flooding in? How can we translate the data flowing in with the knowledge insights and innovation outcomes expected? How are we going to unleash the creativity that goes with new knowledge?

We need to actively encourage connected minds for value-creating opportunities and knowledge sharing for innovation to flow right across the organization. All the raw data needs connected and engaged minds.

“For this, we need to think about installing a modern engagement platform that has the knowledge and learning as its beating heart”

Is all investment about the future?

By @paul4innovating January 13, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation4 Comments

I was reading an article by Doug Collins on the “three wishes for the innovation practitioner for 2015” where he points out “2014 was the year for share buybacks and dividends“.

An article from Bloomberg reports that companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index are “poised to spend $914 billion on share buybacks and dividends this year, or about 95 percent of earnings.”
95% of earnings – Doug rightly says “wow” and offers a thoughtful set of observations

“Every organization that enjoys free cash flow makes a decision on where to allocate that resource. If the opportunity available to the organization meets or exceeds the hurdle rate—the desired, expected rate of return—then, in theory, they invest in that opportunity. If not, then no: the organization returns the cash to the investors. Of course, earnings come after investments the organization makes in innovation—research & development expenses, for example. Many do invest a lot in R&D”

He then remarks “And yet…..and yet” ….

Where are the new feeding grounds of innovation?

By @paul4innovating January 4, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Innovation strategy, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

Credit Wildebeest migration, Kenya, by Bonnie Cheung — Wildebeest migration, Kenya by Bonnie Cheung

I am presently reading an early release draft of a book written by Mike Docherty of Venture2, on innovation, and I would certainly recommend the read when it comes out.

The book Collective Disruption will be available as of February 2015.

The book as Mike wrote to me, is aimed at corporate leaders, both in large and small companies, charged with new sources of transformative growth and makes the case for co-creating new businesses with entrepreneurial partners.

It builds on a foundation of open innovation, but is focused specifically on new business creation (vs core business support).

I know that Mike is passionate about the intersection of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship for co-creating new businesses and business models. As CEO of Venture2, a consulting and new ventures firm, he works with leading brand companies and start-ups to commercialize breakthrough new products and businesses.

Mike has experienced disruption many times.

My innovation wish for 2015

By @paul4innovating December 26, 2014Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

I would like to see emerge a different ‘sustaining’ capacity built around innovation as the continuous core, constantly evolving, adapting, learning and adjusting, in perpetual innovation motion.

A truly integrated innovation solution that sits in our organization to allow innovation to be fully leveraged and exploited.

We need to recognize innovation has many touchpoints and a myriad of dimensions that need to be aligned and integrated. I genuinely believe we need a solution provider, who takes a more holistic view of innovation management that can make a significant advancement on where we are today, in our processes and systems.

These need a total integrated solution as the approach. this has its complexities in the challenges but we do have the potential through technology deliveries, platform constructs, and using the flexibility and adaptability found in the cloud.

If we combine these technology enablers with our innovation management understanding, then we can begin to construct this systematically and thoughtfully. It is very achievable and necessary for our organization’s abilities to absorb and translate knowledge into innovative growth, something missing for many.

Dealing with Your Darwin Effect through Innovation

By @paul4innovating December 10, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

I have been working away, as my labour of love, frustration and sheer determination, on my thinking through the ‘harnessing’ of the dynamics within innovation, to offer organizations their innovation fitness and future landscape design, so as to radically alter their present capabilities and capacity to innovate.

The aim is to relate these to where your organization is in their existing capabilities, where they need to go, in identifying and clarifying the necessary capabilities they need to have, so as to achieve certain strategic goals and then, “we”, together, collectively prioritize the critical ones as ‘must have’ and then set about filling the gaps.

This is the innovative fitness journey needed to be travelled.

The building of those more ‘dynamic’ capabilities and competencies are the ones you need so as to provide for a more dynamic innovation environment and deliver unique capacity for your ongoing strategic goals.