No energy transition will be achieved without invention and innovation,  yet we are failing badly at present to fund research, development and deployment. We are losing the race to stop our planet warming as our innovative human endeavours are not at the level they should be, or we simply lack the “will” to make the changes we so desperately need to undergo to protect our planet.

My focus continues to get deeper and deeper into the Energy Transition from my innovation perspective, it is highly critical to our future.

I provide different perspectives and thinking, firstly on my innovating4energy.website for my offerings of service and a dedicated posting site for energy, innovating4energy.com  that provides a decent mix of thought leadership, news and awareness, for the Energy Transition.

Do visit these sites if you are curious and want to understand more about the Energy Transition we are all undergoing (really all of us in the World). Also, I can only encourage you to get in touch to see if we have areas of some collaboration opportunities.

So let me get back to what this post is about, providing critical reference points on technologies we need to improve and innovate.

One really rich reference site is the Internation Energy Agency, the IEA who provide some incredible, in-depth knowledge for “Shaping a secure and sustainable energy future for all.”

On their extensive site, they provide constant updates. This site is primarily a place I go back and constantly check when it comes to the progress on the technologies that need to be researched, developed and deployed.

Having the insights and their knowledge helps knowing if we are on track and going to be successful in transforming our Energy Systems. And make the dramatic contribution level for us to achieve the net-zero pathway we need to have in place by 2050.

Let me briefly reference different sections of the IEA website

Here the value is monitoring progress that is essential to achieving climate and sustainable development goals. However, it is also vital to know where we are starting our voyage. The IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario lays out the narrow but achievable pathway to net zero emissions by mid-century. We all need to reach that goal, but not every country will do it in the same way – a reflection of the structure of each economy, its legacy energy mix, and other factors such as climate and geography.

Then we have  The ETP Clean Energy Technology Guide is an interactive framework that contains information for over 400 individual technology designs and components across the whole energy system that contribute to achieving the goal of net-zero emissions.

Each of these technologies includes information on the level of maturity and a compilation of development and deployment plans, as well as cost and performance improvement targets and leading players in the field.

You can choose a sector to explore progress in very considerable detail related to Buildings, Energy Transformation, Transport, CO2 infrastructure ad Industry to explore facts, data and detailed reports.

The IEA also provide a Clean Energy Transition Annual Report.

Since the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP) launch in late 2017, the IEA has significantly expanded its work to help accelerate energy transitions in major emerging economies. The CETP plays a critical role in supporting clean energy transitions, putting sustainable development at the heart of economic recovery measures and further strengthening the IEA family.

The CETP Annual Report 2020 highlights the programme’s main activities, presenting significant outcomes and areas for further work and planned activities for 2021. It also summarises IEA activities related to clean energy transitions globally and introduces new and innovative analyses and resources produced throughout the year.

The report initially provides an overview of the CETP’s objectives, then presents highlights of activities and achievements for each priority country (Brazil, the People’s Republic of China. India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa), each priority region (Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia), and globally.

One final point of reference for me is the Energy Technology RD&D Budgets: Overview Page.

The stark facts – where we are.

The post We are falling badly behind on our invention in technology for the Energy Transition first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I recently wrote a post, “Affordability versus Sustainability – a cause to be addressed.”

That post looked at the shifts that I felt were underway in moving from a society that accepts where it is heading, in expecting “affordability” is changing as our “choice” gets constrained.

I argued there is this growing recognition that a consistent amount of crisis points are causing growing anxiety and stress, and these tensions and pressures are not sustainable, they are shifting our attitudes.

Are we appreciating that there is a fundamental change happening, and we have to have an increased sustainability focus, one that is becoming a much larger part of our thinking in the future?

So how do you vote?

So if you are voting for a continuance of affordability expecting an abundant world, then our innovation stays locked into incremental improvements to keep forcing the price down and demand up. But we are deluding ourselves.

Presently we drive efficiency and effectiveness but progressively into a crisis of our own making. Demand outstrips supply. We are consuming more than we can sustain, and something, really soon, will have to give.

Choosing Sustainability then innovation has that real chance of being radical, distinctive and providing breakthroughs that can revolutionise and change our world. It can allow us to begin the pathway back to getting our planet and its limited resources into some semblance of balance.

The question raised today is can we adjust to the realities that our planet is finite and only able to “sustain us” by a radical change in our behaviours and consumption habits.

We need to appreciate that all around us, in nature and our environment, needs our attention. We need to fully understand in new ways and recognise that we, as humans, are wreaking havoc on an increasingly fragile planet.

Sustainability must become the core of all we do

A problematic journey of changes will be confronting us- Will sustainability make the case?

Consumers recognise the world is entering different moments of extremes; in weather, in political hostage, in economic concerns, in a planet that is in trouble from many aspects of health, wealth distribution, political tensions, migration flashpoints, and much more. There is growing awareness.

Shortages and rapidly rising prices are suddenly happening and certainly grabbing our attention. Today we are caught at a crossroads on currently expecting abundance and affordability versus accepting a sustainable one, where choice and prices will challenge our present acceptance of availability and convenience, in a rapidly depleting world of resources.

Sustainable innovation needs to shift our thinking

Presently sustainability stays that concept that makes sense but is not yet embraced and accepted by the vast majority. Crisis, what crisis? What will drive any change?

For many consumers, saying yes to environmentally friendly products means saying no to something else that is presently cheaper, and that “difference” still makes that essential decision-making based on price!

We simply, it seems, don’t get the arguments that Sustainability is central to our future as this is shifting our existing habits and mindsets; I mean, why should we change? Yet the question becomes a growing imperative of “when is now.”

Making honesty and transparency central to any relationship

For years to come, honesty and transparency are becoming super-critical to build that lasting trust-based relationship with principled customers. The sustainability story will be driving this.

Narrowing the gap between simply affordability with a new compelling, logical value proposition of building an inclusive, sustainable future where demand and supply become more equitable, is shifting and finally altering awareness. It recognises we need to put back proportionately more than we take out.

Purchasing behaviour recently went through a fundamental shift.

Purchasing has radically altered in the past eighteen months. Choices have been forced upon us due to lockdowns, corvid, supply chain disruptions; we have not been free to choose, travel or socialise as we have in the past.

Add in this seemingly escalating set of global tensions of politics, environment and social upheavals. We are in a state of flux, and often this leads to fundamental change.

The perception of a negative impact on our personal environment is forcing a rethink to reflect on making changes in jobs and careers, where and how we live, who we want to spend it with (or if we can), what and how we spend our free time and most importantly forcing us to question where we are going.

Was this period simply a pause, then we carry on, or a trigger to fundamentally rethink what we value, what has impact and worth?

The shift has its impact and implication. That “being worthy” judgement

The recognition that social responsibility and environmental sustainability factors are rapidly becoming part of the world’s agenda will be driven by the forces of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in portfolio selection and management. it fits with consumer demand and a “life choice” surge.

The invest, divest, walk away or joining a more sustaining lobby for lasting change is shifting the past, more “passive” consumer into a more demanding one. The moment has come where all providing products and services are being judged as “being worthy.”

Think about that. “Being worthy” is very powerful; this is shifting the dynamics. Consumers, investors, employees, employers, our products and services will all be judged on “being worthy” of our support; they have to earn it, if “we” are going to change.

A time for sustainability is now.

The language, the lexicon, the context and the why all need to make the connections in any sustainability narrative.

In a world where anyone can check and validate in simple google searches, those narratives provide a fertile ground where collective intelligence can check and validate many sustainability claims and challenge them if they are based on flimsy evidence or misleading information.

Today there is a need of being transparent, open and honest, so openly providing that where they are today, gives clarification, and where any journey needs to go si it is to be worthy of having that sustainable tag is super-important.

I suggested in a recent post, “reshaping the core of your business through a focus on sustainability,” and suggested ” you embrace a new set of principles of governance that bring the planet, people and prosperity far more into the thinking.

What would that mean in the magnitude of change and where innovation becomes central to undertake this sustaining journey?

Is the onus on the brand to make the case?

The problem today is most corporations are still internally validating Sustainability and not making the value case to their customers; they are often still too caught up in making the business case internally.

Consumers want to see their issues qualified, not the internal case for showing shareholder value business credentials. Corporations are in real danger of missing the “wave” in surfing and peeking consumer interest they do not achieve a very high level of market engagement.

Innovation can drive this in new, highly imaginative ways.

Those who embark on a sustainable journey need to build a credible narrative; one that embraces and offers services that clearly state “we are problem-solvers and solution providers.”

The clarity needs to be made on how this all fits into a sustainability story that builds out their current offer or how they are actively and visibly working on it. Transparency will gain trust build repour.

I would argue we are in a time and place where being transparent and candid in communicating is extremely important.

Any sustainability values and positioning need to be crystal clear not just internally but in “all things” externally to Business

Otherwise, we as a society, living on a connected planet, as final consumers, do not make the move that is needed or the connection into the reasons for sustainability, one where it is central in our lives going forward.

The post Applying innovation thinking to Affordability versus Sustainability first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Disruption is all around us; it never seems to go away; it simply appears in a different and often entirely new form. The result is the same; it disrupts what we know and often in how we suddenly need to set about doing it differently.

Much of the innovative disruptions seem so obvious; you wonder why we were not doing these before. They connect up lots of the “dots” we have previously been focusing upon and make them blur into one bigger dot that becomes the new norm. Think Amazon, Airbnb, Uber. Think China.

Many of these are defined today as marketplaces, where innovation has pushed the boundaries and stretched thinking to combine aspects of multiple transactions into connected and seamless ones.

Let’s realize that most of what we undertake has been “disrupted” in recent years. We have marketplaces that have gone horizontal and vertical in the way they have sought out connectivity and brought it onto one platform.

Just stop and think about how we undertake transactions around our homes, cars, jobs, travel, deliveries, and how we can all become freelancers. We have so many on-demand services, products, fashion, groceries, cosmetics, food, banking, wellness, lifestyle, health and eyewear choices online, all changing our past ways of life.

Many previous and known innovation boundaries have been pushed through the changes that digitalization brings, all capable of building a different value chain and customer proposition and experience.

The effect has been on changing the way we go about our lives and attracting risk capital from venture capitalists, as this has become a tech-driven bull market.

Nowhere is the pace of disruption stronger than in China, where Alibaba, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Didi Chuxing, JD Health are among the most valuable world marketplaces in their trading valuation.

We are seeing such forces, trends, technologies that are enabling these and in some very distinctive ways, we are seeing many more radical concepts emerging from China first.

Any company today is undoubtedly forced to rethink its digital strategy. A company can remain an island or become part of a set of multiple chains, often not limited to one platform offering to connect with its customers.

Why does China have a natural advantage?

I previously have tried to capture the Ecosystem Dynamism in China and Asia in a previous post on my ecosystem posting site. I had evaluated this previously in another post Dynamism in Chinese Ecosystems and Platforms. Both are useful background reads on China’s continued dynamism.

I concluded ” There is a lot to learn and understand in exploring the approaches that the Chinese are taking in their thinking about what makes their Ecosystems and Platforms work. This is in delivering value, in extending reach, scope, and scale; speed is of the essence but they are constantly evolving and pushing the boundaries of what is known and accepted into the connected. Understanding the ‘possible’ boundaries and learning to build and compete in Ecosystems is a global competitive imperative”.

*China has a vast connected consumer space that is comfortable to trade, link and correspond online. The investor has this immense pressure to scale fast. Otherwise, others will take the idea and give it a different spin to undercut these nascent businesses. China is a highly dynamic and changing society, in constant change.

*China has such a population size, but this is rapidly evolving into the world’s most extensive digital ecosystem that encourages disruption through the combined use and thinking of technology and innovation.

*Through the government’s encouragement (possibly lesser today, think Alibaba), the on-demand economy has thrived through the sheer force of technological enablers, e-commerce and the nature of the distribution culture of the Chinese in a country of such geographical size.

*The whole social life of living in China is becoming governed by your smartphone. You transact your life on your phone. Services are virtualized, digitalized and revolutionized.

In the West, much of this connected behaviour is hard to imagine.

The argument goes that you are giving up all your freedom, personal liberties and individual freedom of choice. Perhaps there is a lot of merit in this.  Each of us in this world is caught up in some form of “forces” that can suddenly bring disruptive change to our lives.

Living in multiple challenging countries, like I have, over thirty-plus years that can constantly challenge you, you gain by learning, avoiding and staying within that country’s (accepted) boundaries. At times I was left very uncomfortable and challenged, but there are “counter-forces” that can resolve flashpoints and reduce confrontations.  We are in a world where we can all get that “knock on the door” that spins ourselves.

China has several traits that are offering these “counter-forces”. They provide an environment where nimbleness, skills and agility can propel ideas into concepts but can suddenly have that “cloud of uncertainty” that quickly hover over you if you go beyond certain limits.

The Chinese environment permits organizational and operational capabilities that can extort and be excessive but can equally provide and build opportunities to break out and realize something better in equal opportunity or time for many.

Recognizing the Darwinian forces at work

The seeming ruthless ways of gaining traction and reaching scale does have many Darwinian forces at work. I wrote a piece some time back, “Our innovation era is it creative destruction or destructive creation.”

I argued, “Schumpeter saw “creative destruction” as the renewing, through innovation, society’s dynamics that would lead to higher economic development and welfare levels. At the same time, recognizing that this destroyed a few of the incumbents to benefit many more newcomers and increase value creation for broader society.”

Today we are in a destructive creations world, I further offered this view: “Today, we are caught in the reverse of this- the process of “destructive creation”- which benefits a few rather than the many. This destructive creation sets out often to destroy or greatly diminish the usage value of existing products and services before it is optimal. In the process, it often incurs significant costs not taken into account at the time. These unforeseen issues have consequences that negatively affect parts of society not foreseen or contemplated at the time.”

My conclusion was the shift had emphasized the role of destruction rather than creation in driving innovation activity.

I went on to say, “This is becoming the game for a few to make money, corner markets, dominate and want to achieve monopolistic positions, and not worry over the wealth creation aspects of creating jobs, building communities, and cherishing certain values.”

Does this apply to China and its quest for innovation and disruption?

The Chinese are good at blurring the boundaries, in this case between strategy, organizational boundaries and execution.

A new force is possibly coming into play,  of finding a new balance between delivering new business model innovation and the concerns for social well-being.

Yet will the present “way of life” constantly need to build scale and deliver momentum-changing forces that propel China onto the world? If so, growth and innovation are inevitably interlinked to a digital and technology ecosystem.

Then for China to continue to succeed, it needs innovation, and it needs to constantly “tear down”, making those disruptive forces central to its business and social model.

The forces behind marketplaces

I come back to marketplaces; they are a place that we all can equally play; these are disruptive forces, no question, but if they can provide better services to society, then great.

Yet if they become the Western alternative in monopoly,  in counterweight forces that take over the role of shaping our lives in ways that can distort, tear down old habits, patterns and connections within communities, then no thank you.

We see the undermining (up to now) of past accepted values; then we are indeed moving within my question from “creative destruction to destructive creation.”

My biggest fear with unleashing innovation as a destructive force and not disruptive is this:

“The quicker we adapt, the sharper we suffer declines somewhere else.”

For example, we need to balance technological choices and social consequences- new gadgets vs decline in privacy. Yet the natural industry consequence of one party dominating in “destructive creation” is only seen that much later on, when that total deterioration cannot be halted or reversed.

How far are we prepared to push innovation boundaries through technology? A digital economy needs to be inclusive, sustaining and balanced in the changes innovation can bring but in so much more in providing fresh economic value to our broader society, not to a selected part or few.

The post China the story of innovation and disruption. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I can honestly say I have been back at school for the past months. This remote learning stuff has been hard, challenging but stimulating.

Let me tell you about this as it recognises how things are changing in our world and certainly in my world, in particular. It is a very disrupting, disturbing world.

We often make what amounts to a series of mistakes, constantly extrapolating the present and layering it onto a way we see the future, based on what we know or are reluctant to give up. I’m afraid that’s not right, sometimes painfully wrong in lost time, investment and sudden realisation.

We are doing nothing but constraining the change occurring all around us at a limited pace and speed by placing the wrong lens on this.

We make what we see as linear in trajectories, full of incremental change, but we need to see that our changes are non-linear across the dimensions of scope, speed, and scale that deliver a very different impact to us all.

Extraction versus Exploring- shifting the dynamics

For me, so often in the past, I have relied on an extraction base to deliver services, advice or insights. This has been partly based on my own experiences, combined with a constant update of building up knowledge, valued as a scarce resource.

This extraction base worked, actually, it still does in providing knowledge often unfound internally in a client, yet the real future value is in the ability to “see” new combinations, to create different, unique value combinations that span borders or challenge orthodoxy far more. This becomes more of a creative need, of searching and spending far more “essential” time piecing together potential unique combinations; that’s the future key to unlock.

I wrote about the “cascading effect” for innovation as “a sequence of events in which each produces the circumstances necessary for the initiation of the next”. In many ways, this article perpetuates linear advice only, less on the spanning borders need. We have to push this into more of the cross-sector cascading effects of disruptions.

We need to challenge conventional (present) conventional analysis, specialising in one sector or discipline; we must achieve cross-sector synergies and interactions and forge more complex interconnection. This becomes a critical point of any dynamics of future disruption.

Now I have seen this need for more interconnection, I have written consistently about it, but in these last few months, I have been learning to swallow my own medicine; to recognize I am being disrupted more than I realised by not recognizing the forces ‘at play’ that are around me. Intelligence gathering is shaping-up in a very different way

My own pace of change needs to speed up. I need to stretch and scale differently than in the past. I have written about the five essential sense-making steps in any transition.

The age of “technology attack.”

In many ways, we are in the age of “technology attack”. There are so many disruptive technologies converging; we are entering that exponential phase on the S-Curve. How will smaller “independents” leverage all the different technologies? That concerns me, will I be at a disadvantage?
The S-shaped growth curve(sigmoid growth curve) is a pattern of growth in which, in a new environment, the density of an organism increases slowly initially, in a positive acceleration phase; then increases rapidly, approaching an exponential growth rate as in the J-shaped curve; but then stabilizes at some future point of time.

Cutting through the Gordian Knot

For people the world over, the Gordian Knot represents the difficult, the intractable and often the insolvable problem. Those are increasingly highly complex ones that need radical solutions to be applied.

Today’s systemic business problems are the modern-day equivalent of this seemingly impossible challenge, our Gordian Knots to untie or cut through.

So my first point here is that in my transformation recognition, we are all in a very different environment today.

Technological disruption is altering all we do.

This environmental change by disruptive technologies has forced us all to accelerate our interactions and interconnections. These are not only in our own worlds but are driving us across this cross-sector understanding to find and create new value creation that requires the connections technology gives us.

I have been thinking about relationships and network management for some time.

I have been exploring the nurturing effect of networks within firms within the innovation ecosystem, for example.

I broke out my ecosystem thinking some time ago and given this an increasing dedicated focus within the shift towards our need to adopt new business models and value chain understanding.

The use and leveraging of technology within my own work needs to take on a much higher aspect than I have been appreciating, and I thought I was doing a good job, but on reflection, perhaps I have not.

My second point of understanding of transformation dynamics.

Earlier, I spoke of layering on linearly; I was doing just that in my writing and thinking. Until earlier this year, I was determined to still keep”banging away” about the merits of innovation, ever hopeful, even with years of promoting innovation as a core need.

I did not recognise or chose to ignore how much this was becoming a “commodity space” for anyone. General noise was drowning out specific messages.

So I have been faced with a stark choice, swim harder and better in a crowded innovation pool, or recognize a different ocean to swim in. An ocean that had better undercurrents to separate me and my work, ones that can certainly move me along in more satisfying and rewarding ways and provide a better client value in creating value.

I felt a need to step out of generally “preaching” about innovation into offering innovating advice very specifically. This focuses on given sectors that are in periods of rapid disruption phases and innovative evolution.

The Energy Transformation was my absolute “tops” in focus, passion and recognition. This was the most disruptive space for innovation and technology to be applied.

Much of my recent time, well over 24 months of dedicated efforts have gone into an intense dive and expansion of knowledge and understanding of this energy transition underway.

I have a posting site and a separate website built progressively in the past year or more to build out my credentials, validation, and, more importantly, value points I can offer in insights, knowledge, and understanding that piecing together those multiple strands necessary.

Then the whole 4th Industrial Revolution that is shifting the industry from ‘islands of expertise’ into ‘networks of collaborations’ was my next point of focus, connecting industrial IoT by offering a growing reference and engagement platform that supports the changes occurring.

Then recently recognised that digital runs through all we are doing. I decided to apply this digital thinking specifically to the energy transition by putting digital into energy and transforming energy with this different digital mindset.

So today, I have shifted from a monotone on (simply) innovation preservation or incremental advancement into a richer ‘sonorous tone’ of understanding. Giving a greater depth, hopefully, richness and specialisation in what I offer.

My third point of disruptive understanding

Any disruptive forces are highly transforming, they form new patterns of understanding and value creation potential, but they need a totally different design and structure.

I became more convinced we need more ideological vista’s in any major transformation; they allow an “anchor to be dropped” to stop any drift or casting around, often out of control or not knowing where to head. I provide some course setting and fresh direction.

For example, many industries or sectors face dwindling demand, escalating costs, plummeting market share or significant switching over costs, and challenges in placing a new investment. There is a lot of disruptive transition work, even for those who might feel they are in a safe place; this is a very disrupting world at present.

The shifts from fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) into renewables (wind, solar and storage) are massive in implications and repositioning. The reversing of scale, the shift from one (Fossil) to the other (renewables), is complex and highly disrupting.

The battle of applying “band-aids” and arguing for interim solutions to hold onto or patch up the old energy systems, boils down to growing conventional blindness.

There is a gathering of reductionists looking to have a narrow mindset promoting linear progression and not “seeing” the disruptive forces of radical change in the energy transformation; they are holding on far too much to the incumbent system.

We need to prevent collapse or a sudden shift from one well established existing energy system without having a robust alternative in place, that is for sure, but any emergent system thinking is highly different from conventional thinking.

We need to balance time, attention, and capital spent is becoming more important as we invest between the old and new. What is forcing something to prevail and hold on, and what accelerates the change?

This is my third personal learning point. I have (very) limited time, attention, and capital to deploy, so I need to search harder and be more selective for optimal intervention points.

So, I need to be selective and provide as my VP this course setting and fresh direction as my primary focal point of offering.

My fourth disruptive dynamic- where I am going.

To extend and deepen my innovation understanding into specific topics or areas, tgst are undergoing transformation at a far more dynamic level.

I have needed to seek out convergence and disruption far more in what needs agreement to change. I need to build into my work more feedback loops signalling change.

This comes back to shifting from the extraction model that requires scale and reach, which is a limiting factor for me, into a ‘greater’ creation-based system that takes the “abundance” of inputs available into a more generative model that points towards fresh value creation.

For this, I need to push harder myself into a different mindset, a more problem-orientation one, searching for new value pools, where convergence in technologies and human ingenuity are combining.

Providing a generative model as my point of value

This generative model offers to expand space, providing different alternatives based on “seeing” patterns, synergies and different connections.

These alternatives provide plausible and new potential as they open up thinking to cross-sector and avenues of convergence, moving from divergent (established and existing thinking) to convergent, as shown in this workshop model I have often used.

So our world, well, certainly my world, is more distributed, interconnected and networked, hence my ecosystem focus.

Most importantly, as we search for the disruption, we need to look at increasing at more “edges” as this is where the new emerging value lies. It is where disruption mostly comes or emerges from, from these experimental edges, not from the existing middle or core. It is tough to see change and apply it where established mindsets and (often) rigidity are at their highest.

Applying my own journey of dynamics of transformation is making everything highly disruptive at this time- I need to embrace this.

This journey has taught me how to unlearn and see things differently, not in reducing complexity but in looking at the multiple parts that can build as a whole.

I am arguing increasingly that everything has to be understood about the whole or the sum of its parts. It is recombining them that offers greater value creation.
This applies the theory of holistic perspective, which helps us understand what is going on and what we really mean or refer to when we interact and communicate with each other.

There is a lot of complexity within disruption. I need to focus increasingly on the transformative dynamics of disruptions as my value point.

I quickly summarized an article I came across four years ago, by Estevao Seccatto Rocha, my post on this “preparing for digital within your disruption“. Estevao offered this: “Disruption change people’s routines, the way people think, behave, do business and learn; it “displaces an existing market, industry, or technology and produces something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative.”

I am on a journey of change; it has rupturing points of letting go, new architectural thinking potential and unfolding disruption points that make me uncomfortable but curious.

Yet, I firmly believe transformation is necessary to work through these disruption dynamics for my own meaningful future.

The post My own transformative dynamics of disruption first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Today’s call is for more ‘search, scope, speed, stretch and scale’ irrespective of the challenge being worked upon. These are essential steps in any transformation work, in any innovation undertaken to take discovery through to commercialisation.

Applying the innovation lense to the energy transition requires a significant need for innovation in all it does to undertake the transformation needed. It needs to apply these five steps within any innovation thinking.

The five aspects of search, scope, speed, stretch and scale are highly relevant to the success of any innovation introduction.

So we need to think through the five essential needs within innovation when applying innovative thinking to the Energy Transition, a growing focal point of my work.

Firstly, we need to go through many essential steps to search for all the possibilities and triggers needed for sparking new ideas and concepts.

Secondly, we then need to scope the challenge or concept out and understand and appreciate what this might mean.

Thirdly any innovation needs the constant element of speed, partly to be first to market but recognizing that the freshness of the idea has a premium that needs this focused effort.

To me, the fourth one of Stretch is often not recognized as well as it should be.  We need to recognize stretch happens constantly, ideas stretch the thinking, resources need to create a stretched tension to generate the required energy and commitment, and as we think through a concept, we can begin to stretch it, either out of its original shape (intent) or
“push it” even further in its value or impact.

My fifth one is scale. To take any concept from a pilot or lab into a demonstration, validation and full commercialisation need to consider all aspects of scaling. In many ways, so many of our innovative ideas fail to scale or become constrained as a concept cannot move from this “great idea” into a product or service delivered at an economic level to make it commercially viable and provide a return on what has been invested.

The energy transition requires a significant need for innovation in all it does to undertake the transformation needed.

In my previous two posts, “I aim to put more innovation into the front end of Energy” and “My multipliers for innovation at the front end of energy”  I introduce where I believe my fit of innovation understanding can combine with the Energy Transition we are all undertaking.

The five aspects of search, scope, speed, stretch and scale are highly relevant to the success of any innovation introduction.

We are always in a constant need to answer questions that are hard without access to external insight and knowledge:

– The demand today of our innovation process is for a ‘faster and leaner’ approach, but we are still having so many difficulties executing this “learner thinking” really well- a speed of execution becomes essential.

– How can we accelerate, stimulate and coordinate within an increasingly complex environment? The discovery and validation stage becomes vital, and to get there, we need to search, relate and see new possibilities.

– Any innovation needs to be built on a structured, systematic process it needs clarity of direction and purpose- the vision, mission and purpose understanding. It needs a good scoping out that all involved can relate to the concept and gain their identification.

– What helps sequencing investigation and implementation of our innovations? A constant “mapping back” often facilitates progress and validates, even updates this scoping step.

– Where do you apply appropriate diagnostics to identify and fix ‘troubled’ spots? The building of capability, capacity and competency needs a depth of response understanding. They need scaling out and stretching.

– How do we apply and adopt different growth methodologies and practices across a diverse business? Often it is the channelling back into the foundation knowledge and insights that bring common purpose and understanding, it is this mutually building upon advances all those involved in their understanding stretches the thinking.

– What limits ‘scaling’ and what needs changing to allow this to work in different situations? Often if something has not been well (re) searched, and scoped or stretched it remains in pilot and not capable of scaling.

– What gives more ‘stretch’ for the investments we make, where will these come from? Knowing the limitations pushes boundaries.

– We stretch the minds to push something existing into something new in design, different materials, or a totally different experience previously unknown or yet to be conceived.-Establishing the new often means moving beyond experimenting with the untried, which needs constant challenging. Never be afraid to challenge the scope, innovation is a discovery process that evolves as you progress.

-We need to be always aware that there are often limitations in one aspect of any innovative concept that can radically be altered through discovery and validation.

-As we search, stretch and seek out avenues towards scale, concepts often need major overhaul and rethinking; they benefit from a new fresh set of insightful value.- Having different and fresh perspectives that are constantly intervening and improving can help in any validation. We need to seek these out.

The outsider offers a very different perspective

Can we help you think and work these “S” steps to resolve those tough questions organizations are seeking answers to? Innovation is vital to the discovery and validation process in the Energy Transition. As we adapt to a new way of thinking and understanding, we stretch our understanding and ‘advance’ in new ways.

It is often the outside perspective, where a different set of insights and knowledge combine with the internal outlook opens up the vista to new ideas. We need to consider this outside perspective in any scoping.

The need for search, scope, speed, stretch and scale have a vital role in any innovation journey, ones that push at the edges of discovery, validation and transformation.

Where else do these five essential aspects of innovation come into play?

The post The essential five sense-making steps in any innovative transition first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Following my last post, “I aim to put more innovation into the front end of Energy“, I want to outline why I am focusing increasingly on this front end of the energy transition (FEE) within my innovation work.

For me, it is the ability to apply the “multiplier effect” to any discovery and validation that accelerates the understanding of where the potential growth and impact points of a new business opportunity can occur.

Today, we are all trying to piece together the Energy Transition.

The claim is that there are solutions abound to move us towards the Energy Transition we all need of clean, reliable, energy built upon renewables, but I honestly don’t share that current optimism; we actuaölly have an awfully long way to go in discovery, application and adoption.

In my view, we are struggling to get the level of momentum we urgently need into this energy shift, away from fossil fuels into a renewable, clean energy system.

I content it is not just the need to have the engineer’s insight into solutions, even if they might be the final arbitrators “go-to choice.” Still, it is to forge a strategic one, evaluating innovative options to broaden understanding and provide that essential and different perspective.

We all have a certain bias, often beliefs are well-grounded in past experience and approaches that WERE successful. Any transition is exactly that, it needs a clear recognition that what was often successful in the past is not the pathway to the future.

The energy transition needs a broad array of thinking; specialists, generalists, enthusiasts and passionate people that can move beyond their own view offering a “non-ideological confrontation” where solutions are both sustainable and accelerate a path to decarbonization and net-zero without any legacy or vested interest effect.

This innovator capacity that is needed to be ‘enforced’ requires greater insights and understanding of the alternatives, options, issues, and challenges. This is why I feel my multiplier approach offers a framework to help work this complexity through the energy transition in a supportive, systematic way.

As stated, my positioning is at the front end of the Energy Transition, building insights through the “eyes” of the strategic innovator.

• I provide evaluations and assessments of the front end of a transformation in discovery and validation that provide dedicated advisory and supporting services in knowledge and insights provision on energy-related matters.
• I break my business out into dedicated focal topics in “big transforming” points of impact, applying understanding and insights that are in my mind complementary, synergistic or clarifying new emerging intersections for growth potential that have impact and growth potential.
• The combination of innovation within ecosystem thinking and the design approach has ‘arrived’ capitalizing on the value points of digitalisation combining with technology, both in the Industrial IoT world and finding a growing place and pace in the Energy Transition that is having, in my view, a very different combination effect.

Offering a given value in the proposition

• The aim is to support the individual, teams, and organisations in their innovation and transition activity around the energy transition they intend to undertake.
• The aim is to advance further what they have in place or develop more significant innovation and transformation understanding and competencies, resulting in clients achieving positive and sustaining results from these transformation activities.
• The value for the client, so often time-starved, is that they can rapidly understand the latest thinking relevant to their focus areas, in thoughts, and insights around innovation, ecosystem building, or how the energy transition impacts them to identify new growth options or radically different stances in business positioning in the future.

The return on the investments made.

• The insights delivered offer a radically different view leading to a more balanced perspective, drawing in the external perspective, saving a significant amount of time in early resource investment. These insights and recommendations provide the triggering points for seeing fresh opportunities in growth.
• This fresh focus enables a more substantial client resource focusing on highly relevant aspects of building out and validating their future interest and value in new business options and energy design solutions.
• The value of applying this approach is by having access to a  greater depth of research and alternative understanding.
• Extracting knowledge, applying application and practice, gives clients the beginning of the “discovery and validation phase”, accelerating the client’s growth options in more structured ways.

Seeking problem resolution through discoveries.

• Through my depth of research across the needs of the energy, transitions it underpins and supports the changing understanding that is necessary.
• I provide insights and knowledge to clarify and quantify answers to many issues that lead to growing awareness and clarification on multiple energy-related issues. If I can’t provide the answers then I seek out the expert opinions that can.
• This focused research is associated with innovation, ecosystems, and our energy systems and the changing landscapes that transform and energise the existing everyday business into future ones that scope, speed a and scale the transition required.

My role is at this front end of discovery and early validation

• These insights significantly underpin my supportive advisory & mentoring services to a client. This dynamic environment nurtures my understanding of what is evolving and what impact and growth opportunities on a business by taking the innovators perspective into the assessment of the need of a clients energy transition
• My primary role is advising and coaching within these areas. The principal focuses then is to help support and build internal capacity, competencies, and capabilities to undertake any transformation journey.

Recognizing the value within the knowledge service provider

So my role, through this work, is to build the context and provide the content in useful knowledge and actionable insights. These provide the building blocks of the transition narrative to galvanise and achieve a common understanding of the Energy Transition being undertaken.

Then to support and help bridge the gaps in capacity, competency and capability recognition of the needs of having the innovators mindset, to get the Energy Transition journey onto a stronger momentum pathway of common understanding and realization of the tasks and issues to tackle.

Aspects of my knowledge and thinking through focus

I am a fairly enthusiastic researcher and writer that supports my work as a transition advocate for innovation, ecosystems and sustainability, specifically focusing on the industrial internet of things (IIoT) and energy systems that are radically changing our world.

A different combination effect- my multiplier framework

I see a combined effect of innovation, ecosystem design thinking, IIOT and energy as my work-to-be-done through different channels and services to stimulate and catalyse the energy transition we are all undertaking.

The vital “infusion” of innovation in thinking, approach and building this into the front end of energy provides a greater discovery structure and process that can greatly facilitate the changes, with more informed knowledge, insights and validation of a path to travel.

If you would like to delve into this further then go to innovating4energy.website for more details.

*** FYI-  I discuss and investigate about #energy, #ecosystems, #industry4.0, #innovation, and #sustainability. My dedicted posting and website references, if you are interested, are shown in the about section

The post My multipliers for innovation at the Front End of Energy first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I see the front end of energy as the critical feeding-in point for the energy transition. So what does this mean exactly?

The front end of energy for me is the point of discovery and validation. It is the place I feel I can make the best contribution within the energy transition. The discovery is where the stimulus and catalyst point to take an idea to commercialization. 

This capturing, evolving, exploiting and exploring needs a clear management process and the understanding of how to undertake this. This needs a focused innovation specialist or a systematic approach to building those innovating capabilities and capacities.

I believe there is a real gap for many organizations involved in the Energy industry, often in the recognition, they are lacking a real lasting robust innovation capability, capacity and competency, as the sustaining way to help accelerate the Energy Transition journey.

There is often a mistaken belief that they are undertaking innovation as they simply react and copy others, not recognizing their own distinctive needs and never building their innovation capacity in systematic ways.

Innovation is vital to the energy system’s evolution, its need to be fully integrated and operational in design, and we need to further recognize its crucial role.

I certainly argue the systematic approach for the Energy transition

Innovation begins with discovery, then it moves through the innovation pipeline through its experimenting, validating, testing, often multiple trials, commissioning and eventual commercialization roll-outs.

The early you can do this validation, investigation, and conversation, my front end of energy, the better. We need to always relate, even “ground” the thinking and determine the real value and potential as a progressive journey and sometimes the external person can become a valuable partner in this process to keep the thinking on track.

Innovation is made up of many enabling technologies that support energy.

This complexity requires innovative approaches to be built in highly systematic ways. Its ultimate result is to offer innovation that can continually look for re-imagining new market designs and business models to stimulate the changes and solutions for our future energy transformation.

To undertake the Energy Transition requires a radical transformation in the way we supply, transform, and use energy. This requires a profound transformation in technologies, systems, and infrastructure. The complexity in the discovery, validation and lengthy process time to fruition is highly challenging.

Having a “system of innovation” enables the potential concepts to be captured in common, identified ways for all involved, the inventor, the developer and production groups to identify with the evaluation process.

When you establish a recognized system that others can follow as it is transparent to all, you can evaluate innovation activities through common “hurdle points” and evaluation criteria. It focuses on efforts that bring common identity and purpose.

What do I mean by a systematic process here?

Well, we know that Innovation often begins with discovery, a new realization something can make a fundamental change to what is existing. That concept then moves through the innovation pipeline, through its experimenting, validating, testing, often multiple trials, commissioning and eventual commercialization roll-outs.

That can be fairly complex and demanding. It needs a combination of solution understanding (researchers, engineers, designers) but it also needs a constant “mapping back” to the commercialization and to relating to the other stakeholders that can help facilitate or block progress.

There is nearly always a need to bridge the awareness gap or others to provide the validation. Knowledge is gained when it is shared and exchanged. I put a lot of my time into researching the energy transition.

Often external views can make a decisive difference in any discussions, they offer independence to balance the vested interests often defending what they have, and can show a different way to see new possibilities.

I have focused increasingly on the Energy transition, it fascinates me

Besides writing about innovation and energy on two dedicated blogs of innovating4energy.com and digital4energy, I recently launched a  website of innovating4energy.website, for my business offering.

I set out to offer the external perspective to those busy inside organizations by focusing on mapping out the future of energy and where they fit and what gaps they have in need to fill.

This role is to support, complement, and provide different value points to this thinking and eventual work. I see this as more advisory to complement their insights, more feeding into and augmenting their expertise with different points of value.

My role is to be a “translator” and take the innovator’s perspective looking for fresh opportunities, supporting and accelerating your existing ideas and concepts.

We need to relate, even “ground” thinking and determine the real value and potential. to leverage all that innovation offers the energy transition.

The post I aim to put more innovation into the front end of Energy first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Sustainability is one of the hottest topics in the business world at present. There is a hunt to find a new growth engine for a business and fundamentally show the pathway to a sustainable future.

A sustainable future that mobilizes action in searching for new economic thinking. One which incorporates a more circular model of management that builds a more purposeful recycling approach that has the objective to reduce the pressures on our use of precious minerals and resources and current consumption patterns.

• A sustainable design that turns today’s promise of decarbonization into a real, meaningful one, that delivers tangible and quantifiable solutions in product and the extended supply chain
• A sustainable design that shifts our thinking into a more equality-sharing model where respect for our planet, people, and environment is central to our actions. They become the core of a well-understood value system that recognizes diversity, inclusion and community development.
• A sustainable design that recognizes the “twin” pressures of moving as rapidly to a net-zero achievement as we can. Also recognizing that our planet is under great threat in nature, our plants, animals, land and water and any sustainability focus needs clear biodiversity goals, EQUAL or greater, than our emissions goals.

Each organization is evaluating and embarking on its sustainability journey.

I would caution the many that this “sustainability journey” is not a five-year response, determined by today’s existing management but a lasting one that transforms what we do and undertakes a transformation into new economic thinking and business models that “accounts” in radically different ways, where financial numbers follow planetary concerns.

We will need to re-learn much and map it out.

Our innovation needs to become well designed as “responsible innovation” with sustainability in all that we design, build and provide.

To get to this new design, we need different thinking.

We need a greater horizon projection. For me, this can come from engaging and mapping ideas that have sustainability within them into a Three Horizon Sustainability Framework. We learn, experiment and embed sustainability into our everyday thinking.

Fundamentally, we need to reduce risks and become far more transparent in our actions and achievements; we need to strengthen society and all stakeholders to trust that the sustainability pathway chosen is well thought through and highly connected.

We need to connect today’s business with that new sustainable one in the future. To plan and expand out the transition, so new opportunities have “grounded into them” solutions that are more accessible and affordable, ones that have this circular business model as central.

A future to have ambitions that are constant improving and challenging in designs, when technology advances can bridge the digital divide, improve purpose and leverage technology to give fresh meaning to the delivery of real sustaining purpose.

Any journey needs a clear sense of purpose or governance; it needs resources and discipline to bring the ideas and concepts to fruition.

The UN Agenda for Sustainable Development has Seventeen Goals. Still, it is the ability to translate the need for sustainability into a driving force that has at its heart the following aspects.

We need to rapidly adapt and layout our sustainability journey that has real intent and purpose.

1. Sustainability becomes the new core of the business
2. We turn the wake-up call into a well-designed journey
3. The investments made will have different ROI horizons
4. Strong credentials on sustainability will be highly valued
5. A new financial set of calculations will drive recognition of change
6. The urgency of the journey will become unrelenting.
7. Investors and stakeholders will become highly demanding on this issue of sustainability increasingly into the future.
8. The goals, milestones and actions must be seen to be highly calibrated.

To achieve this set of objectives, we need to communicate in written and highly interactive, visual forms. In my opinion, the three horizon approach provides the connectivity between where we are today and where we need to get to in the future and why the middle, horizon two, is so essential.

The essential understanding of Horizon 2 becomes crucial.

Within this three horizon framework, horizon 2 becomes the critical one to understand and manage.

FYI, this was the framing of my intent on focusing on the energy transition in this post to outline where I was explaining the importance of this horizon 2 within the energy shifts that need to occur.

“The second horizon (H2) is the one you need to move through. It is the place to let go of much of the past. Yet, it also allows you to build, experiment, and validate these solutions that seem viable for the future. In this horizon 2, you identify how to draw out the nature of the tensions and dilemmas between vision and reality. You can separate the distinction between innovations that serve to prolong the status quo needed and necessary (keep the lights on, allow for a bridge from one fuel system (oil, gas, coal) to another that is more sustaining and based on technology breakthroughs and the renewables available (wind, solar, water).”

Never underestimate this traversing across Horizon 2

I wrote this post “traversing across into horizon 2 for new breaking innovation” that gives a real dose of realities to attempt this radical journey from the existing business model and its value extraction into the new one.

Horizon two poses a real challenge within any management of our organizations.

Certainly, if many of today’s solutions provide current small bases of volume to warrant a change then we need a more incremental approach in making change. If they are highly complex and expensive to change or reconfigure and will need a substantial change then a more radical re-design is required.

There is a risk perhaps that no real additional meaningful profit from the investments made but this is where the more central sustainability core is determined as the necessity, Existing and future products and services all become real points of discussion. This often can be a hard sell across the organization.

Projects that focus on future work mostly are based on ‘best’ assumptions but do need future thinking application. Sadly, executives often expect to see the same ‘hard’ metrics being applied as the existing business. We ignore significant differences or avoid making shifts in product design and then this is a huge mistake. Design in the future needs a sustaining core.

We must move our thinking beyond the here and now, and push it into the future if we want to transform our thinking and build a sustainable business “formed”on new economic values and approaches.  This shift takes a very different mindset and where the three horizons framework can help significantly in balancing any sustainability aims, planning and portfolio management to undertake such a radical shift in mindsets.

I urge you to consider the three horizons as a framework that can significantly help your sustainability journey. I believe I can help guide and work with you on this if required.

*I offer a good amount of thinking about the three horizons approach, mostly for innovation.

The post The value of three horizon mapping for a Sustainability Journey. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I lived for about fifteen years in Asia and the before, and in the in-between period, I travelled around the region a fair amount.

Today less so, but ask me where I want to go, and it is back to my city for twelve plus of those years, Singapore.

Some events today set me thinking that resulted in re-issuing this post, shortening it down a bit. Often we do not stop and think of the real differences culturally in how we want to0 engage and build relationships between the East and the West

Participating in business and engaging socially with Asia, watching how Asia has evolved has been a real experience that stays with you as something hugely valuable. It partly shapes your thinking and how you look at things going on in the world.

I recall I wrote one of my first posting entries for this site, entitled “The Yin and Yang of Innovation” (http://bit.ly/gXeWir)  and talked about the ‘fluidness’ in innovation that makes it hard to manage. How do you get the balance right in managing the innovation activity, in building the relationships where cooperation is so important to achieve?

I described yin yang as polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces that are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only exist in relation to each other.

Yin and yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole

These yin-yang aspects do trigger the constant dilemma between Asian and Western thinking, and I thought I should share these orientation opposites with you. They might help you, they certainly have me over the years.

Understanding the different orientations accelerate collaborations.

These orientations have built up for me in my understanding over this extensive period, living, travelling and working in Asia over many years.

They are structured on cultural aspects well studied, certainly well written about, and discussed with many people trying to figure out the many cultural differences they encounter in dealing with the East or visa-versa, the West, and trying to understand the behaviours behind them these differences.

Clearly, not each person can be ‘assigned’ a specific label. Still, these suggested observations serve as useful generalizations and as a broad reference to refer to, that might help resolve ‘cultural differences.

These help you gain a better understanding of why innovation is often seen through different cultural lenses and can produce very different insights and observations that can lead to completely different innovative solutions to meet different cultural needs.

Dilemmas of orientation and management when East meets West.

It is crucial to fully appreciate considerable differences between cultures and ways different groups go about their ‘collective’ business.

For instance, in the West, we often fall into the trap of ‘forcing’ the pace. In contrast, in Asia, ‘pace’ is determined by several often complex factors that need to be fully appreciated and accounted for. We need to recognise differences and balance them.

When you assess your progress in Asia, your ability to engage effectively, this handy list might be a useful guide and reminder to refer to on measuring your progress and ‘seeing’ why you are often not making the necessary progress you expected or get caught out by surprise. This clearly is a generalization but, more often than not, stands the test of difference.

Western orientation (more individual)  vs. Asian orientation (more group)

Valuing these orientations, respecting what they mean can help yield better results through appreciation.

These orientations have given me a good understanding while working in Asia.  Over my extensive periods living and working in Asia for the past 20 plus years, I’ve been able to validate many of them through my own engagement and appreciation.

Innovation needs equally a clear balance in orientation, so does the cultural lenses we view the world through.

I hope they provide you with a useful way to balance out and appreciate differences in a world of growing mutual dependence.

Valuing cultural differences and diversity offers many more innovative possibilities; explore them all; one is not mutually exclusive; they offer a different perspective.

The post East meets West in understanding Innovation Cultural Orientation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

We need to think about a choice-cascade integrative model for innovation. Often we fail to understand our role in contributing to innovation; we need a cascading effect. Here I want to explain my thinking behind this and provide the visual cascading steps I feel help us succeed in innovation.

For me, the “cascading effect” for innovation is “a sequence of events in which each produces the circumstances necessary for the initiation of the next”.

It presents an idea, a concept, a prototype, a piece of knowledge that provides the catalyst to be exploited in a broader community as the next step and so on. It cascades. It is where we fit understanding and fresh knowledge within the innovation web.

Getting innovation through any process of understanding is hard. Knowing what is required to generate innovation throughout an entire organization is even more so.

We need to deploy the cascading effect on innovation to support this supporting “effect.”

Innovation does need structures and systems. It is complex. As we get increasingly involved in innovation activity, we meet more of the unforeseen uncertainties of working on something new where there is a need to decide, often on a limited set of factors than the ideal. We need to reach out for help, for understanding, for assistance.

So ‘the cascade effect for innovation’ often does have to deal with many unforeseen chains of events that need working through, as they can be negative on the system by taking away vital resources from other more valuable, commercially viable projects, or they can be breakthrough or transformational in pursuing.

Passing through different stages of innovation development

Innovation often has to go through a set of stage gates or cross thresholds, set by others or judged to be the essential cross over points. When you achieve these cross over points, you induce more resources, more attention and momentum. The more it successfully progresses, it eventually gains a higher resilience, and then the innovation picks up more for this “cascading effect”.

The more thresholds you cross, the gain space, time, increasing attention within the organization and an increasing identity of what the innovation can achieve. The more it creates a ‘reaction’ or achieves ‘growing interactions’ then, the more it ‘cascades’ for producing a cumulative effect moving through the successive stages. We gain increasing identity and strength the more we get involved in the cascading effect.

Any “cascading effect for innovation” has to have a two-way flow.

We need to encourage bottom-up innovation, those close to markets, the raw ideas and who can make more connections than those far removed. We also need the overarching innovation framework driven by the leadership of innovation, so everyone has a growing understanding of where, how, with whom and why innovation needs to head in a ‘given’ set of directions and what are the critical components that enable this to ‘connect and happen’ and provides the ‘how’ it can work.

The components of this “cascading effect needed for innovation” generates the thinking about the flow both ways and, in my view, moves closer to a well-aligned organization that marks a successful business.

We have the need to cascade innovation from the top down

The majority of people within the organization who work alongside it would appreciate a greater understanding of the core concepts, principles, and direction of their innovation activity. Understanding what is valued, essential to defend, promote and improve. To clarify what is highly strategic to describe and ‘form’ around helps innovation perform its required task of delivering new growth that aligns with the strategic needs.

Equally, many within organizations where innovation is left more ‘open’ do run the risk that there is an over-emphasis on idea generation; by placing the emphasis point further along the innovation value chain that we must remember that it is exploring the benefits that flow from ideas, not the ideas alone. This shift in emphasis can significantly improve the quality of innovation and reduce the belief that quantity was the important aspect.

Then we also have to cascade innovation from the bottom up.

The richness of innovation lies not just in the well planned, but in the sudden discovery, the pursuit of a game-changing innovation concept often stumbled upon. Many of these come from the bottom up. In research labs across the globe, the researcher should have permission, an open endorsement from above, to investigate and explore innovation, not just in their field of ability but equally encouraged in a broader sense, as well.

There are many benefits in building into our daily activities valuable time to explore, to allow employees to investigate ‘something’ that initially may not seem to fit with any prescribed plan of predetermined concepts but from this “free time” emerges something that can evolve and fits perfectly within a good corporate strategy.

We appreciate and see countless innovations that emerged from nowhere, that had no relationship with the strategic directions, yet have been successful. They provided a different perspective of what would add more value. Are these wrong? Should they be ignored, killed off or just simply allowed to happen? Usually, some survive and thrive against all odds, starved of resources, yet somehow ‘emerge’ and become outstanding contributors to an organisation’s business.

Organizations need to stay totally alert to these. The issue is the way you approach this. If you insist on innovation that only ‘maps’ back to the innovation strategy, you drive out an awful lot of entrepreneurial energy, you miss many a potential innovation that might have been your next blockbuster. We need to find a balance here, but it needs visibility and curiosity and allows for time for emerging, unexpected innovations to permeate before they are finally judged.

Let me describe my THREE VISUAL CASCADING steps.

We need to achieve alignment, all sorts of alignment. We need to convey throughout the organization and encourage a closer alignment on not just what to do but also to support the how to do it and where to do it.

VISUAL 1. The Choice-Cascade Integrative Model overarching cascading flow

We need to leverage across the entire ecosystem that makes up the organizations place where we consciously work on immediate impact points in this year’s innovation outcomes and what will give us this longer-term transformational effect. This requires a huge emphasis on collaborative efforts, promoting behaviours and matching understanding within a greater transparent organization climate and culture.

We need to find more fluid and flexible organizations that respond through searching for innovation consistency. They need to have a ‘flow’ of knowledge, clarity, and a sense of scale in their learning and dialogues that promote greater successful innovation outcomes as the sense of ongoing mission.

Organizations need an integrated innovation strategic framework that can deliver commonality in understanding, purpose, and language. We need to align, offer a clear vision and purpose, and orchestrate from the top of the organization to the bottom. We need to cascade.

VISUAL2  The Choice-Cascade throughout the Organizations Environment

We are looking for a cascade of better choices to achieve the desired innovation outcomes that only an integrated innovation design can achieve. This is where the engagement from the top of the organization becomes pivotal. They ‘frame’ the design; they offer the alignment and integrated approach having an established methodology can provide.

VISUAL 3 A choice-cascade of better choices to achieve the desired set of innovation outcomes

The aim here is to engage the top of our organizations to lay out the conditions and result impact they expected from innovation. Then it needs to be cascaded throughout the organization.

Achieving better choices and desired outcomes

Through this cascading effect, you move closer to better choices that can get closer to the desired innovation outcomes all involved want to seek out. A performance that reflects a team’s or organizations best efforts to be best at what they do; the outstanding innovation performance consistent to the needs and growth expectations demanded in today’s constantly changing world.  Consistency needs to be fluid, flexible, aligned and being agile in innovation – that’s the new target performance standard needed.

The combination effect of wanting to innovate and being able to always has to be the desired result

Innovation provides organizations with the very concepts that drive growth, contribute to profits in new ways, and allow individuals to identify with success.

If we don’t offer a sound innovation framework, innovation remains haphazard, left to chance. If we build into people’s work time to explore the innovation that ‘fits’ the overarching strategy, we combine the best of both aspects. Having a model that connects and cascades up and down organizations provides a more connected fit.

Cascading what we know gives everyone else the chance to build on this knowledge even further.

*Part of the Executive Work Mat Methodology.

The post The Cascading Innovation Effect. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.