The longer term winner is open digital innovation

Open Digital Innovation

I would like to discuss the effect digital will be having on our innovation activities, be these presently opened or closed. The impact of digital innovation changes the paradigm.

Organizations can stay closed in their innovation activities but will move beyond simply themselves into a connected (closed) network, so the platform becomes the enabler and those that join share common ground but are pursuing separate value propositions. These provide a level of competitive advantage but these are increasingly transitory.

We will see a new wave of open digital innovation

So why do I say that? There are four aspects where technology will trend towards open (see more on that here: http://digitalsocial.eu/) so as to exploit our connected world to extract ever diminishing competitive advantage as the world just keeps speeding up, pushing us as technology continues to run ahead of our capacities to assimilate it.

Are you going all digital on me?

Going digital

Well, are you going all digital on me?

So there we all were, getting very comfortable in our open innovation activities, learning to collaborate and co-create outside our organizations. We had worked through some of the cultural stuff; we had established the process, practice, and tools. We even had our legal teams on board, helping sort out all the conflicting positions open can mean when it comes to dividing up the IP spoils and even had our leadership tuned in, singing our praises and even (heavens forbid) getting engaged in the process.

When the world shifts, we all need too.

Then suddenly the world shifts on its axis once again, everything seems to be digital. The buzz is big data, analytics, smart mobility, and social media, with lots of talk of interconnected devices giving us the next big paradigm in innovation growth.

The need for a modern engagement platform

 

Modern Engagement Platform

There is a real need to think through the modern engagement platforms we require, both externally with our customers and other stakeholders, and also for our internal needs and this comes increasingly from technology solutions.

The effectiveness of our management to win the hearts and minds of our workforce is getting to a very serious crisis. A global Gallup State of the Global WorkPlace survey some time back suggests only 13% of employees are engaged in their jobs.

They are emotionally invested in and focused on creating value for the organization they work for on a daily basis. They are even outnumbered by those who are negative and even potentially hostile to the organization at a rate of 2:1. That really staggers me.

Bringing final ideas to market – the hard part of innovation

Bringing Ideas to Market

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 at is ‘successful execution’, it’s the last, hard five yards of all the work that went into something, which can be finally realized and come to ‘commercial life’.

Here in Europe it is often suggested that “Europe is the cradle of creativity”, perhaps but I think the “United States is the crucible of innovation”, it forges ideas and takes them to market far better. In the US there is this powerful push to make money far more and to realize innovation, as clearly you must focus on the ‘making money part.’

Reworking our middle to achieve a new innovative shape

Reworking our middle

Let’s admit it; our middle management needs a radical makeover, a new fitness regime to make us far more innovation fit. Most organizations do need to change their middles as they are far from that ‘fit for 21st-century purpose’ in a constantly changing, challenging, more open innovating world.

Here is a way to “flip” this around but lets first recognize the problem(s)

The general argument goes that the middle manager is so pressured to focus on the delivery of short-term results that all their efforts are centered far more on delivering ‘just’ an effective organization, one that focuses on driving out any excess or leeway, reduce the variations, constantly dampening down potential risk and uncertainty.

Questioning internally those product failures

Failure

There is a variety of different views on our product failure rates. According to some, the failure rate for new products launched for instance in the grocery sector is 70 to 80 percent in the US. For smaller US food businesses launching new products, the success rate is even lower around 11 percent.

These are really high failure rates but is this a myth or reality? How does your organization evaluate product failures? Do you really want to talk about them?

Organizations continue to push for business growth by launching wave upon wave of new products, yet many end up as just hardly ripples that simply fade away, into incremental revenue and nothing else.

Reducing our dependency on others innovation best practices is essential

best-practices

I often wonder if “best practice” is actually a hidden drug within our organizations that everyone simply craves and are constantly taking. We are addicted to it and it is high time to get off this habit. We need to kick this best practice out of our thinking, it is just wrong.

Why do so many advisory organizations promote best practice? Simply because those in the organization constantly feel under pressure to demonstrate why they are falling behind or keeping ahead of their competitors.

They crave knowing best practices, but tell me what really is the best practice of others achieving?

Recognizing your types of innovation leadership

Recognizing your innovation leadership styleOften innovation succeeds or fails by the personal involvement and engagement of a ‘selected’ few. Recognizing the types of innovation leadership might help you manage the innovation work a little better.

So can you recognize the traits of your innovation leader?

Are they a front-end or back-end innovation leader? Here’s how you can begin to spot the difference.

Exploring Diffusion and Adoption of New Innovation – Part 3

dealing-with-darwinOne of my favorite books is “Dealing with Darwin– how great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution” written by Geoffrey Moore. When you work through his other books and connected thinking of “Crossing the Chasm” and “Inside the Tornado” you really appreciate the learning stories coming out of his study of the Technology Adoption Life-Cycle.

We all need to rethink a lot as the new challenges come rushing towards us. In his work, Geoffrey Moore talks about ‘traction’ and I think this is a great word for thinking about how to gain diffusion and adoption in product, service or business models, to gain market and customer acceptance.

Marketing departments talk penetration, “message penetration, market penetration” and so often ‘force’ customers to become aware and then buy. Does this really work today? I doubt it. Also, many organizations hang on to old media ways to get their message across when the use of technology, the internet, and social engagement may seem harder but I believe is far more rewarding to engage with the customer on a more personalized basis. I regard this as 1 to 1 of many.

Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation

Being surrondedFinally, I am completely surrounded. I have that feeling of being somewhat overwhelmed, I can’t twist and turn anymore, it simply will not go away. Do I throw myself off the building or decide to listen a little longer? It really is forcing me to think.

Today it seems whenever I pick up a business book each chapter has a section on it. Also, I seem not to be able to not fall over all the articles extolling its virtues, I mindlessly Google it and you can see your whole life flash before you if you decided to investigate this seriously.

What am I talking about?  Well, nothing other than Design Thinking. I know, most of you are so heavily into this you feel you might as well ‘flip’ over to the next article but are you, really?

Design thinking is a mindset