The Innovators Journey

Diary of a lean start-up: Nothing new under the sun

jeremyhollow — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:41:13 +0000

The Diary of a lean start-up series is a new series of posts from guest writer Jeremy Hollow. Jeremy has taken taken the plunge from corporate leader to startup entrepreneur. He’s fighting on the front lines of innovation, developing a new business service the lean way. This is his story.

I’d always thought it would be good to start my own business…

..but I’d always struggled to come up with the BIG IDEA. Although, to be honest, apart from the odd day dream it’s not something that I spent a lot of time working on.

Then things changed where I was working. This led to a number of chats with a few people which, slowly, got a bit more serious. Then we had it, the BIG IDEA – now it started getting interesting. I found that when you’ve had the BIG IDEA, it quickly becomes precious, particularly if you’re considering a career limiting, feet-in-the-deep-end type of commitment to try to make it work.

Wait, there are no new ideas are there?

I started researching, after all this is important, all the books say so. I started looking into the problem the BIG IDEA hoped to address. I also started talking to some of my friends who know things. Some of them mentioned OTHER COMPANIES apparently doing the same, the cheek! How could anyone else have had the same idea?

Then my research threw up an article in the Harvard Business Review (I’m trying to learn how to run a business after all) which was a bit of a blow. Not only was MY big idea not my idea at all, the article went on to give plenty examples of other firms doing something similar. Firms with funding, clients, staff, marketing budgets, little things like that.

Suddenly my BIG IDEA wasn’t feeling quite so big.

Undeterred I organised a few meetings with some people I hoped might be clients one day. In one of these meetings (thanks Neil) I was shown a complete working solution to one of the services that I was hoping to do with the BIG IDEA. Oh dear.

You’ve got to believe in yourself

The point I want to make is that each of these revelations was tough in its own way. As the owner of BIG IDEA you need a fair bit of self-belief/delusion to make any progress. It’s easy for this to take a hit when you realise what else is out there.

The upside? Everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve heard, and all the great websites, demos, and working solutions I’ve played with have helped me refine the BIG IDEA. Ok, so it’s not unique (there’s little truly new under the sun), but I think I’ve found a niche and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Next time

How do you actually start a business in today’s ailing UK economy?

9 Great Resources for Consumer Predictions in 2012

Brad Young — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:06:40 +0000

Ah-ha! So you thought this was another list of predictions for 2012? Not so Watson. This is in fact a list of
lists of trends. The daddy of lists. El listo. Papa list. Sir Listy McListy.

Yeparooney friends, the 10 best pages of 2012 predictions right here. The focus here is mostly on consumer behaviour and consumer related technology:

First off the folks at FutureChat have done a great job of collecting a crazily long list of interesting trends and predictions - List of Trends, Ideas, Predictions for 2012
12 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2012 - Trendwatching.com. This is my fav – a really insightful view of key trends for consumers.
10 Consumer Trends Shaping the World in 2012, from super giant ad agency JWT
7 Social Media Predictions for 2012 – Mashable. Also checkout Mashable’s list of Digital Predictions for 2012.
Customer Experience Trends and Predictions for 2012 – Attensity.com
The 2012 Accenture Consumer Electronics Products and Services Usage Report - Accenture
Deloitte’s Top Ten Tech Trends for 2012
Store.org’s 2012 Retail Predictions - a good view from the retail perspective
2012 Retail Consumer Trends - retail-is-detail.org/

Have you found more links and sources? Comment to share.

How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Brad Young — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:41:50 +0000

At the heart of a good entrepreneur is the ability of inspire and convince others of your ideas. To create a following around your cause, idea of brand you have to appeal to people’s higher sense of being. Creating an emotional resonance through the organisation will both grab attention and connect with people at a much deeper level.

Simon Sinek in this TED talk argues that, ‘people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it’. This, he explains, is why Apple have been so successful as a brand (this and a few other things too). According to Simon, you need to ‘start with why’.

I love the comment that Martin Luther King notably was famous for having the ‘I have a dream’ speech and not ‘I have a plan’ speech. Great stuff.

TED page here.

Three Myths About Innovation Explained

Brad Young — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:50:52 +0000

Many senior mangers want good ideas with little investment. Often Innovation is perceived as being an expensive activity where many resources are wasted through the ‘hit and miss’ approach of idea development. Not so according to Jim Stikeleather of the Management Innovation eXchange.

Jim’s post, ‘Three myths about innovation‘ is a good overview of the three most common perceptions about innovation management in enterprises:

Myth: Successful innovations require large-scale, disruptive revolution
Reality: The most successful innovations are often the simplest.

Myth: You have to be creative (egotistical) to be innovative
Reality: While creative thinking is helpful, innovation is a systematic discipline

Myth: Innovation is expensive
Reality: While emerging technology and drug research are expensive, most innovations require a modest, disciplined investment of time and brain power

What I like about these these simple statements is that driving an innovation agenda in your enterprise is all about organisation, planning and thinking. It doesn’t have to be expensive at all. It does however require investment in the future and a move away from short term results and short term thinking.

What is Innovation? 5 great videos…

Brad Young — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:23:36 +0000

If you’re just getting started with an innovation programme in your company, you’ll be trying to understand what innovation really is and how to approach it. If so, you’ll find these 5 videos all really useful.

What is innovation?

This video from Lisbon Council’s 2010 Innovation Summit is interesting. It shows several quick points of view from business leaders on how they view innovation. In particular I like Larry Hirst‘s (Chairman of IBM EMEA) brutal view, ‘innovation is turning ideas into money.’ That’s right, Larry.

Steve Jobs’ Innovation Secrets

Author Carmine Bello explains here how Steve Jobs looked at the world and the way in which we went about building Apple into a great company.

Guy Kawasaki Explains the Art of Innovation in 10 Steps

Great talk from Guy Kawasaki (former Apple Fellow) which breaks down the key success factors of innovation strategies into 10 simple steps.

Creating a Culture of Innovation

Harvard Business Review interviews David Kester (Chief Executive, Design Council) on how to create the culture and organisation of innovation in your business.

Vijay Govindarajan – Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators

This is an interesting talk given at the London Business Forum. Vijay Govindarajan talks about the idea of putting your boxes into 3 boxes – managing the present, selectively forgetting the past, and creating the future. Organisations naturally focus on the first box. The next two are harder and require a different way of thinking and planning. I particularly like Vijay Govindarajan’s phrase, ‘strategy is about managing the future.’

7 Innovative Secrets of Steve Jobs (SLIDES)

Brad Young — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:37:13 +0000

Check out this great slide deck on 7 strategies for innovation, from the man himself, Steve Jobs. Even if you find this impractical there are some great and inspiring quotes here. My fav from the Apple Ad, “The people who are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do.”

7 Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs

View more presentations from Carmine Gallo

I also love the quote from James Dyson, “I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had”. I would have been a legend in James Dyson’s school!

Check out the interview with Carmine Gallo at TechCrunch. Carmine talks about his recent talk at LeWeb in Paris on this subject.

Customer Satisfaction is Top Metric for Innovation, says PwC

Brad Young — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:10:49 +0000

A new report by consulting giant PwC highlights customer satisfaction as the top metric for innovation in today’s companies.

According to Smart Planet, customer satisfaction was cited by 79% of innovators as being the leading metric, followed by market expansion at 72%.

And why not? Ultimately innovation in a commercial sense is about creating competitive advantage and driving growth through new products, markets, business models and sales channels.

Check out a good review of the study at Smart Planet with some interesting perspectives on how innovation-minded companies prioritise and lead: Innovation success can be measured, here are the metrics | SmartPlanet.

What’s particularly interesting is companies that have made innovation a priority expect to grow 63% faster than non-innovators, forecasting 8% revenue growth over the next 12 months, versus 5% for non-innovators. This is incredibly positive and perhaps reflects the market focused nature of innovation-minded companies.

Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication

Brad Young — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:02:58 +0000

Steve Jobs - The Presentation Zen Master

So you’ve got an idea. You want to convince others of it, get them to buy into it. Get them to sponsor your proposal and give you some investment. That’s not easy. Changing the minds of others is a skill and an art. But it can be learned. Oh yes Daniel San, it can be learned.

Steve Jobs was the undisputed heavyweight champion of presentation zen. Famous for this Apple product launches and brilliant keynote speeches, he was the Elvis Presley of the corporate stage. But behind his super smooth presentation style were thousands of hours of hard work, preparation and rehearsals. If you’ve not seen it, check out this great presentation from Carmine Bello on The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.

Beyond the 5 discovery skills of Innovators, you might say that ‘convincing skills’ are the equally as important. As Maya Angelou said, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”. Great innovators not only know how to develop concepts into products, but the ability to convince others to believe in their vision.

Great presentations are great stories. They grab you from the start and keep you on the edge right through until the end. Like a good movie. In fact, the similarities between great presentations and movies has recently been studied and published in Nancy Duarte’s book, Resonate. It’s an intriguing guide to the art of great presentation design and delivery – Steve Jobs would be proud. Check out this review of Nancy Duarte’s Resonate here. Whilst you’re over there, also check out this post, “7 ways to keep audience attention during your presentation“. For great tips on developing presentation elegance head over to http://www.presentationzen.com/.

History does indeed tell us that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (thanks Steve), but creating good simplicity is hard work. Really hard work. Steve Jobs practised all his life.

So innovators, what’s your approach to changing minds? How much are you polishing your presentation skills? Who’s drinking your Kool-Aid this week?

How to Accelerate Innovation through Challenge Driven Innovation

Brad Young — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:25:03 +0000

Steve Bonadio of Innocentive talks about the benefits of Challenge Driven Innovation (CDI) to speed up innovation cycles, harness crowdsourcing principles and drive out the cost of internal innovation. Check out How to Accelerate Innovation through Challenge Driven Innovation | InnovationManagement.

In June 2011 The Economist teamed up with Innocentive to harness their community for an interesting challenge. Participants were asked to create metrics to measure trends that affect humanity. No easy challenge but certainly one worthy of The Economist. Check out the Innocentive Economist challenge here.

Are you using Innocentive? How has you experience been so far?

Top Skills Innovators Need to Succeed in 2012

Brad Young — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 22:40:57 +0000

Today’s organisations need innovators more than ever. As products and services become increasingly commoditised and the global economy slips into further turmoil the companies that innovate for competitive advantage will be the ones that survive in the long term. Increasingly companies such as GE are running formal innovation programmes in order to foster a greater sense of entrepreneurial spirit amongst their employees. So have you for the skills to drive innovation in your organisation?

Let’s reflect on how to grow The Innovator’s DNA in 2012:

Networking Skills: Fundamentally, good innovators realise the power of their personal networks. Whether being able to reach out to contacts internally to collaborate on ideas, or using an external network to meet other industry minds, a good social network is the first tool in the innovator’s box. Ask yourself, how many LinkedIn contacts do I have? How am I using Facebook? Do I bother keeping business cards when I’m at conferences? Do I take the time to properly introduce myself to peers over a coffee? These are the people you might need next time you’ve got a bright idea that needs its tyres kicking. KEY TOOL: Linkedin Groups
Observing skills: You need skills to observe? Sure you do. Observing is about much more than passively take in ‘new stuff’. Good observers seek out interesting things and make time to understand them. That annoying e-mail invitation you keep getting to a Cloud Webinar? Yes maybe it’s not going to help you deliver you’re current project, but why not listen in? Also, read more, read lots of stuff. Just make time to read. Don’t have time? Get better tools for reading such as Kindles, iPads or even the trusty iPhone. Use Google Reader to aggregate your feeds for quick viewing. KEY TOOL: Byline.
Questioning skills: Often defining the problem space correctly is the heart of driving great ideas. Questioning the status quo is what innovators do every day. Why is a product, market or process how it is? Isn’t there a better way? What are we really trying to achieve here? Ever notice how senior people always ask ‘all the right questions’? You need to be this person. Check out this good post on questioning skills.
Associating skills: Steve Jobs has a wonderful story on how the iPhone came together. There was an Apple project working on touchscreen technology, and one working on the accelerometer technology. Oh, and another working on a phone. Steve, stepping in said, “why don’t we combine these 3 technologies into 1 product?” And so the iPhone was born. You get the idea.
Experimenting skills: What does experimentation really mean in an organisational sense? How do you experiment in a company, after all it’s not a laboratory? At a strategic level many companies build experimentation into their culture (Google), whilst others latch onto customer drive innovation to help outsource their experimentation (Starbucks). Particularly in the internet age it’s almost more effective to try something and course correct your strategy than to sit still and die. Consider eBay’s position back in 2008, and how they have come back from this position with a number of new innovations. Although we can have experimental and energetic minds, realistically experimentation in an organisation involves many people – you’re role is to drive this mindset.

Want to know more about the 5 key skills of innovators? Check out the now well known book on The Innovator’s DNA by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen, or head over to http://innovatorsdna.com/.

How are you polishing your discovery skills?