Saturday, January 1, 2011

31 Innovation Questions (and Answers) To Kick Off the New Year

  1. How do you define innovation? Something different that has impact.
  2. What are different types of innovation? Innovation is more than whiz-bang technology; consider different strategic intents (e.g., create a new category, extend current business) or innovation mechanisms (e.g., new product, distribution channel, marketing approach).
  3. How do I spot opportunities for innovation? Go to the source: the customer you hope to target.
  4. Which customers should I target? Look beyond your best customers to those who face a constraint that inhibits their ability to solve the problems they face in their life.
  5. What should I look for? As Drucker said, "the customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him;" look for a job-to-be-done, an important problem that is not adequately solved by current solutions.
  6. How should I look? Start with deep ethnographic research; avoid focus groups!
  7. How do I come up with an idea? Remember the Picasso line "good artists copy, great artists steal;" seek to borrow ideas from other industries or geographies.
  8. What is disruptive innovation? An innovation that transforms a market or creates a new one through simplicity, convenience, affordability or accessibility.
  9. What is the best way to disrupt a market? Embrace the power of trade offs. Seek to be just "good enough" along historical performance dimensions but introduce new benefits related to simplicity or affordability.
  10. What does "good enough" mean? Performance above a minimum threshold to adequately solve a customer's job to be done; sacrificing performance along traditional dimensions can open up new avenues to innovate.
  11. What is a business model (and how do I innovate one)? How a company creates, captures, and delivers value; codifying the current business model is the critical first step of business model innovation.
  12. How can I "love the low end"? Build a business model designed around the low-end customer's job-to-be-done.
  13. How do I know if my idea is good? Let patterns guide and actions decide; remember Scott Cook's advice that "for every failure we had we had spreadsheets that looked awesome."
  14. How can I learn more about my idea? Design and execute "high return on investment" experiments to address critical unknowns.
  15. How can I get other people behind my idea? Bring the idea to life through visuals and customer testimonials.
  16. How long does it take new businesses to scale? Almost always longer than initial projections; be patient for growth and impatient for profits.
  17. Why is innovation so important? The "new normal" of constant change requires mastering perpetual transformation.
  18. Why is innovation so hard? Most organizations are designed to execute, not to innovate.
  19. Who are your influences? Academics like Clayton Christensen and Vijay Govindarajan, leading-edge innovative companies like Procter & Gamble and Cisco Systems, and thoughtful writers like Michael Mauboussin and Bill James.
  20. How do I encourage innovation in my organization? Stop punishing anything that smells like failure, recognizing that failure is often a critical part of the innovation process.
  21. What is "the sucking sound of the core?" The pull of the core business and business model that subtly influences new ideas so they resemble what the organization has done before.
  22. What is an innovation "safe space"? An organizational mechanism that protects innovators from the sucking sounds of the core.
  23. How should I form and manage innovation teams? Keep deadlines tight and decision makers focused.
  24. What is in a good innovation strategy? Overall goals, a target portfolio for innovation efforts, a mechanism to allocate resources to achieve that portfolio, and clearly defined goals and boundaries for innovation.
  25. What is the best way to manage an innovation portfolio? Make sure you correctly capture current activities and measure and manage different kinds of innovations in different ways.
  26. What does 'prudent pruning' mean? Recognizing that destruction is often a critical component of creation.
  27. What role should senior executives play in innovation? A big one.
  28. How can I personally become a better innovator? Practice - innovation is a skill that can be mastered.
  29. How can I find more resources for innovation? Shut down "zombie projects" that are a drain on corporate resources.
  30. How can I more quickly turn good ideas into good businesses? Remember what Edison said - genius is "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration;" get ready to sweat.
  31. Has anyone built the ability to innovate at scale? An increasing number of companies, such as Google, Apple, Procter & Gamble, Amazon.com, Cisco Systems, Godrej & Boyce and General Electric.

Six Social Media Trends for 2011

It was a banner year for social media growth and adoption. We witnessed Facebook overtake Google in most weekly site traffic, while some surveys reported nearly 95% of companies using LinkedIn to help in recruiting efforts. In my outlook for last year, I cited that mobile would become a lifeline to those looking for their social media fixes, and indeed the use of social media through mobile devices increased in the triple digits.
I also outlined how "social media would look less social" or more accurately exclusive, and indeed, we've seen the re-launch of Facebook groups, which focus on niche interactivity, and more recently, the emergence of Path, billed as "the social network for intimate friends" which limits your network to only 50 people. The past year also saw some brands go full throttle on Foursquare's game-like geo-location platform, attempting to reward mayors and creating custom badges for the network's power users.
In other areas, such as social media policy, I was less accurate. Conversations around the topic did begin to take place, But a global survey indicated that only 29 percent of companies even have a social media policy. That's not as high as I expected.
So what could we see happening in 2011? I'll take a stab at six trends again. In no particular order:
It's The Integration Economy, Stupid. From Ford, to Dell, to Starbucks (client), to Jet Blue, and a host of other companies who have pioneered early uses of social media for business, 2011 will be the year these companies take a serious look at integrating social media, not only regionally but globally. Don't be surprised if the same companies that piloted programs such as Ford's "Fiesta Movement" and Starbuck's Foursquare programs also become the first companies to take on the huge challenge of integrating social media into all facets of business from global marketing to crisis management and beyond.
Tablet & Mobile Wars Create Ubiquitous Social Computing. As competition heats up in the form of cheaper, smarter phones and an assortment of tablets that may hit the market (a $35 Tablet in India?), technology consumers will come one step closer to being connected 24/7, and in more powerful ways than previously possible. Social networking will be on the go, out of the house, and out of the office. More competition, variety, power, and affordability in devices will fuel the increase of ubiquitous social computing.
Facebook Interrupts Location-Based Networking. If 2010 belonged to Foursquare and its playful, competitive and sometimes addicting ecosystem of badges, mayorships and specials, it's likely that Facebook will rain on Foursquare's parade in 2011. With tons of data and the architecture behind Facebook's response to Foursquare about to be rolled out globally, Facebook is well positioned to actually make location based services useful to business.
Average Participants Experience Social Media Schizophrenia. While social media schizophrenia (the overload of multiple social profiles) is nothing new to tech mavens, it will become something that more and more "average" users experience as they tweet, Facebook, G-mail, chat, Skype, BBM, SMS, and Tumble their way across the social web. While many mavens have adopted ways to manage and cope, average users may find themselves at the beginning of the curve in need of a 12-step social identity program. This may lead to increased demand from typical participants to have a more integrated and simplified social graph and an opportunity for platforms and companies alike to meet this demand.
Google Doesn't Beat Them, They Join Them. In 2010, Wired told us that Facebook could beat Google to win the net. But even at the end of 2010 after failed attempts to create their own networks such as Buzz, Google could prove that the best way to beat Facebook, Twitter, and the rest is to do what Google does best: Index them to pieces. Indeed, I've already noticed Google's algorithm has become smarter about Twitter data. I only have to type in a few words to locate old tweets. It's possible that by sticking to what Google does best, they may be able to take advantage of the social web by indexing any and all social data they can get their hands on. Expect the Googleplex to "strike back" in 2011, and perhaps demonstrate that they may figure out their role and relevancy on the social Web.
Social Functionality Makes Websites Fashionable Again. After several years of being told to "fish where the fish are," businesses realize that users expect social integration to existing Websites. Sites such as AMEX Open forum serve as a model for how networks such as Twitter can integrate with the Web experience. Websites will increasingly serve as "digital hubs" that integrate social activity from many platforms. For example, Apple's music social network, named Ping, recently integrated Twitter. While the integration has kinks, it demonstrates that even the most iconic of brands realizes that they do not exist in their own walled garden. They must integrate to be relevant in a socially connected world.