Don’t over-think your innovation strategy
Hello innovation party people…
I’ve been a little busy lately, as we all are these days, innovating. Wait, what did you ask?
“What does innovating mean to you Ernie?”
Wow, it’s like you read my mind – that’s the perfect introductory question for the post I’m writing right now! OK seriously, innovation is like stress – everyone has a different definition of what it is, everyone engages in both innovation and stress differently and above all, everyone thinks they have the secret to innovation (and not to stress management).
Like most folks, I’ve written on the topic of innovation more than once. One of my favorites “Time for Some Innovation” explored my views on what it takes to have an innovative team. And then there was the popular “Homicidal Innovation” which dealt with the incessant need we have in Corporate America to keep every project and initiative ever launched alive until the end of time.
In this edition I’d like to build on both those works and talk about the rhetoric that we are fed by the industry at large about innovation.
Much of the Product Management and New Product Development conversation is dominated by discussions on how to be innovative. In fact, this article was just posted on theonion.com:
Word ‘Innovate’ Said 650,000 Times At SXSW So Far
Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration but as with so many things, its funny because its probably not far from the truth. So why is everyone talking about innovation but not innovating?
I would like to posit that being innovative is one of those intrinsic attributes of an individual or a group – in other words, you are or you aren’t.
We see things like the plot below all the time about where to go to get innovative talent and far too often these reports are based on objective measures that go beyond the classical definition; are you perceived as innovative.
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