Innovation as a process

There is not always going to be something really sexy or enlightening that is suddenly going to appear here as a new post.  There is another reason why this blog has come into existence ... as part of my EMBA studies we are encouraged to "reflect" and capture reflections as part of the learning process.  In my head, part of the reflection process is to capture some of those ideas, concepts, articles and any random thinking and put them somewhere ... and this blog serves as a great vehicle for that purpose.

We have just completed another set of workshop sessions on Strategic Marketing, which I will cover in another post at some point in the future.  Part of the time was dedicated to an introduction to Strategic Innovation.  But even when one is just skimming the surface (and we were skimming the surface), there were a couple of key points that I took away which are worth noting:

• Innovation is a process, it is not all about invention.  
• Ideas can come from anybody, no matter what their background or skills base - the challenge is to capture those ideas and store them in some type of idea bank so that you can revisit them @ some point in the future.
• Innovation needs to be worked at - all the time and 
• Customers are probably one of the most important resources that you need to be able to tap into for information and ideas.  This obviously resonates with my idea that it is the customer that determines your value proposition, not you as the product manager or the organisation.

I have been pondering on how to build a summary of the lessons that could be encapsulated from the day ... and took a look at the Management 2.0 Challenge to see whether there were any insights that may be of interest.  There was one entry that particularly caught my eye - probably because (a) sifting through ideas and (b) collating the knowledge base, are two of the most significant challenges that face organisations that really want to focus on innovation.

• It’s not the leader’s job to think up all the great ideas or to have all the answers
• Don’t expect “just-in-time” innovation
• Don’t confuse extroversion with innovation
• Practice “constructive disruption”
• Make it Fun
• Share the rewards
• Foster Relevance

This is a topic that I will explore further as I delve into it in more detail, but the source article "Nobody’s as Smart as Everybody—Unleashing Individual Brilliance and Aligning Collective Genius", by Jim Lavoie is certainly worth a read.