Innovation Strategies: Finding the Big Idea
From Anita Borg Institute Wiki
Nilofer Merchant
CEO, Rubicon Consulting
Innovation is critical - economic growth is based on innovation. Many people have trouble separating what is innovative. Idea can be a specific thought, a capacity to reason.
FedEx “borrowed” idea from a different industry and applied an idea from telecom and banking to transportation - using central clearinghouse with a hub and spoke system of dissemination.
PostIt: How do you know that you have a need for sticky piece of paper? Formal research shown $750 000 market potential. The inventor gave the PostIts to secretaries. After a month he took them away and thus showed that there’s a market for his product.
Dell - no one believed you can make money on hardware.
Apple - didn’t actually invent a mouse shown at the conference in San Francisco in 1968. No one understood why they needed it. Apple pools together existing technologies in a unique way that people can use.
Snowboarding - the product already existed but there were minor irritations that the inventor focused on improving.
There is no “out of the box” ideas - think about the biggest pain, that’s the place for innovation.
Framework:
1. Mapping it - compare to competitors and look at what they do well and don’t do well - latter is the place for innovation. Can also look at culture or partnerships. Apple has great partnerships with music industry that’s why the iPod and iTunes is such a success. Don’t dump the things you do well in the process of looking at the competitors.
2. Listen and Knit - figure out who can be a source of information - customer service, people at the front line, and ask them what they get yelled at about; ask sales people why they lose deals; ask non-customers what they need; listen to yourself learn: check out other products, open it, try it, think about what can be fixed, what bugged you; make a list of all of these as they each represent “innovation opportunities”. Knit together they become bigger opportunities.
Value of research - people often believe that you need large statistical market evaluation. In early market if there isn’t already a solution in place focus on the influences, ask open ended questions: “how come you don’t like our product?”, “how come you don’t use that?”. For a Mature Market look for statistically valid sample sizes, ask questions you can act on, don’t bias responses with question structure, study over time.
3. Seek out new minds - find out the good thinkers: websites, associations, networks, blogs. Be curious, ask questions, read. Online discussion panels are a good source - ask for advice on product selection and often people give very detailed advice on why some product is better than the other.
4. Seek the Wand! - for any problem there’s a solution, for any need there’s an opportunity; ask powerful, enabling question: what would you do?, is this people related?, could we fix this product?, do we need new product?, what’s the first step? and in 3 years we would have ...? (5 or 10 is too far and makes people think it’s gotta be grand). “Why?” is a question that causes people to defend something and you should avoid this word to make it easier for people to give you information. “How?” causes people to think up to 12 month ahead and innovations take longer tat that.
Comment from the audience: Anita Borg asked “What would I do if I solved the problem or isolation” and it lead her to creating this conference.
5. Plot out options: develop alternative scenarios of what future might look like. Sales department has different view than engineers, marketing, etc.
A Fundamental: innovation is about being able to develop something, it does not happen in the shower, all by itself. It requires time to research, generate, and develop your ideas.