Archive for the ‘Innovation’ Category

27 Questions to ask about an innovation …

August 18, 2014

Been The First Mile Mile  by Scott Anthony … a practical book re: how to ID practical innovations and launch them.

Anthony characterizes an innovation as having a combination of a deep customer need, a compelling solution, and a powerful economic model.

He argues that the first 2 items – a deep need and a compelling solution – are often overstated … and that the 3rd – the economic model – is often completely ignored.

So, as everybody know, most innovations fail in the marketplace.

To increase the odds of a innovation’s success (think new product or start-up company) he proposes a a process that borrows from the classical scientific method, discovery driven planning and the trendy “lean start-ups”.

Anthony acronyms his process DEFT: document, evaluate, focus, (test & adjust)

 

 

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The first step in the DEFT process is to document the essence of an initiative … not voluminously, but insightfully … with an eye to separating facts from assumptions … and then concentrating on the assumptions that are least certain and most impactful.

Specifically, Anthony offers up 27 specific questions to answer when documenting an innovation …

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Innovation: Gimme a bag of soup …

January 15, 2013

Excerpted from “Kicking The Can: Campbell’s CEO Bets On Soup-In-A-Bag For 20-Somethings”…

Denise Morrison, Campbell’s new CEO, is determined to shake things up.

She was hired to stabilize the soup and simple meals businesses, expand internationally, grow faster in healthy beverages and baked snacks.

Dubbed “the savior of soup”, she’s driven Campbell’s innovators to launch more than 50 new products in her 1st year.

For example, Campbell’s launched Go Soups, a six-flavor line in plastic pouches meant to convey freshness while capturing millennials’ adventurous tastes.

campbells soup in a bag

Ken’s Take:

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Posted in CPG - Consumer Packaged Goods, Innovation, Innovation - Creativity, Mktg - Packaging, Mktg - Product & Innovation | 1 Comment »

Big companies say: “Start me up” …

October 26, 2012

Punch line: There’s a quiet revolution happening in corporate America.

Big companies are applying startup strategies and tools to jump-start innovation and renovation.

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Excerpted from Fast Company’s, “4 Innovation Strategies From Big Companies That Act Like Startups”

Big companies that behave like small startups focus on two things. First, they accelerate the speed of innovation, just like a Silicon Valley incubator. Second, they give internal businesses and teams an outside-in perspective.

Here are four strategies that anyone can use to start-up … innovation:

  1. Follow customers home: Intuit’s innovation success is tied to a value for finding and savoring … unexpected insights about customer needs, problems, and desired experiences. That’s why the company does customer “follow-me-homes,” … [to] immerse themselves in the customer’s natural environment.
  2. Tap outside collaborators: Kimberly-Clark knows that insular thinking is the death knell of teams and organizations. That’s why they … recruit a small group of “thought leaders” to … deliver strategic and practical insight that would otherwise take months to gather.
  3. Stay small: Big innovations don’t necessarily have to begin by taking big risks. Intuit, for example, … [doesn’t wait] around for senior leadership to sponsor and fund the next big idea but rather rapidly tests ideas to identify the things teams can do to have the biggest impact.
  4. Use the best, invent the rest: Speed and agility come from realizing we don’t have to invent everything ourselves. The strategy is to use the best … and then adapt it or combine it with other approaches that work within the specific company context.

These big-company strategies aren’t about ivory-tower innovation departments … they’re focused on pushing entrepreneurial thinking and practices into the places they’re needed the most–inside established businesses.

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Innovation is hot … especially in b-school mission statements.

May 31, 2012

The WSJ reports that:

An analysis by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an accrediting body, involving 733 member schools, found that 28% include the words “innovate,” “innovation” or “innovative” in their school mission statements.

Most use the terms to describe their own curricula.

Business schools have added research centers, classes and even full-fledged majors in innovation.

But some think the schools may be missing the mark, focusing too heavily on ideation and brainstorming while skimping on the practical aspects of turning ideas into concrete strategy and action.

“Innovation requires taking the great idea and doing something with it.”

So where does it all lead?

As schools race to add innovation to their offerings, they’re also trying to differentiate themselves from one another.

The goal at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley,  is to create managers who can foster innovation or oversee innovative organizations, not just come up with innovative ideas.

“It’s not about producing home-run hitters.”

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Algorithms are out … exponential technologies are in.

May 21, 2012

Punch line: Despite the hoo[la around Facebook’s IPO, social media is already passé in Silicon Valley.

America’s innovation engine is now focused on transportation, energy and manufacturing.

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A couple of snippets from an editorial in the WSJ : The Future Is More Than Facebook by Rich Karlgaard  of Forbes.

Only a certain kind of company is getting rich in the Obama economy.

These are outfits that make algorithms — bits of software code cleverly strung together to take the form of an iPhone operating system, a LinkedIn social network, or a proprietary trading scheme.

But America can do better than that, and it will. In fact, the seeds are being planted now.

In Silicon Valley, investing in social-media companies is already passé. America’s innovation engine, Silicon Valley, is again overheating.

There’s a growing interest among bright minds to apply “exponential technologies”  to solve problems much larger than whom to friend on Facebook: transportation (smart cars), manufacturing (3-printing), and energy (high-tech horizontal drilling).

Question: If America could have only one of the following — Facebook, Twitter or horizontal drilling — which would be the smarter choice?

Happily, we don’t have to make that choice. America remains the world’s innovator, a country without limits.

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