Does innovation require a different outcome during these times? Will a lean approach make me more successful? Do we have to do things differently than before? Would people adopt the approaches quicker than before? There are a number of questions that are left partially unanswered as academics and practitioners struggle to find easy answers for their individual settings.

Discovery, Invention, Innovation, Improvement, Creativity; throwing these in the organizational “pot” creates more confusion than solving problems. When [man] saw fire for the first time, was it a discovery? Imagine the surprise and excitement when the uneducated and uninformed caveman felt the heat from the fire for the first time. But, how do I keep this thing going? How was it created? Got asked before the long road to innovation to turn the discovery into something that is more controllable. The invention of making fire came much later.

Innovation during lean times is about the realization; that most of what we’ve learnt during the previous knowledge cycle since the beginning of the industrial revolution, is now under threat. We are working on two innovation re-think projects called “Built to Thrive”, that focuses on understanding business innovation as an eco-system activity; and “Social Based Innovation”, that focuses on the approaches to follow to re-invent yourself.

Participative Customer:
Historically we found that many of the time-locked concepts for example “client centricity”, “best practices”, “talent management” and “scorecard based measures” to mention a few; create common and copied views of how the world works. This imitation without understanding deeply why you need it has destroyed more companies than any other. The great pioneers of our time do not copy; they engage and immerse themselves deeply in the activity of their business and then redesign their future’s appropriately. The industrial era’s mindset is still fresh in the minds of managers and they find it difficult to shift [paradigm] to an era where the value creation activities are now socially influenced.

Let’s take one such example called ”client centricity”. Listening to your customers is a sure way to get into trouble; they have entirely different approaches, mental mindsets, and outcomes in mind compared to you and your business. The future is about crowdsourcing, crowdspirit, co-design, co-production and immersion. You do not want to give your favorite mobile provider or bank the exact requirements of what they need to make for you in the future. You want to be surprised and enlightened. This requires a much more networked and involved approach to understanding the issues and problems of the day. It also requires more insights into the solutions that might result in financially successful and environmentally friendly outcomes. Business models are evolving through the development of the participative customer as a means to get closer to the action; where the economic customer is seeing financial value in the network.

Social Networks:
Look at some of the latest innovation ecologies, these are essentially crowdsource based idea generators, that emerged over the last 2 years or so. Coke, Starbucks, Apple, IBM, etc all now have active and very vibrant idea to innovation communities that allow customers, competitors, and staff to interact in an integrated world of information sharing. They leverage the organization’s shadow and the industry’s undercurrents to gain deep understanding of of the shifts that are taking place. So, instead of copying, they allow for the crowds to co-produce and co-design the intended future. Market segmentation and coarse grained approaches will disappear and swarm based approaches and unique value approaches will emerge.

Our approach to delivering value is “Social Based Innovation”. Leveraging the shadow organization in achieving innovative outcomes. It’s not about product innovation; it’s about the offering. It’s not about process innovation; it’s about capability innovation. It’s about leveraging the social value in the business and not the elitist team that’s responsible for innovation. It’s about mobilizing the crowd through tribes and not the formal structure where innovations get trapped.

Obsessive Execution:
It’s in the portfolio; the success of your innovation efforts. The translation and articulation into meaningful actions. It’s the journey “from here and now, to here and now”.

Let’s take a view on innovation terminology that’s still in use today; “product based innovation”. Maybe the concept called “product” does not exist. Maybe there is only “service based innovation”. Take the chair you’re sitting on as an example; is it a product or a service? It was designed at a point in time where the collective knowledge of chair making and manufacturing got frozen and encapsulated into that chair. But, it is used to deliver a service for you tonight. It might be comfortable easy to adjust, etc making it a great service delivery platform. If the chair is not comfortable will you walk away thinking that the night was not useful?