• Creativity Isn’t The Enemy (Unless Progress Is Your Opponent);
• Shooting The Messenger;
• Innovation: Knowing When To Stop;
• Price And Features Are Not The Answer

The lessons are three:

• Innovation can be encouraged. More so, it must be.
• Innovation is the foundation that separates the great from the wannabe.
• The challenging of the status quo should not be the exception but the rule, possibly the only rule in the realm of innovation worth following.

“Facebook signed up its 800 millionth user in mid-2011; Coca-Cola has 35 million “likes” right now on its fan page, and Starbucks has 25 million. Statistics show that people who “like” a company or interact with it are more likely to purchase from it. How much economic activity does that generate? I think it’s hard to quantify, but there’s no question that it’s huge and growing”

“There are much lower barriers to entry for online media than there were even a year ago. The cost of technology is not a barrier; the hardest part is finding good developers for original ideas.”

“If you give people exactly what they want and you respect their preferences, they’re willing to give you information about themselves”

“The number one source that users go to for information about what to buy is social: their knowledgeable friends and colleagues. Editorially driven information ranks second”

“Instead of downplaying or doubting the value of that 28-year-old wunderkind sitting next to you in his blue jeans, with his $40 billion market cap, 50 times stock multiple, and army of hotshot VC financiers, embrace him and embrace what he stands for.”

An excellent read.

P&G’s Connect & Develop strategy has produced proven bottom line results. Is it now old hat? Is there better and more clever thinking on the horizon? Or is it just investors hungry for more dividends and greater growth that actually want innovation in P&G’s innovation strategy.

What do you think?

Now Professor Henry Chesbrough and Professor Wim Vanhaverbeke have released an really interesting paper on Open Innovation and the Public Sector – specifically Public Policy in Europe. A must read document for those of you interested in understanding how Open Innovation can be used in different settings.

In this report, they combine new research and analysis on open innovation with focused interviews of major participants in the European innovation system. The result is a series of recommendations for public policies that they say could, if implemented, improve the climate for open innovation to take place in the European Union – and thereby improve the competitiveness of the European economy overall.  Taken together, these recommendations comprise an informal ‘charter’ for EU open innovation policy.

Read the full document here

In today’s world, companies are required to innovate more and faster than ever before. Based on qualitative interviews and the latest academic thinking on the subject, Accenture and the Institute for Innovation and Competitiveness i7 created by ESCP Europe have tried to go beyond the buzzword and have investigated what actually lies behind this concept. They therefore studied 20 companies that are actively leveraging Open Innovation to boost their overall innovation performance. The sample was selected from among large international companies for whom innovation is a priority and which have extensively communicated on their Open Innovation practices for several years.

You will be surprised at their findings in this excellent report!

Conclusions in the report (as presented by the authors) are:

1. Open Innovation is a not a new thing: more precisely an old practice (such as collaborating with other companies or research centers) which is being systematized and for which processes are setup at a strategic corporate level.
2. Open Innovation has a fast pace of adoption: in less than 10 years it became it has been extremely well broadcast (especially when compared to other practices such as lean Six Sigma).
3. It allows to tapp into an almost unlimited number if external sources.
4. An Open Innovation strategy can take various shapes, the report proposes a matrix to position the Open Innovation strategy to implement in your company depending on your level of openness.
5. The company implementing Open Innovation must define the right balance between depth and breadth of relationship with partners. In particular this depends on your capacity as a company to absorb external knowledge.
6. If your company implements Open Innovation, you must (and if not you will) excel at the partner management process.
7. Open Innovation is not Open Bar. There is no Open Innovation “free lunch”. You must invest to have a return on investment.
8. Open Innovation, is not a function, it is an attitude. It is not only about appointing a “chief open innovation officer”, Open Innovation must be implemented in your company’s DNA through processes, practices, tools etc.
9. Open Innovation has not resolved the innovation’s Bermuda triangle – what are the KPIs? It is hard to measure return on investment.
10. Open Innovation Works: Shorter Time to Market, Not cheaper, higher company’s innovativeness, more sustainable, better IP protection.

These excellent 20 articles identify the major challenges facing companies around the world as they try to take advantage of new opportunities in our increasingly connected global community.

It is a great report that is very well worth reading.

Key Findings:

1. Diversity is a key driver of innovation and is a critical component of being successful on a global scale. Senior executives are recognizing that a diverse set of experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds is crucial to innovation and the development of new ideas. When asked about the relationship between diversity and innovation, a majority of respondents agreed that diversity is crucial to encouraging different perspectives and ideas that foster innovation.
2. A diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial for companies that want to attract and retain top talent. Competition for talent is fierce in today’s global economy, so companies need to have plans in place to recruit, develop, and retain a diverse workforce.
3. Nearly all respondents reported that their companies have diversity and inclusion strategies in place. However,  not all of the plans are identical. About a third said their companies have global strategies that allow for minimal regional deviation, while half said that their organizations have a global plan that also allows for different strategies and programs in order to address regional needs or cultural differences.
4. Organization’s diversity goals and priorities won’t change significantly over the next three years. When asked about their company’s current diversity and inclusion priorities, 43% cited retention and development of talent, followed by ensuring diversity in the workplace in general (35%), developing a robust pipeline of diverse talent (29%), and managing cross-generational issues (28%).
5. Responsibility for the success of company’s diversity/inclusion efforts lies with senior management. In order for a diversity/inclusion plan to have real meaning, there needs to be accountability and oversight. Seven out of ten companies reported that the buck stops at the C-level and their board of directors.
6. Significant progress has been made to build and retain diverse workforces, but there are still some impediments to companies’ efforts. Respondents feel they’ve made progress in gender diversity, but they feel they’ve fallen short in areas such as disability and age

The following are some of the key findings of the new research:

• China Now Leads World in Patent Filings: Published patent applications in China increased by 16.7 percent between 2006 and 2010; and this year’s patent activity secures China’s status as the world leader in patent application volume, as previously predicted by Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters projects that China will publish 493,000 patent applications annually by 2015.
• Trademark Applications Surge: Since 2000, the number of trademarks registered in China has increased by more than 450 percent, far outpacing other nations, despite widespread counterfeiting and infringement.
• Growing Influence in Scientific Literature: Over the last five years, there has been an 80 percent increase in Chinese scientific literature annual output, making China second in the world in published scientific papers. The United States, which currently has the highest overall output, grew by five percent.
• Slow to Expand Globally: Chinese organizations are not protecting their inventions by filing patents globally at the same level as other innovation-minded countries. Currently, only 5.6 percent of China’s inventions are protected with global patent filings abroad, far less than the United States (48.8 percent) and Japan (38.7 percent).
• China’s Corporate Innovation Lags: According to the Thomson Reuters Top 100 Global Innovators analysis, the most innovative companies in the world are based in the United States (40 percent), Europe (29 percent) and Japan (27 percent).
• Global Brands Capitalize on Chinese Consumerism: In an economic environment that is expected to reach $4.3 trillion USD in retail spending by 2015, leading multinational companies have been among the top 20 trademark filers in China from 1976 through 2011.

Trap 1: Mediocrity signals: While the rhetoric is that the organisation is innovation and entrepreneurial, the action of leaders signals complacency and mediocrity. How many time have we seen this happen. One of the challenges, of course, is that managers get promoted not only on their ability to lead, but also on their longevity within the organisation. Do they make great leaders? Not necessarily. Do they promote innovation and entrepreneurship? Why should they. For many, innovation and entrepreneurship equals risk – and why take risk? Mediocrity is a safer, risk-free path.

 Trap 2: Strategic ‘attention deficit disorder’: The survey found too many top managers start and abandon initiatives so frequently that they appear to display a kind of attention deficit disorder (ADD) when it comes to strategy and tactics. They don’t allow sufficient time to discover whether initiatives are working, and they communicate insufficient rationales to their employees when they make strategic shifts.

Trap 3: Corporate Keystone Kops:  The research found that many executives who think everything is going smoothly in the everyday workings of their organizations are blithely unaware that they preside over their own corporate version of the Keystone Kops – fictional policemen so incompetent that they ran around in circles, mistakenly bashed each other on the head, and fumbled one case after another. Some leaders to the farce through their actions, others by failing to act.

Trap 4:Misbegotten ’Big, Hairy Audacious Goals’: At some companies, however, BHAG statements are grandiose, containing little relevance or meaning for people in the trenches. They can be so extreme as to seem unattainable and so vague as to seem empty. The result is a meaning vacuum. Cynicism rises and drive plummets.

The report concludes: As an executive, you are in a better position than anyone to identify and articulate the higher purpose of what people do within your organization. Make that purpose real, support its achievement through consistent everyday actions, and you will create the meaning that motivates people toward greatness. Along the way, you may find greater meaning in your own work as a leader.

I totally agree.