Innovation knowledge source | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Warm and Fuzzy at the Front End of Innovation

Perhaps I have fallen into the very trap I have campaigned about in the past, in recognizing and resolving the disappointing results we achieve from all the work we put into the front end of innovation. The “warm and fuzzy” front end of innovation can make us all a little grumpy.

Let me explain. I recently wrote out a newsletter – termed a thought or two – to my innovation network. This network is split between the advisers and consultants delivering into clients and the clients themselves, that I have a connections into that have built over the years. These are mostly through knowing them, working with them, exchanging or simply connecting in LinkedIn. The subject was the changes occurring at the front end of innovation.

My argument was the results we have obtained from a disconnected set of front end activities was poorer than they should be, and this needs changing. I feel there is a real shift potential happening today through connecting technology and connected solutions to ‘transform’ this front end. My feeling is the front end is often “warm and fuzzy” and it needs to be radically redesigned. I wrote about “hearing all the voices of ideas at the front end and the “two distinct parts of the innovation funnel” building from my original post “the new extended innovation funnel“, written in 2011.

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Deeper read or quick summary? Depends on the time we have.

I recently wrote a post “Finding knowledge and research to help you learn and adapt”.

On reflection, I should have replaced the word “research” with “time”……time to help you learn and adapt.

Finding time is a real struggle and going that extra mile to read thought leadership views, long often drawn out reports or academic papers can be a step too far, I know but I can’t help myself, it is part of my job and certainly for me, many are really worth the read in a positive end result of new learning.

In that post mentioned above, I was recommending Deloitte and their thought leadership as a good place to visit. Now I’m not sure how many of you actually did so I thought in this blog, to pick out a couple of ‘choice pieces’ and make a posting summary of these, as ones that might be useful.
So I’ve chosen two that challenge and break ground.
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Finding knowledge and research to help you learn and adapt

“The world has never been as complex, dynamic and uncertain as it is today and the pace of change will only increase.”
We hear this consistently, our continual problem is trying to make sense of it.

So much is coming towards us and to assimilate it and turn it into value, usable value, so we can adapt and respond to it in new ways of opportunity by adding further to the knowledge by turning this into new innovation potential.

Seeking out knowledge, and being proactive, partly helps as being consistently caught by surprise makes your world even more insecure.

To attempt to keep up to date we all need to invest increasing time in acquiring a better understanding, a deeper knowledge of all the interconnected parts. Even if we are “time-starved” we simply must try and keep moving along in this understanding.

As part of my job, advising others on all things swirling around innovation, I invest significant time in researching, learning and applying what I feel is important to others, so as to understand or at least to raise their awareness to change practices, thinking or approaches.

At times it all seems to come literally flooding in, overwhelming the senses, that I just have to wait and let it settle in my mind before I can attempt to process it and translate it into something of value to me, then eventually to my clients or readers.

Walkabouts are needed for learning and testing ourselves

Walkabout picture — photo credit: Walkabout (1971) film by Nicolas Roeg

How often do you pause for thought, testing yourself, questioning even simply for ‘just those few minutes,’ to allow yourself to openly challenge where you are and what you are attempting to do?

We keep relentlessly moving on, like a wandering herd of buffalo, always looking for fresh pasture, those new feeding grounds. It’s not good.

Of course, I often get caught up in this restless pursuit of gathering more, when I spend a growing amount of my time researching innovation. I keep coming across so many things that ‘trigger’ the thinking, pushing me on.

Do you let them go, ignore them, quickly pass over them, or attempt to capture the issue as something well worth investigating further at a later stage, or just get them simply behind you in the here and now.
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Tuning out, a need for simplification and better value

I have been totally struck by the overwhelming number of webinars being offered to me on a daily basis, all related to innovation and all free.

Am I the only one getting overwhelmed in choice, underwhelmed in content value?

This is a bit of a long rant, so turn away now those who love all the free choices you currently have, don’t waste your time reading on.

Those a little more curious, as my friend Michael Fruhling always says in his useful blog “then read on, dear friends….”

What do you get of real value when it is offered free?
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Are we getting real value out of innovation consultants?

When you stop and think about how innovation has been managed and understood over the years you soon realize how much has changed in this time. It is very significant, yet there is still much to do. Innovation understanding is changing, certainly for the better and as it shifts our perspectives on where knowledge resides as this is altering.

Today I think we are yet again at yet another crossroads in this innovation understanding and perspective. That is to extract the leading edges required from their innovation activities within organizations. This will require fresh innovation consulting business models to exploit the growing complexity of managing emerging innovation practice to support and extend their understanding.

I’m attempting to get my head around it, let me share some of my thinking here.

There has been a continual shift of where innovation knowledge resides. The external provider, who was the main source of latest insight, hands on practice and leading ideas in the past, I think have been significantly falling behind in recent years, on their contribution and value to organizations. Continue reading “Are we getting real value out of innovation consultants?”

Innovation Convention 2011, EU organised, Brussels

The European Commissions Innovation Convention 2011

I was planning to go to this convention held in Brussel over December 5^th & 6^th, 2011, but eventually was forced to stay back in the office to complete some work for different projects I’m working on.

Thankfully the main conference was online so I was able to follow it, even if a little selectively.

I’m sure you agree on conferences or in this case, a convention, are often ‘variable feasts.’ You never find everything appealing or valuable to you, but even at a distance, I did find plenty of interesting areas in those I was able to watch.

I hope they make many of the sessions freely available post-convention as they have much to draw ‘inspiration and understanding’ from for all of us.

I’m not planning this as a detailed report of the convention but to reflect and comment about why I think it provided a good contribution to the innovation debate(s), especially here in Europe.

We do need to ‘tune in’ more on what these events can offer, if managed well, in-depth and breadth of innovation’s scope. I’m singling out some of the more striking moments for me. Continue reading “Innovation Convention 2011, EU organised, Brussels”