How to Use Innovation Design to Drive Innovation

Designers must deliver the orchestration of the total experience with a brand, product, or service or face irrelevancy

 

In a previous era, all the talk was of strategy, strategy, strategy. More recently, it's been innovation, innovation, innovation. As design thinking seems poised to sweep away some of today's celebrated innovation practices, we must be wondering what new provocation is on the horizon. Relax, I'm not planning to conjure one up.

For those of us on the design consulting side of the business, it has not exactly been a smooth ride lately. But then again, I can't say that I ever remember it being all that smooth, even when the demand for all forms of basic design and new production capability was sky-high.

Having lived one career on the corporate design side of the consumer-products industry and now a good part of another on the consulting side, I've seen the ascendancy of design as a profession and the movement of design toward business competency. At the outset, designers were about style and the creation of bright shiny objects, and we dutifully manned our post at the last decoration station on the way to the marketplace.

Today, there are arguably two design strategies in the marketplace. You either succeed as the low-cost producer, or you successfully differentiate your offering by design in a relevant, meaningful way that is valued by shoppers, consumers, and sellers. As such, the theoretical role of design in business is relatively uncomplicated and straightforward.

Design in Business

The complications come with these two questions: Where does the core idea around a differentiated, relevant, valued offering come from? And what is its relationship to this thing we used to call design? You know—the bright shiny objects.

In our practice, we refer to the former as innovation strategy, and to the latter as design strategy. Somewhere in between resides the opportunity for brand strategy, and we hope to create a system in which there is a seamless flow from ideas to brand meaning and, finally, to how that brand or product or service is expressed and communicated.

Putting all three aspects of this brand-building practice together provides validity in thinking about design as one of the primary idea generators for the creation of viable business platforms. Assuming that the manifestation of a business offering is realized in the context of a brand, that brand requires meaning, a defined expression, and then, given some success, a plan for continued opportunity development that sustains and grows the business.

How to Innovate

True innovation requires the adoption of a belief system that sometimes must prevail in the face of other data metrics. Read up on the great inventions and business wins and you will note that at the core of most of them lie belief, dedication, and the passion to succeed. Today's business leaders are often too afraid to move ideas forward without ironclad data proofs that they will be successful. All too often, they are the losers. Use your head, listen to your heart, and feel what's in your gut.

As long as the human spirit and the marketplace lives on, I'm sure we will be inventing and innovating. Innovation is the commercial side of discovery and invention. Change is a huge driver of both discovery and invention. The world changes around us and we discover new things and we observe change and invent new things to deal with change.

If designers are content to function as purveyors of bright shiny objects, they will likely fade into obscurity. On the other hand, if they step forward and deliver the orchestration of the total experience with a brand, product, or service in the context of our changing environment, their future, too, looks bright. via businessweek.com

Speaking 

As the CEO and founder of InnoThink Group, Jim can help your organization enhance the strategic innovation and competitiveness of your business policy and strategy, with an emphasis on increasing top line growth.  

If you’re interested in having Jim speak at your next event, simply use this form to send us your details and speaking requirements, and we’ll be in touch shortly. Or you may call us at 719-649-4118. Thank you!

 

Learn Fast. Learn To Adapt: Dare to Be an Entrepreneur

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One of the reasons I came to this country is that America is a land of opportunity and a country of freedom. One can easily think of so many examples: Condoleezza Rice, although born amid racism in the South, recalled her mother once told her, “You can be anything you want to be.” And the governor of California used to be a bodybuilder and movie actor — something you can’t find in other countries.

While all these stories are inspiring, I am often troubled by the questions that implicitly or explicitly come across to new entrepreneurs: “Have you done this before?” “What P&L responsibilities did you have in the past?” “Do you have experience as a CEO?” One person even told me openly (with good intentions) that I should be prepared to be replaced six months after I raise the funds for my own company!

For a first-time entrepreneur, these questions can be very intimidating — and if you are not strong enough, you can begin to doubt yourself. The most dangerous thing of all is that, after enough people start thinking this way, it can be mistaken as a truth. I have seen some founders looking for “a CEO who can lead the company to the next level” before they themselves even tried!

While it’s important to examine many facets of an entrepreneur’s background, especially if he or she is raising institutional funds, the very notion that founders cannot lead their companies to success is totally fallacious. If a bodybuilder and movie actor can be a governor, why can’t you and I be entrepreneurs?!

I encourage all first-time entrepreneurs to challenge themselves to learn fast, fail fast, and grow fast, in real time with their new ventures. Condoleezza’s mother is right. There is no limitation of our true potential, except the limitation of our own imagination! via businessweek.com

 

Want to increase the sustainability of your innovation initiatives or need a speaker?   Contact us or call 719-649-4118.

Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A leading consulting firm specialized solely in enabling organizations of all sizes in all industries develop top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. 

 

Ways To Monitor Your Website to Keep Customers

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A staggering portion of the country’s consumer activity now happens in cyberspace. Last year, individuals spent nearly $227.6 billion shopping online. Though these customers have a multitude of e-retailers to choose from, they tend to stay loyal to businesses that offer consistently good online experiences.
That makes it more important than ever to measure the experience visitors have on your website. There are various approaches, both software- and appliance-based, that are generally known as real user monitoring (RUM) or end-user experience monitoring. Using such a system can mean the difference between loyal customers and lost sales. Here are a few more reasons to consider incorporating one into your service strategy:

1. A real user monitoring system is basically a smart stopwatch for e-business. It reports the time it takes to perform the requested action, as in transferring money from one bank account to another. This capability is a natural add-on to a technology investment such as application performance management. Look for IT vendors who package RUM with their systems at no additional cost, or check out free RUM software online.

2. Make sure all applications on your website function flawlessly all of the time. The failure of an online payment service, for example, can do hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage within hours. The long-term implications are even more serious. If customers cannot complete a transaction on their first visit to a website, they are unlikely to return when so many other alternatives exist.

3. Fix problems before customers complain. When RUM reports show slow load times or other deadlocks, use the data to pinpoint and repair the problem immediately, before it affects users. A RUM solution should deliver traffic streams from the client side, server side, and the network, so you can see whether a problem resides in the data center, the network, or the browser. via businessweek.com

Want to increase the sustainability of your nnovation initiatives or need a speaker? Contact us.

Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A leading consulting firm specialized solely in enabling organizations of all sizes in all industries develop top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies.