Eight Years of Blogging at Innovation in Practice

This month marks the eight year anniversary of Innovation in Practice. As always, I want to thank my many readers and supporters who follow it.
When you start blogging, you’re never quite sure who will read it and continue reading it. A fellow innovation blogger told me not to worry about. “Blog it, and they will come,” is what he said. In essence, readers self-select based on their interest in the topic. I can’t control it.
That said, I’ve learned a lot in the last eight years, and I see predictable patterns in the types of people who find me here and contact me about speaking engagements. They are:

• Strategy/Innovation Leaders: executives who are looking to make transformational change in their business
• Technical/R&D Leaders: executives who are driven to fill their product pipeline
• Commercial Leaders: marketing executives who need to strengthen their franchise vis-a-vis their colleague’s franchises
• HR/Leadership Training Leaders: HR executives or consultants who want to embed innovation in their programs
• Meeting Planners: people who source talent for a wide variety of programs

My goal is to make this blog different from other innovation blogs and websites. Instead of focusing on why innovation is important, I focus on how innovation happens.  The themes of this blog are:

• Innovation can be learned like any other skill such as marketing, leadership, or playing the guitar.  To be an innovator, learn a method.Teach it to others.
• Innovation must be linked to strategy. Innovation for innovation’s sake doesn’t matter. Innovation that is guided by strategy or helps guide strategy yields the most opportunity for corporate growth.
• Innovation is a two-way phenomena. We can start with a problem and innovate solutions. Or we can generate hypothetical solutions and explore problems that they solve. To be a great innovator, you need to be a two-way innovator.
• The corporate perspective, where innovation is practiced day-to-day, is what must be understood and kept at the center of attention. This is where truth is separated from hype.

I’m expecting 2016 to be another strong year in terms of keynotes, workshops, and training programs. My marketing and PR team are going to completely re-position the “Drew Boyd” brand in terms of a new website, design, and messaging. It’s an exciting project, to be launched in the first quarter.
The book, Inside the Box, is now in fifteen languages and continues to sell well globally. As of now, I have three additional book projects lined up with some amazingly-talented co-authors. Four more video courses will be added to my lynda.com lineup. Now that LinkedIn owns lynda.com, the viewership of my courses has skyrocketed.
And the biggest news for 2016 is…the launch of our new web app – Innovate! Inside the Box, a software tool that helps you use the SIT Innovation Method. Today, we have an iPad version of the app, but this new app will be browser-based so you’ll be able to access from any Internet-connected appliance. STAY TUNED!
I want to thank Jacob, as well as Amnon Levav, Yoni Stern, and the entire team at SIT LLC. I thank Marta Dapena-Baron at Big Picture Partners, Bob Cialdini and the team at Influence at Work, Yury Boshyk at Global Executive Learning, the Washington Speakers Bureau, the team at Lynda.com, Jim Levine, Emilie D’Agostino, Shelley Bamburger, the team at Wordsworth Communications, and my fellow faculty at the UC Lindner College of Business.
Drew