Today marks the third anniversary of Innovation in Practice. I am happy to say I see no end in sight. Blogging is the ultimate truth serum: it helps you discover what you know, how you learn, and how you connect to a community of fellow bloggers. I use this blog to test my ideas, develop new ideas, and practice what I preach. I appreciate all of you who read this blog, and I encourage you to reach out to me. I welcome ways to improve the blog and I would love to hear topics you want me to focus on.
The themes of this blog are:
- Innovation is a skill, not a gift. It can be learned like any other skill such as marketing, leadership, or playing the guitar. To be an innovator, learn a method. Teach others.
- 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.
- 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.
- The corporate perspective, where innovation is practiced day-to-day, is what must be understood and kept at the center of attention. How the corporate practitioner views the academic community, the consulting community, and the research community is where we will find best practices. This is where truth is separated from hype.
2010 Highlights
- I became a full-time academic after retiring from Johnson & Johnson in May. This frees up a lot of time to do the writing, consulting, and research in innovation that I have always wanted to do. Even though I’m in academia, the blog’s focus will remain “The Corporate Perspective” because this is where I believe innovation has to be ignited to drive economic growth. Academics teach, and practitioners do.
- The LAB series continues to push me to innovate in new ways. This year, I innovated the Blackberry, the game of baseball, website design, retail selling, Legos, service models, water access, party planning, an aquarium, wedding invitations, and the iPad.
2011 Focus
- New Audiences: I want to expose innovation methods to kids, seniors citizens, people with disabilities…anyone who wants to make a difference with innovation.
- New Relationships: I look forward to strengthening my ties to some very special people including Jacob Goldenberg, Amnon Levav, Yoni Stern, and the entire team at S.I.T.. Also, Christie Nordhielm and Marta Dapena-Baron at Big Picture Partners, Bob Cialdini at Influence at Work, Yury Boshyk at Global Executive Learning Network, and the team at the Washington Speakers Bureau. I look forward to new projects with Mark Adkins at PDMA and Randy Rossi at Bally Design. All good stuff.
- New Colleagues: Special thanks to the UC marketing faculty (Karen, Chris, Fritz, Dave, James, Frank, Bob, Inigo, Norm, Jane, Raj, Constantine, and Ric).
Drew