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What have you learned?

June 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Regardless of the industry you are in, or your role, the practice of capturing lessons learned should be a regular part of your process, project, program, or strategy review. It helps you and your team avoid the same mistakes and it helps you reframe how you might address issues whether they are similar to what you have previously faced or brand new to you. The best lessons learned should be captured and shared.

Given that it is Summer (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) and that the pace of work might slow (perhaps wishful thinking), it seems like the best time to reflect on what we have accomplished and capture some of what we have learned. This Twitter and List.ly project is a fun and fast way to share some of your innovation lessons learned, in 7 words. There will be prizes for the top 7 as voted by participants. Details below.

7-Word Innovation Lessons Learned
Listly by Andrew Marshall

7-Word Innovation Lessons Learned

This July we are sharing 7-Word Innovation Lessons Learned. You Share. We Learn. You Vote. We all Vote for our Favorites. The Top 7 will each receive a matted poster of their Lesson. Tweet your 7-Word Innovation Lesson Learned with #7WILL. Come to list.ly to Learn (& Vote) Winners announced 31 July.

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    1. When innovating, look for questions, not answers.

      When innovating, look for questions, not answers.

      submitted by @Renee_Hopkins

      3 0
        1
      • For good ideas you need many ideas

        For good ideas you need many ideas

        submitted by @DrewCM

        2 0
          0
        • Innovation isn't one thing, it's every thing.

          Innovation isn't one thing, it's every thing.

          submitted by @greggfraley

          2 0
            0
          • You can't innovate if you can't change.

            You can't innovate if you can't change.

            submitted by @OBX_Harvey

            2 0
              0
            • Listen and Enliven whilst prototyping and collaborating

              Listen and Enliven whilst prototyping and collaborating

              submitted by @BlueRoom_

              2 0
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              • Big Ideas Start Life As Small Ideas

                Big Ideas Start Life As Small Ideas

                Added by Nick Kellet on Jul 18, 2012

                submitted by @NickKellet

                2 0
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                • innovation and imagination go hand in hand

                  innovation and imagination go hand in hand

                  Added by Alasdair Munn on Jul 25, 2012

                  submitted by @ajmunn

                  2 0
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                  • Innovation is fed by possibilities, not routine

                    Innovation is fed by possibilities, not routine

                    Added by Alasdair Munn on Jul 25, 2012

                    submitted by @ajmunn

                    2 0
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                    • The right people make all the difference

                      The right people make all the difference

                      submitted by @DrewCM

                      1 0
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                      • Innovate around a problem. keep it simple

                        Innovate around a problem. keep it simple

                        submitted by @reubentozman

                        1 0
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                        View more lists from Andrew Marshall

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                        Book Review: Relentless Innovation by Jeffrey Phillips

                        December 6, 2011 By 3 Comments

                        For an organization to survive and thrive it is not enough to want more innovation, you must have the will to do the work to make the practice of innovation commonplace. Jeffrey Phillips tackles this subject head on in, Relentless Innovation. He offers a path for organizations to make innovation an everyday occurrence in which the whole system of the enterprise is aligned around the discipline of creation.

                        One of the frustrations for me, as someone passionately interested in fostering innovation in organizations, is the recognition that unless it is addressed holistically over time innovation is driven from most areas of the enterprise. Innovation means change; and change, like all new elements requires accommodations on the part of organizations which are all too often entirely focused on their efficiency and the immediacy of their effectiveness. This leaves little room for innovation to take hold, let alone flourish.

                        This requires a fundamental rethinking of the way innovation is introduced and addressed over time. In Relentless Innovation, Phillips notes that, “If larger firms…don’t relearn innovation and reintroduce it to their business models, they’ll have little competitive advantage left.” He sees that few firms (if any) can afford to rest on their laurels as the pace of innovation continues unabated. To combat that innovation must become a consistent capability, developed, refined, and supported over time.

                        In this book Phillips lays out the clearly defined roles and responsibility that executives, middle managers and front line employees have for specific outcomes, ensuring that innovation is everyone’s job. The end result: focused and systemic innovation that becomes business as usual. The reason for that is that sustained innovation is not driven by any one part of the organization or any one role. The myth of the brilliant CEO is exactly that ― sustained innovation is a cultural issue, not an issue of leadership. This is something I emphasize with my clients frequently and consistently.

                        Perhaps the more revealing insight at the heart of this book is the concept of the impediment of BAU (Business As Usual) to innovation success. When the organization seeks to protect BAU there is no room to innovate and BAU becomes the order of the day. It makes an organization timelessly unchanging and profoundly uncreative in which the people “have a stake in sustaining a common, consistent operating model to achieve results repeatedly.” Phillips rightly points out that the ever-increasing focus on efficiency is in direct competition with innovation; the risk associated with and necessary for innovation is driven from the hyper-efficient organization.

                        To combat BAU and strike a balance between efficiency and innovation Phillips highlights the value of some tried and true business elements, such as clear vision and a focused strategy. He combines those with what he refers to as a “project” versus a “capability” mindset where the outcomes are targeted and defined by resource development over time. His approach makes innovation a process that is repeatable, sustainable and improvable over time rather than a discrete series of one-off events. Relentless Innovation sees that innovation is to be planned for, accounted for and executed with a clear goal of capturing, reusing and developing knowledge over time.

                        In that quest for reuse of knowledge Phillips highlights the need for accountability for innovation. Everyone in an organization must be specific about their innovation goals. Executives must link innovation to key strategies, and they must develop measures and metrics to hold innovators—and themselves—accountable. Middle managers must be measured on the performance of their teams in meeting those goals and measures and their team members must be held to account for their contributions to the state of innovation in the enterprise. Without an holistic approach that engages the all aspects of the organization innovation won’t be a fundamental part of the operations it will continue to be an afterthought.

                        Above all Relentless Innovation asks the reader to strive to seek a balance between the everyday demands of efficiency and the future focused demands of innovation. There is no magic formula for innovation but in his book Phillips offers a very good mirror so we can see where we are deficient in our own practices and how we might choose to become smarter in our innovation efforts. As with all change, adopting this approach is highly likely to be hard, but what valued discipline isn’t?

                        I highly recommend you read Relentless Innovation. Your organization will be better for it.

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                        Business Innovation Factory – 7 #BIF7 – Live blogging Sept 21

                        September 21, 2011 By 1 Comment

                        See Day 1 here. A big thanks to John Werner at Citizen Schools for sharing some of his fantastic photos from BIF-7.

                        To start the day off I had a great conversation with seat mate and recovering journalist, Helen Walters from Doblin. We covered: Conferences. Curation. Presentation delivery bar being raised. And the Conference Industrial Complex. I love her manner of inquiry.

                        Saul Kaplan opened the day by reflecting on what the success of the BIF summit means. He noted, “People need to draw their own conclusions because the value is in what you learn as a participant.” Saul also reflected on the fact that innovators, even though they come with deep subject matter expertise, are in constant search for what they are missing. This mindset is something that informs how Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto thinks about innovation and to whom Saul nodded.

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                        Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab and author of The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business, lead the Day 2 presentations by delivering his session live from Pakistan. We talked yesterday about transforming education and healthcare. Haque is focused on transforming the mother of all systems, capitalism.

                        Haque opened with the fact that Pakistan has ground to a halt due to an outbreak of Denge Fever.

                        What the religious fundamentalists haven’t been able to achieve in two decades, the mosquitoes have accomplished in two months in Lahore. – Umair Haque

                        He stated that Pakistan is a functional economy against which he compared the aspirational economy of India. By way of framing his approach to capitalism, Haque quoted from Joseph Shcumpeter’s work, “Can Capitalism Survive?” Schumpeter’s assessment was that no, capitalism cannot survive because the range of needs of human beings is endless and that it will collapse under its own weight. Haque’s additional framing is to offer the concept of the opulent economy and its attendant ills: dumbification, inequity, social unrest, abject poverty. The quest for more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now is going to fade.

                        In the place of opulence, Haque offers up a model of capitalism based on fitter, smarter, tougher, closer, and wiser. The term he uses is eudaimonia which is founded in “human flourishing.” This transition will take years, if not a decade according to Haque. However the range of change required is transformational

                        ***

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                        The artist, screenwriter, and author behind “The Polar Express” and many other books, Chris Van Allsburg came to the stage next. He shared a story about Annie Edson Taylor, the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. [It should be mentioned I have a relative who self-selected from the gene pull by swimming the river that feeds these Falls, Captain Webb who was a British dare devil.] Van Allsburg’s book is called, “Queen of the Falls”

                        In sharing his journey to creating this book, Van Allsburg talked about the narrative choices he made in conjunction with the illustrative choices, such as superimposing a building into the Falls to illustrate their size. He also discussed how he fleshed out her life’s story and how he captured her journey to the moment she decided to go over the Falls in a barrel. She had no experience in barrel-making or dare-devilry and yet, like most innovators, she had a persistent belief in her own vision and the will to drive it to successful completion.

                        This presentation offered a glimpse into both the subject of Van Allsburg’s heroine as well as the author artist’s role in capturing her journey in a meaningful and accessible manner. To see and hear how he pulled together the elements of his book into a cohesive whole was intriguing. It was a wonderful and revealing view of the care required to construct meaning.

                        ***

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                        Alexander Osterwalder was a pinch-hitter due to the schedule shift on Day 1 with Erin Mote being called away by Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, to go to the West Bank. Alex is the lead author/editor of the book, “Business Model Generation”  which was essentially co-created with a large number of practitioners.

                        This book arose from Alex’s doctoral thesis which contained the word ontology, which Alex noted is the word that enables you to earn a Ph.D! The first time the book was able to be held by Alex was actually at BIF5 two years ago. And with book in hand Alex found that he struggled to define himself when asked by people – author?, entrepreneur?, public speaker?, academic? None of which seemed to fit. Instead he says he is,

                        I’m somebody who likes to *break* the rules and make stuff.

                        Alex provided some statistics to create context for the environment into which his book might be delivered. 1,000,000 books published in English in a year. 11,000 of those are business books. Cumulatively there are 250,000 business books competing for shelf-space. Business books sell 250 copies on average. A highly challenging environment in which to launch a new book.

                        He identified some of the challenges of business books which sounded like an offshoot of the Goldilocks tale: too heavy, too light, to wordy, to impractical. To break this paradigm Alex and the wider team looked at a very broad range of works for inspiration and sought to cerate a book that they would love to buy. The first step was to hire a designer and assemble a broader team to create and build the ecosystem around the development of the book. The end result is a highly visual book with white space and different ways of laying out the book to engage and attract to ensure the book had a high degree of utility.

                        The book became the co-created work of 470 people around the world. They also charged for participation and raised the price of the book time and time again from $24 to $81. The last chance payment was $250 in order to have your name in the book before publication. What was the reason for the attractiveness of the value proposition? Being first. Being a part of something bigger. An opportunity to learn from each other.

                        Instead of a marketing budget, the book project had a built in community of people who were proud advocates for the book in the marketplace. The backbone for bringing the book to light was the internet. There was a freemium offer of a third of the book. Then came the challenge of managing the logistics of dealing with shipping all over the way. The initial approach with a Dutch company was an abject failure and then they went back to Amazon for fulfillment. The initial success attracted a large publisher, Wiley.

                        The book is available around the world and it has been scheduled to be translated into 22 other languages. The ideas are available around the world and are tearing down the barriers to business everywhere.

                        This was a great example of building a community to launch a book to the heights of success.

                        ***

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                        The Co-Founder of Futurlogic, Jon Cropper next came up to talk about seduction a distillation of 15 years of his life into 15 minutes. And he survived being tortured by P-Diddy running his company for a year. He shared nine elements that drive seduction:

                        Self awareness – know yourself

                        Environmental – the conditions and context of performance

                        Design – aesthetics matter (the fusion of a simple exterior with a complex interior – “simplexity”)

                        Understanding – listening and compassion

                        Communication – the power of great storytelling

                        Trust – in others and delivering on your promise

                        Inspiration – create an educational, inspirational operating philosophy

                        Open – generosity feeds the soul

                        New – rejuvenation, repetition and constant renewal

                        Cropper offered a series of personal anecdotes and observations that revealed those things that resonate most deeply with him about the power of seduction within innovation.

                        Generosity and appreciation create the optimal output performance of your heart.

                        ***

                        And we’re back from our first morning session and ready for our pre-lunch immersion. The first speaker up  is Andy van Dam. He earned the second computer science degree in the world and is the Thomas J. Watson, Jr., University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. He is interested in exploring the intersection between art and computer science. His focus in this session was using the computer to access traditional artwork that would be otherwise inaccessible.

                        He examined the special problems of especially large artworks. With a graduate student driving he explored several large scale pieces of art including: a fresco of Egyptian art (an essential form of storytelling), the Bayeux Tapestry, and the Garibaldi Panorama (which was digitized by Brown University.) The scroll was the popular form of entertainment in its day. Measuring 4½ feet high and 273 feet long, the Garibaldi Panorama is one of the longest paintings in the world. The work depicts the life story of Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi, who played a major role in the unification of Italy. The late Dr. James Walter Smith donated the relic to Brown in 2005.

                        In summer 2007, special funding enabled library staff and technicians from Boston Photo, a leading museum reprographics company, to fashion a makeshift photo studio in the central gallery of the Annmary Brown Memorial. They slowly and surely unrolled the panorama — six feet at a time — in order to take 91 digital photographs. The photographs will now be melded into a continuous image online. The genius of this digitization was the arrival of the Microsoft Surface operating system which had a deep zoom technology allowing an incredible level of accessibility and little instruction required to be able to view and explore the artwork.

                        There are two modes of access – the walk-up or the viewer mode. The walk-up mode provdes image-only view where the viewer mode introduces additional contextual information, including Ken Burns’-style image inclusion of external data and embedded video. The legibility of the artwork and the additional materials is supported by high definition capture. Additional Photoshop-like tools enable elemental image color manipulation.

                        The end goal is to create a platform that can be used by museums and galleries to quickly produce similar art work tours. The Tour Authoring Tool itself is like a basic asynchronous editing suite for video, which enables the addition of multiple digital assets. The tool itself is produced by the Brown Center for Digital Initiatives. They are working with the Forbidden City in Beijing on the Ching Ming Festival Scroll as well as other institutes around the world.

                        Display technology is going to be replaced by organic light-emitting diodes which means all surfaces around us will be interactive for display and immersion purposes. The only question is, “What won’t we be able to do?!”

                        ***

                        Byron Reeves is a Professor at Stanford University; a Behavioral Scientist, Author, and proponent of Interactive Gaming & Virtual Worlds in the Workplace. He came to share his thoughts about gamification and the social implications of the impact of gaming in everyday life and social system change. Reeves is an expert on the psychological processing of media in the areas of attention, emotions, learning, and physiological responses, and has published over 100 scientific papers about media and psychology.

                        He noted that most people who study TV as academics profess a disdain for the medium. He, however, professed his love for it. (My wife, Jo, and Professor Reeves have this in common!) To illustrate the impact of captivation and engagement he shared a picture of himself in front of a TV and then showed the complete transformation of immersion via the game experience – in World of Warcraft. This captivation triggered the question about what else you could use this kind of captivation for?

                        In supporting his children at their swim meets he had a fortuitous encounter with J. Leighton Read. And Read asked, “Byron, what’s cool in your lab right now?” Which he did. He described the impact of captivation as represented by gaming. When Reeves asked Read the same question, Read described his exploration of the world of work and the chaos of not knowing how to measure what success looked like until the quarterly (or annual) review. Based on this conversation they decided to collaborate.

                        How might we wire-up the world of work so that it more closely represented a community-based, collaborative game environment with an epic narrative?

                        First they needed to address the stereotyping that pervades the conversation around games. The generation that is growing up in the world of games have integrated them into their lives. The addition of narratives and participation within the context of gaming and their integration with work have the potential to transform the business world.

                        The work that gaming prepares you for is complex. Learning through games, arbitrary information, becomes everyday food for thought and becomes a part of its own reward. Engagement at work is a huge issue and Reeves notes that people will make mistakes. But the amount of work in games is only going to increase. Cisco sales reps play a “Closer” game. IBM teams meeting as avatars on projects. The range of examples Reeves shared was incredibly broad and rich and all of them were supported by huge amounts of information technology.

                        Reeves noted the danger associated with this effort. The impact of over-engagement and OSHA implications as people develop repetitive strain injuries. Or tax laws given the location of work.

                        Reeves left us with the question, “What would it be like if work and play were a little more alike?”

                        ***

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                        Mari Kurashi is the co-founder and president of Global Giving which connects individual and institutional donors directly to social, economic development, and environmental projects around the world. Mari is doing work on the social entrepreneur front to bring problems into alignment with the available range of solutions.

                        The questions that Mari is asked are usually framed as “Did you know…?” And her response is that she didn’t have a clue that she would have this kind of impact on the world. To help us understand her journey she recounted her childhood and high school attendance in West Germany and a day trip to see the Berlin Wall. The biggest impact was the way in which the East Germans on the other side of the Wall didn’t turn to look at the people who were looking at them. She was intrigued by this and wanted to understand how a social system could create behavior that was so counter to biological drive.

                        She became focused on studying and learning about the Soviet Union (primarily to avoid becoming an “O.L.” and Office Lady in Japan as her visa was in doubt.) In the middle of her Ph.D. studies the Soviet Union began to fall apart and she was dismayed by the fact that political science couldn’t predict this outcome. She went to work at the World Bank (a job that she got “on a fluke”) without any idea what the institution did and what economic development entailed. She was one of three people out of one hundred who could actually speak Russian. She was in the right place at the right time.

                        Her passion for wanting to reverse the regime of communism in the Soviet Union was something that Mari was focused on but her time at the World Bank came to an end – in a last chance innovation program. They created a marketplace inside the World Bank in 2000 which essentially used elements of crowdsourcing. The success of this program was hampered by the inability of the World Bank to focus o this. In this realization Mari decided to leave the World Bank to pursue this concept for addressing global poverty.

                        The compelling thread that runs through Mari’s narrative is the notion of personal risk. Time and time again she made huge life shifts with little understanding of what she knew or didn’t know. And by approaching her life’s work with beginner’s mind (and what she sees as incredible luck) she made her way in the world.

                        Mari brought her presentation back to eudaimonia and the notion of how a virtuous, life well lived fits together. She said, you must decide and practice and choose how best to fit these virtues together. Eudaimonia is a deliberate practice for integration of new options that make sense to you over time.

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                        A long-time BIF attendee and presenter Dennis Littky, Co-founder and Director of The Big Picture Company, began with the words, “Highschools suck.” Littky talked about how the current state of our schools and colleges impacts the least prepared the most. The poor, the disenfranchised, the economically disenfranchised suffer the most from education systems that are inflexible and immovable.

                        Dennis had one of the students who had participated in The Big Picture Company talked about her personal journey and the power of hands-on learning. She described her education journey interviewing people at BIF and her world travels too. A remarkable perspective on what education might become, if only we have the vision to realize that the tools we need are already at hand. Our minds must change to accommodate new ways of seeing and creating the world.

                        Littky shared a sobering statistic – every 12 seconds a child drops out of schools. In our time at BIF7 that was 9600 children. A criminal failure of the highest order.

                        Littky shared his work and his focus on fighting to transform the urban school experience as a way of combating this appalling drop-out rate. His work focuses on connecting with kids, finding out about the, finding their passions, and helping them design education experiences that meet their learning needs. Drop-outs lowered to single digits (from 46% in the Providence, RI school district0 and 100% of students who stayed went onto college. As a result the Gates Foundation sponsored a massive expansion of the program worldwide.

                        His recent focus was the drop-out rate at the college level. 89% of first generation college attendees drop out. His work is now focused on creating a college that uses the same model of community-based learning and engagement that has been deployed in the secondary schools program. The end result is that the first class of students is graduating this year.

                        Next up Littky is going to focus on adult education. What a dynamo he is.

                        He is looking for adult mentors; consider connecting with Dennis via Twitter if you think you have something to offer.

                        ***
                        This ended my sojourn at BIF7.

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                        Innovating Event Participation through Social Media: expanding the impact of SXSW, World Innovation Forum & more

                        August 26, 2011 By 4 Comments

                        Over the last two years I have had the good fortune to be drawn into the world of live-blogging at events. I came into this as a result of trying to figure out how to maximize the value I was gaining from using Twitter. To be perfectly honest, when I first saw Twitter and the kinds of messages people were posting, I thought: “Great. Another platform for the terminally self-involved and ego-centric to shout, ‘Look at me!’” But after exploring it some more, and heeding the advice of folks like Chris Brogan, who advocated the use of Twitter as a tool for keeping connected with subjects that were of interest and importance to you, I found my way to #innochat.

                        For those of you who don’t know, #innochat is a weekly Twitter chat held at noon (USA Eastern Standard/Daylight Time) every Thursday. Each week a topic is determined, a framing post is created in support of the topic with links to appropriate resources, and some key questions are identified to prompt and guide discussion. Usually the person who identified the topic also writes the framing post and moderates the chat on that day. Between 50 to 150 people “show up” to wrestle with a core concept each week. In the space of an hour we may have nearly 1,000 tweets. In short, it is a great online event which rarely disappoints in terms of engagement, energy, and enthusiasm.

                        What does this have to do with event participation? Good question.

                        This chat model is an adjunct to a wider series of Twitter chat and live event integrations which are expanding the impact and engagement of those events beyond participants in a room. One recent example is covered very well by Angela Dunn (aka @blogbrevity) who wrote a series of great posts at Pharmaphorum on “How to make your conference social”. Angela’s most recent post focuses on the establishment of a bloggers’ hub and how to effectively participate in an event as a blogger. You might even see someone you know being interviewed.

                        Angela Dunn interview with Renee Hopkins & Drew Marshall

                        The great thing about Angela’s advice is that it is practical and useful no matter what type of event you run. This is drawn directly from her own experience as a blogger at multiple events and this post specifically focuses on the great work of George Levy, VP of Online Marketing for HSM Americas, who created the Blogger’s Hub at the HSM World Innovation Forum three years ago. From a full-blown, multiday conference to a focused internal event for innovators in your organization, integrating social media expands the scope of the conversation and broadens its utility to a much wider audience. The key is to be clear about your objectives for participants both in the room and further afield.

                        As part of my volunteer work helping to coordinate #innochat sessions, which I fell into, I have also been asked to participate as a live blogger for internal company events. Francois Gossieux, founder of Human 1.0, invited me to participate in one such event for a technology innovation company that incorporated a range of bloggers, the host company, and client participants in the room. By engaging bloggers, the company created a much wider platform for its small event, inviting participation from around the world to share in the experience being generated in a hotel conference room in Orlando, Florida. This event leveraged social media in a way that meant the host company had a broader reach and greater impact than a typical trade show event or internal product launch would ever have had.

                        Another off-shoot from my #innochat experience was taking the online chat to a live setting at the South By South West Interactive Festival (aka. SXSW) this year. Renee Hopkins, one of the long-time contributors to and hosts of #innochat invited me, Gwen Ishmael, and Jason Sutton to participate in a Core Conversation at SXSW on Business 101—focused on making money as a small enterprise or solo entrepreneur. Now, the way Core Conversations had been designed by the SXSW organizers was to have them be audio-visual-free zones: The rooms were set up in the round (all the chairs facing each other in a large circle) with no AV equipment. Being the innovators we are, the #innochat team on the ground immediately subverted that.

                        We set up a projector and omni-directional microphone in order to live-stream the conversation in the room. We also had Gwen and Justin cover the #innochat hashtag live while Renee and I integrated comments from inside the room with questions, comments, and suggestions from the wider #innochat community. Our experience at SXSW had been that if audience members were dissatisfied with their in-room experience, they would quite rapidly employ the rule of “two feet” in that they could walk out at any stage. We started with a packed room (over 100 people) and we ended up with people sitting on the floor around the room by the time we finished. The dynamic between the room participants and those following and engaging with the chat stream at #innochat was great.

                        As people left, some said it was the most engaging session they had been to so far.

                        How are you maximizing the use of social media to increase the impact of your efforts?

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                        SXSW – The social focus in innovation

                        March 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

                        This week I had the good fortune to be asked to co-moderate a session at the South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. Based on a set of criteria laid out by the festival organizers – apparently as an expat Australian living in the wilds of central New Jersey I ticked some boxes on the diversity chart – I was afforded a front-row seat at the 25th anniversary of a remarkable event.

                        I won’t tell you all the things that I saw, simply some highlights. What I will say is that for all the pontificating about whether SXSW had jumped the shark, or whether the value was in the room or outside the room, I felt that for an event this size SXSW was one of the better managed conferences I have ever attended. Assistance was readily available should it be required. People were generally courteous. The opportunities to learn were plentiful, and yes, those opportunities were both in the presentation rooms and out on the street in cafés, bars and restaurants, too.

                        I was not able to devote more than three days to my SXSW experience and given how much I did I don’t know how anyone can pull themselves together for the full ten-day Platinum program. With all the parties involved it would be a shattering experience which would require another ten days vacation for recuperation.

                        Speakers heard
                        There is something about conferences with a reputation that makes speakers lift their game. To fail (or is that, FAIL?) at SXSW would certainly be a career limiting move. One of the highlights was seeing June Cohen, the Executive Producer of TED Media, share the journey that the TED conference has taken as it has become a platform for sharing the inspiring and thought-provoking from around the world. Ms. Cohen’s passionate exploration of the challenges of taking TED content “radically open-source” was engaging and intriguing. What TED is and what it is becoming are fast becoming two very different ecosystems. I’m looking forward to watching and learning more over time.

                        From the sublime to, well if not ridiculous, the profane was the experience of Gary Vaynerchuck live. The large ballroom in the Austin Convention Center was filled with Gary V acolytes and had all the atmosphere of a tent revival meeting. Mr. Vaynerchuck did not disappoint his fans or those new to the experience of him live. He strutted and stormed across the stage and ventured into the audience to spread the love. By turns charming and crass, witty and snide, he kept the audience locked into his always present but not-quite-overt sales pitch for his new book The Thank You Economy. As a New Jersey resident I love his enthusiasm. As a business person I love his story. Certainly the man knows the cardinal rule of the entertainer (no, not working with animals and children) – leave ‘em wanting more.

                        Rather than providing more speaker recaps, I’ll leave with a brief overview of Bruce Sterling’s closing speech. Now, I as a long time fan of science fiction, I am a huge fan of Bruce Sterling’s writing. I had never seen him live, but knew that his connection to SXSW was long and deep. He did not disappoint either. In a speech that was part angry polemic and part trickster diatribe, Mr. Sterling spared no mercy in skewering Washington, DC politics, Italian politics, politics in general, corporations specifically, and another SXSW speaker J.Craig Venter directly. One of his earliest pearls was that, “all the political language has been rendered toxic.” As a writer, if your use of language is restricted it means you’re a party to organized deception. And Mr. Sterling was not to be silenced. Go here, for a very neat Twitter capture by Jon Lebkowsky. http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/03/bruce-sterling-at-sxsw-2011-brilliance-on-twitter/)

                        Another highlight directly connected to the speakers, panelists and presenters was the sponsorship by the advertising giant Ogilvy, of a series of visual note-takers from ImageThink who attended and documented nearly 100 sessions over three days. Their output is phenomenal. See here for a link to the efforts.

                        Connections made
                        As mentioned earlier, I was invited to participate with Renee Hopkins, the Senior Editor of Texas Enterprise in the co-moderation and facilitation of an Innochat live core conversation. Core conversations are meant to be topic-focused but wide-ranging full group discussions. Our topic for the day was, “Business Model 101: How do you make money?”

                        Not knowing what to expect we knew that we needed to bring some technology into the room, which was not provided (on purpose) for core conversations. The intent by the SXSW organizers was to keep people focused on dialogue and not technology. That said, we need to stream a live feed from the #innochat Twitter feed as that was the heart of our initial pitch. We managed to do that and have Gwen Ishmael and Justin Sutton from Decision Analyst, Inc. in the room moderating the live stream and bringing participants into the room by highlighting specific tweets. With over 100 participants in the room and a good many online our discussion was lively and over all too quickly (see: Vaynerchuck – “…leave ‘em wanting more,” above.)

                        For me, however the main highlights from attending SXSW was making connections with people I know online from Twitter in real life and from past lives. A group of innochat leaders were able to connect in real life over food at Threadgill’s North (I highly recommend the meatloaf with garlic cheese grits.) It was great to take a set of relationships from one technology space offline and have just as wide-ranging and robust discussion. I also had the good fortune to experience dinner with a former co-worker (and friend) and her husband. I was treated to the spectacular views from the deck of The Oasis, which have to been seen to be believed (as does the décor of the currently being refurbished and expanded establishment.) And if you ever get the chance to see The Carper Family play live at the Hole in the Wall I highly recommend it!

                        All in all, experiencing a place like Austin making accommodations for the masses of conference attendees while retaining its sense of self was wonderful. The mix of music, film and digital media folks made for a vibrant combination and the energizing discussions filled with opportunities to learn, with friends and queuing strangers alike, made it a great experience.

                        I look forward to returning next year, if not sooner.

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                        SXSW Interactive – Primed Associates will be there

                        February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

                        For those of you who don’t know, Drew Marshall at Primed Associates is actively involved with #innochat, one of the most active chat groups on Twitter which meets every week on Thursday at Noon USA Eastern Time. One of the things that makes #innochat so engaging is that it attracts those who are keenly interested in innovation from around the world. Each week a new topic is presented, a framing post for the topic is posted on the #innochat site, and the group focuses on some key questions the topic raises.

                        At innochat we covered a wide range of subjects in 2010, such as:
                        • Collaborative Innovation – hosted by @Renee_Hopkins on January 11
                        • Explore the relationship between design thinking & innovation – hosted by @estephen on February 18
                        • Can we learn to be innovative? – hosted by @PaulSloane on March 18
                        • The Role of Consumers in Innovation – hosted by @Gwen_Ishmael on April 22
                        • Discovery-driven planning is a plan to learn – hosted by @Brioneja May 27
                        • Complexity vs. Complicated tackled with good design thinking – hosted by @jpamental on June 17
                        • Innovation Process Models – hosted by @SSusman on July 8
                        • Innovation Backwards: Leading Entrepreneurs to Innovation – hosted by @Renee_Hopkins on August 19
                        • Setting Cultures That Foster Open Innovation Crowdsourcing – hosted by @Gwen_Ishmael on September 9
                        • Crossing the O (Operations) Gap – hosted by @DanielleCass on October 14
                        • On building innovation communities – hosted by @AndreaMeyer on November 4
                        • Time-Value of Innovation and the 24 Hour Customer – hosted by @ExponentialEdge on December 9

                        To say it is fast and furious would be an understatement.

                        Well, with the idea that even those involved in #innochat can benefit from an change in perspective to drive their own approach to innovation, Renee Hopkins, one of #innochat’s current leaders (along with Gwen Ishmael and our technology guru, Jason Pamental), decided to create an #innochat event for SXSW 2011 Interactive. Here she is in her own pitch to the good folks at SXSW:

                        The regular Thursday noon Innochat has become hugely popular on Twitter. As founder of Innochat, I propose a live session with a mixed panel of innovation experts and entrepreneurs in which we’ll discuss business model theory and business model innovation and design as they pertain to specific start-ups and established companies. We will gather volunteers beforehand, entrepreneurs and representatives from existing companies who are willing to discuss their process of business model innovation and eager to get advice from the panel of Innochat experts. Business model innovation is a hot topic currently because entrepreneurs are discovering that without a clear picture of their business model success remains elusive. And established businesses facing threats are discovering that redesigning their business models may be the only thing that will save them. This topic is of particular interest at SXSW because many attendees are either startups or come from companies threatened by the rise of digital publishing of all kinds — the music industry, print media, the film industry, and the software industry, in particular — companies that critically need new business models to survive.

                        Needless to say, Renee’s pitch was accepted and she and Drew Marshall will be moderating this core conversation on Monday March 14 at 12:30PM (Austin time which is Central Standard Time). We hope to see you there. Or, see you participate on line by following the #innochat hashtag on Twitter.

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                        Forget Inspiration: Innovation-capable cultures demand respiration

                        November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

                        When faced with the challenge of creating a vibrant, innovation-capable culture, many organizations focus their efforts almost entirely on the front end of innovation. Their focus implies that innovation begins and ends with ideation, and their efforts extend little beyond the generation of vast numbers of ideas. Recently, A.G. Lafley, the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble (P&G), spoke at length at the tenth World Business Forum in New York City, about what it took for innovation to be revitalized in the company during his tenure.

                        The essence of a creative culture is openness, curiosity, connecting, collaborating, and courage.
                        - A.G. Lafley

                        While the fuzzy front end received attention, it was not the only area of focus. He noted that for innovation to be truly successful, it had to become something the organization lived and breathed. It was not only about the inspiration necessary for a good idea but the habits formed by making innovation processes stable and robust enough that they could be relied upon for the long-term.

                        For more on this topic see our guest post at the OnInnovation blog

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                        Is it hot in here? A review of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire by Braden Kelley

                        October 15, 2010 By 4 Comments

                        For those of you who don’t know Braden Kelley, he is one of several thought-leader, whirling dervishes in the innovation space. Braden is the founder and executive editor of the innovation hub, Blogging Innovation, and most recently is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire: A Roadmap to a Sustainable Culture of Ingenuity and Purpose. This readily accessible offering is focused on getting the fundamentals of innovation right. It directly addressed key obstacles that cripple innovation in organizations, regardless of their initial innovation successes.

                        It should be noted that I know Braden and admire his work in innovation. That said, I purchased the book myself (Kindle edition) and have every intention of offering a clear perspective. When I make recommendations I fully understand that my reputation is on the line, too. So, I am pleased to be able to offer a strong endorsement for this book. For anyone interested in innovation in their organization, the ideas presented matter.

                        One of my favorite features in this obviously well-researched effort is the devotion to case studies. Braden uses the case studies to both highlight best practices and shortcomings in innovation and the wide range makes his thinking relevant to people across all industries and levels in organizations. Interestingly, while many authors have positioned Apple’s journey as one of a paragon of innovation virtue, Braden takes the time to truly unpack and review Apple’s overnight innovation success. His attention to detail means that we begin to understand how hard innovation can be, even for the best, and what we can do to address the blockages to success head on.

                        Now, for those hoping to find a silver bullet for innovation success, this book is not for you. Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire is focused on providing the reader with practical, incremental steps that can be taken to build innovation effectiveness over time. There are no quick fixes. There are no simple solutions. On offer is solid advice, clearly presented. It is not ground breaking, but to perfectly clear, that’s not what is needed. People need to understand that for innovation to matter in an enterprise and to be sustained over time the basic tenets that Braden identifies and clearly explains need to be in place. Without them the opportunity to fail will present itself quite readily.

                        The book’s natural progression from vision and strategy through to organization psychology and innovating under crisis conditions makes this a useful guide to keep at hand as you continue on your innovation journey. Braden notes, and I wholeheartedly agree, that there are fundamentals without which you will not be successful. He clearly describes the challenges and offers sensible solutions for addressing them. His approach is to create the culture and systems and processes that will support innovation for the long-term.

                        Perhaps one of my favorite sections is titled “Saying No in the Right Way.” So many times I have seen the passion of innovators in organizations run aground on the negativity attendant with the strategic (and sometimes, not-so-strategic) decision-making surrounding which opportunities to pursue and which to abandon. Braden addresses the ego inherent in people sharing and evaluating their ideas in a public domain. He also notes that sometimes the smartest people in the room have the least capability to explain or develop their ideas in order to make their invention an innovation reality. The approach he recommends is to foster trust by understanding the skills that people bring to the table before you go down the innovation road as well as set clear expectations for the process of selection. All of which requires preparation.

                        Ultimately, the investments you make in creating clear communications around your idea evaluation policies and processes, and in maintaining their transparency, will be repaid tenfold. Innovation ideas will continue to flow only as long as there is trust and faith in the healthy operation of the process.

                        Which is the heart of the matter. If you want to innovate you cannot simply jump in and expect the best outcomes. You need to think and prepare. That does not mean you must prepare to perfection. But you do need to have the elements in place, the basic framework that will support your collaborative efforts, to keep your innovation efforts heading in the right direction. Like a bonfire, innovation burns best and brightest when it has a stable structure to which you can keep adding fuel. If your organization is struggling to get its innovation efforts off the ground, or if you feel it has lost its way, then you should take a look at Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, it will help your business rebuild its hidden or lost innovation capabilities.

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                        Innochat Transcript – 19 August – Innovation Backwards?

                        August 24, 2010 By

                        Sorry for the delay in getting the most recent innochat transcript posted. The challenge associated with connecting while on the road was greater than anticipated. Needless to say I didn’t expect to be looking at Uluru (aka. Ayers Rock) in the middle of Australia as I type this, but here I am.

                        Thanks for your patience. Attached is the transcript from the “Innovation Backwards?” chat, which was incredibly well positioned thanks to the great framing post from Caroline Di Diego and excellent moderation by Renee Hopkins.

                        A favorite tweet from this week’s post? This insight from Jose Briones:
                        The biggest issue is that in most cases picking winners from the ideation process really means picking favorites.

                        #innochat – transcript August 19 2010

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                        Innochat Transcript – 13 August – The Effects of Booms and Busts on Innovation

                        August 13, 2010 By 1 Comment

                        David W. Locke stepped in this week with a great framing post and moderation of the topic: The Effects of Booms and Busts on Innovation. Many thanks to David for his efforts!

                        A vibrant discussion was had and the perils of commoditization came to light as a pattern that drives down innovation performance due to resultant cost pressures and resource constraints. It was also interesting to see discussion on how companies focused on responding to market cycles need to pay attention to their own product lifecycle management, too.

                        David Locke’s tweet: “Fast followers don’t innovate. They just drag your price down.” certainly points toward the competitive environment in a post-boom world. Survival outweighs all other factors. Perhaps the most telling tweet he offered was his assessment on the current state of the economy: “It’s not just biz not usual, there is no biz, and will not be any biz for a very long time. Boom ate future.”

                        Ouch

                        #innochat – transcript August 13 2010

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