Innovation is an overused term in business today.  Customers are constantly being bombarded with claims of “new and improved” offerings.  With so much messaging around innovation, it’s easy to see how people can become jaded.

Companies pursue innovation, or at least the perception of innovation, because they recognize the potential it has for their business.  Here’s a great quote from Peter Drucker:

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions:  marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”

– Peter Drucker

Since, according to Drucker, both marketing and innovation produce results, it’s easy to see why many companies just market “new and improved” rather than deliver substantially improved products or services.  It’s easier to change the message than it is to change the offering.

Even so, the reality is real innovation can delight your customers and turn them into fans for your brand.  Where does the innovation process begin?  With the customer.  It’s a simple but hard truth that if you want to “Wow!” your customer you need to understand them better. 

• What are they trying to accomplish?
• What benefit do they receive from you today?
• What problems or frustrations do they have with your current offering?
• Are there other related problems they wish you would solve?

Let’s look at an example.  Picasa is a free photo organizer from Google.  Early versions focused on organizing images on your computer and importing photos from a digital camera.  Over time the product evolved to include image editing, printing, and sharing.  These new features were added because Google recognized that people do more than just organize their photos.  They crop them, print them in collages, and share them with family and friends.  By better understanding what people do with pictures, Google addressed problems outside the original scope of photo organization.

Real innovation is based on insight into the needs of your customers.  Walk in your customers shoes.  See your business from their perspective.  And in the immortal words of Chevy Chase in Caddy Shack, “be the ball.”

Over the years we’ve worked on a number of projects where the goal was to rewrite an existing system to take advantage of new technologies, hardware platforms, and so on.

On the surface it seems easy.  The client invariably says something along the lines of:  “Just take what we have now and rewrite it for the web.”  The same applies to cloud computing and mobile apps.

The flaw with this approach is that the way “what we have now” works and the way the web works are fundamentally different.  For example, a typical web application allows customers to log into the system, place orders, check status, update payment information and so on.  The customer is a first class participant in the way the system works.  On the other hand, the “what we have now” system is only used by internal staff.  There is no concept of customer roles, permissions, and work flows. 

The first step in taking advantage of a new technology is to rethink how your customers will interact with the new system.  Step into your customer’s shoes and approach your business from their perspective.  What are they trying to accomplish?  What information do they need to make a decision?  How do they want to be notified of progress or problems?  What is the right level of detail to share with the customer?  They probably don’t want to know how the sausage is made; they just want to buy the finished product.

Now repeat the same exercise for the different user roles within your company.  Focus on the needs of the individual roles.  The executive, finance manager, and production manager all have very different needs.

If you skip the rethinking exercise your new system will not be as good as it could be.  You’ll miss the opportunity to delight your customers and your business won’t reap the full benefit of your investment in new technology.

The rest of you are probably better off just downloading the handout from the event.

Companies need to deliver new and innovative offerings to attract and retain customers.  Simply put, innovation occurs when your customer says:  “Wow!  I’ll buy that.”

Innovation is important because customer expectations are changing and the competition is innovating to lure customers away from your business.

Many times companies look to technology to help drive innovation.  This makes sense because new technologies really are shaking up the way businesses interact with their customers.  The problem with a technology driven approach is the overwhelming number of options available.  It’s also easy to lose sight of the customer and get caught up in chasing the latest and greatest technology fads.

A better approach is to start by understanding the purpose or belief that drives your company forward.  In his excellent TED talk, Simon Sinek states, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Now go out and talk with customers – as in real live conversations with real live people.  No email or texting is permitted.  Focus on understanding your customers and their needs.  What do they really care about?  What is the real benefit they receive from your company?  What problems are they experiencing?  What ideas do they have?  The only difference between a problem and an idea is the language used to describe it.

Tap into your experience and intuition to develop customer insight that allows you to distinguish between what customers say they want and what they really need.  Use your customer insight to evaluate ideas and technologies.  Think about how you can change the way customers interact with your business.  Think about how you can improve the overall customer experience.

The driver of innovation today is insight, not technology.

Have courage – don’t be encumbered by how things have been done in the past.  If you’re not willing to take market share from another part of your business, your competition will gladly do it for you.

Technology can be used to meet the status quo or make something new.  Maintaining the status quo doesn’t help you win new business – it simply keeps you from being eliminated from consideration in the first round.  Successful companies use technology to support and enhance their competitive advantages.

The real value of new technology is rethinking how customers interact with your business.

Companies need customers to stay in business.  Innovation is a key element for attracting and retaining new customers.  Innovation is driven by customer insight.  The more you know about your customers, the better your chances for creating new offerings that they will notice and buy.

Here's a quick summary of the talk.  

Companies need customers to stay in business.  Innovation is a key element for attracting and retaining new customers.  Innovation is driven by customer insight.  The more you know about your customers, the better your chances for creating new offerings that they will notice and buy.

The real value of new technology is rethinking how customers interact with your business.

Here's a handout of the presentation for your reading pleasure.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with passwords.  Given the proliferation of sites that require you to login, one could easily have a dozen or more passwords to memorize. 

Sure you could always write them on a sticky note on your monitor, or use the same password for multiple sites.  It doesn’t take a security wizard to realize that neither of these are safe approaches to passwords. 

The idea is simple:  Site Based Phrase + Secure Phrase = Secure Password

Site Based Phrase

The first part of the password will be based on the site itself.  By applying a pattern to the name of the site you’ll be able to re-remember the first part of your password each time you need to login.  Let’s illustrate with several patterns using Twitter as an example.

Site:  Twitter

Note that the first letter of the password is intentionally capitalized.  You could vary the patterns above by capitalizing a different letter – second, third, etc.

Secure Phrase

The second part of the password is a secure phrase that you memorize.  We’re going to add symbols and numbers to make it more secure.  Here are some examples based on ACC school names.

Yes, this part of the password is harder to memorize.  But you only need one of these phrases.

Combining the Phrases

To get a secure password, combine the site based phrase with your secure phrase.  Here are examples for a few popular sites.

Conclusion

Would the National Security Agency endorse this approach?  Probably not.  It will, however, keep you off the Worst Passwords List and it’s much better than using the same password on multiple sites.

Seth Godin wrote an interesting blog post about The Extraordinary Software Development Manager.  He describes how it takes more than a good programmer to build and deliver great software.

Why?  Because building great software is more than just writing code.  Writing code is the easy part.  It’s much harder to:

• Understand the business drivers behind the project
• Generate insights into customer needs and market trends
• Think about the customer experience from the perspective of the end user
• Identify and focus on the most important priorities of the system

To build great software you have to understand more than what you’re building.  You must also understand why you’re building the software and for whom. 

And while what the software will do receives intense debate, there is almost no discussion given to what the software won’t do.  The features you cut from a project can greatly improve the likelihood of project success, keep the team focused, and provide a streamlined experience for the end user.

All the while you’re working on why and whom, you still have to manage expectations of cost, delivery dates, and functionality.

Software project fail because teams:

• Over promise and under deliver
• Focus on “flashy” features and neglect core functionality
• Rush to start coding too soon and make design decisions that are costly down the road
• Assume that severa good programmers are the same as a few great ones

Seth’s article describes two approaches for your next project:

We don't have time to do it over so we have to spend the time to do it right.

Or, you can have some newbies hack something together real quick. Up to you.

Building great software is hard not because the programming or technology is difficult.  It’s hard because you can’t be lazy in answering the questions as to why you need the project, how it’s going to be used, and what problems it solves for the end user.

In Part 1 of this series, we described why you need to rethink the role of technology in your business.  In Part 2, we started the rethinking process by focusing on the customer experience.  We outlined a process for listening and gathering feedback from customers.

Once you have a raw list of customer feedback, the next task is to review the list, looking for trends and common themes.  Try to turn specific requests into broader goals.  Look for the underlying problem or need being expressed.  For example, if someone asks you to send an email when their order ships, they are asking to be notified as the status of their order changes.

As you consolidate your list, don’t think in terms of a particular solution or technology.  It’s easy to get side tracked thinking of solutions, or even dismiss ideas all together because a solution is not readily apparent.  In the example above, your focus should be on notifications not sending email.  Email is one of several ways of providing notifications to customers.

Once you have a reasonably consolidated wish list, the next step is to determine which items can provide the most value to you and your customers.

For each item on your list, imagine that you have been able to solve and implement a solution.  Don’t worry about how; focus on the benefits you would receive.

• How would it change the way customers interact with your business? 
• Would you make more money?  How much?
• Would it reduce your costs?  How much? 
• Would it put you ahead of your competition?  How far? 

Does a particular idea have the potential to turn your customers in to raving lunatics for your brand, willing to stand in long lines in bad weather just to get the newest version of your product – it’s 3mm thinner! – even though they have the previous version and it works just fine?

Score each item in terms of dollars or on a scale of 1 to 10, whichever suites you better.  Again look for themes:  greater access beyond business hours, visibility into the process, notification of status, and so on.

Also look for items that resonate with your brand, business drivers, or core values.  Your customers already understand many of these and will take notice when you continue to improve them.

As you go through the exercise, some items may resonate with you more than others.  Trust your instincts and give those ideas a higher value.  Other ideas may not feel right.  Perhaps they take your business in a direction you are not comfortable pursuing.  Again, trust your instincts and give those ideas a lower value.

With any luck, you’ll end up with two or three items that stand out above the rest.  They reinforce the values of your company, address specific customer needs, and provide value to your business and your customers.

In Part 4, we’ll discuss how to evaluate and select technologies to address the top ideas you have identified and put together a business case for implementing them.

Being more responsive to customer needs is a common theme these days.  This includes the rollout of new products and services, as well as the handling of customer service issues.  Nowadays, customers who feel ignored or neglected often turn to social media channels to vent their frustrations to a global audience.

A case in point is Dave Carroll.  Dave had his guitar broken by United Airlines during a trip in 2008.  Frustrated by the response from the airline, he launched a YouTube video that has been viewed over 11 million times.

So how can you get the various departments in your company to be more responsive to customer needs?

The first step is awareness.  Many leaders stay focused on internal operations, leaving little time for understanding customer problems and frustrations.  CIO Magazine reports that only 9% of CIOs spend time studying market trends and customer needs.

In order to be more responsive to customer needs, leaders need to step outside the walls of the organization and experience their company through the eyes and ears of their customers.  How hard is to get through to customer support?  Can you find the most commonly downloaded form on your web site?  Why do you need to download, print, fill out, and fax back a form in the first place?

Small improvements to your product or service may seem critically important when that’s all you know about.  When you walk a mile in your customers’ shoes, however, you’re likely to see new opportunities that have the potential for much greater returns.

There’s a great quote in Brad’s article from Anu George, chief quality officer at Morningstar:

“Technology is integral to our business.  Our operations, quality, and technology teams work very closely with each other to drive process improvements that enhance the overall customer experience.”

This is a great illustration of a best practice:  collaborate across departments to focus improvements on the customer experience.

So next time you think about improving the responsiveness of your organization, don’t focus exclusively on internal improvements.  Make sure you have an up-to-date understanding of your customer and the experience they receive from your company.

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed why you need to rethink the role of technology in your business.  The main drivers were:  changing customer expectations, increased competitive pressure, and the emergence of new technologies.

So you’re ready to rethink the role of technology in your business.  Where do you start?  Choosing technology begins with stepping into your customers’ shoes and rethinking your business itself.  Before you can select a solution, you need to understand what you’re trying to accomplish for your business and your customers.

With that in mind, start with the overall customer experience you want to create and work back towards the technology.  Think about your business and your customers and consider the following questions:

• What do your customers really care about?  Time, money, convenience, risk?
• What’s the ultimate benefit they receive from your products or services? 
• What are the frustrations your customers experience?  Why?
• How many of these are taken as givens by the rest of your industry?
• What are companies in other industries doing?  Could these ideas be applied to your business?
• Are there regulations impacting you or your customers?

The Importance of Listening

Chances are you’ll come up with several useful insights and probably a few additional questions.  So far so good.  Now it’s time to get out of the office and listen to real life customers.   

Here’s a great way to get the conversation started – ask your customers where they would invest in your business to get better results for themselves.  Ask why.  Listen.  They will likely tell you how to tweak what you already do well and point out areas where you need to improve.  Go through the above questions with them.  Again, ask why and avoid the temptation to defend your current practices and really listen.

“Why?” is a really powerful question.  Many times people respond with ideas and feedback in the form of solutions:  you need after hours support, or you should email me a confirmation.  Asking why can help you identify the underlying problem or need that’s being expressed.  Don’t take solutions at face value – keep digging until you uncover the real issue or objective.

During your conversations some people will talk about problems.  Others will discuss needs or ideas.  The only difference between a problem and an idea is the language used to describe it.  With a bit of creative thinking and word play, you can transform a problem into an idea that you can get excited about.

Get to Know Your Competition

The next part is trickier, but well worth the effort.  Talk to your competitors’ customers.  This is not a sales call!  What do they value most?  What improvements would they like to see made?  What drew them to the competition in the first place?  Did they consider your company?  Again, ask why and listen.

Understanding your competition can help you in two ways.  First, you may find that you actually serve different market segments.  For example, your competition may target customers that want to tweak and configure while you aim for customers that want a turnkey approach.  Guess what?  Your two companies should work out a referral or lead swap program.

Second, you may learn where you can, or do, offer a better product or service than your competition.  In both cases you have learned how to better differentiate your company.  You can now help prospective customers understand when they should pick you and why.

Rethinking the role of technology in your business starts with the customer.  What problems or frustrations do they have?  What improvements would they make if it were their business?   How can the customer experience be improved?

In Part 3, we’ll discuss how to organize the feedback you’ve received to identify common themes and determine which ideas hold the most value for your business and your customers.

Think back to when you first started your company or started working in your industry.  You wanted to make a difference by offering your customers a unique experience; one they couldn’t get anywhere else.  You chose tools and technologies to help create and deliver your offering.  As you talked with customers and prospects, you pointed out the benefits of working with your company and how you were different from the competition.

Over the years you have fine-tuned your offering in response to customer feedback and new offers from your competition.  Perhaps you’ve even added a few new tools and technologies to the mix.

So why do you need to rethink the role of technology in your business now?

For starters, the business landscape has changed and continues to evolve.  Here are some key drivers that are impacting your business:

• Your current customers’ expectations have changed.  What was new and exciting 10 years ago is tried, true, and boring today.
• A new generation of potential customers has emerged.  These “digital natives” are daily consumers of technology and look for companies that use and embrace new technology as they do.
• New competitors have sprung up.  They have taken advantage of new tools and technologies to develop new offerings in order to compete with you and lure away your customers.

What’s more, the list of commonly used technologies has grown as well.  Here’s a short list of technologies that can dramatically change how you interact with your customers:

• Web applications
• Mobile applications
• Voice, e-mail, and SMS notifications
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Cloud computing
• Social media channels

Rethinking your use of technology involves more than fine tuning and incremental additions.  The goal is to step back and ask yourself:  If I were starting my business today, how would I use technology to offer a better product/service to my customers?

The real value of new technology is rethinking how it impacts your business and improves your interactions with your customers.  Appropriately used, new technologies provide your customers more visibility and greater access to your services, while improving the way they do business with you.

In Part 2, we’ll take a look at how to rethink your business to stay relevant in the eyes of your customers and set yourself apart from old and new competitors alike.

Most discussions of cloud computing focus on the technical benefits:  scalability, accessibility, redundancy, usage-based billing, and so on.  While valuable, these are behind the scenes benefits that indirectly impact your customers and their perception of your business.  Simply moving your existing applications to the cloud may offer benefits, but it does not change the way customers do business with your company.

The real value of the cloud is the opportunity to rethink how customers interact with your business.

If you provide your customer the appropriate visibility, ability, and access to your business, your cloud services strategy can improve the way they do business.  You deliver more value to your customers by providing your Business as a Service (BaaS).

The result is that your business becomes an integral part of their operations.  Customers incorporate your services into their business processes to help them run their company better and to provide more value to their customers.  You become more than a vendor – you become a vital part of their business.

Visibility

The architecture of the cloud enables expanded opportunities for integration.  This means the information your company generates through the normal course of business can be made available instantly to your customers.

Without visibility, your customer has to call or email you to get the information they need.  Their next step is to wait while you look up the information in your system and get back to them.  With cloud services, you can expose the appropriate information to your customer so they can find what they need when they need it.

Ability

Because your cloud services are integrated with your business software, you can allow your customers to take actions directly.  They can enter orders, track shipments, and get the information they need to provide value to their customers. 

In effect, you can give them benefits of your business that they didn’t have access to before.  Your customers can then offer these benefits to their customers and stand out from their competition.

Access

Cloud services are built for the web.  This means that they are available 24/7 from anywhere.  Your clients are no longer tethered to their desktop.  They want to get information and take action from a web browser, a tablet device, or a smart phone anytime, anywhere.

Vital Partnership 

When you utilize cloud services to provide visibility, ability, and access, you’re really offering the benefits of your business to your customers as a service.  Your customers can use your offering as a part of their business and pass the benefits of your service along to their customers.  This helps your customer differentiate themselves by providing a higher level of service at a lower cost.  In effect, your cloud services become part of their business strategy.

You now become much more than a vendor.  You become a vital partner.  As a vital partner, you give your customers better value.  Because your service is integrated in their operations, you form a stronger relationship with your customer and provide them with benefits that can lead to repeat business and referrals.

The year is 1997 and Steve has just returned to Apple as CEO.  All the famous "i" products haven't been created yet.  What he shares in the video is really the essence of Apple's strategy for the next decade.

He starts with a business question:  How do you go about selling $8 - 10 billion of product a year?

His answer is simple and powerful:  Start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.

It’s a telling sign that the Amazon team didn’t start by trying to improve on Firefox or Chrome.  They took a step back and asked a much broader question – a question that ultimately enabled them to do something innovative:

               “How would you build a web browser in the era of cloud computing.”

To keep themselves from getting too focused on technology, they also asked another important question:

               “What do customers really care about?”

The Amazon team determined that the most important aspect of browsing the web on a mobile device was the time required to get something usable on the screen.

These two questions enabled the team at Amazon to think differently about browsing the web.  They were able to apply the latest technology to reinventing the web browser in a way that provides a significant benefit to their customers.

We can all learn from this example.  First, make sure you understand what your customers really care about.  Don’t guess – ask them! 

Next, rethink how you would build your product or service in the era of:

• a new technology, like cloud computing
• a new government regulation, like health care reform
• a changing competitive landscape, like a new startup or global player in your market

Asking the questions is the easy part.  The hard part is to have the courage to act on the answers you and your team generate. 

Too many people like technology for its own sake.  They get caught up in fancy gadgets, spec sheets, and bullet points.  They think that having technology is innovative in and of itself.  This is not true.  Innovation only happens when you use technology to provide a real or perceived value to your customer.

There are two primary uses for technology in business: to meet the status quo (web site), and to create something new that moves the business forward (innovation).  In either case, the use of technology should be driven by the needs of the business and the customer.

The status quo case is basically the price of admission.  Every company these days needs a web site.  It really doesn’t add much value to your company, but you need it to do business.  The most successful companies are those that use technology to support and enhance their market differentiators.

Take, for example, Domino’s pizza.  After mounting criticism of their pizza from focus groups and social media sites, Domino’s decided to try something new: listen to their customers, speak frankly to them, encourage feedback, and create a better pizza and a better experience.

They revamped their recipes, created a new marketing campaign, and tried again.  They also used technology in several targeted ways to facilitate communication between them and their clients.

Specifically, they created an online Pizza ordering tool that allowed customers to, 1) order their pizza, 2) track its cooking and delivery process, and 3) provide feedback to the store about “how they’re doing”.

The result of the campaign?  Domino’s reported a more than doubled fourth-quarter profit.

The driver of innovation today is not technology, but insight.  What do customers want?  How can you make it easier for them to do business with you?  And where can technology help reinforce those insights? 

Marketing and innovation create value, all the rest are costs. -- Peter Drucker

Successful business leaders know that their organizations must continually improve existing offerings and roll out new ones in order to attract and retain customers.  This process of continuous improvement lies at the heart of innovation.  If you’re not innovating, someone else is.  As a result, if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward relative to your competition.

Example:

• Gymnast Albert Azaryan was the first person to do the Iron Cross in international competition.
• He was world champion on the rings in 1954 and 1958 and the Olympic champion in 1956 and 1960.
• Over time, the Iron Cross became a common sight in gymnastics routines.
• Currently on the A – G grading scale (A easiest, G most difficult) the Iron Cross is now graded as a B.

The iron cross is still difficult, but it has become a “price of admission” exercise for ring routines.  Those that haven’t taken it to the next level are now left behind.

What is Innovation?

Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. It is capable of being presented as a discipline, capable of being learned, capable of being practiced. Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation, the changes and their symptoms that indicate opportunities for successful innovation. And they need to know and to apply the principles of successful innovation.  -- Peter Drucker

Innovation is a key ingredient in the growth of companies of all sizes and industries.  When you started your business, you did so because you saw an opportunity to do things better than your competition.  That was your first innovation.

A definition is in order: Innovation is anything added to your offering that is perceived by the customer to be new and to add value.  The key components here are the customer, a new offering, and added value.

Your Customer

Successful innovation starts by focusing on what your customer needs, not on what the competition is doing.

The target audience for innovation is your customer.  While this seems obvious, history shows that companies routinely get caught up in technology, industry trends, business or market fads, and end up “innovating” for the wrong reasons. 

If you’ve bought a new HDTV recently you experienced this first hand as you tried to figure out the difference between 1080p and 720p.  As a customer, you don’t care about pixels; you just want to watch Blu-ray movies.  Geeks care about the technical specs associated with new gadgets while most regular people just want the benefit or experience that technology can provide.  Focusing on the experience of the customer and what they’re trying to achieve is paramount.

New Offerings

Innovative ideas don’t always start with new technologies.  Sometimes an old technology applied in a new way can offer more value.

What’s new to you may not be new to your customer.  If your competition beats you to the punch, then you’re not offering anything new to your industry – you’re just keeping up with your competitors.  Conversely, things that are old hat in other markets can offer new value to your customer when applied to your business in unique ways.

For example, tracking the progress of a shipment as it makes its way across the country is nothing new.  However, being able to track the cable guy across town certainly would be!

Added Value

If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse". – Henry Ford

Finally let’s look at value.  The customer is the final judge of value (and innovation) because they alone decide which products and services they are going to purchase. So while a change in your pricing model, return policy, etc. may add value to the company and its shareholders, the customer may not be as impressed. 

Value to the customer means you have solved a problem, made their life easier, or enabled them to do something they hadn’t even thought of yet.  You have to understand your customer before you can craft an offering that they will value.  Creating value requires a combination of marketing and innovation.

Takeaways

• Innovation sets you apart from your competition.  It gives you something they don’t have.
• Over time, innovations that are successful and distinctive when they are first introduced become commonplace and even expected.
• Innovation is an idea or practice that is perceived as new by the customer.

Yes, the economy is shaky, but what better time to focus on new offerings to grow your business.  The biggest advantage of acting now is that it’s easy to stand out and get attention when your competition is running for cover!

It's not a very compelling answer.  And it's also not the whole story.

Knowing what you do is the easy part. Knowing WHY you do it takes some introspection. For us, we believe that investment in innovation is critical to long-term business success. Software development happens to be the tool we use to make innovation happen.

The video below is a TED talk by Simon Sinek. It reinforces the belief that WHY is much more important than WHAT.

As Simon says, "People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it."

You’ve fallen into the first myth of innovation.

Myth #1: It has to be revolutionary to be groundbreaking

You don’t have to start from a blank sheet of paper or think of something that no one else has thought of before.  Innovation can come from making small changes to current ideas that solve specific problems.

Consider the term “overnight success.”  It’s true that innovative companies may achieve notoriety suddenly – after working on their business for years.  The truth is that innovation is an iterative process of solving many smaller problems.  Each small step is attainable, and people may or may not take notice along the way.  But at some point, one small step added to the others will push your product or service into the “breakthrough” category.

Take, for example, everyone’s favorite “innovative” company: Apple.  While the iPod was groundbreaking in the market, it wasn’t all that special from a technological point of view.  Portable music players had existed for decades.  In the 70s, we had transistor radios.  In the 80s, we listened to tapes on our Walkmans.  The 90s brought Diskmans that played CDs.  By 2000, MP3 players existed.  Apple didn’t start from whole cloth to create the iPod.  They took the portable media player and made it a little bit better.  And it changed the industry.

Myth #2: I don’t have innovative ideas

Innovation begins when you acknowledge that things can be better and set an intention to make them so.  If you see problems, you have ideas.  The only difference between a problem and an idea is the language you use to describe it. 

If you run a company, you already understand your business.  You know your customers.  You know what’s working and what you can make better.  Your problems are the seeds of innovation; you just have to train yourself to look at them differently.

Exercise:  Use the innovation worksheet to capture your ideas.

When Apple entered the MP3 player market, there was a problem: only technophiles bought MP3 players.  The market acknowledged the benefits of the MP3 player –  it was smaller, it could hold more songs, and you didn’t have to carry around CDs.  However, there was a barrier to adoption:  the average user didn’t want the hassle of getting their music onto their computer, maintaining a music library, and figuring out how to get it onto their device.

The market didn’t want a better MP3 player.  It wanted a better way to find and listen to music.

Apple’s solution was iTunes: an easy-to-use piece of software that helped people find music and listen to it.  By switching the focus from technical specs to customer experience, Apple didn’t build a more technologically advanced MP3 player, they created a better way to experience music. 

Myth #3: You have to wait for inspiration to strike

More often than not, inspiration doesn’t happen out of the blue.  You have to go looking for it.  Actively search for opportunities (sometimes disguised in problems) by listening to your customers, your employees, and yourself.  Anytime you want to change something, anytime you are frustrated with something – recognize the frustration as a possible opportunity to innovate.  Write it down.

This is where many people get stuck.  When they can’t see an immediate solution to a problem, they assume it can’t be solved and work around it.

To be innovative, don’t worry about HOW to solve the problem, first envision what could be accomplished if the problem was magically solved.  Would you make money?  How much?  What would the customer experience be like?  What does that mean to your business?

Exercise:  Use the innovation worksheet to capture envisioned outcomes.

Quantifying the outcome gives you a ruler you can use to determine how much energy it is worth to try and solve that problem.  If the opportunity is substantial, it may be worth brainstorming, involving your employees, or hiring a consultant to help you find a way to innovate.

The bottom line is there’s no secret to innovation.  It’s attainable for anybody, and you don’t have to wait for it to happen.  You can chose to make yourself more innovative by implementing a repeatable process in which you acknowledge opportunities and allow yourself to imagine what could be achieved if you realized them. 

It's not as hard as you might think.  Your ideas are a primary source of innovation.  These ideas come from insights you have into your business and your customers.  Every problem you see is an opportunity to make change for the better.  Every opportunity you identify is a chance to innovate.

We believe you can create a culture of innovation by acknowledging your ideas and deciding to act on them.  It doesn't happen by accident; innovation is a repeatable, intentional process of identifying opportunities, evaluating outcomes, and strategically investing your resources to achieve a return.

Sometimes technology can play a part.  But as Jim Collins has pointed out:  "Technology by itself can't make a company or leader great.  The role of technology is to accelerate greatness that's already there."

Since 1992, we've helped companies of all shapes and sizes build software to turn their ideas and insights into innovation.  Our goal here is to share our experience and help you, the reader, understand how to transform your ideas into business innovation.