Peter Drucker on the essentials of innovation

Roy Luebke summarises Drucker's opportunities that drive innovation and why effective innovations start small:

http://www.innovationtools.com/weblog/innovationblog-detail.asp?ArticleID=1279

Where to look for innovation opportunities?

• The organization's own unexpected successes and failures, and also those of the competition. If we don't ask why we succeeded (was it just luck?) or are prepared to ask the difficult questions about failure, we won't learn how to innovate better in future.
• Incongruities in processes, production and anomalies in customer behavior. Here we spot an unusual pattern in better or worse than sales, profitability or productivity and if we ask why, we find innovation.
• Process needs. When new technology arrives there is an opportunity to find new, better and more efficient ways of production and distribution.
• Changes in industry and market structures. Sometimes new competition is good for your organisation in forcing it to raise its game.
• Changes in demographics. Spotting the generational differences that highlight when and how products and services need innovation to appeal to shifting customer preferences.
• Changes in meaning and perception. When others start to shift their assumptions about the world and their place within it, innovation will identify new opportunities for different products and services.
• New knowledge. Knowledge drives technological change which opens up new possibilities for innovation.

Drucker felt that the best innovations start small and don't try to be too clever. Effective innovations try to do one specific thing, they start small to allow for adjustments and improvements, and they focus on the present. "The innovation may have long term impact, but if you can't get it adopted now there won't be any future."

3 conditions for an innovation to be successful:

• Innovation is work. It requires knowledge, ingenuity, creativity alongside diligence, perseverance and commitment.
• Innovators must build on their own strengths, identifying opportunities that provide a fit, a temperamental fit between the innovator and the business strategy.
• Innovation must always be close to the market, focused on the market, and market driven.

5 trend watching tips

Trendwatching.com provides an insight into trend watching:

1. Know why you're tracking trends. We're not gazing into a crystal ball to forecast the future. We're detecting, observing and understanding what's already happening now. Here we're identifying patterns of change to find opportunities.

2. Have a point of view. Trends need context which requires a broad perspective. Our theories about these patterns need to be accompanied with curiousity and open mindedness. And we might not like every trend we spot, but we can't dismiss them simply because they don't fit with our own personal world view.

3. Weave your web of resources. Be imaginative in your trawl of where to look for trends, everything from magazines and catalogues, trade shows and conferences, social networking, competitors, friends, family and colleagues to experts and trend gurus.

4. Fine tune your trend framework. Your trend framework isn't a long list of the trends you've observed. See trends as operating at three levels: macro, consumer and industry, and think about the inter-relationships.

5. Embed and apply. Start a trend group within your organisation and build support from key stakeholders to translate emerging trends into insights that will drive innovation about:

• your organisation's overall vision and purpose
• a new business concept, activity or brand
• new products, services and customer experiences
• the language of those customers who are already living this trend

The trendspotting trend

Richard Watson suggests trendspotting is quite simple: "just walk around with yourt eyes and ears wide open".

http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/innovation/watson/071204.html

"Most organisations don't spend much time talking to customers. Instread they spend a large amount of money talking to people through other people, often asking the qrong questions or talking to people with nothing to say."

To spot the next big thing:

• Be curious - and obsess - about everything
• Keep asking why new things are happening. Keep asking until you get to an answer
• Look for patterns amidst the range of new ideas, attutides and behavuiour
• Speak to thought leaders and find out what's uppermost in their minds
• Keep track of what new entrants in your industry are doing
• Search out for innovations from other sector and countries to evaluate their relevance to your organisation
• Remember that every trend has a counter-trend. What are the opportunities of adopting a contrarian point of view?
• Keep it simple. Look for what is universal in the ephemeral

The future of innovation

Drew Boyd predicts not what specific innovations we can expect in the next 10 years, but the characteristics of future successful inventions:

http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2010/11/characteristics-of-future-innovations.html

Mobility. Future products will incorporate an element of mobility and integration within a mobile life style.

Adaptiveness. Future products will adapt and morph depending on the situation if its use. This "smart" product will change its characteristics in ways to keep providing benefits to the user.

Simplicity. This is a product of "more with less".

Specificity. Innovative products in future will be smart in identifying problems and providing solutions.

Ideality. This is innovation as providing solutions to problems only when they are needed.