How to Stay Relevant in Turbulent Times Due to the disruption from coronavirus, many of our societal institutions – companies, schools, non-profits, and government – are scrambling to develop flexible hybrid value delivery platforms, that is, ways to deliver their value through face-to-face platforms and online. Innovation skills are more important now than ever. Yet, ...

Focus: the Key to Success Knowing where to focus is the key to success at innovation. “Focus…means saying ‘no’ to the hundred other good ideas…You have to pick carefully…Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.” – Steve Jobs But how do you pick the one best idea among hundreds? What constitutes a “good idea?” First and ...

Why People Don’t Want to Buy Your Products and Services Nobody wants to buy your products or services or mine; they want to acquire value. Customers measure value by how well a product or service helps them get their functional, emotional, and social jobs done. Products and services are just the tools people “hire” to ...

How to Get Online Classes Right In mid-March, COVID-19 forced America’s K-12 schools and universities to change their delivery platform from traditional classrooms to online programs. This has been a massive challenge for all involved. Not surprisingly, the online programs have fallen far short. Although most schools and universities are opening in the fall, their ...

If You Think Innovation is Risky, Try Irrelevance If you think innovation is risky, try irrelevance. Three mistakes that cause leaders to unduly pull back from innovation: 1) Failing to validate customers’ unmet needs before investing in the development of solutions. Study after study has shown that the number one cause of innovation failure is ...

How to Create New Products that Customers Want Some people believe that the most innovative companies create customer demand with breakthrough new offerings. They say things like, “Nobody knew they needed an iPhone until Apple created it. Apple created needs that people didn’t even know they had.” Hence, if you want to be an innovation leader, ...

Innovation Sets the Stage for Creativity

The First Thing Every Innovation Team Should Do Until an organization establishes accurate, precise, and agreed-upon meanings for the key concepts of innovation, its innovation efforts will flounder. “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” – Socrates Can you imagine an attorney attempting to prosecute a negligence case without a clear and agreed-upon definition ...

How to Clean Up Your Innovation Mess According to the late Wharton Professor Russell Ackoff, attempting to innovate without first validating customer demand is a “mess.” Indeed, any situation that has “arguable issue definition and arguable solutions” is a mess. In other words, if you are trying to solve a problem that has not been ...

Testimonial by Christian St-Onge, Director of Global Strategy, Can-Am Off-Road Vehicles, BRP What if you knew where to focus and what to do to address your target customers’ unmet needs, create unique value, and drive growth in a repeatable manner? Could that change the game for you?