Should “innovation” only be used to refer to big, world-changing ideas? No. This is actually a dangerous approach to innovating. The biggest hurdle is actually getting started – it’s more important to put effort into that.
When new ideas arrive, it might be easy to see that they will eventually win. But when should you adopt these ideas? It’s a hard question to answer.
When markets change, we often try to keep using the same tools that we’ve always used, in the same way. This will lead to failure. We need to innovate the tools we use, or innovate the business model around the old tools.
TL;DR – when attention spans get shorter, we can either accommodate this by going short ourselves, or we can do the opposite and go deep.
The most important phrase in innovation is “this might not work.” If there isn’t a risk, we’re not innovating.
We know how to make organisations more innovative, but we don’t act on this knowledge. Why? Sometimes it’s because it’s hard, which isn’t a very good excuse.
People are often looking for a quick way to become more innovative. The problem is that there are no quick fixes. Overcoming the obstacles to innovation is one good way of knowing that you’re on the right track, but it takes time.
Organisations that are just starting out at innovating often go out and immediately buy expensive tools. This is a mistake – they don’t know enough to innovate effectively yet. Here are some thoughts about how to work around that problem.
Using the internet changes your brain. So does drinking a cup of tea. The big question is what actions do these changes enable? I want us to use the ideas here to make work work better.