Lessons in Innovation

Guy Kawasaki’s Lessons on Innovation

Written by: Leezia Dhalla at Rackspace

Fostering innovation is hard. It’s a lesson Guy Kawasaki, tech evangelist, author and chief evangelist of Canva, learned in the mid-1980s while working alongside Steve Jobs as Apple’s former chief evangelist. On Monday morning, Guy, a self-proclaimed “very happy Rackspace customer,” kicked off the third Rackspace::Solve summit, held at The Peninsula in downtown Chicago. Here are Guy’s top 10 strategies for fostering innovation:
1. Make Meaning
Great innovation starts with people who want to make meaning—not money. Most great innovators don’t have a grand vision for the future. Instead, they have a desire to change the world, one step at a time. Apple brought computers to people who had never had access to them before. Google made it easy for people to access information quickly. eBay made it possible for people, not just corporations, to sell products online. The desire to change the world can be lucrative — but if you dive into innovation with the goal of making money, you will likely fail.
2. Make Mantra
Great innovation starts with a powerful mantra — a common piece of language that outlines purpose and the reason for existence. The most effective mantras are three simple words. Nike believes in authentic, athletic performance. FedEx exists to deliver peace of mind. At the end of the day, personalized mantras are better than generic mission statements.
3. Jump To The Next Curve
Great innovation happens when you jump to the next curve, not when you duke it out to the same curve. That’s where the real action happens. In the printing industry, great innovation started with the daisy wheel printer and evolved to the laser printer and 3D printer. Those inventors knew that innovation didn’t just mean creating Helvetica font in 24 point. Great innovation means jumping to the next curve. Don’t die on the curve you started on.
4. Role The DICEE
Great innovation means creating DICEE products or services that are Deep, Intelligent, Complete,Empowering and Elegant.

• Great products are deep because they have lots of features and functionality, like dual-purpose sandals designed with a bottle cap opener underneath the sole.
• Great products are intelligent and help the user feel luxurious, like a remote control operated car.
• Great products are complete. Imagine the totality of Google, which is not just a search engine; it’s also analytical and offers Gmail, Google+, Google apps and a host of other offerings. Totality makes it great.
• Great products are empowering. They make it possible for the user to take the wheel.
• Great products are elegant. They show that someone took great care to consider the user and the design.

5. Don’t Worry — Be Crappy
If you wait for the perfect time or for the perfect product, you will never ship and life will pass you buy. There’s a difference between shipping something crappy and shipping something that has elements of crap to it. Look at Apple in 1984. Apple revolutionized an industry by unveiling a product with 108K of RAM. If they had waited for chips to be fast enough or cheap enough, they never would have shipped. You should ship something that’s DICEE and something that has jumped the curve—even if it has elements of crap to it.
6. “Let One Hundred Flowers Blossom.”
Take your best shot at gravity and market your position. Who is your customer? How is your customer using your product? You should put your product out there and see what happens because many times, people use products and services in unintended ways. Identify how people are using your product, and capitalize on it.
7. Polarize People
Great innovation polarizes people. Advertisers and Fortune 500 brands aren’t the biggest fans of TiVo because it enables people to bypass television commercials, which can be a huge source of revenue. TiVo is polarizing, but it’s also a revolutionary product. At the end of the day, great stuff polarizes people.
8. Churn, Baby, Churn
The hardest part of innovation is churn. A great deal of time, you have to refuse to listen to other people because there are people who are going to tell you they want better “sameness.” What this means is that they want a slightly different version of a product that already exists. True innovation means jumping to the next curve. Evolve your product, but listen to the consumers once you ship. User feedback will help you move from version one to version two—but this is often the hardest part of innovation.
9. Niche Thyself
Positioning yourself to target a niche market, like Fandango, is critical for great innovation. The most effective innovators are both unique and valuable. A parent’s worst nightmare is showing up at a movie theatre with several tiny humans in tow, only to learn that the long-anticipated film is sold out. Fandango is unique because it’s the only service that allows people to buy movie tickets in advance, which adds value by saving time for busy parents who don’t want to spend a half hour waiting in line at the box office.
10. Perfect Your Pitch
Great revolutionaries can pitch. Create an enchanting elevator pitch and customize your introduction so you can build a connection with your audience. You want your listener to feel that you are well informed, and that you know exactly whom you’re talking to.

Improving productivity

Get it Done: 35 Habits of the Most Productive People (Infographic)

BY Catherine Clifford | December 13, 2013|

65 Comments |

Image credit: ryantron on Flickr

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You know those people who get so much done it seems like they have 30 hours in every day while the rest of us mere mortals have a measly 24? You know, the ones who seem to get more accomplished before breakfast than you do all day?
You can actually become one of them. For starters, spend one minute replying to each email – max -- and don’t feel compelled to respond to everything. Also, take a play from Steve Jobs, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg and wear the same thing every day. It saves time that you spend trying on different outfits every day, says Anna Vital, the co-founder of the San Francisco-based startup organization Funders and Founders who compiled the tips and made the infographic below.
Take a break from your procrastinating and check out the infographic below.

Click to Enlarge+

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230392#ixzz2oUe5Ql7Q

Idea Triggers

Idea Triggers

When you are out of ideas, try one of the following idea triggers to stimulate your imagination.

What technique will the leader in your field be using 20 years from now?

Explain your problem to someone who doesn’t know any of the technical jargon. Ask how he/she would solve the problem.

What is impossible to do in your industry, but if it were, would change the nature of your industry forever?

How would you pursue the goals if you had unlimited resources: people and money?

Spend a couple of hours in the library leafing through journals that are distinctly peripheral to your project.

If there were a crisis and you had to complete your project within a week, what would you do?

Can you break down your major technical barrier into subsets? Which one now is the greatest barrier?

See how well you can describe the barriers to your challenges. Then get your team, first individually and then as a group, to prepare possible solutions.

Our brains need to be fed quality questions that challenge our neural network to really think. Try opening your next meeting with 5 – 10 minutes of question-storming. You can think of questions related to a specific topic, or simply reflect on all the things you would like to know about the universe.

Think of 10 ridiculous ways to solve the problem.

Are you managing your staff to take advantage of accidental events?

Wouldn’t it be useful if you provoked a bit more laughter in your group?

What question would you ask God if God were in the same room with you?

Go out of your way to find someone who isn’t an expert, but who would enjoy learning about your project. The burden will be on you to explain it in an easily understandable manner.

How about spending an entire week not thinking about the problem?

Try thinking about the problem during times when you normally aren’t thinking about work.

Any good analogies to help you see the problem in a different way?

Ever consider thinking about your project in a different language?

Is it really necessary to see that your experiments are “correctly performed?”

Get someone else to look over your notebooks; perhaps a clue you’ve missed lies waiting.

Perhaps the idea that, at the time seemed silly, now has some value.

Anything useful in project disclosures of a decade ago?

Go out of your way to discuss the problem with someone who isn’t personally involved with its outcome.

Might an extension of the project deadline significantly increase the chance for success?

Are the ideas limited because you, or someone in your group, is “wedded” to a particular piece of equipment?

How about getting one more opinion on that strategy?

Is there someone in your group who may have a good idea, but isn’t offering it because he or she is concerned that it won’t be accepted.

Set up a meeting specifically to challenge the assumptions you consider basic to the problem.

What can you do to present your ideas more effectively?

Do you really listen to old ideas?

Concentrate on the problem just before you go to bed.

After a major decision is made, let it sit for a few days before you act on it– allowing people to mull it over and provide new input.

Are you willing to take the battering that frequently comes when you offer a great idea?

Write the problem down with the fewest number of words.

Play with turning the problem inside out.

When the problem seems complex, take a walk, relax and observe. Then outline the problem out loud, just before you go to bed.

- See more at: http://creativethinking.net/articles/2013/08/19/455/?goback=%2Egde_2433065_member_267223559#%21

Developing Products

Good Ideas to Great Companies

Assisted Living New Healthcare Paradigm Technology — 20 June 2013

It can be incredibly difficult to tun a good idea into a great company.
A few days ago in an article titled Good Ideas/Bad Ideas I wrote about innovation and senior housing.  This is the second half of this two part series based on an interview I did with John Reinhart, the CEO of InnovateLTC.If you are working in and care about having better products, services and ideas for seniors, InnovateLTC is an organization you need to pay attention to.
The Million Dollar Problem
As I outlined in the prior article, even when a group of entrepreneurs have a good idea it can be extremely difficult to actually get that product or service into the marketplace.   The problems include:

• Not having enough capital to go to market
• The product or service needing some additional polishing.
• Not having access to buyers
• Buyers not seeing the same value as do the inventors
• Not packaging the “thing” properly which could mean the specific features; how it is being used; telling the story right; or creating the right business/pricing model.

InnovateLTC
If you have a good idea and can tell a compelling story, it is relatively easy to find people to invest in your new venture.  Most start-ups get their money, from incubators, angel funds or venture capital firms.   These organizations do some level of due diligence and provide funds and often some level of expertise in getting the idea ready to go to market.
The investors have an expectation that a very small percentage of these ventures will be big successes, a few more will be modestly successful and the majority of them will never make it.  It is a system that has given us some great products and services.  Here is the question: What if an organization existed that could take those modestly successful ventures and even some of the “never make it” ventures and turn them into home runs?
InnovateLTC could best be described as a business accelerator.  Here is what that means: They have the resources needed to work with products, services or concepts that are essentially ready to go to market and help create a final salable product that will serve seniors and senior living communities. Perhaps even more importantly they have ready access to senior housing and senior service companies who understand innovation; who are excited about innovation and who are willing to spend money on innovation.
 In a very real sense InnovateLTC gives these companies the ability to go from a tiny sales force (often the CEO and/or one other person) and a part-time or no time marketing department, to having in effect a seasoned marketing and sales team.   They can mean the difference between failure or mediocre success, to great success.
 In return for what they do, InnovateLTC receives a modest percentage of the company and of the revenues they are able to generate for the company.

The Rest of the Story

• If you have the next great senior product and are thinking this is for you, InnovateLTC would love to hear from you.  That being said, they are cautious and do significant “due diligence” to make sure the idea is viable and the team compatible.
• If you are interested in seeing the latest and greatest ideas that InnovateLTC is looking at, come and join them for the second annual LTCLINKTank Innovation Competition in Chicago on July 22.  Admission is open to anyone and is free.  You can register HERE
• Keep your eye on InnovateLTC for some the newest freshest ideas for senior and senior housing.

What other individuals or companies should we be paying attention to?