Innovation Quick Hits - If at first you don't succeed....

John Barry died this month. He was 84. Why do we remember Mr. Barry? He became president of Rocket Chemical Co. in 1969 and was involved in a great innovation. Rocket later became the WD-40 Corporation. Interestingly, WD-40 started out as an agent to protect the skin of the Atlas Missile from corrosion but was so popular it became available in local stores in the 50's as the lubricant we all know and love. WD stood for water displacement ( no water, no corrosion). The significance of the 40? Turns out the formula worked on the "40th" try.

Are you willing to try 39 times before your "Eureka" moment? As Edison was quoted as saying, "Innovation is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration".

Innovation Quick Hits - Drivers License Innovation

Kudos to the State of Georgia on a simple, effective innovation that costs nothing, solves a problem and helps enforce the law. In a recent Atlanta newspaper article, the folks that produce the drivers license are revamping the look for the first time in like 13+ years. What got me wasn't the new holographic or anti-forging technology and the like, which we've come to expect, but something much simpler I didn't expect. For carding purposes, they are going to print the license vertically for licensees under 21 and horizontally for those over 21. This is a great example of a simple innovation that helps everyone from bar owners to the police to identify underage drivers. What a great idea! (unless you're the teenager).

Importance of History on Innovation Today

Preparing for an upcoming presentation, I decide to start with a quote from famed philosopher George Santayana:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

The perception of what innovation is and how we view it in our organizations has a lot to do with what we've believed about how it was done in the past. Unfortunately, our view of the past is colored by the way history has been presented to us. The Myths of Innovation is a great read describing the facts behind the lone inventor/innovator myth (i.e. Thomas Edison with the light bulb and the Wright Brothers with the airplane). History is easier to remember when we compartmentalize inventions and innovations as being this Eureka moment attributed to a single person or group. The truth is harder to swallow when you consider the timeline of innovations before and after the one person who gets the credit in the history book. Advances in aviation and light bulbs continue to this day.

So why is studying the incremental innovation histories of these inventions so important going forward? If we believe the cliff notes version of these past inventions, we can become biased to thinking that we or our organization can ever be that creative or innovative when our reality may be totally based on a flawed historical view. Taking this forward to a current example, there are those that would credit Steve Jobs as the creator of the IPod and IPhone. Steve Jobs may be an awesome visionary and creative leader but he's backed by thousands of creative staff to turn vision into reality. As humans, we like a straight line problem and solution and a person to give credit to, but reality in the world of innovation is failure cycles with twists and turns in ideas that are difficult to predict. They involve groups of lots of individual sparks of innovation across individuals, companies and countries which are all dependent on the availability/affordability of the needed technology to pull it off.

Study of past companies and the path to get to where they are can be an encouraging process to show you that those who have innovated before you have gone through the same struggles and failures that you're experiencing. Study the "real" history and be encouraged that others have gone before you and succeeded.

Innovation Quick Hits - Challenge the Rules

I am no 60's radical although I grew up in the 60's and am more of a conformist but innovation demands challenging the accepted norms. The British Government in a recent AP news story released its "Guidelines to Teachers". A true innovation was the recommendation to stop teaching the time-honored "i" before "e" except after "c" rule. Citing words such as "their", "sufficient" and "veil", the government challenged the accuracy of the "golden rule". Just like innovation, the 2% that breaks the rules may be your sweet spot for an innovative approach.

Open Innovation- Pros and Cons

With the availability and increase of open innovation web sites (Idea Connection , InnoCentive , Innovation Marketplace , Bulbstorm , NineSigma , Ideas4all ), it will be interesting to observe the outcomes from this leveling of the playing field for new ideas, new products and new technologies. Admittedly, the sites have some different functions. Some are simply idea post and respond for no to low cost to gather input from the web community of creative folks who enjoy reviewing ideas. Other sites are well-funded with a broker model (and associated fees) to make the desired connections. There is really something for everyone from the small inventor wanting feedback to the Fortune 500 company where open innovation is a key business strategy for new product/service development (Proctor and Gamble's own Connect and Develop is a great example). Here are some pro's and cons that you may feel free to comment and agree/disagree with. My perspective for these are related to the small enterprise clients I serve and not necessarily the large corporation where these may not apply. I am admittedly a little biased with what I call the "post and hope" model where innovation responsibility is abdicated to the web response received.

Pro's:

• Provides a lower hurdle to gather ideas from outside the organization
• Becomes easier to do with the availability of Internet sites and search techniques
• Taps into the collective creativity of others providing stimulus from others outside our field of expertise or biases.

Con's:

• Too much reliance on the web or others to drive your creativity
• May ignore lack of an internal process for gathering "low fruit" innovative ideas within your organization (i.e. product extensions, new markets for existing products, better articulated marketing messages)
• Creates an expectancy of "post it and they will come" mentality of thinking that the Internet "post" is the innovation and not just a tool in the toolbox for your internal process.