Three Areas Of Innovation That Inspire The Innovator In You
by Alex Vermeule posted May 15th, 2009 at 14:10
This is a contribution post to the 24hours of innovation, a global event celebrating innovation. Although we are all dealing with a crisis, great things have been happing in our community we call earth. This posting is written to inspire the innovator in you and let you think about some great areas of innovation that you might not have recognized or simply overlooked. This is ‘My half time pep talk for 2009’ and I hope you enjoy it!
Let’s say you ask ten people the question ‘where do you see true innovation?’.
You will probably get ten different answers, right?
That’s because we all look at innovation differently. The beautiful thing about innovation is that it can be truly inspiring and accelerate change.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the areas of innovation you think about when answering the question…
Where do you see true innovation?
The Geek’s answer: Technology Innovation
Technology is speeding up your daily live exponentially and is changing the way you to do things. Technology becomes smarter, faster and almost better every day. It’s probably no surprise that technology comes to mind when thinking about innovation. It is allowing you to connect to people and is making our earth seem a lot smaller when compared to a 100 years ago.
Take the Kaleido R7 digital frame from IPEVO for example, some great 2009 technology that shows your Flickr stream, RSS content and easily connects you with your loved ones, keeping your lives in sync. Another great example of technology innovation impacting our lives are Pokens. Some call Pokens the future of social networking as they combine your offline and online social activities. You can automatically exchange business cards and your social network profiles simply by giving someone else’s Poken a ‘high-five’ (or high-four actually, if you look closely at the picture).
What inspiring technology innovation have you seen in recent months?
The Coach’s answer: Personal Innovation
Often you hear people talk about innovation on a corporate level. However innovation on a personal level is becoming more and more important. It is very much related to personal and professional development. It’s about enhancing your skills, knowledge and awareness for both personal development and career advancement.
So why should you care about Personal Innovation?
- The earth is your playground
Technology is turning our planet into a ‘global village’. Companies can choose to work with anyone, anywhere across the world. Take this website for example, it was built by three people located across our planet. - Necessary to articulate your value
It is becoming more and more important that you can articulate what value you provide. Someone else with similar skills like yours might be hired at a blink of an eye. Innovate and differentiate yourself to make sure anyone wants to work with you and it’s clear what value you provide. - New opportunities
Personal innovation helps you to adapt to change and compete in a global economy. It helps build your self-awareness and your personal brand. The great news about globalization is that brings new opportunities: you have the whole world as a potential customer! How great is that?
If you are looking for guidance in the area of personal branding and personal innovation, I recommend you checkout Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog.
What are you doing to innovate yourself?
The Business man’s answer: Business Innovation
Innovation in your business is crucial to your future success. If you are a business man or woman, you often have to deal with ‘wicked problems’. Wicked problems are puzzles so persistent, contradictory and slippery that they can seem insoluble.
According to a 2008 survey amongst 1500 CEOs, the top 3 most wicked business problems are:
- Balancing long-term goals with short-term demands
- Predicting the returns of innovative concepts
- Innovating at the increasing speed of change
So how do you crack these wicked problems?
If you are looking for support in this area, I recommend you read the book The Designful Company from Mary Neumeier. It is one of the gems from 2009 and in it, he provides you some great stratgies on how to innovate faster and solve wicked problems. It will help you look differently at your business and what you can do to be successful in the future. The paragraph below provides an inspiring example of the challenges CEOs face today.
Imagine a crazy world where what you learned in business school is either upside down or backwards – where customers control the company, jobs are avenues of self-expression, the barriers to competition are out of your control, strangers design your products, fewer features are better, advertising drives customers away, demographics are beside the point, whatever you sell, you take back, best practices are obsolete at birth; where meaning talks, money walks, and stability is fantasy; where talent trumps obedience, imagination beats knowledge, and empathy trounces logic. If you’ve been paying close enough attention, you don’t have to imagine this Alice-in-Wonderland scenario. You see it forming all around you. The only question is whether you can change your business fast enough to take full advantage of it.
What companies do you see today that are driving their business into this direction?
Where have you seen true innovation lately?
Tags: Business Innovation, Design Thinking, Events, Innovation, Personal Innovation, Technology Innovation
Categories: Inspiration
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My name is Alex Vermeule and I am an internet strategist, interim manager, consultant and coach.
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True innovation is rare. Good to see you writing about that…
Nice 24 Hour Innovation post – I like the 3-perspective view of Geek, Coach and Businessperson you provided. Thanks!
@brse @AndreaMeyer Thank you very much for your kind words!