Innovation is a Lifestyle, Not a Bunch of Metrics

Innovation is a Lifestyle, Not a Bunch of Metrics

Far too many supposed innovation experts believe that measuring activities is critical to success. Maybe. Maybe not so much. At least for the big stuff. Innovation activities simply for the sake of doing something without context and insight from the measure may be in fact very misleading.

Persistent growth, profit, ROI and NPV are the obvious measures, really the only ones that count, but we had better all be measuring that anyway. The measures noted above are in fact not necessarily appropriate at all. It’s not about types of innovation or measuring activities, meetings and ideas. Instead, I see innovation as a lifestyle. If you’re not doing it 100% of the time, as a part of your body and soul, it’s hard to be truly innovative. You simply don’t turn your mind off.

Accordingly, my preference centers upon context for measures and to see innovation as more of an approach, a general attitude and methodology than a series of specific steps, training and subsequent measures. Again, the measures sommay discuss, even the zillion types of innovation, just don’t make sense to me as many have no context and thus proof that they add insight. Innovation indeed is not a program, a12 steps to success. It’s a lifestyle, an inherent attitude and capability rarely taught but often revealed.

By example, in my experience with transformative innovation, corporate or startup, after an organization, a group becomes more innovative, expenditures on product development and the like actually decrease, the number of projects decrease and the return on invested capital, margins and customer profitability (b2b) or lifestyle (b2c) radically increase.

The noted measures by too many look instead at increases in activities and the population engaged which is misleading. In fact, the implication that a certain % of time is being spent on innovation for example implies that the staff is not innovating the other times! Really? An innovative organization focused on all activities as being an opportunity to engage, observe, learn, experiment, analyze and ideate innovates does this 100% of the time. Telling people to devote 10% of their time to innovation is like planning exactly when you will get married, get promoted and hit the big time. Life, innovation simply does not work that way.

Innovation is seeing, observing things in new ways with an accumulation of highly varied experiences that seemingly culminate in that “sudden” (really not so sudden) epiphany. Steve Johnson and others work here is remarkable. Look at Darwin – many see that his innovations took shape in his notes decades before his seminal work. He just was not ready in his mind to put it all together. Think about how many times our final realizations are culminations of a long period of mental thought, observation experimentation. It’s why we say research – not search.

Measuring ideas? How many ideas we generate? Lots are great? Really? Too many ideas are a bad thing in our view. How about instead the number of ideas killed and the why? In fact, that may be a measure of ineffective ideation, as a group with a laser focus upon global socio-demographic, geo-political, industrial and environmental trends within the context of what they are trying to do for their customers would imply that the number of ideas should decrease per unit time but be ever increasing in their value to the latter customers.

The number of engineers, scientists and technicians employed does not at all directly correlate to being innovative or effective either. How many tiny upstarts with 1 to 100 employees total have knocked off a behemoth? It’s their revenue generated per staffer, the new product revenue generated per staffer and group that matters.

In other words, context.

Accordingly, maybe the right metrics are really centered upon new product introduction rates, success rates, improved customer, and their customer, profitability and lifestyle satisfaction measured against the size of investment and organization and the accomplishments per unit time. In other words, the standard stuff along with a measure of improved performance and it’s trajectory, in the proper relevant contexts.

Innovation is not a program.

It’s a life-long enterprise.

It’s an attitude.

It’s a lifestyle.

 
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Adam MalofskyAdam Malofsky, PhD is the Managing Director of Elemence, a cwhere they don’t just tell stories, they uncover them, experience them with you and together translate that into actual profitable products and services that fly off the shelf and change peoples lives. Reach Adam directly at 513-518-3550 EST!

Adam Malofsky

Hi, I'm Adam My colleagues and I love doing the impossible. After leading creation of what may be one of the most powerful green and clean technologies on earth, my life now focuses upon collaborating with awesome people to improve life. Our work specializes in tangible products where materials, assembly and manufacturing technology innovations can have transformational impact on final products and services and thus society. Our teams specialize in high impact, global scale opportunity identification, evaluation, assessment and, where logical, product, business or venture creation. Our award winning, deep experience spans from the internet of things and computing and electronics to building and construction to medical to automotive to food and consumer products. I especially love innovation theory, practical application and education. I myself am known for identifying white space opportunities and then employing practical, high speed, value oriented innovation and development strategies that frequently allow for the successful commercialization of new technology platforms, not simply evolutionary improvements. I also founded and was Chief Executive Officer, Chief Innovation Officer Sirrus, Inc., formerly Bioformix, Inc, a venture recently acquired by Nippon Shokubai. Sirrus' energy efficient, advanced manufacturing polymer platform company within a $500 billion overall opportunity. I was also President and Principal of ABM Associates, LLC, a 16 year old materials innovation company responsible for such breakthroughs as Liquid Bandage and Dermabond medical adhesives, D’Addarrio’s musical string technology and the base technology for those fresh cut apples you might buy for your children. I received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh in 1987 and an MS in 1988 and PhD in January 1991 in Polymer Science from the University of Connecticut.

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