{"id":10768,"date":"2021-05-25T08:08:55","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T08:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.bluecallom.com\/?p=10768"},"modified":"2021-05-25T08:08:55","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T08:08:55","slug":"key-thoughts-innovation-thought-leader-circle-april-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/?p=10768","title":{"rendered":"Key Thoughts: Innovation Thought Leader Circle | April 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is it important to define innovation? How do you measure innovation? How do you collect ideas from your customers? <\/span><\/p>\n

These are just a few of the thought-provoking questions that came up in conversation between Innovation Managers from around the world in BlueCallom\u2019s Innovation Thought Leader Circle (ITLC) in April. The ITLC is a virtual gathering of international innovation professionals with a diverse range of experiences with the goal of exchanging ideas and furthering learning within the discipline of innovation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Innovation and How to Measure It?\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

Surprisingly, there is no one-size-fits-all definition to describe the term \u2018innovation\u2019. In the software industry alone, \u201cthere are more than 30 definitions of innovation\u201d says Axel Schultze from BlueCallom. Without a universally accepted definition, companies will have different experiences in how they identify opportunities for value creation, develop an innovation process, and measure its success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Defining the concept of innovation will influence how an Innovation Manager is able to \u201cimplement the idea of innovation into the organization<\/em>\u201d as mentioned by Wolfgang Zondler from <\/span>Zondler Consulting<\/span>. To proactively confront challenges in considering how to measure innovation, Tony Namulo from <\/span>Taval\u00e9<\/span> recommended an approach to clearly define what innovation means within your organization and relevant indicators to track its success by looking at it \u201cwhat problem it is you\u2019re trying to solve<\/em>\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The goal is to gain a common understanding of innovation, while taking into account that variables such as industry type or firm maturity will influence the understanding of innovation, according to Alkan Dogan from Simmons & Simmons. He also added that \u201c\u2018innovation should not entirely be focused on generating ideas and implementing them no matter what<\/em>,\u201d but rather for Innovation Managers to be selective about what ideas to pursue. <\/span><\/p>\n

Kevin Minier, Health and Social Care Advisor, also recommended that your organization\u2019s ethics should play a role in defining innovation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fiorella Vari Castro from Sportradar discussed how to define innovation within an organization by breaking apart the concept into three types: incremental (improvements to an existing product or service), strategic innovation, and disruptive innovation. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Schultze, disruptive innovation<\/a> can be considered as when \u201cyou build something new…new market segments, new behaviors, or new needs.<\/em>\u201d But, defining innovation can be controversial because it depends on the perspective of the end-user, as discussed by Namulo, in judging whether something is truly transformational or not. As a result, the concept of innovation is perceived differently by alternate groups of people, just depending on their life experiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Interestingly, Namulo introduced a very cool strategy to describe the concept of innovation: rather, \u201cdefine the opposite of what it is not<\/em>\u201d. By providing a point of contrast and defining what \u201cdoes meet the definition<\/em>\u201d, innovation can be better understood, according to Namulo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhat are the key performance indicators for innovation?<\/em>\u201d asked Schultze. It\u2019s an important question because the chosen metrics or KPIs will influence and incentivize employee behavior and how innovation is managed. To provide an example, a company that measures its level of \u2018innovativeness through the number of patents will incentivize employees to produce patents, but \u201chow does this affect customer satisfaction?<\/em>\u201d questioned Namulo. <\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, KPI considerations <\/span>include: \u201cDid [the innovation] improve outcomes? Did it make the company more profitable?<\/em>\u201d as pointed out by Minier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Innovation Culture is Key\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

A key takeaway from the conversation revolved around the importance of cultivating company cultures to support innovation, with special attention to assembling diverse teams. <\/span>\u201cDiversity is required to protect against groupthink and linear thinking<\/em>,\u201d<\/span> said Minier.\u00a0 This thought was also echoed by Vari Castro, who said that \u201chaving an innovation team with background diversity helps so much to come up with different ideas.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But in order to reap the benefits from a group of diverse thinkers, a company should invest in building up an innovation culture that makes productive exchange possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mikel Mangold from Venture Lab at NGK mentioned the need for \u201ccollisions and confrontation<\/em>\u201d to create a productive dialogue with different perspectives. Fostering an environment where <\/span>creative abrasion<\/b><\/a> can occur leads to more innovative thinking through diversity in thought. Of course, the challenge is then extending this innovative mindset from within the bounds of an Innovation Team and how to \u201cfoster culture within the company?<\/em>\u201d as asked by Vari Castro. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an intriguing question, and one that we may be exploring during our next Innovation Thought Leader Circle on June 11.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team at BlueCallom will continue the Innovation Thought Leader Roundtable exchange. If you are interested in joining our next by-invitation-only event, please send us an email:\u00a0tanja@bluecallom.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is it important to define innovation? How do you measure innovation? How do you collect ideas from your customers? These are just a few of the thought-provoking questions that came up in conversation between Innovation Managers from around the world in BlueCallom\u2019s Innovation Thought Leader Circle (ITLC) in April. The ITLC is a virtual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[65,79,119,149,200],"class_list":["post-10768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-old-events","tag-creative-abrasion","tag-disruptive-innovation","tag-innovation-culture","tag-kpis","tag-thought-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecallomaiacademy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}