My Innovation Confession

I presented this morning to about 50 business directors at who are members of London’s Partnership.  Usually, I’d be talking about social media or engagement at this kind of thing, but today’s topic was business innovation. Out of the comfort zone I went.  But it felt good.  Here’s my take:

I have a confession about the term ‘innovation’: It conflicts me.  In so many cases it feels like a label. I’m not crazy about it. To me, It’s a simple enough concept: Doing something differently, to effect positive change. But that’s not everyone’s view.

Over-doing it

What bothers me is that the very word has been over-used, over-processed, intellectualised.  Made complicated, made abstract and conceptual, made elitist….

I probably owe you an explanation.  In a previous life I worked for a consulting firm. They had an innovation practice, a VP of innovation, they ran innovation events. To me, it wasn’t real enough.  Not to me as an employee, or the clients and projects I engaged with.  There, it remained a concept. I still couldn’t see it, or experience it.

But I know and understand that innovation is important. Move beyond concept, make it tangible and it’s a tool for business.  It can help us keep up, overtake, break new ground and make the most of new technology and developments.

It’s a vital mindset in the quest for continual improvement.  That’s my definition.

Reality bites

But we have to make it mean something ‘real’ to our business.  We all need a workable definition of innovation in the context of your business, my business, the world that we all operate in – our reality.

Reality-based innovation, if you will, could pay dividends and make the difference between a good marketing approach and an outstanding one, a strong brand and an emotive one, a content, functioning workforce and a highly-motivated, dynamic team of ambassadors.

So where do we begin? Take a look around – innovation exists in myriad areas of business and often not through planning, just through mindset.

Brewed Boy: Rob uses the core of what he does to add value in terms of community and like minds: book swap, coaching sessions, informal meet ups.  I suspect he doesn’t actively seek to innovate.  He just does.

Etsy: Using the power of community / shared passions / a major trend to open up a new market

Groupon: Game changer for consumers and retailers alike – win-win

Shutl: Quest to change the way we shop – responding to a consumer frustration

Innocent: people at the heart of everything / massive community focus

Audioboo: Harnessing technology to help us do things more smartly

What’s the common denominator?  Passion.  Wanting to make things better. Not wanting to stand still.  These businesses change and evolve rapidly, they’re geared up to be flexible.  They can (and will) try something new tomorrow

Clue: think about where pockets exist for your organisation to innovate

The big/small rule

Don’t let a big concept put you off.  Define first of all what innovation can mean to you and your business.

Innovation can be a baby step, just a small thing you do differently that can change the course of something, make it better, to encourage people to act differently.

That’s the big rule:  Innovation doesn’t have to be big

Doesn’t have to be a cumbersome process.  For example, for Wisdom London, it’s a case of wrapping value around our brand – moving slightly beyond our core offer to add something useful, desirable and thoughtful (resources, tips, thoughts, tools, even cake).  Human.  Personal.

For your reality, some considerations….

• Actively observe.  Be a tourist.  In your own organization. Throw out your preconceptions. Get your head up and look around.
• Reality check: Check out everyone’s reality: yours, your teams’ your clients, stakeholders, target market.  You need to understand this REALLY well. Innovation can happen anywhere. It’s just a question of identifying where it’s most ripe.
• Question the status quo. Innovation is not about doing things the same way they’ve always been done.  Ask why, why not, ask again
• Dare to dream: Hypothesise.  What if x, y or z was used differently?  Repackaged? What if the concept was expanded?  Extra value wrapped around it? What’s the risk attached to that?
• Try it, review and try again – don’t let it remain a concept
• Don’t stand still

What it all boils down to:

I don’t see innovation as a process that should be overlaid on a business, or a stand-alone activity.  I am deeply sceptical about the need to assign responsibility for innovation to one person or team.

Here’s my view.  Innovation is simply an opportunity. Either in or you’re out. Thinking innovatively or not.

It’s a mindset that should be engaged when you think about your business in the context of marketing, productivity and improvement.  It’s an opportunity to do things differently.  To move away from conventional wisdom, to be bold, to differentiate.

This is not everyone’s view.  The academic view is more along the lines of “creativity is a mindset, innovation is a process”.  In an academic scenario, I accept that I may be wrong or at least off beam.

But we’re not academics.  We’re business people in the real world.  I don’t think we should get caught up in semantics.

We should simply aspire to create, do things differently, better, responsively and in a way that genuinely meets the needs of people and business – and innovation or not – we can call it what we want.

Kate Spiers is director and founder of Wisdom London. She believes in action, not semantic debate.

Slides here: Business Innovation Wisdom London

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Time to drop the marketing/communications distinction?

After a conversation with a colleague last week, I was left thinking about the age-old debate of marketing vs. marketing communications and the distinction between the two.

The conversation we had lamented the fact that many of us work within a marketing team, or perhaps for a marketing provider, when in fact what we are delivering is tactical marketing communications – not the traditional definition of marketing.  It’s a fairly common scenario and the source of huge frustration for some marketers who find their time spent more on press releases and less on market segmentation or offer development.

But – as a communications professional with a strong marketing interest [treads carefully] – I wonder whether this endless argument over the distinction between the two disciplines is somehow de-valuing the role that marketing communications has to play? And perhaps the argument is defunct – is it time to redefine what marketing means anyway?

Part of the problem lies with the fact that ideally, marketing and communications are disciplines which should be recognised as being at the heart of the business strategy.  But often it sits further down the food-chain, so marketers are not involved in market-based decisions – rather, tasked with marketing communications once the strategic path has been set.  For me, marketing is unequivocally part of business strategy, and in its broadest sense communications is – or should be – too. I don’t think it’s marketers or communicators who have it wrong, necessarily – it’s a business-led culture tied up somewhere in hierarchy that has led to this.

But as marketers, communicators or both, we also need to be flexible – the whole landscape for interacting with our target audiences is changing fast and makes different demands on our roles.  Marketers must apply comms know-how in their ‘pure marketing’ activity since the online world defines so much in terms of buyer decision-making, just as comms without an eye to the business objectives  just isn’t marketing communications.  But more than that, the onus is perhaps on management strata to invite in views and ideas from the frontline at a strategic level – and for us marketers and communicators to continue to push for inclusion, whether by sharing unsolicited ideas, lobbying or simply asking outright.

Might sound simplistic, but we’re all in the business of persuasion, after all… aren’t we?

Share your views and experiences…is the definition of marketing changing?  Are marketing and communications getting closer, or further apart?

Kate Spiers is Founder and Director of Wisdom London