Rebuilding Creativity

Automation in Retail – The Next Competitive Advantage?

Did you know Amazon currently has a workforce of over 350,000 robots in their warehouses? I was recently reading an article by McKinsey on the challenges that traditional retail is currently facing with declining profitability, evolving consumer preferences, and the accelerating growth of e-commerce. Currently in the face of this, most retailers have taken a softly softly approach, underinvesting in future focused capabilities such as IT, digital, and tech talent.

The research found that a surprising 52 percent of retail activities could be automated, at least partially (exhibit below). The fact that over half of retail activities could be automated really hit home to me about the size of the prize in this space as a competitive advantage to not only become more operationally efficient but at the same time deliver a better customer experience.

The below visual from the report shows a cross section of industries, the types of tasks and % of automation potential. Whilst it shows retail still has a significant human element required in the “interface with others” (read my post on a consideration of charm), it shows there are a large number of data processing and predictable tasks that have automation potential – think customer order processing, product & promo pricing, inventory order forecast & management.

So how can Automation be put into practice for retailers? The report indicated three main areas of focus.

Step 1, review and simplify core business processes. Taking a customer first approach is key here, if you approach organising the business around what the customer wants you will always be led in the right direction. They found that process-redesign efforts here can see efficiency improvements in reducing steps by 20% to 30%. As an example, complex processes such as promotion management often involved more than eight steps and more than four teams, with opportunity to streamline with workflow tools. Workflow management tools can help to also smooth decision processes and simplify validation steps – with opportunity for 50% to 70% percent reduction in steps whilst maintaining nearly 100% accuracy

Step 2, automation. Once processes are simplified, retailers can look to build automation into them, at a basic level I’ve seen this done with robotic process automation (RPA) for manual tasks such as data entry and reporting. For example exporting orders and inputting them into a daily report format for the accounts team or re ordering low stock inventory. If you take it to the extreme you have Amazon’s example of automating the order pick process in their warehouses with 350,000 robots!

Lastly, add smarts with AI. This step can particularly improve the customer experience by allowing retailers to a scalable solution to deliver a more personalised experience. Beyond automating processes, this step requires “teaching” processes to learn and derive insights. AI can be applied in areas such as dynamic product selection, promotion, and pricing, where advanced analytics algorithms are increasingly used to analyse large sets of data – think Netflix or Spotify’s recommendation algorithm or Amazon’s dynamic pricing on site adjusted to market conditions.

With over half of retail tasks an opportunity for automation, there is significant opportunity for retailers to harness it not only to be more operationally efficient but deliver a better customer experience and in my experience, thinking customer first will always lead to down the right business strategy.

Alex Leece

What is Digital Product Marketing?

Although Product Marketing is growing as a discipline across both B2B and B2C digitally driven businesses, it’s challenging to find a clear definition of what the the role entails, even when you search on Google. So what is Product Marketing? Lets take a look.

In organisations, the role sits at the intersection of product, sales and marketing, meaning the role can have a large impact on growth — but also means that the role can be hard to clearly define.

In a nutshell, Product Marketers work with Product Owners and Sales Leads to define a products proposition and take it to market, driving it’s overall success in achieving product market fit, with a deep understanding of the customer.

To do this, Product Marketers need to have a broad marketing skill set ranging from strategic to technical, and have a focus on clearly articulating the products proposition, messaging and target customer groups, before they then stimulate demand and drive acquisition of these customers.

Product Marketing Starts with Proposition & Positioning

A great product goes nowhere if it doesn’t get the attention of the people who would love it. So Product Marketers start with research into, who’s going to be the audience for the product, how (and where) are you going to reach them, and what the best way to present the product to them will be.

An NBR article a year or so ago stated research that only  .0025% of new products go on to achieve product market fit within the first three to five years of their life in NZ.  This leads to significant waste, a loss of economic opportunity and is materially different to other countries, positioning is a tool that can have significant impact on improving this metric.

Often the key reason for businesses initially implementing Product Marketing support is to tackle this problem of market fit through positioning. A products positioning in market can have a huge impact on a businesses success or failure, as it immediately short cuts in the head of your customers who your competitive set is. For example, if you positioned your product as a generic enterprise management system you are competing with the Salesforce’s of the world, however if you positioned it as a niche real estate lead management system instead, despite perhaps having the same product feature set, you could dramatically increase the uptake of the product by enthusiastic customers through solving their specific need.

Great examples of this would be Tinder & AirBnb who both had to relaunch to their current brand positioning before seeing success in market – Tinder was initially called MatchBox “the flirting game”.

Product Marketers Grow Brand Through Customer Focused Go-To- Market Messaging

Product Marketers then lead the development of go-to-market messaging to ensure they present the right message in the right channel to the right customer group. They create the communications framework that gives products the edge in their market to get exponential returns on marketing spend.

Building a strong brand positioning baked into your messaging is a key driver for long term business profitability, it will be the wind in your sails across all facets of business activity. Research has shown that brand affinity to be the second largest driver of purchase decision after price, as reflected in this chart from Millward Brown mapping the share performance of the BrandZ 100 top brands out performing the S&P. 500 2006 to 2008.

As well as messaging, it is also crucial that the product experience lives up to the story you tell in the market, in the digital age, brand and product are being brought closer together then ever before. The way the customers engage with your product is a crucial code in developing your brand. Not only the feature set but the engagement communications around the product and the way the product looks in terms of design, needs to reflect the positioning in market.

Product Marketers Acquire Customers Through Targeted Performance Marketing

Product Marketer’s typically leverage growth marketing techniques with targeted digitally driven advertising to customer groups. They aim to drive measurable acquisition & retention of customers to a product in the most efficient way possible as the product they are marketing is typically at start up or scale up stage where funds are tight and broadcast marketing techniques are not possible.

More then ever they are spearheading usage of AI & Data Driven marketing technology platforms to maximise the return on ad spend. This combination of brand and performance marketing brought together by Product Marketers is unique to the discipline, and incredibly powerful for gaining market share for products.

Finally, Product Marketing vs Product Ownership

An often asked question, what is the difference between Product Marketing & Product Ownership?

In a nutshell:

A Product Owner’s job is to create and develop new products and features, Product Marketing’s job is help define them and to bring them to market.

References:

https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/how-make-kiwi-smes-world-storming-fr-p-216825

http://www.millwardbrown.com/docs/default-source/insight-documents/published-books/millwardbrown_thebusinessofbrands.pdf

Hyper Local, Hyper Annoying?

Imagine a future where we are constantly bombarded by notifications as we wander down the road  using our mobiles, innocently passing by shops. Now imagine just how frustrating that could be if not managed carefully. To quote a recent tweet from R/GA, if this is the future of location-relevant advertising, I’ll stick with my trusty Sunday circular, thank you very much.

If not done carefully, these types of things appear more like an attempt to ride the wave of social media than an opportunity to deliver a truly charming customer experience that returns any real long term sales.

At first these ideas seem logical, target people who are already instore with an offer as they are already there in a shopping mindset. However unless executed with care, I feel it will do more to irritate people then actually sell to them.

Advertising is a blunt instrument, we focus on such a granular segmentation at our peril.

There is a fine line between spam & information, we must take take to intelligently use the growing quantity of data we have available on our customers and deliver messages that are relevant and on brand or up comes the spam filter!

The New Advertising Toolkit

I was recently reading a report on WARC about the upcoming trends for the year in advertising and it highlighted 5 key points which I thought summed up the current landscape quite nicely. Whilst digital disruption is still driving alot of the changes we see in organisations today, the lines between “traditional” and “digital” are becoming more and more blurred as we refocus on new omnichannel strategic models and ideas that are channel agnostic. With fresh thinking around the path to purchase as it becomes more connected, the customer experience is becoming more central to the overall  marketing strategy then ever. Below are each of the 5 key points from the report that I’ve summarised with a few key take aways.

1 BRANDS ARE RETHINKING ‘DIGITAL”

Big-name brands no longer see digital as a separate discipline, and are renewing their emphasis on core brand-building programmes. New strategic models are emerging that work across ‘digital’ and ‘non-digital’ channels

This is more then a back to basics approach though as digital has diversified the suite of brand building techniques available to us. For example media mix modeling analysis has begun to start helping us understand how different combinations of media work together to best effect – WARC showed the example of different ways of combining TV & social media. It’s also expanding our portfolio of responsibilities as companies look for more whole of business innovations such as product or service delivery.

2 ‘SHOPPER’ MERGES WITH ‘MARKETING’

Fresh thinking on the path to purchase, including the role of emotion in the buying process, means that shopper marketing is becoming central to overall strategy.

There are two key reasons driving this shift, firstly technology is obviously changing the way people shop and engage with brands and secondly a growing understanding of the role that emotion plays in the shopping process. Taking these into account, a more sound understanding of the customer journey and the touchpoints along them is critical from awareness to acquisition and repurchase. Brands are beginning to see the value in building this knowledge as more and more of them are taking a customer focused approach to business.This trend towards more targeted customer insight will likely increase as retailers find typical promotions wearing down as sales volumes no longer grow relative to investment.

3 SMARTER CONTENT STRATEGIES ARE NEEDED

As more brands invest in content marketing, competition for eyeballs is growing. Content strategies are diversifying rapidly as brands look to stand out and the number of platforms grows. Sophisticated brands are reformatting content across platforms, and are developing strategies for content ‘discovery’.

Publishers and brands are looking at strategies to diversify their online properties beyond the typical pre roll and banner. Events like the IAB Content Newfronts indicate the new wave of content being created far beyond the typical TVC and show how video content is not necessarily all created equal. Gone are the days of the simple 30sec or 60sec TVC with the options for video content essentially being thrown open it creates new opportunities for creative ways for brands to talk to people along the path to purchase, tailoring the type of content to the situation.

4 THERE IS A BATTLE LOOMING OVER DATA

As investment in programmatic buying increases, sophisticated data strategies will be required. The importance of data management for programmatic is changing the relationship between brands, agencies and tech providers.

This is a really exciting space that allows us to be more effective then ever in refining our targeting and achieving higher conversion by delivering the right message to the right person and the right time. As the path to purchase becomes more connected, once we have an understanding of the customer journey we then have the ability to identify customers early on in the piece and talk to them with relevant information tailored to them and the stage they are at along it. This is not a quick fix solution however and the need for more effective data planning is driving changes for the both brands and agencies.

5 MULTICHANNEL IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

Research into the way channels work together has drawn only tentative conclusions. Some studies underplay social media’s direct impact on sales, but emphasise its importance within a broad media framework. Studies of cross- screen viewing suggest reach is the main benefit, rather than sales synergies.

Whilst research has struggled to quantify the impact of social media on the bottom line, it is generally accepted now that it is most effective as part of a broader strategy. Using social channels help to build up a brands online ecosystem over time  help to take advantage of the longer tail of content. The multiplier effect of being exposed to a brand across multiple screens whilst consuming content also can’t be ignored as research shows that people typically watch TV whilst using other “second screen” devices.

Source: WARC Trends Toolkit 2014 – How to keep your brand ahead of the competition. In association with Deloitte.

Author: Alex Leece

Big Data & Creativity – The Uber Case Study

Are we seeing the beginning of the rise of the machines? I recently went to a talk on big data that looked at Uber as a case study example of applying big data to business and this was the first thought that sprang to mind. Essentially Uber is valued so highly not because it provides cool taxis but because it is a big data company that applies big data to automate and optimise the Taxi business. We as agencies can learn alot from Uber in terms of being creative with data, however caution must be taken to avoid big data blindness and ensure proper human analysis is applied to it.

As a core insight, the guys at Uber worked out that the number one predictor of satisfaction with taxi companies wasn’t necessarily how long it actually takes the car to arrive but how long it takes perceptually based on the customers situation. For example you may expect a car to take 5 minutes to get to you in the middle of the day in the city, however 15 minutes if you were out in the suburbs – you adjust your expectations based on your situation. With this in mind they were then able to be creative with data in terms of optimising supply and demand for this key metric with factors such as the car type and quantity, the drivers, weather, traffic lights or sense of time varying depending on location (city vs country). They don’t neccessarily send the geographically closest car but the car that can get their the fastest perceptually to optimise their supply chain. All this happens in the background and creates a seamless experience for the customer, essentially Uber removes the need for a human on the phone as a dispatcher with a more efficient automated system. This is why many taxi drivers are up in arms about Uber as it really takes the human element out of their jobs, dispatchers are no longer required and they are given a predetermined route to drive which essentially turns them into slaves to the computer and can impact on their income.

Data and automation are certainly not a replacement for humans in all situations though, it can help guide us  but it still requires a human to make sense of it and apply it. The reason proposed for this is that ultimately big data is human so it requires a human to combine, interpret and apply it in a meaningful way. Just as we would expect with any form of research, simply because there is lots of it it doesn’t mean that it is statistically accurate without analysis. Take Google Flu Trends as an example, launched in 2008, Google attempted to make accurate predictions about flu activity based on aggregating search queries. Initially the model seemed to predict with accuracy however the cracks started to show when the estimate for the 2011-12 flu season was more than 50 percent higher than the cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The danger that this highlights, is that it’s easy to fall into the trap of big data blindness where simply because there is lots of it we assume its statistically accurate and make poor assumptions without applying proper analysis of the results. For example, people making flu-related Google searches may not know much about how to tell if they actually have it or not, increasing false positive search queries. This is not to say big data isn’t useful, it just needs to have the same rigour applied to it as any other form of data.

With all this in mind, for us as agencies big data is great as it can help us do away with putting all our emphasis on the typical “Focus Group” as we can interpret other factors of behaviour. It can also help feed our understanding of our market and discovering peoples “secret self” – their unconscious motivations that drive their behaviour in situations which can be difficult to draw out in typical research as people tend to act differently when they are being watched. Much like Uber, we need to be creative with how we approach problems and data as data can help us serve customers better by optimising and automating their experience. Data can also help us understand our customers better then ever before and help us to create messaging that resonates with their unconscious motivations, helping to remove barriers to consumption. The machines still need us, for now at least!

Author: Alex Leece

The Curated Future Of News Radio

The digital content disruption continues. Whilst print media have been grappling with this for some time and the music industry has also been coming to terms with new forms of content distribution such as Spotify, it appears the next frontier of curation could be news & information content. Whilst this has typically been the domain of public radio, with a combination of location services and curated content from around the world we have started to see a new wave of applications which empower the user to curate their own news rather than rely on local radio to do it for them.

Early examples of this are Agogo and Swell. Recently launched, they pose a new challenge to traditional media outlets by creating new listening experiences for consumers of talk and news. They bring together segments of audio from news sites around the world into customizable and curated streams based around themes such as Business & Finance or Sports. Whilst they can also provide limited local information such as traffic reports based on location services, public radio still has the upper hand in terms of local content creation with the power of their own local journalists and talent. This is something that still gives public radio the upper hand for the moment – somebody needs to create the content in the first place.

However continuing the overarching trend of media money moving into digital, these types of platforms will no doubt over time see more of our traditional media money moved into digital and mobile whether they are independent apps or locally owned by networks, watch this space!

Alex

City Life – A Digital Transformation?

I recently read an article on the FT by Simon Kupor entitled The App Of Life, which discussed the interesting effect that technology has on urban living. It’s no secret that technology has always affected how we live and the town planning that surrounds it. The industrial revolution led to the creation of densely populated working areas and the mass production of vehicles created greater sprawl, enabling the typical suburbian lifestyle.

When the internet came about and people were able to connect and share information remotely, there was talk of the demise of cities. Why would you want to live in densely populated areas and work in large offices when you can do so from the comfort of your own home in the peaceful surroundings of the countryside? I feel that whilst this sounds good in theory, in practice there is always value in proximity. In a business sense, the internet is no replacement for being around people and bouncing ideas off them in person. For more on the virtue of proximity, see my post The Value Of Proximity.  I don’t think that digital connectivity will see the demise of the city, quite the contrary, I agree with Simon Kupor in that I think it will enable them to be better places to live thereby helping them to grow.

This effect can be seen already, mobile technology and smart phones are a perfect example of this. I’m someone who (through no fault of their own) is severely navigationally impaired, paper bags pose a challenge. This problem has thankfully been completey resolved for me by being able to punch an address into my phone, then get GPS co-ordinates of where I am and where I need to go. This makes navigating the complex road network of any city a breeze, making it more pleasant and efficient to get around. Further to this, if I need to find any kind of service, all I need to do is look it up on my phone and it tells me all the options around me, allowing me to make the most of the cities retail and service offerings. Plugging this in to the social graph means I’m never alone as I can find out where my friends are at any given time.

The next step is people using technology and data to help run their cities. We’ve seen the social graph with Facebook, interest graph with Twitter what could happen if we had an entire city grid open to plug in to? With an open graph style system governments could assist us to manage water, transport, parking or power. Imagine being able to remotely check your water or power consumption from your phone and adjust accordingly. Even just being able to find out where parking spaces were available would be a huge step in efficiency! Interestingly the article points out that Dublin has opened data on everything from water use to transport in the hopes that developers will devise opportunities to use this to improve city design and living.  To quote the article, “We’re starting to see almost an “open-source design” of cities, says Ratti.”

Whilst the lure of the country side and an internet connection still remains, I think digital technology will enable city life to be more efficient and enjoyable then ever before. This will naturally lead to the continuation of their draw for people and their growth. If you need any proof of this just take a look at the ever increasing rate that we are building Skyscrapers (and their burgeoning height). We seem to be building up rather than out, I’m relieved my phone will tell me which floor I’m on.

Alex

Reference:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/36eaf488-b5b4-11e1-ab92-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1xwmYsZWZ

By Simon Kupor

What Is Engagement?

What is real engagement with content? It’s a term often used these days and most often associated with digital media. Can it really be illustrated as simply as clicking to view a video or entering a competition, how do we know if people had a real connection with the content and your brand when doing so?

To me it is more about people being moved on an emotional level, getting into their brains and giving them an association to hang your brand on. It is more about the extent to which someone retained and enjoyed what they experienced of your brand rather than simply how many times it was done. Unfortunately for us, this qualitative nature is a lot harder to deliver measurables on than quantitative. It’s this immeasurable element that can make good advertising so special. I think it’s also important to note up front that when discussing content, this could be anything from a printed ad in a newspaper to an Adshel in a bus shelter or a video on Youtube.

In an attempt to try and measurably quantify what engagement really is and how engaged people actually were, Nielsen asks to what extent the subject agrees with the content across three pillars: Funny, Emotionally Touching, Informative. Broadly speaking any piece of content would fit into one of those three categories in terms of what it is trying to achieve in terms of enagement, if it ranks on this then it’s doing it’s job. Looking at it through the lens of these three axis helps us to begin to examine how engaged people really were with the content and in what capacity. If someone can associate after the fact, a degree of connection across one of these pillars with a piece of content, I believe that shows that they were engaged by it. To try and manage this at a strategic level up front, you could for example map “Engagement Profiles” of the content based on to what extent you think they should rank across these pillars in the consumers mind. Is the content designed to be humorous and a little informative? Or simply about creating an emotional brand connection? 

The content above is something that whilst rating quite strongly across all axis, is predominantly geared towards being funny whilst capturing an emotional connection with the brand, to a lesser extent delivering a product message. The consumer behaviour you’d hope to see from content such as this is people enjoying it, sharing their experience of it with their friends and hopefully as a by product driving brand awareness and revenue. On this note, as Clay Shirky says, “behaviour is motivation filtered through opportunity” and technology has changed the opportunity space in many ways. Now that technology has made it so easy to measure peoples immediate behaviour with online content (like, share, tweet etc), as advertisers it is all too easy to focus on measuring this as successful engagement rather than a longer term qualitative behaviour change. Not only does this ignore all other media channels it also can’t measure that emotional side of true engagement. To quote Faris Yakob,” If a piece of branded anything falls in the woods and no one Tweets about it  – did it have any effect?”.

The concept that “good work works” hasn’t changed and will never do so, it will always be that the interesting content will deliver greater than usual engagement. What has changed is how people consume it and what they do with it. We must be careful not to solely focus on using these easy to access short term metrics as barometers of this and keep in mind the immeasurable emotional connections which people have with brands built over time from true engagement across all media. To end, an open letter to all advertising that has been floating around the internet for a while but I think it sums it up quite nicely.

Alex

Innovation Ecosystems

When Frank Gehry was designing the Disney Concert Hall, he considered how the building would interact with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion adjacent and adjusted the design accordingly. I recently came across a comment in the Financial Times in an article by Ron Adner that cemented the sentiment behind this in my mind. It’s not enough to simply manage your innovation, you must manage your ‘innovation ecosystem’ also. Essentially it’s all to easy to focus on the outcome of what you are trying to produce and forget to consider how it interacts with people and the world around it.

In his book, Ron Adner examines this phenomenon that causes many companies to fail “because they focus too intensely on their own innovations, and then neglect the innovation ecosystems on which their success depends.”  This single minded execution focus is inward looking, involving the standard processes of linking strategy and operations, bringing teams together, looking at competitors and their value propositions. It is seen as good business practice, which it is, however it can create a blind spot that hides key dependencies that are equally important in determining success or failure. As technology causes our world to become increasingly connected and interdependent, this problem becomes exacerbated. For example with much of the marketing content we produce we now need to consider, how will people be viewing the content, where will they be, how will they share it, who will they share it with and most importantly how will they know it is there.

Obviously completing the project is still the core focus however Ron Adner suggests two other areas to consider to help take a broader view of the innovation ecosystem. Firstly, consider who else may need to innovate to activate your product. This has two sides, one the business side, in terms of production and delivery of the product and two, the consumer side in terms of using the product. For example with mobile advertising, to truly make the most of what you are creating you may require significant smart phone penetration or upgrades in mobile phone handsets. Secondly look at who else needs to adopt the product to deliver it to the end user, who do you need to sell it in to and who needs to support it to deliver it to market. This naturally has more of a business focus, however with many digital innovations these days, there is an element of connectivity and sharing, which may mean you require a critical mass of a few key influencers adopting the product before its value is fully realised.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of execution focus, especially when we are faced with tight deadlines. However I think the take out here is that, taking a moment to consider a broader view and looking at the entire ecosystem rather than simply what needs to be done to complete the project may change how you approach things. It may change how you choose to bring it to market or what you prioritise in terms of the product features. It may even help you to identify new opportunities or threats and adjust how you measure the success of the project. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s one that’s important to remind ourselves of.

Alex

Reference: The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation by Ron Adner

Innovation & The Connected Mind

Innovation. A term often bandied around and something that all forward thinking companies strive to deliver in spades. The question is, how can companies take advantage of this elusive trait, is it something a person is born with or is it something that a company can cultivate as a product of the cultural environment? If the environment does indeed play a part, then increasingly how might the use of digital technology to connect ourselves and our ideas effects this process?

When you first consider the term innovation, you may be forgiven for thinking that it concerns a moment of great insight, which happens with people who are inherently “innovative”. It’s a term that has alot of myths attached to it. I came across the below table from an HBR Article which addresses these quite nicely.

Innovation Myths

Myth	Reality
Innovation is random	Innovation is a discipline — it can be measured and managed. Consider how Procter & Gamble’s structured approach to innovation allowed it to triple its innovation success rate and double the size of a typical initiative.
Only creative geniuses can innovate	Innovation is distinct from creativity. While creativity can help, people who aren’t intrinsically creative can create high-impact innovation if they follow the right process.
You’re either an innovator or you’re not	Research recounted in The Innovator’s DNA described how innovation is about 30 percent nature and 70 percent nurture.
Innovation happens in the R&D lab	Innovation — something different that has impact — can happen anywhere in an organization. Everyone should be looking for new ways to solve old problems.
We will win with superior technology	Most market disruptions rest on innovative business models — new ways to create, capture, or deliver value
Innovation is all about improved performance	Sometimes innovation is about improving performance along traditional dimensions, but some of the most powerful disruptive innovations sacrifice raw performance in the name of accessibility or affordability.*
Our customers will be a critical source of innovation insight	Your customers might tell you how to make your current offering better, but they won’t point the way to disruptive growth; you have to explore new markets in new ways to identify new growth businesses.
Game changing innovation is done only by entrepreneurs	Many of the most exciting disruptions in recent years — such as GE’s low cost imaging solution and Cisco’s TelePresence solution — have come from big companies
We will win by targeting the biggest markets	Markets that don’t exist are difficult to precisely measure or analyze; the most powerful innovations create new markets.
Innovation requires big bets	As our friend Peter Sims writes in Little Bets, if you want to win big, you should start small.

The couple of points that really stood out for me here is that there is an aspect of nuture involved in innovation and that it is something that can occur throughout the company, not just in the R&D lab. This suggests that it is certainly something a company can cultivate and can be driven by anyone across the business at any time. How can businesses use this to their advantage? There has been a recent proliferation of new titles in our industry involving innovation, Chief Innovation Officer, Director of Innovation and the list goes on. Whilst these may seem like invented positions to try to convey a sense that the company is innovative, I believe that companies need people on the fringe who push forward new thinking. This often means they isolate themselves from others resistant to change, being at the forefront can be a lonely place to be. People like this can really help to drive new thinking over time by stirring the pot and provoking discussion. More then this though, ensuring companies support people to pursue new ideas and realising that they can come from anyone at any time is crucial.

Further to this, from an environmental point of view, in an age of increasing connectivity within the company through digital technology, could this have a positive effect on innovation?  This seems to be the case. I recently watch an interesting video by Stephen Johnson on Where Good Ideas Com From:

In it, he puts forward the concept of the “slow hunch”. This hypothesizes that most great ideas don’t come from a moment of great insight, but a slow building hunch that when combined with other peoples hunches creates a new concept or innovation. This suggests that digital technology allowing us to interact in real time with people quickly and easily to share ideas may have a positive effect on innovation. Twitter is a good example of this idea sharing in action, people all around the world collaborate around topics and share their ideas. Essentially being constantly connected creates faster feedback loops between people allowing ideas to bounce off each other at a faster rate.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in future as much like Moore’s, Kryder’s & Gilder’s laws see an increasing rate of change in technology, so to may this apply to the new ideas that spring from it.

Alex