CNBC - The Business of Innovation

The week before last, I taped an appearance with CNBC on an upcoming prime time five part show, "The Business of Innovation," hosted by Maria Bartiromo.

The show is set to aiir, as I understand it, February 25th at 9pm EST March 4, at 9PM EST, and again at midnight. It will air in Europe and Asia subsequent to that. on March 1st.

I was part of a three person "panel of innovation experts" for the third part of the show. The first segments featured the insight of such folks as Vinod Khosla co-founder of Sun Microsystems; Cathleen Black, President of Hearst Magazines, and Arkadi Kuhlmann, CEO of ING Direct.

After thinking about it for a a while, my thoughts that have resulted from doing the show are this:

• when it comes to innovation, there too many people limit their thinking to innovation as being 'all about new product'
  
• some people think that only 'special people' with 'special skills' can "do innovation."
  
• worse yet, some people who are "innovators" actually have attitudes that would, from my humble perspective, dissuade any common folk from even thinking about innovation
  
• the high velocity economy demands that every person in every organization be as innovative as heck
  

There's sort of a disconnect here, isn't there?

I told my wife after the taping that I'll either end up looking like a complete idiot, or a genius, or perhaps an idiotic genius. It will be interesting to watch.

The phrase that formed in my mind, both during and after the show, are that there are too many "innovation elitists" out there. And that's just quite wrong: I've often explained that innovation of any sort is set to fail, as soon as we make it special.

In any event, I'm sure that I'll be posting more on my thoughts on this closer to air date.

High velocity customers!

I gave the opening keynote this week, in Orlando, for BICSI, a telecommunications trade group; these are folks primarily involved in the implementation of sophisticated corporate, institutional and backbone infrastructure networks.

There were about 3,000 people in the room -- and my message was that within high-velocity sectors of the economy, there are unprecendented new opportunities and careers that are emerging. Not only that, but constant innovation is critical, simply in order to keep up!

The velocity in the world of telecom is stunning. Just last week, I managed to upgrade myself to the new Blackberry Pearl. While everyone is ga-ga over the iPhone, one also has to look at the high velocity change occurring with other information devices. This new one replaced the other Blackberry I just received last April ... and there is such a difference in sophistication, I think my old Blackberry is now from the "olden days!"

I quickly decided that I'd get a 2GB card for my new Pearl, so that I could load it up with tunes, and take it along with me instead of my iPod for some trips. (With 2GB, I can take about 500 songs.)

The Pearl also supports video playback. I wondered if I could get my own video on it. After all, sometimes I'm stuck in an airport, and rather than watching the endlessly droning doom of CNN on airport monitors, it might be nice to zone out with my own stuff, without having to drag out my laptop.

Looking at the Web site of my cellular provider, I didn't find much help, other than a message stating it couldn't "record video." However, I have long realized that in the high velocity economy, those who actually sell the product often know less about the product than their customers do. It wasn't surprising that they had no guidance.

Yet, it took me a matter of moments to find a Web forum where folks had posted all the specifications for encoding video onto a Pearl. Minutes later, I was busy transferring a number of Daily Show with John Stewart episodes from my PC over to the Pearl. (I grab a bunch of TV for the road, on one of my home office PC's, using BeyondTV; it's like a TiVO for the PC.)

What's the key point to all of this? It goes back to a point I raised in this blog earlier: Your Customers are High Velocity: Are You?

In many markets, customers now know more about the product that the supplier does! That's another reason why innovation is critical: today, for the first time ever, you have to work hard to keep up with the furious pace at which your customers are evolving!

"Flexibility defining careers, workplace"

An article on my perspectives on the future of the career has run in a wide variety of papers across the country.

The full article can be found here in Adobe Acrobat format.

Some of my key observations, as quoted within the article:

• Recognizing the disappearance of a one-job career, workers will need to be flexible, capable of instantly adapting to new processes and able to absorb stunning amounts of new information and knowledge.....
  
• the next generation of workers will be far different than any which has gone before. They will be far more entrepreneurial because many already think self-employment is more secure than a corporate job.
  
• one segment of the workforce will be expected to be far more specialized to deal with this explosion of new information
  
• others will be expected to be flexible enough to shift between careers and jobs
  
• there will also be those who help people deal with the complexities of everyday life and their workplace.
  

The latter point links to the trend I've identified of the emergence of complexity partners, brand new careers (or entire organizations) which simply involve the management of complexity. [ watch the video ]

The article caught my comments on this particular trend:

• "One of the hot new jobs created by the fact that medical knowledge is doubling every eight years is the "hospitalist" -- someone who not only helps patients navigate their way through the medical system ......
  
• While the term didn't exist before 1996, there are now more than 10,000 hospitalists in the United States."
  

All of these observations tie into my Trends Analysis, "10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills," posted a few weeks back, and also available here. There are massive changes underway within the global workforce, which makes talent, not money, the new corporate battlefront.

The future of skiing

Right straight from 85F+ temperatures on the beach in Grand Cayman, to 0F on the shores of Georgian Bay -- it was time to get back on the ski hills!

Over the weekend, I found that an interview I had with a newspaper reporter in Colorodo, on the future of skiing, has run in an article that has been carried throughout the US. There's a copy of the article, "Technology has transformed skiing, and there's more to come," at the San Jose Mercury News here, for example. The full article can be found here in Adobe Acrobat format.

One of the key aspect is that merging of work and life. Notes the article: "Imagine a skier from 50 years ago surveying the scene in a modern lift line. What would he think of iPods wired into jackets? GPS wrist units? Cell phones with cameras? Digitally scanned lift tickets? Polarized contact lenses designed to cut snow glare? PDAs that allow skiers to check in at the office while they're on the lift? These innovations have shaped the sport and will continue to do so, believes Jim Carroll.

Carroll, a noted futurist who lives outside Toronto, Canada, says the concept of a work/life balance is a major trend that will continue.

He shares this story: "An engineering company was trying to hire this engineering student in British Columbia, near a bunch of (ski) resorts.

He turned their offer down. They called him back and were mystified. He said, "You talk about your 9 to 5 culture; that would mess with my powder time." The way younger people define themselves has changed, Carroll says. "They don't tell you what they do for a living, but what they do."

Carroll sees a ski area in the future "with a lot more people hanging out at the hill with a little portable office, doing their thing."

The Globalization of Financial Services in the High Velocity Economy

I'm now in Grand Cayman, one of the top five financial centers in the world, where I'll be speaking to the Cayman Business Outlook this morning.

I'll be taking a look at the rapid rate of change in the global financial industry -- which is really going from fast to furious, given the confluence of a number of factors:

• New business models in the financial services sector are emerging faster than ever before. There is an increasing volatility with global money. Witness the rush to private equity: those organizations who were able to quickly respond and come up with innovative new financial products were the ones who benefited most from the private equity boom.
  
• Unique challenges are emerging in the world of global finance from a skills perspective. As the financial services world becomes faster and more complex, the skill set of those involved in high end banking services is becoming ever more precious and scarce.
  
• The unique attitudes and perspectives of Gen-Connect will further challenge the industry. Those aged 25 and under now becoming actively engaged in the workforce, albeit in an entirely different way: in that they work really hard to not have to get a career. Instead, they focus on a multiple set of skills and careers over a short period of time.
  
• Offshoring is going strategic: It's not just about saving money any more. Outsourcing activities will increase, because it will become one of the key ways to establish a competitive advantage: if you can get the right skills at the right time for the right purpose in a financial marketplace, you might survive the challenges of the future.
  
• Existing financial centers will be impacted by the rapid emergence of new competitors: Asia is afloat on buckets of cash. Continued political uncertainty means that volatility remains with oil, with the resulting massive excess oil wealth in the Middle East. Barron's indicates that Asian and OPEC countries accumulated about $1 trillion in reserves in '06. That's a huge amount of surplus monies that will be put to active use, and we can expect to see both Dubai and Singapore taking on an aggressive role, working to establish themselves as the global financial powerhouses of 2010.
  

Suffice it to say, there's a lot of high velocity out there: and the trick to thriving is riding these trends to success, by being open change, by innovating as a country, and by innovating as a financial community.

Talent, not money, is the new corporate battlefront

Here's a trend to think about : Companies will soon be accessing needed skills from all generations: from bright, knowledge aggressive 15 year olds to active 80 year olds.

We are soon going to have the longest life-span economy that has ever existed. Preparing for that shift both culturally and organizationally will give companies a strong plan for dealing with the skills challenges of the future.

That's but one trend I outline in my latest trends overview: "10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills."

What people are witnessing right now in terms of the "skills crisis" is just the tip of the iceberg, and a key factor for future corporate success will come from how well the skills issue is managed. The war for talent in the 21st century is going multi-dimensional, because there are a variety of trends that are forever changing the nature, loyalty, accessibility, and half life of skills.

A big part of the battle will involve "human capital agility": the ability to deploy the right skills at the right time for the right purpose -- regardless of where the skill might be required, or where the skill is sourced.

As skills become more specialized, everyone will find that they need to draw upon an increasingly global talent base, a reality that will demand new forms of collaboration, rapid human capital and project management skills, and deep insight into the effective utilization of those skills.

That's why skills management strategies that focus on agility, insight, and execution will be critical. I have a number of keynotes focusing on the issue of global skills, notably one high profile presentation in Grand Cayman in two weeks. More to come.....

Access the Critical Trends: 10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills here

10 Great Words

A few years ago, I wrote my listing of "10 great words" that could help to spur an organization into pure innovation.

It remains as one of the most heavily trafficked web pages on my site.

I just grabbed this video clip from a recent keynote, in which I used the theme of these "10 words" to close the keynote.

The words (observe, think, change, dare, banish, try, empower, question, grow, do .....) do a neat job of summarizing the culture that an innovative organization must have. I often add a final word on to the list -- enjoy! -- since it goes back to the main and critical point: people who have an opportunity to be innovative have a heck of a lot more fun!

Innovation comes from flexibility, extensibility, agility....

In the high velocity economy, you've got to be able to design for a future in which all assumptions will constantly change!

In this clip from a keynote to a group of global media players, Jim takes at the attitudes and capabilities that an organization must develop to deal with rapidly changing markets.

The key ideas to focus upon? Design for short term longevity. presume lack of rigidity. design for flexibility, build with extensibility, harness external creativity,
plan for supportability, and revisit with regularity.

There's more on a blog post linked to the clip.

Why "bandwagon innovation" doesn't work

I don't know how many recent news stories I've seen about "social networking," and the "Web 2.0 revolution!", but it's getting pretty tiresome.

It seems that everyone is now ready to get involved with these "trends," to build a new business, transform themselves, provide for deeper customer contact, or to achieve some other greater glory. "Get social!", goes the thinking, and you have discovered the key to future success! Build a social network, and magic happens!

As companies jump on board this bandwagon, they should realize that they are ultimately ensuring that they are destroying any innovative spirit that might have existed within!

Jumping on these "trends," for example, is really dumb, because a) there is nothing really new going on here, and b) you can't create breakthrough thinking by regurgitating old ideas.

Innovation that is based on "jumping on the bandwagon" is doomed to fail, for many, many reasons:

• it's lazy: true innovation takes hard work. It involves massive cultural, organizational, structural change. It involves an organization and leadership team that is willing to try all kinds of radical and new ideas to deal with rapid change. An innovative organization can't innovate simply by jumping on a trend. Trying to do so is just trying to find an easy solution to deep, complex problems.
  
• it involves little new creativity: by linking a new approach to doing things with a commonly used phrase (i.e. "social networking") means that people end up shutting their brains down. Creativity is immediately doomed through commonality.
  
• it's just a bandaid: bandwagon based innovation causes people to look for instant solutions and a quick fix, rather than trying to really figure out how to do something differently.
  
• it's misfocused: it involves putting in a solution is sought without identifying a problem. It's backward in terms of approach.
  
• it encourages mediocrity: it reduces innovation to an "idea of the week," and does nothing to encourage people to really look at their world in a different way.
  
• it reduces innovation to sloganeering: truly creative people within organizations are tried of slogan-based management. They've seen far too many 'radical right turns' and 'new beginnings' -- and when they realize that their management team has jumped onto the 'social networking' bandwagon, their faith and motivation goes out the window.
  
• it destroys innovation: after the bandwagon effect ultimately fails (as they always do for the reasons above), people end up feeling burned out, cynical, demotivated -- and they'll be prepared to do little when the "next big thing" comes along.
  

We've been here before folks. Low-carb. E-commerce. One-Minute Management. Dot.Com's. Total Quality Management. Customer Service Revolution. Etc etc etc.

Look, innovation isn't about bandwagon's.

It's more important -- and more difficult -- than that.

Jump on board for 2007!

Innovation and the future are at the top of mind for a wide ranging group of associations and organizations for 2007.

Here's a brief list of a few of the organizations who have confirmed me as their keynote speaker for their upcoming '07 conferences:

• 2007 World Conference on Quality and Improvement, sponsored by the American Society for Quality, in Orlando, Florida
  
• Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) for a keynote in Grand Cayman
  
• National Blue Cross Blue Shield Association annual conference in Hollywood, Florida
  
• Health Care Industry Distributors Association annual meeting in Austin, Texas
  
• Property Casualty Insurers Association of America's Marketing and Underwriting Seminar in Austin, Texas
  
• Direct Marketing Association, Toronto, Canada
  
• American Community Bankers Association in Orlando, Florida
  
• National Home Furnishings Association annual conference in Boca Raton, Florida
  
• Canadian Tourism Commission annual meeting in Vancouver, BC
  
• International Assn. for Human Resource Information Management 2007 conference in Houston, Texas
  
• Association of Organ Procurement Organizations in Dallas, Texas
  
• National Association of College Bookstores in Tampa, Florida
  
• US Department of Agriculture in Savannah, Georgia
  
• 2007 BICSI Winter Conference, Orlando, FL
  

These are just a few of the organizations who have signed on and are bringing me in during 2007 to inspire their members and staff to be creative and innovative in a world of high velocity!

Why high-velocity makes innovation THE word for 2007 ....

Here's a reality that you need to think about: 2007 is the year in which most every organization and individual will begin to focus all their energies on innovation.

As someone who spends a lot of time helping some of the world's largest organizations adapt to and understand the new high-velocity economy, I've long realized that there are big, creative-stumbling-blocks that have restricted the type of thinking that is necessary to "doing-things-differently."

Yet, I am encountering a new group of leaders who know that the emergence of the high-velocity economy means that they must have a a team that can constantly adapt and evolve, coming up with a regular stream of new ideas on how to better run the business, grow the business and transform the business.

There are several reasons why innovation will be the word, and the primary area of focus for every business, throughout 2007:

• people are finally "getting it": They are realizing that innovation isn't just about new products ; it's about looking at what you do, how you do it, and how you can do it better.
  
• people are realizing that innovation isn’t optional: They have come to realize that in the fast paced world in which we find ourselves, with multiple competitive threats and unprecedented new opportunities, those who can think differently and who can do things differently will be those that make the leap from potential failure to massive success
  
• people are realizing they can "do" innovation: they're realizing that innovation isn't some dark, mysterious ancient ritual: they're realizing that it simply a mindset that involves constant probing to see how we can fix things, find new things, or transform things: whether those things be business processes, customer service methods, new products, marketing and distribution channel concepts, or just about anything else.
  
• people know that innovation is driven by extreme velocity: In every industry, the certain minimum expectations which have long existed are now constantly rising. Whether it issues of cost/price, customer service/support, logistics/delivery, brand coolness or new products, the rule is simple: to compete today, you have to keep up with high-velocity change. If you don't innovate to maintain the same velocity as everyone else, you get left behind. It's that simple.
  
• people know it becomes easier to be innovative if you plug into the global innovation idea loop. Despite all the press foo-fah-rah about Web 2.0 and all that junk, what has happened in the last decade is quite simple: there is now a huge and massive global discussion underway. If you can learn how to tap it, you can discover a wealth of innovative ideas and thinking, new knowledge, wonderful insight and creativity.
  
• people know that demographic change brings about more innovative thinking: quite simply, as change adverse baby-boomers begin to retire, they are being replaced by change-adept Gen-Connects: individuals who view innovative opportunities in the context of connectivity. They are always asking themselves, how can I do something cool with this business problem if I layer connectivity on top of it? Whether it's supply chain reorganization, collaborative tools or something else, they bring a whole new innovative perspective to the game.
  
• People are learning that innovation is not a one time thing: when it comes to innovation, the idea of a "suggestion box" is just so "20'th century." There is now an understanding that a company must live a culture of innovation: everyone must be completely and fundamentally focused on the new things we need to do to stay in the game, and excel at what we do.
  
• People know that innovation has gone mainstream: Everyday people are starting to use the i-word in conversation, and it's becoming natural. Innovation has left the realm of the esoteric, and has become the next natural area of focus in business.
  
• Management is now focusing on the attributes of an innovation team: agility, insight and execution have become their guiding principles. They know that they must have agility to respond to the rapid change that constant innovation demands; they know they need depth of insight to discover where innovative ideas can work; they know that it isn't just coming up with the ideas, but making them work, that is so critical to their innovation success.
  
• People are seeking a head start on how to make the leap to innovation: A guy like me, who makes his living helping organizations understand innovation, now finds that 07 is already heavily booked. Management everywhere has put innovation on the agenda for 2007, and they're doing what it takes to get a kick-start on the process.
  

The most important thing? People are discovering that if you focus on innovation, you can break away from the dull, restrictive, boring routine activities that shackle you to the past. Instead, by focusing your energies on ideas, creativity, challenging the status quo, constantly seekling how you can do things better, grow things, or transform things, you ended up having a lot more fun -- and see a lot more benefits.

People have come to realize that being innovative is just plain fun.

That fact, more than anything else, signals that innovation is the word of 2007.