Networking yet?

One of the keys to the innovation process is your personal network, or people with whom you have direct, personal, and open contact. As an innovation manager you must guarantee that your employees have access to a very broad, diverse and growing network of people. Please read Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg, by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell describes (in a fun way) how informal network contacts most often provide the linkages necessary to bring forth new ideas, and provide the resources needed for success.

In summary:

Each of us has contacts, and each contact has other contacts. Contacts tend toward insular groupings, such as your poker club, Sunday School class or coworkers. All members are familiar with one another within a group. However, it is likely that members of one group do not know the members of the other groups. In this case you are the "linkage" between groups. It is precisely these "linkages" who bring innovation and growth because they tie together different people, skills, experiences, products, services, thoughts and ideas. Your assignment, should you accept it, is to meet as many linkages as possible. You don't have to know everyone within a group. You just have to know someone who does. Here is a diagram:

Networking is a way of life. Without it innovation cannot exist.

Now, what images come to mind when you think of the word "networking"?

• Politicians gladhanding voters and kissing babies
• Phone calls from relatives selling Amway
• Job fairs in which everyone needs a job, but no one has one to give

Networking should be as natural as shaking hands and remembering names. The challenge for many of us is to get out of our existing groups and meet other people. The key to networking is to meet as diverse a group as possible. Afterall, your network is not valuable if everyone knows everyone else.

Another tip is to keep a list of people you meet - name, occupation, location, phone number, email, contacts, and whatever else you can scrape off. This will prove invaluable later on.

Brainstorming?

If you’re like me, you have resorted to holding brainstorming sessions within your group in order to come up with some great ideas. Just a little advice from someone who still carries psychological scars from the exercise – don’t do it. Here are a few off-the-cuff reasons:

1) No one in your organization knows how to properly manage a brainstorming session. You likely won’t realize that until you try it for the first time.

Think “we need an outside consultant for this”.

2) Brainstorming sessions usually include the same old group of people – your gurus, who are all working from the same body of knowledge and experience. They will likely come up with the same ideas.

Think “we need diversity within the group”.

3) Few companies lack ideas. What they need is execution - how to turn the idea into cash.

Think “we need an idea support system”.

4) Everything is open and acceptable with brainstorming. Nothing is off limits. The problem is that most companies severely limit the scope of ideas which will be considered. And the larger the company often the more limited the scope of search.

Think “we need to have open minds as we identify opportunities”.

You probably don't need more ideas. Your employees and their networks already have plenty of good ideas. You need an improved way of moving ideas from a person’s brain into the pipeline of development within your organization.

There are hundreds of books on the subject. Here is most of the thought boiled down to a few bullet points:

• You should encourage ideas from everyone, not just your gurus.
• You should encourage employees to get off topic and mill around in new and different areas.
• You should provide a work place for employees to mingle, chat, and collaborate.
• You should permit employees to group together naturally. Innovation is all about the network and the relationship. Forced team structure can lead to broken networks and impaired innovation.
• You should ensure innovation is sponsored by the senior-most managers, and is driven from the top down.
• You should encourage your employees to journal. This captures the idea vapor before it disappears.
  
  

For more on creating an innovative culture you should read The PDMA Toolbook 2 for New Product Development, published by John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-47941-1. Don’t try to read the whole book at once. Just digest chapters 1 and 2.

For advice on journaling, see The PDMA Toolbook 1 for New Product Development, published by John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-20611-3, pages 46-47.

Strongly consider joining the Product Design and Management Association (PDMA). This is not an ad, but I am a member.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Introduction

Innovation? Networking? Collaboration? If you’re like me, you have been challenged by your company to foster an environment of creativity. Your boss has told you to “go innovate something because the company must grow”. Maybe you are like me in that you have read dozens of books, articles and research publications devoted to finding the “innovation sweet spot”, but none of it seems to quite fit. The theory sounds easy, but application is proving difficult.

My own personal experience? Despite what the books may suggest companies still often make their own decisions based on where they are – not where they want to be.

I’m devoting this blog to finding what seems to work for companies just starting out on the path to innovation. Your first few steps are critical, and they set the direction for future development. If you work for a $10B+ multinational corporation you probably already have an innovation infrastructure - possibly even an innovative culture. Your insights and experience are invaluable and I ask you to please share your knowledge.

If, however, you are part of a small-to-medium sized company faced with adapting to explosive globalization, downward price pressure, lagging new product pipelines, or pessimism within the ranks, you may wish to visit this blog from time to time. I’ll be posting information which you can use to make immediate improvements in your areas of influence to improve the innovation process. At the same time, you also will have insight into what does (or does not) work. This is an opportunity for you to share your experience with others.

If you are part of a startup or very small company, you probably have what I call “the spark”, which is the drive and resources to develop that new thing which everyone must have. You are in an enviable position. Larger companies pine for the days when they too had the spark. Your insights can help the old man learn how to be a kid again. Please share what you know.

Finally, no one has time to read a treatise on innovation. I’ll try to be short, concise and efficient with my posts. Expect links, lists, recipes and a few articles.

I hope you find this blog helpful.

Chris Wayne