Innovate or die continues to be the mantra for business growth. Many great innovations are often borrowed from other ideas.
Just because a product is new or novel does not necessarily make it useful, necessary, or valuable. Every company wants to be perceived as innovative in their product development. The truth is many companies struggle to be innovative in ways that are game-changers for their long-term success. Many companies innovate around themselves, bringing to market only incremental innovation that can produced in strict cost structures, rather than developing a deeper and richer understanding of what people really care about. When we think of innovations, is there anything new under the sun? Are original ideas all that original, or is there value in collecting from prior sources and piecing new things together?
Enlightened companies innovate around life experiences and meanings rather than competitive or functional features and benefits.
The process of innovation in these enterprises is centered in a deep desire to serve the well being of people–to make life a little better. To do that well requires insight and empathy in equal measure. Enlightened companies view the process of innovation as something sacred and transcendent of the physics of their organizations. Innovation is hard-wired into their culture. It’s not a practice that can be mandated, it is inspired right along with failure. Enlightened companies know there is no such thing as failure in innovation, there is only learning. Thomas Edison (pictured) proved that over a century ago when he proclaimed “Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.” Then he went about the process of failing forward to his “innovation”.
The physical stuff of innovation (capital, raw materials, machines, markets) seems to be always available, however the availability of physical resources won’t make companies more innovative. The greatest assets for innovation come from the non physical, the formless. Enlightened companies harness the creative power of ideas, intuition, inspiration, imagination, insight and borrowed circumstances that form new proposals to customers. These are proposals of meaning–which shows up in product forms that are unexpected, uniquely useful, loved, and are perceived as being of greater value. Innovation is both strategy and tactic, and organizations can learn to become very good at both to create sustained competitive advantage.
People have more choices in the marketplace than ever before in human history. Bringing more products to market with more features just adds to the slush pile.
More and better product functions and features does not equate to innovation and competitive advantage. With very few exceptions–everything works. That’s the ante, not the differentiator. Innovation is about serving the needs of others first in ways that are unexpected, and when realized by customers, it turns out to be the very thing they were waiting for. Innovation is a consciousness, not an event or action step. Of course, the lasting benefit of innovating around borrowing from life experiences is the marketing gets baked into the product, with the end result being people gathered into communities, embedding it’s “new” meaning into their own life expressions, and sharing this value with others.
Enlightened companies who lead markets shift their focus from counting transactions to innovating scintillating, dramatic, novel, relevant, transformative experiences that really matter to people.
The Blake Project Can Help You Grow: The Brand Growth Strategy Workshop
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
