Breaking Innovation Boundaries: Being Late Often Wins

The early ( design ) bird gets the ( innovation ) worm so the saying goes, but what about when scarcity isn’t the case?

 

The reality behind the design and innovation game can come from two different view points when ” success ” factors are evaluated in terms of 1st ever ( and as often supported by patents and trademarks ) and scale ( as often supported by easy access to capital ) focuses and each are very different. The value is then who can get innovation X approved by as many world government patent offices ( and at a substantial cost so to protect said innovation ) vs who can get innovation X into the hands of as many people as humanly possible – and now with Ai via the use of non-human hands. Some may even say that this is a who has deeper minds and/or deeper pockets situation. Both interestingly are correct.

In research completed with an international cast of practicing innovation experts from ” Innovation in International Markets “ we see some of the most startling notations regarding the clear idea that scarcity ( often the entire driving factor of economics ) is not the same for innovation or even invention. The ” race ” to be first ( and thus publish – thus securing copyright and possibly trademark rights ) has been usurped by the internet and internet search engines plus the requirements to disclose all key operating functionalities for patent assignment ( and the incredible costs to secure such legal protections ) is often a game of cat and mouse. It’s research & design & development + patenting vs just do it ( with possibly the same costs as the above ) and with said profits ( thus being a market leader for a specific period of time ) then re-investing, doubling, tripling, or putting even more “down” into said innovation effort with the explicit hope that a larger, after the fact, late entrant, does not just take over. Marketing it seems often slices and dices any innovation effort which can’t afford to defend against the above and especially with today’s Ai based, auto-commenting, auto-posting, and auto-interaction social media systems.

What can then be done? How is riding a wave that is already in motion of more interest then finding waves in the 1st place to firms on the cutting edge of “new” and when design is the differentiating factor ? The reality is that it all comes down to access to users and the ability to easily reach them. In the end, the more difficult it is to reach new users, to work with them to try and then adapt to a demand that is in the process of being created then becomes the underlying factor for success and the innovation game then becomes the largest fish gambit. Information processing from a state, national and international level dictates ” success ” far faster than capital or even ideas. Breakthroughs then often come down to who can reach more, the fastest and easiest. This was not the case in the pre-internet years past, and will most likely be the case in the post-common use everyday robots future we are rapidly innovating towards.

 

                    

   

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Making Innovation Happen Means Making Creativity Matter

Innovation does not just happen once R&D works, once design matters, rather, it the glue that connects it all to entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial efforts for real usability.

With over 600 responses from +70 CEO’s & COO’s; +400 VP’s with P&L responsibilities; each with +13yrs experience in their roles, and where their firm’s average sales were in the $4.1B range ( adjusted to 2022 currency rates ) one of the overwhelming success factors in the ability to use creativity to enhance and increase the applicability of innovation and rule breaking efforts within firms was the clear connection that it was not age, position or experience level that mattered. With explicit details and solid backing as identified in Making Innovation Happen we see, surprisingly it is a firm’s overall efforts towards failure and learning that matter and not just within the R&D and design efforts themselves that makes for breakthroughs to happen and keep happening leading to overwhelming organizational success.

Firms that made way for individual and group based ( non R&D centric ) innovation and creativity based exploration, experimentation, training and testing were able to see an overwhelmingly significant increase in the adoption of said efforts, and, in the firms ranking highest on individual and organizational creativity and innovation. The undeniable factor uncovered is that when individuals with high levels of direct contact and autonomous interface with end users come into contact with problems and needs that can be ” tweaked ” to accommodate the capabilities of specific R&D based efforts, these are the organizations that have the highest levels of innovation and creativity success because those organizations feel comfortable with the risks of ” tweeks ” leading to high levels of usage. More, these organizations have the highest level of training and failure acceptance vs. firms who don’t reward such efforts and where these firms ” reap greater benefits from [ recruited ] individual employees who are innately creative

 

                    

   

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iGNITIATE - Design Matters, And Customers Can’t Be Invented Who Don’t Exist. But McKinsey is Wron

" The Best Way To Predict The Future Is To Invent It " - Alan Kay: Xerox PARC Labs. And, the only issue: how far into the future can you go vs. what changes on the trip back to the present.

Often in the race to create a usable and yet unclear future, and for those who practice innovation as a way to create a firm's/military's/government's/lab's effectiveness for end users that such organizations serve, the factor of how far afield investigations/campaigns/interactions/experimentation can go & how hard the process is of retrofitting what has been born out of such efforts, to present day is the reality that is often faced. The value of creating future incrementalism is in fact, in the sustainability of connecting what already is, and to what will be,  via advanced design. After all, for the most part, programs written even in the earliest days of Microsoft DOS can still be run on brand new and incredibly advanced present day PC operating systems. It's designed that way.

With conversations surrounding the idea that, design matters, but customers can't be invented who don’t exist, in Why Corporate America Broke Up With Design, the reality is that this idea has sometimes been the bane of design in it's most raw R&D focused effort: what will be, comes from the impossible with just one or two end users after the inventive process is completed. Thus the statement that design matters, but... is not a truism. What has not even been conceived is sometimes the realm of invention, and yet, design, the more specific form of imagining and articulating, often comes far before the science or aesthetics of a specific focus is even understood. By 2022, this machination of design has become a de facto reality in boardrooms, organizational meetings and any and all manner of discussions on how more fully usable efforts bring value to all involved.

In the detailed How Integrating Design Impacts Company Performance and the ever well quoted McKinsey  Business Value Of Design plus their Redesigning The Design Department work, it's very clear to see that the consistent effort and realization is that while the performance factors of design lead organizations, of design centric firms and deign lead government and military organizations brings significant value to all involved, the nature of such efforts that an articulated X, is the driving factor of a future of exactly what will be and what will be built. This future to be built is how bridges, designed, architected and constructed, a future ( from advanced R&D years in the future ) is often quite perfect and then being delivered shows the best possible outcomes even when customers ( that do evolve and use such artifacts ) are a " need " un-articulated to begin with. After all, a powerful design effort, the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman by Herman Miller began from a military contract to build lightweight transportable structures and The Ghost Chair by Kartell never had customers in the beginning, just a new machine perfected and capable of producing large injection molded plastics objects. Customers ( undefined ) needed to use it ( the machines ) but not the legendary design icons born from it. Now there are both: customers and innovations born from the void of a future defined by design.

 

                    

   

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Determining Design Destiny = Defense + Disruption

Often with advanced R&D, Defense + Disruption go hand in hand with assuring a design effort destine for success. But how ?

Naturally the capability of sustainability from incumbent design, engineering, manufacturing and distribution efforts depends on the tight integration of all components of an often disperse series of players whose primary mission is the smooth delivery of functionality and value to the largest group of users - that organizations customers. However, the constant pace of rapid integration and re-integration of new possible functionalities typologies and research into alternative methods to increase speed and efficiency is often the largest area of effort of said organizations. However, it is when a combination of defense and disruption go hand in hand, and where specific design focuses are brought to bear to create additional value past that of pure efficiency.

In Incumbent Defense Strategies Against New Product Entry a work that defines several cornerstones of the way that design elasticity can directly impact a new product developments success and based squarely on the economics of production and also where this can be applied to ( in some respects ) the evolution of design typologies. It then can be said that design is equal in many ways to the standard economic engines and tools used to stabilize or de-stabilize an innovation effort through, of all things, usability either in terms of ease of use, or even aesthetics.

With this then we have the capability to re-define the value of the deign process and decoupled from the standard sales and marketing mix analysis pervasive in the time of the writing of this analysis. This is further seen within the context of the coming AI revolution in the same way that the internet influenced the way that end users interacted with products and services that previously had little if any connectivity or interconnectivity between them. We then see the true power of designs end capabilities and the way that it directly and with specific force can create an immediate value for the designer / design team and end users where the integration and use of convergence allows superior, intellectual property protected products to succeed in the real world.

 

                    

   

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Innovation Revolution Requires Subtle Structures

Disruptive innovation ( exactly what innovation is ) when substantial & radical - if observed with a wider time window - is in effect many NPD cycles when viewed with short sight.

 

Through the course of radical innovation ( eg the switch to 100% renewable energy alternatives ) we often see that innovation ( and a disruptive one given the above ) requires, as shown in The Structure of Design Revolutions that the emphasize of sudden insights, along with those that emphasize gradual and cumulative change are both necessary for radical change to take place. Yet this is not what is the case in the minds of most designers and certainly not in the minds of mavericks. Why? Because the story of the radical shift is the necessity often for involvement.

Often moving between the balance of good, fast and cheap, and the realization that only 2 of these variables at best can be effected at one time with New Product Development efforts, requires the mentality of optimization rather than radical change. When firms and individuals slowly rotate between 2 of the 3 at a time and continue to rotate with a purposeful vision and tactical capability to achieve a radical innovation effort, breakthroughs do in fact occur.

 

                    

   

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