Connecting The Innovation Dots = Full Ecosystem Awareness

Without full Ecosystem awareness innovation is often disjointed, but pull it all together and innovation connection equals rapid ROI creation like it or not.

Never in the history of humanity has the power of disconnectedness been more unlikely than today when algorithms we can’t see and sometimes can’t even understand have almost complete control over the success or failure of rapid innovation advancement effectiveness. As such, every innovator now has the initial ( before an innovation even begins ) responsibility to be completely aware of the ecosystem to which an innovation ( disruptive or incremental ) is emerging into. Without this awareness comes not only the harsh reality check of past capabilities set to either be re-enforced the current system or the which can be re-programmed. This also does not ignore the possibility of missing key areas for specific creativity and thus further breakthroughs unnoticed due to black box data directly driving the algorithms due to specific systematic obscurification.

But, put all the pieces together and within the context of the Product / Service Systems ( PSS ) and a much stronger case is possible for full Ecosystem Awareness via a Connecting The Innovation Dots mentality. In Designing Product/Service Systems: A Methodological Exploration we see how a fully integrated PSS means extensions of a service component around a traditionally product-oriented situation or the introduction of a new service component marketed as a product for business activities that are usually service-oriented. What is more important often is how the ratio between product and service components due to technological developments, economic optimization, and the changing needs of users in the eco system means a stronger barrier to entry ( when protected by legitimate patent, copyright and trademark defenses ) means different combinations of products and services can fulfill the same needs. 

This overlap however means the common point of those services is where they are conceived and offered as products, which are designed by taking into account a series of economic and technological criteria specific to the knowledge that a full ecosystem mentality is the only way for innovation success, ala, ( in today’s world many of the times ) the black box of search engine effectiveness. This not only emphasizes the relevance of the designer in the definition of new PSS environments but also that ignorance of them means certain doom for truly breakthrough innovation efforts.

  

                    

   

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When Innovation Agents Become Almost Autonomous

How could you ever predict that a major economic down turn would spark an entire industry – AirBnB ? In many aspects this is not possible. However macro level agent based modeling does in some aspects approximate the uptake of major disruptive innovation efforts.

In ” Uses of Agent-Based Modeling in Innovation ” we see the underpinnings of how this may be possible and where Empirically Grounded Agent-Based Models of Innovation Diffusion can be unfortunately misused and or situations where results can easily be misinterpreted. Whiel the technology and underpinnings may be there for innovation simulation of usage and increased usage based on virality, limitations based on subjective interpretations of the modeler means bias can sneak in and more results may not be directly connected to the original modeled form – as Agent Based Modeling can in many ways be black box like. With the complexities of Agent Based Modeling the key is that the technological systems may be possible for fully autonomous capabilities when more artificial intelligence systems soon come into play.

  

                    

   

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International Innovation Requires Intermediate Interventions

Often the capability of innovation from directly inside an organization is very different from the acceptable or purchase of radical technological change. In some instances there is also the chance for powerful services changes due to environmental disruptions such as in the case of AirBnB which in many cases no one even saw coming. But is there a way to be able to also cultivate the capability to develop and specifically nurture unknown and left field innovation occurrences that can directly effect and drive an organizations unexpected growth.

In ” Critical Success Factors for Radical Technology Innovation ” we see the capability to address “planned radical innovation ” should first be analyzed from the perspective of an R&D project and its transferability to operations, and where we see the 1st breakdown of the ” innovation ” method itself, here, actualized as new product development. think Makerbot being acquired by Stratasys whose patents had ultimately expired thus allowing the doors to be opened for further development of a market almost completely ignored by Makerbot at the time. Radical innovation is not normally anywhere close to typical transferr to operations modes. Radical Innovation is itself, not likely to be accepted by the parent organization. With the reality check of technological innovation and its acceptance in the marketplace, this is again more connected to new product development rather than innovation formally. but when looked at as an internal venture, separate from ongoing business which is valid and important but again more easily accepted when the ” innovation ” itself has the capability to be easily accepted and which can sometimes co-exist inside organizations already delivering substantial revenue.

When looked at withing the context of a change in corporate strategy in terms of diversification and strategic focus, this is where there is the closest analog to shifting capabilities of a firm and as an example what happened with Apple and the purchase of NeXT which allowed the Mac product line to take a radical jump in it’s ability to push out rival firms in the education space – a place where large industry players had a very strong hold at the university level but where Apple had almost taken over at the lower educational levels with it’s Apple II line many years before

Where the idea of internal innovation is a possibility in firms who are highly R&D focused, incremental innovation ( more closely identified as new product development efforts ) have a substantial advantage over radical innovation efforts that have a completely different mechanism for success to be assured. In that way, the capability to alter and directly effect the outcome and radical innovation efforts substantial care must be made to the integration process over all other factors so that organizations/organisms easily accept the changes that are taking place.

Successful Innovations Does Not Mean Road-Mapping Less Traveled

One of the strongest indicators for later stage design and innovation success is the process that takes place when an expected series of events needs to occur in rapid succession allowing specific hurdles preventing innovation uptake to take place and allowing said innovation to get into the hands of large groups of end users ( or subsequently ) small groups of specific users inside large organizations thus allowing further dissemination at a later time. Think the original Makerbot printers ( where a necessary and simple user interface had not even been developed yet ) however this was not a make or break factor to allow for usability to increase.

In ” How Organizations Talk About The Future ” we see some of the specific markers for why certain types of future forward boundaries are the natural outliers of the later stages of the innovation process and the exact beginning phases of new product development efforts such as: when coordination is difficult to enhance the specific innovation that has become the basis for competition ; a customer voice needs strengthening ; dealing with mitigating organizational political problems

In total the capability to use road-mapping in conjunction with the tail end hand-off from now in motion innovation efforts allows for ease of acceptance where previously strife may have occurred thus allowing for larger usability for specific breakthroughs to take hold.

  

                    

   

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Making Breakthroughs Means Innovation Autonomy

When it comes to creating a consistent innovation pipeline system, the capability of multiple R&D capabilities is often a function not only of geography ( in terms of customer and country specific capabilities necessary ) but also the core mechanisms for communication and destination of information across geographic units so to be able to quickly bubble up game changing efforts effectively.

 

In ” Enhancing Synergistic Innovative Capability ” we see factors such as autonomy and innovative proficiency synergy indicates that those R&D units free to make decisions regarding their project portfolios, human resources, and collaborative partners are likely to be more proficient at generating and exploiting new and successful innovations.” which is not unexpected. However what is particularly interesting is the innovation capability of firms who encourage very high levels of autonomous activity between units that have no formal interaction or need to communicate with each other and increased cross team re-usability so that ( in the case of coding ) very complex solutions to problems are reduced in terms of development time just because of the open format of communication between non formally connected geographic groups.

  

                    

   

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Internal --> External: Creating Cognitive Catalysts

When innovation happens, how can you encouraging risk taking ? There are a number of ways while being mindful that one of the biggest challenges, and specifically when innovations are of a radical enough manner, is that end users, unfamiliar or even concerned that innovation adoption is dangerous, want to be encouraged empirically and emotionally even in environments of extreme uncertainty.

In Embedded (Lead) Users as Catalysts to Product Diffusion we see the exact steps and tools used to address situations of extreme uncertainty via balancing potential benefit with positive and negative consequences in situations of lower risk as well as in situations of high likelihood of innovation adoption in domain-specific, risk taking environments. Factors, such as perceived risk can be traced back to potential psycho-social losses : risk involved with uncertainty about how others react to innovation adoption decisions. 2nd hand influence. Foreseeing and even future-proofing specific behaviors of use before actual adoption decisions take place, and working with end users along with anticipating reactions of other directly connected + ancillary actors to the specific innovation at hand, allows for higher cognitive empathy and increased domain-specific innovation realization, thus ( in some cases ) a more immediate innovation uptake.

 

  

                    

   

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Social Media Increases Innovation Absorption. Then What ?

It’s not surprising, and which we have all come to accept, is that one capability of every organization / organism is to be at equilibrium with it’s environment and with that comes the assumption the environment is pushing against the organization / organism. Listening then, it can be said, works in a similar fashion – listening to consumers, listening for opportunities, listening with curiosity. With that, and constantly in the news is the idea of the consumer being at the heart of all that is innovative. But is it ?

At odds with this, is the very well known statement by Alan Kay, the creator of the Xerox ALTO computer system, the precursor to every modern computer GUI ( Graphical User Interface ) and WYSIWYG ( What You See Is What You Get ) desktop publishing and interactive computer system which you are exposed to on a daily basis. Alan famously said ” The best way to predict the future is to invent it. ” in 1971 which was co-opted and attributed to Steve Jobs but which came from the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Dennis Gabor who invented and developed the holographic method, holography and the 1st ever produced holograms in 1948. Gabor said in 1963, “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.” and where this gets more interesting is how in the world of innovation and listening to outside influences can in fact assist. 

In the very detailed work Use of Social Media in Inbound Open Innovation: Building Capabilities for Absorptive Capacity we see not only four capabilities for absorptive capacity uncovered: connectedness, socialization tactics, cross-functionality and receptivity but we also see a focus on the capabilities of receptivity that the most innovative firms are able to achieve. What’s important to note, is that innovation is not iteration rather, as accepted by some and refuted by others, the capability to effect radical change in an existing environment through advanced technological, design and finance capabilities. No where better does Ooms, Bell and Kok illustrate this than in showing purposefully developing absorptive capacity ( via social media or other aspects of a firm, person, or organizations interest and investment in exploring new knowledge domains, then knowledge depth is associated with absorptive capacity emerging as a by-product of investments in R&D. Simply those who are more able to pursue an exploration strategy of developing radical new products or obtain a more satisfactory balance between exploration and exploitation and thus arrival at goals and destinations not though of before.

   

 

                    

   

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Balance Prospect vs. Defend & Analyze vs. React For Breakthrough Design Focus

With the value of “new” often outweighing trial and error it’s not necessarily efficiency or timing that drives innovation. Fully contrary to the belief of efficiency as the primary driver of use, in many regards, innovation is not as easy as there must be a need to literally will an innovation into existence.

Throughout the history of science and/or engineering based innovation efforts, one of the prevailing values of the innovation cycle is that if X can increase efficiency, increase speed, decrease cost, it is valuable. That X can fall into any number of buckets from materials, user functionality, etc, it is an efficiency based mindset at play. Streamlining. 

With that and in a Coherent Strategy for Innovation and Change we see a clear and present system of how Defend & Analyze / Prospect & React can create far more innovation value and where, in general ( via a sample size of more than 150 ) start to 5yr running innovation centric firms, if a reactor mentality was implemented, this produced the worst performance, i.e., 35% of organizations presented a decrease in their capability. Simply whether or not a firm or group has the capability to influence use, and as connected to the timing of said usage to innovate in a particular way, it’s often, more, the effort of constantly Prospecting for new use cases modifications that creates the push where breakthrough innovation takes place.  

                    

   

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