IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Lars,

First off congrats on the upfront tone of your post. The first step in recovery is taking responsibility. That said there is at least one overwhelming lesson to be learned from the initial Wave introduction that needs to be understood.

IMHO - the lesson is simply that Google, as well as anyone else trying to innovate in a big way, must collaborate with the market in an open and democratic manner. The widely advertised invitation approach to test Wave was just flat out wrong.

When you do a market test on part of the market, which YOU define based on your criteria (or even the extended criteria of those YOU identify), you create an exclusivity that flies in the face of the openness of the web. It is supremely ironic that Google, of all companies, would do this with Wave, of all products (a broad-based collaborative tool!?).

When you exclude the majority of your market from participating, and make a huge stink about the fact that only a select few can be part of the innovation, you effectively close the door on, and piss off, the vast majority of your marketplace.

The result was predictable - the market snubbed their collective nose at Wave while the choir sang to the choir.

Today innovation needs to be a full-on collaboration with the market. Focus groups, sampling, limited beta testing are things we used to do when we didn’t have the option to tap the tremendous potential of the entire market - and even then I’m very suspect of the value they added.

There was a time when the market didn’t want to be part of the innovation process. Guess what…now they do!

Lesson learned?

jugaad in action

I wonder, is Jugaad the Indian equivalant of Macgiver, the American spy who could build a solution to anything out of buble gum and string?

Most of MacGyver’s ideas were great. It’s just that …

they would never work in the real world where they would cause far more damage than good.

I fear Jagaadists similarly value ideas over results.

Jugaad is nothing more than a creative approach to solving problems within a context of constraints. i.e. can’t afford the time and money for a clamp to hold the gondola to the cable, then just use duct tape, cheaper, faster, and readily available. The problem with this is that we need to consider the notion of cost as it applies to not just the idea but also to results. It is creative to use duct tape unless you are the one riding in the gondola.

Simply put creativity does not guarantee innovation.

Innovation adds VALUE. Creativity and invention may or may not add value. Creating just because we can is a prescription for pain and suffering - just look at the ecological mess we’ve created.

I fear that many confuse Jugaad with value in the same way that they confuse invention with value. There is no value in ideas, the value is in the result of ideas.

Take note, Jagaadists, Incentivize results and better ideas will follow.

Download for your iPod, iPhone,iPad, Zune, or Laptop (for the nostalgic among you who still use a laptop…)

Tell me what you think!

After all these years, I’m finally starting to understand what he meant.

I’ve been lucky enough to be a consultant to hundreds of organizations in my 20 year career with Delphi. To this day what I find especial fascinating is that within the first 5-10 minutes of a being part of a client company meeting I can tell with 99.9% certainty what kind of culture and values exist in the company. It’s almost like running a patient through a CAT scanner to see what’s going on below the surface.

So why do I share this?

All the talk about innovation, creativity, and collaboration is worthless in companies where a tolerance for disruption is not also present. Unfortunately this is not something that you can create out of thin air, no matter what tools, methods, and budget you apply to the problem. Innovation will never be sustainable in companies that can’t bear disruption.

I simply have never seen a company that is consistently innovative and not also consistently impressive when dealing with disruption.

I saw this twice in the last two weeks working with two separate Fortune 50 Clients. Both are companies that by every measure are among the world’s most innovative. Yet, both brought me on board to help them disrupt their field of view with tools and methods for innovation and creative problem solving. In the process I had to step into the role of being the “disruptant” rather than the consultant. My objective was to help them see the opportunity rather than the threat of disruption.

So what have my experiences as a disruptant taught me?

Never rest on your experience. If you work out to stay healthy you’ve probably learned that the worst thing you can do, if you want to keep yourself fit, is to do the same set of exercises every time you work out. Your body becomes accustomed to them, your muscles are not challenged, and you get board. You need to challenge yourself in new ways in order to get ongoing benefit from the effort, your muscles, like your brain, need disruption ion order to stay fit. The same applies to how you innovate. People need to be challenged to look at the problem differently. It’s why so much innovation comes from outside the list of usual suspects. These outsiders do not have a set point of view on how to solve the problem.

Disruption is a team sport. We all want to believe that we are the smartest person in the room (it’s not just me is it?). Even the best team players are tempted to tackle the problem on their own when a good idea pops into their head. Great teams pull individuals out of the abyss and back to the table. You end up on the team because you realize you are much better as an individual because of it, not because you lose your individuality to the team. The team becomes your greatest safety net as uncertainty and disruption increases.

Leadership has to allow failure. The world is filled with uncertainty. Organizations provide one benefit above all others, a place to experiment without fear of failure. If leadership punishes failure that occurs in the process of doing the right things then it ultimately punishes people for doing the right things. Leadership has to make it clear that failing fast is tolerated as long as it provides lessons with which to tackle the next problem.

Simple stuff right? Right? So, why don’t we all follow these simple tenets? Because we don’t like disruption. It’s painful to learn new ways of solving new problems. Of course it is, otherwise incumbents would always come up with the best new ideas and products.

The bottom line is that if you want to be innovative then you need to learn how to embrace disruption, look at it as an opportunity, and accept it as an invitation to walk through the door to a new level of success.

So, it is with some dismay, and the yearning for a more youthful set of eyes, that I have to tell you what my daughter said when I announced I was getting an iPad.

But first some background.

I’ve been just as wrapped up in the iPad frenzy as the next person. But being a Mac user from my very first personal computer I have to admit that my bias towards Apple runs long and deep - Okay, it’s down right religious. I’ve even raised my kids to be Apple bigots. The first time I brought home a PC, that I purchased to use for some client work I was doing, they recoiled in horror at the sight of dad using what to them was a tool of the devil.

If you’re a parent you understand how exciting it is to actually have tweens and teens that look up to your opinion on some matter and even go so far as to ask for it, even if it’s limited to helping them just hook up to a printer. So, I was excited to now be among the first in line to snatch a new iPad and to bring it home to show my kids. I saw it as my responsibility to introduce them to and help them navigate this brave new world.

At least so I thought until I told my 14-year old daughter about my plans. Her response, “Dad, it’s an oversized iPhone. Why would anyone want one?”

Me: “Uh, well, it’s cool, right?”

She: “Right : )”

Oh how quickly the generational schism reveals itself at moments like these, and makes abundantly clear to me on which side of that divide my mind resides. I suddenly realized in that short exchange that to me the iPad was the equivalent of a Jitterbug - you know the cell phone advertised as ideal for your aging parents (which, by the way, also has a “no contract” plan starting at $14.99 a month - yikes, do you think that’s where Apple got the idea - Jobs sure is looking old these days…)

So will that stop me? Nope. I’ll get my iPad and wear it proudly on my back as I workout at the health club - you know, attached to one of those velcro straps that young folks use for their nanos and iPods. Maybe I can even play  Beonce’s music video “Put a ring on it” for the person behind me to watch as they workout.

Laughing a the sight of it, right? Yeah, me too. That’s the funny thing about adopting a technology religion, it ultimately defines you more than you define it.

At least I know my place now. Anybody for Laser Tag?

Also download my latest e-book “Living in The Cloud” from the Delphi website:

Q. What are some key enablers that enterprise technology professionals can use to drive innovation and what role will cloud services play?

A. I think that IT professionals are too often stuck in the past when it comes to realizing just how much they can bring to the table to drive innovation. I grew up in IT and while it was a fund time to be a technologist it was also a time when there were steep walls between technology and business. You know, when I founded Delphi Group two decades ago it was actually a novel concept to talk about bridging IT and business! Today those walls need to come down - and they have in many case, but not enough.

Ideally IT should be the bridge that connects new ideas, new business models, and new products and services to the market. IT should be the enabler of innovation. The key however, is that it must do this not by simply building the bridges, but by identifying the best technologies and the best path to take in using the myriad technologies available to achieve a business objective.

One why to look at this is to think of IT as a portfolio manager. In the world of finance portfolio managers evaluate and navigate immense complexity in financial instruments to achieve the objectives of their clients. The same is true to day of IT, especially with the dawning of cloud computing. In the cloud the varieties of solutions and options are virtually infinite. Making sense of all of this complexity is a task that has direct impact on the ability of an organization to innovate.

Q: What do you see as driving the focus on innovation in the current environment?

A: It’s clear that much of what is currently driving innovation stems from the economic necessity to create growth and employment. Innovation has always been the cornerstone of economic prosperity and that hasn’t changed, if anything it is even more important today give the severity and breadth of the recent economic turmoil around the globe.

But there is more to the innovation story that often gets brushed aside. The increasing availability of a global educated workforce is expanding our capacity to innovate on a scale never imagined. At the same time there are immense global challenges that face all of us. For example, Businesses need to provide goods and services to a burgeoning global population that are ecologically sound and affordable - all the while trying to find ways to do more with less.

Lastly, we need to understand that we are entering a new era of socialization. The generation that is now starting to enter the work force is more connected and collaborative than any of us expected. They are accustomed to using technology as a 24/7 service, always there, always on - they are clearly a generation built to innovate.

Q. What recommendations do you have for companies about using cloud services to drive innovation?

A. The first recommendation is to be open minded - no pun! All too often cloud is simply seen as a way to drive down costs. While that may be the case I’d equate that attitude to choosing to take a plane from Boston to LA simply because the it cost less than the gas to drive! The reason you take the plane is because it allows you to use your time wisely and to focus on where your efforts are best spent, which unless your a teamster will not be behind a wheel for three days. Cloud pays of in ways that you may never have expected. For example, it open up an entirely new universe of technology options, computing power, and reliability that otherwise would not be available at any cost.

Second, think about how you can better focus your IT on the core of your business by using cloud for many non core activities. While, cloud can be used nearer to your core, start first by increasing your ability in IT to focus on what’s of greatest value strategically. Once you  have done that your ability to align with the business and your value naturally increases.

Q. Can you share some examples of companies who have used the cloud to gain innovation that might not have been possible before the advent of cloud services?

A. What’s interesting here is that so much of what we are already innovating has been spurred by the cloud. For  example, most folks may not think of Facebook or flickr as the cloud but it is! We are relying on the cloud to provide with an amazing number of innovations that we already take for granted in our day to day lives. Think of the iPhone and the number of applications available to download - you could spend days, perhaps weeks just browsing these many apps. All of this is cloud-based innovation.

But here is an even better example that I love to talk about - Starbucks! Starbucks launched a cloud application recently called My Starbucks Idea. IT’s intended to allow customers to engage in the process of innovation with Starbucks. This is an app that probably would have taken an enormous amount of time to build and would likely never have been justified as an experiment - since the ROI wasn’t clear. My Starbucks allows customers to submit, vote, rank, and discuss ideas for new Starbucks innovations - small and large ones. Starbucks has logged nearly 100,000 new ideas and launched several dozen of them.

This sort of approach is what I call an Innovation Zone, and it’s the best way to leverage both the cloud and to create a more innovative organization.

Q. What is it about the cloud that allows new business models to evolve? What is it about cloud services that makes this possible?

A. I believe that 50% of all technology intensive small businesses today would have been unable to weather the recent recession without the cloud. In every case where I have seen the cloud contribute to this sort of business model innovation it because of one basic reason - the cloud allows you to experiment without the risks and repercussions of traditional IT. A great example is Zip Car, which was able to create a fractional ownership model for urbanites through the use of a ubiquitous network of technologies that allow subscribers to locate and reserve cars for use by the hour at a moments notice. The corollary to this is that the cloud allows you to be elastic and to stretch your business as far as you want and then instantly contract it. This fundamentally changes the risk of scale and growth.

Simply put the cloud allows an organization to create a velocity of innovation that matches the demand of the market. There is just no other way to do that.

It goes back to my analogy about the plane versus the cross country road trip. At some point I just don’t have the luxury to decide which is cheaper because my market and my competition just won’t wait!!

“All it takes are the policies to tap that potential — to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity — which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed.”
(Who said this? - find out by reading the posting below…)

I feel at home in Europe, having grown up a citizen of cultures spanning the Atlantic. I’m what’s often called a Third Culture Kid.

So it was with great enthusiasm that I recently spent a week in Brussels at the invitation of my friend Attila Toth and the European Business Network to meet with members of the European Parliament and a vast network of businesses .  Although I spent a fair amount of my early childhood in Europe and have traveled there countless times as an adult, this trip left me with an entirely new set of insights into Europe, its challenges and opportunities for the coming decades.

I spoke with numerous people in the EU about the whole notion of developing policies for a European Innovation Zone, something that is slightly anathema in the US where we admittedly prefer free market innovation to most economic policy. But the EU is not the US. There are 27 countries whose economies need to be somehow aligned - a challenge on every level.

Here is what I learned during my visit:

First of all,  while I was familiar with the EU, I was still amazed by the sheer complexity of the political machine needed to govern the EU. The level of government and bureaucracy required to bring together the 27 countries that make up the EU dwarfs Washington DC. Simple things like language translation require a seven-story two city-block size building. You are overwhelmed with a sense of the constant coordination that is required to keep this place moving.

Since the official language of EU business and communications is English, there is a bright light in all of the chaos. For those who have mastery of English this is a wonderful place to bridge dozens of cultures with ease. Mind you that this does not mean someone born in a country whose native tongue us English has an advantage - I said those who have “mastery of”  English! Oh, and if you’re thinking that a united Europe means that any single national has lost one gram of his or her national pride, forget it! If anything national pride is even more important in differentiating yourself from the crowd.

Second, the emphasis on innovation being placed by the EU is staggering. For instance, last year, 2009, was dubbed “The year of Creativity and Innovation” in the EU. So I have to ask, is there really such as thing as a “year” of Creativity and Innovation? Isn’t it an ongoing process?

None-the-less, both the talk about the importance of innovation and the investment being made in it is striking. Especially for someone who comes form a country where innovation is touted as a national advantage. Of course, much of this is due to the EU collectively still seeing itself in catch up mode as far as defining its innovation stature on a world stage. But when?

Not anytime soon. The recent problems with the debt being accumulated, especially by member states such as Greece and Portugal, is undermining much of the more strategic agenda of the EU.

As an example take the Lisbon Strategy, which set out in 2000 to establish the EU as the most competitive economy in the world with full employment by 2010. It seems to me that the EU is on a perpetual rolling 10-year strategy. That may just be a testament to how difficult the task of unification really is. But it’s also a commentary on the degree to which this has become a challenge for every developed economy.

If I sound pessimistic about the EU, then let me be clear about this - I am not! I see the efforts being undertaken by the EU as absolutely vital to not only the EU but to the health of the global economy and the global innovation agenda. If anything the EU is creating what is arguably the most visible and sincere campaign to advertise and fund innovation in the world. The target of SMBs/SMEs is absolute correct; innovation has to be fueled in the ranks of entrepreneurs. The intense level of discussion and debate around innovation is equally important. And the diversity of cultures certainly helps provide diversity in the dialog around innovation.

So can the EU create policy to fuel innovation? While the US parochial view may be that policy is detrimental to innovation - we love the free market - it’s worth noting that the right incentives for entrepreneurs and the right sort of climate can be created through tax policy, regional incubators and educational investment in innovation. What’s not clear is how long it will take for all of this to overcome the cultural inertia that is pulling the EU in 27 different directions. It’s certainly a fascinating social experiment. We often play up the importance of diversity in creating better innovation. So why not in this case?

Innovation is a global agenda. It’s going to take enormous diversity as well as ingenuity to help us solve many of the problems facing the world. Regardless of where we call home none of us can afford the luxury of closing the door on the rest of the world and isolating ourselves within the relatively narrow view of any single nation.

- tk

BTW - So who said, “All it takes are the policies to tap that potential — to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity — which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed.”?

Barak Obama in his Saturday morning address on August 1st. Surprised? Do you agree?