Monthly Archives: October 2016

Platforms are the new gold rush for business today

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western-colarado-gold-prospectingPlatforms presently are the new gold rush we in business need to exploit today. They are becoming an essential part in our needs to shift to the new creation of connected value.

What is absolutely necessary, is the need to stake out where you believe are your best prospecting chances and for that you need to have a clear vision and plan, as you think through any shift into platform management.

It is a significant transforming decision, full of risk but equally full of real promise.

Different forms of platforms have been around for years, even centuries, where people came together, traded in goods and knowledge. The significant transformation taking place around exploiting technology and digital management has made ecosystems and platforms a mainstream prospecting need in most of our businesses today. Continue reading →

Innovating the Minimum Viable Experience

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minimum-viable-pathway-for-experienceThroughout our blog posts about innovation, ecosystems and platforms, we’ve maintained one core theme:  incremental, discrete product innovation will not create significant new revenues or disrupt markets.

The reasons, as we’ve discussed, include the growing expectation of seamless experiences from the consumers’ viewpoint and the rising importance of platforms and ecosystems in which new products or services exist.

Minimum Viable Footprint

Today I’d like to highlight a new idea – innovating for the “Minimum Viable Footprint”, an idea that was first proposed in Ron Adner’s book entitled The Wide Lens.  Adner defines the “Minimum Viable Footprint” or MVF as “the smallest configuration of elements that can be brought together and still create unique commercial value“.  The MVF is the logical outcome of two realities:  first, the already discussed idea that innovators need to innovate more than just a product, but must consider the ecosystem in which the product will reside, and second, the concept of a minimum viable product – something many companies already understand and practice.  Continue reading →

Are you thinking about Innovation Ecosystems? You Should

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image: www.complexitygraphics.com

All around us, we are faced with new challenges. One of those is a profound shift taking place relating to innovation. Increasingly we are seeing a growing dissatisfaction on the impact that innovation is having; in growth, in returns, in market and customer impact.

One of the implications is this growing recognition that innovation is rarely succeeding in isolation but is growing on a more highly dependent type of complementary innovation. This will have a significant impact on organizations innovation management design and approach.

Innovation ecosystems are being established that fundamentally are challenging the way we are managing currently and in the future our innovation activities, setting about our innovating of “doing things” in very radically different and more connected ways.

These are threatening to dismantle the way innovation is being managed today, and due to this, we require a radical adjustment in our approaches to achieve a far more collaborative one built on innovation ecosystem thinking.

So what is this change occurring for us to consider the value of Innovation Ecosystems? Making the case. Continue reading →

Why you need an experience manager for innovation

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customer-experience-journeyThrough our discussions about innovation, ecosystems and seamless experiences we’ve highlighted the fact that 1) innovation doesn’t work that well for many companies because we believe that 2) these companies create discrete products rather than fully understanding the ecosystem the products enter and 3) they don’t understand that customers are seeking seamless experiences more than ever.

If these points make sense to you, the question becomes, how do we create seamless customer experiences?  What makes up the solution?  How do ideas like the Geoffrey Moore inspired “whole product” combine with tools like customer experience journeys and design thinking to help an innovator understand the potential seamless solution?  And, how does an innovator decide what components in the ecosystem or solution they should create, and which to partner for or rely on external partners for?

I’d like to begin this post by arguing that this issue stems from another fallacy – the fallacy of being “customer centric”.  Continue reading →

New innovation realities require new mindsets and tools

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new-minsets-tools-and-skillsOur belief is that customer demand is changing. This will have a significant impact on the way organizations will have to adapt and change their innovation approaches in the future.

Jeffrey recently wrote this, initially on his blog site of Innovate on Purpose and reproduced here.

We felt this is an important point of understanding to bring into this dedicated site as it addresses one of the present sets of challenges we need to resolve, one of updating our innovation tools, thinking and methodologies.

Paul & I have started outlining the key needs of change here  in this dedicated site and will through an evolving series of blog posts about innovation, ecosystems, platforms discuss these changes and needs to respond to what we believe customers will ultimately demand:  seamless experiences.

Our view is as products and services proliferate and basic needs are met, customers become more sophisticated and more demanding, desiring products, services and business models that work together and don’t require configuration, integration or effort by the consumer to “make them work”.  Customers and consumers increasingly expect a seamless experience when using a new product.  If the product or service requires the customer to combine products, read manuals, acquire other products or services to make the solution work, the new product is likely to receive far less acclaim.

Understanding that, we should understand also that the tools that once helped innovators create new products aren’t the same tools that we need today when customers demand seamless experiences.  Or, put another way, those original tools are still valuable, but by themselves they solve only a small portion of the overall challenge. Let us here outline some of the present constraints or limitations to challenge and recognize our needs to shift our present thinking

Continue reading →

Widen the aperture, narrow the focus

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Today, customers are busier, smarter, have shorter attention spans and most importantly have less desire to make products or services work together.

Apple,  Amazon, and EBay are examples that  have taught customers that products, services, data, experiences, and design can all work together to provide a totally seamless experience.

Increasingly, this is what customers are increasingly wanting, and to do that you’ll need to rethink the way you innovate.

In Jeffrey Phillips post “Using ecosystems to build seamless experiences” we raised this present poor understanding within a business, that many lack a good understanding of customer needs.  Actually, it is far worse than we initially felt, still more on that later.

This is a longish read but an important one, to frame our need to think through innovation differently, through a new lens. Take your time, knowing why we need to change is critical. There is a new innovation era that holds promise if we think differently. Continue reading →