Managing innovation - creating value from ideas

This May marks a huge anniversary for a brand that utterly transformed the way we dress, a company that became a chameleon, adapting instantly to the hottest trends. We're talking about Zara, celebrating 50 years of disrupting the fashion world! How did a small operation, started in A Coruña, Spain, by an entrepreneurial couple, Amancio Ortega Gaona and his wife Rosalia, become a global powerhouse worth over $171 billion? What was the secret behind Zara's "fast fashion" model, a system so agile it could take a design from sketch to store in a mere two weeks, while competitors were still planning months ahead?Join us as we explore the revolutionary pillars of Zara's success: from their pioneering vertical integration and rapid design turnover to their incredibly efficient distribution and unique "scarcity" strategy that keeps you coming back for more. But it's not all glamorous runways and record sales. We'll also delve into the significant challenges Zara faces today – from intense competition with ultra-low-cost rivals like Shein and Temu, to the increasing backlash against fast fashion's environmental and social impact. Can Zara truly pivot towards sustainability while maintaining its core DNA of speed and volume?You can find a transcript hereAnd click here for more stories, songs, and stimulaing innovation resources

Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself, is a powerful tool for entrepreneurs. This video explores how this capability allows individuals to reframe problems and envision new possibilities, drawing parallels between historical innovators and modern-day ventures. Learn about Malcolm Maclean's container shipping revolution and James Brindley's pioneering canal systems during the Industrial Revolution. Discover how the concept is applied today by companies like Gridless, which uses an innovative approach involving bitcoin mining to provide sustainable energy access in underserved regions of Africa. Understand the challenges they faced and the systems thinking required to turn vision into reality. This podcast highlights the importance of adaptability, problem-solving, and long-term vision in driving significant change.You can find a transcript hereAnd check out my website for more innovation resources:

A classic story of entrepreneurial grit, a passion for something and the willingness to persevere when things don't go quite according to plan. Central to it all was a remarkable woman – Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin. Born in 1777 she went hard against the grain of what women were expected to do, creating and championing what became one of the most famous champagne houses in the world. 'Veuve Cliquot' - a legacy built on innovation.You can find a transcript hereAnd more like this here

This episode explores PR/FAQ in a fascinating interview withMarcelo Calbucci, an experienced entrepreneur who has extensive hands-on experience of using the 'Press release/FAQ' framework.  Developed over a decade ago and widely used within Amazon this simple approach forces anyone with a change proposal to make their ideas come alive through the medium of a simple story.  He's now a self-proclaimed evangelist for the method and the author of a new book which explains the considerable power behind this deceptively simple approach.You can find a transcript here And check out my website here for many other innovationresources

The story of dunnhumby, a small entreprenurial business which changed the face of retailing by bringing the concept of consumer data science into the mainstream with the launch of the Tesco Clubcard.You can find a transcript hereand more resources like this at my website here

We grow through what we know. Put simply that's at the heart of the innovation equation. Innovation is creating value from ideas, a journey which starts with an input of knowledge But when it comes to using external knowledge to help us grow we run into some challenges - as this podcast explores. We need 'absorptive capacity'. You can find a transcript here

Fifty years ago and Keith Jarrett created a legendary performance which was captured on record and became the best selling solo piano album of all time. That experience offers some powerful and inspiring lessons for today's innovation managers, as this podcast highlights. You can find a transcript and more resources at my website here

Managing innovation isn't a matter of abstract systems or process flow charts; it's much closer to the challenge of planting and tending an orchard. A rich harvest of innovation fruit comes from strong branches on trees which have matured thanks to careful cultivation. Maintaining what's already established and allowing for new shoots, sprouting in new directions, opening up more possibilities for future growth.   This doesn't happen by accident. We need to think about 'innovation horticulture' - how best to manage the orchard. This podcast explores that idea.  Check out my website here for more stories, cases, tool, even some innovation songs!

It's the time of year when letters are getting hastily scribbled and sent to the old gentleman in Lapland expressing preferences for possible presents. This is a sample from a somewhat frustrated but ever hopeful innovation manager…. You can find the lyrics and a rich assortment of other innovation resources - songs, cases, videos, podcasts, tools, etc. - at my website here

What we can learn from the past to help navigate the AI storm This podcast looks back at the experience of earlier technological revolutions to find some clues about how we might deal with this one You can find a transcript of this podcast here And check out my website here for more blogs, interviews, cases, videos and many other innovation-linked resources. There's even some innovation songs!

How having an innovation management standard can help — and why it might get in the way (you can find a transcript for this podcast at the 'Managing innovation' website, together with many other useful resources - please check it out) A standard is an old word for a flag. Back in the days of sailing ships you could see a forest of them fluttering at the stern of ships of all shapes and sizes, proudly declaring their allegiance to a particular country. And right now in the innovation world we've got a similar display of ‘ships' — organizations of various shapes and sizes all flying the new ISO 56000 flag — the Innovation Management Standard. This podcast explores the ISO standard and looks at what it means for innovation management practitioners

Send us a textWandering around Chicago in 1912 William Klann was a man on a mission. He was part of a team set up to explore ways in which they could reduce the costs of manufacturing a car to fulfil Henry Ford's vision of ‘a motor car for the great multitude'. They had already developed many of the ideas behind mass production — standardized and interchangeable parts, short task cycle work, specialist machinery — but what Klann saw while walking past the Swift Meat Packing Company's factory gave him an insight into a key piece of the puzzle.The workers were effectively disassembling meat carcasses, stripping off various joints and cuts as the animals were led past them on a moving overhead conveyor. In a classic moment of insight, he saw the possibility of reversing this process — and within a short space of time, the Ford factory boasted the world's first moving assembly line. Productivity rocketed as the new idea was implemented and refined; using the new approach Ford was able to cut the assembly time for a Model T to just 93 minutes.60 years later, and in another part of the world, Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy retired. He'd worked for many years as Head of Opthalmology in the main hospital in Madurai, India, and decided to use his expertise and new-found free time to try and help prevent blindness in rural communities in his home state of Tamil Nadu. This was not an insignificant problem — whilst the treatment itself is well-developed it comes at a price; in an Indian hospital, the cost works out to around $300, and in a country where most people, especially in rural environments, earn less than $2/day such a price tag puts treatment out of reach.In order to achieve his dream he had to search outside the conventional health sector, seeking ideas from other worlds with similar challenges. Specifically, he looked for low-cost ways of carrying out activities systematically, reproducibly, and to a high-quality standard — and eventually found inspiration in McDonald's. He saw the underlying similarities in the core processes they used and adapted their principles of assembly line manufacturing to the context of eye surgery!Developing and refining what became known as the Aravind system has meant that the average cost of a cataract operation is now $25, and over 60% of patients are treated for free. This isn't done by compromising on quality — Aravind has better performance than many Western hospitals. It has become the world's largest and most productive eye-care service group, responsible for treating over 35 million patients with its low-cost/high-quality model.What these stories have in common is that they are working on the same problem, just in a different context. This is a powerful resource in innovation — answers don't always have to be new to the world, they can also be adapted from different contexts. Recombinant innovation.It's not a new idea. Thomas Edison was an early and active exponent, seeing the possibilities in drawing on many examples of proven technology and reapplying them in different fields. His ‘invention factory' in New Jersey offered the world ‘…a minor invention every ten days, and a big one every six months or so….' and it largely succeeded.This podcast explores the theme of recombinant innovation and some strategies to help develop it as a key innovation capabilityIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Send us a textWhy high involvement innovation matters more than ever — and how to make it happenWe've always known that employees could be a source of ideas, especially in terms of improving the processes in which they work. Suggestion schemes have been around in some form or other back in the mists of time. Elements of the approach can be found in the medieval guild system where it was used to help develop and improve craft skills and practices. It was an idea which the eighth shogun of Japan, Yoshimuni Tokugawa tried out in 1721 with his ‘Meyasubako', a box placed at the entrance of the Edo Castle for written suggestions from his subjects. And the British navy pioneered a similar scheme in 1770, asking its sailors and marines for their ideas — significantly reassuring them that such suggestions would not carry the risk of punishment!The challenge in what we can call 'high involvement innovation' is  not about the what but very much about the how. How to move from the rhetoric, the motherhood statements about every employee being creative and able to contribute to actually making it happen. It's all very well saying, as one manager memorably told me, that ‘the beauty of it is that with every pair of hands you get a free brain!' — the big question is how to mobilise this. And how to sustain the initial enthusiasm and momentum for the long haul?This podcast reflects on what we've learned around this challenge.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Send us a textResponsible innovation (masquerading under many different labels over time) is now highly visible in conversations around innovation. Whether we're looking at AI or genetic engineering or geo-engineering we can see the issues being widely debated and discussed. Organizations, public and private, are increasingly measured on their commitment to thinking and acting responsibly in terms of key themes like sustainability and social responsibility. This has prompted a growth industry around helping develop strategy statements and corporate positions in the responsible innovation space — and in making sure this image is widely promoted.RI has moved centre stage — and it's not just words. There are regulations enacted to control the rate and direction of innovative activity and adoption, there are multiple research journals exploring issues raised, there are toolkits and consultants able to deploy them, there's even an ISO standard around it. RI is very much part of the fabric of innovation thinking in 2024.Which is where the problem comes in. By moving centre stage RI becomes something impossible to disagree with. It's a slogan which hangs there above us, an important and good thing, along with ‘motherhood' and ‘apple pie'. And the risk is that we swap slogan for substance; RI becomes a bit of a religion to which we all pay lip service. Try and imagine any organization today (public or private sector) talking about its ‘irresponsible innovation' or its disregard for sustainability and the future of the planet. It's impossible. The words are everywhere — but the meaning and action may often be missing.This podcast explores the challenge this poses and suggests that we need to rethink the narrative around RI, to reframe it as an essential, much as was the case with the 'quality revolution' in the last century.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Send us a Text Message.How one man's innovation provided the missing link for 20th century agricultural revolution.Harry Ferguson is not a name which instantly springs to mind when thinking of entrepreneurs who changed the course of history.  Yet his contribution to the world of agriculture was on a level with that of Steve Jobs in terms of providing the enabling platform which allowed the full impact of a technology - in his case the tractor - to be realised and to contribute to a massive upsurge in agricultural productivity,This podcast examines his contribution against the background of the emerging mechanization revolution and in particular his development of the dominant design solving the puzzle of how to connect new power sources to the tools which enable agricultural activity.You can find a transcript of the podcast here If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Send us a Text Message. It's easy to take maps for granted — but we'd be pretty stuck without them. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowing humans to explain and navigate their way through the world. They seem to have been — independently invented by many cultures across the globe, and they've been around a very long time. Fragments etched on tusks or scratched on stones, dating back 25000 years or more all point to maps as something important. Which makes sense from an evolutionary point of view — it would help our survival a lot if we were able to chart where to find food, mark dangers, settle boundary disputes. Especially if we could share that knowledge with others. What has all this to do with innovation? Quite a lot in fact: maps and map-making provides a powerful metaphor for much of what we do when we try to manage the uncertain journey which innovation involves. There's probably hundreds of applications of the idea but in this podcast we explore five which spring quickly to mind.(You can find a transcript of this podcast here)If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Send us a Text Message.We've got a huge challenge around social innovation - to help fix the planet with all the things that we're doing to it and all the things that are happening it's going to take a lot of effort.  More precisely a lot of innovation.  Even the Secretary-General of the UN has said we can only hit our Sustainable Development Goals through innovation. But innovation is not going to happen by accident; it needs change agents -  entrepreneurs - who are going to help make the difference.  This interview with Heiko Spitzeck who is Professor of Corporate Sustainability at the FDC Business School in Sao Paolo in Brazil looks at a particular kind of social entrepreneur who works in the context of a larger organisation.  Leveraging the resources and capabilities of such institutions to help scale innovations for social impact.  He calls them ‘impact intrapreneurs' and he's just published an excellent book, ‘The corporate hero's journey' in which he looks at the phenomenon and illustrates it with many compelling stories of such individuals.  If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

ISPIM — the International Society for Professionals in Innovation Management — was founded in 1974 to create a community of practice around innovation management. It was an early response to the challenges of actually making it happen — and it remains one of the best meeting places to mix-up academic researchers and teachers, policy makers and practitioners, consultants and anyone else wiht an interest in making innovation happen. And this year's conference, with its 500 or so people swirling around, offered a kind of all-in-soup for ideas with plenty of flavoursome mouthfuls to be had.This podcast takes a look at a few of them...You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

 Long fuse, big bang. A great descriptor which Andrew Hargadon uses to describe the way some major innovations arrive and have impact. For a long time they exist but we hardly notice them, they are confined to limited application, there are constraints on what the technology can do and so on. But suddenly, almost as if by magic they move centre stage and seem to have impact everywhere we look. Which is pretty much the story we now face with the wonderful world of AI. While there is plenty of debate about labels — artificial intelligence, machine learning, different models and approaches — the result is the same. Everywhere we look there is AI — and it's already having an impact. Not least in the area of innovation management. What impact is AI having — and what might the future hold? It's certainly implicated in a major shift right across the innovation space in terms of its application. But perhaps the real question is not about AI-enabled innovations but one of how it affects innovators — and the organizations employing them? You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

We spend so much of our time thinking about important innovation but maybe we should spare a thought for what might be called ‘irrelevant innovation'? And explore round the edges of this phenomenon — is it all wacky stuff or are there circumstances where it has more to offer? Is it a matter of framing, are we missing an innovation trick or two by dismissing such ideas too early?This podcast offers a suggested outline typology, a first shot at mapping the territory — feel free to add your own examples and categories….You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Innovation is a multi-player game. The image of the lone hero innovator is a myth. Even celebrated soloists like Thomas Edison or James Watt had their army of assistants working behind the scenes. Alexander Bell wouldn't have been able to bring the telephone to the world without being able to demonstrate the device by having Mr Watson on the other end of the line when he famously told him to come in from the next room….Ask any entrepreneur and they'll tell you about the networks they needed to bring their ideas to life; creating a valuable solution isn't a simple lightbulb moment but a complicated journey drawing in resources, ideas, time and energy, (not to mention money), most of it coming from other people. Deconstruct any successful start-up and you soon have a cast of characters on stage, taking their bows as the audience recognise the shared creativity which has made the performance possible.And once we get beyond the initial pilot, the hard work really begins. The journey to scale is a tough one, takes time and has to negotiate some uncertain conditions on the way. The evidence is very clear, it's a team effort and it needs plenty of external help.‘Complementary assets' is the technical term for the answer to the question of ‘who else and what else do you need to scale your innovation?'. The key point about them is that they lie beyond what you can bring to the party. By their nature they represent resources you need to find and work with; the trick is in assembling suitable partnerships to deliver them.This podcast explores the challenge of assembling and working with networks to deliver innovation value at scaleYou can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Another innovation song....Last week I was helping run a series of workshops supporting social innovators from across the United Nations system in thinking through how they were going to scale their great innovations now that they had successfully piloted them and proved their value. Scaling innovation isn't easy but it's increasingly important if we're to have real impact with our ideas. It's got a lot in common with mountain climbing — a visible goal but a long journey through very uncertain conditions to get there. It needs a strategic approach, a clear idea of the pathway to the summit which we'll follow and plenty of preparation and pivoting to help us get there. In particular we should pay attention to three key questions:· Have we got a solution which is ‘scale ready'? Is our innovation stress-tested to make sure it is replicable, adoptable, ‘rights ready' and otherwise configured to be scaled in different contexts?· Have we got an organization in place which can build on our strong innovation team but also grow to meet the very different demands of scaling? Do we have the right structures to help us retain fast, flexible and inclusive decision-making? Have we got cash flow models which support us on the journey, balancing new sources of revenue and reducing our costs?· Have we got a value network of ‘complementary assets' — the ‘who else?' and ‘what else?' that we need to bring our innovation to scale? Can we find relevant partners, form them into an ecosystem and then align their varying interests to get that whole to perform, delivering more than the sum of its parts?One way of helping the participants in our programme to think about and reflect on these challenges was to create a short song with the highlights embedded in the lyrics. So in the spirit of helping reinforce the learning I thought it would be worth sharing — you can find it here….And you can find the lyrics hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Necessity may the mother of invention — but in today's world she's a pretty fraught mum, trying to deal with thousands of kids tugging at her skirts, pulling at her arms and wrapping themselves around her legs. All screaming out for attention. We're not short of challenges which affect the very basics of trying to live our lives — getting enough to eat, clean water to drink, a roof over our heads and some peace to allow us to sleep at night. It might look neat and tidy to package these up into something like the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals but we shouldn't forget that beneath those critical targets for change lie thousands of things that need improving.In other words we need to “….be bold, be revolutionary… and disrupt… because without innovation, there is no way we can overcome the challenges of our times.” Wise words and an urgent call to action from Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. And of course he's not alone; the case for social innovation on a global scale is clearly made every time you open a newspaper or scan a news website. The question is not one of whether or not we need innovation but how to deliver it?This podcast explores some of the ways in which social innovation is being organized to try to help deal with the major challenges facing our future.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

What have ollies, decks, trucks, popsicles, cruisers and kicktails got in common? If you'd asked me that back in December I would have quietly assumed you were from another planet. But now I'm happy to say I'm in a good position to enlighten you…They are all terms used in skateboarding, a subiect in which I;ve had a crash course courtesy of taking my daughter to lessons in the art at our local skateboard park.  Turned out to be an education for me too; while sheltering from the noise of kids shouting encouragement and challenge at each other and the rumble of wheels over plywood ramps and chicanes I sipped my coffee and thought about some of the innovation lessons it was demonstrating….You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Why waste recycling and reuse may represent a valuable entrepreneurial opportunity…There's a well-known piece of Yorkshire wisdom, ‘where there's muck, there's brass'. Waste needn't be a problem to be hidden away — buried or burnt to get rid of it. Instead there are real opportunities in waste — as plenty of innovators have already found out. Think for example of Earl Tupper whose efforts to turn the black sludge emerging from 1940s oil refineries paid off when he created the bright shiny plastic kitchenware which bears his name.Rethinking waste in this way takes not only money but the classic entrepreneurial skill of reframing — of seeing what others don't see. At its core, the Trash-to-Cash business model is all about reimagining waste as a valuable resource. It requires an open mindset but also a long-term vision; the changes which might make such a business model viable may take time to materialise. But somewhere in that future of uncertainty about resource availability, concern for pollution and an increasingly strong regulatory framework lie the seeds of significant opportunity.You can find a transcript hereAnd a video version hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Some seasonal thoughts to accompany all good wishes....!(You can find the transcript here)If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Start-up success - or not?  Faisal Abid shares some fascinating insights into the do's - and don't's of trying to launch and grow a new venture, drawing in particular on his experience in founding and growing a number of businesses including AI start-up  zoom.ai  and his current work with Eirene Cremations where he is trying to disrupt a long-established and very traditional industry.You can find a video version of this podcast here.And more about Faisal hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Taking an innovation from a small-sized success story to something which delivers value at scale is not an easy one.  The Holy Grail of impact has a lot in common with that elusive quest pursued by King Arthur's knights, taking them along strange paths, meeting with dragons and disasters and lasting a long time.  Similar odds of success too. Having spent a long time focused on the challenges facing start-ups the innovation spotlight is now moving to the question of scaling – and there's a helpfully growing body of knowledge and codified experience around this theme. Including the important decision about which route to take for the journey to scale.  Choosing your preferred pathway to scale is a key first stage on the journey; fortunately there's a wealth of experience available from previous attempts and some important lessons on which we can build.  In particular we need to see the choices available as lying on a spectrum where we trade off additional external involvement with giving up a degree of control. This podcast explores some of those options and their respective strengths and weaknessesYou can find a transcript hereAnd a video version here If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

 We talk a lot about learning by doing in the agile innovation process, especially in the context of start-ups.  But it's hard to capture that learning as you go along when so much else is happening as you desperately try to find your way through the fog of uncertainty.  Which is why it's really valuable to have someone who runs a successful start-up which is now scaling well to share their insights . And even more so if they've managed to capture it in the form of a book which carries some really valuable lessons which have been learned the hard way!  This podcast features Zach Rattner, founder and CTO of Yembo and author of ‘Grow up fast!', a great book which captures some powerful learning about innovation and entrepreneurship You can more about his book hereAnd the video version of this interview hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Innovation is all about trying to convince others — people to help develop your idea, sponsors to back you, markets to buy in to your great new thing. So it makes sense to spend time and effort crafting a tale which will draw them in, intrigue them, capture their attention. Of course you don't want to oversell but as long as you've done your homework and the foundations are firm you'll benefit from creating your particular version of a castle in the air….Which is the message I'm trying to get across in the latest instalment of my long-term project to capture the key lessons of innovation and entrepreneurship in the form of a song….You can find the lyrics hereAnd watch a video version hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Why evidence is so important for scaling innovationA good idea will sell itself, right?  Unfortunately not – Emerson was spectacularly wrong when he suggested that all you needed to do was build that better mousetrap to have the world beating a path to your door.History is full of examples of innovations that, whilst being good and proven solutions, more than just a gleam in their inventor's eye, stubbornly refused to scale.  There are plenty of them in the world of commercial innovation – and in the field of social change, innovations designed to have an impact and change the world, it's even more difficult.One of the challenges is around the role of evidence.  At its simplest we adopt new things because we see some benefit in them, they make our lives easier, more comfortable or better in some way.  That's what gives rise to the S-curve shape which you can find associated with any innovation – it isn't a case of all or nothing, adoption takes time.  And one of the key influences on that is the role of evidence.You can find a transcript of this podcast hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

I'm running a course on entrepreneurship and was looking for a way to help students remember some key milestones on the journey - value proposition, minimum viable product, prototyping, business model development, etc.  So trying it out in the form of a song....You can watch it on my YouTube channel here, complete with lyricsIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

For our ancestors, creativity was a matter of survival. Not being big, strong or fast meant that if we couldn't think our way out of a problem (like an approaching predator), then we'd not be around for long! Dealing with the daily struggle to survive required us to be innovative, and the key to that was the ability to imagine and explore different possibilities.And it's pretty clear that creativity — the ability to come up with novel solutions to problems — is going to be even more in demand as we approach the future. The word is everywhere — creative industries, creative people, creative leaders, creative organizations and so on. But it's not just a fashion label — in a world where we face some pretty tough challenges, it's a truism to say we need all the creativity we can get. Whether we're a solo start-up entrepreneur, a member of a team tasked with helping the organization to think ‘outside the box', or someone trying to change the world through social innovation this creativity stuff is going to be needed.So it's good to know that we already have the most important resource to help deliver it — the 1.5 kilos of pinky-grey stuff between our ears. It comes as standard equipment with any human being and our brain — and the amazing ability it has for imagination — is the key.Trouble is that creativity, whilst really important, is also shrouded in myths which cloud our understanding of this key resource.  This blog - and our new book - explores what we know about creativity and how we might sharpen our skills in deploying it.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

 How creating experiences for underserved markets can be a key innovation strategy It's summertime, at least here in the northern hemisphere and chances are that August is a holiday month. Which might well see you sitting somewhere and watching an exotic sunset, glass of something suitably refreshing in your hand. As you see that golden disc slip below the horizon and the wonderful display of red shifting colour begins to settle towards nightfall you might spare a thought for the memory of Tom Gullick who died this month. Because for many of us jetting away to our exotic location might not be happening were it not for his innovation efforts….An avid bird spotter (he held the record for the most birds (over 9000) spotted by an individual) he was a bit of a Don Quixote figure, not least because he took up residence in La Mancha in Spain and pursued a conservationist crusade during his later years, saving at least one species of duck from extinction.But he has another claim to fame — as one of the founding fathers of the low-cost travel experience. His bird-watching abilities gave him good observational skills and led him to spot an opportunity in classic entrepreneurial fashion — and then to go after it with a passion.This podcast explores his experience as an innovator and the underlying idea of what can be called 'position innovation' - changing the market context in which an inn ovation is placed and the stories we tell about itYou can find a transcript here If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

An interview with Hannes Erler, Strategic Director for Innovation Ecosystems, SwarovskiThis wide-ranging interview looks back at how a major European company grew over a hundred-plus years from a small engineering start-up to become a global player in the fashion, jewellery and accessories business through constant attention to innovation.If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

There comes a time in innovation when you realise you might have taken on something a bit too big. No matter how hard you throw yourself into the challenge, creating value from your idea is going to need a little help. Changing the world, or even a small piece of it, takes a lot of push. That's the moment when you realise you need ‘complementary assets' – the ‘who else?' and ‘what else?' pieces of your innovation jigsaw puzzle.It's a challenge at the very beginning – how to put together a network of people and resources to bring your idea to life? But it's an even bigger challenge when it comes to scaling innovation – how to get widespread adoption of your ‘best thing since sliced bread' innovation.That's going to involve a multi-player game. We've learned that to create value at scale needs a network – but importantly one which goes beyond the sum of its parts. Systems have ‘emergent properties but these only emerge if there is an organizing energy to enable the process.This podcast explores some of the challenges involved in putting such a 'value network' together - and , once you've found the partners, getting them to work together to create and deliver shared value.You can find a transcript hereAnd a video version hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

 It's hard to disagree with the idea that innovation-led growth is of paramount importance, but how often do we associate it with taking risks and learning? This episode offers an enlightening conversation with Robyn Bolton, founder and ‘Chief Navigator' of Milezero, a consultancy specialising in helping organizations think through their innovation challenges.  Her core beliefs capture their approach well:  Innovation is something different that creates valueInnovation requires curiosity, courage, and commitmentAny organization can innovate, and any person can be an innovatorPeople (even your customers and your boss) decide with their hearts and justify with their headsIdeas are a dime a dozen.  Decisions are priceless.  Action is perfection.Drawing on her extensive experience working with amongst others Procter and Gamble, Boston Consulting Group and Clayton Christensen we explore a wide range of topics including the often misunderstood concept of failure in innovation, the role of innovation labs in fostering a controlled environment for experimentation and the significance of shifting our language from failure to learning.  We look at the challenges that established organizations face when navigating disruptive shifts and we speculate the future of innovation in a constantly shifting context and stress the importance of cultivating a learning mindset.   You can find a transcript of the interview here.And a video version here If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Time plays a surprisingly important role in innovation, both as an enabler and as a shaper of the process and its outcomes.   For example, the early development of reliable timepieces allowed accurate navigation which opened up the possibilities of global trade; without that the whole Industrial Revolution might have been a much smaller affair because the 'workshop of the world' would only have been able to trade in local markets.Or the role played by time-and-motion studies which underpinned the development and spread of mass production as a model for manufacturing and service organizations during the early 20th century.   The focus on saving wasted time also provided a key input to the development of 'lean thinking' which has had a huge impact on productivity.But we shouldn't be too preoccupied with saving time; sometimes we need to spend a little more of it to enable good ideas to emerge and flourish.  That's a lesson which organizations like 3M and Google have learned to their advantage - giving people time and space is a key innovation enabler.This podcast explores the key role which time plays in thinking about and working with innovation.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

These days innovation spaces have become something of a fashion accessory; no large organization can afford not to be seen without having one. And start-up spaces have followed a similar trend; there's been an explosion of support to try and tap into this potential source of local economic growth. On the surface these look like a welcome developments, innovation finally moving centre stage. But the reality is that very often these ‘adventures' are little more than physical spaces with a slogan, perhaps brightened up by a few coloured bean bags on the floor or a chic location in a converted factory or warehouse.What we know from research is that providing such space can make a huge difference — but we need to have an operating model which is geared to providing support and creating a mechanism to repeat the innovation trick. We need operating ‘routines' which help foster and support various aspects of the innovation process and which create a community of practice for organizations who take up residence inside them. Managed well innovation hubs, labs or whatever else you want to call them can operate as 'boundary spaces', creating an environment for shared creativity, connection building and continuing interaction across different communities.This blog looks at an example of a successful innovation space, the Instituto Caldeira, in Brazil and explores how it has helped create a vibrant community for start-ups and established organizations to progress their innovation ideas.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

We know today that smart companies who care about innovation invest in the capacity for innovation — R&D and market research, future scoping, etc. Organized innovation, buying themselves options on the future. All good — but maybe only focusing on the formal means potentially missing out on what might be happening underground. Because by their nature people are innovators, prone to experiment and tinker around, frustrated with aspects of their work which they think a little hacking around the edges might help them with. Why not tap into this as another source of innovation?It's not just the benefits in terms of the possible product and process innovations which it might lead to. It's also a powerful motivator, something which can help retain and inspire employees. Allowing people time and space to explore communicates a core company value — — it's an invitation to tinker to hack things, to play around. And it has certainly paid off for 3M and many other companies - as this podcast explores.You can find a transcript of this podcast hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Sustainability matters - of course.  You'd have to be living in a bubble not to be aware of the wide-ranging conversation on this theme.  But how to translate the rhetoric - whether it be the UN or EU's sustainable development goals or the aspirational strategies of businesses - into something practical?That's the focus of the IMPACT project which is exploring new ways of putting stakeholders' values into action and showing how sustainability challenges can unlock innovation.This podcast is an interview with Professor Henning Breuer, project leader of IMPACT and explores the origins and achievements of the programme.You can find out more about IMPACT hereand a transcript of the interview here.If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Mexico City, Olympic Games, 1968. The stadium is packed, the wider world looks on via TV coverage. Everywhere there's an air of expectancy but also an awareness that at such high altitude it's going to be hard for athletes to beat their best. Records are there to be broken, you have to hope for something special.And in the high jump event they weren't disappointed. The record for men's high jump had hovered around 2.23 m for several years. But a young 21-year-old was about to change that; Dick Fosbury, representing the USA broke this with a height of 2.24 m and won the gold medal.  The ‘Fosbury flop' as it quickly became known opened up new possibilities for the sport; within ten years it had become the dominant mode for all jumpers and helped move the world record to 2.45 m which was set in 1993 by Javier Sotomayor. These days anyone attempting the high jump has come to resemble the ‘fish flopping on the deck of a boat' as one newspaperman described Fosbury's Mexico model.What Fosbury's feat reminds us of is the power of reframing in innovation. Innovation can take place anywhere along a continuum from doing what we do better — incremental — to doing something completely different — radical. And it can cover what we offer the world — product or service — and the ways we create a deliver that offering — process. That gives us plenty to keep us busy in our innovation day.But sometimes we can reframe, look at what we're doing in a different way, identify novel approaches.You can find a transcript of this podcast hereAnd a video version hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment a computer room in the early days of the industry. Chances are you'll picture large wardrobe-sized metal cabinets whirring away with white-coated attendants tending to the machines. And it won't be long before your gaze lands on the ubiquitous spools of tape being loaded and unloaded. Which might give us a smug feeling as we look at the storage options for our current generation of computers - probably based on some incredibly fast access high-capacity solid state flash drive.But the tape drive hasn't gone away. In fact it's alive and well and backing up our most precious memories. Look inside the huge data farms operated by Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft Azure or anyone else and you'll find large computers - and lots of tape. Thousands of kilometres of it, containing everything from your precious family photos to email backups to data from research projects like the Large Hadron Collider.This podcast explores some of the innovation history involved and highlights some lessons for innovation management today.If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

I'm in love with Chat-GPTAnother innovation song, inspired by an article in the Journal of Product Innovation  Management by Frank Piller and colleagues, in which they put Chat-GPT through its paces as an innovation assistant.  It performed surprisingly well at diverse tasks including search and analysis, trend spotting and idea generation.  Their conclusion was that this technology would work best in hybrid mode - in other words, in a human/AI partnership.  Hence this song!You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

How machine learning is transforming the innovation gameMachine learning has its roots back in experiments with ‘artificial intelligence' in the 1970s but has come to represent a powerful technological trajectory as the idea of mimicking human neural networks and their learning capabilities has been explored.  And now we have generative AI, which does what it says on the tin — generates something new. And this brings the uncomfortable challenge to our perception of ourselves as the only ones capable of creativity — generating novel and useful solutions to challenges.A quick review of the growing literature on ‘artificial creativity' shows that there are grounds for worrying. Machine learning models can now ‘create' music, literature or visual art to a standard which makes it increasingly difficult to detect its non-human origin.With the advent of models like Chat-GPT has come the recognition that many fields are likely to be impacted by these developments.  This podcast explores the possible impact on how innovation is undertaken — and by whom.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

What do Mickey Mouse, vacuum cleaners, air travel and light-bulbs have in common? More than you'd think, especially if you look to the originators of those widely different things. All of their innovators spent a great deal of time being knocked back, living through failures and generally struggling to take their ideas forward. None of them have a history of instant success- it was hard work and persistence.So one of the key skills in managing innovation, whether at a personal level or embedded in the way our organizations handle the challenge is going to be perseverance.This podcast explores the theme of perseverance and the importance of pushing through and draws out some lessons for managing innovation to support the process.You can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

2022 was a record year for home delivery of parcels and packages. After the Covid-19 lockdowns the idea of remote shopping became an even bigger reality and changed the behaviour patterns of millions. It's a habit which is hard to break — even when there are increasing disturbances in the delivery end of things like strikes and negative publicity surrounding how packages are actually handled and delivered. Estimates of the market size for this activity vary widely but suggest that it is worth close to $500bn worldwide.But where did this revolution begin and what's the innovation history behind remote retailing? For that we need to go back a couple of hundred years and locate ourselves in the beautiful hills of Powys in Wales. In the valley alongside the river Severn is the small town of Newtown, a market centre since the 13th century. And in 1856 the home of Pryce Jones, a draper's assistant who rose to take over the business in which he worked. And for which he had big plans....You can find a transcript of this podcast hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Christmas, as my 6 year old never tires of reminding me, is coming. Never mind that technically it's a month away and forget the efforts I make, Scrooge-like, not to allow any trace of the season to cross our threshold until at least 1st December. She excitedly points out that everywhere — the TV and online adverts, the shop decorations, even some of our early bird neighbours with their flashing light displays — everywhere the signals are unmistakable. ‘It's nearly here!'Which prompts her to write lists, long and getting longer, of gift ideas in case Santa is short of the relevant information about this year's must-have items without which a six-year old's world can never be complete. I feel like King Canute, water lapping around my ankles as I desperately try to stem the tide, inevitability fast approaching on my horizon.In a desperate attempt to distract myself from these seasonal waves I began thinking about the kind of list I might put together for a would-be innovating organization. Assuming there was an innovation equivalent of the old gentleman at the North Pole what might he be working on with his elves right now? What are his stock-pickers pulling off the warehouse shelves and loading up on the sleigh? What might be on the must-have list for an innovation Christmas?So here's the result. If you're looking for inspiration for your seasonal innovation shopping here's a few ideas that might help. (And if you believe in an Innovation Santa they might be useful items to add to the ‘what I'd really like' list you're about to send up the chimney)(You can find a transcript here)If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it….. Well, I'm not sure about the last one but someone somewhere has probably done some research on the topic. We humans certainly do it, especially when we're young. I'm not talking about falling in love but about extending Cole Porter's observations to a different world, something up there in terms of importance — playing.Play is a basic animal behaviour and it's worth asking the evolutionary psychology question of why? Wasting time and energy isn't a good idea for the survival of any species. So why do human beings play?Turns out that play is a pretty valuable device. As psychologist Peter Gray suggests play enables us to:· practice skills that are essential to our survival and reproduction;· learn to cope physically and emotionally with unexpected, potentially harmful events;· reduce hostility and enable cooperation;· generate new, sometimes useful creations.And it's that last element which makes it particularly relevant for innovation. Play may be fun — but it has a serious purpose. Our ability to imagine and create lies at the heart of our emergence as a successful species, whose main gift is not in size or strength but in our ability to adapt to hostile and uncertain environments. We innovate, find solutions and alternatives if our first options are blocked off.This podcast explores the ways in which play is becoming a key tool to help us with the challenge of managing innovationYou can find a transcript hereIf you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here

Season of mists, mellow fruitfulness — and those rare but wonderful days when the sun smiles down benignly. I was strolling in the park, absorbing the warmth, my attention was taken by an ice cream.Or rather, to the face of a toddler who was very happily getting himself around an eminently lickable cone, with the usual results. We probably don't really have to worry too much about the dietary impact of ice cream in situations like these because 80% of the foodstuff was being liberally spread around his face, across his clothes or dripping sadly to the floor. Which prompted the idle thought (it was a very warm and lazy afternoon) about the possibility of non-melting ice cream and from there to reflections on the general pattern of ice cream innovation…..You can find a transcript here...

Have you ever felt the urge to kick the photocopier? Or worse? That time when you desperately needed to make sixty copies of a workshop handout five minutes before your session begins. Or when you needed a single copy of your passport or driving licence, it's the only way you can prove your identity to the man behind the desk about not to approve your visa application? Remember the awful day when you were struggling to print your boarding passes for the long-overdue holiday; that incident meant you ended up paying way over the odds at the airport?Given the number of photocopiers in the world and the fact that we are still a far from paperless society in spite of our digital aspirations, it's a little surprising that the law books don't actually contain a section on xeroxicide – the attempt or execution of terminal damage to the lives of these machines.Help is at hand. Because whilst we may still have the odd close and not very enjoyable encounter with these devices the reality is that they are getting better all the time. Not only through adding a bewildering range of functionality so that you can do almost anything with them apart from cook your breakfast, but also because they are becoming more reliable. And that is, in large measure, down to something called a community of practice. One of the most valuable resources we have in the innovation management toolkit....You can find a transcript of this blog here