The World's Obsession with Innovation

An innovation is a product or service that adds greater value to customers than what already exists.

How's that for taking the sexiness out of a very sexy and hot topic?

The reason I like that simple definition is that it makes being innovative so much more accessible for everyone as opposed to only being a skill that a privileged few can implement. I'm going to use the company, Apple, Inc., to demonstrate a few methods of innovation. They can be applied in any industry at any time. It does require a little thinking time however.

Innovation Method #1: Reverse the situation.

In the 1970s computers were a very big deal. I mean that quite literally. They were very, very big and took up an enormous amount of space. Steve Jobs and his comrades at Apple thought, "Let's reverse the situation. Let's make the computer small enough to sit on a desk so that anyone can use it." In 1984 I was a senior in college. In my dorm, the guy next door and I had to hand in a project for a mechanical engineering course. Due to my rather extraordinary lack of engineering knowledge, I was named to the key position of typist. His roommate had this new funky typewriter called a Macintosh. Somehow it stored all of the information in its little box, and then when I wanted it to print I just pushed one button. Man, did I ever look impressive when I handed in my portion of the project.

How can you reverse a current situation and create additional value for your customers?

Innovation Method #2: Add a thing or two and keep getting better.

Apple did not create the concept of downloadable music. I know that's hard to believe since they just sold their 100 Millionth iPod recently, but there were actually companies out there that were providing downloadable music. However, there was a problem. They were giving away the music for free. Musicians were losing out on tons of money, and the music pirates started to get prosecuted. So there was a situation in which to add value, but no one had pieced together the last few steps that were needed.

In stepped Apple. They created iTunes Music store and the iPod. Now you could download music legally, and musicians could survive.

Of course, there were more innovations involved here. They created a very cool looking device that epitomized simplicity. And they kept making it better and better. In 2001, the first iPod cost $400 and held 1,000 songs. By 2006, you could buy a $400 iPod, but it held 15,000 songs. They kept the price the same, but increased the capacity by 15 times within 4 years.

How can you take a current product or service offering, add a thing or two, and increase the value to customers dramatically?

Innovation Method #3: Combine what's out there.

Now the world is gaga over the iPhone. What is the iPhone? Seems to me it's a cell phone, a computer, a camera, an internet browser, an iPod, a keyboard, and maybe there's a pocket knife in there somewhere. In other words, Apple combined existing products to create something more. Now you can carry your entire music library in your pocket while checking your e-mail and calling a friend while taking a picture of a beautiful scene and typing up ideas for your meeting tomorrow. Now that's cool.

How can you combine existing products and/or services to create something that truly adds more value to your customers?

Why bother innovating?

Two reasons come to mind: first, you create an amazing buzz that can attract new customers to you, and, second, you reinforce why your current customers should stay with you. As customers get more value, they are more likely to stay with you. It's never enough to maintain the status quo.

Book Recommendations:

I just finished reading a fascinating book called, Preventing Strategic Gridlock: Leading Over, Under & Around Organizational Jams to Achieve High Performance Results by Randall Stross. It should have been called, Demystifying Edison, because that's what it did for me.

Edison had an inventive mind and incredibly faithful media relationships. While he did have ideas on the phonograph and the electric light bulb and battery-powered automobiles, none of his products actually became commercial successes. He was more like Leonardo da Vinci than he was like Steve Jobs.

Other far lesser known individuals actually carried ideas through to completion. The lesson I learned from this new book is that innovative ideas do attract interest from the public at large. That's the good news. The bad news is you don't really generate any revenue until you carry the idea through to completion. That's why Apple is on such a roll right now.

Take the three questions I've posed in this newsletter, and gather your team around you. Simply go through the questions one at a time and have your team members write down their answers and discuss them with each other. Then combine ideas to make even better ideas. This is not hard to do, but it does require the discipline to actually do it.

Innovation is not necessarily technological or difficult, but it does require that we stop constantly doing activities and step back to think about what would add more value to customers.

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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