Over the past few weeks, I've discussed how our innovation endeavour has become too focused on known problems. We have submersed ourselves in the bubble of the known problems to an extent that we are largely unprepared to deal with the unexpected. And that self-imposed myopia creates serious challenges. My argument essentially went through three steps: our established structures work very well for … Continue reading Dealing with unknown problems
You might picture our established structures as the hardware that we run our innovation supply chain on. They certainly direct the energy, the resources we invest in innovation. And they have significant implications for our "innovation software", i.e., our understanding of innovation, our innovation mindset. That's what I'll discuss today along two main questions: the first deals with … Continue reading Why we need to broaden our innovation mindset
We commit tremendous resources to innovation, no doubt. Just look at the sheer size of the Research & Development departments of the big players across many industry sectors, and consider the multi-billion budgets they invest. For example, consider Samsung's R&D budget for 2016 (around 13 billion US$) and compare with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) achieved around … Continue reading Tremendous resources – well balanced?
At first glance, there shouldn't be anything wrong if a society focused its innovation effort on solving its known problems. However, if that focus becomes an obsession, this society will –over time– become increasingly vulnerable to the challenges presented by previously unknown problems. I believe that our structures, our resources, and even our mindset are so committed … Continue reading What’s wrong with focusing on known problems?
Supply chain: the term suggests a pretty simple and manageable process that delivers a given product. It sounds rather well-defined: all process steps and all necessary ingredients are known in advance. And it seems linear: one process step's output is the another step's input. As long as you follow the recipe and put in the right ingredients … Continue reading A supply chain for innovation
understanding innovation 