Scott Berkun

How to kill innovation hype

You know a big word is in trouble when it’s used repeatedly (inconcievable!) - it means the person saying it doesn’t know what it means or isn’t saying anything at all.

In a recent Ford TV ad, the word innovation is used once every 8 seconds, a sure sign that the i-word has seen better days.

Today the word innovation is a common placeholder – Instead of saying “we are smart”, “we are good” or “we are willing to try new ideas”, messages that can be examined for truth, the word innovation is thrown down ambiguously, as if it were a replacement for having a message, or stating one clearly.

The goal of my upcoming book, The myths of innovation (Out May 1st 2007), is to bring honor back to the word by exploring the history of true innovations, and demystifying the breakthroughs of the past and the present.

Along the way I’ve learned some easy ways to diminish innovation hype:

1. Challenge the word. Never allow the word to be used in conversation without asking “what do you mean by innovation?”. If it’s not clear to you as a listener how the word is being used, the speaker probably doesn’t know either: call them on it.
2. Pick your meaning. Innovation is frequently used to mean one of: something new, something better, something new and better, or something that will win. If that’s what you mean, say that instead. If you’re not sure what you mean, say that, or just keep quiet.
3. Avoid compound usage. As soon as you’re throwing hyphens around you know you’re in trouble. Innovation is a strong enough word to stand alone. Replace incremental Innovation, with improvement. Disruptive innovation with big change. Never have a slide or diagram that depends on multiple uses, with different meanings, of the same word (tip: you can use the words incremental and disruptive on their own – they’re grown up words too).
4. Remember Edison. Most great innovations took place before there were business books on the subject. Edison didn’t need an innovation pipeline or an innovation infrastructure to invent the phonograph or perfect electric lights, and you don’t either. Somehow Da-Vinci, Tesla, and Picasso innovated without using the word: you and your company can too. Edison laughed at the hype-mongers, cursing rule makers and secret seekers, preferring to work hard at creating things rather than just talking about it.
5. Competence trumps innovation. If you suck at what you do, being innovative will not help you. I don’t care how innovative Burger King might be, their food sucks. Business is driven by providing value to customers and often that can be done without innovation: make a good and needed thing, sell it at a good price, and advertise with confidence. If you can do those 3 things consistently you’ll beat most of your competitors, since they are hard to do: many industries have market leaders that fail this criteria. If you need innovations to achieve those 3 things, great, have at it. If not, your lack of innovation isn’t your biggest problem.
6. Call bullshit. Asking for examples kills hype dead. Just say “can you show me your latest innovation?” Most people that use the word don’t have examples – they don’t know what they’re saying and that’s why they’re addicted to the i-word. Keep pressing and most hype-philes concede what they’re doing isn’t new. The fastest way to detect BS is to look at facts and at the present. True innovators rarely need the word: they just show their work.

First interview about Myths of Innovation

I had a blast speaking at Adaptive Path’s MX conference recently about the Myths of Innovation book. I had the closing slot which can be tough, but the crowd was great and gave me a chance to have some fun (podcast of this talk is coming)

One highlight was being interviewed by Sarah Nelson, a design strategist for AP.

To give a taste, and stumble into the postmodern idiocy of quoting someone quoting me:

SN: One of the things I’ve been wondering about is the idea of “source of innovation” within a company. Do you think it’s actually possible to create an environment in which innovation occurs?

SB: I think that you can create an environment, and it’s very simple… whoever has power over a budget, and whoever has power over what features are included in a product or go up on the website, they enable innovation by saying “yes.” That’s really the fundamental thing that they have to be willing to do.

When someone shows up with an idea — “Hey, why don’t we change the navigation system from this older design to this new design I’ve been thinking of? Can I get some money to go and prototype this?”

All that has to happen is the person with power says, “Yes, I will give you a week to go and prototype that and we will review it when you have the prototype, and then we’ll consider actually making those changes.” And once everyone witnesses the person in power saying “yes” to a new idea, then they’ll be comfortable bringing another idea, or a third idea. And then all of a sudden, you have an environment that is very receptive to new ideas and innovations.

Sounds obvious, but as I explain in the book these environments are rare.

Link to the full expletive free interview.

Do headlines make us dumber?

In the parade of mis-represented research that is modern journalism, we have this short article from MSNBC, titled “Do meetings make us dumber?“.

The article starts with:

People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests.

Which people are these exactly? Articles, and research, treat people as uniform, while we all know the goodness or badness of meetings depends on who is there. If you had a conference call with Bono, Einstein, Dostoevsky, and Susan Sontag, I guarantee the meeting wouldn’t make you dumber.

While folks of their caliber aren’t clambering to join our meetings, it does stand that who controls the invite list holds the fate of the meeting in their hands.

And doesn’t the goal of a meeting impact the quality of what happens? As the articles states:

Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.

Wow. I can’t think of a task more inspiring for creative thinking than listing brands of soda, can you? Isn’t that what Mozart, Walt Whitman and the Beatles did?

How can anyone think this is representative of what goes in in “creative” meetings, or is a viable, as science, to use in comparison to how people make decisions, or work in groups, in real life?

Two points of refutation:

1. The value of meetings hinges on who is running the thing. A good facilitator can convert most meeting horror shows into productive and near-fun experiences if given the power to do their thing.
2. There are well known techniques for creative thinking and tactics any meeting leader can use to minimize the negative effects of groups, while amplifying the positive ones. Good facilitators know these things.

The notion of group behavior harming creative thinking has a long history – the term groupthink coined in 1972, and it offers a more useful analysis that the MSNBC or the research study.

For reference:

- How to run a brainstorming meeting

(Link from Flee)