Don’t go to war with current models and systems. Too many are in love with them and you will lose. Create the future through connected adjacencies.
Why are innovators so quick to go to the mattresses? Like a scene right out of The Godfather innovators are wired to assume a war footing. Innovators start from a premise that intransigent models and systems are the enemy and the only way to win is to gear up for an inevitable fight. Status quo is the enemy in an innovator’s cold war and must be vanquished. Innovators prepare for war by steeling themselves, building large armamentariums, and recruiting passionate soldiers to join their fight. War cries may get people’s attention but taking to the warpath, as a theory for change, doesn’t work. There are too many people in love with current models and systems. Going to war might feel good but in the end you will lose.
Existing business models and systems have evolved over a long period of time. It’s true most were built for an industrial era that is long gone. It’s also true we need to design, prototype, and test new models and systems if we are going to solve the big social challenges of our time including health care, education, energy, and entrepreneurship. However going to war with the current systems will not work. Too many people are vested in them. Anything threatening status quo is too scary to contemplate for most.
Big bang approaches to change seldom work. Occasionally we see examples of organizations that disrupt and transform themselves because they are either one payroll away from crashing nose down into the K-Mart parking lot (IBM comes to mind) or they have an other-worldly leader that personally wills the organization to transform (Steve Jobs comes to mind). For most organizations transformative change is elusive and we need another way. To enable transformative change consider creating connected adjacencies as innovation platforms.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Innovate Through Connected Adjacencies
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jun 18, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I wonder whatever happened to this guy?
There are many times I wish he were around to explain something to me–or for me!
Right now I’m having trouble with my cable and having difficulty explaining it to technical support.
I swear I think the UPS guy could probably lay out the entire problem in just a few strokes on a whiteboard and probably never once come close to using using his “outside voice.”
I think drawing must be the key because explaining cable problems using words never seems to get me very far.
I definitely need to get a whiteboard for times like this! Or just find this gentleman to explain all my technical problems to tech support.
If Boston, NYC, and San Francisco are the top three U.S. innovation cities why do their economic, education, health care, and energy systems produce the same poor results as cities around the rest of the country? I read the recent Top Innovation Cities of the Global Economy report from 2thinknow ranking the top 100 global innovation cities with great interest. Of course I quickly scanned the rankings to see which U.S. cities made the list. While I was disappointed my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island didn’t make the cut I was pleased to see our neighbor Boston was ranked number one. Two other U.S. cities joined Boston in the top ten, NYC ranked fifth and San Francisco ranked seventh.
Seems logical to ask if the top ranked innovation cities are delivering more value to their citizens or making more progress on the big social challenges of our time than other cities. What’s the point of innovation if not to deliver value and solve real world problems?
After barely scratching the surface of examining output measures the obvious question is this, if Boston, NYC, and San Francisco are the top U.S. innovation cities why are their poverty rates so high? Why are their education attainment levels so low? If these cities are innovation hot-spots and models for the rest of the country shouldn’t they deliver better economic opportunity, and better education, health care, and energy solutions, as well as a better quality of life to their citizens? I thought innovation was about delivering value and solving real world problems.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Measure Innovation Outcomes
5 Gifts That Keep You At The Top Of Clients’ Minds
The Fruit of the Month Club was way ahead of its time. Now, you can have everything — from razors to makeup to dog treats — sent to you on a monthly basis. I personally use a few of these subscription-based companies to make sure I don’t run out of the essentials, but I really see the value of subscriptions for client gifts.
If you’re in the service industry, staying top-of-mind with your clients (in a positive way) is important. Our company wants to show our clients and partners that we appreciate them in a genuinely thoughtful way, not in an “I’m bribing you with a $500 bottle of wine” kind of way, so we’ve enlisted the help of a few subscription-based companies.
I have to admit that part of the attraction of subscription gift-giving is the laziness it allows. Greg Alvo, CEO of OrderGroove, explained it perfectly: “Subscription gifting is the perfect way to show appreciation and stay on your client’s mind. The best part? As the on-the-go gifter, you have the ability to ‘set it and forget it!’” It still requires thoughtfulness to find the perfect fit for a client, because if he or she is going to be receiving something from you once a month, it had better be something well-liked!
Here are some ideas for interesting items that won’t break the bank, but will pleasantly surprise your clients.
The Stylish Stud:
You know how you’re always losing socks (behind the dryer, at the laundromat, under the hotel bed)? We’ve found a solution.Sock 101 has created the Sock of the Month Club. One pair of high-quality, stylish dress socks will be sent to your clients every month. Now, when people compliment their savvy style, your company may just come up in.
And even better — a personal note from the most famous old-school handwritten note writer in the US:
We can learn a lot about innovation by observing the social behavior of honeybees. Who hasn’t been riveted by devastating stories of colony collapse? This is serious stuff. From a honeybee’s perspective watching 35% of your fellow Apis mellifera get wiped out is no joke. From a human perspective, think of it this way, one out of every three mouthfuls of food we eat is dependent on honeybee pollination. Bees are responsible for about $15 billion in U.S. agricultural crop value. Colony collapse really matters. It’s worth paying attention to bees.
The term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of honeybee disappearances in 2006. It’s an eerie phenomenon where one day worker bees swarm together in great numbers and the next they are gone, poof they just disappear, leaving behind an empty hive. It’s not as if they leave to join another colony. They leave to die alone and dispersed which is strange given the social nature of honeybees. Scientists have been working feverishly to determine the etiology of colony collapse disorder.
I read with great interest the recent announcement that researchers collaborating from academia and the military had found the answer. I am a sucker for a good collaborative innovation story where unusual suspects tag team across silos to solve a problem that neither of them could solve on their own. This one is a classic. Army scientists in Maryland working with academic entomologists in Montana solved the mystery. They applied proteomics-based pathogen screening tools to identify a co-infection comprised of both a virus and a fungus. They found the combination of pathogens in all of the collapsed colonies they tested. Hopefully their findings will quickly lead to pathogen mitigation strategies dramatically reducing the incidence of colony collapse disorder.
While I am glad the mystery is solved I can’t help asking, what is it about organizing in colonies that prevents bees from innovating themselves. And closer to home, aren’t bee colonies like hierarchical corporate structures? Maybe understanding the social behavior of bees in their colonies will help us understand why corporate structures are also vulnerable to colony collapse.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Innovation Lessons From Bees
Ever want to throw a shot put into the middle of an intransigent organization or system? I know I have. With a shot put weighing in at 16 pounds most of us had better either be very close to the target or consider a better way to catalyze change.
You probably haven’t heard of James Fuchs, who passed away on October 8, but he was a classic innovator. Fuchs was the best shot-putter in the world from 1949-1950. He won 88 consecutive meets, set four world records, and changed the sport forever. Fuchs teaches us about the difference between best practices and next practices.
Fuchs was a fullback on the Yale football team but injuries kept him from playing. He was also on the track team and while recovering from surgery for a leg injury he was limited to competing in discus and shot put. Fuchs became best known for shot put. Fuchs’ leg injury prevented him from using the standard and universally accepted shot put technique. State of art at the time was for a shot-putter to come to a complete stop before releasing the shot. Before Fuchs, shot put was all about brute arm strength. Athletes focused their training on weight lifting. All shot putters competed on a model of arm strength equals distance. That is until James Fuchs came along. Fuchs didn’t lift weights at all and weighed only 215 pounds, small for a shot putter.
Because Fuchs’ leg injury prevented him from using accepted best practice he invented a new practice that worked for him. Innovation is more about next practices than best practices. Fuchs came up with a fluid catapult motion that didn’t require him to stop short aggravating his injury. His innovative technique involved rocking back on one leg, swinging the other in front for balance, hopping forward and propelling the 16-pound iron ball forward. He had learned from a physiology teacher that legs are three times more powerful than arms. Fuchs, like all innovators do, took advantage of both existing constraints and insights missed by current competitors. His innovation became known as the ‘sideways glide’ working around his injury and taking much better advantage of the power of his legs. In 1949 Fuchs set a new world shot put record of 58 feet 4 ½ inches. In 1950 he beat his own world record three times with a personal best of 58 feet 10 ¾ inches. He had changed the sport forever. Fuchs’ sideways glide became the new best practice for all shot-putters. That is until innovation struck again and it wasn’t.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: 16 Lbs. of Solid Iron Innovation
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue May 28, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
“Now I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold digger, But she ain’t messin’ with no broke n—s.” Kanye means this as a compliment. And it is. There’s a fine line between gold digger and assessing a guy’s ambition. Gold digger is very unattractive. But hanging out with a 37-year-old-broke-“entrepreneur”-who-won’t-buy-you-a-tea-on-the-first-date is plain masochistic. So where’s the line?
There’s an expression that goes like this: “Men treat women like sex objects, women treat men like success objects.” Any kind of objectification is wrong. Men are not meal tickets. Sometimes women claim they like to “get to know a guy slowly,” so they go out on 15 dates, let him pay every time, and there’s never even a make-out session. Guys- if you see this pattern- she is toying with you- run the other direction.
The most exasperating part is that if you talk to these women, they really believe their own bs. They rationalize this behavior by being male bashers- i.e. “he has to prove himself to me” or “I’m trying to give him a chance” or “Maybe I like him, I just can’t tell yet— he shouldn’t need to rush me.” Yeah, I guess it will take 2 more dinners at Per Se to figure that out. Now I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold digger. Oh, yes, in this case I am.
On the flip side, there is a reason that women look for a man to take care of her financially. A man who is interested in marriage and children and wants to give to them will naturally think about planning for their financial future, even while he’s still single. The inverse is true too. If a man says he is ready for marriage and children yet his actions show no signs of being prepared for this endeavor financially whatsoever, then he probably has more baggage than he admits. Especially if he is over 35. This is not to say that he can’t be a teacher or an artist honing his craft, but he can still have a savings account, wait tables double shifts to support his lifestyle, have good credit and buy your tea.
Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects.
Unless, that is, you want to learn something new. In that case, seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and opportunities await in the gray areas between the unusual suspects.
It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. One of the most important silos we need to break down is the one between generations.
We keep youth off to the side while the adults talk and talk about how to improve the world. To youth, it is a lot of talk and little change. It’s ironic and sad that youth, with the biggest stake in the future, are so often seen and not heard. Think of all the areas where adults are monopolizing a conversation in which youth have the largest stake.
We should recognize that young people seek purpose and want to impact their surroundings. We should listen to and give them access to the tools they need to design the future they will inherit. Would they imagine a world they are more likely to engage in and commit to? What if we connected youth, our burgeoning innovators, with today’s most successful innovators?
Choose2Matter recently launched the Quest2Matter, which challenges students to accept that they matter and act to solve problems that break their heart. Imagine connecting these impassioned young leaders with today’s leading innovators and transformation artists.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Breaking Down Generational Silos
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon May 20, 2013 at 12:15 PM ET
With a vote for a hemp amendment to the Farm Bill possible THIS week, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senator NOW. Here’s a link with an easy way to contact them.
Great piece by The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim which demonstrates the strange bedfellows who are pushing for hemp legalization, and reveals how close we really are.
Kentucky’s two senators, Republicans Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, have been working to include a provision that would legalize industrial hemp into the farm bill, according to Senate and Kentucky sources, an effort that is likely to result in a floor vote on the issue this week.
Paul and McConnell had hoped to insert the measure into the farm bill as it was being considered by the Agriculture Committee, but a jurisdictional spat broke out, as often does in the Senate. McConnell, a member of the committee, approached Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) last Monday night about inserting the provision, according to Senate aides, and was told that the Judiciary Committee had jurisdiction and he would need a waiver from its chairman, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.). Hemp laws are the purview of the Drug Enforcement Administration, even though hemp is not a drug and has no psychoactive potential, no matter how much a person smokes.
McConnell faces reelection in 2014, and has been working so closely with Paul that some aides have begun to refer to the libertarian newcomer and tea party favorite as the “shadow minority leader” — a term that presumably expires if McConnell wins his race. McConnell brought Jesse Benton, a longtime aide of Rand Paul and Ron Paul, onto his campaign. With Rand Paul in his corner, there is little chance for a tea party candidate to successfully challenge McConnell, and Paul’s energized base may boost turnout in the general election. If McConnell’s effort on hemp is any guide, he’s taking nothing for granted.
McConnell approached Leahy to ask for the waiver, but was rejected, sources said. McConnell returned to Stabenow and again asked that she insert the provision, and Stabenow said no. She offered, instead, to allow a vote on an amendment, and said that she would introduce it on his behalf. (Minority leaders rarely appear at committee hearings in person.) McConnell declined the offer and by proxy voted against the farm bill in committee. Holly Harris, chief of staff to Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, a strong hemp advocate, said that her office had been told by Senate Republican leadership that Leahy had refused the waiver request, citing Judiciary Committee turf, confirming what several Senate sources told HuffPost.
Time spent in the public sector as an accidental bureaucrat has made me a keen observer of how states and countries use tax incentives to attract and retain corporate investment and jobs. I have watched companies extract mind-boggling incentives from the taxpayer simply by either moving or threatening to move jobs across state and country borders. While tax incentives may be great for corporations they make little or no sense when viewed through a community lens. Corporate tax incentive deals are a terrible use of taxpayer dollars.
Communities everywhere have lost leverage to companies who now have all the buying power. Corporations have disaggregated their business models moving capabilities around the world like chess pieces. Companies are no longer dependent on a single location and force communities to bid against each other competing on who will offer the biggest tax breaks. Communities are treated like commodities. The pricing food fight is intense and all at the taxpayer’s expense. There is no net new value created when companies move activities and jobs from one community to another. Consider Captain Morgan & The Hobbit.
My favorite example of bad tax incentive deals gone crazy is the movie industry. Community leaders and politicians fall all over themselves to bring movie productions to their localities. It must be about having pictures taken with movie stars because it isn’t about the economics of the deals the movie studios cut playing communities against each other. The going discount to attract movie production in the U.S. ranges from 30 to 40% of the total production costs in the form of tax credits that can be sold to local taxpayers. I have reviewed several of these deals and can’t begin to make economic sense out of them for anyone other than the movie studio.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Captain Morgan & The Hobbit
Existing business models and systems have evolved over a long period of time. It’s true most were built for an industrial era that is long gone. It’s also true we need to design, prototype, and test new models and systems if we are going to solve the big social challenges of our time including health care, education, energy, and entrepreneurship. However going to war with the current systems will not work. Too many people are vested in them. Anything threatening status quo is too scary to contemplate for most.
