What makes the most innovative companies so innovative?

The recent BCG report that I mentioned in a previous blog post lists the 50 most innovative global companies across industries and the primary reason they were selected to be on this list. Interestingly, only 4 of the top 10 and 17 of the top 50 were cited for 'breakthrough products'. The other common reasons for being on the list are 'innovative processes' (14 out of 50 companies), 'unique customer experiences' (15 out of 50), and 'new and differentiated business models'. So while 'breakthrough products' is still the most common reason for being considered innovative, it is by no means the only reason, nor is it the reason for the majority of innovative companies.

Studies like this help to reinforce the notion that innovation is so much more than just new products.

I wonder...if General Mills were to put as much focus on 'innovative processes', 'unique customer experiences', and 'new and differentiated business models' as it does on product innovation, what types of game-changing innovation could be unlocked??

World Innovation Forum Speaker Notes

Here is additional follow up from the World Innovation Forum in early May -- the official speaker notes from each session. If you do nothing else, read the exec summary on Page 2 for the key takeaways from the 2-day conference.

BCG's annual corporate innovation report

The Boston Consulting Group has released its annual report on the state of corporate innovation. This is good benchmarking as General Mills re-examines its own innovation model. A few of the key takeaways are as follows:

• Innovation remains a strategic priority for the majority of companies, but the number that consider it a top priority is falling
• Companies consider a risk-averse corporate culture and lengthy development times to be the two biggest forces holding down their return on innovation spending
• C-level executives are more satisfied with the return on innovation spending than the rest of the company
• At the majority of companies, there is a void in visible innovation leadership
  

World Innovation Forum Recap

Last week I was in NYC for the World Innovation Forum, which is a conference for folks from industry, academia, the media, and consulting, all focused on innovation. There were terrific speakers, insightful case studies, and opportunities to network with other innovation-minded individuals. I'll let the professional bloggers and tweeters give you a more comprehensive recap (more on that below), but here are some of my favorite insights/principles/quotes that were shared at the conference:

• Next general management model moves from rigid silos to self-forming teams (Cisco CTO)
• Don't start where you are. Position yourself for 2015 and fold the future in vs. extrapolate from today
• Manage the present, selectively forget the past, create the future (Vijay Govindarajan)
• Forget 'best practices' and focus on 'NEXT practices' (Vijay Govindarajan)
• Criteria for strategic intent = direction, motivation, challenge (Vijay Govindarajan)
• If you live by the sword, you'll probably get shot by somebody who doesn't (Vijay Govindarajan)
• Think big, start small, scale up fast (Vijay Govindarajan)
• Expensive failure always results when disruption is framed as technological rather than business model terms (Clayton Christensen)
• Business units can't evolve....but a corporation can! (Clayton Christensen)
• Valuable brands are built around a 'job to be done', not a product category (Clayton Christensen)
• Root cause of ineffective innovation is not framing problem correctly and not having consistent language across company (Clayton Christensen)
• New business units need to be created to handle incubation-phase ideas; existing biz units focused on hitting short-term numbers (Clayton Christensen)
• Most companies are awash in creativity, but it's the process of funding that results in me-too products and conformity (Clayton Christensen)

In addition to these insights, here are a few observations from the conference:

• The Twitter culture is fascinating! I was lucky enough to land a spot in the 'Blogger's Hub' section of the theater, so I was surrounded by bloggers and tweeters covering the event. I was in awe (and at first, quite intimidated!) of the rapid-fire exchange of thoughts and ideas amongst folks who were sitting just a few feet apart. It was also great to see how the Twitter coverage was reaching folks who weren't able to attend the conference. While I'm still new the whole Twitter thing, this conference did help me see the power of Twitter as an idea/info-sharing platform.

• This community of innovators is an extremely open community. It's energizing to see a group of experts who not only are willing to share their expertise, but WANT to share. These experts realize that the only way affect change is to spread the gospel to the masses, and not to restrict the insights to the elite few.
  

• Indian people really represented well at this conference! :)
  

For more detailed summaries of the event, here are some great resources:

• Recap from Braden Kelly, who has a terrific innovation blog
• Andrea Meyer's blog for her company, Working Knowledge
• Several posts by Renee Callahan, who is a leading contributor to a Innosight's blog
• Jeff De Cagna's blog for his company, Principled Innovation
  
• Live Twitter feed from the conference
  

Thanks to all the bloggers/tweeters for being so welcoming and for showing me the ropes! A special shout out to Andrea Meyer, Praveen Gupta, Christine Flanagan, Stuart Miniman, Renee Callahan, and George Levy. It was great meeting all of you!

Creative applications of the Twitter phenomenon

New Twitter-based ideas keep popping up everyday. Here are a couple interesting ones:

A Dutch company using an interface that looks exactly like Twitter to recruit candidates.....they want to hire folks who are savvy with social media, so what better way to screen people than to leverage social media for the application process itself!

A Twitter-based online dating service.....it was only a matter of time!

What Makes a Successful Chief Innovation Officer?

Interesting overview of the skills required to be an effective Chief Innovation Officer, a role that has really only emerged in the past five years.