Fast Forward: Innovation Station

The past is more important than the future
It's been said many times that history is no guide to the future. I disagree. It is also unsaid that companies do not need to understand where they have been to see where they're going. Hence most commercial organizations have very little sense of their own history and what happened last year is so yesterday. This is a tragic mistake because memory and experience can prevent us from making the same mistake twice. It is also a shame because whilst many things change, the fundamentals often do not. People act and react with the same primeval instincts that they've always had. On a practical level, older employees were a source of knowledge before the term knowledge management was invented. Equally, looking at the history of products and markets often uncovers insights buried beneath the service. Add to this the fact that many trends are cyclical, and you might start to see how to use history to invent the future. If, for example, you looked at the history of newspapers, you would discover that they were first sold in coffee houses in the 1700s. So maybe that's where Starbucks got the idea? Or how about aerosol paint? That idea was first thought of about 40,000 years ago.

The end of outsourcing?
If companies are outsourcing strategy, innovation, R&D, manufacturing, logistics, and distribution what exactly are they left with? Sure, outsourcing saves money in the short term and specialists tend to be better than generalists. But as Tom Peters says, you can't shrink your way to greatness. Maybe 2005 will see a move back to in-house innovation and the realization that whilst ideas, provocations, and catalysts can come from the outside, research, development and implementation can't.

Conversations as catalysts for change
Theodore Zeldin will readily admit that most of his ideas will fail. But let's face it, so will most of ours. Surely it's better to go out in a blaze of glory as a beautiful failure than as an invisible and mediocre success. Zeldin's ideas are mostly focused on work and ways of making work more satisfying. He is also a champion of conversation and says that if more people talked to each other properly they would discover new interests. Shared interests and conversation spark ideas -- and ideas can change the world.

To thy own self be true
Some people believe that you can make anyone creative. The aim of all organizations in 2005 and beyond should therefore be to pursue radical creativity and innovation. Regardless of whether all people can be creative, there is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that not all companies can. Most radical innovations (some say as many as 70%) come from guys in garages, not industry incumbents. Inventors are creative precisely because they don't sit inside inertia-ridden corporate structures. However, inventors are usually hopeless at implementation whilst this (along with incremental improvement) is exactly what big companies are good at. So maybe the best innovation process for big companies is simply to spot good ideas from elsewhere and either adapt or licence the idea or buy the company. In other words, know what you're good at and don't try to be something that you're not.

The need for speed
There are at least a dozen megatrends out there at the moment, but if I had to pick one for 2005 it would be speed. Technology is speeding up and so are we. 15% of meals in the United States are now eaten in cars and apparently 50% of soup is eaten out of the home. Hence the rush by food companies to create portable products and the continued growth of 24-7 availability. But like most big trends, there's a counter trend. In Europe the Campaign for Slow Cities want to slow things down while in Australia 25% of people say they have downshifted in the last year to readdress their work-life balance.

Happiness on the agenda
According to sci-fi writer and futurist Bruce Sterling, everything we own in the future will be cuddly. I don't know about this but maybe we'll want everything to make us happy. Happiness is an emerging trend that's set to take of in 2005. There's an Institute of Happiness in Australia and writers like Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety) and Clive Hamilton (Growth Fetish) are challenging the idea that growth and material possessions automatically make us richer. A study by the Henley Centre in the UK found that in 1989, 58% of people were happy compared to 45% in 2003 -- despite a 60% increase in average incomes. Meanwhile, a study by Cornell and the University of Colorado found that spending money on experiences is more fulfilling than spending it on possessions. So if you've got a product, you'd better get busy turning it into an experience. This idea also has serious consequences for companies who have always assumed that the way to keep employees happy is to promise them more money.