Bringing Innovation to Insurance, Eileen Feretic
This article discusses New York Life's innovation effort (New Horizons) and some of the things that have come from it. Reading through it, I see several similarities to Safeco's Open Seas innovation unit. Interesting quote from the article:
“Because life insurance is such a mature industry, we spend quite a bit of time thinking about how we can bring innovation to our company,” Slevin says. “About six years ago, we created a program called New Horizons, which is specifically focused on innovation. We encourage our employees to formulate ideas for building new businesses—not just new products, but actual businesses. Quite a few creative ideas come out of that program every year.”
Another interesting quote has to do with where some of their innovative ideas come from:
... we vote on the 10 to 15 employee and agent proposals that we think have the best chance of becoming profitable businesses. ...
50 Ways to Foster a Sustainable Culture of Innovation, Mitch Ditkoff
A good listing of things to make a culture more innovative (and more fun to work in). Some of the ones I really liked:
- As far as the future is concerned, don't speculate on what might happen, but imagine what you can make happen.
- Encourage everyone to communicate. Provide user-friendly systems to make this happen.
- Notice innovation efforts. Nurture them wherever they crop up. Reward them.
- Don't focus so much on taking risks, per se, but on taking the risks OUT of big and bold ideas.
- Don't focus on growth. Growth is a product of successful innovation. Focus on the process of becoming adept at taking ideas from the generation stage to the marketplace.
- Understand that the best innovations are initiated by individuals acting on their own at the periphery of your organization. Don't make your innovation processes so rigid that they get in the way of informal and spontaneous innovation efforts. Build flexibility into your design. Think "self-organizing" innovation, not "command and control" innovation.
On Innovation, Ben Arment
This is a short blog entry about Ben's take on innovation (his title is "Experience & Innovation Director"). The entry is pretty short and compact ... sort of like an elevator pitch on innovation. An interesting quote:
The hardest plan to change is the one that worked in the past. So to be innovative is to stick my neck out and put myself at risk for unproven ideas.
P&G goes for design thinking, experientia
This is a blog entry discussing some of the points from an article on Businesweek's site: P&G Changes Its Game, by Jeneanne Rae. Sounds like someone has been reading A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan's The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation. An good quote that experientia picked out of the Businessweek article:
The analytical process we typically use to do our work—understand the problem and alternatives; develop several ideas; and do a final external check with the customer—gets flipped. Instead, design thinking methods instruct: There’s an opportunity somewhere in this neighborhood; use a broader consumer context to inform the opportunity; brainstorm a large quantity of fresh ideas; and co-create and iterate using low-resolution prototypes with that consumer.
Aging innovators know it: Amazing ideas aren't the only way to go, Arts of Innovation: the blog
This blog entry discusses how there is a lesser known classification of innovator who improves with age and experience, called an experimental innovator (as opposed to a conceptual innovator). There is a typical quote about conceptual innovators:
“As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience.”
A good quote that sums up the experimental innovator:
They build on past knowledge and experience, which tends to delay their greatest achievements until mid-career or later.
The author gives some examples of experimental innovators: Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Alan Greenspan and several others.
Value Innovation: Improving the Buyer Utility Map, Front End of InnovationThis blog entry discusses a "Buyer Utility Map" which is discussed in detail in the book
Blue Ocean Strategy
by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne - which I haven't had a chance to read yet. The Buyer Utility Map is a matrix of rows and columns. The blog entry goes into some detail of ways to improve upon the matrix and suggestions for how to fill in the rows and columns.