Effective prototyping may be the most valuable competence an innovative organization can hope to have.
-Michael Schrage
Before I give you some modern examples of prototype engineering, let me tell you an interesting story about Alexander Fleming. Have you ever heard of Alexander Fleming?
When Alexander Fleming, a brilliant but sometimes haphazard scientist, returned to his lab after vacation holiday in 1928, he found his work ruined. A bacteria culture he had been growing was contaminated by fungus and, as it grew, it killed all the colonies it touched.
Most people would have simply started over, but Fleming was very curious about what had happened. And his curiosity caused him to switch his focus from the bacteria to the fungus itself.
First, identified the mold and the bacteria-killing substance, which he called “penicillin,” then he tested it on other bacteria cultures. Seemingly in a single stroke, Fleming had created the new field of antibiotics.
Is that how you see innovation? That’s how most of us see innovation. A flash of brilliance and Eureka! a new world is born. But not so fast.
The truth is far messier. In fact, it wasn’t until 1943—nearly two decades later—that penicillin came into widespread use and only then because it was accelerated by the effort helping World War II efforts.
But we need far better and faster results, don’t we? To achieve that, we need to discard old myths and deal with a process of change and innovation as it happens.
Truly breakthrough innovations are never a single event, nor are they achieved by one person, or even within a single organization. Rather, they happen when ideas combine to solve important problems.
Related post: Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
In Amanda Lang’s book, “The Power Of Why: Simple Questions That Lead to Success”, she talks about the importance of curiosity and it’s a connection to intelligence:
Curiosity is, therefore, strongly correlated with intelligence. For instance, one longitudinal study of 1,795 kids measured intelligence and curiosity when they were three years old, and then again eight years later.
Researchers found that kids who had been equally intelligent at age three were, at eleven, no longer equal.
The ones who’d been more curious at three were now also more intelligent, which isn’t terribly surprising when you consider how curiosity drives the acquisition of knowledge.
The more interested and alert and engaged you are, the more you’re likely to learn and retain.
In fact, highly curious kids scored a full twelve points higher on IQ tests than less curious kids did.
As I was reading this book, there were two things that came to my mind:
How often do we ask our staff to brainstorm “questions” as opposed to “answers”? Is this not as valuable a practice?
and then…
Could starting every week off asking “what do you wonder?”, and having them ask questions and provide ideas, make a huge impact on creating new ideas?
New idea creation … activities to generate ideas
So what are some effective ways businesses innovate? Let me ask you a few personal questions to get you thinking about the innovation process a different way.
Do you drive to work the same way every day? Probably! Do you read the same publications—or the same type of publications? Sure! How about TV and the Internet?
Watching the same group of shows or using the same set of websites is also a common habit. When you do this, what do you feel? You probably get a lot of familiar and comfortable feelings, don’t you?.
But true innovation often doesn’t make us comfortable. It makes us uncomfortable. And yet, it is in that discomfort that the new ways, the new ideas, and the new feelings come to light.
When you drive to work via a different route, you see different places and sights. If you go to the newsstand and peruse the magazines that you never otherwise look at, you will see things you simply would never think about otherwise
So do you think businesses experiment and test lots of new ideas?
Check out these new beer cans and bottles and their features …
Cold Activation – special ink on bottles and cans turns special color when sufficiently cold.
Vortex Bottles – Bottles come with a swirling grove in the neck, meant to improve the taste by aerating, and unlocking aromas and taste.
Aluminum Pints/Bottles – resealable screw caps.
Writable Bottles – consumers can write messages using key or coin.
Experiment and test fearlessly
Not all of your ideas will be something you implement, like several of the beer can packaging ideas. But the testing itself will invariably lead you to understand customer needs better, and that will lead you to create even more new ideas.
Remember … whoever tries the most stuff usually wins.
What are some of your experiences with utilizing prototype engineering and testing? What about building an innovation culture in your business? Please share an experience with this community.
Need some help in improving the innovation process for you and your staff? Innovative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors? Or maybe ways to innovate new products and services?
Call today for aFREEconsultation or aFREEquote. Learn about some options for innovation workshops to get noticeable results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new innovative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
Generating Ideas by Convergent Thinking
Amazon and Managing Innovation … the Jeff Bezos Vision
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Becoming obsolete is a reality in today’s fast-moving environment. Yes, today’s marketing needs require us to leave our comfort zone and venture into an area where your marketing needs breakthrough innovation.
Luckily, it doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning the principles we’ve learned along the way. It just means evolving our thinking and applying these same principles to the new mediums.
Related: Secrets to Share on Lego’s Marketing Campaigns
Here are ten areas of business change that will get the organization paying attention to where to find breakthrough innovation ideas for your marketing needs:
The arrival of Channel convergence
All mediums are converging. The customer dictates the content they want to consume, across multiple mediums, the times they want it. On-demand mediums will challenge the marketer as consumers move swiftly between tablets to a smartphone to television.
The new ways of targeting customers across multiple platforms now allow the marketer more long-tail opportunities that will augment and support traditional targeting.
Give it a try … it is very effective.
Data is the new norm
The promise of big data brings with it enormous benefits that can now inform customer preferences; identify relevant prospects in real-time; distil meaning from reams of information where it impacts competitive or brand reputation. The opportunities to target more granularly beyond just “company”-collected transactions provides profound instances to find the right customer, at the right time, in the right channels, with the right message.
The need for strong data analysts to compile this information across multiple platforms and mediums will be an essential component to target for acquisition effectively; improve retention rates and optimize for real-time performance.
A good skill to learn, yes?
Change is imperative
Gone are the days of relying on historical data. These days, any data point longer than 30 days is too old and therefore, of limited value. No longer are we required (or should we be required) to sit and wait for results. With data becoming more embedded in our daily work, marketers must work towards a more agile, near real-time environment:
This also means becoming more data responsive to an increasingly splintered market, having the structures and processes to change tactics on the fly.
It is the context
Google has gone beyond just keyword and now tries to extract real meaning from what people search or speak about. Semantic algorithms go this one step further and now give marketers the tools to improve the understanding of what people need and want.
It’s here that will help predict and define areas the brand can connect and provide value to customers.
What about your brand?
Breakthrough innovation meaning.
Always-on multi-channel presence
A more informed customer expects an optimal experience that “allows them to shop and receive their purchases where they want when they want and how they want.”
This means providing the ‘continuous experience’ across brands, devices, and format: mobile internet devices, computers, bricks-and-mortar, television, radio, direct mail, catalog, etc.
Today’s marketer is channel-agnostic and is aware of sites, platforms and channels the customer is researching, eliciting recommendations, price-comparing and ultimately, buying.
Marketing needs breakthrough innovation … value is the new currency
One of the hardest lessons for marketers to have learned is to refrain from leading with the overt company or product messages. “Leading with value” has become a difficult principle to adopt, after years of “me-me-me” communications.
Declining performance of digital ad units means marketers must rethink content from the position of the customer. The rise of editorial as an essential function within marketing will be necessary to instill this new discipline.
What ideas can you share?
Breakthrough innovation examples … building sustainable relationships
The value of social media as an open channel two-way conversations now provides brands with the ability to not only build relationships but benefit from the effort and commitment to nurturing customer relationships through these channels.
Word of mouth and advocacy are strong indicators of brands doing it right.
The value of organic traffic that results from content value, social consistency, and customer commitment, will become more critical than the more costly campaign-driven ad-buys and promotions.
Social focus
Agencies will never be able to be able to build effective community management services truly. This function needs to live within the heart of the organization. Customer relationships with brands cannot be fostered via surrogate means, and then adopted by the organization.
How about your relationship building? Doing well?
Only employees within the organization, with the proper knowledge and solutions, can effectively troubleshoot customer complaints and provide the right responses in the expected timeframe. An emerging discipline in community /customer relationship management will be critical to gauge the pulse of the community and to bridge the gap with the organization.
Team organizational focus
The result of these changes will inevitably move away from marketing and become embedded in all parts of the organization. A responsive, dynamic organization means that PR, HR, Product development, Inventory Management, Operations will need seamless communication channels to receive and disseminate information into a proper format.
This includes outside the company to stakeholders as well as external customers. The future marketers will become more operations-minded but will rely on the collective organization to function effectively.
Customer-centric is all there is
Breakthrough innovation examples.
As digital media matures, the areas mentioned above will move companies to start to shift in ways that put the needs of the customers at the center of the organization. One-to-one marketing will become a reality as data allows us to personalize experiences for each customer.
Retention will get increasingly harder as mediums and platforms rise and fall with the nomadic consumer and Facebook and Twitter become less standard platforms.
We have certainly seen this trend.
Where critics have prophesied the death of marketing, a more responsive, dynamic and collaborative organization will take its place.
The bottom line
Marketing is no longer a discipline with best practices and tried and true techniques. As long as the technology exists, and media evolves, consumers will continue to find new ways to connect and consume information.
What’s clear is that these days our traditional definition of longevity is short-lived. Not only does the marketer need to morph with the times, but the organization also does as well.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improve your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
