Great piece.

As a build on this, there is a very active current debate taking place on the entire topic of innovation within Harvard Business Review – you can follow the thread here: http://tinyurl.com/67r8wfv. It seems to link with a similar debate they are having re the role of ‘talent’.

In precis – recent research by Nielsen suggests that in what perhaps could be termed the addiction to all things to do with innovation and speed to market – marketers have lost the desire to create something genuinely new and insightful, with the consumer at its centre. The result is often poor execution, lack of commercial focus and a never ending spiral of me too or slavishly trying to jump on a bandwagon that has already passed. There is a race to have news for the sales teams, something to report, proof that you can develop and ‘ship it’.

The question that perhaps needs to be asked is how much of what is termed ‘innovation’ (from mobiles & handsets, IT and hardware to consumer goods and services) – is genuine innovation? How much is just noise? The pace of change and pressure to ‘think outside the box’ – is often used as an excuse to develop poor products, lose focus and worst of all, lack any engagement with consumerism. It has almost become a dirty word to suggest that you start from consumer insight – instead, due to the publicity surrounding brands such as Apple and Dyson, teams, labs and hubs remove themselves from the external and retreat to develop their own ideas. It’s a style that is more reflecting the over confidence in Britain’s Got Talent – rather than Britain’s Got Marketing. For every Coldplay and Adele, there is an awful lot of misdirected creativity. Whilst creativity, individualism and talent has a big part to play in generating new things – this is only one part of the innovation mix. Your distinction between creativity, invention and innovation is very well made.

However, I suggest there is a further missing piece. In December, General Electric reported that their Worldwide Innovation Monitor (involving over 1000 of the top marketers) identified PARTNERSHIPS as the Number One ingredient in marketing innovation. Truly new thinking and ideas can only come from collaboration, partnerships and alliances – and having a different conversation with people from a different perspective, who can build and add to your own debate, discussions and knowledge. Rather than, as often happens in much ‘innovation’ – you have the same old ones, often dominated by internal brainstorms, technology and role agendas. Apple in fact generated its innovative power from smart supply chains with companies such as Sun and ground breaking licensing deals with the music business – for iTunes. Its collaboration. Commerce, art and science has always been about collaboration, adaptation, connections, learning from others. This is a topic that is explored brilliantly by Steven Johnson is his great book Where Good Ideas Come From (you can see his video here – http://tinyurl.com/5toufj4) and its something I’ve written about to, here – http://tinyurl.com/6k59hc9. Retreating into the comfort of having conversations within the organisation, with familiar faces and mates is tempting. But having fresh conversations with third parties who look at the world differently from you is by its very nature more challenging, more stimulating and in my experience – more fun too.

Best regards,

Andrew Armour