InnoTrends is a market trend analysis broken down by segments to interpret needs and requirements by paying attention to semantic and sentiment beyond numbers and facts. This series on “Innovate 2015” gathers the definition of innovation for this year as shared on WAI social networks by business schools, society, politics, business experts, science and technology experts. This new article provides a view of innovation for innovation experts, business consultants, business analysts and medias. If you want to join the discussion, you can follow and share your ideas with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and SlideShare.

Innovation Experts

On this blog post for TED IDEAS, Seth Godin explains how “stealing ideas” can be beneficial for all. That is, when you give back the credit. As he writes, “The connection economy steps in just as the glory days of the industrial age begin to fade. The connection economy rewards coordination, sharing and trust. All three of which are built on our species’ unique ability to steal ideas.” In that respect, Alex Chenevier introduces a new innovation model for Innovation Excellence, aiming at combining both the internal and external knowledge, analyzed through a “know-how, know-what, know-why” spectrum to facilitate decision-making from boardrooms currently unable to tackle strategic transformations in line with their internal assets and market knowledge. As he explains, “Disruptive innovation methodology is a cognitive distance computation of the external, tacit and public of know “what” stretched by the why, and the “how.” The combining factors offer the opportunity to seize the exploration, maybe for the first time as found definite, quantifiable, measurable and therefore applicable in business language with the scientific equation of K³ey Performance Indicator℠.”

Beyond sharing ideas and knowledge more efficiently towards decision-making, lays the opportunity to actually share the decision. As Skip Prichard writes on his blog, “When others are involved, empowered and delegated the task of making decisions, everyone learns, people are more engaged and the organization begins to have a culture of deciding instead of just identifying problems to discuss endlessly.” Scott Roberts shares on LinkedIn how his passion for sports has helped him identify fundamental leadership principles in business that apply as much as in a sport championship. One of the examples he gives is the following: “While every team and company has its leaders that command the spotlight, it is important to reinforce how all roles serve the needs of the overall organization and enable its success.” Taken on a society level, these attitudes of sharing knowledge, decisions and success can lead to seeing the world differently, which is cruelly needed to help poorest cities of this world develop, as Aseem Inam explains for Policy Innovation: “In that way, even with their myriad problems, they are beautiful testaments to human ingenuity. It would serve us well to better understand these ancient, highly complex, and continuously evolving cities to better harness their true potential.”

Complexity is indeed beautiful to watch, and the ability to apprehend a complex world, including its uncertainty, is a growing necessary leadership skill. As Greg Satell writes for Digital Tonto, “Still, uncertainty is not a bug, but a feature of any system that is exposed to the real world.  Sooner or later, no matter what we do, it’s going to catch up with us.  So, in the end, we need to meet it head on.” Uncertainty is also what makes us more creative, challenging the unknown, finding ideas where none has ever found them. As Matt Zucker writes for Forbes, “What we mustn’t lose sight of, however, is the critical role of creativity in digital solutions and for enterprises that want to dramatically evolve. Creativity boldly wakes customers up to what they didn’t realize is possible, helps them pay closer attention and involves them more deeply in the business. Creativity helps differentiate, especially in a world of parity and commodity. Creativity creates value.“

https://plus.google.com/+WeAreInnovationblog/posts/iLacptrUwkf

Business Consultants:

Top Consultants remind how sustainability has reached a stage beyond image and reputation to now become a mainstream investment area. As they highlight, “Coming from an era in which environmental and social issues were mainly considered from a reputational risk management point of view, the recent KPMG-survey among 12 major European global banks found that banks believe potential business value can be gained from sustainability strategies.” On the same line, Strategy and Business comments on “Climate Shock, The economic consequences of a hotter planet” written by Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman. As Katie Fehrenbacher writes, “Given these odds, and considering the huge sums of money at stake, the authors point out that it makes supreme economic sense to invest substantially in addressing climate change in the near term.”

https://plus.google.com/+WeAreInnovationblog/posts/RFHNBC2rL4h

New tools enable a new collaborations to achieve higher goals. Software Advice reminds that “Everything you do at work (…) essentially contributes to “creating and nurturing the assets you have.” An asset can be as large as a project or as small a document, and its journey is the path it takes from creation to completion, and beyond”. They mention Social Collaboration Software as a solution to create value from shared knowledge. As Mike Baxter and Dirk Vater from Bain and Company explain in below video, banking industry has used the digital transformation to create strategies that mix both digital and physical assets and tools to create optimized channels to markets.

Inspiring models also encourage a shift in mindset, as Ernst & Young remarks: “Overall, our analysis suggests that inherent traits of successful family businesses that contribute to their long-term success also create an environment that’s more welcoming and conducive to the development of women leaders.” Cap Gemini also notes that “most IT departments have adopted transformation initiatives but many still fail to address user, IT and business needs at the same time.” In his article for Business Standard, Richard Recki suggests that “Higher purpose is the glue that binds people to an organisation. Organisations are defined by their people and people have emotions, which as leaders we must never forget. The sense of purpose is how you connect to that emotion, how you bring together people who share the values that the organisation holds dear.”

 

Press and Medias:

Jim Edwards reminds for Business Insider that “the most infamous anecdotal indicators that you’re in a bubble is when people start rationalising the bubble by saying “it’s different this time” or “this time it’s different.” Evans (a Tech Analyst) isn’t literally saying “it’s different this time.” Rather, as his deck says, “it’s always different!”” Meanwhile, Uber continues to lead an impactful media strategy and imposes its own rules of game. As TX ZHUO notes for Entrepreneur, “In a few years, we’ll no longer debate the merits and dangers of the sharing economy. it will simply be a fact of life. Traditional businesses can fight it, but doing so means setting themselves up for a loss.”

In above video highlighted by “L’Oeil de Links” from the French Canal Plus TV channel, the Internet is given a voice and expresses the void of being virtual in contrast with the tasteful experiences of reality. Real life breathes reality into innovation, and brings tangible impact in reality. As Brian O’Connor writes for INC, “The businesses that are winning today don’t think about data for data’s sake, they think about how to leverage it effectively and how it can be turned into better outcomes,” says Tobin, who cites Amazon as a brand that’s arrived at the smart data stage and is just now dabbling with smart design in productive ways.”

Medias themselves are starting to change, as they have understood long ago their business models were disrupted by the digital economy. To encourage more innovation, a French media company called StreetPress has launched a “media maker”, a contest by which innovative media entrepreneurs can be selected and coached in the view of producing more innovative formats to share information. Ziad Maalouf from l’Atelier des Médias explains how the selection will value the sense of citizenship in submitted propositions. As in many other industries, medias quite logically show they want to bring their readers and listeners closer to their core values, and help them develop messages that can be shared within worldwide communities, contributing to change.