Who doesn’t recognize the need to constantly innovate today? After all, just look around at all that is new in our world in the past few years. Are you twittering? 1 million+ others are. Do you have a product or service video up on YouTube? 25 million+ people do. And are you LinkedIn or participating in SecondLife? These are just a few of the new social media innovations that are dramatically changing how people connect and get work done. Now think about other areas that are changing just as rapidly: technology, diversity, competition, products, etc. It can be a bit mind boggling and certainly intimidating to ponder how to keep up these days.
What does innovation look like at work today and do you need to spend millions for a research and development department to come up with the next great product or service? How can you more actively incorporate new thinking, new products, and new options including getting more done with less into your day to day activities?
Today innovation needs to be about:
- Challenging the way we do things even when it has always worked well
- Continually creating new products, services and ideas that have value for stakeholders
- Trying different and novel ways to deal with ongoing challenges
- Constantly seeking and implementing new and better ways to achieve results
Innovation is more than brainstorming or idea generation. To be truly innovative, you have to DO something different. And for businesses, whatever it is you do must have value for at least one of your stakeholder groups (employees, customers, suppliers, partners, etc.).
Key actions you can take to be more innovative include:
