Art of Innovation

Came across this interesting webcast on innovation.

First, a word on this website zenstation.com which itself has applied good innovation. Traditionally, in a video presentation on the web, you have to sacrifice the quality of the presentation slides or the speaker to get going. But look at this great way of presenting on the web.

Now about the art of innovation, a video presentation by famous business guru Guy Kawasaki

Though I would suggest to see the video yourself, but here is summary of few of the key points raised by Guy in this presentation. Here is what he thinks is prerequisite to innovation:



Make Meaning - Innovators are motivated by one thing - to make things better. Making money is not their prime goal. It could be the by-product but it could not be your sole motto.
And having read about many great innovators, I can see what he means by that. After all, none of the innovators (we are talking about real meaningful and original innovations) had any other goal pursuing their innovation apart from making meaning.
So while innovating, one should have aim like- make people more productive, make things easy to operate, make a cheap laptop.
So making meaning has to be one's prime driver for any innovation.


Make Mantra not mission statement - This one is my favourite !! Having myself sitting in few of the sessions during sales days, I can vouch for guy's point here.
Mission statements are so complex and unrealistic (even lofty) that they just confuse employees and no one takes them seriously, simply because no one can remember those long fancy statements !! He instead suggests to have mantra of few, simple and meaningful words. The mantra should define the aim of your business. Why does it exist, simple.
Only than will people be consciously working towards achieving the goal of your business and innovation will happen when employees are really sold out on the aim of your business.



Jump to the next curve - i.e concentrate your energies on making not 10% improvement through your innovation, but 10 times improvement. We should strive for path breaking innovations. e.g. Sony Walkman to Apple ipod


Don't worry, Be crappy - Revolutionaries do not worry, they are not afraid of being crappy. When you jump the curve and make a next generation product through innovation, don't worry about how well it works or even how much it works. Learn from field. Don't worry to first make it totally fault free and functionally rich (you can never do that without getting feedback from field), just ship it.


Polarize People - This one is really bold one. Don't be afraid of polarising people. Don't try to please everyone. If you will do, mediocrity Will be the result. After all, you can't please everyone.
One of the example he quotes is Macintosh.

Niche Thyself - Your innovation should be targeted at providing not only unique product or service , but also providing value to customer. You just can't concentrate on one at the cost of other, its not innovation. Dot com boom had many such examples when any silly idea could get funding.



Don't let the bozos grind you down - don't listen to the those - this would not work, there is no market for hybrid cars etc. etc. Founder of Digital Equipment Corp said in 1977 - "There is no reason why anyone would want a computer at home. He jumped the curve from mainframe to mini computers but he could not embrace the personal computers."
And boy, was he proven wrong!!

Evaluate yourself using Johari Window

Though most of us would have read about Johari Window during our academic life, I think we can use it more effectively once we have spent some time in our professional life and have a more matured view about ourselves and others.


I think, if used honestly, it will certainly tell you many things about your own self, about your personal and professional relationships.

Basically, you can represent each person by their own four-quadrant. Each of these contains and represents personal information and shows whether the information is known or not known by themselves or other people. It can then help you to work with others towards 'shared discovery' about yourself. The below picture will make it even more clear :

© alan chapman 2003. http://www.businessballs.com/johariwindowmodel.htm

Use this link to know more about Johari Window. However, here is a summary:

There are some traits of a person which are known to him and some which are known to others and some which are known to none as seen in each quadrant in above picture.

The main aim is to increase the 'shared discovery' which is resultant of self disclosure and feedback solicitation. I would say this can be used in all walks of life including your marriage and at the job to understand partner/colleagues. In this respect, Johari window is a communication tool as well.

To use it more effectively, you can use this free online Johari Window tool to analyse your personality and relationships. The good thing is that you can seek online opinion from your friends and then analyse results.

Try it, if you seek feedback from right kind of people, it might lead to shared discovery !