With so many companies focusing more intensely than ever on innovation, why are so few seeing results?
Adam Richardson, creative director at the award-winning global innovation firm frog, gets to the bottom of this dilemma in his new book, Innovation X. Richardson argues that companies’ efforts to innovate are being thwarted by “X-Problems,” a new class of 21st century challenges that defy conventional planning. But Richardson has hope. If used in the right way, these problems can present massive innovation opportunities.
Grounded in insights about how customers, competitors, and technologies change quickly and often, Innovation X is the manual for leaders looking for clarity about the emerging challenges facing their businesses. The book provides practical innovation strategies that will work in dynamic markets, and offers tactical methods that can be put to use immediately.
Combining frog's approach with insightful analysis of companies such as Apple, BMW, Clif Bar, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Salesforce.com, and Zipcar, Richardson illustrates how to envision and realize successful new business ventures, products, and services. Innovation X is an essential guide for companies looking to get the jump on their competition in today’s disruptive environment.
Excerpts
Table of Contents (PDF)
Chapter 1: Living in an X-Problem World (PDF)
Thoughts from Adam's design mind blog
Adam presented at TEDx Taipei on July 24 in the Huashan Cultural Park in Taiwan. The theme of the event was “Unlearn. Play. Inspire.” TEDx conferences are independently organized local TED events. TEDx Taipei featured 23 speakers, including designers, entrepreneurs, explorers, storytellers, photographers, scientific pioneers, visionaries, and provocateurs are going to share their stories with a 500 person audience.
read more on design mind
Adam gave the keynote speech at Amsterdam’s Next Web conference, the fifth annual gathering to discuss trends in the digital landscape, on how “The Future of the Web Will be Invisible.” Richardson discusses the intersection of the physical and the digital, and his term “Webjects,” the blending of objects and the Web.
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At the beginning of May, frog design partnered with the Lift Conference in Geneva to do a bold experiment: conduct design research on the conference itself to understand what was working well and not so well about the conference. The organizers wanted to see if a design research approach based on real-time observation and interviewing of attendees could provide better and richer feedback, allowing them to further improve the already highly regarded event. Here is what we found.
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Recent
What do Netflix, Zipcar, Mint.com, Nike+, Amazon, the Nintendo Wii, and the Apple iPhone all have in common? They all take advantage of four technologies that once were scarce and expensive but are now plentiful and cheap. These technologies can be combined in numerous ways, and we are just starting to see companies really taking advantage of the possibilities. These four technologies will have a disruptive impact on your business, almost regardless of which industry you're in. The question is whether you will choose to adopt them before a competitor does.
The logical, deductive approach to problem solving that we are all taught is not always the best for trying to create breakthrough ideas. In fact it can be positively counter-productive. You often need to be "illogical," non-linear, and put the cart before the horse (that is, have the idea before you know why it's valuable) to help get things rolling.
After a crazy couple of weeks in the consumer electronics/smartphone/computer/telecom mega-industry (it's really all one now), another bombshell arrived yesterday with the news that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO and is taking on role of chairman of the board. In reality, it probably means he will be in an advising capacity not unlike what he's probably been doing for the last year while on medical leave. But still, a shock to the system.
Editor's Note: frog Senior Strategist Tanya Khakbaz authored this as a continuation to an earlier post. In her last post, she described how she entered the design industry as an MBA, having been exposed to the fanfare and excitement of design thinking that is dominant in business schools today. As a strategist working on teams with designers, Tanya has learned several lessons about what it takes to make the business-design partnership work, which she continues to share in this post.
