Embracing Ambiguity

Shakespeare once said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” We can say from experience that the course of true innovation never did run smooth either. Sometimes when doing consumer research, you may realize that the “fuzzy front end” just isn’t getting any clearer. Or that you need to back up a bit before you can go forward. Real innovation circles back on itself as more information becomes available. An idea that yesterday you may have thought to eliminate, suddenly comes back into play when you make an unexpected discovery today.

For that reason, forcing innovation into a linear, one-way funnel process can unfortunately too easily kill a promising idea. Instead, you might want to think of your process as a dynamic vortex, where ideas are given greater freedom to move where ongoing insight and inspiration take them. Nascent ideas should constantly be informed by other elements in the vortex of new product activity, such as consumer/customer insight, technical invention and discovery, product form and packaging, branding, positioning, advertising communication, etc. before they can reach a critical mass of integration. These elements must have sufficient time to mix, match and inform one another until a confluence of learning, evidence and insight come together to create a high-probability-of-success concept.

Of course, sooner or later the ideas have to come back to earth. Decisions will be made, and resources allocated for those ideas with the greatest in-market potential, but only after they have been substantially improved, transformed or even entirely re-invented in the process.

Thinking Beyond New Products & Services

We’ve found many companies are so focused on innovation in the new product/service realm, that they forget to look for new ideas across other organizational functions—business development, marketing, cost-cutting, partnerships, operations, technology—any area that is integral to your business. It’s quite possible that a groundbreaking new approach to how you do business can be just as profitable as a new product or service.

Diversify Diversify Diversify!

We’ve noticed that one concept that is easily forgotten when it comes to innovation is the “portfolio” strategy (not all of your ideas and innovations will come to fruition, so it’s best to make sure you’ve got multiple options to choose from). Many companies are so focused on finding the next big game-changer that they forget to aim for a mix of both platform-changing innovations and smaller line extensions—or vice versa. Just like with your personal investments, the key message is “Diversify!”