A good portion of the time you should be spending innovating is essential if your company wants to survive. Innovation is key to staying ahead in an ever-changing world where everyone expects things to improve and become cheaper.
These are seven ways innovation can bring new life to your company.
1. Create An Innovative Climate. Goran Ekvall from Lund University, Sweden has identified three requirements for creating a culture of innovation. These conditions are trust, dynamism and humor. Ekvall was inspired by a Swedish newspaper in which the section devoted to women consistently beat all other sections. Why? Simply put, the group was trustworthy, shared high levels of energy, and had common senses of humor.
2. Create Washing-Up Creativity. Roffey park management institute says that most people get inspiration when they’re not working and aren’t forcing their brains into solving problems. Ideas can come from mowing the grass, walking with the dog or while waiting for trains. Isaac Newton saw it as an apple on the forehead while sitting in the yard. Archimedes believed it occurred in the tub. Others experience it while they are cooking. Roffey Park refers to these moments of insight as flashes. “washing-up creativity”.
3. Create new connections. Innovating by creating new connections between features in your products and services is an attractive way to be innovative. Akio Morita (chairman of Sony) stated that the Walkman was invented because he could listen to music as he walked between holes on his course. He and his team simply combined two seemingly unrelated products, a tape recorder with a transistor radio.
4. Discover What People Want. The greatest driver of innovation is necessity. Consider writing paper, as an example. Around 100 BC, the Chinese made paper using rags. However it was not needed and it never became popular. In the Middle Ages, writing was a booming industry and paper reached Europe. The discovery of wasp nests came from a French naturalist who discovered that they were made by chewing down wood to make a paste that could be dried in layers. Wood pulp was the basis of all paper within 100 years.
5. Test, Test, Test. These are the most common methods that inventors and companies use to invent new products. Although it may not always be the fastest route to success, it can often prove to be the most reliable. Jonas Salk was an example. He spent his entire time trying out different methods and constantly learning what failed. Thomas Edison was the man who invented the filament lightbulb. He recorded over 1300 failed experiments. However, Edison was able continue because he could see 1300 reasons why it wouldn’t work.
6. Adopt and adapt. It’s easy to innovate by looking at how other people solve problems, and adapting their solutions. This is known as “adapt and adopt”. This is what Swatch, watchmakers realized when it became clear that more people would need to replace watches they were reliable. They came up with a solution. Take inspiration from fashion collections and make your watches fashionable accessories. People buy Swatch watches now not only to keep track of the time, but also because they’re cool.
7. Learn from Nature. Nature is the best place to find inspiration if you want to really be creative. Nature’s world offers endless possibilities for prototypes that we can use to create our world. Velcro, as an example. Georges de Mestral, a hunter from France, discovered Velcro and decided to patent it. De Mestral soon realized this was a great way to attach material. The whole process was rewritten.
Innovation is the history that has shaped the world. Thomas Kuhn described each new innovation accepted as an “acceptance”. “paradigm shift”. Once a new idea is accepted by the public, then the world changes forever and cannot go back the way it was.