Innovation: Infusing Personal Meaning into my Truckload of Homework

This past few days has prompted a major rethinking of this MBA, why I am here, what I want to do next, and how I can integrate all of these projects and posts and forums and papers and blogs into something that actually means something to me, rather than just choosing something I can write about and getting these tasks checked off.

At heart, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I am first and foremost an innovator. It's what I do and what I've always done.

I made a major point starting a few years ago to formally study Innovation Strategy and figure out how it's "Really" done. What I found out: Same way I was doing it intuitively all my life, except with way better words and diagrams.

Not knocking training in this or in ANY field -- I am a serial student and I was secretly plotting some way to get a janitor job at MIT just to lurk in the halls, (noted: not an original movie plot anymore).

My point: I am rethinking all of my proposed BGI class projects and I now want to reframe all of it around the broadstroke topic of Innovation and drill down into some relevant subtopics.

I created a major S%$&#!storm in a Product Development Departmental meeting at work yesterday when I introduced the idea of launching a web-based consumer-generated product innovation project. It's basically free, you can get thousands of amazingly brilliant ideas from YOUR own loyal consumers, and the successes of companies like Lego have proven that companies NOT doing this are pretty much missing the boat. This one harmless low-risk suggestion derailed the whole meeting.

So...........why the resistance?

Organizational culture.

My company is primarily a "closed innovation" organization. We create it; we build it; we manufacture it; we protect it; it's ours. We do not ask others -- especially not consumers -- to "Design our products for us".

Too bad for us! Windows vs. Linux.

Granted, I personally don't believe it's possible to come up with truly breakthrough innovative ideas from a consumer focus group (it's just an unreasonable expectation), but I sure can use their ideas to read between the lines and identify umet needs and potentially extrapolate those into a disruptive new product or category.

Is there any possibility I can convince my company to harness this open-source crowd power? I simply don't know.

One major factor I have in my favor: tireless persistence for things I believe deeply in.

Watch this space.