Innovation defined.
Not surprisingly, innovation means different things to different people. In one case, your audience might be thinking of a large, breakthrough change in technology or in the way an employee or consumer functions in their daily lives. To someone else, an innovation may be a small step that seems small to the producer but makes a big change in enhancing the user experience. In another case, it might be a small change that doesn’t appear to make allot of difference but over the long run and with additional changes makes a big difference. It could also mean a change in system or procedure that affects the employees in your company. This list could go on and on.
If you read anywhere there’s lots of discussion about innovation to the point where the term seems overused. So when you talk about innovation, it is a good idea to start by defining what innovation means to you and ask what it means to your audience, what the purpose of a new innovation might be and what lengths you or your customer is interested or willing to go to incorporate a new innovation.
As an innovator, I hope for and work towards breakthrough innovation. However, in tough economic times, innovation may require too much risk and expense for an organization. It is also not uncommon for customers to resist change and therefore companies have a difficult time innovating product changes even if it is clearly a benefit to the customer.
So instead of dreaming about the next big thing for your product incorporate a step-by-step plan to develop and implement the innovation. Focus on smaller changes and make changes easier to implement and easier for the customer to accept. Use inexpensive and small experiments to test your new ideas. For example, add or make a small product improvement and test that improvement by watching users try the new feature. Then evaluate how well, how significant, and how beneficial the audience considers this change to be. Is it worth the money if the innovation affects your product’s price or the time needed for your customers to learn how to use the new feature?
In many cases, difficult economic times require product innovations that are easily adapted and cannot require a large investment either by the company or the consumer.
If you want to have the best possible outcome, have a plan for product innovation or for a major innovation as a series of palatable building blocks that moves toward and reaches your bigger goal. This approach, if the innovation is beneficial and is communicated that way, should be met with less resistance from either the company itself, company employees or their consumers. This approach will allow for a smoother transition and incorporation of the innovation.
