Less Innovation Theatre, more IMPACT please!
Tala Al Ansari
Innovation & Transformation Advisor | Startup community & ecosystem cluster builder | Strategic Partnerships | Executive Board Member | International Keynote Speaker | Certified Creativity Trainer
Around 80% of firms rank #innovation as their top 3 priorities based on 波士顿谘询公司 . Many corporate firms & government entities even have dedicated departments focused on innovation and #transformationalchange to address this priority. However, several entities seem to have gotten distracted with awards, PR & tech trends along the way resulting in their entanglement into ‘Innovation Theatre’.
What is #innovationtheatre some of you may ask? Innovation theatre is anything that an entity does to portray itself as innovative which does not deliver real value to the organization. Real value can be financial ROI (Return on Investment) or intangible return like customer happiness & a boost to employee morale:
·?????? Running hackathons where top ideas turn into PR but not into projects is innovation theatre.
·?????? Branding a robot with your logo on it without a clear ‘business use case’ is innovation theatre yet again.
So how can government entities & corporate firms stop getting distracted with Innovation theatre & start driving impact ladies & gentlemen?
Having led an award-winning innovation program with millions as ROI; here are my top tips:
1.?????? Align innovation efforts to your strategy – As simple as this sounds, this is not applied well enough!
2.?????? Don’t run initiatives for PR, run them to create value & ROI – PR & awards will naturally follow.
3.?????? Invest in technology where there is a clear business case, not because it’s trending!
4.?????? Let's run an ‘Innovation Pulse Check’ together & bring-in millions through your government/corporate innovation program (DM me for requests).
What have you seen out there that is ‘Innovation theatre’ & that makes you cringe?
Digital transformation expert. Increasing business productivity by 70 to 90 percent at a fraction of the cost and speed in project delivery using cost-effective user interfaces, data engineering app and RPA applications.
6 天前Seeing a robot with human-like figure where the presenter claims will be the next-gen solution for blah blah. Then after the show is over, you do not see a trace of that robot or is back in the lab for "upgrades". Feels like plainly scamming the client or sponsors. Total cringe.
Founder | Advisor | Author | Investor
9 个月It's a little cliched, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, but I have seen innovation theatre is a disease - a disease of thinking that an idea alone is enough, launching something is enough, signing something is enough, hiring a team is enough, and doing a press release is enough. That's my cringe.
Entrepreneur Digitizing the Construction ??? Economy, 1 Trillion AED at the time // Connector // Mentor // Angel Investor // Board Member // Ecosystem Builder
9 个月The problem is that Innovation is highly risky and requires long-term commitment, two things that Corporations are not specifically known for doing, especially in an ecosystem where a big part of middle management is afraid to lose their lifestyle if things don't go well. So the real question for me, is WHY would Corporations innovate unless they're being encouraged to do so. That is exactly why a lot of countries offer massive incentive plans to de-risk innovation. Canada, for example, refunds 75% of all R&D expenses when such research happens IN Canada. The reality is that we largely operate in an ecosystem that has demonstrated time and time again that the "appearance of success" is more valued than "actual success". In Tech, for example, we have seen dozens / hundreds of events, conferences, reports & PR that showcase vanity metrics, while not really showcasing any real success. So if we *really* care about Innovation, then Govt needs to start putting in the measures (AND capital) to enable it to flourish, knowing full well that it will take 10+ years to get any ROI, and that a large chunk of it might be lost. But that's ok. It's all about sending a strong signal & there is no stronger signal than capital.
Digital transformation expert. Increasing business productivity by 70 to 90 percent at a fraction of the cost and speed in project delivery using cost-effective user interfaces, data engineering app and RPA applications.
9 个月Thank you for saying this Tala! I have seen this in a lot of presentations but never seen the real-world implementation. Total waste of valuable time.
Totally Agree Tala, if Innovation is not a way of being, have fancy PR events will not fake that. It should be reflected in every activity the organization have, not a stand alone practice.