Stopping Your Innovation Freeze, Bold Product Decisions, and Keep Learning Forward
Barry O'Reilly
Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Nobody Studios | Launching 100 Companies Over the Next 5 Years | Keynote Speaker | Bestselling Author of "UNLEARN" and "LEAN ENTERPRISE"
As we all continue to find our way in the new social and economic landscape, innovation has plummeted among major companies.
How do we know it’s getting harder to innovate? My recent blog post on the innovation freeze has been garnering a lot of attention from companies wondering, “Is remote work killing innovation?”
In the article I share:
- a breakdown of the three innovation archetypes from stallers to leaders and the unexpected reinventors chipping into others’ market share while they stagnate
- an assessment of the key impediments to innovation in many companies, and
- ideas and inspiration for those companies struggling to get back on track.
Speaking of inspiration, my recent podcast guest Amy Farrow, CIO at Lyft, shared some fantastic insights from her past experiences leading teams during seismic business shifts, such as Salesforce initiating the enterprise cloud movement. She described how she learned to build a strong sense of team and keep Lyft innovating and growing during the pandemic.
Another recent episode featured Quincy Carroll, a seasoned Chief Product Officer working at HODINKEE. We explored the question of, “How do you make bold product decisions in the face of uncertainty?”
Quincy’s experience includes bringing Apple’s Garageband to life, taking streaming platform Crunchyroll to 3,000,000 subscribers, and introducing Ebay’s first search algorithm. Now his focus is helping companies find and hire remote talent from anywhere in the world, a core issue in this new marketplace.
What I've been writing
Blog post: Innovation Freeze: Why Major Companies Are Losing Their Markets and Talent
Despite the unprecedented changes in our economy and workplaces in the past year, innovation is actually down in most industries.
This is problematic for the economy as a whole, but it’s especially bad for the many businesses who have fallen prey to the innovation freeze. That’s because many of these companies have been operating under the false premise that no one else is innovating either.
The truth is the playing field is not level, and those companies who were able to adapt didn’t wait—they accelerated in the face of uncertainty. Those who froze, stopped, or paused—hoping to ride out the pandemic until they could get back to business as usual—are in for an unpleasant reckoning… and not just from Amazon’s $400B surge or Microsoft’s $270B increase (in just the first half of 2020!)
The gains made by these and other tech giants are no surprise. But other players that stalled companies need to be worrying about aren’t even on their radar—and it will come as a shock when they discover who is eating up their market share.
But before I explain that, how do we know innovation is down? Anecdotally, I can see it in the conversations between executives in my coaching communities and masterminds. Some are finding a creative path forward, but most are stuck, having slashed all funding for growth and innovation since last March. [read]
Who I've been speaking to
Podcasts: on Bold Product Decisions and "Keep Learning Forward"
Bold Product Decisions with Quincy Caroll
Quincy and I look back at his valuable experience from working at Ebay, Apple's Garageband, and scaling Crunchyroll from 300,000 to 3million users.
Keep Learning Forward with Amy Farrow
We talk about the value of reflection and how to leverage learning to build a better organization, including what not to do in times of challenge or crisis.
View more episodes of my podcast
Download my new paper!
To help companies regain their innovation mojo and reimagine product development, I’ve just co-authored a paper with Tuomas Syrj?nen, co-founder and Chief AI Officer of Futurice, on Precision Product Creation.
We introduce the Data-and-AI Paradigm, a new approach to portfolio management centering on developing an Information Portfolio to guide companies in creating the right product at the right time. And the great news is, the tools to get started are now easily within reach for any business.
Click here to download the paper!
Precision Product Creation: The Right Offer At The Right Time By Creating Your Information Portfolio
We’ll be offering a livestream webinar on the topic, joined by Kone’s Global Head of Analytics Maija Hovila, tomorrow, February 25th at 9am PT, noon ET, 5pm GMT.
Subscribe here and get notified FIRST!
As ever—let me know your reaction to what resonates, or what you would like to see more of from me in the weeks and months ahead.
Best,
Barry
Knowledge Management Practitioner and Strategist, helping organizations to collaborate and manage operating rhythm so that people have a better day where they work!
4 年As the shortest month of the year, it is difficult to invest in Feb like you can with the 30 and 31 day months. Just sayin....there have to be priorities. ??
“The Future is Already Here, it's Just Not Very Evenly Distributed.” William Gibson.
4 年Thanks for sharing