Innovation feeder

I had brekky with a friend of mine this morning & amongst other things, we were talking about finding talent. He’s always on the lookout for people, I’m on the other side of the fence & always on the lookout for new freeelance opportunities. There’s a lot of people hunting for innovation consultants, innovation talent, researchers etc at the moment in Sydney. The market is abuzz with movement. People are moving around, everyone wants to know who’s free, who might come where & who’s looking for what. Anyway, this friend & I were talking about how innovation companies themselves are often not that innovative [ironically] when it comes to hiring. How they can talk innovation & have theories on innovation but when it comes to hiring practices, recruiting talent & looking for new blood, often their approach can be anything but.

As I was pondering this post-pancakes, I came across a couple of articles that speak to this topic brilliantly. So rather than bang on & paraphrase, I’ve just posted them here. Enjoy.

(more…)

Gavin tagged me (thanks Gavin) on the current meme sweeping the sphere - ‘My Media Week’ - the meme that gets you thinking about your own media consumption rather than everyone else’s. So here goes:

Reading

I have one red paperclip on my night table which a friend loaned me. It has been there for quite some time (sorry Kes) but doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. i.e. It’s certainly no closer to getting in bed with me & a cup of tea than you are. I love the idea of someone who swaps a red paperclip for something else, then swaps that for something else, yada yada, you get the picture. Eventually this guy gets a house. I like the idea of the story, I’m just not loving the story so much.

So what I’m actually reading is “How would you move Mount Fuji : How the smartest companies select the world’s most creative thinkers” by William Poundstone. It’s basically a commentary on Microsoft’s notorious grueling interview process which has been copied by companies everywhere who are seeking to separate the most creative thinkers from those who are merely brilliant. It’s got a bunch of puzzles & riddles throughout which are generally making me feel reasonably uncreative, let alone brilliant. Lucky I’m not trying to get a job in the valley I suppose.

I flicked through my usual monthly Futures magazine yesterday but I don’t think you could call that ‘reading’ with any integrity. They come in the mail, I flick through them & then make them at home in my bottom drawer. You see, I don’t have to actually read them, just knowing they’re close is enough. Oh and I read Who Weekly to get the update on Britney Spears’ fight for child custody. Are we supposed to omit the trash consumption?

TV / Video

The other night I watched a documentary on Australia’s most feared creatures, followed by an episode of “shark attack : I shouldn’t be alive”, both served to reinforce the threat of swimming at any beach in Sydney as one could be taken by an animal of the sea at any time. I’ve also been following the US election coverage with interest together with my usual diet of cable news & Sunset Tan when it’s on. (Sunset Tan is a top quality show on cable which follows the lives of people who manage a chain of tanning salons in L.A. It’s no West Wing but gee it’s close). Again, should I have omitted that?

Music

On iTunes play during the last week was Joan as Policewoman, Josh Rouse, James Blunt & a bit Pink for the angry woman moments. There have been plenty of those this week for no particular reason other than my computer has been rather temperamental.

Next Up

Next up I tag Erin aka Dora the Explorer who is on my daily Google Reader , Amanthaville to encourage you to start posting again!, Coolz0r whose blog is always jam packed with great examples & analysis, Katie whose site I love reading regularly for a brain top up, Weird from Slacker Nation whose blog is always an incredibly good read & Greg at Grassroots Innovation which I also check out regularly.

Looking for a bit of Friday folly to procrastenate over while I garner the energy for another crack at work this afternoon, I stumbled across a new blog called ‘What If They Did’ - it’s basically a bunch of ‘what if’ ideas, a collection of random thoughts across all categories & platforms.

At first I thought might be an informal blog from someone at WhatIf The Innovation Company, after all, it would sit perfectly under their banner as a way of creating dialogue beyond the company lines. But no, it’s actually written by two creatives out of London who are using it as a playground to stash their collection of random ideas.

So whether you’re after a wacky idea for a particular category, or simply want think more laterally about how you go about generating ideas, this site is worth a look.

I love this idea for a lucky dip on the Skye Remote Control and when you think about it, it’s not so different from the concept behind iPod’s shuffle.

Check it out here

Last night I went to the first Sydney Interesting South Conference on ‘Interestingness’ organised by Emily Reed of the Open Intelligence Agency. It was put on by a group at Interesting South that meet regularly for coffee in Surry Hills to just chew the fat and geek out together (which in itself is appealing especially if you work on your own). The idea behind Interesting South seems as if it’s sort of loosely based on the US-centred idea of the ‘unconference’, sharing knowledge, passions and geekdom for freshness. It’s about exposing yourself to a whole bunch of different points of view, changing the lens you have on life, that sort of thing. Lovely.  The first Interesting South event was first held in London in June 2007 by Russell Davies and last night’s gig followed a similar  in Sydney. They had a line up of interesting and unusual speakers, each one was allocated 10 minutes (or in the case of more commercially orientated speakers like the Fair Trade lady - 3 minutes). The idea being that we got a sound byte of whatever each person decided to talk about - from How to make a Zombie to the Moose Dance, the art of vocology and even Pia the Sydney Overlord who talked to us about the strange things people at Darbot do with electricity. We got cuddly with the Free Hugs, met a grassroots activist who took offense and aim at the Coke Zero movement (still amazes me that one guy with $18 can cause a genuine grassroots backlash against a multi-million dollar fake grassroots campaign), the place was jam packed with interesting people came to share a little of their geekness on stage.

Interesting South describes itself as “. . not about brands, advertising, blogging or twitter but a wide variety of interesting, unexpected, original things. We’ve found 19 fascinating people and asked them speak for 3 or 10 minutes about something they care about. We want to replicate the experience of clicking from one really good blog to another, ranging across sciences, arts, music, jokes and whatever. The idea is to be informal and fast paced.”

For those of you who geek out on interesting and wonderful bits of brain candy, this event was magnificent. There was a couple of speakers I found particularly interesting and made a note to Google later. A great way to shift your thinking sideways a little. Well done to Emily and the team, Interesting South was a great event.

You can check Interesting South here

While surfing the net this morning I came across Girl Geek Dinners - a program set up by Sarah Blow which aims to get nerd chicks together to talk about technology. Like any good idea it’s spreading fast and girl geek dinners are popping up in the UK, Italy, German, Belgium, Canada, San Francisco and even New Zealand!

In a space that is usually dominated by the man nerd (and a highly technical man nerd at that), what a refreshing change to see girl geeks creating their own space to play.

You can check out girl geek dinners here

Another blog which has just launched in this space is geekgirlblogs and you can check that out here

“It strikes me as interesting that when businesses want to see more innovation, they talk about creativity. They hold workshops on how to be creative. But when you talk to most creative people — like artists, inventors, and yes, bloggers — they don’t talk about creativity, they talk about process. Maybe our processes and practices are the primary drivers of real creative endeavors. It’s like the zen buddhist said, “Stop searching for God and just sit!”

An interesting thought, taken from here

I’ve just come across the Z-List which was originally started by Mack Collier from A Viral Garden as a way of changing the world order by challenging two concepts — the A-list of bloggers and the Technorati approach to ranking authority.

Essentially you take the list that you find and you add any other blogs that you read & find interesting. The idea being that it’s a way for blogs with less love links to gain more exposure online. To remain on the list you have to have a decent quality blog but it’s basically a user created helping hand for smaller blogs starting out. It’s always good to see a bunch of users helping eachother out & whilst it does have a feel good sort of community aspect to it, it also pointed me in the direction of a bunch of blogs I hadn’t come across before.

So click & enjoy!  Check it out here :: Z-list

There’s also a wiki if you want more…

Image from Chaosscenario

According to Michael Porter the big cheese of marketing & business theory, competitive advantage is built on difference. Yet,companies are rushing toward sameness, fueled by “best practices” and incremental innovations. Why aren’t we looking at the “Most Innovative or Inventive Practice” as well? Why aren’t we looking at people doing it really differently? It’s much easier to do what everybody else has done because if it always looks like it should work and if it doesn’t, well it’s not your fault is it because it’s worked everywhere else so how could you have known…?

I think every strategic business review meeting should include a session at the end after the global best practice has been thoroughly reviewed and applied, a session w

here people celebrate those who hung their balls out in the wind to try something new. After all, innovation is hard and trying something completely new is even harder.

The people we’re most likely to learn from & be inspired by are the people who look at things differently. Who tried something new and it worked, or maybe it didn’t. Which is not to say there’s no value in BestPractice, of course there is value in something which has been tried and tested in other markets and worked. In some industry sectors and business areas, best practice makes the best sense. But when it comes to innovation, “Innovative Practice” is just as important.

That’s all.

Going Bedouin

By Greg Olsen

Anyone who works in the Silicon Valley knows the fable of the company that achieves spectacular success, then moves into new luxurious headquarters, and then immediately starts its decline. In this fable, the “new headquarters” event equates to “jumping the shark “. Certainly, there is no scientific basis for “demise by new headquarters,” but every time I drive by the still empty excite@home monument or the former SGI headquarters (the new Google headquarters, btw) with its contemplation fountain set amid lush manicured gardens, I wonder.

For many rapidly growing technology companies, “new opulent headquarters” seem to mark the point where a once innovative and agile company has become big, slow, and distracted. The relevant question for me is whether or not a company’s attitude toward operational infrastructure such as facilities, HR, and internal information systems is an indicator of its ability to resist decay into a bloated, slothful, has been.

A technology startup begins in a state of simplicity and focus - some ideas, a few people and little else to get in the way. As the business grows, however, sources of complexity and distraction seem to appear from every direction.

The source I found most surprising, (when I last helped start a software business back in ‘96), was the operational overhead that came with setting up an office, which continued to grow as we got larger. Before we knew it we were dealing with real estate leases, leased-lines, routers, VPNs, servers, workstations, firewalls, DMZs, UPSs, telephone systems, voicemail systems, email systems, web servers & website management software, accounting software, sales & marketing software, software development software, groupware, IT support staff, attorneys, and many other things - none of which were directly related to our core business. The VP of Marketing “had to” spend numerous hours looking at color swatches to select the “right” furniture. While still a small company, an office move (within the same building) required weeks of planning, dedicated staff, and days to complete.

I remember longing wistfully for the days when the company’s infrastructure fit into my backpack.

As I again venture down the startup path, it is clear that much has changed - including new tools, technologies and approaches to support operational needs. Almost everything costs less than it did in ‘96 (except possibly the attorneys), and there is an ever expanding set of service-based alternatives to building operational infrastructure. Most companies seem to be employing these new capabilities incrementally.

I’m interested in something more radical. By focusing almost exclusively on service-based infrastructure options, a business could operate as a sort of neo-Bedouin clan - with workers as a roaming nomadic tribe carrying laptops & cell phones and able to set up shop wherever there is an Internet connection, chairs, tables, and sources of caffeine. “Going Bedouin” is an interesting concept, but key questions naturally arise:

• “How do you do it?”
• “Why do it? What are the benefits?”
• “What are the challenges?”

Given peoples’ experience with telecommuting and distributed team projects from the open source community, a neo-Bedouin approach is not as hard to envision as it once may have been. The requirements for a neo-Bedouin business, however, go further and must include support for all business functions (such as sales, marketing, finance, engineering and customer support). A neo-Bedouin approach can be executed through a wide variety of specific choices. Here is a sample recipe:

For me, “because you can” is almost enough reason to “go Bedouin”, but there are much better reasons. Any reduction of distraction or complexity that is due to operational infrastructure is a good thing. The goal of “going Bedouin” is to create a low inertia business that takes less capital to get started and that can react with greater agility to changing conditions. Key areas of agility include:

• Team agility: Reducing the time/effort it takes to make new team members productive. Providing greater levels of flexibility in addressing team needs through short-term contracting or outsourcing.
• Information systems agility: Reducing the effort spent on systems selection, setup, and switching. Providing greater flexibility to change or extend information systems as business conditions change.
• Physical environment agility: Reducing the adverse impact of office moves, power outages, break-ins, fires, floods, earthquakes, hardware failures, stolen laptops, etc.

Reducing operational overhead through a neo-Bedouin approach can definitely produce a “less is more” result. There are, however, challenges and concerns that come with this type of approach.

One of the first concerns is security, particularly security surrounding the hosting of the company’s source control repository. The security of this service as well as any of the others used by the company is a valid concern, but it must be examined from a relative risk perspective. Internet security technologies combined with service provider features can produce a risk level that is comparable to risks present in in-house approaches. Care must be taken in choosing service providers as all do not offer the same levels of security. Because credential sharing across multiple service providers is not well supported today, team members must be cautious in terms of password management and must deal with the nuisance of multiple logins.

Another challenge with implementing a neo-Bedouin approach is in getting people to overcome behavioral inertia. Many people get very used to and comfortable with traditional approaches -to large support staffs, to phones on their desks, to control over all infrastructure details, to large central facilities, etc. Things often get done a certain way because “this is how we always did it” or “this is how everybody else does it”. Some people simply can’t make the transition to a more minimalist approach, and for those who can change, leadership is required.

Not every type of software business can easily “go Bedouin” and neo-Bedouinism need not be absolute. Companies that sell “enterprise application software”, for example, seem to require significant infrastructure solely for the purpose of suitably impressing customer representatives - e.g. giant campuses with requisite sculptures, water features, demo centers, grand entrances, executive assistants to arrange gourmet dinners and golf outings. The specifics of some businesses make outsourcing of infrastructure intensive functions difficult or impossible.

In any business, infrastructure needs will arise that are best served by “in-house” approaches. What makes a neo-Bedouin approach different than traditional approaches is the commitment to seeking service-based alternatives to building or acquiring infrastructure that must be managed, moved or otherwise dealt with. Companies that make such a commitment can focus more of their energy and their resources on building products, supporting customers, or other core business needs.

The primary reason software businesses don’t “go Bedouin” is because they think they don’t have to. Fatness is easy. Executives like to construct monuments. Managers like to build empires. Engineers and IT professionals like to buy and play with technology. People like to settle in and nest. As swifter, more nimble competitors enter the software technology marketplace in greater numbers; however, companies will pay an increased penalty for their fatness. Like many resource rich kingdoms that faced the Mongols, recognition of the threat may come too late.

This article was lifted in its entirety from Charter St

For those of you who don’t work for a big cheese corporate with fancy pants business cards, Moo is definitely worth a look. They’ve taken what is essentially a fairly boring & standard product, the old business card, and breathed into it, a new lease of life.

Enter the unbusiness card. These pint sized little beauties are about half the size of your normal business card so they already look different. Plus they link in with Flickr so you can use your Flickr photos on the back of each card (you can use as many images as you want to make a variety of cards) to personalise them.

They’re tiny, they look hot & they’re cheap. What more could a girl want? except maybe a proper job…

Check it out :: Moo