Innovation challenge #1: Creating the future, fast
In my previous two articles, we set the stage to talk about the ways communication is critical to effective innovation. Here, we’ll take a closer look at at the big innovation challenges communication can help solve, beginning with … the beginning.
Innovation means change. It means something new, something unfamiliar. When we have a new idea, our “inner circle” of team members and colleagues may be able to get excited and onto the same page with us quickly. But ideas must then navigate through different channels, all with their own level of understanding about what you’re trying to convey. These audiences include investors and stakeholders who require clarification of the idea.
A primary clarification you and they will be looking for is, essentially, “who will buy it, and how many?” This means developing an understanding not only of the market for the idea, but also by members of the target market — and it needs to happen early. Soon. Fast. The benefactors of our innovation must understand how our buyers will understand how the new idea, the product, will improve their lives. These early stages of getting organizational and literal buy-in to the venture, then evolve into an ongoing conversation with potential buyers and eventual customers to validate that we’re building a product that’s poised for viable growth.
Finally but no less importantly, the developers of the innovation need roadmaps and blueprints to understand what they’re building, and stay on course to the end vision of the product our customers will buy, use and enjoy.
Throughout the development process, there must be a shared and clear understanding of the entire ecosystem of the organization’s capabilities and resources, competitive forces, and user needs. The “shared” part begins with strong leadership throughout the process, and the “clear” part is all about communication principles, methods, and governance.
Communication and the first creation
“The carpenter’s rule is “measure twice, cut once.” You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you’ve thought everything through. Then you put it into brick and mortar.”
— Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The second Habit in Covey’s landmark personal development book is ”Begin with the end in mind.” In short, Covey encourages his readers to envision how they’d ultimately like to be remembered — and then create their future “twice:” First in their minds, and then again in their life as they aspire toward what they imagined in the “first” creation.
One of the ways Covey explains this concept as a personal habit is to describe it in a business context: “If you want to have a successful enterprise, you clearly define what you’re trying to accomplish. You carefully think through the product or service you want to provide in terms of your market target, then you organize all the elements — financial, research and development, operations, marketing, personnel, physical facilities, and so on — to meet that objective. The extent to which you begin with the end in mind often determines whether you are able to create a successful enterprise. Most business failures begin in the first creation (emphasis mine), with problems such as undercapitalization, misunderstanding of the market, or lack of a business plan.”
Beginning with the end in the innovation process is not only useful but also critical. We need to create the future before we create the future. We need to connect our product to the people who will buy it in the future, so that we’re building it to meet their needs. But what is “it,” who are “they” and what exactly are their needs? And we already talked about the “need for speed” getting from the proverbial napkin sketch between two entrepreneurs or engineers to clear understanding by all.
Creating the future is where communication and creative communicators can play a central role. Thinkers and creatives skilled in research, design, and visualization can help bring the future closer and the vision into focus, fast. Some examples of early, lean kick-off activities include:
Ecosystem mapping (mapping the uncharted territory)
Designers and visual communicators can help “chart” the uncharted territory of your venture’s market opportunity. There is no go-to or standard way to do this, as every organization, industry and audience is different. Skilled visual communicators can devise creative ways to “create” pictures of what the territory looks like and where future opportunities exist. This can be done through a variety of techniques that result in visual and often overlaying maps of competitive, market, and technology landscapes.
This mapping should be inclusive of all role players in the product’s development: Investors and stakeholders, user and customer experience design, engineering and development, sales, and marketing. Think of overlaying different types of maps of the United States: Historical, topographical, state borders, interstate highways, flight paths, population density. Each department should have its own map that overlays onto the others. And again, the resulting ecosystem map can take a myriad of different forms for each unique business.
Conceptual branding and early prototypes (fake it ’til you make it)
The term “fake it ’til you make it” — especially the “fake” part — has a slightly negative connotation, but in a positive sense it means you’re pushing the boundaries of your knowledge and skills outside your comfort zone. Fake it should be replaced by “carry yourself with confidence as you test yourself, learn, listen, and practice” but that doesn’t rhyme as well with “make it.”
In the fast-paced world of innovation — whether you’re an entrepreneur, start-up or corporate innovator — ”carrying yourself with confidence” during even the early stages is crucial. Entrepreneurs and start-ups need to put their best foot forward for investors, even though they’re a bootstrapping skeleton crew behind the scenes. Innovators often need to rock the corporate boat a bit to float ideas about a shift in direction or whole new course. Presenting even the earliest “visuals of the vision” in a clear, compelling package is — albeit challenging — valuable to garnering interest, understanding, and buy-in.
Does this mean whipping together a “pretty” placeholder logo and PowerPoint template? Not exactly. Well … actually, just no. We need to rapidly iterate through what we know about our vision — what we’re testing, learning, hearing — and develop some early, aesthetically-pleasing visuals to begin bringing the new venture to life. These should include more than just a logo, tag line, and color scheme — in fact, those elements are best developed a bit later. First, we should begin with conceptual models, early prototypes, and collaborative storytelling. These elements can then form a highly effective basis for brand creative design and messaging.
Investors, stakeholders, and even the c-suite need to see a conceptual theme that they can instantly wrap their heads around. A deck is often the end presentation deliverable, but these sharp, concise slides should be the “tip of the iceberg” of some fast-paced but well-thought-out early brainstorming below the surface. And these artifacts and assets — the prototypes and messaging — can be valuable in early research and validation exercises, as well, which we’ll discuss next.
Led by creatives and designers in this beginning stage, we’re communicating a vision that investors will invest in and stakeholders will take hold of to support the next innovation stage. With this momentum, the next steps will be sufficiently fueled for deeper research, broader explorations and more expansive creative iteration.
Guerrilla Research (connect the dots and paint a picture)
In the early staging and socialization of a concept, reassuring investors, stakeholders and team members that there’s a solid value proposition, a product-market fit, and sizable demand is challenging — but necessary. This is where guerrilla (or as we also like to call it, quick, not dirty) research can extract small but insightful feedback from potential users. At this stage we’re not trying to convince anyone that there are millions of customers chomping at the bit to buy one of our products for their office and one for home. Experienced user researchers will use time-sensitive and cost-effective — but also well-planned — techniques to interview and engage with potential users, and evaluate competitors. The deeper-dive hypotheses and queries will come later with further investment and buy-in (like the final-state branding and messaging above).
Early user engagement and interviews should be accompanied by similarly fast and frugal prototypes, usually on paper and in wireframe mode. An effective guerrilla technique is to conduct a user insights interview in two short parts, first listening and learning about their work or task in the context of the new product idea, then returning with a prototype for them to react to. This teaming of researchers and designers uncovers valuable insights and collects small-sample-size data that can be integrated into pitches, business model refinement, product development planning, and that best-foot-forward presentation of the concept.
Next, we’ll take on the next big challenge: Managing the exponential complexity of today’s innovation landscape and ecosystems.
