MODEL Contagious Innovation
IDEA Defining Innovation
What if Innovation couldn't be stopped?
What if an idea grows 10-20% every week, on its
own?
What if it was your
idea?
And...
What if it was today? Now. Pronto. Quick.
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implications of Contagious Innovation as applied in the
Global Innovation Review, either:
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discussion.
This is a bit of a rant, because contagious innovation is a rant. It's
'all downhill', it's easy, it just happens. It takes more energy
to stop it than to let it grow. it is all about flow, so
antiseptic definitions and charts don't explain it.
Let's start at the beginning though.
Bad ideas (should) fail badly.
Should, anyway. (We can hope). We can hope all the time.
Fact is, bad ideas generally can be 'propped up' for a very long
time.
World-beating sales techniques have got so good at selling
the un-sellable, and sometimes defending the indefensible, that
we forget that some ideas are just bad. Plain old bad ideas get
(mostly) found out over time. Maybe too late.
But hey, the easier path is a good idea. An idea that
improves lives.
BUT WHAT IS Contagious Innovation?
It is an idea, a change that is overwhelmingly positive and
good, and takes off of it's own accord. A textbook definition
kills it. Fact is when you see a piece of 'contagious
innovation' -- that it's an idea best told as a narrative,
like most great ideas.
Contagious Innovation is a crack in the wall,
that changes
the wall.
An idea that sells, because it works, and sometimes works
because it sells.
What Is NOT Contagious innovation?
Definitely not another variety of fried chicken. Another soap
that washes, nor another iron that is cheaper and doesn't iron
properly. Another TV set that breaks after a year, probably not.
More plastic rubbish, probably not.
So if you're thinking most of my career at the Fast Moving
Consumer Goods Company 101 is not about innovation...
bingo. Light goes on. BING!
How do you incubate the Contagious innovation?
Innovation emerges in pockets - that's another models based
on observation firsthand at 350 large organizations, and many of
the worlds' major cities. Pockets. Localized pockets. There a
whole report written about it - the
Global Innovation Review and here's more about 'Innovation
Pockets'
So contagious innovation arc out, radiate from single points in
a large organization, or from within a small flexible
organization. Small leads to innovative. Allowance of difference
leads to creative, which can lead to innovative. It's about less,
not more doing.
Hold it! Innovation is not JUST
change
Couldn't agree more. That's why our Innovation Definition is:
Innovation is a change to benefit and advance mankind and
civilization.
from -- The 2thinknowTM
Global Innovation Review
For the 'greater good'. Not for 'popularity'. Not for 'special
interests'. perhaps for moral reasons, perhaps for reasons of
decency.
Greater good, is a loaded term. But if you stop disappearing
into a fit of 'cultural relativism' where all cultures are
equal, and there is nothing right or wrong, then it makes sense.
The curse of 'cultural relativism' destroys it.
If you believe in relativism there's a rant in the Global
Innovation Review to disavow you of that ludicrous belief.
So contagious innovation is change for the greater good, that
basically gathers impetus of it's own accord. Doesn't mean no
challenges. Doesn't mean no battles. But it means change worth
fighting for.
How do you know it's a good idea?
Now go and eat some French food, that tastes like... food...
and all you zany economic rationalists tell me again why French
agricultural protectionism is wrong.
(My favourite rationalist supporter of 'gains from trade'
lives and buys all his clothes overseas, as everything in his
own country is imported from China. His wife & kids live
overseas too. This position is not somehow hypocritical.)
That is how you know. It's not EQ, IQ, it's just surrounding
yourself with the good, great & true. With the inspirational.
With Michelangelo not Warhol. With U2 not 'Pussycat Dolls', with
Hitchcock not 'American Pie'.
Get Contagious
Michelangelo, U2, Hitchcock, Marilyn, Levis, Apple iPod,
Apple Mac, 3M Post-its.
Iconic, original, contagious. Original and Authentic.
Please no more fried chicken. Contagious. innovation.
Do you want to Workshop this?
Really. Come on. Take up the challenge.
Contact us here.
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