Entrepreneurship is about creating value by defining problems – in our workspaces, companies, and environments – and by finding and implementing innovative solutions to those problems.
According to our definition, innovation, like sand to the ocean, is an indispensable component of the entrepreneurial experience. But how often do we think critically about terms like “innovative solutions.”
Restated, what does innovation mean for us and for our companies? And if it’s such a mission-critical tool in our entrepreneurial toolkits, what can we do to put the innovative process to work to help us scope out and capitalize on new business opportunities?
Tom Kelly of design firm IDEO addresses this topic in The Art of Innovation. He makes a number of great points, but my favorite follows:
“You can’t know the lion if you aren’t in the jungle.”
Interesting.
He means that we generally don’t see opportunities to innovate with our mind’s eye. Instead, we stumble upon them while we’re visiting a friend’s new apartment. Or shopping. Or at the dentist’s office. Or on vacation.
The logic goes something like this: When we’re away from our familiar quarters our senses run overtime. Good thing, too, because that survival mechanism helps us to quickly see, consider, and react to occurrences alien to us. It also means that we hear and see things – sometimes novel, sometimes not – in a new light.
This has a number of outcomes. Most important for our purposes, our minds become dramatically more capable of sensing and perceiving business opportunities.
What’s more, this “innovation from the field” has an additional outcome that’s more obvious than the preceding, but that’s equally compelling: It brings us into contact with problems we wouldn’t otherwise know. Consider your town’s hospital. What are its inefficiencies?
Acquisition of new medicines?
Distribution of those medicines to patients?
Timely flow of information among branches?
Coordination of staff?
I certainly don’t know. Maybe you don’t either.
But how could we expect a deep knowledge of the hospital’s (or bank’s, or supermarket’s, or manufacturer’s) uncommon needs and value-adding opportunities unless we observed that acquisition, distribution, flow, and coordination first-hand?
The point: We need to get out. To see people in new places doing unfamiliar things. To “know the jungle.”
Only then do we intimately understand needs and opportunities. And only then may we create value.
Brian Lash is founder of The Tipping Blog and writes about the entrepreneurial experience at BrianLash.com.
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“The logic goes something like this: When we
How very true! What kept me entertained through so many of my classes my 5th and final year of school were the new ideas I would get so randomly as I sat in class hearing about otherwise uninteresting subjects.
I would often get strange stares as I pulled out my trusty “thoughts” notepad to jot down random business ideas, etc. in the middle of a lecture.
I took that pad with me everywhere—walking to lunch, on the bus, shopping, while driving. And it’s funny because the ideas always seem to hit when you least expect it.