Innovation Is Executive Porn - InformationWeek

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Comments
Innovation Is Executive Porn
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Tom Mariner
50%
50%
Tom Mariner,
 User Rank: Strategist
8/21/2013 | 5:46:20 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
Pay attention class -- "Cloverlet" has just dropped a biggie, "they forget that the loaf itself isn't the innovation; the manufacture of it is." Our very Intellectual Property laws protect an idea, not the production of the idea into something useful. As the author points out, our fantasies are of this lone geek with a light bulb above his head as the pinnacle, when it is actually the plan to get to the base camp.

Commercialization is where that geek faces the realities that will create a million happy customers. I've had cartoons of me and the light bulb flashed on screens, and my thought is always the same, "Call me when we have shipped a half million". Actually now I help make that happen and the one beef I have with the otherwise sage article is the belief that it takes just as long to get a mediocre product revision out the door as it does to do an iPad, or iPod or iPhone. It just takes a much bigger "set", the ability to give "agile" a whole new meaning, and the phrase "That's not good enough". But the thrill of "inventing tomorrow" is a pretty big high.

Love the pseudonym -- jealous I didn't think of it or even the fact one needed one.
D. Henschen
50%
50%
D. Henschen,
 User Rank: Author
8/20/2013 | 1:26:45 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
I'm currently judging a boatload of submissions to a certain awards program that holds forth innovation as one of its criteria. It amazes me what people try to pass off as creative, original and inspired. I used to think the ratio of crap to the real deal was 10 to 1, but I'm beginning to think Coverlet's 1,000 to ratio is closer to the mark.
Nathan Golia
50%
50%
Nathan Golia,
 User Rank: Apprentice
8/19/2013 | 8:40:10 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
Take that, Harvard Business Review! Also, good points. The thing is, people try to copy innovators by identifying what they think the innovative company has that they lack. Too often, they miss, so they try to add more execs to the fire. Then you end up with, as you state, a bloated, impatient structure that stifles innovation.
Somedude8
50%
50%
Somedude8,
 User Rank: Ninja
8/19/2013 | 7:21:20 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
I sure need my boss to read this!
Scratch that, I sure need my boss to *understand* this.
Number 6
50%
50%
Number 6,
 User Rank: Moderator
8/19/2013 | 6:43:40 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
Excellent points about sliced bread and HBR. Few leading lights in academia actually spent significant time in a real workplace. Want to see a dysfunctional, siloed environment that gets blindsided by real innovation? Take a look at any college department.
OtherJimDonahue
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50%
OtherJimDonahue,
 User Rank: Apprentice
8/19/2013 | 4:36:03 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
That looks fascinating--thanks!

Jim
Coverlet
50%
50%
Coverlet,
 User Rank: Strategist
8/19/2013 | 3:53:38 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
Too many chiefs. Not enough rangers.

Jim- If you haven't read it, try SC Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon. Better use of time than business books.
OtherJimDonahue
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50%
OtherJimDonahue,
 User Rank: Apprentice
8/19/2013 | 3:00:16 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
I'm going to take a crazy, wild guess that you're not a fan of the "Chief Innovation Officer" title then. (I'm about as fond of that as "Chief Technology Evangelist.")
ChrisMurphy
50%
50%
ChrisMurphy,
 User Rank: Author
8/19/2013 | 2:50:42 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
You and Edison agree there's a lot of hard work to be done at work. That makes me think of the entrepreneur Tom Sawyer, who to recruit kids to help him paint a fence convinced them that fence painting was great fun. Thinking of our work as innovation might help us consider hard work as a bit more fun.
RobPreston
50%
50%
RobPreston,
 User Rank: Author
8/19/2013 | 2:36:51 PM
re: Innovation Is Executive Porn
Clap. (In its sincerest form.)


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