Applied Innovation: A Handbook

The evidence suggests innovation has not been treated as a skill that anyone, from students to senior executives, across any field, can learn and I'm not advocating a universal recipe for becoming innovator. That would be a fool's errand. I'm asserting that certain basic elements of innovation can be learned, taught and mastered, making innovation a discipline. The premise is that a person can become innovative in the same way they learn to ride a bicycle. The analogy is that innovation is natural to human beings, something learned at an early age and mastered to a significant degree and never forgotten. In fact, learning how to become innovative should be as easy as learning how to ride a bicycle, and is a skill that can be developed at a very early age. So the question becomes, "How does one synthesize what has been published about innovation allowing an individual to acquire the required educated point of view useful in developing innovative behaviors?" Accepting the definition of innovation as being a human response to, and exploitation of, a change creating wealth in the present, then it seems reasonable that a process can be delineated enabling individuals to become more innovative by first recognizing change, defining its meaning to the individual's circumstances, assessing what responses to make and why, combined with a starting point of how to exploit the change force, creating wealth in the present and then preserving the wealth created. A precondition for such a process to work is that innovation must have common features that are independent of the context in which the innovation will occur. These common features suggest that innovation is fractal, looking the same whatever your vantage point. The approach for developing this educated point of view is combining the thinking of thought leaders in the field of innovation, with the experiences of actual practitioners, into a holistic framework. This framework begins with a strategic view defining what change forces should be responded to, why they're valuable to the endeavor, which specific choices will be made as to where to invest time and money, supported by specific plans, yielding measurable and desirable results. This text is divided into six parts beginning with strategy and tactics - what to do and how to do it, followed by very specific approaches to leadership, processes, managing relationships and data in the information age. People do not innovate alone, so how people interact with each other when swimming in an ocean of data is a critical component of being more innovative today. This is followed by a treatise for converting the innovation into something a customer will value and pay for creating wealth. This part deals with business models, financing, delivery, protection and propagating the success. Finally, I'll close with some case studies of successful innovations leading to well-known enterprises spanning the globe over the past 300 years in several unrelated industries. The critical objective of these case studies will be to identify the common themes that reoccur when innovation takes place. Given the breadth of the topic, I've carefully narrowed this treatise focusing on what anyone can do immediately to become more innovative and delivering their innovations to customers. The action of the innovator, serving a customer, is what makes them an entrepreneur driving wealth creation. The innovator does this by interacting with other people in the correct way and context, combined with enough business acumen, to generate value. In the end innovation and entrepreneurship is all about people. So what do people need to do to become more innovative and using their innovative ability in making the world a better place? What follows is my attempt to answer this question in a way that the average person can learn and make a discipline. I hope you enjoy the text and build upon it making the world abetter place.