For IBM's former Innovation VP: "The future of innovation is collaboration!.

According to Nicholas M. Donofrio,former VP of Innovation at IBM, collaboration is becoming very important in innovation management. He is Senior Fellow, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Retired Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology, IBM.

"Technology, by itself, is no longer the necessary and sufficient condition for success. Some companies had to learn this the hard way. IBM, where I worked for forty-four years, had to undergo a near-death experience to understand that times—and needs and wants—had changed.

Finding What Matters
Today, the innovation that matters is not the latest result of Moore’s Law, or doubling RAM, or tripling pixels. Those things still matter, but they matter much, much less. And, as innovations, they are old hat—merely the continued refinement and improvement of yesterday’s breakthroughs. The innovation that matters now—the innovation that we’re all waiting for,
even if we don’t know it—is the one that unlocks the hidden value that exists at the intersection of deep knowledge of a problem and intimate knowledge of a market, combined with your knowledge, your technology, and your capability … whoever you are, whatever you can do, whatever you bring to the table. This may seem mysterious. Let me explain it this way. The microchip was an innovation—a fundamental, technological innovation. Chips keep getting better
by the year. Is every new one an innovation? Perhaps, of a limited sort, but not in a fundamental way like the first one.

The personal computer was an innovation, not in some technical league; rather, it was the transformational application of existing technology to a new market for new uses. Operating
systems like the one that ran the early Macintoshes, and later Microsoft Windows, were innovations—ones that fundamentally changed not just existing technology but existing products and markets, by revolutionizing the user experience. There already have been several decades of this type of innovation—and some very successful recent examples. Think of the iPhone. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the phone or the cell phone or the handheld computer. But he put them all together into one attractive, easy-to-use, engaging package. Whether a die-hard techie
admits it or not, that’s innovation!

Yet, too many people still think of innovation solely in terms of a wholly new product or technological breakthrough. This is limiting, and it is false. Innovations can arise from fresh thinking in any number of areas: from product to service to process to business model. Michael Dell built a Fortune 500 company by changing the way computers are built and sold—but not changing anything about the device itself.

All of these things unlocked hidden value. It turned out that a more user-friendly interface than typing in the clumsy, unattractive DOS prompt drew people into computing and changed the way business is done and lives are lived. Thank Bill Gates. It turned out that people really wanted a multi-functional mobile phone with great design and were willing to pay for it. The design genius is what Steve Jobs brought to the table. It turned out that people wanted to buy computers directly, choosing for themselves the features they did, and did not, want.
Michael Dell proved that. These innovations not only created billions in wealth and probably millions of jobs—they increased our productivity, saved us time, connected us to new people
and products, and enriched our lives. Before they existed, we didn’t know we needed them and we certainly didn’t want them. Now we can’t live without them.

Limitless Opportunities for Innovation
The good news for innovators and potential innovators is that, given the incredible complexity and diversity of the world today, opportunities for innovation abound. As confused as you think the world is, it’s great for innovators. There are so many problems—some known and some yet to come to light—that opportunities for innovation will never run out. But we have to take a new approach: Start from the problem, not the solution. That is, we no longer can say to ourselves, “The end product is 5 GHz” (or whatever). Rather, we must ask ourselves, “What needs to change?” and then—and only then—start thinking about how to change it. The question of what specific invention or product or innovation to pursue comes after that.

The kind of people who best will be able to seize these opportunities are those I call “T-shaped” as opposed to “I-shaped.” I-shaped people have great credentials, great educations, and deep knowledge—deep but narrow. The geniuses who win Nobel prizes are “I-shaped,” as are most of the best engineers and scientists. But the revolutionaries who have driven most recent innovation and who will drive nearly all of it in the future are “T-shaped.” That is, they have their specialties— areas of deep expertise—but on top of that they boast a solid breadth, an
umbrella if you will, of wide-ranging knowledge and interests. It is the ability to work in an interdisciplinary fashion and to see how different ideas, sectors, people, and markets connect. But even the most brilliant “T” will find it difficult, and perhaps impossible, to innovate entirely on his or her own.

Inevitable Trends
I believe that two inexorable trends follow from this fact. First, nearly all future innovation will be collaborative. Whether it emerges from huge corporations or the smallest businesses, from century-old institutions or the latest startups, innovation will be the product of collaborative, global, and multi-disciplined processes.

My second point, one that will be especially hard for IT people to accept, given their reverence for the sanctity of intellectual property. We inevitably are going to move toward more open standards. There is no other way. Tight-knit circles, secrecy, and firewalls keep out the knowledge that will be needed to devise solutions and make them work.,, The old model of IP protection doesn’t fit the future. And that in itself is a problem to be solved requiring—innovation.

To thrive in this new world, the “I’s” are going to have to transform themselves
into “T’s.” And we’re all going to have to work together more so than we ever
have done before."

Source: Kauffman.org


Conclusion
Innovation managers must be good generalists. Business model innovation can create huge value, not just product or service innovation. Adapters of innovation can create a lot of value when they rely on a good mix of buying and buidling innovation internally and externally, and through collaboration. Microsoft did not invent the operating system, it bought a start-up. Google did not invent the Android, it bought a start-up. Apple did not invent the smartphone or tablet, but the firm created internally a whole wireless ecosystem where customers and partners can extract a lot of value. Similarly to IBM in the beginning of the 1990's, Apple was few months away from bankruptcy in 1997. Both firms are now among the highest capitalizations in the world.

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis