Seeking Innovation: Librarians Help Push Organizations Ahead
By Ed Hudner
Ed Hudner is the co-founder of Cambridge Hill Partners, a consulting firm from Cambridge, Mass., that is focused on helping organizations reshape, reposition, and create renewed momentum.
The ability to be innovative is often heralded as the
panacea that will restore an organization to prominence, profitability, and dominant market share. Conceptually, innovation is undeniably fundamental to any organization's longevity and, ultimately, its success. Yet the practice of innovation is not easily integrated into a company's strategic and management practices. Innovation is often perceived as the domain of the creative few or something that happens more serendipitously. Companies that are truly innovative have developed, supported, measured, and rewarded the management practice of innovation.
So what is innovation? Simply said, innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas that generate value and address an unmet need or gap. For an idea to be innovative it must offer some benefit or utility beyond what is available today. In the end, it also must be feasible. Without feasibility, an innovative idea remains just a good idea. For example, in 1994 Apple Computer released Newton, a personal digital assistant (PDA). Considered innovative at the time, Newton splashed onto the market and eventually drowned due to feasibility issues. Apple was bleeding in many areas: printers, monitors, computers (too many models), and more. In addition, Newton was ahead of the consumer and supporting technology. Although Newton was starting to make inroads into new markets, Apple chose to cut its losses. Seven years later the market is flooded with PDAs including such brands as Palm Pilot and Visor.
Why is innovation an important practice? Without the ability to innovate, companies and their units run the risk of becoming less relevant. Strengthening management practices to support innovation results in value to the company and its customers whether it is through products, services, or operations. Beyond the bottom line, the ability to innovate satisfies our basic motivation and desire to produce something that is worthwhile. If a company expects, supports, and rewards practices for innovation, employees will undoubtedly seize opportunities to develop creative ideas that are feasible and successful.
Companies that are truly innovative have developed, supported, measured, and rewarded the management practice of innovation.
For innovations to be developed, what needs to be in place? First and foremost, there needs to be vision. Chrysler's launch of the first minivans in the early 1980's was driven by vision. Chrysler built a vision based on extensive consumer and market research, assessment of societal and economic trends, and sheer intuition. On the heels of a government bailout, this strategy bore significant risk. It could have never been realized without vision. Uninformed vision can translate to unmitigated risk. Realizing a vision requires research, testing of assumptions, exploring alternatives, and calculating feasibility.
Second, continuous innovation is deliberate, structured, and focused. The most effective innovators have systemized the generation and testing of new ideas. They recognize the value of instilling a disciplined approach to bringing new ideas to fruition. To continue to fuel innovations, they realize that there is a need for organizational systems that capture and manage knowledge.
Third, innovation requires a diversity of perspectives, experience, and expertise. A winning innovation is not the product of one person's work. It is typically the product of collaboration that leverages a diversity of talent.
Last, innovators accept risk. The risk of failure and the chance of success are built into the innovation equation. Innovators do their homework. They learn from their mistakes and their successes. They realize that past performance is a rich source of information, yet they do not allow the past to dictate future success or failure.
What roles can information professionals play in encouraging and supporting innovation in their organizations?
· Understand the future possibilities for the organization. In both corporate and academic settings, we often become singular in focus. With short-term pressures on time, resources, and energy, we understandably focus on our immediate objectives and actions. This focus can come at the expense of developing a deeper understanding of how our organization may change or should change over time and, consequently, how our role needs to change. Without this understanding, innovation remains an empty promise.
A fundamental component of innovation is a real time understanding of the businessits customers, products and services, its markets, its competencies, its competition, and emerging industry trends. Without this understanding, an information specialist will have difficulty sourcing, screening, and distilling information that adds value to the organization. The old adage "information is power" is true if the information is relevant to the business and strategic issues.
· Contribute to strategy development. In the 70's and 80's, corporate strategy consumed enormous amounts of time, resource, and expertise. Most corporations were well staffed with "corporate strategists" who had the responsibility of charting a certain and profitable path. Institutions of higher education were struggling with increasing costs while attempting to strengthen and solidify their position within the world of higher education (a.k.a. strategy).
As we traveled through the '90s and into a new millennium, traditional approaches to strategy began to fall by the wayside. With the continual stream of new technologies and emergence of a myriad of new products and services, fewer organizations feel they can afford to invest time in developing strategies that are likely to change anyway. Higher education is also feeling the pinch of time as it attempts to compete in a radically changing market.
Access to real-time information that is compelling and applicable will be critical to future success. While the information itself is essential, the format and mode of delivery is also critical. By the nature of their role and position, information specialists are well positioned to lead in the collection, distillation, and distribution of information. As a result, information specialists can substantively influence real-time strategy development. Information specialists can help fuel the development of innovative products, services, and internal processes by providing valuable information about "what" an organization should provide to "whom" and "how" it should provide that information.
· Distill information to create added value. Until the late '80's, many academic librarians were perceived as the guardians of collections. The focus was primarily on building strong collections, providing access to printed materials, and assisting a patron to navigate the collection. In a similar way, corporate libraries were typically concerned with building the collection of materials, providing access to employees, and helping employees find needed materials.
With the growth of the Internet, an increase in electronic communications, and the continued entries into the publishing market, the amount and range of available information is simply astonishing. The Internet has contributed to both the development of information as well as its universal distribution. The amount of compelling and potentially valuable information available through the Internet flies in the face of our need for more time.
Information specialists are well positioned to drive the transfer of relevant strategic information to those who can and will use it. Transferring needed information in a high value way will require assessing internal customers' needs. For innovations to occur there needs to be a mix of data points that can be drive the creative thinking process. Information specialists cannot only provide data in response to internal customer's needs, they can proactively provide data that may yield new innovations.
· Develop partnerships. Information specialists need to frame their role in an organization as a partner with key individuals and groups. Fundamentally, the role should extend beyond collections, research, and direct services to consulting. Information specialists can offer immense value to their customers' by not only assessing and responding to their needs but by consulting, advising, and influencing their customers on key organizational decisions.
· Organize for innovation. For innovations to occur, an organization needs several components. On the individual level, organizations need people who have developed creativity skills, who have the needed expertise, and who have the motivation to achieve results. On the organizational level, organizations need to demonstrate an institutional commitment to innovation, to support management practices that foster innovation, and provide resources to fuel innovative experiments.
· Instill discipline. Innovations require discipline on many fronts. Innovations rarely occur from a single idea during a moment in time. 
Seeking Innovation
| Service innovations are possible, you just need to know what to look for to achieve them. Here is an outline:
Gap or Issue Identification Any innovation is ultimately in response to a gapa gap in the market, a gap in efficiency, a gap in the specific service, an under or unaddressed customer need. To innovate, there needs to be clarity about what gaps need to be addressed.
Baseline Data: Internal and External Perspectives In order to effectively innovate, an organization or company must develop a shared, "best understanding" of the world in which they currently operate. This includes gathering internal data (from within the organization) and external data (from relevant, usual and unusual sources).
Participation Given the gaps and baseline data, the next step is to: · involve key constituents in discussing and selecting opportunities that respond to emerging trends, solidify a competitive position within the industry, and support sustainable organizational growth. · incorporate individual visions, perspectives, and knowledge to create a "big picture" and implement business opportunities (e.g. new products, services, operations, etc.) that are sustainable, dynamic, and widely supported. · align internal constituents in a way that builds on the strengths of the organization's culture.
Implementation and Evaluation Once an organization selects business opportunities to pursue, there must be periodic reviews. With the rapid pace of change, launched initiatives must be continually reviewed to ensure relevance and value to constituents or customers. As a result, innovation needs to be a dynamic sustainable process. Organizations need to establish and implement a way to assess resource requirements in order to support on-going strategic innovation (i.e. internal expertise, external partnerships, infrastructure, and systems). |
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