ElemenceAdvisors

Adaptive Innovation

1. The Basics

An Introdution by Adam Malofsky, PhD & Steve Levin

 

Innovation. It’s an often-used word these days, from describing a new juicy hamburger to a suspension system on a new car to the title of the one now responsible for either the company’s future or at least the representation to analysts that innovation is important to our company. There are all kinds of innovation it seems, from the historically noted closed big firm type to today’s open innovation initiatives, with even entire firms dedicated to open innovation’s natural gravitation towards a transactional exchanges of ideas, discoveries and capabilities. The bottom line is that we are all in search of how to efficiently, effectively and consistently advance our firm’s, institution’s or individual efforts towards achieving wide ranging goals on an on going basis. Most would agree that to do this in a world where accessible information is accumulating on ever accelerating rate at an ever escalating scale, we need to manage our ability to develop new approaches and ideas much more effectively, at least at a rate exceeding that of our competition. In other words, we need to innovate efficiently, effectively and consistently to create value in the same way. What we have seen is that most efforts to date seem to be, while effective, still piece meal and not comprehensive in nature to many types of situations. At Elemence, we believe that a holistic, consumer derived, multi- disciplinary approach that we call Adaptive Innovation may be the key to survival in our ever- changing world.

 

Specifically, we have spent the last near decade distilling our own and a lifetime of others experiences into a an approach towards innovation that takes into account the latter requirements without taking on a single codified process that in and of itself, becomes self limiting by definition. Instead, we have looked to historical context to reveal an approach, versus a process, that is holistic in nature and that can accordingly be applied to all situations. In the end, we have noticed that the most effective innovators use the common approach of adapting themselves and thus their efforts and processes to their world’s environment. They do not simply use closed or open innovation. They use both and maybe ten other hybrid or alternate approaches at the moments in time they are appropriate. In using an adaptive approach to how they interact with their world, many different processes and tools allow the adaptive innovator be able to rapidly uniquely accumulate vast amounts of customer and technological information to develop insights within a consumer context that allows a transformation of that information into customer context and knowledge where regularly and consistently emerging innovative ideas are reduced to practical, inventive practice for commercial use.

 

We call this holistic approach Adaptive Innovation, where consumer understanding allows for the contextual development of insights and consumer experiences that can be translated into innovation (ideas that can create value) and invention (reduced to practical, commercial applications). While the ways people and groups work vary widely, as studied by Peter Senge and others, five groups of work emerge, three of which are of true interest to most practical innovators today. Those of key interest to innovators are in bold:

 

Needs         

 

What makes people happy and satisfied? In other words, what is of value?

 

Discoveries  

 

What fundamentally defines our world? This refers to the fundamental sciences.

 

Insights        

 

Conceptually, what specific features would help make people happy andsatisfied?

 

Innovations    

 

What single or collections of features can be assembled and offered that create realizable value?

In other words, an idea that makes money.

 

Inventions  

 

What must be true for an innovative idea to work, to actually deliver value?

                    What specific inventions, new or already existing, are required?

The actual development of practical products that reflect the innovative idea