Today’s Innovation Minute…
In the first video I introduced the FAST Innovation model: Focus, Ask, Shift, Test
Then I introduced the 5 D’s of Differentiation.
Today I discuss the final D of Differentiation – Disseminated.
Use this framework while watching the video as it helps bring the concepts to life:
Be sure to watch the previous videos!
Transcription:
In the previous videos, I talked about why you need to innovate, where you differentiate, and introduce the five D’s differentiation. Today, I want to talk about the last one, which is disseminated. This is going to take a little longer than a minute, so bear with me.
When we look at an organization’s innovation portfolio, and where they spend their money, and the activities that people do, they fall into three categories.
There are activities (the first level) that people do that would be, what I would call “support.”
These are activities that are important to the business but they’re probably not important to your customers. Your customers don’t value it, they wouldn’t pay for it. Think about payroll. You don’t have to have the best payroll system in the world, that’s not the goal. So you don’t want to innovate around things that are support.
Second level, are things that are “core” in nature.
If it is core, your customers value it, they want it, and if you don’t deliver this they will leave you. However, these are table stakes. It is the expectation to play the game. All your competition is doing this well. So, even for things that are core, you don’t want to be the best, you just want to be as good as everyone else. Your strategy for things that are core is not innovation, but it might be best practices. Even though I have a book called “Best practices are stupid” they are actually very useful for things that are core.
You might want to partner strategically with others who have as their differentiator the thing which is core to you. So you want to look at ways of turning your core into a well-oiled machine.
At the highest level are those activities that are “differentiating” and that truly set you apart from the competition. This is where you innovate.
In the next video, we’re going to dig a little deeper into this framework, because I think this is important for people to be grounded in and understand how it works.