Accidental Innovators

This is a very interesting category. It includes firms that have little Innovation Commitment but who nevertheless actually have a reasonably good level of Innovation Competence.

Characteristics

The important issue with these firms is that they are pretty good at executing ideas. They may be in a position where they have to do new things just to survive, or they have developed a culture that supports experimentation, or they are good at learning. Experimentation and learning from failure are two of the elements of Innovation Competence, and it’s possible to do these without explicit processes in place to support them. And some organisations are naturally good at generating, selecting, executing and diffusing ideas.

The Bay Area is famous for its long history of leadership in computing, semiconductors, software, biotechnology, the Internet and other innovation-based industries. But what makes it unique, beyond its talent base and access to capital? What exactly is the often celebrated “West Coast culture of innovation”? In conjunction with its 2011 Global Innovation 1000 study, Booz & Company worked with the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, the strategic research arm of the Bay Area Council, a consortium of more than 275 companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, to identify the strategic, cultural, and organizational attributes that have led to the sustained success of this region. This effort included segmenting the survey results received from Bay Area companies in order to better understand what cultural and organizational elements make them different, and conducting supplementary interviews with Bay Area executives to deepen that understanding.

Download the PDF

1. Ask the most creative people at work for their ideas.

2. Brainstorm with a co-worker.

3. Tape record your ideas on your commute to and from work.

4. Present your challenge to a child.

5. Take your team off-site for a day.

6. Listen to your inner muse.

7. Play music in your office.

8. Go for a daily brainstorming walk.

9. Ask someone to collaborate with you on your favorite project.

10. Exercise during your lunch break.

Here's something you really need to know: Some of the most expensive perfumes include a compound extracted from whale vomit. No kidding.

However, new research from the University of British Columbia may eliminate the need to use waste products from an endangered species to make humans smell better. And therein lies a tale of the sometimes-twisted road to better and cheaper drugs, cosmetics, booze and biofuels.

Nature does it best. But replicating the fine work of weeds and trees from whence many drugs come has often proved difficult. In the case of whale vomit, some consumers find the idea of using regurgitated squids and ocean slime, no matter how good it might smell, a bit repulsive.

The startup world is about insurgents. A person or a few people with an idea. And they drop everything and go for it. They are going up against the incumbents and that doesn't just mean the big companies that occupy the market position they want. That means all the people, institutions, and organizations that are in cahoots with the big companies.

This is the framework through which we see the world. And this is the framework through which we would like others to see the world.

Startup companies are the lifeblood of entrepreneurial innovation. While they make up roughly 1 percent of companies, startups create roughly 10 percent of new jobs each year, according to research by the Kauffman Foundation.

Facebook, Google, Netflix and Zynga all got their start in business as scrappy, small, startup companies, and it’s this kind of ingenuity that the recently passed Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act is intended to stimulate.

Stanford undergrads Aditya “Adi” Singh and Pukar Hamal developed an online platform for connecting members of the Stanford community who have specialized skills and are looking to start legitimate projects, but after their initial success Singh and Hamal needed help taking the venture further. They were soon introduced to Angela Hayward, the recently appointed “concierge” at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, who is charged with developing programs and building a Silicon Valley network to serve the university’s entrepreneurship community.

Hayward listened to Singh’s interests, his new venture, and offered him guidance, external connections, and a list of resources available to students on campus.

What entrepreneur hasn't dreamed that our startup will experience the same magical beginnings as Google? In 1998, before they even incorporated, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were trying to present their concept to early-stage, or "angel" investors, with limited success. Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim was one such angel. He didn't have time to listen to their whole pitch, but wrote them a check for $100,000 anyway.

Alas, most companies don't have so easy a time. There are ways to attract these rare and beautiful creatures. You just have to know what they're looking for.

The real estate market for companies can be a tragically boring topic—unless you’re a startup looking for office space. There has been a lot of talk this week about rising rents in Kendall Square as compared to Boston’s Innovation District or South End, say, and some related issues (see below). All the better to fan the flames of the deeply ingrained Boston vs. Cambridge innovation rivalry…

One reason for costs going up in Kendall Square is big companies moving in or expanding there. Just off the top of my head, I can think of the following: Google (building an urban campus for 800 employees, counting ITA Software), Amazon (moving into the CIC building), Staples (opening an e-commerce center), Pfizer (building a new research facility for 400 employees), Biogen Idec (500-plus workers moving back to Kendall) and now Novartis (broke ground on a 550,000-square-foot space between Kendall and Central Square yesterday).

A common question I get is “How do I get a bank loan to fund my startup?” The default answer is that it probably won’t happen, because most banks just don’t make bank loans to startups. The failure rate is just too high, and startups typically don’t have the assets or revenue stream to back up the loan. That’s why Angel investors are so sought after by entrepreneurs.

In my experience, some startup founders do overcome these odds, but you need to be realistic and do your homework. Here are some tips and rules of thumb to improve your odds and help you understand when a bank loan or line of credit is possible, and how to get it:

Write a good business plan first. Approaching a banker without a business plan, and asking for money, is a sure way to be rejected and leave a bad first impression. Pay particular attention to the financials, and have a CPA friend review for reasonableness before presenting.

In this video Sramana Mitra shares the The 10 Biggest Myths About Entrepreneurship with iamstarting.com:

Professor Henry Chesbrough shook up the business world with his book Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology back in 2003.

In 2006 professor Chesbrough released another book Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape and in 2011 Open Services Innovation: Rethinking Your Business to Grow and Compete in a New Era.

Most of our high schools and colleges are not preparing students to become innovators. To succeed in the 21st-century economy, students must learn to analyze and solve problems, collaborate, persevere, take calculated risks and learn from failure. To find out how to encourage these skills, I interviewed scores of innovators and their parents, teachers and employers. What I learned is that young Americans learn how to innovate most often despite their schooling—not because of it.

Though few young people will become brilliant innovators like Steve Jobs, most can be taught the skills needed to become more innovative in whatever they do. A handful of high schools, colleges and graduate schools are teaching young people these skills—places like High Tech High in San Diego, the New Tech high schools (a network of 86 schools in 16 states), Olin College in Massachusetts, the Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford and the MIT Media Lab. The culture of learning in these programs is radically at odds with the culture of schooling in most classrooms.

Entrepreneurship education is being increasingly promoted in most European countries, according to a new report published by the European Commission. Eight countries (Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Wales and the Flemish part of Belgium) have launched specific strategies to promote entrepreneurship education, while 13 others (Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey) include it as part of their national lifelong learning, youth or growth strategies. Half of European countries are engaged in a process of educational reforms which include the strengthening of entrepreneurship education. A total of 31 European countries and 5 regions were surveyed for the report, entitled “Entrepreneurship Education at School in Europe”.

Past midnight, in a dimly lighted warehouse jutting into the San Francisco Bay, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger introduced something they had been working on for weeks: a photo-sharing iPhone application called Instagram. What happened next was crazier than they could have imagined.

In a matter of hours, thousands downloaded it. The computer systems handling the photos kept crashing. Neither of them knew what to do.

“Who’s, like, the smartest person I know who I can call up?” Mr. Systrom remembered thinking. He scrolled through his phone and found his man: Adam D’Angelo, a former chief technology officer at Facebook. They had met at a party seven years earlier, over beers in red plastic cups, at the Sigma Nu fraternity at Stanford University. That night in October 2010, Mr. D’Angelo became Instagram’s lifeline.

For most new and established business owners their biggest obstacle is Fear.  It is perhaps the biggest enemy many people fight in obtaining business success.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, the number one definition of fear is:

“To be afraid or feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation or event, “I fear she might get aggressive.”

Fear.  It can be a good thing.  It can be a bad thing.  It can also live and grow and appear at opportune times in the life of a business owner and, when it goes unnoticed and when it is not recognized and purposely silenced, it can be the worst of all companions.

Netflix employees have one less thing to keep track of: the amount of vacation days they take. Co-founder Reed Hastings recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that Netflix has an unlimited vacation policy.

In an effort to separate itself from bureaucratic corporations, Netflix, with its 900 employees, abandoned the typical vacation allotment to opt for a sky’s-the-limit plan. Keeping vacation unlimited, said Hastings, requires mature, responsible employees who care about high-quality work.

Since 1986, I've asked 10,000 people where and when they get their best ideas. Less than 2% have said "the workplace."

Based on my 25 years of working with a ton of innovation-seeking organizations, here's my take on WHY:

1. Too much to do, not enough time.

2. Too many distractions and interruptions.

3. You work in a risk averse organization.

4. Sleep deprivation.

5. Mental clutter.

6. Fear that someone will steal your idea.

7. You don't think of yourself as creative.

8. Boring meetings that put you in a bad mood.

9. You're not measured for the quantity or quality of ideas you generate.

10. Stultifying routine.

Ready your startup pitch for the European market. A new venture capital fund is investing up to 15 million euros per project in new companies outside of Europe as part of a larger aim to create value within the global digital economy.

France Telecom-Orange and Publicis Groupe today announced a partnership with Iris Capital Management to create one of Europe’s largest venture capital funds in the digital economy. Orange and Publicis Groupe will together contribute 150 million euros ($200 million) to the initiative. Added to Iris’ pre-existing funding commitments from investors—including the European Investment Fund and French public investor CDC Entreprises (Groupe Caisse des Dépôts)—this results in a total investment capacity in excess of 300 million euros, according to a statement released by France Telecom-Orange.