Ideation and the Innovation Process from a Marketing Perspective

Ideation for the innovation process

The difference between same-old / same-old in product innovation and creating new markets through more complete, more relevant market perspectives. Learn what to include and how to set it up.

➔ Ideation and Concept Generation B2B Marketing Practice Guide. Make it Work.

 

The frustration about lost opportunities left and right

The term ideation was coined from combining the two words idea and generation. Ideas are being produced all the time. However, much potential is lost because great ideas vanish without being properly pursued.

A company’s innovation process also produces many viable ideas. Some before the process is activated, some during and some as a result of the innovation process.

If there is a proper process that is!

Ask your friends and acquaintances in your network for their innovation process and you might get as many different and varying answers as for the question for innovation definition.

The number of companies who do not entertain a proper innovation process and disagree even internally for their innovation definition is staggering. Especially because almost none of them offer truly novel innovations and inventions to their chosen markets.

Others employ a Chief Technology Officer or Chief Innovation Officer and leave the rest to this appointment. Or the innovation process resides within the R&D department and management asks the chief scientist for new inventions every once in a while.

This might work well for portfolio and product improvement which has a lot potential for innovation, especially improvement innovation (to improve effectiveness and value in use) and business innovation (to improve processes and efficiency). 

Or in short: serving existing markets.

However, it hardly taps into the much more attractive potential to innovate something extraordinary, something nobody else will and can offer to the market place for quite some time. 

Other than serving existing markets this exciting potential is all about creating new markets. 

These are products and services most consumers and end users don’t even know they might need or want. Business books and biographies are packed with some such examples and most companies seem to envy the market inventors without being able to follow their lead.

“If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

— Elon Musk (CEO/CTO of SpaceX, CEO/Product Architect of Tesla Motors, Chairman of SolarCity, Co-chairman of OpenAI)

Don’t expect new results from old behavior

Generating ideas that go beyond the currently available products and services isn’t all that hard in theory. In practice however, many companies still fail as they keep employing the same old methods and processes to “innovate”.

2-day brainstorm sessions with the R&D department, business developers, sales and management - sound familiar? What do they usually amount to? You’ll be the judge of that. This approach pretty much boils down to management demanding from their staff: “Do innovate, now!”

 

Move in-sight what is too far out

In order to really gain new insights, generating new ideas needs to bring new perspectives in sight. Meaning: bring perspectives into the ideation process that are normally too far out.

And those perspectives need to include the original experience and emotions of the entire value chain. Including:

  • Customers

  • End users

  • Analysts

  • Technology and market partners

  • The raw material side

  • Market gurus

  • Regulatory

  • Staff

  • Investors

  • Disruption experts

  • Management

  • A devil’s advocate

And while we are at it (making a difference and doing things differently): you need the most passionate, most outspoken, most knowledgable and most excited actors in the room.

No, not anyone who might find the time or who should be rewarded with additional exposure to management because of a well executed project. And not the intern who might be a future talent but has not accumulated enough insight to be of real value for ideation sessions. 

Don’t invite anyone because of their hierarchical position or relationship to someone else in the room! It needs to be managed and communicated well. But this set of people is selected for their very specific impact they can make.

Much like team players on the pitch with their very specific skill and experience.

And not just on one pitch but in a variety of different environments and formats:

  • Idea fairs

  • Dream teams

  • Connecting-the-dot events

  • Board presentations

  • Open source events

  • Reward ceremonies

  • Scenario classes

Or why not leaving some far fetched product ideas with a group of students who can use them in business plan projects as would-be startup entrepreneurs? 

You might want to secure a percentage ownership or board seat up-front though. Just in case.

Another reason for poor performance on the innovation trail is a lack of structure, process and follow-up. Before long these activities and actors will pump out scores of ideas.

To sort, consolidate and channel them through the innovation stage gate process the entire endeavor needs a vision by the owners and their absolute commitment both physically and communicatively.

Without management to walk the talk and being very vocal about the purpose, goals and impact, any effort is ill spent: Is management looking for product ideas, new ways to service a customer segment, do they want to offer new production platforms or create or adjust to new technologies?

Also the roles and benefits for all actors should be visible. In a B2B environment for example customers don’t only represent the next value chain element and can educate everyone else about their perceived gaps and needs but they would also learn from the other parties including and specifically from the end users of their products.

In addition to their own customer centricity efforts they might engage in different ways and appreciate the exposure and learning curve. In turn this could support their buy-in to the various ideation formats and activities.

Here as well, different behavior, enabled through the new way of collaborative ideation methods should be guided and nurtured. This is why HR or external personnel coaches might be a valid addition to some of the formats.

The various unsatisfied needs should be orchestrated to feed into the innovation process that should include these or similar stages and decision gates:

  • Scoping

  • Validation

  • Qualification

  • Portfolio management

  • Process administration and management

  • Resource allocation and management

  • Financial planning

  • Project planning and management

  • Road-mapping for product and platform fit

An attractive and engaging reward program can go a long way here as well. Trade shows and industry conventions or even independent industry or science review boards could boost acceptance and motivation in addition to specific marketing campaigns and collateral as discussion basis for the sales force.

 

The proof of the pudding - even if eaten much later

In Being Digital (the 1995 non-fiction bestseller about digital technologies and their possible future) Nicholas Negroponte, the technology author plus founder and chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab even went one or several steps further.

He projected the maximum value and desired goals of electronic communication to match human interaction: our future electronic communication habits will look and feel entirely human again. 

Totally ignorant of current state of technology his vision included materials, devices and software that wasn’t even discussed yet. His (or like-minded) ideas were followed by the likes of Apple and Google however and it seems that we are midway through his visionary book today, 20 years later.

Many of his visions sounded like science fiction and too good to be true ‘dreamy stuff’. But that is exactly the stuff dreams and a ridiculous amount of money and impact are made of:

As of this writing in October 2015, Apple’s and Google’s combined worth was one trillion US dollars, according to market capitalization (the price of a share in a company's stock multiplied by the number of shares outstanding).

And it changed the entire civilization and the way we interact, research, share and invent new ‘dreamy stuff’. And thanks to those technologies and options everyone can participate.

 

A braver, more fun way to generate ideas and new markets

Although we are no visionary bestseller authors or paid inventors, we all can still tap into uncharted territory and connect the dots between end use needs, current gaps, technology enablers and emotions. 

Jens Thieme is a global B2B marketing professional, sharing his practical marketing experience, this marketing glossary and b2b marketing best practice examples.