Perspectives on Innovation

The following is cross-posted on Steve Shapiro’s blog, Stephen Shapiro’s 24/7 Innovation.

 I just completed my first month as InnoCentive’s “VP Strategic Consulting & Chief Innovation Evangelist.”  In a short period of time, we made excellent progress on a number of fronts and will be announcing our plans shortly.  My next task is to build my team.

And maybe that includes you!

I am looking for a number of highly skilled innovation experts who want to help me launch this exciting new venture.  In short, I am looking to hire people who are passionate about…

  – delivering innovation consulting to several clients at the same time. Our unique “catalyst” model reduces the amount of time spent with any one client while improving results.

 - participating in sales activities of the company. Although this involves some lead generation (no cold calling), most leads will be generated by a dedicated sales team. The consultant’s primary sales role is focused on proposal development.

 - creating intellectual property and methodologies that will help the consulting team be more effective and ensure consistency of delivery.

If you want to get a sense of my high level innovation philosophy, please read the following articles:

• The 3 levels of innovation & the innovation capability
• How to create a culture of innovation
• An example of innovation in action (pdf)

You can learn much more about the role in the InnoCentive Innovation Consultant Job Description

If you have questions, write me at steve@24-7innovation.com.

I want YOU for innovation!

Renowned innovation expert Steve Shapiro has recently joined InnoCentive as VP of Strategic Consulting.

On July 1, 2009, I joined InnoCentive as the “VP of Strategic Consulting and Chief Innovation Evangelist.”  Although I just joined the company, for several years now, I have marveled at how the InnoCentive Solver community could tackle problems that have plagued businesses and society for years.  You are changing the world.  And I am thrilled to now be part of your team.

As I followed InnoCentive and observed the success of the Solver community, it got me thinking about how problems are solved.

From my research on innovation personality styles, I have observed that there are two broad ways of solving challenges: relational/creative and rational/analytical.

Steve Jobs, President of Apple Inc, once said, “Creativity is just having enough dots to connect . . . connect experiences and synthesize new things. The reason creative people are able to do that is that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people.”  This beautifully articulates how creative/relational problem solving works.

To date, most InnoCentive Challenges have been more technical in nature and are typically solved through a more rational/analytical approach.

When looking at these two styles, I realized that InnoCentive Solvers are perfectly positioned to use BOTH innovation styles.  To explain why I believe this, let’s explore what happens in the brain when solving Challenges. (more…)