What's in your innovation funnel?

Do you know the Motorola Razr? Sure you do. It's cool. It's sleek. It comes in cool colours. Well, I should correct those statements. It was cool. It was sleek. It did come in cool colours. I guess you could argue that it still is and still does but that would be missing the point.

What I am trying to say is, "What's next?" Motorola has announced double-digit cuts to its workforce over the next year. One wonders where the next cool phone is in a post-Razr market that will turn things around for them. Motorola certainly rode the wave while they could, as many other companies would and have, but that wave has crashed into the beach.

Every new product or service arrives in the market based on the expenditure of blood and sweat by numerous people but is anyone keeping in mind what should come next? I know many companies schedule subsequent product releases and updates but how formalized is their innovation process? Just how full is their innovation funnel? What are they doing to create an ongoing list of actionable ideas?

In a report from Boston Consulting, the authors talk about three types of innovation - incremental, expansionary and breakthrough. Regardless of the type of innovation being considered, I am asking about the preceding process, or lack thereof, companies are using to stay on track and, hopefully, ahead of their competition.

Salespeople use a funnel to forecast their sales. Can we apply a similar methodology to innovation? What if we set a goal of 4 actionable ideas per year (one per quarter)? How many ideas have to be listed initially? What criteria will be used to qualify those ideas and create a shorter list of qualified ideas? Can we then take the qualified ideas and run them through the business case process in order to come up with actionable ideas that withstood the process and appear viable?

I ask all these questions from the interest in what might be in your innovation funnel and what you are doing to ensure that actionable ideas come about as a result of your efforts.

More Innovation Through Collaboration With Filmmakers

In a recent New York Times article, Denise Caruso wrote about the AFI and its Digital Content Lab.

The article offers further proof of the value of collaboration by people from different disciplines, in this case film and digital media, and how that collaboration helps media companies increase the value if existing assets and/or create valuable new ones.

I found the Lab's model or mandate quite interesting. Corporate sponsorship enables them to solve a company's problem while having no rights to the end result. More than one company benefits because the Lab chooses projects from applicants that will serve more than one company.

While not exactly the same, Digifest is another example of different disciplines collaborating but not just on media problems. I had the opportunity to participate in a charrette intended to assist a member of the UN's Habitat organization working in Asia on reconstruction projects after the Tsunami. It was a fascinating afternoon and it certainly gave me new insights into unforeseen or surprising human factor issues that can arise in the midst of trying to advise and assist people.