[Sigia-l] Not All Innovations Are Equal?

[Pradyot Rai]

Listera <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
> I can't think of a better example here than the world's most innovative tech
> company, Apple. It used to be, in the mid '90s during the miserable Nagel
> years, that Apple would come out with innovative products right and left but
> get no traction. Having to counter the entire Wintel industry in R&D
> expenditure by itself, it was slowly bleeding to death.

Agreed. Apple was example of management paralysis during this period
stated. They did everything right but could not make it to market.
Absense of Steve Jobs is to be blamed. There are many other examples,
from recent history - TiVo is my favorite.

> Today, Apple is even more innovative but they don't lead by innovation first
> and ask the business strategy questions later. It's reversed!

That is precisely the point made by authors of the article, posted
earlier. Innovation is not just product or services centered. It has
to involve processes, strategy and most of all - able management
(valuable resources).

> This is a jarring thought. But let us remember: design is the art and
> science of balancing the needs of the client and the user. We can't aim to
> delight the latter (innovation) without satisfying the former (business
> strategy).

That begs the original question - can there be any business strategy,
which will demands NO-innovation?

> So innovation is the means, not the end; it is subservient to strategy. The
> strategy should first harvest available work, thought, energy and, only as a
> last resort, turn to innovation because nothing else at that point satisfies
> the strategic requirements.

What is strategy?
I think we are treating innovation as one isolated task, in complete
contrast with what authors proposed (again this may just be
semantics). According to the reading, it seems that there's no
alternative to innovation, as it is with good strategy, processes or
able management.

Hey, BTW, they have something good to say about Best Practices too. I
bet you will like it --

"As essential as it is to the long-term health of organizations,
knowledge about best practices for managing strategic innovation is
scarce. For every strategic experiment studied, we observed a unique
approach to management. There is no commonly accepted principle or
standard."

Innovation is the driver if you apply somebody else's best practices too.

Thouhgts?

Prady