June is Innovation Month in New England. So What?

Kudos to Scott Kirsner for rallying the troops and declaring June as the innovation month in New England. And congrats to Gov. Deval Patrick for jumping on the bandwagon and officially proclaiming June as Innovation Month. Let’s also take a moment to celebrate the residents and organizations who contribute regularly to the innovation economy. It’s their passion, effort and entrepreneurship that gives us the right to claim Massachusetts, especially Boston, as The Innovation Hub.

But like many, I believe that every month is innovation month. In fact, innovation is an every day activity for me — whether I am running the company or working with my team to make sure our global customers are on the cutting-edge of technology and innovating 24X7.

But Scott’s question stopped me dead in my tracks and got me thinking. What’s so important about June? Why not declare 2010 as the start of an innovation decade? Here’s my perspective on June:

Blooming Partnerships: June, as you know, is a popular wedding month (bear with me here). After long engagements, couples look forward to tying the knot and living a happy, prosperous life. Summer is also the time when most couples evaluate their relationships and adjust accordingly, whether they are planning a family or about to become empty nesters. In the world of technology, June signifies the end of the first half and a time to reflect on our business strategy and forecast the future. It’s time to re-engage with customers on the progress of their innovation initiatives. Are the projects blooming or wilting? Are there programs they need a divorce from so they can embark on new initiatives? Granted we are always collaborating with our customers. But June is when we refocus and revisit our game plan and ensure that the relationships are strong and prosperous.

Anticipation: For sport fans, this is an exciting time. The Red Sox are finally hitting their strides. Basketball fans are holding their breath. Who will win the NBA championship? In reality, it’s always nail-biting time in New England — whether you are rooting for a team or innovation breakthroughs. We literally sit at the edge of our seats every day, not knowing what will come next – will a company deliver another game changing product, what medical discoveries will cure terminal illnesses or perhaps a young entrepreneur could save the planet from global warming. Yes, we wait in anticipation for innovations that will not just change our lives but impact the economic prosperity of the commonwealth and the world.

Inspiration:  June is optimal for awakening, from nature to ideas. The glorious weather and coastline nurturers creativity, irrespective of our expertise or interest. And, I can’t think of another city that has as many medical and research institutions as Boston. The academic world is filled with professors and advisors who influence government policies and private initiatives. They also serve as mentors to all the students who get their education here. And after years of preparation and tough internships, thousands of these brilliant minds and eager contributors join the workplace in June, adding to our innovation culture and growth. As an adjunct professor, it’s an amazing feeling to see my MBA students enter the professional world, ready to impact and influence the business community and drive next generation innovations.

The Happening Place: Massachusetts is indeed the innovation hub. Many breakthrough technologies and industries are born here, from medical and life sciences to energy and manufacturing. Just look at the number of events taking place in June and multiply that with events that happen throughout the year. It’s at these events that people collaborate, create and deliver. As an entrepreneur, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I grew up in the area, worked in multiple companies, collaborated with VCs to build and sell companies. Currently, I run a profitable company with outstanding professionals and we are proud to be working with global corporations to drive and foster their innovation initiatives.

So thanks Scott for making me step back and reflect on things that we take for granted. June is indeed a special month in New England, and possibly around the world.

Here’s to innovators, entrepreneurs, investors and mentors. Let our passion for innovation continue to permeate through our lives, every day of every month. After all, an innovation economy is as good as the people who contribute, and execute well on brilliant ideas.

Defining Innovation

I think we can all agree that innovation is a buzzword today. It seems like everything is an innovation and everyone is an innovator.  Yet, innovation means different things to different people, depending on their perspective or profession. People often talk about innovation being a good idea and a company is judged by the number of patents filed. Is that innovation?

Let me take a moment to share with you my definition of innovation and ROI as it pertains to our business and clients.  

To me, innovation is transforming ideas into market-leading, practical products – products that are affordable and impact life and society every day. Innovation for innovation sake is wasted investment. Innovation must be useful to a company’s target audience not just be a ‘cool’ idea that will hopefully find an audience. As for patents, they must be monetized so they add value to a company’s bottom line and give the company a competitive-edge.

Innovation is also about identifying new markets, improving existing systems and product evolution. Given the recent economy, many companies chose to invest in new market opportunities for existing products or expanded into emerging countries. Improving products is just as important. Often, you might be able to solve a problem by repurposing concepts from another industry or even learning from nature, a growing field called biomimicry. Despite the Latin translation, innovation doesn’t have to be something new.

But most importantly, innovation has to be repeatable and sustainable. It’s not about one brilliant idea but being able to sustain the product innovation process. And, innovation happens across the company not just in the R&D department. Today’s innovation community includes new business development, strategic planning and competitive analysis teams, among others.

Given our economy, innovation must result in revenue growth and increase market share within an accelerated timeframe. Therefore the innovation agenda and ROI must be tightly integrated with a company’s corporate goals.

That’s my opinion. What’s yours?

Invention Machine’s Innovation Agenda

I have been writing regularly about innovation trends and the importance of executives championing a company’s innovation agenda. Now let me share with you my company’s innovation agenda and give you a taste of what’s to come in 2010.

Our innovation agenda is pretty straight forward. Hire and retain the best minds. Help drive and sustain our customers’ innovation initiatives and boost their return on innovation. Our technology is designed to strategically infuse innovation into every step of the product development process and deliver the right products, quickly and cost effectively — which in turn positively impacts a company’s bottomline.     

Like many CEOs, I meet with customers regularly to learn about their challenges and achievements. I then share the information with my team so they can create new technology or programs to meet our client’s innovation goals. Each week I also meet with my executive team and collectively design and shape our corporate agenda. Here are Invention Machine’s focus areas for the year:

Product Development

As leaders in our industry, we pay close attention to our customers needs and act on them quickly. Several months ago, they told us that collaboration and identifying experts were important to their business. We delivered Invention Machine Goldfire 6.0, with automatic expert identification and collaboration functionalities, along with other new features. Now global teams can use the technology to better collaborate and work outside their silos.

As the role of innovation is expanding, so is the usage of Goldfire, our innovation intelligence platform. Initially thought to be the exclusive domain of scientists and engineers, companies now recognize that innovation happens across the organization, every day. Mapping to this shift, we have decided to broaden Goldfire’s innovation workflows and are looking to add new workflows for tasks such as tracking user sentiment and technology landscaping. 

We will also incorporate additional capabilities to manage broad deployments while making the software easier to adapt across multiple departments. New language support will be added to expand Goldfire’s current multi-lingual offerings of English, French, German and Japanese. 

Client Services

This year, our focus is shifting from just successful software implementations to becoming a trusted advisor. To ensure our customers success, my team has created roadmaps to empower users to easily design an Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem, build high performance teams and see return on innovation  within 90 days. Our innovation experts will work closely with individuals to tailor the use of Goldfire to their specific job functions as well as design customized workshops for broader groups that will help the team further accelerate the innovation process.

Marketing

As innovation practitioners and champions, our clients are dedicated to delivering successful projects.  As we all know, just delivering great products and processes are not enough. One must effectively communicate the value of innovation initiatives to their peers and other potential communities across an organization. Therefore I have asked my marketing department to engage with our clients and their internal communications team to create campaigns that will effectively spread the word of their innovation success. This will also help attract people from other departments and geographies who may be able to pitch in as well as learn from best practices, all of which will foster better collaboration and impact revenue.

These are some highlights. Obviously I am not giving you every detail of our corporate strategy. Would you? In the meantime, I’d love to hear how you help drive your company’s innovation agenda.