This Years Great Ideas

You do welcome new business ideas for the new year, right?

Nearly every business leader and marketer I know says innovation is a precious (and scarce) commodity. Some say they need new ideas to move their businesses to ever-higher levels of performance, while others simply want to avoid being left in the dust.

In fact, a national survey of 265 marketing leaders finds that most of them believe their companies already have fallen behind when it comes to innovation.

So where will the great new ideas for your business come from in 2012? Inside the company? Outside? Anyone? Bueller?

According to that survey (from The Horn Group and Kelton Research), two-thirds of marketing executives say they are behind the curve in digital media integration, while 71 percent say they are similarly behind the curve when it comes to deploying social media.

More than half (55 percent) say that internal, not external, factors provide the biggest roadblocks to integrating their marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, they also report the agents of change for their business are mostly the same internal suspects. When asked, “Who is most often leading the push for change or innovation for your company?” these marketing executives mentioned the internal marketing team (44 percent) more than any other source. This was followed by customers (26 percent), non-marketing executives within the company (22 percent) and partner agencies (3 percent).

Is it a good thing when in 66 percent of the cases the push for change is coming from the internal executive team rather than customers or external parties?

Customers apparently play a more important role in leading change for those companies that have annual revenue of $10 million and higher (31 percent) versus those with annual revenue of less than $10 million (20 percent).

You might think smaller companies would be closer to their customers and thus more likely to work with customers in order to innovate. The counterargument is that, as I’ve previously reported, larger companies are more likely to have formalized programs in place such as “Voice of the Consumer” research and/or customer advisory boards.

One benefit of such programs is they can force everyone in the business to adopt a fresh outsider’s view — at least for a little while — on a regular basis.

But if the current reality is that the people closest to your business are also the ones trying to drive innovation, how can 2012 be a productive “change year” for your organization?

For suggestions, I turned to a friend and innovation expert.

Mike Brown, formerly a marketing leader at YRC Worldwide, now runs a consultancy called Brainzooming that facilitates innovation for businesses.

Among his suggestions for boosting your team’s creative thinking are:

• It is often easier to start from scratch than to attempt to re-edit or reformat something old to fit into some new situation.

• Change physical surroundings. Vary the lighting, furniture placement or people placement in your current environment. Better yet, get away from your creative block’s “home field.”

• Use simple visuals as a means of easing communication. People interpret abstract concepts in very different ways; turn your definition into a visual, step back and see how others on your team are thinking about the same issue or goal.

• Get some external facilitation and validation along the way. One of Brown’s equations is: Someone with Expertise + A Fresh Perspective from Someone Else + An Open Conversation = Definite Revelations.

• Make innovation a regular discipline. One of Brown’s other equations is: Conscious Immersion + Purposeful Repetition + Keen Observation = Startling New Insights.

My innovation suggestion is merely a rehash of what the author Jack London said years ago: “You can’t wait for inspiration; you have to go after it with a club.”

Words for 2012!

Jim Karrh is the founder of Karrh & Associates and director of MarketSearch, both of Little Rock. Email him at [email protected].