(P.S. I’ve referenced your post/Julia’s comment on my blog http://blogs.nesta.org.uk/innovation/2007/08/where-does-inno.html)

In order to greater understand what we mean when we say “innovate” we’ve embarked on a community project collecting user submitted one-liners defining our perception of innovation. All posts and emailed submissions will be made public Monday morning with a cloud swarm highlighting key phrases in our definitions to follow in the coming week or two. To participate please visit http://jburg.typepad.com/future/2007/08/one-line-survey.html#comments . Looking forward to hearing from all of you!

My point about altruism and innovation is that altruism does not automatically equate to innovation - being altruistic doesn’t mean you’re being innovative. Now, some innovation is altruistic, and I think the $100 laptop project is a good example of that, as are the examples you’re giving. So on this I think we’re agreeing - innovation can be altruistic.

But altruism wouldn’t be my starting point for an innovation project, precisely because of the problem you bumped up against - it’s hard to monetise altruism. This isn’t to say that Lughenjo wasn’t a good idea in and of itself, but given that you were after a product that would help The Economist’s bottom line, I feel it was a bit like wandering round your kitchen, looking for the milk in the dishwasher.

I also agree that sometimes your scariest competitors are the ones you don’t see coming, but if you are an agile business with an built-in culture of change and innovation, then you can adjust your direction quickly and responsively. The problem with many businesses, and not just the media, at the moment is that they cannot cope in a digital landscape that shifts faster than they can get to grips with it.

In that case, the problem with a skunk works project is if it loses touch with business reality and the changes in the external landscape, it will produce solutions which don’t address a real problem. Instead, I’d look for ways to foster a culture of innovation across the company, I’d look for specific problems to innovate around, and I’d find ways to reward the ideas and innovation that surface.

I don’t think it’s a simple thing, innovation, but I hope The Economist continues to spend time, effort and money on it, no matter how hard it gets, because I think it’s not just worth doing, its essential.

I agree with a lot of what you say but I think a couple of things are worth challenging.

First off, there is a growing movement of social entrepreneurship where businesses (not charities or NGOs) seek to make a profit and do good. One of the best examples in the UK is of JustGiving.com and in the US, Project Agape (http://www.project-agape.com)- the placeholder name for the venture started by Joe Green and Sean Parker - recently launched their Causes app. on Facebook. Both these seek to increase the amount of money that is given without necessarily being charitable themselves. The idea behind Lughenjo was that it tapped into a growing need seen by Generation-Yers wanting to be far more involved in the way that they “did good” and would allow people to do what they knew professionally to help international development (rather than flying out to Rwanda to build a wall as some UK parliamentarians were recently seen doing). And to make money so that it would be self-sustaining.

So, altruism can equate to innovation as a whole raft of social entrepreneurs could testify.

Second, whilst innovation doesn’t need a “skunkworks” environment, sometimes it can help, and the dilemma is that your competitors are often the ones that you don’t see coming.

Take a look at Dave McClure’s list of Most Valuable Monopolists at http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/06/facebook-world-.html. Intel, Microsoft, Cisco and Amazon all came from behind to take the share that they did. Last year I heard Tim O’ Reilly say that his biggest competitor was Google because techies were increasingly using it to find snippets of code or techniques that they needed. In the same way, if Facebook, for example, could give advertisers access to an audience that the likes of The Economist, Guardian, NYT or FT currently monetise, then *boom* - we have a problem.

So, my proposition is that sometimes it can pay to take a completely different look at what you do as an organisation as well as to have innovation built into your DNA.

And lastly, Google’s 70:20:10 rule usually equates to 5:1:1 in terms of days according to a couple of ex-engineers that I’ve spoken to!

“No, wait… we’ll open a petshop and give away skating, levitating dogs! It’ll be a first!”

Nice piece, anyway. The part about trusting the staff is very true - if there’s a grain of truth in the old line about a consultant being someone who borrows your watch and tells you what time it is, it’s precisely because managers can see consultants as people with ideas rather than as human resources.

A few of the points I found important were:

Innovation does not have a size…it can be a small change that helps solve a big problem.

Innovation is not in a vacuum, and anyone might have a solution, including young people and customers.

Innovation will succeed in business when the business accepts innovation as part of their corporate culture.

It’s important to stay connected to technology and what’s going on in the outside world and new media if we want to really be innovative.

And finally,
“Innovation is not a buzzword to be repeated in meetings, it’s an action, a culture, a day-to-day activity.”

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