Innovation

Our innovation system (Actea™) takes account of the challenges of taking a product/service concept from idea to reality while meeting the challenge of creating extraordinary brands. This means we innovate with a clear understanding of the type of market need /opportunity we are managing (see Trends) as well as the culture we are working within.

Actea™ is a stand-alone innovation system. Often clients benefit from Actea™ following the Trends work we have already performed. However, if clients already have sufficient trend information to provide the market context for the market need/opportunity, then they enter the jakepearce.com system at Actea™.

Choosing the right type of innovation for a) the market need/opportunity and b) the internal organisational infrastructure/culture is critical to achieving sustainable success. New product/services must be feasible across the value chain to avoid two major pitfalls:

1) cultural mismatch such as when an organisation is not suited to implement a more ‘out there’ product/service.

Through Actea™ we make sure that organisations adopt the right style of innovation for their culture and their infrastructure. This significantly increases the chances of success inside the organisation and with the external market.

2) product/service concepts that focus on the communication and branding messages at the expense of the product/service experience enjoyed by customers.

Naturally Actea™ integrates brand building into the process – we love brands and brand building. However long lasting innovation has real ‘depth.’ For service companies that means they ‘walk the talk’ or ‘do the strapline.’ In terms of products – the brand is demonstrated not just through the communication but in more tangible terms for the customer. Think about how Apple engages customers to help them use their product optimally or consider Nike’s commitment to sport at all levels.

We know innovation can seem tough. We have also noted that the more ‘out there’ a new product/service concept appears and the higher the perceived level of risk, the more we find clients need us alongside them to avoid the pitfalls explored above. By contrast, the lower the perceived level risk, the more clients want our input at agreed milestones in bringing the product to market.

The Actea™ system has modules which are customised around the different types of market need as follows:

Need	Tool
Overt	N/A
Latent	Landskape Map™, Improv Machine™, Developa™, Projection™
Covert	Landskape Map™, Improv Machine™, Developa™, Projection™ & Destinea™
Created	Landskape Map™, Idea Machine™, Developa™ Projection™ & Destinea™

Landskape map™

All Actea™ projects start with a Landskape Map™. This allows us to match the spoken appetite for risk with the reality demonstrated in the organisation to date.

We use a proven framework; ideally an organisation is loose/strong – in other words, it is adaptable and innovative with strong systems which support risk managed innovation. Loose/loose organisations are all ideas and no delivery whereas strong/strong enterprises are often conservative and have a sense of invincibility/superiority and so are slow to innovate.

Because Landskape Map™ uses this framework to help identify the right of sort of innovation for each organisation’s culture, it creates significant time and costs savings. Just think for a moment if you don’t get this right – try getting IBM to create the iPod!

Increase your chances of innovating successfully – why not choose the right innovation style for your culture and infrastructure?

Improv Machine™

Improv Machine™ is designed to create product/service concepts which are suitable for latent and covert needs. It focuses on improving products/services in existing categories to give them a better edge. An example of this would be iPod touch.

The Improv Machine™ is a day-long workshop. It offers a stimulating and fun environment for participants backed by a dedication to deliver to a tight brief. Clients are facilitated to create an agreed number of creative yet practical improvements to your product/service concept. We utilise proprietary idea creation technologies and then apply unique tools to evaluate which ideas are the most likely to work in your organisation. This delivers practical yet creative opportunities for innovation of existing products/services.

Why not make the most of what you have before you make anew?

Idea Machine™

Idea Machine™ is designed to create product/service concepts which will revolutionise or reinvent categories with break through product/service ideas. It focuses singularly on creating product/service concepts that will meet created needs.

The Idea Machine™ is an experience not a workshop. It is a two day mind bending journey to excellence. This is why – people, preparation, place and process. People – we profile de Bono thinking styles before the session to ensure all six styles are represented in the Idea Machine™. Preparation – everyone who walks into the room has experienced a completely new way of looking at a clearly defined task before they arrive. Place – environment directly impacts on cognitive pathways – we find environments which are relevant and stimulating. Process – we use leading edge synectics techniques which physically forge new pathways in the brain – literally brain switching to develop new ideas – so that the ideas are genuinely new. We then push the thinking further by asking ‘cake and eat it paradoxical questions’ that force us to create new concepts to answer them

If you want to create the future of the market – you have to create new pathways in your brain – literally.

Developa™

Devolopa™ supports the product/concepts created in Idea Machine™ and Improv Machine™ to be optimised internally and externally. Developa uses a unique paradoxical technique internally. We review the product/service concepts with the wider internal team and look at how to find win/wins i.e. ways make the product(s)/services(s) both easier to deliver and better for the market. The technique is called hatting.

Developa then develops the brand and ensures the initial core team and subsequent team never forget what the brand means through conducting a Brand Injection – a unique experience which guarantees all six thinking styles of de Bono get it– not just ‘creative people.’ Everyone who works on the brand team has to ‘be on the same bus.’

Then the easy part of brand development – execution in terms of packaging, service scripts etc occurs.

Why not make your concepts optimised, deliverable and fully understood by everyone?

Projection™

Projection™ is a planning tool for relatively small to medium sized companies who don’t have dedicated resources to manage innovation. It ensures that all the relevant tasks that are required for delivering the product are identified. We find larger companies also use Projection™ as a form of enhanced check list to ensure that everything that needs to be done is identified.

Projection™ produces a unique physical map to assist with scenario planning. It resembles a ‘train/tube’ map which shows the different paths the project might take. For example a key strategic decision might lead to a whole different innovation pathway; Projection™ provides a flexible destination map irrespective of the path chosen and clarifies the role of everyone on board.

Why not ensure your innovation plan is 100% nailed irrespective of the road taken to get there?

Destinea™

Having a great idea and a great plan to get it done does not guarantee success in innovation. Politics, changes of people, realignment of priorities, lack of resource, other ‘roadblocks’ that become excuses all contribute to the death of great ideas.

Great ideas truly are 99% graft.

Destinea™ is our way around these challenges. Destinea™ is a facilitator of success where we pull together an internal team of champions to drive the innovation through the organisation supported by an external champion.

We are there to help keep the team inspired, glued and on task. If the organisation floats off task, Destinea™ takes action to bring it back on task.

If you’ve got a great idea, why not get it done?

Check out these soundbites on Innovation…

Atlaskinetic – Cellular Without A Battery