Dear readers and friends of our blog,

Recent
conversations with CEOs and managing partners of innovation consulting
specialist firms inspired me to write a piece on trends in the
innovation consulting services market. This report is nearly done and
will be published in a couple of weeks.

You have the chance to
receive a free copy of this 10-pager before its official publication.
What do you have to do? Simply share your view on trends in innovation
with us. My colleague Chris Andrews and I will then select the best
three responses from all your comments. The timeline? This challenge
will end on Monday 21 September, 2009 at noon EST.

As a starter, let me give you a sneak preview on two of the key trends that I am outlining in my report:

  • Most innovation programs focus idea generation, not development. The recession has revealed that at many companies
    there is not really a dedicated innovation process and framework in place. Many
    new innovation programs are primarily focused only around the generation of new
    ideas and on how to constantly grow the pool of ideas. The causal link between
    large numbers of ideas and greater innovativeness is still the most common form
    of thinking — but it is frequently misguided. Companies frequently lack an
    end-to-end approach to innovation, which is a clear requirement for innovation
    program success.
  • Innovation management solutions do not help
    if the underlying process is broken.     Over the past few years software
    vendors have emerged which offer dedicated tools for managing     and facilitating innovation efforts at companies. However, these solutions primarily focus on the idea
    and knowledge generation around innovation rather than the management of
    innovation processes. While only 13% of strategy professionals stated in
    a recent Forrester survey that they are using a dedicated innovation management
    tool, such technology tools in themselves are not a
    solution. Organizations must first establish their own innovation
    “infrastructure” — including a business purpose, clearly established innovation
    leaders, and support from stakeholders. Once companies have institutionalized innovation,
    executives should select the appropriate technologies that help to govern and support
    its innovation program.

With this, the blog challenge is now open.

Leave an insightful comment and get the chance to win!

Regards,
Daniel