Innovate, Yes, but Make It Practical

Business is a field not of theory but of practice. The central intellectual inquiry of the science of management is simply this: What works? That, it seems, is the best way to examine the steady rise in the practice of innovation management. A search of the database of the professional networking site LinkedIn found that more than 700 people listed their current job title as "chief innovation officer" and that nearly 25,000 had the word "innovation" in their job title. Many others may not have the word in their titles, but their job is to pursue opportunities that result in new products, services and more efficient ways of doing things. So what does work in the innovation game? No single formula, to be sure. But some recent interviews with executives, consultants and academics can be distilled into three recommendations: think broadly, borrow from the entrepreneurial Silicon Valley model, and pay close attention to customers and to emerging user needs. Here, then, are three innovation works in progress that include those ingredients, whether or not the efforts will ultimately prove to be winners.