P.I. Interview #6: Six questions for Chuck Frey
February 3rd, 2007
Without question, Chuck Frey is the Web’s leading reporter on what’s happening in the world of innovation. Chuck uses his very popular website, InnovationTools.com, to share the latest ideas and insights from across the global community of innovation academics, consultants and speakers. He is also an expert on mind mapping and the various software applications available to simplify it, and writes an excellent blog on the subject, The Mind Mapping Software Blog. I encourage you to check out both sites and all of the excellent resources they offer.
What’s most interesting to me is that Chuck actually works for an association in the Midwest! (He prefers to fly below the radar and has asked me not to name the organization here.) So, in addition to his views about innovation as a broader business challenge, I wanted to probe Chuck’s thinking about how we can bring greater innovation to the work of associations going forward. I’m sure you’ll find his views as compelling as I do.
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1. What was the original spark for your interest in innovation?
It goes back about 15 years, and was nurtured in several ways. First, I linked up with a creativity guru in Chicago named Gerald Haman. He invented a creativity tool called the Pocket Innovator that fascinated me so much that I offered to help him promote it. That opened up a whole new world to me of creative problem solving tools and techniques, which I really enjoyed.
The other major spark has been the business books I’ve read over the years. I’ve always been interested in business strategy. As the number of book titles devoted to innovation grew, I was naturally drawn to them, and quickly learned that this area was going to grow in importance in the years ahead. Many companies had already reorganized, re-engineered and otherwise stripped any waste and inefficiency out of their processes. Global competition was quickly turning most products into commodities. So it appeared that one of the only remaining avenue for top-line growth and differentiation was innovation.
I also became a member of the Innovation Network, and was influenced by the thinking of Joyce Wycoff, Jordan Ayan and other innovation experts. I’m just endlessly fascinated with this whole area of innovation, and the potential opportunities it provides to organizations of all sizes.
2. How is innovation changing and what are the most significant emerging trends?
I think many more companies are finally recognizing its importance. They’re no longer just watching it on their strategy radar, they’re actually starting to implement it. As far as trends go, I see several that are definite growth areas. First, more and more companies are seeing the value of open innovation — that is, moving beyond the “not invented here” scenario and looking at ideas from outside their walls. This may include partnering with other companies, universities, hired “brains” (product development firms like Ideo) and others.
The other major trend that I see is customer-driven innovation. This encompasses areas such as ethnography — where you observe your customers utilizing your product and try to figure out how they actually use it and where their “pain points” are (the problems you can solve for them) — and inviting “lead user” customers early into your product development processes to enable them to “co-create” your new products.
Finally, interest continues to grow in the area of idea management software. These enterprise-level applications provide a framework or process for collecting and evaluating ideas from all employees. Most organizations aren’t suffering from a lack of ideas. Rather, they have too many. What they lack is a way to help the best ones float to the top in a timely manner. Idea management software helps companies to identify these high-value ideas faster, so they can be moved into the product development pipeline faster.
3. What is the most significant innovation lesson you’ve learned?
I recently compiled a large list of innovation lessons learned from my readers. (Editor’s Note: Chuck included my submission on his list.) If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I need to experiment more with the content of my websites. Many innovation experts say that one strategy for innovating successfully is to run many small experiments, keep those that work the best and kill the rest. It’s kind of a Darwinian approach to innovation. I need to do more of that with the online services I provide in order to continue to provide a high level of value to my readers. In short, the person who reports on innovation (me) needs to be more innovative himself!
4. What have you learned from your research on mind mapping and the use of mind mapping software in organizations?
Mind mapping software, like paper-based mind mapping, started out to be a method for for capturing ideas and improving recall and memory. But the software has quickly evolved beyond that. Today’s mind mapping software covers a wide range of needs, from not only capturing and organizing your ideas but also creating sophisticated “information dashboards” that you can use to manage multiple projects, priorities and people. It is an excellent fit with the needs of today’s knowledge workers, who must capture, organize, distill and communicate information at an unprecedented pace.
This software can also help you to increase your productivity and efficiency. According to a survey of users of this type of software that I conducted last year, respondents said that mind mapping software increased their productivity by an average of 20 percent — which is pretty amazing, when you stop to think about it. What other type of software can promise that large of a boost? The number and type of applications of mind mapping software continues to grow, as more people figure out what you can do with it. I have written two e-books on the business use of mind mapping software, which you can learn more about at http://www.mindmap-software.com.
5. Why do associations often find it so hard to make innovation a real priority?
I think it’s because many associations are set up to be secretariats. In other words, their staff work and strategic direction is formulated by a board and/or committees. The committees tell the association staff what they want accomplished, and the association staff dutifully carries out those tasks. You’re also very dependent upon your board members and their level of engagement (or lack thereof) in the association’s overall direction. If the board is satisfied with the status quo, then so is the staff.
On top of that, many associations also have a new chairman every year or two, and each person may have their own ideas about what the association should focus upon. So what you have is an organization that zigs and zags from one set of priorities to another. They don’t think to take a few steps back and ask themselves questions like, “What keeps our members up at night? What worries them?” and “What other services could we provide that would meet our members’ current and future needs?” So as a result, many associations tend to be more reactive than proactive, and innovation never becomes an ongoing priority.
6. What is your advice to association leaders trying to overcome resistance to innovation?
I can’t speak categorically because I’ve only worked for one trade association. But from what I’ve experienced in that environment, you need to first of all set a strategic direction. The way we did that is to designate a Task Force made up of a small number of Board members, who met periodically over a year’s time to analyze the association’s existing services, and then look at where the organization needs to be in 5 years to meet the needs of its members and the industry. From that effort, a set of aggressive priorities and objectives have been formulated. Those prevent the association staff from being whipsawed by the whims of new chairpeople from year to year. With our board, members and staff now aligned around a common set of aggressive goals, the staff can set to work on developing the ideas and solutions needed to achieve them.
In early 2007, the entire staff will be receiving training in innovation and creative problem solving, to help us to reach these objectives. In the association I work for, there never were any major barriers to innovation. But this strategic planning process has definitely brought it to the forefront as a value we need to embrace.
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I agree with Chuck that many associations still suffer from the lingering effects of their traditional secretariat mindset. One of the biggest untruths still being told in the association community is the erroneous belief that volunteers set strategic direction and staff implements it. This distinction is usually framed in hard and fast terms, as if a bright line exists between the twin challenges of strategy and execution. Yet in today’s knowledge-based organizations, the organizational capabilities necessary for anticipating the future and acting on its creation cannot be sorted out quite so clearly.
Nor should they be. Staff members bring considerable fresh thinking to the work of strategy, while members bring their energy to the implementation of projects around which they are passionate. Embracing innovation in associations would be far easier if we ended the practice of rigidly defining specific responsibilities for specific groups in favor of accepting collective responsibility for achieving strategic outcomes. In this context, association innovation would become a shared expectation, not an anomaly or, worse, an oxymoron.
Chuck, thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my questions!
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Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, PI Interviews, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator, Simplicity, We Have Always Done It That Way
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