The Innovation Challenge

Today's post has an assignment . . . with a prize! Many of you have joined me on a journey to imagine with missional innovation looks like. We have highlighted people, talked about new ministry/outreach and shared about the challenges and blessings of innovation.

So this group should be pretty qualified to do some analysis and synthesis about innovation. In our test, the subjects we will study are the top 10 creative people as selected by Fast Company Magazine. They actually named 100 top most creative people, but we are going to focus on what FC believes are the cream of the crop.

Here is our test: Can you look at this list, read each bio and see the common thing that each of them did which enabled them to change their industries? There are many things, but one stands out - at least to me :).

Here is the prize: I will send two copies of our book "Innovation in Mission" to the first person to submit the right answer as a comment to this blog posting. Why two? One for you and one for you to share with a fellow innovator that you are connected with.

Click on this link to visit the list of the 100 Most Creative People


Here is the top 10 list with links to the individuals:
Jonathan Ive: Apple Designer
"There's an applied style of being minimal and simple, and then there's real simplicity. This looks simple, because it really is."- Design According to Ive, Wired

Melinda Gates: Co-Founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
"We literally go down the chart of the greatest inequities and give where we can effect the greatest change."- Melinda Gates goes public , Source

Shai Agassi: CEO of Better Place

Reed Hastings: CEO of Netflix
"There is a revolution happening, and within two years I think that Wi-Fi and Netflix will be built into all the televisions." - On the possibility of Netflix being built into televisions, New York Times Blog Jan 2009

Rich Ross: President, Disney Channels Worldwide
“Kids on the street can tell you what my priorities are,” Mr. Ross said. “I’m a wild optimist. You see that thread through anything we do. There are hard times, and there are not-so-hard times, but at the end it is an O.K. world.”- Oh, Grow Up, Mr. Ross, NY Times

Sandy Bodecker: VP of global design, Nike
"Like Nike, I believe in the power of human potential to do amazing things whether it's on the playing field of life or sport."Fast Company interview, Fast Company

Tero Ojanpera: Executive VP at Nokia
"What was formerly known as the cell phone is democratizing innovation,"

Michelle Ganeless: President, Comedy Central
The goal is "to make sure our content is everywhere our viewers are. We want everything to be accessible, sortable, and sharable."

Jon Rubinstein: Executive chairman, Palm

James Schamus: CEO, Focus Features

What makes a place innovative?

Innovation isn't spread through pixy dust or mojo - oh how we wish it was. Wouldn't it be great if you could buy a can of innovation powder and spread it around your study or your office? Alas, innovation is a more complex brew that takes some dissecting.

Steve Knight is a member of our facebook innovation group and an amazing kingdom journalist/innovator. He shared with me a map that McKinsey created to show hot spots of innovation (more on that further down). And as I thought about this issue, I began to ask myself about the characteristics that make a place innovative.

Fast Company Magazine (one of my favorites) has what they call the Fast 50. These are the 50 most innovative companies. They just released the 2009 results and you will be fascinated. The five most innovative were: 1) Team Obama 2) Google 3) Hulu 4) Apple 5) Cisco Systems. They have identified those companies that are changing the rules and leading the pack. As I have watched this list, it seems to be based upon which companies are taking new ideas and turning them into strategic advantages within specific arenas. Google in search, Apple in music, Obama in fundraising/mobilization, etc.

McKinsey has created a map of the most innovative cities around the globe. They used two key criteria on their graph:

• momentum: average growth of US patents
• diversity: number of separate companies

This criteria for innovation focuses on the number of new ideas are created by companies. In essence they are saying that if you or your organization is creating new ideas and taking the time to own them, you are in a position to innovate.

They go on to break up the cities into these categories:

• hot springs: small fast growing hubs (Brisbane)
• dynamic oceans: large vibrant ecosystems (Taipei)
• silent lakes: older slower-growing hubs (Tel Aviv)
• shrinking pools: unable, so far, to expand beyond their start-up core (Indianapolis)

In another article, I found another interesting twist on innovation. Forbes shared that 7 of the top 10 innovative countries are in Europe. The article talked about how many times we view Europe as old and slow - the opposite of innovative. However, it talks about the key things that make Europe innovative. Many companies in these countries have long-standing innovation task forces. They have a high level of research and a value for quality. The article also talked about the number of patents in these countries that give their companies an innovative edge.

It really helps to see the companies, cities and countries that are innovative. It gives us ideas on how we as ministries and how we personally can create cultures of innovation. I encourage you to read some of the articles in this posting and study these examples. Look for things that you can incorporate.

But I also want to share some of the characteristics that they have not mentioned which I believe create an environment of innovation in ministry:

1. Trust: When trust is high, then organizations can move quickly, adopt new ideas and think strategically. When trust is low, the atmosphere is full of confusion, in-fighting and second guessing. A great book on this is "Speed of Trust"

2. Risk Tolerance: Every person and every organization has a tolerance for risk. Those organizations that know their risk tolerance and then allow ideas to develop with that level of risk as a guide can be innovative. If level of risk is an unknown, then organizations always find themselves with various opinions about whether an idea is worth pursuing but have no language to describe it.

3. Defined Standards: When a person or organization has defined standards for quality, missiology, strategy and so on, then innovation has a place to grow. When no standards exist, then ideas tend to fly out uncontrolled and can't get a foothold. But when there are parameters that help define direction and success then innovation has a place to develop.

4. Interdependence: When people find themselves in a place that fosters learning and collaboration, innovation will not be far behind. When it is ok to take time and learn new things and share them with others, then those ideas have a chance of finding practical purposes.

We could go on and on, but I will leave it with this question: Based on some of the input above, is your ministry environment innovative? If so . . . what have you created? If not . . . what are you going to do to begin creating a place where new ideas can thrive?

Books and Resources for the Innovator

I spoke at a conference recently and shared a list of books and resources helpful in innovation work. I wanted to share them with you as well. I hope they are useful.

Books to Consider
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Spiritual Leadership, Henry and Richard Blackaby
Well Connected, Phill Butler
Credibility, James Kouzes/Barry Posner
The Age of Access, Jeremy Rifkin
Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim/Renee Mauborgne
The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen
Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
Making Innovation Work, Davila/Epstein/Shelton
10 Rules For Strategic Innovators, Govindarajan/Trimble
Small is the New Big, Seth Godin
A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger Von Oech
Mindset, John Naisbitt

Other Resources to Consider
Fast Company Magazine, www.fastcompany.com
Evangelical Missions Quarterly, www.emqonline.com
Momentum Magazine, http://www.momentum-mag.org/
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

World's Most Innovative Companies

As we search for the innovations that will drive this century of mission work, we have to look everywhere. The next great missional idea might come from the most unlikely place - a business, a government program, a friend, a small group discussion.

So in the spirit of looking deep, you need to check out FastCompany's Fast 50. This is their list of the 50 most innovative companies. Just reading this list will give you many new ideas.

Enjoy!