“When you are fearless, you innovate”
With iPads and BlackBerrys in hand, floods of people poured into the Nature of Innovation panel. The discussion, moderated by Forbes’s National Editor Quentin Hardy, attracted many different participants from media outlets to entrepreneurs.
After offering a concrete definition for innovation as “a positive encounter with difference” Hardy posed a series of open-ended questions such as: “ How ready are we for change” and “How do we spot positive difference.”
The panelists highlighted three keys factors to consider when innovating for a company. 1. The current culture of the company. 2. Timing. 3. Understanding the specific problem you are trying to solve. If a company can consider all of these factors before launching a new idea they will likely be more successful.
Shelley Lazarus, Chairman Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, knows a good idea when she sees one.
“If ten people in a focus group rip their clothes off over an idea, chances are it’s a great idea.”
Lazarus also believes in order to foster these clothes peeling thoughts, there should be teams of people working together because “when you have two people together one makes the other one brave.” She admitted Ogilvy & Mather works with mostly conservative clients, so even when an idea is rejected, her company celebrates it anyways.
These innovators are also not afraid to question and modify tradition. Daniel Lubetzky, CEO of Kind Snacks, says he is excited for the day when we no longer read books linear and highlighted some of the “ridiculous” traditions we follow daily that in his opinion in need of innovation such as men wearing ties.
“Why are you putting something around your neck,” Lubtetzky said. “It’s the stupidest thing in the world.”
The crowd laughed and cheered as he tore his tie from his neck and threw it to the ground.
Lubtetzky demonstrated a point Jonathan Miller, Chairman and CEO Digital Media Group, News Corporation, confessed to early in the discussion that you don’t have to be the next college dropout inventing YouTube in order to be innovative. He also said the average age of a technology focused entrepreneur is 39.
“They reach a point in their lives where they are sick of working for other people and have ideas,” Miller said. “They want to build wealth and don’t want to spend the rest of their lives working for some idiot they can’t stand.”
When time was up, Hardy quickly blazed through a few points to take away from the session: seek simplicity, see patterns, find commentaries and agreement, and admit defeat and try something new.
