Dena Bank for Start-up Entrepreneurs

5 Things Innovators Should Never Forget

It has been shared five things an innovator should always remember. This has extracted after reading various articles on subject. These are:

1. Ideate with surrounding and not for them 

Innovators  need the support of an awful lot of colleagues and bosses before a big change truly can take place like R&D engineers, production managers, IT staff, financial controllers, marketers, service people and salesmen to develop your new product or service, produce it, get it on the market and service it. A new concept needs a lot of fathers and mothers will it survive internally. Therefore Innovators have to give them a chance to discover for themselves, what different paths are possible, what can be developed and what is realistic. If you want to be an effective innovator in an organization you will have to ideate new concepts with them and not for them.

2. Solve a relevant customer friction

Innovation is difficult because potential users must change their behaviour. Why should they buy your innovation? That’s the question! You have to give them a very good reason why! Effective innovation provides simple solutions for relevant problems or dreams of the target group. Innovators should find them by reaching out to customers using personal visits, meeting them in focus groups, search in social media or using crowdsourcing.

3. Use the voice of the customer

In selecting and improving ideas it is very important to criticise and challenge them from different perspectives. There are huge differences in how people from within the company perceive new ideas and how their potential customers perceive those same ideas. And that’s why incorporate idea reflection workshops with potential target groups in an early stage of your ideation process. Improve and pick the right ideas based on their feedback. Use the enthusiastic voice of the customer also to convince others it's a wonderful concept.

4. Bring back new business not only ideas

The reason you went on an innovation journey often stems from a need to grow the business again. So don't bring them ideas, bring them business and growth potential. Idea is being evaluated broadly from at least three perspectives Customer, Business model and Technology. There is need of clear,  strategic, commercial, professional and financial plan for new initiatives. At this early stage of the innovation process it is more of a ‘preview’ of the full business case. By making a mini new business case you strengthen the persuasiveness of your idea.

5. Show them how it's feasible.

Of course they expect from you as innovator to break existing patterns. And originality helps. But when you present your new concept it is wise to keep in mind that the rest of the organization is still as conservative as ever. Be sure to think outside the box on one hand and to present your idea inside the box on the other.

The Entrepreneurship Syste

Artificial Intelligence

The opening of WWDC starred a demo by a company named Anki, which is building Artificial Intelligence or real-life toys and games. It’s part of a plan to launch a new generation of machine intelligence for much bigger applications. CEO Boris Sofman talks about the challenges of building intelligent things and the future of Artificial Intelligence.

Leaders must avoid these behaviors

If you want to empower, engage, or motivate others, don't just focus on increasing your positive behaviors. Pay attention to what you need to stop doing as well. Why? Because people remember the bad more than the good. As gathered from HBR article, on the basis of 360 qualitative interviews, here are following top three behaviours, which leaders must avoid : 

1) Judgmental, non-verbal body language. No one, especially your successful colleagues, can tolerate perceived condescension. Research studies show that somewhere between 75 to 90 percent of our impact comes from our non-verbal communication, and tone is a key ingredient of this. Do you make comments to others in a way that sounds evaluative, harsh, or condescending? Often, this is not our intention but an in-the- moment reaction. Other non-verbal offenders include scowling, furrowed brows, quizzical looks (as if to say, 'are you stupid?'), rigidity, and sarcasm. While seemingly small, each of these subtle darts creates a considerable amount of relationship damage.

2) Interrupting and interrogating. There's been a lot of buzz recently around how to have "conversations that drive innovation" and how to "create safe environments for employees to bring their ideas forward." It's almost impossible for people to feel safe if the boss takes up most of the airtime, cuts people off, or interrogates half-baked ideas. Yes, employees have a responsibility to communicate with clarity, but if you expect every idea to be buttoned up, fully thought out, or structured before someone speaks, your colleagues will assume that you're not willing to invest the time to be a thought partner.

3) Being inconsistent. Peers and staff often comment on how discouraging it is to see a colleague act in two very different ways — absolutely charming with the executive team and external clients while being disrespectful to those they work with every day. This inconsistency makes these behaviors even more memorable and egregious. Others have shared a different impact — the feeling of walking on eggshells at work, wondering who is going to show up: "smiling, charming, funny person" or "judgmental, intense, snapping person." Over time, this drives passive aggressive responses from others in their attempt to avoid confrontation.

Ultimately, loyalty and followership are the two things cannot be demanded or set as an expectation. What is perceived as fear-based motivation, belittlement, or power play can yield real short-term compliance from others. But negative behaviors ultimately diminish the legacy we leave. Consider what behaviors you might need to stop doing so that you can have a positive, lasting impact.

Start-up Chain

Hard Earned 8 Tips for Start-up Innovations

Tech startups need to innovate in order to survive, much less grow and thrive. But when there's so much else to do, from fixing bugs to business development to sales and customer support, how do you fit innovation in? Just as important, how do you figure out which innovations are actually worth pursuing? RWIO-small Biz has asked eight successful entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) how they incorporate innovation, formally or informally, into their startups, and what information they use to plot next steps.