If you were asked to choose a word that you wanted to own as a personal descriptor in a business context what word would you choose? This was the gist of a question that Stevie McCormack posed at Ribbons Fest recently.
The word I chose was… innovative. For me this means introducing new ideas and original and creative thinking. It’s about being willing to experiment, accepting that not every idea will work and being comfortable with failure as a learning experience.
Last night I paid tribute to our headteacher leaving us after 20 years in post. He has turned our school from pretty average to outstanding and kept it there. Innovation played a key role. Thinking outside the box and being willing to experiment… and sometimes get it wrong… set the school on a path that many others have followed. I have been proud to be its Chair of Governors and to support the Head even with some pretty outlandish ideas. I have gained inspiration from the experience which I love to use in my business.
Innovation at Fabulous Networking.
I believe that innovation is an important component in business sustainability. Without it Fabulous Networking would not have survived the pandemic. We were one of the first communities to move everything on to Zoom. We were the first to introduce Get it done days knowing that when every day looks the same it is easy to keep putting tasks off until tomorrow and tomorrow never comes.
We introduced ‘Tea at 3.00’ as an informal gathering to support those in our community who were not able to do business during lockdowns. We arranged online social evenings (with associated hangovers!) and tried a virtual dinner party… that one didn’t work. Our book club is now celebrating its second anniversary and has proved an interesting way to network as well as living our learning and inspiration values. Our innovations started by thinking about how our members’ lives had been changed by the pandemic and what they might be struggling with.
A new meeting platform.
Today Jacqui McGinn moved her online networking meeting from Zoom to GoBrunch. The platform has a totally different feel… we appear in a circle rather than a rectangular box for starters and we choose where we sit (and can move at will). You can’t fit Jacqui in a box, so this feels like the right platform for her meetings. Not everyone was comfortable with the change, but change is like that. We’re going to give it three months and then review with members. This innovation was inspired by new software.
Agenda
Earlier this month Mandy Dineley found herself with a very small group for her meeting. She turned that to the group’s advantage and got attendees recording testimonials and social media content for each other. I love that.
Next month Felicity Dwyer will be getting us to explore AI chatbots and how they can help our businesses. If this is a subject you’ve been meaning to research this could be really useful. Join us on Zoom from 10-11.30.
Each of our Group Leaders has a different skillset, experience, and interests so they each bring something different to their meetings. I celebrate that. It helps to keep our meetings fresh and interesting. If people don’t like what one group offers they are free to go to a group that suits them better (our members belong to the community rather than a group and are free to attend any meeting at any time). Whilst we have an outline agenda for our meetings it’s designed as a loose structure not a straitjacket. I actively encourage innovation and ask Group Leaders to share the ideas that work for them.
Would you like to be more innovative?
It’s all too easy to say, ‘I’m not creative’ or ‘I’m not an original thinker’ but I believe that we can all bring innovation to our businesses.
Brainstorming ideas and challenges with your network is one way. Adapting ideas from others, especially other industries can be really useful. What could you adapt from a Formula 1 pitstop to improve your processes for example?
Sometimes we are forced to innovate through lack of available resources. Sometimes an idea is triggered by something we read or watched. Sometimes we need a structure for our thinking.
Tools to prompt innovative thinking
One tool I like is often called Forced Connections. You start with your challenge and then take an item or two to inspire your thinking. E.g. maybe I’m looking for some social media content ideas, I pick up a random item from my desk… it’s a green paperclip. That could lead me to talk about our sustainability agenda, joining people or ideas together, it could inspire a chain reaction.
Or I could pick up my rubber duck (don’t ask!), that leads me to think about fun… that might lead me to a story I could share that gives a flavour of our meetings.
The key is to let the object inspire ideas, don’t limit them, don’t judge them too soon. Capture them and then think how you could use them. You could start by simply listing all the features of your ‘tool’ before you even start to think about the ideas they could prompt. My rubber duck is…
- Yellow
- It has an orange beak
- It’s small
- It floats
- It squeaks
- It has bright eyes
- It has wings
Do any of these lead to metaphors that could inspire your content? Do they remind you of a story? Do they have a purpose that you could link to something useful?
Questions to prompt innovative thinking.
Again there are numerous tools you could use. You could simply run through a list of questions such as…
- What problems does my ideal client have currently?
- What frustrates them about their current solutions?
- What new tools, techniques, materials could generate a new solution?
- How could I make my offer more sustainable?
- How could I save time or money by changing the offer?
Or you could use a tool like a PESTLE analysis to identify the challenges and potential solutions. Here you look at a problem through different lenses with a view to finding opportunities (or threats)…
- Political… what is happening politically that could create opportunities?
- Economic… how is the economy impacting my business/audience?
- Social… what is influencing the way we live our lives?
- Technology… what new developments can we take advantage of?
- Legal… how might changes in the law impact our clients or our business?
- Environmental…what could we do to contribute positively to our environment or what do we need to stop doing?
So will you join me in championing innovation? The business world is littered with the corpses of businesses that failed to innovate or failed to respond when new competitors came into their space… Blockbuster, Kodak, FW Woolworth to name just three. Don’t be like them.
