Just this past June, I took a day trip through Palo Alto in California from my home in Monterey, traveling up the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. While driving through the beautiful Stanford campus, ending up on Palo Road, I ran into the Stanford Shopping Center. Never one to bypass a shopping mall, I decided to stop to see what this city, which some term as the heart of Silicon Valley, had to offer. Within a few minutes, I walked by the Apple, Microsoft and Sony stores, all within feet of each other and eerily with incredibly similar setup. Stark, simplistic floor design, concierge-like stations housed at the back of the store and, of course, prominent product display tabletops. Apple, now famously known for their almost obsessive focus on the design and ascetic of their brand, from their products to even their stores, has triumphed in their innovative strategy to translate their corporate culture and ideals to living, breathing life. In their wake, many other companies try to capture this "lightening in a bottle," most unsuccessfully or as a poor imitation. As many companies have learned, taking another's innovation as your own is often awkward, rarely resulting in success rates of that of the originator. Failing strategies, such as these, occur because senior executives do not account for their own unique corporate culture, goals and people, believing the idea of innovation itself will be enough to produce transformational change. So, why then is it so difficult for companies to create true, original innovation. Ron Johnson, who Steve Jobs tapped to build the Apple retail stores, explains, "Innovation is this amazing intersection between someone's imagination and the reality in which they live. The problem is many companies don't have great imagination, but their view of reality tells them that it's impossible to do what they imagine." This search for a defining innovation, or world-altering product, can become the Holy Grail for businesses today, distracting executives from the core role of innovation itself. In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, Bill Taylor, who is the co-founder of Fast Company magazine, suggests, "Maybe it's time we all stopped "innovating" and set our sights on something more meaningful and real." Mr. Taylor reminds us that those innovators that we are all trying to emulate didn't set out to be innovative but to do something new and fun. In the race towards innovation, we forget to put ourselves, our organization and our goals and desires into the equation. Simply ask yourself these basic questions repeatedly, "How can I better serve my customers? How can I align my individual strategy to meet these goals? How can I measure the success of my strategy against my original goals?" From there, innovation will naturally spring forth, and you will become the enviable model other companies try to duplicate. As you read the strategies in this issue of DOCUMENT, don't forget to consider what your ultimate goal is, how these ideas will fit into your own strategy and the people who will enact these changes. Until next time,
ALLISON LLOYD is the editor of DOCUMENT, the dedicated document management portal for executives, directors and managers involved with the management, strategy, creation and delivery of communications in B2C environments. She leads the editorial direction for all DOCUMENT Media outlets, including its magazine, website, newsletter and event. Ms. Lloyd is a thought leader and expert in the transactional and customer communications industry.
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