NOTE:  The last post was to have gone out last night, but such are the inconveniences and inconsistencies of modern life.

Today is a brand new day and on the Left Coast, I was in the gym at 4:00AM because I’d chosen to sleep in an hour.  For a while, there was another guy there who was operating on Tokyo time.  And now I’m preparing for the sessions at the 7th Annual Frost & Sullivan Global Innovations in New Product Development and Market Strategy MindXchange.   I’m working:  participating as a panelist in a townhall executive panel discussing collaborative models for innovation (trusting each other); and, I’m moderating an interactive break-out session on setting internal product development expectations.

I’ve never been before but the participant list looks pretty tier-one executive (VP/director and up) and everyone I met last night was eager to jump in and share their knowledge.  The agenda itself looks to have a bit of something for everyone who has to do with innovation and innovative type of work in product/services and marketing.  So, I’m eager.

Those who know me are abundantly clear that I veer toward professor and lecturer when you give me a microphone.  This is the tendency that I have to fight first as a panelist.  Usually, it works out because I’m not dumb enough to jump in when I have no knowledge and nothing to say.  The trouble is that when those barriers are not there, I like to teach.  Important not to ingraciously dominate the panel.  Equally important not to disappear and be an unfortunate decoration.

With the moderation, it’s a little better.  My plan is to provoke.  So I have a few theories and ideas which I’ll unleash on the crowd viz. the nature of expectations.  If all goes right, I’ll set up the situation and toss in those little grenades along the fault line between the more technical and the more marketing type folk, and let them have on.  They’ll walk into a room with an easel chart bearing the words “The predictable ‘death’ of Innovation.”  That should get things started.

More tonight when it’s in the past.

Is anybody listening–or am I just practicing my prose?

As many of my closer friends and colleagues (and an audience at Front End of Innovation, in May) are aware, I’ve written another book (by the way, it’s not “out of print,” the printing is taking forever to get done–I’m waiting for permission to quote a famous author).  It’s a book about finding invisible advantage by seeing what nobody else can see … by looking in the spaces in between.  That’s its title, in fact:  The Spaces In Between.

To start generating some word-of-mouth guerilla buzz (probably a barely perceptible hum at this point, really), I’ve begun contacting people in my various contact lists.  Right now,mind you, I’m being fairly discriminating:  only those I’ve had ongoing–even if not recent–contact with.  In other words, people that I would consider loose friends of a sort; people who, when they needed something, I helped out.  The thing these people have in common beyond that is that they are influential within their own networks and they have other influential colleagues who I know but am not close to.  Perhaps you see where this is going.

So I contacted one fellow that I haven’t spoken to in a few years but who would have to be abnormally ungifted to claim “I don’t remember you” without betraying a fullness of shit.  I said something to the effect of, “Hey, I’ve written a book and you’re pretty influential.  Would you have a look and then blog or post something nice (if you like it)?  And, there’s this other guy we both know but who you know much better, would you mind contacting him and reminding him of me and asking if he’d mind doing the same.  And, . . .

Nothing.

Perhaps he’s just away from email and busy or on vacation, and will get back to me soon.  Maybe?  (I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt–to a fault.)  I’ll hold my breath.

This episode prompted me to write for catharsis.  I should say it’s not really unexpected:  life has taught me to have very low expectations of most people.  Very few–and often those that most surprise you at the time–actually have social character.  Most are just too glad to be very interested as long as the weight of value tips in their favour.  When it doesn’t, they aren’t.  And they disappear, pretending not to see or hear, to be away, to be busy, or anything else that helps avoid anything that smacks of obligation or effort.  As I said, it’s not entirely unexpected.  But it is disappointing.  This person, specifically, disappointed me and no further amount of (self-)hagiography will change that.  But, he’s contributed to the larger disappointment with people in general.

If I get a response in the next few days, I’ll withdraw my personal disappointment.  But that won’t change the bigger picture.

It’s a damn good thing that every now and then, in the most unanticipated place and from the most unexpected person, my faith in humanity is ever so modestly revived.  So, if you are wondering whether or not to do the respectable thing because you don’t think anybody’s watching, do it anyway.  Somebody always is… and it might just restore his or her faith too.

</sermon>

First things first.  FEI2011 was an insightful and enjoyable event.  I saw and learned from a lot of people doing a lot of very cool (and innovative, obviously) stuff.  Maybe more important, I met a lot of people that are fascinating and passionate about their work, wherever it happens to be.  And, most important (to me), I had the chance to share some of my own thinking with many of those same people.  The actual event highlights are probably available at the FEI website, so I have no intention of replicating any of it.

What I noticed, particularly in the exhibition area, was interesting.  Either innovation is as susceptible to follow-the-leader and the banality of fashion, or the very sharpest leading edge of the innovation industry was out in full force.  What do I mean?

If you had dropped onto the plant at the Seaport World Trade Centre on Tuesday/Wednesday of this week, you would believe that the only way innovation happens on this planet right now is by “open innovation.”  There seemed to be two types of vendors:  those who provided “ideation;” and those who facilitated open innovation by some means.  That could mean software platforms or outsourced managed services or professional consulting.  In any case, everyone was prepared to help somebody else harness the power of the crowd.

In concept, open innovation makes some sense.  After all, if two heads are better than one, then thousands of heads must be even… better.  Besides, its the natural manifestation of the crowdsourcing movement that wants to capture the wisdom of the crowd.  (Frankly, there’s a very thin line between the wisdom of the crowd and the tyranny of the mob.  Maybe I’ll go there in another post.)  It’s not that such services–even in such abundance–are wrong or bad.  Not at all.  This is likely a good tool to employ to innovate.  My issue with the situation is that it feels like the pendulum has swung wildly off in one direction.  There was no other alternative to choose from:  only flavours of the same service.

That was a gap in the exhibition.  Not a flaw, mind you, but a gap.  The fault, such as there might be, rests at the feet of anybody providing a service or capability that affords a reasonable alternative to open innovation.  Why weren’t you there?

This one is interesting to me, now that we’ve had a bit of time to digest it.  No doubt there are others besides the woman in Ontario who are launching lawsuits against Sony.  And, if there aren’t yet, these will probably get certified into Class Actions pretty soon.  I think Sony’s going to have to do much better than an apology and a little gift.

But that’s not what is so interesting.  It’s something that a colleague noted.  Basically, in many more words, she noted that this data breach caught a lot more people’s attention (at least among the carefree crowd in her house) BECAUSE IT WAS THE CROWD THAT DOESN’T CARE.  Well, that’s not what she said; I’m paraphrasing.  What she meant was that even in her house it had now caught the gamers’ attention and data security/privacy was an issue.  These are the same people that haven’t cared much about any other data breach:  TJ Maxx, CIBC, etc., etc.

Why?

I asked why.  And now I’m going to propose an answer.  To my mind, this is the first data noticeable data breach that has affected the community of people that don’t otherwise seem to care about their privacy.  The generation that is more than willing to post compromising photos on Facebook, expose all their most intimate information to the world, and treat the Internet as though only the obviously “bad” people are “bad.”  The generation that plays online games.  The generation that has yet to feel the significant impact of unfortunate legacy.  This generation had its first encounter with danger online.  And it was danger of the most obvious kind (not that “preying, fake nurse inciting you to suicide” kind):  they’re-messing-with-my-money-during-my-GAME kind.  Games aren’t supposed to be dangerous (although that’s being put to the lie in hockey:  concussions from getting your head banged against ice or plexiglass–who’d have thunk it).  But they are.

So this crowd is cowed.  For the moment anyway.

I don’t have the time or inclination, but recommend that a genearationalist of the sociological or psychology kind should consider this as a spectacular opportunity for at worst a Masters thesis and at best a doctoral dissertation.  There is something here.  I just don’t know what.