Be An Intrepid Marketer – Recommendation No. 24
I had the distinct pleasure of participating in a workshop featuring Jatin DeSai, one of the nation’s leading innovation consultants.
Because I have a client active in the innovation space, I am slowly getting myself up to speed on innovation, but something clicked today with Mr. DeSai.
There are a lot of definitions of innovation – it is one of those overused words in the business world, and I think a majority of people use it incorrectly.
But until today, I never really considered innovation as part of the creative process. Oh sure, now I couldn’t see it any other way, but I finally had my “ah ha!” moment today.
Here it is: “Creativity is generating original, novel ideas. Innovation is putting those ideas to work and getting results.”
That’s it. If you understand this, you get innovation. Now, applying that to my marketing world…
Above is one of my favorite drawings from gapingvoid.com, Create or Die. This is another way, in my opinion, of saying the same thing as DeSai. You must be creative and implement value-enhancing ideas – or your organization will die.
This is a must with your marketing. Without it, your marketing will not distinguish you from your competition. But don’t be intimidated. While it isn’t easy, it isn’t impossible. As DeSai said in his presentation, you need to dedicate time for clear thinking, generate lots of ideas, identify a few of those ideas that make the most sense, and implement them. The hard part is deciding to start the process in the first place.
While innovation is considered a success when those ideas produce positive results, know that you won’t always achieve success. But you’ve got to keep fostering an environment where you can be creative – and you might land on the one idea that could prove to be the life-changing, industry-changing innovation you’ve been dreaming about.
It all starts with a little creativity…