Page 83 - Free the Idea Monkey

CONNECTIVITY
Sure, you have smart people. But so does the company down the

street. Simply being smart doesn’t give you an edge. It’s just the price
of entry in Innovationland.

The best, most innovative companies are discovering that their
capacity to create industry-changing products and services is directly
tied to their ability to forge connections efficiently between big brains
not only throughout their organization, as we just talked about, but
also around the world.

It turns out the old networking cliché is also true when it comes
to innovation: it’s not what you know, but who you know.

The two benefits are obvious: you access additional expertise
and you generate momentum. (There is nothing like introducing your
smart people to someone else’s to spark all kinds of ideas.)

But there are other benefits that get overlooked. For one thing,
you gain objectivity. Someone from the outside can say the atomic-
powered buggy whip that your R&D people are in love with is simply
not going to work. In addition, those outsiders can give you a differ-
ent perspective you may desperately need.

Here’s an example. For years, oral care companies have relied
on dentists to help fill their innovation pipelines. These companies
cut their teeth (sorry!) in the professional channels, so naturally they
believe dentists know more about oral care than anyone. After all,
dentists spend their days talking to people about teeth, looking at
teeth, thinking about teeth. So, if “four out of five” dentists think a
new product idea is good, it must be, right?

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