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Written by Bethany Clancy
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Tuesday, 08 December 2009 02:08
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In a recent blog post Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/how-to-be-a-great-client.html) gives priceless advice on how to successfully foster innovation within your organisation.
Before you engage an ‘innovator’, or a vendor or supplier, get your house in order. These are some of the key points he raised:
- What do you want to achieve? Is this a realistic target for this project?
- Are your objectives attainable given your resources?
- What are your governance structures? What can and can’t be changed may affect your ability to achieve your objectives.
- Distil your problem down to its very essence; a symptom isn’t the real problem you’re dealing with.
- Don’t just accept that something has to remain the way it is just because that’s the way its always been – it might be hard to change but if it needs to be it will be worth it in the end
- Hire the right person/company for the task – don’t take shortcuts because it will end up costing you more in the long run (both long-term cost savings and potential growth unrealised), not to mention endless frustration…
- Don’t wait until the end of a project to realise that you should have thrashed things out in more detail at the beginning
- Look out for faux innovators – move on if they’re not all that!
- Recognise that innovation is a constant evolutionary process – similar to a website, once you’ve created it, don’t just leave it there to stagnate.
- If something is impossible, it may not always be so…the things that are impossible today just might be part of the future that begins tomorrow
- Last but not least…let innovation happen!
Lots of people have great ideas. The hard part is clearing the way for those ideas to come to fruition and taking that leap of faith to invest in them.
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