big companies are great at killing new
ideas is a good reason for this leaders
and large organizations have a
responsibility to create momentum they
create this momentum by getting
everybody rowing in the same direction
employees in these companies who
reinforce that momentum through
evolutionary innovation are embraced by
the company this is evolutionary
innovation
it's a torrent of energy it's all
flowing in the same direction and it's
flowing towards improving the products
that a company makes it sells to its
customers big companies are pretty good
at this it's what got them to grow big
but there's another type of innovation
revolutionary innovation it's that
little stream branching off from the
river revolutionary innovation departs
from existing products and existing
customers and so it can be riskier
because there's no guarantee that it's
going to be valuable or practical yet
revolutionary innovation has the
potential to open up new business
opportunities with new types of
customers so big companies need a
mixture of both yet so often the
revolutionary part ends up being
acquired from outside so why is this
it's not that new ideas don't exist
within big companies in fact there are
often rebels within these companies who
have ideas that go against the momentum
but it can be frustrating for them to
gain traction with their idea and
frustrated rebels don't stick around and
even will leave go to startups or start
their own but you know 90% of startups
fail so many of these rebels weave in
vain but it is precisely these rebels
these types of people that big companies
need to reinvent their companies from
the inside it's my belief that finding
the right external innovation partner
can make the difference between a
company killing a rebels idea and that
rebels idea taking
hold in the company this is me and my
friend and co innovator Alan Braun 13
years ago it's three o'clock in the
morning
we're reheating leftover Indian food in
the sink we're using the hotel's head
boards as desks but we're happy because
we've got something working we've got
something working we're gonna show it to
our customer in just a few hours in the
morning and we're gonna get feedback we
were on a mission to create a web-based
application to help telecoms providers
keep their networks healthy I was
psyched about Web Apps from this
experience because I got to see how they
could really work in a real enterprise
three years later the company that we
work for was acquired into a much bigger
company and in the first couple of weeks
I was asked to rewrite that web-based
application to be a desktop application
now I could understand why that was the
big company had a lot of momentum behind
desktop apps and their customers did too
but you know I knew that that was going
to kill my web application and the world
was moving towards Web Apps not a way
you know it was that experience that I
had with that innovative customer over
those previous three years they were my
innovation partner and that experience
gave me the credibility to fight for web
applications in the big company and this
is what helped convince the big company
not to kill this rebellious idea and you
know what eventually I got support for
it so what if there was an efficient way
for rebels and big companies to be
matched up with smaller companies who
they may not yet have commercial
relationships with so they could
collaborate on co-innovation think of a
system like an online dating system
think of your favorite one for me mine
was JDate I think that worked out pretty
well for me don't you think so
this system would allow rebels and big
companies to browse for their potential
innovation mates they'd be to be matched
up with their closest matches and when
there's mutual interest they'd be put in
touch to have an innovation date so
think of an online personals ad
cognitive computing rebel in fortune 50
company who wants to detect shoppers
personalities seeks a midsize online
clothing retailer for co-innovation I'll
bring the data scientists you bring the
data no strings attached for a year so
our ruble would start with three pieces
of information who they are in their
vision who they're looking for
and a relationship timeline so first our
ruble would start with an eye-catching
description of their innovative vision
now this isn't that different from what
inventors do on crowdfunding sites like
Kickstarter the difference here though
is our ruble is not looking for funding
from the outside they're looking to find
their innovation mate second the rebel
would specify what's the criteria that
they're looking for in their innovation
mate what kind of industry should their
innovation may be in well in the example
that we were just talking about a rebel
is looking to understand shoppers
personalities based upon their online
interactions so their innovation mate
needs to be in e-commerce how big should
their innovation mates company be well
if it's like a 10 person company really
small nobody really has time to spend on
Co innovating with some external company
everyone's got three jobs so our rebel
probably needs to find an innovation
mate in a slightly bigger company say 50
to 100 people the reason why being
specific about the criteria is important
is that it increases the chances of
there being alignment in their
innovation goals third a rebel would
specify a relationship end date now
specifying an expiration date in a
romantic personals ad may seem a bit
seedy but in this case it's actually
just being honest because you know in a
certain amount of time one of two things
will happen either the innovation will
be successful and the company will want
to sell it to other customers and that
in itself will change the nature of the
innovative relationship or the
innovation will fizzle in which case the
rebel and their innovate
you may need to go on with their lives
now being upfront about the end date is
the big company more confidence to let
their rebel experiment freely because
they don't have to worry about having to
bail out a failed project if it doesn't
work out so how it all parties here
benefit well the rebel would get to
develop their idea with a real
interested customer the big companies
would get to see their rebels stick
around maybe even have a new stream of
customers that come out of it and
smaller companies would get to tap into
the deep expertise that's within bigger
companies in this future big companies
wouldn't have to be so good at killing
new ideas because they're rebels would
be more successful at growing them thank
you