Where does innovation come from?

Is the belief that innovation usually comes from the outside a justified one?  In The Innovator’s Dilemma, ClaytonChristensen suggests some very successful companies have failed because theydon’t have the internal capabilities needed to adapt to disruptiveinnovation.  Armies of frequent-flying consultantswould probably agree on the value of an external perspective.

Another well-known book on the subject, Scott Berkun’s The Myths of Innovation, debunks manycommonly-held assumptions about innovation, for example “Good Ideas Are Hard toFind,” and “The Best Ideas Win.”  Often,the answer was staring you in the face all along; how often we’ve seen inferiortechnology “win” (Beta/VHS; Netscape/IE; Xbox/Wii).  

 “The Best Ideas Win”is an important myth for IT professionals to heed.  Diffusion of innovation is organic andunpredictable.  Important forces at playinclude network effects (the first fax machine?), complementary products (an iPhonewithout apps?), blind luck, and circumstance—and, in the book of (Steve) Job(s), thecustomer not knowing what they want.

If the prospect of being a “trusted advisor” seemsintimidating amidst the uncertainty of customer adoption and the ceaselesspounding of disruptive waves of innovation, then try assuming a position ofprovocative leadership!

Eric Topol’s CreativeDestruction of Medicine illustrates how important a role technology innovation may cometo play for life sciences.  Advances ingenomics, wireless sensors, internet access and computing power—what Topol calls“superconvergence” that will precipitate “the great inflection of medicine”—alreadyimpact how we discover and develop new cures for serious disease.

I must pause and acknowledge the primacy offunctional innovation over IT services innovation.  In the biopharma sphere, discoveringa cure for cancer trumps enabling an exec to run instant messaging on heriPhone.  Even so, if the reason twopreviously unacquainted scientists cross silos and collaborate to produce thatcure lies in inspired innovation in internal social media, wouldn’t that be cool?

Whether scientist or technologist—or both—there may beprinciples of innovation we can all draw upon. JonahLehrer’s New Yorker article on Groupthink provided grist for themill, illustrating (among other things) the role architecture and neighborhood canhave in generating innovation.  Breakingdown silos doesn’t have to be virtual. Sometimes the answer may really be right in front of you—on the otherside of your cubicle wall.

But let’s not ignore opportunities farther afield.  While superior resources and market demand willsupport the continued spread of new technology in the developed world, themother of invention—necessity—is everywhere in poor countries.  A CDC smartphone pilot in Kenya cost just $60,000, an amount most pharma's technology budget could afford  many times over.

Does innovation have to come from the outside?  Probably not--but it does seem to be important to keep an open mind about possible sources of inspiration.

Celebrating business jargon

I recently heard a piece on NPR, with FT columnist Lucy Kellaway, about the meaninglessness of many ubiquitous business phrases.  As self-appointed author of the Guff Awards, Lucy made some great and funny observations about dubious business usage of the English langage, like the ubiquitous phrase, "going forward."

I agree businesspeople speak far too much in the abstract, leaving their listeners wondering what the hell they're talking about--the cure for which can be found in Dan & Chip Heath's "Made to Stick", a great practical guide for anyone that has to communicate regularly in organizations.  The Heath brothers discuss Elizabeth Newton's Tappers & Listeners study, in which subjects were challenged to tap out a famous tune for a listener to guess.  The study showed that the tappers grossly overestimated the chances that listeners would correctly guess what they were tapping--a phenomenon that illustrates well the difficulty of communicating with others.

In Wharton professor Stuart Diamond's "Getting More", Diamond discusses the importance of "getting to" the pictures others have in their heads.  When I speak, I'm trying to use language to magically conjure the picture in my head in the heads of others.  Since I will always fail to some degree, understanding what is the picture is in their head is key.  The Heaths would, amongst other things, tell you to speak in specific rather than broad terms ("for the next year," vs. "going forward").

But I would like to very briefly stand up in defense of three kinds of universal business metaphor:

1) Sports - "Skating to where the puck is going to be"--Apparently a Wayne Gretsky quote, perhaps popularized as a business phrase by Steve Jobs, this colorful metaphor reflects not just the fact that competing in business involves chasing a moving target, but also that moving your organization is going to take time and effort, so staying one step ahead of--and occasionally stepping around--the competition is essential.

2) Driving - "Moving the needle"--For non-American speakers, the needle in question is the indicator hand of the speedometer--not to be confused with unrelated sewing or nursing analogies!  Frequently used in "what it'll take to move the needle," a phrase that efficiently evokes the value of achieving an incremental improvement in cycle time, and the need to quantify the required change in input to achieve that improvement.

3) Gastronomy - "Eating (someone else's) lunch"--I'm not sure I ever fully understood this phrase until I read in today's New York Times: "'Android and Apple together are eating BlackBerry’s lunch,' said Frank Gillett, a Forrester analyst."  The idea that you can do the hard work of packing your lunch and bringing it to school--in this case, creating the smartphone market--only for someone else to take away your rewards--is both insightful and motivating.

American business culture is full of these colorful metaphors.  I admit that, as an outsider, some of them can be confusing (I still have no idea what motherhood and apple pie is a reference to, and am about to go look it up!)  But if a picture paints a thousand words, then metaphors are a few words with the power of evoking a vivid picture in someone else's head.  Going forward I will aim to use them more!

Translation services--to single-source, or not to single-source?

The translation of content between languages is an essential but non-core process for international businesses.  Multiple sources of text must be converted into local language, whether for employees, regulatory authorities, suppliers, or the public.  Except as a productivity tool for internal use, "machine translation" (a.k.a. Google Translate) lacks the accuracy to replace living, breathing human translators--although translation memory and terminology management are useful productivity tools that also confer quality improvements in the form of reduced variability.

International businesses typically don't have a mature translation capability (defined loosely by the capability maturity model, here adapted by Common Sense Advisory).   Business units may have relationships wtih individual translators, medium-sized local and multinational translation businesses, or large global translation companies like Transperfect or Lionbridge. 

Inevitably, procurement departments will smell the opportunity to single-source and reduce translation rates across the board.  But what impact does single-sourcing have on the three key project variables (quality, cost and time)?  Will a BPO or single-sourced procurement arrangement really result in lower translation costs?  And what might be the impact on quality and timeliness?

Here's a discussion of some of the key forces at play:

Global translation vendors have more resources and therefore better tools
Implementing translation technology like Trados Server involves an investment in the tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention the significant change management and business process redesign to effectively adapt to the new tool.  A global translation supplier with the latest tools may therefore have cost advantages over a smaller business with older or less technology.  But an individual translator can install and use translation memory tools at relatively low cost.

As a result: If volumes exceed the capacity of an individual translator in the time allowed, larger businesses may have superior ability to meet customer turnaround needs (quality and cost held constant); and global translation vendors may have technology advantages over smaller suppliers.

Global translation vendors enjoy economies of scale that enable them to drive down translation rates
A global translation company, if it has good processes, (a) has built more relationships with individual translators than its competitors and therefore found the translators with the most favorable combination of quality and cost; and (b) handles greater volume and therefore has superior buying power to ensure it gets the best rates from its freelance translators.  [Most translation companies price service on a "cost-plus" basis (per word).  Perfect competition theoretically drives prices down to marginal cost, which in this case is the cost of paying the individual translator.  In reality, frictions from information asymmetry, salesperson incentives and perceived inequalities in service quality will result in a price to customer about 20-50% above translation cost.] 

As a result: Global translation companies may have lower prices than local translation companies, but individual translator rates may be similar or lower still.

Working with individual translators and small translation agencies strengthens translation project management through improved project communication
Every instance of translation constitutes a small project.  Many parallels from the project management world hold: expectations of scope and timeline must be clearly communicated from the start; customer requirements must be well understood to ensure translation is performed correctly; knowledge transfer from previous projects and other sources should take place; and conducting post-delivery "lessons learned" will enable enhanced performance on future projects.  Smaller translation companies and individuals will typically do better on most counts because the customer can communicate directly with the translator as frequently as needed to ensure a better and more timely deliverable.  Larger vendors will usually route communications through at least one overworked intermediary, significantly reducing communication effectiveness.

As a result: If translation quality is key, corporate customers should take into account the value of existing relationships with smaller vendors and individuals.

Any supplier transition will inevitably result in a significant (if hopefully temporary) decrease in translation quality
Corporate translation customers should not underestimate the impact of the knowledge base built up with existing translation suppliers.  Translators, relationship managers and project managers all know unique, often unspoken, things about customer needs.  If translation memory assets exist, some of this knowledge can be preserved by transferring the TM files--which are widely accepted to be the customer's intellectual property--to the new vendor.  But any transition will still involve an adjustment and learning period as the new vendor moves up all or part of the same experience curve already scaled by the previous vendor.

As a result:  If quality and timeliness are critical, corporate translation customers should exercise caution switching vendors, and avoid it altogether if the existing relationship is a successful one.

In conclusion:  Where long-term quality of translation is not highly important (and where a passing dip in quality and an increased need of feedback can be absorbed), single-sourcing may reduce translation procurement complexity and cost.  Otherwise, consolidating existing translation sources is likely to result in disruptive inconveniences in the form of lower quality.  Where quality is essential, renegotiating rates with existing vendors is wiser than single-sourcing.

Purpose-driven email

I work for a multinational corporation with over 20,000 employees, and the people I work with spend much of their time in meetings (parodied well here: "Hate making decisions?  Hold a meeting!")

It's gotten so it seems like anyone with an ability to move the organization spends their days in back-to-back meetings thanks to a vicious circle that works like this:

1) People receive more email than they have time to read properly (if at all), much less respond to in a timely fashion.
2) On top of the baseline of existing meetings are piled additional meetings to get answers to questions in unread emails.
3) Calendars get filled to the point where some poor souls only have time in their days to prepare for meetings, go from one meeting to another, contribute to those meetings, and follow up on the decisions made in them (typically by scheduling more meetings). 
4) The response rate to emails drops even further, reinforcing the notion that the only way to get something done is to schedule a meeting.

Not that meetings are by nature inefficient.  Humans talk at a rate of over 100 words per minute.  Few people can type an email that quickly.  And clearly the ability to get real-time feedback on what you're saying--especially through visual cues and tone of voice--is invaluable for certain topics and decisions.  But for shorter messages, or where maintaining a written record of the response is essential, email frees all involved parties to choose the time and place to take in the content and react.

I have a suggestion.

Before you send your next email, take a few moments to metatag it with the role of each recipient on your email.  Use metatags to state the purpose of sending each person your message: "For ASAP read and advice/opinion"; "For information"; "For review and approval"; "Urgent action requested"... you get the picture.  If there is a deadline or loose time frame for the named purpose, create a metatag for that, too.

Metatagging complete, your intended recipients can now filter incoming messages to ensure they are reviewed in order of urgency, as opposed to order of arrival. 

The you spend to do this will (a) clarify the desired reaction from each recipient and (b) result in not a few superfluous recipients being removed as senders realize there is no point including them on the email--both small steps in the war against unnecessary email.  And a reduced volume of email, with clearer expectations on what the desired reaction was, will both result in more timely responses and fewer superfluous meetings.

I've been searching for an Outlook add-in that will enable this kind of email tagging.  I've yet to find one. 
Many in business already achieve some of these benefits manually, e.g. by naming their purpose in the email's subject line.  But that doesn't enable them to specify what is expected of each recipient where an email is delivered to multiple colleagues.
My suggestion might not be the solution, but until we find something, legions of corporate movers and shakers will remain shackled to their calendars, trudging endlessly from meeting room to meeting room--pointing sticks, showing charts, and eating donuts.