Google's notions of innovation
John Jay, ECD of our Portland office, visited yesterday and spoke to the agency. It was an inspiring talk, covering many aspects of what's going on in culture just now and the challenges and opportunities Wieden + Kennedy faces for the future. Amongst the many thought-provoking bits and peices he shared with us was the following list of notions of innovation from Google. I thought these were interesting and, though we're in a very different space from Google, it's easy to see how we can usefully apply these to what we do.
9 notions of innovation
If you accept that comms agencies have to innovate constantly or die (because new ideas and new ways to gain competitive advantage are what we get paid for by our clients) then these seem like good principles to adopt. I love the suggestion that everyone is expected to innovate. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking that creativity resides solely in the creative department. And I like number 5. We're sometimes so obsessed with executional excellence that we endlessly defer completion. We could sometimes do with a 'ready, fire, aim' approach to avoid 'great but late'.
Several of the others seem to reflect how we already operate - especially 2 and 8. And all of them are worth considering.
Thanks for sharing. Many truths to that and I often find our agency doing the 'great but late' approach as opposed to winning then over first with the big idea.
Posted by: sugarmedia | June 29, 2006 at 09:16 AM
All good, but I think number 9 is brilliant. Its so simple yet so rarely used.
Posted by: Rob Mortimer | June 29, 2006 at 02:52 PM
True Rob. However, that's were the difference can be found in a good CD versus a great CD. Thank god I have a great CD.
Posted by: SUgarmedia | June 29, 2006 at 09:08 PM