2nd February 2016

INNOVATION HAS BECOME CONFORMITY IN DISGUISE

Shannon RileyDIRECTOR, COMMERCIAL STRATEGY & OPERATIONS, NEWS UK

Maria found what might be a good image for this slide

21 slides. 2 points

Tread carefully between gaining knowledge and

succumbing to the latest trend bandwagon

My views are simply yet one more reference

point

My lens... ‘‘So companies have to be very schizophrenic. On one hand, they have to maintain continuity of strategy. But they also have to be good at continuously improving’

Michael Porter

San Francisco

CALIFORNIA

Zurich SWITZERLAND

BerkeleyCALIFORNIA

London U.K.

New YorkNEW YORK

BerkeleyCALIFORNIA

London U.K.

Audit

Audit and M&A Advisory

M&A Advisory, Innovation and proposition development, Management consulting

MBA

Media Strategy

MBA

Corporate StrategyCorporate DevelopmentStrategy & Operations

2003

2017

How can we achieve originality when our approach to innovation has become so mainstream?

With recent events (Brexit, Trump, Russia, Economy) how has the way you think about strategy, use data or think about the future changed most?

DATA, DATA, DATA

Executives love talking about it because it makes

them sound relevant

Business professionals love manipulating it to

validate a decision

Consultants love talking about it so they can sell

haphazard ‘data strategy and / or

solutions’

To those strategists who bemoan the idiot management team that could not implement their perfect strategy, beautifully presented in a 200 slide deck based on robust analysis conducted by expensive analysts in a dark room, I hope you are paying attention.

Data is not the all powerful tool we once thought

Decisions are rarely made based solely on data, no matter how ‘unique’ the patented framework or algorithm you ran it through.

Firstly, humans are emotional beings, yes, even us rational strategy professionals, and secondly, data is never perfect or complete.

Why did people vote for Brexit or Trump?

Did the polling statisticians predict either event?

TRUMP

15%CLINTON

85%vs

Financial Times, FT Poll of Polls, June 23, 2015

So, if it wasn’t more data, information, facts and figures that drove people to make the most significant decision yet this decade, why do we think it will work for our customers and colleagues?

Data is important. But so are emotion, creativity and those fluffy soft things.

Data in itself holds no worth or influence

Outside looking inBut this is more than realising data is not the all powerful tool I once thought it was

Move Fast

Data, Data, Data

INSIGHTINNOVATION

PLATFORMS

Google’s 80/20 rule

– from about 15 years ago…

‘Tour of Silicon Valley’

DigitalFirst

MobileFirst

I care about my consumers, which is why I am spending loads of

VC money on my massive house and to

fund my lifestyle – says the founder before he

folds up shop

** Over-generalisation to make a point - this is the minority but the point to make, is that it has become a growing minority

Outside looking inAnd what about those seen as THE innovators

Some of the world’s sharpest minds are here, but few of

them seem capable of connecting the beggar with a

tattered cardboard sign to their own $4k/month studio apartment, or the software they developed to eliminate low-skilled clerical work – Danny Forston, The Times

I am saving the world

Wear whatever you want so long as it is jeans and a hoodie

INNOVATE Make changes in something

established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas or

products

CONFORM‘Comply with rules, standards or

laws’(of a person) behave according to socially acceptable conventions or

standardsBe similar in form

or type; agree

Conformists Innovators

InnovatorsConformists

Successful innovators go against the direction of travel as the rest of the population..

“… good enough for our transatlantic

friends … but unworthy of the attention of

practical or scientific men.” -- British

Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison’s light bulb,

1878.

“While theoretically and technically television

may be feasible,commercially and financially it is an impossibility, ….”-- Lee DeForest, American radio

pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.

21 slides. 2 points

Tread carefully between gaining knowledge and

succumbing to the latest trend bandwagon

My views are simply yet one more reference

point

Conformists Innovators

InnovatorsConformists

THANK YOU