If you are innovating a process, a service, or a product, and your market doesn't care, it doesn't really matter. Here's a four point checklist to help make your next innovation successful...
Remember Your First iPhone?
Think about when you bought your first iPhone. My switch happened a couple of years ago. I'd been putting it off, being a baby boomer who is mildly technically challenged, I didn’t want to buy another new “toy,” have to learn how to use it, feel frustrated at buying a piece of technology for a high price and only use 10 % of its capability, something I had done for decades with computers and software.
Finally, the timing was right. I was eligible for an upgrade. People I knew were raving about their iPhone. My daughter needed a replacement phone, so I gave her my Blackberry Tour, and I took the plunge!
1. “Whoa!” – I stopped everything I was doing on a Sunday to buy an iPhone 4 from Verizon, transfer the service and the data, especially my contacts and calendar (and boy did I breathe a sigh of relief when I saw them all come up on the iPhone). This was not pleasant for me and there were many points, accompanied by my fleeting spells of nausea and dry mouth, where I felt like canceling the whole process and going back to my Blackberry. But I persevered and passed the point of no return, where the hassle of going back to what I had, was more than the anxiety of continuing forward.
2. “Wow!” – The next day, glad but not yet thrilled about my iPhone, I visited an Apple store and took a free intro to iPhone sessions. Within twenty minutes I was able to use more iPhone features than I had ever learned on my Blackberry. The capper was finding the address of the house I grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. I looked at the google image and in an instant, seeing my house from so long ago brought back a flood of memories.
3. “Hmmm…” – As I drove home from the Apple store, I savored my conquest over the inadequacy I felt a mere 90 minutes earlier. I began thinking of all the many ways I could use it... apps, MobileMe, calendar sync, I could do it all, and I was hooked!
4. “Let’s Go!” – You can guess what happened next. I started telling everyone about it, "You've got to check this out!"
Whoa, Wow, Hmmm, Let's go. That's what makes innovation... innovation.