Product Marketing Blog

I tried to ping Twitter for some ideas, but it seems like no one ever works on Fridays.  I did, however, get a bit of brilliant input which really summarized my thoughts as well:

@johnyeng: willing to ask crazy or even stupid questions, as well as open to crazy ideas….

@chad_oliver: requirements for innovation – at least three failures

You’ve heard all the cliches before – thinking outside of the box – willing to take risks – blah, blah, blah.  But looking around The National Summit at all the CEO suits on one side, small business people on another, and students at the back, you start to think that there really is something to all those cliches.  What if everyone started to mingle?  And CEOs were talking to students and small business people?  I think that’s what The National Summit was striving for, but the forum for true conversation within the audience just didn’t materialize.

Companies like to talk the talk, but just how many of them actually foster an environment that allows innovation to happen?  If someone has an idea, does anyone listen to them?  Or do the only good ideas come from the C-suite?

A creative environment doesn’t mean chaos or a lack of hierarchy – it still needs to be clear who is making the final decision.  But I think a lot of companies say they’re innovative (As Dr. John Mao said, “innovation is in danger of becoming the new buzzword of the century”), but don’t actually allow their employees to innovate.

What do you think?

(photo by lepiaf.geo @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: national summit, conference, detroit, strategy, business, innovation

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