Lesson For Solution Providers: Look Beyond Technology To Innovate

Midmarket CIOs may deal with technology every day, but when it comes to being creative and innovative to help push their companies forward, technology is merely an enabler, an entrepreneur and evangelist for innovation told some of those leaders Sunday.

“Human creativity is the most powerful technology on this planet,” Josh Linkner said at the opening keynote address of this year’s Midsize Enterprise Summit East, a gathering of nearly 200 IT leaders in midmarket organizations sponsored by The Channel Company, the parent of IT Best of Breed. “Technology should be in place to serve our art, not the other way around.”

Linkner, an author and four-time technology entrepreneur, said creativity is more likely to give a person or company an edge rather than the resources that a large company can use to build and sustain an advantage.

“It’s no longer the big beating the small; today it’s the creative beating the complacent.”

He outlined five “obsessions” of innovators that can apply to both entrepreneurs as well as solution providers and those who run corporate technology organizations.

5. Get Curious

You can figure out a lot of answers by constantly asking such simple questions as “why?” “what if,” and “why not?” he said. Such questions are the “building blocks” of human creativity.

He used an example from an interaction with one of his former clients: United Parcel Service. Linker’s office sent the shipping giant a contract in a FedEx envelope, a seemingly routine function. The only problem is that FedEx is, of course, a major competitor of UPS. The client contact was unhappy, but by asking questions and finding the source of the error, Linkner said he was able to raise the level of awareness of his team to such small mistakes that can create potentially big problems.

When you ask those questions, it’s “unbelievable” how the curiosity can rise to the surface, Linkner said.

4. Crave ‘What’s Next?’

Amazon has thrived on innovation since its founding in 1994. Linkner used the e-commerce giant’s “Dash” button that can be placed on a home appliance such as a washing machine as an example of innovation. Stick the device for a particular brand name – such as a laundry detergent -- on the appliance and connect it to a phone over Bluetooth. When someone runs out of detergent, Amazon will replenish the supply overnight, saving an emergency trip to the store.

That, Linkner said, is an example of figuring out “what’s next.”

That same thinking was applied to Linkner’s hometown of Detroit, which he called a one-time “broken city” after the automobile industry fell on hard times and dragged down the city’s economic fortunes with it.

Focusing on technology entrepreneurship to help drive social change, Linkner opened a downtown building five years ago to house tech startups. At the time, there were no technology companies in downtown Detroit. Today, there are more than 70 in the building.

3. Defy Tradition

“Too often in business we blindly salute the flag of the past,” Linkner told the audience. But he cited several small examples of innovation that can grab someone’s attention. For example, he cited Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, which hired window washers wearing superhero costumes, creating a happy memory for the young patients.

He also cited Kulula Airlines, of South Africa, which painted its aircraft with such messages as “This Side Up” with arrows pointed toward top of the planes.

You want to defy tradition “in order to yield” a great outcome, Linkner said. It doesn’t have to be goofy, “but it has to be authentic.”

2. Get Scrappy

You don’t have to be the neighborhood bully to get your way.

“The real building blocks [to innovation] are grit, determination and tenacity,” Linkner said. “It’s not how big you are.”

You could buy a TV spot during the Super Bowl for about $5 million, he continued, or be creative, such as what an Oklahoma father did to help better connect with his kids, adding creativity to their lunches, which led to the creation of the website Lunchboxdad.com.

Human creativity can make up for the gaps you have in resources, Linkner said. “Solving complex problems can [happen] in unorthodox ways.”

1. Adapt Fast

Creativity doesn’t have to disrupt your industry, Linkner said, so embrace a trend, apply your creativity and adapt it quickly.

Despite all the changes in technology, the opportunity to innovate is “more profound than ever,” Linker said.

“Now is the time to adapt fast. … You could be enjoying a freight train of progress.”