I’ve been thinking through this and whilst part of it is obvious, it really makes me challenge where we spend our time and our process.
If you are starting a new cafe, law firm or even media blog, it’s not a startup. You know your business model, it’s just whether you can execute on it or not.
The reason why pure new technology development is innovation or not is whether you are building something with a known problem and solution. Even if it’s an improvement, is it really an innovation? Maybe it comes down to how much change it makes? Hmmm.
But creating new value is much harder innovation. It’s when the problem isn’t really known, let alone the solution. The technology is the means to the end, but only one of the means and definitely not the end in itself. You can tell if this is being confused when an entrepreneur starts talking about their solution before telling you the problem and who has that problem.
I will think upon it further. Love to hear your thoughts.
Would love to hear how you guys are doing it with your clients and the success you’ve had in communicating it to them. We take a very customer experience approach to delivering, creating and capturing the value proposition. However we’ve found the most businesses take a very product centric approach. How have you guys reconciled that dilemma? We preach business model innovation using Osterwalder’s canvas at the MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts and it’s been a great success working with clients outside the classroom. Would love to come share the knowledge if you find it valuable.