Art of Innovation

1. Make meaning, not money. Entrepreneurs should focus on making their product or service mean something beyond the sum of its components—and the money may very well follow.
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2. Make a mantra, not a mission statement. Bland, generic company mission statements serve no one. Nike stands for “authentic athletic performance.” FedEx is about “peace of mind.” Explain why your organization exists and how it meets customers’ needs and desires.
3. Jump curves. Innovating is harder than just stay­ing a little bit ahead of competitors on the same curve. Most organizations define themselves in terms of what they do instead of thinking ‘what benefit do we provide the customer?’ True innova­tion comes when you jump curves, not when you duke it out for 10% or 15% better.
4. In product design, “roll the DICEE.” Deep (think­ing about features that go beyond the norm), Intelli­gence, Complete (not just a product, but also sup­port and service), Elegance, Emotive (products that generate strong emotions).
5. Don't worry, be “crappy”. Your innovation can have elements of flaws and does not need to wait.
6. Polarize people. If you try to be all things to all people, you often ship mediocrity,
7.Let 100 flowers blossom. Innovations may attract unexpected and unintended customers. Learn who’s buying your product, ask them why and give them more reasons. That’s a lot easier than asking people who aren’t interested ‘why not,’ and trying to change their minds.
8. Churn. Always improve. Listen to customers for ideas.
9. Niche yourself. Find your place. High value, unique products and services is where meaning is made, it’s where money is made, it’s where history is made.
10.Follow the 10-20-30 rule when presenting the idea. That means no more than 10 PowerPoint slides, a limit of 20 minutes for the pitch, and using a 30-point font size in the presentation.
- Abridged from an article “Ten Commandments from En­trepreneurial ‘Evangelist’ Guy Kawasaki” in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, from a talk delivered at the Pennsylvania Technology Conference.