shannon riley - news uk
TRANSCRIPT
2nd February 2016
INNOVATION HAS BECOME CONFORMITY IN DISGUISE
Shannon RileyDIRECTOR, COMMERCIAL STRATEGY & OPERATIONS, NEWS UK
Maria found what might be a good image for this slide
21 slides. 2 points
Tread carefully between gaining knowledge and
succumbing to the latest trend bandwagon
My views are simply yet one more reference
point
My lens... ‘‘So companies have to be very schizophrenic. On one hand, they have to maintain continuity of strategy. But they also have to be good at continuously improving’
Michael Porter
San Francisco
CALIFORNIA
Zurich SWITZERLAND
BerkeleyCALIFORNIA
London U.K.
New YorkNEW YORK
BerkeleyCALIFORNIA
London U.K.
Audit
Audit and M&A Advisory
M&A Advisory, Innovation and proposition development, Management consulting
MBA
Media Strategy
MBA
Corporate StrategyCorporate DevelopmentStrategy & Operations
2003
2017
How can we achieve originality when our approach to innovation has become so mainstream?
With recent events (Brexit, Trump, Russia, Economy) how has the way you think about strategy, use data or think about the future changed most?
DATA, DATA, DATA
Executives love talking about it because it makes
them sound relevant
Business professionals love manipulating it to
validate a decision
Consultants love talking about it so they can sell
haphazard ‘data strategy and / or
solutions’
To those strategists who bemoan the idiot management team that could not implement their perfect strategy, beautifully presented in a 200 slide deck based on robust analysis conducted by expensive analysts in a dark room, I hope you are paying attention.
Data is not the all powerful tool we once thought
Decisions are rarely made based solely on data, no matter how ‘unique’ the patented framework or algorithm you ran it through.
Firstly, humans are emotional beings, yes, even us rational strategy professionals, and secondly, data is never perfect or complete.
Why did people vote for Brexit or Trump?
Did the polling statisticians predict either event?
TRUMP
15%CLINTON
85%vs
Financial Times, FT Poll of Polls, June 23, 2015
So, if it wasn’t more data, information, facts and figures that drove people to make the most significant decision yet this decade, why do we think it will work for our customers and colleagues?
Data is important. But so are emotion, creativity and those fluffy soft things.
Data in itself holds no worth or influence
Outside looking inBut this is more than realising data is not the all powerful tool I once thought it was
Move Fast
Data, Data, Data
INSIGHTINNOVATION
PLATFORMS
Google’s 80/20 rule
– from about 15 years ago…
‘Tour of Silicon Valley’
DigitalFirst
MobileFirst
I care about my consumers, which is why I am spending loads of
VC money on my massive house and to
fund my lifestyle – says the founder before he
folds up shop
** Over-generalisation to make a point - this is the minority but the point to make, is that it has become a growing minority
Outside looking inAnd what about those seen as THE innovators
Some of the world’s sharpest minds are here, but few of
them seem capable of connecting the beggar with a
tattered cardboard sign to their own $4k/month studio apartment, or the software they developed to eliminate low-skilled clerical work – Danny Forston, The Times
I am saving the world
Wear whatever you want so long as it is jeans and a hoodie
INNOVATE Make changes in something
established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas or
products
CONFORM‘Comply with rules, standards or
laws’(of a person) behave according to socially acceptable conventions or
standardsBe similar in form
or type; agree
Conformists Innovators
InnovatorsConformists
Successful innovators go against the direction of travel as the rest of the population..
“… good enough for our transatlantic
friends … but unworthy of the attention of
practical or scientific men.” -- British
Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison’s light bulb,
1878.
“While theoretically and technically television
may be feasible,commercially and financially it is an impossibility, ….”-- Lee DeForest, American radio
pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.
21 slides. 2 points
Tread carefully between gaining knowledge and
succumbing to the latest trend bandwagon
My views are simply yet one more reference
point
Conformists Innovators
InnovatorsConformists
THANK YOU