Do you feel that pulse?!

It may be the bias of my passion for the marketing and advertising business that drives me to enthuse about the innovation – or at least the potential to innovate – that is at the heart of it.

New product development, restaging a dated product, generating brilliant and breakthrough creative, discovering new markets, and so many more opportunities to innovate: the possibility for building something truly novel is a rush, isn’t it?

A recent Forbes article about Lexus developing the prototype of a Hoverboard caught my innovation-loving attention.  And it prompted some questions:

• How good are organizations really in their ability to innovate?
• What innovations that could be solutions to serious problems might be gathering dust in organizations across the country? Around the world?

The Lexus Hoverboard: this is a product concept that grabs the imagination, doesn’t it?

From the Jetsons to Back to the Future, the concept may not be new, but Lexus has a prototype.  That seems pretty gutsy.  How many organizations will invest the resources and take the risk to develop a product that is so “out there”?

Forbes quoted Lexus EVP, Mark Templin, reflecting on the culture that underlies this commitment to innovate:

“At Lexus, we constantly challenge ourselves and our partners to push the boundaries of what is possible. That determination, combined with our passion and expertise for design and innovation, is what led us to take on the Hoverboard project. It’s the perfect example of the amazing things that can be achieved when you combine technology, design and imagination.”

These are words of inspiration… “Push the boundaries”…“Passion”…”Combine Technology Design and Imagination”…and it’s my sense anyway that we see and hear them a lot.

It may be silly to ask how many companies express words like these and then also put them into action.  How many Hoverboard prototypes do you see?

One answer may be in a survey The Center for Creative Leadership conducted with its 500-client panel in 2014 about the need they see for innovation and their ability to deliver it:

• 94% of respondents said innovation is a key driver of success.
• Only 14% felt confident about the ability of their organization to drive innovation effectively.

Also of interest, the Association for Talent Development recently published an article, Stuck in the Middle: Why Innovation Dies and What to Do About It.  If creativity might be getting stuck in your organization, look at some of the ideas it offers for letting innovation break free.