Many innovators chase the latest insight. This can be a really bad thing to do! You get pushed around by the latest market fad only to find everyone else is doing it as well. And next year it’s all change so all that investment is wasted as you pursue new directions; it’s too random to be successful.
What you need is a more structured way to plan for the near and long term future. Investing in innovation needs to be in line with where your brand should be going. Echo's strategy assures you that you are paving your way for optimising your brand for the future. Here are 7 principles to get started with:
1. Have a mission-based strategy: You can't decide what to do next unless you know where you are going. By thinking much further out you are able to untether your thinking from today's restraints and think with freedom about what you really want to be in the future. A goal will give you focus.
2. Have a vision and a plan to get there: But this is not just idle dreaming. Visualising this goal will give everyone involved something to aim for. Only then can you build a robust roadmap to get there. You get your innovation for next year, it's just that this time you know it's the first step to a brighter future. Taking time to stop and think is always faster and more productive in the long run.
3. Be brand centred: You can't grow a strong business unless you have a strong brand idea to build out from. The world is changing fast so you need your brand equities to give innovation the best chance of success. Going forward, this foundation of trusted values will then need to evolve to stay relevant in the future. So have a look at your centre first before you go exploring.
4. Manage causal forces: Your future will depend on where you want to go and how you deal with change in and out of your control. From people and politics to technology and commerce, forces for change need to be understood, evaluated and applied to each future scenario. Then they can be used to advantage rather than be causes for concern. Causal forces are both your friends and your enemies - either way keep them close.
5. Innovate for the individual: By designing indivually for a whole matrix of people we can cover all the bases: different characters, situations, places and times. We can use our target individuals as a guide for our thinking and creativity. Immersing ourselves in their world will help us focus, explore and decide what's right for them. Then once we have our ideas we can see if they work for everyone else. It's so much more creative to design for a person than a demographic.
6. Make up stories: Idea generation should be about creating the whole experience so we need a more engaging approach than just "brainstorming". From a bedtime story to a bookclub classic, we all love to immerse ourselves in past, present and future worlds. We can use scenario development to bring people together to happily co-create the complex mix of characters, plots, props and narratives that make up new product and service experiences. Scenarios give context to ideas making them stronger.
7. Keep the future alight: If a future strategy ends up in a report, it will end up on a dusty shelf forgotten. Echo Future Visioning is no a one-off project, it's a continuous process that needs guiding and revising as time goes on. It needs to be kept alive through constant investment of people and resources. Above all, it should be shared and understood; brought to life through vibrant and engaging story-telling.