Make us more Innovative: Critical Factors for Innovation Success [Paperback]

Jeffrey Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 14, 2008

While many books have been written about innovation, most are focused on advocating the importance of innovation and don’t provide a roadmap to help build a sustainable innovation capability. Make Us More Innovative was written to fill that gap. This book was written for the innovation manager or chief innovation officer who has been instructed to “make us more innovative” and who needs a roadmap to help him or her accomplish that task. This book will help you:

• gain credibility quickly
• identify the key challenges in your organization
• build a successful innovation capability in less time and with better results

Make Us More Innovative is a valuable tool for any business hoping to understand and create a culture of innovation. Jeffrey does a great job of laying out all the steps that will help you make your innovation initiative a reality.
Roger von Oech

Make Us More Innovative provides a thoughtful, step by step approach for any team seeking to improve their innovative capabilities. This is a book that will be a useful resource throughout your innovation initiative.
Joyce Wycoff

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeffrey Phillips is VP Marketing for OVO, a leading innovation consulting and software development firm. Jeffrey leads a team of innovation consultants who work with OVO’s clients to create sustainable innovation capabilities. The OVO team helps firms generate and manage ideas more effectively and launch new products and services in less time with greater return.

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (February 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595484255
• ISBN-13: 978-0595484256
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,637,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a lead innovation consultant for OVO, and have been working in the innovation space for close to ten years. I'm particularly interested in helping large organizations create a repeatable innovation capability - what we call an innovation discipline. I've helped organizations identify trends and build trend spotting and competitive intelligence systems, synthesize trends and determine what the trends may mean for future business by building scenarios. I've led face to face and distributed brainstorms following some of the best practices we've aggregated over the years, many from the Creative Problem Solving institute.

I've helped define innovation processes and teams and worked with firms to change their corporate cultures to embrace innovation and include an innovation component in evaluation and compensation. Further, as open innovation has become more and more important, I've helped firms create strategies for working with partners and customers to speed innovation.

Prior to working as an innovation consultant, I have led sales and marketing efforts for several consulting and high tech software firms. I have an MBA in marketing from the University of Texas and a BS in Engineering from the University of Virginia.

In my spare time (who are we kidding?) I watch my kids participate in competitive soccer, cross country and swimming. The good thing about this is that since I grew up playing baseball and football, there's really little I can do on the sidelines except encourage them.

I write an ongoing newsletter on innovation topics for OVO and I also write two blogs - Innovate on Purpose about innovation and Thinking Faster, which is about managing in the modern workforce.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The rubber meets the road June 16, 2008

By Tim Hurson

Format:Paperback

It seems as though almost everyone is talking about innovation these days, but in my experience, very few know how to really achieve it. Yes, you need ideas. But then what? How do you move those ideas through your organization, many parts of which want nothing to do with the change you're proposing? How do you evaluate your idea's potential? Its risks? How do you decide that one idea is more useful to pursue than another? How do you build commitment to your idea? Phillips provides the answers -- with a clear, straightforward, sensible approach for transforming ideas into products, processes, or new business strategies. If you've ever had the experience of seeing your ideas dead-ended before they've been given a chance to live, you need to read this book. Phillips has done a masterful job.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Resource February 22, 2008

By Reji Puthenveetil

Format:Paperback

Innovation is not always easy, but having a defined approach and proven methodology makes the effort much more effective. Make Us More Innovative provides a roadmap for organizations desire to find ways of finding new customers and new opportunities with current customers. The best part is that the guys at OVO have actually `been there and done that' and we get to benefit from that experience.

A number of books are available on innovation, but the value of this one is that it not only provides clear direction on what to do - it also points you in the direction of other resources that might be available. This book is a definite requirement for people who are involved in trying to make new things happen within an organization.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Handbook for People Tasked with Making an Organization Innovative March 1, 2008

By Dean Hering

Format:Paperback

If you are tasked with making your organization more innovative then this is the book for you. I've read a ton of innovation books--many provide examples of companies and then, assuming you are in the same situation with the same market conditions with the same people at the same time with the same resources, you figure out how to apply the lessons. Make Us More Innovative provides step by step instructions for actually organizing and executing an innovation program. Each chapter provides the background for the why of what you should do and then provides you with the actions you should take.

The author covers aligning your program with your strategic objectives; getting the management on board; communicating what the organization will be doing and how that affects everyone; how to implement an idea management system; practical suggestions for effecting change in your culture; and more. He provides an overview for the order you should take and an idea of typically how long you should expect that step to implement. Each chapter provides the information necessary for you to apply best practices in your organization. If your upper level management needs to see a plan for an innovation program and understand the whys, hows, and whens, you will find the information here.

If you want to actually make your organization more innovative instead of just reading about other innovative organizations, I highly recommend this book to you to you. Get it, read it, and implement it if you want to treat innovation as a business process in your organization.