The latest in the series of Firestarters events hosted by Google and curated by Neil Perkin was all about Agency innovation. With 8 speakers each having a 10 minute slot, a great deal of ground was covered. I’ve synthesised my main thoughts and recollections below, but I’d recommend clicking through the links at the bottom of this post in order to get the full goodness of the speakers – particularly since I haven’t attributed specific points to individuals.
The speakers all had a slightly different perspectives, but there were several common threads running across the talks – notably muppets, memes and motherfather fruity language.
One major question was why we should be innovating at all. Lots of great stuff already exists, so why try and change things just for the sake of it? Well, on one hand, customers are constantly evolving their behaviours so innovation is required just to keep up with them. But also, and quite self-servingly, agencies are employed to be the smartest people in the room and so there is an implicit requirement to innovate in order to justify their hiring.
This can understandably be a problem, because if you are an agency specialising in x, then the answer to the business question will obviously be x, irrespective of what the question is. There can also be a tension between “innovation snobbery” and appreciation of the target audience: people in Cannes and Campaign magazine might appreciate the shiny new idea, but the general public may not.
For innovation to be effective, it needs to be beyond an idea. It should be about ends and not means. Innovations should affect our audience’s behaviours, and to do this we need to influence their motivations and opportunities.
To reflect that, innovation shouldn’t be limited to processes or environments, but to entire business models. It shouldn’t be about answering the how, but the what. And even beyond the what, the why: Why are we in this business? What are we trying to achieve? This requires investment, to fully appraise and understand the situation, and to experiment. Because innovation requires bets – strategic risks that may or may not pay off. But before that can happen, the role of innovation needs to be properly defined.
And coming up with a specific definition can be problematic. Innovation is such a wide and fuzzy topic that the disparity between theory and practice can be wide. Which is apt, as it facilitates creative experimentation to close the gap.
The talks were:
- Why innovative ≠ innovation by Pats McDonald of Isobar
- A talk by Anjali Ramachandran of PHD
- Resign Thinking by Antony Mayfield of Brilliant Noise
- A talk by Beeker Northam, a freelancer
- Innovation is a bet not an experiment by Phil Adams of Blonde
- Innovation = Uncertainty by Glyn Britton of Albion
- Mapping media innovation by Graeme Wood of LBi
- A talk by Nadya Powell of Dare
Image credit: Neil Perkin
Filed under: events | Tagged: agency innovation, Anjali Ramachandran, antony mayfield, beeker northam, glyn britton, google firestarters, Graeme Wood, innovation, nadya powell, neil perkin, pats mcdonald, phil adams | 1 Comment »
Curiously Persistent 