innovation is demanding- fireplaces and harry potter

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T14:10:24Z

Yesterday, Gizmodo broke the news of a fireplace manufacturer installing iPod functionality into their latest line of luxury of fireplaces and at the same time, Harry Potter’s publishing house, Bloomsbury, announced that it would be looking to make acquisitions following a 74% drop in pre-tax profits.

Both these stories suggest that it’s easy to get fat and lazy; either you borrow someone else’s innovation, take it into a new category call it your own, hoping people will respond or you continue to milk the same franchise until time runs out.

The problem with both these initiatives is that they lack fundamental foresight.

Surely, execs at Bloomsbury must have been aware that not having any Harry Potter books to publish would result in profit and revenue declines.

Influx would have loved to be in the meeting with the fireplace manufacturer where the embedded iPod was given the go ahead.

Did anyone question it?

How did they justify it- everyone’s doing it- so we should?

In the end, this is all about timing.

Had the fireplace manufacturer come up with the idea two years back; there’s a slight possibility it would not have been ridiculed.

Had Bloomsbury started thinking about acquisitions and finding the next Harry Potter, three years ago, things might have been different.

The time to look for the next new thing is right after you had your first success.

You shouldn’t wait till problems strike to innovate.

Innovation is not just a way out of a problem; it’s a continuous process to ensure that you don’t get into trouble in the first place.

The secret is to never to stop and you don't get so drunk on success that you press “pause” on the innovation engine.

Influx Insights Tag Feed: fireplaces

innovation is demanding- fireplaces and harry potter