1. Andria Long discussed her experience building two innovation centers in Chicago and what organizations should expect and look for when hiring for innovation capabilities. 2. The greatest surprise was how difficult change is for organizations due to people overestimating the value of what they have and underestimating potential gains from change. 3. To build a successful innovation center, organizations must embrace failure, learn from mistakes, and continually evolve or risk being replaced in today's fast-changing market.

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Andria Long
VP Innovation & Consumer Insights
What I have learned building two
innovation centers in Chicago

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What I will share today
What you can expect and what you should hire for?
Capabilities: The most important
Greatest Surprise or WTF moment
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?????????
What you can expect and what you should hire for?1

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Rejection
Most people will tell you what you can't do
"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation
with the bricks others have thrown at him."
— David Brinkley, Television Journalist

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Tenacity
Stephen King received 30 rejections for Carrie
Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school 30 times
Colonel Sanders- famous secret fried chicken recipe was
rejected 1,009 times before they accepted it
J. K. Rowling- 12 publishers rejected her manuscript. One
year later, one publisher gave her a chance, but told her to
keep her day job.

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Positivity/Can Do
Innovation is risky – Failure rates are high

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Ambiguity & Uncertainty

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Analytical Rigor Triangulation

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“The ability to LEARN faster than
your competition may be the only
sustainable competitive advantage
that you can ever achieve.”
Peter Senge – The Fifth Discipline
AND WE ALL
HAVE ACCESS TO
THE SAME DATA

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Disrupt = Challenge = Change

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Have I scared you off?

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Capabilities
What is the core capability I need?2

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Most common mistake is starting here… IDEAS

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The discipline of creating what consumers REALLY want
Solve a Need
Point of Difference
willing to pay for
START
HERE New products fail when
the product DOES NOT
MATCH up with the
consumers needs/wants
How do I do that?

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Is there a need gap that
currently exists?
Is the idea big enough?
Can the brand deliver
against the needs?
Is there a reason to
believe?
Colgate Kitchen
Entrees
Harley Davidson
Perfume
Source: dailyfinance.com
Bottled Water
for Pets
Ask them!

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$6.89 $7.99 $18.84
Observe them!

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The discipline of creating what consumers REALLY want
Commercialization
Make It Make $
Most organizations are designed
for efficiency, economies of scale based on
capabilities
Don’t start here…

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“Failure is success if we learn from it.”
– Malcolm Forbes
 Know what went right and wrong!
• Lessons learned: Don’t repeat the
same mistakes
 Leadership Team
• Need to be able to understand why
 FAIL FAST
Iterate & Learn your
way in
Embrace failure and learn from it

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Innovation does not start with copying what
is already available

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Everything can be made BETTER
And you can charge MORE
Differentiate and Evolve or Die

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Greatest
Surprises
What does it take to build an Innovation Center3

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Which one of these is not like the others

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"Change is hard because people overestimate
the value of what they have—and
underestimate the value of what they may gain
by giving that up."
— James Belasco and Ralph Stayer Flight of the Buffalo (1994)
Entrepreneur

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Launch

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Decades of consecutive growth – winners curse
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The
arrogance of success is to think that what you did
yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.”
-William Pollard

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Change

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Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to
change might be.
– John Wooden

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The downside….risk of losing

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T
Stakes are high if you don’t evolve

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On average, an S&P 500 company is now being
replaced about once every two weeks
At current churn rate, 75% of the S&P 500 will be replaced by 2027
Source: Innosight Executive Briefing 2012

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If you don’t do it, someone else will…
“I believe there is one and only one
source of innovation – pissed off
people.” Tom Peters

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If you would like to learn more:
Andria Long