In Pursuit of Innovation: Curating the Culture of Ambitious Ideas, Rebellious Talent and Hidden Opportunities

In Pursuit of Innovation
Curating the Culture of Ambitious Ideas,
Rebellious Talent and Hidden Opportunities
Nina Simosko, CEO
NTT Innovation Institute, Inc.

2© NTT Innovation Institute, Inc. | www.ntti3.com
Introduction Letter
Sometimes it seems that nearly every large company on the planet is establishing some sort of
innovation presence in Silicon Valley – be it a full-blown center, lab or a fledgling outpost. Tech and
non-tech companies are here. They’re committing time, dollars and talent in the hope of leveraging
the concentrated startup and academic ecosystems to some varied definitions of success. They’re
betting that being close to the epicenter of others’ ideas and success automatically conveys a benefit.
That’s dangerous and lazy thinking.
What’s the rush and what does an innovation presence really contribute to the business and the
marketplace as a whole? Is all of the recent frenzied activity the result of some kind of corporate
FOMO (“fear of missing out”) around the next big thing? Or is there really something special and
unpredictable that comes out of a well-curated and geographically well-situated set of relationships,
talent and ideas?
It’s not easy to be ‘innovative,’ and we could quickly drift into the territory of clichéd term if we are not
careful.
So what does innovation mean today? Can you create a culture and learn the skills that can serve
as the spark and kindling for the pursuit of something that really matters? Or is it ever so easy to
commit one of the transgressions of innovation and either think too far out into the future without any
purpose, or merely get involved in projects of short-term incremental improvement?
Nina Simosko

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 4
What is Innovation? 4
Chapter 2 5
What is Innovation Culture? 5
Chapter 3 6
8 Elements for Building An Innovation Culture 6
People, Trust and Commitment 7
Wide-Ranging Exploration and Ambitious Ideas 8
Technology Agnostic Attitude and Approach 9
Connected Isolation 11
Finances 12
Timeframes of Divergence and Convergence 13
Prototyping - Doing vs. Talking 14
Risk and Failure 16
Chapter 4 17
Bringing Together Innovation Culture and Process 17
About NTT Innovation Institute, Inc. 18

So what is Innovation? Ask a dozen people and you will probably get a dozen different answers.
That’s part of the problem in the “I’ll know it when I see it world.”
Innovation is not about business as usual. And it’s about much more than ‘invention’ or ‘disruption.’
An invention does not necessarily mean that a market is transformed and that change endures. A
disruption may be about dramatic change, but not necessarily with a purpose that benefits society.
Innovation goes beyond both of these in the discovery, creation and spread of something ambitious
and game-changing in the marketplace that delivers meaningful positive value.
Innovation is about discovering and bringing together ideas from formerly unconnected sources. And
then without a restricted plan, organically shaping them into products and platforms that can have an
unprecedented impact on real and significant needs in business and society. You know you’re on the
track of innovation in business if you begin to feel the level of surprise rising, along with a revelation
that your ‘previously hidden’ ideas actually were always there in plain sight. They were just waiting to
be discovered and brought into the light.
Innovation is a team sport. Never a solitary pursuit. It requires the collaboration, debate and backing
of disparate organizations and people who may not have ever known about each other before.
Innovation requires serendipity. The strategy, however, cannot be to simply throw-out ideas and see
what emerges from the ensuing chaos. Innovation requires the alignment of culture and intention with
business ambitions.
So how do you create an environment where the possibility exists to envision and create something
of deep value that is completely new and different - far beyond the limits of incremental change and
evolution?
There is no cookie cutter process to pursuing innovation. It cannot be boiled down to a simple system
or prescription. The focus must be on culture, and then the practices and elements that help to form it.
Chapter 1
What is Innovation?
“Innovation is serendipity,
so you don’t know what
people will make.
-
Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation
Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios

Innovation cultures are truly challenging to define, create and support. Culture is both the creative
spark and sustaining fuel of innovation. It has a substance and subtlety that goes far beyond a simple
list of tasks, timelines and activities.
While creative brainstorming, effective team building, blazingly fast prototyping and deep technology
expertise are important methodologies of innovation, they are mere commodities when compared
to the value of the right culture and the alignment of the people and passion that culture embodies.
Above everything else, it is often the intensity of people’s passion for innovation that is the genesis for
the processes. A business’ culture must support and nurture that above all else.
While you can’t really codify, prepackage or impose a culture that fosters innovation, you can
understand some of the important contributing elements and considerations. With those in mind, you
can decide how to make then relevant and aligned with your business and resources.
Chapter 2
What is Innovation Culture?
“Innovation comes out of
great human ingenuity and
very personal passions.
-
Megan Smith, CTO of the United States

While not being prescriptive, in order for those new to the game to secure a chance at being
successful innovators, these are a number of skills and attitudes I believe companies need to
embrace and integrate into their DNA. These are:
1. People, Trust and Commitment
2. Wide-Ranging Exploration and Ambitious Ideas
3. Technology Agnostic Attitude and Approach
4. Connected Isolation
5. Finances
6. Timeframes of Divergence and Convergence
7. Prototyping - Doing vs. Talking
8. Risk and Failure
Chapter 3
8 Elements for Building An Innovation
Culture

As I said earlier, innovation is a team sport while invention can be a solitary pursuit. But I am not
referring to just any kind of team. The teams involved in innovation need to have some particular
characteristics and relationship to the overall business organization and marketplace. Innovation team
members should:
• Be dedicated only to exploration of ideas without any responsibility for developing product or
having any business applicability.
• Be invited not only from inside the enterprise itself, but from its various operating companies,
academia, startup CEOs and CIOs, current customers, and even the competition.
• Be committed to collaborate and the open exchange of information to those inside and outside the
team.
• Participate and engage with the greater innovation community without any expectation of return
by sharing learning, resources, and support of fellow explorers in hackathons and technology
challenges.
Chapter 3: 8 Elements for Building An Innovation Culture
People, Trust and Commitment
“People exaggerate the
importance of the initial
idea, whereas, talent is rare.
-
Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation
Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios

While I agree with Ed Catmull’s point on the importance of true talent, creative ideas are a very close
second. It is paramount that the talent of the team has a great ‘radar’ for uncovering those hidden
ambitious ideas that everyone else has missed – or not even searched for in the first place.
Idea reconnaissance must be ongoing, intense and embrace surprise over rationality. In the
innovation efforts of many large enterprise organizations, they limit their opportunities from the
beginning by the way they frame the search for ideas – periodic under financial and competitive
pressure, in alignment with the immediate status quo, found inside their own four walls, with a clear
financial ROI. That’s the makings of a crippled effort from the word ‘go.’
So get out into the world. Great ideas don’t come to you. But they are out there just waiting to be
found and embraced. You need to be out asking questions, and more importantly - listening.
Wide-Ranging Exploration and Ambitious
Ideas

Many companies who violate the innovation consideration of ‘wide-ranging exploration’ replace
it with one that narrows their pursuits to working directly with their current hardware and software
technologies or business relationships. They frame the search for ideas as ‘innovate BUT use X.’
Innovation by definition is about ignoring limits in the early stages. It rewards those who take an
agnostic attitude and approach to their explorations. I would go so far to say that this is about being
agnostic to the degree that the innovation you pursue may even upset one of your own operating
companies.
An agnostic approach to innovation requires true business bravery.
Agnostic Attitude and Approach

Participating in hackathons is a powerful way to give a company’s own internal
teams a new playing field for exploring ideas largely unfettered by corporate
directives and product roadmaps that sit behind the “Innovate but use X”
approach.
The rapid ideation and prototyping demanded by hackathons’ short
timeframes of 24-72 hours also demands the creative concepting and use of
off-the-shelf technology, layered in with some creative code hacking.
In a recent “Future of Healthcare” event, the winning results of a team from
NTT i3
and NTT R&D relied on a creative combination of hardware and
software technology from both Fortune 500 companies and startups, as well
as their own company’s IP.
Hackathons and a Brand
Agnostic Approach to
Innovation
PhysicalSpeech
EKG
User
Telemedicine
Hitoe
Amazon Echo Microsoft Kinect
A prototype for early detection and timely intervention
for strokes – hacking together hardware, software
and data from different technology companies.

So how can you initiate and support an agnostic approach to innovation when this can be at odds
with the current business plans of the ‘mother company?’
Physically and geographically sequestering it away as a separate ongoing unit is the first step.
The constraints of daily business operations should not color the palette of an innovation team.
But location is not enough. Attitude must follow; not only from those in the innovation center, but
from those in the larger organization with whom it is connected and who control the purse strings.
Innovation efforts and teams need to be isolated from any timeframes of financial reporting, goals and
requirements.
Connected Isolation

Companies who want to support and derive benefit from innovation teams must be willing to invest
in imagination, and not just invention. That means they have to accept periods of time and certain
pursuits in which the phrase ROI never is spoken and never has meaning.
There needs to be openness to supporting efforts where the return is expansiveness and creativity,
not market share and margins. This can be a significant challenge in a world where the financial
pressures of quarterly calls and board meetings drive the decisions of many business executives.
Finances

While a new attitude to financial support has to be developed in supporting innovation efforts, the
same is true for how an enterprise looks at time. The early exploratory phases of innovation require
an ability to embrace divergence and expansion of ideas. This is often contrary to the thinking and
experience of those with deep product development backgrounds who are traditionally focused on
defining and limiting features and adhering to strict schedules.
When embarking on the path of innovation, know that time often expands and that the length of the
journey from idea to market is not only unknown, it is not guaranteed.
Timeframes of Divergence and
Convergence
“Divergent thinking is the
route, not the obstacle, to
innovation.
-
Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO

Prototyping is the innovation practice where divergence and expansion of ideas meets convergence
and experimentation of specific implementations. The prototype moves us beyond the blank pages of
unbounded and free flowing ideas - and begins an exploration of a set of iterative implementations.
This is when we begin to move from thinking into doing and building, but always understanding that
the revelations of a particular prototype might send us right back to the initial idea phase again.
When we are in the process of prototyping, we value teams and contributions for making, and not
talking.
Prototyping - Doing vs. Talking
“Do or do not. There is no
try.
-
Yoda in Star Wars

The mining industry is in desperate need of a technology intervention. The
manner in which the industry currently monitors the quality of air and air/gas-
related safety for miners is not all that far removed from the days of “canaries
in the coal mines.”
In many underground mines today, a person is sent out every hour to traverse
the mine and manually document the status of oxygen levels, dangerous
gases, and escape routes. This is then recorded on physical boards at a
central location. This methodology does not allow for any real-time monitoring
and automated response to changes in conditions, and it also requires an
individual to be placed in a potentially hazardous situation.
The industry question then becomes:
“ How can we automate monitoring and generate related alerts and ventilation
on demand?”
An innovation team from NTT i3
recently worked with the Colorado School of
Mines on this very question, using design thinking and rapid prototyping to
quickly move from the identification of the human need to a proof of concept
prototype and deployment.
To concept, build, test and deploy the prototype over a period of a few months,
the team of engineers and mining experts used a variety of hardware and
software technology from startups, the Open Source Community, and their own
internal IP.
Prototyping in the World of the
Industrial Internet of Things
Controlled
Environments
Sensors
Interface
Sensors
Networking
Device
Local NetworkCloud
Data
Data
DataData
Command
Command
Gases
Air Flow
Doors
Raspberry Pi
Hardware
Home Genie
Software
Fans
Motor
Control
ESE
ESI
Cognito Software
ESE
ESI
Cognito
Server
Data
Inexpensive and rapid prototype link a company’s legacy
hardware sensors with a new intelligent control network built
from off-the-shelf technology and some creative hacking.

There is plenty that is said and written about embracing failure in Silicon Valley. “Fail often and fast.
Break things.” The innovative enterprise needs to move beyond these sayings as mere platitudes
and maxims. When it comes to failure, the enterprise must be willing to accept this in ways that
are unpalatable to many large US corporations who still taut success as the harbinger of ‘winning.’
If innovation is important, the enterprise must be completely committed to radical change and
reinvention inside the company – without any guarantee of outcome.
If you are not willing to write off millions, if not tens of millions of dollars, in efforts that don’t translate
directly into the marketplace, then I would question you even thinking about formally pursuing an
innovation imperative. It says to me that you are not ready to jump into the deep end of the pool.
Risk and Failure
“So I think the good news
is that even though the
world is extremely complex,
what you need to do is
very simple. I think it’s
about stopping this notion
that you need to plan
everything, you need to
stock everything, and you
need to be so prepared, and
focus on being connected,
always learning, fully
aware, and super present.
-
Joi Ito, Director MIT Media Lab

An organization that embraces both the values of intention and serendipity sets the stage of
possibility for innovation.
Onto this stage, you can bring the creative kindling of the right culture, diverse and rebellious talent,
appropriate resources, and those ambitious and once hidden ideas.
When these elements meet, they create the initial sparks of innovation – the innovative thinking and
doing that can eventually lead to the creation of something that can rewrite the rules and even upend
the status quo.
In order to create, and not just talk about, something like that – something that is truly remarkable–
we need to add the ingredient of “innovation process” to that of “innovation culture.”
This is what we address in the companion book on “Full Lifecycle Innovation – Moving from the
Ambitious Idea into the Marketplace”
Bringing Together Innovation Culture and
Process
Chapter 4

NTT Innovation Institute, Inc. (NTT i3
) is the Silicon Valley-based innovation center for NTT Group, one
of the world’s largest ICT companies. NTT i3
works with established enterprise companies interested
in investigating new approaches to evolving into technology-first, digitally-driven businesses.
Likewise, NTT i3
partners with early stage digitally-native businesses looking to expand their presence
and challenger advantage.
NTT i3
embraces a unique full lifecycle approach to innovation combining best practices of open
innovation research, applied R&D expertise, and agile product development. Collaborative open
innovation elevates and expands enterprise companies’ internal conversations and explorations
around digital innovation opportunities. Applied R&D expertise then brings focus and practical
application by translating those ambitious ideas into the development of new technology platforms,
products, and practices.
To accelerate the movement of innovation from initial idea to marketplace implementation, NTT i3
combines its access to the significant global infrastructure resources, investment fund, research
knowledge, and trusted long-standing customer relationships of NTT Global with its own software
startup expertise and deep enterprise relationships.
About NTT Innovation Institute, Inc.

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