Monday, August 24, 2009

The Behavior of Innovation

Tom Koulopolus, the founder of the Delphi Group, gave a very interesting Keynote address this morning to kick off the ILTA 09 conference.  The topic was innovation and how to drive innovation in our enterprises with less.

A couple of main points stick out to me from his presentation.

Innovation shapes us, we don’s shape it.

This means a lot to me and the way I think about interacting online.  I am constantly watching the way that the internet, and the social media space in particular, change and I adapt the way that I work with the web tools as those changes are made.  This is not just simple UI changes, but very significant ways in how we share and consume information.  RSS, Twitter, URL shortening, search and web analytics all have played a big role in how I am accessing and re-sharing information online.  These innovations are driving the way that I act online.

Behaviors are very, very important.  Watch them change, then you get innovation.

How many times do you hear people say, “we can’t do that here it is not in our culture” or “where do you think you work, that will never fly here”.  Firm culture is often an inhibitor to change at a law firm, and it is this behavior that you have to watch in order to get real innovation in your enterprise.  If you understand the behaviors and can adapt them to move forward you are able to affect real innovation in your firm.  The idea of changing behaviors reminds me of an article I read a while back called the 10 Faces of Innovation.  In the article, the author spends some time talking about the destructive force playing the “devils advocate” can be to innovation.  Changing that one behavior in people can make a big difference in how people share and exchange ideas.

Social networking leads innovation because it creates risk and threatens the status quo.

How important is this for the legal industry?  I already mentioned the discussion on the ethics of social networking, and it has continued to be a hot topic.  In the risk adverse law firm, social networking is going to be all about fighting through endless reams of red tape.  It is going to mean that lawyers at all levels are going to be sharing opinions and commenting on those opinions.  It means that partners are going to look to the work done by associates on wiki’s and blogs and use that work in their own practice.  It means that information about clients and people will start to filter out of their silos to everyone in the enterprise.  That is quite a change for a law firm, it is not the status quo.

It is not about invention, its about the way technology forces us to behave. It's about creating value.

This is the hard one for me, as the IT guy I want everything to be about technology.  However, so much of social media and networking is not about technology.  Technology is just the enabler, and it can be as seamless in our lives as a pen and legal pad.  It really is about making a connection through these tools in much the same way you do when there is no technology more advanced than a hand shake involved.  I heard this a number of times today in the E 2.0 track, it is the connections you make that have the value not the path you took to get there.

I think at the end what I am taking away from the keynote is that the world is changing, people are changing, the way we see the world is changing, it is our job as professionals to look at all of these changes and ask what they are and why they are going to work (or not work) for our companies.

Let me leave everyone with one of my favorite videos from You Tube.

No comments:

Post a Comment