Trying something new can be nerve-wracking at the best of times; nobody knows what the outcome will be. But don’t let the risks prevent you from innovating. The riskiest thing in a changing and uncertain world is to do nothing.
Innovation: we all know we need to innovate but we also crave certainty.
The news is that nothing is certain. And everything is being disrupted. The only real question is ‘when?’
There are risks attached to innovating; doing something new and therefore unproven, but in an uncertain world doing what you’ve always done is also risky. Somehow we convince ourselves that it is safer or more certain to just do more of the same. It’s not.
Innovating around the use of digital channels is one obvious area. But don’t get side-tracked by bright shiny digital bling. Technology in itself is not innovation. Technology is just another channel. No one lives in a purely analogue or digital world. We all use smartphones, laptops, tablets, and apps. We text, snapchat, WhatsApp, speak on the phone, message on Facebook and have real life face-to-face conversations.
The innovation is how you make the experience of being your customer, or supporting your cause an enriching one and providing inspiring communications that are relevant to your customer or supporter across all the channels that they use.
Organisations that invest in a structured approach to innovation minimise their risk of failure. It’s the dabblers that take a scatter gun approach to developing ideas that are in peril of costly failures.
Five simple tips for minimising risk
1. Have a robust framework for innovation – this in itself will help you to manage risk. (check out The Lucidity Innovation Toolkit over on our FREE STUFF page)
2. Start by really unpicking the problem that you want to solve. Many times I meet organisations that, for example want an app, and when we start to unpick ‘why?’ its not clear. So we go back to basics. Start with the problem.
3. Understand your audience. If you try to innovate without knowing your audience you are taking a big risk. Invest in ways to get insight. You already have some data, my hunch is that you have enough that you can develop some conclusions about your audience that you can then test.
4. Develop ideas about how you solve the problem for your audience. An idea in isolation, which doesn’t solve a problem for your audience is massively risky.
5. Test your idea on a small-scale. Get feedback from your audience. Don’t ask them if they like it, test it – do your audience engage with it?
And finally – take action. The riskiest thing in a changing and uncertain world is to do nothing.
If you’d like some help with your innovation and product development – then drop me a line lucy@lucidity.org.uk.
A version of this blog was first published for European Fundraising Association.