How Insider’s Perspective Can Accelerate Innovation

Innovation can be a fickle beast. Sometimes ground-breaking ideas come at the speed of light while at other times, they trickle in at a sluggish pace. To accelerate your innovation and expand your team’s creative thinking, consider tapping into the talents of industry insiders. Industry insiders have a clear understanding of the market landscape, can strength-test existing ideas to identify potential failures versus successes, and can tap into incredible subconscious knowledge centers for fresh thinking.

Before assembling an expert panel or hiring an industry insider, understand not all thought leaders are cast from the same mold. As industry experts often come with a high price tag, you must be discerning and select only those with a consistent, high-quality creative backgrounds — whether that’s forming ideas themselves or curating ideas from a team. Research is critical in determining the ideal talent for your team.

Why Select Industry Insiders?

Has a clear understanding of market landscape — For neophytes, nearly every new project involves a learning curve. Think of your market as a landscape: your junior creative just doesn’t have the whole picture. That’s not to say junior staff are unimportant, but industry insiders see the whole picture in vivid detail. This enables industry insiders to speak authoritatively about any part of the picture.

Understands what works and what doesn’t — Go into a creative brainstorm session where all levels of the company hierarchy are present and see what happens. The young account executive might throw out a couple of “safe” ideas whereas the aspiring creative shoots for the moon with borderline hare-brained ideas. It’s the industry insider that can curate their ideas and elevate them. By striking a balance between safe and hare-brained, industry insiders can authoritatively strength-test each idea and choose those most likely to succeed.

Taps into a rich subconscious — Tom Monahan, a creativity coach, encourages people to work on a new project Friday instead of Monday. Why? Like a good stew, creativity needs time to cook low and slow to blend all of the ingredients. Monahan posits that while your conscious is driving home or brushing your teeth on Saturday, your subconscious is actively working on your project. Industry insiders have subconscious’ overflowing with information to tap into. With their incredible knowledge bank, industry insiders likely have more profound “ah-ha” moments, more quickly and frequently.

What to Look For and Where to Look for Them

Where can you find industry experts? Consider hiring a creative talent agency, such as Creative Circle or The Hired Guns, identifying thought leaders at industry conferences, or searching the blogosphere for innovative bloggers via Technorati. You can even perform a simple search on LinkedIn. Go to the advanced search, select the industry and career level (try VP or director) then search. This should yield a long list of experts to choose from.  If you are well-connected, word-of-mouth can also be surprisingly effective.

Now that you’re found the venue or venues for your talent search, you must be selective. Industry insiders often come with a high price tag. And though they might have rockstar status in their respective industry, do your research and determine whether they can not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. Probe on their track record and do reference checks.  Does their track record illustrate consistently good ideas and award-winning creative and innovation leadership?

It’s Not One Size Fits All

Not all industry insiders provide innovative ideas. Some industry insiders have too much knowledge and are uanble to synthesize and convey their ideas for maximum impact. This is the result from what Dan and Chip Heath call, “The Curse of Knowledge,” or information overload. “Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question,” they write. “His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.” Speaking and thinking in complex terms can inhibit insiders from coming up simple ideas, such as the iPhone.

Industry experts can inject much-needed insight and analysis into project innovation. It’s critical to know whether you need an industry expert and if you do, who can get the job done, how they will do it and what will they accomplish.  We’re surrounded by innovation, so take a quiet Friday and make it a priority.

Image by Omar Z from Stock.Xchng

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