Scanning through the business pages it seems that in the current economic climate innovation is a critical part of a business’ ability to make or break. Research in Motion (pioneers of Blackberry), current boardroom shakeup is partially due to the fact that they didn’t keep ahead of the game with smart phone innovation – much to the delight of Apple and Google who built on their product and forged ahead in the marketplace. Kodak were so consumed with roll film they didn’t look up and consider the possibilities of digital, despite producing one of the first digital cameras back in 1975.

We’re currently involved in a number of big projects which have the enablement of innovation at the heart of them. The traditional approach of following innovation cycles and processes have their place, but the bigger factor to innovative ideas is usually our mindset and attitude towards the new and different. The boundaries of our comfort zone will determine how open we are to stepping into the unknown and our confidence to take others with us as well as our ability to cope with failure. Successful innovations are rarely the product of “attempt number one” to do something different – failure (shock, horror!) is a core part of getting a better answer. But who welcomes ‘failure’ in these economic times?