If you’ve read this blog before, you probably realize I work for a pretty unconventional company. I mean a lot of places would have fired me for a lot of the stuff I’ve written, not to mention for posting the sexy picture of myself at the top of the page. But, that’s the beauty of the way we do things around here. While most companies have rules just to have rules, we simply have expectations that need to be met.

For example, I’m sitting in my living room with just boxers on writing this. Today I felt it would be more efficient for me to do my writing away from the office. I know myself well enough to realize that for every two minute office interruption, I spend about twenty minutes messing around until I can get back into the rhythm of what I was doing.

Typically that’s not a big deal because most of what I do involves a high level of interaction with my team. When it comes to writing though, I need long stretches of quiet so I don’t lose my thoughts.

Of course when I told people I wasn’t coming in today, they all gave me a hard time, especially since it’s Friday. But as long as I have something to show for it besides a hangover on Monday, it’ll be worth it to my boss.

I realize most of you wouldn’t be able to get away with stuff like this at your job, but I bet you do know how you work best for a given situation. Playing to your individual strengths is the key to becoming a good innovator and separates progressive thinkers from mindless workers.

Whether it’s going to Starbucks to change your scenery or browsing shopping centers to get inspired, you can’t expect to be innovative by sitting in front of your computer all day. Unless your boss is a moron, they should respect your new approach and be willing to make a compromise with you.

With that said, I gotta go. It’s almost time for Oprah.

Before I go though, I have a nerdy technology question I need answered…

Do any of you know how to set up an email notification system for people who want to subscribe to my blog without doing it through RSS? I’m using Wordpress to host my blog and my template doesn’t support widgets, which has been a big reason why I can’t get it to work. Whoever gets me the answer first gets a special prize (don’t believe me; that’s an empty promise.)

I have to vent a little bit. I’m a coffee drinker, so every morning when I get into the office I brew a pot.

We’ve got a Cuisinart Brew Central 14-cup maker. In terms of pot size and speed of brewing, it’s great. I especially love the thermal carafe it comes with so I don’t have to warm my cup up in the microwave later in the day.

My problem is the damn lid on the carafe. It’s supposed to keep the air from getting in and turning the java sour. In doing that though, it limits the amount of coffee that can flow out the spout. So, you either get a dribble out or you get it spilling out of the top of the lid. To make matters worse, the carafe has an inner lip to it that makes it damn near impossible to pour the last cup out.

Working for the company that I do, I have to ask, What were you thinking Cuisinart? Apparently consumers had no contact with this product before you put it on the market. And if they did they were either a) given a full pot and asked to pour slowly or b) dumbasses.

Look, I don’t care how you came up with the coffee maker, but you gotta have some consumer interaction before you put it on the shelves.

Charley, our video assistant, clued me into an article he read in Business 2.0 while in the men’s library (a.k.a. the crapper). It’s about a security software company named CoreStreet that sells a handheld computer system for emergency workers called Pivman. Their head marketing guy, Andrew Sinkov, needed to draw attention to the device as well explain how it works. But instead of relying on traditional advertising and PR means, he came up with his own solution.

Sinkov decided to develop a comic book based on the Pivman. The name of his product lent itself to the comic medium and it helped him explain how the product works in a catchy way. As a result, Sinkov says that the comic has gotten the company twice as many quality leads than normal advertising and helped them land a piece of a security contract with the city of Los Angeles.

Charley’s point to me about the article was that doing something innovative is rarely traditional and usually involves some element of risk.

Sinkov seemed to know that traditional advertising wasn’t going to get the job done so he put the pressure on himself to figure out something that would. If this idea flopped, he probably would have looked like a moron and may have even gotten fired. Since it was a big success, he looks brilliant and scored his company a huge client.

So what are you doing at work to find original solutions to traditional problems?

Unless your name is Steve Jobs or Shigeru Miyamoto, you’re probably content coming up with the same cookie cutter solutions as everyone else. I know I usually am, mainly because that’s how I was trained in school. It’s a hell of a lot easier to come up with an answer that has some basis behind it than coming up with something original nobody has ever seen or done.

In reading this article and talking to Charley though, I’ve realized that sometimes the obvious answer isn’t always the one that everybody else is doing.

Now pardon me while I make a trip to the library.

To go along with the changes I mentioned Thursday, you can also see that I’ve renamed the blog to Naked Innovation as well as added a classy picture of myself. Although I’d like to take credit for it, this was really Jerry’s twisted idea.

He came to me with it while I was prodding for blog ideas. At first I thought he was kidding until I saw that expression he gets when a ridiculous comment turns into a “that just might work” idea.

It’s a hard expression to describe, but it looks like the face of a kid who’s being mischievous and enjoying every second of it combined with the way a cartoon character looks when there’s a light bulb hovering over their head.

Because there’s always an element of seriousness to these comments, I decided to hear him out and he made a good point. This blog is about stripping innovation down to elements anyone can understand.

Whether you’re an entry level grunt or a top tier executive, you can relate to getting a brilliant idea in the shower or learning a better way to do something after making a bonehead move.

So with this post I usher out Insight 2 Innovation and welcome Naked Innovation.

P.S. I apologize if my pasty skin causes anyone nausea, but if my wife can get used to it, so can you.

I’m taking a slight turn in direction for this blog. Seeing as how I can’t seem to stay timely in my posts, I’m going to try and skirt some responsibility by getting my co-workers to come up with blog ideas for me.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a few days and realized that this blog could become much more interesting if I wrote posts utilizing the different perspectives each person in the office has in relation to innovation.

For example, Scott, our Innovation Media Manager, may come up with a cutting edge way to film an observation while Michelle, our controller, may have a thought on better billing practices to save our clients money. I’m too stupid to think of things like that on my own, so why not have them feed me the ideas?

The point is that everyone in the office defines and experiences innovation a little differently and I’d like to capture that in this blog. I’ll still be the one to write it so it will have all the same quirks, misspellings and questionable taste as before, just with someone else to blame.

Once I get a non-vulgar idea submitted to me, I’ll get a new post up. Look for something by Monday.

The boss unchained me from my desk and let me travel last week! I went with him and a client to Albany, New York for observations. Being the communications guy, there’s rarely a specific need for me to travel, but every couple months Jerry ships me out just to stay fresh with what we’re doing.

With it being 95 degrees with 99 percent humidity the week we were there, I wouldn’t say I felt all that fresh when I got home, but I did get a taste of being out in the field.

Hearing about the observations from co-workers and experiencing them first hand are two completely different things. When I travel for work I come back with a renewed perspective that not only helps me do my job better, but also helps me stay connected to how my co-workers do theirs.

Through my experiences though, I’ve noticed not a lot of companies do things to help co-workers – especially those in different departments – keep a fresh perspective and stay connected. You may have a company outing once a year or go out for a birthday lunch here and there, but does that really help you and your co-workers work better together?

A perfect example of this comes from my first job out of college. I worked for a 10,000-employee corporation that was trying to launch a beefed up new website. Marketing and IT were both responsible for making this happen. We all know IT people are notorious for taking short cuts to get things done and being difficult to understand while marketing people are known for doing things over the top and being oblivious to technical limitations. Add to the fact that the departments were in two different buildings a half-mile apart and it doesn’t take a genius to know this was a doomed project.

To no surprise, the project turned into a giant power struggle where IT wanted to do it one way because it was easier and cheaper while Marketing refused to sacrifice creativity for cost. Because it took two and half years to launch the site, when it went live in 2004 it had the look, feel and function of a site created in 2002. Imagine buying a new computer and arguing with your wife about where to put it for two years before ever opening the box. It was kinda like that.

Had the two departments taken the time to understand how to utilize each other’s strengths, they could have created a cutting edge site. Instead, they worked against each other trying to do it their own ways and ended up creating a mediocre, hard-to-use site.

It’s all about keeping a fresh perspective. People get so consumed by their own responsibilities that they forget they’re working for a company and not just for their department.

Going on observations every month or so is my way of keeping a fresh perspective. Next time though, I’m lobbying for Vegas.

Hey, Insight2 is newsworthy! Last week the Indianapolis Star ran a story about us in regard to our unique approach to innovation. We got a sweet picture on the front page of the business section along with a well-written article.

Not only does it boost our ego a little, but it’s also another step toward helping potential clients and people in general understand who we are.

I don’t know about you, but one thing we struggle with is getting people to understand what we do. People either think we’re market researchers, inventors or the cable company. After explaining our process in detail these are our typical responses:

“Oh, so you do focus groups.”

“Man, I’ve got this great idea…”

“So you’re saying I can’t pay my cable bill here?”

Initially, the Star reporter was no different than anyone else. When he called to follow up on the pitch we gave his editor, he thought we were just another market research company. It wasn’t until he came to our office and then an observation before he really got a sense of what we do.

Everyone at the office was excited about the publicity, but nervous about how it would come out. Just like you wouldn’t want your name mispronounced, we didn’t want our company to be explained incorrectly.

As it turned out, he was thorough and accurate.

I don’t really like to toot my company’s horn here because it’s not the space for it, but it occurred to me that people might view my opinions as haphazard rants with no basis for understanding.

Unlike Jonathan Schwartz, Robert Scoble or Shel Holtz, who had names for themselves before entering the blogosphere, we’re trying to create our name and blog at the same time.

The point is, I may come off as a random guy spouting off at the keyboard, but we’ve got a very cool and effective innovation process that gives me plenty of material to write about.

I was roaming around the office this morning trying to figure out what to blog about this week when I noticed Jerry and Zach having an in-depth conversation about project planning and execution.

After listening in for a while, I started thinking about the way we implement change compared to the way other companies implement change.

From past experiences at other jobs, any talk of a change usually resulted in meetings about meetings and a lot of him-hawing before anything got decided. Without exception there were always pessimistic grumblings about whatever was changing.

As a result, the implementation process usually became a nightmare and people’s reticence of accepting the change was validated.

Since I’ve been with Insight2, on the other hand, we’ve changed and tweaked our innovation process several times and each time it was accepted and implemented with the attitude that it would make us better at what we do.

I’m not trying to brag or put anyone down, I’m just trying to illustrate that change is necessary for improvement.

For example, we used to have clients come in for a three or four-day ideation session where they would watch edited observation footage, glean insights from them and then draw ideas from those insights.

For the most part, it worked great and clients were happy with it. But, some people needed more time to digest the observations before they could come up with thoughts and ideas.

Case in point, we were a day or two from giving a final presentation to a client when their marketing exec called with great idea that had just struck him. The idea came as a direct result of watching the observations, but it just needed more soak time to get that “a-ha” moment.

With that experience in mind, we began using this nifty online collaboration tool called Sharepoint. Basically, it’s a secure website where clients can log in and see the work we’re doing in real-time and communicate with us on what they see. This gives clients time to absorb the information we’re providing them before we begin formal brainstorming sessions.

Now when clients come in for ideation, the meetings are far more focused. Instead of creating all the concepts from scratch we’re also building on and refining ideas that came from Sharepoint.

My point is that reevaluating and tweaking business processes isn’t a bad thing. I understand change isn’t easy and may not even seem possible for most companies, but you can’t be afraid to push. Be proactive and quit groaning.

I’ve been in your shoes before. I’ve worked for the companies who fear change and base all of their decisions on what the company did the year before. It’s frustrating and it sucks. All I’m saying is that you can’t be afraid to implement change in your job or company just because it’s going to be hard.

Don’t be a moron. You know nothing rewarding in life comes without a challenge.

I had one of those “now I get it” moments lying in bed the other night.

It was 12:30 in the morning and I couldn’t sleep because mucous was seeping out of every orifice of my body due to a lingering cold. As I tossed and turned, random thoughts started running through my head, and I began thinking about this book proposal I’m helping Jerry write.

The book is going to be about contextual immersion with the angle of going beyond the “Voice of the Customer.” VOC has been around for a decade or so and is a proven tool where companies capture feedback from the customer to improve product offerings.

Jerry agrees that VOC has been effective, but feels it’s past its prime. In his book, he coins the phrase “World of the Customer” and explains that instead of listening to the customer, you need to live in their world.

You have to understand that Jerry’s been working on getting the right angle on this book for months so when we met the other day to talk about his progress, he was practically coming out of his shoes with excitement as he explained WOC.

For Jerry, this was it. He had figured out a name for the concept he’s been implementing for years and is certain that it can become the next big business buzzword.

Well, I met his excitement with a lukewarm response. For some reason WOC just didn’t resonate with me. Jerry sensed my lack of excitement and helped me understand where he was coming from, but I still wasn’t convinced.

I don’t really know why I second-guess Jerry. He’s the owner of a successful business and former executive of a Fortune 500 company and compared to him, I’m still wet behind the ears.

Then it hit me. I’m still afraid to fail.

Jerry has always said to embrace failure as long as you learn something from it. While it’s a great attitude to have, I realized as I was lying in bed wiping snot off my face that embracing failure is only one part of the equation.

The only way you can really learn from a failed endeavor is to approach it by looking for solutions instead of excuses. In other words, instead of saying “This won’t work because…” ask, “How can I make this work?”

The problem is that in business we all answer to someone. And when one failed project can cost you your job, it’s a lot safer to go into it with a pessimistic attitude and have the cushion of passing the blame to fall back on.

For example, we’re working with a client right now who signed us on to help them expand their market and increase business opportunities.

They were all excited about the potential outcomes at the kick-off meeting and after several months of observations and brainstorming, we came up with some great out-of-the-box ideas and concepts that could transform their industry.

Now they’re saying they can’t use any of our deliverables and it’s not because we didn’t give them what they asked for, it’s because our concepts force them out of their comfort zone and require them to take on a certain amount of risk.

And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Breakthrough innovation doesn’t happen without taking on a certain amount of risk. You have to ask yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen if this idea fails? It’s one thing if it might harm the company, but it’s something entirely different if you’re just trying to save face.

I still don’t have as much passion for the “World of the Customer” phrase as Jerry does, but instead of coming up with reasons why it’s a bad idea, I’m looking for ways to make it a good idea.

I’ve got a laundry list of excuses as to why it’s taken me a month to post a new entry, but that’ll have to wait.

This afternoon I was reading “Corporate Hallucinations,” a blog by the irreverent Steven Crescenzo and he was touting this new online social network for communicators called MyRagan.

I usually just roll my eyes and quit reading blogs that advertise services, but because Steve got my attention by incorporating the word vagina in his post, I decided to keep reading. Now that I’ve incorporated the same word into my blog, I hope you’ll do the same.

As it turned out, this MyRagan thing sounded interesting so I decided to sign up. A minute later three emails pop into my inbox. One was the typical “account activation email,” but the other two were from Ragan employees asking me to join their network.

At first I thought they were MyRagan’s version of MySpace’s “Tom,” especially since one of the messages was from Mark Ragan, the CEO. I mean, as if he’s going to email a schmuck like me, right? However, I noticed the messages were unique and not canned at all.

He even mentioned that he read my blog, so I decided to call him on it. Turns out, he really did send the message and really has read this blog. It must have been a slow day at Ragan, but the personalization definitely hooked me.

As a communicator, I think this can be a great way for people all over the world to share ideas. If this relates to what you do, I recommend taking a minute to check it out, if it doesn’t, sorry for wasting your time.

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Now that I’m done with my little plug, I decided I should address the fact that I haven’t posted in more than a month. I do have a laundry list of excuses, but they all suck so I’ll just give it to you straight.

In the past I tried to make every post into a little “innovation lesson.” While writing this post, it dawned on me that I’m setting myself up for failure when I try to do that. I’ve probably started 20 posts only to scrap it because I didn’t have an “and this is what makes good innovation” moment to go with it.

Having said that, I’m going to approach my blog in a slightly different way. Instead of making lessons out of everything I write, I’m just going to write about what’s on my mind in relation to innovation. Maybe there will be a lesson, or maybe it’ll just be something dumb that’s on my mind.

MyRagan helped me realize that. It’s an innovative site for communicators and I wanted people to know about it. There’s no lesson to go with it, but is definitely worth writing about.

So, my apologies for not posting more frequently, but I give you my word I’ll do better!

Zach just told me about an interesting quote he heard on American Idol last night. British rock legend Peter Noone, a guest coach on the show, was explaining some of the advice he imparted on the contestants and said:

“I told them this isn’t a singing competition, sorry Simon, but it’s a voting competition.”

Simon’s always harping on the contestants’ singing ability, yet some of the best voices were kicked off weeks ago, validating Noone’s point that the competition is about what the viewers want to see.

Well, can’t the same be said for consumer products? Companies are always touting their great products, but are they great in the eyes of the consumer or just the company?

There have been some truly great singers go through American Idol, but how many of them are bona fide stars? Not many. Why? Because their performances don’t connect with the viewers.

The same is true with consumer products. Your company may come out with something revolutionary, but if it doesn’t connect with the consumer, it’s going to flop.

You need to know whom you’re playing the fiddle for. In the moment it may feel like your manager or the Board, but ultimately it’s the consumer.

Just remember, it doesn’t matter how well your product “sings,” if it doesn’t perform for your audience, you’re not getting the votes.

I’m stuck. I have three pages full of unrelated paragraphs, each a different attempt at a blog entry. It’s been like this for two weeks and I’m going crazy.

It’s not like I’m short on material. Things happen everyday that I could blog about. The problem has been getting it from the brain to the keyboard.

I’ll get the initial idea of the blog written, but when it comes to expanding on it I freeze. Words just stop coming to me.

People go brain-dead at work everyday, but the trick is figuring out how to snap out of it. For me, I stopped looking for topics and started writing about what was in front of me.

When you finally get unstuck, the solution seems obvious. It’s usually in front of you the entire time and you wonder why it took so long to figure it out.

My guess is that we reach a point where we finally begin to look at our task in a different way. For me, I would open the same Word document, write a paragraph or two, get stuck, then save and close it. For two weeks I did this. Today when I opened that Word doc I didn’t see 10 different failed entries, I saw that I was stuck. After I realized that, words came to me a little easier and now I have 234 words written. Fancy that.

I really would like to know what you all do to get unstuck. I know it can be a taboo topic because it implies that you haven’t been productive at work, but I won’t tell your boss if you don’t tell mine.

So, fire away.

What do you do to get yourselves unstuck?

Like most people, I have a handful of blogs that I read regularly. Steve Crescenzo writes my favorite one, “Corporate Hallucinations.”

As a corporate communications consultant and seminar leader, Steve writes about his experiences trying to shape and change the corporate communication culture. It may not sound like much, but his irreverent and sometimes vulgar take on real-life situations keeps me entertained and intrigued.

However, he pisses me off because sometimes it’s two or three weeks between posts. I’m sure the guy’s busy, but how hard is it to write a couple hundred words a week?

He touched on the subject a few months ago saying that the pressure of writing a blog gives him performance anxiety.

I thought it was a pretty bogus excuse until I started “Insight 2 Innovation.”

When I started it, my first two posts came to me easily because they were ideas I had been stewing on for a while. The third post was a little more difficult, but once I got the idea I ran with it. Now, here it is a month later and no new posts.

I should have had something ready to go as soon as I got back from the holidays, but when your average day consists of sleeping until noon and eating to the point of not being able to move, your brain is in no shape to think creatively.

When I got back into the swing of things, the pressure began mounting to write a new post. The problem is I haven’t liked any of my ideas.

It didn’t hit me until this morning that I’m probably feeling the same kind of stress that Steve feels when he’s trying to write for his blog. Maybe I don’t have 10,000 readers or even 10 readers, but the feeling is the same. Original, creative thoughts don’t flow as well when you feel like you have come up with them.

Same goes with innovation. We recently had a tricky project where we were asked to innovate a product that’s been around forever. The basic design hadn’t changed for years and our client asked us to come up with something different.

We were up for the challenge, but struggled in the beginning. The fundamental needs came out quickly in the observations, but figuring out a way to satisfy those needs escaped us at first. Nothing seemed to click.

The pressure of innovating this thing was keeping us from stepping back and looking for outside inspiration. Once we realized this, the perfect idea came to us and now we have a working prototype of this product that our clients love.

As a side note, I wish I could tell you about this product specifically because it’s awesome, but since it’s not on the market yet I have to keep it vague.

The idea for my blog came much the same way our idea for this new product came. When I rolled out of bed this morning my main thought was just not to miss the toilet. After that thought was successful, I began thinking about my blog. Don’t ask me how I got from peeing to blogging, but I did and it occurred to me that I had all the pieces for a decent blog in front of me. Once I realized that, writing this became more about combining small, related thoughts than coming up with a single grand idea.

Keep that in mind next time you’re mentally stuck. The answer is out there, you just need to step back and find the answers.

A few months ago, a client came to us to observe people using a prototype of a dog-washing device. Assuming typical business casual was expected, I showed up in nice slacks and a collared shirt. Needless to say, I was a little confused when everyone else was wearing jeans and t-shirts.

Ten minutes into our first observation I realized why. A freshly bathed, sopping wet Irish Sitter broke free from its owner, trotted in over in my direction and promptly shook every excess drop of water from its coat on to me.

Despite the free shower and the fact that I smelled like wet dog for the rest of the day, the observations went well and we came up with some key insights into improving the prototype.

A few weeks ago, we began working on a project involving animal dryers. For this I traveled to Dallas to watch a cattle fitting show (think dog show for cows).

Although I avoided the minefield of cow patties in the area, I couldn’t avoid the assault on my olfactory system. The barn itself didn’t smell that bad, but on more than one occasion I would end up directly in front of someone blow-drying their cow.

I’ve smelled some bad things in my life, but I will tell you that the odor that infiltrated my nostrils that morning made a skunk smell pleasant.

Despite the smell not leaving my nostrils for three days, the observations went well. Everyone had great insights, which will be integral to our innovation process.

I’m not always dealing with wet animals, but these anecdotes illustrate how good innovation can happen when you get your hands dirty.

It’s easy to sit around a conference table and brainstorm 100 different product ideas, but how do you know if any of them are even marketable options if you don’t understand how your consumers use your product?

It’s important to keep an outside perspective on your product. Think like a consumer.
Getting out and watching people use your products not only helps you stay abreast of changing consumer needs, but it also provides you with the opportunity refresh your focus and see your product from a different perspective.

So, instead of banging your heads together in a conference room next time, I suggest you all get a little dirty.

Last week I was in the office by myself while the rest my co-workers were in Pennsylvania with a client. Scott, our innovation media manager called and asked me to create an image slideshow, burn it to a CD and ship it to him.

No problem. I got the images he needed, burned them on a CD and even printed a nice little cover directly on the CD. I’d seen Scott do it a 100 times and knew the next step was to spray some stuff on it that prevented the ink from smearing.

That’s where my process deviated from Scott’s.

You see, Scott is the media guy. He’s the one that makes all the CDs and DVDs for the clients. I’m the communications guy. I write about things that get people interested in our company. When I try to do something in his world, nine times out of 10 I screw up the first attempt. This time was no different.

Having only ever casually observed Scott making CDs, I only knew that he sprayed stuff on them to prevent smudging, but didn’t know what that stuff was.

I walked over to the cabinet I’d seen Scott go to for the spray can and expected to find exactly what I needed. Well, instead of finding one spray can, I found two.

I was stumped.

I looked at the cans and both had descriptions I thought could be used for spraying on CDs, but neither specifically said “Great for spraying on CD covers to keep them for smudging!”

One said “Fixative” in and the other said “Spray Mount.” Neither title meant anything to me, so I scanned for other words on the can to see if something jumped out at me.

Ultimately, I decided to go with the spray mount. The other one talked about being for pastel, charcoal and pencil so I figured that since I was using ink, it couldn’t possibly work for me.

Wrong!

I got a call the next day from Scott asking what the hell I put on the CD to make it so sticky. Upon further review I saw key words on the can I hadn’t seen before. Words like “adhesive,” “strong bonds” and “quick tack” all of which should have been clues not to use the product, but in my haste I had a lapse in judgment.

The ironic part about the ordeal was that a week earlier, Jerry was telling all of us that we should celebrate mistakes as lessons learned.

When he heard about my mishap, the first thing he said to me was “I didn’t think you’d act so quickly on my advice.”

I’m sure he was a little annoyed with me, but it was a C’est la vie moment and Jerry realized that…although he’ll probably never let me use the spray mount again.

At the time, I was completely embarrassed. I mean, what kind of dolt mixes up fixative and spray mount? Now that a week’s passed though, I’ve had a chance to reflect on the incident.

While it was a dumb and very avoidable mistake, I took the reins of a task and made a decision between two choices.

When it comes to innovation you’re going to be faced with decisions that can make you a genius or a fool. The thing is, if you’re too afraid of looking like a fool, you’ll never give yourself a chance to look like a genius.

Face it, you know just as well as the next person that we all make mistakes. However, some people dwell on their errors and lose sight of the bigger picture while others embrace them, learn from them and do it better the next time.

I’m saying embrace your mistakes, celebrate them, laugh at them. One mistake may shake your confidence for a moment, but it’s easier to learn from failure than it is success.

Just be sure to read the label completely.

Our president, Jerry McColgin, is always telling me he does his best thinking in the shower. It’s a terrible mental image, but a perfect example of how innovation isn’t confined by time or location.

I’ve been trying for weeks to find the right angle and right words for Insight2’s new blog and low and behold, I figured it out in the shower. Again, a terrible mental image, but you get my point.

It dawned on me that product insight and innovation can happen anytime, anywhere.

Unfortunately, traditional business models often spawn a culture of routine, thereby suffocating innovation. And, people don’t even realize it’s happening.

Take my previous job as a web editor for example. When I started the job, I was excited for the chance to manage a website where I could control the design, layout and content. Everything started out great, but before long routine started dictating my days. Each week became the same as the week before and without warning, I was a drone going through the motions.

Product innovation can happen the same way. A company may be founded on the basis of a successful product. Five years later they struggle to understand why business is down as they market incremental improvements to the original product in lieu of groundbreaking innovations.

So, how do you keep a fresh perspective?

Get out of the office. Whether it’s a team building activity with your department or a visit to local retail outlets that sell your product, it’s good to step out of the confines of your office.

Immerse yourself with your customers. Watch how they use your product. Figure out where it succeeds and where it falls short. Ask yourself, “Is this product meeting the consumers’ needs?”

Be the consumer. If you’ve worked on a product for months, you’re going to know exactly how the product works and how it should be used. However, that easy-to-use feature you added to your product may not be easy to use for your consumer. Put yourself in their mindset and ask yourself if you’d buy your product.

Take more showers. I know, it’s a terrible mental image, but it just might do you some good.