This is remarkable, compelling, and powerful research you must read. The category creator is not always the first mover. The long term and short time financial benefits of being a category creator are dramatically greater than I had ever imagined. There are three specific things a category creator needs to do extremely well to be successful. This will help you!

Much of the popular literature in recent years has focused on removing constraints and allowing much greater degrees of freedom are people working in the field of innovation. There is lots of need and wisdom for the advice. But successful innovation does not work well in a “wild West” sort of environment. There are some very smart constraints that actually help make chances for innovation success much greater, especially with bigger innovations.

This episode concludes my series on the state of innovation. Innovation success requires going beyond best practices focused on processes. Successful innovation requires personal characteristics and capabilities that include bold, courageous, and smart leadership actions and thinking that takes success to a much higher level.

There is more good news about the hopeful state of innovation. There are highly proven innovation best practices. While most of these best practices are supported by formal quantitative research, the best proof is success in the real world for decades. These are best practices that work for any kind of business with any kind of innovation need at any time.  While these best practices do not by themselves guarantee success, they are proven to consistently deliver extraordinarily well above average levels of innovation success.

I am sure by now you want to hear about the hopeful state of innovation. The very good news is that there is one major insight that explains the vast majority of innovation failures. Conversely, when you know what this insight is, you will know where you have to set the bar for successful innovations in your company. This podcast goes to the heart of what it takes to be a successful innovator.

Probably the biggest reason for the sad state of innovation today is the pervasive ignorance about what it takes to be a successful innovator. You may be shocked at how difficult it is to get training in anything like innovation best practices as a college major or through company innovation training programs.  Take a close listen to the facts in this podcast and see if it does not change your thinking about how much training your company needs if it is going to be dramatically more successful with its innovations.

Least you think the sad state of innovation is old news, when you look at innovation today, especially by some companies previously known for innovation, the state of innovation gets even more concerning.  For example, what is happening at Apple now that they no longer have Steve Jobs? I am seeing a lot of ”me too” and slow following of innovation initials by others. Listen and see what you think.

By any measure, having 75% or more innovations fail for over 55 years is a sad state of innovation. In this podcast I sure this and more facts. The fax come from very high-quality research published and very high-quality publications likes me Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and by the US Department of Commerce.

This podcast shares wisdom from a very experienced consultant. The three keywords in the title of her book represent great guidance for every kind of innovator. She shares specific examples to help bring all of this to life.

The author of the book is the founder of Trend Hunters--the leading company of its kind. He now adds to that some very practical and easy to use innovation help.