Rising Above The Flat Line

Neal Verfuerth, president/CEO of Orion Energy Systems, Manitowoc, is a master at innovation. When faced with doubt by prospective customers of his patented lighting system, he created a meter that helped them see how much money could be saved on their energy bills. If they still had doubt, he offered to install the lighting system for free – and accept payment based on the measured savings customers realized. Sheboygan Falls-based Bemis Manufacturing became a believer when it began using 50 percent less energy.

A new book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success, by Jeff Lindsay and Cheryl Perkins of Neenah-based Innovationedge; and Mukund Karanjikar, senior associate at Technology Holdings in Salt Lake City, Utah, focuses on embracing daring ideas and avoiding the rut that keeps companies on a flat line.

Perkins, founder and president of Innovationedge, formerly served as senior vice president and chief innovation officer for Kimberly-Clark. She was named one of the Top 25 Champions of Innovation in the world by BusinessWeek magazine in 2006. Lindsay is director of solution development at Innovationedge, and also formerly worked at Kimberly-Clark, where he was one of the company’s most prolific inventors, with 101 granted U.S. patents and more pending.

Conquering Innovation Fatigue is filled with case studies. The book outlines tools readers can use to inspire and energize their innovation strategy.

“We wrote the book to help organizations reduce waste and unnecessary loss in the area of innovation and to help individuals achieve their dreams,” says Lindsay.

“I have so much passion for these companies that are really struggling right now. It’s not that they’re not committed to innovation; they know what they want to do, but they don’t know how to do it,” says Perkins.

The authors discuss how to recognize and overcome nine major innovation fatigue factors, make the right connections to bring innovation to the marketplace, avoid innovation-killers, enhance productivity in the innovation process, exploit low-cost intellectual assets to deal with disruptive innovation, turn the “innovation funnel” upside down to create more efficient, targeted innovation, and tap multidisciplinary skills.

“The book can help the innovation community understand what they’re going through and how to deal with those fatigue factors,” says Lindsay. “And it can help the management team understand what the innovators are going through and how to create a culture of innovation.”

Perkins adds: “The book provides insights to help you strengthen your business and innovation strategies, ensure that you have the right intellectual assets to own the space where you want to compete, and build the right culture to allow the company and its individuals to be successful on their innovation journey.”

Innovation is hard, exhausting work, says Henry Chesbrough, adjunct professor and executive director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. In a testimonial, he says, “Lindsay, Perkins, and Karanjikar understand this, and have identified a number of ways to overcome innovation fatigue. This book will help innovators develop the staying power they must have to get their innovations all the way from inception into the market.”

Find out more about innovation fatigue by visiting Lindsay’s and Perkins’ blog at www.innovationfatigue.com.