Wednesday, June 27, 2007

A Pioneering, Breakthrough, Innovation Blog Item ( no really)

Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (Microsoft’s PR firm) has studied what it takes to be perceived as an innovator. Not surprisingly, it requires telling people you’re innovative – using keywords such as “creative” or “pioneering.” This emotional appeal can communicate and convince people of your image more powerfully than mere facts, figures or details.

What? You wanted wisdom from a PR firm?

The agency tracked two sets of innovation keywords that were topical (patents, design, labs, innovation etc ) and sentimental ( revolutionary, cutting-edge, genius etc.) against media coverage of 20 IT companies in the top 15 business publications over the period Jan 2005-June 2006.

Coincidentally . . . the time period leading up to Microsoft’s introduction of the Vista operating system. You can read more, it’s only four pages long and not very breakthrough in its details or presentation, which is surprising since the company claims to have invented Innovation Communications(SM).

5 comments:

eAgent said...

Wow!

Underwhelming... but good to know that the language of innovation can be a helpful differentiator.

I just returned from Roy Williams' Wizard Academy. Much of our dialog was focused on the power of specific words to stimulate specific areas of the brain to action, confusion, emotion.

Microsoft's PR firm need only have looked at the headlines and covers of the top 50 periodicals over the last 18 months to realize: Innovation is the big buzz. And in the end, applied innovation shows up in the numbers:

Numbers of sales.
Numbers of new products.
Numbers of employee retention.

Let's hope we can keep the innovation happening, and apply it nearly as fast as we can think it.

Best of success,
Mark Alan Effinger
ThoughtOffice Corporation

Anonymous said...

It seems that the innovation is their ability to create new value by claiming to be innovative. This may be a better approach than actually being innovative. Just look at all the money they are saving by not actually doing anything :^)

Braden Kelley said...

If only being innovative was as easy as saying you are.

Unfortunately it means going beyond invention and creating something useful, to innovation through the creation of something valuable.

Braden Kelley
BloggingInnovation.com

Anonymous said...

If you synthesize your pioneering synergy into a buzzword generator, you may achieve a breakthrough in innovative glory.

Alec Maki
strategic fog

Anonymous said...

Innovation resides in the minds of individuals not corporates . Corporate agendas restrict creativity and force people to think in thier established processes .

This is a good thought which i picked while i was looking at alternate innovation sites .

So check this one at http://www.unstructure.org