BUSINESS 110 wEEK 8: INNovATION In Search of Innovation When companies try to come up with new ideas, they too often look only where they always look. That won't get them By J. Bessant, K. Moslien, and B. Von Stamm you want to understand why some companies lack innovative ideas, think about the man who can't find his car keys. His friend asks him why he's looking for the keys under the lamppost when he dropped them over on the lawn. "Because there's more light over here," the man explains. For too many companies, that describes their search for new ideas, and it pretty much guarantees they won't go anywhere fast. While such a company can marginally improve what it's already good at, it misses out on the breakthroughs-those eureka moments when a new concept pops up, as if from nowhere, and changes a company's fortunes forever. Those ideas, however, don't really come from nowhere. Instead, they are typically at the edge of a company's radar screen, and sometimes a bit beyond trends in peripheral industries, unserved needs in foreign markets, activities that arent part of the company's core business. To be truly innovative, companies have change their frames of reference, extend their search space. New ways of thinking and organization can required nother words, they have to look away from the lamppost. None of this is easy to do. But companies that succeed recognize the next great opportunity or looming threat, before their competitors do. And changing technologies. Indeed, everyonce in a while, that blip on the horizon turns out to be a For the past several years, we and other researchers have participated in workshops with more innovations. Here are nine and of with new produce a company's eureka moment. practices with the potentialto BUILD SCENARIOS companies use teams of with diverse perspectives to create complex scenarios of What future markets may look like. The writers to company that and threats companies, and collaborators. An oil work on energy opportunities the might scenarios with construction, water and utility management Industry organizations and government agencies use scenarios, too, sometimes in based in Ireland Bord food works companies Kerry Group PLC and Glanbia PLC. Danish giant Nordisk AS has shared scenarios with the Oxtord Health Alliance, a British nonprofit. Novo Nordisk thus helps the cause and broadens its own views by gaining the input of alliance SPIN THE WEB Atew companies have created Web sites that act as literal marketplaces of ideas. is a site where people and companies look for help in solving scientific and business challenges. Posters of challenges sometimes offer cash rewards for solutions Amounts have ranged from $5,000 to million. The site began as an in-house tool for research at Eli Lilly Co. to help one another Now it Lily as a founding shareholder