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Airfoil POV
The Dirtiest Word in Business
By Airfoil Public RelationsAirfoil POV // Innovation
Why are so many communicators these days chomping on the hand that feeds our economy?
Bring up the word "innovation" and, in some quarters, you're likely to hear grumbling. You may even hear that promoting innovation doesn't work or is no longer "fashionable." This, at a time when business leaders acknowledge that innovation has been the principle and practice that has led us away from the edge of economic cataclysm, time and time again.
Why has innovation become such a dirty word for some audiences?
Airfoil's point of view is that innovation as a business concept has been the victim of overuse, hype and misrepresentation. To our core, we communicators recognize that innovation is crucial to business growth and the nation's economic health; but, frankly, on both the public relations and marketing sides, many have done a lousy job of cutting through the clutter surrounding the innovation story.
Back in the day-10 to 15 years ago-we drenched the stock market in theoretical innovation. Hey, we don't have any way to monetize this Web site or any market for this gadget, but, boy, it's innovative-so invest now before you miss the boat.
Well, too often, the boat sank, and it took the concept of innovation as a fresh idea down to the bottom with it. Today, even an attempt
2Airfoil POV // Innovation
to promote a company, a product, a business model, or a process as "innovative" may cause a distrustful and hype-saturated marketplace to turn away.
Business communicators are, in effect, being accused of innovation-washing. Pumping up the volume on innovation is causing the word to lose its credibility as a meaningful concept for many. Misguided, noisy applications of the term have degraded its reputation.
Just because innovation has been overhyped, however, doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that many businesses today are thriving because they were founded on and continue to bloom with innovation. Microsoft, FedEx, Amazon, Apple, Intel, JetBlue, 3M and YouTube are all big, successful names in innovation. And all across America, much smaller emerging companies are producing valuable, game-changing products and business models that are defining innovation in everything from electric cars and wind power to entertainment venues and mobile phone apps. Are all these companies doomed to shout only into the wind? Is there any way whatsoever to make claims of innovation believable today? Can innovation be saved?
Of course not and absolutely!
At Airfoil we believe that communicators can best project the innovation of their software, devices or services if they stop screaming and begin engaging. The second decade of the 21st century is about building relationships, rather than pushing out claims adorned with "new," "improved," "best," or even "better." We need to find and initiate conversations with today's niche markets and then:
. Prove our innovation with action
. Validate our innovation with facts
Some time ago companies relinquished their brands to consumers. One-to-one and one-to-many conversations among consumers now are so easy and pervasive "At Airfoil we believe that they have become the primary generators of brand trust and loyalty. If my that communicators Facebook friends like it, I'll try it. If my LinkedIn peers are loyal to it, then they've can best project the helped me cut through the trial and error, and I'm on it in a second.innovation of their software, devices or How do we prove and validate our innovation to these markets, however? How services if they stop do we enter the conversation, grab a few ears, and encourage word-of-mouth
screaming and begin among the crowd?
engaging." One strategy that many companies are pursuing is to become publishers of their own content. In reality, they are becoming media, with their own employees, bloggers and freelance journalists, and they are publishing every day or every week
3Airfoil POV // Innovation
for consumer and B-to-B audiences. Increasingly, companies believe they can connect with the crowd by taking control of their own content in their own media-on paper, on screen and online.
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