An innovation strategy for your business should support your business objectives – including both short-term and long-term goals.  Does your Innovation Strategy have a long-term outlook to identify and develop a steady flow of creative ideas?

Unfortunately, many companies actively identify and develop innovations for a period of time.  The flow of creative ideas is often strong when a company is getting started and looking to establish itself with a unique product or service.  However, once that first innovation is identified and developed, too many companies stop the innovation process that created the business success in the first place.

Don’t fall into this trap.  Here are a few ideas to maintain a steady flow of innovative ideas.

Develop A Culture of Innovation – Encourage everyone in your business to identify creative ideas and submit those ideas for evaluation.  Make innovation a part of the daily routine for all personnel.

Schedule Regular Brainstorming Sessions – These can be individual brainstorming sessions as well as small group sessions. Try different brainstorming formats to see what works best in your business environment.

Hold an Innovation Contest – Do something to make innovation fun – a diversion from the “regular job”.  Offer prizes, put together innovation teams and schedule innovation activities. You will be surprised at the creative ideas an innovation contest can generate.

Celebrate Innovation Success – Throw a party to celebrate successful innovations that strengthen your business. These are fun events and they provide excellent examples to all employees about the importance of innovations to the growth of the business.

Implement one or more of the ideas mentioned above to continually identify creative ideas that can increase revenue, create a competitive edge in your industry, and reduce business expenses.

For several weeks, I have been “encouraged” by two business colleagues to host teleseminars that help entrepreneurs and business leaders apply innovation in their business.  I am accepting this “challenge” and committing to host several free teleseminars in the coming weeks.

I have a list of frequently asked questions about innovation as well as a list of questions that business leaders should ask about innovation in their business.  I will be answering these questions in my upcoming teleseminars.  However, I want to be sure I answer the questions of everyone who follows this blog, reads my articles, etc.  So, I am asking you to submit your questions by adding a comment to this post.  I will do my best to answer all questions during one of my teleseminars – dates to be announced soon.  If you would like to receive email notification of these teleseminars (and receive a free copy of my Innovation Excellence report), click here.

Here’s a sample of the questions I will be answering:

• Why does my business need an innovation strategy?
• My business is not a technology-based business, does innovation apply to my company?
• How do I get started with an innovation plan?
• Who in my organization should I include in the innovation process?
• Can my business afford an innovation strategy?

Please submit your innovation questions by adding a comment to this post.

I’ve been helping entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders leverage innovations for over 15 years.  With all that work in innovation, I sometimes forget to take action and implement new innovation strategies in my own business.  So, it’s time to take some innovation action!

I am participating in the “100 Articles in 100 Days” challenge by EzineArticles.  I will be preparing and publishing 100 articles – approximately one article per day for the next 100 days – starting today!  I will be writing articles about business innovation, business growth and related subjects.  I already have a list of topics for articles, but the list is not up to 100 yet!

So, I’m asking for your support.  If you have any questions about how to leverage innovation in your business, please let me know and I’ll answer those questions in my articles.  Also, if you have any general suggestions for article topics related to business and innovation, please leave a comment here, send them to me via twitter (@stevesponseller), or comment on my Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/innovationstrategies).

I will be posting updates on my progress to this blog.  You can also read my latest articles by visiting http://www.ArticlesBySteve.com (scroll to the bottom of that page for a list of articles).

Businesses use many techniques to develop innovations.  One approach to innovation development deals with problems experienced in your own business or in your industry.  Problems provide an opportunity for innovation by asking (and answering) five key questions:

1. What Happened? Identify details regarding the specific problem and determine whether the problem is related to a client, a product, a service, your entire industry, or a problem with your internal business procedures.  Determine exactly what happened, such as dates, locations, people/businesses involved and other relevant details.  These details will be used later to help prevent future problems.
2. Why Did it Happen? Determine why the problem occurred by evaluating when it happened and why the problem occurred at this time, but has not happened before.  Identify what details were different this time that may have caused the problem.  Determine continue reading…