5. Mission: To keep FMG/UCI focused on continuously honing and
evolving its approach to telling compelling stories across media
platforms; taking an audience-centered approach to everything
we do; and dedicating ourselves to building meaningful,
sustained relationships that encourages and values our
audience’s participation.
8. 8
4 key questions that we considered the realm of
slow innovation:
• How do you keep a focus on issues that may be
“No. 6 on the list”?
• How do you make sustained progress on the
things that may not impact you this quarter, but
are important for the medium term?
• How do you continuously look critically at your
current dominant models for measuring
success, and explore alternative logics — while
the machine is still running 24/7?
• How do you foster a spirit of innovation and
experimentation across the organization, rather
than quarantining it only in your group?
19. 19
How does it change our strategies—and how we measure
success—if we focus on serving engaged, dedicated
audiences, rather than overall numbers?
20. 20
What new workflows should be established for managing
relationships with those dedicated audiences?
21. 21
In what small, sustainable ways can we bring more young
voices onto our channels?
22. 22
Challenges for Focusing on Slow Innovation:
• Slow innovation efforts are hard to detect from the outside.
• Slow innovation work can get “written out of the narrative.”
• Unlikely to impact business this quarter/year and requires
steady (even if small) focus on things that are not current
operational priorities. (We didn’t not bring in any significant
revenue over our 2 years.)
• May involve investigating new paradigms that challenge
current business logic, when business is going well currently.
• Hard for internal clients to justify the time when it isn’t about
this quarter, but requires cultural buy in to take root.
27. 27
Lessons for Focusing on Slow Innovation:
• Set internal expectations carefully.
• Claim your wins.
• Invest in relationship building internally.
• Know that the best “slow innovation” work may come
through partnerships.
• Keep budgets lean.
• Remember that seeing isn’t observing, and hearing
isn’t listening.
• Be rigorous about fostering serendipity.
28. Showing the Story of Slow Innovation
@Sam_Ford
http://samford.wordpress.com/