Callaghan Innovation is bringing innovation expert Larry Keeley to Auckland and Wellington to hold workshops helping companies build internal innovation skills. Keeley will teach businesses how to focus on customers' needs to create meaningful innovations, rather than thinking innovation is only about new products or technology. While Auckland businesses have signed up more for the workshops, they are expected to help over 400 total attendees from both cities. Keeley has decades of experience advising top companies on innovation effectiveness.

1. Innovation’s more than just new technology and products
COLLETTE DEVLIN
A UNITED STATES innovation
expert says he is set to change
what Wellington businesses
owners know about innovation,
but the government will pay the
price for his knowledge.
Callaghan Innovation is bring-
ing innovation effectiveness and
strategy expert Larry Keeley to
Auckland today and Wellington
tomorrow as part of its innovation
skills series.
Keeley will hold a workshop in
each city to help companies build
in house innovation skills and
capability.
Callaghan Innovation program-
mes manager Willem Van Der
Steen said the innovation series
would include a range of
programmes, training and
workshops to help businesses im-
prove performance, eliminate inef-
ficient processes and activities,
and increase customer
satisfaction.
Bringing Keeley out
to New Zealand for the
two workshops would
cost the stand-alone
Crown Entity $87,000.
The Innovation
Experts Series budget
was about $200,000 a
year.
Van der Steen said
that included bringing
some of the world’s top
i i i iinnovation practitioners to New
Zealand to build in-house inno-
vation skills and capacity in firms.
‘‘This is a very high-calibre
event with a wide reach and ap-
peal, and is expected to result in
significant value creation for the
businesses attending.’’
In total, more 400 at-
tendees were expected to
attend the two events,
with ticket sales signifi-
cantly offsetting overall
costs, he said.
Wellington busi-
nesses would learn
about how to more re-
liably create game
changing
breakthroughs.
However, Auckland
businesses were more on
f h h i lthe front foot than those in Wel-
lington, with significantly more
signing up for the workshops, he
said.
Keeley, who was named by
Bloomberg Businessweek as one
of seven innovation gurus chang-
ing the field, said Wellington busi-
nesses need to start
thinking outside the box.
The lecturer and
author said innovation
mostly failed because
‘‘people believe in all
kinds of nonsense’’.
Business owners
should not feel the world
was changing faster than
they knew how to catch
up with.
The biggest challenge
facing business inno-
vation was the funda-
mental idea that it was about new
technology, a new product or
thinking like a genius, he said.
‘‘Often businesses think inno-
vation is about creativity and
coming up with product ideas. But
that’s not true. It’s about paying
attention to the smallest
number of things and
customer experiences –
what they need and how
to create this.’’
Businesses owners
should try to ‘‘punch
above their weight’’, he
said.
‘‘Bigger, bolder ideas
succeed more often.’’
Governments were
also drivers of inno-
vation and teams from
the New Zealand Govthe New Zealand Gov-
ernment had been going to the US
to meet with Keeley for five years.
‘‘It is trying to figure out how to
make sure New Zealand out-
innovates other countries in the
world.’’
For 33 years Keeley has been
trying to weed out the myths
about innovation effectiveness
and compares himself to a forensic
scientist looking at the failures.
He has worked on innovation
effectiveness with many global
companies, including: American
Express, Apple, Citigroup, Coca-
Cola, Diageo, Ford, Gillette, Mayo
Clinic, McDonald’s, Shell, Sony
and Pfizer.
He is president and co-founder
of Doblin Inc, an innovation strat-
egy firm which is a unit of Deloitte
Consulting LLP, where Keeley
serves as a director.
Tickets for the Keeley events
are $115.
Larry Keeley
Willem
Van Der Steen
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Dominion Post, Wellington
25 May 2015, by Collette Devlin
Business Day, page 5 - 298.00 cm²
Metro - circulation 70,211 (MTWTF--)
ID 411766207 BRIEF CALLAGHAN INDEX 1 PAGE 1 of 1