Nicolas has asked me to talk at Lift at the beginning of February. I've been there a couple of times and talked once (evidence), it's always interesting. He's sent the brief below and asked me for a title. I'm thinking of something like Escaping Innovation: Getting Things Done in Large Organisations.
The brief:
"The plan is to have you do the opening speech of the conference Wednesday 4 at 2pm. Given that it’s going to be the 10th year anniversary of the event, there’s no specific theme for the conference. However, given the audience in the room (same type of people since last time you spoke here), we thought it could be good to have you deal with change (innovation?) in large organizations (I thought about public ones because of your current position at Government Digital Service but it can be broader than that).
I always liked “undermanager” as a twitter handle and it made me think about the various paths to change/innovate: there’s the glorious one (with startup creating products with great fanfare) and the other end of the spectrum: this little thing that eventually may find their way to create something new and relevant for people. Judging from what you publish online, the kind of event you created (interesting), RIG projects… I’m under the impression this is something you’re interested in. The presentation should not necessarily be a summary of your initiatives, but, rather, a discussion on your perspective at this point in time. It can be based on your experience, your work, weird projects you saw,… and it should last 20 minutes."
Initial thoughts:
Some of this will, inevitably, mean going over old territory, bits of talks from Dots and the APG thing, I'm not good enough to come up with a whole new talk.
I like the distinction Nicolas makes between 'glorious' innovation and 'the other end of the spectrum'. I'd like to talk about this. After all, what we're mostly talking about in large orgs these days is digital transformation and that's not especially innovative, it's well-understood, it's fixing the basics.
I also think there's something to touch on about the connections between innovation and Strategy. And, as a Director of Strategy, I'm increasingly convinced that the deification of Strategy and Innovation is unhelpful in organisations.
That seems like enough doesn't it? It's only 20 minutes so my budget is roughly:
5 minutes: intro/admin/background/conclusions/thanks
5 minutes: thoughts and ideas
5 minutes: actual examples
5 minutes: moments of light relief
That probably means two meaty ideas and four examples. It's not a lot. I will try and share on here as I start to work it out.