I attended the FEI Europe (Front End Innovation) conference in June – here were my standout quote:

If you want to be an innovator in a big company, be prepared to be fired everyday – Dr Peter Meier, Orokono

As an innovator, you need to be pushing boundaries that will probably make your colleagues feel uncomfortable. If you don’t push boundaries, you are not an innovator.

Without risk, there is no innovation – Dr Peter Meier, Orokoko

The best way to stay safe is to never try anything new, but it’s not the best strategic option…

The scarcest resource of the 21st Century will not be technology, but attention – Mark Weiser, via Amber Case

Our attention is finite and there will be so many things that will compete for it – we need to make sure that technology allows focus on the task of being human, not on the technology, in Amber’s words, “calm technology.”

Innovators in a corporate should be different; they have to live the culture they are pushing – Harvey Wade

Aware I am highlighting my own quote here, innovators must take their organisation to a new place – they are the pioneers and explorers. The new places and spaces will never be found without these people.

If you only change small things, it’s like throwing ping-pong balls at an oil tanker; it makes no difference – Luke Mansfield, PepsiCo

Innovation must make an impact, so focus on the key areas or issues that really, really matter. Innovation must enable better, if it doesn’t, is it really innovation?

The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed – Carola Verschoor, Royal HaskoningDHV

Carola reminds of the importance of looking up and around to what is happening in the wider world – take notice of what others are up to.

Credit: Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash

 

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