See something (weird) …. Say something (innovative)
One of the fundamental challenges of innovation is that you are trying to predict the future and do so in situations where the future will vary substantially from the past. Gathering and analyzing historical data can be helpful but it usually doesn’t reveal a complete picture and sometimes can even send you astray. An analysis of historical buggy whip sales volumes would have done nothing to predict the emergence of the car and the decline of the horse and buggy.
So short of a crystal ball what can we innovators do to look into the future? There are many tools but one that I think is often an unsung hero is the careful observation of players in the market and specifically the identification of the odd and unusual and even more importantly unexpected variant. I’ve often found that when you hear your clients say strange and unexpected things about their plans or investments or approaches these bits of information serve as the "canary in the mine shaft" for dramatic change. That’s not to say that any variance from the norm indicates a sea change. Many of them are going to be aberrations or quirks of a particular organization or individual. But if a credible party is doing something different or unusual it’s well worth the time to stop and ask why. What do they see that we don’t? What new force is playing upon them that will soon be playing upon the whole market?
Proactively looking for these insights can often be hard. And in fact, when you interview people they will often filter out these observations and describe their steady-state view of the world. I've found that attuning the people in your organization that are regularly out in the market to the need to capture this intelligence can be very powerful. Salespeople, technologists, and product leaders often have a broader range of conversations with market participants. If you ask them to spot the unusual and the unexpected you often get really good intelligence that at worst can stimulate some creative thinking and at best can be a harbinger of a major new market trend. So maybe the lesson here is that innovators need to stay close to the people in their organization that are out in the field. Buy them a drink or lunch or a coffee and ask them to be your eyes and ears. Ask them to let you know if they see something out of the ordinary.