INNOVATION

focus
WHAT THE HECK IS AN
INNOVATION AGENCY?
by Mark Hemmer
Unless you’re actively staying on top of technology, it can be daunting to catch up.
TECHNOLOGY JOBS ARE HARD TO DEFINE SOMETIMES. If you’re
a farmer, explaining what you do, how you do it and what it yields is
simpler. You can explain how to plant crops. You can show someone
a combine (or even take them for a ride!), and you can hand someone
an ear of corn. For those working in the tech sector, it’s a little more
complicated. You may hear things like:
“So you do a lot of things with the computer?”
“You’re, like, a blogger or something?”
“Ohhh, so you fix Internet problems?”
Understandable. Technology is moving light years ahead of society at
large, and unless you’re actively staying on top of it, it can be daunting—or
even infeasible—to catch up or digest it. It's a sign of smart delegation
and great vision for the long term to clearly establish not only
who is going to drive innovation at your company, but how you’re going
to do it, and most importantly, why it’s important for your organization.
PARTNERS IN PROBLEM SOLVING
Just as brilliant sports executives hire analytics teams to keep up with
games that are transforming before their eyes, major corporations need
to find the right team and framework to help them innovate effectively.
That’s where an innovation agency can come in. At its bare bones, an
innovation agency is simply a company dedicated to solving problems in
new ways for the benefit of others. Hiring the right agency with the right
structure and vision can be the difference between leading your industry
and falling behind.
AN INNOVATION AGENCY SHOULDN’T WAVE THE
NEWEST TECHNOLOGY IN YOUR FACE TO DAZZLE
YOU; AN EFFECTIVE AGENCY WILL LEVERAGE ONLY THE
TECHNOLOGY YOUR GOALS CALL FOR.
Peoria’s OneFire is an example of such an innovation agency. An
excerpt from its website captures what sets effective innovation agencies
apart: “We don’t just use the latest and greatest technology to provide
a ‘cool factor.’ We partner with our clients and leverage technology to
solve real business challenges—from improving processes to generating
demand to helping clients’ boost their bottom line.”
An innovation agency shouldn’t wave the newest technology in
your face to dazzle you; an effective agency will leverage only the technology
your goals call for. But how does it happen?
There are a handful of approaches in taking a client challenge, assessing
how to meet it, and delivering. Oftentimes, companies think they
already have an idea that solves their problem and just need a way to
build it. More often than not, this approach wastes money and time because
the solution wasn’t fully vetted before work started.
In other situations, companies have so many great ideas they don’t
even know where to start, and ideas often fail to materialize into some-
76 InterBusiness Issues -- January 2016