The Non-Obvious Way to Inspire Innovation

February 18, 2016

Categories: Thought Leadership

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CNSI recently celebrated its annual conference, kicking it off with the four Partners talking about strategic growth, financials, key initiatives, and opportunities to innovate. With innovation being one of CNSI’s core values, it only made sense to bring in a speaker who could influence, ignite, and inspire attendees. Enter world-renowned digital marketing pioneer, author, and speaker Rohit Bhargava.

Rohit spoke to a key question for any business—how do you create a competitive advantage through innovation? We all know “being original” is crucial to success in business, especially in an age when technology is developing at incredible speed and the market is flooded with companies competing for the same business. 

But all too often companies try to foster innovation the wrong way, according to Rohit. Leadership tends to think of simply the end or product, without thinking about the how, or, more importantly the why. Rohit provided the historical example of King Gustavus Adolphus’ Vasa being technologically revolutionary but ultimately a failure because the innovation was impractical. Many companies fail to innovate because of similar principles. Instead, companies need to change the way they think at a fundamental level. This means looking for the non-obvious. How do you do this?

The first step is to become masters of trends. Watch a short teaser on Rohit’s 2015 trends via Behind the Brand.  

But just predicting a trend is not enough. The next evolution is to look at many trends, which seemingly don’t have anything to do with each other and find ways in which they connect. Taking it one step further, once you see the intersections, you must identify the gap. Once you have the gap, you can imagine the “thing” that will bring it all together, the thing that one no one else sees coming. That is what real innovation is all about. Rohit aptly calls this the Haystack Method: you gather, aggregate and elevate great ideas (the hay) and use them to define a trend (the needle).

So what does that mean for our core competency, health care IT? There is perhaps no other industry more dynamic and ripe for innovation than health care. Not only is there ample opportunity to spot the non-obvious trend, but seeing it could also save lives.

We are excited to announce that we’re working on two Medicaid solutions that came about using Rohit’s non-obvious practice (we just didn’t know it at the time). We saw the trends, identified the gaps, and produced solutions that we are in the process of rolling out in four states. Stay tuned in the coming weeks to learn more.

What do you see as an emerging trend in health care IT? How would you solve it?  Join in on the conversation on Twitter. Find us @CNSICorp.