What’s the profile of “business innovators”?

I have been thinking about “the personality profile and characteristics of business innovators”. Much has been written on the topic of “creative people” but I would welcome thoughts from the online innovation community with regard to the profile of the “business innovator” (that may be different). My hope is that the community will share thoughts that others might find interesting. Here are two questions:

1. Personality profiles: What is the profile (traits, personality characteristics, soft skills, mindsets, thinking styles, problem-solving styles) of the kinds of people who operate well at the ‘fuzzy front end’ of the innovation process (e.g., exploring new opportunities, trying to define what a new product should be, etc.)? Some ideas to start the conversation: Comfort with ambiguity. Ability to make connections between things that are not obvious. Ability to put structure to ambiguity and language to intuition. Strategic thinking skills (what do we mean by that?). Ability to collect and analyze vague insights and trends and translate to tangible business or new product concepts. Intellectually curious. Any other thoughts?
2. Screening tools & techniques: What kinds of screening tools and techniques can be used to identify people with this profile? For example: Meyers Briggs, Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Any others?

Should be interesting for everyone to read… Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Derrick Palmer
InnovationPoint LLC http://www.innovation-point.com dpalmer@innovation-point.com

(from the WebProNews)

There is a dilemma that is inherent in technical innovation. As the innovators, we tend to get caught up in the possibilities of technology and base our business decisions on it. But the fact is that the success of technology only takes place with widespread adoption by the general public.

In the high tech business, we tend to be surrounded with others like ourselves. We are the classic early adopters, looking for the latest technological gizmo. We tweak our computers and other various electronic gadgets, spend hours tracking down problems with drivers and happily put up with bug after bug to gain an edge over the less technically savvy. In our biz, we all tend to be members of this relatively small segment of the real world. Unfortunately, we sometimes make decisions that seem valid because everyone we talk to agrees with us. It’s not until the public flatly rejects our innovations that we realize it was never capable of going beyond the research lab.

Search, or the Internet in general, ultimately doesn’t move forward until the public adopts new innovations in sufficient numbers to develop critical mass. If that mass never happens, the innovation withers and dies.

So, if you ask me, or any of the others who have been writing about this, which of the emerging search innovations will make the difference in the industry, you might be asking the wrong person. I’m a geek. Go ask your Aunt Mildred, but be prepared to spend some time explaining what you’re talking about.

I recently discovered openBC (open business club) as a Business Networking Portal and have fallen in love with it! The features, the community, the forums – it provides great visibility to the professional individual as well as to the business/work you do!

I was a frequent user of LinkedIn – still am – but I believe I’m going to be using openBC much more!! Let’s see how it goes!

Join my network on openBC here!