Innovate 15 minutes at a time.

For most chief marketing officers, it’s difficult to see through the day-to-day anguish of this transformational market to truly innovate. In her article, “Find the 15-Minute Competitive Advantage,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business Publishing recommends that a series of small but fast innovations are more effective than one large leap.

“As many technology companies have seen to their peril, you can leap much too far into the future by seeking revolution, not evolution, leaving potential users in the dust. But steady progress — step by single step — can win internal support and the external race for share of market or share of mind. Especially if you take each step quickly.”

This is all about changing in short, fast bursts. In his book, “Strategy for Sustainability,” Adam Werbach points to a term evolutionary biologist use, “Punctuated Equilibrium,” to describe the phenomenon that many organisms experience little change until rapid events of evolution occur.

Kanter’s article is one of my favorites of the year, because it turns explosive innovation on its head. She encourages you to, “Stay a little ahead of the competition while close enough to what customers can understand and incorporate.”

She offers eight characteristics of innovations that are most likely to succeed at gaining support:

1. Trial-able: Idea or product can be trotted out as a pilot program
2. Divisible: Users can adopt it in segments or phases without having to digest the entire program
3. Reversible: If it doesn’t work, you can go back to where you were for the time being
4. Tangible: It offers concrete results
5. Fits prior investments: The idea builds on investment already made or actions already taken
6. Familiar: It is somewhat comfortable and consistent with other experiences
7. Congruent with future direction: It is heading in a similar direction, even though by its nature it is meant to change things
8. Positive publicity value: You can’t help but make everyone look good in the process

When I shared this article with my buddy Barry Bartlett, he summed it up best by saying, “With innovation, you don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than your hiking partner.”

Tell us about one of your innovative programs that worked or was stymied.

I am currently in the middle of an incredible book by eco-Wunderkind Adam Werbach (Are you still a Wunderkind in your 30′s?). At 23, Werbach was the youngest president of the Sierra Club, and he is currently global CEO of acclaimed ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi S, the “S” standing for “sustainability” in their quest to build the world’s largest sustainability agency.

Anywho, Werbach’s book, “Strategy for Sustainability” outlines what it truly means to be a sustainable company. To be sustainable is to “Thrive in Perpetuity,” which is built on for coequal components:

1. Social (Acting as if other people matter)
2. Economic (Operating profitably)
3. Environmental (Protecting and restoring the ecosystem)
4. Cultural (Protecting and valuing cultural diversity)

What I find incredibly interesting about his “manifesto” is how he applies nature’s 10 simple rules for survival to business. It’s pretty hard to argue with. Because in nature, if you’re not sustainable, you die. No bailouts!

How much of this are you, your business, or organization, biomimicking?

1. Diversity across generations.
2. Adapt to the changing environment – and specialize.
3. Celebrate transparency. Every species knows which species will eat it and which will not.
4. Plan and execute systematically, not compartmentally. Every part of a plant contributes to its growth
5. Form groups and protect the young. Most animals travel in flocks, gaggles, and prides. Packs offer strength and efficacy.
6. Integrate metrics. Nature brings the right information to the right place at the right time. When a tree needs water, the leaves curl; when there is rain, the curled leaves move more water to the root system.
7. Improve with each cycle. Evolution is a strategy for long-term survival.
8. Right-size regularly, rather than downsize occasionally. If an organism grows too big to support itself, it collapses; it if withers, it is eaten.
9. Foster longevity, not immediate gratification. Nature does not buy on credit and uses resources only to the level that they can be renewed.
10. Waste nothing, recycle everything. Some of the greatest opportunities in the 21st century will be turning waste – including inefficiency and under-utilization – into profit.