Innovation must become what quality was 20 years ago.

I have been having lots of discussions recently with organizations large and small, corporate and academic, about innovation.

Talking about innovation is easy. The most radical ideas are at the intersection of disciplines, organizations and cultures... or as I recently learned at the verge.

But doing something about innovation is very, very hard. Organizations do not have good systems and processes for interfacing with outsiders they could collaborate with. Heck, organizations don't even have great systems for knowing systematically what the most challenging issues are they face that someone outside could help with.

Recently I bumped into a quote from Gary Hamel.

Innovation must become where quality was 20 years ago.

He's right on point. We've been through a couple of decades where quality and efficiency were the name of the game. For the next couple of decades, innovation with be critically important in an increasingly globalizing world.

If anyone has thoughts about how to systematically do innovation, I'm all ears. I know a bunch of others that are listening as well.