Innovation is a great buzz word because it leads to so many successful businesses and hefty profits that there tends to be the rational thought that the same principles that govern business will and do govern innovation.
An understandable but flawed assumption.
Business is a commercialization process of innovation after the innovation has happened and business success can and do fund further innovation in a nice symbiotic relationship.
However, business and innovation are very different approaches when viewed through the lens of focus.
If you are running a business, focus is crucial, an unfocused business leads to a lot of opportunities but very little follow through. If though your goal is to innovate, the key is to spread yourself thin (just like butter on a piece of bread). Confusing the two views and the roles required can create some messy situations as GigaOM recently reported on the top five Odeo scew-ups.
Last year Williams wrote a widely read, much-bookmarked post titled ìTen Rules for Web Startups.î ìBe Narrow,î he said, ìBe Tiny.î Today, he flat-out admitted ìI was working on Odeo at the time I wrote that, and I was ignoring most of those rules.î Odeo got unfocused and bloated, according to Williams.
Despite a thoughtful reflection, William's words and lessons seem to have changed his approach little. One would think that this new list would prompt William's to focus Odeo's efforts. While they fired a few middle level managers in a 14 person company (how they got too many managers at that size business is another issue) - it seems little has been done to focus Odeo. The company continues to work on a multitude of side projects, one being Twitter where the about page prominently boasts...
The Twitter office is located in San Francisco, CA in the very same location as the Odeo office because that's where Twitter was born as an interesting side project. The rest of the folks at Odeo also work on Twitter when they can.
Wait a minute... if "Odeo was trying to build too much," what is with this Twitter project?
Here we have the crux of the problem. Williams is an innovator, who due to some success is now trying to be a CEO and while he is able to rationally understand what it takes to run a business, he isn't able to let go of his innovator impulses. He is doing what he knows best and spreading the fine butter all over the place because putting it in one small area of bread taste like crap.
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