Week 12 & Week 13: Innovation and the Organization

In order for organizations to stay relevant they need to innovate or at least keep up with the latest innovations. I remember this old burger joint that I used to go to as a kid. It was called Arnold's and had easily been around for 40 years, probably making its start during the 50's or 60's as the place to go get a shake and burger. I only went there a few times but I remember thinking at the time that it seemed sort of dingy and the slow, deliberate way in which things were done was a big difference from what I was used to getting at McDonald's, which was right across the street. Eventually Arnold's shut down and they paved over everything and put up an Eckerds. The point is Arnold's was a business that was put into a position where it either had to change or it would go out of business.

I learned in INLS 382 all about something called the System Development Life Cycle. It is a circular cycle (imagine that!) which goes like this: Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation, Maintenance. We learned that the major of the SDLC is spent in maintenance where the system has to be modified and streamlined to work for all possible situations it may be needed for. The same idea can be applied to an organization. Once the foundations for an organization are laid what is left is to maintain those foundations and make sure the organization stays relevant.

Relevance can come with the help of new technology. I think the term new technology can be misleading. Even if an organization adopts a piece of technology which has been around for 10 years, that technology will still be new to the organization. Just because a company buys a supercomputer does not mean they are going to lead the way with supercomputing in their industry. A huge part of innovation and technology is the implementation of technology.

My favorite example of innovation has got to be the minivan. Every year it seems like some new great thing is present in minivans that were not present the year before. I think it is very possible they have an idea of the perfect minivan and roll out one feature per year to keep the consumer interested, either way the minivan market is always changing and each company plays off the ideas of other. I think the biggest breakthrough for minivans was the addition of a large sliding door on the driver's side. It seems so apparent to do that now. It is very convenient. That is a thing about innovations, sometimes they are extremely simple and easy to adopt.