January - Stop taking orders and start finding solutions.  Ask "How do you do things now and how can we do those things better?"  Become a partner in solving the real problem vs. just blindly producing what the customer thinks they need.

    February - Innovation is hard work.  Stop pretending that it is the result of a few geniuses in your organization.  Set up appropriate resource assignments.  Break the work down into manageable pieces.  Challenge everyone, from the CEO to the Receptionist, on finding problems to solve and coming up with the ideas that solve them.

    March - Don't "forecast the future."  Understand that you invent and create the future.  You have more control over the future than you know.  You need to be thinking beyond this quarter and into the next, and the next, and the next.  You need to create the "next big thing" before your competitor does.  "Imagine the future...Make it happen"

    April - Create effective and efficient processes, but be flexible.  Create a process for challenging people to come up with ideas.  Create a process for gathering and considering the ideas.  Create a process for testing the ideas.  Create a process for figuring out if the idea will make money.  You get the idea.  But be flexible...rigidity kills innovation.

    May - Be clear on what innovation means to you and your customers.  Innovation is one of those terms that can take on multiple meanings.  For me, it means anything new that provides value to someone.  New can mean "new to you" or "new to your customers" vs. "new to the world."  The idea here is to define and document it so there is no confusion.

    June - Focus on your internal structures.  What is the make up of your innovation team?  Would you be better served by an Innovation Center of Excellence model instead?  What about process, governance, resources and leadership engagement?  Are you helping people or getting in the way?

    July - Think about a portfolio approach to managing your innovation pipeline.  Each idea you decide to invest in should be carefully considered for risk and "audacity."  Spread your idea funding budget across safe bets, probable wins, maybe wins and long shots within your portfolio of development projects.  Use these "levers" to adjust overall direction based on risk tolerance, economic reality, etc.

    August - Lead, don't follow.  The pursuit of "best practices" is important when you are playing catch-up to your competitors.  But once you've caught the pack, take the lead with "next practices."  This requires a lot of courage, so be prepared to fight the risk-averse within your organization.  Let your competitors pursue your "best practices."  Be a leader!

    September - Data lies.  Don't forget this very, very valuable point.  Data can be constructed to tell you whatever you want to hear.  Use "quantitative data"...as it tells one part of the overall story.  But don't fall down and genuflect to it.  Give equal weight to "qualitative data."  It tells another, just as important, part of the overall story.  Bottom line = Consider the facts, trust your intuition.

    October - Become a trend hunter.  Scan your surroundings.  Pick up on the soft signals of momentum.  What is hot at the fringe?  What is potentially cyclical that may be ready for a come-back?  What are the geeks excited about and working on?  What is coming and what has already moved on?

    November - Demand executive leadership engagement, not just support.  Innovation Management should be treated as a business discipline...no different than Marketing, HR, IT, Finance or Legal.  Innovation is not a one-time event at some posh off-site.  Executive leaders should be challenged to walk the talk.  They should be part of idea gen sessions.  They should sit on Idea Boards to hear and decide on the fate of new ideas.  They should be engaged in setting the appropriate mix of development projects in the project portfolio.

    December - Be an effective resource manager.  That means you are making sure you have enough people in the right places doing the right things that they are passionate about...human resources.  It also means you have adequate amounts of funding to run the program, provide seed money to promising ideas and launch larger projects for idea execution...financial resources.  It means making sure that you carve out time for people to think, to come up with ideas, to search for problems to solve...time resources.  Finally, it means setting up places to think, to get away from the constant rush of "right now" work, to be challenged creatively, to use tools designed to help solve problems...location resources.