It’s conventional to harken the importance of innovation for business today. It is nicely defined by Verena Kloos, president of BMW DesignworksUSA:

“The trick is to show consumers what the next big thing is, not to reflect what they think now.”

What propels that sort of innovation? I suggest there is a formula that makes innovation work:

Input + Analysis + Insight = Innovation

Too many research efforts focus too much on what market segments “think now.” That is merely the starting point. Input from those markets is one element of the equation. It must be rendered meaningful by careful analysis. Then there is a turbocharging effect that comes from the sort of insight that can only be generated by genuinely creative people and processes. It is that third step in the process that distinguishes companies such as Apple. They have the people who bring a level of insight that transforms market input and analysis into true innovation.

In the end, then, it’s the quality and capability of people that really makes innovation happen.

As you might expect, my clients get an unrelenting dose of brand thinking. One recently commented that the current economic pressures surely must have reduced the relevance of brands. In these times when ‘cheap is the new black,’ do brands really still matter?

You guessed it, I say yes. In fact, these days a brand may matter more than ever. In constrained economic times, people look toward a proven brand because they cannot afford to be wrong. When resources are limited, trusting a brand tips the scales.

That means the pressure is on for anyone who guides and shapes a brand… be at your best, be distinctive and, most of all, be trustworthy.

A colleague who works in the arena of leading-edge healthcare research was recently stopped in his tracks by a Director of Nursing in one of the hospitals they were studying. His research focus was the implementation of new information management technologies and its impact on the delivery of patient care. The Director of Nursing, with utter honesty and passion, simply said to him, “You know, Paul, sometimes technology can give you a false sense of knowing.”

With all the digital information at our disposal today, it’s sometimes tempting to neglect other forms of input. As only a nurse sometimes can, she was reminding my friend that the digital read-outs, scans, wireless monitors, etc. don’t totally replace the act of looking at a patient, seeing their symptoms, listening to their descriptions, and really knowing what they are feeling and needing.

And it’s not just in healthcare. There are any number of ways the digital world can give us a false sense of the completeness of our comprehension. It merits consideration.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of technology… I post, after all. But we would do well to remember the other, equally important inputs that comprise what it means to have true knowledge.

There is a program in London, England called “The School of Life.” Its faculty is composed of writers and artists and thinkers. Its founder is Sophie Howarth, who says her intent is to create an “emotionally intelligent environment in which to look at the world around us in fresh ways.” It sounds like a program that is not as rigorous as academe, but a good deal more sophisticated than the drivel of self-help banter and blather.

I’m guessing few of us will jet off to London to try it out, deliciously tempting as it sounds, but it is a poignant reminder of the responsibility we each have to feed our soul, which is, after all, the crucial tool for looking at the world around us in fresh ways.

That act of feeding the soul can be accomplished in a multitude of ways and at a variety of depths. Perhaps the mere act of appreciating and calling attention to the glorious art and architecture of Manhattan, an act so nicely lived by my friend and colleague Stephen Nobel. Perhaps the extra care exemplified in a hand-written note of gratitude. Or perhaps a summer resolution to revisit and savor some classic from art or literature or music.

The measure of nourishing our soul will keep us enrolled in the School of Life.

Nothing like an economic challenge to help us see some truths.

John Kao, in Innovation Nation, writes: “What we need today is new thinking that leads us to achieve a critical mass of talent rather than a critical mass of things.” It reminds me of Daniel Pink saying recently that people can be liberated by prosperity, but not fulfilled by it.

Did you know that self-storage is a $22 billion dollar industry? Some people have so many things they don’t know where to put them, except to rent extra space.

It really is less about things these days and more about knowledge. It’s not what you have, it’s what you know. Perhaps, one could only hope, we really have successfully emerged from the era of dumbing things down. Let’s never do that again.

I hope this space will always be about bigger thinking, bigger ideas.