What Drives Innovation? People, Culture, Empathy, And Data
While technology is a powerful enabler, it’s only the first step in digital transformation, said Adobe CMO Ann Lewnes, this morning at Adobe Summit—The Digital Experience conference.
According to Lewnes, in addition to technology, companies need to be focused on the right people to make a transformation successful.
“You need both right brainers and left brainers, as well as the ‘in-betweeners,’” Lewnes told the audience of 17,000 people gathered in Las Vegas. “We reskilled talent where we could and brought in new skills where we needed to. Our market researchers reinvented themselves and became data analysts. Our media team learned to love new ad formats and programmatic, and our designers became content machines to keep pace with digital’s demands. We brought in data scientists to do mix modeling and media attribution analysis. And a lot of digital natives.”
But above all else, Lewnes said, Adobe looked for people with a new mindset: people who weren’t afraid to experiment and challenge the status quo. With the right technology and people in place, the next step was transforming Adobe’s processes because transformation requires cross-company collaboration and accountability.
That has meant building a culture of testing, she said. The marketing organization at Adobe started off with one test a week and now does approximately 50 tests per month. They test everything from a color of a button to entirely new business models.
“And because we’re Adobe, we also have a very high creative bar,” Lewnes said. “In the end, a great idea and a great piece of creative is at the center of every great experience.”
Adobe’s transformation isn’t done yet, Lewnes added. In fact, she expects some big trends on the horizon that are going to change the game yet again. First, she said, mobile is growing with voice, augmented reality, and 5G. Next, addressable TV is finally allowing businesses to target individual households, while the “buy online and pick up in-store” trend is blurring the online/offline retail worlds. Finally, the explosion of video continues, with U.S. adults spending nearly six hours a day viewing video content, she said, citing Nielsen research.
Innovation Starts With Empathy And Culture Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sat down with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen (fun fact: the two went to high school together) to talk about what it takes for brands to truly innovate. Nadella pointed to the Microsoft Adaptive Controller, built to make gaming more accessible.
“[Our Adaptive Controller came from the] Xbox team who got really proximate with a community of gamers,” Nadella said. That team thought long and hard about what it could do to make gaming more accessible.” Even the packaging is accessible, he said.
“Empathy is at the core of all innovation,” Nadella said.
When asked about what it takes from an organizational standpoint to be successful in digital transformation and innovation, Nadella said a sense of purpose, mission, and culture are really key.
