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Joel Beckerman spent about 18 months developing a song that boils down to a melody just four notes long.

He’s one of a handful of composers who specialize in sonic logos, or the audio equivalents of the Nike “swoosh” or John Deere’s leaping deer. More concise than a theme song and subtler than a jingle, sonic logos are brief melodies or sound effects designed to cement a brand in the consumer’s subconscious mind. Famous examples include the five-note Intel bong, McDonald’s “Ba da ba ba ba” signoff and NBC’s three-note chime, in use since 1929.

Sonic branding is becoming increasingly popular in a highly fragmented media world, and Mr. Beckerman’s New York agency Man Made Music has composed dozens of catchy tunes you’ve probably heard announcing high-profile properties.

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I tend to not like offering up checklists as blog posts, you know those one hundred and one ideas for this or that, although I have to admit I like collecting them as a kick-starting resource. Today I decided to change my mind. Why?

Well, I think those of us involved in innovation need to keep reminding ourselves to not just work on the days problem that is in front of us but to ‘move along’ all the others, so this is my innovation jobs-to-be-done list that clients and consultants need to work upon. Also these do build towards a possible Chief Innovation Officer’s agenda and content. A reminder of what we need to keep tackling and consciously working on.

What do you think?

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“Optimism is an essential ingredient for innovation. How else can the individual welcome change over security, adventure over staying in a safe place?”

These words, famously uttered by the late entrepreneur Robert Noyce, sprung to mind this week when I saw the results of GE’s second annual Global Innovation Barometer, which raised some interesting questions around the role of optimism in spurring innovation and which makes me wonder how businesses and governments can better harness the power of positive thinking to drive positive change.

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For anything to get done in a modern business, someone needs to be responsible and there needs to be some structure, some knowledge and some best practice. We can’t wait for the immaculate conception of innovation — we need to provide knowledge, tools, understanding and some people and process who understand how these things work.

Yes, just like the band director in the Music Man there will be people who take advantage of the situation to offer services that don’t work, looking to make a quick buck. But I think most of my clients will agree that many innovation consultants ACCELERATE innovation and build innovation capabilities rather than “kill” innovation. So, should innovation become a profession – either as a staff or line position within a firm, or as a consulting position outside the firm? Until the processes, tools, capabilities and methods of innovation are fully understood, fully interwoven into the culture and processes of a company and taken as second nature, I’d argue there’s a huge need for innovation professionals.

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An imperative for innovators is the creation of value. Aligning yourself to innovation requires a self-awareness that enables you to determine gaps in your capability set. These gaps can be represented in skill sets, resources, access and multitude of other enablers that will determine how effectively the innovation on which you are working can be delivered to its recipients. Without such awareness the ability to execute required to innovate, will fall short. Addressing those deficiencies through selective collaboration is essential.

How do we tackle addressing those gaps at an organization-wide level?

This process is not as simple as the pre-school observation: “Plays well with others.” Although playing well with others is key trait it is not the most important. The process of collaborative innovation involves a series of actions, each building on the last, to produce a combination of learning and outcomes to arrive at a valuable end result. To bring the new to fruition and address a meaningful design challenge requires interdisciplinary engagement that requires a mindset focused on contributing to an act of creativity. That creativity takes different type of people and a scale of organization that can accommodate the flexibility and resilience that innovation demands.

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The bottom line is, the biggest hurdle for a community manager, social media strategist, or any person who tries to leverage their online presence in any way or for any reason is that there’s too much to keep track of and too little time.

The situation inevitably leads to an overarching feeling that you can never get caught up. Most of us are reconciled to the idea that it’s just not going to change and that it’s a fact of life. But *should* it be this way? Is this right?

My answers are no and no…. to an extent. There have to be measures put in place to make the whole thing more manageable, without sacrificing what you’ve built, and what you want to build.

The answer lies in priorities. Set them.

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Emotional attachment prompts some incredibly strong bonds, a host of clear affections and different reactions when it comes to our favourite brands or products. When something suddenly ‘disrupts’ this, it triggers a set of mixed emotions that shakes you and stirs up different feelings that take some time to re-order in your mind. I try to seek understanding and then simply have to let go, even when they so often staring you in the face. Sometimes you still don’t want to finally let go until you are ‘hit’ by such a disruptive event.

Emotional attachment is important for brands to build into our lives.

As we work through innovation we often forget the emotional aspects of people, emotions and relationships. Today Apple stands out in achieving that. One real trigger that Kodak prompted in me was revisiting the ten commandments of emotional branding suggested by Marc Gobé as they need to be revisited when we go about our innovating business for business, products and services.

Ten commandments of Emotional Branding…

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To create Sabi, a McKinsey-trained former VC paired with all-star designer Yves Behar. Their process offers lessons about finding a good business opportunity—and a monumental change in American life.

Most entrepreneurs embark down that path with a mix of luck, circumstance, and insight: They’re futzing with some clunky gadget, and then boom! They realize how to fix it. Or they’ve worked so long at something that they simply know how to do it better.

Assaf Wand, the founder of Sabi, a line of branded, ergonomic wares for the aging which launches today, is a completely different sort of entrepreneur. Rather than intuiting some need out of the ether or working toward his big idea over a decade, he applied a mix of analytics, hustle, and hard work to finding an overlooked business opportunity. Thus, his example is a good argument that, while genius never arrives on demand, methodical discipline can conjure real innovation.

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