Shortcut

I was recently in a brainstorming session with
market research and R&D managers at a Fortune
50 client. The marketing manager turns to the R&D
technical lead and asks, "can you give me a list of all
possible technologies out there?" She was speaking
the language of high level summary of the universe
of possibilities. The technical lead, on the other
hand, translated it as "give me information on the
technologies we are capable of delivering in the near
future." Simple miscommunication? Little business
impact? Not if you're trying to stretch the innovation
possibilities and the R&D lead disqualifi es longer term
technologies because they're not ready now. That's one
reason why innovation at some companies looks like
the same old stuff re-packaged.