Over the last few years the terms “Agility” and “Innovation” seem to continue to rank among the top priorities for big businesses aiming to secure their place in the hearts and minds of our consumers. In fact many of even adopted a rally cry of “Innovate or Die” to instill a sense of urgency across their organizations. What’s interesting is that the earliest reference to the statement “Innovate or Die” seems to come from a book authored by Jack Matson back in 1996 – 20 years ago!

Why is it different now than it was 20 years ago? In my opinion it comes to a few fundamental shifts in the economy –

1. Connected Consumers – Since 2000 the world has seen an increase in “internet connected users” of over 800% – In fact, As of Nov 2015 over 46% of the entire world was connected to the Internet. An increasing number of consumers are connected “all the time” presenting a tremendous sales and marketing opportunity. Mindshare drives market-share!
2. Simplified Application Development – Today’s modern application languages and SDKs provide a much simpler platform for bringing a concept to market. In addition coding has gone from a niche to mainstream with some education systems putting into their core curriculum
3. Access to inexpensive computing power – Public clouds have allowed for inexpensive and access to elastic computing power. Resources can now be consumed “on-demand” eliminating the need for up front capital investment in hardware, software and services.
4. Millennial Mindset – Our Millennials are growing up and their expectations are very different than ours. Having grown up with the Internet they believe that all services should be available and easy to consume online. They are speaking with their wallets and dramatically shifting buying patterns in industries that have been stable for decades (hotels, transportation, banking, media and entertainment)

We live in exciting times where every idea can be easily tested with real consumers and innovation can thrive!