Small Business Tool Kit

from Valley Business FRONT, Issue 143, August 2020

Dwayne Yancey, Playwright

Regional innovation challenge

There is nothing more exciting than the introduction of a new product or innovation into the marketplace. But how can our region increase the rate of new innovations? Could we create a platform and support system that encourages the development of solutions, conquers fear with curiosity, and embraces the messy process of testing and pivoting?

How do we uncover and inspire those creative minds? Courage is important but curiosity is what spurs discovery. Encouraging curiosity requires that we accept that we actually can create new solutions, we can even create by looking at the past, looking at products around us, and how they can be improved upon.

There’s nothing new under the sun because everything has already been invented … right? No, it hasn’t. What if the portal to discovery is just allowing ourselves the freedom to dream about the possibilities from our imaginations and then work backwards to create it? Once you’ve imagined it, surround yourself with others who understand the things you don’t. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to develop new innovations. Many studies indicate that organizational culture is the key element in either inhibiting or enhancing innovation. Companies can benefit financially from providing support for employees interested in developing product or process innovations that improve quality or costs, and even business model management innovations.

Over the last six years, I’ve worked with more than 500 entrepreneurs and 200 mentors and industry experts who are eager to expand our business community. I’ve personally met incredibly talented individuals living in our community, inventors tinkering in their garage, and employees who see a better way to deliver the company’s product or services. Some who have sat on their ideas for 1, 5, even 10 years all because they didn’t know where to begin or whom to trust. Just look at the experimental thinking in labs at Virginia Western Community College, Dabney S Lancaster CC and Virginia Tech.

In the midst of COVID, lets take a break and try something new. The CHALLENGE: identify and mobilize one passionate and creative individual to seek out a problem that exists in their world and then develop innovative solutions. Help connect them with support and resources needed to prove their concept. Engage and rally higher education, business leaders, and industry experts to share their knowledge and resources. The process of innovation involves exploration and pivoting – if an individual or a company are willing to expand their parameters for success, we may just become the innovation capital of Virginia.

“Discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi