Welcome to our first edition of Conversations with Ever Evolving.
We figured we would start our first conversation with the basics… first and foremost, who is Ever Evolving?
Ever Evolving started as the brainchild of our Chief, Ever Evolving Businessman, Steve Palmer. He was looking for a way to bring repeatable and perpetual innovation to those companies outside of the few Fortune 100 companies that are known to be continually innovative. Together, he and I have been steadily expanding the concept of continuous innovation and with it, Ever Evolving as a business.
We both have degrees in Computer Science from the University of Mary Washington, which is where we got to know each other. And when we finished college, we went off and did what most people do in the Northern Virginia area do, we went to work for the Department of Defense (DoD). During that time, we got involved in a lot of projects that would be considered innovative for the government. Maybe not state of the art or cutting edge for the Googles and Amazons of the world but for the government, well past their normal comfort zones.
During this time, we learned that a lot of people aren’t good at doing innovation. Innovation is hard, it is just plan difficult to make the needed changes. We determined the most difficult part of being innovative and the hardest part about making those kinds of changes is that you must change your culture (something the DoD continues to struggle with), and you must change who you are to really get at the heart of how to be innovative on a regular basis.
From there, Steve went on to take leadership positions in the company that he was working for, continuing to do innovative projects for the company. I went off to the realm of consulting, helping commercial companies and non-profit organizations do crazy and innovative thing. We got back together a few years later and we realized that people still just aren’t that great at doing innovation. And it was at this point that we asked ourselves, why is that? Why do people have such a hard time innovating?
What Does Ever Evolving Do?
We found that It really comes down to a company’s ability to successfully implement Innovation Management. And that’s when we had our Eureka moment, we should start an Innovation Management Implementation and Coaching firm. We wanted to help ensure that companies can make the changes necessary to do innovation, on a frequent and repeatable basis, and be successful at it. From the beginning, we have worked to ensure that Innovation Management is baked into every solution that we provide. And that’s really the crux of what Ever Evolving is as a company.
Innovation Management is a combination of the management of innovation processes and change management. It is normally centered around things like product, business process and organizational innovation. The definition of the discipline of Innovation Management is currently under development as an ISO standard (ISO 56000), and we’re right in the middle of it helping to shape that standard, to define the processes, and to help really call out what it would take to implement Innovation Management. More to come on this topic….
We also quickly came to realize that one of the key components needed to ensure successful Innovation Management was an organization’s culture, especially when it comes down to ideas and managing those ideas. Successful management and implementation of innovation efforts have their roots in many of the traditional business disciplines like business analysis, systems engineering, project management, and agile (something we have spent years doing on an everyday basis). These components are normally a part of the culture of today’s successful businesses. But there’s other components too, other aspects of innovation management that just aren’t covered by the other disciplines. And this is where we plan to help educate and bring clarity so that anyone who comes on this ride with us can share from our research, experience and commonly developed knowledge to find success during their own innovation journey.
For more information about Ever Evolving or Innovation Management, reach out to us at info@everevolving.biz.
***We would like to give a special shout out to our friend Lauren LeMunyan, The Spitfire Coach, who recommended the conversational blog format.***
