The beginner’s guide to a job as innovation consultant
Work never stops, and this applies more than ever in innovation. However, that’s what makes it so exciting; there are always new possibilities, new strategies to develop and new solutions waiting for you to be found. Now, this does not only take time but most of all the right person for the job, and the job to perform here is “innovation consultant”.
The need for entrepreneurials
The first key to designing an innovation strategy is having an entrepreneurial mindset. That’s why innovation consulting requires not only specific skills but also the personality and insights of a believer in growth and innovation.
“Entrepreneurial mindset you say? Too bad, I don’t consider myself starting my own company…”
Well, I am happy to tell you there is a difference.
An entrepreneur will start something new, as that’s their dream. They’ll risk a lot to commit to one project, putting up a start-up.
Entrepreneurial people have a way of thinking that empowers them to identify growth opportunities, overcome challenges, make decisions accordingly and take responsibility for the results. They constantly try to improve their skill set and collect learnings by failing once in a while.
They don’t wait for the future growth, they make it happen.
They. Take. Action.
And THAT… is what you need as an innovation consultant.
If you reached this part of our blog, you might have the feeling this looks interesting. Maybe, just maybe, you are the right person for fulfilling this role.
We’ve developed some key takeaways for beginners in innovation consulting.
Let’s explore if you have all the necessary innovation capabilities.
The power of innovation consultants
There are always new trends that are developing. In a rapidly changing landscape, it’s you, as an innovation consultant, who‘s gonna discover these and learn from them. This means putting together a lot of inspiring case studies and finding those great emerging stories and campaigns.
You’ll be the one introducing them to your team.
It is safe to say that you have the power to help everyone with the job you perform as an innovation consultant. Isn’t that amazing?
Nevertheless, you might still feel a bit in the dark about what this exactly means?
We get that, but we hope this makes you curious. There will probably never be a clear job description for the things you achieve as an innovation consultant.
You might do something else at company A than at company B, and you will learn different insights that make you change within the same position as well.
No single day looks the same, although every day, you develop your skills to do better at the next project. We think that’s beautiful.
However, we see you need more. That’s why we want to dive a bit deeper into the topic so you get to know concrete tips for this function.
Let’s dive!
Where do we curate our knowledge?
Maybe you are wondering where to start this journey. Well, let us provide you with some great places to collect and organise great learnings for developing your innovation strategy.
1. Feedly
Feedly is your daily magazine with a PERSONAL assistant… well, AI research assistant.
Leo, as he’s called, will quickly understand what you are looking for in your daily feed and provide you with relevant insights from all over the internet. So start with finding and organising your feed, and Leo will upgrade your feed daily little by little to allow you to focus on your priorities.
Take a look at some of our favourite blogs down below. It might inspire you to develop new ideas.
- Springwise for all the new inventions
- CXL for advanced marketing wisdom
- Strategyzer to stay on top of corporate innovation
- AHRefs for everything SEO
- Sifted for innovation news
- Adweek for the best campaigns worldwide
One more tip: you might see something interesting, but don’t have the time at the moment to extensively read it. No problem, you can use “Pocket” to save articles for later. It also works with a convenient Chrome extension.
2. Podcast / Books
There are many places where you can find popular podcasts or good books.
Yes, we’ve heard about the library, but have you heard about 1lib.org? It contains an immense amount of ebooks and articles that are free to read.
Another powerful tool is Podboxer, the podcast website for entrepreneurs and people with innovation at heart.
Let us provide you with one more, called Blinkist. They gather a lot of learnings, in little time. Short and powerful.
Once again, we’d like to guide you a little by giving some suggestions for podcasts.
- HBR Ideacast
- Indiehackers for hustler stories on all kinds of entrepreneurial topics
- MOVE: the go-to-market podcast
- Pivot because Scott Galloway is a legend
- The Joe Rogan Show for the amazing guests
- A16Z & Recode & Land of the giants
Bonus: ask Gary V… He’ll always know something interesting.
3. Newsletters
Staying on top of trends does not mean you are the only one that can or should put effort into detecting them. Allow others to send their insights to you every week.
Luckily, this exists in the form of newsletters.
These are found to be killer newsletters for our team of innovation consultants, maybe for you as well?
- Sifted for innovation news
- Bossdata weekly overview
- Mission X by Nexxworks
- CXL weekly overview
- Growthhackers weekly overview
- The Hustle
Golden rule: Keep it to a maximum of three newsletters to keep it feasible and your interest lively. Explore and identify the relevant newsletters, because too many emails will just remain unread.
4. The real goldmine… Twitter
Make lists of contributors that tackle the topics of innovation strategy, growth marketing, trends, etc.
The advanced search settings are a real help when it comes to finding them. Work with a chain: find some people that are relevant for your list and look who they follow, retweet and like. Do this again and again, and your feed will start filling with interesting people and content.
Here are some top accounts we receive a lot of value from.
Bram Kanstein.eth
Dave Gerhardt
Andrew Gazdecki
Are you gaining interest in this innovation consulting?
Do you perhaps have another great idea to curate knowledge?
Or you know, maybe you want to be a part of such a growth-driven, ambitious workspace and you saw one of our job alerts?
If any of these sound accurate to you, then feel free to connect with us on one of our channels! Our team at Cosmos Collective looks forward to a little chat.
