Digital Transformation Lessons (and an April Fool’s Twist)

Published April 1 — Why do you think we are noting this date?After years of workshops, an endless series of white papers and billions of documented pain points, our Innovation Team has finally reached a consensus: the secret to digital transformation is a mandatory wall of orchids in the office.Not metaphorical orchids. Actual orchids. With planters. And dirt."We've found that teams who think about nurturing something other than themselves — we recommend 10 minutes a day — experience a 225% increase in innovative thinking the next day,” said Dr. I. Newitt, Chief Chaos Officer at a company we cannot legally name. "The orchids take their sweet time not blooming then suddenly pop out when you are least expecting them. They don’t care about Agile, and that’s the point.”

Here are 3 recent transformation projects undertaken by clients who adopted an Orchid Wall. All resulted in wildly successful but completely unmeasurable results:

Hold a hackathon, then ignore the results. Studies show that 95% of hackathon winners are celebrated at an all-hands meeting then never heard from again. Don’t forget the orchid-themed swag.
Hire a Chief Chaos Officer. Nobody is entirely sure what this person does, including them. But the social media announcement will get awesome engagement. (We hear that Dr. Newitt may be available.)
Declare your company "AI-first." Then use AI to generate a strategy document about becoming AI-first. Have a human edit it. Have AI re-edit it. Repeat until the board meeting.

But Here's What Actually Works, Fooling Aside

Digital innovation will respond like an orchid to diligent care and feeding. Give ideas room to blossom and understand that some may fail.Start by identifying the business problem you want to solve and be honest about the components needed for AI or other innovation to deliver results. AI, for example, needs clean and robust data to be effective.And don’t go small – think big. While AI lends itself to pilots, you’ll make a much bigger impact using it to power strategy at a large scale.So go out there and get your hands dirty with innovation. There’s rich soil waiting for you.Happy April Fool’s Day from OSF!

Author: Robin Kamen

Robin Kamen is a senior consultant at OSF Digital Strategy. She is a digital marketing and strategy leader with experience building global brands and driving customer engagement and ROI across many verticals.