Three words: Let’s play ball.

It was game six of the World Series. I was in Chicago, winding down with my colleague in a pub on Michigan Avenue.

We were watching the ballgame along with the local Chicagoans. But this wasn’t just any baseball game, it was an exceptionally exciting one, by anyone’s standards. The Cardinals had been down one, came back. Down, came back. Back and forth.

The tension was at its peak. It was the eleventh inning. The Cardinals just needed one run to win.

I think it might have been exactly the moment when Freese cracked the ball straight through center field and won the game that I got clarity on something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

I want my clients to take it to the eleventh inning.

Radical Innovation gets the home run

Most of the time, my clients hear me talking about ROI. There is no question that in any business, you have to keep your core accounts and activities solid. Sound decision making, good leadership, a good web site, and constant incremental innovation.

Common sense says don’t stray too far from your core business and know where your strengths are.

But in the same time, you have to innovate and it’s a good idea to think outside the box. Experiment. Test. Research. Take a risk.

If you never take a risk, nothing will ever happen. You business will still continue to grow, but one day you will be hit by a new challenger with a radical innovation in your industry. That day, it will be too late to get back in the game.

Try radical innovation.

Radical innovation means taking your $5 million media budget and using 100K of it to develop a new App, or a new API. Then, watch how your clients adapt it, alter it, and build on it with their own application creations.

Radical innovation means testing a theory, trying something. And if it fails, get up and try again.

You don’t have to look far to see where traditional businesses are getting left in the outfield. Look at Netflix. The company went from 7 million to 25 million subscribers in three years – the cable giants don’t know what hit them. Think about Shazam, the music tagging software, and how it has changed the way consumers identify and build their music libraries. Where was HMV?

Taking action on your ideas to further your company will inevitably spur on the imagination of others. New free innovative Apps are being created every day, piggy-backing on major company API’s. Sit back and watch your customers or friendly App developers take part your company’s growth.

It’s really just about taking a chance, kick-starting the innovative engine and testing that clever idea.

The digital revolution is in the eleventh inning. If you don’t innovate in this digital world, you’re going to lose the series. Period.

Two words: Let’s innovate.

Get your game on. Don’t let someone else hit your home run.