Kodak missed the moment when it had to switch strategies from film-based photography to digital. That’s the convenient analysis, Larry Keeley writes in this article for Fortune magazine’s website. But the real story is more nuanced, and shows corporate leaders “how easy it can be to get things wrong, even when trying with the best of intentions to do everything right. It’s a cautionary tale of the need for deeper understanding of what innovation really means, and how it is infinitely more vital than most people think it is, even as it isn’t about any single product.”

Keeley, an innovation expert and partner at Monitor, explains how Kodak’s famous failure can be a useful lesson for executives looking to innovate now. He writes that a new form of strategic thinking, convergences, “gives leaders a deeper sense of the interdependencies that connect firms, products, systems and services in new ecosystems” and reveals emerging opportunities, typically at the junction of new technologies and customer behaviors.

Larry Keeley is a partner at Monitor, and the president and co-founder of Doblin Inc. He is an acclaimed author, speaker, and teacher on the role of innovation and business. Over the last 25 years, Larry has advised hundreds of clients on how to use rational, repeatable methods to achieve innovation effectiveness. Larry was named by Business Week as one of the "Seven Gurus of Innovation." He is also on the faculty and Board of the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago and is a highly rated teacher at the Kellogg Graduate School of Business.