Innovation means doing things differently to serve customers better. How to innovate and why all innovation is about divergence not convergence. Innovation that simply imitates competitors, product features, design or brand elements, just means that all products and services look identical in every way, which means you can only differentiate yourself from competition based on price. Long term sustainable competitive advantage will always come from finding new ways to excell, exceed customer expectations. Technigues for innovation including open innovation and crowdsourcing using wikipedia type models to solve complex innovation challenges. How to encourage innovative teams and processes. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Patrick Dixon - lecture at Hermes client event for UK retailers on retail industry trends.