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December 9, 2005
Preview of podcast shows for the week of December 12
At the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, we had the unique opportunity to visit backstage with 11 of the event's speakers for live podcast shows. The first five of these shows, each approximately four to seven minutes in length, have already been posted to this site. Stay tuned next week for audio interviews with: Burt Rutan, Randy Komisar, Nancy Koehn, Eric Von Hippel, Jim Euchner & Peter Georgescu.
To subscribe to this Podcast series and receive all the interviews automatically as they are published, put the following address into your iTunes or RSS Reader:
http://www.businessinnovationinsider.com/podcast.xml
Posted by dominic at 10:49 AM | Recommend this! (1) | +dlc | +dig
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Dick Foster interview: Podcast #5
At the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, Dick Foster, author of Creative Destruction and managing partner at Foster Health Partners, moderated a panel discussion on "Innovation, Risk and the Threat of Failure." In this live backstage podcast, he expands on some of the ideas and concepts brought up during the panel discussion, including:
(1) Insights into different theories of creativity;
(2) Analysis of what the changing composition of the S&P 500 means for large companies today;
(3) An explanation of why market mechanisms provide the best incentives for innovation and risk-taking behavior;
(4) Suggestions on how companies like GE, over a long period of time, can introduce market-changing products and services;
(5) A summary of the trade-off between "innovation" and "operation."
MP3 audio file available for download
Posted by dominic at 10:46 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
John Hagel interview: Podcast #4
At the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, strategy expert John Hagel (a former principal with McKinsey) participated in a roundtable discussion on whether or not the U.S. is still a "hotbed" for IT innovation. Afterwards, John followed up on some of the ideas he mentioned during the panel discussion in this five-minute audio podcast for FORTUNE. Among the topics covered:
(1) A discussion of the key steps needed to "trigger" a new wave of U.S. innovation;
(2) A summary of "push" vs. "pull" models for mobilizing resources;
(3) An evaluation of key metrics - such as corporate R&D spending and number of patents received - that are generally used to benchmark innovation performance.
(4) A description of "loosely-coupled, modular" business processes
(5) Insights into the differences between business process innovation and product innovation
MP3 audio file available for download
Posted by dominic at 10:25 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
December 8, 2005
Linda Sanford interview: Podcast #3
In this five-minute audio interview from the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, Linda Sanford, Senior Vice President of Enterprise On-Demand Transformation and Information Technology at IBM, provides some insights into IBM initiatives related to "innovation that matters":
(1) A brief explanation of IBM's "Transition to Teaching" initiative;
(2) A summary of efforts made by IBM to interest the next generation of female students in math, science and engineering;
(3) An explanation of how IBM used Web-based collaborative tools to reshape a statement of the company's values for the 21st century.
MP3 audio file available for download
Posted by dominic at 1:54 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
Navi Radjou interview: Podcast #2
During the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, Navi Radjou, Vice President of Forrester Research, was the moderator of a panel discussion on new innovations in traditional industries (e.g. paper + packaging, chemicals, insurance). Afterwards, Navi shared some of his views on business innovation, especially as it pertains to India and China. In this four-minute podcast, Navi Radjou discusses:
(1) The changing nature of corporate R&D;
(2) The emergence of new terms like "innovation networks" and "innovation ecosystems";
(3) Examples of companies in China and India that are already taking advantage of these new forms of innovation.
MP3 audio file available for download
Posted by dominic at 10:49 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
December 7, 2005
Chan Kim interview: Podcast #1 Now Available
During the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, we had the unique opportunity to go backstage for live interviews with some of the speakers. In this five-minute podcast, W. Chan Kim, a professor of strategy and management at INSEAD and the author of Blue Ocean Strategy (#25 on Amazon's business bestseller list):
(1) Provides examples of companies leveraging blue ocean strategies, such as Cirque du Soleil and Southwest Airlines;
(2) Explains a four-step framework for moving from a "red" ocean of cutthroat competition to a vast, untapped "blue" ocean where the competition is irrelevant; and
(3) Provides insights into how MBA-level strategy courses are taught at INSEAD, Harvard and Wharton.
MP3 audio file available for download
Posted by dominic at 9:30 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
December 6, 2005
How Intuit's Scott Cook built a culture of innovation
Anyone who heard Scott Cook, chairman of Intuit, speak at the recently concluded FORTUNE Innovation Forum knows that he has worked hard to create and sustain a real culture of innovation at the company. The company has even created a "Greatest Failure Award" to celebrate risk-taking activity by all employees.
In the most recent issue of FORTUNE magazine, David Kirkpatrick catches up with Scott Cook and goes behind the scenes at this culture of innovation. By having a "maniacal" focus on the customer and dedicating extraordinary resources to field research, Intuit is able to root out new market opportunities, as Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen (author of The Innovator's Dilemma) explains:
"What Intuit does in the field is wonderful. When a market is not well defined, the only way you get insights about what customers will buy is to go out and see what people are trying to get done in their lives."
Posted by dominic at 5:56 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
December 5, 2005
Creativity lessons from Bob Iger of Walt Disney
Today's Wall Street Journal had a "Boss Talk" feature on Robert Iger, the new CEO at Disney. Iger, of course, is credited with pushing forward the deal to sell TV shows like "Desperate Housewives" for $1.99 each on Apple's new video iPod. With that in mind, the Wall Street Journal provides "5 Tips from Robert Iger for Managing Creativity" as a sidebar to a broad-based discussion about the changing corporate strategy at Walt Disney Co. The five tips:
(1) Don't take a hierarchical approach
(2) Don't create an approval process that's unduly rigorous
(3) Be careful not to water ideas down or lose people's passion
(4) Let those directly in charge make decisions
(5) Put the spotlight on the company, not the individual
[image: Walt and Mickey, via Joe Andy on Flickr]
Posted by dominic at 3:27 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
Podcast interviews from FORTUNE Innovation Forum
During the FORTUNE Innovation Forum, I had the opportunity to visit backstage with several of the conference speakers and conduct brief 3-5 minute interviews. These interviews will be available as audio files available for download from the FORTUNE Business Innovation blog sometime early this week. Stay tuned to the FORTUNE innovation blog over the coming days for more on these podcasts!
Posted by dominic at 3:08 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
Eric Gillespie: Advancing innovations as assets in the global marketplace
ipIQ has emerged as an important force behind the financial engineering of patents as a new asset class. In this interview with ipIQ’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Eric Gillespie, we get a glimpse of how innovations will be financed, protected and leveraged in the near-term future.
Q: You place a lot of emphasis on the creation of assets and building asset value. What does that mean in the context of innovation?
GILLESPIE: In the U.S., we have historically relied on, and protected, the execution side of our business process to create value, and we have largely ignored the innovation side of the process. With more and more manufacturing being moved offshore, and more and more of our economy being services oriented, the burden of corporate value creation is rapidly shifting to the intellectual capital side of those processes.
Q: How and why is intellectual capital viewed as an asset?
GILLESPIE: Today’s forward-thinking companies realize that intellectual property will be the primary driver of value in the next economy and capitalizing on corporate innovation is as fundamental to them as their brand, their distribution channel, or their financial controls. Patents are the only way to protect those innovations. Asset value isn’t going to be found in machinery and equipment, warehouses, or in real estate – it’s going to be found in patent portfolios.
Q: How has the market changed, or how is it changing, with respect to viewing patents as being fundamental?
GILLESPIE: All you have to do is look at Microsoft’s exponential growth in high-quality patenting activity over the past few years. The government took them to the woodshed for monopolistic behavior. Their response? A strategy to leverage government-sponsored monopolies – patents. Perfectly legal and very defensible. Then look at the subsequent ripple through the industry, with the rest of the market arming themselves in response. In the right hands, patents are strategic weapons.
Q: You mentioned off-shoring earlier, which is rarely heard in discussions about innovation or, for that matter, asset creation. How does the international landscape affect innovation?
GILLESPIE: Emerging economies like India and China have raised the bar for more sophisticated approaches to competitive patent strategies. There has been a lot of noise in the market about offshore piracy and theft of intellectual assets, specifically software and music. While those have certainly been a problem, the real threat on the horizon is not the theft of intellectual property, but the origination and creation of intellectual capital and intellectual property.
Q: Expound upon that. And why India and China, specifically?
GILLESPIE: History shows that governments figure out they are economically better off if they play by the rules and enforce ownership. They make a choice between skimming off a small black market and taxing a large, vibrant, legal market. Some get this arithmetic faster than others but all do eventually. The difference with India and China is their tsunami of science and engineering talent on the horizon, it isn’t about pirated DVDs. We have continued to diverge relative to both with the quality of our educational system declining. We produce fewer and fewer PhD’s, they produce more and more. So just like Microsoft is pursuing a domination strategy by creating legal, defensible assets, so too are India and China. They just happen to be doing it on a geopolitical scale, with us in their competitive space playing catch up. Today the U.S. maintains a technological edge but we should be prepared for the coming full frontal assault over the next decade.
Q: How should companies manage for innovation in this environment?
GILLESPIE: The market for intellectual property assets is pure and efficient. Inefficiencies are quickly identified and exploited, placing an increasing amount of importance on the ability to secure and protect these assets. Without a spring of intellectual capital from which a company or a country can draw these assets, they are disadvantaged. By definition it starts with improving the quality of our educational system, then our corporate strategies, around the economic driver of intellectual capital.
Q: Can you provide an example of how this might work?
GILLESPIE: If a pharmaceutical company fails to patent a key molecule to fill a void in the market around an existing drug in their pipeline, some other entity will be on their heels to step in and fill it. It is incumbent on any company that relies on technology to have a holistic intellectual property strategy and ensure returns on these assets when opportunities emerge, while not rewarding the competitive field in this efficient market.
Q: Where can companies learn more about innovation value and how to capitalize on patents as assets?
GILLESPIE: Ken Cukier recently authored a survey on Patents and Technology for The Economist that serves as a great field guide to the innovation ecosystem. Every CEO, every board member, anyone who is interested in understanding how to create shareholder value through patents, should read his review.
Posted by dominic at 7:05 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
Innovation in business networking: Q&A with Sonia and Melissa English
In this exclusive Q&A for the FORTUNE Business Innovation blog, the two co-founders of 5 Minute Networking, Melissa and Sonia English, explain the inspiration for their innovative approach to business networking and outline various ways how this approach could spur greater cross-departmental cooperation during the innovation process.
Q: What was the creative spark that led to the development of the innovative "rapid networking" approach?
Melissa English: I was at a speed-dating event and found the event more beneficial for business networking than for dating! After meeting the 10th guy, I found it difficult to focus on the subtleties of attraction, but found that for the black and white of business connections, it was a highly efficient way to see if there is a match. At the same time I was at the speed-dating event, Sonia was at a chamber of commerce networking mixer. As is often the case at networking mixers, individuals tend to talk to those they already know. (Not only is it difficult to introduce oneself, it is difficult to turn the conversation to business, and it is difficult to extricate oneself from one individual and move onto another!) The following day, when I came to the office with more leads for our website development business than Sonia did, we knew that something was amiss!
After holding a few 5 Minute Networking events, we realized that in order to optimize introductions at events, we needed technology. This led to the development of 5 Minute Networking’s Event Facilitation Software which we license to alumni associations, chambers of commerce, and any other organizations looking to improve the level and quality of interaction among its members, employees or conference attendees. The software minimizes the work involved in planning and facilitating a rapid networking event, and provides optimal results for participants. With the software, new introductions are maximized, participants can select who they would prefer to meet, and limits can be set so an event doesn’t become inundated with a particular industry.
Q: Currently, companies are facing a lot of pressure to foster a creative, risk-taking environment that leads to business innovation. How might companies apply or adapt the "rapid networking" appoach to creating this type of environment within the workplace?
Melissa English: 5 Minute Networking corporate team-building events are a fast and efficient way to increase employee interaction, name recognition, organizational productivity, and performance. Because the Event Facilitation Software keeps track of who has met who, 5 Minute Networking events are the ideal way to integrate employees in different departments or divisions. A 5 Minute Networking event with a topic such as “Ways departments can better work together” can result in a plethora of efficiency improvements and dramatically increased inter-departmental communication.
Q: What are your favorite resources for keeping up on the latest trends and developments within the networking/relationship building industry?
Sonia English: By far the best resource for keeping up with the latest trends in networking/relationship building is people. Staying well connected to the thoughts and ideas of our attendees has been instrumental to our success. In taking their suggestions and implementing technology, we are revolutionizing networking as we know it. Bottom line is that when it comes to networking, it is all about the people and the relationships you build.
Q: How do you think the art and practice of networking will be different five years from now?
Sonia English: Five years from now I believe there will many more online networking opportunities. The advancements in technology are definitely going to come into play. However, I don’t expect the value of in person meetings will ever dissipate. There is nothing like a strong handshake while looking someone in the eye!
Posted by dominic at 6:55 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
