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February 3, 2006
Will President Bush's plan for science and technology really boost innovation?
During this week's State of the Union address, President Bush outlined some of his plans for making America more competitive in the areas of math, science, engineering and technology. The idea of course, is that increased spending in key areas such as basic scientific research will lead to future economic growth, improved economic competitiveness and greater innovation in the private sector. (Check out the cool graphic above that the White House included in the text of the State of the Union speech: the Apple iPod as the result of basic research) As part of the so-called American Competitiveness Initiative, the President also proposed significant additional funding for the hiring of math and science teachers, improving the state of math and science education in the U.S. and renewing the R&D tax credit for corporations.
However, is this really the right approach for preserving America's competitive advantages vis-a-vis competitors such as India and China? After all, simply spending more money on education and R&D spending does not always guarantee future innovation success. (These things usually turn out to be money pits) When the government has attempted to "pick winners and losers" or coerce the private sector to support certain technologies, its track record has been less than impressive. In an article (An Innovation Roadmap) that I recently wrote for TCS Daily, I outlined many of these concerns, arguing that the government should be taking other steps to ensure future prosperity and innovation success.
Well, we'll see what happens. The President has already presented his vision for innovation at 3M in Minnesota, and will be taking the "spending more money = innovation" story to other places across America. It looks like much of the response from governmental organizations has been uniformly positive (What can you expect? Uncle Sam writes their checks). Most corporations, too, are probably chortling with glee about the R&D tax cut. But what about the designers and creative types out there? Does this American Competitiveness Initiative really sound like a good idea for boosting innovation? (The tagline for the American Competitiveness Initiative is "Leading the World in Innovation") In contrast, innovative places like Denmark and Singapore are going full tilt ahead with initiatives that support real creativity and innovation, not math and science.
Additional thinking on the American Competitiveness Initiative:
American Competitiveness Initiative: Leading the World in Innovation [PDF document]
Why the American Competitiveness Initiative matters [National Association of Manufacturers blog]
Ask the White House Online Forum with Carlos Gutierrez [The White House]
"A bold plan that speaks to the needs of Americans throughout their lifetimes" [U.S Department of Energy]
The President takes his message to 3M in Minnesota [Accelerating Innovation blog]
[image: "Impact of Basic Research on Innovation"]
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Contemplative solitude or networked productivity?
It's often been said that individuals have their most innovative thoughts while taking a hot shower or soaking in the tub. With the trend toward "ultra-luxe bathrooms for the Type A personality," as detailed by Jon Weinbach and Peggy Edersheim Kalb in today's The Wall Street Journal, however, the idea of a long, hot, undisturbed shower may soon be just another quaint, antiquated notion:
"So it's come to this. The humble bathroom, long a place of refuge and solitude, is playing quiet host to more workplace transactions. Bathroom business has gone way beyond tapping out furtive emails on a BlackBerry. Lately, more hard-driving homeowners have converted their loos into virtual satellite workspaces, with retractable desks or waterproof touch-screen monitors. Manufacturer Acquinox of New York says sales of its steam shower/whirlpool units -- a hands-free phone is standard in each -- nearly tripled last year to 14,800 modules. Wisconsin-based Seura, meanwhile, reports rising sales of its vanity mirrors, which feature LCD screens in the glass. The mirrors, starting at $2,400, let users check their tie-knot, then flip a switch to watch the embedded TV."
There are two primary factors driving this trend, it appears - the build-out of the "smart home" concept and the trend toward 24/7 global work schedules as companies compete domestically, internationally and everywhere in between. At the heart of the matter, many executives would rather trade "contemplative solitude" for "networked productivity." Anyway, the article has a playful aspect to it, as it catalogues the list of great men who have been known to conduct their best thinking while in the bathroom:
"There's a long, shared history between productivity and the privy that predates even the corporate washroom. Privacy-seeking playwright Edmond Rostand wrote much of "Cyrano de Bergerac" in the bathroom, according to at least one source, "Uncle John's All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader." President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered assistants to stand by and take dictation as he performed his toilet routine, writes biographer Robert Caro. Even The Fonz would motion toward the men's room when he invited visitors to "step into my office."
So which would you prefer? To have some quiet time alone to hash out the details of an innovative new project -- or constant access to wireless networks, cellphones and Blackberrys?
Tags: productivity creativity
[image: Wall Street Journal]
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An Indian blogger's take on global innovation
Sadagopan's Weblog on Emerging Technologies, Trends,Thoughts, Ideas & Cyberworld (selected as the Best Technology Indiblog of 2004) analyzes a few common myths about global innovation. The first "romantic notion" is that the future of American business is somehow connected to design, creativity and innovation. The second myth is that India and China are somehow content to "churn out the products and services the U.S. comes up with." Books like A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink - which tend to divide the world's economy neatly into "left brain" and "right brain" tasks - only reinforce these misplaced views, Sadagopan points out.
The truth, most likely, is that the U.S., China and India simply have differing notions of what innovation really is, with the U.S. primarily concerned with highly-visible technological innovation:
"...The entrepreneurial outfits in China and India are relying on innovation as a way to get better faster. it's a different form of innovation. In the U.S., when executives talk about innovation, they tend to focus on breakthrough products or technology. But in China and India, the majority of businesses focus on rapid incremental process and product innovation. It's much less visible. It doesn't grab the headlines. But over time it can lead to impressive advances..."
The key, writes Sadagopan, is for Western and Asian businesses to work together as part of global innovation networks and focus more on collaboration, less on competition:
"Is it the end of the road for the West? No Way - Most leading Western companies are turning toward a new model of innovation, one that employs global networks of partners. These can include U.S. chipmakers, Taiwanese engineers, Indian software developers, and Chinese factories. IBM is even offering the smarts of its famed research labs and a new global team of 1,200 engineers to help customers develop future products using next-generation technologies. When the whole chain works in sync, there can be a dramatic leap in the speed and efficiency of product development...
The US is the economic engine of the world – lets hope that it continues to innovate faster, better and emerge stronger. Collaboration in innovation is always a workable solution. Together, with Asia, let more innovation blossom and let the world prosper a lot more - innovation and prosperity are closely related."
Tags: India innovation collaboration DanPink
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Detroit: an innovative Super Bowl destination
Quick, what's the first thing you think of when someone mentions Detroit? The automobile industry? Motown? Super Bowl XL? Well, it should be "innovation," according to Colin Utley of the Detroit Super Bowl XL Host Committee:
"Detroit's innovations have shaped the way America moves and what America hears. It has also changed the way America's premier annual sporting event is experienced. The same innovating spirit that drove Henry Ford's creation of the assembly line and Berry Gordy's independent Motown record label ensured that Super Bowl XVI -- Detroit's first -- would leave a proud legacy on the game. Super Bowl XL, to be played in Detroit on Feb. 5, 2006, is the city's second opportunity to redefine the Super Bowl experience and reintroduce Detroit to the world...
It is only fitting the NFL is bringing the 40th anniversary of Super Bowl to Detroit, a city that has been the birthplace of innovation in industry and music since the turn of the 20th century. It is there that the experience of America's biggest game was once enhanced and will again be redefined."
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Takeaway lessons from the Growth & Innovation Conference in New York City
Over at the Innovate on Purpose blog, Jeffrey Phillips has posted a few observations and remarks from Day 2 of the Growth and Innovation Conference presented by The Conference Board in New York City. Speakers on the second day included Chris Steel (a senior partner at PA Consulting), Madan Birla (author of FedEx Delivers), and Navi Radjou (VP of Forrester Research). After summarizing some of the points made by the speakers, Jeffrey offers a few takeaway lessons from the event:
My takeaways after the conference: Innovation is clearly an important topic in many firms. However, there's not a clear consensus on how to approach innovation. Should it be considered as something that R&D does and needs to do better? Should it be a corporate wide initiative? How do we measure and manage innovation? Should innovation address products, business models or other functions? Right now, many firms are grappling with these types of questions. Just like with Six Sigma, Sarbox or other recent corporate initiatives, these attendees and their firms need some more definition about innovation and what it means to them, and a road map to use to implement plans to become more innovative.
Tags: innovation R&D ConferenceBoard
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February 2, 2006
Ford Motor Company's Innovation Acceleration Center
Apparently, Ford Motor Company has borrowed a page from the Google playbook when it comes to creating an innovative work environment. The company's two-year-old Innovation Acceleration Center in Dearborn, Michigan sounds a lot like the Googleplex in Silicon Valley:
"It's amazing what a room filled with radio-controlled cars, a 3-foot Statue of Liberty made of Legos and some comfy couches can do to stir the imagination. It may seem a place for fun and games, but to Ford Global Technologies, LLC, the Innovation Acceleration Center is a serious facility concerned with a serious goal: Brainstorming the future of Ford. Launched two years ago, the Innovation Acceleration Center invites groups from all areas of operations at Ford to use the facility to think not just outside the box, but even outside the car.
"We offer a creative, off-site environment that is on-site at Ford," said Bill Coughlin, president and CEO, Ford Global Technologies, LLC. "When people come here they realize they aren't in Kansas anymore. They have the opportunity to push aside for awhile the typical constraints to think creatively and to see what may really be the best way forward."
That's from a press release in mid-December. In the past 45 days, though, Ford appears to have scrapped its innovation strategy as it deals with its declining competitiveness in the U.S. automobile industry. At Ford, it's a case of too little, too late - the new Innovation Acceleration Center, the top-secret Piquette Project and the "Driving American Innovation" marketing campaign - all were launched within the past two years. However, when push came to shove, Ford cut jobs and shut down plants.
Anyway, Blue Oval News ("the independent voice of the Ford community since 1998") is the place to check whether there are any new innovative initiatives in Ford's near-term future. In addition to news and press releases from Ford, the site links to partners like Get Rammed and (Mu)Stangs Unleashed.
Tags: Ford innovation
[image: Ford Motor Company]
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February 2 Innovation Linkage
Innovation grudge match: Kevin Rollins vs. Nicholas Carr [FORTUNE Small Business]
Are you enjoying globalization yet? [Mercer Management Journal]
John Hagel's reflections on Davos [Edge Perspectives]
A Wikipedia spoof: the content-free encyclopedia [Uncyclopedia]
Tom Peter's cool new friend: Ze Frank [Tom Peters]
Do patents really stifle innovation? [BlogRevolt.com]
Creativity and innovation at Google [Geeking With Greg]
The future of Japan depends on innovation [Don Iannone]
Why does a business need creativity? [Creativity and Innovation blog]
The search for the next Bill Gates [MSDN UK Student Zine]
[image: Innovate! via Amit Gupta]
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Gary Hamel: Bold management breakthroughs for the FORTUNE 500 manager
In the current issue of the Harvard Business Review, management guru Gary Hamel has written a comprehensive article on The Why, What, and How of Management Innovation. (available as an 18-page PDF from Harvard Business School Publishing) Instead of focusing on technological or product innovation, Hamel focuses instead on management innovation, looking at ways that companies like GE, Toyota and Whole Foods have come up with market-changing management innovations. According to Hamel, "a management innovation can be defined as a marked departure from traditional management principles, processes, and practices or a departure from customary organizational forms that significantly alters the way the work of management is performed. Put simply, management innovation changes how managers do what they do..."
ChristianSarkar.com provides a thorough review of the article, including extensive excerpts from Hamel, a link to a set of Hamel PowerPoint slides, and point-by-point summaries of Hamel's arguments about management innovation. Plus, the site also includes a handy list of the most noteworthy management innovations over the past 100 years (according to Gary Hamel):
1. Scientific management (time and motion studies)
2. Cost accounting and variance analysis
3. The commercial research laboratory (the industrialization of science)
4. ROI analysis and capital budgeting
5. Brand management
6. Large-scale project management
7. Divisionalization
8. Leadership development
9. Industry consortia (multicompany collaborative structures)
10. Radical decentralization (self-organization)
11. Formalized strategic analysis
12. Employee-driven problem solving
Tags: GaryHamel innovation management
[image: Washington Speakers Bureau]
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Tidbits from the Growth & Innovation Conference in New York City
The two-day Growth and Innovation Conference presented by The Conference Board kicked off yesterday in New York City. The interesting mix of speakers at the event included a number of well-known executives (Murray Martin, president and COO of Pitney Bowes), consultants (Larry Keeley of Doblin) and academics (e.g. Chris Trimble of Dartmouth) - as well as some people you might not expect to be presenting at an innovation conference. For instance, I wasn't aware that Best Buy had launched a Global Innovation Network and I was a little surprised to see that Wipro Technologies, a firm best known as an Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) leader, has not one but two speakers at the event.
Over at the Innovate on Purpose blog, Jeffrey Phillips has filed a few notes from the first day of the event:
"The keynote speaker, Lorraine Segil, identified several barriers to collaboration across product development lifecycles which impede innovation (lack of transparency, cultural misalignment, fear of failure, lack of senior management commitment). The second panel, including senior executives from Pitney Bowes, Motorola and CA, talked about customer driven innovation. [...]
It's clear from the discussions and questions that there needs to be a method to define what we mean by innovation when people talk about it - disruptive innovation or incremental innovation; big company innovation or small company innovation; product innovation or service innovation; etc
Many speakers are talking more and more about idea "incubation" - the idea that an idea must be captured, and developed before it is examined.
Something I thought was very interesting - J&J is starting an innovation team outside of the business units and tasking it with encouraging disruptive innovation and ignoring existing business models within J&J.
What really surprises me is how little discussion there is around service model, business process or other innovation beyond product innovation. Given that less than 20% of our economy is product based, and 80% is service based, there is still not much discussion on service model innovation."
Tune in to the Innovate on Purpose blog after the close of the conference on February 2 for additional insights into the topics discussed at The Conference Board's innovation event.
Tags: innovation growth
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Enron, the evil innovator
Even if you're not following the Enron trial taking place down in Houston, it's worth noting the legal strategy of Enron's defense team: lawyers for Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are claiming that Enron was a "business innovator undone by needless panic." That story, of course, is completely at odds with what prosecutors are trying to prove - that the company was "a ticking time bomb toppled by lies." In fact, the two Wall Street Journal reporters covering the trial came up with the following headline in Wednesday's paper: "It's a Tale of Two Enrons as Key Trial Opens." (link via The Globe and Mail)
Here's an excerpt of the "Enron, the good innovator" story being told by Enron's lawyers:
"Defense lawyers, addressing 31 felony counts against Mr. Skilling and seven against Mr. Lay, told jurors that Enron revolutionized the energy market, creating huge profits by introducing innovations to the sleepy natural-gas financing, transportation and trading business. Messrs. Lay and Skilling were lauded as hardworking, driven to succeed, good to their employees and generous to the community. [..] The defense argued that Enron collapsed because it was hit by a "panic" in the market starting in mid-October 2001. "The odor of the wolf got into the flock, and the flock stampeded," said Michael Ramsey, Mr. Lay's lead lawyer."
An odor, indeed.
Tags: Enron innovation
[image: The End of Enron via CNN]
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February 1, 2006
OVO: a business innovation unit is hatched
It's always nice to see innovation bloggers achieve success in their real-world business endeavors. Big props to Jeffrey Phillips, author of the thought-provoking Innovate on Purpose blog: in addition to blogging about innovation, he's also part of the NetCentrics executive team that just hatched OVO, a brand new innovation business unit. I've been corresponding with Jeffrey ever since the FORTUNE Innovation Forum in December, and during that time, he's shared some valuable insights about the innovation world, and it's good to see that he'll be able to put some of those ideas to work at OVO. Later this week, in fact, I'll be publishing excerpts from a new white paper on innovation that Jeff and Dean Hering (the Chief Innovator for OVO) co-authored.
Anyway, OVO is all about putting innovative ideas into action, as their tagline illustrates: "We want you to innovate. To put your ideas into valuable action. To move from innovating by chance to innovating on purpose." On the OVO site, there's a five-point Innovate on Purpose framework (pictured here) for companies interested in moving ideas from the brainstorming stage to the execution stage as well as a discussion of the Concept to Cash business process. If you're interested in learning more about OVO and its ideas, check out the troika of OVO blogs: Rocket Surgery, Innovate on Purpose and Thinking Faster.
Tags: OVO innovation InnovateonPurpose
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Has innovation "jumped the shark"?
Pointing to the recent proliferation of Google search results for the word "innovation" and other evidence that the word "innovation" is misused and abused, Grassroots Innovation suggests that the word innovation may have already "jumped the shark."
For those of us too young (or too busy) to remember "Happy Days" way back in 1977, the "jumping the shark" episode involved the Fonz jumping over a shark while on a pair of water skis. (If you haven't seen it, here's the video clip of the Fonz, courtesy of ifilm) The "jump the shark" phrase has become part of the popular lexicon (it even has a Wikipedia entry) to represent the moment that something (i.e. a network TV show) goes downhill. The event has to be so outrageous, so wacky or so cheesy that it makes you think: Dude, this thing is played out.
Certainly, the word innovation - as it currently is bandied about by consultants and executives - may be misused (and even abused) to some degree. Right now, though, I haven't seen the one event that would convince me that innovation has "jumped the shark." I'm still waiting for a business innovation book to be pitched by Oprah for her bookclub, or for some C-list celebrity to launch an obnoxious talk show about innovation.
So, what do you think? Has innovation really jumped the shark? E-mail me with your ideas.
[image: "Fonzie jumps the shark" action figure via Ridiculent]
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Our innovation comrades in Russia
The Innovation Discussion blog recently launched, offering daily updates on innovation in Russia and links to cool sites like a Russian business podcasting site. The major focus of this Russian innovation blog appears to be innovation in the development of alternative energy sources, but there are also several posts on the broad theme of innovation worth checking out as well. In the past few days, for example, Innovation Discussion has linked to an academic paper by a Russian management professor on the diffusion of new technologies, a Live Journal discussion on technology transfer, and a cool chart inspired by Clayton Christensen showing the difference between "sustaining" technologies and "disruptive" technologies.
Tags: innovation Russia
[image: St. Basil's in Red Square by BrentS]
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It may be innovative, but does it solve an urgent problem?
Dave Pollard of the How to Save the World blog has developed this handy flowchart to help innovators determine whether they are actually solving an urgent business problem - or whether they are simply developing a "nice-to-have" solution that is neither important nor urgent: "The decision chart at the top of this page can tell you whether it's time to charge ahead with your innovative idea, or whether instead you should wait -- for the market to realize it needs your idea, for that need to become urgent and not just important, and/or for your own differentiation strategy to evolve to the point the market sees your offering as truly unique."
According to Dave, this chart is especially relevant for innovative thinkers such as entrepreneurs, consultants and executives: "All three groups repeatedly make the same mistake: They try to introduce 'solutions' that are really interesting, quite feasible, and well within their area of competency, but which fail to uniquely solve an urgent problem (in the eyes of whoever is paying for it)." Think of high-tech gizmos sold through catalogs and products pitched on infomercials late at night - cool, fascinating stuff, but not on the top of anyone's "must-have" list.
So where does innovation fall on the spectrum between "urgent needs" and "nice-to-haves"? According to Pollard, innovation is a "nice-to-have" that only becomes an urgent need when the company ship starts taking on water: "Being an innovative company' is another nice-to-have, or perhaps want, usually mentioned in the corporate mission statement (which means it is important) but rarely connected to significant current-year programs (which means it is not urgent)..."
Tags: innovation strategy
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January 31, 2006
January 31 Innovation linkage
Whitespace innovation at Microsoft [Hitchhiker's Guide to 650]
Darwinian corporations vs. Intelligently Designed corporations [Geoff Moore]
Flipping the funnel [Seth Godin's new e-book]
Apple iPods disrupt the $80 billion wedding industry [Church of the Customer blog]
Innovation Happens Everywhere [Ron Goldman & Richard Gabriel]
The practical tasks of innovation [Idea Sandbox]
Nintendo's genre innovation strategy [Lost Garden]
Creativity + Innovation = Crinnology [Crinnology.com]
A handheld creative writing wheel [Story Spinner]
A revolutionary new sustainable energy technology [egreenhome.com]
[image: "Creativity + Innovation portrayed as a Tube map" via M1 Creativity]
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John Aravosis, a political innovator with a message for Corporate America
In this exclusive Q&A for The Innovation Insider, John Aravosis, a Washington DC-based writer and political consultant who specializes in using the Internet for political advocacy, offers readers a behind-the-scenes look at how the Internet has radically changed the world of grassroots advocacy movements. In 2000, John Aravosis launched an innovative grassroots effort called StopDrLaura.com that was profiled by Salon.com for placing activists on an even footing with large corporate interests. He has also created a number of other political activist sites (e.g. Matthew Shepard Online Resources and DearMary.com) and has appeared The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, ABCNews World News Tonight and CNN.
For corporate PR and marketing departments unfamiliar with the terrain of political activism, the Q&A below offers a unique inside glimpse at the way that political activist campaigns sometimes spill over into Corporate America.
Q: You launched the StopDrLaura.com campaign approximately five years ago. What has changed between now and then in terms of the technology and organization of an Internet-based political advocacy campaign?
John Aravosis: Some things have changed, some haven't. The basic approach to the campaign is the same. You build a Web site, state your grievances, and try to get people (and the media) interested in order to pressure the company to respond to your concerns. One big difference, however, is the ability to take online donations. Sites like PayPal didn't exist when we launched StopDrLaura.com in March of 2000, we had to accept donations by check and sell t-shirts to finance ourselves. Now you can put a simple button on your site and anyone who's outraged can immediately donate to help the cause.
Another big difference is blogs. We used to have rely on viral marketing and traditional media to get our message out, now we have friendly blogs that themselves get anywhere between 100,000 and half a million reader a day each. They can instantly broadcast an activist's message to the same sized audience you used to get if you were lucky enough to have the New York Times cover your campaign. One downside for activists, and upside for companies, is that there are so many activist campaigns and Web sites out there that there's greater competition for the campaign that can truly catch the public's and the media's eye. But that doesn't mean you can't catch their eye, you just have to smarter than the other campaigns.
Q: How are the marketing and PR departments of FORTUNE 500 companies adapting to the ever-present threat that their company might become the target of an online advocacy campaign? Are they pro-active, in terms of reaching out to you, or are they still reactive?
John Aravosis: Terribly reactive, and I haven't noticed one bit of change in them in five years. I often joke that companies caught in an online advocacy crisis go through the stages of grief spelled out by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: denial; anger; bargaining; depression; and acceptance. Typically companies refuse to even acknowledge the growing crisis, then they talk about it publicly and usually lie, then the Web campaign catches them in their lie and the story grows even larger, and in the end the company usually caves (at least in my experience), and finally they ask me "why didn't you come to us with your concerns before launching this campaign?"
Usually, I did go to the company first and never found anyone who took my concerns, or my ability to launch a damaging campaign, seriously. Granted, the company has to gauge to what degree it can trust the blogger, or other individual launching the online campaign, in terms of reaching out to them. But in my case, I've had off-the-record negotiations and conversations with large companies that I've taken on, and both sides have respected the private nature of those discussions and they've helped resolve the crisis. Having said that, not every advocate (be they on the right or left politically) is sane or trustworthy. So it is a gamble for the companies, but in there is some doubt, the companies should ask around and try to find someone who knows the advocate in question and can perhaps tell them more about the trustworthiness of the person, and finally see if that person can act as an intermediary to facilitate an introduction.
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Looking for ideas in all the wrong places
After a relatively quiet January (3 posts in 3 weeks), Renee Hopkins Callahan of Idea Flow has broken out with a bang: four extended excerpts from a white paper that she recently co-authored with Gwen Ishmael: Looking for ideas in all the wrong places: An argument for staying in the box. (The full white paper is also available as an 8-page PDF) In the white paper, Renee and Gwen explain "how to go about putting good, actionable ideas into your pipeline so your entire new product or service development process can work more efficiently." Along the way, they describe how to think about the Fuzzy Front End, the importance of generating a large number of unique - but relevant - ideas, why staying in the box is a good thing, and how to work inside the box. The takeaway lesson?
You have to put some thought into how and where you look for ideas. It's not enough to have creative ideas, if those ideas are wildly richocheting off the ceiling and walls and are so far out they can't be developed into the products, services and/or processes you need. Nor is it enough to build a well-thought-out innovation or product development process, if that process starts with "Let's brainstorm to get some ideas" or "We don't need to look outside our company for ideas, we can come up with all we need on our own." Your innovation process shouldn't start at the moment ideas are introduced into the pipeline -- it should start with where and how those ideas are created in the first place."
Tags: innovation creativity
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Why extreme competition demands extreme innovation
I haven't had a chance to read a review copy of Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation yet, but the premise of Peter Fingar's new book (available starting today on Amazon) is fascinating:
"Contrary to the current buzz circulating through the press these days, the world isn't flat as a result of globalization; it's tilted in favor of a fierce new breed of competitors. A new form of extreme competition is being driven by the emergence of a wired world and three billion new capitalists from China, India and the former Soviet Union. In order to adapt to the new realities of extreme competition, companies and individuals alike will have to innovate how they operate, and transform the fundamental ways they conduct business."
Innovation, of course, will play a key role in how U.S. corporations respond to the competitive threat from Asia. Since Peter is a world-recognized authority on e-business, distributed computing, agent technology and business process management (BPM), it's likely that the recipe for innovation success will include one or more of these elements. Peter Fingar has published six other books on business and technology, including The Real-Time Enterprise (2004), Business Process Management: The Third Wave (2003) and The Death of 'e' and the Birth of the Real New Economy (2001).
Tags: extremecompetition innovation Fingar
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Innovative job of the week: "Visual Practitioner"
Browsing through the wealth of the resources over at Creativity Web, I landed on the web page of Michael Erickson, a "visual practitioner" at Boeing. In layman's terms, he helps companies realize their goals and ambitions by drawing pictures, cartoons and funny little sketches. If designers, engineers and managers can "see" what they are doing, it's a lot easier to agree on a common strategy or approach. Here's Michael's description of the role a visual practitioner plays within an organization:
"While there are NO definitive examples of what a visual practitioner is or isn't, there are a number of individuals applying visual tools across a range of activities and from a number of different viewpoints who have begun to adopt the "visual practitioner" description for what they do. The results is that teams of designers, groups of business leaders, whole organizations and to a certain extent, even movements use the stuff produced by thes "visualizer's" to think about their choices, plans, systems and so on in a different light. My Definition: The Visual Practitioner is someone who uses art, but is also part facilitator, part system analyst or technical modeler, part strategist and visionary, part psychologist and communicator."
Cartoons at a big FORTUNE 500 company? At Boeing, Michael has worked on a number of impressive projects, including a massive re-engineering project and a leadership training program, so it's clear that some large companies take cartoons seriously:
"Why would anyone use cartoons in a business? Well there's something here about the human soul. While we are all very good at analyzing our world, we tend to miss the big picture "stuff" going on around us, and we tend to (in our efforts to be sober and serious) keep very quiet about the things we are afraid of or embarrassed about in our "world", as well as miss the inane human quirkyness that is natural to us. While we imagine with our heads, we act with our hearts, and having imagery that displays our world in such a way to engage the heart (or the gut) brings about an entirely different kind (and I believe a better kind)of thinking."
Tags: innovation cartoon
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Go with the FLOW innovation
In Denmark, product innovation is taking on a whole new meaning. Guerilla Innovation points to a store located at the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen that sells what you need, not what you want:
"All the products in FLOWmarket are reflections of what we need rather than what we can actually get. Behind the label of the products there is nothing - the minimalistic bottles, cartons and boxes are empty. Still, these products are real and for sale. For 2-20 euros you can buy items such as "Commercial-free Space', 'Pollution Dissolver' and 'Spam Killers'."
According to the website for FLOWmarket, the shop has been open since September 19 and is part of a broader initiative to make Denmark "a leading holistic design nation with a core competence in creating sustainable growth." There's even a cool definition of FLOW provided by FLOWmarket:
"FLOW is a mindset, an innovation tool and a commercial brand. A mindset focused on sustainable growth. An innovation tool which through the 3 sub-categories “individual, collective and environmental flow” concretizes the parameters for sustainable growth. And finally a brand that through these 3 parameters transforms and concretizes the mindset into commercial products and services."
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January 30, 2006
The Web 2.0 Innovation Map
If you're into Google mashups, check out the Web 2.0 Innovation Map, which maps the physical locations of Internet innovators across the United States. Not suprisingly, there are huge Web 2.0 clusters around big metropolitan hubs like New York, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle. There are also innovators in places like Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky. (Until now, these states have been better known for their NCAA college basketball teams than for their innovative Web start-ups). Anyway, here's a quick blurb about the innovation map from Portland-based Internet entrepreneur Ryan Williams:
"We all know Silicon Valley is hot when it comes to web startups. But, what about other areas of the country? Are there any hidden hotbeds of web talent? What other groups were in the northwest along with Fourio? These were some of the questions I was looking to answer. Now, Web 2.0 can be visualized, using what else, but the Google Maps API and Yahoo Geocoding API.
I’ve taken 200 applications, tracked down their addresses, geocoded them, and placed them on the map. With some help from Todd on the design, this map was put together in the last week. It was much more work than I thought it would be to track down the addresses. Without a good (open/free/structured) WHOIS API, most of the address lookups were manual. And don’t get me started on sites not listing a contact address. Fortunately, my geocoder app worked great, so getting lats/longs was fairly painless. Then it was just a matter of exporting the Excel data to a JavaScript array and hooking it up to the map."
Tags: Web2.0 innovation
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Want to become more innovative? Impose some constraints on yourself
In a great post called "Re-thinking constraints", Zach Gemignani of the Juice Analytics blog challenges the notion that more is better when it comes to innovation and creativity. Instead of complaining about a lack of resources or time to come up with a truly innovative product or service, realize that constraints can be useful: "Limits on time, money, people, resources can channel your creative energy, drive innovation and focus." It may sound like a counter-intuitive notion, but as Zach points out, the absence of constraints can actu