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May 12, 2006
May 12 innovation linkage
What business innovators can learn from the world of design [Putting People First]
Creation Nets [Edge Perspectives]
Embracing Complexity [How to Save the World]
Open innovation at Black & Decker [Innovation.net]
Gresham's Law and leadership [Slow Leadership blog]
Open source beer [Open Business blog]
Meet the Nick Carr of Organizational Change Management [Spooky Action]
How to build a better product: study them [PC Magazine]
Popularity breeds contempt [Creating Passionate Users]
A metaphor is worth a thousand pictures [Evelyn Rodriguez]
[image: The KoolAid Point]
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Massively multiplayer innovation
The new generation of massively multiplayer online video games may have a significant impact on the future of innovation within the enterprise. At least, that's one of the findings of the new Global Innovation Outlook from IBM, which highlights some of the most important innovation trends in the world:
"As business becomes increasingly distributed and virtual in nature, what kinds of leaders might emerge and what attributes will they have? To answer this, some participants suggest studying the qualities of leaders who thrive in environments that contain many of the characteristics of the new business landscape - specifically, those that are massively distributed and virtual in nature.
Perhaps the most intriguing examples can be found at the polar opposite from command and control management systems: in the emerging world of massively multiplayer online games, or MMOGs. As unlike traditional video games as universities are from the one-room schoolhouse, they traverse the Internet to enable thousands of players to interact, compete and collaborate with one another in real-time. The game play exists ina persistent universe, where there is no clear beginning and end and no set schedule."
While this is not to say that playing videogames will become a prerequisite for becoming CEO of a FORTUNE 500 company anytime soon, it is interesting to note the similarities between massively multiplayer online games and the new breed of agile enterprise that embraces open innovation and global collaboration:
(1) A high level of complexity and uncertainty;
(2) A lack of hierarchy;
(3) Loosely joined participants who are linked only by tasks and projects;
(4) The importance of collaboration.
Already, there's a blurring of the line between the real world and the virtual world. For example, the New York Times estimates that as many as100,000 people earn their living playing massively multiplayer online games seven days a week and then selling their characters and other virtual assets to other gamers (who presumably have 9-to-5 jobs that preclude this type of gaming activity). That's not all. In an earlier post called Does your CEO have a videogaming strategy?, I pointed out videogaming's "stealth infiltration" of Corporate America:
"What really made me stand up and take notice was an article in Wired magazine by Xerox PARC innovator John Seely Brown about the allure of videogaming skills for HR recruiters across Corporate America. The article made me realize that the economic and cultural impact of videogaming is about more than just the professional videogaming circuit and a bunch of game-crazed teenagers. Moreover, it looks like even economists are embracing the videogaming industry as a worthy research topic... This videogaming phenomenon, as they say, has legs. Big, fat, hairy muscular legs."
Anyway, the IBM innovation report suggests one simple way for organizations to create the foundation for massively multiplayer innovation -- building learning intuitively into work processes and procedures. In other words, workers would learn about business processes the same way that they master online gaming skills. As IBM notes, this notion of videogaming-as-training might enable companies to "shift from costly and infrastructure-heavy training and development programs to more flexible contextual learning models that allow people to develop emerging new skills as needed."
In some cases, people would begin to view work as just a giant video game. In fact, there's a great quote from the IBM report that captures this idea perfectly: "Imagine if employees were as addicted to their work as they are to these games."
[image: 8 Bit Joystick]
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The U.S. needs better - not more - engineers
Navi Radjou of Forrester Research has published a new paper ("The U.S. Needs Better - Not More - Engineers") that challenges the conventional wisdom about innovation and global competitiveness. As Navi points out, "To win in global innovation ecosystems, US firms need a new breed of multidisciplinary engineers who can transform, broker, and finance the best ideas invented anywhere in the world." Unlike many politicians, pundits and CEOs calling for the U.S. to produce more engineers, Navi argues that the U.S. should be focused on preparing a new generation of highly-skilled engineers who can participate in global innovation networks. In short, quality is more important than quantity in driving long-term innovation success.
Anyway, the report is a bit of fresh thinking interjected into the global competitiveness debate. How many times have we heard that China and India are graduating ten times as many engineers as the U.S.? How many times have we heard that the secret to innovation greatness is increased government funding for math, science and engineering? As Navi points out, the world is changing. No longer can nations generate strategic advantage based on the amount of money spent on R&D, the number of patents generated, or the number of engineering students graduated. The key to future innovation is the ability to participate in global innovation networks. With this in mind, Navi suggests three different roles that future engineers will need to assume.
For anyone interested, the research paper is available for download on the Forrester site. The research paper is the third in a series called "Reinventing R&D for Global Competitiveness."
Tags: innovation Forrester engineer
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The unofficial FedEx innovation commercial
Ad Rants points to an unofficial 45-second FedEx video ("FedEx Thunderstorm Ops Memphis") that shows how FedEx diverts and re-directs its airplanes to avoid a thunderstorm in Memphis. It's fascinating to watch how FedEx airplanes (the little black dots) "bounce" off the storm front and manage to sneak through a narrow sliver of clear air space in order to deliver their packages on time.
As Ad Rants notes, this 45-second video is good enough to be a commercial. When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, you'll know that FedEx has a state-of-the-art logistics system that's smart enough to out-smart Mother Nature. Anyway, this FAA Radar track sequence of FedEx aircraft getting into Memphis as thunderstorms pass overhead was originally hosted at Airline Pilot Central. Oh, and there's a surprisingly rich trove of FedEx video clips over at YouTube.com - the FedEx MBA commercial, the FedEx Doomed! commercial, and the FedEx pirate commercial.
Tags: innovation FedEx
[image: planephotoman on Flickr]
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Charting innovation on Google Trends
Over at Google Trends, it's now possible to generate these trend charts that show the relationship between search volume and news volume. (If you use Google Finance, these same kinds of charts are available for a company's share price) In this case, each of the alphabetical reference points (A,B,C,D,E) corresponds to major news items about innovation. Here, reference point "D" on the innovation trend chart actually refers to the creation of a new business innovation unit (OVO) by consulting firm NetCentrics in February of this year. (Hat tip: Innovate on Purpose)
The natural inclination, of course, is to assume that more news items will result in "spikier" graphs and that upward trends in search volume will be driven by major news about innovation. For example, a search "spike" would occur every time a business magazine like FORTUNE rolls out a new survey or poll on the world's most innovative companies.
What's interesting is that Google Trends also breaks down search results by geographic region. If you look closely, you'll see that the most "innovation" searches are originating from Singapore and Denmark, followed by Germany and Canada. At #6 is "Washington, USA." There are two possible ways to interpret this, I guess. One is that "Washington,USA" refers to "Seattle, Washington" and that major innovation searches are being driven by innovative American companies like Boeing, Microsoft, and Starbucks. A less optimistic conclusion is that "Washington, USA" actually refers to "Washington, D.C." and all the search activity is being driven by politicians on Capitol Hill, rushing around to pass protectionist legislation to preserve American competitiveness.
Tags: innovation trend GoogleTrends
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May 11, 2006
Podcast of the week: Richard Florida
Landed.fm offers a regular series of podcasts (now available through Apple iTunes) featuring some of the leading thinkers and innovators in the business world. While Landed.fm describes itself as a "career empowerment service," many of the on-demand podcasts available on the site focus on innovation, creativity and business strategy. In past weeks, for example, Landed.fm has featured interviews with Edward Reilly, CEO of the American Management Association, Jason Corsello of the Yankee Group and James Champy, author of Reengineering the Corporation. In the archives, there's also an extraordinary live presentation by Richard Florida, author of the business bestseller Rise of the Creative Class.
As Rob Merrill of the Good Recruits blog points out, the Richard Florida podcast was "riveting" from start to finish:
Yesterday, I took a fascinating journey down an incredible new road of thought presented by Economist Dr. Richard Florida, via Landed Radio's excellent podcast series. Florida spoke at the Human Capital Institute in Chicago and Landed.fm was able to capture and share that message with the world via podcasting...
I won't be shy about this--I was riveted to hearing this entire presentation because the ideas he expresses here have helped me explain the countless changes I am seeing both in businesspeople--especially technical professionals--and in business and in the way people want to live and work.
I've been poking and jabbing at what's going on in our economy today. I can feel the riptide pulling us all toward a very different business world tomorrow, but I just haven't been able to explain what or why or how it feels different. I am also now incredibly passionate about helping the communities I am in to respond to these demands and create, or recreate, incredible places to live, work and play. Go to Landed Radio to learn more about Florida, the Rise of the Creative Class, and the most important fundamental shift in our workforce in the last 500 years.
During the presentation, Florida also gives a preview of his upcoming new book, shares data on research that he's collected in collaboration with The Gallup Organization, and outlines how he came to be such an ardent supporter of the creative class (hint: it involves Lycos and Pittsburgh). What's fascinating is how Florida inverted the whole relationship between jobs and people. When he was an economic development "jobs guy," Florida believed that cities should focus on attracting high-paying, attractive jobs. Economic growth and a thriving jobs market would attract the best talent, right? Wrong. It turns out that it's more important for cities to focus on creating a strong, diverse talent base. By fostering a strong creative class, cities are assured of future economic growth and prosperity.
There's also a fascinating insight that Florida shares about talent and creativity: "Talent and creativity do not reside in the individual. They reside in the relationship." Think about that one for awhile.
Tags: RichardFlorida creativity creativeclass
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Innovation for the baby boomer generation
In the current issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, Joan Goldwasser profiles the Boomer Business Plan Competition, which is sponsored by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University and Mary Furlong & Associates. The event, which takes place June 20, encourages entrepreneurs to come up with game-changing innovations for the baby boom generation:
"Are you developing innovative products and services for the 45+ market? The baby boomer market represents over $2 trillion in annual spending power! The first of 76 million baby boomers turns 60 in January 2006 and by the year 2030 there will be 71.5 million Americans age 65 and older, more than double the number of American currently within that demographic. A massive demographic shift means new opportunities for growth, service and profit. Do you have a business plan or startup venture that shows significant business potential for this burgeoning market?
From early-stage ventures in medicine to media, fashion to financial services and beyond, we invite you to enter this exciting $10,000 Boomer Business Plan Competition. The third annual international $10,000 Boomer Business Plan Competition aims to stimulate the best ideas from the best universities and tap into the business expertise and creativity of today’s entrepreneurs who are addressing the 45+ market. This $10,000 Boomer Business Plan Competition provides contestants with the opportunity to meet investors and partners, secure resources and get media exposure to help turn dreams into realities."
Last year's winner was Tibion, which developed a prototype of the PowerKnee, a battery-powered orthotic device that straps on to the knee to help patients regain mobility after knee-replacement surgery. Other baby boomer business ideas that made it to the finalist stage last year included Moving Solutions, SterraClimb and Green Diamond Traction Soles.
Tags: babyboomer innovation
[image: Moving Solutions]
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Burt Rutan on the future of space exploration
At the International Space Development Conference that took place in Los Angeles last week, Burt Rutan, winner of the X Prize in 2004 for the revolutionary SpaceShipOne, voiced his concerns about the current state of U.S. space exploration efforts. According to Rutan, NASA has done little to capitalize on the momentum created by the X Prize competition. (In previous comments, Rutan has even referred to NASA as "nay-say.") The Idea Festival blog has more details on Rutan's speech, including one part where he compared NASA's moon exploration vision to the ancient art of archeology:
I believe that program, as taxpayer-funded research, makes absolutely no sense,' he said. 'And the reason I believe that is that they're forcing the program to be done with technology that we already know works, and are not creating an environment where it is possible to make a breakthrough.'
He said the Apollo-based program guarantees 'that you are not going to learn anything new here that is useful for you to go on to the other moons.'
He wondered whether NASA's new space vision was 'really a training program' for young engineers who were not familiar with the achievements of the Apollo era. 'You could also describe it possibly as archaeology,' he quipped.
For more on Burt Rutan's vision of space exploration, check out this interview that appeared last year on the Business Innovation Insider.
Tags: BurtRutan NASA space innovation
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GE's Environmental Business Plan Challenge
As part of its corporate-wide "ecomagination" initiative that began in 2005, GE has been aggressively looking to market new technologies that will help customers meet pressing environmental challenges. The company already spends $700 million annually in clean technology-related R&D and is now looking to tap the innovation potential of external collaborators. Take, for example, this year's $50,000 Environmental Business Plan Challenge co-sponsored by GE and Dow Jones. In New York, representatives from the two companies awarded the grand prize to Robert Wright, who has more than 40 years of experience in water and wastewater treatment, for a new desalination process:
"Robert Wright brings us salt water minus the salt. Robert's company, Watervap, uses a unique system that converts salt water into fresh water with almost 100% efficiency. This is especially important in many parts of the globe where the only water source is seawater, making it one technology the world's been thirsting for..."
Anyway, it's worth checking out GE's ECOnomics microsite for details of some of the other finalists: LiquidPiston, pollution filters for plants, and non-toxic additives for plastics. They're all examples of imagination at work at GE.
Tags: ecomagination GE innovation
[image: Business Wire]
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An innovation for desperate housewives
JSpy, which reports daily on interesting innovations from Japan, makes the compelling case for a new washing machine from Sanyo known as Aqua. According to Sanyo, Aqua is "the world’s first washing machine that disinfects, sanitizes, and deodorizes by turning air into ozone." The new 'air wash' machine enables desperate housewives (and equally desperate husbands) everywhere to launder items that previously were not washable - such as toys, stuffed animals, handbags, shoes, cushions and curtains. As I understand it, this washing machine is a true "dry cleaning" machine that works at home. That means big savings at the local dry cleaners - especially for urban professionals living in cramped quarters and forced to pay outrageous prices to dryclean suits and other hard-to-clean items. JSpy , using an example from Japan, puts this into simple terms that any consumer can appreciate:
"Living in Japan means that our walk-in closet is tiny. There simply is not enough space to store four season’s worth of clothes in a single closet. So what happens is, clothes that defended us from the biting wind and boots that protected our legs from the slushy snow get dry cleaned and put away in hallway closets, extra bedrooms, and attics. For the fashion conscious Japanese, dry cleaning bills can make a household go bankrupt. For example, last winter it cost my mother almost $120 to dry clean a suede jacket of mine. I might as well have bought a new jacket during winter sales!"
As Jspy details below, Sanyo has really put some innovative thinking into how to use ozone in a natural way:
"Ozone has the oxidation power of about seven times that of chlorine. This oxidation power holds the key in sanitization and deodorization. Air is jetted into ozone and air washes the object by decomposing bad odor and germs. Ozone then switches back into air after the object has been cleaned. Ozone is generated by air and electricity and disintegrates back into air by itself. Ozone is a substance that exists in the natural world and thus is environmentally friendly than using copious amounts of precious water and harmful laundry detergent..."
Tags: Sanyo Aqua innovation
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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at Hewlett-Packard
Is it just me, or does the artistic layout of the new Hewlett-Packard marketing campaign ("The computer is personal again") remind you of the book cover of Jonathan Safran Foer's new book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?
Jonathan Safran Foer, of course, first exploded on the literary scene in 2002 with Everything is Illuminated, which was later made into a film starring Elijah Wood. Is HP looking to capture and channel some of that Foer magic in its new marketing campaign?
UPDATE: Here's some of the text from the HP ad in today's Wall Street Journal (note the Dave Eggers reference): "Your personal computer is your backup brain. It's your best ideas. And your worst ideas - contained in drafts never sent. It's your astonishing energy, your staggering proposal, your dazzling calculation. It's your autobiography, written in thousands of daily words. Today HP is making the entire experience of owning a computer more personal than ever before; not with promises, but concrete actions..."
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May 10, 2006
The umbrella goes high-tech
Maybe it's just the fact that the weather forecast for the New York area looks so dismal for the next few days, but I've been particularly attuned to something that, for lack of a better word, I'll call umbrella innovation. How can you take a simple product like the umbrella and use it as the basis for a breakthrough, game-changing innovation? Don't even tell me about umbrellas that won't invert in a wind gust - these don't exist, trust me. And whatever you do, don't mention the whimsical pet umbrella. That being said, in the course of the past few days, I've stumbled on two new high-tech umbrellas that are quite fascinating.
For example, there's the Wi-Fi umbrella profiled on Engadget:
"The premise is pretty simple, the umbrella handle has an LED that glows based on the likelihood of precipitation, so instead of taking the 30 seconds necessary to look up the weather on the Internet, or sticking your head out of a window, you can just glance at your umbrella on the way out. Sounds a lot like Ambient's Weather Forecasting Umbrella, but beyond looking just plain snazzier, this version pulls all its information off of your Internet via WiFi. It really sounds like quite the functional use of usually superfluous technology..."
Then, there's the My Day Paper Electronic Paper Umbrella - not quite as useful as the Wi-Fi umbrella - that was mentioned on the Trend Hunter blog:
"Designed by Hsiao Yong-li, the My Day Electronic Paper Umbrella allows you to select which image you want to project / display on the surface. Use one of the six themes provided or download different images from the internet. This is definitely an innovative use of e-paper technology!"
Anyway, a quick Google search for "umbrella innovation" turns up nearly 6 million entries, so this is obviously a problem that has gotten a lot of attention over the years. For example, I found a Bluetooth Umbrella Network, the Bright Night Illuminated Umbrella, and a site that traces the evolution of the umbrella back to the 16th century.
Tags: umbrella innovation
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May 10 Innovation linkage
The Citizen Innovator [Eric Von Hippel]
Companies that choose to be great instead of big [Small Giants blog]
Is Squidoo Seth Godin's purple albatross? [Tech Crunch]
U.S. tech lead challenged by globalization of innovation [EE Times]
An online global network of creative people [The OCN]
The e-mail that brought down the head of EMC China [What PC?]
Cisco partners with MTV on innovation [CNET]
Gartner weighs in on the state of IT [InfoWorld]
A legitimate reason to visit strip clubs [Trend Hunter]
[image: Halliburton's SurvivaBall via We Make Money Not Art]
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Highlights from the world of European innovation
Pasta & Vinegar points to the latest issue of Red Herring, which has an extended feature on European technological innovation:
"Europe may not have as many venture capitalists, innovative companies and fluid markets as the United States, but the region is surely emerging as a place to seek venture capital and public funding for technology companies... in the last year, the number of venture-backed technology public offerings in Europe was the same as in the United States. Judy Gibbons, a venture partner at London-based Accel Partners, said the European venture market is changing as a result of the flattening of the world. “The talent is here and the ability to innovate and develop innovative companies is not exclusive to the U.S.,” Ms. Gibbons said."
Ah, I love it when venture capitalists mix in Thomas Friedman references. Nice. Anyway, European innovation appears to be proceeding on a two-track path: new product innovation (i.e. Skype and MySQL) and a “me too” strategy of copying American products. As an example of this copycat innovation, Red Herring cites LoveFilm, which copies the NetFlix business model of renting DVDs by mail.
Also, be sure to check out Red Herring's list of the Top 100 European innovators: "The 100 companies selected by Red Herring in this year's judging reflect the rich vein of innovation and entrepreneurial activity in Europe and the Middle East. They range from a Finnish company trying to harness the power of tides to a Belgian biotech company that uses llama blood to create therapeutic proteins."
Tags: innovation technology Europe
[image: Red Herring on Flickr]
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The 2006 Patent Scorecard from ipIQ
In recognition of the important role that patent-based intellectual property plays in today's marketplace, ipIQ has released the latest findings from its 2006 Patent Scorecard, which ranks the patent leaders within 15 different industries:
"In its annual round-up of corporate rankings, ipIQ measures innovation utilizing its patent quality-based indicators... “The Patent Scorecard is our public commitment to linking patent-based technology to business value through our evolving data, metrics, and analytics,” says Jim Finnegan, vice president, business development. “Our clients take advantage of this insight to support their IP decision making. Look for several additions to the Patent Scorecard in the near future, including the reintroduction of the Government, University, and Research Institution Scorecard as well as a perspective on the top 100 new economy companies such as Google, Yahoo, and eBay.”
Based on its experience of analyzing the patent-based intellectual property space, ipIQ has assembled a number of important metrics that measure overall patent quality, technical power and breadth of impact. With that in mind, it's worth taking a closer look at some of the industry leaders. For example, General Electric ranks #1 within both Consumer Products and Industrial Equipment & Materials. Also, it's interesting to note that Intel ranks #2 within the semiconductor industry, behind Micron Technology.
Tags: ipIQ patent intellectualproperty
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Products and their ecosystems
Building on the success of the first Design 2.0 event in New York City, Core 77 is planning a second follow-up event ("Products and their Ecosystems") in San Francisco that will also focus on design strategy and innovation. The highlight of the event is a panel discussion featuring Peter Rojas (Engadget), Diego Rodriguez (IDEO, MetaCool), Steve Portigal (Portigal Consulting) and Robyn Waters (RW Trend). Anyway, it sounds like an interesting event for anyone interested in the intersection of design and innovation:
"Products exist in a vast, often-messy environment of services, brands, cultures and competitors. But successful companies are realizing that deliberately and strategically designing products for the context in which they live can result in more imaginative, better integrated, and ultimately more humane offerings. From MP3 players and gaming consoles to kitchen appliances and office furniture, this panel discussion will focus on how to incorporate holistic thinking into product development, creating objects that are not only sensitive to their surroundings, but often define them."
Tags: Design2.0 Core77 design innovation
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May 9, 2006
The blimp named innovation
Goodyear is running a "name the new blimp" online contest. After receiving more than 21,000 nominations, Goodyear has winnowed the list to 10 names that are eligible for voting, including two innovation-themed names: "Spirit of Innovation" and "Spirit of Ingenuity." As an added bonus, one lucky Grand Prize Winner will be picked to have full use of the blimp for one day. Imagine the possibilities - you run a mid-size consulting shop with a thriving innovation practice. Now, you get to pilot around a blimp called "Spirit of Innovation" for a day... Anyway, as Boss Tweed once remarked, "Vote early and vote often."
Tags: innovation Goodyear blimp
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But didn't the customers love it?
Uri Baruchin, a London-based marketing strategy consultant, points to a post by Seth Godin on the drawbacks of focus groups before outlining the various ways that focus groups can - and can not - help a company develop a new product or service offering. On his Marketing Babylon blog, Uri argues that focus groups are rarely a useful predictive tool when it comes to innovation: "Never use them to judge or justify innovation, most participants are immediately conservative in group context, especially if you’re aiming to address/create a new want." Below, Uri lists four other rules to keep in mind when designing a focus group:
(1) Be very cautious when dealing with arenas where there is peer pressure for conformity on emotions and worldviews (and which arenas aren’t?);
(2) Don’t use for arenas where the psycho-social situation is too complex. Don’t expect them to give you deep or specific understanding of emotions and social situations;
(3) Don’t use them for highly individualistic arenas - ones where personal taste, attitude, worldview etc vary greatly;
(4) Never ever ever use them to judge creative concepts & work .
As Uri emphasizes, companies can often get better results from ethnographic research and personal interviews than from focus groups: "Over the years, many many times clients have asked me to check if a concept is “right” using focus groups. My answer is: “Yes, as long as we’re talking on the old, existing, concept.”
Tags: marketing marketresearch focusgroups innovation
[image: Willow's Focus Group on Flickr]
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The three ways that companies can change the world
In this 2-minute "Art of the Start" video clip on YouTube.com, Guy Kawasaki outlines the three motivations for starting a company. As Guy explains, "the core...the essence... of entrepreneurship is about making meaning." Based on his own entrepreneurial and venture capital experiences, Guy suggests that entrepreneurs should only establish companies if they are interested in changing the world and making meaning: "If you set out to make money, you will not make meaning. If you set out to make meaning, though, you will make money." There are three ways for a company to "make meaning" and change the world:
(1) Increase the quality of life
(2) Right a wrong
(3) Prevent the end of something good
Tags: GuyKawasaki entrepreneur startup
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Making a market in talent
It's time to break down corporate silos and dispense with a paternalistic, hierarchical approach to managing talent within an organization. That's the premise of a new article from The McKinsey Quarterly, which has opened up public access to an article called Making a Market in Talent. According to McKinsey, a company should put as much effort into developing its talented employees as it puts into recruiting them:
Savvy companies understand the competitive value of talented people and spend considerable time identifying and recruiting high-caliber individuals wherever they can be found. The trouble is that too many companies pay too little attention to allocating their internal talent resources effectively. Few companies use talented people in a competitively advantageous way—by maximizing their visibility and mobility and creating work experiences that help them feed and develop their expertise. Many a frustrated manager has searched in vain for the right person for a particular job, knowing that he or she works somewhere in the company. And many talented people have had the experience of getting stuck in a dead-end corner of a company, never finding the right experiences and challenges to grow, and, finally, bailing out.
The answer to this problem is the establishment of so-called "talent markets," where high-potential workers can negotiate job transfers, obtain development opportunities more easily, build networks, and develop intangible assets:
"Some of the largest and most talent-driven companies are beginning to shatter the old orthodoxies. By developing internal talent marketplaces, these companies are giving managers the best opportunity to mobilize the talent they need for success while giving the most talented people better opportunities to utilize and develop that talent. Like knowledge markets, talent markets become strong by leveraging individual self-interest to drive enterprise-wide collaboration rather than by relying on top-down mandates to rotate jobs. The goal isn't simply to clear the market but to help a company get its work done more effectively and to increase the value and allegiance of talented workers by expanding their company-specific knowledge. Many of these companies also find that allocating talent effectively can make an enormous difference to important outcomes, such as profit per employee."
It's also worth checking out some of the other content on The McKinsey Quarterly site, such as an article called Creation Nets: Getting the Most from Open Innovation.
Tags: creativity talent innovation McKinsey
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The Boeing 787: a game-changing innovation
As the New York Times explains, the production of the new Boeing 787 (the company's first new commercial airplane in a decade) amounts to a bet-the-company gamble for Boeing. The company is essentially betting that a new emphasis on global collaboration will result in a game-changing innovation. Thus far, most of the signs are positive. Even though the 787 will not go into service until 2008, its first three years of production are already sold out. The airplane also could give Boeing a beachhead in the all-important China market, where Boeing has already signed a $7.2 billion deal for 60 of the airplanes. At the core of the 787 production process is a brand-new way of doing business:
"Boeing is also risking a new way of doing business and a new way of building airplanes: farming out production of most major components to other companies, many outside the United States, and using a carbon-fiber composite material in place of aluminum for about half of each plane. If it works, Boeing could vault back in front of Airbus, perhaps decisively. If it fails, Boeing could be relegated to the status of a permanent also-ran, having badly miscalculated the future of commercial aviation and unable to meet the changing needs of its customers.
"The entire company is riding on the wings of the 787 Dreamliner," said Loren B. Thompson, an aviation expert at the Lexington Institute, a research and lobbying group in Arlington, Va., that focuses on the aerospace and military industries. "It's the most complicated plane ever."
Boeing calls the 787 Dreamliner a "game changer," with a radically different approach to aircraft design that it says will transform aviation. A lightweight one-piece carbon-fiber fuselage, for instance, replaces 1,200 sheets of aluminum and 40,000 rivets, and is about 15 percent lighter. The extensive use of composites, already used to a lesser extent in many other jets, helps to improve fuel efficiency."
It's not just innovative new materials that makes the new 787 special. It's also a new approach to the building of the airplane that relies on global partners:
"Even more innovative for Boeing is the way it makes the 787. Most of the design and construction, along with up to 40 percent of the estimated $8 billion in development costs, is being outsourced to subcontractors in six other countries and hundreds of suppliers around the world. Mitsubishi of Japan, for example, is making the wings, a particularly complex task that Boeing always reserved for itself. Messier-Dowty of France is making the landing gear and Latecoere the doors. Alenia Aeronautica of Italy was given parts of the fuselage and tail.
Nor are these foreign suppliers simply building to Boeing specifications. Instead, they are being given the freedom, and the responsibility, to design the components and to raise billions of dollars in development costs that are usually shouldered by Boeing.
Tags: Boeing 787 innovation
[images: New York Times]
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May 8, 2006
Michelin's communities of innovation
SwampFox, which provides news about the Southeastern Innovation Corridor, points to a recent Michelin presentation (Contribute to the Progress of Mobility) at the InnoVenture 2006 conference in South Carolina. In a two-part video, Ralph Hulseman of Michelin Americas R&D Corporation outlines the company's innovation strategy, which includes an emphasis on innovation communities. According to Hulseman, Michelin is actively embracing collaborative innovation, encouraging others to develop products and services that are complementary to Michelin innovations. In the future, this means that Michelin innovations will come from external partners, rather than solely from internal R&D operations. If you click through all the PowerPoint slides, there's a great "networks of innovation" slide that shows how the core competencies at Michelin relate to the projects and initiatives that the company coordinates with external partners.
The bottom line: if you think tires are boring, think again. In fact, Michelin's TWEEL innovation (i.e. the airless tire) was recently featured on the front cover of TIME Magazine as one of the "Best Inventions of 2005." Moreover, it looks like Michelin is experimenting with innovation competitions and other ways to help bring in external collaborators. A hat tip to SwampFox, who has posted extensive notes from the Michelin presentation as well as details on how to follow up with Michelin's innovation team.
Tags: Michelin innovation
[image: TireReview.com]
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