« June 4, 2006 - June 10, 2006 | Main | June 18, 2006 - June 24, 2006 »
June 16, 2006
We need fewer innovations like the Segway
This being Friday and all that, I couldn't resist... Trader's Narrative wonders aloud, "Whatever happened to the Segway?" and points to this oldie-but-goodie as an answer -- The Best Page in the Universe describing in expletive-laced, blistering prose why the Segway scooter is one of the classic innovation mistakes of all time:
Every once in a while someone invents something so simple and elegant that it makes you say "***, why didn't I think of that?" Then there are the other inventions, the ones that make you say "man, I know exactly why I didn't think of that: that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen." Introducing Segway, transporter of humans. Of all the places you'll inevitably be transported to, the first place will be the bank because the Segway will cost you one healthy kidney, $4,500, and a pint of virgin blood.
The reason for this cost: superfluous bull**** like high-voltage field-effect transistors or FETs. What the **** does a FET do? Nobody knows, but I guarantee some nerd spent months writing a graduate thesis on why it's important (and failing). The Segway is packed full of useless, but important-sounding extras like "angular-rate sensors" (or "gyroscopes" to anyone with something better to do than to look up obfuscated $6 words to describe a spinning wheel), and two digital signal processor controller boards with enough processing power to give even the beefiest desktop PC **** envy.
Much like the introduction to an IMAX film, the Segway engineers boast about the inherent inefficiencies of their "innovation:" redundant sensors, microprocessors, and controller boards that cost a fortune, and all for what? A balancing act? Well I came up with an innovation of my own that will help balance a Segway without years of research and millions of dollars invested in obscure technology. The secret?
Yes, that's right, what many people don't realize is that you can be just as space efficient and stable with a third wheel. ****, it doesn't even need to be turned on to balance itself. Amazing! In fact, the only thing this revolutionary new model requires from the old Segway are the motors, gear box, wheels and batteries. Throw the rest of that **** away. What's the point of all this technology if it costs a fortune? Here's a bonus: add shock absorbers to the front wheel to compensate for tilt. Man someone should hire me full time just to ruin other people's inventions.
[image: Maddox]
Posted by dominic at 12:32 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
|
Highlights from the "Mapping your innovation strategy" webinar
Yesterday, Scott Anthony of Innosight (Clayton Christensen's innovation consulting firm) hosted a one-hour webinar on "Mapping Your Innovation Strategy." Drawing on findings from three of Clayton Christensen's books - The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, and Seeing What's Next - Scott divided the presentation into three key parts: the innovation imperative, how to solve the growth equation, and tips & tricks for innovation. Along the way, he showcased a number of companies full of innovation goodness and offered his take on the future trajectory of innovation.
According to Scott, we've reached the "era of pattern recognition" that serves as a bridge between two distinct eras of innovation. Historically, says Scott, innovation has been viewed as a random event, a bit like rolling the dice. In the current era, companies are learning to recognize the patterns and principles behind innovation. By seizing on these patterns in well-defined ways, it's possible to make innovation a much more structured process. In the future, innovation will be perceived as much more of a "blueprint" and the focus will be on execution, not on idea generation.
Even for companies familiar with the notion of "disruptive innovation," it's difficult to decide how to go about building a truly disruptive solution. As Scott points out, nearly 90% of first strategies are the wrong strategies. The key is being able to build an "emergent strategy" that continually absorbs new information and then re-directs itself in response to these stimuli. He also pointed out that all the traditional tactics that work for existing markets - market research surveys, NPV analysis, etc. - fail miserably when companies are trying to carve out brand new markets. Companies really have to get out and observe the consumer and find out what problems or "pain points" the consumer is facing. He also suggested a few questions to consider when thinking about disruptive innovation.
Pointing to a client engagement with a company in Virginia, Scott showed how a single question - "What constrains consumption?" - led to a massive outpouring of new ideas about how to penetrate the market. Often, it is the people who can't consume your product (not people who don't want to consume your product) who hold the key to future market share gains. Take Southwest Airlines, for example. It wasn't that people didn't want to fly on an airplane - it's that people couldn't fly on an airplane, due to financial reasons. They could only afford to travel by bus. Southwest realized this and changed the prevailing business model within the airline industry to make air travel affordable for everyone. The same thing is true with Netflix - it wasn't that people didn't want to watch obscure films at the far end of the movie distribution curve - it's that they couldn't watch these movies. The shelves of Blockbuster simply couldn't carry them, so consumers couldn't get their hands on them. Netflix solved all that with its DVD-by-mail business model.
Anyway, the folks at Innosight are making slides of the presentation available to people who signed up for the event. If and when they become available on the Innosight site, it's definitely worth taking a look.
Tags: Innosight ClaytonChristensen innovation
Posted by dominic at 8:10 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
An innovative supply chain solution from FedEx
FedEx continues to find new ways to leverage its $2.4 billion acquisition of Kinko's. In 2004, FedEx primarily positioned the acquisition as a way to get into e-document printing and delivery and to develop more touch points with consumers. Now, it looks like the shipping giant is starting to position each FedEx Kinko's location as a miniature warehouse in a global supply chain network. Earlier this week, the company announced the launch of the FedEx Critical Inventory Logistics Program, a supply chain service that allows customers to warehouse inventory at any one of the FedEx Kinkos locations in their service area. FedEx then provides a personalized webpage that allows customers to track inventory inside Kinko’s and track parts throughout the network.
Moreover, as the press release for the new service points out, the new offering utilizes FedEx’s full portfolio of companies by using Express, Ground, Freight, Custom Critical and Kinko’s to help customers with their critical inventories. In other words, it's a seamless experience for customers. For example, FedEx Kinko’s and FedEx Express locations are being used for the forward deployment and distribution of parts or devices, while FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Custom Critical provide an array of shipping and delivery options.
It's a potentially game-changing idea that FedEx will primarily market to customers in the telecom, semiconductor, biomedical and other industries that rely on just-in-time delivery options. Tom Schmitt, president and chief executive officer of FedEx Global Supply Chain Services, comments on the value proposition for customers:
“Customers are increasingly looking to FedEx for our expertise in managing just-in-time, critical inventories. Our unique mix of networks allows FedEx to create customized solutions to address almost every supply chain need... Customers realize that this service will significantly lower their costs by reducing inventory while providing more efficient network planning and the ability to choose shipping options based on timing and cost.”
For more on the future of supply chain innovation, check out this recent feature on the Business Innovation Insider: FedEx and innovation within the delivery services industry. Sure enough, the #1 trend within the delivery services industry six months ago was the strategy of "burrowing deeper into the supply chain of customers." This is exactly what FedEx is doing with its new Critical Inventory Logistics Program.
Tags: FedEx Kinkos supplychain innovation
[images: FedEx Fleet and Print It. Pack It. Ship It.]
Posted by dominic at 7:12 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Tearing down the original home of innovation
Is this an example of creative destruction - or just an inevitable result of the nation's long-running real estate boom? The original home of Bell Labs - a 44-year-old, six-story, two-million-square-foot glass structure surrounded by 472 acres of pristine nature - has been sold to a Pennsylvania real estate developer who plans to tear down the building to make room for something new. According to the New York Times, the public will be invited in to have one last look at the original home of innovation before the building takes a whack from a giant wrecking ball. It marks the final end to the legacy of innovation powerhouse Bell Labs, which was largely gutted by Lucent Technologies after the dot-com collapse. The developers apologized for not being able to save the historic building - but, well, this is business, and you know what that means:
"[The real estate development firm] will maintain the site as office space and will keep the property as pastoral as possible, said its chief executive, Michael G. O'Neill. But Mr. O'Neill said his firm, which specializes in the reuse of outmoded commercial buildings, simply could not find a way to renovate this structure.
The soaring lobby is surrounded on three sides by stacks of windowless concrete-walled cubicles — perfect for scientists, but unappealing to office workers of any other type — he noted. "So many of these lavish old commercial buildings have a great history to them, and then one day their useful life is over," Mr. O'Neill said a bit wistfully...
"I think there were about 20 other developers competing against us to buy the property," Mr. O'Neill said, "and everybody we competed with wanted to put 500 to 600 houses here, and turn this into a big subdivision, but that is not our intent. "Can you imagine? This incredible, expansive space — cutting it up, and covering it over with yet another cookie-cutter community of McMansions?"
On a walking tour of the property, Mr. O'Neill said he currently envisioned three smaller headquarters-type buildings in place of the one big lab structure, providing somewhat less total space than the Bell Labs building. "The size would be in keeping with the more modest size of today's typical company headquarters, or data processing centers," he said.
Tags: BellLabs innovation
[image: New York Times]
Posted by dominic at 6:20 AM | Comments (5) | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
June 15, 2006
15 easy steps to innovation success
In the aftermath of the Innovative Marketing event at Columbia Business School last week, the Chief Innovation Officer blog has put together a list of 15 easy steps to innovation success. There's a lot to chew on, but here's a look at the five most compelling suggestions:
(1) Establish a clear venue for customers to submit their ideas, comments and feedback and ensure that you demonstrate you are listening;
(2) Use ethnography and similar techniques to regularly search for unarticulated needs;
(3) Establish metrics for experimentation failure and celebrate failure as learning;
(4) Implement (or codify) an end to end innovation process;
(5) Encourage and facilitate customer experimentation with your products and services.
For another broad overview of the themes and topics covered at the Innovative Marketing event, be sure to check out coverage on the Emergence Marketing blog.
Tags: marketing innovation
[image: 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference]
Posted by dominic at 1:34 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Innovation that matters: new solutions to fight hunger
Inspired by the new Stanford social innovation podcast series as well as IBM's rallying cry of innovation that matters, I've added a new category to the Business Innovation Insider: social innovation. Social innovation is all around us, yet is rarely noticed by the mainstream media or even by bloggers. Social innovators don't have big R&D budgets or hyperactive PR departments to get the word out, yet their solutions to solve social problems are surprisingly powerful. For example, the Wall Street Journal (link via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) is running a two-part series on innovative ways of fighting hunger in America. As the Wall Street Journal points out, social innovation is emerging as a real tool to combat a problem (i.e. hunger) that has bedeviled the U.S. since the 1960s:
"Despite decades of economic growth and technological progress, tens of millions of Americans still live in poverty. Efforts to reduce the ranks of the poor persist, but they have moved underground. Today's War on Poverty isn't marked by lofty presidential rhetoric. It is a guerilla war with platoons of idealistic crusaders and skeptical scholars, with dozens of small-scale experiments and local initiatives that largely escape public notice."
Yesterday, for example, the Wall Street Journal featured a a heartbreaking story by Roger Thurow about "backpack clubs" that are spreading throughout the USA as a way to combat poverty in rural and suburban areas. In the U.S, there are now 13.5 million households that have limited or no access to food as a result of financial duress. In the face of overwhelming evidence showing that traditional programs to combat poverty are not working as planned, social innovators are trying to come up with new solutions to fight hunger.
The "backpack clubs" described by Roger Thurow solve this problem in a low-cost, easy-to-implement manner: suburban kids fill up their backpacks with food on Fridays, share this food with their families over the weekend, and bring back empty backpacks on Monday. Using school backpacks helps kids avoid the stigma of being poor, and ensures that kids (and their parents) eat well over the weekend. It's an amazing article and really sheds some light on a problem that afflicts an astounding number of Americans. Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for having the courage to put this article on the front page of the paper.
Tags: socialinnovation backpackclubs
[image: At the Foodbank via Team MBA]
Posted by dominic at 9:21 AM | Recommend this! (1) | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
A magic bus that runs on cooking oil
Yale University is doing its part to support alternative energy sources and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. For the past month or so, Yale has been running a shuttle bus that is 100% powered by cooking oil recycled from university dining halls. The magic bus made its debut during graduation ceremonies last month:
"Yale will run one if its shuttle buses at Commencement with biodiesel fuel made with cooking oil recycled from its dining halls, University officials have announced. The University has been operating the bus for the past month with a test blend of fuel that is 50 percent biodiesel. The bus will be run for the first time solely on biodiesel at the 2006 Commencement.
“The experiment with 100 percent biodiesel complements Yale’s use of alternative fuels in the rest of its shuttle fleet,” said Associate Vice President for Administration Janet Lindner. “The University has converted all of its shuttle buses to biodiesel, in a blend with ultra-low sulfur diesel, as part of its commitment to a greener campus and cleaner air. We have been making use of alternative fuel vehicles, such as hybrids, within our fleet and this month we began using alternative fuel in all Yale shuttle buses. These efforts will help promote a healthier environment for the New Haven community.”
What's cool is that the innovation originated with a Yale student who came up with the idea of running his car with vegetable oil. One thing led to another, and he soon found himself working side-by-side with a Yale research scientist at the campus chemistry lab to develop the alternative fuel solution. A big Boola Boola for Yale innovation!
Tags: Yale alternativeenergy biodiesel
[images: Yale]
Posted by dominic at 7:00 AM | Comments (5) | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Intelligent surface systems for bartenders
Austrian innovation blogger Hannes Treichl points to a cool YouTube.com video of iBar, an intelligent surface system that also just so happens to be the surface of an interactive, six-meter long bar counter. As can be seen from the video, every glass, cellphone, car key, businesscard or even finger can be recognized as it touches the surface of the bar:
"iBar is a system for the interactive design of any bar-counter. Integrated video-projectors can project any content on the milky bar-surface. The intelligent tracking system of iBar detects all objects touching the surface. This input is used to let the projected content interact dynamically with the movements on the counter. Objects can be illuminated at their position or virtual objects can be "touched" with the fingers."
The video has already been viewed more than 192,000 times on YouTube.com and has been dugg over at Digg.
Anyway, for more on innovation from an Austrian perspective, be sure to check out the blog postings of Hannes Treichl. Recently, he has written about Marissa Mayer of Google, the Mitsubishi DiamondTouch, social innovation and the iPod.
Tags: ibar innovation
Posted by dominic at 6:32 AM | Recommend this! (1) | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
"Change Artists" webcast on change and innovation
Just a reminder that the Change Artists webcast will take place at 10:30 am on Monday, June 19. The webcast, which is sponsored by HP, CNN and CIO.com, features a frank discussion by two senior executives at health care services giant McKesson - CEO John Hammergren and CIO Randy Spratt - on technology, strategy, and innovation. McKesson, ranked #16 on the Fortune 500, uses smart technologies to help make the delivery of heath care safer, more efficient and less expensive. The webcast is a great chance to find out how the CEOs and CIOs of today’s leading companies turn change into competitive advantage.
Anyway, there's a brief registration process that's required before receiving an invitation to the 30-minute webcast. It looks like the live interactive interview will take place in the CNN studios, so the production value should be high.
Tags: changeartists innovation strategy change
Posted by dominic at 6:10 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
June 14, 2006
June 14 innovation linkage
Community libraries as social spaces for informal learning [Irving Wladawsky-Berger]
From facts to truth [Tom Asacker]
Guy Kawasaki is taking over the blogosphere [Innovation Creators]
South Korean innovation, now rudderless [Donga.com]
A new way to send money via Skype [Random Good Stuff]
Ford Motor Company makes the case for innovation [Automotive Spectator]
Time for innovation [Slow Leadership blog]
Mining the surface of the moon [Popular Science]
Electrical substations that look like houses [BoingBoing]
[video: The Ninja explains Net Neutrality]
Posted by dominic at 12:49 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Yahoo! answers your innovation questions
According to Search Engine Watch, Yahoo! Answers is becoming an important online social space as well as a Web 2.0 phenomenon. The idea behind Yahoo! Answers is a simple one: users post questions and other users answer them. When there are several answers to the question, users vote on the best answer. Already, there are more than 10 million answers posted and Yahoo! Answers now ranks as the third largest reference site on the Web, trailing only Wikipedia and Dictionary.com. By some estimates, 4.2% of all U.S. Internet users have visited the service at least once.
So, what does all this have to do with innovation? Plenty, it turns out. Not only is the concept for the site innovative, but it looks like a number of Yahoo! users are interested in the idea of business innovation. Below, I've cut-and-pasted some of the questions and answers about innovation that have appeared on the Yahoo! Answers site:
Q: How does innovation help a business?
A: Innovation expands business. Where there was nothing, there is now something. This something may create new jobs, or make people look at business models in a different way that may cut costs and/or raise profits. Innovation can be refreshing, taking something that is old and stagnant, and make people recognize it again as a viable resource. Without innovation, business could only be transacted between a limited amount of people, and what kind of business would that be?
Q: What is your definition of innovation?
A: Innovation is a scientific approach for finding newer better ideas and solutions to problems, which make life easier and simpler to live!
Q: What is the difference between creativity and innovation? Give examples.
A: Creativity is shown when you do something original and start from scratch. Innovation is shown when you improve or make an addition to something that's already there.
Tags: YahooAnswers innovation
[image: Yahoo! Answers in Times Square via Flickr]
Posted by dominic at 8:06 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Smartsourcing is the key to business innovation
Industry Week has posted a great interview with Tom Koulopoulos, president and founder of Delphi Group, a Boston-based thought leadership firm. In the interview with Industry Week, Tom shares insights from his new book Smartsourcing: Driving Innovation and Growth Through Outsourcing, which explains how and why companies must shed non-core business activities. This type of outsourcing ("smartsourcing") enables companies to focus on innovation and differentiate themselves from their competitors.
In this brief snippet from the interview, Tom explains how General Electric has retained its focus on innovation while smartsourcing jobs to India:
The GE story is a pioneering one. In the book I talk about GE's initial foray into outsourcing and offshoring and Jack Welch's 70:70:70 rule, which simply said that GE would outsource 70% of its backoffice, 70% of that would be offshored, and 70% of that would be offshored to India. GE estimated that its efforts in outsourcing resulted in a savings of $300 million per year! By the way, GE did not just go for cost cutting, they also offshored part of their research to India, creating what hey have called the "highest IQ per square foot" office in the world. Yet while all of this was going on GE continued to vigorously grow employment and research activities in the U.S.
Many people look at what GE did and cringe at the repercussions of sending so much offshore. Why? Do we have so little faith in the U.S. workers ability to differentiate their skills and value on a global platform? The data so far speaks for itself. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, outsourced jobs increased from 6.5 million in 1983 to 10 million in 2000 while insourced jobs (jobs that the rest of the world send to the U.S), were up even more -- 2.5 million to 6.5 million.
GE created a global ecosystem that fueled its growth, creating more opportunity for its operations worldwide, including U.S. It's not a zero sum game. Going offshore gives companies the ability to focus themselves onshore on what they do best.
Smartsourcing is about creating this sort of obsessive focus, its about looking beyond the myth and hyperbole that surrounds outsourcing and offshoring and instead answering the critical question about how we will continue to thrive in a global economy. That is the choice -- do we thrive -- not, do we play.
Tags: smartsourcing innovation Koulopoulos
Posted by dominic at 6:58 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
A tool for visualizing your personality
TrendHunter points to a new personality visualization tool called Personal DNA:
"There was astronomy, then there was numerology now hits the PersonalDNA where you can take a fairly long personality test to reach your unique personality visualization. In this unique visualization each box and its color represent something about your personality. You can send the same test to friends and compare their pereption of your personality with your own visual. Other than the fun aspect, if developed, the code and the visual has the potential to be a human barcode."
Personal DNA is a project of ATTAP ("All Things To All People"), a small group of innovators whose goal is "to help fulfill the promise of the web by making useful stuff available to all."
Tags: personalDNA personality
Posted by dominic at 6:38 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
The 5 M's of innovation
At the HOW Design Conference in Las Vegas, Andy Stefanovich explained how the 5 M's - mood, mindset, mechanisms, measurement and motivation - can drive innovation. In a blog entry about lessons learned from the conference, Martin Ringlein of the Creative Refresh blog explains how organizations can foster innovation by thinking about the 5 M's:
"An organizations attempt to drive innovation can be evaluated through these five elements. Mood is dependent on the atmosphere and openness to creativity. Innovation will starve in an environment closed to creativity. Mindset is about the people around the organization. How do they approach their work and embrace innovation? Mechanisms focus on the devices each organization uses; what technologies are available? How can these devices be better utilized or embraced to let innovation flourish? Measurement is an item often over-looked – be sure to establish a measurement of success for innovation. Don’t limit yourself to a quantitative approach; look for the qualitative aspects as well. Motivation is more about self-awareness – ask yourself, “What are you doing to lead innovation and creativity?” Obvious more than anything else, but needless to say; if you want to drive innovation and creativity, you need to step-up and lead the charge."
Tags: innovation creativity design
Posted by dominic at 6:17 AM | Comments (2) | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
June 13, 2006
June 13 innovation linkage
"Mapping your innovation strategy" webinar [Innoblog]
Marissa Mayer's 9 notions of innovation [Pandora Squared]
The new home of the Innovation Challenge [Innovation Challenge]
The "business models" entry on Wikipedia [Alex Osterwalder]
Om Malik quits Business 2.0 to launch a new project [Silicon Beat]
Scoble shocks blogosphere, trumps World Cup [ZDNet]
Is paradox the new paradigm? [Business Pundit]
Ethnographic studies of ubiquitous computing [Pasta & Vinegar]
Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos experiments [EepyBird]
Are virtual worlds the future of the classroom? [CNET News.com]
[image: The Search for Yourself Doesn't Run on Google]
Posted by dominic at 12:24 PM | Comments (6) | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Great brainstorming sessions are a corporate myth
At least, that's the theme of this week's "Cubicle Culture" column by Jared Sandberg in the print edition of today's Wall Street Journal. According to Sandberg, there are a number of good reasons why group brainstorming sessions over-promise and under-deliver at corporations across America. Great brainstorming sessions are possible - "but they require the planning of a state dinner, plenty of rules, and the suspension of ego, ingratiation and political railroading." In other words, they are possible but extremely unlikely. Too many times, writes Sandberg, these brainstorming sessions turn into "blamestorming" or "coblabberation."
Maybe Sandberg has been exposed to too many bad brainstorming sessions at Dow Jones, who knows? When it comes to taking on teams and brainstorming, he's loaded for bear. The column goes on to take a few potshots at "America's knee-jerk faith in teams":
"Teams aren't necessarily so great. 'There are so many things people do in management because they think it's good, but there's no evidence for it," says Paul B. Paulus, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. 'Teamwork is one example. Brainstorming is another.' Prof. Paulus conducted research on the number and quality of ideas of four people brainstorming together versus four people brainstorming by themselves. Typically, group brainstormers perform at about half the level they would if they brainstormed alone."
That's not all - Sandberg claims that brainstorming sessions are only a convenient fiction designed to give rank-and-file employees the misguided notion that their input matters. In fact, writes Sandberg, a brainstorming session can easily degenerate into a "worthless day." At best, group brainstormers arrive at obvious conclusions that are either "pedestrian" or strikingly impractical.
Anyway, this "Cubicle Culture" column is obviously intended to generate a lot of debate around office watercoolers. Dilberts and other corporate drones will probably nod their heads and proclaim Sandberg a hero, while innovation consultants brandishing their arsenal of wikis, creativity tools, and strategies for collaborative innovation will brand Sandberg a heretic. What do you think?
Tags: brainstorming creativity innovation
[image: Steve Jurvetson's Frozen Brainstorm]
Posted by dominic at 9:14 AM | Comments (24) | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
How to build a well-designed global R&D network
In the current issue of Strategy + Business magazine, researchers from Booz Allen Hamilton and INSEAD analyze the best way to configure a global innovation network. After surveying R&D leaders in 186 companies from 17 industry sectors in 19 different nations, the research team came up with a final conclusion: "Organizations benefit when they configure their innovation networks for cost and manage them for value." In other words, an innovation network should not be too bloated or too complex, but, at the same time, it should also be robust and expansive enough to offer access to cutting-edge ideas. As part of the study, the researchers focused on the dispersion of corporate R&D sites to far-flung corners of the globe. As companies increasingly set up global innovation networks across Europe and Asia, it's important to configure these networks to be as efficient as possible:
"[Corporations] can accept that there are only two valid reasons to add a node: 1) to cost-effectively access critical knowledge that could not otherwise be tapped, and 2) to locate capabilities where they can deliver results better, faster, and cheaper than anywhere else in the network. Compared with traditional innovation networks, these leaner, more consciously designed networks can achieve 37% faster time-to-market and lower costs by 24% according to estimates based on the aggregate experience of survey participants. This statistic suggests that when possible, companies should be frugal while expanding and as objective as possible when assessing their innovation networks. If knowledge or capabilities can be found in a less costly manner, they should be. Just as inefficiencies are not tolerated in manufacturing supply chains, they should also be stripped out of innovation networks."
Tags: innovation network BoozAllen INSEAD
[image: Deutsche Bank]
Posted by dominic at 7:40 AM | Recommend this! (1) | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
"The most important business process that people don't manage"
If you're a fan of innovation blogger Jeffrey Phillips and his Innovate on Purpose blog, you're probably aware that he helped launch OVO Innovation a few months ago. Anyway, OVO Innovation now has a regular email newsletter that keeps subscribers up to date on the latest trends within the innovation world. In the most recent issue, OVO Innovation linked to a five-minute video blog from the Front End of Innovation event in Boston, in which OVO Innovation's Dean Hering explains how and why corporations need to make innovation a repeatable, sustainable business process: "Innovation in most businesses has been fragmented, accidental and serendipitous... Innovation must become a more carefully considered strategy as firms seek new methods to differentiate and provide great products and services to the market."
In the five-minute vlog, Dean Hering reviews the first-ever "managed innovation" operation (hint: it dates back to the days of Thomas Edison); outlines a five-step process to Innovate on Purpose; and offers a final takeaway lesson: "Innovation is the most important business process that people don't manage."
Tags: innovation strategy management
Posted by dominic at 6:45 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
The Ten Commandments of Change Management
Calling open innovation "one of the biggest, and most positive new ideas to hit corporations and the economy since the downturn threw cold water on all our fun," Palo Alto-based innovation consultant Michael Osofsky outlines the Ten Commandments of Change Management that can help a company implement a program of open innovation:
1. Analyze the organization and its need for a change
2. Create a shared vision and common direction
3. Separate from the past
4. Create a sense of urgency
5. Support a strong leader role
6. Line up political sponsorship
7. Craft an implementation plan
8. Develop enabling structures
9. Communicate, involve people, and be honest
10. Reinforce and institutionalize the change
For more details on this framework, check out Rosabeth Moss Kantor's The Challenge of Organizational Change, which Osofsky cites as a good starting point for learning how to implement radical change within an organization. Going forward, Osofsky will be exploring each of these steps in greater detail, starting with the need to analyze the organization and its need for change.
Tags: innovation changemanagement strategy
[image: The Ten Commandments]
Posted by dominic at 6:14 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
June 12, 2006
An open model for innovation
Kathy Sierra of the Creating Passionate Users blog suggests that open source creativity should be an important component of any company's innovation model. Instead of hoarding ideas or going to elaborate lengths to protect one's intellectual property, it's far better to focus on how to implement these ideas:
"Yes, there are some crucial exceptions, but for most of us, It's our implementation, not our idea that matters. Even those who create something revolutionary are still synthesizing... still drawing on the work of others, and making a creative leap... It's how we apply those ideas. How creative we are. How useful we are. How brave we are. How technically skilled we are. How we anticipate what our users will love. How we learn from the ideas and work of others."
Anyway, Kathy includes links to a number of other notable thinkers on the benefits of knowledge sharing and collaboration, including Mark Cuban, Bill Kinnon, Steve Hardy and Evelyn Rodriguez. As can be seen from the attached graphic, business innovation no longer relies upon "experts" and "proprietary knowledge" - it is shifting to a new paradigm of shared knowledge and innovation "mosh pits." It's a difficult shift in thinking, as this recent example from Merck Research Labs shows. In the case of Merck, the company is making the difficult transition from an R&D model based on experts and proprietary knowledge to a new model that focuses on collaboration with outside researchers.
Tags: innovation creativity ideas
[graphic: Creating Passionate Users
Posted by dominic at 7:37 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Innovative BBQ grills
It's summer in the city, and that means it's time for BBQ season. In its never-ending quest to point out the latest gadgets and gizmos for tech-crazed consumers, Gizmodo points to a wide range of innovative BBQ options featured on Neatorama. Of the top 10 coolest BBQ grills for the summer, Gizmodo is a big fan of the novelty BBQ setups that are shaped like pigs or cows: "Because there’s nothing like cooking an animal in a cartooned-metal version of itself." However, I'm a big fan of this HEMI-powered BBQ grill that won a contest sponsored by Chrysler last year: "Tim Kowalec built this HEMI-powered BBQ grill for Chrysler’s "What Can You HEMI?" contest in 2005. Tim’s 'manly man’s barbecue grill' featured a 5.7-liter V-8 HEMI engine, and can cook 240 hot dogs in 3 minutes!" Yo, this thing doesn't run on fuel, it runs on pure testosterone!
Tags: BBQ innovation
[image: Gizmag]
Posted by dominic at 7:02 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack
Assume that 99 out of 100 inventions will fail
Sometimes, it's helpful to think of innovation as a game of numbers. After all, as Montana-based venture capitalist Dave Bayless points out on his Dispatches from the Frontier blog, 99 out of 100 inventions ultimately fail. Even for the best companies, the chances of innovation success rarely exceed 1%. When innovation becomes "something of a crap shoot," when does it make sense to continue?
"Let's say that 99 of 100 inventions will fail. Does that make it stupid or foolish to be in the invention business? Well, that depends on the likely cost of failure and the likely benefit from winning. Let's say the cost of failure is $1 and the benefit from winning is $100. If you take a run at 100 inventions, you would expect to earn $.01 (.01 x $100 - .99 x $1 = $.01). Not much of a profit margin, perhaps, but Wal-Mart and Goldman Sachs... have figured out how to generate a lot of wealth over time on modest margins."
According to Bayless, being in the invention business only makes sense if "you have the staying power to take a lot of shots on goal" and if you can learn how to "improve your aim" over time. In addition, you need to be able to keep the cost of failure relatively low. With that in mind, Bayless outlines a number of missteps and pitfalls that often bedevil companies on the path to innovation.
Tags: innovation invention
[image: Inventions via Dan Zen on Flickr]
Posted by dominic at 6:45 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig | TrackBack