Killer Innovations: reblog

Popular Mechanics has published a survey of 10 radically innovative college programs that could shape the next 20 years of U.S. higher education. For example, consider what's happening at Olin College in Massachusetts, which is experimenting with project-based curricula that go way beyond traditional book learning:

"The Needham, Massachusetts college opened its doors in 2002, thanks to a $460 million grant from the F.W. Olin Foundation. Its mission: Revamp engineering education, which critics say has become more academic and less practical in recent decades. “Instead of spending two years learning the theory, you start using it in projects right away,” says Katerina Blazek, a student from the inaugural class. Olin has an enrollment of fewer than 300, allowing the school to offer a full-tuition scholarship to every successful applicant.

Last year, through the school’s Senior Consulting Program for Engineering (SCOPE), 13 companies paid $50,000 each to hire teams of Olin seniors. SCOPE projects included a model solar-powered house and a tractor which sprays orchards automatically. [...] Olin’s project-based curriculum is as real-world as it gets. As technological innovation and problem solving become increasingly precious commodities, Olin grads may lead the way in transforming how engineering gets taught--and practiced.

Other universities mentioned in the Popular Mechanics report include: University of California-Irvine, Florida State University (Panama City), Carnegie Mellon, Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Tufts University, MIT, LSU, Art Center College of Design and Ohio State.

[image: Olin College's SCOPE Engineering Program]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 30, 2006 at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At a recent conferences that I attended, some people questioned the predictive value of S-curves.

Pros and Cons:

Cons:

Last year, an academic paper was published by Ashish Sood & Gerard J. Tellis in the Journal of Marketing, which came out refuting the claim that many futurists and scientists make, asserting that most technologies evolve in the form of an s-curve. ( see my notes below)

Executive Summary

Technological change is perhaps the most powerful engine of growth in markets today. To harness this source of growth, firms need to answer key questions about the dynamics of technological change:

(1) How do new technologies evolve?

(2) How do rival technologies compete?

(3) How do firms deal with technological evolution?

Currently, the technology management literature suggests that the performance of a new technology starts below that of an existing technology, crosses the performance of the older technology once, and ends at a higher plateau, tracing a single S-shaped curve. Despite limited empirical support for these expectations, the S-curve of technological evolution is widely cited to determine at what point managers should shift investments from a mature technology to a new one.

In this study, Sood and Tellis tested this premise. They collected and compared technical data on product performance for 14 technologies across four markets (data transfer, computer memory, desktop printers, and display monitors). Their findings refute prevailing premises: Most technologies do not demonstrate an S-shape performance curve, technologies evolve through an irregular step function with long periods of no growth in performance interspersed with performance jumps, and a jump in performance appears to be largest after a long plateau of no improvement. They also find that new technologies may enter the market above or below the performance of existing technologies and that the performance curves of a pair of competing technologies rarely have a single crossing.

Thus, first-mover advantages may not be lasting, because entrants introduce even more innovations than do incumbent firms.

In addition, although new technologies compete with old on a primary dimension (an attribute of most importance to customers), the new technology also introduces a sequence of random secondary dimensions that subsequently offer a new basis of competition. Old technologies may be completely vulnerable to these dimensions.

Thus, relying on the status quo is deadly for any firm. Moreover, technological progress is occurring at an ever-increasing pace. As such, vigilance for the emergence of new technologies, coupled with efforts to improve the old technology, can help an incumbent sustain and advance its position or even preempt competitors.

Overall, these results suggest that the prevailing wisdom regarding technological evolution might lead managers to prematurely abandon a mature technology. Managers are better advised to study the internal dynamics of their technology when making resource investment decisions.

Source: Technological Evolution and Radical Innovation Ashish Sood & Gerard J. Tellis; Journal of Marketing, Volume 69, Number 3 July 2005

N.B. Possible Flaw in the above Study

Looks like this study possibly didn't disaggregate technology incremental improvements in a given generation of technology or clumped technology from various vendors together or didn't disagregate technology attributes from each other. If you don't do this you get get a scatter plot with dots all over the map vs a neat s-curve.

S -curves for market penetration or single attribute technologies have been fairly consistant for 100's of technologies for the past 30 years...Walter Derzko

Pros

In a related story titled: Forecasting emerging technologies with the aid of science and technology databases, which was published in the Sept 2006 issue of Technological Forecasting and Social Change , we see a different conclusion about S-curves

Abstract:

"Short term forecasting was applied to 20 emerging technologies under the "Machine and Materials" category based on the Vision 2023 foresight study previously conducted for Turkey. This scientometric approach uses the most suitable keywords linked to the technology in question and determines the number of publications and patents in those fields for a given year. Database analysis of publications and patents in the previous 11 years indicates that while the majority of the top 20 technologies identified by the experts are indeed emerging (i.e. the number of research and/or patenting in these technologies is increasing), some of them have not actually attracted too much interest in the science and technology (S&T) community. Forecasts based on S-curves indicate steady growth in some of the selected technologies. There is a high correlation between the number of scientific publications and patents in most of the technologies investigated. The method is proposed as a simple and efficient tool to link national foresight efforts to international S&T activities and to obtain quantitative information for prioritized technologies that could be used for technology management and decision making for research funding and technology investment."

© 2005-2006

Walter Derzko

Originally posted by SmartEconomy from Smart Economy
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 30, 2006 at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are, of course, some Big Idea people who've managed to start early and NOT peak out. Unlike many of their Conceptual counterparts, these folks didn't flame out after a spectacularly run through their twenties. My publisher and friend Tim O'Reilly is certainly one of those. Guy Kawasaki is another... as Apple's original Mac evangelist, he wrote a bestseller Selling the Dream (a classic, still useful!) in 1992 and just kept on going. And from what I know of David HH, he might just be getting warmed up. I reckon we'll be hearing (and using) more of his Big Ideas for years or decades to come.

All this is from an article (that most of you have probably already read) by one of my favorite people, Dan Pink, author of the life/business-changing book A Whole New Mind. The article titled, "What Kind of Genius Are You", appeared in the July issue of Wired, and you can read it online here.

I skimmed the article when it first came out, saving it for a long coffee break, but lost the magazine in the shuffle of moving and travelling, until this morning. I'll never be a genius, and given that the chances of me being in the "young/conceptual" camp are pretty much zero, I still found the article inspiring. There's hope for me-- and all of us who are past our 30's--still.

At the end of the article, he talks about how we need to make sure that the brash and bold aren't stifled by, say, their managers (or work policies too inflexible to handle a creative genius). So, yeah, another "duh" thing (one that all managers acknowledge but few really DO). He doesn't leave out the slow-starters, though, because he adds:

"But we should also leave room for those of us who have, er, avoided peaking too early, whose most innovative days lie ahead... we need to look at that more halting, less certain fellow and perhaps not write him off too early, give him a chance to ride the upward curve of middle age.
Of course, not every unaccomplished 65-year old is some undiscovered experimental innovator. This is a universal theory of creativity, not a Viagra for sagging baby boomer self-esteem. It's no justification for laziness or procrastination or indifference.
But it might bolster the resolve of the relentlessly curious, the constantly tinkering, the dedicated tortoises undaunted by the blur of the hares."

So... to all the hares out there... watch your back! We're coming. Just really, really s l o w l y. And we have an advantage today that previous generations didn't... the internet. Blogs. The opportunity to reach people online--across the globe--with nothing more than a free blogging account. See, there was actually more to Doc Searl's quote than I put at the beginning. What he really said was:

"Nearly all of what I'm known for I've done since I was fifty. And without the Net, there would hardly be any of it."

It's never too late to be creative. It's never too late to make a difference. Just...keep...trying s***. And remember the quote from the 90-something woman who, when asked about her regrets said, "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken up the violin at 60. I'd have been playing for almost 40 years by now..."

So, what kind of genius are YOU?

(Whatever type you are--conceptual or experimental--note the computer both David and Doc are using in the pictures. I'm just sayin'...)

Photo credit: pictures were taken by James Duncan Davidson who, uh, managed to create the Tomcat Java web container (and drove the astonishing effort that led Sun to donate it to Apache as open source), and Ant, all around the age of 30. Not content with being merely a tech genius, he recently launched a second part-time career as a pro photographer. Bastard! ; )

Originally posted by Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 30, 2006 at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The civic leadership of Rockford, Illinois is prototyping a new dynamic economic development model. The goal is to transform the Rock River Valley Region into a regional innovation ecosystem that adapts quickly to global markets and technological opportunities. Rockford is the third largest city in Illinois approximately 90 miles northwest of Chicago and home to more than 150,000 people. By maximizing linkages and relationships among local stakeholders with customers, suppliers and sources of creativity on a global basis the result will be faster commercialization of new products and services and the foundation for driving the next generation of economic growth, business start-ups and jobs.

Rockford's 20th Century industry revolved around machine tools, heavy machinery, automotive, aerospace, fastener and cabinet hardware products, and packaging devices and concepts. During the 1980s the Rockford area went in to a severe economic decline as foreign competition and demand shifts in the manufacturing sector severely impacted the economy and employment structure. In a typical American story of resilience, Rockford is re-inventing itself and is now in transition as the business, political and civic leadership look to new markets, entrepreneurship and technology based businesses to drive the future economy.

As an initial step in this process Rockford held an Innovation Forum August 17, 2006 at the EIGERlab facilities. The Forum was not the typical "talking head" conference consisting of keynote speeches and attendees in a classroom setting. The Forum was designed as a highly interactive “innovation café” to open minds and build trust, reciprocity, inspiration and critically important relationship capital to unlock the insights and pathways to a stronger innovation economy. The Forum was kicked-off by presentations by Larry Morrissey, Mayor of Rockford; Tom McDunn, vice president, EIGERlab; Egils Milbergs, president, Center for Accelerating Innovation; and Dr. James Kadtke, executive director, Accelerating Innovation Foundation.

Forum participants then assembled into tables of six to intensely interact about the innovation assets, opportunities, barriers and action alternatives. Participants rotated among the tables after each round of conversation and results were posted to the web on a real time basis. The entire day was also graphically visualized by Brandy Agerbeck. The Forum clearly demonstrated that innovation is a cross- organizational activity and is enabled by a “mindset” of collaboration wherein the assets, creativity and innovations of one stakeholder can be linked, shared and leveraged with others. You can see the methodology and results of the forum at www.eigerlab.org and by clicking on the link for RocoPedia which was launched by EIGERlab as an innovation”wiki” and portal for the Rock River Valley Region.

The Rockford Innovation Initiative is a collaboration between Rockford Area Ventures, EIGERlab, City of Rockford, Rockford Area Economic Development Council and the Center for Accelerating Innovation.

PARTNER LINKS:

EIGERlab: www.eigerlab.org

City of Rockford: www.ci.rockford.il.us

Rockford Area Ventures: www.rockfordareaventures.com

Rockford Area Economic Development Council:  www.rockfordil.com

Center for Accelerating Innovation: www.innovationecosystems.com

Rockford Innovation Forum presentation: Download egils_milbergs_rockford_in_the_global_innovation_age.pdf

Originally posted by Egils Milbergs from Accelerating Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 30, 2006 at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by LukeW from Functioning Form: Interface Design
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 30, 2006 at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stewart Brand (the subject of a great new book by Fred Turner, by the way) is interviewed in Business Week about "Learning from Informal Urban Economies."

What's interesting is that nations have figured out that squatters simply aren't going away. They're realizing they have to be finessed rather than crushed. An interesting parallel is open-source culture. In the high-tech world, the street finds uses for things.... Squatters operate in the same way. Just getting by takes a lot of creativity. And now nations and businesses are seeing, perhaps thanks to the open-source movement, that everything that isn't a crime has an application....

Sometimes, when money isn't the most important thing and wowing peers is the main event, innovation occurs.

The short slide show is also worth a look.

Doubtless Brand (echoing Prahalad, Clay Christensen, Muhammad Yunus, and others) is right that much can be learned from squatter cities, favels, etc.. The concept of the "base of the pyramid" is already well-established; still, as always, Brand's take on the idea is interesting, even vivid.

One thing about the piece, though, that struck a discordant note: its take is a bit "We [in the Bay Area] Are the World." It describes Sausalito as a squatter community-turned-gentrified San Francisco suburb. Favelas are like Burning Man, the struggle to get electricity is like coding Linux, people hauling water to their homes is entrepreneurship.

[T]he street finds uses for things. The Internet is rife with things people are doing for free.

And then someone figures out how to make it commercial. Linux applications are a great example. There's so much innovation and creativity in free domain. And large numbers count. Events such as Burning Man produce a lot of creative things. Sometimes, when money isn't the most important thing and wowing peers is the main event, innovation occurs.

Squatters operate in the same way.

Metaphors are inescapable, but trying to understand the world on its own terms is a worthy ideal. However, I suspect that this kind of approach is inevitable when writing about Brand: the article describes the WELL as "an online community that's a predecessor of MySpace."

Technorati Tags: business, city, innovation

Originally posted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang from IFTF's Future Now
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 30, 2006 at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. Carr, 47 years old, also has turned a skeptical eye on another popular notion: If innovation is a good that companies should pursue, more innovation is even better, and the best innovations are those that upset existing markets or industries. Instead, Mr. Carr says, companies need to be prudent -- even conservative -- in where and how much they encourage innovation.

The studies that I've seen indicate that it's rarely the very first mover into a market who ends up winning that market. Today we think of the iPod as being an enormous innovation, and in one way it was. But in fact, when the iPod came along there were already MP3 players and there were already lots of digital jukeboxes.

Originally from Businesspundit
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 23, 2006 at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Matt Chapman from Corporate Innovation Blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 23, 2006 at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Roger Brown at American Inventor Spot:

One of the questions I am constantly asked is how I got my inventions to market and how much did it cost me.

They are extremely surprised when I tell them it cost me less than $100 and I did it without the aid of the rip-off Invention Submission Firms.

There is a growing list of companies that Inventors can approach themselves without having to go through an Invention Submission Firm. You don’t have to have a patent and you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to get your idea in front of them.

I actively looked online for companies that list that they look at outside ideas from Inventors. I also go into stores looking for contact information on products so that I can contact that company. You would be surprised how many are open to reviewing ideas without a patent, but don’t advertise it.

The companies that licensed my ideas all paid for the patent out of their pocket, not mine, in order to protect their investment. I get a royalty based on the sales of each item.

Inventors are very creative people, but for some reason they don’t use that same creativity to find companies waiting for ideas.

Photo by RogerBrown.net.

Originally posted by Rich from Business Opportunities Weblog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 23, 2006 at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new book on presidential doodles shows off the "random sketches and drawings" of the nation's presidents, including those of Herbert Hoover ("the nation's foremost executive doodler"), Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Anyway, it's interesting to see what insights these doodles offer about the personalities and characters of the various presidents:

"Personalities emerge at a glance: John Adams' hard, straight lines and precise geometrical patterns; Theodore Roosevelt's rugged sketch of two dogs staring across a campfire; Dwight Eisenhower's plain, practical illustrations; Ronald Reagan's childlike portraits, including of himself in a cowboy hat.

President Kennedy, known for separating his life into compartments, would enclose words and numbers inside circles and boxes. Events long after his death give one doodle an unintended chill: A small circle with the numbers "9-11" contained within. Just to the lower left on the page, the word "conspiracy" is underlined...

Hoover's work is the subject of 16 pages, six more than the man who displaced him from office and, for the most part, from history: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Trained as an engineer, Hoover sketched out designs that read like building projects gone awry, or one's own imprisoned thoughts — circles within circles and diamonds inside diamonds, dark spirals reminiscent of spider webs or of wheels turning madly."

[image: Yahoo News]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 23, 2006 at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Gordon Graham from BROKEN BULBS: Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 23, 2006 at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Trendwatching.com has an interesting article on the importance of integrating "status skills" into your offerings.

No matter what you market, people will consume your offering based on how the product or service makes them feel about themselves in the presence of that product or service. The authors of the article refer to this as "providing your customers and clients with status" - perhaps a little too consumer-focused, but true for all industry segments nonetheless. As the authors rightfully point out: "there is little that consumers do that isn't consciously or subconsciously influenced by a desire for recognition from family, friends, and any fellow consumers they come into contact with."

In consumer goods, providing status may be conveyed through luxury, smart-buying, or eco-friendly symbols - symbols that will often be based on "too expensive," "too scarce," "too inaccessible," or other physical and experience based status symbols that will impress others. In the B2B space, status symbols could be conveyed through smart-buying, well negotiated, achieving results - symbols that are often based on the characteristics that make for a model employee in a particular business culture, and which would likely result in career advancement or increased reputation amongst peers.

According to the authors, consumers increasingly value creativity over passive consumption - a trend that originated in the online world - where your fighting skills may not be what is most valued anymore, but perhaps the originality of your avatar, the number of friends in your tribe, or the uniqueness of your home page. They call it "status skills," and define it as follows: "In economies that increasingly depend on (and thus value) creative thinking and acting, well-known status symbols tied to owning and consuming goods and services will find worthy competition from 'STATUS SKILLS': those skills that consumers are mastering to make the most of those same goods and services, bringing them status by being good at something, and the story telling that comes with it."

Several brands are already incorporating "status skills" into their customer interactions - including
Craft, Switch, BMW, Volkswagen, Nikon, Home Depot, Lego, and many other companies which are described in the article. Another example recently covered is the open source beer, which combines a new business model with the belief that many people will want to brew their own beer and improve their reputation as beer connoisseurs through the widespread adoption of their recipe enhancements.

With sites like Flickr and YouTube, where consumers can easily show off their creativity, it shouldn't be that hard for brands to embed at least some basic "status skills" into their offerings.

[Tags: status skills marketing marketing creativity buying behavior]

Originally posted by francois from Emergence Marketing
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 23, 2006 at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scott Baradell of the Marketing Profs: Daily Fix blog offers up a comprehensive list of 101 ways to brew up an innovative idea. As Baradell points out, the 101 suggestions are actually from a favorite coffee mug that was sent to him by Maddock Douglas, a Chicago-based ad and design firm.

Anyway, some of the ideas are truly inspiring ("create an idea that would get you fired," "ask a child"), some are whimsical ("sing a show tune in a crowded elevator"), some are eminently practical ("watch old black & white reruns"), while others are perhaps too tempting to even think about ("Go to Vegas, play a lot of craps"). My guess is that a lot of corporations eventually choose this Vegas option. Or maybe suggestion #15 ("Pray for a little help").

Tags: creativity inspiration marketing

[image: At the casino]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was thinking recently about how to shake up the way some folks in our organization look at things - just trying to get a different perspective on how we approach a problem.  One of them said something like - "it's all right here in front of you".  That got me thinking about what's "in front of us" and what's not.  Many people are defined by what they do.  I think you are probably just as easily defined by what you don't do.

Too many times we define something - a person, an organization, a culture - by what they display or by what's visible.  To look at things another way, consider what's not there, what's missing.  Here's the reason:

Any organization over time becomes similar to velcro.  Things stick to a team or a workspace through inaction or general sloth.  Even a well-honed and trained team will eventually have attributes that don't quite align to the organization or culture, flotsam and jetsam of daily work.  It's easy to add many factors to a culture, and most cultures and teams accumulate patterns of thinking, methods of working and so forth over time, as new people enter the team or as a training program is completed or as someone finds something new on the web.  It's almost inevitable that the culture will accumulate new "Stuff", whether that stuff is new ways of thinking, new processes or other apparatus. 

Since we are all basically lazy in some regard, most of that "stuff" tends to stick around, just because we get used to it and since no one has strong feelings about it, the stuff tends to stay.  Except for things that don't stay around.  In almost every organization there are a few people who draw a line in the sand and eliminate or remove artifacts that find their way into the organization, but for one reason or another don't belong.  This removal requires a proactive stance, and may ruffle some feathers, so it is only done when people feel strongly about the process or approach or method and decide that it is not right for their organization.  Since removing an artifact is much less common than the acceptance of one, it may be as important to notice what's not there, than what is there, since the culture of the organization is working more diligently to remove a few strongly offending items than many artifacts that are not so worrisome.

If it takes more work, more effort and more risk to remove artifacts from the culture than it does to add artifacts to the culture, and if, as is likely, many people ignore small items that don't impact them dramatically, then noticing what's not in an organization will probably tell you more about how that organization works and how that culture evolves, than what is exhibited as part of the culture.

It's all right there in the open.  Look for the gaps, not the stuff that's evident.

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Thinking Faster
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

McKinsey quarterly just reported (requires subscription) on a survey which they conducted with executives from around the world. In it they asked those executives to identify the top three trends that would affect global business and how those trends would impact their company's profitability.

The top three trends to affect global business over the next five years are:

• the growing number of consumers in emerging economies
• the shift of economic activity between and within regions
• the greater ease of obtaining information and developing knowledge

Other noteworthy trends from the top 10 include: the increasing communication/interaction in business and social realms as a result of technological innovation (#6), shifting structures/emerging forms of corporate organization (#7), and more social backlash against business (#9).

Interestingly enough, the survey found that executives perceived the potential impact of those trends to be significantly larger on global business than on their own company's profitability - perhaps signaling a weakness in their ability to translate global trends into corporate strategy.

Another finding - perhaps predictable considering who was surveyed - is that 85% of the executives describe their business environment as more competitive than it was 5 years ago.

When asked what single factor contributes most to the accelerating pace of change in the global business environment today they identified the main reason as innovation in products, services and business models. Other interesting reasons were greater ease of obtaining information, developing knowledge (#2), and rising consumer awareness and activism (#8).

[Tags: macroeconomic trends business trends product innovation consumer knowledge rate of change mckinsey]

Originally posted by francois from Emergence Marketing
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Innovate on Purpose
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Joris Claes from The House of Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Technology Review editor Jason Pontin has an excellent “From the Editor” piece on innovation in the magazine’s September/October 2006 issue. The article offers innovation insights drawn from the work and perspectives of members of the last two TR35 lists, the publication’s roster of 35 leading innovators under the age of 35.

1. Successful innovators are famously untroubled by failure.
2. Many innovators appreciate failure.
3. Innovators commonly recognize that “problems and questions are the limiting resource in innovation.”
4. Innovators find inspiration in disparate disciplines.
5. Innovation flourishes when organizations allow third-party experimentation with their products.
6. Fragility is the enemy of innovation: systems should boast broad applications and be unbreakable.
7. Real innovators delight in giving us what we want: solutions to our difficulties and expansive alternatives to our established ways.
8. Real innovators are sometimes perplexed by our ignorance of our own needs.
9. Successful innovators do not depend on what economists call “network externalities,” i.e., the innovation is valuable to the very first user.
10. Many innovators become technologists because they want to better the world.

One of the common threads weaving through this list is the increasingly outward-facing orientation of innovation. Instead of continuing to treat innovation as a compartmentalized and cloistered activity, organizations are opening it up to customers and other contributors, the marketplace and the world. It is precisely this approach that associations should follow in their pursuit of innovation, both because it will help us create new value in concert with those we serve and make it possible for us to realize the underlying values we espouse and claim to hold dear. Both elements of innovation–value and values–are critical to its success.

The question of fragility and innovation is an intriguing one for associations. Because association leaders often focus primarily on scarcity and the constraints their organizations face, it is not wildly speculative to suggest they might regard creating less fragile innovations as a more challenging obstacle to overcome. On the other hand, the inherent fragility of new ideas also creates a strategic opportunity for associations to build and leverage their own innovation networks to increase knowledge flows and decrease risk. So, perhaps in the association context, fragility isn’t so much an enemy as a catalyst for action.

Technology Review is a great publication and I highly recommend it to all association leaders seeking to build their scientific and technological literacy, as well as their understanding of innovation.

Originally posted by jeffpi1@gmail.com (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!) from Principled Innovation LLC
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Greg from Grassroots Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to management guru Gary Hamel, "strategy innovation" has replaced "total quality" and "business re-engineering" as the new business catchphrase in CEO suites around the world. Speaking at the IndiaTimes Strategy Summit in New Delhi, Hamel spread the gospel of management innovation to the business leaders of India:

"Ten years ago the challenge was re-engineering. Now it is strategy innovation, For the last 10 years, firms have been reinventing their supply chain but now it's time for them to reinvent their management process if they intend to relaunch themselves on the success path" [...] Elaborating on how firms can ensure a deep-rooted capacity for strategy innovation, he unveiled steps like imbibing new passions in employees, a never-ending effort to engage and capture the imagination of every single individual and a need for top management to surrender its monopoly on setting strategic direction. He said innovation should no longer be business process innovation as done by Toyota, product and services innovation as evident from the flat screen televisions unveiled by Samsung or business model innovation by Dell 20 years ago for that matter but industry architecture innovation in the form of recently launched iTunes by Apple."

Doesn't it seem like the topic of innovation always comes back to Apple?

Tags: Gary Hamel innovation strategy India

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We (at the Tom Peters Company) have known for a long time that innovation is important and that companies must become more innovative if they are to survive. We also know that the talented people in an organization are capable of solving the most complex of business issues and are a wellspring of great ideas. As Tom has espoused, "All the answers to our problems are inside the front line staff, if we would only bother to ask them!" Well, in recent Gallup research, they studied the impact of employee engagement on the creation of innovative ideas. So, it should be of no surprise as to the results. Drumroll, please ......

When Gallup asked people to agree or not with this statement: " My current job brings out my most creative ideas," the responses based on levels of engagement are as follows:

Engaged Employees = 59% agree

Not Engaged Employees = 17% agree

Actively Disengaged Employees = 3% agree

See the report of the study here.

The more engaged employees are, the more they are able to generate creative ideas. How do we foster high levels of engagement? What keeps you engaged and what makes you disengaged?

Originally from The Tom Peters Weblog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 16, 2006 at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dharmesh Shah at OnStartUps.com:

Having been involved, either in an informal or formal capacity over the years, I have found that many startup founders that I know began their companies while they were still students (undergraduate or graduate) or shortly after they graduated.

Why Students Make Great Entrepreneurs:

1. Starry-Eyed Optimism: Let’s face it, starting a company takes a fair amount of optimism. You have minimal resources, and the odds are severely stacked against you. To overcome this potentially troubling reality, founders must to some degree exercise suspension of disbelief and demonstrate a degree of optimism to take that initial step.

2. Trusted Peer Network: One of the great things about being a student is that you have the opportunity to meet and work with a lot of different people. If you do it right, you can get to know some of these people pretty well by working on projects with them and hanging out with them outside of class.

3. Higher Risk Tolerance: Let’s face it, when you’re a student your opportunity cost is likely lower than most other points in your career (even if you’ve been in the workforce for a little while and decided to go back and get that MBA). When you’re sitting there in class and an idea comes to you, it doesn’t really cost all that much to give things a try.

4. Abstract Thinking: In many academic programs (and especially the better ones), students spend a fair amount of time thinking about abstract concepts. This is particularly true in an engineering, computer science or even a business program.

5. Applied Learning: As a student, you’re quite often “drinking from a fire hose” and bringing all sorts of new information into your brain. Some of which “sticks” and some of which doesn’t.

If you’re a student or recent graduate, this is a great time to think about starting a company. Keep your mind open. See if you can find patterns in the problems that you’re seeing and try and find unique and compelling ways to solve problems people care about. It often is really that simple.

Photo by drs2biz.

Originally posted by Rich from Business Opportunities Weblog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 13, 2006 at 01:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by jbarrett@strategyandinnovation.com (Jonathan Barrett) from Innoblog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 13, 2006 at 01:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ronsonic's TeleFace phone looks a lot like the phone I had in my room as a zitty teenager. Aside from the cool semi-translucent effect, the back of the receiver holds 5 photos for crazy quick speed-dialing. Be careful--this could be just as, if not more lethal to your social life than a Myspace Top 8 debacle.

BTW, it's seems almost bizarre to see a new product launch that still has a cord.

via blogofwishes

Originally from core77.com's design blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 13, 2006 at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the China Business Summit in Beijing, Chinese government leaders talked up the vital importance of innovation as an engine of economic growth. It looks like the onsite Chinese-to-English translator got a bit carried away, though, when putting together an English language version of Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan's speech about technological innovation:

"Innovation is the soul of a nation's advancement, as well as the everlasting driving force for national prosperity. During the new phase of further modernization, China wants to achieve scientific development through innovation. Problems often occur when people tend to pay more attention to quantitative expansion and speed, while ignoring quality. This has often resulted in inefficient and irrational growth. We cannot afford to continue with the traditional development approach. Instead, we have to upgrade our development strategies, transforming our growth pattern and optimizing the industrial structure."

Just for kicks, try reading Zeng Peiyan's speech again, this time substituting the word "Communism" for the word "innovation." (According to the official bio for Zeng Peiyan, the Vice-Premier joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1978.)

Anyway, there's extensive coverage of the China Business Summit here.

Tags: China China Business Summit innovation

[image: Xinhua]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 13, 2006 at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This approach could be called an innovation "sandbox" because it involves fairly complex, free-form exploration and even playful experimentation (the sand, with its flowing, shifting boundaries) within extremely fixed specified constraints (the walls, straight and rigid, that box in the sand). The value of this approach is keenly felt at the bottom-of-the-pyramid market, but any industry, in any locale, can generate similar breakthroughs by creating a similar context for itself.

Originally from Businesspundit
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 13, 2006 at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Harvard Business Review editor Nicholas Carr is attempting to stir up the hornet's nest again. In May 2003, he penned the now infamous article "IT Doesn't Matter," suggesting that investment in information technology no longer gives companies a competitive advantage. Now, he's back with an interview in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), suggesting that investment in innovation may not give companies a competitive advantage. On his Rough Type blog, Carr explains why he's concerned about the "cult of innovation" that has formed in Corporate America:

"I question the popular notion that "companies should be innovating everywhere," arguing instead that companies should narrow their sights when it comes to innovation: "You need to bring the same kind of discipline to deciding where you innovate as you'd bring to any other kind of management question. You want to make sure that you innovate in those few areas where innovation can really pay off and create a competitive advantage and not innovate in other areas where it won't pay off." One of the dangers of placing too much emphasis on innovation, I suggest, is that a company can end up devaluing the work of the "merely competent." In fact, having highly competent employees is usually every bit as important to a business's success as having highly creative ones."

The bottom line, suggests Carr, is that "innovation isn't free... innovation is actually quite expensive and quite risky."

Tags: Nicholas Carr innovation strategy

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 13, 2006 at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April just launched the website Dynamic Textures a very visual summary of her earlier material explorations, her thesis work at the Art Center College of Design. Not yet another smart material - April prefers the not so smart materials, or as she calls them, dumb materials.

"We as designers rarely study the obvious and boring materials around us", for instance bubblegum. Trial and error and smart thinking allows April to realize several patterns that are able to morph into textures affecting current materials in design. A practical example is the coffee cup's skin that changes into a thorn-like texture to prevent the user from handling an extremely hot cup of coffee (see photo).

April Tsui is currently based in NYC and does her 'material gigs' with concept car developers and textiles makers. We say "Go and morph" and keep in touch!

Originally from core77.com's design blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 10, 2006 at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Steve Hardy from Creative Generalist
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 10, 2006 at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Innovate on Purpose
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 10, 2006 at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Geert Laenen from The House of Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 10, 2006 at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DIY Web 2.0; Next Tech Bubble?

Wired Magazine has a cute tongue -and-cheek piece:

"The new, new, new economy– wait, how many news was that? – it's easier than ever to start your own Web 2.0 company. Just use our handy StartUp-O-Tron^TM algorithm. It generates pitches, critical for persuading venture capitalists to throw money at you. "What's your company?" they'll ask. "It's a [market] site that uses [hyped tech] and [hyped tech] to do [service] in a [architecture]," you'll confidently reply. We've provided the tools below. Mix and match, then slap on a name with a pun or a rogue capital letter somewhere, and bang! Pretty soon you're driving a Z4 and looking at second-round funding. Hey, don't forget us during IPO allocation."

Originally posted by SmartEconomy from Smart Economy
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 10, 2006 at 09:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Gordon Graham from BROKEN BULBS: Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have a chart which demonstrates the need to move from "message neutral" (advertising) to "channel neutral" (communications) to "campaign neutral" (conversation) to "solution neutral" (innovation)

In the May 1st edition of Ad Age, there was an interesting cover story (R&D vs. ads in battle for bucks) which focused on this very topic and whilst, I think it was a little too sensationalist i.e. "...the share of money spent on R&D increasing relative to the amount spent on advertising" which implies some kind of causal relationship, I do agree with the premise.

Here are the facts:

• 50 years ago: Advertising:R&D ratio was 3:1
• By 1970, this had dropped to below $2
• By 1995 it was down to $1.52
• Today, $1.34 is spent on advertising for every $1 spent on R&D

The article continues with a comparison of 18 Leading National Advertisers who disclosed both their worldwide ad and R&D spending and shows how ad spending as a % of revenue dropped 1.35 % points from 1995 to 2005, whereas R&D spending as a % of revenue increased by .32 % points from 1995 to 2005.

Here's my take. Think about some of the most prominent launches or success stories of recent times: The Motorola Razr; The Apple iPod; Toyota's Prius. They all have their roots in significant R&D innovation; they also have a strong marketing and advertising relationship.

The insight/implication is simple: R&D and advertising (let's call it communications) are - or perhaps should be - inextricably linked and the combination of both makes for an incredibly strong 1-2 punch.

Arguably R&D/innovation is a precursor to advertising (with the former giving the latter something actually newsworthy to talk about), however in reality the two are in fact part of a fluid circle - a closed loop - and continuous cycle.

In an age where R&D and advertising are quickly becoming synonymous with oil and water, I believe "new marketing" can play a major role in terms of not only bridging this gap, but indeed forging stronger bonds and interrelated dyamics or synergy points between the two disciplines.

Originally posted by noemail@noemail.org (Joseph Jaffe) from Jaffe Juice
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the current issue of strategy + business magazine, management guru CK Prahalad describes in comprehensive detail how "bottom-of-the-pyramid" thinking can lead to the creation of "an impossibly low-cost, high-quality new business model." The key, as Prahalad points out, is to embrace the notion of resource constraints. Citing examples from the hospitality industry as well as the healthcare industry, Prahalad includes a long list of companies that are playing in the "innovation sandbox" to create low-cost, high-quality products and services.

In Bangalore, for example, the indiOne hotel charges $20 for a Western-style hotel room in the heart of India's Silicon Valley -- a mere one-tenth of what other hotel chains typically charge. For such a low price, you would expect to be staying in the equivalent of a cardboard box - but you'd be wrong: "The indiOne is modern; every room includes an attached bathroom, an LCD television, a wireless broadband connection, a small refrigerator, a coffeemaker, and a work area. The common areas include a pleasant cafeteria, an ATM, a business center, and a small gym." Instead of attempting to replicate "best practices," the low-cost hospitality provider is working on "next practices." At a time when luxury hotels eye 30-40% margins, the indiOne hotel chain is reporting gross margins that are close to 65%.

With that in mind, Prahalad outlines the four conditions that must be present for similar types of breakthrough innovations to occur:

(1) The innovation must result in a product or service of world-class quality;

(2) The innovation must achieve a significant price reduction — at least 90% off the cost of a comparable product or service in the West;

(3) The innovation must be scalable: It must be able to be produced, marketed, and used in many locales and circumstances;

(4) The innovation must be affordable at the bottom of the economic pyramid, reaching people with the lowest levels of income in any given society.

Obviously, this "bottom of the pyramid" thinking has taken off in India, which has more than 700 million bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers.

Tags: Prahalad business model innovation

[image: strategy + business]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a guy who has suffered through more than his share of economics and finance courses, I know the answer to just about any question about money.  The answer is:  it depends.  For example, is a dollar now worth a dollar in six months or a year from now?  Depends on the interest rates and time value of money.

I bring this up because I am struck that we in business are constantly focused on such short term outcomes that we frequently miss spending time and money on longer term objectives.  I was working with a firm recently that has a person with a title of "Long Range planning".  Leave aside the fact that they needed to give someone a title and responsibility to look to the "long range".  Leave aside the fact that only ONE PERSON in the organization is chartered to look beyond a 18 month horizon.  What does this say to the rest of the organization?  Ignore the long term, let Charlie worry about it.  When we get there, it will be the short term.

I started thinking about the value of the "short term" versus the value of the long term because of my interest in innovation.  See www.ovoinnovation.com for where I place a significant portion of my time and thinking currently.  Unfortunately for most firms, innovation is all about the future.  Innovation is something we'll do soon, and it will have benefits well down the road.  The problem with most firms is that they never get to that "soon" landmark.  There's always something more pressing right now.

So, that should say to us that we need some objective milestones and rationale for innovation.  What better than money?  That's what's driving the short term focus, the need to bring in the costs and revenue in line with the quarterly estimates.  Let's quantify the value of innovation and use a time value of money approach to emphasize why spending time on innovation which pays off in several years is worth the investment and focus NOW.  Ah, but you'll say that the next quarter is already in the pipeline, and even if we can quantify the Value of innovation, can we accurately predict the success of a given project?  If not, now we are working on two estimates - the estimate of value, and the chance of success.  All things considered, a highly likely bird in the hard with worth two birds with a less than perfect chance of success.  And, since we work to eliminate failure from our systems, innovation just became a lot harder to focus on now.

OK, so what's clear is we need to provide a mechanism for fairly certain innovation in the short term.  This means building incremental innovation initiatives into the fabric of your day to day operations, things that can pay off in under 4 to 6 months.  The only way that will happen is to incorporate these innovations or processes into your day to day activities, so that innovation becomes a natural part of your business, rather than something you'll get to at some point in your life, career or whatever.  Then, once you've incorporated and mastered the incremental innovation and have the right to look beyond the 4 to 6 month window, you can put in place the methods and processes for larger scale innovation, since you've won the right to innovate over a longer period of time and take greater chances.

A farmer who constantly eats his seed corn will not go to be hungry this week, but might find the planting difficult the next season.

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Thinking Faster
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Based on his analysis of companies commonly cited in the mainstream business media as being paragons of innovation goodness, Daniel Montaño of the User Experience + Innovation blog has just released an e-Book on Innovation Strategies. The book, which is currently available only as a 156-page PDF document, examines the innovation strategies at companies like Apple, IBM, GE, Target and Toyota:

"Rather than debate if those are really the most innovative companies in the world I decided to take a look at how each of these companies is innovating. The result is this book, where we find out some methods and strategies they are using, the kind of design awards they are winning, the type of criteria they're focusing on, where they're headed next, etc. The goal is to learn from those companies that spend thousands of dollars learning how to innovate, so others who don't have the budget can save some money and still innovate on the same tracks. Innovation is no longer just what happens in R&D, nor in the design shops, innovation is happening at every level of the organization. Every staff member can contribute to the innovation efforts."

Tags: innovation strategy tactics

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Gordon Graham from BROKEN BULBS: Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fred Karl, designer of the Viking range and owner of that company said, "I was a weird kid—I began designing towns when I was 12." We all know that "weird" can be good, if we don't judge others through our lens ... Being weird increases creativity if we allow it to flourish. Fred Karl, founder of Viking Range, let his weirdness flourish abundantly.

Karl's headquarters for Viking is located in his home town of Greenwood, Mississippi. Karl has restored old buildings to house his operations, so not only does his product, the Viking range, generate income for the small Mississippi town, Karl is revitalizing the town through his restoration work. He remembered a bustling place in the '60s that had "gone way downhill" by the time he returned there after a tour of duty in Vietnam. The little town of Greenwood, previously sustained by the cotton industry, wasn't ever going to be the same. But Fred Karl saw the possibilities and brought all his talents to bear to create a new Greenwood.

Fred Karl designed the first Viking range for his wife and hoped that he would sell 1,000 a year; now he sells that many in a week. Just like most startups today, he had little money. Fred Karl bartered his building design skills to obtain office space to work in. The local people called the new range Fred was designing his "Stove Project." What kept his spirit going was the encouragement from the town—support he knew he wouldn't get if he moved to a big city. That little "Stove Project" eventually became the big business of Viking Range.

Feeling a little weird lately? Take time to see where your passion and entrepreneurial spirit is calling you. Even in corporate America, the entrepreneurial spirit must remain alive. That spirit can solve the toughest of corporate problems, if only we let it.

See the article in INC about the entrepreneurial spirit of Fred Karl.

Originally from The Tom Peters Weblog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of late, the Wall Street Journal has been beating up on Viacom and its various media holdings. It's not hard to do, especially with the ongoing, highly-publicized spat between Sumner Redstone and Tom Cruise, the firing of CEO Tom Freston earlier this week and the growing realization that MTV Networks, the flagship cable network for the company, has lost its way. Today in the Wall Street Journal, there's a story called "Does MTV Still Rock?" that traces the slow, sad decline of MTV into a has-been network that doesn't even register on the radar of the MySpace/YouTube generation. Whereas once MTV was a poster child for the 18-to-34 demographic, it has apparently lost its creative mojo:

"MTV grew into a cultural juggernaut not just because it took risks on innovative content, but because its own culture was innovative, even subversive, say former MTV Network officials. Executives came to work late because they had been out partying with rock stars until the early hours - and that was fine because it fostered an atmosphere of creativity.

Many visitors to Viacom's 54-story Times Square headquarters are startled by the near total absence of corporate decorum. MTV Networks has no dress code and lacks many of the other regimens of corporate life. Mr. Freston (the departed CEO) believed that a relaxed atmosphere fostered creativity in his staff. As long as MTV was successful, the approach was embraced, even celebrated. But as the company grew older and larger, some former executives say it has become allergic to criticism. Management's decentralized approach has, at times, allowed problems to fester. The cadre of executives who founded the network have been reluctant to open their ranks to outsiders, institutionalized thought has crept in and management fiefdoms and silos have been created, former executives say."

Tags: MTV Viacom

[image: The day before the MTV Video Music Awards]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 9, 2006 at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pet Safe sent in the following press release:

Have you ever wished you had a product for your pet that hasn’t been invented yet? Now you have the chance to help bring that product to market and win up to $25,000 - just for having a great idea for your dog or cat!

Drs. Foster & Smith Partners with PetSafe to Present “My Pet Idea”

Drs. Foster & Smith, the nation’s most trusted name in pet supplies, has teamed up with PetSafe, the industry leader in pet training, safety and lifestyle product solutions, to search for the next great pet product invention in the United States. “My Pet Idea” is an innovative, fun and consumer-driven national contest to find new pet products that enhance the relationship between pet owners and their pets and ultimately improve a pet’s quality of life. You don’t have to be an inventor, engineer or have financial backing to enter; all you need is an idea and love for pets.

You’re invited to submit your creative pet product ideas via the contest web site - http://www.mypetidea.com - for a chance to win $2,500, $5,000, or the Grand Prize of $25,000! My Pet Idea contest categories include: products to eliminate a pet’s separation anxiety; giving pet owners more flexibility over their schedules while ensuring their pets are cared for; training ideas for puppies; health and well-being products for dogs and cats; products to eliminate destructive behavior and ideas for enhancing the pet/pet owner bond.

In addition to entering ideas, the public is invited to help select the contest winner by voting online for their favorite entry. Consumer votes determine the top 100 pet product ideas. From the top ten, three winners will be chosen. The contest begins Sept 6th and runs through Nov 30th, 2006. Finalist ideas will be open for public voting until Dec 11th.

All pet ideas submitted will be viewed and voted on by anyone who registers at the contest website. The most popular ideas will then be considered by PetSafe for cash prizes and future product development. By registering your idea or to vote on other peoples’ ideas, you also qualify to win a $250 Drs. Foster & Smith Gift Certificate. One winner will be randomly drawn weekly.

MyPetIdea.com also features fun stuff for all ages, including daily trivia, petcare tips, and a quiz to discover what kind of animal you would be. For more information, contest details, and idea starters, please visit DrsFosterSmith.com/mypetidea.

About Foster & Smith
Foster & Smith is the nation’s leading veterinary-owned pet supplier, providing pet owners with veterinary advice and quality pet supplies at affordable prices for over 20 years. Since their modest beginnings in the early 1980s operating four veterinary clinics in northern Wisconsin, Dr. Race Foster and Dr. Marty Smith have become the nation’s foremost authorities on pet care and education, earning a strong reputation for the scope of their veterinary expertise on dogs, cats, fish, birds, reptiles, pond life, and small animals. For more information visit: http://www.drsfostersmith.com.

About PetSafe
Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, PetSafe is the industry leader in pet training, safety and lifestyle product solutions. PetSafe introduced the first do-it-yourself electronic fence to the pet market in 1991 and the first wireless fence in 1998. PetSafe’s product line up includes: bark control systems, a selection of remote training equipment; electronic containment systems; pet doors, GPS and pet identification, heated wellness products, pet feeders and a growing line of lifestyle products. For more information about PetSafe visit: www.petsafe.net.

Originally posted by Dane from Business Opportunities Weblog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David pointed me on this instantiation of the Gartner Hype Cyle 2006:

Location-aware technologies seem to be in the end of the disillusionment phase; I agree with the disillusionment thing and hope that it’s reaching the end with innovative and user-oriented potentialities…

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Australia, a town once known for its steel mills and a migrant arrivals center is being transformed into a world-class innovation hub, thanks to a collaboration project between Wollongong University and the New South Wales government. As The Age explains, the new $300 million innovation campus could become a center of breakthrough research in areas ranging from biotechnology to artificial intelligence:

"About an hour south of Sydney, along the coast, lies a big paddock. The 33-hectare site, once home to a migrant arrivals centre, is an inauspicious place for a technology rejuvenation, but it is this greenfields site on which Wollongong University pins its hopes to revitalise an area once known for its beaches and steel mills.

The institution is preparing a blueprint to build a $300 million innovation campus to attract the best and brightest minds from across the country and around the world to research and commercialise technology in areas as diverse as image recognition and artificial intelligence, biotechnology, intelligent materials, polymers, superconductors and information and communications technology. The director of the innovation campus, David Fuller, is charged with building an environment in which researchers, innovative companies and postgraduate research students can work together and create the world of the future..."

The inspiration for the new innovation campus in Australia is a similar type of facility in Canada's Saskatchewan province - a site that is "300 kilometers from anywhere."

Tags: Australia innovation economic development

[image: The Age]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Innovate on Purpose
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Greg from Grassroots Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an extended post about harnessing the innovation capabilities within an organization, Alex Osterwalder of the Business Model Design and Innovation blog explains the inner workings of the Innovation Competence Process. As Alex points out, the Innovation Competence Process consists of five basic steps:

(1) Appreciate: the most important basic principle of this process is the true appreciation of everybody's capacity to contribute to innovation - from the secretary to the CEO;

(2) Self-Assess: Once the basic principles are set, the group seeking to improve its innovation competences should proceed to a self-assessment done in an open participatory discussion;

(3) Prioritize: The outcome of the self-assessment is the recognition of strengths and weaknesses in the innovation process of a group or organization;

(4) Reach Out: After constituting the action plan and prioritizing the group should reach out in order to find others that can share their experience;

(5) Connect, Share & Learn: After finding interesting countreparts based on the self-assessment of one's innovation competences the energy should go into connecting, sharing and learning.

Tags: innovation competence strategy knowledge

[graphic: Innovation Competence Process]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you have an obvious problem and think you have a solution, what is the need for creative thinking? Actually, there is a real need, because an adequate solution is not necessarily the best solution. Too often, the adequate blocks the best when it comes to problem solving.

Originally posted by Carmine Coyote from Slow Leadership
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 7, 2006 at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his book How to Be Like Walt, Pat Williams cites what are considered the six qualities that made the work Walt Disney did so creative and innovative. Here's how he explains it in his book...

The Six Factors of Walt's Genius

• Knowledge - Walt had a thirst for knowledge. He tried to impart this love of knowledge to everyone around him... He knew that it would pay dividends for the studio.
• Experimentation - Walt was always pushing the envelope and testing new ideas. He was on a continual quest for discovery, and he encouraged that same spirit in his staff.
• Quality at All Costs - Walt's philosophy was "Whatever you do, do it right." He was always reaching for perfection, and his eye never missed a detail.
• Control - Walt hired the best people and gave them a lot of creative freedom. but he always had control of the final results.
• Vision - Walt's special gift. He had a unique sense of what would sell and what the public wanted to see.

• Curiosity - Walt was intensely curious about everything life had to offer... He had a childlike curiosity about anything and everything.

Originally posted by Paul Williams from Idea Sandbox Blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 1, 2006 at 01:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sara Diamond, president of the Ontario College of Art & Design, explains in an op-ed piece for the Toronto Star that Toronto needs to embrace creativity and innovation if it plans to remain competitive on a global basis. As Diamond points out, a recently released report called Imagine a Toronto: Strategies for a Creative City provides "an articulate blueprint from which to build the energetic, imaginative and powerful city that many of us imagine..." While Diamond's focus is primarily on the arts and culture, it's clear that a creative Toronto linked together by Wi-Fi and social media would also have an impact on business innovation within sectors such as gaming, media and even biotechnology:

"Cultural and scientific innovators need face-to-face engagement. Let's create a networked Imagination Laboratory — an action-oriented innovation hub that invents attractive and sustainable technologies that we will love to use; sensitive, affordable health care; ecologically wise architecture; and new business methods. We need to ensure that Canadians are culture makers as well as consumers; game designers as well as players.

Dublin boomed when it focused on building successful cultural industries, resulting in great content and economic health. It built an internationally competitive media industry, and found cultural and educational solutions to social problems. A cultural research network will galvanize cultural post-secondary researchers, companies and non-profit organizations..."

For any readers interested in how Toronto plans to build and nurture a creative class, the Imagine a Toronto report is available as a 44-page PDF here.

Tags: Toronto innovation

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 1, 2006 at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Innovate on Purpose
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 1, 2006 at 01:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "Edible Interface" was one of 10 different innovations featured at Yahoo's University Design Expo, an annual event that explores how humans interact with technology. By tapping into the unbridled creativity of university students, companies like Yahoo are developing an innovation framework that can anticipate future changes in technology:

"They are really wacky, creative ideas that make us think about the future,'' said Joy Mountford, a senior director of the expo who launched the event 17 years ago at Apple Computer. At the time, Mountford managed Apple's Human Interface Group. She needed creative, technically adept people to develop the next generation of computer technology. Skilled engineers were not hard to find, but Mountford was looking for brilliant geeks who were also artists.

She began holding the expo to identify talent and promote new ways of thinking about computers and design. Over the years, she estimated, 1,800 students participated. Some ended up at tech companies like Apple or Yahoo. Others ended up teaching at places like the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. [...] While the ideas may seem far out, Larry Tesler, vice president of user experience and design at Yahoo, said they can help Yahoo employees see where technology could be headed...

Anyway, for additional pictures of the Yahoo! event, be sure to check out University Design Expo 2006 on Flickr.

Tags: Yahoo innovation

[image: A Design Expo at Yahoo]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 1, 2006 at 01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a Q&A with USA Today, neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen discusses her book The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius and then offers four tips on how anyone can develop and nurture their inner creativity. Apparently, it's possible to build a better, more creative brain in only 30 minutes a day:

(1) Explore an unfamiliar area of knowledge. For example, people who use a lot of math on the job should sign up for a painting class;

(2) Spend time each day thinking. Don't censor your thoughts, but allow your mind to go freely to a problem and see what kinds of solutions or ideas surface;

(3) Practice the art of paying attention. Look for and really observe a person, an object or something in your daily commute that you hadn't really noticed before. Try describing or drawing that object in a journal or sketchbook;

(4) Use your imagination. Spend time each day imagining a different world. What would it look like? What would you do there?

Don't worry, nobody's expecting you to become the next Van Gogh or Picasso while working on an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation. In fact, as Andreasen points out, there is such a thing as ordinary creativity: "Creativity is not limited to the masterpiece work of art but can be found in everyday tasks such as cooking or gardening. A cook who changes a recipe or even makes one up using ingredients he or she has on hand is using the creative process to create novel taste sensations. A gardener who picks out colors and a pattern for a flower garden also is tapping into his or her creative potential..."

Tags: creativity innovation inspiration

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Sep 1, 2006 at 01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)