Innovation

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Innovation [25-08-2010]

2010/08/25 in Innovation, Mailing List by peg | View Comments

Another week and another collection of interesting ideas from around the internet.

As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

The 50 worst inventions [Times]
Times has a go at naming their top 50 inventions that didn’t quite work out as intended.
And the winner is… [The Economist]
Offering a cash prize to encourage innovation is all the rage. Sometimes it works rather well.
The power of ignorance [Anthony Tjan @ HBR]
If desperation is the mother of innovation, then ignorance might be its father.
A winning formula for hard economic times [New York Times]
India is not an easy place, and to be fatalistically creative is to transcend its hardships. It is to chafe daily against the way things run; to resist the idealistic temptation to change all that; and to strive instead for success and solutions within the constraints.

Tags: Har, Innovation, Jugaad, New York Times, The Economist, X Prize

Basketball as an innovation metaphore

2010/08/19 in Innovation by peg | View Comments

I just realised that the approach to basket ball described by The no-stars all star, from the NY Times, is a nice model for innovation (whatever that is).

I’ve been struggling for a while to understand how to define innovation other than retrospectively (isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing). We can pin down invention, customer need, product development, marketing etc. — all the elements to make an innovation successful — but picking an innovation seems the impossible task.

Efforts to define and codify innovation are like capturing lightening in a bottle. You can’t systematise a process which has a large degree of luck to it. What you can do, though, is to be prepared. This is where tools like design thinking fit in.

The interesting thing about the basketball article is that the coach admitted that basketball is a numbers game. Given the game’s high scoring rate, it’s not enough to have killer skills; there’s a large element of luck involved: being in the right place at the right time.

The coach’s approach is to try and increase his chances of being lucky, which he uses two tactics to achieve:

Try and be as efficient as possible.
Try to make your opposition as inefficient as possible.

The coach grinds the numbers to understand what are the odds of sinking or blocking a shot in each and every position on the court, and for each and every player. He then focuses on positioning his players to improve his odds, while reducing the odds of the opposing team. This makes his team more efficient, and more likely to capitalise on an opportunity, and the opposition less efficient, and less likely to capitalise on an opportunity. Think: forcing an opponent to shoot from the right when he prefers (and is more successful with) the left.

A common mistake is to assume that innovation is a creative processes: it’s not (you can always steal the idea rather than think of it yourself). Many of the tools we use to help companies to manage innovation are focused on making them more efficient in managing the innovation journey: focusing their energies where they are needed the most. Now with basketball as an inspiration, it might be possible to bring these tools together in a more scientific framework.

Tags: Innovation, NT Times

Peter Drucker’s seven sources of innovation

2010/08/04 in Innovation by peg | View Comments

It seems that every time I find a web reference for Peter Drucker’s seven sources of innovation, the web site dies. So after yet-another site going the way of the dodo, I’ve decided to record them here, in this blog, so I at least have a stable thumbnail definition to point folk at.

Peter Drucker’s seven sources of innovation:

The unexpected. The unexpected success, failure or outside event.
The incongruity. The difference between reality as it actually is and reality as it is assumed to be or as it “ought to be.”
Innovation based on process need.
Changes in industry structure or market structure that catch everyone unawares.
Demographics. Population changes
Changes in perception, mood and meaning
New knowledge, both scientific and nonscientific.

If you want more detail, then get the book Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Tags: Peter Drucker

Innovation [2010-08-02]

2010/08/02 in Innovation, Mailing List by peg | View Comments

Another week and another collection of interesting ideas from around the internet.

As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

These CIOs go way beyond IT-business alignment [ComputerWorld]
Some CIOs are breaking with tradition, blurring the distinction between IT and the business with huge success.
Economics bloggers don’t think much of R&D as a catalyst for innovation [BusinessWeek: NEXT]
40 economics bloggers from across the political and economic spectrum all agree that innovation is important (whatever innovation is). They also agree that R&D activities from any source, be that university, corporation or government, are not a strong driver for innovation.
Is Microsoft heading the way of the dinosaur? [The Globe and Mail]
For a tech company, innovation is key. Innovation is also in short supply at Microsoft despite a significant investment in R&D.
What Mad Men gets right about innovation [Harvard Business Review: Research Blog]
Man Men shows us how to reward our employees if we want to foster innovation.

Tags: Business-Technology, BusinessWeek, Computer World, Harvard Business, Innovation, Mad Man, Microsoft

The sun-shaped individual

2010/07/27 in Innovation, Posterous by peg | View Comments

(Yep, this is a cross post from Stuff I find interesting, but the missive grew to the point that I thought it worthwhile putting it on this blog as well.)

I stumbled across a rather interesting, and rather old (in internet terms), blog post today: T-Shaped + Sun-Shaped People by David Armano. I suppose you could say that it’s a build on the old idea of t-shaped people, folk with deep experience in one domain (their core discipline). As the post quotes, from Tim Brown at IDEO:

We look for people who are so inquisitive about the world that they’re willing to try to do what you do. We call them “T-shaped people.” They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well. They are able to explore insights from many different perspectives and recognize patterns of behavior that point to a universal human need. That’s what you’re after at this point — patterns that yield ideas.

I’ve always found the concept of t-shaped people interesting and troubling at the same time. One the one hand their broader view provides them with some sensitivity for the problems and experience to be found in other domains. On the other, it reeks of dilettantism, as there is no rational behind their interest other than curiosity (what’s it like on the other side of the fence?). This leaves you a victim of the dogma of your core discipline, with the cross discipline stuff just window dressing.

For a while I’ve thought (and spoken) of then need to have some sort of coherent focus to our interests, something beyond the doctrine we learnt in our early twenties and which largely defines us. I think we need this focus for a few different reasons.

Firstly, it provides helps us identify the sort of problems we want to solve beyond the constraints of a well defined discipline. I’m interested in how people solve problems, which leads me to working in everything from (business) strategy down to workflow design.

Secondly, it provides you with a framework to identify and integrate new ideas and domains into your toolkit. It’s a bit like Bruce Lee’s ideas of “adopt what you can use” from Jeet Kyne Do. For years I’ve been finding, collecting, evaluating and then either integrating ideas from areas as diverse as logic and science, (bio-medical) engineering, history, philosophy (including the likes of Cicero), human factors, business theory (Michael Porter an the like) and even computer science (particularly AI). You don’t collect random ideas (a la TED), you find useful tools which integrate with and add value to your toolkit.

Thirdly, it provides you with a mechanism to cope with the deluge of information we live in today. There’s a lot of talk of the need for smart filters, which I’ve always had a problem with. Perhaps it’s my little internal John Boyd, but we shouldn’t be just throwing away valuable information. A more intelligent approach is to have a framework — a focus — which makes it easier to integrate the information into our world view. (There’s probably a whole post in this point alone.)

David’s post posited the concept of sun-shaped person, which sounds a lot like this idea of having a consistent focus.

Does this make us "sun-shaped people"?

Quoting David:

Most of us have some kind of passion in a specific area. For some—it’s a hobby or interest. For others, it’s directly related to our work. I fall into the latter category. If you were to ask me what my “passion is”—I would probably say that at the core, it’s creative problem solving. This is pretty broad and incorporates a lot of disciplines that can relate to it. But that’s the point. What if we start with our passions regardless of discipline, and look at the skills which radiate out from it the same way we think about how rays from the sun radiate warmth?

I think this makes a lot of sense, and fits in a lot more neatly with the direction the world is headed, than the concept of a t-shaped individual. Who doesn’t wear multiple hats these days? How much of your job is actually related to your job title? And don’t we all steal ideas from other disciplines?

Tying yourself to a single domain — I’m a supply chain person, I’m a techo, I do human factors — is committing yourself to doing the same thing that you did yesterday. Your marking yourself as a domain specialist. The challenge is that we seem to be entering an age where we need more generalists. Last year you worked in finance, this year your building robots, next year you might be in durable goods. Your focus, your passions, won’t have changed, but what you do day-to-day will have. That sounds a lot like the sun shaped individual to me.

What is innovation?

2010/07/26 in Innovation by peg | View Comments

What is innovation? I don’t know, but then I’m not even sure that it’s an interesting question. The yearning so many companies have to be innovative often seems to prevent them from actually doing anything innovative. They get so caught up in trying to come up with the next innovation — the next big product — that they often fail to do anything innovative at all. It’s more productive to define innovation by understanding what it’s not: doing the same thing as the rest of the crowd, while accepting that there are no silver bullets and that you don’t control all the variables.

So, what is innovation? This seems to be a common question thats comes up whenever a company wants to innovate. After all, the first step in solving a problem is usually to define our terms.

Innovation is a bit like quantum theory’s spooky action at a distance[1], where stuff we know and understand behaves in a way we don’t expect. It can be easy to spot an innovative outcome (hindsight is a wonderful thing), but it’s hard to predict what will be innovative in the future. Just spend some time browsing Paleo-Future[2] (one of my favourite blogs) to see just how far off the mark we’ve been in the past.

The problem is that as it’s all relative; what’s innovative in one context may (or may not) be innovative in another. You need an environment that brings together a confluence of factors — ideas, skills, the right business and market drivers, the time and space to try something new — before there’s a chance that something innovative might happen.

Unfortunately innovation has been claimed as the engine behind the success of more than a few leading companies, so we all wanted to know what it is (and how to get some). Many books have been written promising to tell you exactly what to do to create innovation, providing you with a twelve step program[3] to a happier and more innovative future. If you just do this, then you too can invent the next iPhone[4].

Initially we were told that we just needed to find the big idea, a concept which will form the basis of our industry shattering innovation. We hired consultants to run ideation[5] workshops for us, or even outsourced ideation to an innovation consultancy asking them to hunt down the big idea for us. A whole industry has sprung up around the quest for the big idea, with TED[6] (which I have mixed feelings about) being the most obvious example.

As I’ve said before, the quest for the new-new thing is pointless[7].

The challenge when managing innovation is not in capturing ideas before they develop into market shaping innovations. If we see an innovative idea outside our organization, then we must assume that we’re not the first to see it, and ideas are easily copied. If innovation is a transferable good, then we’d all have the latest version.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, so real challenge is to execute on an idea (i.e. pick one and do something meaningful with it). If you get involved in that ideas arms race, then you will come last as someone will always have the idea before you. As Scott McNealy at Sun likes to say:

Statistically, most of the smart people work for somebody else.

More recently our focus has shifted from ideas to method. Realising that a good idea is not enough, we’ve tried to find a repeatable method with which we can manufacture innovation. This is what business does after all; formalise and systematise a skill, and then deploy it at huge scale to generate a profit. Think Henry Ford and the creation of that first production line.

Design Thinking[8] is the most popular candidate for method of innovation, due largely to the role of Jonathan Ive[9] and design in Apple’s rise from also-ran to market leader. There’s a lot of good stuff in Design Thinking — concepts and practices anyone with an engineering background[10] would recognise. Understand the context that your product or solution must work in. Build up the ideas used in your solution in an incremental and iterative fashion, testing and prototyping as you go. Teamwork and collaboration. And so on…

The fairly obvious problem with this is that Design Thinking does not guarantee an innovative outcome. For every Apple with their iPhone there’s an Apple with a Newton[12]. Or Microsoft with a Kin[11]. Or a host of other carefully designed and crafted products which failed to have any impact in the market. I’ll let the blog-sphere debate the precise reason for each failure, but we can’t escape the fact the best people with a perfect method cannot guarantee us success.

People make bad decisions. You might have followed the method correctly, but perhaps you didn’t quite identify the right target audience. Or the technology might not quite be where you need it to be. Or something a competitor did might render all your blood sweet and tears irrelevant.

Design Thinking (and innovation) is not chess: a game where all variables are known and we have complete information, allowing us to make perfect decisions. We can’t expect a method like Design Thinking to provide an innovative outcome.

Why then do we try and define innovation in terms of the big idea or perfect methodology? I put this down to the quest for a silver bullet: most people hope that there’s a magic cure for their problems which requires little effort to implement, and they dislike the notion that hard work is key.

This is true in many of life’s facets. We prefer diet pills and magic foods over exercise and eating less. If I pay for this, then it will all come good. If we just can just find that innovative idea in our next facilitated ideation workshop. Or hire more designers and implement Design Thinking across our organisation.

Success with innovation, as with so many things, is more a question of hard work than anything else. We forget that the person behind P&G’s Design Thinking efforts[13], Cindy Tripp, came out of marketing and finance, not design. She chose Design Thinking as the right tool for the problems she needed to solve — Design Thinking didn’t choose her. And she worked hard, pulling in ideas from left, right and centre, to find, test and implement the tools she needed.

So innovation is not the big idea. Nor is it a process like Design Thinking.

For me, innovation is simply:

working toward a meaningful goal, and
being empower to use whichever tools will be most beneficial.

If I was to try and define innovation more formally, then I would say that innovation is a combination of two key concepts: obliquity[14] and Jeet Kune Do[15]‘s concept of absorbing what is useful.

Obliquity is the simple idea that the best way to achieve a goal in a complex environment is to take an indirect approach. The fastest and most productive path to the top of the mountain might be to take the path that winds its way around the mountain, rather than to try and walk directly up the steepest face.

Apple is a good example of obliquity in action. Both Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives are on record as wanting to make “great products that we want to own ourselves,” rather than plotting to build the biggest and most innovative company on the planet. Rather than try and game the financial metrics, they are focusing on making great products.

Bruce Lee[16] came up with the idea of “absorbing what is useful”[17] when he created Jeet Kune Do. He promoted the idea that students should learn a range of methods and doctrines, experiment to learn what works (and what doesn’t work) for them, “absorb what is useful” while discarding the remainder. The critical point of this principle is that the choice of what to keep is based on personal experimentation. It is not based on how a technique may look or feel, or how precisely the artist can mimic tradition. In the final analysis, if the technique is not beneficial, it is discarded. Lee believed that only the individual could come to understand what worked; based on critical self analysis, and by, “honestly expressing oneself, without lying to oneself.”

Cindy Tripp at P&G is a good example of someone absorbing what is useful. Her career has her investigating different topics and domains, more a sun shaped individual than a t-shaped one[18]. Starting from a core passion, she accreted a collection of disciplines, tools and techniques which are beneficial. Design Thinking is one of these techniques (which she uses as a reframing tool).

I suppose you could say that I’ve defined innovation by identifying what it’s not: innovation is the courage to find a different way up the hill, while accepting that there are no silver bullets and that you don’t control all the variables.

Updated: Tweeked the wording in the (lucky) 13th paragraph in line with Bill Buxton’s comment.

For every Apple with their iPhone there’s an Apple with a Newton. Or Microsoft with a Kin.

References
1. Spooky action at a distance? @ Fact and Fiction Paleo-Future Twelve step programs @ Wikipedia iPhone — the Apple innovation everyone expected @ Fast Company Ideation defined at Wikipedia TED Innovation should not be the quest for the new-new thing @ PEGDesign Thinking … what is that? @ Fast Company Jonathan Ive @ Design Museum ↑
10. Sorry,
software engineering doesn’t count.The story behind the Apple Newton @ Gizmodo Microsoft Said to Blame Low Sales, High Price for Kin’s Failure @ Business Week P&G changes it’s game @ Business Week Obliquity defined at SearchCRM Jeet Kune Do, a martial art discipline developed by Bruce Lee @ Wikipedia Bruce Lee: the devine windAbsorbing what is useful @ Wikipedia T-Shaped + Sun-Shaped People @ Logic + Emotion ↑

Tags: Absorbing what is useful, Apple, Bruce Lee, BusinessWeek, Design Thinking, Fact and Fiction, Fast Company, Gizmodo, Ideation, Innovation, Jeet Kune Do, Jonathan Ives, Kin, Logic + Emotion, Microsoft, Newton, obliquity, P&G, Paleofuture, Scott McNealy, Sun-shaped individuals, T-shaped individuals, TED, Twelve step programs

Who gets the credit: the innovator or the implementer?

2010/07/24 in Innovation by peg | View Comments

Who should get the credit? The person to came up with the idea? Or the person to did something with it?

I’m with the implementers. Thomas Edison might be remembered for the lightbulb, but Samuel Insull‘s hard work enabled everyone to have one in their homes. We also forget that it wasn’t even Edison who invented electric light (though you could argue that he perfected it). Edison was one of many who happened to have the same good idea. Insull changed society forever.

Innovation [2010-07-05]

2010/07/05 in Innovation, Mailing List by peg | View Comments

Another week and another collection of interesting ideas from around the internet.

As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

Why has Microsoft seemingly stopped innovating? [Quora]
Quora answers the question:

Apple and Google stand for innovation in my mind, where Microsoft represents the hum-drum. I’m particularly interested in Microsoft, which employs so much talent. This is a follow-up question to How should Microsoft respond to Apple’s iPad?.
Uniquely positioned [The Economist]
Innovation means doing something other than what the innovators of yesterday are doing, as Uniqlo is doing with Zara and H&M.
Marico Innovation Foundation [Marico Innovation Foundation]
An interesting effort to fuel innovation in India.
On Biting [12ozPROPHET]
Jim Jarmusch with some excellent advice on what to make of other peoples’ ideas.

Tags: 12ozPROPHET, Apple, Google, H&M, Innovation, Jim Jarmusch, Microsoft, Quora, The Economist, Uniqlo, Zara

Innovation [2010-06-21]

2010/06/21 in Innovation, Mailing List by peg | View Comments

Another week and another collection of interesting ideas from around the internet.

As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

Does location really matter? [strategy+business]
For innovation-based companies, being located in an industry cluster has long been thought to enhance long-term financial prospects. This research suggests otherwise.
I know I’m doing this wrong [You're the boss @ The New York Times]
If you want solutions to problems, you’d better ask for them — hoping that innovation will happen without help and guidance is a foolish fantasy.
SeaMicro drops an atom bomb on the server industry [Venture Beat]
… while many pundits thought that there was not innovation to be had from the hardware industry.
Show stopper: how plastic popped the cork monopoly [The Wall Street Journal]
The story of how plastic corks, and ultimately screw tops, replaced the humble cork as our stopper of choice.

Tags: Innovation, New York Times, strategy+business, The Wall Street Journal, Venture Beat

Vacuum flasks: fulfilling a need

2010/06/18 in Case Study, Innovation, Posterous by peg | View Comments

As seen on a plaque at Scienceworks in the House Secrets exhibit.

James Dewar invented the vacuum flask in 1892 to keep laboratory gases cold. Twelve years later, Reinhold Burger manufactured the Thermos to keep our picnic drinks hot.

A nice demonstration of the third of Peter Drucker’s seven sources of innovation.

Innovation based on process need.

Or, put another way, James Dewar scratched an itch; though he did play Edison to Reinhold Burger’s Sameul Insull.

Posted via web from PEG @ Posterous

Tags: Case Study, House Secrets, Innovation, James Dewar, Peter Drucker, Reinhold Burger, Scienceworks, Seven Sources of Innovation, Thermos, vacuum flask

« Older entries

Innovation

Innovation [25-08-2010]

Basketball as an innovation metaphore

Peter Drucker’s seven sources of innovation

Innovation [2010-08-02]

The sun-shaped individual

What is innovation?

Who gets the credit: the innovator or the implementer?

Innovation [2010-07-05]

Innovation [2010-06-21]

Vacuum flasks: fulfilling a need

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