Killer Innovations: reblog

As The Practice of Leadership blog points out, the Center for Creative Leadership has developed the following 5 principles that form the essence of innovation. In short, these five principles give life to the process of innovation:

(1) Innovation starts when people convert problems to ideas. New ideas are born through questions, problems and obstacles. The process of innovation is indebted to the trouble that comes about when we are surrounded by that which is not solved, not smooth and not simple.

(2) Innovation needs a system. All organizations have innovation systems. Some are formal, designed by the leadership, and some are informal, taking place outside established channels.

(3) Passion is the fuel, and pain is the hidden ingredient. Ideas do not propel themselves; passion makes them go.

(4) Co-locating drives effective exchange. Co-location refers to physical proximity between people. It is a key for building the trust that is essential to the innovation process. It also increases the possibility for greater exchange of information, cross-fertilization of ideas, stimulation of creative thinking in one another and critique of ideas during their formative stage.

(5) Differences should be leveraged. The differences that normally divide people — such as language, culture, race, gender and thinking and problem solving styles — can be a boon to innovation.

[image: Center for Creative Leadership in Colorado Springs]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 30, 2007 at 02:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently caught a talk by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, about the role of design in corporate innovation. Here’s what I heard:

• Design in everywhere these days especially on the minds of many CEOs many of whom don’t know how to make use of it.
• Designers have a unique process for solving problems that Tim refers to as design thinking. When most people think about design they tend to focus on the deliverables –the end results. Companies that view design as JUST making things pretty or are missing the point.
• Design thinking can be used to tackle a wide range of creative & business issues including developing strategies that help determine where a company can go in the future.

Design Thinking can be used to:

• Drive strategy
  • Designers can visualize the future, they can show what it can look like.
  • No one knows how to act on strategy from Powerpoint or Excel, etc.
  • Example: HBO used design to envision the future of media distribution
• Create new markets
  • Design can help create new value.
  • Example: Shimano used design to create a new form of biking, bikes, and messaging
• Create new offerings
  • Example: Microjet (sub million dollar jet) is more safe and reliable than propeller planes and relies on a simplified pilot and maintenance experience to work
• Create new business models
  • Design has a large impact on the shift from products to services
  • Build relationships with people vs. selling them products
  • This shifts cost models, revenue models, etc.
• New application for technology
• New ways of connecting to customers
• Develop new partner relationships
  • Example: Kraft’s redesign of their supplier partner process created and additional 50 million dollar difference with one supplier alone

So what is Design Thinking?

• It’s a human-centered approach to innovation.
• Being human-centered is unique to design, Designers think about people first, then the business second. The opposite is true for most companies.
• In the traditional Venn diagram of People (desirable), Business (viable) & Technical (feasible), design thinking solves the problem from the People perspective
• Design thinking is supported by a rich set of tools, processes, roles, and environments. Designers work like craftsmen. They know when to use the right tool at the right time.
• There are 3 important phases for design thinking: Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation

Inspiration

• Everything hinges on inspiration. We need new insights to drive innovation.
• The right way to get inspired is to get out into the real world: use the world as a source of inspiration not just validation.
• Great designers are great observers of life. They get out there to look, listen, and try.
• What’s the difference between design research and market research? Predictive market research is used by marketing to gauge the size of an opportunity. It is primarily a validation tool. Design research is an inspiration tool.
• Designers gain empathy by looking at the world through other people's eyes in order to understand things at social, cultural, cognitive, emotional, and physical levels.
• Designers often look at analogous situations for inspiration. For example, when doing research for surgery procedures an IDEO spent a day with a Nascar pit crew.
• Insights come from extreme users and not from center of the bell curve. There’s little inspiration in average usage.
• Kids are extreme users. They magnify issues that we have as adults.

Ideation

• Building to think is essence of the prototyping process.
• Prototypes can be very rough but they should always enable engagement & discussion. Prototypes don't have to be physical but do need to be tangible.
• Designers might go though hundreds of iterations of prototypes so they need to be quick and easy to build.
• McDonald's prototypes service models and scenarios in a giant reconfigurable lab in Chicago.
• Prototyping makes a difference. Mcdonald’s saw kiosk usage rise from 7% to 90% after IDEO ideation process.

Implementation

• Most things fail to get out because they can't make it through the organization.
• Storytelling helps develop & express ideas to get them through organizations.
• Stores can connect multiple stakeholders.
• Stories can be films, presentations, physical experiences, or more.
• IDEO often takes over a floor of a building and turns it into the strategy.
• Sometimes, the story can be end the result: it creates new knowledge.
• If designers tell story the right way, they can have enormous influence through design.

Managing Innovation

• Most management teams are focused on growing a business.
• As a result, designers need to know how to create growth from design thinking: extend, mange, create, adapt.
• For new offerings & new users: create new markets, disrupt markets
• For new offerings & existing users: extend brands, share of wallet, leverage users
• Revolutionary, Evolutionary, and Incremental should be managed as a portfolio.
• Revolutionary can make its way into Incremental & Evolutionary innovation
• Valuable metrics: time to first prototype; portfolio outcomes; net promoter (effectiveness of how it impacts brand)

Design thinking is a human centered approach to problem solving. Its a process built from People (inspiration gained by looking & listening to them), Prototyping (ideating quickly to make things real), and Stories (getting things implemented by selling compelling narratives not "concepts").

Tags: design vision, IDEO, strategy, prototypes, consistency

Originally posted by LukeW from Functioning Form: Interface Design
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 30, 2007 at 02:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Massachusetts is maintaining many of the underpinnings of its innovation economy according to the 2006 Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy. However, the state is at risk of losing ground in key technology clusters--continued sub-par job growth, relatively low rates of commercialization and high-tech start-ups, and relatively high housing costs contribute to an exodus of younger workers and graduates that seriously undermines the potential for economic expansion.  Positive signs include success in attracting R&D dollars, healthy patenting activity, and robust corporate sales figures.  Other positive signs include:

·         Positive job growth in the software cluster for the first time since 2001; 

·         Attracting a large share of total venture capital investment at 11%, second only to CA, as well as attracting a high-share of total federal R&D investment at 6%;

·         Best in class in educational attainment, with approximately 37% of the population holding a bachelors degree or higher; and,

·         Manufacturing exports represent a high share of GSP and are growing.

The key problem areas identified in the report:

Lag in job growth compared with other Leading Technology States

Lags its competitor states with negative job growth in key industry clusters, including Diversified Industrial Support, Financial Services, Healthcare Technology, and Software & Communications Services.

Insufficient capture of downstream economic benefits

Massachusetts created 12.8 new high-tech businesses per 100 high-tech establishments, compared to 14.6 in California and 14.1 in Virginia. Massachusetts firms attract the smallest percentage of venture capital to “expansion stage” companies that are poised for maturation and growth. Massachusetts share of total US venture capital investment has declined for the second straight year.

   

Lack of affordable housing contributes to ongoing population loss

Massachusetts has the smallest percentage of the most affordable class of housing of any of the Leading Technology States.

The Index, published annually since 1997, was developed by the John Adams Innovation Institute, the economic development arm of MTC.  The Index tracks ten key industry clusters and benchmarks Massachusetts performance against nine other Leading Technology States. For more information, visit www.masstech.org.

Originally posted by Egils Milbergs from Accelerating Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 30, 2007 at 02:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although 90 percent of senior executives rate innovation as a top strategic priority, almost half admit to being dissatisfied with the return they get from their innovation dollars, according to a survey by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of more than 1,000 decision makers. A key reason is that most companies confuse ideas or inventions with innovation. True innovation must lead—directly or indirectly—to increased profits. And even when companies recognize this, they're generally unsure how to determine which innovation efforts are on the road to payback, and which are destined to become "cash traps"—projects that drain valuable resources that could be better invested elsewhere. That's according to Jim Andrew and Hal Sirkin, BCG senior vice presidents and coauthors of the new book, Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation (Harvard Business School Press, January 9, 2007).

According to Jim Andrews, “Even at the best companies, up to a third of all innovation initiatives are wasting cash and human resources and will continue to do so. Cash traps in innovation portfolios are more damaging—and prevalent—than most companies realize." The challenge is to identify which projects need to be curtailed so ones with real potential can be focused on and brought to market faster—with a higher probability of success. According to Payback, the cash curve offers leaders a way to create a picture of any innovation effort—a "payback profile" of an innovation and its critical stages from the same perspective. The cash curve takes into account the four key variables that contribute to—or prevent—payback: start-up costs, speed to market, speed to scale, and support costs. "We call these variables the 'Four S's', and they're the levers that innovation leaders can use to fine-tune efforts. By analyzing these variables on a cash curve, companies can clearly see when to kill an effort, when to invest more, or when to speed up or delay a launch”

The "Right" Innovation Metrics Are Also Critical

Measuring innovation is another issue that companies struggle with. "Most companies are looking for a 'silver bullet' metric to help them predict or force a perception of profitability—or they're using a collection of metrics that aren't very valuable. What they really need is a set of metrics that provides not only a picture of the outputs of innovation—cash payback and indirect benefits—but also inputs, including time, money and people, as well as the overall effectiveness of the innovation process," says Jim Andrew.

Originally posted by Egils Milbergs from Accelerating Innovation
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 30, 2007 at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Innovation as a concept is easily accepted and quickly endorsed. Moving from a concept to an actual working process is slightly more difficult. I believe one of the reasons that innovation is simple to talk about but harder to put into practice has to do with location.

Management teams want innovation because innovation can bring differentiation in the market and organic growth, which are two strong drivers of profit and market attention. The challenge that innovation presents is: where should it be done, and who should be doing it? I think there are at least five different "locations" for innovation, and by identifying these locations we can begin to determine the tools and techniques necessary for each location to thrive, and who should be working on ideas in each location.

Now, these "locations" as you may have guessed by now are virtual, but very important. Just as a company has a formal org chart and the "real" organizational power chart, innovation can exist in a number of different virtual spaces. Let's look at a few of those now.

Within R&D and/or a product group. This is the natural, comfortable place for innovation to reside. In fact in most firms it already lives in this space, so the management talk about innovation is either reinforcing the existing innovation or threatening this team by expanding innovation outside of this "location". The processes for innovation - at least incremental product innovation - already exist.

There are challenges to defining innovation at just this level or location. Innovation should be about more than simply defining the next iteration of a product, and the R&D teams and product teams clearly don't hold the monopoly on insight into new services or business models, which should also be fair game for innovation. So, while this location is a good one, I doubt it is the only valid "location" for most firms.

Across product groups. What happens when you company needs to innovate across lines of business or product groups. Perhaps there's a large opportunity to innovate by combining several of your products or solutions into a new "whole product" for the customer. Where does that innovation reside? Now there are suddenly two or more cohabitating groups with different approaches and different compensation models trying to work together on innovations in a virtual space. This becomes a bit more tricky and may demonstrate a need for a center of excellence where the teams from different business units or product groups can work together more effectively - away from each others' teams and turf. Again, we still are really only focused here on product innovation, although crossing corporate functional boundaries may raise the awareness of service or process innovation.

White Space innovation. Who is responsible for innovating in the "white space" of your organization? Should each product group and/or R&D team work to create new products in the spaces where your products or offerings are missing today? Who sets the direction and strategic vision for the white space innovation? If created, who will own and manage the products or services for the white space? Location is not just an issue of strategic intent, it is also an issue of ownership. Ideas conceived for the "white space" that do not have ownership in a product group or line of business over time may be accurate but will fail, as corporate teams simply don't have the experience or bandwidth to identify, own and grow a product or service innovation.

Innovation between a business and a partner. Who is responsible for this "location" - a virtual space between your company and one or more business partners who have agreed to innovate around a new product or service? Who owns the responsibility for the investment, the business development, the legal headaches necessary to work with people who are partners or possible competition? This is a very important "location" as few firms have the footprint to cover a wide range of capabilities, technologies and markets, so partnering will often make sense and add a lot of value, if you can get the groundrules established. Ownership of the idea and the product or service long term is obviously a big issue. Who decides where the idea resides?

Innovation in the open. If you've followed the concepts of open innovation to their logical conclusion, you'll know that truly open innovation - user or customer generated ideas and content - are where innovation is heading. Who in your firm manages the interaction between your customers and your prospects and their ideas and content? I think we can predict fairly soon that there will be people in every business who are responsible for helping to shape and manage customer innovations. In our area, there are several small photolithography shops where anyone with an idea can create a small prototype of the product they've invented. If prototyping becomes mass market, anyone with an idea can present a reasonable facsimile to any firm. Will yours be ready to review the new products and services and content generated by "average" folks?

In each of these areas, the classic management issues are very different. Span of control, management communication and direction, ownership, control and strategic alignment change dramatically as we move from "location" to "location". As your firm considers its innovation strategy, tools, processes and methods, look first at the "locations" where innovation is important. The locations will dictate the changes necessary for innovation success.

Originally posted by Jeffrey Phillips from Innovate on Purpose
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 30, 2007 at 02:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New research claims that successful inventors become less creative over time.

R&D managers interested in increasing the creative output of their departments should be aware that successful inventors could become less creative over time, warn the authors.

In their study, they find that inventors who have experienced success in their efforts to patent their inventions continue to generate new patents but, over time these patents tend to be less divergent from their previous work. This finding implies that allocating more resources to the most prolific inventors may increase the productivity of their department, but it may diminish the extent to which their creative output reflects the exploration of new areas of research.

The negative effects of success on creativity can be managed, say Professors Audia and Goncalo, by encouraging inventors to collaborate with one another and by making "exploration" an explicit and desirable organizational goal.

My friend Kris Kimel who runs the IdeaFestival put the conference together for to solve exactly this kind of problem. New ideas can come from anywhere, and it's important to occasionally "play around" and explore other areas of knowledge. In a world that changes rapidly, myopic innovation doesn't get you much.

Originally from Businesspundit
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 30, 2007 at 02:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to a study of global innovation conducted by French business school INSEAD, the U.S. is the world's most innovative nation by a large margin. Germany was a distant second, while the U.K., Japan and France rounded out the top five. The United Arab Emirates (#14) was the only country in the Top 15 that wasn't European, Asian or North American.

The World Business/INSEAD Innovation Index 2007, researched by Professor Soumitra Dutta and sponsored by BT, ranks nations according to their innovation performance. The ranking takes into account several categories of evaluation: institutions and policies; infrastructure; human capacity; technological sophistication; and business markets and capital. The study also factors in knowledge, competitiveness and wealth. Data for comprising the ranking was based on information provided by, among others, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

[image: We're #1!]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 28, 2007 at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lester Craft of Innovate Forum suggests that an innovation book (Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation) co-authored by two consultants at Boston Consulting Group could become the most important book about innovation in 2007:

"Here’s a prediction: One of the biggest business books of 2007 will feature innovation. That book, more than likely, will be the newly published Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation, by James P. Andrew and Harold L. Sirkin. Why? A couple of reasons: First, Payback is being marketed aggressively, which indicates that the publisher, Harvard Business School Press, thinks it’s worth investing in. But more important is that the book addresses one of the most troubling aspects of innovation: failure, at so many companies, to achieve an acceptable return from innovation spending.

Payback is at the cutting edge of this problem. Its authors are senior vice presidents at The Boston Consulting Group, which, not coincidentally, has been producing some of the most important research available on the business of innovation and R&D."

Anyway, it looks like a lot of big-time executives are endorsing the book, including the chairman & CEO of SAP, the vice-chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics, the VP of Corporate Strategy at Nokia, and the former CIO of P&G. (Let's just hope that the book is better than the 1999 Mel Gibson movie of the same name.)

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 28, 2007 at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the UIE Web App Summit in Monterey, Larry Constantine discussed how processes and methods can facilitate or hinder successful design innovation:

Innovation

• Innovation is the introduction of something new. It does not have to be far out. Innovation can be incremental (going just to the edge) as long as it is makes changes that matter.
• Tiller bars were once the standard user interface control for cars. They offered legacy interaction idioms familiar to users. Should we have preserved this legacy interaction?

Tyranny of Users

• When consistency becomes our primary concern, we shift away from our primary goal: building for user needs.
• Sometimes users are given too much importance/reliance, which can lead to tyranny -particularly by legacy users.
• If you excessively listen to users, you end up replicating existing solutions or applying overly conservative designs.
• Users are vulnerable to current tastes and popular preferences.
• Don’t use testing to design a system. Use it to validate the design of a system.

Creativity

• “So easy to present solutions when you don't know how big the problem is” - Malcom Forbes
• Abstraction contributes to creativity: invites creativity & invention. Abstraction helps focus on the essence of things.
• Radical evolution: stay within status quo but with incremental yet significant alterations.
• Can be guided by new applications of already existing skills guided by real world actions.
• Creativity is in part a solution to a problem.
• Small details make a difference, They add up to innovation.

Putting Innovation into Practice

• Evaluation: allow extra time to inspect/test (usability)
• Allow extra time for technology assessment
• Expect resistance: people often prefer awkward but familiar interfaces
• Be prepared to address legacy users and find ways to support them
• Standard solutions are virtually guaranteed to work. Breakthroughs risk breakdowns.
• Non-standards discourage copying

In Summary:

• Understand the problem space first
• Abstract & generalize
• Find creative solutions to defined problems
• Overcome obstacles & obsess over details
• Prove out novel solutions (testing)
• Implement what you designed (get it built)

Tags: innovative UIs, Web applications

Originally posted by LukeW from Functioning Form: Interface Design
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 28, 2007 at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's how one ad person sees the world, as quoted today in the NY Times ("Anywhere the Eye Can See, It's Likely to See an Ad"). The average American is now exposed to about 5,000 ad messages per day, but that's not enough for an ad person who sees the world through the sights of a shotgun and the rest of us as ducks.

If all of the natural spaces in the world also prominently feature billboards, stickers or posters, that's a fait accompli to the believer in ubiquity. The common good is someone else's problem. Oh wait, that's the new exclusivity.

If radio ads meant to be played specifically for children on school buses helps put food on someone's table, or some other tired excuse, then the moral trade-off of marketing to a captive audience simply becomes ambiguous. Besides, everyone else is doing it.

A company that waterboards society and its culture with advertising is an organization that not only lacks imagination and creative skill but is probably incapable of creating or maintaining any kind of meaningful relationship.

Like a sociopath.

Originally posted by Ben McConnell from Church of the Customer Blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 28, 2007 at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How much creativity is enough? Is there an optimal level of creativity for a person to have? Is it possible to be “too creative?” Is it true, or a myth, that creative people can be difficult to manage?

Creativity generates Ideas. Ideas generate Innovations. Innovations generate New Products. New Products make company successful in the long term. A company can never have too much creativity. Creativity can give rise to new products that may fail. However, without creativity, there are no new products. Creativity and Innovation define the future of any business. The day creativity is thought to be enough, the company stops innovating, stops creating great new products, becomes complacent and eventually ceases to exist.

Too much creativity or optimal level of creativity depends on the company, its culture and its individuals. Creativity in a corporate environment needs to be channelled to produce great products. Employing creative individuals in specific business units such as marketing, desktop publishing, web business, advertising or new product development makes business sense. An optimal level of creativity can be achieved within the organization as a whole, where the appropriate guidelines and frameworks are in place for creative individuals and their ideas, and to convert such creativity into viable business solutions. If the individual is employed in a role that requires creativity, there cannot be too much of it – however a defined structure that sets boundaries, such as market needs, financial constraints, resource availability, project checklist and milestones, etc. can drive measurable, sustainable and innovative results. When the business risks grow, a methodical framework or business process needs to be implemented to translate creative ideas into viable business enterprises.

An experienced manager knows how to manage creativity and creative individuals without coming in the way of generating new ideas. Creative individuals have the innate ability to visualize the end product; however, at times this is also coupled with the complexity to execute on a plan to get there. The key is to provide the creative individuals a platform to be creative, and lead their ideas into markets. Surrounding creative individuals with the appropriate infrastructure and resources to convert their ideas into workable solutions can be very rewarding and profitable. On the contrary, leaving them to their own devices can potentially result in chaos, delayed delivery, under delivery on commitments, overspending and incomplete end results.

Creative individuals can tend to be independent, expressive and passionate. Their mindset stems from the cultural differences between highly creative and operational organizational norms. For example, creative individuals thrive on generating ideas, and asking the "what if" questions. Some managers may prefer efficiency to unproven ideas and rhetorical questions. A manager can nurture their entrepreneurial spirit, and yet manage them well in group settings and staff meetings. There is also the possibility of expansive dialogs and debates, especially when a manager rejects an idea or two from a creative individual. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of managing a creative individual: how to say "No" to certain ideas that may make compelling sense to the individual?

Creativity is paramount to the success of any business. Creativity drives Ideas. Ideas drive Innovations. Innovations drive New Products and Markets. Creativity And Innovation drive business.

References:

eCornell: Leading Through Creativity

Originally posted by Sanjay Dalal from Creativity And Innovation Driving Business
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 28, 2007 at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The covers to Penguin’s Great Ideas books (red series 1 & blue series 2) are sweet: minimal color (black and one spot color), classic styling, pretty illustrations, and debossed printing.

 

With publishing companies shaking in their boots over digital publishing, this is a great example of how a company can differentiate by using a product’s “realness.” These are classic books that look classic. The kind you want to keep on your shelf for years to come. A PDF can’t compete with that.

New ways to judge books by their covers discusses the Penguin books and why more publishers may start looking to design as a differentiator.

It began in 2004 with Great Ideas, a collection of political and philosophical polemics. The project had a small budget and its design was entrusted to a recent graduate, David Pearson. His brief was to produce a coherent series of paperbacks selling for 3.99 each. Dressing each cover with a typographic style typical of the time and spirit of the text, Pearson limited printing to two colors - black and burgundy - on uncoated paper, leaving him with enough money for a few decorative details. Great Ideas won numerous design awards, and Penguin sold two million books. “Some were bought by people who wanted accessible versions of the text, and some by people who liked the packaging,” says Stoddart.

You can also read more about the Great Ideas design at Eye Magazine’s “Type-only Penguins sell a million” shock.

Some other interesting Penguin book covers, past and present:
Penguin Graphic Classics
70 Years of Penguin Design
Penguin books at Design Museum

Originally posted by Matt from Signal vs. Noise
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 21, 2007 at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

link to PDF of NY Times article

The New York Times Sunday Business reports on IDEO's approach to spacial and enviromental design and the 'Smart Space' group. They take on projects ranging from hotels, office space to redevelopment of urban space and take an innovative approach.

They start with a 'deep dive'; a process involving Smart Space designers, anthroplogists and researchers to build understanding of what users really think and what really underlies their motivations and actions.

They design for activity as much as for space. This is the really valuable angle that IDEO are bringing. There processes are drawing out insights to create informed strategy and concepts that can be prototyped and tested. They can then take the most appropriate design direction for the projects and work with architects and designers to get it implemented.

It's a good process and current reports indicate the results speak for themselves - see the article.

Originally from Business Innovation, Brand Strategy, User Experience, Interaction Design, Smart Space
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 21, 2007 at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As much as people joke about the US belligerently ranting about being #1 in just about everything...it's a fact that "we're #1" on the World's Most Innovative Nations list. The World Business/INSEAD Innovation Index 2007, researched by Professor Soumitra Dutta and sponsored by BT, ranks nations on innovation performance, focusing on institutions and policies, infrastructure, human capacity, technological sophistication, and business markets and capital. "Germany was a distant second, while the U.K., Japan and France rounded out the top five. The United Arab Emirates (#14) was the only country in the Top 15 that wasn't European, Asian or North American."

via business innovation insider

...

Originally from core77.com's design blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 21, 2007 at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hawaii governor Linda Lingle announced a sweeping new innovation initiative for the state. The broad-based initiative is intended as a way to increase the state's participation in the technology-driven global economy. Among other things, the new innovation initiative includes:

* State support for a life sciences and biotech research facility and technology incubator;

* A digital media center for the development of a local film and digital media sector

* A new program to build the technical and business skills of Hawaii's artists in the music industry;

* A $100 million professionally-managed Hawaii Innovation Fund.

In addition, Hawaii will upgrade its wireless and broadband Internet services and engage in a comprehensive new digitization program. As Governor Lingle points out, innovation is now an important driver of economic competitiveness for the state:

"Hawaii's continued prosperity and ability to improve our standard of living and way of life over the long-term requires reducing our dependence on land as the chief driver of economic development. We need to focus on developing our people, recognizing that our future economic success and sustainability depends upon innovation and new ideas that will enable us to create more high-paying quality jobs that capitalize on people's skills and talents."

[image: Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 21, 2007 at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway highlights some of the worst neologisms of 2006 that were created by some of the best and the brightest minds in business. The worst neologism of the year is from advertising agency BBDO, which came up with a new concept called Procrealligence, a three-way marriage of pro-activity, creativity and intelligence. As BBDO explains: “Procrealligence is the foundation of our positioning, our method for attaining the highest standard of ‘work’.” BBDO is not the only company playing around with new words. In past years, A-b glöbâl combined creativity and innovation to come up with creovation™ and then, later, combined integrity and ethics to come up with integethics™. Also, General Electric famously combined ecology and imagination to create ecomagination.

Do you have any favorite neologisms related to creativity and innovation? If so, please send me an email or leave a comment with this blog entry.

[image: State of Mind by the Siberian surrealist Alexander Lyamkin]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 21, 2007 at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you like to be more creative? Wouldn’t it be great with a simple guide that could help you increase your creativity? It actually exists. At the interesting site ChangeThis a lot of clever manifestos are available as pdf’s. I would like to highlight one called How to be Creative. It is written by Hugh MacLeod who is a brand consultant, copywriter and cartoonist and his manifesto consists of ideas for creativity in both words and cartoons. Well worth reading. You can download it here. And what’s good it’s totally free (as all pdf’s from ChangeThis). And by the way, the people behind ChangeThis have a political slant, they are against demagoguery, dishonesty, shortsightedness, superstition, fundamentalism, unequal rights and violent argument. Sounds good to me!

Thanks to Design  Sojourn

Ping Intressant.se

Andra bloggar om: kreativitet, marknadsföring

Originally posted by David Carlson from David Report blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 21, 2007 at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How do you take a negative situation and see it for it's value versus dwelling on the potential harm?

That's what asset-based thinking is all about... Shift your thinking to focus on the assets of a situation (what you have) versus deficit-based thinking (what you don't have). "Small shifts make seismic differences."

The authors of "Change The Way You See Everything: Through Asset-Based Thinking" Kathy Cramer and Hank Wasiak have put together a handy bookmark featuring an asset-based thinking (ABT) alphabet. For each letter of the alphabet they've identified the deficit-based way to think about something... and the asset-based way to think about it...

My favorites include... shifting from Beat-Up to Build-Up, Gotcha to Generous and Nay-Sayer to Nurturer.

[right-click to view larger image.
Print, clip, and bring with you to meetings]

Brainstorming - The ABT Alphabet is helpful when brainstorming or when ideas are being pitched. Instead of immediately jumping on why it may NOT work... Pause before you pounce, and try to build the idea up using ABT.

Cynics in your office? - While ABT isn't specifically designed as the remedy for cynicism, it has the power to deflate a cynic attack... Most cynics seem to have the energy to be a "devil's advocate" - use this list to challenge them channel that energy for good versus evil.

Originally posted by Paul Williams from Idea Sandbox Blog
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 13, 2007 at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted by DonDodge from Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 13, 2007 at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Innovation guru and futurist Jim Carroll shares insights into the Ten Great Words of Innovators:

(1) Observe. Take the time to look for the key trends that will impact your organization and the industry in which you compete.

(2) Think. Analyze your observations: spend more time learning from what you see happening around you.

(3) Change. In a time of rapid change, you can’t expect to get by with what has worked in the past – you must be willing to do things differently.

(4) Dare. Have you lost your ability to take risks?

(5) Banish. Get rid of the words and phrases that steer you into inaction and indecision.

(6) Try. How many of your people have lost their ability to adapt to changing circumstances because they’ve lost their confidence?

(7) Empower. In a world of rapid change, you can’t expect that rigidly defined rules will be the appropriate response to changing circumstances.

(8) Question. Go forward with a different viewpoint by challenging assumptions and eliminating habit.

(9) Grow. Stop focusing on cutting costs – build the business instead.

(10) Do. Renew your sense of purpose, and restore your enthusiasm for the future by taking action.

Also, be sure to watch Jim's two-minute video clip that starts off with a call-to-action of "We don't need more MBAs..." It's a "best of" highlight reel of these 10 words.

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 13, 2007 at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Under the radar of many foreign policy experts, China has been quietly consolidating its grip on the African continent, viewing it as a rich source of minerals and raw materials and a dumping ground for cheap products. Unlike the West, which usually attaches strings to its foreign aid packages, China is not at all hesitant about extending aid to crumbling dictatorships and impoverished states, as long as they have unfettered access to the raw materials that are fueling the Chinese economic miracle. So, how does innovation fit into all of this?

Well, on a national level, if African nations fail to innovate, they could very easily fall under the yoke of their neo-colonial Chinese masters. (see picture) Anyway, I recently read about a "grand tour of Africa" by Chinese foreign officials on Yahoo! News, and it made me realize that maybe we're thinking about China all wrong. Maybe the West is not so central to the development of China after all:

"China paid for the marble and tile parliament building soaring above the crumbling homes of this former Portuguese colony, and is also promising a dam and a military hospital — all with none of the political strings Western donors might attach. Intent on cementing ties across Africa, China is active even in impoverished Guinea-Bissau, a small nation with little industry, no oil and few exports. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing ended a two-day visit here Thursday, part of a tour that includes Chad, Benin, Central African Republic, Eritrea and Mozambique. Li arrived from Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third-largest oil producer, where he agreed to forgive about $75 million in debt.

Some nations on Li's itinerary are sources of the raw materials China's booming economy craves. Countries like Guinea-Bissau may not have much to offer today, but could in years to come. In courting them, China has turned on its head the Western aid formula that has tied public works projects to progress in good governance. "China is not like the World Bank, they don't attach all these conditions on the money," said Edmundo Vaz, a former adviser to the Guinea-Bissau Finance Ministry who now runs a bank. "The West makes us wait, but we're a poor country — we don't have time wait," he said."

As the article points out, "Africa has become a crucial part of China's growth strategy." Trade between Africa and China has grown fourfold since 2001, topping $45 billion in the first 10 months of 2006. At a summit attended by 35 African heads of state in Beijing last fall, Chinese entrepreneurs signed deals worth $1.9 billion with African governments and firms.

Interestingly, TED Global plans an innovation-themed conference in Tanzania this June: TEDGLOBAL "Africa: the next chapter". In addition, there are several blogs that focus on innovation from an African perspective, such as the Timbuktu Chronicles and Africa Unchained. (Thanks, Emeka)

[image: Chinese manager and African laborer]

Originally from The Business Innovation Insider
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 13, 2007 at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In doing background research on an article I'm writing on the Future and Inter-cultural Values, I ran across an intereting piece of interdisciplinary work from the political science, cultural anthropology and sociology fields.

The Values Map above ( Inglehart and Baker (2000), visually illustrates the strong correlation of values in different cultures. You will notice that countries are clustered in a remarkably predictable way.

These world-wide Value Surveys were designed to provide a comprehensive measurement of all major areas of human concern, from religion to politics to economic and social life. From this we see that two dimensions dominate the picture: (1) Traditional/ Secular-rational and (2) Survival/Self-expression values.

"These two dimensions explain more than 70 percent of the cross-national variance in a factor analysis of ten indicators-and each of these dimensions is strongly correlated with scores of other important orientations." note researchers.

The Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension reflects the contrast between societies in which religion is very important and those in which it is not.

A wide range of other orientations are closely linked with this dimension. Societies near the traditional pole emphasize the importance of parent-child ties and deference to authority, along with absolute standards and traditional family values, and reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride, and a nationalistic outlook. Societies with secular-rational values have the opposite preferences on all of these topics."

"The second major dimension of cross-cultural variation is linked with the transition from industrial society to post-industrial societies-which brings a polarization between Survival and Self-expression values. The unprecedented wealth that has accumulated in advanced societies during the past generation means that an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival for granted. Thus, priorities have shifted from an overwhelming emphasis on economic and physical security toward an increasing emphasis on subjective well-being, self-expression and quality of life."

Inglehart and Baker (2000) find evidence that orientations have shifted from Traditional toward Secular-rational values, in almost all industrial societies. But modernization, is not linear-when a society has completed industrialization and starts becoming a knowledge society, it moves in a new direction, from Survival values toward increasing emphasis on Self-expression values.

"A central component of this emerging dimension involves the polarization between Materialist and Postmaterialist values, reflecting a cultural shift that is emerging among generations who have grown up taking survival for granted. Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of diversity and rising demands for participation in decision making in economic and political life. These values also reflect mass polarization over tolerance of outgroups, including foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality. The shift from survival values to self-expression values also includes a shift in child-rearing values, from emphasis on hard work toward emphasis on imagination and tolerance as important values to teach a child. And it goes with a rising sense of subjective well-being that is conducive to an atmosphere of tolerance, trust and political moderation. Finally, societies that rank high on self-expression values also tend to rank high on interpersonal trust."

"This produces a culture of trust and tolerance, in which people place a relatively high value on individual freedom and self-expression, and have activist political orientations. These are precisely the attributes that the political culture literature defines as crucial to democracy."

Questions to ponder.....?

• Is it me or does it seem to more people that Canada, the USA and Russia are slipping and backsliding along some of these value spectra?
• How will values change and in what direction will they go, as post communist countries go through their transition periods into a market or semi-market economy?
• How often do values shift & change? Every decade? Is it accelerating?
• Are there noticable generation to generation (G2G) changes visible every decade?
• Is there a significant correlation and link between genetics, culture and happiness?

© 2005-2006

Originally posted by SmartEconomy from Smart Economy
ReBlogged by philmckinney on Jan 13, 2007 at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love patterns, especially emerging and evolving patterns.  In this context, anomalies are troubling, but always an opportunity for learning. For me, the Gap represented one of those anomalies for many years.

Almost a decade ago, I detected an intriguing pattern regarding the unbundling and rebundling of firms (purchase unfortunately required). Those of you have been following me for a while know the drill – I believe that most companies are an unnatural bundle of three very different types of businesses:

• Infrastructure management businesses – high volume, routine processing businesses – think of managing a logistics network or manufacturing assembly operations
• Product innovation and commercialization businesses – coming up with creative new products or services, getting them to market quickly and accelerating adoption
• Customer relationship businesses – getting to know a set of customers extremely well and using that knowledge to be more helpful in configuring tailored bundles of products and services to meet the needs of individual customers

These three business types have very different economics, skill sets and even cultures, yet they are tightly integrated into most companies today.  The first wave of outsourcing can be understood as the systematic carving out of the infrastructure management businesses from companies, but we’re just on the cusp of a second wave that will unbundle product innovation and commercialization businesses from customer relationship businesses. 

That’s the short story. Of course, the pace and trajectory of unbundling (and related rebundling) differs across industries and geographies – the patterns are complex and fractal.

Take retailing as an example.  Most retailers don’t own product businesses – they are primarily customer relationship businesses (merchandising) and infrastructure management businesses (store operations). When I first wrote about the broader unbundling pattern in the late 1990s – there was one big anomaly that many people kept pointing out to me – the Gap.  In the late 1990s, the Gap was a real highflier, with a share price that rose from about $10 to about $50 over a five year period.  It could do no wrong. It was taking the retail world by storm.

And it seemed to fly directly in the face of the pattern I outlined above.  Here was a highly successful retailer that was not unbundling, it was in fact adding a third business type – product innovation and commercialization – to the two business types that retailers typically operated.  I can still recall the triumphant smirks of executives who would cite the Gap and say “OK, John, what do you have to say about that?”

At the time, I said that it was an anomaly whose success hinged on getting the product innovation and commercialization business right – at the time, they focused on basics like khaki pants and wearable tops so it was not as risky as the more fashion-oriented part of the apparel business – but that trying to manage all three business types simultaneously would make it very hard for the Gap to sustain its success.  Of course, that came across as a lame attempt to downplay a troubling exception to the pattern I was describing.

Well, starting in 2000 the Gap began to hit the wall and it never really recovered.  Earlier this week, the company announced that it was weighing its strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company.  Rumors are swirling about private equity firms discussing how to team up to take the company private.

As is often the case in business, when the troubles first started to surface at the Gap, the search began for the guilty.  Mickey Drexler, the mercurial CEO of the Gap at the time and the guy who drove much of the growth of the retailer, was fired in 2002 and Paul Pressler, a well-respected executive from Disney, was brought in as CEO. Significant turnover throughout the management ranks has occurred since 2000, yet the business challenges persisted.

What if the problem is not about people, but something even more fundamental?  What if the problem stems from having to manage three very different business types in an increasingly competitive market?  When evaluating “strategic options”, one can only hope that the Board of the Gap takes a hard look at the strategic option of unbundling. In many respects, this would be a “back to the future” play for the Gap – the retailer’s first wave of growth, before it started adding its own in-house apparel designers, was driven by its aggressive promotion of jeans designed and made by Levi Strauss. Rather than shrinking the business, this unbundling may actually provide a platform for another wave of profitable growth.

Now, of course, retailers can still guess wrong in terms of fashion trends even if they do not have their own product design business.  But it is easier to guess wrong if you have your own designers who often become locked into certain styles.  Retailers with their own designers start to look inward to their designers for insight about trends, rather than interacting with a broad range of independent designers who are likely to have much more diverse views of potential market opportunities.  Attracting and retaining the best creative talent in-house also can become challenging if this talent has to cope with the divergent cultures required to run infrastructure management businesses and customer relationship businesses as well as product businesses.

But the Gap should go beyond simply shedding its product business.  The company should re-think what it means to be in the customer relationship business.  Retailers pride themselves on being in the customer relationship business, but when you take a hard look at their operations, most large retailers are really much more focused on the infrastructure management business.

Let’s take a simple, yet very revealing, indicator of business focus.  What are the relevant metrics of profitability?  Most retailers focus relentlessly on profitability by store and, even more granularly, profitability per foot of shelf – these are facilities-based measures of profitability.  True customer relationship businesses focus on profitability by customer, yet few retailers (with the possible exception of some direct marketers) even have a clue of their profitability by customer.  Ask them which 20% of their customers generate 80% of their profitability and you get a blank stare. Ask them about customer churn rates and they start looking for a way to change the subject.

Or, take a stroll down the aisles of your nearest “big box” retailer.&nbs