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Innovation Sighting: Apple’s Use of Attribute Dependency in iPhones

Published date: September 3, 2012 в 9:37 am

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“The Quiet TimeTM Universal System turns cell phones off automatically in designated areas such as theaters, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and business meeting rooms.  Our patented technology converts your incoming calls to text messages and alerts the cell phone owner.”

This may sound like the latest gizmo you would see at the Consumer Electronics Show.  It is actually an invention created by my students using Systematic Inventive Thinking…in 2007, the year the iPhone was first released.  Five years later, Apple has been awarded a patent described as an “apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device.”   It reveals a way
to change aspects of a mobile device based on certain events or surroundings.

As reported by CNET:

“Imagine a mobile phone that automatically turns off its display and sounds when it senses that it’s in a movie theater.  For example, the phone could disable its own noise and display if it knows it’s in a theatre. It could be prevented from communicating with other devices if it detects that it’s in a classroom. Or it could automatically go into sleep mode if entering a sensitive area where noises are taboo.  In a typical scenario, the mobile device would communicate with a network access point that enforces a certain policy, such as putting the handset on mute. Users could have the option of accepting or rejecting a connection with the access point based on the policies. A single access point could also offer multiple policies.”

This is a classic example of the Attribute Dependency Technique, one of five in the SIT innovation method.  You can spot Attribute Dependency concepts immediately when you see one aspect changing as another changes.  In this new patent, Apple calls it “situational-awareness” technology.

Attribute Dependency differs from the templates in that it uses attributes (variables) of the situation rather than components. Start with an attribute list, then construct a matrix of these, pairing each against the others. Each cell represents a potential dependency (or potential break in an existing dependency) that forms a Virtual Product. Using Function Follows Form, we work backwards and envision a potential benefit or problem that this hypothetical solution solves.

Attribute Dependency is a versatile tool, and it explains the majority of new products as reported in the research by Dr. Jacob Goldenberg.  I used it to create a lot of new concepts for the iPhone in my September 2008 blog posting.  In each of these concepts, look for the telltale sign of Attribute Dependency: as one thing changes, so does another.

Washington Speakers Bureau

Published date: August 27, 2012 в 9:56 am

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To check Drew’s availability, click HERE:  Washington Speakers Bureau
 

Innovation on Demand: A Systematic Approach
Drew’s Topics:
  • Business Growth/Strategy/Trends
  • Change – Managing/Leading It
  • Corporate Culture
  • Innovation
As leaders, we want our organizations to be more innovative, but we struggle with how to make it happen. We invest substantially in innovation consultants and methods, but we don’t seem to get any better at innovation. Drew Boyd leads us through a life-changing experience to a new, effective way to innovate. He teaches us Systematic Inventive Thinking that enables us to see our products and services in entirely new and different ways. By applying these patterns, everyone in the firm can learn to innovate on demand. In turn, the organization will grow, change and prosper. Drawing from 17 years’ experience at Johnson & Johnson, Drew shares insights and methods that create personal and organizational success through innovation. Audiences discover:
-How to break the fixedness that holds us back from seeing new possibilities
-How to be two-way innovators
-How to connect innovation with the strategic direction of the firm and find your Innovation Sweet Spot
-How to organize and lead innovation teams
-How to embed innovation into the corporate culture, so that the
ability to innovate is sustained through organizational change.
 
To check Drew’s availability, click HERE:  Washington Speakers Bureau
 

The LAB: Innovating Social Media Apps with SIT (August 2012)

Published date: August 27, 2012 в 3:00 am

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Marketers have such a wide array of social media apps to choose from that it can be overwhelming.  Tools such as Go2Web20.net can help sort through the maze and narrow down the search to catergories of apps such as mobile, Facebook, gaming, and so on. But to squeeze more out of social apps, the savvy marketer looks for ways to innovate in a way that supports the brand.  For this month’s LAB, let’s apply the innovation method, SIT, to social media apps as a means of brand building.

This is not the first time we’ve applied innovation techniques to social media.  In the October 2009 LAB, we demontrated how to apply social apps to a large field organization such as a sales force or delivery fleet.  The key was using the Task Unification Technique, one of five in the SIT method. To use Task
Unification
, we take a component of a product, service, system, etc,
and we assign an additional “job” to it. For this month’s LAB, we will apply the same basic approach to brand building.  Imagine you are the brand manager for the billion dollar Febreze® franchise, and you are looking for ways to stretch the brand into eliminating pet odor. Here is how it works.

We start by visiting Go2Web20.net.  I randomly pick an application from this list.  Then I assign the app the additional job of promoting Febreze® for eliminating pet odor.   I create this statement: “XYZ App has the additional ‘job’ of promoting Febreze® for pet odor elimination.” This is our Virtual Product in the SIT method.

The key is to imagine non-obvious applications for creating new, innovative services. You have to literally force yourself to imagine the brand using the inherent aspects of the Web 2.0 application to increase awareness or loyalty.

Here are examples created using Task Unification:

1. MicelloMicello is the leading provider of comprehensive indoor venue maps for mapping and navigation companies, retailers, hospital groups, mobile carriers and application developers.  To innovate it, we imagine assigning this app the “job” of promoting Febreze® for pet odor elimination.  How would it work?  Suppose the Micello technology is used to create an internal map of your home – each room, each piece of furniture – and it tracks where your pet spends its time.  It uses this information to create an odor “heat map” where Febreze® will be needed the most.  It suggests to the pet owner that Febreze® can tackle the toughest pet odor jobs in the house.  This reinforces the brand promise.

2. ZamzarZamzar converts files to different file types and does it all online without having to download any software.  To innovate this app, we have to understand the essence what the app is trying to accomplish.  Zamzar is a conversion tool – one format changes to another.  So we imagine giving the app the “job” of promoting Febreze®. It seems very odd at first, and that is typical when using this method. Let’s imagine Zamzar is converting one odor type to another.  Perhaps it is converting different types of furniture or carpet to a specific Febreze® product or dosage.  The key to think of it from the consumer’s point of view.  Pretend Zamzar is a smartphone app that let’s them input the type of odor and the fabric that smells to get recommendations on how to remove it.  Again, the app connects the brand to the odor elimination brand promise.

3. Tupalo:   Tupalo lets you discover, review, and share the best local businesses with friends.  There many apps that do this type of function across various domains – restaurants, stores, movies, and so on.  In our example, we could imagine Tupalo lets pet owners share their success stories and recommendations managing pets and pet odors.  Perhaps it is an app that recommends parks, hotels, or other venues that are friendly to pets.  The app associates the Febreze® brand to the “pet friendly” promise.

4. eFamilyeFamily lets you connect, share and preserve memories in a private, safe and intuitive social network built for families. Your most valuable digital content is preserved in high definition and password protected.  Most pet owners see their pets as members of the family, so this one is almost too obvious.  The trick here is to imagine some non-obvious applications.  The essence of eFamily is privacy.  Perhaps Febreze® sponsors a pet owner version of this app that lets owners of the same breed be part of their own private social network.  Pet owners often take pride in the breed of the pet, so this site would create a sense of prestige and belonginess.  The goal, again, is to connect the brand to positive attributes in the minds of pet owners so they are more likely to see Febreze® as an essential product in managing their pet.

Academic Focus: University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Published date: August 20, 2012 в 3:00 am

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With six of its faculty members earning the Nobel Prize, it is hard to associate the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with anything else but economics.  In reality, it is an innovator in many other areas.  It was the first to initiate a PhD program in business (1920). It pioneered the executive MBA degree for experienced managers (1943).  Booth was also the first to establish a minority relations program (1964).  It is the still the only US. business school with permanent campuses on three continents: Asia, Europe, and North America.

Booth preaches what it practices.  It teaches systematic methods of innovation to its students.  Art Middlebrooks is an clinical professor of marketing at Chicago Booth, and one of a growing number of professors teaching the SIT method.  He is well qualified as both a practitioner of innovation as well as a teacher and scholar.  He teaches both innovation and services marketing. “I find that students learn best by ‘doing,’ so I’ve structured both the in-class and out-of-class work to enable students to ‘try out’ the various tools that I teach.”

From his faculty website:

“A management consultant and trainer focused on innovation, services marketing, and branding, Middlebrooks specializes in helping service companies grow profitably through new product and service development, branding, and effective marketing strategies. He has worked with companies from a broad range of industries, including energy, telecommunications, information technology services, and e-commerce. His clients include Bank of America, BP/Amoco, Hewitt Associates, and IBM Consulting Group.”

Art is a former senior director of marketing and product development for DigitalWork Inc., partner with Kuczmarski & Associates management consulting, manager in the Strategic Services division of Andersen Consulting, and systems analyst at American Management Systems.

MiddlebrooksHe is coauthor of two books, Innovating the Corporation and Market Leadership Strategies for Service Companies. He has published in the PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Management Review, Sales and Marketing Management, and Marketing News.
He earned an MBA in marketing and finance from Chicago Booth in 1988 and a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1984. He is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies.

Innovation Sighting: S.I.T. Patterns in Refrigerators

Published date: August 13, 2012 в 3:00 am

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This month’s Innovation Sighting comes to us from Dr. Steven Palter.  Dr. Palter is a  gynecologic fertility specialist and a true innovator in the medical field.  He learned the S.I.T. method recently, so he knows how to spot the five innovation patterns of S.I.T. in everyday products and services.

This one is a new refrigerator launched by LG at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  It is the LGLFX31945ST French Door Refrigerator with Door-in-Door.  The new Door-in-Door is a classic example of the Multiplication Technique.  To use Multiplication, make a list of the components of the product, select a component and copy it, then change the copied component along some variable such as size, location, or other attribute.  Once you create this Virtual Product, try to identify new benefits or markets served by this configuration.

In this example, the door was copied then changed to be located just inside the existing one.  It creates a whole new area for storing food.  This increases the storage capacity of the refrigerator without increasing the overall exterior size.  Take a look:

LG didn’t stop there. They also launched a new innovation in refrigerators called the LG Blast Chiller. It allows you to vary the temperature delivered to an item depending on the type of food or beverage. Does that pattern sound familiar?  If you have studied the S.I.T. method, you would recognize the Attribute Dependency pattern. Take a look:

Very cool! I like using refrigerators in my S.I.T. training sessions because there are so many ways to apply the five techniques to yield new-to-the-world innovations.  Most people find it surprising that you can innovate a concept that dates back the ancient Egyptians.

Innovation in the Mobile World

Published date: August 6, 2012 в 5:17 pm

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The rapid adoption of smartphones is changing the landscape of the marketing research industry. Last month’s “Market Research in the Mobile World” conference in Cincinnati highlighted many ways the market research industry is trying to adjust. The industry is evolving from using lengthy printed surveys and personal interviews to instead collecting consumer reactions “in the moment” that are transmitted digitally as it happens. What was once a process of collecting “many answers from few” is becoming a process of collecting “a few answers from the many.” With their trusty appliance in hand, consumers can now share what’s on their mind virtually any part of their day. Not only is data received faster, it is also more reliable by sampling smaller bites from a larger pool.

Mobile market research is proving to be better than online surveys. With online approaches, the consumer has to be taken out of the moment and put in their workspace in front of a computer. Mobile, on the other hand, gets you into virtually any consumer places including their private spaces.

The smartphone trend has huge implications for innovation professionals as well. The mobile nature of our society gives practitioners the same advantages as market researchers. Testing and refining new ideas can be done “in the moment” as ideas are generated. Imagine generating ideas systematically and at the same time, testing them outside the workshop room with potentially thousands of people.

The LAB: Innovating Toilet Paper with Attribute Dependency (July 2012)

Published date: July 30, 2012 в 9:18 am

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Lab_2
When Joseph Gayetty invented commercially available toilet paper in 1857, he called it “The greatest necessity of the age!”  Of course, he wasn’t exaggerating.  The use of paper for toileting dates back to the 6th century AD.  Gayetty’s Medicated Paper was sold in packages of flat sheets, watermarked with the inventor’s name. Since then, many companies have tried to innovate this product.  Many innovations are simple gag gifts while others are quite useful.

For this month’s LAB, let’s apply the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to create new concepts for toilet paper.  S.I.T. is a collection of thinking tools, principles, facilitation methods, and organizational structures to help companies innovate products, processes, and services.  We will use the Attribute Dependency Technique, one of five in S.I.T..

Attribute Dependency differs from the templates in that it uses attributes (variables) of the situation rather than components.  Start with an attribute list, then construct a matrix of these, pairing each against the others.  Each cell represents a potential dependency (or potential break in an existing dependency) that forms a Virtual Product.  Using Function Follows Form, we work backwards and envision a potential benefit or problem that this hypothetical solution solves.

We start with a list of attributes: internal (those related to the product) and external (those related to the environment immediately around the product – not within the manufacturer’s control).

Internal:

  1. number of plys
  2. coarseness of ply
  3. shape of ply
  4. size of ply
  5. number sheets per roll
  6. color
  7. temperature
  8. moisture content

External:

  1. age of user
  2. medical condition of user
  3. mood of user
  4. frequency of user

Here are some concepts that might emerge from these attributes.

Marketing Innovation: The Subtraction Tool in Brand Development

Published date: July 23, 2012 в 3:00 am

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Perhaps harder than branding is re-branding.  Once the market associates your brand with a specific promise, it is difficult to get people to shift over to a newer or more updated meaning.  This is especially true for brands that have been around a long time. Take the brand of Canada, for example.  It adopted the instantly-recognizable Maple Leaf as its national flag in 1965 over contending choices such the one shown here.  Now Canada is re-positioning the brand to update its global image.   The new campaign, “Know Canada,” makes clever use of the S.I.T. advertising tool called Subtraction.

The tool is one of eight patterns embedded in most innovative commercials.  Jacob Goldenberg and his colleagues describe these simple, well-defined design structures in their book, “Cracking the Ad Code,” and provide a step-by-step approach to using them.

From PSFK: “Bruce Mau Design partnered with Studio 360 to redesign the Canadian brand that is more fitting for the modern world. A country that is more known for its maple syrup, and freezing cold weather, The ‘Know Canada’ campaign depicts the country as a place that’s more vibrant, innovative, refreshing, and a leader in global issues.  The idea is simple, and uses the two red rectangles of the Canadian flat as almost like bold quotation marks. Icons like well-known celebrities, scenic views, famous political figures, and even peanut butter, are highlighted in the middle of the two red posts.  The rebranding campaign can be rolled out as print posters, billboards, mobile apps, and even passport stamps and beer jugs.”

The iconic red maple leaf in the middle has been subtracted.  Subtracting out a familiar part of a product stirs our minds and activates the Structural Fixedness in all of us.  Structural fixedness (similar to Functional Fixedness) is the tendency of the mind to see things as an organized whole (a gestalt).  We have trouble reconciling when something obvious is missing.

The use of the Subtraction technique works well here because the campaign replaces the maple leaf with other symbols of Canada to make the mind create the linkage.  Take a look:

What’s in a Name

Published date: July 16, 2012 в 3:00 am

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“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

                                Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

 Look at this word, then see what mental picture you get:  HAMMER.  Like most people, you probably see a person’s hand wrapped around a metal or wood stick with an object fixed on top. You may see this object being used to strike other objects.  You may imagine the heaviness of the object.  The word “hammer” is a mental shortcut that instantly conjures up all the memories and associations you have with that thing.  Naming objects is useful.

But the names we give items also creates a barrier to innovative thinking.  We have a difficult time seeing that object doing anything else than the task assigned to it.  It is also difficult for us to imagine using other objects to do the job of a hammer.  It is a condition called Functional Fixedness.

Psychologist Karl Duncker discovered  Functional Fixedness when he posed his famous “candle problem.” In this classic 1945 experiment.  Duncker sat participants down at a table positioned against a wall. He gave each one a candle, a box of thumbtacks, and a book of matches, and asked them to attach the candle to the wall. Duncker realized that participants were so “fixated” on the thumbtack box’s traditional function that they couldn’t conceive of it as a possible solution to the problem. Interestingly, in later experiments, participants presented with an empty thumbtack box were twice as likely to solve Dunker’s challenge than those given a full one. Somehow, seeing the box out of context—that is, not performing its usual function of holding thumbtacks—helped them visualize it as a possible solution.

The Five Senses of Innovation

Published date: July 9, 2012 в 3:00 am

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How do you know if someone is truly innovative?  I look for three things.  First, does the person have a cognitive process for generating new ideas? Innovation is a skill, not a gift.  It can trained and learned like any other skill.  So I expect successful innovators to have such training and be able to deploy ideation methods – on demand.

Second, is the person motivated and hopeful about the future?  Hope is defined as a positive motivational belief in one’s future; the feeling that what is wanted can be had;  that events will turn out for the best.  Research shows that an employee’s sense of hope explains their creative output at work.  Hope predicts creativity.

Third, and perhaps most elusive: do they have the innovation senses to know how their efforts will succeed?  I call these the Five Senses of Innovation.

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