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Innovation Archetypes

Published date: May 10, 2009 в 7:47 pm

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An archetype is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype after which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all.  Archetypes put context to a situation.  We use archetypes, for example, in marketing.  We create brand archetypes to assign a personality to the brand.  An example of such a model is shown at right.  In political debate, it’s useful to understand whether a commentator is an “archetypical democrat” or an “archetypical republican.” This helps frame their comments so we know where they are coming from.
Listening to the Voice of Innovation is the same. As I read blogs, interviews, and books on innovation, I try to determine the author’s innovation archetype so I know where they are coming from.  I observe at least four of these.
The four Innovation Archetypes are:

The LAB: Innovating a Surgical Mask with Task Unification (May 2009)

Published date: May 3, 2009 в 11:30 am

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Crisis creates opportunity.  That certainly has been the case for surgical mask makers and retailers as people scramble to buy them to protect against the H1N1 swine flu virus.  Companies and governments are ordering masks by the case load.  The surgical mask has become the number four selling item in women’s apparel at Amazon.com, moving ahead of another strapped item – the bra.  The rush to protect against the virus extends beyond surgical masks as people seek any form of protection.  Soon we will be tracking the pandemic on our iPhones.

Surgical masks have been around since 1860.  Since then, lots of innovation has occurred.  One of my favorites is shown here – a clear mask so that doctors and nurses can see each others’ face to improve communications. The fashionable surgical mask idea has been around for a very long time, but it is back with a vengeance.

There is debate about the value of surgical masks in the operating room.  Experts question whether they protect people from viruses like swine flu.  At best, masks seem capable of short term protection from large particle droplets transmitted at close contact.  Masks prevent transmission both to and from the wearer.

Given the questionable efficacy of surgical masks, this would seem a ripe opportunity for PROBLEM-TO-SOLUTION innovation using a methods such as TRIZ and Goldfire.  For this LAB, I will use Systematic Inventive Thinking (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM innovation) to see if there are novel ideas to extend the value of the surgical mask and perhaps address some of the unmet needs as well.  For this exercise, I am using a 3M 8210 respirator version that is N95 rated.  We start by listing the components:

Design the Future of Mobile Communications

Published date: April 21, 2009 в 10:05 pm

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It’s time to put innovation into practice.

LG Mobile Phones, the fastest growing mobile phone brand in North America, is partnering with crowdSPRING, an online marketplace for creative services, to announce a new competition to define the future of personal mobile communication.  U.S. residents age 18 and over can have a chance to design their vision of the next revolutionary LG mobile phone and compete for more than $80,000 in awards.  See http://www.crowdspring.com/LG for details on how to submit your ideas.

Here is how submissions will be judged:

How to Innovate!

Published date: April 17, 2009 в 2:55 pm

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This step-by-step method helps you invent new products or services using templates. Templates channel your creative thinking so you can innovate in a completely new way. It is not brainstorming. It is a structured process to focus your creative output.

The way it works is by creating a hypothetical solution first, and then imagining a problem that it solves.  This is exactly opposite of the traditional way people invent.  Usually, we start with a problem, then we try to invent solutions to it.  That is not always effective because many times we do not know all the problems consumers have when using a product or service.  When reverse the direction (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM), we uncover many new useful problems worth solving, and we have an innovative solution to apply to it.   It’s cool!  And it works!

Follow these steps:

1.  Select a product or service to innovate.

2.  Create a list of its components.

3.  Apply a TEMPLATE to each component.  This creates a VIRTUAL PRODUCT.  It is virtual because it does not exist.  It should not seem to make any sense to you at first.  That is okay…that is how the method works.

4.  Take the VIRTUAL PRODUCT and think of all the ways it could be useful.  What problems does it solve?  What benefits does it offer?  Who would use it?

5.  Repeat the process using a different component.

6.  Repeat the entire process using a different TEMPLATE.

Here are the TEMPLATES:

  • SUBTRACTION:  removing an essential component and keeping only what is left
  • MULTIPLICATION:  making a copy of a component but changing it in some way
  • DIVISION:  dividing a component out of the product and putting it back somewhere else, OR taking the component and physically dividing it
  • TASK UNIFICATION:  assigning an additional task to an existing component – giving it a new job in addition to its existing job

Lg-mobile-VX11000-lean-large EXAMPLE:  The Cell Phone

List the components:

  1. Earpiece (making sound)
  2. Microphone (picking up sound)
  3. Keyboard
  4. On/Off Switch
  5. Battery
  6. Volume Control
  7. Antenna
  8. SMS texting
  9. Address Book
  10. Menu
  11. Voice mail
  12. Casing
  13. Display Screen
  14. Camera
  15. Carrying Clip

Apply a TEMPLATE:  (example)

  • SUBTRACTION:  Imagine a cell phone without the earpiece (so the cell phone cannot make any sound).  This is our VIRTUAL PRODUCT.  Now imagine what it would be good for.  Ask yourself these questions:
    • Who would use a cell phone that did not have sound? 
    • What usage situations or social situations would this be particularly useful for? 
    • What would be the benefit? 
    •  How would it work?

THE IDEA:  It is a new kind of cell phone that is only for SMS texting and Twittering.  It has a different rate plan than regular cell phones.  It has a keyboard that is optimized for fast inputing.  It has an excellent address book and screen display so that you can send texts and tweets very fast.  The screen is large so you can share it with other people.

  • Now repeat this process for each component and each TEMPLATE.  Keep good notes of your new ideas.  Combine ideas together to create completely new-to-the-world concepts for a cell phone!

Want more examples?  Visit The LAB.

The LAB: Innovating a Computer Keyboard with Attribute Dependency (April 2009)

Published date: April 13, 2009 в 12:46 pm

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Zachary Campau is an MBA candidate at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan who I met last week while lecturing there.  He was intrigued by Systematic Inventive Thinking, and he emailed me with a proposition.  He noted that I preach a lot about the value of team innovation, but I don’t practice what I preach.  He noticed in my LAB series that I innovate alone, thus not taking advantage of the power of collaboration.  He was right.  So I accepted his offer to join me in my next LAB posting…this one.

We decided to innovate a computer keyboard using the Attribute Dependency tool.  But there is more to the story.  We did this all via phone while he was in Ann Arbor and I was in Naples, Florida on holiday.  In fact, I decided to multi-task by both innovating with Zach while doing one of my favorite pastimes: fishing.  My ultimate dream was to create a BIG innovation while simultaneously catching a BIG fish.  Of course, luck would determine the ultimate outcome.  The big innovation was something I could count on happening.  Fish, on the other hand, tend to be less cooperative.

Innovation at the U.S. Automakers

Published date: April 8, 2009 в 7:46 pm

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As some U.S. automakers face inevitable restructuring, the key questions are what should they become?  What is the best way to do it?  The answer depends on what battle they think they are fighting.  In simplest terms:  should they build better cars?  Build cars better?  Build cars?

Consider the battles U.S. automakers have fought against the Japanese and other automakers.  How has Detroit done in:  design?  quality? productivity? brand building?  Given the steady loss of market share and margin, they seem to be losing.  There are a variety of reasons, some of their own making and some not.

There is one battle worth winning more than the others – the battle of ideas.  U.S. automakers need to outperform the competition in one definitive way – systematically develop and deploy a steady, uninterrupted stream of novel ideas and inventions across all aspects of their business.  At the risk of falling deep into the “easier-said-than-done” category, I offer my blueprint for change for U.S. automakers: reframe, retrain, and redeploy…a model based on my own experience.

The LAB: Innovating a Garage Door Opener (March 2009)

Published date: March 28, 2009 в 10:00 am

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Teaching people how to innovate is rewarding.  It empowers them.  It unlocks their minds to believe that innovation can happen “on command.”   People realize there is no excuse for not having enough ideas or being innovative once they have been trained.

This month’s LAB features the output of one of my students, Michael Sanders, in my class, “Applied Marketing Innovation.”  For the final exam, students were assigned a product at random.  They had three hours to apply all five templates in the Systematic Inventive Thinking method to come up with true new-to-the-world innovations.  They were graded on how correctly they applied each template as well as the novelty of their inventions.  Michael’s assignment:  Garage Door Opener.  Here is what he did.

Innovation Adjacencies

Published date: March 18, 2009 в 1:39 pm

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Finding adjacent market spaces is an attractive way to grow.  Adjacent markets are not too far away from your core business in terms of channels, technology, price point, brand, etc.  Adjacent means: lying near, neighboring, having a common border, touchable.  Although chasing adjacencies can be distracting, it is a much easier to sell internally.  Adjacencies seem more achievable than far out, ethereal white space opportunities.

Adjacent markets are even more appealing when you apply a systematic innovation method to it.  Giving yourself the gift of novelty in a new market space right next to your own seems like the best of both worlds.  The trick is finding the right adjacencies.

The starting point for thinking about adjacencies is to ask yourself, “Adjacent to what?”  It is much harder to find adjacent spaces when you don’t have a clear understanding of your existing spaces.  For this, I recommend a framework called The Big Picture developed by Professor Christie Nordhielm at The University of Michigan.  The Big Picture outlines four quadrants that, when properly constructed, completely define any market category.  Here is a visual of those quadrants.

Innovation Anxiety

Published date: March 8, 2009 в 5:46 pm

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Innovating is hard work.  Perhaps the most difficult aspect is dealing with the anxiety that comes with following a systematic innovation  method. The process forces innovators to start with uncomfortable, abstract concepts that seem silly and worthless.  These are called preinventive concepts because they occur right before the moment of innovating.  Successful innovators learn how to deal with and control the anxiety at this critical moment of invention.  But there is a catch: some are better at it than others.  Fortunately, there is a way to determine if you are more or less anxiety-ridden from these effects.

Anxiety is a natural part of the SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM approach.  What causes it?  Finke, Ward, and Smith describe it in their classic book, Creative Cognition.  Once you have transformed an existing situation (product, service, etc), it becomes a hypothetical solution to a yet-to-be-found problem.  The trick to great innovation is to construct preinventive structures that have these properties:

Innovation Dream Team

Published date: March 1, 2009 в 7:26 pm

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Innovating takes teamwork.  Properly selected teams using a facilitated systematic method will outperform ad hoc teams using divergent, less structured methods such as brainstorming.  How do you create the “dream team” for an innovation project?  There are three key factors: team roles, diversity, and processes.

Roles

A carefully selected team for innovation will have specific roles that can make or break it, not just during the innovation sessions, but afterward too.  The most essential role, not surprising, is the leader.  The team “captain” is the one who gives momentum and direction to a team in terms of where it will innovate.  Here is the catch.  The team leader must be a full participant in the innovation workshops.  The leader cannot be an occasional, part time member who surfs in and out while attending other business.  That shows a lack of commitment.  The leader misses opportunities to reward team members and misses the sense of team direction and excitement around new ideas.  The leader also plays an essential role of being the “brakes”of the group – stopping ideas that he or she knows do not fit the vision of the franchise or company.  This prevents teams from wasting time on weak ideas so they can channel their ideation in more productive areas.

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