Посты с тэгом: dream catalog

The LAB: Innovating a Museum with S.I.T. (June 2012)

Published date: June 25, 2012 в 3:00 am

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According the Center for the Future of Museums, many non-profit museums in this country are struggling from a broken economic model.  Attendance and memberships are declining as consumers are given more choices of how to spend their time.  To attract more, museums need to have good storytelling, stagecraft, showmanship, great imagery, and great sound.  They need to tap deep passions and emotions to create “product” that is meaningful to audiences.  Otherwise, many museums will shut down.

For this month’s LAB, let’s apply the innovation method, S.I.T, to a museum.  Students from my Innovation Tools course at the University of Cincinnati created new concepts for a local museum, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.  The students portrayed the concepts in a Dream Catalog as a way to visually tell the story. You can download the entire catalog here.

The LAB: Innovating the Treadmill with S.I.T. (May 2011)

Published date: May 30, 2011 в 3:00 am

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 In 1817, Sir William Cubitt innovated the treadmill as a method of reforming prison convicts who got out of line.  Today, that “torture” continues.  According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, fifty million Americans use a treadmill.  Sales of treadmills are $1 billion annually of the total $4 billion fitness equipment industry.  For this month’s LAB, we will use the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to create new-to-the-world concepts for the ubiquitous treadmill.

S.I.T. works by taking one of five patterns (subtraction, task unification, division, multiplication, and attribute dependency) and applying it to an existing product or service.  This morphs it into a “virtual product,” which is an abstract, ambiguous notion with no clear purpose.  We then work backwards (Function Follows Form) to find new and useful benefits or markets for the virtual product.

Here are four innovations created by students at the University of Cincinnati as part of the innovation tools course.  They articulated these ideas in a dream catalog, a hypothetical, futuristic catalog that merges marketing insight with innovative design.  You can download it here.

Treadmill 1.  Extreme Runner:  The Extreme Runner provides the ultimate workout for the  athlete or experienced runner who loves a challenge. This special treadmill can provide an intense and unique training session or it can be used for extreme competitions.

  • Alternating Elevation Width Belt- instead of the tread staying the same width throughout the course of a workout, this treadmill challenges the walker or runner by correlating the width of the tread to the height of the treadmill. By starting out wide when flat, then getting smaller when the user decides to elevate the machine, this treadmill gives the feel of a rock climb or mountain hike in a matter of minutes.
  • SIT Tools Used: Attribute Dependency – creating a dependency between the width of the belt and the elevation of the machine; the belt speed and the price of the machine; and the time on the track and the position of the runner on the machine.

Innovation Tools – The Course

Published date: February 14, 2011 в 3:00 am

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It’s that time of year again for “Innovation Tools,” the graduate marketing course at the University of Cincinnati.   The course teaches how to use Systematic Inventive Thinking, a method based on three ideas.  First, most successful innovations over time followed one of five patterns, and these patterns are like the DNA of products that can be re-applied to innovate any product or service.  Second, innovation happens when we start with a configuration (the “solution”) and work backwards to the “problem” that it solves.  It turns out that humans are better at this than the traditional “problem-to-solution” approach to innovating.  Finally, better innovation happens when we start within the world of the problem (the Closed World).  Innovations that use elements of the problem or surrounding environment are more novel and surprising.  We innovate “inside the box,” not outside.

Students not only learn how to innovate, but they also learn how to link it to marketing strategy.  We teach a bit of the Big Picture marketing framework so that students know how to tie innovation and strategy to create an innovation roadmap.

We have 45 graduate students, mostly from our master of science of marketing program.  It is a diverse group and includes masters and doctoral candidates from other colleges.  From this class, we created eight teams working different projects.  The mix of products, services, and government programs should demonstrate that innovation methods can be applied virtually anywhere.  Here are the projects:

Systematic Innovation Tools: The Course

Published date: April 12, 2010 в 2:00 am

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I am teaching my innovation course, Systematic Innovation Tools, at the University of Cincinnati this month. The course is a fusion of Systematic Inventive Thinking and The Big Picture marketing framework.  The Syllabus can be downloaded, but here are some details about it:

“This course focuses on how to create value and growth through
innovation in new and existing markets. Students will learn the skills
of innovation and how to apply those skills within the context of a
marketing strategy framework. Students will apply innovation methods
across the entire marketing management continuum including strategy,
segmentation, targeting, positioning, and the 4P’s. The course will be
taught using interactive workshop methods and techniques throughout.
Students will first experience these facilitation techniques while
learning innovation. They will then learn and practice these techniques
so that they can apply them routinely throughout their graduate
experience and beyond.”

Two aspects of this course are unique.  First, we don’t just talk about innovation…we DO innovation.   This current group of 31 graduate students are very bright and skillful when learning and applying innovation.  The other unique aspect is the creation of new products and services that are formalized in a hypothetical company catalog – The Dream Catalog.  This is an effective way to take new innovations and rationalize them into a coherent pipeline for growth.  Students work in teams to create an actual Dream Catalog within an assigned category.  We have six teams for the following clients:

  1. Pitcher1_box_large Procter & Gamble:  This team is innovating the PUR Water Filtration system to make the product line more adaptable in a variety of markets and situations.
  2. General Tool:  The team is innovating a medium sized jet engine to find new improvements or features that would extend the use of the engine into non-aviation applications.
  3. Cincinnati Art Museum:  This team is creating new ideas for how the museum displays art to create a whole new user experience for its visitors.
  4. Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati:  The students in this team are creating new clothing products and accessories for people with Down Syndrome.
  5. Twist Design Studio:  This new start-up company will feature unique, custom-made wedding and corporate invitations.  The students are using structured innovation to create completely new forms of invitations and paper-based products.
  6. Metro Innovation:  This organization holds innovation competitions on behalf of sponsoring cities to drive economic development.  The assigned students are using innovation tools to re-invent how the competitions are run.

For the final exam, students will be given a product randomly (with no advance preparation).  They must use each of the five templates of innovation (Subtraction, Task Unification, Multiplication, Division, and Attribute Dependency) on that product to create new-to-the-world inventions.  They have to take each invention and plot what strategic quadrant of The Big Picture would be most suitable. It demonstrates: 1. mastery of the skills of innovation, and 2.  the ability innovate within the context of marketing strategy.

I will post some of the results the Dream Catalogs and the final exams here on the blog. 

Wikinnovation!

Published date: February 7, 2009 в 12:42 pm

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Visit the Applied Marketing Innovation Wiki to see a collection of inventions across a wide array of product categories as well as information about innovation consultants.  The information is from students at The University of Cincinnati taking the graduate course, Applied Marketing Innovation.  Here is what you will find:

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