Посты с тэгом: innovation method

Academic Focus: Innovation Clubs

Published date: September 17, 2012 в 9:26 am

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The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) wants business schools to do more to support innovation.  It wants schools to reinvent curricula to be more integrative and convene executive programs that create new ideas and networks.  “Through outreach activities, such as business plan competitions, student consulting projects, and business incubators, business schools’ activities contribute directly to innovation in the communities they serve.”

One things schools can do to foster innovation is to create a student innovation club.  These clubs create a sense of belonging, instill a sense of identity and purpose, and they extend learning beyond the traditional classroom.  Innovation clubs are a great way for corporate practitioners, innovation consultants, and venture capitalists to get involved and tap into a source of innovation talent.

Here are some examples of innovation clubs from around the U.S.:

  • Columbia Business School: The Innovation + Creativity in Business Society is a professional
    organization with the goal to build a
    community of business leaders focused on the power of creative problem
    solving and idea generation.
  • MIT Sloan School of Management: The mission of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Club is to  reignite the spirit of entrepreneurship and to offer an intimate support system for entrepreneurs at Sloan.
  • UCMK Bloch School of Management:  The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Club, also known as the EI Club, is an organization for students, run by students, facilitating the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation across the entire UMKC campus and the Kansas City metropolitan area. The EI club offers seminars with renowned speakers based in the Kansas City-area, networking opportunities, and entrepreneurial and innovation advising.
  • Stanford Graduate School of Business:  The Social Innovation Club serves GSB students interested in exploring innovative ways to tackle the world’s most pressing social challenges and improving livelihoods for low-income populations domestically and internationally. The club believes that businesses can excel with more than one bottom line and that private sector approaches can help nonprofit and governmental organizations catalyze their impact.
  • University of Cincinnati Lindner College of Business:  The mission of The Entreprenuership Club is to create a world-class center for entrepreneurship education, research, and service, provide a forum to educate students who seek to create jobs rather than just have one, and advocate creating economic value through new venture creation.
  • Northwestern University:  The interdisciplinary, student-run organization InNUvation is designed to promote the entrepreneurial spirit on campus. An InNUvation-sponsored event is likely going to be the entry point for most of our university entrepreneurs and it acts almost as a portal for a variety of resources.

The AACSB emphasizes that “business schools do not and should not support innovation in the same ways; what each school does should depend on its context, mission, and other factors—which can differ significantly among schools.”  It is clear that business schools should approach creating value at the “intersection of different perspectives and proactively advocate for their role in innovation.”

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.

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.

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.

Innovation Sighting: Clothing to Keep You Cooler

Published date: July 2, 2012 в 3:00 am

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The Columbia Sportswear Company is launching a new line of clothing that keeps you…cooler.  The Omni-Freeze® ZERO is a specialized fabric weave that increases the surface area of the fabric that contacts your bare skin.  This transmits heat faster and feels cooler to the touch.

This is a great example of the Attribute Dependency Technique, one of five in the S.I.T. innovation method.  Attribute Dependency differs from the other templates in that it uses attributes (variables) of the situation rather than components.  Start with an attribute list, then construct a 2 x 2 matrix of these, pairing each against the others.  Each cell represents a potential 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. In the case of Omni-Freeze® ZERO, the dependency is created between body temperature and layers of clothing.

What makes the Omni-Freeze® ZERO so special is the way the dependency was changed.  Normally, we use the matrix to create a new dependency or break one that already exists.  In this case, a dependency already existed between body temperature and layers of clothing – the more layers you have, the warmer you get.  But with Omni-Freeze® ZERO, the dependency is reversed – the more layers you have, the cooler you get.  Reversing a dependency is a powerful and provocative way to break fixedness and create new innovations.

Here is a short demonstration of the new product:

Mastering Innovation Through Action Learning

Published date: June 18, 2012 в 3:00 am

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Teaching innovation begs two questions: what to teach and how to teach it.  For me, innovation begins with the generation of new ideas, so I emphasize cognitive methods such as Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT). I learned it from Amnon Levav and his colleagues while I was at Johnson & Johnson.  It’s superior to other methods I’ve tried, so I continue teaching and using it in practice.

What’s the best way to teach it?  To master innovation, you must experience it.  I find Action Learning is the best instructional approach for innovation.

“Action learning is an educational process where participants study their own actions and experience in order to improve performance. Learners acquire knowledge through actual actions and practice rather than through traditional instruction. Action learning is done in conjunction with others, in small groups called action learning sets. It is proposed as particularly suitable for adults, as it enables each person to reflect on and review the action they have taken and the learning points arising. This should then guide future action and improve performance.”

Action Learning is spreading to industry and academia.  This week, the 17th Global Forum on Executive Development and Business Driven Action Learning kicks off in Yokohama, Japan. About 100 human resource practitioners, educators, and consultants in the field of Action Learning attend it each year. I have attended the conference since 2003. Dr. Yury Boshyk, the conference chairman, is the leader of this community of practice and a big proponent in the application of Action Learning to methods like SIT.

Here is how I employ the action learning approach when teaching innovation techniques:

  1. Start with an activation exercise – a story, puzzle, video, etc – that links to the technique
  2. Reflect on the exercise.  What is the key message of the exercise?
  3. Introduce the technique. Describe the steps in using it.
  4. Demonstrate it on something the group is familiar with.
  5. Working in pairs or individually, have the group use the technique with each taking a different component.
  6. Review the ideas generated so that people see the value of the technique.
  7. Reflect on whether these ideas would have been generated without the technique.
  8. Re-do the exercise with a product or service relevant to the group’s organization – as a group, then in pairs, each taking a separate component.
  9. Reflect on the exercise and the results.
  10. Share examples of products generated with the technique.  Have the group reflect on why each is an example of the pattern.
  11. Ask the group for their own examples of products they believe follow the same pattern.
  12. Metacognition: what insight or surprising element emerged from the session?

By coincidence, a former student of mine (now president of DHL in Japan) is attending the same conference.  He learned SIT from me in 2007, and he still uses it today – thanks to Action Learning.

The Curse of Innovation

Published date: May 14, 2012 в 3:00 am

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The Financial Times featured an article last week calling the patent system the curse of innovation.  Patents have become weapons of mass destruction in certain industries, most recently in the smartphone category.

“Escalating courtroom battles over intellectual property – whether evidence of an efficient market in ideas or a sign of a broken patent system – are placing a mounting burden on the (technology) sector…In smartphones alone, an estimated $15 to $20 billion has been spent buying patents for both defensive and offensive strategies.  Legal bills are conservatively estimated at $500 million.” 

This “colossal squander” is spreading to stable industries like food, autos, and mining.  All face dramatic increases in patent lawsuits.

The patent system is not the only curse associated with innovation.  Here are six curses, some that inhibit innovation and some that stem from innovation:

Making it Sustainable: Innovation Suite No. 9

Published date: April 23, 2012 в 2:23 am

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Making innovation sustainable means: 1. learning how to innovate, 2. getting results from innovation workshops, and 3. building the internal support systems to keep it going.  Join Idit Biton and Yoni Stern from SIT in New York City, June 18-20, 2012 for Innovation Suite No. 9, an intensive learning experience with a focus on making innovation sustainable in your ogranization.

Listen to Gilles Bertherin from Shell explain his takeaway from attending Innovation Suite:

The three day event teaches new-comers how to use the method, while the more experienced SIT users and innovation managers focus on how to facilitate it.  Participants are assigned an experienced SIT coach to work with for several weeks following the event.  This is a great feature as it provides that needed lifeline to people who are not as familiar with facilitation.

To register, go here.

The Remaking of Netflix

Published date: November 28, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Netflix needs urgent change to stop the bleeding and rebuild its business model. It is running out of cash and losing support from customers and shareholders.  Management must re-establish its credibility with bold moves.  Here is a series of steps and techniques to do that.

1.  Reframing:  Use the Subtraction Tool to reframe and see new possibilities.  Make a list of the major components of the company (patents, products, brand, employees, customers, network, etc.).  Now imagine Netflix will merge with a company from another industry.  Create a phrase something like this: “Netflix cannot stream movies to customers, but it has all the other components.  What company has the ideal set of products that would best fit the remaining resources of Netflix?”   For example, would a company in the retail sector have products that would find new growth within the Netflix enterprise? Companies like Path Intelligence might be a good candidate.  Perhaps Netflix could merge with a brick and mortar movie theater company like AMC Entertainment and leverage the strengths of each.  Perhaps Netflix links up with Research in Motion to leverage its proprietary Blackberry network for streaming data.  Use this same approach for all the components, one at a time, to envision new possibilities.

2.  Reverse Assumption:  This technique helps “break fixedness” about assumptions.  List the key business assumptions about Netflix and its industry.  For example:

  • Netflix streams content to customers
  • Consumers want more options
  • Netflix sends DVDs to customers

Reverse the assumptions one by one.  “Customers stream content to Netflix.”  Perhaps the new business model is to offer a service allowing customers to stream information to Netflix which is then re-streamed to others.  Perhaps Netflix uses its streaming skills to enter the business-to-business market, servicing banks or other companies that need to move digital content in a unique way.  Perhaps customers send DVDs to other customers instead of sending it back to Netflix, saving time and money.

The Voice of the Brand

Published date: November 21, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Most people are surprised to hear that five simple patterns explain the majority of innovative products and services.  Jacob Goldenberg and his colleagues discovered this surprising insight.  It is similar to the notion of TRIZ which is a set of patterns for solving problems.  Innovative products share common patterns because their inventors unknowingly followed them when generating new product ideas.  These patterns become the DNA of products.  You can extract the DNA and implant it into other products and services to create new innovations.  We call it The Voice of the Product.

Are there more than five patterns?  Most certainly.  Highly creative people like musicians and artists use templates in their creations.  Even products invented serendipitously have a pattern embedded in them.  Many products are invented accidentally.  Serendipity led to the microwave oven, corn flakes, Teflon®, penicillin, fireworks, Viagra®, chocolate chip cookies, and the most famous of all accidents…the Post-it® note.  The problem with serendipity is it’s not predictable.  It is not an innovation method one would count on for corporate growth.  But there is value in serendipity if you can unlock its hidden secrets.  Every serendipitous invention can be reduced to a heuristic and ultimately to an algorithm or pattern.  We call it The Voice of Serendipity.

What other voices are out there?  Take brands, for example.  A well-developed brand has a unique personality, sort of a code of attributes.  That code is a pattern that could be reapplied to products and services to help discover new benefits and opportunities.  Like the other voices, The Voice of the Brand can be leveraged for innovative thinking.

Consider the following brand attribute model:

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