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Innovate on Purpose

  • Should Innovation be "professionalized" 10 January, 2012, 7:07 am
    I read with some interest and trepidation the article in Co.Design entitled "Do Innovation Consultants Kill Innovation?".  Like many people who write for the web, I recognize a catchy title is meant to attract readers and create a distinct point of view.  As a person who earns a living as an innovation consultant, of course I'm concerned when anyone seems to cast doubt on my chosen trade.  So, perhaps it's a good question to ask - should innovation become a profession - whether inside an organization where innovation titles are appearing with increasing frequency, or should we expect to see more innovation consultants as the importance of innovation creates a potential vacuum of innovation talent?When questions like this arise, my first notion is to consider the past and look a previous disruptions in thinking or in technology.  I'd like to consider disruptions because that's what I believe is underway - a disruption to how businesses run.  The traditional business methods are being swept away by increasing levels of global competition, free trade, economic calamities, the fact that the internet is lowering costs of entry into many businesses, increasing consumer demands and decreasing product life cycles.  I could go on but frankly I don't need to.  Innovation is becoming an ever more important capability, and that disrupts the status quo, business as usual way many businesses are run and have been structured.  So, if you believe as I do that a disruption is under way, then it makes sense to see how people and firms reacted to previous disruptions.Take, for example, the development of the model-T.  When Ford made individual ownership of a car practical, it disrupted a lot of the existing order.  The example we all use is "buggy whips", since the need for buggy whips plummeted.  But think about all of the other disruptions - the need to produce and distribute fuel, the need for mechanics to work on the automobiles, the labor saving techniques and applications of a Model T.  Life and society were disrupted by the Model T.  And in that disruption rose a number of professional skills - mechanics, fuel refiners and distributors, road builders and many others.  These skills and professions became ever more important as the impact of the automobile was felt, and the automobile would not have been as successful if these professions that supported the automobile did not arise.  Did people decry the rise of the mechanic?  Were people upset that they didn't need to drill, refine and pump their own gas?  No, these professions and others simply enable people to move ahead and use the new tool (the automobile) as effectively as possible.  Today we don't question the value of a mechanic to fix our cars - thankfully, given how powerful and complex they've become.  Why would we think differently about professions that accelerate and improve innovation?In any disruption, there are people who take advantage of their knowledge or simple showmanship to develop products or services that extract value from customers rather than delivering value to customers.  Whether those people are the internal managers who have innovation titles (the "custodians" of the article) or innovation consultants ("the word slingers") make no difference.  Every hype cycle has it's charlatans, which will be exposed soon enough, and every technology or capability has its experts who help others take advantage of new tools, methods, products or techniques.  Will the authors now complain about Lean and Six Sigma Blackbelts?The authors rightly note that some firms - Apple, Google, GE and others have a culture of innovation that seems to propel these firms toward ever more innovation.  They also make the claim that these firms have entrepreneurs at the helm.  Seems a stretch except for Google anymore.  While I admire the leaders of 3M and P&G and GE I'm not aware that any of them were at any time an entrepreneur, so the hallowed sainthood of entrepreneur leaders is misleading if not untrue.  Most firms aren't lead by innovative, charismatic entrepreneurs and don't have a "culture of innovation".  They have cultures that sustain "business as usual" which conflicts with innovation.  Introducing a new tool or capability often requires either exceptionally bold internal managers (what the article derides as custodians) or insightful change agents from the outside (the dreaded word-slingers).  Change doesn't happen by itself - it happens through catalysts.The article then makes claims that refute its own point, noting that industries like high tech, pharmaceuticals and the movie industry don't hire "dozens of consultants".  I'm not sure which firms the authors have worked with, but having worked in high tech and pharmaceutical, and as someone who actually watches movie trailers I can assure you that all of these firms work with consultants ranging from the strategy houses (McKinsey, Booz, Bain, BCG, etc) to innovation boutiques, and, what's more, firms in these industries are actively experimenting with "open innovation" to identify excellent ideas in their industries and in the wider world.  They aren't waiting just for good internal ideas.    Whether or not these consultants add value is a relevant question - but stating that these firms don't have specific processes or don't partner with consultants is almost laughable.The authors make another point at the end that I find interesting and moving, but a bit naive.  They say that businesses need to provide the means to offer "freedom to explore the high-risk messiness and the fuzzy, nonlinear ways" in which innovation grows.  Hmm.  What other functions or processes within a modern organization could be described as fuzzy, high risk and messy?  Finance?  No.  Accounting? No.  Product Development?  No.  In fact no process or method that is used to drive any revenue or cut any cost in a business would survive if it were fuzzy, high risk and messy.  Large businesses don't operate that way.  Even in firms that have a strong innovation culture, there are still defined innovation processes, people with innovation titles and on occasion even the best innovators use innovation consultants!The authors have a point - some innovation can be risky, messy and non-linear.  But that doesn't mean the entire innovation capability should be left completely to chance!  For anything to get done in a modern business, someone needs to be responsible and there needs to be some structure, some knowledge and some best practice.  We can't wait for the immaculate conception of innovation - we need to provide knowledge, tools, understanding and some people and process who understand how these things work.Yes, just like the band director in the Music Man there will be people who take advantage of the situation to offer services that don't work, looking to make a quick buck.  But I think most of my clients will agree that many innovation consultants ACCELERATE innovation and build innovation capabilities rather than "kill" innovation.  So, should innovation become a profession - either as a staff or line position within a firm, or as a consulting position outside the firm?  Until the processes, tools, capabilities and methods of innovation are fully understood, fully interwoven into the culture and processes of a company and taken as second nature, I'd argue there's a huge need for innovation professionals.  The real trick, at least what the article is pointing out, is divining the difference between the Henry Hills ( of Music Man fame) who make promises but fail to deliver, and the innovation professionals who create real value.
  • When executives talk about Innovation, watch out 6 January, 2012, 6:43 am
    I'm upset about all the false promises and hot air I'm hearing right now, and I'm not even talking about the presidential race.  I'm talking about all the misguided talk by executives about "innovation".  Yesterday's NPR interview with new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson provides an excellent example.  I don't know Scott Thompson and I have no animus toward Yahoo, or for any of its competitors, so what I am about to write should be viewed in the light of a neutral observer trying to wrap his head around some "innovation" claims.  Because increasing, when a new CEO starts talking about "innovation", grab your wallet and invoke the Reagan doctrine - trust but verify.It's become almost a requirement for CEOs to expound on the need for innovation.  Every quarter like clockwork we see a survey from BCG or PWC or some other management consulting house telling us that CEOs rank innovation as the second or third most important initiative their firm should undertake.  I'd like to see the data on the question that goes unasked - how many of those same CEOs who talked about the importance of innovation last year made actual investments in innovation initiatives and programs?  While many CEOs are talking about innovation, far too many aren't actually implementing innovation.Unfortunately the press lets them get away with this.  I was listening to the news on the radio when Scott Thompson was announced as the new CEO of Yahoo.  There's no doubt that Yahoo needs new focus and direction.  It can't decide whether it is a media company or a search company or something else.  When asked what he intended to do, he said he wanted Yahoo to do more "innovation and disruption".  That's  either the most optimistic or the most cynical statement I've heard in years.Why cynical?  Because it plays on what is "hot" right now - innovation - without providing any specifics in terms of goals, or outcomes or investments.  By talking about innovation, he hits all of the right notes in the press, but doesn't provide any insight into what he means by innovation, and this is a critical point - when executives talk about "innovation" we need to know what innovation is meant to do.  Suppose for example we simply inserted the word "hammer" for innovation in many of these presentations.  We'd look askance at a person who repeatedly talked about hammers without giving us insight into what he planned to do with the hammer - build or destroy?  But we all nod at the sage reference to innovation.  Further, his statement is cynical because Yahoo hasn't been demonstrating much innovation capability lately, and hasn't been known for innovation.What's Yahoo's record of innovation?  They were one of the first search engines, but were disrupted by Google.  Since then I'd have a hard time identifying a record of innovation from Yahoo, and certainly no record of disrupting other competitors or markets.  Yahoo has more experience being disrupted than acting as a disrupter, so what is Thompson going to build on?  What initiatives, investments and programs will he enact to make Yahoo more innovative?  Will innovation be used to drive more growth, increase differentiation, disrupt another market?  Why, when Thompson made a point of talking about innovation and disruption as key goals, didn't someone ask for further clarification?Contrast Thompson's throwaway line about innovation with Arthur Lafley's statements about innovation at P&G.  Lafley made clear, definitive statements about innovation, such as setting a goal that 50% of P&G's products would originate from ideas from outside the company.  That statement confounded the market because P&G has a strong internal R&D team, and it set a goal that could be easily measured and quantified. I hope Thompson succeeds in restoring Yahoo to its former prominence.  He and other CEOs are only guilty of latching onto a concept that's poorly defined, but which, when done correctly can drive increases in revenues, profits and market share.  Innovation is almost like alchemy - it seems to turn base metals into gold.  But just like the early alchemists, it seems that only a few people who attempt it have much success, while most of the alchemists are full of empty promises.What I'd like to hear from Thompson, and other executives is a clearly delineated strategy, which emphasizes growth, or differentiation, or operational excellence, or customer intimacy, and then hear them talk about how innovation is going to help them achieve these strategies and retain leadership in these strategies.  Right now we are putting too much emphasis on innovation - a tool which should be used in service of strategy, rather than putting the emphasis where it belongs first - on the strategy.  This reminds me of the concept of "strategic bankruptcy" that another writer says Best Buy is guilty of.  I don't know if Best Buy is guilty of strategic bankruptcy, but I do know that many firms seem to lack clear strategy, which makes doing meaningful innovation even more difficult.Will some journalists please follow up on a quarterly basis and ask this follow up question to Thompson - if innovation is important, what investments are you making and what results are you seeing?
  • Book Review: The Innovation Master Plan 4 January, 2012, 6:43 am
    Over the holidays several new innovation books arrived, so I'll be reviewing a couple of good books over the next few weeks.  Today I'm reviewing a book by Langdon Morris, who has written other books about innovation, notably Permanent Innovation, and who is one of the senior partners at InnovationLabs.I was interested to review The Innovation Master Plan (hereafter TIMP) because much of what Langdon and his team write about falls very much in line with our thinking at OVO.  InnovationLabs have identified the importance of innovation methodologies and processes, which we believe creates a repeatable, sustainable innovation capability.  In The Innovation Master Plan, Morris provides an excellent overview of the entire innovation process.TIMP is written for senior executives.  After all, the subtitle is "the CEO's guide to innovation".  Much of the book is written with a strategic viewpoint, and a "top down" approach.  What the book occasionally lacks in specific tasks and actions it makes up for in its focus on leadership, commitment and investment from senior executives.In the first chapter, Morris tackles one of my pet peeves about innovation - asking readers to examine the purpose, reasons and strategies for innovation.  Far too often innovation is simply a reaction to a new entrant or a shift in the market.  That is, innovation is reactionary not planned or strategic.  Morris asks the reader to consider "why" he or she is innovating.  In our (OVO's) approach we work hard to link strategy, strategic goals and innovation purpose or outcome.  Without this focus, it is easy for innovation to produce interesting but irrelevant ideas.  Morris points out another important concept - the differences between "goals" and "strategies".  When CEOs state that they want 50% of their sales from new ideas, that's a GOAL, not a strategy.  A strategy may require thinking about what capabilities or competencies allow a firm to lead in an industry, or whether a firm should be a pioneer or a "fast follower".  Readers of my new book Relentless Innovation will know what I think about the concept of "fast followers".  As the pace of change increases and product lifecycles decrease, fast followers have less time to respond to market opportunities and less lifecycle in which to make a return.  Morris suggests there is a niche for fast followers but doesn't seem to offer them much hope either.In subsequent chapters Morris talks extensively about innovation portfolios, which should help indicate what to innovate and the appropriate risk/reward matrix.  Again, this is focused on strategy which should be set by executives and used as directional information and constraints by innovators.  Far too often this thinking is missing, and causes innovation to go awry.It's not until the middle of the book that Morris deals with "how" to innovate, and builds a case for an innovation process.  Aristotle said that we are what we do repeatedly, and only through the definition of a process can we repeat the same tasks and process steps to acquire more learning and knowledge.  Otherwise every innovation is ad-hoc, and no learning can be accomplished.  Morris' prescriptions for innovation process definition is right on the money.Toward the end of the book Morris turns his attention to "who" should innovate, considering people and the culture within which they work.  InnovationLabs has always produced good insights on innovation culture and the book recaps much of that information.On the whole this is an excellent book that covers much of the end to end process that good innovators should strive to achieve.  It is written with senior executives in mind, therefore it is occasionally a bit more abstract than I'd prefer, with less information on tactics and deployment than I'd like to see, but that is what the intended audience will want to read and absorb.  While we wrote our books in parallel and without collaborating, it is interesting to see at the end of TIMP Morris arrived at the same conclusion that I suggested was possible in Relentless Innovation:  innovation becomes a virtuous circle when implemented correctly.  Morris suggests that as innovators get better at innovation, they enjoy more success in the marketplace, which frees up more resources and attunes the culture toward innovation, making more innovation possible.  I developed the same theme in Relentless Innovation.  Good innovators know this, overcoming the inertia to invest in innovation and waiting for the returns is often far too difficult for most firms, so they never overcome the inertia and initial difficulties to realize the returns innovation can provide.The Innovation Master Plan is a book I'd like to think I could have written, not necessarily because I'm a good writer or that I have great ideas about innovation, but because it makes so much sense and encapsulates so much good insight and information about what's needed to succeed at innovation as a business discipline.  This is an excellent primer for executives who are starting an innovation effort, or who need to understand the breadth and depth of a successful innovation undertaking.
  • How innovation becomes infectious 3 January, 2012, 6:29 am
    If you are like me, a person who is interested in innovation, you've probably experienced the following scenario.  A meeting is called, where an executive announces that he or she wants more innovation.  Other heads nod sagely, having seen this play before.  The executive directs attention to the innovation facilitator, advocate or consultant in the room.  At that moment, time freezes, as the shields go up and everyone searches your face to determine what wild party trick you have up your sleeve.  It's clear from that moment on that it's "us" versus "them", and while great outcomes are expected, they'll happen on another person's watch.Having lived my life as an innovation consultant, I'm familiar with the unintentional cold shoulder, the lack of belief and the patient settling in, waiting for the party trick to emerge.  That's my business, so I've learned to lower expectations about immediate outcomes and hopefully build consensus for change.  But what about an internal innovation advocate?  Must they constantly be the virus that seeks to infect corporate cells that simply don't have receptors?  How does an organization become truly "infected" with innovation when most of them have anti-bodies actively pursuing and eliminating any wayward innovation viruses?Since we are talking about infections, let's start at the cell level.  At the cell level, receptors are located on cells and receive instructions for the cell to do something.  There are two types of chemicals that work with receptors, interestingly called agonists and antagonists.  An agonist is a drug or chemical that binds with a receptor to help it do its work and engage the cell.  An antagonist is a drug or chemical that blocks or binds the action of another chemical or drug, blocking the receptor.In most organizations, the receptors are attuned to short term gains, maintaining business as usual and slowly, steadily growing the company.  Antibodies or "antagonists" act against ideas or actors that suggest concepts that would conflict with these receptors.  Innovation is often a foreign element that seeks to enter the corporate cell, but finds few receptors and most of those are blocked by antagonists who seek to maintain the existing order, protect business as usual.  Innovation is viewed by the corporate body as an invading virus, bent on destruction rather than as a positive force with beneficial outcomes.To overcome these corporate barriers we need to do three things:  reduce antagonists, create more receptors and make innovation less of a foreign substance and more familiar to the cellular structure.  To accomplish these goals, corporate bodies need to do the following:Reduce antagonists.  In the cellular world, antagonists block messages or disable receptors so cells can't or don't do what they should.  In the corporate world, antagonists are represented by corporate culture, which dissuades people from taking actions, compensation, which encourages consistency over change, history and perspectives, fear of risk and uncertainty.  Until these antagonists are removed through changes in corporate culture, communication, compensation and reward structures, innovation will always be viewed as an invading virus rather than a beneficial cell.Increase receptors.  The more receptors available for a specific signal, the more likely the signal is to be recognized and enacted.  If only a few receptors exist and antagonists are plentiful, the messages don't get through.  In a corporate world, we need more people in management roles who are willing to try out innovation initiatives and programs.  These can be existing people, newly motivated and directed to be more open to innovation, or new people hired for their perspectives and attitudes toward innovation.  Good ideas that aren't received and aren't supported aren't useful.Make innovation familiar. Going beyond the cellular level into the DNA level, our DNA for years has baffled scientists, who at one time claimed that over 95% of DNA was "junk".  Now, scientists are realizing that our DNA have incorporated many different types of information, which allowed us to evolve.  These "junk" DNA may not control our destiny but help us adapt.  In a corporate setting, we need to add innovation into corporate "DNA" to make it more familiar to business as usual and to help the organization adapt.  As long as innovation is seen as an external intruder or virus, we will resist it and create antibodies to suppress it.  Once it becomes part of the DNA we'll develop receptors and agonists for it.So the next time I'm in a meeting and getting the feeling I'm the virus and the executives around the table are antagonists (in the receptor sense) I'll try to introduce some agonists or seek to introduce more receptors in the room, with the ultimate goal of introducing innovation into the DNA, so innovation is seen in a positive light as opposed to being viewed as a virus.As innovators, we need to find ways to make innovation infectious.  That means innovation needs to seem more valuable, more effective and less risky than the existing state of affairs.  It also means reducing the antibodies and inoculations against innovation in the team you are trying to convince.  Learning from nature is important here as well.  Some of the most infectious diseases are spread by 1) fun activities (sex) or 2) by many carriers or 3) being easy to transmit (through the air).  New ideas and the methods and tools to realize them, to become infectious, must be fun to do, or at least more fun and interesting than existing work, supported by many people, who can transmit the ideas easily.  The ideas need a short incubation period, to take root and grow quickly.  The ideas need to be resistant to inoculations, like "we're not innovative" or "that's too risky". In short, we innovators could learn a lot from infectious diseases.
  • More efficiency or more innovation? 28 December, 2011, 7:11 am
    Every once in a while someone can illuminate a point so well that you simply have to stop and pay homage.  Paul Sloane crystalized a key point about innovation recently when he tweeted: Businesses are good at getting better but poor at getting different.The reason this crystalized one of the key innovation issues is that it reminded me of my early economics classes.  I suspect you remember those somewhat simplistic "guns vs butter" tradeoffs.  Should a country produce more guns, or more butter?  Who benefits from the selections?  What happens if more butter is produced?  Are fewer guns necessarily produced if more resources are shifted into butter production?If this rings a bell from somewhere back in freshman economics, but at the same time seems too simplistic when viewed in light of the modern economic enterprise, then consider this simple question: What is the appropriate balance between efficiency and innovation in a business?Eliminating all other factors, how much of your time, your efforts and your resources should be invested in driving ever more efficiency in your organization?  How much of your time, effort and resources should be invested in innovation?  It's not until we think of these as investments and force specific tradeoffs that the conundrum becomes clear.  Just like guns and butter, we probably need a reasonable investment in both efficiency and innovation to thrive over time. A national economy will demand guns for defense and butter for nourishment - those demands will shift and evolve depending on the threats the economy identifies externally and the needs of the population internally.  Businesses, with timelines and incentives that are somewhat different, focus on short term financial results, which tends to shift the balance between innovation and efficiency toward efficiency.  Most initiatives that focus on improving efficiency have an immediate, and positive financial impact.  Thus efficiency is rewarded, and initiatives that are rewarded are repeated.  Innovation often has a negative short term impact - costs without an immediate benefit - so innovation is far less likely to produce a short term financial benefit, and therefore much more difficult to do.  Slowly, over time, the scales shift from a balance between efficiency and innovation to ever more efficiency and increasingly less innovation.  Eventually efficiency is well understood and easily accomplished, but it has ever decreasing marginal returns.  Innovation, on the other hand, becomes more difficult the less it is practiced, and is viewed as risky, uncertain and become even less likely to be taken up.Clearly, every business needs both - a focus on efficiency and a focus on innovation.  My new book Relentless Innovation provides examples that demonstrate why a balance between innovation and efficiency is so important, and extracts lessons from firms that manage to do both well simultaneously - P&G, Apple, 3M, Google and Gore.  These firms have capabilities and investments that other firms would do well to emulate, because an ever increasing diet of efficiency will create a firm that is exceptionally efficient, but indistinguishable from its competitors.The economics example of tradeoffs between guns and butter is meant to help students think about investments and tradeoffs.  Both guns and butter are necessary for every economy, but in different degrees.  Likewise, innovation and efficiency are necessary in every company.  Establishing "how much" investment in efficiency and innovation is necessary, and then carrying out that strategy, is very important.  Firms that can achieve an appropriate balance will thrive, while firms too focused on efficiency will become one trick ponies.Who would have thought that the guns vs butter tradeoffs could illuminate an important business challenge?
  • 8 - the perfect innovation number 21 December, 2011, 8:12 am
    Every sport has a specific team size.  Basketball allows five players on the court at one time.  Baseball allows nine on the diamond.  American football and international football both allow eleven on a side.  It's a mystery how these numbers were arrived at, but they've become codified in the sports we play. Other initiatives and efforts have a "right" number.  Three wise men.  Three musketeers. Four horsemen of the apocalypse (just saying).  However, the old adage is that "too many cooks spoil the broth", and like many old adages it carries a ring of truth.  There's an appropriate team size or number for almost any effort, and we at OVO have decided that the magic number is eight.  As in, eight people.In my experience innovation suffers from the Goldilocks phenomenon, not necessarily too hot or too cold, but either too few participants or too many.  In the first case, innovation seems challenging and requires a lot of work with little possibility of payoff, so only the hard core dedicated types show up.  In the latter case innovation seems like the approved strategic flavor of the month, so lots of people show up but don't, you know, expect to have to do anything. When you have a team that's too small, there are too many perspectives missing and too much work for the team to do effectively.  A small team rarely spans all of the business lines, business functions and insights necessary, so the team is constantly calling on other people and eventually makes itself a nuisance.  Conversely, when the team is too large it is unmanageable and easily distracted.  People who probably shouldn't be there, or people who are there to make sure they don't receive assignments simply get in the way of people who are actually trying to get things done.But on the whole, smaller teams are more powerful than larger teams, for this reason:  only smaller teams can grapple with disruptive ideas.  Getting people to think disruptively means getting them to think outside their comfort zone and outside the products, services and strategies of the business.  If even one person can't or won't free themselves from those confines, then the team will be dragged back down by the doubter.  The larger the team, the more likely it is that you'll have a doubter.  And the power of one person who can't or refuses to get on board with a new perspective or scope is enough to drag down the rest of the team.So, in most regards, five people is at the lower end of a viable innovation team, simply due to the workloads and the range of experience and perspectives.  Ten is probably at the upper end, due to the cost of the commitments and the increasing likelihood of people who simply won't get on board.  Eight is a nice, round number somewhere in-between, and the number we've found to be about the best for innovation.  Oh, you might say, that seems on the high side.  You're right, and we err on the high side in this case because many innovation teams consist of people who have other, important jobs, so they can't attend every meeting.  Working on a quorum philosophy we always keep working and expect absent members to catch up.  This philosophy works if you have 8 members and 2 can't come, but becomes difficult when you have five members and 2 can't come.There is another aspect of the Goldilocks phenomenon mentioned above.  Team members can be too hot (too excited about their own ideas) or too cold (assigned to the team but with little desire to be on the team).  Smaller teams can be formed around volunteers - people who WANT to be there, while larger teams are formed from people who were TOLD to be there or people who want to be sure they are represented but don't actually plan to do any work.  Like Goldilocks and her choices, you don't want too hot or too cold, too large or too small, you want the team and the people to be "just right" for the effort.  That magic number for innovation is eight.
  • Innovator as Storyteller 20 December, 2011, 7:33 am
    I've been catching up on some reading, and thinking about my own experiences working with customers who are trying to become more innovative.  A pattern is beginning to emerge that has been sitting there in front of me for years, but is only now becoming clear. Perhaps, like viewing a pointillist painting, one needs the proper distance or perspective for all of the dots to come into focus as a picture.  My realization this week has less to do with viewing a picture, and more to do with other forms of communication and thinking that block innovation.I read today a paper by Malcolm Gladwell, published in May 2011, which tells some interesting stories about innovation.  Gladwell's point is that all innovation is basically evolution of an original concept.  For example, Apple didn't create the idea of the mouse, it borrowed it from Xerox PARC, who borrowed it from a researcher at Stanford Research Institute, who probably borrowed it from someone else.  Gladwell writes about this continuous evolution as a model for innovation, stripping away the things that aren't necessary and introducing simplicity to reach a larger audience.  But what's also interesting about the story is the number of times the innovators he interviews were told "no" about their innovations.  So here's the critical question:  do we innovators lack the ability to communicate to others the value and importance of our ideas?  Do the "business as usual" folks who predominate most businesses fail to hear and understand our messages?  Are innovators from Venus and business people from Mars?  Do we speak different languages or simply not value the stories we are told?Reading this article and thinking about what I learned writing Relentless Innovation, I've come to realize that perhaps the most important capability of good innovators is their ability to communicate.  What I mean about the ability to communicate is that the excellent innovator communicates the value proposition of his or her idea in the correct manner, using the correct channel, and touching on the correct needs and values of his or her audiences.  Note that I used the plural - audiences.  Because an innovation within a corporate structure has many audiences and has to run many  traps not simply to succeed, but to remain true to the initial vision.The first audience is the executive or sponsor who has a problem that needs solving, or needs an interesting and valuable new product or service.  These sponsors must exist to fly cover for the innovator, so the innovator must be able to demonstrate that his or her idea helps an executive achieve an important business goal or corporate strategy.   Key message:  why this idea links to important goals or strategies.The second audience is the people who have to move the idea from concept to product or service.  Usually an idea is different from and in opposition to much of the existing internal investment and process.  That means the innovator must be able to demonstrate to people who are used to doing work in often diametrically opposed processes that the idea is valuable enough to short circuit or change the existing ways of deciding and working.  Key message:  why this idea requires a different development process than existing "business as usual".The third audience is the financial team, who will want to understand the ROI of the innovation as quickly as possible.  The innovator must assuage the financial team's worries about the "R" - return, revenues and profits, because the "I" - investment, costs, and so forth are easy to calculate.  This means the innovator must be able to tell a story about his or her idea that is also a financial story.  Key message:  why this idea, or any idea, must be judged differently from existing concepts, while recognizing the importance of return.The fourth audience is the development team.  Every new idea generated and transitioned to a product or service development team faces an uphill climb, as these teams are already overwhelmed with existing priorities.  What is so important about the new idea that should land it on the top, overriding existing priorities?  The innovator has to be able to tell a story that sells the importance and value of the idea, and why it should take precedence over the existing priorities.  Key message:  why this idea is so important it should take precedence over other priorities.The fifth audience is the customer base.  Why should they adopt a new product or service that often demands that they change buying habits or behaviors?  What is so valuable about the product or service that will encourage them to switch?  Key message:  This product or service solves an important need that you have, in such a way that you may be willing to change your buying habits or behavior in order to receive the benefits.Note that at each interaction with an audience, the messages about the idea, or product or service, can be modified, watered down, manipulated and changed.  In fact this is often what happens, and why a good idea at the outset becomes a mediocre idea in implementation - the concept, messages and stories about the idea change subtly in every interaction and telling, reshaping and refocusing the idea.  This is perhaps why Steve Jobs was such a consummate innovator - he was able to define a message about an idea and carry that message forward through all of the audiences in a relatively consistent fashion.Many innovators and people in the innovation community will argue that storytelling is a vital aspect of innovation, and I think they are correct.  But while storytelling is important, it's telling a consistent story, and the right story, and a compelling story, over and over again that drives an idea from an interesting concept to a market winner.  Innovators need not only have great ideas, they need to be able to tell good, consistent stories about their ideas, or partner with people (again, Jobs and Wozniak as examples) who can craft and communicate the story.  Ultimately Jobs' genius wasn't in design, or technology, or integration, or user experience.  Jobs' genius was in the storytelling - what he told his team, and what he told his consumers.
  • Innovation and Efficiency: Opposing Forces 16 December, 2011, 6:43 am
    I'm big on irony, so it's always exasperating yet amusing when my clients realize that attributes or characteristics they've thought of as strengths are revealed as barriers or weaknesses.  As organizations grow and mature, they stop trying to evaluate their business models and the factors that sustain those models, and begin to take factors within the business model for granted - or argue in their defense.  While older, mainline firms are comforting themselves by talking about how unassailable their business models are, innovators and new entrants are working to make those factors unnecessary or obsolete.  So Blockbuster has all the valuable real estate for movie rental stores locked down.  Yep, that's a barrier to other firms who plan a real-estate based strategy, but perhaps not so important to an innovator who seeks to innovate through completely different channels, rendering an advantage in real estate obsolete.  So it will come as no surprise to you that I come today both to praise Lean and Six Sigma, along with a number of other management methods, tools and mantras, as well as to bury them.  Nietzsche is supposed to have said that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Perhaps the corollary is true as well - whatever makes you stronger makes you blind to your potential weaknesses and faults.  Like Blockbuster, which was fighting the real estate battle while NetFlix was shifting the competitive landscape to mail and then direct downloads, many firms in the US are still fighting the efficiency and cost cutting battle, while the battlefield is shifting imperceptibly toward innovation.  The tools and techniques used to further hone existing business models to ever higher effectiveness and productivity are exceptionally valuable in the short run, and are building ever increasing barriers to innovation.  In many firms innovation and efficiency aren't simply at odds, they are at war.  And efficiency is winning.Efficiency is winning because, to continue the warfare analogy, all the troops have been trained in the cost cutting and efficiency models and methods.  We have ninjas stalking through the business reinforcing Six Sigma and Lean concepts. The coin of the realm is paid out to reward efficiency gains far more frequently than innovation outcomes.  Business models, processes and methods are much more attuned to efficiency. As these concepts are reinforced, they remind the rest of the troops to place emphasis on reducing risk, reducing variability, reducing costs.  When an officer (read executive) argues for a new battle plan, based on innovation, the majority of the organization looks on in horror.  No one is familiar with those tools and methods.  They introduce risk and uncertainty, with a very indefinite outcome.  And innovation doesn't reinforce the strengths of the existing business model and strategies - in fact it may weaken or destroy the very fortress the firm has worked so hard to build.  While I've written this in rather florid language, make no mistake, there's a battle underway in every firm between efficiency and innovation, and efficiency is poised to win in most organizations. It doesn't have to be this way.  Many of the Relentless Innovators I write about in Relentless Innovation are both innovative (recognized by consumers, customers and their industry competitors as leaders in developing valuable new products and services) and are also efficient (they use their inputs and their resources at least as effectively as their direct competitors).  So some firms seem to have bridged the gap, and are using both strategic capabilities in harmony, rather than seeing them in conflict.To compete in the future, deep capabilities in both strategies will be vital.  A firm must be efficient to compete, and must be innovative to remain top of mind with customers.  Rather than allowing innovation to be constantly overwhelmed by the far more experienced and superior forces of efficiency, it may be time to call a truce between what are often unfortunately opposing forces:  innovation and efficiency. 
  • Relentless Innovation Introduction 13 December, 2011, 7:10 am
    I have written a new book entitled Relentless Innovation, of which I am, I think, suitably proud.  I hope many of you will rush out and get the book as a present for that special middle manager or senior executive in your life.  Because innovation is no longer a nice to have.  To compete in the emerging economy, you must become a Relentless Innovator.  Why?There are several reasons that are examined in the book, but the simple answer is that there are three compounding factors, all interrelated:Increased global competition and easy access to markets.  Any firm, anywhere in the world can compete with you, due to rising technological competence, trading networks and lower trade barriers.  You don't need to worry just about your local competitors, but also regional, national and global competitors.  As global trade barriers fall and economies become more integrated, competition will only increase.The costs and barriers to enter virtually any market are falling, thanks in part to the Internet, which becomes a global sales channel, and the fact that we are acquiring more content, information and services rather than physical goods.  More money is available in developing countries to start new businesses, so watch for more new entrants attacking existing wealthy markets.These two factors mean that the pace of change is increasing dramatically, customer demands and expectations for new products and services is exceptionally high and product life cycles are shrinking.  If your innovation and new product development capacities are more lethargic or simply less capable than those of your competitors, you won't simply fall behind, your firm will simply lose relevance.These factors point to the fact that innovation isn't a nice to have or an occasional initiative in reaction to a new threat in the marketplace.  No, innovation must become a consistent capability and core discipline in order to compete in an exceptionally fast moving and competitive marketplace.  There are companies, such as Google and P&G and 3M and Apple that understand this.  I call these firms the Relentless Innovators.  Your firm must learn what they know and adopt the methods, attitudes and perspectives of these Relentless Innovators if it hopes to stay relevant.  Your firm must become a Relentless Innovator.There are two key factors that stymie innovation.  You know these factors and trust them.  These two factors create value for your business today.  They are called "business as usual" and "middle management".  Business as usual and middle management are the engines of productivity and short term financial profit.  They make sure business operates effectively and efficiently, with little variability and minimum risk or variance.  They enforce the rules and maintain order.  They are responsible for achieving your quarterly numbers and they are responsible for choking all the innovation out of your organization.  In subsequent posts I'll address why both are so important to efficiency and short term financial goals, and why their existing focus is so destructive to innovation.In support of the ideas in the book I have developed a separate book website, and I have also begun to detail the key ideas in the book in a series of short PowerPoints which are shared on Slideshare.  I would encourage you to post your comments about the ideas I'm presenting and the recommendations I make at the book website or here on the blog posts about Relentless Innovation.  There is also a Facebook page about Relentless Innovation, and if the discussion warrants we can create a discussion group.Whether you buy the book or not (I hope you will!) I encourage you to ask key questions about how your firm operates, and how it SHOULD operate.  Is there a powerful "business as usual" mentality?  Does that business as usual mentality stifle innovation?  Is innovation important to not just the success but the very survival of your business?  Who besides middle management supports and enables business as usual?  How do you begin to shift business as usual and incorporate innovation?  Can you create an "innovation business as usual?"  These questions are answered in the book, and I hope to have an online dialog/discussion with anyone who is interested in discussing the importance of consistent, sustained innovation.Of course we'll be happy to help you think about the factors that must change in order to become a Relentless Innovator.  Changes to important attributes like the formal and informal rules that govern "business as usual" won't come easy, and helping middle managers rethink and rework their training, their focus and their compensation in order to achieve more innovation is time consuming but paramount.  There is no "right time" for innovation, and the work isn't simple, but may propel your firm into a completely different competitive capability that sustains it far after many firms that can't innovate fall away.
  • Bridging the gap between ideas and products 12 December, 2011, 6:12 am
    It's time to assess where things stand from an innovation perspective.  Clearly it won't be news to alert you to the fact that the vast majority of CEOs report that innovation is very important for the success of their businesses.  Increasing competition, from a wide range of countries and geographies, increasing customer expectations, rapidly shifting business models, new entrants and a host of other governmental, financial and demographic shifts mean that innovation is no longer a "nice to have" but a must-have for ongoing success.  Firms that have spent the last two decades right-sizing, outsourcing, cutting costs, getting "lean", implementing Six Sigma and a host of other management tools are rapidly realizing that you simply can't cut your way to growth and differentiation.The economic conditions in the global market suggest that smart firms will hunker down, save their ammunition in order to fight another day once consumer demand returns.  This approach seems reasonable from behind the confines of the ivory towers built in many large, complacent organizations.  Meanwhile,  emerging new entrants are developing interesting, valuable products and services and learning to compete in this environment while established players simply hunker down.  Right now, as the first "green shoots" of economic growth are becoming visible, is the time to develop the skills and capabilities to improve innovation processes and disciplines within your firm and build innovation networks to spot and adopt great ideas that exist outside your firm.  The real question becomes - what are the critical skills necessary to thrive in an environment where innovation becomes a critical success factor.In many organizations, good ideas are a dime a dozen.  In fact one could argue that there are too many ideas about too many different priorities.  Executives must do a better job of defining important corporate goals that innovation should support.  Once fewer but better ideas are generated, the real work begins:  spotting ideas that have the best chance to become disruptive products and services and moving those ideas through the decision points and approvals to become a new product or service.  This is the key innovation problem that all firms face.  There is a yawning gap between idea generation and product commercialization.This problem can be addressed in one of two methods.  First, we can train innovation experts who understand innovation challenges and goals, and are very experienced in every phase of an innovation effort.  These individuals will work above the existing business as usual processes and will have the opportunity to supersede existing products, services and processes.  The challenge with this approach is that very few people possess the knowledge, skills, breath of insight, thick skin and simple desire to help ideas accelerate through the barriers that they must clear to become new products or services.  In this model, the necessary skills to succeed include excellent vision, the ability to spot promising ideas, the strength to champion an idea over a long period of time against significant odds and the ability to attract funding to the ideas they favor.  Few people possess all of these skills and can survive and thrive in existing corporate environments.The other model is to develop an innovation process which defines how ideas should be recognized, developed, evaluated and converted into products and services.  These roles are filled by many people throughout the organization rather than one "champion" trying to do all of the work.  This innovation process ensures that more people are involved which brings more skills and insights into the process.  The process should be funded on an annual basis, so searching for funds should be less of an issue than in the "champion" model.  Since the process is dominant, rather than the ideas or champions, there's less chance of exhaustion or frustration of any one individual.  In this model it is important that a broad range of people gain skills in each of the critical steps and phases of the innovation process.  In this regard many people can fill the roles necessary to improve ideas and move them through the innovation process.So, if you choose to follow the "champion" model, you should be recruiting a few people with a very broad range of skills who can spot great ideas, develop the funding and approval models and move them rapidly to new products.  You'll need to constantly recruit these people, as they will burn out rather rapidly and will be hard to find and hard to replace.  Most of the innovation effort will be centered on these individuals.  They will be unlike your typical recruits.If you choose to create a systematic model for innovation, then the skills you need have far more to do with defining and improving innovation processes.  There may be a bias to simply apply your deep lean and Six Sigma skills to innovation efforts.  They can help with defining a process and improving the process, but the vision and perspective for innovation is far different.  Ensure you set big goals, including differentiation and organic growth as the targets for your innovation process, otherwise a bias toward process perfection may lead to incremental ideas.The first model is about finding a few PEOPLE in whom your innovation potential rests.  The second model is about defining an innovation PROCESS, which is less reliant on any small group of people.  In the end it really doesn't matter which model you choose.  The real choice is in whether or not to consider innovation as a key capability or discipline.  That choice, and the investments to bring the choice to reality, are what will matter. 
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33

Endless Innovation

  • Are Newspapers Civic Institutions or Algorithms? 16 January, 2012, 10:58 am
    The current state of the newspaper industry is unsettled at best: more than two hundred newspapers have either folded or stopped publishing their print editions since 2007. Even the most acclaimed newspapers in the country are downsizing their newsrooms or suspending home delivery of physical ...Read More
  • Time to Kickstart(er) the Consumer Electronics Biz 12 January, 2012, 9:48 pm
    The big news coming out of the CES show in Las Vegas this week was the lack of big news coming out of the CES show in Las Vegas this week. The biggest news, quite possibly, was the Booth Babes Controversy. Despite thousands of new product launches, more than 3,000 exhibitors and more than 150,000 ...Read More
  • Has Pinterest Pinned Down the Future of the Web? 10 January, 2012, 8:11 pm
    After being created as a text-only destination nearly twenty years ago, the Web has increasingly become a visual destination, where images, photos and videos have replaced text as the new lingua franca of online influencers. In the evolutionary development from blogs to Facebook to Tumblr and now to ...Read More
  • Information Overload? There Has Always Been Too Much to Know 6 January, 2012, 9:38 pm
    The backlash against the information overload of the modern Internet era is getting stronger than ever. After years of sharing everything with everyone and breathlessly embracing the latest site du jour on the social Web, people are realizing that they can no longer keep up. Signs of this are all ...Read More
  • Mobile Multiplier or Mobile Divider? 4 January, 2012, 7:28 pm
    The rapid proliferation of mobile devices is making it possible for not just communities, but also entire nations, to narrow the digital divide between society's have's and have-not's. Not only are these mobile devices more affordable for lower-income individuals, they also are more accessible ...Read More
  • Will Mobile Devices Kill the Credit Card? 29 December, 2011, 5:12 am
    New innovations in mobile banking are making it possible to transfer the entire payment experience from the plastic credit card to your mobile device. New upstarts with funny names that sound nothing like typical financial names - like Dwolla, Venmo and Square - are going far beyond just enabling ...Read More
  • 3D Forms, Most Beautiful and Most Wonderful 27 December, 2011, 5:06 am
    If there’s one trend that’s poised to take off and enter the mainstream in 2012, it’s 3D printing. Sometimes referred to as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is the process of taking computer-generated designs and building them up in the real world, layer by layer, using materials such as plastic ...Read More
  • The New Attention Economy: Texting During Surgery 22 December, 2011, 7:45 pm
    Texting while driving was only the tip of the iceberg. As smart phones, tablets and other mobile gadgets make it possible to interact with tiny little screens wherever we go, they are also creating endless new ways to distract us from the real business at hand. Often, Facebook is just the more ...Read More
  • For Louis CK, the Future of Content is No Laughing Matter 19 December, 2011, 7:44 pm
    Judging by the tremendous outpouring of support he’s received across the Web over the past week, comedian Louis C.K. may be the future of how stars create, produce and distribute their content on the Internet. In mid-December, Louis C.K. bypassed the cable TV networks and made his one-hour live ...Read More
  • Why Iowa is No Longer Flyover Territory 14 December, 2011, 9:14 pm
    With the 2012 presidential election season officially kicking off in Iowa on January 3, the focus has increasingly been on the state as a leading indicator of Middle America where rural and suburban voters value simplicity and authenticity over whiz-bang political posturing. That was the story that ...Read More
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32

principledinnovation

  • P.I. Podcast: Interview with author Daniel Burrus 7 March, 2011, 3:33 am
    It’s very exciting to be a part of the latest Post2Post Virtual Book Tour, organized by Paul Williams of Idea Sandbox.  I’m particularly happy to be leading off this tour with a podcast interview with Daniel Burrus, author of Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible.  Daniel is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on the impact of new technologies on organizations, so it was a great pleasure to speak with him. In our interview, we talk about what flash foresight is, and why it is important to organizational leaders, as well as a couple of the seven key principles Daniel explores in detail in the book.  We also discuss some of the specific challenges facing associations, including the impact of mobile and the future of events.  It was a great conversation and, in the end, I certainly agree with Daniel’s sense of excitement and possibility for the future of the 21st century association, but not for associations that remain entrenched in 20th century thinking. I highly recommend you pick up your copy of Flash Foresight as soon as possible.  And when you do, be sure to visit the book’s website to find out how you can receive bonus resources valued at over $20,000!  In the meantime, here is the blogger lineup for the rest of this week’s Flash Foresight Post2Post Virtual Book Tour, including links to Twitter: Tuesday, March 8:  The Fresh Peel (Chris Wilson) Wednesday, March 9:  Brand Mix (Martin Bishop) Thursday, March 10:  Make It Great (Phil Gerbyshak) Friday, March 11:  Rajesh Setty Blog (Rajesh Setty) This podcast (23 MB download) is approximately 25 minutes in length.  Please e-mail me if you have any comments, questions and suggestions for future guests.  Please don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, and be sure to join the Principled Innovation Facebook fan page. Download audio file (burrus.mp3)
  • Getting ready for Great Ideas ‘11 6 March, 2011, 1:56 pm
    Another Great Ideas Conference is almost here, and I wanted to post a couple of time sensitive announcements for those of you who are going to be at the conference. +On Monday, March 14, I am leading a four-hour Business Model Innovation Workshop beginning at 1:30 pm in the Robert Trent Jones Room in the Spa & Golf Building.  If you’re planning to attend the workshop, please e-mail me ASAP so I can send you information on how to prepare for the session.  This preparation is really important, so please do not delay in reaching out. +On Tuesday, March 15, I will facilitate an informal group discussion of the new book, The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business by Umair Haque on Tuesday, March 15, beginning at 2 p.m. in Colorado Hall Room E.  I recently posted a podcast interview with Umair on this blog, and I have been blogging about the book on ASAE’s Acronym Blog.  Below are links to the first three Acronym posts, and the last post will be up on Tuesday. Disruptor or disrupted? Hunter or captain of an ark? Constructive advantage for associations Everyone is welcome at the group discussion, regardless of whether you’ve read the book.  We will use Umair’s thinking as a lens for viewing the challenges and opportunities facing associations over the next decade and beyond. Finally, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to listen my podcast interview with Matthew May, the Great Ideas conference opening keynote speaker.  Whether you’ll be at the conference in person, or monitoring the happenings from wherever you are, I think you’ll enjoy my conversation with Matt. I’m really looking forward to seeing many long-time friends and colleagues in Colorado Springs.  Travel safely everyone! Please following me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
  • P.I. Podcast: Interview with author Matthew May 2 March, 2011, 6:28 am
    As many of us prepare to head to the Great Ideas Conference in Colorado at the end of next week, I wanted to chat with author Matthew May, the conference’s opening general session speaker and a guest on the P.I. Podcast in July 2009.  I really enjoyed my first conversation with Matt, and I was so grateful when he agreed to take a few minutes to speak with me again. In this new 20-minute podcast, we discuss the state of innovation today, the key themes from Matt’s March 13 talk at Great Ideas, his latest book, The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change and how to shift organizations away from the default setting of “doing more with less.”  If you’re looking for a quick and interesting way to get ready for the Great Ideas Conference, or if you can’t make it to the conference and want to get a flavor for the discussions we’ll be having there, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to listen this interview. If you’re going to be at Great Ideas, please be sure to say hello.  I look forward to seeing you soon! This podcast (22 MB download) is approximately 24 minutes in length.  Please e-mail me if you have any comments, questions and suggestions for future guests.  Please don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, and be sure to join the Principled Innovation Facebook fan page. Download audio file (matthewmay11.mp3)
  • P.I. Podcast: Interview with Umair Haque 7 February, 2011, 3:00 pm
    Quite some time has passed since my last podcast, so I really wanted to start off 2011 with a completely awesome guest.  Fortunately, I was able to make it happen, and it certainly was a great thrill it was for me to interview blogger Umair Haque, author of The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business from Harvard Business Review Press.  BIG WIN! I’ve been wanting to interview Umair for years, but we were unable to connect before now.  For me, the conversation was totally worth the wait, and I hope you’ll agree.  This is one of my long-form podcasts (more than one hour running time), so it will be an investment on your part.  But it’s a rich conversation and I’m confident that if you take the time to listen to it, you’ll take as much away from it as I did. During the podcast, I mention author and blogger Stephen Denning’s review of Umair’s book.  You should read the whole review, of course, but let me share Steve’s “bottom line” with you: Overall, the book is courageous, thought-provoking, profound, incisive, daring, brilliant, trail-blazing, witty and ethical. In accordance with its own principles, it gives us value that matters, value that will last and value that will multiply. For anyone who cares about the future of the human race, a must read. WOW!  That is a remarkable endorsement, and in my view, completely deserved.  The New Capitalist Manifesto is an extraordinary book filled with insight, foresight and powerful original thinking about what is possible (and necessary) if we’re going to build better organizations and a better world. To bring the conversation I began with Umair into our community, I’m very pleased to announce that I’ll be guest blogging about The New Capitalist Manifesto on ASAE’s Acronym blog throughout the month of February.  So go ahead and listen to the podcast today, and look for my first blog post tomorrow! This podcast (61 MB download) is just over 60 minutes in length.  Please e-mail me if you have any comments, questions and suggestions for future guests.  Please don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, and be sure to join the Principled Innovation Facebook fan page. Download audio file (umairhaque.mp3)
  • Innovation for Associations: Part Two 20 January, 2011, 12:00 pm
    This is the second in a series of three posts in which I react to the “Innovation for Associations” white paper from the Wisconsin Society of Association Executives.  Please read this post from Eric Lanke on the Hourglass Blog for more information on our plans for this point-counterpoint series. Here is my first post in the series, and Eric’s response. Today’s post: What factors prevent associations from making innovation an on-going priority? The “Innovation for Associations” white paper proposes four barriers to innovation in associations:  diffuse leadership, low tolerance for risk, unwillingness to commit resources and complex organizational structures.  While these barriers certainly exist to varying degrees in most associations, they are not the real root causes of our community’s continuing struggle with innovation.  Throughout my career working in and with associations, I have observed four other deep-seated obstacles that have rendered the phrase, “association innovation,” something of a contradiction in terms. Sameness–Sameness is the defining characteristic of the association experience.  Associations bring together people who are alike in more ways than they are different:  same fields, same jobs and, thus, similar ways of seeing and thinking about the world.  Sameness also shapes the typical association value creation process itself:  everyone must be treated the same, receive the same benefits and participate in the same activities.  Unfortunately, this homogeneous way of being engenders an inherent resistance to radical and disruptive thinking that is very hard to overcome.  Innovation thrives in vibrantly imaginative environments filled with diverse experiences, divergent points of view and the creative friction they inspire.  The native sameness of associations makes it hard to spark these conditions in the first place, and difficult to sustain over time. Politics trumps everything--Politics exists in all organizations, and certainly can be an obstacle to innovation in any setting.  But it is the unique role politics plays in both the selection and decision-making of voluntary association leaders that creates special problems for making innovation a priority.  In far too many associations, political considerations trump all other factors, including individual capability, in determining who will occupy critical leadership roles.  The rise to office of politically-popular leaders, often as a result of contested elections, is rarely good news for the pursuit of innovation.  Senior voluntary leaders have no real incentive to jeopardize their standing within a status quo they helped to create and over which they now preside by embracing so-called “risky” ideas.  Leaders elsewhere in association hierarchies take their cues from the top and tend to favor more conservative courses of action to ensure their future political viability. Markets vs. membership–For better and for worse, for-profit companies live in the world of turbulent markets and, as a consequence, use continuous innovation as a strategy for anticipating and serving rapidly shifting customer needs.  In contrast, associations exist in the more proscribed world of membership and, as a consequence, try to meet the needs of vastly smaller self-selected groups of stakeholders with similar (see above) and often more conventional attitudes and preferences.  For most associations, member loyalty, rather than sustained new value creation through innovation, has been the historic driver of both strategic and financial success.  Over the last 10 years, however, the end of any credible belief in unquestioned member loyalty–a belief that blinded both leaders and organizations across our community for a very long time–has left associations with no alternative but to consider how to deal with unfavorable market realities from which they were previously insulated. Plans matter more than possibilities–Contrary to our community’s conventional wisdom, strategic planning has done more to squander association potential than it has to harness it.  Indeed if the Task Force is correct, and a low tolerance for risk and an unwillingness to commit resources are two major barriers to innovation in associations, much of the blame goes to our continued use of strategic planning as a tool for “creating the future.”  Through an endless series of strategic planning processes, association leaders have learned to value the plan above all else.  Planning is about creating certainty by requiring all answers upfront and eliminating all risk.  Innovation leverages risk to create new value.  Planning is about prioritizing the operational needs of the organization ahead of the profound challenges facing association stakeholders.  Innovation builds on empathy and learning to create new value.  Planning concentrates organizational efforts on achieving the feasible.  Innovation expands organizational capacity to embrace the possible.  So, exactly what kind of future are associations trying to create for themselves and their stakeholders? In my final post next week, I will address how associations can embrace innovation more easily and turn it into a genuine strategic priority. What do you think?  Why isn’t (or why is) innovation a priority in your association?  Please join this important conversation by sharing your thoughts below.  Back to you Eric! My final post:  How can associations embrace innovation more easily? Join me in February for “From Tradition to Transformation: Building the 21st Century Association to Thrive,” a three-part Power Learning Series presented by Peach New Media. Please follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
  • Innovation for Associations: Part One 12 January, 2011, 6:45 am
    This is the first in a series of three posts in which I react to the “Innovation for Associations” white paper from the Wisconsin Society of Association Executives.  Please read this post from Eric Lanke on the Hourglass Blog for more information on our plans for this point-counterpoint series. As we begin this series, I would like to thank Eric Lanke, chair of the WSAE Innovation Task Force, and all of the Task Force members for their excellent work in creating this white paper for the benefit of the entire association community.  It is a terrific conversation starter that leaves plenty of room to explore divergent perspectives on the critical issues of association innovation, and I’m really pleased to be able to make a contribution to the dialogue.  Please make your contribution by sharing your thoughts in the comments below. In this initial post, we will consider the following question: Why is innovation critical to the future of associations? It comes as something of a surprise that the white paper is silent on this specific question, given the lack of consensus in the association community about the need for innovation.  The white paper states as its goal the desire “to define an evidence-based model of innovation for association community,” but does not make clear why such a model is necessary.  It also offers a fairly generic definition of innovation–a process that effectively generates and applies creative ideas to the achievement of defined objectives–that does not explain why associations need to make innovation central to their work over the next ten years and beyond.  Perhaps the Task Force did not want to advocate too strongly on behalf of innovation, or perhaps it felt the rationale for the pursuit of innovation is self-evident.  Either way, I believe it is a missed opportunity to help “make the case” for innovation with associations that still do not fully grasp the strategic and operational significance of this conversation to their future success. According to the late Peter Drucker, innovation is “change that creates a new dimension of performance.”  It is an amazingly simple and insightful definition, yet it is incomplete because it does not recognize the core argument for innovation in any context:  new value creation for stakeholders.  The association blogosphere’s vibrant discussion on the value of membership has revealed the steep price associations are paying today for the failure to innovate over the last ten years.  And in the turbulent decade ahead, associations face unprecedented and serious challenges that will not be solved through conventional approaches.  What will we do when “what we’ve always done” not only doesn’t work, but makes things worse? As the white paper suggests, the sustainable pursuit of innovation is as much a matter of organizational culture as it is of capabilities and resources.  But associations cannot wait for the hard work of changing stubbornly traditional cultures to take hold before embracing the pursuit of innovation.  The idea of building an “evidence-based model of innovation” for our community is intuitively appealing and a worthy long-term goal.  What associations need right now, however, is a genuine commitment to an accelerated and intensive process of continuous experimentation, shaped by empathic understanding, driven by meaningful co-creation with stakeholders and constantly attentive to the power of serendipity.  In Part Two of this series, I will explore some of the reasons why making this kind of deep commitment is so difficult for associations. The next post: What factors prevent associations from making innovation an on-going priority?   Join me in February for “From Tradition to Transformation: Building the 21st Century Association to Thrive,” a three-part Power Learning Series presented by Peach New Media. Please follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
  • Paying the price for the failure to innovate 7 January, 2011, 7:39 am
    Several years ago, I attended an innovation master class presented by guru Gary Hamel.  Hamel told us that today’s operational challenges typically begin as strategic challenges 3-5 years before, offering yet another reason for continuous innovation.  After all, why would you allow unsolved problems to damage your core business if you have an opportunity to address them before they become critical?  The recent blogosphere conversation on the value of association membership, inspired by association professional Joe Flowers, is further proof of Hamel’s point and, unfortunately, clear evidence that associations are now paying a price for the failure to innovate more aggressively. For as long as I have been a part of this community, association leaders have been wringing their hands about the necessity of innovation, and they have made every conceivable excuse for why it cannot be done.  It’s too risky, it’s too expensive, it’s too difficult they say.  But over the last ten days or so, the conversation about association membership has revealed how much riskier, more expensive and more difficult the consensus choice to preserve the status quo has become.  Membership has been, and continues to be, the core business of associations, and it is in peril.  This danger is created not simply because of a more social web, but a more open and social world.  Many of the technologies that amplify connection, cooperation and collaboration online have enter the consciousness of our community over the last 3-5 years, but most have been around in different forms for an even longer time.  Over much of this same period, we dismissed the impact of these tools on our work, inexplicably assuming that what we do is so unique and special it is immune to the powerful forces reshaping the rest of society.  As we have learned, it isn’t. So what do we do now?  Instead of the reflexive recriminations this conversation has surfaced, what we need is empathic understanding.  As I read through Joe’s original post, the comments and what others have written in the days since, it occurred to me that no one asked him a pretty fundamental question: If the value you received for your $100 dues payment was insufficient, what kind of value would you pay for?  What really matters to you? I e-mailed this question to Joe yesterday and he graciously took the time to respond.  I’ll let him decide if he wants to post the specific thoughts he shared with me, but what I took away from Joe’s response was a deep desire for a vibrant professional learning experience grounded in meaningful peer and mentor relationships, something he ultimately discovered by associating with colleagues in online social spaces rather than through his professional association.  This is an important empathic insight that associations can use to rethink the value and business model of the traditional membership offer.  For every Joe out there with the willingness to express dissatisfaction in a public forum, I believe there are many others who feel the same way, but never say anything about it.  We need to access these hidden perspectives to build a more intimate understanding of the kinds of relationships our stakeholders would like to have with us. This is the time for deep experimentation in every phase of association work.  It’s actually something we should have done years ago, as Gary Hamel suggests, but now that we have arrived at a true inflection point, we can no longer ignore the absolute necessity of undertaking a serious innovation effort that will help our organizations thrive in the years ahead.  Thanks Joe for reminding us why innovation is so important to our future success! Join me in February for “From Tradition to Transformation: Building the 21st Century Association to Thrive,” a three-part Power Learning Series presented by Peach New Media. Please follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
  • What is it going to take to thrive? 19 December, 2010, 6:58 pm
    It’s an important question for associations, and one I’ll be asking often, as well as trying to answer, in 2011.  To help get this critical conversation started, I’m extremely pleased to be collaborating with my friends at Peach New Media on an exciting three-part “Power Learning Series” in February 2011. The series is called “From Tradition to Transformation: Building 21st Century Associations to Thrive,” and it will be a high impact learning opportunity for all association leaders.  Instead of the traditional webinar format, we’re using flip thinking to create a deeper, richer and more meaningful experience that will help you build the right capabilities to lead your association into the next decade of the 21st century. You can find more information on the Power Learning Series by visiting the registration page.  I hope you will consider joining me in February! Please follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
  • Check out my CSAE cover story 16 November, 2010, 12:30 pm
    This afternoon’s trip to the mailbox held a very exciting surprise for me.  My article, “The New Work of Governing:  Leading 21st Century Associations into the Social Future,” is the cover story in the October/November issue of Association Magazine, the publication of the Canadian Society of Association Executives (CSAE).  I knew the article would appear in this issue, but I didn’t know it would be the cover story until today.  Way cool! My friends at CSAE have kindly provided me with a PDF of the article that you can download.  Please share your thoughts below.  What’s also cool is that my original text is translated into French, so if any of you read French, please share your reactions to that version as well.  Looking forward to your comments! Please follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
  • Mobile apps ARE NOT a waste of time for associations 11 November, 2010, 5:00 pm
    Earlier today, my friend and colleague Lindy Dreyer argued in a blog post that mobile apps are a waste of time for associations.  It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to P.I. readers that I see it differently.  Below is the comment I posted in response: Provocative post Lindy, but I completely disagree with your take. Mobile app development is not at all a waste of time for associations. On the contrary, I think it is a critical element of 21st century association strategic thinking and business model innovation. Let me briefly respond to each of your points above: 1. This summer, the Apple App Store reached 5 billion downloads and the current count of app downloads from the Android Market is more than 2 billion. So I guess I don’t see any actual evidence of barriers to use. 2. There is a long tail marketplace for mobile apps, and associations don’t really need to be concerned about competing with “lifestyle” or gaming app developers who want to be at the head of the tail. The goal of mobile app development for associations is to create a meaningful mobile presence that delivers unique and enduring value to its stakeholders. Association apps will always be niche offerings, and that’s not a problem as long as they are well done, useful and serve a strategic purpose. 3. We cannot say with any degree of certainty that association members aren’t using apps, but we can say that there have been fewer smart phones in use than feature phones. According to comScore, as of this summer, more than 50 million smart phones were in use in the United States, and while feature phone use is on the decline, smart phone use is growing dramatically. As the number of smart phones in the marketplace increases over the next few years, I would expect to see significant increases in app use (see below), which makes this exactly the right time for associations to create apps that serve their stakeholders. In addition, while texting is a convenient and very popular communications tool, it does not offer a rich experience to users. It is the pure mobile equivalent of e-mail and listservers. It’s ubiquitous because it is simple, but it is clearly insufficient for building deeper relationships. 4. It is premature to declare that native mobile apps will be in decline in the next few years. This summer, Juniper Research reported that mobile downloads should reach 25 billion per year by 2015. The arrival of app-based tablets in the marketplace is likely to spur new growth in apps as well, and thus new opportunities for associations. Web app development with HTML5 is definitely a promising direction to explore, but the experience with apps developed in this way is not as seamless and rich as native apps. The technology will improve in the years ahead, but during that time, the native app marketplace will continue to grow. 5. We agree that associations should do a complete exploration of the mobile space to determine the best opportunities for meaningful value creation. I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of gaining more information on their members mobile behavior and I have created a list of 12 questions that associations can use to get this kind of information. Those questions can be found online at http://bit.ly/12mobilequestions. Until we build our understanding in this area, I don’t believe we should be rejecting mobile app development out of hand. Let me add that we cannot overlook apps for tablets, the growing adoption of iPhones/iPads in the enterprise or the equally impressive growth of mobile outside of North America. All of these trends create new opportunities for associations willing to invest in mobile app development as part of their strategy for value creation. Lindy, I can recall a time no so long ago that we were all looking at data showing the low adoption of social technologies, and yet we were rightly arguing to associations that they should embrace these tools because they were going gain more traction. Given the huge growth and innovation in the mobile space, I believe that associations will benefit by being more proactive now instead of playing it safe, which is the default setting of most organizations in our community. We need to encourage more disruptive innovation in associations, not less of it, and I am convinced that mobile app development is a important part of building a future in which associating is mobile. What do you think?  Please share your thoughts as comments below. Please follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pinnovation.
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  • Social entrepreneurship tackles mental health equity head on 27 January, 2012, 6:47 am
    As a clinical psychologist trying to support sex trade-involved homeless youth, Dr. Sean Kidd found that encouraging them to participate in artistic initiatives brought far more success than the ‘best practices’ he was trained in. While traditional evidence-based methods were still used, getting the kids to develop and act in skits together led to a far greater level of engagement than the organization he worked for had ever achieved in 25 years, as they developed the relationships and trust that helped them discuss their problems with others. This insight came back to him five years later, in 2009, when he started reading about social entrepreneurship and the Ashoka framework of identifying effective approaches to addressing pressing social problems. With his interest suitably piqued, he began thinking about applying the social enterprise framework to the problem of mental health equity. It struck him that while there are a number of wonderful organizations doing great work in mental health, it’s difficult to find them and identify the factors that enable them to succeed. So he turned to the Ashoka model, using search criteria and social networks to find innovators and learn from them. The idea flips the traditional learning model on its head – rather than have clinicians and academics identify approaches based on theory, one must go to the communities and learn from practitioners. This bottom-up approach also provides access to a number of diverse perspectives and helps people understand the specific methods that work for marginalized communities. Anyone who’s interested in social innovation will immediately recognize the value of this approach. The area of mental health inequities is influenced by a number of social determinants. As such, there is benefit to be had in using the insights of the complexity theory, one of which holds that formulas have limited applicability in complex systems. To figure out ‘what works’ in the context of mental health, therefore, Dr. Kidd’s approach described above is more robust than the traditional means of using slide decks and training sessions. In 2010, Dr. Kidd and his colleague, Dr. Kwame McKenzie (both at CAMH and the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry), established a research project called Social Entrepreneurism in Mental Health to identify service providers in Toronto that are using social entrepreneurship models to drive innovation and transformation in addressing mental health disparities. Using a case study process, the team of researchers selected five successful service providers and identified the five components that contributed to their effectiveness: The right group of people working to address the right problem, brought together by an initial, all-important catalyst A clearly articulated mission, careful needs assessment, finding partners and establishing a structure Adopting unique approaches on multiple levels Staying focused, remaining current and consistently exceeding expectations Acting as vital communities unto themselves, not just service providers for communities This year, the organizers decided to launch a competition to identify social purpose enterprises that foster mental health equity and social inclusion. The goal was, as before, to increase the awareness of innovative models and conduct systematic research so that the team could understand, share, package and propagate effective models. A senior selection committee chose three winners and four runners-up. The winners, examined for impact, potential for growth and innovation, were announced at a ceremony on January 18, 2012: First: Good Foot Delivery, a personalized, environmentally-friendly courier service that employs people with developmental disabilities such as Asperger’s syndrome and autism. Second: Clean Works, which provides competitive community-based cleaning opportunities to individuals living with severe and persistent mental illness. Third: Rise Asset Development, which provides microfinance and mentorship to entrepreneurs who have mental health and/or addiction challenges. (Read more about Rise Asset Development.) The other shortlisted enterprises were: FABARNAK Restaurant and Catering Gateway Linens Out of This World Cafe and Espresso Bar Parkdale Green Thumb Enterprises According to Melissa McNeil, the Executive Director of Good Foot, this recognition means a lot to their fledgling organization. “Since we’re so new, we see this as a vote of confidence – it acknowledges that we’re helping people and creating jobs. It puts us on the map.” SiG@MaRS played a strong role in supporting the tremendous success of this initiative (it was standing-room only), both as a mentor for the organizers, and in providing advisory support to two of the three competition winners: Good Foot and Rise Asset Development. “Allyson [Hewitt] really helped us understand what a social enterprise is, and what this field is about from the bigger picture,” said Dr. Kidd. “She also helped make crucial connections with people in the space.” The Social Entrepreneurism in Mental Health project serves as a wonderful testament to the application of social innovation to real-world problems, and effectively applies the framework of social entrepreneurship to health care. As the enterprises flourish, they will foster social inclusion and address disparities in mental health. The research, in turn, will enable caregivers and service providers to deliver better services to marginalized communities.
  • Infographic: The video game industry in Canada 26 January, 2012, 6:06 am
    In an earlier blog post, I explored Canada’s thriving video game industry and the rise of mobile and social gaming. MaRS Client HugeMonster, for instance, is working to capitalize on the popularity of social gaming with interactive and inherently addictive games. Its first release is Facebook game, “Code of War,” which has attracted 50,000 players since it launched in 2010. The following infographic from Techvibes highlights the industry’s rapid growth in Canada. If you’re contemplating pursuing your childhood dreams of making video games, now’s the time – game on! Source: Techvibes  
  • Who says understanding the smart grid is hard? 25 January, 2012, 6:24 am
    When it comes to understanding the smart grid, there’s nothing like simplicity, so let me start by asking you a “very simple” question: Can you think of a solution that provides an alternative to aging infrastructure and the huge investments it requires, something that reduces carbon emissions, deals with forecasted increases in energy demands, while at the same time, supports the integration of distributed and intermittent sources of alternative energy? Okay, you got me. Truth is, the challenges faced by the electricity sector are extremely complex, but before you lose hope, let me tell you about a growing industry that believes it has the answer to this question: the smart grid. Why is this important? For Canada, the investment requirements between 2010 and 2030 will amount to $293.8 billion in electricity infrastructure! According to a report prepared by the Edison Foundation, by 2030 the electric utility industry in the US will need to make a total infrastructure investment of $1.5 trillion to $2.0 trillion. The conference board of Canada reports that in this country, the investment requirements between 2010 and 2030 will amount to $293.8 billion in electricity infrastructure. Yes, that’s right! As the population keeps increasing and we keep adding more and more appliances to our homes (not to mention the requirements of large businesses), the electricity sector must ensure that our needs for reliable, inexpensive, clean and plentiful electricity are satisfied. So how can the smart grid help? At the end of the day, it represents an investment itself.  To succeed, the smart grid will need to demonstrate that its solutions—whether on the generation, transmission, distribution or consumer levels—are an effective substitute for the huge investments that we discussed above. To understand the various proposed smart grid solutions for each of the electricity levels and demonstrate some of the innovations developed by our very own MaRS clients, I invite you to take a look at the interactive infographic that we have created. But that’s not all. For entrepreneurs who would like to learn more about the “who’s who” in the smart grid and the opportunities that exist in the generation and distribution levels, we’ve also prepared a white paper titled “Ontario Utilities and the Smart Grid: Is there room for innovation?” The paper summarizes where the utilities’ smart grid policies and technologies now stand and where they are heading. It highlights the global frontrunners in the race toward the smart grid, and outlines how industry stakeholders (regulators, policy-makers, utilities, vendors, academics and customers) can assess which utilities and technologies are considered the “smartest.” The role of the Ontario regulator is discussed in view of smart grid implementation, as are the policy-setting objectives and challenges it currently faces. In case you missed the opportunity to register and attend today’s event, Ontario Smart Grid Opportunities in the Electrical Utility Sector, be sure to check our website over the next few days for a summary of the event’s proceedings, including videos and presentations. You’ll learn from Canadian and American experts about global opportunities, key technologies, best practices and policy mechanisms. Finally, as promised, a simple explanation of the smart grid, courtesy of cartoonist Andy Lubershane. Now you don’t have any excuses for not getting involved in—or at least being aware of—the smart grid movement.
  • Today, impact investing goes mainstream in Canada 24 January, 2012, 7:29 am
    Mark January 24, 2012 in your calendar as the date when impact investing went mainstream in Canada. Today RBC, the largest of Canada’s Big Five (banks), has joined the growing ranks of major global institutions like Deutsche Bank, and national leaders like Vancity and le Chantier de l’économie sociale in demonstrating real leadership in impact investing. The bank has just announced a $20 million commitment in an impact investing strategy that will include the creation of a new $10 million RBC Impact Fund and the allocation of $10 million from RBC Foundation’s assets into socially responsible investment (SRI) funds. It is the first initiative of its kind announced by a major financial institution in Canada. When combined with the tremendous contributions of talent and financial resources from the TMX Group Inc., we have now fully engaged Canada’s largest financial institution and Canada’s largest exchange group to help drive the growth of impact investing in Canada. What does this mean? 1. There has been a seismic shift of interest in impact investing in Canada. Even two years ago, the work of impact investing or social finance in Canada was limited to trailblazers in the wilderness trying to do good work while convincing others of the potential of this approach. After years of effort from a dedicated team at RBC, and many more years of field-building by the team at Social Innovation Generation (SiG), SiG@MaRS, the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance, the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing and others, we have taken impact investing from an interesting cocktail conversation to the top of the business agenda in the main boardroom of RBC Centre. This move reflects a significant seismic shift, with major players clearly speaking the language of this emerging sector. Today, Gordon Nixon, President and CEO of RBC, made the announcement: “We have been waiting for the right moment to launch a program of this nature, and the moment is now. We are confident that our initial investment of $10 million in the RBC Impact Fund will not only spark entrepreneurship and innovation in Canada, but also catalyze similar investments from others in the business community. We are also proud to put our money where our values are by investing an additional $10 million of our own funds through the RBC Foundation in socially and environmentally screened funds.” Gordon Nixon has just taken Gordon Gekko out to the woodshed. We expect the tremor of the announcement to be felt all along Wellington, King and Bay Streets in Toronto. Look for others to follow suit in the months and year ahead. 2. There is an increase in the number of real investment dollars dedicated toward local, impact ventures in Canada. Today’s $20 million investment gets 2012 off to a great start. Local entrepreneurs should be very excited about a new source of impact capital. We are now seeing real money flow into impact investing in Canada. In 2011, $284 million in debt and equity financing was raised for impact investing. Today’s $20 million investment gets 2012 off to a great start. Local entrepreneurs should be very excited about a new source of impact capital. The fund will finance impact ventures, including those that promote environmental sustainability, advance water resource management or provide opportunities for youth and newcomers to Canada. 3. Canada is getting ready for its leapfrog moment. Antony Bugg-Levine, CEO of the US-based Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), and Jonathan Jenkins, CEO of the UK-based The Social Investment Business, have both spoken about Canada’s potential to leapfrog other countries in impact investing with a concerted effort. We can be global leaders in the movement to mobilize private capital towards solving our most pressing social and environmental problems. Canada has seen leadership from the community sector, and through major foundations and respected institutions. Today, RBC is leading the way for mainstream finance to participate. Over the coming months, we will look to various levels of government and other corporate leaders to help lead this agenda. It is going to be a big year. Kudos to RBC for their commitment to driving change.
  • Sword or shield – Which will you use to protect your fortress? 23 January, 2012, 9:22 am
    Intellectual property is a fortress for protecting your assets; you can guard these assets by attacking (sword) and defending against (shield) your competitors. At last week’s Entrepreneurship 101 lecture,  Arshia Tabrizi, Founding and Managing Partner of Tabrizi Law Office PC, introduced the basics of identifying and managing intellectual property. Different types of IP exist for different purposes, depending on what type of idea you have: patent protection, trademark protection, copyright protection and confidential information. This article will give you an idea of the different types of IP that exist and whether you are pursuing the right one: Protecting your idea from others. Now that you know a little more about what types of IP are out there, why should you care? Because IP is a money making tool. Plain and simple. For more on how intellectual property ties into your Business Model, watch this Quick Hits video: To watch the entire lecture, click here. Resources: Speaker slides:Intellectual Property for Technology Startups Video: Patenting your Technology: Six Hot Tips for Startups Article: Searching for prior art Workbook: Identifying your intellectual property Course schedule Join the LinkedIn Group Get updates on Vimeo Watch our live webcasts here. Next week’s lecture: Financial Planning
  • What’s in the herring in Sweden? 20 January, 2012, 6:30 am
    In the early 1970s an upstart social marketing campaign challenged Canadians to become more physically active by comparing our average fitness level to that of a 65-year-old Swede. Since then, over 200 elite Swedish hockey players have joined NHL teams and, in 2011, their juniors captured the world championship. Join us at Innovative Sweden, a three-week celebration of innovation starting on Monday, January 23 at MaRS. What began decades ago as a wake-up call to Canadian couch potatoes has morphed into a much broader look at what Sweden is doing right in a lot of areas – not just sports. How does a country with less than 10 million people found the prestigious Nobel prize, produce global brands like IKEA, Getinge, AstraZeneca, Volvo, Ericsson and ABB, and consistently rank as one of the world’s most technologically savvy nations? In the 1990s the Swedish economy was deeply distressed, with high unemployment and widespread business failures. The ensuing decade was characterized by painful restructuring, the transformation of public finance and skillful management of the social safety net. Investments were made in education, labour force skills, research and development, and IT infrastructure. As a nation, Sweden committed to matching its investments abroad with inbound foreign direct investment, achieving near parity in these areas by 2003. Sweden and Canada have much in common—both countries have relatively small populations, advanced economies and an expanding relationship in technology innovation. However, by international standards, Sweden has the highest share of workers in the knowledge-intensive job sector, ranks third on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, and is the 10th most innovative country globally. By comparison, Canada ranks eighth in knowledge economy jobs, 12th in competitiveness and 14th in innovation. What we need in Canada, according to the recent Jenkins report (Innovation Canada: A Call to Action), are streamlined commercialization pathways and a single-minded national focus on the growth of innovative SMEs. Sweden’s prosperity arc is not a simple story. Its reputation for transforming knowledge into marketable products has been won through a mix of public intervention, sustained investments in science, rapid technology adoption by consumers and diversified businesses with global ambitions. There are insights for Canadians far beyond what Swedish retirees can tell us in the gym. For an insider’s view of technology leadership in both Canada and Sweden, join us at Innovative Sweden, a three-week celebration of innovation starting on Monday, January 23 at MaRS. The event will feature Swedish and Canadian commercialization hubs discussing the best ways to accelerate technology entrepreneurship. Business leaders will share their views on how innovation can address global challenges in health care, energy sustainability and community building. And an exhibit in the MaRS Atrium will showcase groundbreaking products from promising Swedish startups.
  • What’s in the herring in Sweden? 19 January, 2012, 11:30 am
    In the early 1970′s an upstart social marketing campaign challenged Canadians to become more physically active by comparing average fitness levels to that of a 65 year-old Swede. Since then over 200 elite Swedish hockey players have  joined NHL teams and, in 2011, their juniors captured the world championship. What began decades ago as a wake-up call to Canadian couch potatoes has morphed in a much broader look at what Sweden is doing right in a lot of areas – not just sports. How does a country with less than 10 million people found the prestigious Nobel prize, produce global brands like IKEA, Getinge, AstraZeneca, Volvo, Ericsson and ABB and consistently rank as one of the world’s most technology savvy nations? In the 1990′s the Swedish economy was deeply distressed with high unemployment and widespread business failures. The ensuing decade was characterized by painful restructuring and transformation of public expenditures balanced by skillful management of the social safety net. Investments were made in education, labour force skills, research and development and IT infrastructure. As a nation, Sweden committed to matching its investments abroad with inbound foreign direct investment, achieving near parity in these areas by 2003. Today, by international standards, Sweden has the highest share of its workforce in  knowledge intensive jobs, ranks 3rd on the World Economic Forum’s Competitive Index, and is the tenth most innovative country globally. By comparison, Canada ranks 8th in knowledge economy jobs, 12th in competitiveness and 14th in innovation. Sorely needed, according to the recent Jenkins report, are streamlined commercialization pathways and  a single-minded national focus on growing innovative SMEs. Sweden’s prosperity arc is not a simple story. Its reputation for  transforming knowledge into marketable products has come through a mix of public intervention, sustained investments in science, rapid technology adoption by consumers and diversified businesses with global ambitions. There are insights for Canadians in Sweden’s story that go far beyond what their retirees can tell us in the gym.  For an insider’s view of technology leadership, check  out Innovative Sweden,  a three week celebration of innovation at MaRS.[Insert web link to micro site]    
  • Alzheimer’s and aging: A look at the facts and future 19 January, 2012, 5:37 am
    As busy professionals, many of us take on extra roles. For example, we care for our aging parents in addition to juggling careers and young families, a group known collectively as the “sandwich generation.” Over the next couple of decades, the “sandwiches” are going to become increasingly thin. The proportion of older adults in developed countries is steadily increasing; it is estimated that by the year 2026, approximately 20% of North America’s population will be 65 years of age or older. This figure is especially important given the simultaneous drop in the number of people available to support the aging population. The potential support ratio (the number of persons 15-64 years old per one person aged 65+) will fall from the current 9-12 people to four people by 2050. In light of Alzheimer Awareness Month, I wanted to take a look at brain health in relation to the aging population. Brain health is foundational to people’s well-being and their ability to lead independent lives. Brain disorders vary greatly and encompass diseases such as depression, Alzheimer’s or even chronic pain. Most people know someone affected by a condition related to the brain or nervous system, as brain-­related illnesses afflict more than two billion people worldwide (source: The Neurotechnology Industry 2011, NeuroInsights). While increased age is a disproportionate risk factor for a number of major health disorders, the subjective memory complaints of older people do not necessarily correlate with true current or future cognitive abilities. Instead, many older adults’ subjective memory complaints are thought to reflect disorders that are often treatable, such as depression, as well as an individual’s own anxiety and lack of knowledge about the aging process. For older adults, the most important factor influencing the ability to cope effectively with both normal and abnormal memory decline is a sense of control, which, in turn, is significantly influenced by anxiety. There is a global fear of deteriorating brain health; Alzheimer Europe’s July 2011 report shows Alzheimer’s disease as the second most feared disease (after cancer) in four of the five nations studied. Dementia in Canada The incidence rate for dementia is high (in Canada, it affects one in 11 adults aged 65+), and the suffering is long for both the patient and his/her family: 4–8 years on average for the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s, with 40% of those years spent in the most severe stage of the disease. With the economic burden of dementia in Canada estimated at $15 billion/year currently and forecast to grow to more than $153 billion/year by 2038, there is a powerful economic rationale for seeking a cure. Early assessment, along with science-based interventions, promise to play a critical role in reducing the impact of all levels of age-related cognitive impairment. For example, helping individuals affected by early-stage cognitive impairment to remain independent could potentially prolong the period before which they are diagnosed with dementia. And the Alzheimer Society of Canada estimates that delaying the onset of diagnosis by two years would result in potential cost savings of $219 billion over 30 years and a 36% reduction in disease prevalence. Unfortunately, the results of a new survey from the Alzheimer Society show that Canadians are dismissing symptoms of dementia as just “old age,” missing out on valuable early interventions. The silver lining But it’s not all doom and gloom. It turns out, there is a silver lining to getting older: despite high levels of stress, people in their 40s, 50s and early 60s generally have a happier outlook than their younger counterparts, which fuels a positive cycle of brain health. Researchers at the University of Toronto have also recently found the first evidence that lifelong naturally occurring experiences such as speaking a second language contribute to the integrity of white matter, which may provide a neural basis for “brain reserve.” Canadian institutions and aging It seems, then, that nature has given us a miraculous tool: the brain “software” can change the brain’s “hardware.” I wonder if the “hardware” of our institutions can also change in response to our aging society? We spend roughly one-third of our lives at work. Chronic diseases cost more than $50 billion in lost productivity in Canada in a given year, a figure that will continue to grow, unless we take proactive steps to keep our aging population healthy. To highlight the actions being taken to address these issues, the upcoming 2012 Business of Aging Summit will examine them through two lenses: Care—Working longer in good health by preventing and addressing chronic illnesses Career—Navigating career transitions while balancing personal and family circumstances, such as caring for aging family membersCanadian population by age group and sex, medium-growth projections, 2010-2036 (Source: Statistics Canada)  
  • I ain’t afraid of no entrepreneurs 18 January, 2012, 5:37 am
    “Ghostbusters is not a movie about ghosts,” said Eric Ries on a recent visit to The Rotman School of Management in Toronto. “It’s a movie about entrepreneurship.” Ries, famous for his blog StartupLessonsLearned.com and his book The Lean Startup, describes the movie’s pivotal scene. “They’re literally down to their last dollar,” he says, “and then a rich customer comes to the door, just in time.” In real life, though, that customer rarely comes along. Rather, it’s the stuff of entrepreneurship fantasy that Hollywood has created: good ideas always succeed, as long as you wait it out. The Ghostbusters value proposition: “The Ghostbusters are an on-call crisis response team who provide businesses in Manhattan an effective and discreet method of ridding their properties of paranormal activity.” Many Hollywood movies are based on the Horatio Alger myth that through persistence and hard work, you can achieve unlimited success. The reality is sometimes much different. “Why would anyone want to be an entrepreneur?” asks Ries. “Most businesses fail, which is really embarrassing.” The other thing that drives Ries crazy is the montage in the middle of entrepreneur movies, complete with whiteboards, stacks of cash and founders surrounded by pizza boxes. “All the hard stuff happens in the montage,” says Ries. “And they gloss over it. It makes success seem inevitable.” A recent study by the Babson Entrepreneur Experience Lab included surveys of over 250 entrepreneurs and revealed how deeply ingrained the misconceptions of entrepreneurship are. “The dominant entrepreneurship narrative is still the lone individual with the brilliant idea who, against tremendous odds, makes it big; the home-run at the bottom of the ninth,” says the report. “The founder myth focuses on and bestows celebrity status on a relatively small set of highly successful, rich, predominantly male, technology-focused entrepreneurs.” The reality is that an entrepreneur is just a person who is a “creator of new things,” someone you can find working for a large Fortune 500 company or opening a donut shop. Ventures don’t always make money, let alone achieve “home-run” status or create the “next Google.” In fact, entrepreneurs experience a higher rate of failure than people in other types of business, which new entrepreneurs sometimes find shocking. So you’ve been warned: believe the myths of Hollywood at your peril! Some classic movies about entrepreneurs: The Social Network: Makes entrepreneurship seem lonely and sexy at the same time. Risky Business: In this movie, Tom Cruise sees a problem and provides a timely (if not exactly legal) solution. Secret of My Success: All you have to do to take over a company is put on a suit and start working out of an empty executive office on the top floor. Citizen Kane: The classic story of the successful media mogul, Charles Foster Kane (a.k.a. William Randolph Hearst). Jerry McGuire: What would you yell into a phone if it meant you could secure a high-profile client? Have your own favorite entrepreneurship movie? Add it here:    
  • Lean Startup Showcase: Price My Ride 17 January, 2012, 6:12 am
    Steve Blank and Eric Ries, co-founders of the lean startup movement, describe startups as “temporary businesses” because the owners have a relatively short period of time to “build, measure and learn“ in order to champion their startups into successful companies. Basically, the lean startup movement advocates creating iterations of the minimum viable product (MVP) in quick succession, using customer feedback to evolve the product much faster than through more traditional product development practices. In the Information technology, Communications and Entertainment (ICE) practice here at MaRS, we are fortunate to guide startups through this process on a daily basis, helping them save money and time by using this build, measure and learn cycle. A critical process of customer development that is used by “Leanists” and adopted here at MaRS, build, measure and learn is a guide by which startups can first build their minimum viable product, then measure its success through metrics (for example, Dave McClure’s Startup Metrics for Pirates), learn from the implementation and lastly, iterate their next MVP. Showcase Price My Ride is helping auto owners and buyers understand the real cost(s) of buying a new auto or owning their existing one. One startup that embodies this lean startup philosophy is Price My Ride (PMR). Fully bootstrapped, PMR is an early-stage startup founded by the talented Kuhan Puvanesasingham. The company is currently in the process of building a ’magnetic’ platform that helps auto owners and buyers understand the real cost(s) of buying a new auto or owning their existing one. Why is it magnetic? It’s irrepressibly attractive in terms of design and user experience. It combines great functionality and immediately conveys value to the user. It’s capable of creating a powerful stream of demand: passing the ‘wow’ test. We feel that PMR showcases a solid product market fit, and we aren’t the only ones. Check out their recent feature on Techvibes. Interview This is the first installment in a new ICE practice series called Lean Startup Showcase. The series will feature interviews with lean startups, giving you a window into how they describe their companies and iterate through the build, measure and learn process. In an effort not to ‘drink our own Kool-Aid,’ but validate our learning through startups, we’re very pleased to present to you the first Showcase interview featuring PMR founder, Kuhan Puvanesasingham: MaRS: Tell us about Price My Ride. Kuhan: Canadian consumers spend as much as six months shopping for a new or used car. They buy three million new vehicles annually, but many of them agonize over the purchase.** Price My Ride is a platform designed to make this process easier. The idea is simple: know the total cost to purchase and operate a new or used car before you buy and avoid any nasty surprises after the car is in your driveway. The site offers users a simple, personalized way to evaluate virtually any car built since 1996. With just a handful of inputs, PMR will calculate what it costs you to drive the vehicles you’re thinking of buying and the ones already own using data from industry and government sources. MaRS: What are the key activities that makes PMR successful? Kuhan: Our team started through friends and family moonlighting in a former company. One of our founders came from a background in advertising production and readily assembled a team with programming, creative, design, and copy writing capabilities. With the exception of some of the database and data modeling skills required for our backend, we had all the tools to produce PMR entirely in-house. The entire development of the project was mostly funded by service work in web and media production. Lastly, with the long gestation of a project the size of PMR and its uncertain timing (and burn), we explored several other entrepreneurial ideas and continued with service work while building PMR. MaRS: What are some of the challenges you face as a startup? Kuhan: Every stage of PMR’s build, measure and learn cycle is new to us. We have a diverse skillset, but our previous experience and even the experience we gain with other projects are not so transferable. We’ve had to adjust and learn a lot about the auto space. Here are some of the challenges we faced: Creating realistic expectations: Every step of the project we embark on has implicit expectations, and often we find some disappointment or frustration at the outcome, no matter how successful we may be. Maintaining enthusiasm: Keeping momentum despite our many setbacks has been very difficult. Our morale seems to operate in spurts, our deep interest in the project gets challenged often and we don’t know if there is any real cure for this – we’d love to consider team morale in our project plan. Is that even possible? Making the “right” decision is hard: It’s difficult to know who you can trust. An advisor may say one thing, a blog post or case study another. As a founder, it’s really important to trust your gut. We find even hindsight isn’t 20/20. Competing with little in the way of funding: Finally, trying to compete on a shoestring budget is a challenge, but it is possible. MaRS: How have you operated using the lean startup methodology? Kuhan: Our critical mistake in the beginning was that we didn’t follow the lean startup methodology and dove too far and fast into a refined product before release. A shiny, polished product helped wow people during pitches and their enthusiastic reactions reinforced our idea of making a slick product. This was actually before we connected with concepts like MVP, which was an incredibly influential idea that would become critical later. We stepped away from PMR for a while and decided that it needed to be stripped down to something basic. Doing this really helped us define our core offering. The MVP concept proved to be intimately related to our value proposition. We scaled back on features on the site, removed things that were already programmed, and adopted the mentality of TESTING instead of building a polished product in isolation based on our guesses. The idea of scientifically approaching entrepreneurial activities is a difficult process, but it seems to be the right way to go. We had to eliminate the mentality of keeping our ideas tight to our chest, and we had to learn to be open. We stopped treating our meetings as PITCHES, but instead as meetings with potential partners discussing a mutual opportunity. Overall, the biggest advantage of using the lean startup methodology has been that it’s helped us eliminate the guess work from building our product. We take a lot more time testing/listening to our customers in order to make PMR a better service. MaRS Commons Have an idea and want to change the world? We invite you to engage with an Advisor and/or learn more about how we at the MaRS Commons can help. Also, feel free to join us at one of our many events for entrepreneurs. Acknowledgements A major thanks to our MaRS Media team, specifically, Senior Producer, Jeff Beardall, who produced the shots you see in this blog. **Source: Scotiabank economics report, 2009 – The report said the rebound in Canadian household new vehicle purchases will drive overall 2010 car and light truck sales to a record 4.4 million units — 2.9 million used vehicles and 1.57 million new models. The 2012 update for new cars is 1.56 million (Scotia 2012), but the used number isn’t easily found.
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  • Why Creating New Categories is so Successful 27 January, 2012, 12:00 pm
    Creating a new category. The Holy Grail of Innovation. The Holy Grail of entrepreneurs. It’s when you can create a new category that you command the skies. Think of the iPad. Is it a new category? Continue reading →
  • Chief Innovation Officer’s Agenda 27 January, 2012, 9:00 am
    I tend to not like offering up checklists as blog posts, you know those one hundred and one ideas for this or that, although I have to admit I like collecting them as a kick-starting resource. Today I decided to change my mind, Why? The Innovation Champion has many jobs-to-be-done and I felt this would be a useful 'sparking point' to recognize the innovation jobs involved. Continue reading →
  • Exploring the Knowledge Center for Innovation 27 January, 2012, 6:00 am
    A KIN Innovation Communities Case Study The Knowledge Center for Innovation (KCI) is housed at the Technion’s Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management in Israel.  Founded in 2008, KCI aims to accelerate innovation by disseminating information and knowledge, fostering collaboration, and establishing a network of researchers, business people and policy makers. The KCI is part of a broader Israeli Government program supporting the creation of “Infrastructural Knowledge Centers” in a variety of fields, primarily in high tech and medicine.  Knowledge centers serve as a hub for research papers and resources, as well as coordinating activities among participants in different fields.  Unlike other knowledge centers, which tend to focus on high technology industries, KCI focuses on the interface between high-tech and low-tech companies (food, textiles, banking, etc.) that do not invest a lot in R&D. KCI programs today include: Industry-Academia R&D consortia Student projects focused on innovation challenges in industry Educational programs for innovation management Consulting engagements The Managing for Innovation forum where both high-tech and low-tech companies build their skills through expert input and sharing best practices. The “Managing Innovation Forum” (MIF) is a new KCI activity, started in 2010, that is most germane to the focus of the KIN Innovation Communities project in that it is aimed squarely at business leaders learning from each other about improving innovation management.  40-45 companies are involved in MIF, representing both high tech and low tech firms, and both large and small companies.  Some companies are competitors, but, unlike many such networks, MIF does not shy away from that.  KCI leadership wishes to promote the idea that competitors can also be collaborators and strive to create an environment in which that can happen.   As the KCI has evolved, there has been increasing attention to making sure that participants from particular companies or industries do not only talk to each other but also interact with and support colleagues from unfamiliar industries. There are 8-10 MIF meetings per year.  In general, the same people come from the companies, so there is a continuity of interactions.  A typical meeting begins with a lecture by a CEO or industry or academic expert.  Then there is a break for dinner, and afterwards smaller groups engage in a “live case study” of a real company or industry issue, sitting around a table.   One goal of this less formal interaction is to begin building relationships between high-tech and low-tech companies, fostering cross-fertilization of best practices in innovation. One topic for future work may be improving management in general in Israel.  The Israeli ecosystem is well suited for building new businesses—as highlighted in the popular book Start-Up Nation—but not as well for managing large enterprises.  However, this may be changing as international companies locate in Israel and bring in management talent that mix with Israeli managers. Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of case studies on Innovation Communities being created by the Kellogg Innovation Network here at Innovation Excellence. They would sincerely appreciate it if you would contact them if you know about INets that they should consider including in their database. If you’re a leader of an INet, they will invite you to join a gathering of INet leaders that they hope to arrange next year, to review the findings of the study and take this research to the next level: What are lessons to be learned in creating INets and making them successful? It’s kind of the meta-meta level. Innovation results are the base. INets are the first meta level, which is learning about how to manage innovation to produce results. And if we can form a network of INets, that will be about learning about how to produce powerful new learning environments. To participate in KIN’s research, please fill out their data form and they will contact you! image credits: Kellog Innovation Network Don’t miss an article (3,850+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group! Mike Lippitz is a Research Fellow with the Center for Research in Technology and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois, a Senior Policy Analyst with the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, DC., and a Principal at Clareo Partners LLC.  Prior positions include Special Assistant for Strategic Technology Planning in the Office of Director for Defense Research and Engineering, US Department of Defense and product line manager at Hewlett-Packard Company.
  • Plus 2 Visibility – Effective Intrapreneur Habit #5 26 January, 2012, 3:00 pm
    This is the sixth in a series of articles that describe the unique traits of a corporate intrapreneur. The previous habit ( Visibility avoidance – not actively publicizing one’s talents – seems to be incongruent with climbing the corporate ladder. Doesn’t everybody want to be recognized for their great ideas and promoted to higher levels of responsibility? Intrapreneurs, quite simply, need not. Their intrinsic passion for the generation and delivery of ideas is their main reason for coming to work every day. They fill their time with trips to the lab to debug alongside their teammates. They close themselves inside remote conferences rooms and collaborate on whiteboards. They spend hours on their laptops, searching high and low for new sources of learning on the latest technologies. They visit local customers to check on their configurations. They are not motivated by rewards and recognition from others. They are rewarded by the process that they have created for themselves. This sort of self-motivation does not leave a lot of time for the bureaucratic meetings that are so common at large corporations. Intrapreneurs who find themselves lassoed in these types of meetings recognize they are jeopardizing the core value that is the hallmark of any intrapreneur:
  • Edison’s Approach to Goals 26 January, 2012, 1:22 pm
    Accomplishing Your Goals: Insights from Thomas Edison The State of the Union address often serves as my first mile marker for reviewing the goals I set for the coming year. It’s right about now that the shiny New Year’s resolutions we made on January 1st don’t look so compelling. At best, many of us have lost a big dose of the motivation we felt for our goals in the first place. At worst, our resolutions have evaporated into thin air. One reason we lag in our ability to successfully realize our goals is that we often express them in ruggedly numeric terms, like: “Eat only 1200 calories per day,” or “Run three times a week.” By doing this we lop off a big part of the internal mechanism the brain uses to keep us on track: our emotions. Thomas Edison understood this. Best known as a brilliant inventor and innovator who developed technologies that changed the world, he was also a guy who stuck to his goals – despite long odds. Growing up in a lower middle class family didn’t deter Edison from setting goals to become a successful inventor. He wanted to build and run his own laboratory – a place where corporate politics wouldn’t intervene with his futuristic visions. Taunts from the Royal Academy of Science didn’t dissuade Edison from pursuing one of the most technically challenging scientific pursuits of his era: achieving incandescence. After failing in his quest to develop technology for mining and grinding iron ore, Edison instead succeeded in devising the first storage battery made from metals. What Edison realized was that staying positive – and linking your goals to positive emotions – held the key to successful goal achievement. Edison’s Goals Harnessed the Natural Wiring of the Brain In my research on Edison, I identified a unique solution-oriented quality which Edison possessed in spades: aligning goals and passions. By integrating his work with his life purpose, Edison focused on solving juicy problems which held his interest for long periods of time. He was able to tackle problems that others would have abandoned (and did) long before Edison would even consider throwing in the towel. Some of the factors which led to Edison’s successful goal-creation approach can be explained by neuroscience. Contemporary psychological research validates Edison’s approach, and supports the notion that we can all learn how to develop this essential element of success. Dr. John Dacey, professor emeritus of developmental psychology at Boston College, and Dr. Kathleen Lennon of Framingham State College studied and then condensed decades of research into what makes scientists, writers, business leaders, musicians, and other powerfully creative individuals successful. Among the most important traits they uncovered are: 1) passionate goal directedness, and 2) perseverance through self-control. Dacey and Lennon emphasize that both of those qualities can be developed by adults even if they do not possess those traits in younger years, as Edison clearly did. Citing numerous studies by psychologists including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Paul Torrance, David Perkins, Robert Weber, and others, Dacey and Lennon conclude that passionate goal directedness helps successful individuals generate “great amounts of energy to invest intensely in their work.” These goals are typically long term in nature and associated with a big vision; so the second skill, perseverance rough self-control, is critical in allowing fulfillment of the first. Dacey and Lennon define self-control as an individual’s willingness to “persevere in the face of frustration.’ In other words, success is a function of perseverance, and perseverance is driven by aligning passions with big, long-term goals. Edison’s success was the result of his passionate goal directedness.” His “pulsating desire” allowed him to “transcend everything” so that frustrations, obstacles, and difficulties seemed to provide him even more energy. As a colleague remarked, “Edison seemed pleased when he to run up against serious difficulty. It would seem to stiffen his backbone make him more prolific of new ideas. For a time, I thought it was foolish to imagine such a thing, but I could never get away from the impression that he really appeared happy when he ran up against a serious snag.” Dr. Richard Restak, a clinical professor of neuroscience at the George Washington University Hospital School of Medical and Health Sciences, offers further validation of Edison’s approach. Restak argues that many goals go unfulfilled or are prematurely abandoned because they are not designed robustly enough to mobilize the brain. He points out that for the brain to remember to organize behavior in alignment with a goal, it must connect the emotional component with its rational component. This alignment links the prefrontal cortex with the limbic system, thereby dramatically enhancing the likelihood that the goal will be remembered and translated into behavior. Understanding how to set goals so that they will be remembered and translated into behavior is a simple, critical key to successful innovation and, of course, to personal happiness and fulfillment. Yet despite the wealth of information available on the topic, most organizational innovation efforts fail because they don’t define their goals clearly, and they neglect to align goals with emotions. Innovation literacy begins with a practical understanding of how to define and align your personal goals. The EDISON Goal Creation Formula Here is a simple formula you can apply to your own successful goal creation. Mapped to the acronym EDISON, it will guide you to those places where your brain holds positive emotions. The EDISON goal creation formula will aid you in harnessing passions to override the strictly objective and quantitative. As well, it will amp up your goals to new levels, ensuring they become bigger and more purpose-oriented than mere tick marks on a spreadsheet. Rework your goal statements to align with these key elements: E – Emotional: Express your goal in words that energize and excite you. Feel the passion associated with the fulfillment of your goal. Don’t hold back. D – Decisive: Make a committed decision to give the full force of your own intention to realizing your goal, even if you don’t yet see the path to its realization. I – Integrated: Link your goal to a higher purpose, such as lifelong health, vibrant creativity, peace in your relationships. This connects the achievement of your goal to the benefit of others besides yourself. S – Sensory: Use all your senses to vividly imagine the manifestation of your goal. Draw it, speak it, dance it, taste it! O – Optimistic: Engage the most positive image you can conjure around your goal. Map this positive image into your thoughts so that, like the force of gravity, it just ‘shows up’ all the time easily and without effort. N – Now: Envision and express your goal in present-time terms. Begin your actions now! Go back and have a look at your 2012 goals. Reframe them into the EDISON format. Don’t lash yourself if you haven’t made any progress so far this year – give the EDISON method a try! Allow it to jump-start you to action. What worked for Edison can work for you! Sarah Miller Caldicott is a great grandniece of Thomas Edison, and author of Innovate Like Edison as well as Inventing the Future. Sarah can be reached at info@powerpatterns.com.
  • All About Relationships: CRM in EDU 26 January, 2012, 12:00 pm
    There are a handful of big companies that really understand customer relationships in a deep way.  A couple of them sell this expertise in the form of customer relationship management (CRM) software and related consulting. Wikipedia says: “CRM is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service.” Education is a relationship enterprise but we’re lacking basic relationship management systems.  Student information systems (SIS) track basic student records.  Sometimes they are connected to a gradebook, but that only includes a handful of marks per semester.  Some learning management systems (LMS) and data systems like SchoolNet turn a little assessment data into dashboards that help monitor achievement.  These companies help schools make the best of limited information.  Almost everyone in education has a data poverty mindset. “In contrast,” notes startup Junyo, “Popular web sites such as Google, Facebook, and Zynga collect millions of data points for each user throughout the day which are used to improve search results, recommend friends, and make games more fun.The shift to personal digital learning will bring a flood of data.  Most digital content will include embedded assessment and will provide continuous feedback to the learner.  Every assignment will leave a trail of keystrokes that could yield valuable achievement data.  Digital learners will provide 2 million data points each year instead of 200 marks in a gradebook. It’s time for sophisticated relationship management in education.  It’s time for comprehensive and portable learner profiles that track: evidence of skill progression (perhaps a badge system) diagnosis of skill gaps and learning differences motivational data about the kinds of experiences that produce persistence exposure to colleges and careers development of self-management and project-management skills service activities, fitness progress, behavior records, and more Ideally, any service provider should be able to contribute to and benefit from this record.  That requires families to manage student profile privacy they way they manage their Facebook profile. Where to start?  Pilot projects with online or blended schools (particularly flex models where core instruction is online) would take advantage of digital learning environments where kids are already kicking out 10,000 keystrokes daily.  It would help if there were multiple locations (like different Connections Academy or K12 schools that use a common school management system) where units of study could be varied across diverse student groups for active experimentation. The development of School of One, the NYC middle school math program, is a useful example.  It started in summer school, moved to after school, and is being piloted in several middle schools. Who could pull this off?  There are big CRM shops like Salesforce and 
  • Life After Chapter 11 Bankruptcy? 26 January, 2012, 9:00 am
    Hang in there, Kodak. Bankruptcy doesn’t have to mean the end. Eastman Kodak (NYSE:EKDKQ) surprised few by declaring bankruptcy last week. It was clear to many business insiders back in September that Kodak was headed to zero after a panicked move to tap its credit line. As those who have watched the corporate history of Kodak know, years of big debts and a lack of innovation have been weighing on the iconic photography company for quite some time. So is bankruptcy the end of Kodak? Will the brand disappear forever? Probably not. Chapter 11 is sometimes just another chapter in the long history of a company. Here are several big-name companies that have declared bankruptcy — and emerged successfully on the other side. Major Airline Carriers It’s impossible to pick just one airline brand that has declared Chapter 11. Major carriers have gotten bankruptcy filings down to a science in this era of expensive regulations, expensive fuel costs and expensive union contracts. Here’s a short list of the players: In November of last year, AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, was the last of the “legacy carriers” to suffer bankruptcy reorganization. It has yet to emerge, obviously. Continental Airlines slid in to bankruptcy first, in both 1983 and 1990, before a merger with United to form United Continental Holdings (NYSE:UAL) in 2010. United itself went bankrupt in 2002 and emerged in 2006. Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and emerged in 2007. US Airways (NYSE:LCC) went bankrupt in 2002, briefly emerged, and went bust again in 2004. It was married with America West in 2005 to make it healthy enough to muddle through. Obviously, the airline business has seen a mess of bankruptcies. But the planes keep flying, and the companies keep operating. They may never be growth stocks or big cash cows for investors, but they haven’t disappeared. General Motors General Motors (NYSE:GM) was facing troubles before the financial crisis, and in early 2009 relied on a government bailout — as did fellow ailing automaker Chrysler. The total price tag of the automaker bailouts was $82 billion (and according to a recent report, taxpayers will lose about $14 billion on the “investment”). But GM made a speedy exit from Chapter 11, emerging in July of 2010 and holding a $20 billion GM public offering in November 2010 – the largest IPO in history at the time. Bankruptcy led to lots of changes at GM, from restructured union contracts to the end of the Pontiac and Saturn brands to the death of Mr. Goodwrench. But now, GM is soundly profitable with around $150 billion in annual revenue. So much for General Motors being junked after bankruptcy. Sbarro A mainstay of mall and airport food courts, Sbarro has about 1,000 cafeteria-style pizza and pasta restaurants in the U.S. and overseas. The late Gennaro Sbarro started the business in 1956, and his family sold it to a private equity firm in 2007. The company went under in 2011, however, filing for Chapter 11. Sbarro’s challenges were apparently shared in the pizza “sector” in 2011. The nation’s No. 10 pizza shop, West-coast based Round Table pizza with over 500 locations, and Uno Chicago Grill also went belly up in the same year. In November 2011, Sbarro was granted court approval to emerge from bankruptcy after slashing its debt by around 70%, and providing the company to $35 million in cash to grow. Friendly’s In October of 2011, Friendly’s announced that it was declaring bankruptcy and closing over 60 stores nationwide. But quick as a wink, the company emerged just a few weeks ago — on Jan. 9 — after selling operations and restructuring. Friendly’s blamed the sluggish economy and slowing consumer spending, but apparently a quick reshaping of the balance sheet and some cost-cutting was enough to change the company’s fortunes. Friendly’s has a 76-year history of offering tasty desserts and diner food. But it also has gotten a bad rap with many consumers for the quality of its service. Check any online review site like Yelp and look for yourself. New management says it will address these concerns, but only time will tell. It’s also worth noting, however, that Friendly’s is reliant on the success of its ice cream business far above any gains at its namesake restaurants. At the time of the bankruptcy, old ownership Friendly’s Restaurants Franchise LLC listed estimated assets and liabilities in the range of $10-$50 million, whereas another unit Friendly Ice Cream Corp listed liabilities and assets of $100-$500 million. It’s no surprise then that Friendly’s has made retail sales of its branded products a priority now that it’s out from under Chapter 11. Eddie Bauer In the 1990s, you’d be hard pressed to find a more American brand than Eddie Bauer. It provided stylish and rugged outdoorwear in the vein of LL Bean, and even got the Bauer brand on the most iconic SUV of the era — the Ford Explorer. But just several years later, Eddie Bauer was out of style, and consumers were trading in four-wheel-drive gas-guzzlers for hybrids. Its parent company, Spiegel Catalog, sought bankruptcy protection in 2003. After emerging in 2005, however, Eddie Bauer filed for Chapter 11 again in 2009. It was acquired at auction by Golden Gate Capital later that year. Though not quite the pinnacle of style and outdoorsy toughness it once was, Eddie Bauer remains a respected apparel brand and a regular tenant at shopping centers and outlet malls. It employs some 10,000 people worldwide — and in case you’re curious, it’s running one heck of a 60%-off sale right now. imagecredit:newcissa Don’t miss an article (3,800+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group! Jeff Reeves is editor of InvestorPlace.com, where this article first appeared and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Write him at jreeves@investorplace.com. Follow Jeff Reeves on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffReevesIP
  • Plan to be Punched in the Face 26 January, 2012, 6:00 am
    As poet Robert Burns put it: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft agley.” Experienced leaders know how just easily the most carefully crafted plan can go awry, particularly in the innovation process. In his new Little Black Book of Innovation, Scott Anthony cautions against betting the farm on the perfect plan. “No business plan survives first contact with the market,” Anthony says. “Innovators should start by assuming their plans are partly right and partly wrong. The plan itself doesn’t separate the winners from the losers. The reaction to adversity, the way in which you pivot…is what separates the winners from the losers.” To support his case, he quotes everyone from military strategists to boxer Mike Tyson, who said: “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face.” As a project progresses, innovators must remain open to the need to adjust course. “Truth be told, ideas are most likely to reveal their flaws immediately prior to completion,” says Scott Belsky in Making Ideas Happen. “It is for this reason that proponents of entrepreneurship argue that the primary reason small start-up companies have an advantage over large corporations is their flexibility and ability to make changes at the last minute.” While the end goal should be clear – for example, solving a customer’s particular problem – it’s likely many roads can lead you there. Adds innovation blogger Mitch Ditkoff: “True innovation is about allowing room enough for paradox to be a teacher and guide – and to accept, at least for a little longer than usual, ambiguity, dissonance, and discomfort – the age-old precursors to breakthrough.” image credit: wastetimepost.com; summertimeinipanema.com Don’t miss a post (3,850+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group! A former journalist and strategic communication specialist, Josie Gibson set up a CFO network, among other things, and now works with companies on creativity and innovation initiatives.  www.pourquoi.com.au
  • What is the definition of innovation? 25 January, 2012, 6:23 pm
    As an innovation geek, I always enjoy reading over the latest reports about innovation. Like a kid at Christmas I eagerly await reports on innovation from management consulting firms like PWC or Booz Allen. They provide a yearly assessment of the world of innovation, and especially what CEOs believe to be true about innovation. And, like Christmas, many of them occur at this time of year. Recently, GE published an innovation report entitled the GE Global Innovation Barometer. It is worth taking a look at if you haven’t done so already. One of the items that surprised and, yes, troubled me the most is to be found near the back of the overview presentation, on page 30 of 32 pages. That’s where the report analyzes how CEOs define innovation. The report offered five definitions and asked the respondents to choose two. Here are the five definitions: The implementation of new processes, products, organizational changes or marketing changes An environment/culture that embraces positive change, creativity and continuous improvement Research and development, new intellectual property (IP), and inventions Staying ahead in the market and being a market leader Solutions that benefit society and societal outcomes (including environmental outcomes) These definitions don’t trouble me too much, although they define very different things. What troubles me is that no definition above was selected more than 35% of the time by the respondents. I’m sure we could spend hours debating about the definition of innovation, much like ancient scholars argued about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Unlike the angels on a pin, however, the definition of innovation MATTERS. While it could get academic and esoteric, it needn’t be. The reason a definition of innovation is so important, if not at a global level at least at company level, is that a definition signals intention, commitment, direction and importance. Innovation is tough enough when well defined. After all, in most cases an organization is asking its people to dream up new products or services that aren’t aligned to existing products or services at a time when there are few resources or dollars to accomplish the most rudimentary tasks. If innovation is poorly defined, innovation is like discovering a new continent without a map, without a compass, and without knowing what’s important when you discover it. Columbus went west to discover gold and spices. Imagine his disappointment to discover just a bunch of sandy islands with little demonstrable wealth. That’s what innovators who work without clear definitions face. Returning to the definitions GE used, the first (implementation of new processes, products, organizational changes, etc) is a COMPONENT of innovation, but only if those changes add significant value, are truly new and unique and important and relevant to a customer. Implementing change is only innovation when it brings new concepts or new ideas that are valuable to a customer or stakeholder. The second definition (environment/culture that embraces positive change, creativity and continuous improvement) is an ATTRIBUTE of innovation, not a result! Good innovators know these conditions must exist, and by the way, this definition is too limiting. It only mentions continuous improvement, not disruptive innovation. The third definition (research and development, IP, inventions) is an INPUT to innovation, and too limiting. R&D and IP are definitely a part of innovation, but this definition doesn’t consider commercialization and market success. Creating new ideas and new IP is great, but only if there is a market that needs and wants the concepts. Moreover, this definition limits innovation to products, when innovation can clearly be applied to business models, services and customer experiences. The fourth definition (Staying ahead in the market) is a STRATEGY, and not even a well-defined one. You could accomplish this by cutting costs, acquiring other firms. No wonder the CEOs struggled to define innovation – because true definitions of innovation are complex. What a CEO says about innovation matters, in terms of the commitment of the rest of the organization, in terms of direction, in terms of investment, in terms of strategy. The starting point for any successful initiative or venture in any business is a clearly articulated goal, definition or strategy, which is then backed by deep commitment. If we can’t define innovation well, how can we possibly be committed to its success? Here’s a really simple tip for any firm trying to become more innovative: create your own definition of what innovation should be for your business – and not just for an initiative, but an overarching definition for innovation. Then, ensure you have the commitment to follow through on the definition and that the people responsible for carrying out the definition understand it, and the vision, strategy and goals behind the definition. Otherwise, like a rowboat with only one oar, you’ll find your team constantly circling. Don’t miss an article (3,850+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group! Jeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of “Make us more Innovative”, and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.
  • Lessons of Pawn Stars 25 January, 2012, 3:00 pm
    Yes, you read that correctly.  PAWN Stars. This reality television show on The History Channel chronicles a pawn shop outside of Las Vegas.  I enjoy the show because of the history associated with the pieces that are brought in for sale.  In addition to rifles from the revolutionary war and antique political documents, people bring in some unusual items like old videos games, dilapidated cars, and various novelty items. After watching the show a bit, I gathered four practical lessons that Rick Harrison, the owner, uses when purchasing items: Liking/wanting an item does not make it a good purchase; it must make money Just because something is rare does not make it valuable Look at the size and analyze if something else could make more money in the same space Speed of sale is critical; consider the buyer’s market.  In down times, luxury items sell slower These are also good lessons for any innovator.  Here are the innovation corollaries to the Pawn Star buying principles: 1. Do not get enamored with your ideas. Just because something “feels” good does not make it a good investment.  Innovators often get “attached” to their creations and then blindly push forward.  Knowing which ideas will create money is critical.  Knowing which ideas to kill is a powerful skill. 2. Just because it is different does not make it valuable. Recognize that novelty does not translate to value.  If you don’t have any buyers and it does not serve a specific need, you should not invest in it.  This is not a game of “innovation for innovation’s sake.” Too many companies say they want to innovate, but don’t really know why or how. 3. Not all innovations are created equal. What solutions can create exponential value?  What are the leverage points in your market?  What products or services could transform your industry?  Although you don’t want to only “swing for the fences” (that is, don’t solely focus on game changers; incremental innovation is also critical), make sure you invest your resources wisely with a balanced portfolio and a good risk/return profile. 4. Above all, consider the buyer. This is innovation 101.  The market must tell you where to invest.  In today’s economic condition, solving a pain is more important than providing an abstract benefit. In other words, be the aspirin for your customers’ pains. Insights can be gathered from anywhere. Today I looked to a pawn shop. In the past, I was inspired by an expired bottle of mayo. Where else have you discovered new ways of thinking?  Innovation is everywhere. imagecredit: pawnstars Don’t miss an article (3,850+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group! Stephen Shapiro is the author of five books including “Best Practices Are Stupid” and “Personality Poker” (both published by Penguin). He is also a popular innovation speaker and business advisor.
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23

innovationtools

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19

creativityandinnovation

  • Apple Creates History with New iBooks Textbooks 24 January, 2012, 9:18 am
    "Apple announced iBooks 2 for iPad, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging, and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, full-screen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, and unrivaled navigation. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore, with most priced at $14.99 or less. And with the new iBooks Author, anyone with a Mac can create iBooks textbooks and publish them to Apple’s iBookstore. Starting today, iBooks 2 is available free from the App Store and iBooks Author is available free from the Mac App Store"Textbooks they won’t want to put down."A Multi-Touch textbook on iPad is a gorgeous, full-screen experience full of interactive diagrams, photos, and videos. No longer limited to static pictures to illustrate the text, now students can dive into an image with interactive captions, rotate a 3D object, or have the answer spring to life in a chapter review. They can flip through a book by simply sliding a finger along the bottom of the screen. Highlighting text, taking notes, searching for content, and finding definitions in the glossary are just as easy. And with all their books on a single iPad, students will have no problem carrying them wherever they go."Bottomline:The new iBooks Textbooks is an amazing innovation! I downloaded a couple of samples from the iBooks store, and also the awesome "Life on Earth". My kids and I were totally blown away by the quality of the textbooks, the interactivity and the overall experience! (about the only glitch was iBooks 2 hanging up when you launch the new textbook! But this problem seems to be intermittent.) Last year, when my son and I were driving to Los Angeles, I remember having a conversation with him in the car about how the next generation of eBooks should be interactive... when my son was in middle school, he was aspiring to be a writer (now he loves Physics). So, I was telling him that he should design eBooks that spring out from a reader, as if the story within becomes alive and real! For instance, while you are reading a paragraph, you can tap to make the whole story come to life! Wouldn't that be amazing! With the introduction of iBooks Textbooks, we are getting a whole lot closer!! These iBooks are interactive, intelligent and immersing! Would students learn more from these new iBooks? Would students gain more knowledge in a faster time? Would students with learning disability benefit further from these textbooks? Would teachers enjoy teaching through this new medium? Would iBooks textbooks fundamentally change how education is disseminated and consumed? Lots of intriguing questions will need to be answered in the coming year. Apple has the support of major education publishers. Apple iBooks Textbooks could become the new learning standard, and as history may note, usher in a new era of innovative education!Reference
  • How Business Defines Innovation? 23 January, 2012, 7:10 pm
    Which two aspects below most closely correspond to your personal definition ofinnovation?The implementation of new processes, products, organizational changes or marketing changesAn environment/culture that embraces positive change, creativity and continuous improvementResearch and development, new intellectual property (IP), and inventionsStaying ahead in the market and being a market leaderSolutions that benefit society and societal outcomes (including environmental outcomes)None of the aspects above is close to my personal definition of innovationSelected references:Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in BusinessCreativity and Innovation Best PracticesCreativity and Innovation Case StudiesGE Innovation Barometer Survey MethodologyConducted by StrategyOne, an independent research and consulting firm, between Oct 15 and Nov 15, 2011 in 22 markets• Telephone survey of 2,800 senior business executives• All respondents SVP-level or above, 30% c-suite level• All respondents directly involved in the innovation strategy or process within their company• Average company size is 1,500 employees, 20% of respondents belong to companies of more than 5,000 employees• Average interview length: 16 minutes
  • Why Most Innovations Fail? 19 January, 2012, 11:22 pm
    "Few businesses are any good at innovation. For all their brainstorming exercises and "open innovation" programs, they mostly just come up with reformulations of existing products, new pricing plans and basic updates--the same old things just a little cheaper, faster or better.Businesses ask their "strategic customers" where to innovate and get little advice. Those customers are usually strategic only in that they are large, not because they have any particular market insight. They too just want more, better and cheaper, which are hardly recommendations for true innovation.Why is failure the norm? Defending and extending the business is what we've trained our business leaders and managers to be good at. They know how to remain close to "core" by staying "focused." They work on improving "operational excellence" and seek the "low cost position" while striving for "customer intimacy" with the biggest customers." - Adam Hartung "While it's probably impossible to compute the exact percentage of business initiatives that fail, it is widely acknowledged that most do. After years of research and observation, it is clear that the same reasons for any change initiative failure tend to be the same culprits that make innovation initiatives fail. Here are the top ten reasons for innovation failure:1. Not creating a culture that supports innovation2. Not getting buy-in and ownership from business unit managers3. Not having a widely understood, system-wide process4. Not allocating resources to the process5. Not tying projects to company strategy6. Not spending enough time and energy on the fuzzy front-end7. Not building sufficient diversity into the process8. Not developing criteria and metrics in advance9. Not training and coaching innovation teams10. Not having an idea management system" - Joyce Wycoff "We believe that innovations fail in the marketplace based on one or more of four key issues:a. Ideas don't solve an important problem for a customerb. Ideas take too long to get to market/Shifts in needsc. Ideas underfunded or poorly launchedd. Ideas require too much work to adopt" - Jeffrey Phillips"On the other hand, FAILURE is not an easy concept to accept.  Failure conjures up sweaty palms, racing heartbeats, and above all, the human condition of disappointment.  Knowing that we, as human beings, have a distinct aversion to failure, how can product teams capitalize on early failures to ensure new product success?  In this paper, we investigate three common causes of innovation failure and offer suggestions to enhance the probability of success for the development effort.1. Lack of Strategy,2. Lack of Risk-Taking, and3. Company Culture.""One reason for the lack of successful innovation and growth is the reality of the lifecycle""A company’s own historical success can be a major hurdle to new revenue streams" - John KotterBottomline:Most innovations fail. Most ideas die. Failures can be starting points for new innovations. But an organization needs to avoid the innovation blockers. Many a great innovators forget that successful innovations require great ideas plus execution.  And execution involves many go-to-market steps... transforming an idea into an amazing product or service that everyone wants now, getting the marketing and sales team ready to promote and sell the product, creating an external buzz for the new product through launch events and trade shows, getting the customers to buy and adopt the new product, making customers brand ambassadors so that they share products and stories in the marketplace, and winning against the competition. Sometimes great products fail because of inadequate marketing. Sometimes average products win because of successful marketing. When a business combines great innovative products with great marketing (aka Apple), watch out!
  • Startup Failure – Product Looking for Market 14 January, 2012, 1:42 pm
    [A] What’s the “product looking for market”? Well, it’s a product or product idea that is put together backwards. Rather than starting out with the question, “what do people want”, it starts with what the entrepreneur may think what people may want and then just goes about building it. Once he builds it, then he tries to go to the market and looks for people who may be able to use it. That’s putting a cart before the horse. It is even worse when such product idea has no basis or relevance to entrepreneur’s past experience. Then it’s a complete science fiction.  Read more[B] Why such approach to product building is wrong?There are very few examples like Amazon that started out as a business plan and were executed like a business plan. Most startup ideas started as one thing and ended up as something else. This is mostly because when you work with innovation, by definition, you are working with an unknown. It’s an experiment where you are trying to find out if your hypothesis is true or not. You know some parts and rest is a mystery that you are trying to uncover. You may know many parts but you are trying to find out how they should come together to create something meaningful. Most such hypothesis will fail and so you want to go very methodical about testing such hypothesis. You have your time, resources, cash and reputation at stake and you want to be wise about it. Read moreReferences:Why start-ups fail?Author:Tarang Shah
  • Business Social Network 8 January, 2012, 5:21 pm
    Are you a small business, entrepreneur or startup?Promote your business and Find new customers on Ogoing!Boost your business on the leading small business social network!Ogoing is the fastest growing business social network!!Ogoing combines business networking, social networking and social media marketing!Get started now: http://www.ogoing.com/joinogoingDrive your business forward with social media!"Our customers have increased sales by over 20% within six months!" Join now! http://www.ogoing.com/joinogoingWhy Join?7 reasons why businesses should join Ogoing and jump start their social media:VERY easy to use, and FREE to join!FOR your business! Find and Connect with customers and businesses instantlyMARKET your business! Promote your products and services with best social mediaDO more! Find new referrals for your business, and post your business needs nowTALK more! Share real-time updates about your business deals, news and eventsPOWER your brand! Promote your brand on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and cell phonesGROW your business! Expand your local contacts, brand and salesWho should join?Small businesses, startups, emerging business, entrepreneurs, owners, SMB and businesses doing business with small business DRIVE your small business forward with Ogoing! Go BIG with Ogoing!Join now! http://www.ogoing.com/joinogoing
  • Best Software Innovation of 2011 - Vote Now! 5 January, 2012, 11:56 pm
    Vote for the Best Software Innovation of 2011
  • Social Media Bootcamp - Orange County 31 December, 2011, 1:52 pm
    What? Social Media Marketing Bootcamp workshop for small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups, owners and SMBs. Ogoing will help you become a social media expert, and share tools and best practices that will accelerate your sales. Ogoing, an exclusive small business social network, helps small businesses efficiently expand their local customer contacts through an easy to use social networking platform."I got solid answers to many of my social media questions and concerns. He truly is a master in his field. It was the best education I have ever received." - Christina Vendley, Affiliate Manager, Free Blog FactoryWhy? While the social media market is exploding with dozens of websites, Ogoing remains focused on utilizing key tools that small businesses need in order to grow their social media presence. Business owners, entrepreneurs and startups do not always have the time, knowledge, resources and money to boost their brand and obtain new leads using social media. This is where Ogoing helps! Think of Ogoing as the business matchmaker.Key Benefits why YOU should attend this boot camp:Learn the importance of social media today in building your social presenceCreate leverage to promote your brand, products and services, news and eventsConnect with many relevant businesses on Ogoing, and expand your social networkJumpstart your sales using the latest social media tools and best practicesManage, defend and grow your social media reputation to your advantageBoost your social presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, blogs & more Learn more and register!* Ogoing CEO has presented at many business associations including Asian Business Association, SABAN, Irvine Chamber of Commerce, Indian-American Business Federation, UC Irvine, Rotary Club, Indian Medical Association, and many businesses.
  • Social Media Bootcamp - Boost Your Business 30 December, 2011, 9:47 pm
    What? Social Media Marketing Boot camp for small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups, owners and SMBs. Ogoing will help you become a social media expert, and share tools and best practices that will accelerate your sales. Ogoing, an exclusive small business social network, helps small businesses efficiently expand their local customer contacts through an easy to use social networking platform."I got solid answers to many of my social media questions and concerns. He truly is a master in his field. It was the best education I have ever received." - Christina Vendley, Affiliate Manager, Free Blog FactoryWhy? While the social media market is exploding with such sites as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, Yelp, Reddit, Blogger, Wordpress, Flickr and dozens more, Ogoing vies to remain focused on utilizing key tools that small businesses need in order to grow their social media presence. Emerging businesses and startups do not always have the time and money to get their brand out there; however, Ogoing creates relationships between businesses in an affordable manner. Think of Ogoing as the business matchmaker.* Ogoing has presented at many business associations including Asian Business Association, SABAN, Irvine Chamber of Commerce, Indian-American Business Federation, UC Irvine, Rotary Club, and many businesses.Key Benefits why YOU should attend this bootcampLearn the importance of social media today in building your social presenceCreate leverage to promote your brand, products and services, news and eventsConnect with many relevant businesses on Ogoing, and expand your social networkJumpstart your sales using the latest social media tools and best practicesManage, defend and grow your social media reputation to your advantageLearn more and register!
  • Best Product Innovation of 2011 - Vote now! 29 December, 2011, 7:45 pm
    Vote for the Best Product Innovation of 2011
  • Paris Autolib innovative electric car service unveiled 28 December, 2011, 12:48 pm
    Breff driving the Autolib electric car in Paris. - YouTubeAutolib' electric car service will be launched in Paris next Monday. In Paris and Ile de France cities, users will be able to sign up for daily, weekly or annual memberships ranging from 10 euros to 144 euros, with users paying according to the length of time the car is used.Paris, in its latest bid to be an innovator of the City of Tomorrow, is launching an electric car-sharing program to cut air and noise pollution on the city's medieval cobblestone streets and beyond. 250 vehicles hit the road on Monday, 2,000 are expected by next summer and 3,000 are planned within the next two years. More infoFor the last six months, crews with jackhammers have been outfitting sidewalks with some of the 1,200 charging stations and marking off parking spaces that will be reserved exclusively for Autolib' users. Autolib will allow any Parisian or visitor to easily rent an electric car for few hours and drop it off at any of the locations citywide. Bottomline:Paris is leading by example, and walking the walk of going green. Paris transformed the biking habits of residents by launching the wildly successful Velib bicycle sharing program back in 2007. Today, the city and its suburbs have 1,800 docking stations holding more than 20,000 bikes. If Autolib' electric car program sees the same level of success, there will be many more cities worldwide who will follow Paris' innovative lead.
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18

businessweek

  • Architecture's 2010 Hot Shop Wins A Billionaire Patron 25 August, 2010, 5:31 am
    Plenty of architecture's biggest names have been laid low by the Great Recession, as I wrote recently in Bloomberg Businessweek. One partnership has never had it better, however: New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro. On Monday, the 60-person shop was named chief architect of billionaire Eli Broad's $80 million-plus art museum in downtown Los Angeles, beating out a collaboration by starchitects Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry. The commission came just two months after the boutique was chosen to design an arts and film center for the University of California in Berkeley. DS+R had a dizzying 2009 as well, completing two high-profile projects in New York: the High Line elevated park, which was created from a long-abandoned railway line, and the redesign of Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The studio's partners--Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, who founded it in 1979, and Charles Renfro, who joined in 1997--may busy again in 2011. DS+R, which got its first big assignment with the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, which opened in 2006, is completing a museum on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach and a media studio in Abu Dhabi. It is also in the running for three projects, including a factory in China. (Yes, that's right, a factory.) The firm's payroll has grown from 25 six years ago, with plans to expand at least another 15 percent next year. Revenue should surge 150% this year. "We have to wonder that if there wasn't a building bust, would we be winning even more?" Renfro says. "We're thankful that we are bucking the trend. We're not getting rich, nor are we starving." I caught up with Renfro, 46, as he took a train from his office on Tuesday. Here's an edited transcript of what else he had to say: Q: How do you explain your winning streak? A: The obvious answer is that we finally created several major commissions and people have heard of us and they hadn't before. Not until the last four years have we worked on complex jobs and proven that we could pull them off. Q: The firm has been around more than 30 years, though. Is this an example of perseverance? Or is it just good luck? A: I wish I could provide you with a silver-bullet answer, but I think it's a combination of all that. I also think our approach toward building and design is much more sympathetic to the economy. It's no longer the go-go '90s or even the 2000s. We're operating at the crossroads of making an icon and a very thoughtful response to clients' problems. Q: Is it harder to do architecture in 2010? A: It's probably harder for some people. There are many architects who are used to working on high-profile jobs, making iconic architecture. I think you will find them getting fewer commissions in this day and age. Maybe we're reaping the benefit of the downturn in this way. It's not harder for us. Q: How would you describe the firm's design philosophy? A: We take our inspiration from the context of the project. Having said that, we're very interested in pushing the limit of technology, of form-making, of structure. Q: Has it become a challenge to manage the firm as it has grown so fast? A: It goes without saying that anytime there's a quick jump in the staff of any business, there will be growing pains. We operate like a family. I think we're going to continue to operate on a similar manner. Q: What would advice would you give to a student who is thinking of becoming an architect? A: Go into law. Q: And if he doesn't listen? A: There are many other kinds of outlets that have become available to architects, from making shows to getting into museum and exhibit design to getting into writing online. Hope is not lost. The money is down, however. We were never a well-paid profession, much to a lot of other people's surprise. Definitely, there's less money out there to build buidlings. So we all have to be more creative.
  • LED Maker Illumitex Hopes for a Spotlight 28 July, 2010, 9:07 am
    At the 2010 Lightfair trade show in Las Vegas (how fitting), 40 percent of the nearly 500 exhibitors were showing off LED devices. Matt Thomas has hopped on the bandwagon. His startup, Illumitex, entered the commercial lighting market in April, and he says he intends to have a display booth at the 2011 Lightfair. But what makes him think his little company will stand out? Thomas gave me his pitch after flying from Illumitex's HQ in Austin, Texas. First of all, he says, the company's products are better than lots of the other new stuff out there. Competitors typically array their light-emitting diodes on disks. Illumitex places them in squares or rectangles to better illuminates all points of such common surfaces as billboards, parking lots or office interiors. Second, the market is so new and fast growing that makers of commercial lighting fixtures haven't become married to their suppliers, giving everyone a fighting chance. I found his third argument the most persuasive--Illumitex's investors. Since Thomas, a mechanical engineer by training, cofounded the company with chief scientist Dung Duong and Paul Winberg, its engineering vice president, Illumitex has raised $22 million from venture capitalists, led by New Enterprise Associates. Among others: DFJ Mercury and Applied Ventures, which is Applied Materials' in-house VC fund. VCs aren't oracles, of course. But NEA has backed more than 650 startups since it began in 1978, and boasts that two-thirds have been acquired or gone public, including 3Com and Tivo. A sponsor like that suggests that Illumitex may have a chance.
  • Groupon's Management Secret in Two Words 22 July, 2010, 7:27 am
    Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of social-shopping site Groupon, was part of a panel discussion at Google's Chicago office last night on innovation and startups. One of the questions he was asked was to sum up his management credo in just two words. "Cultivate ownership," Mason answered. Then he told a quick story. When Groupon was launched in Chicago in November 2008, the seven employees were "just a bunch of rascals." They included one twentysomething guy who, though "supersmart," had so little gumption that Mason thought he'd end up working at Shoney's when he was 45. But given responsibility for a specific area, the guy flourished and now manages a staff of 65. Mason also gave a shoutout to Eric Lefkofksy as the outsider most responsible for Groupon's success. Lefkofsky is a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur who, though his Lightbank venture capital firm, was Mason's original backer and adviser. Groupon is en fuego. It is up to 11 million subscribers, offering group coupons for restaurants and retailers in 160 cities in 22 countries. In its 20 months, Mason said, the site has saved customers $300 million with its daily deals. It also has its own pilot fish, according to this post on WiseBread. Say you can't use your Groupon discount or you think it's worth more than you paid, you can sell it on sites such as CoupRecoup and DealsGoRound. The discussion was organized by the Chicago Innovation Awards--Groupon was a 2009 winner--and hosted by Google, which is one of the contest's silver sponsors this year.
  • Michelin Restaurant Guide Comes to Chicago; Who's Next? 14 July, 2010, 11:34 am
    Michelin is becoming more American with its restaurant guides. The tire company just announced it will publish a guide in November for Chicago, its third U.S. city. (New York came first in 2005, with San Francisco the next year.) The dining directories, begun 110 years ago, are based on secret visits by a staff of 90 trained critics, a method that seems increasingly old-fashioned--and costly--as other ratings outfits from the Zagat Survey to Yelp rely on volunteers. While Michelin executives were in Chicago to promote its latest edition, I caught up with Parmeet Grover, chief operating officer of Michelin's Travel & Lifestyle unit in North America. Grover does not have a gourmand's background. He hired on with Michelin's U.S. subsidiary in Greenville, S.C., in 1996, after receiving a PhD in engineering from Georgia Tech. He moved into his current role last year. Grover says he's been a "foodie" from way back, however. "If you go back to Renaissance times," he told me, "being technical doesn't prevent one from having other interests that range quite widely," Here's an edited version of our conversation: Q: With Chicago, the guide will be in three cities in the U.S. What's the plan for expanding further? A: Globally, this will be our 26th city. And in the U.S. there are some large cities we're looking at. You could imagine they'd be in the vein of the ones we've already done. Q: Do you see adding another city in 2012? A: I can't comment on that right now. Q: How has American cuisine changed in the last several years? A: I think changes in American cuisine represent the changes in our society. If you look at the diversity of the country, it has increased over the last two decades. As a result, there is a lot of fusion cuisine. But I think we may be onto another important trend, which is using a lot more natural ingredients, locally sourced ingredients. I see this even in Greenville, S.C., where my family is based. Q: Michelin is doing things the way it's done for more than a century, sending in trained reviewers anonymously. Aren't you behind the times now that everybody is doing crowdsourcing? A: In terms of the wisdom of the crowds, we respect it. But I think what we bring is another perspective that nobody else has. We are using professionals who know cuisine very, very well. What we have developed over the last 100 years is a process that's worked very well. When we say it's one star or two stars, whether it's in London or Tokyo or New York or one day somewhere in Africa, it means the same thing. Q: So that's your advantage--you can get consistency because you know who your raters are? A: Exactly. We are a company of engineers, so we have a process that is followed rigorously. And we never compromise. Q: Is there any built-in bias in that training, however, that would favor a traditional French restaurant over another? A: Not at all. I go back to something in the DNA of our company. We have five values, and I haven't seen too many companies with this fifth value, which is respect for facts. When we go in to rate a restaurant or award the stars, it's purely objective, based on what is in that plate, what has been cooked that day. Q: How many times is each restaurant visited? Ten times sometimes. And it's not the same person. We have many different people that go, and all of the information is put into a data base and analysis is done. Q: Your employees have been out eating in Chicago restaurants how long to get prepared for the new guide? A: It's been two years now. We take this very seriously. Q: So I take it you've got employees in other cities that we don't know about doing the same sort of covert operations. A: That is correct. And what's funny is that some of the families don't know either what they're doing. They need to maintain their anonymity. We are very serious about the confidentiality of it, which is the key to staying objective. Even at Michelin, everybody has never met these people. My first impression was that they would all be rather heavy-set men. But that's not true. We have men, and we have women, and they seem to be normal. You wouldn't be able to guess what they really do.
  • Most Innovative Does Not Mean Best Investment 12 July, 2010, 6:44 am
    It's reality-check time for the 2010 Most Innovative Companies ranking, and for now, at least, reality is that while the list may spotlight the world's best generators of fresh products and services, these are not the best investments. We published this year's roster three months ago. The list is based mostly on a survey of top executives around the world conducted by our long-time partner in the annual project, Boston Consulting Group. But the lineup is adjusted for financial performance including stock return. If we were presenting the ranking today, it undoubtedly would look different. Of the 23 publicly traded companies in the Top 25, 13 underperformed the Standard & Poor's index of 500 stocks over the past three months. (And it's not that the S&P 500 has done all that well; it's down 11 percent since mid-April.) Just three honor-roll members were actually up: Apple, BMW, and Hyundai. By sector, only automotive came out ahead. The laggards included seven of the Top 10, with every one of them--Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, LG Electronics, BYD, General Electric, and Sony--down 18 percent or more. The biggest loser overall was 23rd-place Nokia; its share price has tumbled 45 percent since it was named one of the Most Innovative Companies of the year. I'll check back in three more months to see if our ranking correlates more with stock performance. Meantime, what do you think this says about the power of innovation?
  • Meet Google's $700 Million MIT Math Whiz 2 July, 2010, 1:30 pm
    As my Bloomberg colleague Brian Womack reported yesterday, Google paid $700 million for ITA Software, a 16-year-old company that has provided the flight-booking software for Orbitz since it opened for business in 2001. The acquisition brought back memories for me. I profiled ITA's founder and CEO, Jeremy Wertheimer, in 2000 for BusinessWeek.com. The MIT PhD was brilliant back then, if still cash-strapped--he came up with the $100,000 to start his Cambridge, Mass., company by maxxing out his credit cards and borrowing from his parents. Today, he's undoubtedly still brilliant and rich, too. Click here for the full profile.
  • Gen Y Unplugs Cable TV 1 July, 2010, 2:34 pm
    Generation Y has already upset plenty of media businesses with its unconventional consuming habits. Another sector may be about to get smacked--cable and satellite television. Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at USC, made that call in his dinner speech for a group of chief marketing officers last night. The dinner was part of a conference in Chicago sponsored by Bloomberg Businessweek. People in their 20s and younger no longer buy print newspapers, music CDs, land-line phones or watches, Cole noted. (I don't think they listen to over-the-air radio, either.) Now, Cole said his research has detected that they're not signing up for cable or satellite TV like prior generations. Instead, they're watching video on laptops or even their cell phones. Cole also predicted that most newspapers have just five more years before they're killed by the Internet. (Cue up Ziggy Stardust.) A handful will survive: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post. Women's magazines will live on, too, since readers buy them as much for the ads as the editorial content. He didn't give odds for us.
  • The Modern Corporation: It's About People, People 29 June, 2010, 12:15 pm
    As turmoil continues to roil economies both large and small, as politicians struggle to figure out how to deal with the conditions of the 21st century, and as the United States and the West heads into what Paul Krugman describes as no less than "The Third Depression", a new way of thinking about management and innovation is making the rounds. It's about people, people. Instead of thinking about the corporation as an amorphous entity, executives need to remember the individuals at the heart of every organization. Ok, so it's not exactly an earth-shattering insight, but it's a sign of how far we've drifted that people's health, hopes, insights, and talents have come to be seen as mere grist for the grinding wheels of capitalism. Three moments emphasized this shift for me recently: 1. John Hagel, co-author of the recent, highly recommended book The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made Can Set Big Things in Motion, talks about the "red queen effect", where executives are running faster and faster to stay in the same place. The problem is, they've essentially already lost this particular race, and trying the same old techniques only means they'll fall further behind. Now, says Hagel, is precisely the time for executives to figure out what, precisely, their firm is really about. And while Ronald Coase may have won the Nobel Prize in 1991 for his theories of efficiency within the industrial organization, executive focus in 2010 has to be on talent development. Not, says Hagel, simply a cursory nod toward human resources but a concerted effort toward making a focus on talent integral to every part of an organization. 2. At the recent New York Forum, I sat in on a breakout session about how large corporations should handle the challenge of disruptive innovation. Truthfully, there wasn't much consensus; it mainly seemed like an opportunity for panelists to trumpet their fervent support for and dedication to the discipline of innovation, the definition of which was unclear. But Glenn Kelman, CEO of online real estate company (and would-be industry disruptor) Redfin, had some insights that have stuck with me. "The number one thought I have every day is how do I make Redfin the best place to work for engineers," he said. "One great engineer is worth 10 mediocre engineers. And a great engineer won't work somewhere that engineering isn't valued." For Kelman, the future, intuitively, lies with people. Make them happy; watch your company thrive. 3. I've recently been reading The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems. I've written about PD before; it's a curious philosophy of examining the behavior of outliers to see how they've intuited a better way of doing something than 'most everyone else in their same society. The most frequently cited example of PD in action comes from two of this book's co-authors, Jerry and Monique Sternin, who documented it in action while working for Save the Children in Vietnam. By looking at what a few individual parents did with the same resources in the same situation as an entire community (in this instance resulting in healthier children), positive steps for all could be identified—and rolled out for the wider benefit of the inhabitants. But PD isn't limited to developing markets, and the authors include some potent examples from business, too, including from within giants such as Merck and, believe it or not, Goldman Sachs. The former company tried PD as a last resort in Mexico, where it brought about the resurrection of sales of the drug Fosamax, a miracle osteoporosis drug that reps had nonetheless struggled to sell. Manager Andres Bruzual called his district managers for a meeting, outlined the principles of PD and told them to have at it. As the book's other co-author, Richard Pascale, outlined to me on the phone: the managers were initially both skeptical and horrified. But once they realized that the onus really was on them to figure out the next, best steps, they rose to the challenge. By allowing individuals to feel like they had some say in how they should best do their job, Merck Mexico pulled off a seemingly impossible success story. In an age where people can work anywhere, on anything, and for a generation that hasn't grown up with the promise of a job for life (and is probably horrified at the very idea of it), the real challenge is for the corporate supertankers of our time to prove they can turn away from the very real threat of being out-maneuvered on all sides. Thoughts on which companies might prove the Titanics of the age? Or which behemoths have the chops and the wherewithal to adapt in time?
  • The Designer Behind Top Chef Izard's New Room 29 June, 2010, 9:17 am
    Over her 10 years as vice president of design at 555 International, Karen Herold has produced interiors for nightclubs in Las Vegas for Playboy and N9NE as well as retail space for Chanel, Valentino, Armani, and the Dallas Cowboys. She's proud of every one of them, of course, but she notes that they're really the taste of her clients, especially the flashy casino venues. Now Herold says she finally has a room of her own. Actually, the new place, a Chicago restaurant called Girl and the Goat, will be identified with Stephanie Izard, the 2008 winner of television's Top Chef, who'll be managing the kitchen when it opens shortly after the Fourth of July weekend. And financially and legally, Girl and the Goat belongs to Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz, a duo who already own three other restaurants in Chicago. But the interior design is Herold's throughout. "This is exactly how I wanted it," Herold says. "I wish I could buy a house right now. I would make it the Goat house. Everything I would have in my house." Herold, a 38-year-old Dutch native, showed me around the 150-seat dining room the other evening, as workers were still installing light fixtures. It is purposely anti-Las Vegas--Izard, whose previous restaurant, Scylla, was often described as cozy, and her backers had made "no glitz" a hiring condition. But the space does have some dazzle, which I'll get to in a moment. (Sorry, no photos yet.) Girl and the Goat is made to feel comfortably worn, lived in. It is Old World heavy and dark, from the 10-seat communal tables made of thick, weathered oak planks and lit by clear incandescent bulbs in antique glass fixtures to the back bar, which is made of 14 iron fireplace grills from the early 1900s that were sandblasted and fitted in a two-row span. Colors are muted. The seat cushions on the steel-brushed oak chairs are so deep green they look black. The fireplace grills, which will be backlit when everything is up and running, are one of Herold's three big statements in her design. Another is a brightlly colored, boozy painting of a girl and a goat that measures 7x7 feet and commands an exterior wall. Izard (the wild-haired girl in the painting) personally commissioned Quang Hong to do the work, based on a smaller one he had done for Scylla. The other is a pitch-black screen in the center of the room. It's what's left of the supporting wall that had bisected the 116-year-old structure. Rather than leave the exposed bricks, Herold decided to encase them with cedar boards--after setting them on fire in a big parking lot to char them and then coating them with resin. Herold says Japanese builders have used this technique for ages, though she had never done it anywhere before. "It is very bold without being loud," she says. "I wanted to make strong statements without being in your face about it." Until now, neither Herold nor 555 International has had much of a profile in Chicago, though the design and custom-furniture firm has been based in the city since 1988, when it was founded by industrial designer James Geier. Herold, an interior-design graduate from the Institute of Fashion and Design in Amsterdam, hired on in 2000. In all, Boehm and Katz have spent $1.6 million to create Girl and the Goat. Boehm says it was well worth it. "I always expected it to be really cool and really authentic, but I didn't expect it to be sexy."
  • Architecture's Long Fade 23 June, 2010, 8:06 am
    Architecture just might be this season's Biggest Loser. The Architecture Billings Index, a gauge the American Institute of Architects uses to show the industry's strength (or weakness), indicates that business has now been in decline for a record 28 months in a row. Moreover, in issuing its latest report today, the institute reports that May's rating fell from the month before. The weakest area geographically is the West. By sector, it's institutional. In an email to me, Clark Davis, vice chairman of HOK, writes: "I believe this will be a very slow recovery in the private sector, because businesses are still very reluctant to add people--and job growth is the single largest driver in commercial real estate, design, and construction." Since payrolls peaked in mid-2007, the nation's architecture firms have shed a quarter of their employees. And at least some still collecting a paycheck have too little to do, says Phil Harrison, president of Perkins + Will. "Design firms are holding onto staff, even without sufficient work to keep them busy, because staff are so valuable and there is a hope that work willl pick up," he says in an email. Harrison predicts the rut (or rout) will last another two years. "The combination of three factors--expensive marketing, lower fees, and excess staff--is causing many firms to operate at significantly lower levels of financial performance, which is likely unstainable," he says. And I thought the media biz was in bad straits.
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