Innovation Insights & Ideas by Richard Watson
July 7, 2008
08:32 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
Somthing my friend Andrew Crosthwaite at Global Innovation Network just sent me. It reminds me of something about the '7 levels of why' that I had in my head for at least five years - but never managed to write down. See if it strikes a chord with you too.
“Because I say so”. What parent has not at some stage made this statement and then felt shame-faced afterwards?
Children are always asking “Why?” – and do so with a number of motivations. At the core is the desire for discovery and knowledge, the wish to make sense of a baffling world, full of complexity. Alternatively there is the suspicion that their parents are not as omniscient as they appear.
I remember the first detention I received at secondary school. My maths master had explained (or so he thought) a particular problem or theorem. He paused and my voice rang out – “why?” I was probably punished for my insolent tone, rather than my intellectual curiosity, but I was kept in for 2 hours after school and my parents probably thought I had been abducted by aliens.
As we enter the work environment, our ability to ask “why” diminishes. We assume that the corporation knows best, that our senior colleagues occupy that role and salary scale precisely because they have the answers. So we get on with things.
My proposal is that the time is right for the “Why Revolution”. It’s not about needlessly challenging the status quo, but ensuring that all of our (often lazy) assumptions have been tested.
This should not be seen as a destructive process – a venerated London adman, Robin Wight, based his approach on “Interrogating a brand until it confesses to its strengths”.
The person who keeps chanting “Why?” in a meeting is more likely to end up being fired, than receive a 2 hour detention, but perhaps the spirit behind it should be part of any brand or project evaluation.
Think of it as a decision tree process. Look at what you are doing or thinking – either collectively or individually and throw down the “Why?” gauntlet.
If you don’t do it now, someone – probably that venerated sage, the consumer, will do so in future.
Some answers may be linear; others may split into strands of multiple reasons, so don’t just pursue the obvious. For each “Why”, ask an additional “What if we...” question.
You may be surprised at the insights that it leads to, and as the guilty parent, find out that what you don’t know far outweighs what you do.
June 6, 2008
04:33 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
It’s incredible what you can find on the Internet these days. I was cruising around cyberspace the other day without any specific sense of where I was going when I stumbled upon a paper on innovation models by Professor Joe Tidd at the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex (UK). Reading the report sparked off a number of ideas. Using the paper as a foundation here are some thoughts about innovation processes, tools and trends.
1. Innovation process and theory all too often focus on improvements to the scientific base or are otherwise concerned with novel technological innovation at the expense of later research and development. There are considerable barriers to adoption, especially with truly radical ideas, and attention should always be paid to how an innovation is introduced and diffused within a market. Timing is also critical. Launching too soon can kill an innovation just as fast as launching too late. As John Naisbitt once said: “If you get too far ahead of the marching band people don’t realise you’re part of the parade” (at least I think that’s what he said, it was in a bar late at night in Copenhagen and my memory is a bit hazy).
2. Innovation (as opposed to creativity) is a logical process and there are considerable gains to be made from managing it properly. Early theorists saw innovation in terms of linear (push) models involving specialist individuals or departments and it was largely the province of large well-funded firms. These days it’s more open, more networked and more fluid. Moreover, many of the traditional barriers to entry have been reduced or removed altogether allowing smaller forms to innovate alongside their larger brethren.
3. The big shift in recent years is towards open innovation and the use of networks and partnering. This has resulted in pull models whereby customers and stakeholders become active co-creators of value. However, whilst the general public can be very useful in refining ideas or suggesting incremental improvements they are less good at imagining things that do not exist. As Henry Ford once remarked: “If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said a faster horse”.
4. The idea that successful innovation comes about by matching technological skills and market experience to known (articulated) customer needs is too limited. Many of the most successful innovations in history have not initially addressed a known need or matched historical skills or competencies to future possibilities. Sometimes if you build it the market will come. However, it’s generally best not to try this unless you have the patience of a saint and very deep pockets.
5. Continuous incremental innovation often results in long-term business advantage. Toyota and Wal-Mart are both masters at this type of process innovation. Toyota, for example, has an employee idea suggestion system that results in over one million ideas being put forward every single year (see 40 Years, 20 Million Ideas by Yuzo Yasudain). Nevertheless, all too often incremental innovation is seen by firms (and employees) as dull and unworthy.
6. Innovations exist within a commercial and cultural context and this should not be ignored. Moreover, as ethical and social concerns become more important to customers and employees alike the social and environmental impacts of specific innovations, or innovation policies, should be thought through.
08:50 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
Seeing that my last post was about bath bubbles I thought I’d better get a bit more serious, so here’s a quick review of innovation models. First though I think it’s worth looking at definitions because in my experience a great number of people still regard innovation as scientific R&D or continue to confuse creativity with innovation.
The best definition of innovation that I’ve come across is from William Coyne, Senior VP for R&D at 3M. He defines innovation as follows: “Creativity is thinking of new and appropriate ideas whereas innovation is the successful implementation of those ideas within an organization. In other words creativity is the concept and innovation is the process”. Spot on. Creativity is about ideas. It is about new ways of seeing things. Innovation is about doing things. It is about commercial implementation. Thus an idea is only truly innovative if it is introduced into a market and stays there. The test is time in market or, more precisely, the repeat loyalty of a customer.
Another thing to think about when thinking about innovation is what type of innovation suits a particular circumstance. Companies and products can be looked at in terms of life cycles and the type of innovation activity that is required will vary considerably according to the maturity of the market or the sector. Moreover, the culture of an organization and the level of risk that an organization feels comfortable with will also impact on the type of innovation activity that is most appropriate.
Some established organizations would focus on protecting existing business whereas others will focus more on improvements or growth. Ideally, of course, organizations should do all three. In terms of resource allocation a ratio of 70:20:10 to protection, improvement and growth is generally regarded as ideal and this ratio is also very applicable to Horizon 1, 2 & 3 models of innovation.
But don’t forget that the types people and processes that are best suited to protection, improvement and growth also vary. Generally speaking incremental innovation requires processes and people that are very logical and buttoned down whereas radical growth thrives on highly original thinking and this, in turn, requires highly unconventional thinkers who can be somewhat challenging to work with, partly due to personality types but also because this type of thinking is the most difficult to test.
A final thing to think about is whether you are an integrator, an orchestrator or a licensor of innovation. This model of thinking was developed by Boston Consulting Group and essentially splits innovation activity into three quite distinct areas. Integrators manage all stages of the innovation process themselves and this requires high levels of investment. This can suit incremental innovation in mature markets but this approach can also slow development down to a snails pace and increase risk quite considerably due to the level of investment and time to market.
Innovation orchestrators, in contrast, focus on core skills and experience and outsource all other areas. This is a faster and lower cost model and suits high-risk markets but success is largely dependent on the strength of the partnerships.
The final innovation model is licensing. This route is especially applicable to companies operating outside their core competencies. Investment and risk is minimalized but so too, generally speaking, is the return.
04:27 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
There’s been a lot of talk about housing bubbles recently – allegedly caused by various low-cost financial innovations - but I’d like to start a discussion about another kind of bubble that is currently rather boring. Bath bubbles have been around for years but where is the innovation? There isn’t any. Generally speaking they come in one size and one color (clear thru opaque) and frankly I’m rather bored of them.
So here’s an idea for the boffins in R&D department at places like Procter & Gamble. Why can’t we have some fun at bath time? Why do toiletries have to be so functional all of the time? Why can’t we have bath bubbles that change color or something? Indeed, why can’t I buy a bottle of bubble bath that creates really enormous blue bubbles or tiny bubbles that come in different colours? We could have caffeinated bubbles to wake you up in the morning or sleepy time bubbles to send you to sleep at night. Come on all you bubble scientists out there how about some new thought bubbles?
BTW, this post was inspired a five-year-old who is really serious about bubbles.
May 5, 2008
07:46 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
You’d have to have been living on another planet not to notice that saving our planet is a pretty big trend these days and the trend for all things ‘green’ and sustainable is naturally making its impact on innovation too. In some parts of the world you now can’t move for carbon neutral holidays, low carbon cappuccinos and packaging that’s been reduced reused and recycled.However, I see a problem on the horizon and it’s called Eco-Exhaustion and it has a distant cousin called CSR Cynicism.
What am I talking about here? Simply the fact that companies (and marketing departments in particular) is falling over themselves to introduce green and environmentally friendly versions of products. Sometimes this can be really good.The Bamboo bike project (bamboobike.org) is collaboration between engineers and science types at Columbia University and the Earth Institute and the result makes me green with envy. Their idea is to make bike frames entirely out of bamboo and isn’t just sustainable it’s potentially a whole new industry in parts of Asia or Africa.Other times innovation in this area is bad. Do we, for instance, really need a bamboo laptop from Asus? Asus chose bamboo because it was “the most sustainable raw material there is” but just how green is this? Maybe Asus is doing the right thing but there are plenty of other people that aren’t.
There is an arms company in the UK that is producing ‘green’ lead-free ammunition because it’s better for the environment. What’s next, tanks made from recycled plastic and bamboo? Equally there is a fur company in Canada that’s repositioned itself as producing an ethical eco-fabric Slogan: “Protecting nature while pampering yourself”. Umm. Not sure about that.No wonder then that a survey by ICM of 2000 British adults discovered that 23% were "bored with eco news". The poll also found that 18% of people had exaggerated their commitment to the environment because it was "fashionable". This is a problem because if companies keep developing simplistic, tokenistic and opportunistic innovations in this area customer will, quite rightly, become cynical and this could damage the companies that are doing the right thing.
Some people are doing it right and hats off to companies like Wal-Mart for at least attempting to turn itself (and, by default, its suppliers, staff and customers) green.Their aim includes increasing the fuel and emissions efficiency of its vehicle fleet by 25% by 2009 and doubling this by 2016. The company also plans to reduce energy use in-store by 30% and lower solid waste (for example, packaging) in its American stores by 25% by 2009. Wal-Mart is still accused of ‘green washing’ by eco-activists but what I do like about what Wal-Mart is doing is that they are not simply messing around with planting trees (a certain large soft drink company plants trees every time you buy a plastic bottle filled with water) or fiddling around with carbon neutral versions of products or packaging. All this helps but where innovation is really needed are areas like the supply chain and manufacturing. That’s somewhere where really innovative ideas could literally save the planet.
04:21 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I didn't write this. It was written by a friend and fellow consultant called Andrew Crosthwaite and I thought I should share it. It certainly rings a bell with me...
No. It’s a two letter word. It’s one of the most used by parents to their children. Why do clients find it so hard to say? As a consultant I am often (although not often enough) asked by clients to write proposals in response to briefs. So I spend time knuckling my forehead, come up with some thoughts and send them off. And all too frequently hear nothing. A reminder email goes unanswered. Phone calls turn into voice mails, possibly listened to only by the office cleaner.
As an example, some years ago a fellow consultant and I went to see a well-known car company in the Crewe (UK) area. (To save you looking it up, it was Rolls Royce). We were scooped up at the station by the most expensive car I have ever sat in. We were briefed by the managing director and returned to the station in sumptuous splendour. We wrote an innovation proposal and sent it off.
And then nothing.
We emailed. We wrote. We telephoned. We telephoned using 141 so they wouldn’t recognise the number. We checked that the MD hadn’t been fired or died. (He hadn’t). And finally we gave up, with no clue as to how we had turned into pariahs.Now I’m not suggesting that I have a divine right to get business. I just want to be told “No”.
This can come in many forms: “Your proposal was an insult to the brand” “The budget has vanished”“We’ve changed our minds” “The whole exercise was a charade and we always intended to use Rhinos Can’t Dive, but we need to go through a tendering process”.
Silence, however, is not golden.
I suppose many people feel that we owe each other nothing and that all is fair in love, war and business. But spare a thought for your “supplier”, wondering whether the phone has been cut off, if his halitosis is even worse than he thought or even that he totally lacks even the modicum of talent he thought he had. Just ring, email and say “No”. And if you can say why at the same time, so much the better
07:25 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In recent years, education (and work) have tended to narrow. What do I mean by this? Simply that students are expected to develop particular specializations very early on and that this knowledge-narrowness (fuelled by curricula that are increasingly based on the vocational needs of employers) is carried through to the work environment. Once these ‘job-ready’ students are inside organizations they often narrow their thinking even further until they end up as intelligent idiots – people that know an awful lot about very little.
This is a great shame. For example, according to Howard Gardner, the Harvard psychologist and author, future high achievers can often be identified early by their love of topics, tasks and issues that are strictly non-core or non-essential. Equally, the teachers and leaders that inspire students and staff are often the ones that are irreverent storytellers and distracted mavericks. And of course most great innovations come not from specialists and industry incumbents but from cross-fertilization between disciplines, accidents and wayward eccentrics.
According to Gardner, and others, breadth will be vital in the future. Computers will be expert at data acquisition and logical analysis so it will be the ability to think laterally and broadly and to synthesize large amounts of disparate information that will be the key to success.
February 2, 2008
01:08 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Do we need a commonsense revolution in education and elsewhere in society? I think we do and it needs to start now.
If you ask someone old or middle-aged where they most liked to play
as a child they will invariably answer that it was somewhere out of
sight from adults and their parents. But ask someone young and you
don’t generally get this response.
The reason is that our notion of childhood – and specifically the
risks associated with childhood - has shifted. These days we
micro-manage our young, filling their every waking hour with ‘useful’
activities. We also adopt a zero-risk attitude to play that
infantilises children if that’s not a complete oxymoron. In other words
there is now a deep protectionist and interventionist impulse in
society that runs totally against the old idea of benign neglect. And
if you think this is bad now, it’s going to get worse in the future.
We are already tearing up playgrounds and replacing them will
sanitised soft play areas. But what appears safe may actually be
harming our children in the longer term because they give us – and them
- a false sense of security. Moreover, the idea of safe play is a total
fantasy. This cotton-wool world is eroding independence and removing
resilience. In other words, we have been caught up in a myth of
protection that is actually harming us. But what is actually driving
this trend?
The answer, according to some, is the fact that families have become
more isolated. We no longer share as many communal spaces. We are also,
in my opinion, isolated by a global media that exports fear from around
the world. Anxieties are therefore magnified and a realistic
perspective is banished. This is odd because most of the figures
support the view that the world is actually a much safer place than it
was twenty, fifty or even one hundred years ago. What we have lost is
not only innocence but also our ability to cope with uncertainty and
discomfort. As a result, we tend to view worst-case scenarios as most
likely outcomes and we look at the world through the eyes of the
unluckiest.
Fortunately all is not lost. The success of books such as The
Dangerous Book for Boys shows that some people instinctively understand
what’s happening. Moreover, there is a new school of thought that says
that boys in particular have a biological need to get out and about.
They should be outdoors climbing trees, fashioning crude weapons and
even playing with toy guns. And if they don’t they will suffer in terms
of physical, emotional, social and cognitive development, Such a view
would have been heresy a few years ago but things might slowly be
changing.
By the way, if you think I’m exaggerating about this risk aversion
consider this. Yesterday my five-year-old son brought part of his
packed lunch back from school because his cheese and savoury biscuits
snack is now a banned foodstuff along with granary bread, yoghurt and
Kiwi fruit. The reason is that on the pack it says that the snack was
“manufactured on equipment that also processes nuts” and the school
isn’t prepared to take a chance.
In other words, the school is saying that any kid with a nut allergy
(and there isn’t one by the way) doesn’t need to take responsibility
for their own actions in terms of what they eat. Instead responsibility
is forwarded to everyone else in the class. Yet the very same day the
headmaster of the school was talking to children and parents about the
importance of resilience and risk taking in assembly.
Nuts? I’ve got a few other choice words I could use.
Like I say, this isn't really about innovation. However, we do urgently need some new ideas and some commonsense thinking.
January 1, 2008
12:02 am | 0 recommendations | 4 comments
Here is my list of top 10 trends for 2008. The list is neither exhaustive nor 100% serious. It is merely a list of a few emerging trends that could impact on our lives in 2008 and beyond. They are conversation starters - especially if you are involved in innovation and want your idea to make sense in the world in which it is finished rather than the world in which it was started (with thanks to Ray Kurzweil for that last thought).
1. Rhythm & Balance
The speeding up of more or less everything, caused (some say) by everything from technology to globalization, is making some people feel uneasy. One consequence is an aspiration to slow things down a little. Some people are actively trying to regain control by cutting down on work hours or limiting the amount of emails they receive. Others are embracing ‘slow food’, which in turn is creating an interest in living in balance with the rhythms of the natural world. Hence seasonality is becoming important, not only in fashion but in food too. Balance also refers to the need to find equilibrium. For example, with food some people tend to swing between excessive indulgence and complete abstinence. This isn’t healthy. Neither is excessive work if this destroys your health or your family. Another point that is connected is that our digital connectivity is making individuals more aware of the whole. We are thus starting to see the bigger picture of the planet and our place on it and as a result we are seeking to work with nature rather than against it.
2. Karma Capitalism
The old capitalist model was red in tooth and claw. It was shareholder driven and its motivation was money. This model was refined in the caring sharing nineties to include stakeholder concerns and is now being reinterpreted once again to include a much broader awareness of societal impacts at both a local and international level. For example, companies are starting to move away from the idea that they are money machines reacting to the market and are embracing a more proactive model in which shareholders, employees, customers, society and the environment are all deemed equally important. Outsiders are now collaborated with rather than manipulated. An example of this shift from competitive capitalism to collaborative cooperation is the fact that the classic management text of the 1980s, The Art of War, has more or less disappeared from bookshelves and has been replaced by the more introspective Bhagavad Gita, which is perhaps more in line with the post-Enron, post-Bush (almost), post Blair zeitgeist.
3. Making things
Make magazine is a ‘how to’ magazine that was launched in 2005. The publication is devoted to making things with your hands. It is also about how to hack technology and combine low-tech and no-tech with high-tech. Stories have included features on knitting, recycling plastic bags into fabric and DIY coffee roasting. So why is it successful and what on earth is going on? The answer is twofold. First, the Internet has allowed people with weird and wonderful interests to find each other. Hence hobbies that everyone thought had died out are now enjoying a renaissance because individuals and small groups all over the world find it easier to find each other. Second, as life becomes faster and more virtual, people are looking back to the old ways of doing things, especially if the rest of their lives is dominated by the insubstantial, the intangible and the impermanent.
4. Something for nothing
In the future you will still have to sing for your supper but at least some of the lunches will be free. One of the emerging business models in the closing half of 2007 was giving stuff away for free in the vague hope that customers could one day be persuaded to part with money to upgrade their experience (or subscription). This has been labeled ‘Freemium’ and is, perhaps, the way that all digital products and services will be ‘sold’ in the future.
5. Industrial provenance
The more the world becomes globalized and homogenized, the more people will worry about cultural identity (i.e. where they come from). This is partly a reaction to US immigration and the rise of the European super-state but there is also a genuine worry about where products and ingredients come from and in particular the quality of products being produced by nations like China. Food provenance and traceability are well-established trends but with the emergence of ethical and environmental concerns the issue of where things come from is moving centre stage in other areas too. This links with trends like authenticity but also connects with fair trade initiatives and carbon emissions. In the future people may Google airlines to find out where maintenance is carried out and where certain aircraft parts are manufactured. Or how about researching the human rights policies of certain countries before booking a holiday or refusing to drive certain types of car based on where the rubber comes from or where the engine is manufactured?
6. Robotics
According to Bill Gates, robotics is the next big thing. But why hasn’t robotics taken off before? The answer is that many of the basic tasks required of the ideal all-round robot still can’t be done or cost too much to do. For example, orientation and the visual recognition of objects are still very tricky and getting a robot to tell the difference between an open door and an open window is practically impossible. Thus, until robots can quickly sense and react to their environment they will not become ubiquitous and uses will be limited. However, this is all about to change due to the convergence of a handful of trends. First the cost of computing power (processing and storage) is dropping fast. Second, voice and visual recognition technologies and wireless broadband connectivity are similarly dropping in price and increasing in availability. As a result robots will soon start to multiply. According to the International Federation of Robotics around two million robots were in domestic service in 2004 and this figure is predicted to rise to 9 million by the end of 2008. Meanwhile, the South Korean government is aiming to put a robot in every home by the year 2013. As a result personal robots could soon be cleaning floors, dispensing medicine, folding laundry and keeping an eye open for intruders.
7. Data visualization
When IBM launched its PC back in 1981 it had no graphic capability whatsoever. These days we all seem to relate best to information when it’s delivered in short snack-sized sound-bites or when it’s a picture that replaces a thousand words. One of the key challenges for the twenty-first century will be how to cope with the almost infinite amount of information that will be produced. According to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, one of the most valuable skills in the future will thus be the ability to select and synthesize information. This in turn means the ability to develop criteria for filtering what’s valuable and what’s not will become highly prized. One way of doing this is through the use of information design, information aesthetics or data visualisation.
8. Reality mining
Mining data isn’t new but it’s becoming more universal and interesting because software to filter or analyse large volumes of data is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and powerful. For example, around 2,000 résumés per day are sent to Fortune 500 companies in the US, with around 90% sent in by email or via company websites. As a result, companies are using word-scanning software to decide who’s worth seeing and who isn’t. Equally, Centrelink - Australia’s benefits agency - uses what it calls a Job Seekers’ Classification Instrument to work out the probability that a claimant will become long-term unemployed and adjusts the help that’s made available to the claimant. Both are forms of prediction.
The upside of this predictive analysis is that goods and services can be personalized to the individual. The downside is that data collected by one company or government department could be passed on to others without permission. Indeed, it is unlikely that you will ever be given sight of ‘your’ data, which means that if for some reason there’s a mistake and you have been incorrectly labeled there’s very little you can do about it.
9. Eco-exhaustion
Are you getting hot and bothered about global warming? Does a cup of carbon-neutral cappuccino or a packet of environmentally friendly potato chips make you go enviro-mental? If so you could be suffering from environmental cynicism or eco-exhaustion. In short, people are getting fed up with being told how to behave, especially from hypocritical and holier than thou politicians and celebrities that are driving a Toyota Prius one minute and stepping onto a private jet the next. None of this is to say that acting on behalf of the environment is a bad thing. It’s simply that in a great many instances this newly found environmental consciousness is nothing more than marketing hype and public relations spin – something green that’s cynically added to products and people to make them appear whiter than white. For example, a survey by ICM of 2000 British adults discovered that 23% were "bored with eco news". The poll also found that 18% of people had exaggerated their commitment to the environment because it was "fashionable". Meanwhile, there are rumours that Porsche is planning to produce a hybrid version of its 4WD Cayenne, while in Canada a fur company is positioning its fur products as an ethical eco-fabric with the slogan: "Protecting nature, while pampering yourself." Enough already.
10. Fantasy & escape
People can’t deal with too much reality. As people’s lives speed up (thanks to technology and connectedness) and become more pressured (thanks to increasing expectations and less security in everything from relationships to employment) people become anxious. Add the threat of terrorism or rising interest rates (or a US recession) and people can get very anxious indeed. One solution to this anxiety is learning. Find out what’s really going on and try to do something about it. Another solution is withdrawal. Escape into a virtual world of your choosing or perhaps just go to the movies and switch-off for a couple of hours.
December 12, 2007
10:09 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
Ten years or so ago Apple Computer was almost bankrupt. Fast forward and Apple (the company no longer uses the word computer) is now regularly cited as the most innovative company in the world. So what can we learn from the comeback kid?
Rule #1
Orchestrate and integrate. Ideas can come from anywhere, including outside the company. For example, the iPod was originally dreamt up by a consultant and most of its parts were off the shelf.
Rule #2
Build products around the needs of users. This may sound obvious but too many products are still designed by engineers or marketers for engineers or marketers.
Thus Apple places the emphasis on simplicity (such as design) rather than complexity. For example, the iPod wasn’t the first digital music player into the market but it was probably the first that was easy to use.
Rule #3
Trust your instinct. Don’t allow the customer to dictate what you do. This may seem contradictory to Rule #2 but customers can only tell you about what already exists.
As Akito Morita (the founder of Sony) once said: "The public doesn’t know what is possible but we do.” Also don’t forget that as well as measuring public opinion or tracking the latest trends you can create both.
Rule #4
There’s no success like failure. Fail often, fail fast and fail well. In other words, don’t be afraid to make a mistake but always learn from your mistakes – in Apple’s case products like the Apple Lisa and Newton.
Rule #5
Safe is risky. Develop products that define new categories and markets rather than products that compete in existing markets.
